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This is Magic: First of all James, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down with us to this interview and give us some insight as to how you got into magic and inventing the ITR and where you see magic going in the future.
James George: Well it all started when I was five years old and my Dad did a
card trick for me, it was the one where you look at the bottom card and
place it on top of the card you just had the spectator memorize. Then it was only
a matter of locating the card next to the card you just looked at, simple
but this really intrigued me. My cousin also had a Magic Set and would perform
things like the ball vase for me, I really loved this tricked and found the
mechanical workings beyond intriguing and this really got my imagination
going. Then my parents bought me a Magic Set when I was eight years old, it was
the one the advertised on TV back in the early seventies. It was the
Marshall Brodien TV Magic Set, this was a great set and prompted me to enter the
talent show at my elementary school and after performing the cups and balls for
a large crowd, I was hooked for life. Seems that Magic has been the area of
my life where I continue to receive positive feedback, this positive
reinforcement has kept me going for years.
This is Magic: Ok, first of all, how long have you’ve been doing magic and what inspired you to get into magic, was it a magician that you admired?
James George: I have been performing Magic for 35 years now, wow that is an
amazing figure too me... Time has flown by… I really was intrigued with Mark
Wilson; I used to watch some of his TV programs and really loved it. I was
fascinated with the Zig Zag Girl and tried very hard to figure this out. I
remember getting a copy of Magic Magazine, (This was not the one by Stan
Allen, but the one that was put out for awhile during the 70’s.) And also
reading an article about Mark Wilson’s son Greg, he had mentioned how he had
escaped from some bully’s by doing a disappearing act that his father taught him,
this I could not figure out and thought they must know some secret to the
Universe that I didn’t understand yet, but was determined to figure out.
This is Magic: Now, we all know that you invented one of the greatest things to hit the magic industry, that being the ITR. How did you come up with this and perfect it?
James George: When I was in High School I was fascinated with ESP and
Investigation of the Paranormal, I would hold séances with my friends after school
sometimes, I of course was responsible for all of the supposed ghost's being
manifested. But soon learned this could be something you do not want to fool
with too much…
I had quite the reputation in High School as I was always testing my class
mates for ESP ability, I did run into a few individuals who were very capable
of reading my mind and it was not a trick. To this day I am still fascinated
with this and listen to CoasttoCoastam.com (Art Bell and George Noorey)
everyday, I don't miss a single episode. So how does this connect to the ITR?
Well it is simple; my goal was to come up with an easy method to produce a
realistic paranormal levitation. I had the idea of a reeling device for
invisible thread. But unfortunately I was not able to find an elastic that would
work as the properties were not correct, I was 14 years old at the time.
I kind of put the concept in the back of my head until we opened our Magic
Shop in Sacramento, we had ordered in a trick by David Britland that came with
a very special piece of elastic that had properties I had not seen before,
this material was the material required to build the first ITR. I soon
discovered what this material was, and then I got to thinking about my reel idea.
So with $15.00 in my pocket and a trip to tap plastics for some tubing,
Sorcery Manufacturing and the first ITR were born, the year was 1992. The other
missing ingredient was invisible thread that was more durable then what had
been currently available, I was fortunate to stumble across this in a fabric
shop,( this was of course prior to the New thread we use now, which is far
superior.)
When the very first ITR’s came out, we stripped each thread out by hand,
this was a very tedious process, we later developed a machine to get this job
done more efficiently, it is really the bigger invention behind the ITR, this
machine is a mechanical wonder as well, thousands and thousands of hours went
into the research and development of this machine. Well I finally built the
first one and it worked great, I still have it today and it still works after
14 years now, I took it to the Magic Club to show to all the Magicians
their, they were all fascinated with this and wanted one. I started selling them
in our shop and couldn't build them fast enough, we knew then that we had a
huge hit on our hands; we would sell one to almost everyone who saw it. Then
we started selling it to the other distributors and they would order
thousands at a time, I literally went from working at UPS part time making $8.00
and hour to making over $30,000.00 per month overnight!
