criss angel discussion...

blackguard , i do not think you are stupid

but you have failed to fully unvestigate the claims made , and allowed yourelf to be decieved by mr angel`s misdirections and camera edits .

to address the " levitation in the park " stunt

please re run it -- and note how his shirt tails hand down -- to withing milimeters of the floor

also on the subject of his shirt -- note how when he stands up again -- the shirt tail sticks out from his back " defying gravity "

they use a well positioned accomplise to stand between angel and the camera -- but you can just see it ovee the accomplices shoulder .

my last observation on shirt tails -- in the other park sketch where he " leviates " a female accomplice -- note that her ampole shirt tails also hang down almost to the ground

co incidence ?? no

anyway enough of shirts

as for means of support -- did you not notice that angel did not even use the old trick of passing a hoop along his body to " proove " that there were no supportying wires / braces ??

did you not wonder why -- it is a stage magician " staple "

as for 360 degree shots -- please look again closer -- you never actually see a 360 shot -- or even a nything that comes close .

there are people in the way -- they are strategicly placed .

also -- when you think you are looking at the ground -- you are only seeing an oblique view - from begind -- with those dammed shirt tails onscuring a clear view

also -- [ and finally ] in the skrtch with the woman -- watch carefully when he makes a play of passing a wooden walking stick under her nody

it is not passes from one side to the other in one fluid motion -- a sure sign of trickery

hope these observations help

angel is a stage magician , a skilled athlete and talented actor -- nothing more -- his " stunts " are all dont in carefully coreographed -- and controlled conditions , and rely on doctored props -- accopmlices from the " audience " and camer aedits .

the only thing that impresses me about angel is his ability to do card tricks and other presitdigitations right infront of a mark -

but thats just skil and practice -- no magic

i know his [ and all others ] card tricks are just trickery -- but when i am the victim -- i have never been able to spot the trick correctly , even when i know the basics of how it is done .

the " bigger " his stunts become -- the more obvious to me they are

It's the logical explanation of the trick. He's got some kind of rigid structure running down his back. It's flexible at the knee, allowing him to bend backwards. It won't allow his knees to bend backwards more than 90 degrees. It probably runs down through his shoe. There was something buried in the ground that this rig hooked into. His feet remained on the ground. That gave him the leverage to support his body (if he wasn't tied into the ground, he'd obviously fall flat on his back.)

Did I "see" the rig? No. But this is the logical method to do the trick. Occam's razor and all. If there is a non-supernatural way of doing the trick, we have to assume that's the method used. Otherwise, why would he restrict doing his tricks to a performance environment? Why wouldn't he submit to James Randi's Million dollar Challenge and make some easy cash? So where is your proof his powers are supernatural?

I love magic. I'm a huge fan (go Penn & Teller!). But what's amazing is not that they can do anything supernatural (they can;t). what's amazing is how they can come up with such simple ways of distracting us and making our brains think we're seeing something that's not real.

I cant beleive some of you are thinking he has real powers and still debating with serious conviction, I've quoted myself here so you can watch this video and find the wires the woman is hanging on.

He is an illusionist, none of its real, a guy a few posts back claimed he caught an arrow in his hand, WRONG! it is slight of hand he had it up his sleeve or something, next your gonna be saying that penn and teller did actually shoot bullets at eachother and caught the bullets in their mouths, but as I say just watch this vid, if you miss it first time watch it a few times and you can see the wire.

Levitaion is never done more that 4 inches off the ground infront of people, he does the old stand on one foots toes infront of real people to get a real reaction,
then they bring in actors that look like the real people and put him on a wire, then raise him 4 foot or more off the ground, cut the videos together and vio la, levitaion...

