There is a number of fun and easy-to-do magic tricks which a budding magician can learn to perform.

The key to showing off a magic trick is to practice until you have it perfected.

Here is one free magic trick for budding magicians. By trying out the basic magic tricks first, you can later move on to more complicated tricks and stunts to make you a joy to watch.

‘The Magic Bottle Trick’

This is how the trick would look to a spectator:

First, the performer would ask for a volunteer from the audience. The volunteer would look inside the bottle that the magician is holding and show it off to the rest of the audience as a typical, empty bottle.

Then, the volunteer would return the bottle to the magician and also examine the magic wand.

The magician will drop the wand into the bottle, then turn the bottle over and let go of the wand.

The trick is for the wand to remain suspended inside the bottle.

Here are the supplies needed to pull off this magic bottle trick:

1. An eraser.

2. A bottle with a large opening where the wand would fit into. The bottle should be opaque.

3. A ‘magical’ wand which is taller than the bottle. Once you drop the wand into the bottle, part of it should stick up through the opening.

Cut off a piece of the eraser and make it be just big enough for you to wedge the wand into the bottle opening.

The eraser is the key to make the trick work.

This is where the trick comes in:

The magician would pass the bottle to a volunteer in the audience to make sure that the container is empty.

Then, the magician will take the bottle back and give the wand to a participant in the audience.

He would then slip the eraser into the bottle in such a way that it is hidden from everyone in the audience. The wand is taken back and later dropped into the bottle.

Afterwards, the wand and the bottle are picked up very slowly, upside down.

Then, the wand is slightly pulled while the bottle is being turned over. The eraser then gets wedged into the opening, then the magician lets go of the magic wand and voila!

The wand does not fall out. Slowly turn the bottle upright again, let go of everything and the wand remains suspended in the bottle and more importantly, it does not fall back down.

The wand is slightly pushed to release the rubber, and it is slowly taken out and finally removed.

About the author:

Preston Houer has been involved with the art of illusion and slight of hand for over 30 years. Let Preston show you how to Have Fun With Magic. Visit His Site Today! http://www.have-fun-with-magic.com

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Now, more that ever, concerned physicians are beginning to ask about and understand the role of non-drug therapies to assist patients with headache. These therapies, alone or in combination with medications can significantly impact on headache treatment.

This pleases me. As a Family Physician and Clinical Hypnotist with thirty years experience in the field, I applaud this trend. Certainly, a capable and compassionate physician will struggle to assist his/her patient find headache relief by whatever methods, complimentary, traditional or both. Much can be gained if we look at hypnosis as a helpful tool in the battle for headache relief.

As our understanding of how the brain works and which compounds or “neurotransmitters” control our pain response develops, we begin to suspect that relaxation therapies including hypnosis, may alter in a positive and fundamental way our brain chemistry such that pain relief is more likely. An interesting study was performed with patients who learned relaxation skills. The researchers checked the subjects’ monoamine oxidase levels-since monoamine oxidase is what metabolizes serotonin, a pain relief chemical, and found changes in those levels consistent with what you would expect with preventive drug therapy! The study suggests that it is not just a matter of feeling relaxed that’s important but actually learning via these relaxation therapies to turn off and on certain pain pathways in the nervous system by changing monoamine oxidase levels and consequently serotonin levels.

In this paper, I would like to introduce you to hypnosis and self-hypnosis as a modality of pain relief for patients who suffer from headache. Hypnosis is fun, effective, relaxing and has no side effects. What is this thing they call hypnosis? No, Virginia, it is NOT clucking like a chicken, barking like a dog or being ” put under”, helpless, and at the control of the master. Rather for most people, most of the time, it is a focused state of attention or harmony. It is easily achieved by visiting a professional skilled in hypnosis. This pleasant state has two fascinating and useful properties:

1) It is profoundly relaxing. In our stressful lives what person would not enjoy a few minutes of deep relaxation in the middle of the day from hell!