I also must give a lot of credit to the Anthony Robbins 30 day program, this
is what lit the fire under my behind and got me in a massive action state of
mind. That program really gets you going as long as you don't start telling
yourself a bunch of stuff that keeps you from having to do what he asks,
like this will never work etc. You have to have the attitude that I adopted and
that is I am going to do exactly what he says without questioning any of it,
and just see what the results are. I highly recommend this to anyone; this
is also a huge area of study in my life, philosophy and self-help. I study
the work of Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, soon to be a movie!) extensively and
consider myself an expert on the subject of her work.
For the life of me I had the most difficult time making my life work and was
lost in a maze of subjectivism.
I was only 26 years old at the time and this was more success then my
maturity level could unfortunately handle. It created some very serious problems
for me, like family jealousy issues etc, and I thought I was better then I
really was, the success really went to my head.
Trust me, it is not what it is cracked up to be, but I do say this to
hopefully inspire the next group of Magicians coming up today to go after another
big hit in Magic, I just hope you are better prepared for this level of
success then I was. Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it!
This is Magic: What makes your ITR better than the other ITRs that are currently on the market?
James George: The retraction distance and tension is correct on ours, we
design ours specifically so you can float a bill up off the floor and have it
work smooth and silent, and the pirates do not even consider any of this in their
design. They are crap, to be honest, even some of the nicer ones that you may
find, the thread is not invisible like ours, and the thread in ours is a flat
black, not a shiny black. Our thread is also very invisible under fluorescent
lighting and the pirate ITR’s absolutely are not.
This is Magic: Are there plans to make your ITR even better or different in the near future, not that it needs it?
James George: As a matter of fact yes, we are working on a new model right
now, we are not ready to reveal it yet, but it looks like a great concept, I
have been working with another Magician on its development and it will be out
for Christmas. It will be on the high end expense wise, it will be for the
working pro.
This is Magic: What type of thread do you recommend to use when working with one of your ITRs and why?
James George: The reels we are manufacturing now are designed to be used
with our Kevlar Invisible Thread, the Boss Reel uses a much finer thread and is
designed for this finer thread, the working pro’s like the boss reel very
much because this thread is extremely invisible, the boss reel also has
adjustable tension and a new internal design that puts out an even greater retraction
distance then any of the early attempts at this product, we are getting 10’
of retraction distance out of this reel now. When we first released this, we
were lucky to get 5’.
This is Magic: If you had to pick one routine with the ITR, what would be your favorite to perform or which one gets you the best reactions?
James George: The floating finger ring routine, the spectator’s flip when
you cause the ring to float down into their hand and you walk away leaving
nothing hooked to their ring and you don’t touch it or do any funny moves, this
is pure magic!
Also, the floating bill routine with the hoop pass as performed on the
Volume 2 ITR video; this gets a great reaction for a stand-up routine. The
pencil and ring routine is also still one of my favorites to perform, but it doesn’t need an ITR.
This is Magic: What type of effect has magic has had on your life in general?
James George: Magic has had as much impact on my life as anything could
have, it has been a huge blessing, I can’t complain at all, and nobody would
listen if I did! : )
It has been perfect! Exactly what the doctor ordered…
I have lived the dream of hitting that gold mine… I was a millionaire by the
age of 30, one of my goals, and the only thing I regret is that I do not get
to perform as much as I would really like too, Sorcery keeps me busy most
days up to 15 – 18 hours per day, I do like staying busy, keeps me out of
trouble. I also know for a fact that happiness and self esteem can only come
from the accomplishment of Goals, not the acquisition of things as the culture
would lead you to believe. So many people on medication for depression when
the real problem is they are not setting goals and going after their dreams,
big surprise when they tell you they are depressed!
The business end of Magic has been difficult, mainly because I was unaware
that I had an irrational philosophy that I was living my life by, it was one
that was installed default by the system, most people are not even aware they
have a philosophy or even what it is? but the simplest way to explain it
would be to say that it is the software that you use in your brain to analyze
reality, you are using your philosophy right now to try to determine if what I
am saying is true or not, for most people it is a smorgasbord type of
philosophy that has them picking and choosing what feels good at the moment.
