Learning Day: Grand Gospel Magic

I know a lot of how-to guides I've shown you have been too specific, too disgusting, or too reliant on you being dead, but I finally found one that teaches a skill everyone can use:

Written and self-published by a Duane in 2017, Duane Laflin's Grand Gospel Magic is a massive, 260-page manual for anyone looking to spread the word of Jesus Christ to arena crowds with over-the-counter tricks available at the author's online shop. It's also kind of a photo album and memoir and collection of essays, so if you're a librarian, you'll want to archive Grand Gospel Magic in the Metaphysical Vanity Catalog (Instructional) section. The book is a lot of things, but what it is not, is a joke:

I know!

When someone writes a manual for big tent gospel illusionists, you may worry they're going to have a myopic view of the world– a perspective too specific for anyone other than a tiny handful of people. So Duane sets the reader's mind at ease by saying, "This book isn't for every Christian magician, this is for a very specific type of Christian magician." His entire introduction is a complaint about Christian magicians who are too silly. To him, there's nothing worse than someone just doing store-bought magic tricks with forced Jesus references. It's maybe the weirdest way to introduce a book about doing store-bought magic tricks with forced Jesus references.

For instance, in "The Grave Clothes," you start by buying a Silk Wonder Box from a magic shop and following the instructions included. Duane assumes you've already done this. Next, replace two of the scarves with Jesus Face scarves, and explain they represent the clothes Jesus wore when he died. To me, that's a deranged thing for someone to say, and I'll remember it forever, but it was so normal to Duane he forgot about it and repeated it one sentence later. Get used to this style of writing. Prepare yourself for this type of writing. Duane uses this style of writing repeatedly, and you should get used to it.

One thing every serious Christian magician should incorporate into their routine is a little secular silliness! Have a little fun! Squash your granddaughter's body into her skull! Not everything has to honor the glory of Our Lord. In fact, I bet God would hate this. But you know who would really hate this? Whoever wrote the introduction to this book.

Let's get serious again. In "A Recipe For Friendship," Duane shows what it means to be a real Christian magician. It's an avalanche of Bible quotes and metaphors crashing meaninglessly against the faces of clowns. I understand my secular world has higher standards than a Christian magic show, but if you're quoting "iron sharpens iron" while you turn a sad clown napkin into a happy clown napkin, you have fucked up. Your brain got lost somewhere along the way between your initial thought and the clown handkerchief you're pulling out of a can. If Duane were here, I'm sure he'd say, "No, let me explain! It's like Tuna Mime milking a diamond only you can eat– the Jesus of Diamonds, that is." Oh no, have I gone insane already? I've only done two tricks.

Oh no, what am I looking at?

I'm somewhere dark. I struggle against my bonds, but my limbs aren't listening. "Read the cards," says Duane Laflin.

Sometimes Duane gives his aspiring Christian arena magicians "ideas" rather than a fully scripted routine. Like here, where he suggests using the story of Jonah, somehow, to remind an audience they can't hide from God. It's one of the core tenets of his fun philosophy for all ages: The Bible Is True. Agree With All Of Scripture. There Is No Escape. In some contexts, this would come across as threatening, but here among the leering clowns and decapitated children it's sort of cute.

For "The Blind Man's Cane," you're going to want to take a standard magician's vanishing cane and put a Jesus silk in it. I know this sounds like the kind of sloppy Jesus reference Duane was complaining about earlier, but it's a pretty deep metaphor. The cane represents the blind, and the Jesus represents Jesus. If you perform this majestic, jaw-dropping spectacle properly, it should look like this:

Duane includes some patter you can use, but maybe don't tell everyone "He still heals blind eyes" if you have some in your church. The blind will know you're wrong, and wonder if maybe you were wrong about the clown cans as well. But otherwise it's a brilliant illusion– you do the first trick any child magician learns, then show a picture of Jesus to a Christian church and demand applause with basic, naked emotional manipulation. "Pornographic" is definitely not the right word for it, but it's what we might call this if Jesus wasn't here.

While the subject of Jesus is being discussed, pulling this fucking Jesus napkin out of things makes up at least 30% of Duane's book.

I wake up in my chains. I haven't eaten in days, maybe weeks. Duane Laflin enters with a tray of food. No, it's Jesus Silk again. "Ta da," he says. (Duane, not Jesus lol)

What? I didn't think that. Is Duane here? In my thoughts? Is that why my memories are turning to handkerchiefs?

"Jesus Silk," says the Jesus Silk, as I try to think of anything other than the Jesus Silk.

