Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody. Today, we have a great guest, Felix Jones,
the magician and mentalist. Felix was praised by Sam and
Cowell for his old time Hollywood glamour on season eighteen
of America's Got Talent. He has performed at magic venues
throughout the US and also headlines on celebrity cruises Virgin Voyages,
Viking Voyages, Princess Holland America, and Ritz Carlton Yachts. By
(00:23):
the Way.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Felix is also a magician member of the Academy of
Magical Arts, where he's a regular performer in the showrooms
at the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. If
you're in California and you haven't been to the Magic
Castle haven't been able to get there, highly recommend you try,
and if you're visiting from another state, definitely a place
you want to stop by. Felix brings the or of
the Magic Castle to any event or private party as well.
(00:44):
You can reach him at Felix Jonesmagic dot com or
you can follow him on Instagram at Felix Jones Magic
as well. Before we get started, folks, you know what
to do, Share, subscribe, hit that like button. You know,
we like it, and that's not waste any more time.
Welcome to the show, Felix Jones. Welcome, sir, Hey, hell
Aoya doing great.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm good. Thanks for asking me to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Thank you for being here. I love interviewing magicians. It's
such a different world.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Some of my most interesting interview guests have been magicians
and authors because they really seem to have a good
sense of human behavior. I mean, I profile we kind
of expected, but for everybody else it's kind of you
don't think of it that way. You're kind of so
enamored by the magician or just want to read the
book by the author. But unfortunate, as the psychologists, I
(01:33):
psychoanalyzed the heck out of everything. So that's the way
that works. Let me ask you this, Felix, what got
you into magic?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Oh? Wow? When I was a kid, I used to
be a big collector of comic books, and the back
pages were advertisements for magic tricks. So I used my allowance,
I saved up and I would send for these tricks.
So I had remember maybe about eight of these at
(02:05):
this point, and I decided to put on a magic
show in my garage. So I was probably twelve years
old and did a show for a bunch of friends,
and then another friend of mine asked if I would
(02:26):
do it again in his garage. So that got me
into magic. And then I was in a play. It
was like a summer theater thing, and I was in
junior high school and it was a play called Who
Do the Magician? And it is about a con artist
(02:48):
who pretends to be a magician, but then over the
course of the twenty five minute play, he realizes what
magic really is. And so that always stayed with me,
playing that deceiver, because all magicians are deceivers, and I
(03:10):
moved away from it at that point. I it was
always magic was always a part of me, but I
was doing other career things. I had become a playwright
and wrote a number of plays that were produced. In
one play I wrote was about Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle.
It's called Flim Flam Houdini and the Hereafter, and it's
(03:32):
about their friendship that exploded publicly in a very vitriolic
way when they were investigating a psychic medium for its
Scientific American Committee. Anyway, so it was produced. It was
at Malibu Playhouse, and a bunch of people from the
Magic Castle who call themselves Houdini Nuts, came to see
(03:55):
the show. Their collectors and fans and big electors though,
and they all loved the play. And one of them
said to me, why don't you Why aren't you a
member of the Magic Castle? And I said, well, how
do I get in? I said, well, you could apply
as a historian member because of all the research you
(04:16):
did for the play. I mean, all right, but I
needed to find a sponsor. And one of the Houdini
Nuts got the president of the board, Erica Larson, who
is the daughter of the founder of the Magic Castle,
to be my sponsor. So I said, all right, if
Erica is my sponsor, I need to be a magician member.
(04:36):
So I trained for three months with the magician who
was working on our play, and auditioned in twenty fifteen
and got in, and so ever since then, my whole
life is all about magic and performing and studying.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, that's crazy, that's crazy, Arte Coindell. Wasn't that the
true story, though, right? The conflict they had or did
they not?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh? Yeah, oh no, yeah, my research was very accurate.
In fact, one of the Houdini people. He has a website.
It is the foremost Houdini website anything you want to know.
His name is John Cox, and he posted a review
of the play and he said it was the best
Houdini play he's ever seen. And it's because I had
a lot of like Easter eggs for Houdini fanatics, and yeah,
(05:29):
it really happened. They were investigating this woman by the
name of Mina Crandon and she seemed pretty authentic. She
was channeling her dead brother Walter, and there are documents
all about the manifestations during her seances. So Conan Doyle
(05:51):
was a firm believer and Houdini, who he and his
wife used to do phony seances, was a firm skeptic,
and they were trying to keep their friendship. But then
Houdini was determined to expose her as a phony and
it got into the press and they're writing letters and
(06:12):
it was just really really nasty.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I think I remember, I think Cardini put out a
prize for anybody that could find somebody that was real.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Right, Yeah, she did not. She did not receive it
because of what Houdini had them investigate a bit further,
so she did not pardon.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I think the prize is still out there.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Of the reward, huh oh no not probably not at
this point. I mean James Randy, the famous James Randy.
He was debunking magicians left and right. I mean he
infamously debunked, Oh, what's the seller? Not not Cresky yet yeller?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, that was on that night show I think, or something.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, it was crazy. If you've ever watched it, it's
it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's what I was excited about this interviews. I know,
I'm a history buff. When it comes the magic, it's
always been fascinating to watch. I was a big fan
of Man Drake the Magician.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Share Yeah, yeah, Man Drake great, yep, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Those were kind of fun. I think they just remade
the movie something.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Or there's been a movie about Man Drake in process.
It may have been made, and wherever it is, it's
there's there's something, there's something about it. I have a
feeling that they're just they're not gonna release it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh really, can you get it? Can anybody find your
play or that just at the theater?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, you can find it on Amazon, flim Flamm, Houdini
and the Hereafter.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh, definitely put that out there, folks, go check that
out at Amazon dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That sounds fascinating. Okay, So now where you're going through
your journey?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So you did it in the garage, started practicing magic,
got into the magic Castle.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
What was that like? Like, well, actually, let me ask
you this.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You do mentalism, So why did you choose that over
anything else? Or do you do an assortment of things?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right now? I do an assortment of things. But when
I was first and when I first became a member,
I was trying a lot of different types of magic.
I've never been a card trick guy, so I was
keeping away from card tricks and doing other types of magic.
I found that I was a lot better at stage magic.
(08:32):
It's called parlor magic, which is basically stand up and
not at a close up table. Because of my theater background,
I was able to present myself better, you know, on
a stage as opposed to the close up table. But
I actually had started to develop some arthritis in my
(08:55):
right thumb and I wasn't as flexible, and for a
magician it's kind of freaky. So I decided, all right,
besides what supplements are going to take, I should find
one of the venues of magic that I don't have
to worry about that. So I began to study mentalism.
(09:21):
I really loved that I was able to bring a
dramatic flair to mentalism in a way that you can't
really with cards. I mean, you can with stage illusions,
but the mentalism allowed me to connect with people and
(09:45):
a way that cards do not. So with mentalism, what
I find is very important is you need to connect
to the person you're working with on some level for
the effect to work, because that person has to be
(10:10):
willing to believe that I am really doing all of this.
I had been I've always had very strong intuition, which
I didn't listen to for a long many years, and
then when I got into mentalism, I started to listen,
(10:31):
and I found out through through that that I was
able often to quote unquote read a person. I was
able to empathize with them, and giving that empathy to them,
they'd look in my eyes and would do whatever I ask.
(10:52):
So it's not it's not hypnosis. It's just making the
person emotionally feel that we're on the same page, that
I understand this person. So for me, this is, you know,
the whole interesting dynamic the psychological dynamic of mentalism is
(11:18):
a good mentalist. Yeah, So all all mentalists are doing
a trick of some sort, but the best mentalists are
facilitating it. So it seems that the person the volunteer
(11:39):
is the one who's really doing the magic, and that
puts them into a position of power and also helps
them remember the experience. So I've had I have people
who see me years ago, and I'll be at the
castle and they'll come up to me. Is that you
(12:01):
probably don't remember me, but I came to one of
your shows five years ago and I never forgot it.
You got this piece of information from me. I had
no idea how you did that, and it always stayed
with me. So that's the great thing about mentalism is
that it does stay with people if it's done correctly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I guess one of my questions, I totally get the
one on one, but I can see it psychologically. How
do you grab an audience If you're connecting with one,
can you connect with all of them like that?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, it depends on the size of the audience. I
think when I'm at the Magic Castle, one of the
rooms I like to perform in is the parlor of
press to digitation, and it seats fifty five people, and
it's a lot easier to connect with fifty five people
than it is with one thousand people, which is what
(12:57):
happens when I perform on cruise ships. So I think
on cruise ships on their large stages, the connection will
be with the volunteers who are participating in the effect.
And the only way I feel that an audience that
(13:21):
large connects is by seeing how the person reacts. And
if that person is reacting in they cannot believe what
just happened, then the audience does respond to that and
will break out into applause whether or not they feel anything,
(13:42):
they are responding to the person's response. In a smaller venue,
I do a lot of audience participation. One of the
things that I'd learned over the years of doing this
is you get the audience on your side from the
very beginning and you can do anything and they will
(14:06):
go along for that ride. So there are a couple
of opening tricks that I do that get the audience involved,
even when it is getting them to call out my name.
My nickname is Jonesy that only my best friends call me,
and I have the audience call that back to me.
