Originally posted by callmelucky85
I'm an illusionist in my spare time. Ask me how either David Blaine or Criss Angel does a trick and I can probably tell you. I can perform some of Angel's tricks and most of Blaine's tricks. I personally think Angel's tricks are more innovative.

this is great...

i will have some questions in the future...

thanks for taking the time to come to this thread

I'm kinda wondering when callmelucky85 will be back, I wanna hear his secrets.

While this is bumped I'll drop a note that Criss Angel is on Ellen DeGeneres today.

Originally posted by Umbrax
While this is bumped I'll drop a note that Criss Angel is on Ellen DeGeneres today.

hey niiice

angel's halloween ghost special should be interesting...

Yeh he was on Ellen and demonstrated how he 'guesses' an individuals card by mentally asking the questions and recieving the answers via the eyes....

and also demonstrated the ability to read a persons muscle movements... Alstruism or something.. or Halstruism.. can't remember.. not important..

and he is having a special on tonight for halloween on A&E ... 10pm my time zone.. .. Apparently he is doing a saonce (God I can't spell) .. meh... anyhow.. yeh.. have fun and all that positive stuff...

Greetings to you all.

I am new to Criss Angel and the "MindFreak" as of only the past few days. And I must say I love a good mystery so this has been scrutinized in my mind's eye for the past 48 hours. I've seen almost both full seasons in the past few days and I've narrowed it down in my own perception to two possibilities:

1. It's a total and complete illusion for only the end viewers perception. (All hired actors, video editing, etc.)

or

2. Some of it is supernatural.

I'm personally inclined to believe it's most of 1 with some of 2. He seems to always state sincerely that there is no video editing, that he's never met the people before etc. quite often and on some very very good seemingly supernatural events. Of course we must not forget that the point of being an illusionist or magician is to fool you. What's at question is at what point is the illusion taking place? In real time or in post production for example.
I must admit that I think this mix of lies and deception along with some truly "Freaky" stuff is rather good at drawing the mind in and makes it a very interesting show.

And to Pure Energy: Yes, What the BLEEP?!!! Loved it.


Peace to all.
~Jammer+

Certainly it is more #2 than #1. And skill - eye/hand mastery, too.

Criss Angel caught an arrow shot from a compound bow! That is ninja-magick, surely.

(who's calling me 'Shirley!?')

David Blaine is surely a wizard - noble at that.

Originally posted by jammerman
I've narrowed it down in my own perception to two possibilities:
1. It's a total and complete illusion for only the end viewers perception. (All hired actors, video editing, etc.)
or
2. Some of it is supernatural.
I'm personally inclined to believe it's most of 1 with some of 2. He seems to always state sincerely that there is no video editing, that he's never met the people before etc. quite often and on some very very good seemingly supernatural events.

Well, jammerman, I totally understand your thinking. I would have agreed with you if not for my having seen three live Copperfield performances. Those nights pretty much eliminated my ability to consider option 1. I was not hired, on the contrary, all three times I paid good money to see the show. And, being that it was live, there was not editting. Copperfield did things that were at least as impossible seeming as Angel does on his show, which I have watched many episodes of. Now, when I watch these guys on tv, (Blaine, Angel, Copperfield), I believe them when they say that there is no camera tricks. Why would they need them when they can do it live, as I have seen myself three times?
But I also know for sure that some of the tricks they perform are sleight of hand, and distraction, and not supernatural. As for Copperfield flying around the arena with a woman in his arms..... that was pretty hard to explain, speaking as an eye witness of it. It was not cables.... but what was it? Dunno.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
Well, jammerman, I totally understand your thinking. I would have agreed with you if not for my having seen three live Copperfield performances. Those nights pretty much eliminated my ability to consider option 1. I was not hired, on the contrary, all three times I paid good money to see the show. And, being that it was live, there was not editting. Copperfield did things that were at least as impossible seeming as Angel does on his show, which I have watched many episodes of. Now, when I watch these guys on tv, (Blaine, Angel, Copperfield), I believe them when they say that there is no camera tricks. Why would they need them when they can do it live, as I have seen myself three times?
But I also know for sure that some of the tricks they perform are sleight of hand, and distraction, and not supernatural. As for Copperfield flying around the arena with a woman in his arms..... that was pretty hard to explain, speaking as an eye witness of it. It was not cables.... but what was it? Dunno.

