Why People Need Magic and Mentalism
Today there is a lot of cynicism, skepticism, and hopelessness.
We are told not to trust anyone, but to take what we view with our senses as fact.
We are told the only reality is the one we see with our eyes, ears, and brain.
Imagination, they say, is for the foolish.
Imagination is only useful when it is applied as a way to get money.
What we see, hear, and think is the only reality, and we ought never question that.
But magic calls all of this into question. Magic asks, "How can you trust your brain and your senses when I constantly deceive them?"
Magic is rebellious. It makes us question authority, reality, and what we are taught as "absolute fact."
In a time where the world seems to have gone mad, we are told to trust just what we perceive.
But magic and mentalism makes us wonder instead.
"What if everything they tell us isn't quite right? What if there is more to life than what appears to our senses? What if my mental abilities are greater than people say?"
These and other questions make us imagine Something Greater within us, and in life itself.
Magic and mentalism urge us to ask those uncomfortable questions.
We can dismiss mentalism and magic as "all trickery and deception" but doesn't that say something about the way society is currently viewing life too?
Are we better off with less imagination, less wonder, and more cynicism?
Statistics don't seem to back that up.
Depression, suicide, drug abuse keeps rising. People are looking for Something More.
Magic and mentalism hints that there is more than meets the eye, ear, or brain.
The Mystery Arts make us question reality and agreed upon perceptions.
So yes, the world needs magic and mentalism.
It needs these not to promote more hopelessness, but to remind us of possibility, beauty, amazement, wonder, and the potential within us all.
Magic and mentalism can be profound vehicles for the inoculation against hopelessness.
It is up to us to use these powerful performing tools accordingly.
Do we create more cynicism and hopelessness, or do we grant the gifts of potential, possibility, beauty, wonder, and hope itself?
I hope you join my students and me in causing more wonder and hope in the world.
Goodness knows we need it. And this world needs more magic.
Kenton Knepper