This past year, I've begun to rediscover why I love magic tricks after watching David Blaine's Real or Magic show in which he terrifies and astonishes both A-List celebrities and unsuspecting bystanders with some truly inexplicable illusions. So, when legendary direct marketing wizard, Dan Kennedy, recommended an amazing biography on none other than "The Handcuff King" I had to read it.
In William Kalush & Larry Sloman'sThe Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero we're treated to a menagerie of marketing strategies and tactics that helped the son of a poor Rabbi transform himself into the world's most famous magician. Whether it was staging public rivalries (real or invented), surviving countless deadly stunts, to issuing money challenges (many were to police officers who always failed to keep him locked up), Houdini's career is worth studying in depth.
I think though one of the more subtle points is his most interesting. It's a confession that he made often and proudly:
That he didn't actually have magical powers.
He played the magician on stage, but never claimed to literally be one. In fact, he dedicated his later career nearly exclusively to defrauding charlatans.
In the 1920's, Spiritualism was extremely popular in both Europe and America. There were droves of con artists, claiming to commune with dead spirits, who would travel the country, holding seances with bereaved widows and widowers. Usually their marks were small towns, so they could find the gossip and rumors that much more easily.
Surprisingly, one of the arch-supporters of these Spiritualists was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who penned the literary hero Sherlock Holmes. Though his detective character was famous for rationally analyzing crime scenes and mysteries, Sherlock's creator became increasingly mystical in life. In fact, Doyle on several occasions sought out Houdini, to convince him that he was wrong - that Houdini was actually psychic!
Houdini wasn't and told him, even going so far as to humiliate various Spiritualist big-wigs in America by pulling back the curtains on their seances, many of whom were Doyle's close friends. Doyle never forgave Houdini and the two had a public he-said-she-said rivalry for years in the papers.
The point is that although most people have never heard of Spiritualism or attended a seance, they're selling the same snake oil - and buying it. Too many of us peddle or pander to fantasies - to the Holy Grail of XYZ- the Fountain of Youth - the magic solution - the quick fix - the easy 1 2 3. You don't have to go any further than your own inbox, cable tv, or the next digital banner ads to see it: 'Get Rock Hard Abs in just 10 light workouts!' 'Follow these 6 easy steps to land the career you've always wanted!' 'Meet young, hot singles in your area tonight!'
Snake oil. Smoke and mirrors. Empty promises. A story with no substance. That's just the truth. People have to know better - they have to know they can't get something from nothing - and they do. They do know better.
But they don't want to know it.
They want to go on believing that if they just want what they want bad enough, it will be theirs. If they just keep on wishing and dreaming, their desires will materialize. Or they can escape into the fantasy - to pretend to have it, and think they can numb their lack of it.
That's how days are wasted. That's how dreams never become reality. That's how dreamers get a bad rep.
Take it from the world's #1 magician himself, who adapted a school rhyme to his life's mantra.
In William Kalush & Larry Sloman'sThe Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero we're treated to a menagerie of marketing strategies and tactics that helped the son of a poor Rabbi transform himself into the world's most famous magician. Whether it was staging public rivalries (real or invented), surviving countless deadly stunts, to issuing money challenges (many were to police officers who always failed to keep him locked up), Houdini's career is worth studying in depth.
I think though one of the more subtle points is his most interesting. It's a confession that he made often and proudly:
That he didn't actually have magical powers.
He played the magician on stage, but never claimed to literally be one. In fact, he dedicated his later career nearly exclusively to defrauding charlatans.
In the 1920's, Spiritualism was extremely popular in both Europe and America. There were droves of con artists, claiming to commune with dead spirits, who would travel the country, holding seances with bereaved widows and widowers. Usually their marks were small towns, so they could find the gossip and rumors that much more easily.
Surprisingly, one of the arch-supporters of these Spiritualists was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who penned the literary hero Sherlock Holmes. Though his detective character was famous for rationally analyzing crime scenes and mysteries, Sherlock's creator became increasingly mystical in life. In fact, Doyle on several occasions sought out Houdini, to convince him that he was wrong - that Houdini was actually psychic!
Houdini wasn't and told him, even going so far as to humiliate various Spiritualist big-wigs in America by pulling back the curtains on their seances, many of whom were Doyle's close friends. Doyle never forgave Houdini and the two had a public he-said-she-said rivalry for years in the papers.
The point is that although most people have never heard of Spiritualism or attended a seance, they're selling the same snake oil - and buying it. Too many of us peddle or pander to fantasies - to the Holy Grail of XYZ- the Fountain of Youth - the magic solution - the quick fix - the easy 1 2 3. You don't have to go any further than your own inbox, cable tv, or the next digital banner ads to see it: 'Get Rock Hard Abs in just 10 light workouts!' 'Follow these 6 easy steps to land the career you've always wanted!' 'Meet young, hot singles in your area tonight!'
Snake oil. Smoke and mirrors. Empty promises. A story with no substance. That's just the truth. People have to know better - they have to know they can't get something from nothing - and they do. They do know better.
But they don't want to know it.
They want to go on believing that if they just want what they want bad enough, it will be theirs. If they just keep on wishing and dreaming, their desires will materialize. Or they can escape into the fantasy - to pretend to have it, and think they can numb their lack of it.
That's how days are wasted. That's how dreams never become reality. That's how dreamers get a bad rep.
Take it from the world's #1 magician himself, who adapted a school rhyme to his life's mantra.
Keep working tis wiser than waiting aside, There is no magic, Houdini says. There is just you. That's the honest truth. |  |
