Welcome. It is my pleasure, and my privilege, to be here with you. This month, I will talk a little about the format and themes of this column and set the stage for our path ahead.
While you and I may not have met before, I am confident that you already have a very powerful secret to your magic. That secret is present whether you are a professional magician, a performing amateur, or a magic enthusiast who doesn’t do tricks at all. And your secret doesn’t depend on fancy apparatus or consummate skill.
In a moment, I will tell you more about that powerful secret, and how to use it to amaze and amuse others. I will also tell you how it connects to the conversations I hope we will have together in future installments of this new column. But first, let me tell you a little about how I stumbled onto this secret in my own journey through the magic community over the past 60 years.
I tell law students I teach, and public audiences where I often speak, that I am not very important. This comes from my training as a magician. Be humble; the audience members are the ones who should feel important, having chosen to share their time with us. For me here, that audience is you! But just for today, I’ll give you a little background that forms my perspectives and shapes these essays.