So right away from the very beginning, they are invested
(14:29):
in me and invested what they're going to see. They
want to see something, and you know, with card tricks
it's different. Really really good card magicians do the same thing.
They draw people in, but inevitably what they're drawing people
into is their skill, how they're manipulating those cards with mentalism,
(15:01):
But it's not. The props are used to simply facilitate
the effect, to have the person respond emotionally or intellectually
to what I am doing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Absolutely, It just threw me into the world of social
psych It's kind of where.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I was going. And I can see some of those things, right.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You got conformity where they conformed to you as the magician.
But it's also the sense of commitment as you're trying
to establish a bond with them. Yes, it's really funny.
It's it's what's the the authority you can do the
magician the liking. I think he's got six principles and
I don't know if you ever read the six Galadhini
Principles of persuasion, but you're like checking them all off,
(15:49):
and one of them is going to be liking the
other one's authority, figure the other one's connection, consistency, and
then reciprocity. I give you something, you give me something back.
So it's really fascinating to see that being applied here.
I'm assuming would it be easier if you have, like
if you have fifty five people from I'll just make
up a name JP Morgan or something because they're all
(16:10):
from the same group. Does that help or does a
family help? Or have you noticed any differences at all there.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I've done a lot of corporate parties. It varies. Some
groups like that are really into it and they want
to see as much as possible. So often for these
types of parties, I'm strolling and going from table to table,
(16:39):
group to group, and some people are really into it,
and then other people they just want to eat and drink.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
You know, And when I see people like that, I
do a couple of tricks because that's what I'm paid
to do. But then there are other people really into it,
and so I spend a lot more time with the
people were really into it. So the dynamic varies. I've
done private parties at home. When it's at people's homes,
they seem a lot more attentive and appreciative because they
(17:15):
actually have a magician in their house and they're very
proud of that with their family and friends. And there's
no problem with participation. They all want to participate, you know,
for every trick. So's it's those kind of situations are
(17:40):
very rewarding for me. But I think also for the
people who are part of the show, I believe that
they feel they've seen something that nobody else that they
know has seen. And yeah, it's it's the corporate parties
can be really into it because they're there to have
(18:05):
a good time, but it's it's a different kind of
thing when you're walking around doing strolling magic for people
while they're drinking and they're always talking workshop and sometimes
I'm like intruding on them, but I'm like, okay, so
(18:26):
your host, your boss paid for me, so you have
to allow me five minutes of your time. And usually,
you know, I start with a couple of really strong
ones and then they then want more. You know, people
are very suspicious of magicians in social situations, you know,
(18:51):
not when they go to a magic show or when
they go to the magic castle, but in other situations
at parties and events. They're suspicious, and there's one thing
that comes up over and over and over is that
they're terrified that the magician is going to humiliate them. Sure,
(19:14):
this is NonStop. Every every show of my life, there'd
be someone who says, oh, don't pick on me. You know,
they'll be scared, and I try to assure them, you know,
from the beginning, I'm a really friendly person. That's not
going to happen. And I actually, when I started performing professionally,
(19:37):
or even before professionally, I was just doing gigs, I
was I had seen a lot of magicians treat their
volunteers terribly and making jokes on their you know, about
them playing doing a particular trick that makes them look
(20:00):
like a fool. So that that I think some people
have had that experience of magicians and that scares them
so that they don't want it. And when they hear
that I'm a mind reader, they're really scared. They don't
(20:20):
want that to happen. They are, I guess, terrified of
what I'm going to find. I don't know, but from here,
that's the thing is that outside of magic venues, people
are scared of magicians.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Really fascinating Before I explore that folks again.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You can find Felix Jones at Felix Jonesmagic dot com.
You can find them on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram at
Felix Jones Magic.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know you're right into my area right now.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
All of a sudden, you're in my territory in the
way of we overlap a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Because I know as a professor as well, I see
that all the time with the students. The minute I
started asking questions of the audience to the students, they
freak out. You can start seeing they do the famous
put their eyes down, start looking at their desk or phone,
or try not to look at me so that that
they engage me so they don't get called on. And
(21:20):
I think it's the same sense of feeling or the
sense of humiliation.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Well, that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I don't know, Yeah, I mean I address it when
I'm in certain audiences. It happens mostly on cruise ships.
Every now and then it happens at the Manja Castle.
But on cruise ships they're people. First of all, they've
all had too much to eat and drink and they
(21:46):
want to just sit back and watch a rabbit appear.
So that's not my show. And I often go out
into the audience and trying to find who would be
best for a particular trick that I'm going to do.
And I will go up to a person and they
(22:07):
turn their eyes away from me, they look they look away.
But then I say, oh, this person isn't looking at me.
And then I go to that person and then I
break down that wall and have that person, you know, participate,
and because I do it in such a non threatening
manner and they feel safe with me. This is the
(22:28):
big one that I have been told over and over
by people is that when they are with me on stage,
they feel safe. They feel I Am going to be
taking care of them and nothing bad will happen. And
that's I think a really important element of magic is
(22:53):
that the volunteer, and it comes back to this. You
don't want to humiliate them. So the way to do
that is to be as comforting and is as friendly
as possible. And once they have that comfort factor, they'll
(23:16):
do whatever you ask. But that's a big thing. You've
got to make them feel comfortable and safe that whatever
happens on stage, they nothing bad will happen to them.
They have to trust the magician, and I see a
lot of a lot of people they don't trust the magician,
(23:38):
and that I feel is the big flaw in magic
for a lot of performers. There's a very dear friend
of mine he's a mentalist as well. Now he I
have a lot of comedy in mind, you know, I
have my serious moments, but mostly it's it's pretty lighthearted.
But a very dear friend of mine who's an extraordinary mentalist.
(23:59):
His name is nat Or Hannah. He does very serious mentalism.
It's you see a very intense performance when you're with nature.
But he has this smile that just beams, and he
(24:21):
is so warm and welcoming that people completely trust him.
And that's what I think is missing from a lot
of magicians is authenticity. You have to be your true
(24:43):
self two have people respond to you, and so many
magicians put a character on you know, I'd always I
think I had heard somewhere that to be a magician,
(25:05):
be yourself, but bump it up fifty percent and there's
some truth to it. But there's some magicians I feel
like they're just yelling at the people. You know, they're
they're flashing things. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, look at that.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they're just like you know, they're
so desperate for applause as opposed to a sense of wonderment.
It becomes more about the magician, the magicians satisfying his
or her need above the audience experiencing wonder and I
(25:50):
for me, it's more important that the audience experience is
something they've never seen before, as opposed to me getting
the applau Now, mind you, I do know how to
end a trick with you know what we call a button,
so it automatically gets applause. So I'm not they're thinking
that I do something they're in wonderment that there's no applause. No,
(26:13):
there's there's always applause. But you do have to manipulate
people into applause a little bit. But yeah, I think
that's that's the magicians are not. I think, you know,
we talked about Ian Roland and cold readings, and you know,
it's it's really important for all magicians to be able
(26:36):
to look at the person that they are working with
and really look at that person, Look inside that person.
Do you feel resistance? Is this person open? Is the
(26:57):
person going to fight you? Is the person going to
try to steal the spotlight. So I am very careful
with who I select because of these different elements. A
(27:18):
lot of people when they're called up, they've had a
bit to drink and they want to be the star
of the show. And I've seen this over and over
and there are some magicians just that sort of let
it happen. I don't if the person is At first,
I try to bring that person back to what we're
(27:43):
doing together, you know, looking at them deeply. But then
if they're still like fulling around, then I just say, oh,
there's no connection here, I'm really sorry, and I bring
someone else up. And nine times out of ten when
that happens, that second person is totally into it because
they just witness someone being a complete jerk. So uh,
(28:07):
it's it's it's really fascinating for me. For the I
guess I use psychology, you know, all the time, I
use empathy. I use I want to be sympathetic to
the person. And I think it's important because it will
(28:31):
they'll be part of the journey. They'll stay with the journey.
They'll they'll they'll let you probe a little deeper and
you know, asking questions that maybe normally they wouldn't answer
because they feel I'm trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So much.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
There hit so many areas, there's so much to unpacked there,
that's so many.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Areas I'm gonna select too just because of that.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Straight But you've been so many great areas, one of
them being the basic human need of trust.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I mean, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Again, I hardly agree with your magicians use a lot
of psychology. The good ones at least that I've been
able to interview and been impressed, have all had a
passion like yours about understanding human behavior. And every human
wants to feel safe, whether it's physically or emotionally.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Safety is huge. We see that with children so as
well as adults.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So I can definitely see that how you've preached, how
you approach that, and it's a testament to you because
it is a skill to be able to make people
feel safe.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
The other component of it that you made really made
me think about a lot of it was the authenticity
of a magician. And we can get into this discussion
a little bit later, and you can always blow me
off too if it gets too personal, but we can
approach you later about how maybe magic and being a
mentalist influenced to you is just as a person. We
can look at that later if you want and be
(29:58):
kind of gaining how it what's to do in your relationships.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
It's it a lot. Let's just say it influenced me.
It's influenced my personal life a lot. It has to yeah, yeah,
to be to be authentic on stage, I have to
be an authentic human being. Otherwise it's an act. And
(30:25):
so it's you know, it's give and take. So I
work at being authentic in all my relationships strangers as well,
and that carries over on stage. You can't fake it.
