Magician Ben Levy not only reads your mind – he controls it too!
Close-up magic is Ben's first passion. “I adore performing a trick in front of someone that makes their jaw drop, because they can’t say that they weren’t paying attention."
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
It all started out pretty mainstream for Ben Levy. North West London Jewish Day School. City of London Boys’ School. Gap year in Israel with Bnei Akiva. History at Birmingham University. But no clear direction as to a career path. “And then at I woke up in the middle of the night aged 21 and I said, ‘I know exactly what I need to do with the rest of my life,’” he told me over Zoom.
As part of his history degree Ben had done a dissertation on 19th century magic performers and why people were so interested in magic back then. It suddenly came to him that he was deeply interested in how people behave, so he got himself onto a postgraduate course in psychology.
A year later, with a psychology diploma to his name, he trained as a teacher and embarked on yet more studying to become a doctor of educational psychology.
But there was another passion that had been with him since the age of 12. “I was invited to a friend’s Bar Mitzvah and he had a magician. I was that really annoying kid who followed him around the room trying to work out how everything was done. I’d never seen magic before and I was absolutely in love with it immediately,” he says.
He started dabbling in magic, doing shows for friends and then became a demonstrator for Marvin’s Magic in Hamleys.
One day he was ill and couldn’t go in – and that was the day they closed the whole shop for Michael Jackson to visit. “He was a big fan of magic and went to the Marvin’s stand. If only I’d been there I would have performed for him. It was an absolute killer!”
By his early 30s Ben decided to combine his psychology training and his love of magic and start doing creative mind magic and straightforward magic at barmitzvahs, private parties and corporate events.
Close-up magic is his first passion. “I adore performing something right in front of someone that makes their jaw drop, because they can’t say that they weren’t paying attention, or that they were at a far distance. They saw it right in front of them, and what they saw was not possible. And that is the moment that gets me excited.”
Father-of-two Ben (he has a four-year-old and a one-year-old), who lives in north London, comes from a religious background and does a lot of Shabbat-friendly magic. “Getting people to make decisions, trying to influence them or predict things that they’re going to do or say – none of that has to involve breaking Shabbat. It’s such a powerful day, where you’re forced to switch off and pay attention to your presence in the world and your family and the things that really matter. It means a lot to me.”
Not everyone loves magic and in the very Orthodox community people sometimes associate it with witchcraft. “A magical experience can be weird, right? I am confronting you with something that you know is impossible, but it’s happening right in front of your eyes. Some people find that very uncomfortable – it affects their sense of stability.
“As a psychologist it is helpful for me to gauge my audience and their likely response before I launch in.”
I wonder about what kind of people become magicians. “They probably weren’t the most popular as kids,” Ben explains. “Magic was their special power. It made them feel good about themselves and made people interested in them. To some degree, I was probably similar – a bit bookish. If you want to become a great magician, you have to realise it’s not about you. It’s about your audience and what they experience. They are hoping for the best illusions and the best pieces of magic. The secret is so pathetically simple, because it’s not about the secret.”
A trick that Ben does regularly is to get a couple, and ask one of them to name a playing card and the other to name a number between one and 52. “Let’s say he says king of diamonds. And she says 26. I give them the pack of cards and ask them to take out the 26th card. It’s the king of diamonds. It’s impossible, and yet it’s happening. It’s the magic of magic and it’s psychological. It’s what happens in our minds.”
Ben explains that the audience shapes the show. “Old-style magic – such as rabbits out of a hat – was quite scripted. But my shows are really immersive. I get people to make decisions. Every piece of magic is a little play and at the end of the play we’re going to end up in this magical place where something impossible is going to happen. And then I’ll take you back to the real world. That’s all that’s happening but the big difference is the psychology that’s used behind the scenes. When I perform, I have to understand how you think so that – in the nicest possible way – I can deceive you. I’ve got to get you to tell yourself a story, but what’s really happening is not the same as the story that’s in your mind.
I wonder why cards are used so much in magic “Because they’re so versatile. I can do a sleight of hand and make cards appear and disappear. Or I can do something with mind-reading. There are 52 cards, so every time I get you to pick one, there should be a sense of ‘I’m choosing something completely randomly’. At the end of it, even though you made a completely free choice, something amazing has happened, something impossible.”
He explains that when a magician asks you to name a card, the first one is the hardest to predict. The second is a little easier and the third card is incredibly predictable.
Balancing a blue velvet board on his lap, over Zoom he takes out a pack of cards and asks me to choose one. I go with the nine of hearts. He takes it out of the pack and lays it face up on the board, Then I go for 10 of hearts and he does the same. He asks me what I think he thinks my third card is. He’s holding the pack in his hand with king of diamonds showing. He reminds me that the third card is the most predictable.
I tell him I think he thinks I’m choosing ace of diamonds. “If you think that then you might want to change your mind.” I think about it and then he says: “Most people don’t change their card. But maybe ace of diamonds is too predictable. Or maybe ace of diamonds is so random I could never have guessed it. It’s your last chance. What do you want to do, Louisa? Do you want to stick with ace of diamonds? Or do you want any of the other cards in the deck?
I stick with it.
He takes out the ace of diamonds and lays it down, face up. He turns over the first two cards, reminding me that rarely does anyone guess the first two cards and indeed they are unmarked on the back. “ I’m fascinated that you went for the ace of diamonds because card number three was – and he turns it over to show me that he’s marked it on the back – always the ace of diamonds.”
I’m astonished. “Remember – my job is to do two things. It’s to try and influence you, but also give you the impression that I’m trying to influence you. Not everything I say and I do is quite necessarily what it seems.”
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