I understand that given your experience you find it very hard to explain away what you have seen, however that is very much the point of a trick, the idea is that it is so beautifuly done that it defies most reasonings you try to put to it. However just because you cannot explain it and that it looks perfectly real to you, does not mean that it is some supernatural feat.

I except that that does not actually prove anything, but i hope you understand that an illusion that you and many others (often including myself) cannot explain does not directly lead to supernatural causes, it is simply (though thats a horrible word to use in this context) an extremely convincing gimmick that the magician employs to create the possible effect.

At the very heart of all stage magic is the idea that you should baffle your audience, so that whatever way they look at it, unless they know the vital gimmick/secret to the effect, they simply cannot explain it.

I would ask you not to discard wires on the flight illusion of copperfield so easily, often the gimmick to a trick is right there before your eyes, but you end up with a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. A plain sight gimmick, though ballsy to pull off, is often the most dramatic. I know a card trick that when the creater performed before an entire group of renowned magic circle members, not a single person noticed how he turned a deck of cards blank except for a chosen card, when infact he was quite openly and very visibly changing the pack of cards used right before their eyes.

There is no need to leap to supernatural causes whether you viewed a trick in person or not. There is always an explination, often one far more obvious than you think, however much you looked for it and could not find it...

Few posters who suggest wires etc., have been there themselves, not saying you haven't, but it does make a difference. I know they use such tactics as you say, even said so. But, I also can say that after seeing many different things which are hard to explain, not just during magic shows, that you can be sure I have had all of the same thoughts about how they may have been explained conventionally. Some of them are just so devoid of any possible known method, that after years of pondering, and also due to a number of personal experiences effect on me, I currently believe that there are some things that are either done via some high technology or private knowledge which is totally unknown to the general population, or, for want of a better term, magic.
I don't say its supernatural, never have. Just that sometimes it is not camera tricks, or paid off audiences. Even the amazing Randi, of the million dollar reward fame, cannot say how these things are done, even though he will confidantly say that they are just tricks.....
That is a common position, which I understand, and which I know is the most likely, from a probability/odds point of view. It might be that it is the way it is. But, it is not a fact, and however attractive it is to say its all a trick, there is no proof of that. Some are tricks, some are hoaxes, frauds, etc., but that doesn't prove that they all are.

Originally posted by valkeryie
He drove a car with his eyes totally taped shut. In downtown traffic. Pretty amazing I thought.

with a bit of training blind people have learnt to ride motorbikes, theres a few world record holders for blind riding (not on the streets tho), so i'm pretty sure driving a car blind would be easy, when the blind riders do it they get told directions, amount of turn they need, speed needed, hazards....., you must have seen ralley cars on tv, the co-drivers always screaming out the direction with predetermind numbers and left and right and long and short corners, well its the same kind of thing for driving blind, all ya need is an ear piece and a few cars following you and in front of you and they can all tell you how and what way to drive

i once drove down my street in a haloween mask that i couldnt see out of with my mate in the passenger seat telling me directions, i thought it would be a good way to arrive to a halloween party lol, it was a grey alien mask with black netting for the eyes, it was like driving with really dark sun glasses on at night

I'm new to this forum but found this topic to be very interesting. Someone sent me a video link to Criss Angel's "Half a woman" trick. It probably would have impressed me more except that I had just watched a documentary on the Health channel about the deformed woman who was the "top half" that ran away. She has a deformity that caused the lower half of her body to fail to develop.

Unfortunately, what this means is that everything about his performance of this supposedly live trick was faked. Everyone was in on the trick -- including the audience that pretended to be be shocked. Obviously at some point the deformed woman had to walk over and take the place of the normal woman. I guess they forgot to videotape that part, eh?

Since this was my first impression of Angle, I was pretty turned off by him. He not only used camera tricks but all the people who appeared in the video were paid stooges. Once you resort to this level of trickery it can hardly be called magic. It's more like a special effect.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Was that health channel documentary mentioned explicitly about Angels act? If so, how does that prove everything else in his act was camera tricks? That is like saying since I saw a musician play the guitar once, that is the only instrument that he plays* That is flawed logic*

I do not think it matters if Angels tricks are real or not, I hope they are, but like Harry Potter and the Lord of The Rings and Bigfoot they endow a sense of childlike wonder and mystery in all that see them, and that is the point of the illusionist*