(30:46):
People will know when you're not being authentic. They won't respond.
I mean, there's some magicians that I see and they
struggle to get applause or appreciation for what they're doing
because it's clearly an act. Magicians generally are very scared
(31:11):
of being themselves on stage. I see so many who
I talk with off stage, and they're completely different people
when they go on stage. It's almost like they are
protecting themselves from getting too invested in their audience. I
(31:41):
see a lot of magicians protecting themselves on stage, and
it doesn't read as authentic. It reads like an act
and for some magic that's great, right knowing the things
David Copperfield is authentic, but you know, he's still he
(32:05):
still captures people's imaginations and a lot of it has
to do with his paraphernalia, everything that flies all around me.
You see a Copperfield show, but there's a there's another
friend of mine. He was on America's Got Talent a
year ago and he was a finalist. His name is
(32:27):
Trig Watson, and he does all this remarkable magic with electronics.
So for example, he'll have like a picture of milk
that he's pouring in a TV set. There's a glass
there and the milk is falling directly, you know, into
(32:48):
into that. And the thing about Trigg, though, is that
he's so enthusiastic, he's so nice, he's so fun at
he's being trick. I mean, he's like that in person.
So there's like no act that he's putting on other
(33:10):
than probably having to worry through all the technical stuff
that he has to deal with, you know, to put
on that show.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And you've hung out with him independent of doing his magic.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Oh yes, oh yes, he's the same exact same as
is Nator. Who I had mentioned before. Nator is warm, lovely, authentic,
truly caring person supportive, and that's what he's like on stage,
and to me, that's you know, that's it's certainly what
(33:47):
I now do. There is a time I was I
feel maybe a little charactery. I had a somewhat British
accent and a bit of a you know, Hugh Hefner
kind of debonair thing, and I pitched it because I
(34:11):
did feel that that character was putting me at arm's
length with my audience. And once I just said I'm
going to be just who I am on stage, then
the connections happen. Then it all worked, and even you know,
just performing magic then became a lot easier as well.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I guess I'm gonna keep going down this road because
it seems like we've hit a really good area and
we can.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Explot a little further.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Authenticity is obviously a big issue for a lot of
people that I've seen over the years as a psychologist
is one of the challenges of being really themselves, and
I've seen other professions that struggle with it. In other words,
like a police officer, a special forces operator, an actor
who have interviewed all these individuals, actors and singers, and
(35:04):
you can see how worried they are to reveal who
they really are to the public. They have a persona
that they keep and then they got get lost in
that persona. But even the everyday person has a persona
they keep a general public compared to their intimate friends
or family. And some even have a persona with their
family because they have such high expectations by their parents
(35:27):
or whatnot, and they keep a persona which stresses them out.
So that concept of authenticity is so powerful just understanding
and listening to you speak about that, because it looks
like we kind of veered into the street of the
psychology of a magician. That's kind of where we're att now,
and more about them and how what the show does
(35:48):
for them, because I can see it gives them power
and control, yes, that they may not have in their
own lives.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
For some of them, it doesn't mean you.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know you that way, So I don't want
to make assumptions about that at all, folks, I think
of it somehow. It must give somebody that just like
a comedian on stage, just like a actor on stage,
whatever gives them kind of control and power.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I don't have many thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I completely agree I the magicians that I know off stage,
many are not open about their lives. I feel that
so many are putting on an act they are maybe
(36:39):
they're insecure about themselves and this act helps them feel secure.
There's one guy who I always see and he's got
cards in his hands. He's walking around all the time,
just shuffling and shuffling, walking around, shuffleing in sheffling. Cards
(37:01):
never leave his hand, and it's like these cards in
a way have become kind of like an extension of
himself that he is defined by these cards. There's a
really wonderful magician. And you know what has happened in
(37:24):
the past couple of years, which is wonderful, is that
there are a lot of female magicians now. And for
a long time it had been such an old boys club,
and with old boys club comes that kind of behavior
(37:44):
that is cliquish. But with the women magicians, it doesn't exist.
And they are very authentic when they're performing on stage.
And that's the thing that I love about many female magicians.
(38:07):
They're they're not putting on an act. They are doing
the material and they sort of have to, you know,
elevate it a bit to be stage worthy, but there's
still being themselves. They you know, female magicians seem a
lot more confident, certainly a lot easier in sharing who
(38:34):
they are with the audience. There's an extraordinary magician. Her
name is Carissa Hendrix. And Carissa has a very famous
character now that she does called Lucy Darling. And Lucy
is incredibly witty, sexy as a big red wig. She
(38:58):
has an outrageous kind of British jaccent and is a whole, big, big,
fun character and she makes a lot of money touring
doing Lucy Darling. But then there's Carissa, and she's just
a real you know, she takes the wig off and
(39:20):
she's this lovely, warm, supportive person. And I remember asking
her once about it and she says she never drops
character until she takes the wig off. So if for
someone like Carissa, it works brilliantly having that character, because
you are going to see a Lucy Darling show, and
(39:44):
for your listeners, you can check her out on She's
on all social media and I recommend following. You'll be
very amused by Lucy. So I don't know what it
is that there are why male magicians are less forthcoming
(40:07):
about who they are when they're on stage. So there's
something going on there, and you're the psychologist you know better.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
That's kind of funny because I think it's interesting when
you mentioned the females don't because most humans in general
tend to be clickish, right.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
We have certain zip codes, certain places.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
We live, teams we support, We tend to categorize ourselves
so quickly on everything we did that I don't remember
remember the movie Planet of the Apes, of course, yeah,
they had the final It was a funny social psychology
comment that was made about the movie that was kind
of caught unaware with everybody. But the chimpanzees in the
(40:49):
movie and the gorillas and the monkeys actually all sat
separately when they actually it took a break from doing
the movie. They all separated themselves just normally. It was
kind of funny to do that. In baseball, the pitchers
will sit separately from the outfielders are so separately from
the infielders, so.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
It's kind of funny. I guess.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It leads me to this question to you, do you
see any differences there between younger than you and the
old generation is I do see a lot of young
magicians now coming out, and I think we're gonna try
to interview one here in the next few weeks as well,
who's about eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But is there a difference there between groups?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Do you see the same kind of division or wickishness?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
You know, I've because I see a lot. In fact,
I think this week is the future stars. So it's
all teenage magicians at the Castle this week, and they're
all very good magicians. And what I like about them
is many are not putting on an act. Many are
(41:52):
being themselves doing the magic. So there is, yes, a
big difference between a magicians and younger magicians. You know,
at the Magic Castle, you see all these portraits, these
caricatures everywhere of various magicians from the sixties and seventies
that used to hang out at the Magic Castle. And
(42:14):
first of all, many of them have got a cigar
or a cigarette, you know, hanging out of their mouths,
and you know they're just talking like this. You know,
they're doing their cod tricks, and you know they're calling
you know, all women are called girls, and they've got
a girl on stage who's their assistant and so it's
(42:38):
like a total, total different era. I mean, that sense
of magic, that style of magic is way out of
fashion and you know, offensive to a lot of people.
And it has nothing to do with cancer culture or
being wote. It more has to do with respect for
(43:03):
other human beings. And you cannot treat your assistant on stage.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
I guess another gale you know that they used to
do in the sixties and seventies, the young magicians, that
behavior is not part of them at all.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
They are refreshing, they're funny, they're warm. You are drawn
to them, certainly by their youth and they it's definitely different.
And now that there are so many young female magicians,
(43:45):
they're also bringing that dynamic, that that warmth, that authenticity
that has been lacking in a lot of the older magicians.
It's refreshing, it's really lovely to and I'm always surprised
and I support a lot of young magicians because they
(44:09):
are changing the business. They are changing the world of magic.
They are moving magic away from the old timers. And
the old timers are probably resentful, but you know, the
old timers if they maybe just changed it a little bit,
but a lot of them are really stuck on what
(44:30):
they do. There are some magicians they have done the
exact same act, the exact same tricks for thirty five
or forty years. They never change their show. I don't
know how they do that. I don't know how you
(44:50):
can't get bored. I'm constantly constantly working on new material.
Right now, I'm working on a new show with a
magic partner, and and we're doing three pieces that I've
never done before, and they become part of the repertoire,
you know, I can you know, on cruise ships, I
need to have ninety minutes of material, and at this
(45:13):
point I have over two hours worth of material because
I'm always incorporating new things because I get bored, and
if I get bored, the audience is going to be bored.
So I don't know how these magicians, and it's always men,
these older men, they do not change. And why they're
(45:38):
still doing it, what it does for them. Maybe it is,
as we're talking about, that's the only place where they
have a sense of power in their lives, a sense
of control in their lives, and changing that means is scary.
