Criss Angel

[Phoenix]

Ok, I've never really been a big believer in supernatural and all the crazy sh*t you hear people talking about. However, a while ago my dad told me to watch this guy's show on A&E and I just can't figure out what to think about it.

His minor illusions I understand because half of them he shows you how to do it. For example the pepper shaker pushing the quarter through the table, I can see how he does that one because he said how to step by step.

What I don't get is his major illusions, stunts, magic tricks, whatever. Like right now I am watching him prepare to vanish in thin air in front of a huge crowd of people. He's stayed in a water tank underwater for 24 hours and then disappeared.

I wouldn't believe it for a second if he didn't do it in front of people, or on a stage where he can set up the tricks, but he does every single thing in front of people. I just don't know what to think about it, is it real or is it fake?

[.Killswitch.]

Yeah, his show is pretty awesome. He actually puts on a good show unlike monotone David Blaine. I honestly have no idea whether it's real or fake. Tons of people would say fake, but I won't believe anyone until they fully explain one of his big acts.

One in particular that stood out for me was when he was locked in a coffin and placed on the conveyor belt of a woodchipper. I won't spoil it for anyone, but it was pretty sweet. If you want to see it just do a search.

[Spindrift]

None of it is real, but you gotta wonder how he does it......

[Phoenix]

Ok, I should have included this because it was obviously going to happen.

If you state your opinion on whether it's real or fake please support it. Don't just say "ya it's real" or "lol he's a phony"

[Spindrift]

Yes I should have done that.....
Well obviously there is no such thing as magic as if there was then most everybody would have it, which is the same as telepathy or mind-reading. Thats pretty much all I can say as I don't know the science of magic illusions other than its just not real :S

[.Killswitch.]

But what evidence do you have to support that magic is not real? I'm not saying it is or isn't, but I honestly don't see why people say "There is no way magic can be real." To me, the idea of magic seems a lot more plausible than the idea of God, Heaven, Hell, angles, devlis and the like.

Edit: I should have made that more clear. I meant the idea of telepathy, mind-reading, premonitions, livitation, etc.

[Pontus]

Well isn't the theory that since we only use a low percentage of our brains at a time, if we could use our entire brain at a time we'd be able to unlock supernatural abilities?

As for Criss Angel... I don't believe it, but I'm not sure why. I'm just sceptical. If I ever saw him in real life and asked him to climb through a window, and he did it, I'd believe him.

[Neo]

What I don't get is his major illusions, stunts, magic tricks, whatever. Like right now I am watching him prepare to vanish in thin air in front of a huge crowd of people. He's stayed in a water tank underwater for 24 hours and then disappeared.
I'm not particulary into that sort of tricks. I'm quite sure there has to be a rational explanation for those. The ones that do puzzle me are the ones that involve some sort of mind reading skills from him. Those are just mind-blowing...

[Phoenix]

I think I'm going to add this to one of my things to do in life, go see Criss Angel, or someone like him and find out if it's real or not. It's fun to think it's real and Pete your statement makes it stronger.

It does say in his bio or something he meditates a lot which he looks like the sort to do that.

[Reaper_666]

sonally i think he is fake. But i do have a few reasons.
1- When he walks on water, if you look closely you can see the sheet of glass just under the water. And one of the swimmers actually bumps into it.
2- I can go up to any of my friends ask them to say they don't know me. Then Come back 5 min later and have them say they don't know me on camera. Some of his stuff is kind of cool to watch it and i want to know how he does it, but i still think he is fake.

[Phoenix]

I never saw that happen. He had people swimming under and around him. So, if those people can decapitate themselves and have their head swim above the glass and their body swim below it I want to see THEM in a show.

[Schteve]

If he bothers to explain simplier tricks, I'm sure his larger illusions have elaborate explanations as well. :tease:

[Crosshair?]

If he bothers to explain simplier tricks, I'm sure his larger illusions have elaborate explanations as well
seconded. But I'd still like to know how he literally floated from one building to another...he's interesting I guess...