Anyway here is a blog I wrote on the subject, if anyone is interested


I recently saw mentalist Chris Angel levitate in the air and float from the
Rooftop of one building to another, without the aid of props of any kind! Now the first reaction by any rational person upon witnessing such a feat is ,"How did he trick me?" and rightfully so, for a mature person it would be folly to romantically blindly assume that a man can float through the air like magic, under that thinking their might as well be trolls under the bridge too!
Well, their might be! For it is also a degrading folly to refuse to accept the empirical truth: that is that under all examinations, Mr. Angels "illusion" proved to use no props of any sort, no wires nor mirrors, no CG screens nor special effects, their were eyewitnesses present, their was no air current altering device propelling Mr. Angel forward, and their was no obstacle to prevent full viewing of his feat from the crowd* Taking into account all of this, the only possible empirical explanation that should suit a rationalist is " it was magic*" This means the only rationale explanation for this is that Mr. Angel did in fact, and quite against the "laws" so called of Newtonian Physics, float through the air like a bird*
Well, this is really nothing new, Hindu Fakirs have been doing it for centuries, and some esoteric schools of Christianity idealize levitation as a by product of religious ecstasy* For the so called rationalist to decry it is as ridiculous as their adversaries, the fundamentalist imprisoning Galileo for saying the Earth revolved around the sun! He had proof that it did, as their is ample proof from multiple sources of human levitation * How could an empiricist deny an event they witness with their own senses, the very bedrock of their moral framework and belief?
I do not need to believe in a world in which men can float like birds, I have seen it* Having seen one so called "impossible" occurrence, I can also concur to the possible existence of faeries, djinns, Rosicrucians, aliens, demons,ect* Water into wine, Lazarus come forth, Buddha under the Bodhi tree battling a spiritual entity- the world suggested by a man floating through the air is one of extraordinary possibility* That is the world in which we live, proved further to me this very night by the reaquaintance of an old friend I thought I might never see again!
Their is no limit* If the human race had a mantra this should be it, their is no limit anytime anywhere on anything* The final secret to initian in famed Persian leader Hassan Sabbahs cult of assassins was said to be,"Nothing is true, all is permitted*" For the human race it may be said to be "Everything is True, All is permitted with (hopefully) no harm allowed*"
Worlds upon worlds await us* Quantum mechanics has already proven the existence of multi-universes, and string theory takes this further to say that the number of possible universes is infinite! Possible means they are still being created! Right now as you read this universes are being created, and perhaps in the future when we learn to control those mysterious regions of our brain which we do not yet fully understand, with the aid of quantum processing computers we shall be able to venture into those universes, and perhaps even create them* Perhaps you yourself are even living in some virtual creators fantasy----- In infinite space everything is real!



[edit on 2-12-2006 by Spores From Space]

This has got to be some of the best magical performances ever. But that woman that was pulled in to two parts was horror. I hope those people that were there werre told that it was only a trick because they seemed really upset by the nightmarish trick. If they were in on it then they were only acting horrified and there is no real harm done. But if they were not in on it, then it would be cruel if Criss Angel did not explain to them that it was only an illusion. That kind of trick requires an explanation so no one thinks it really happened then have nighmares for a year.

Some of his other performances are very difficult to figure out, especially his levitation and disappearance in broad daylight out in the open. It had to be camera tricks or else the man must have discovered some secrets about the laws of nature that allow him to manipulate them in ways that most people are not aware of. Perhaps he has uncovered the same secret that John Leedskalnin discovered and used to build the Coral Castle which required the arrangement of blocks of coral that weighed as much as 20 tons if I remember correctly. Leedskalnin did all the work himself unless he had help from creatures from beyond. What a mysterious world we live in.

i loved when that woman was pulled into two parts on that bench in the park

Ha ya that's the same video clip again and it looks like my similar video link was also removed from youtube by criss's watch dogs!After all he sells that video for a hundred dollars on magic sales web sites.

Originally posted by mistr_b2
Ha ya that's the same video clip again and it looks like my similar video link was also removed from youtube by criss's watch dogs!After all he sells that video for a hundred dollars on magic sales web sites.

whilst my full opinion of Chriss Angel requires a 5 minuite vindictive tirade that violates EVERY clause of the ATS T&C .

on the point of youtube copyright infringement , i must sadly agree with the charlatan .

all his vids are copyright , and his legal team are quite within thier rights to demand that youtube remove any material that THEY did not authorise for release

some of his vid clips are released by them - as self promotion and advertising stunts - to " big up " the phenonemon of chriss angel

bottom line - mr angel and his team have the exclusive right to decide what is release for free - and what must be paid for