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Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
ALL ABOUT TEENS
This is the perfect example of how not to keep a date pure. The following are the ways of avoiding selves into temptation;
1. Purpose
First of all, be like Daniel, who proposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. Make the decision now to be sexually pure. It’s so much harder to do when you’re in a steamy situation. Also, find out if your date is “with you” on the sexual purity thing. If not you probably won’t be the one to change his or her mind.
2. Plan
Plan for sexual purity. If your purpose is to remain pure, skipping school with other couples who are planning to have sex is not a good idea. Keeps the lights on. Hang with people who have the same goals as you do. (1 Corinthians 15:33). Absolutely, positively leave alcohol and rugs alone. Thirteen percent of teens say they did something sexual while using drugs or alcohol that they wouldn’t have done if they were sober. Play games, have fun-there’s nothing like a good belly laugh!
3. Protect
Protect your purity at all costs.” Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable” (Philippians 4:8).
Never go alone to the home/dorm room/living area of your date. Never watch love stories/suggestive movies with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Never look at pornography in any form alone with company.
4. Prepare
Prepare for temptation by submitting yourself and your feelings to God. You were created to desire and enjoy sex within marriage. But you don’t have to have sex because you “feel” like it.” Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Just remember, you’ll have to run from the devil before he runs from you.
5. Pray
Pray for strength:”God will never let you down; he’ll always be there to help you come through it” (Corinthians 10:13). Pray for wisdom: (If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5)
Pray for forgiveness if you mess up: “Blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:9,10)
1. Purpose
First of all, be like Daniel, who proposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. Make the decision now to be sexually pure. It’s so much harder to do when you’re in a steamy situation. Also, find out if your date is “with you” on the sexual purity thing. If not you probably won’t be the one to change his or her mind.
2. Plan
Plan for sexual purity. If your purpose is to remain pure, skipping school with other couples who are planning to have sex is not a good idea. Keeps the lights on. Hang with people who have the same goals as you do. (1 Corinthians 15:33). Absolutely, positively leave alcohol and rugs alone. Thirteen percent of teens say they did something sexual while using drugs or alcohol that they wouldn’t have done if they were sober. Play games, have fun-there’s nothing like a good belly laugh!
3. Protect
Protect your purity at all costs.” Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable” (Philippians 4:8).
Never go alone to the home/dorm room/living area of your date. Never watch love stories/suggestive movies with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Never look at pornography in any form alone with company.
4. Prepare
Prepare for temptation by submitting yourself and your feelings to God. You were created to desire and enjoy sex within marriage. But you don’t have to have sex because you “feel” like it.” Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Just remember, you’ll have to run from the devil before he runs from you.
5. Pray
Pray for strength:”God will never let you down; he’ll always be there to help you come through it” (Corinthians 10:13). Pray for wisdom: (If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5)
Pray for forgiveness if you mess up: “Blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:9,10)
THE MENTAL MAGICIAN
The magician who pulls a rabbit from a hat deceives the eye. But the mental magician deceives the mind. He creates the illusion that he is able to read minds that he can transfer thoughts from his mind to the minds of others, can predict future happenings, and can perform other demonstrations of psychic phenomena.
What he does is no part of the serious scientific and psychological research into such things. Whether performing for new friends or for larger audience, he is an actor playing the role of a mentalist, an entertainer presenting a rehearsed show of mental magic. It is a form a theatrical make-believe that audiences have enjoyed since the beginnings of theater itself and is part of the fun thousands of amateurs have found in the hobby of performing magic.
The mental magician doesn’t say it is all a trick, anymore than the magician who takes a rabbit from a hat would break into a performance to explain that there is no real magic in what he does. He claims no supernormal powers, but he suggest the possibility that they may exist for some people, demonstrates what might be accomplished if someone did posses such powers-and leaves it to the audience to decide how it is done.
Unlike the magician who displays his skill at deception, the mentalist avoids the appearance of trickery. He presents no visual magic show. His illusions are with thoughts, not with things. He depends more on showmanship, personality, and acting ability than on the mechanics of what he does or the props he uses. If he is convincing, the audience centers its attention entirely on him and is not concerned with the apparently ordinary pads of paper, pencils, cards, envelopes, and other incidental things he has or the way in which he handles them. He seems to do it all with his mind.