Criss Angel is the most Entertaining Mage of these days!!! He sometimes had me thinking he might have real powers! Yeah he is that good! But at the end of the day he is just a man with the gift of magick.. But not in the sense of fireballs from his hands magic, but the kind of magic that entertains the masses! Magic that takes real life and puts a spin that most of us cant fathom! His only powers is that of great thought and a new type of magic the world has yet to learn about! I would love to see him in person, as you can do so many tricks with cameras, smoke and mirrors.. He can pull off things that seem unreal, and he challenges death all the time, and is highly highly trained! My thought is he is the greatest Mage of our times.. Yet logic tells me that, he is only human, and these are tricks.
The thing that gave that away to me was when he predicted that Bush would have his life threatened.. Then someone throws a fake grenaid at our president.. Hmmm thats a slippery slope.. Did he set that up, or did he truely see into the future? My guess is smoke and mirrors friends... But all the same he is great! I just dont take stuff like this to far, as it plays right into their hands...
logic explains only so much.. search your heart and you will find logic is only half the process...

for those of you still claiming that criss angel doesn't do levitation more than a few inches off the ground:

youtube.com...

this video has several view angles throughout, in no instance could i see light reflecting off of a wire, nor a shadow of a wire, nor a crane.
i'm not saying everything he does is unexplainable, but there are somethings that just aren't easily explainable, like this video.
and the big point i don't think a lot of you are getting? : it's entertainment.
if you don't appreciate the entertainment value why debate it? arguing about it serves no purpose.

I agree, entertainment to the MAX!! I never saw that video of him doing that!!
Holy crap thats so freakin kewl!!! How the heck did he do that!!
Id love to see that in person!!!
Thanks for that video link optimus primal!!

here's another one i would like some explanation for:

www.youtube.com...

and like i said, i'm not claiming everything he does is real. in fact he himself says somethings are real some are just illusion, and he wants the viewers to figure out for themselves which is which.
however things like this video are at best hard to rationalise as "wires" or "trick photography"

just food for thought

optimus,

In the levitation between buildings he has to be on wires. Yes, you don't see them, nor do you see the crane. But they wouldn't be very good at magic if they made it obvious how they were doing it. The "spectators" are paid accomplices. If he could really levitate like that, you don't think the US government would have him locked up in a lab somewhere?

For the half-a-woman trick, it's quite simple (I believe I've explained this one in this tread before). There are people born with a deformity where they have no lower torso or legs. They are pretty much just an abdomen and up. You get a pair of prosthetic legs and mount this woman on top of them. It's just that simple. If you've ever watched the Maury show, he often has people with such deformities on.

haha that is a classic, it's pretty obvious how that is done, but it's a great effect and a great illusion!

This one is great, what an illusion, but I think he uses wires as you can tell from the way he lands back onto the roof top. Great tricks tho. But to be fair they don't show him getting down from the roof? I wonder if he used a ladder of floated back down

You have to ask yourself where this is being done??? To me it looks like a movie studio lot, were you can get alot of people probably from his own show ie producers, costume people, directors aand whatever all to stand under him and say WOW, then with the magic of editing you can remove wires and cranes.

I havent seen him do this extent of levitaion infront of general public or in a public place, it always seems to be in proffesional environments.

And I agree with the guy above as to how the half woman trick is done, she has a deformity.

I must reiterate the point that I saw the same feat performed live by Copperfield, and I paid him to watch it, not vice versa.
In another show, he was himself split in half at the waist, and I was in the 7th row, about 20 feet or so away. I had a very good view of it, and it was quite hard to accept. Certainly none of the theories you have presented here are likely to be correct, imo. If you have not been there in person, chris, it is very easy to explain it away. If you see it up close, the experience instantly excludes most of those theories as being highly unlikely.
and nataylor, having seen Penn and Teller explain many tricks on tv, and being a fan myself, I am well aware of the existence of such things. Deception, distraction, and sleight of hand are hallmarks of a good performer. Still, they do not prove that every 'trick' is explicable using similar methods. They may well be, but it is not a fact. Regarding Randi, and his reward... do these guys really need the cash? No. And it may be that Randi just wants to learn how to do it himself.... He obviously hasn't learned how to yet. Can I prove any of it? No. I just share my opinions, based on what I've seen.

[edit on 10/5/2006 by BlackGuardXIII]

Ok let me ask you this, when you saw copperfield get cut in half did he go crawling round the stage on his waist like the woman does across the field or is he on a table stuck in position????
I'm not saying these things aren't impressive, they are, but some guy's on here are talking like Criss Angle is a real (Sorcerer) which he just isn't.