[The Crowing]

seconded. But I'd still like to know how he literally floated from one building to another...he's interesting I guess...
That particular trick looked extremely fake...idk why.

Personally I have no idea, I'd like to say it's fake but...the stuff he does is so crazy it's not even funny...

[Austin.]

i honestly think david blanes stuff is better its obvious angels stuff is camera manipulation.blaine's tricks are cool he has a book that explains some of them.so his is at least possible to do.i considered letting someone slice me in half in a box once and still have a pulse....no i didnt.just think REAL if someone had "superpowers" ie able to "walk on water" float across buildings etc (other than JC) it would be all over the news...
right?
lilman

but dont get me wrong it looks awsome

again guys im truely sorry for the bumping,

[Bluelaser]

Pontus is right humans only use 6% of there brains at a time. So its very possibel that we might not be fully using are abiliteis and other people are.

Magic to me is entirely possibel i just want some one to make me belive it 100%

[Austin.]

but if humans only use 6% how do other humans IE magicians,use more?

[Bluelaser]

Well we dont know, i mean eventualy humans will learn to use all there brain some may learn faster than others:shrug:

Like maby the Asian kid who got a perfect score on the national Test(CRT thingy) use 10 percent because hes one of the first to evolve to the next lvl? Its quite possibel that magicians are part of that to.

[Schteve]

again guys im truely sorry for the bumping,And just what makes you think posting in a topic ten down from the top of the first page, no matter how old, constitutes bumping? :tease:

(I'm not actually looking for an answer, just advising you not to worry about the dates on a lot of these posts.)

[Austin.]

oh ok i thought bumping was when a thread 7 or more days old gets posted in.i thought that was bumping

[Requiem]

Well, seeing as how magic isnt real, of course its fake.

Criss Angel even said it himself.

"If it were real, it wouldn't be MAGIC!" :P

At any rate, it not meant to make you think its actual magic. Just to entertain and make you wonder. Like a riddle. You know it has a solution somewhere, the fun is figuring it out.

[Beha]

Some of his tricks are explainable, old school tricks redone links are in the this's, BTW:

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0BukAy_dko) trick is just the old fashioned sawing a lady in half, where there are two people here, not just a single person. Contortionists are great people, and he chose one person, then another to make it look like he chose at random.

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQLq2VmZcA) trick, he is obviously walking on some kind of transparent plank, especially seen noticeable because he keeps his arms up as if he must balance himself while walking on something, but what exactly he's on I am not sure of.

So, like Requiem said, there's obviously a solution to these as shown in

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq83WngmoxA&mode=related&search=)

However, the ones like levitating are... a bit harder to explain, so I dunno really on some of those.

[DarthLlama226]

One episode in particular was interesting to me. Criss went out to a golf course and ask a lady to hold his spectator camera. He then proceeded to levitate a few feet off the ground. The woman, figuring that his was on some sort of wire, turns the camera up; nothing. He lands and asks the lady if she would like to see some more. She positively responds and Criss begins to float above the tree line, seemingly with no wires. I found that particularly interesting.

I saw the wood chipper episode...... wtf did he do to survive!?!?!?!?

[shortkut]

when they showed the lady swim under him, i found it curious that her air bubbles did not break the surface

[Phoenix]

It looked like the bubbles broke to me, but I don't really pay attention to those kinds of things when I'm swimming.

[Cody.]

Well we dont know, i mean eventualy humans will learn to use all there brain some may learn faster than others:shrug:

Like maby the Asian kid who got a perfect score on the national Test(CRT thingy) use 10 percent because hes one of the first to evolve to the next lvl? Its quite possibel that magicians are part of that to.

