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.My own view, and I suppose it is slightly subversive, is that many of us turn to books in the first place because wedo want to be more creative, and we simply don't know where else to turn.And we've been taught, conditioned our entire lives, to turn to books for answers.I think that books can stimulateideas, but I seriously doubt that we get many important answers from them An author can stimulate us to think, evento think in new ways, but if there are going to be any important answers for us, these will have to be provided by usand that means that we will need to begin exploring our own imaginations and our own dreams.21 Important Discoveries Along the Wayby Eugene BurgerOriginally published in Genii magazineIt probably won't surprise you to learn that, over the years, I have experienced my own involvement with the art ofmagic as endlessly fascinating-and so my enthusiasm for magic is today as intense as ever.As I see it, there is somuch to learn about this marvelous art, so much to study and then to experiment with for ourselves.There are plotsthat have not yet been imagined and explored, and there are exciting new methods that are waiting in the future, inthe next clearing along the path.For me, in other words, magic really is a road that has no end.As I have written, when this thought first occurred to me as a teenager, I found it both sad and beautiful.Everyaccomplishment in magic was balanced by the deep knowledge that I would never be able to master all of this art,not in an entire lifetime.There is simply too much material and our lives are far too short.And so we must make(hopefully intelligent) choices.On the way, as each of us travels along our magical pathway making our various choices, if we are attentive to whatwe are doing, we sometimes do make interesting and important discoveries about this art of magic, and alsodiscoveries about the ways in which we might perform our own magic to greater impact and power.With most ofthese discoveries, it isn't that no one has ever made them or thought of them before us.It is, rather, that finallydiscovering them for ourselves, in this individual way, gives them new power and makes them real for us in a newway.We can claim them, not as original discoveries, but as our own personal discoveries.In our mad scramble to devour the newest magic books and videos, we are in danger of sometimes forgetting theimportant things about being magicians.The important things fade from our consciousness as we become lost andtangled in things that are less important.But what is important? And who is to answer that question?For me, one thing that has steadily grown in importance over the years is discovering certain things for myself,through my own work and magical experimentation in solitude, and not simply relying on what other people say Ishould be doing.Yet, today, this seems but rarely valued in the magic community.We appear much more concernedwith gossip and politics and finding out what is new and what other people think.We look to others to be ourmagical authorities.Yet, sadly, if we are always trying to fill our heads with what other people are thinking, there islittle room for recognizing and appreciating our own thoughts and ideas.And without some sense of ongoingpersonal discovery, our relationship to magic becomes, at best, second-hand.Putting this in down-to-earth, practicalterms, don't you see that you can learn far more about naturalness when palming coins, for example, if you spend aday with a coin secretly palmed in your hand than you will learn from reading several books? And if you were to dothis every day for a month, I suspect that your hand will exhibit real naturalness when palming even if you can'texplain everything that is going on in words.Here, then, are two things that I have discovered through watching the performances of countless numbers of close-up magicians over the years.Let me state them The first discovery is that most of them, as performers, talk too muchand, other than when giving specific directions to audience members, say very little of consequence.My second discovery is that most of these performers are going too fast.The vast majority perform their magic at apace that is much too rapid.They are in too big a hurry
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