I mean, honestly, I don't know. I mean, I brought
up David Copperfield. But David Copperfield is also one who
(46:01):
is just doing this over and over and over and
it shows I.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Agree with that. By the way, folks, again, I'm talking
to Felix Jones.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
You can find them at Felix Jones Magic dot com
and Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. We got about fifteen twenty
minutes left, if that's okay with you, Sure, okay. I
got several questions that popped up in my head now
they're eating in this direction, and I also will like
to end up with one fun question for you. I
hopefull all these are fun, but one fun one for
(46:29):
the audience as well. But any differences in regards to
There's two differences that popped up in my head as
we're talking about distinctions between magicians and groups. Any distinctions
between ethnicity. I see a lot more Asian magicians. I
wonder if they bring something different from their culture, maybe
the magicians that they had, anything like that. Do you
(46:50):
see differences in cultures with different magicians? I know, is
that famous one from Spain? You know, it's funny because right.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Now there are two two cultures of magicians that are very,
very popular, and it is it's Asian magicians and Spanish magicians,
and Wan tamerse Is was sort of is the icon
of Spanish magicians and so a lot of He inspired
(47:21):
a lot of Spanish magicians to perform, and so we
see a lot of that. And they have a particular style,
they have a particular way of presenting, which is usually
very humorous, funny, warm, and they always do are doing
(47:41):
great card work. Asian magicians, there's a almost all that
I see are card magicians. There are stage magicians as well,
and they're doing the illusions. But the so the South
Koreans are brilliant at card manipulation, and you don't see
(48:08):
the as much creativity in American card manipulators. The Asians
bring their culture, their history to their work, to the manipulation.
So card manipulation what it basically is is that you know,
(48:33):
cards will appear in their hands out of nowhere, and
they'll keep throwing them the cards, throwing them out and
more cards and more cards and more cards appear. And
many Korean magicians do it with lights and flare and
it's just a music and it's just a wonderful experience
as opposed to someone just you know, pulling a Jack
(48:55):
of Diamonds out of the air. So those two broops
in particular. Right now, I see a lot more of
you know, regularly and certainly regularly booked at the Magic Castle.
Besides that, I'm blanking on maybe other other cultures, other
(49:20):
ethnicities that I see a lot. Pardon me.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
When I look on Instagram, I see a lot of
Asian magicians, some Spanish ones, and a lot of the
American ones.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
But I don't see very many of the other other countries.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Really, No, occasionally, France and Germany occasionally, and England and
English are British, there are a lot of British magicians,
and of course one of the best mentalists in the
world is.
Speaker 5 (49:54):
Oh my god, I'm thinking Colin McLeod, Colin Cloud, who
is Scottish, and he's certainly one of my favorite mentalist,
incredibly inventive.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Pardon were you thinking of Darren Brown or Darren Brown?
Darren Brown, my idol, Darren Brown. So both Darren and
Colin are inventors in in mentalism. They bring such creativity
(50:32):
to their work and they're also just really fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
They also happy to talk a mile. Both of them
talk a mile a minute. How so many words come
out of them, but it's part of their misdirection, I guess.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
But anyway, that's what I guess.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
My last two questions, one of them the only the
group of one too. Are there differences rivalries? Is it
just rivalry for fun? Is it actual rivalry between types
of magicians in other words, the mentalists versus the card
trick individuals.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
Really, yeah it is. It's big. Yeah, it's it's actually
quite quite big. For a long time, card magicians were
very disdainful of mentalists. I have heard many times, Oh,
(51:34):
mentalism isn't really magic, and it's incredibly insulting, because of
course it is magic. Now, about five or six years ago,
a well known magician of just Jay did a study
with audiences and types of magic, and he released the
(51:56):
results of this report that said everybody forgets card magic
in about a minute, but that mentalism is their favorite.
They love mentalism. Mentalism sticks with them. So now you
see the card magicians always including some sort of mentalism
trick in their act. Now, I'm I only in the
(52:20):
past two years have I been doing card magic, so
I do. I do card magic as well, and I
have a lot of fun with it, but I don't
think lesser of card magicians. Card magicians do think lesser
of mentalists. And for a long time there's a bit
of a prejudice at the Magic Castle against mentalists. But
(52:44):
now because I'm friends with many of the floor managers
at the Magic Castle, they are constantly asked by people
coming up, is there a mentalist? We want to see
a mentalist? Is someone doing mentalism? Almost every night they
get this record, so it's somehow in the consciousness. Mentalism
(53:05):
is a style of magic that people are really enjoying.
You know, they've seen a million card tricks. You see
card tricks on YouTube every day, and people teaching you
how to do a card trick, but there's not any
of that with mentalism, and so mentalism is still mysterious.
(53:30):
People still want to figure out if the person is
reading their mind.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Kind of interesting because it reminds me, I don't know,
if you're a Marvel Cinematic Universe fan, sure, oh okay,
it's like it's interesting to me. They had that one
episode in Agents of Shield a long time ago, now,
several years ago, but they had the one where they
had the one what do they call them any humans
or something? And he could read people's minds, and that
really freaked out a lot of the people because he
could read their mind. And then it comes to mind
(53:58):
as Doctor Strange of course when.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
He came out.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, do you think those things as even the TV
show The Mentalist, which was a great TV show for a.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
While, help your business? And what did you think about
those shows?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
The Mentalist is an amazing show. The Mentalist was before
I became a mentalist. And the title of the show
is a bit misleading because it makes it seem like
it's the business of mentalism. But that's not what he is.
He's a profiler and he uses psychology and is his empathy.
(54:38):
But I loved that show. I thought it was fantastic.
Doctor Strange. I'm a big, big fan of Doctor Strange.
Benedict Cumberbatge, I think does an amazing job as that magician,
as a conflicted magician as he is. I used to
watch Agents of Shield, but I don't remember that particular
(54:59):
episode with the with the mind reader. I when you
see these depictions, I think, yes, it does help. It
does help the world of mentalism. Who doesn't want to
be a superhero and people really want to know, you know,
(55:21):
how is this done, and those shows provide a bit
of mystery and excitement. I wish there were more that
you know, used mentalism because even in the movies let's
it Catch me if you can, it's stage magic. They're
(55:43):
doing stage magic, you know, illusion magic, which you know
I also love. But yeah, I think they do have
a positive effect with whoever watches those shows. I don't
know if it's a positive effect with you know, the
teenage crowd that goes to see you know, those movies
or watched it. I don't know if it does anything
(56:05):
for them, but I I think it does have an
effect for professional mentalism. And you know, even as mentalists
that show with a mentalist, it's it's often brought up
to me really yeah uh, and they think I'm like him.
(56:28):
They think that I do what he does, and you know,
to a certain respect, I do.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
You're called by the homicide team or anything, bosh or something.
I guess my last question to you would be we
kind of touched on it earlier, but how do you
think it influenced you in your relationships, in your life.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Learning everything you did?
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Oh wow, that's a great question. M I feel now
the two overlap. I feel the relationships in my life,
(57:20):
who I am in my relationships and who I am
on stage or overlapping. I feel I'm the same way,
maybe a bit more wittier. When I'm on stage. I've
always been good at ad libbing, but when I'm with
friends whatever, I'm not going to be ad libbing all
(57:41):
the time, you know, but I do, you know, listen,
listen and respond in an empathetic way. If they're sharing something.
Someone I know, his sister died and I, you know,
suddenly out of the blue, as she's young, and I
feel that the best way to help is to be
(58:02):
empathetic and to just listen and respond and feel to
some extent what he's feeling for that great loss. And
on stage, I there's a particular routine that I do
which a person has a memory of a loved one
(58:26):
who's died, and I reveal the identity of that person,
and almost every time, the person starts crying, and then
I start crying. I have cried on stage with these
people every time I do this particular trick, and I
(58:46):
take their hand and we're both crying, and you know,
I gently, you know, have people reward them because they
went through a really emotional experience. And I don't know
if to many magicians who cry on stage because they're
feeling that person's pain. So I and that's how I
(59:10):
am in life. You know, if someone's in pain, I'll
be there for them. And it's the same thing on stage.
I think it's completely they completely overlapped.
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Sounds like it helped you grow as a human being.
Pardon me, it sounds like it helped you grow as
a human being.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Absolutely, We're always evolving, but.
Speaker 6 (59:31):
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, it's it's weird to
think that. But I think because it's become so magic
has become so interwoven my psychological fabric of who I am, that.
Speaker 3 (59:53):
I extricating them being being a different person off stage
and on and on stage just doesn't work. It doesn't
work for me. It has to be. It has to
be connected for me, I believe for what I do
(01:00:14):
to be really effective, to have people really believe that
I'm reading their mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Powerful stuff. Let me quickly grab here where I go look,
you can't find it. Oh that's why your name wrong.
So I'm gonna go ahead and look at Felix Jones, Folks,
Felix Jones Magic definitely go to Felix Jonesmagic dot com
trying to find your beer the play? Is it flim Flam?
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
You said, right, yeah, on Amazon, but it's other It's
on my other name. Okay, so but if you look
flim Flam Houdini in the hereafter, you'll see it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Got it. So flim Flamm and Houdini go check that out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
But you want to look up a great magician, go
for checking out Felix Jonesmagic dot com. You can find
them on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Like I said before,
if you haven't been to the Magic Castle, head that way.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Felix. I can't thank you enough for doing this. I
really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Thank you. I had a great time. I love talking
about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
It was fascinating, it really is. It always fascinates me.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
You guys have such an insight into the human behavior,
and like I said, I'm a psychologist, but you guys
outshine me most of the time. Oh no, thank you
everyone for listening. You know what to do, share, subscribe,
hit that I like button. Go check out Magic Show, folks,
Welcome back everybody. Today, we have a great guest, Felix Jones,
the magician and mentalist. Felix was praised by Sam and
Cowell for his old time Hollywood glamour on season eighteen
of America's Got Talent. He has performed at magic venues
throughout the US and also headlines on celebrity cruises Virgin Voyages,
Viking Voyages, Princess Holland America, and Ritz Carlton Yachts. By
(00:23):
the Way.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Felix is also a magician member of the Academy of
Magical Arts, where he's a regular performer in the showrooms
at the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. If
you're in California and you haven't been to the Magic
Castle haven't been able to get there, highly recommend you try,
and if you're visiting from another state, definitely a place
you want to stop by. Felix brings the or of
the Magic Castle to any event or private party as well.