Deja Vu is also considered using more than 6 percent part of your brain, that 6 percent is mostly memory, knowledge and personal traits. the rest is basically unknown, I heard that religion ties into this, that resurrection and all that... anyways, certain geniuses, don't just get smart in school, the are just mostly extremely healthy people, with not only there body, but brain, knowledge and learning basically excerises the brain, but we do the rest, there are those everyday that experience "Deja Vu" of moments that suddenly jolt your brain function, and those that can "use" more parts of there brain in otherwords Geniuses.

But that's just coming from what I know, I don't know how they figure out how to use more parts of there brain function, but I heard that imagination and knowledges feeds it.

With the Criss Angel thing, there has got to be a trick to nearly everything he does, you never see a human walking around on fire and acting like its no big deal, Criss isn't "godlike" but he definatly has some supernatural talents that he can control, fake or not, it makes me wonder sometimes if superheros can someday become reality.

[DarthLlama226]

Isn't it true that while you only use 6% of you brain at once, you still use 100% of your brain throughout your life? I think of my brain as something like a computer, albeit a somewhat slow one :goofy: . Since the processor is essentially the "brain" of the computer, processor usage is a good example. 6% of processor use at a time is good. Using more tends to slow the computer as a whole down, despite the fact that more of the "brain" is being used.

[Cody.]

Not nesscarly, yes, as you gain to remember things, you sometimes forget things, but that doesn't mean you suddenly hit the capacity of 6% of your brain, using 6% of your brain mostly refers to what the human body can withstand, not just in memory and knowledge, but ablities too.

When someone expreiences Deja Vu, its like "predicting a future", or looking ahead to something you are going to do, I think the human mind and "control" what is going to happen next, but we don't know how to allways think that way, how to, use more than 6% to predict that next 5 minutes or so.

So basically, I don't think it revolves only around comprehension, but ablities as well from what I know.

[SegaDragon]

I think all of it is fake, except for levitation. So far, I've been able to come up with an easy solution to all his illusions. Especially the one where he goes through a woodchipper. That was so easy, but my best friend thought it was impossible to debunk.

[Cody.]

I guarentee there is a trick to nearly everything that Criss Angel does, most things are setup, he doesn't just do it, I don't know what and how he does each thing exactly, but you can kind of tell a trick to each thing, some of his things are plain magic tricks that he learned, but they are pretty cool, its a unique show to watch.

[Kansas]

I dunno. I think it's like with clear wires and stuff. That's how he can levitate. And how he can levitate: it's cake. Use his "levitate" to put himself onto a box and use computer graphics to take away the box. That's how they were able to make it look like everyone was skating onto air in either "Jackass" or "Jackass 2".

[SegaDragon]

Except that he levitated over the pyramid in - was it Vegas? He did that in front of millions who even recorded it on their personal video recorders, like camera phones, and put it on sites like YouTube. He was on top of a building, far in the air. There couldn't be any clearwires holding him up, no helicopters. There wasn't anything under him, because millions witnessed and some even recorded it happening themselves. Levitation has been around for ages. I think it's the only `magic trick` that's not bullcrap. I think any person is capable of doing it, just hardly anyone knows how.

[Cody.]

I bet that includes using more than 6% of your brain, because something like Levitation would talk a lot of concentration, even if there was no support when someone "levitates", it would take more concentration than "normal".

[Schteve]

I've always heard like 10%. And yeah, it's 10% of your brain at any given time. You obviously use all of it at different times.

[Dark Link112]

yeah Criss Angel is nucking futs. but he's awesome though. Some of that stuff does seem fake to me, i watched him levitate in some Las Vegas building, and something didnt seem right. Something about it seemed fake to me. But fake or real, his show is very entertaining.

[FDL]

Magic's fake and my proof is that there's been no such thing of it for thousands of years. But it is entertaining to see some tricks being done.

[DarthLlama226]

No such proof that you have found or choose to acknowledge, perhaps. In this case, it would be easier to prove the existence of magic than to disprove it.

[Cody.]

Its somewhat obvious that most of his tricks are only that, tricks. Not magic.

But you also never know, there are small discoveries of the super natural, and some of the discoveries or stories are only myths, but Im pretty sure that Criss Angel has a trick to everything that he does, it can't allways be "magic".