I'm not even sure Duane is doing this. It wouldn't make sense for anyone to own, let alone reveal this many Jesus Silks. Duane Laflin might have some kind of curse where everything he touches becomes the Jesus Silk.

"H-help! My wife!" shouts Duane Laflin at the emergency room, his arms holding only the Jesus Silk. "Sir, I need to ask you to–" says a paramedic, already floating gently into a lifeless pile of fabric. While we're talking clothes, I have typed articles and jokes from many outfits over the years. Yet today, where the expectation is for a showy presentation, I wear a variety of fancy jackets. You're welcome for that, and for my favorite fancy jacket story, told in its entirety.

So far, all our tricks have been for believers. Not anymore. Let's put aside these basic illusions for the devout exploiting Jesus napkins for cheap applause. It's time to destroy all other false religions, and to do that we can't be "politically correct." Get your Mary Baker Eddy and Krishna graves ready, because they're about to get fucked!

Jesus is the only true way, and Duane can prove it. Can Buddha say shit? Not when he's dead. What about Mohammad? Let me ask him, no wait, he's dead. Maybe you think Harry Houdini is the source of universal truth? Probably not, but just in case– your guy is dead (probably). Duane Laflin's religion has already won a race those other assholes didn't think to enter. It's like saying, "Ant Man is the best superhero because Spider-Man can't shrink, Superman isn't small, and NBA Hall-of-Famer Scottie Pippen is actually taller than normal." It's like the referee in Air Bud shooting the heroes 45 minutes into the movie because there was a rule, this whole time. All teams fielding a dog must forfeit– to the death.

There's not much more to this magic trick other than listing all the prophets who suck at resurrection, but Duane adds a Final Note anyway…

… it's to remind your audience that everyone's trash messiah is dead except Jesus. This won't sound "politically correct," but maybe fucking try not dying next time, Krishna.

I was making fun of Duane earlier for shoe-horning God references into tired magic tricks, but he does other stuff! For example, when he takes three sponge balls and, like… The Trinity, when you think about it. I kid. I'm cherry picking examples to make it look like this is a dumb book. Let's do a real one.

In the trick "Patter For A Lesson On The Trinity," you'll need a Patriotic Ropes trick available in any magic shop. Perform it like normal, but remind everyone the three ropes have the same number of somethings as the Gods in the Holy Trinity. See? This is how you run a religion, Krishna. Oh, I forgot, you can't hear me because you're dead. Duane was worried his book on Jesus rope magic might not appeal to a diverse enough crowd, so he included a trick for people outside his specific Christian group– the other two kinds of Christian groups:

In "Christians And Their Separate Circles," Duane sticks some ropes together with magnets not to represent the Holy Trinity, but Christians and the Christians who hurt the first Christians' feelings. And that's everybody when you consider how the KRISHNA = DEAD playing cards from earlier eliminated all other religions.

In a way, good for Duane. He has possibly the narrowest view on the world anyone could have. He praises God and does magic like there was never any other option; like a North Korean prisoner who has forgotten hope. He is the allegory of the cave pulling Jesus scarves from his mouth, but I appreciate his unwavering faith. I admire his unshakable passion…

… or is it.

I first noticed something in his trick, "The Prayer Closet"...

(Psst! The secret to the trick is to buy a trick box from a magic shop and make it a Biblical lesson by saying men who pray get more (a Jumbo String of Flags) than people who don't pray (an 18" White Handkerchief).)

… I noticed a trace of insecurity. He's talking about the grand spectacle of sorcery combined with the majesty of Christ, and he sounds… almost defensive? The Silk Cabby is good, he insists! People should cheer more heartily for the Silk Cabby! It hides napkin chambers fit for the King of Kings, the Silk Cabby does!

And once I saw this, I started to see it everywhere. It's why you're reading about this book right now. Grand Gospel Magic is no instruction manual– it's a man at the end of a long Christian magic career, having a 260-page crisis of faith.

It takes Duane an entire page to get to the trick "What God Has Not Promised" because he keeps insisting how impressive, nay astonishing, it is to squeeze a long ribbon of tissue into a smaller shape. To you or I, veteran Christian magicians, it is mere coiling. Ah, but to the lay person! To them coils of paper are but dreams! Startling, wonderful, unexplainable dreams! Oh, to be in the audience when The Mouth Coil releases its secrets! It's the cope of someone who was recently told by a 7-year-old, "I'll still be Christian, pastor wizard, but I know all you did was unfold the paper."

In the middle of this letter shuffling trick, Duane realizes he's not even doing anything. He adds a note to say, "This doesn't count as a trick; I don't know why anyone likes it. Am I a fraud? Am I up there playing single-player Wheel of Fortune? What god would allow that? P.S. Be sure to check the crowd for foreigners before doing spelling magic!"

