A Lecture Unlike Any Other…
Years ago I was asked to present a show and “lecture” for Johnson & Johnson.
I presented the lecture after my show and it dealt with how people perceive magic and how people are fooled. It was fun and it was a hit (people mentioned it to me years later)… but I put the lecture aside for years and didn’t give it much thought.
After many years, my wife encouraged me to resurrect the lecture. I took the few notes I had (I save everything!) and developed it into an even more fascinating lecture called “The Perfection of Deception” a talk and PowerPoint presentation about magicians who changed history.
I began by presenting the lecture — first at civic groups, then on cruise ships, and then — even though I am a professional entertainer, I joined “Toastmasters” where I tore apart the speech and rewrote it improving the speech by adding more and more information to the presentation and watched it get amazing reactions.
Don’t think you can be surprised by a lecture?
- Did you know that Houdini was a spy for the US Secret Service?
- That a magician wrote a manual on espionage using principles of magic for covert operations (and the techniques are still in use today)
- That a magician is responsible for winning one of the major battles of ww2 by using the same principles he used on the theater stage?
The first major public lecture I gave was at Lone Star College. It made me smile when the college was doubtful that people would come to hear such an “unusual” presentation — especially when it was scheduled for an early weekday morning.
I had my doubts too, especially when I awoke that morning and saw that it was fiercely pouring down rain. I was disappointed and doubted many people would show up.
We were using one of the larger lecture halls at the college and I was shocked to see that the room was packed! We even had to hold the lecture for 15 minutes so we could bring in extra chairs for people!
The lecture went great and I know it surprised students, faculty and those in the community who came to enjoy the lecture — One member of the audience told me that he drove 40 miles that morning just to catch the lecture — he didn’t want to miss it!
I now present the lecture in many places — cruises, colleges, country clubs and more! It really surprises people!
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