[SegaDragon]

Magic's fake and my proof is that there's been no such thing of it for thousands of years. But it is entertaining to see some tricks being done.
You mean except the fact that it's existed for thousands of years, right?

[Jack of Blades!]

you only use 10% of your brain at one time, not at all... if that were ture then you wouldn't need 90% of the other part of your brian to work correctly as you do now. If you used too much brain power, Physicly, our brains would not be able to handle it, and we would have a seizure. Mentally, we can obviously handle it, and by handle it I just mean put out 100%, in theory. However doing that would be pointless unless we could figure a way to not overload on mental energy and have a mental meltdown. You can just search this stuff up for yourself, thats one of the great things about the internet, you can look things up. As for Criss Angel, I do beleive he has a secret twin Brother. That or he can teleport.

One trick he did took place outside at a mall area of something. He told some gathered people to take a trash can and put it over him and hold it down so he couldn't get out. Now they are outside on concrete, next to a parking lot I think. So he gives them a radio so he can talk to them while hes under the empty trash can. On the count of three he tells them to lift it up and they do, hes gone. One second later he yells at them from atop a building on the left, about 30ft up.

So either he can teleport or has a twin brother... but then again, if he had a twin brother, how did he get out of the trash can being held down by like 5 people on concrete?

[`GwJumpman]

If he had a twin brother, he wouldn't be in the trash can also, he'd be hiding on the roof for his queue

[Alexander.]

That can't be, 'cause that'll make the trash bag heavy (noticed how light that was when people lift it up), and Angel will be the laughingstock of the world for have a secret twin brother. If I was right, then how the heck do teleport work?

[`GwJumpman]

That can't be, 'cause that'll make the trash bag heavy (noticed how light that was when people lift it up), and Angel will be the laughingstock of the world for have a secret twin brother. If I was right, then how the heck do teleport work?
Possibly hide in the can and not the trash bag, instead have something else inside it? But I'm not sure how he would pull of getting on top of the roof.

[MasterChief117]

Haven't any of you ever seen "The Prestige"? Often times the most puzzling of tricks has the simplest of answers.

Anyway, my girlfriend and her mother have just recently gotten into watching him. Im not a big fan, as magicians like him never seem to make me "believe" in them. I will say that his levitation and teleportation tricks seem to be the most puzzling, but Im sure there is some logical explanation behind them. There has to be.

[Phoenix]

Yeah I've seen that movie a few times, very good. Although, I don't think Criss Angel has a machine that clones people :p

[MasterChief117]

lol I was referring to the other magician in that movie(I wont go into it, seeing as how I dont want to spoil the film for anyone), not the cloning one.

The point was that we are taking Criss Angel and saying "Hm. How does he do it? What's holding him up? This is so confusing!!" when it is probably somthing so simple that we would have never thought of it.

Criss Angel is a performer, nothing more.

[Crosshair?]

This should help some of you....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cbyN_dYFPEk
levitation
http://youtube.com/watch?v=baHxmkiuptg
building to building levitation
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mQeTmqQHLJI&mode=related&search=
Dirtbike Jump
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Oq83WngmoxA&mode=related&search= table vanish.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=A4R2d1r8zzM
And of course the Jesus walk.

Everything has a logical explanation. His show however is still quite entertaining.

[Figz]

the jesus walk one if you look real close you can see the glass on the last one

and you can kinda tell he's looking for something

[Oriana]

His levitations are pretty awesome. I'd have to see him in person to form a better opinion on the real/fake question though.

No matter what, he's a lot of fun to watch.

Have you guys seen Mencia's parody of him? It's great! (too lazy to fetch a link)

[Figz]

Yeah it's HILARIOUS

[Schteve]

Haven't any of you ever seen "The Prestige"? Often times the most puzzling of tricks has the simplest of answers.Oh how dare you. I wanted to suggest a wizarding machine invented by Tesla!