THE BASIC SECRET
Most of the secrets of mental magic are simple ones, far simpler than the audience imagines. Some of the props are tricked, of course, but seldom in any elaborate manner. The mentalist relies more on subtlety than an apparatus. Because everything must be made to look as innocent as possible, the less there is to hide the better. Simple, bold, direct methods allow him to concentrate on the presentation, and that is what counts-not the trick as the magical puzzle designed to fool the spectators, but the illusion he can build around it in their minds, the effect that he can create of some psychic happening. He has an advantage over other magicians in that his props can be carried in his pockets or in a briefcase. There are no suitcase filled with equipments, no boxes, tubes, and other bulky devices to set up and repack afterward. Most of his routines, no matter how small the things used in them, can be adapted for presentation to audiences of any size, almost anywhere.
Another advantage is that his audiences are often in a less challenging mood that they are when they watch an ordinary magic show. People know the usual magician is a trickster and they watched for every clue to his tricks with a fool-me-if-you-can attitude. But the mental magician presents no visible tricks as such, no obvious display of sleight of hand. The audience may guess that what he does is a trick and yet be less certain that it is, more willing to suspend disbelief, to go along with the illusion that he creates.
Everything he presents is an experiment, a test or an attempt, never with the results guaranteed in advance. If he fails, he always says that particular experiment didn’t work, that he just couldn’t “get the thought clearly.” As a mentalist, he is not expected to be right all the time. In fact, he may deliberately make minor mistakes, just to be more convincing.
Of course, if he is caught, even once, doing something tricky with his props, then the whole illusion of mental magic is gone as far as that audience is concerned. As simple trick may seem when reduced to its bare bones, the mechanics of it must be practiced until it can be done surely every time, naturally and almost automatically. The mental magician must also avoid the suggestion of trickery in his handling of things and in what he says. He doesn’t make a finger-waving exhibition of showing that his hands are empty; he merely lets it be seen that they are. He doesn’t elaborately display a pocket handkerchief on both sides as a magician might before covering a glass with it; he simply takes it from his pocket, shakes it out, and drops it over the glass. He makes no attempt to “prove” that things are “ordinarily and unprepared.” It will be assumed that they are, unless he arouses suspicion by suggesting otherwise.
Many mentalists avoid the use of playing cards, or even manufactured alphabet and number cards, because they call to mind the card-manipulating magician. Some also contend that mental magic and other kinds of magic should never be mixed in the same program. On the other hand, there are any number of successful magicians who have included mental effects in their magic shows, and quite a few mentalists who combine both. It is something each performer must decide for him.
VISIBILITY AND DRAMATIC EFFECT
One thing the ordinary magic show has that the mental magic show greatly lacks is visible entertainment, something for the audience to see. That is a disadvantage the mentalist must try to overcome. He must create a sense of something always happening, keep things moving, dramatize his effects, and build each routine to a climax to maintain the interest of the audience.
For the most part of the audience can participate only indirectly, through a few spectators chosen to join in the experiments as representatives of the whole audience. The others can’t see for themselves what a printed on the selected page of a book, for instance, or what may be written on a small slip of paper. They are asked to accept what happens on the basis of what a few spectators say is happening.
Whenever possible, the spectators who do take part in an experiment should be asked to read things aloud. Large cards or slates may also be used so things can be written for everyone to see and to give the entire audience something to watch. The plots of mental effects should be easy to follow, and the mentalist should make sure that the whole audience does understand exactly what is happening, or at least what he wants them to think is happening.
SETTING THE STAGE
The effects on this book are for solo performance. That is, the mentalist works alone, without seen or unseen assistants, confederates, or stooges, but rather with spectators chosen from the audience to take part. When the audience is small, the performer can invite spectators to join in various experiments as he goes along, or he can go to where they are seated. But in a large room, or when he is working from a platform, he may want to select a “committee” of half a dozen spectators at the start. The group can be seated in chairs at the front, so he doesn’t have to leave the platform or delay the performance to bring spectators up individually.
