Learn magic · A guide by a working magician
Not a list of tricks. The path: which books to open first, which clubs to walk into, how to practise so that it sticks, and when to stop rehearsing and perform for people. Written by Hugo Marceau, magician and mentalist since 2010, for adults who want to learn magic properly.
In one paragraph
You learn magic the way you learn an instrument: one piece at a time, badly at first, in front of people as soon as you can bear it. The secret of a trick takes a minute to read and a fortnight to own. What takes years is the rest: the timing, the words, the eyes, the way a room is handled. Almost everyone who gives up does so because they collected methods instead of performing them. So the whole of this guide can be reduced to one sentence. Learn one trick, practise it daily, show it to everyone you meet, then learn another.
The path
01 · The first month
Buy a deck of ordinary playing cards and The Royal Road to Card Magic. Skip the chapters that look clever. Learn one self-working effect from the first pages, the kind that needs no sleight, and practise the handling until your hands are bored. Then say the words out loud while you do it. That is harder than the trick.
02 · Months two to six
Show the trick to everyone: family, colleagues, the barista. Note what they say and where their eyes went. Only then open a second branch, coins with Bobo's Modern Coin Magic or a little mentalism, so the set has contrast. Three effects you own beat thirty you half know.
03 · The first year
Join a magic society. Show your set at its meetings, where the audience knows exactly where to look and will tell you. Film yourself: the camera is the most honest spectator you will ever have. Find one experienced performer whose work you admire and ask them to watch you. Most say yes.
04 · After that
By now you know which branch you love. Build a ten-minute set around it, with a beginning, a strongest effect and an ending, and do that set a hundred times. A magician is someone with a repertoire they can do in their sleep and a character the audience remembers. The tricks are the least of it.
The books
A video shows you a move; a book makes you build it. When you learn from a screen you copy the teacher's hands, their patter and their pacing. When you learn from a page you have to interpret the words, and the trick comes out as yours. That is why every professional I know keeps a shelf, and why the same titles come up when working magicians are asked where to start.
The clubs
Magic is the only art whose audience is forbidden to know how it is done, which makes feedback from ordinary spectators almost useless: they can say it was lovely, not that your left thumb flashed on the second phase. Other magicians can. That is what a society is for.
How to practise
Practice is learning the moves: the hands, alone, until the mechanics are automatic. Rehearsal is performing the whole trick, words included, to an empty chair as if a person were in it. Beginners do a great deal of the first and almost none of the second, then wonder why the trick that worked in the mirror fell apart at dinner. The mirror shows you your hands. The chair shows you your silences.
What Hugo would do again, and what he would not
If you are drawn to the mind rather than the hands
Hugo started with cards and coins and moved, over the years, to mentalism, where the effect happens in the spectator's head rather than in their hands, and lately to an artificial intelligence he built to perform with him. The advice does not change. Mentalism looks simpler, because there is less to do with the fingers, and is harder, because there is nothing to hide behind: the performer is the trick. Six months of close-up magic in front of real people is the best preparation a future mentalist can have. When you are ready, the page on how to become a mentalist picks up where this one stops, and the page on magic tricks for beginners gives you the first effects to practise. For the craft of actually performing one, start with how to do a magic trick.
If you are planning an event
Hugo performs close-up magic, mentalism and his AI act at corporate events, private dinners and weddings in France, Switzerland and wherever the brief takes him. If you would rather have the magic done for your guests than learn it, send the details of the evening and you will have a tailored proposal within one business day. Fees on request.
Prefer to talk first? +33 6 88 61 29 00, WhatsApp welcome, English and French. Formats and logistics on the page for event planners.
Questions beginners ask
Anyone with patience can learn magic. Dexterity helps for sleight of hand, but whole branches of the art, mentalism and self-working card magic among them, need almost none. What every branch needs is practice, a few honest spectators and the willingness to perform badly a few times before performing well.
A first trick that genuinely fools friends takes a fortnight of daily practice. A short, reliable set of three or four effects takes a few months. Becoming a performer people pay to see takes years, because the hard part is not the method but holding a room. Fifteen minutes a day beats a long session once a week.
For cards, The Royal Road to Card Magic by Hugard and Braue, then Roberto Giobbi's Card College. For coins, J. B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic. For a broad course across every branch, the Tarbell Course or Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic. For the thinking behind a performance, Darwin Ortiz's Strong Magic and Eugene Burger's writing on presentation.
They are a good way to see a move and a poor way to learn the craft. Many tutorials expose other people's work without permission and teach the method with nothing of the presentation. Use video to check your own hands against a good performer's, then go back to a book and a club where someone will tell you what is actually wrong.
Yes, as soon as you have one trick you can do without thinking. In the United Kingdom, The Magic Circle in London and the independent local societies around the country; in France, the Fédération Française de Magie, of which Hugo is a member, and its regional clubs. A club gives you what no video can: people who watch you perform and say where it failed.
Learn a little magic first. Mentalism looks simpler because there is less to do with the hands, but it stands entirely on presentation and audience management, which are the skills magic teaches you by force. Six months of card and coin magic in front of real people is the best preparation a future mentalist can have.
Hugo Marceau, mentalist and AI magician · Magic tricks for beginners · How to do a magic trick · How to become a mentalist · What is mentalism · About Hugo · Corporate event entertainment · How card sharps work