I posted a video in which you can clearly see wires attached to a woman that he is levitating, so I'm sure he is going to be on wires when he levitates himself.

www.youtube.com...

You can see it when the camara goes from behind him to infront of her.
more when he is standing directly inline with the wire.

[edit on 6-10-2006 by chris01621]

Have you seen a levitation in person, chris? When I saw copperfield he was on a gurney, which separated into two halves. His upperbody was wheeled to the left side of the stage and his lower body to the right. He did not speak while his body was apart, but he did move his feet and make facial expressions. I have since seen him do it off a table, on tv. But I find that no matter how amazing a feat appears on tv, it does not compare to seeing it in person, especially up close. The wire theory loses a lot of steam after that. I know that my eyes can deceive me, but I cannot concoct and accept a theory to explain something I have seen up close without having any evidence to support it. I saw no wires when Copperfield flew around our local arena, but did see him use a plexiglas box to give the appearance that there were no wires. If there were wires, they were not in evidence at all, on the contrary, there was a lot of evidence that there were no wires.

No I haven't seen it done but I have seen other tricks performed on stage that baffle me, I agree that they are quite amazing to see and very well performed but the point I'm trying to make is that they are not actually levitating or flying orgetting cut in half for real (exept that woman, she had half her body missing).
I'm only trying to make it clear for the people who think these people are real sorcerers (because thats what they would be) that they are not anfd it is just very good ILLUSIONS.
I'm assuming you are a grown man and I dont think (even though your eyes say different at the time you see these tricks) that you beleive its actually happening for REAL!!!
I have seen on t.v when copperfield flys into that glass box and it is a pretty amazing trick, I cant tell you how he does it but there is some trickery going on there.

[edit on 7-10-2006 by chris01621]

Why is this even being debated? It's a TV show from LAS VEGAS!!! It goes through so much editing that they can do anything........

I don't agree that sorcery is the only possible unconventional explanation for these feats, and just to make it clear, I believe it is actually happening. I am just like you in that I don't know how it is done, but I won't claim I know whether trickery, as you call it, is being employed. Likely some manner of 'trickery' is in use, but how much, and what type it is, I have no idea.
I trust my eyes, knowing they are sometimes fooled, unless doing so threatens my safety in some way... I wouldn't jump off a building because I was told I would not fall, even if Copperfield, Blaine, and Angel were all asking me to trust them... I don't trust them that much.
As for sorcery, I have thought of other possibilities, such as the harnessing, and use of natural forces which most of us are unaware exist. History is full of tales of such forces being employed, from every corner of the globe. I have theorized that it may be a form of resonance being multiplied in amplitude, focussed, and aimed, so that it causes the target to become weightless. Such a device has already been built and used to levitate very small items by focussing sound waves on it. At Stonehenge, Giza, Tibet, and Jericho, ancient legends appear to say that similar sonic techniques were used to move and lift large stones. Maybe Ed Leedskalnin used that at Coral Castles? In any event, magicians could theoretically be using something similar to make themselves weightless.
So, you see, imo, there are many possibilities. I only differ from you in that I have yet to see any credible reason to doubt that what I have seen so many times to be one thing, is not that at all, but somehow something else. It may be, I am just not yet convinced it is.

Because some of us have seen such feats performed live, up close, in person, and know that whatever is occuring, it is definitely not editting in those cases. Hence, why would it need to be editting just because you or I am not present to confirm it? I can assure you, when you see levitation live, there is no editting, and no evidence of cables whatsoever. Beyond that, I have no idea what is being done.

ok , you went to see a carefully coerographed show , preformed on a custom built stage / set - where the preformer and his huge staff can micro manage the environment to ensure that you only see what they want you to .

the killer challenge is , can an of these people preform thier " magic " at a location chosen by a third party , where they have no oportunity to set up props or control the environment in any way ???

ask yourself -- why is that .

You seem to miss my point. I have asked myself that and countless other things, and found I don't know the answers. Maybe they have a bunch of hightech equipment nearby, that might be why. On reflection, I decided that it doesn't matter why, unless I can find evidence pointing at one of the possible reasons. I cannot find any, and currently don't feel like looking any longer. It isn't important enough to me to find out the how and why of it. But, if you do so, please, by all means, drop me a note....