(00:44):
You can reach him at Felix Jonesmagic dot com or
you can follow him on Instagram at Felix Jones Magic
as well. Before we get started, folks, you know what
to do, Share, subscribe, hit that like button. You know,
we like it, and that's not waste any more time.
Welcome to the show, Felix Jones. Welcome, sir, Hey, hell
Aoya doing great.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm good. Thanks for asking me to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Thank you for being here. I love interviewing magicians. It's
such a different world.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Some of my most interesting interview guests have been magicians
and authors because they really seem to have a good
sense of human behavior. I mean, I profile we kind
of expected, but for everybody else it's kind of you
don't think of it that way. You're kind of so
enamored by the magician or just want to read the
book by the author. But unfortunate, as the psychologists, I
(01:33):
psychoanalyzed the heck out of everything. So that's the way
that works. Let me ask you this, Felix, what got
you into magic?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Oh? Wow? When I was a kid, I used to
be a big collector of comic books, and the back
pages were advertisements for magic tricks. So I used my allowance,
I saved up and I would send for these tricks.
So I had remember maybe about eight of these at
(02:05):
this point, and I decided to put on a magic
show in my garage. So I was probably twelve years
old and did a show for a bunch of friends,
and then another friend of mine asked if I would
(02:26):
do it again in his garage. So that got me
into magic. And then I was in a play. It
was like a summer theater thing, and I was in
junior high school and it was a play called Who
Do the Magician? And it is about a con artist
(02:48):
who pretends to be a magician, but then over the
course of the twenty five minute play, he realizes what
magic really is. And so that always stayed with me,
playing that deceiver, because all magicians are deceivers, and I
(03:10):
moved away from it at that point. I it was
always magic was always a part of me, but I
was doing other career things. I had become a playwright
and wrote a number of plays that were produced. In
one play I wrote was about Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle.
It's called Flim Flam Houdini and the Hereafter, and it's
(03:32):
about their friendship that exploded publicly in a very vitriolic
way when they were investigating a psychic medium for its
Scientific American Committee. Anyway, so it was produced. It was
at Malibu Playhouse, and a bunch of people from the
Magic Castle who call themselves Houdini Nuts, came to see
(03:55):
the show. Their collectors and fans and big electors though,
and they all loved the play. And one of them
said to me, why don't you Why aren't you a
member of the Magic Castle? And I said, well, how
do I get in? I said, well, you could apply
as a historian member because of all the research you
(04:16):
did for the play. I mean, all right, but I
needed to find a sponsor. And one of the Houdini
Nuts got the president of the board, Erica Larson, who
is the daughter of the founder of the Magic Castle,
to be my sponsor. So I said, all right, if
Erica is my sponsor, I need to be a magician member.
(04:36):
So I trained for three months with the magician who
was working on our play, and auditioned in twenty fifteen
and got in, and so ever since then, my whole
life is all about magic and performing and studying.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, that's crazy, that's crazy, Arte Coindell. Wasn't that the
true story, though, right? The conflict they had or did
they not?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh? Yeah, oh no, yeah, my research was very accurate.
In fact, one of the Houdini people. He has a website.
It is the foremost Houdini website anything you want to know.
His name is John Cox, and he posted a review
of the play and he said it was the best
Houdini play he's ever seen. And it's because I had
a lot of like Easter eggs for Houdini fanatics, and yeah,
(05:29):
it really happened. They were investigating this woman by the
name of Mina Crandon and she seemed pretty authentic. She
was channeling her dead brother Walter, and there are documents
all about the manifestations during her seances. So Conan Doyle
(05:51):
was a firm believer and Houdini, who he and his
wife used to do phony seances, was a firm skeptic,
and they were trying to keep their friendship. But then
Houdini was determined to expose her as a phony and
it got into the press and they're writing letters and
(06:12):
it was just really really nasty.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I think I remember, I think Cardini put out a
prize for anybody that could find somebody that was real.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Right, Yeah, she did not. She did not receive it
because of what Houdini had them investigate a bit further,
so she did not pardon.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I think the prize is still out there.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Of the reward, huh oh no not probably not at
this point. I mean James Randy, the famous James Randy.
He was debunking magicians left and right. I mean he
infamously debunked, Oh, what's the seller? Not not Cresky yet yeller?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, that was on that night show I think, or something.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, it was crazy. If you've ever watched it, it's
it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's what I was excited about this interviews. I know,
I'm a history buff. When it comes the magic, it's
always been fascinating to watch. I was a big fan
of Man Drake the Magician.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Share Yeah, yeah, Man Drake great, yep, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Those were kind of fun. I think they just remade
the movie something.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Or there's been a movie about Man Drake in process.
It may have been made, and wherever it is, it's
there's there's something, there's something about it. I have a
feeling that they're just they're not gonna release it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh really, can you get it? Can anybody find your
play or that just at the theater?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, you can find it on Amazon, flim Flamm, Houdini
and the Hereafter.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh, definitely put that out there, folks, go check that
out at Amazon dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That sounds fascinating. Okay, So now where you're going through
your journey?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So you did it in the garage, started practicing magic,
got into the magic Castle.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
What was that like? Like, well, actually, let me ask
you this.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You do mentalism, So why did you choose that over
anything else? Or do you do an assortment of things?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right now? I do an assortment of things. But when
I was first and when I first became a member,
I was trying a lot of different types of magic.
I've never been a card trick guy, so I was
keeping away from card tricks and doing other types of magic.
I found that I was a lot better at stage magic.
(08:32):
It's called parlor magic, which is basically stand up and
not at a close up table. Because of my theater background,
I was able to present myself better, you know, on
a stage as opposed to the close up table. But
I actually had started to develop some arthritis in my
(08:55):
right thumb and I wasn't as flexible, and for a
magician it's kind of freaky. So I decided, all right,
besides what supplements are going to take, I should find
one of the venues of magic that I don't have
to worry about that. So I began to study mentalism.
(09:21):
I really loved that I was able to bring a
dramatic flair to mentalism in a way that you can't
really with cards. I mean, you can with stage illusions,
but the mentalism allowed me to connect with people and
(09:45):
a way that cards do not. So with mentalism, what
I find is very important is you need to connect
to the person you're working with on some level for
the effect to work, because that person has to be
(10:10):
willing to believe that I am really doing all of this.
I had been I've always had very strong intuition, which
I didn't listen to for a long many years, and
then when I got into mentalism, I started to listen,
(10:31):
and I found out through through that that I was
able often to quote unquote read a person. I was
able to empathize with them, and giving that empathy to them,
they'd look in my eyes and would do whatever I ask.
(10:52):
So it's not it's not hypnosis. It's just making the
person emotionally feel that we're on the same page, that
I understand this person. So for me, this is, you know,
the whole interesting dynamic the psychological dynamic of mentalism is
(11:18):
a good mentalist. Yeah, So all all mentalists are doing
a trick of some sort, but the best mentalists are
facilitating it. So it seems that the person the volunteer
(11:39):
is the one who's really doing the magic, and that
puts them into a position of power and also helps
them remember the experience. So I've had I have people
who see me years ago, and I'll be at the
castle and they'll come up to me. Is that you
(12:01):
probably don't remember me, but I came to one of
your shows five years ago and I never forgot it.
You got this piece of information from me. I had
no idea how you did that, and it always stayed
with me. So that's the great thing about mentalism is
that it does stay with people if it's done correctly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I guess one of my questions, I totally get the
one on one, but I can see it psychologically. How
do you grab an audience If you're connecting with one,
can you connect with all of them like that?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, it depends on the size of the audience. I
think when I'm at the Magic Castle, one of the
rooms I like to perform in is the parlor of
press to digitation, and it seats fifty five people, and
it's a lot easier to connect with fifty five people
than it is with one thousand people, which is what
(12:57):
happens when I perform on cruise ships. So I think
on cruise ships on their large stages, the connection will
be with the volunteers who are participating in the effect.
And the only way I feel that an audience that
(13:21):
large connects is by seeing how the person reacts. And
if that person is reacting in they cannot believe what
just happened, then the audience does respond to that and
will break out into applause whether or not they feel anything,
(13:42):
they are responding to the person's response. In a smaller venue,
I do a lot of audience participation. One of the
things that I'd learned over the years of doing this
is you get the audience on your side from the
very beginning and you can do anything and they will
(14:06):
go along for that ride. So there are a couple
of opening tricks that I do that get the audience involved,
even when it is getting them to call out my name.
My nickname is Jonesy that only my best friends call me,
and I have the audience call that back to me.