He will need a table, such as a card table or whatever other small table may be available, and if he is presenting more than table may be available, and if he is presenting more than one or two effects, he probably also will need an attaché case or briefcase to carry things in. but equipment generally should kept to a minimum, since the whole idea is suggest that what he does is with his mind alone.
The mentalist usually will position his table so that he can stand at the front of a room, with no spectators seated behind him. But he can’t fuss over such arrangements. If he does happen to find himself surrounded by an audience, he may have to eliminate some routines from that particular program rather than risk exposing his secrets.
DEALING WITH SPECTATORS
When he gives any instructions to spectators, he must make sure that they understand exactly what he wants them to do. He should show them, if possible, and repeat the instructions if necessary. But their help should always be politely requested, never commanded, and if something goes wrong, no spectator should be openly criticized for it.
The mental magician’s attitude should never be one of challenging the audience in a boastful or superior manner, and he should avoid being drawn into arguments or debates. Even if the performer can prove that he is right, he is not there to prove anything-only to entertain by offering in a modest and friendly way to “attempt” some interesting experiments that he wants to share with the audience, with their help and just for fun.
PRACTICE AND REHEARSAL
Aside from the necessary practice to learn the working of a trick, each effect should be carefully rehearsed, just as an actor would rehearse his part in a play. All the props should be set up and the words and movements acted out before an imagined audience. The mentalist should know exactly how the smallest thing will be picked up, displayed, handled, what will be in which pocket or in a certain position on the table, and where he will put it when he has finished using it. More than that, he should try to imagine what could go wrong and to plan in advance how he would handle the situation.
PLANNING THE SHOW
When the chosen effects have been individually practiced and rehearsed, they will have to be put together in a planned program, balanced and with good variety. The performer probably will want to start his show with something quick, direct, and impressive that requires very little buildup or handling of things by members of the audience. Each effect after that should be like one act in a play, with its own climax, but building in interest from one to the next, with what he considers his best effect to end the show.
Which effects he selects and how many he includes will depend in part on where he intends to perform and on the size and kind of audience. If he is going to entertain a small group of friends, two or three effects that use things he can carry in his pocket should be enough. For a larger audience, he will want to include props that are more visible from a distance, and perhaps four of five effects. He should know from rehearsal how long each effect will take to do, and allow for the time it will take spectators to handle things and carry out instructions.
He may find when he puts a show together, that the props for one effect fill a pocket and leave no room in it for the things required for the next effect. In that case, he will have to rearrange the setup, decide which things are most essential to have in that particular pocket, and perhaps have the others in order in his briefcase or on the table.
Whatever show he gives, even if only for a few friends in his own living room, it should be planned and rehearsed. It is only from such rehearsals that he can gain the assurance and confidence he needs when he performs. And rehearsing tricks, trying them in various ways to achieve the best possible effect, is a good part of the fun of doing magic.
EXPERIENCE AND PERSONALITY
Of course, no amount of rehearsal will replace the trial and error of actual performance before a real audience. It is only by giving shows, trying things, testing the audience reaction to them, that a performer learns what should be left out, what needs to be added, and how to point up each routine with words and actions to get the most from it in terms of impact and entertainment.
All the directions given in this book for what to say and do should be considered as suggestions, to be followed only to the extent that they may fit the performer’s own style. He will want to find hid own best ways of presentation, and he should translate the patter into his own words. Above all else, he should be himself in his role as mental magician. What he has to put across is not the tricks, but the convincing illusion he can create with them out of his own personality.
What he does is no part of the serious scientific and psychological research into such things. Whether performing for new friends or for larger audience, he is an actor playing the role of a mentalist, an entertainer presenting a rehearsed show of mental magic. It is a form a theatrical make-believe that audiences have enjoyed since the beginnings of theater itself and is part of the fun thousands of amateurs have found in the hobby of performing magic.
