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close-up magic and parlor or spoken stage magic conceived for adults\. Before then, I had formed the clear idea that a good way to achieve
,m
venues suited to my style and personality, which meant no music halls or all this would be through a joint effort, working in an open group, with no
night clubs.
secretiveness, all of us pursuing the sa:i;ne objective. After my return from
And. that's how it went. For four years I had very little professional San Sebastian, I wrote an artistic manifesto and was imm~diately joined
work; only a few talks for magicians and some brief summer tours for lit- by Jose Puchol, Juan Anton, Ramon Varela, Camilo Va~quez, Ricardo
tle pay in hotels along the Mediterranean coast. Help from my family and Marre and Maestro Ascanio. With this, the Escuela Magica 4e Madrid took
the small
. salary Mary Pura, my wife, earned as a nurse allowed us barey
1 off on its extremely beautiful venture.
to make ends meet. Mind you, they were joyful, luminous years of intense
life. I studied magic, tricks and books (Saint Puchol!) and developed rou- Magic, Myths and Symbols
tines and acts, the Paris Act among them.
During those years and the following decades, I started analyzing magic
So, while the decision was difficult, I didn't doubt for a second what more and more, trying to understand how the artistic presentation of
my choice would be. This did, though, demand that I assess for myself human wishes, of impossible dreams, had perfect counterparts in univer-
the stature and depth, human and artistic, of this supposed art to which I sal mythology. The discovery of S. H. Sharpe's books and then those of
was devoting my life to the end-and a couple of years more! So I spent Mircea Eliade nurtured and fine-tuned my beliefs, as did my friendships
many of my free hours (about twenty-five a day fit that category) thinking, with a marvelous group: the refined writer Ramon Mayrata, the amazing
meditating and trying to comprehend magic.
Gabriel Moreno, the sensitive painter Carlos Franco and the profound
While some magicians regard magic as an art, most people see it as a Luis Garcia (who was already walking a parallel path). From this came
very beautiful and pleasurable vehicle of entertainment and amusement the thought that mythical ideas are possibly communicated at a symbolic
(which it is, of course, to the highest degree). There were a number of level, although, in stage illusions, the level of symbolism is sometimes
magicians who saw magic as an art (S. H. Sharpe, Keith Clark and oth- more direct, more evident: Sawing a Woman in Half, levitations, etc.
ers), but they were unknown to me and my magical compatriots, and only I began to observe that most of the good and classic effects embodied
Maskelyne, Robert-Houdin (through Father Ciuro) and Ascanio fostered symbols of impossible wishes that did not need clarifying patter, and that
that perception.
those wishes could also be fulfilled-in artistic reality-by experiencing
And so, after a period of much thinking about the subject, return- manipulation, mentalism, general magic and close-up tricks.
ing from a magic convention in San Sebastian in 1972, I had a near Reading classical mythology and studying my love (always and to
apotheosis:
this very day), surrealistic art (Magritte, Cocteau, Man Ray... ), helped
1. Magic is about dreams (like movies) and the desires of man to me to feel those ideas and to advance in the thoughts they produced.
show them to us as possible and realizable in reality-artistic Seeing that others with undoubted intellectual capacity and sensitivity
reality.
had started from different points than I did, and had reached conclu-
2. Therefore, one should devote time, effort and enthusiasm in order sions on which we converged, helped me to avoid thinking: Am I making
to be thorough in its performance.
this all up? Am I constructing theories to justify my decision? Is magic
3. Magic was, then, worth the effort-so much effort!-and was, simply entertainment, perhaps even trivial, and I am trying to avoid that
without a doubt, worth my whole life.
reality to feel better?

;j
 those years, when I commented on my thoughts, my "dis~ov-
eries" (the cut rope is death and its restoration is resurrection), most of
my magic friends gave me a condescending look "Oh, yeah, of course ...
it could be." Other times they were more direct. "Listen, Juan, you are
looking for something where there is nothing. Magic is nice, of course. It's
even complex in structure. There is misdirection and timing and more.
But I don't see any of those symbols you're looking for."
It would be unfair not to mention that there were exceptions, before
and after, from Puchol to Roberto Giobbi and from Gaetan Bloom to
Darwin Ortiz. They listened attentively and shared the possibility of sym-
bolism being inherent to all magic.
After a slow digestion and assimilation of this concept of artistic magic,
after testing it in continuous performances before diverse audiences, after
exchanges with the living (in conversation) and the dead (through their
SOME PHENOMENA OF CARD MAGlC
books and writings), and after reading ideas having a certain parallel-
Here is a list of the phenomena in card magic, with the emotions, mean-
ism (Sharpe and his Neo-Magic and Magic Artistry), in the late 1980s I
. ymbolism and myths that are related to them. The list is surely
decided to publish the developments and conclusions (tentative, as is any mgs, s . . . 267
incomplete, at times "creative" and in all cases very subJect to opm10n.
worthy conclusion) I had reached. The results are the articles about magic
and surrealism, classic effects, symbols and mythology, that I wrote in ASSOCIATED MYTHS,
PHENOMENON
1982 and afterward, which appeared in the already legendary Circular of PHENOMENA SYMBOLS
(EFFECT)
the Escuela Magica de Madrid and in my magazine-books Magia Potagia. Elijah. Jesus.
1. ASCENSION Rising to heaven.
Luckily, and this makes me happy, these days (2018) there are several Animation (gift Buddha. Icarus.
(levitation)
groups and authors that, traveling parallel paths, have reached similar of anima, soul). Rising to heaven.
Liberation. Excelling. Saint Teresa. Yogis.
thoughts (Eugene Burger, Luis Garcia, Robert E. Neale ... ) and some have
Individualization.
even based their work on these "crazy ideas" (Pietro Fancini and others). Triumph. Standing out.
A fraternal and happy coincidence! Mysticism. Holiness.
Glory.
Knowledge. Mind read- Third eye. Psychic
2. DIVINATION
(thought ing. Transference of powers.
transmission) psychic and mental gifts.
Communion. Control.

267 . Some of these opinions come from knowledgeable and lucid minds, includ-
ing that of my dear and esteemed friend, Roberto Giobbi.