So right away from the very beginning, they are invested
(14:29):
in me and invested what they're going to see. They
want to see something, and you know, with card tricks
it's different. Really really good card magicians do the same thing.
They draw people in, but inevitably what they're drawing people
into is their skill, how they're manipulating those cards with mentalism,
(15:01):
But it's not. The props are used to simply facilitate
the effect, to have the person respond emotionally or intellectually
to what I am doing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Absolutely, It just threw me into the world of social
psych It's kind of where.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I was going. And I can see some of those things, right.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You got conformity where they conformed to you as the magician.
But it's also the sense of commitment as you're trying
to establish a bond with them. Yes, it's really funny.
It's it's what's the the authority you can do the
magician the liking. I think he's got six principles and
I don't know if you ever read the six Galadhini
Principles of persuasion, but you're like checking them all off,
(15:49):
and one of them is going to be liking the
other one's authority, figure the other one's connection, consistency, and
then reciprocity. I give you something, you give me something back.
So it's really fascinating to see that being applied here.
I'm assuming would it be easier if you have, like
if you have fifty five people from I'll just make
up a name JP Morgan or something because they're all
(16:10):
from the same group. Does that help or does a
family help? Or have you noticed any differences at all there.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I've done a lot of corporate parties. It varies. Some
groups like that are really into it and they want
to see as much as possible. So often for these
types of parties, I'm strolling and going from table to table,
(16:39):
group to group, and some people are really into it,
and then other people they just want to eat and drink.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
You know, And when I see people like that, I
do a couple of tricks because that's what I'm paid
to do. But then there are other people really into it,
and so I spend a lot more time with the
people were really into it. So the dynamic varies. I've
done private parties at home. When it's at people's homes,
they seem a lot more attentive and appreciative because they
(17:15):
actually have a magician in their house and they're very
proud of that with their family and friends. And there's
no problem with participation. They all want to participate, you know,
for every trick. So's it's those kind of situations are
(17:40):
very rewarding for me. But I think also for the
people who are part of the show, I believe that
they feel they've seen something that nobody else that they
know has seen. And yeah, it's it's the corporate parties
can be really into it because they're there to have
(18:05):
a good time, but it's it's a different kind of
thing when you're walking around doing strolling magic for people
while they're drinking and they're always talking workshop and sometimes
I'm like intruding on them, but I'm like, okay, so
(18:26):
your host, your boss paid for me, so you have
to allow me five minutes of your time. And usually,
you know, I start with a couple of really strong
ones and then they then want more. You know, people
are very suspicious of magicians in social situations, you know,
(18:51):
not when they go to a magic show or when
they go to the magic castle, but in other situations
at parties and events. They're suspicious, and there's one thing
that comes up over and over and over is that
they're terrified that the magician is going to humiliate them. Sure,
(19:14):
this is NonStop. Every every show of my life, there'd
be someone who says, oh, don't pick on me. You know,
they'll be scared, and I try to assure them, you know,
from the beginning, I'm a really friendly person. That's not
going to happen. And I actually, when I started performing professionally,
(19:37):
or even before professionally, I was just doing gigs, I
was I had seen a lot of magicians treat their
volunteers terribly and making jokes on their you know, about
them playing doing a particular trick that makes them look
(20:00):
like a fool. So that that I think some people
have had that experience of magicians and that scares them
so that they don't want it. And when they hear
that I'm a mind reader, they're really scared. They don't
(20:20):
want that to happen. They are, I guess, terrified of
what I'm going to find. I don't know, but from here,
that's the thing is that outside of magic venues, people
are scared of magicians.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Really fascinating Before I explore that folks again.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You can find Felix Jones at Felix Jonesmagic dot com.
You can find them on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram at
Felix Jones Magic.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know you're right into my area right now.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
All of a sudden, you're in my territory in the
way of we overlap a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Because I know as a professor as well, I see
that all the time with the students. The minute I
started asking questions of the audience to the students, they
freak out. You can start seeing they do the famous
put their eyes down, start looking at their desk or phone,
or try not to look at me so that that
they engage me so they don't get called on. And
(21:20):
I think it's the same sense of feeling or the
sense of humiliation.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Well, that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I don't know, Yeah, I mean I address it when
I'm in certain audiences. It happens mostly on cruise ships.
Every now and then it happens at the Manja Castle.
But on cruise ships they're people. First of all, they've
all had too much to eat and drink and they
(21:46):
want to just sit back and watch a rabbit appear.
So that's not my show. And I often go out
into the audience and trying to find who would be
best for a particular trick that I'm going to do.
And I will go up to a person and they
(22:07):
turn their eyes away from me, they look they look away.
But then I say, oh, this person isn't looking at me.
And then I go to that person and then I
break down that wall and have that person, you know, participate,
and because I do it in such a non threatening
manner and they feel safe with me. This is the
(22:28):
big one that I have been told over and over
by people is that when they are with me on stage,
they feel safe. They feel I Am going to be
taking care of them and nothing bad will happen. And
that's I think a really important element of magic is
(22:53):
that the volunteer, and it comes back to this. You
don't want to humiliate them. So the way to do
that is to be as comforting and is as friendly
as possible. And once they have that comfort factor, they'll
(23:16):
do whatever you ask. But that's a big thing. You've
got to make them feel comfortable and safe that whatever
happens on stage, they nothing bad will happen to them.
They have to trust the magician, and I see a
lot of a lot of people they don't trust the magician,
(23:38):
and that I feel is the big flaw in magic
for a lot of performers. There's a very dear friend
of mine he's a mentalist as well. Now he I
have a lot of comedy in mind, you know, I
have my serious moments, but mostly it's it's pretty lighthearted.
But a very dear friend of mine who's an extraordinary mentalist.
(23:59):
His name is nat Or Hannah. He does very serious mentalism.
It's you see a very intense performance when you're with nature.
But he has this smile that just beams, and he
(24:21):
is so warm and welcoming that people completely trust him.
And that's what I think is missing from a lot
of magicians is authenticity. You have to be your true
(24:43):
self two have people respond to you, and so many
magicians put a character on you know, I'd always I
think I had heard somewhere that to be a magician,
(25:05):
be yourself, but bump it up fifty percent and there's
some truth to it. But there's some magicians I feel
like they're just yelling at the people. You know, they're
they're flashing things. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, look at that.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they're just like you know, they're
so desperate for applause as opposed to a sense of wonderment.
It becomes more about the magician, the magicians satisfying his
or her need above the audience experiencing wonder and I
(25:50):
for me, it's more important that the audience experience is
something they've never seen before, as opposed to me getting
the applau Now, mind you, I do know how to
end a trick with you know what we call a button,
so it automatically gets applause. So I'm not they're thinking
that I do something they're in wonderment that there's no applause. No,
(26:13):
there's there's always applause. But you do have to manipulate
people into applause a little bit. But yeah, I think
that's that's the magicians are not. I think, you know,
we talked about Ian Roland and cold readings, and you know,
it's it's really important for all magicians to be able
(26:36):
to look at the person that they are working with
and really look at that person, Look inside that person.
Do you feel resistance? Is this person open? Is the
(26:57):
person going to fight you? Is the person going to
try to steal the spotlight. So I am very careful
with who I select because of these different elements. A
(27:18):
lot of people when they're called up, they've had a
bit to drink and they want to be the star
of the show. And I've seen this over and over
and there are some magicians just that sort of let
it happen. I don't if the person is At first,
I try to bring that person back to what we're
(27:43):
doing together, you know, looking at them deeply. But then
if they're still like fulling around, then I just say, oh,
there's no connection here, I'm really sorry, and I bring
someone else up. And nine times out of ten when
that happens, that second person is totally into it because
they just witness someone being a complete jerk. So uh,
(28:07):
it's it's it's really fascinating for me. For the I
guess I use psychology, you know, all the time, I
use empathy. I use I want to be sympathetic to
the person. And I think it's important because it will
(28:31):
they'll be part of the journey. They'll stay with the journey.
They'll they'll they'll let you probe a little deeper and
you know, asking questions that maybe normally they wouldn't answer
because they feel I'm trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So much.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
There hit so many areas, there's so much to unpacked there,
that's so many.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Areas I'm gonna select too just because of that.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Straight But you've been so many great areas, one of
them being the basic human need of trust.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I mean, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Again, I hardly agree with your magicians use a lot
of psychology. The good ones at least that I've been
able to interview and been impressed, have all had a
passion like yours about understanding human behavior. And every human
wants to feel safe, whether it's physically or emotionally.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Safety is huge. We see that with children so as
well as adults.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So I can definitely see that how you've preached, how
you approach that, and it's a testament to you because
it is a skill to be able to make people
feel safe.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
The other component of it that you made really made
me think about a lot of it was the authenticity
of a magician. And we can get into this discussion
a little bit later, and you can always blow me
off too if it gets too personal, but we can
approach you later about how maybe magic and being a
mentalist influenced to you is just as a person. We
can look at that later if you want and be
(29:58):
kind of gaining how it what's to do in your relationships.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
It's it a lot. Let's just say it influenced me.
It's influenced my personal life a lot. It has to yeah, yeah,
to be to be authentic on stage, I have to
be an authentic human being. Otherwise it's an act. And
(30:25):
so it's you know, it's give and take. So I
work at being authentic in all my relationships strangers as well,
and that carries over on stage. You can't fake it.