The mental magician doesn’t say it is all a trick, anymore than the magician who takes a rabbit from a hat would break into a performance to explain that there is no real magic in what he does. He claims no supernormal powers, but he suggest the possibility that they may exist for some people, demonstrates what might be accomplished if someone did posses such powers-and leaves it to the audience to decide how it is done.
Unlike the magician who displays his skill at deception, the mentalist avoids the appearance of trickery. He presents no visual magic show. His illusions are with thoughts, not with things. He depends more on showmanship, personality, and acting ability than on the mechanics of what he does or the props he uses. If he is convincing, the audience centers its attention entirely on him and is not concerned with the apparently ordinary pads of paper, pencils, cards, envelopes, and other incidental things he has or the way in which he handles them. He seems to do it all with his mind.
THE BASIC SECRET
Most of the secrets of mental magic are simple ones, far simpler than the audience imagines. Some of the props are tricked, of course, but seldom in any elaborate manner. The mentalist relies more on subtlety than an apparatus. Because everything must be made to look as innocent as possible, the less there is to hide the better. Simple, bold, direct methods allow him to concentrate on the presentation, and that is what counts-not the trick as the magical puzzle designed to fool the spectators, but the illusion he can build around it in their minds, the effect that he can create of some psychic happening. He has an advantage over other magicians in that his props can be carried in his pockets or in a briefcase. There are no suitcase filled with equipments, no boxes, tubes, and other bulky devices to set up and repack afterward. Most of his routines, no matter how small the things used in them, can be adapted for presentation to audiences of any size, almost anywhere.
Another advantage is that his audiences are often in a less challenging mood that they are when they watch an ordinary magic show. People know the usual magician is a trickster and they watched for every clue to his tricks with a fool-me-if-you-can attitude. But the mental magician presents no visible tricks as such, no obvious display of sleight of hand. The audience may guess that what he does is a trick and yet be less certain that it is, more willing to suspend disbelief, to go along with the illusion that he creates.
Everything he presents is an experiment, a test or an attempt, never with the results guaranteed in advance. If he fails, he always says that particular experiment didn’t work, that he just couldn’t “get the thought clearly.” As a mentalist, he is not expected to be right all the time. In fact, he may deliberately make minor mistakes, just to be more convincing.
Of course, if he is caught, even once, doing something tricky with his props, then the whole illusion of mental magic is gone as far as that audience is concerned. As simple trick may seem when reduced to its bare bones, the mechanics of it must be practiced until it can be done surely every time, naturally and almost automatically. The mental magician must also avoid the suggestion of trickery in his handling of things and in what he says. He doesn’t make a finger-waving exhibition of showing that his hands are empty; he merely lets it be seen that they are. He doesn’t elaborately display a pocket handkerchief on both sides as a magician might before covering a glass with it; he simply takes it from his pocket, shakes it out, and drops it over the glass. He makes no attempt to “prove” that things are “ordinarily and unprepared.” It will be assumed that they are, unless he arouses suspicion by suggesting otherwise.
Many mentalists avoid the use of playing cards, or even manufactured alphabet and number cards, because they call to mind the card-manipulating magician. Some also contend that mental magic and other kinds of magic should never be mixed in the same program. On the other hand, there are any number of successful magicians who have included mental effects in their magic shows, and quite a few mentalists who combine both. It is something each performer must decide for him.
VISIBILITY AND DRAMATIC EFFECT
One thing the ordinary magic show has that the mental magic show greatly lacks is visible entertainment, something for the audience to see. That is a disadvantage the mentalist must try to overcome. He must create a sense of something always happening, keep things moving, dramatize his effects, and build each routine to a climax to maintain the interest of the audience.
For the most part of the audience can participate only indirectly, through a few spectators chosen to join in the experiments as representatives of the whole audience. The others can’t see for themselves what a printed on the selected page of a book, for instance, or what may be written on a small slip of paper. They are asked to accept what happens on the basis of what a few spectators say is happening.
Whenever possible, the spectators who do take part in an experiment should be asked to read things aloud. Large cards or slates may also be used so things can be written for everyone to see and to give the entire audience something to watch. The plots of mental effects should be easy to follow, and the mentalist should make sure that the whole audience does understand exactly what is happening, or at least what he wants them to think is happening.