2) The mind becomes open to positive and therapeutic suggestions. Only suggestions given with your permission and for your own benefit are accepted. No one can be forced or coerced into doing something they do not wish to do.

Hence, when I help patients use hypnosis for headache and stress, I offer them headache specific suggestions as well as relaxation and stress reduction instructions. I find this process fun and creative. I get to know my patient not just as Mr. Jones with a headache, but also as a real person in a stressful situation. This stressor in combination with his or her biological predisposition to headache is creating more pain.

Let’s take a look at a case history and see how it all fits together. Mr. X, a hard driving chief financial officer of a high tech company is known as the “firing man” and is responsible for downsizing a company whose expenses exceed its revenues, and whose market share is declining. His neurologist has referred him to me for help with his chronic daily headache that has not responded well to numerous medications. His executive decisions in the short run will result in layoffs and suffering for many. However, with his expertise, talent, intelligence and hard work, he may “turn the company around” and in the long run, his efforts will benefit far more people than those who will suffer in the short term. He is not well liked by his co-workers and worries a lot about his health and finances.

He is a pleasant man, rather intense and self confident to the point of arrogance. At this time, he is wiling to consider non-drug therapies to diminish the pain and discomfort of his daily headaches.

As I get to know him, I will develop for him the three elements essential to our success. First, in order to benefit from the therapy he must be motivated. Motivated to want to use hypnosis for his purposes, not mine, and motivated to put aside ten minutes each day to develop via hypnosis relaxation sufficient to impact on the pain chemicals in his brain.

Second, I must establish with him a positive and supportive rapport. Trust is an essential element of the hypnotic process. For this gentleman who is used to firing people and always being in control in a “one up one down” situation, I must simply be his assistant. Without this rapport, hypnosis will not be effective.

Third, I must make sure he has sufficient hypnotizablity. Most of us can experience hypnosis without difficulty. Probably, only about 10 percent of us will not be able to enjoy the hypnotic process. I have little to worry about with this patient. Most high functioning individuals in our society have good hypnotic skills, as hypnotizability is associated with creativity, intelligence and imagination.

After a brief explanation of hypnosis and after gaining his permission, Mr. X was hypnotized to enjoy some deep relaxation. Of course, like many patients he had expected to be ‘put under” as he had seen on the stage. Prior to his hypnosis, he was informed that this would not happen but nonetheless, in spite of his level of awareness, the relaxation and ability to accept suggestion would be pleasing to him.

With this mixture of trust, motivation (based on correct information) and hypnotizablity, I was not at all surprised that Mr. X achieved some initial success at relaxation using hypnosis and self-hypnosis.

Mr. X was pleased and agreed to return for further sessions. Not surprisingly, he canceled most of them because he was too busy at work! Nonetheless, he was very positive about the hypnosis that we did. He reported that the relaxation lessened the pain from his headache.

It is a principal of hypnosis that all suggestions require reinforcement. Additionally, practice and repetition are required to develop these skills so they can produce both a biologically medicated pain relief (via altered brain chemicals) and a psychological harmony that helps the patient deal more easily with daily stress.

As with most of my patients, I asked Mr. X to set aside ten minutes daily (preferably at work and without interruption) to listen to an audiocassette that I created for him to recapture the relaxed feeling and increased suggestibility that he experienced in my office. With some practice on his part, I was confident that these daily and pleasant practice sessions would reinforce positive suggestions relating to his particular headache and attitude toward work.

Results have been very satisfactory so far. Mr. X has not returned for further work. When last I inquired he reported an improvement in the severity of his daily headache. Once again, he said he had little time for therapy but he was enjoying the ten minute practice sessions via his personalized audio cassette.

This particular case history will illustrate to the reader the value of using non-drug therapies to assist in pain control. Human beings are complex creatures who may have many different “triggers” for headache. Some of these triggers are stress and psychologically mediated. By dealing effectively with these “triggers” we may assist in pain control with less or no drugs.