(30:46):
People will know when you're not being authentic. They won't respond.
I mean, there's some magicians that I see and they
struggle to get applause or appreciation for what they're doing
because it's clearly an act. Magicians generally are very scared
(31:11):
of being themselves on stage. I see so many who
I talk with off stage, and they're completely different people
when they go on stage. It's almost like they are
protecting themselves from getting too invested in their audience. I
(31:41):
see a lot of magicians protecting themselves on stage, and
it doesn't read as authentic. It reads like an act
and for some magic that's great, right knowing the things
David Copperfield is authentic, but you know, he's still he
(32:05):
still captures people's imaginations and a lot of it has
to do with his paraphernalia, everything that flies all around me.
You see a Copperfield show, but there's a there's another
friend of mine. He was on America's Got Talent a
year ago and he was a finalist. His name is
(32:27):
Trig Watson, and he does all this remarkable magic with electronics.
So for example, he'll have like a picture of milk
that he's pouring in a TV set. There's a glass
there and the milk is falling directly, you know, into
(32:48):
into that. And the thing about Trigg, though, is that
he's so enthusiastic, he's so nice, he's so fun at
he's being trick. I mean, he's like that in person.
So there's like no act that he's putting on other
(33:10):
than probably having to worry through all the technical stuff
that he has to deal with, you know, to put
on that show.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And you've hung out with him independent of doing his magic.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Oh yes, oh yes, he's the same exact same as
is Nator. Who I had mentioned before. Nator is warm, lovely, authentic,
truly caring person supportive, and that's what he's like on stage,
and to me, that's you know, that's it's certainly what
(33:47):
I now do. There is a time I was I
feel maybe a little charactery. I had a somewhat British
accent and a bit of a you know, Hugh Hefner
kind of debonair thing, and I pitched it because I
(34:11):
did feel that that character was putting me at arm's
length with my audience. And once I just said I'm
going to be just who I am on stage, then
the connections happen. Then it all worked, and even you know,
just performing magic then became a lot easier as well.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I guess I'm gonna keep going down this road because
it seems like we've hit a really good area and
we can.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Explot a little further.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Authenticity is obviously a big issue for a lot of
people that I've seen over the years as a psychologist
is one of the challenges of being really themselves, and
I've seen other professions that struggle with it. In other words,
like a police officer, a special forces operator, an actor
who have interviewed all these individuals, actors and singers, and
(35:04):
you can see how worried they are to reveal who
they really are to the public. They have a persona
that they keep and then they got get lost in
that persona. But even the everyday person has a persona
they keep a general public compared to their intimate friends
or family. And some even have a persona with their
family because they have such high expectations by their parents
(35:27):
or whatnot, and they keep a persona which stresses them out.
So that concept of authenticity is so powerful just understanding
and listening to you speak about that, because it looks
like we kind of veered into the street of the
psychology of a magician. That's kind of where we're att now,
and more about them and how what the show does
(35:48):
for them, because I can see it gives them power
and control, yes, that they may not have in their
own lives.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
For some of them, it doesn't mean you.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know you that way, So I don't want
to make assumptions about that at all, folks, I think
of it somehow. It must give somebody that just like
a comedian on stage, just like a actor on stage,
whatever gives them kind of control and power.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I don't have many thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I completely agree I the magicians that I know off stage,
many are not open about their lives. I feel that
so many are putting on an act they are maybe
(36:39):
they're insecure about themselves and this act helps them feel secure.
There's one guy who I always see and he's got
cards in his hands. He's walking around all the time,
just shuffling and shuffling, walking around, shuffleing in sheffling. Cards
(37:01):
never leave his hand, and it's like these cards in
a way have become kind of like an extension of
himself that he is defined by these cards. There's a
really wonderful magician. And you know what has happened in
(37:24):
the past couple of years, which is wonderful, is that
there are a lot of female magicians now. And for
a long time it had been such an old boys club,
and with old boys club comes that kind of behavior
(37:44):
that is cliquish. But with the women magicians, it doesn't exist.
And they are very authentic when they're performing on stage.
And that's the thing that I love about many female magicians.
(38:07):
They're they're not putting on an act. They are doing
the material and they sort of have to, you know,
elevate it a bit to be stage worthy, but there's
still being themselves. They you know, female magicians seem a
lot more confident, certainly a lot easier in sharing who
(38:34):
they are with the audience. There's an extraordinary magician. Her
name is Carissa Hendrix. And Carissa has a very famous
character now that she does called Lucy Darling. And Lucy
is incredibly witty, sexy as a big red wig. She
(38:58):
has an outrageous kind of British jaccent and is a whole, big, big,
fun character and she makes a lot of money touring
doing Lucy Darling. But then there's Carissa, and she's just
a real you know, she takes the wig off and
(39:20):
she's this lovely, warm, supportive person. And I remember asking
her once about it and she says she never drops
character until she takes the wig off. So if for
someone like Carissa, it works brilliantly having that character, because
you are going to see a Lucy Darling show, and
(39:44):
for your listeners, you can check her out on She's
on all social media and I recommend following. You'll be
very amused by Lucy. So I don't know what it
is that there are why male magicians are less forthcoming
(40:07):
about who they are when they're on stage. So there's
something going on there, and you're the psychologist you know better.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
That's kind of funny because I think it's interesting when
you mentioned the females don't because most humans in general
tend to be clickish, right.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
We have certain zip codes, certain places.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
We live, teams we support, We tend to categorize ourselves
so quickly on everything we did that I don't remember
remember the movie Planet of the Apes, of course, yeah,
they had the final It was a funny social psychology
comment that was made about the movie that was kind
of caught unaware with everybody. But the chimpanzees in the
(40:49):
movie and the gorillas and the monkeys actually all sat
separately when they actually it took a break from doing
the movie. They all separated themselves just normally. It was
kind of funny to do that. In baseball, the pitchers
will sit separately from the outfielders are so separately from
the infielders, so.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
It's kind of funny. I guess.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It leads me to this question to you, do you
see any differences there between younger than you and the
old generation is I do see a lot of young
magicians now coming out, and I think we're gonna try
to interview one here in the next few weeks as well,
who's about eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But is there a difference there between groups?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Do you see the same kind of division or wickishness?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
You know, I've because I see a lot. In fact,
I think this week is the future stars. So it's
all teenage magicians at the Castle this week, and they're
all very good magicians. And what I like about them
is many are not putting on an act. Many are
(41:52):
being themselves doing the magic. So there is, yes, a
big difference between a magicians and younger magicians. You know,
at the Magic Castle, you see all these portraits, these
caricatures everywhere of various magicians from the sixties and seventies
that used to hang out at the Magic Castle. And
(42:14):
first of all, many of them have got a cigar
or a cigarette, you know, hanging out of their mouths,
and you know they're just talking like this. You know,
they're doing their cod tricks, and you know they're calling
you know, all women are called girls, and they've got
a girl on stage who's their assistant and so it's
(42:38):
like a total, total different era. I mean, that sense
of magic, that style of magic is way out of
fashion and you know, offensive to a lot of people.
And it has nothing to do with cancer culture or
being wote. It more has to do with respect for
(43:03):
other human beings. And you cannot treat your assistant on stage.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
I guess another gale you know that they used to
do in the sixties and seventies, the young magicians, that
behavior is not part of them at all.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
They are refreshing, they're funny, they're warm. You are drawn
to them, certainly by their youth and they it's definitely different.
And now that there are so many young female magicians,
(43:45):
they're also bringing that dynamic, that that warmth, that authenticity
that has been lacking in a lot of the older magicians.
It's refreshing, it's really lovely to and I'm always surprised
and I support a lot of young magicians because they
(44:09):
are changing the business. They are changing the world of magic.
They are moving magic away from the old timers. And
the old timers are probably resentful, but you know, the
old timers if they maybe just changed it a little bit,
but a lot of them are really stuck on what
(44:30):
they do. There are some magicians they have done the
exact same act, the exact same tricks for thirty five
or forty years. They never change their show. I don't
know how they do that. I don't know how you
(44:50):
can't get bored. I'm constantly constantly working on new material.
Right now, I'm working on a new show with a
magic partner, and and we're doing three pieces that I've
never done before, and they become part of the repertoire,
you know, I can you know, on cruise ships, I
need to have ninety minutes of material, and at this
(45:13):
point I have over two hours worth of material because
I'm always incorporating new things because I get bored, and
if I get bored, the audience is going to be bored.
So I don't know how these magicians, and it's always men,
these older men, they do not change. And why they're
(45:38):
still doing it, what it does for them. Maybe it is,
as we're talking about, that's the only place where they
have a sense of power in their lives, a sense
of control in their lives, and changing that means is scary.