SETTING THE STAGE
The effects on this book are for solo performance. That is, the mentalist works alone, without seen or unseen assistants, confederates, or stooges, but rather with spectators chosen from the audience to take part. When the audience is small, the performer can invite spectators to join in various experiments as he goes along, or he can go to where they are seated. But in a large room, or when he is working from a platform, he may want to select a “committee” of half a dozen spectators at the start. The group can be seated in chairs at the front, so he doesn’t have to leave the platform or delay the performance to bring spectators up individually.
He will need a table, such as a card table or whatever other small table may be available, and if he is presenting more than table may be available, and if he is presenting more than one or two effects, he probably also will need an attaché case or briefcase to carry things in. but equipment generally should kept to a minimum, since the whole idea is suggest that what he does is with his mind alone.
The mentalist usually will position his table so that he can stand at the front of a room, with no spectators seated behind him. But he can’t fuss over such arrangements. If he does happen to find himself surrounded by an audience, he may have to eliminate some routines from that particular program rather than risk exposing his secrets.
DEALING WITH SPECTATORS
When he gives any instructions to spectators, he must make sure that they understand exactly what he wants them to do. He should show them, if possible, and repeat the instructions if necessary. But their help should always be politely requested, never commanded, and if something goes wrong, no spectator should be openly criticized for it.
The mental magician’s attitude should never be one of challenging the audience in a boastful or superior manner, and he should avoid being drawn into arguments or debates. Even if the performer can prove that he is right, he is not there to prove anything-only to entertain by offering in a modest and friendly way to “attempt” some interesting experiments that he wants to share with the audience, with their help and just for fun.
PRACTICE AND REHEARSAL
Aside from the necessary practice to learn the working of a trick, each effect should be carefully rehearsed, just as an actor would rehearse his part in a play. All the props should be set up and the words and movements acted out before an imagined audience. The mentalist should know exactly how the smallest thing will be picked up, displayed, handled, what will be in which pocket or in a certain position on the table, and where he will put it when he has finished using it. More than that, he should try to imagine what could go wrong and to plan in advance how he would handle the situation.
PLANNING THE SHOW
When the chosen effects have been individually practiced and rehearsed, they will have to be put together in a planned program, balanced and with good variety. The performer probably will want to start his show with something quick, direct, and impressive that requires very little buildup or handling of things by members of the audience. Each effect after that should be like one act in a play, with its own climax, but building in interest from one to the next, with what he considers his best effect to end the show.
Which effects he selects and how many he includes will depend in part on where he intends to perform and on the size and kind of audience. If he is going to entertain a small group of friends, two or three effects that use things he can carry in his pocket should be enough. For a larger audience, he will want to include props that are more visible from a distance, and perhaps four of five effects. He should know from rehearsal how long each effect will take to do, and allow for the time it will take spectators to handle things and carry out instructions.
He may find when he puts a show together, that the props for one effect fill a pocket and leave no room in it for the things required for the next effect. In that case, he will have to rearrange the setup, decide which things are most essential to have in that particular pocket, and perhaps have the others in order in his briefcase or on the table.
Whatever show he gives, even if only for a few friends in his own living room, it should be planned and rehearsed. It is only from such rehearsals that he can gain the assurance and confidence he needs when he performs. And rehearsing tricks, trying them in various ways to achieve the best possible effect, is a good part of the fun of doing magic.
EXPERIENCE AND PERSONALITY
Of course, no amount of rehearsal will replace the trial and error of actual performance before a real audience. It is only by giving shows, trying things, testing the audience reaction to them, that a performer learns what should be left out, what needs to be added, and how to point up each routine with words and actions to get the most from it in terms of impact and entertainment.
All the directions given in this book for what to say and do should be considered as suggestions, to be followed only to the extent that they may fit the performer’s own style. He will want to find hid own best ways of presentation, and he should translate the patter into his own words. Above all else, he should be himself in his role as mental magician. What he has to put across is not the tricks, but the convincing illusion he can create with them out of his own personality.
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