Magic Without Cards

aka The Magus Sans Persona
An open letter to a young muse...

My young muse, You’ve survived mental purturbations required to see magick most can’t. Of course I want to sleep with you. You have contelligence enough to already know that, and this is a public letter on the down-low. Miss Muse, Pardon me as I educate our voyeurs: The text you are reading is not written to you. Any sensations of personal connection are a manifestation of The Barnum Effect. PLEASE NOTE: Anybody who can't see the value of a psychic reading an optimized script is unlikely to see the value of this blog either.


Ms. Muse,

I shall take a more professional tone with you than I have in the past. The notion of professionalism is a subject on which Mark Joyner has strong feelings that I am violating his code of ethics. He is The Godfather of Internet Marketing. You may well be better served by following his “professional” advice than mine, depends on what kind of magic you want to be when you grow up.

You gifted me with a book I needed to read. I use the word “needed” here as mental balm, relief from mindsore I didn’t know I had. In my twenties, I relegated my use of the word “need” primarily to biological drivers. In my course of study through theatrical magic, consumer research, advertising and finally marketing, I have come to know the effort required to sustain that narrowed perception.

What compelled you to tell a dirty joke to an older man at SFO? Was that the result of a need? Might we call needs drivers? Like how many used words like “spirits” and “furies” in the nineteenth century? An advantage of one-label, either needs or drivers, instead of spirits & furies, is that the driver is separate from the physiology of the emotion that is produced by the driver.

Please write me when you have qualms. You may have qualms with me writing you, what I write you, or an endless variety of qualms that have invisible connection to our text at hand. If you ask me to stop writing you, I will. You know that. That's a note to overly concerned meddling voyeurs. Thank you for enduring the public, exposed nature of this instruction manual for navigating with real magic in a world of muggles. Or, something like that. I'm still working on the titles.

FYI=> This sculpture is about to be washed away... thebadassreport.com

To your good energy,

Ben