The default philosophy is not designed to lead you to success, but it is
really stacked against you, and it is designed to absolve you of any personal
responsibility, and teach you to be a victim or your body or of your life, your
boss, and to blame everyone and everything except yourself. This is why the
drug companies will continue to be a good investment.
Here are the rules I have discovered that I live my life by now and my life
has improved 1000 fold once I adopted this as my basic philosophy. Before
this I was lost in a world of subjectivism. The reason I share this is because
of the huge positive impact it has had on my life, before this I thought if
I could be a doormat for everyone, they would all love me.
1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of
man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided
by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source
of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others.
He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor
sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest
and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a
system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor
as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual
benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by
resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force
against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's
rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who
initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full
capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete
separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as
the separation of state and church.
Unfortunately our current culture is moving in a direction that is
diametrically opposed to these basic concepts. Mystical beliefs are expanding and an
ever increasing rate, really scary stuff, when you consider where this leads
to... THE DARK AGES!!
This is Magic: Where do you see magic going in the next few years. Do you see any groundbreaking magic coming up or do you have anything in the works to shock the magic community that we could look forward to or do you think we’ve seen it all?
James George: Magic has historically done very well during times of strife and war; it
gives us a break from this tension.
New technology will make some incredible ideas possible in the near future.
Consider a piece of plastic nano tech rod that has the same refractive index
as our atmosphere, in other words invisible. Nano Tech Thread in a new ITR
that can lift 25 lbs or more and the thread are more invisible then what we
are putting on the reels now.
Some really incredible stuff is just around the corner. We are barely
scratching the surface, but the fundamentals will never change, magic is more up
to the performer then it is for a new cool invention. Honestly sleight of
hand perfected in a masters hands is mind boggling, the performer and the work
he or she is willing to put in, will always be more important then some new
invention. Remember that being a Magician is more of being an actor who is
playing the part of the Magician. Speaking of this a NEW Movie is coming out
called the Illusionist, it is based on the life of an early Magician.
This is Magic: What is your favorite type of magic? Is it card tricks, levitation, coin, or big production stage magic or just walk around street magic?
James George: I like stuff that is very edgy like David Blaine, stuff that
borders on the paranormal and makes people wonder if it was real. Uri Geller
was my favorite Magician for some time. That’s what I don’t think Magicians
understand about David Blaine his character is not a Magician but more of a
Messiah type, he is an artist in the truest sense, and he seeks to bring a bigger
message and communicates his Ideas through his art.
This is Magic: If there is one tip you could provide to all the ITR users out there, what would it be?
James George: If you don’t give up, you will eventually get to know the
thread very well, you will learn how much tension you can put on it without it
breaking, you will learn this feel, but it will only come in time and with
constant work for several months. Once you know this, you will never break the
thread again. You will also master all the techniques for getting the
thread out easily, like sucking air through the hole. I can always get the thread
out using this method, I know that baffles some people, but you can learn to
do this, tap it on the counter, although this works best with the Original
Models.
This is Magic: Ok, just to wrap this up and have a little fun with ya, here are few rapid fire questions for you that our readers would like to know, ready?
James George: Sure, go ahead…
This is Magic: Favorite Magician?
James George: Robert Houdin – He was a Mechanical Genius as well as a great
Magician.
This is Magic: Favorite Movie?
James George: Big Movie Fan here!! Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Hitch
Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, I can watch it over and over and I love the
characters, and love the political satire.
This is Magic: Chocolate or Vanilla?
James George: Chocolate.
This is Magic: Favorite TV Show?
James George: Star Trek - Although I have not watched TV in over five years
now. It has been proven in scientific studies that TV can cause brain
atrophy, unlike reading or listening to the radio, which motivates the use of your
imagination.
This is Magic: Favorite Band/Singer?
James George: Pink Floyd - Our other business is Laser Light shows –
Helioslasers.com Frank Zappa – Way ahead of his time. Really like Jazz, the
Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Ozric Tentacles is awesome!
This is Magic: Ok, will leave you alone now, thanks for playing along and giving us an insight to the mind of James George. We look forward in anticipation to seeing what James George will have to offer to the magic world.
James George: Thanks, this has been a lot of fun and thank you most of
all Magicians of all ages, without you I would still be a UPS driver… : )
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