I mean, honestly, I don't know. I mean, I brought
up David Copperfield. But David Copperfield is also one who
(46:01):
is just doing this over and over and over and
it shows I.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Agree with that. By the way, folks, again, I'm talking
to Felix Jones.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
You can find them at Felix Jones Magic dot com
and Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. We got about fifteen twenty
minutes left, if that's okay with you, Sure, okay. I
got several questions that popped up in my head now
they're eating in this direction, and I also will like
to end up with one fun question for you. I
hopefull all these are fun, but one fun one for
(46:29):
the audience as well. But any differences in regards to
There's two differences that popped up in my head as
we're talking about distinctions between magicians and groups. Any distinctions
between ethnicity. I see a lot more Asian magicians. I
wonder if they bring something different from their culture, maybe
the magicians that they had, anything like that. Do you
(46:50):
see differences in cultures with different magicians? I know, is
that famous one from Spain? You know, it's funny because right.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Now there are two two cultures of magicians that are very,
very popular, and it is it's Asian magicians and Spanish magicians,
and Wan tamerse Is was sort of is the icon
of Spanish magicians and so a lot of He inspired
(47:21):
a lot of Spanish magicians to perform, and so we
see a lot of that. And they have a particular style,
they have a particular way of presenting, which is usually
very humorous, funny, warm, and they always do are doing
(47:41):
great card work. Asian magicians, there's a almost all that
I see are card magicians. There are stage magicians as well,
and they're doing the illusions. But the so the South
Koreans are brilliant at card manipulation, and you don't see
(48:08):
the as much creativity in American card manipulators. The Asians
bring their culture, their history to their work, to the manipulation.
So card manipulation what it basically is is that you know,
(48:33):
cards will appear in their hands out of nowhere, and
they'll keep throwing them the cards, throwing them out and
more cards and more cards and more cards appear. And
many Korean magicians do it with lights and flare and
it's just a music and it's just a wonderful experience
as opposed to someone just you know, pulling a Jack
(48:55):
of Diamonds out of the air. So those two broops
in particular. Right now, I see a lot more of
you know, regularly and certainly regularly booked at the Magic Castle.
Besides that, I'm blanking on maybe other other cultures, other
(49:20):
ethnicities that I see a lot. Pardon me.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
When I look on Instagram, I see a lot of
Asian magicians, some Spanish ones, and a lot of the
American ones.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
But I don't see very many of the other other countries.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Really, No, occasionally, France and Germany occasionally, and England and
English are British, there are a lot of British magicians,
and of course one of the best mentalists in the
world is.
Speaker 5 (49:54):
Oh my god, I'm thinking Colin McLeod, Colin Cloud, who
is Scottish, and he's certainly one of my favorite mentalist,
incredibly inventive.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Pardon were you thinking of Darren Brown or Darren Brown?
Darren Brown, my idol, Darren Brown. So both Darren and
Colin are inventors in in mentalism. They bring such creativity
(50:32):
to their work and they're also just really fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
They also happy to talk a mile. Both of them
talk a mile a minute. How so many words come
out of them, but it's part of their misdirection, I guess.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
But anyway, that's what I guess.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
My last two questions, one of them the only the
group of one too. Are there differences rivalries? Is it
just rivalry for fun? Is it actual rivalry between types
of magicians in other words, the mentalists versus the card
trick individuals.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
Really, yeah it is. It's big. Yeah, it's it's actually
quite quite big. For a long time, card magicians were
very disdainful of mentalists. I have heard many times, Oh,
(51:34):
mentalism isn't really magic, and it's incredibly insulting, because of
course it is magic. Now, about five or six years ago,
a well known magician of just Jay did a study
with audiences and types of magic, and he released the
(51:56):
results of this report that said everybody forgets card magic
in about a minute, but that mentalism is their favorite.
They love mentalism. Mentalism sticks with them. So now you
see the card magicians always including some sort of mentalism
trick in their act. Now, I'm I only in the
(52:20):
past two years have I been doing card magic, so
I do. I do card magic as well, and I
have a lot of fun with it, but I don't
think lesser of card magicians. Card magicians do think lesser
of mentalists. And for a long time there's a bit
of a prejudice at the Magic Castle against mentalists. But
(52:44):
now because I'm friends with many of the floor managers
at the Magic Castle, they are constantly asked by people
coming up, is there a mentalist? We want to see
a mentalist? Is someone doing mentalism? Almost every night they
get this record, so it's somehow in the consciousness. Mentalism
(53:05):
is a style of magic that people are really enjoying.
You know, they've seen a million card tricks. You see
card tricks on YouTube every day, and people teaching you
how to do a card trick, but there's not any
of that with mentalism, and so mentalism is still mysterious.
(53:30):
People still want to figure out if the person is
reading their mind.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Kind of interesting because it reminds me, I don't know,
if you're a Marvel Cinematic Universe fan, sure, oh okay,
it's like it's interesting to me. They had that one
episode in Agents of Shield a long time ago, now,
several years ago, but they had the one where they
had the one what do they call them any humans
or something? And he could read people's minds, and that
really freaked out a lot of the people because he
could read their mind. And then it comes to mind
(53:58):
as Doctor Strange of course when.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
He came out.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, do you think those things as even the TV
show The Mentalist, which was a great TV show for a.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
While, help your business? And what did you think about
those shows?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
The Mentalist is an amazing show. The Mentalist was before
I became a mentalist. And the title of the show
is a bit misleading because it makes it seem like
it's the business of mentalism. But that's not what he is.
He's a profiler and he uses psychology and is his empathy.
(54:38):
But I loved that show. I thought it was fantastic.
Doctor Strange. I'm a big, big fan of Doctor Strange.
Benedict Cumberbatge, I think does an amazing job as that magician,
as a conflicted magician as he is. I used to
watch Agents of Shield, but I don't remember that particular
(54:59):
episode with the with the mind reader. I when you
see these depictions, I think, yes, it does help. It
does help the world of mentalism. Who doesn't want to
be a superhero and people really want to know, you know,
(55:21):
how is this done, and those shows provide a bit
of mystery and excitement. I wish there were more that
you know, used mentalism because even in the movies let's
it Catch me if you can, it's stage magic. They're
(55:43):
doing stage magic, you know, illusion magic, which you know
I also love. But yeah, I think they do have
a positive effect with whoever watches those shows. I don't
know if it's a positive effect with you know, the
teenage crowd that goes to see you know, those movies
or watched it. I don't know if it does anything
(56:05):
for them, but I I think it does have an
effect for professional mentalism. And you know, even as mentalists
that show with a mentalist, it's it's often brought up
to me really yeah uh, and they think I'm like him.
(56:28):
They think that I do what he does, and you know,
to a certain respect, I do.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
You're called by the homicide team or anything, bosh or something.
I guess my last question to you would be we
kind of touched on it earlier, but how do you
think it influenced you in your relationships, in your life.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Learning everything you did?
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Oh wow, that's a great question. M I feel now
the two overlap. I feel the relationships in my life,
(57:20):
who I am in my relationships and who I am
on stage or overlapping. I feel I'm the same way,
maybe a bit more wittier. When I'm on stage. I've
always been good at ad libbing, but when I'm with
friends whatever, I'm not going to be ad libbing all
(57:41):
the time, you know, but I do, you know, listen,
listen and respond in an empathetic way. If they're sharing something.
Someone I know, his sister died and I, you know,
suddenly out of the blue, as she's young, and I
feel that the best way to help is to be
(58:02):
empathetic and to just listen and respond and feel to
some extent what he's feeling for that great loss. And
on stage, I there's a particular routine that I do
which a person has a memory of a loved one
(58:26):
who's died, and I reveal the identity of that person,
and almost every time, the person starts crying, and then
I start crying. I have cried on stage with these
people every time I do this particular trick, and I
(58:46):
take their hand and we're both crying, and you know,
I gently, you know, have people reward them because they
went through a really emotional experience. And I don't know
if to many magicians who cry on stage because they're
feeling that person's pain. So I and that's how I
(59:10):
am in life. You know, if someone's in pain, I'll
be there for them. And it's the same thing on stage.
I think it's completely they completely overlapped.
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Sounds like it helped you grow as a human being.
Pardon me, it sounds like it helped you grow as
a human being.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Absolutely, We're always evolving, but.
Speaker 6 (59:31):
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, it's it's weird to
think that. But I think because it's become so magic
has become so interwoven my psychological fabric of who I am, that.
Speaker 3 (59:53):
I extricating them being being a different person off stage
and on and on stage just doesn't work. It doesn't
work for me. It has to be. It has to
be connected for me, I believe for what I do
(01:00:14):
to be really effective, to have people really believe that
I'm reading their mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Powerful stuff. Let me quickly grab here where I go look,
you can't find it. Oh that's why your name wrong.
So I'm gonna go ahead and look at Felix Jones, Folks,
Felix Jones Magic definitely go to Felix Jonesmagic dot com
trying to find your beer the play? Is it flim Flam?
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
You said, right, yeah, on Amazon, but it's other It's
on my other name. Okay, so but if you look
flim Flam Houdini in the hereafter, you'll see it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Got it. So flim Flamm and Houdini go check that out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
But you want to look up a great magician, go
for checking out Felix Jonesmagic dot com. You can find
them on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Like I said before,
if you haven't been to the Magic Castle, head that way.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Felix. I can't thank you enough for doing this. I
really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Thank you. I had a great time. I love talking
about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
It was fascinating, it really is. It always fascinates me.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
You guys have such an insight into the human behavior,
and like I said, I'm a psychologist, but you guys
outshine me most of the time. Oh no, thank you
everyone for listening. You know what to do, share, subscribe,
hit that I like button. Go check out Magic Show, folks,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.