It seems I am perpetually divided in my faith or at least the objects of my faith:
(Showing the blue silk): First that there was a historical Jesus.
(Showing the red silk): Second, that He died for me.
(Showing the yellow silk): and finally, third, that if I believe in Him, I can have eternal life in heaven.
Each of these three aspects of the Christian faith has provided a different stumbling block for me. Like Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. (1Cor 1.22-25)
I want them to be together and to have belief in all three fully ? after all, the reward promises to be great ? eternal life. So what?s the problem?
(Showing blue silk): Was there a real Jesus? Was there a man born of a virgin just as predicted by prophets hundreds of years earlier? Did he perform signs and miracles as described in the Gospels? Did he cure the blind, the lame or those who had leprosy? Would he really have eaten with prostitutes and those people considered unworthy? Could he have brought the dead back to life? And the biggie: was he crucified on a cross, did he die there (as the prophets predicted) and was he resurrected?
These are big questions.To be honest, if any one of the propositions is true, there is plenty of reason to be impressed.I mean bringing a dead man out of his tomb or restoring the life of a small girl are no small feats… Continue reading Christian Blendo – Self-Help Routine
Recently, I had the opportunity to conduct an enrichment program for the Bradford Academy in Montclair, New Jersey. The program was sponsored by the local PTA as an after-school bonus for the attending students.
I was contacted, through a family member, by the school and asked to design a course, which would be comprehensive, fun and yet educational for students in the third to fifth grades. This was the first time I?ve ever taken part in such a program but because of my love for youthful minds, I immediately felt it to be a great opportunity. My initial feelings proved more than correct. The Bradford Academy didn?t provide too many guidelines. As a result, I was given a lot of leniency.
However, since I?ve never even written a lesson plan, set up a course or even settled on a course objective, it required a great deal of thought. Eventually, I decided that my objective would be to teach and/or reinforce the values of practice, determination, and confidence.
Ed Teaches Confidence and Joy
As a magician, I also felt the responsibility of addressing ?impossibility? and taking this chance to reaffirm that not even the sky is the limit. After all, in the clear eyes of my students, aged from eight to ten, this is a world of endless possibility. Going into this class, it was my hope that the students would realize some of the lessons touched upon later in their lives ? as they mature and develop their own ambitions ? when they?re faced with obstacles and limitations.
These students are a part of our future and their limitations may very well be ours. With these thoughts in mind, I designed a course, in which I would teach three different performance trades. These trades would function as a vehicle into the above concepts. I taught a combination of two very simple magic-tricks, juggling and balloon sculpture.
Each time we met, I?d cover a different topic. The students would have the following week to practice and think of anything to ask me. Not all students were required to learn everything we covered. Naturally each student took a liking to a certain aspect of the course. One week isn?t quite enough practice to exactly master anything so when their performances were judged, they were judged on overall knowledge and understanding not on simply their performance value.
The following week, the students performed whatever they worked on during their week away. If performed well, they?d receive a metallic-star sticker on their magic wand (magic pencil). The beginning of each class, starting with the second class, was a short Q&A session regarding the previous week, progress reports from all the students about their week and the aforementioned short performance by each of the students.
My mother and father sent me to the right schools but I still found my way home before they could move with the circus to the next town.I thought I was streetwise.
My pop, Lil Tom Hardy, America‘s Foremost Psychic Entertainer, used to tell me, “There’s nothing easy in this world, son.If you’re going to learn to sucker some guy out of his last dime, you’ll have to study and work at it.”
As I’ve told numerous parole boards, my dad was a good guy.
Despite this advice, I think I have learned a way that scratches my itch for instant gratification.Lybrary.com continues to impress me with the new offerings of books and prices that, as far as I have seen, is superior to other sites offering a few texts.
Mr. Regal is highly respected as an expert card worker and, in my opinion at least, a fantastic writer.I saw the ad for Alone in Genii and Magic and thought the description seemed too good to be true.
Well, the description is a bit misleading but the trick doesn?t suffer ? after all, your audience hasn?t read the description, right?Some of us still remember Tony Blangalo who used to hand out the instructions to the tricks he performed as he performed them.
Mr. Blangalo defended the practice by saying ?sometimes the tricks are no good but I want the audience to know it is not my fault. The trick, she is bad; just read the instructions.?Ironically, Mr. Blangalo was the only living person to receive a Broken Wand Ceremony.In fact, I think the video of a prominent magic club president breaking the wand over Tony?s head in a contest dispute is still floating around the Internet.
Your volunteer cannot select any card out of the deck.Your volunteer can select a card out of half of the deck but this is the only force in the effect.I won?t say any more about the selection for fear that I?ll tip the trick.
The instructions are clear and, as you and I would expect, expertly written.
The deck comes in Bicycle backs ? of course, the kicker ending actually has all of thefaces turning blank with the exception of the chosen card. I would imagine you could move the deck in and out of your act but it would seem strange.How or why would you turn thefaces of all the cards blank and then return them to their previous state to do another ?pick a card? effect?
Sergey Korablev and family continue their fantastic run in Seoul, South Korea at the incredible Lotte World Adventure Magic Theater. Sergey was kind enough to send a few photos and a link to the Lotte World webpage. I’ve translated the page and it shows Sergey performing three effects with the style we’ve expected to see in his shows. Read On . . .
I ventured further into the Lotte World webpage – my Korean has been rusty (or corroded) and so I am not confident I have the nuances – but it reads that Sergey moves or “floats” the beauty or the beautiful and it doubles and disappears. More importantly for us Sergey fans, it proclaims him to be the best “Magician in the World.”
Cover of Lotte World’s Magic Theater Page
Lotte World certainly has spared no expense in their promotion of our Russian friend. The site is a wonderful work of HTML and Java Script and shows how Lotte World wants to promote Sergey.
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