Some magicians might trace their start in the craft to a boxed kit and a plastic wand. But Eric Stevens‘s story begins with Grandma Marji clearing out old stuff destined for Goodwill. But she set aside a weathered copy of Card Tricks (1996) by James Weir for her eight-year-old grandson.

That book, plus late-’90s TV specials starring magicians David Copperfield and David Blaine, thrilled young Eric. He realized that, with an ordinary deck of cards, he could astonish people as powerfully as any adult.

Nearly 25 years later, Eric has performed internationally, invented routines, lectured — and still loves it.

What’s magic really about?

Magic isn’t about fooling people, Stevens says. It originated with shamans  whose rituals persuaded people that they were being healed. In medicine, that is called the placebo effect. It is a real effect, not a trick. In medical research studies, people heal more quickly if they believe they are receiving treatments, even if they are in fact in the control group.

Eric believes modern magic arts still work, as placebo or otherwise, to affect people’s deep feelings. He uses magic in ways that he experiences as healing others and even himself.

I myself always feel cheerful and uplifted, even more creative, after a great in-person close-magic show like Eric performs.

There is no “recipe” for new tricks

Where do new tricks come from? Eric’s answer: anywhere. Sometimes he imagines an effect first — say, a card vanishing and reappearing across the room — then he works backward to a method. Sometimes he stumbles on an intriguing chemical process or gadget and asks what wonder it could produce. Sometimes a story line comes first, and the magic is built to punctuate its big moments.

Most often, inspiration ambushes him in everyday life. He cites fellow magician Christian Grace, who reportedly looked at the way boards were arranged in a house and saw a structure that could work with playing cards. The skill is noticing what everyone else walks past.

But then reality gets a vote

Plenty of ideas that shine in imagination collapse in rehearsal. Others work perfectly yet leave audiences shrugging. Before discarding an idea, Eric tinkers with the method, the order, the script, the timing and the look. Audiences respond very differently to simple things. A blue card deck spread out on a table with only one red card, he notes, beats a red deck with one blue card. The bright red simply pops.

Also, magicians — like serious writers — must sometimes “kill their darlings.” That is, what the author of, say, a play or a trick thinks is really keen is often the very thing that must be left out. Even then, no idea truly dies, as Eric keeps a sprawling archive of notes, songs, colors and methods. A failed idea today may meet its missing ingredient years later.

“Unlikely” isn’t the same as “impossible”

Here’s where Eric gets philosophical. Take the classic “Any Card at Any Number” trick. You name a card and a number under 52, the magician holding the deck of cards counts the deck down that number of cards, and, voilà, he pulls out the named card!

Astonishing, yes. But your brain can file it under “wild coincidence.” Improbable things do happen.

But now change the sequence. You in the audience call out a specific card, say, the 7 of diamonds. You watch the magician remove that card from the deck, show it to you and then make the card vanish from his hands. Then, flipping through the card deck, the magician somehow produces that 7 of diamonds from deep in that deck. Suddenly you’re not wondering about odds. You’re wondering how a card got back into a deck it had clearly left.

Eric makes the key point: A chosen card sitting in a deck isn’t impossible. The journey is.

Real magic lives in the process you can’t explain, not the outcome you see. The fewer plausible explanations a spectator has, the stronger the effect. That’s why a coin that starts in the magician’s left hand but poof! then appears in his right hand — when you saw that the hands were never near each other — mystifies us. It’s the journey we can’t explain.

Seeing vs. remembering

Ask Eric whether audiences ever see what he’s actually doing, and he answers with a question: “Do you mean what their eyes take in, or what they later believe they saw?” Those are two very different things.

During a coin routine, spectators watch a busy sequence of hand movements. Afterward, all of it compresses into one tidy belief: “The guy made the coin disappear.”

Memory can also inflate. Eric shares a story of how a spectator who sees the magician appear to rise physically off the ground a few inches in the famous Balducci levitation, will typically remember seeing him up 12 inches or more. Fuzzy memory, excitement embellishing the facts, or the desire to tell a better story could explain it. Regardless, people often recall the feeling longer than the facts.

Every mind is a different stage

Eric finds that audiences typically include four types of people. Some simply love magic. Others enjoy analyzing every movement. Some hate being fooled. Others come and remain skeptical because they’ve previously seen disappointing performances.

The internet adds a twist. A generation raised on YouTube and TikTok illusions often assumes that any wondrous vision is merely an edited video.

In a live demonstration, all four types watch exactly the same trick. One experiences wonder. Another admires the skill. A third becomes irritated. The fourth remains unimpressed.

Each audience member brings different memories, knowledge, expectations, preferences, and emotions. The magician creates the opportunity for astonishment but cannot create identical experiences inside different minds. Eric freely admits that, after performing for thousands of people, he never really knows what they carry home as memories.

The audience as the magician’s laboratory

To make the best impression, Eric reads the room constantly. Sensing personalities and the vibe, he’ll swap audience volunteers, reshape a routine, or ditch a planned trick on the spot. He agrees with world-renowned magician Armando Lucero that magicians are basically scientists, endlessly testing words, timing and methods. Even routines he’s done for decades still can be tweaked and improved.

Beyond the “trick” aspect, Eric says it’s vital to build a relationship with the audience. At his family show at Las Vegas’s Museum of Ice Cream, he begins by asking audience members to put away their phones. Then he invites all Android users to raise theirs to prove they’re switched off. As the phones come up, he says: “Sorry, iPhone users, I like stuff that works.”

Instant reaction! He’s provoked the audience, captured attention, and created laughter.

Then comes the switcheroo. Eric says, “Looks like I’ve divided the room!”  And then tells the Android people to show their phones again. When they do, Eric tells the iPhone people, “Go get ‘em!” More laughter, Eric hasn’t really taken sides, and everybody is energized.

Still, Eric knows that the same jokes and effects might fail with another audience. Even a carefully scripted performance requires constant judgment about particular people and circumstances.

Magic and the Machine

Thinking about AI, Eric says he is no expert, but he has heard people object to AI art as borrowed creativity. They distrust AI-made ads, yet they still gape at AI output that’s genuinely stunning. It’s a puzzling picture. People arrive at AI the way they arrive at a magic show, carrying baggage from past experiences and what friends told them. They have expectations, but then, just as when watching magic, they’re surprised by the results.

Eric has used ChatGPT a lot and has often “chatted” with the bot. Like many, he found it feels comforting and reassuring when the bot replies in a seemingly thoughtful way, addressing facts as well as emotions, feelings, and concerns. He found the bot converses in appropriate, informed, ways, dovetailing with his own language and emotions.

Eric thinks that chatbot interactions aren’t far from the way magicians develop rapport with a crowd. His insider’s view comes back to deep humanness. “It’s not about making magic believable because, after all, it’s inherently ridiculous,” he says. “It’s about making magic relatable.”

Every human mind watching a magic show is different in personality, knowledge, and memories. The magician can show you something extraordinary. But only your mind can decide what you’ve seen, what it means, and whether it rises to Wow! The magician controls the trick. Your mind creates the magic.