To summarize, hypnosis is effective and fun and provides a powerful complimentary or stand-alone therapy to those who suffer from headache. Stress reduction and relaxation techniques have an important role to play in the treatment in one of the more vexing problems physicians face in practice, the patient with headache. A recent paper, New Treatment Options In Migraine by neurologists Drs. Brandes, Edvinson, Marcus, and Rapoport rates relaxation therapies as “effective” as a non-drug therapy for migraine.

About the Author

Dr. Larry Deutsch is a practicing family physician and hypnotherapist. His proven self-help and hypnotherapy programs have helped thousands of people achieve happier and healthier lives. As a Family Doctor, he is able to amplify sound medical counseling with a unique and artistic style of self hypnosis accompanied by beautiful and relaxing music. http://www.drlarry.com

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An amateur magician is anyone who has a minimum amount of talent, skill and knowledge when it comes to performing magic tricks. He or she may be anyone who knows one magic trick or at least three magic tricks.

But basically, a more technical definition of an amateur magician is anyone who does not in any way practice magic as their trade, even if he or she knows four, five, six or more than a number of magic tricks. This is regardless of how good, better or excellent he or she may be in performing flourishes, sleight of hand or optical illusions.

However, there are those amateur magicians who try their very best to expand their current knowledge as well as repertoire and still practice magic as their primary source of income. People who do this are usually called hedge magicians. This is in order to differentiate them from authentic professional magicians who make practicing and performing magic as a trade and make an actual living doing so.

Meanwhile a professional magician is anyone who has a little bit more knowledge and talent compared to an amateur magician. These professional magicians know sufficient magic that makes it enough for them to use it as their primary source of trade and income, as well as not using magic to assist them in a trade other than magic.

So technically, even if a barber performs his job using magic and no matter how many tricks he or she knows and is capable of, that barber is still not considered as a professional magician because his primary trade is cutting hairs and not necessarily being a magician. Another way to differentiate a professional magician from an amateur is by the way he or she does flourishes.

According to the Online Encylopedia of Magic, a flourish is any sleight that is performed for the purpose of entertaining an audience and does not in any way contain any moves that are hidden. Most sleights that are performed are done so in order to deceive a captive audience and to do something that can not be detected. Meanwhile, a flourish is any trick that is done to draw the audience’s attention away from where an actual sleight is simultaneously being performed.

There are some magicians who consider the performance of a flourish as simply a finger exercise and not really actual pieces of performance. But those magicians who do put in and include flourishes in their act are considered by some of their fellow magicians as a seriously skilled performer.

If a performance consists of a card trick wherein the cards are spread out on the table and when a performer does a pressure card fan, the image that that performer projects is one of professionalism and experience. But a performer of magic who simply holds the cards and then spreads them slightly, may then be considered more as an amateur. Although this may or may not be true or this may not be considered as a hard fact, this is the perception and the impression that a performing magician usually gives to an audience.

Flourishes are done not just as a form of show-off to the audience, a flourish is also done for the purpose of presenting just how a performer is truly dedicated to the magic act. It also shows the degree of professionalism one has for the performance.

When a flourish is done, it makes it easier to know the difference between a magic trick performed by an expert magician and your friendly neighborhood Jim who is doing a card trick.

A skilled performer comes off as a natural and will ultimately receive more credit for his or her performance as well as recognition, not to mention that good old respect for the skills he or she has.

When a spectator is looking at a magic trick where the occasional flourish is done, that performer is also seen as more than a magician but a person who is passionate at what he or she is doing. It is therefore so much easier to hire a magician who has more skills and experience than one who needs to practice his or her craft more.

About the author:

Preston Houer has been involved with the art of illusion and sleight of hand for over 30 years. Let Preston show you how to Have Fun With Magic. Visit His Site Today! http://www.have-fun-with-magic.com

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