He’s an incredible magician, a close friend but most importantly he’s a listener to the podcast. Caleb Wiles is well known for his amazing stage performances and his appearance on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us. As he started diving deeper into card magic he became totally obsessed. As his journey progressed he became known as the magic guy in his class and in his family. Soon enough he was performing on-stage.

Caleb soon learned the importance of repetition. Doing a card trick 100 times will reveal new opportunities to change the trick. Imposing a structure on his magic is a key part of his creative process. Sometimes that structure can become the method itself, he says. He wants his moves to be absolutely perfect. He tries to create bullet-proof tricks.

Caleb is a creator first and foremost. He doesn’t create magic for his audience. He only performs magic to prove that the methods he creates actually works. His magic is for himself. For many years he designed shows simply to fill the allotted time. A 45 minute set would be crammed with as many tricks as he could. He soon realized that performing a show like that was totally unfulfilling. He now tries to create magic that is awe-inspiring but still accessible to a general audience.

After appearing on Penn and Teller in 2016 he recently detailed the experience in a magic lecture. He got on the show after submitting a trick called 26 factorial. He got a call back but the producers wanted him to perform another trick they saw online.

What do you want to tell the audience?

Define a target. It could change but you need to have a target to aim at.

What do you want to ask the audience?

Why do you do magic? (Keeping in mind that any answer is the correct answer)

What do you like about modern magic?

The Jerx blog is a personal favourite of Caleb’s.

What do you hate?

Magicians destroying relationships over a few thousand dollars.

Who should we have on the podcast?

Tiger Wilson

Brent Braun

What was your favourite part of the episode?

Tyler loved it when Caleb compared professional wrestling and magic.

Jonah loved hearing about how Caleb truly loves creating magic.

Caleb reemphasized that inspiration comes from creating on a regular basis.

The post Magic, Math and Pro Wrestling with Caleb Wiles appeared first on Discourse in Magic.