[tmbchr]™

Magician Helps Golfer Win



Call me paranoid, but this new trend of “magicians” helping people do things has got me feeling rather creeped out. I mean, maybe it’s nothing but an over-active imagination, but the whole thing seems rather odd to me. Aside from Michael Jackson’s case, I just spotted another instance of a magician acting as a high-profile aide. An English golfer named Steve Webster recently won the Italian Open thanks to a little help from Jamil Qureshi, who bills himself as a Psychological Illusionist. Webster proclaims, in hilariously English fashion:

“He can click his fingers and get a rabbit out of your trousers, but we work on feelings when I’ve played well and it’s all about positives, vibes and pre-shot routine.

Aside from clicking his fingers to “get a rabbit out of your trousers” (maybe Michael Jackson’s magician helped him “pull off” this feat), Qureshi’s website describes his work as:

Jamil’s pioneering ‘Mind Shaping’ approach delivers a new form of performance, one that seamlessly blends traditional magic with ultra-modern psychological techniques, such as neuro-linguistic programming, spontaneous trance induction and physiological thought-reading. Yet what really makes Jamil unique is his mischievous sense of humour. This is a show that is truly more than the sum of its parts.

I mean, call me crazy, but this just seems a little bizarre to me. Does anyone know of any other high-profile cases of celebrities, athletes or performers who work with a personal magician? I feel like we ought to start keeping tabs on this - just in case….







8 Reader Responses

  1. Jason Bradfield Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 12:44 pm

    Don’t see what’s wrong with having a personal magician. I think that makes more sense than using some fundamentalist like Billy Graham as your spiritual guide. Maybe if George W had a good personal magician he wouldn’t be such a dumbass.

    In all seriousness, it seem like what this guy does is not too different from what success coaches do and success coaches are very popular even among otherwise conservative executives in corporate America.

  2. Occult Investigator Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 1:08 pm

    COME ON! WE’RE TALKING ABOUT MAGICIANS HERE, PEOPLE!

    whether or not there’s anything “wrong” with it, i think we can all agree that its more than a little strange. if theyre so similar to “success coaches” (which are also creepy) then why not get one of those? why waste time with a dude who can pull rabbits out of your underwear? theres something inherently weird about this!

  3. Haeresis Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 5:20 pm

    I don’t think it’s realy that surprising. I know most of us avert our eyes these days, but have you noticed that the “spells” corner of the mass market bookseller has become an entire aisle? It’s not ritual magick, it’s crass spellcasting, and it’s everywhere. That the dilletantes of every circle see dollars signs and ego magnification in teaching sigil magic to CEOs or “Hermetic Kabbalah Powers” at New Age market-fests was inevitable.

  4. Haeresis Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 5:23 pm

    Additional thought: these are the same kind of arechontic hypnotists who got magick outlawed in the first place.

  5. bizo Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 7:46 pm

    have you read the book”men who stare at goats”? there is a magician in that book. he does hypnosis on a man who later ‘commits suicide’. a man who was involved with lsd experiments for the cia.

  6. ray Says:
    May 13th, 2005 at 11:10 pm

    Are we talking “magician” or “magickian”??

    All magick involves manipulation of forces that should remain in balance. I’m not saying magick is wrong, just that it is dangerous to use it carelessly or frivolously. You wouldn’t build a house that was physically unstable, would you? Or some sort of electronic device that exposed you to high voltage? Or a machine that caused violent swings in temperature or pressure? Similarly, you wouldn’t want to perform a spell or ritual that seriously upset the “spiritual” field. This is really what the concept of karma is all about: understanding the totality of an action (magickal or mundane).

    Ever read Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy? The main character, Ged, a mage, is always concerned about how any of his workings might upset the balance of nature. I think Le Guin gets it right on. She had a lot of exposure to Native American philosophy through her father, an anthropologist.

  7. Occult Investigator Says:
    May 14th, 2005 at 1:52 am

    yeah i love the earthsea trilogy. and i dont think this guy is a magickian. and bizo - thats the sort of direction i was thinking for these “magicians” - as possible CIA handlers, at least in michael jackson’s case. see my linked article for further conjecture

  8. Plosiguant Says:
    May 16th, 2005 at 2:13 am

    One thing I found encouraging about this particular case is the statement that the magician has a sense of humor… In my experience, those who have achieved a lt spiritually speaking tend to have wonderful senses of humour.



SURROUND YOURSELF WITH STRENGTH.