Not all of Duane's insecurities are faith-based. On page 96, he captions this photo by saying, "OKAY OKAY LOOK, LISTEN, I KNOW MY SKUNK HANKY GOT A LITTLE WRINKLED, BUT I CAN EXPLAIN" over the course of several hundred words.

Of all the things going on in this photo, the only thing Duane comments on is the size of the stage. This is a blurry photo of three people crucifying a boy with the remains of a magic show. But Duane doesn't write the caption, "Delighted Sunday schoolers in Slavewife Falls, Kentucky learn Krishna is still dead with scarves and spectacle!" No, he goes, "N-NORMALLY I'M ON A MUCH LARGER STAGE, OUR GOSPEL MAGIC HAS THE BIGGEST CROWDS, NOBODY'S GOSPEL MAGICKED TO BIGGER CROWDS THAN ME." To be fair to Duane, though; this is a pretty embarrassing gospel magic show.

"It's all real, it simply must be, it's all real, it simply must be," read the ordinary instructions for this everyday magic trick.

Remember when a sad clown scarf became a happy clown scarf? "Sad Sour Sam" is that, only reimagined as a drawing of a boy. And three sentences into the description, Duane realizes it fucking sucks. "Everybody is going to know you just flipped a piece of paper over," he tells his readers. "Is this who I am? Is this who you want to become?" he shrieks from between the lines, probably without knowing.

In "You Are Not Garbage" you pull a rigged Coke bottle out of the trash and turn it from a squashed Coke bottle back into what looks like a regular Coke bottle. "You are the not-squashed one," you are meant to tell your audience despite the stupid emptiness of that. Despite squashed Coke bottles not being a thing. It's a routine that will have your crowd asking you, "Mister pastor wizard, who told you I was garbage? Was it the same bully who made you cry before, after, and during your magic show?"

Like all normal Christian magic manuals, the author stops to tell a two page story about some guy who only got into Christian magic because it's easier than Regular magic. This is Duane's manifesto against the poseur Christian magic community, and demonstrates how no matter how splintered your group is from normal society, there are always enough dissidents for one more splinter. This part of the book is bitter and petty, but it could have been worse. Most religious communities figure out someone to hate, but when someone focuses their othering on "unserious Christian magicians," you can only hate one or two people at most. Duane Laflin's god has commanded him to love everyone except Rick the Funsational, and there's something beautiful about that. Because God's right: fuck Rick. Speaking of, let's let Duane finish his story.

Without any self-awareness, Duane describes the way this worm, this heretic fool, would take pre-existing magic tricks and mash in some barely related crap about God. Duane wrote this story in a book where, at least five different times, his instructions were "Change one of these scarves to the Jesus Silk and tell people it symbolizes Jesus." It's hilarious, sure, but more importantly, it would not take a world web genius to go through the ones of gospel magic dealers in Duane's hometown to figure out who he was talking about.

…

Found him.

Don't take Duane too seriously, Rick. You have a beautiful shop. Now let's get back to Duane's very long story about how goddamn stupid your idea was.

Duane explains how Rick's dumbass idea was just to add the word "Jesus" to a trick that didn't have the word "Jesus" in it. Or, to put it another way, Duane explains it's like simply saying "Jesus" during a magic trick otherwise having no connection to Jesus. There's no reason to doubt me, but I hope you will, when I say Duane keeps doing this for another full page. Whatever gimmicky prop bullshit Rick showed Duane seriously, I mean absolutely, did not have anything to do with Jesus and Duane is still pissed off about it.

"Is it okay for a Christian magician to not be a Christian magician?" Duane wonders in a sudden 1200 word essay. "Sometimes! In moderation, maybe!" he decides after two pages of resentful, spider-legged madness. Duane is really going through something, and I'm not sure he meant to publish this part.

"Should we be doing this?" Duane adds to a picture of himself defiling God's realm with his witchcraft. Duane is mostly certain he hasn't spent his career doing the bidding of Satan, but he sees your point if you disagree. It's a weird, insecure way to conclude a book, but not as weird and insecure as Duane actually concludes his book.

Of all the bizarre how-to guides I've read, I've never seen one that ended with a seven apologies. This man taught me how to wad a Jesus scarf into several affordable magic tricks, realized he probably shouldn't have, and asked me to forgive him. But I can't forgive you, Duane. Not for writing the perfect book.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Rhiannon, who once turned a Jesus Silk into a noose for bad theology.

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