Welcome to November’s Mysteries of the Mind monthly newsletter!
“At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” – Albert Schweitzer
Happy Thanksgiving!
“I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you’re able to entertain people, you’re doing a good thing.” – Stan Lee
I like you. You receive my newsletter because you are someone I like & admire! I’m honored and grateful that you are here. Thank you!
This month and next, I am excited to gather with family and friends this season for dinners with traditional feasts and gift-giving celebrations. The rituals we enact during this season – the stories, histories, miracles, and profound meanings we share – delight me both as a magician and as an anthropologist. This is a time to give and a time to share. I’m busy making a list of all that I am grateful for: it helps me to see how lucky I am and inspires me to be more generous to others.
It has been wonderful to see and participate in the generosity of my community, where bags of groceries are donated to feed the homeless and coat drives are stacking up supplies for those in need. On a larger scale, I have been so very fortunate to be brought in as an auctioneer to gather money for charitable organizations all over the US to help make a difference in communities from my home state of Utah to California to Texas. In my career, I have made it a priority to work with philanthropies at their banquets as a performer and auctioneer. If you have a favorite charitable organization, let me know so that I can reach out to them. I’d love to help!
After decades of working with charities and seeing the incredible work that it takes to organize dinners, speakers, entertainers, and ticket sales, how silent auction and live auction items were gathered from supportive board members or companies to sell at their events, I had a unique perspective on the financial and emotional investment that an event like this can be for its organizational team.
But I had always wondered about the people in the audience who wanted to give money to the charity and didn’t particularly want a donated photograph, a pearl necklace, or a basket of wine. What about those people who were ready to donate but were outbid on everything? Did their hosts just plan to let them leave the event and lose the funding that they’d come prepared to give? This year, I have added a new strategy that I refer to as auctioning “invisible items.” During the auction of “invisible items,” the audience doesn’t receive a prize or a gift; instead, I simply give them a platform to bid on an item like a life-changing scholarship or vital piece of equipment that will be donated directly to the organization we have gathered to support.The process shows how, working together, we can raise thousands of dollars for a charity or event at no extra cost. I’ve helped raise money for sick children, families in need, youth leadership training, school equipment, mentors for at-risk youth, leadership and diversity training in schools, food for the homeless, and supplies for students with disabilities. So far this year, I have used this incredible request to raise an additional $100,000 in funds for charities beyond the numbers they have been able to reach in previous years.
In other exciting news, Weber State University has asked me to perform and emcee at the grand opening of their new $35 million (and nearly 120,000 square foot!) Social and Behavioral Science Building on January 7th! I was in the first graduating class of anthropology majors from this university, my undergraduate alma mater, and I am honored to return to assist with the ceremony for the new facility.
From December 17th through New Year’s Eve, I am still available for Holiday Party Bookings. Let me know who to contact if your company or group is looking for entertainment.
If you know anyone who could use my services,please remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and all your other special events. I’m never too busy for you or your friends.
“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
“Paul is a stealth dramaturg, but he’s best known for his work as a magician and mentalist. He’s also a cultural anthropologist! So we talked about the historic role of magic in society and its evolution from religious practice to a form of entertainment and commerce! Because when you have magical anthropologist on hand, you gotta ask all these questions.”
On this episode of The Context, Paul talks to me about: · His journey into dramaturgy. As a young Jewish person in Salt Lake City, he was the go-to religion consultant every time anyone put on a production of Fiddler on the Roof. · His journey into magic, which was based largely on the desire to have magical powers as a little kid. · How he came to be a student of magic and how his personal religious scholarship encouraged a deep dive into the role of magic in society · How historical, literal witch hunts changed the nature of his profession · What real-life skills he’s developed for his mind-reading shows, including how he’s honed his instincts for lie-detection · His ethical obligation to let folks know that he doesn’t do real magic and how even with that disclaimer, he’s occasionally picketed by religious groups for doing sorcery · How he meaningfully engages with his audience · What I should do about my loved ones who are pretty sure they get messages from ghosts
This week in Mentalism: I was on the college station in College Station! Thank you, Morning Candy at Candy 95 in College Station, Texas near Texas A&M! You can watch some amazing things that were originally created to be heard on radio.
Magician Paul Draper drops by Morning Candy & blows our minds with some unbelievable magic!!
MUM I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. Just sent in my article for November! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here: https://www.magicsam.com
Appearances:
Real Estate Event
Laughlin, Nevada
November 10th
Boys and Girls Club
Bryan/College Station, Texas
November 11th
Gilbert Construction
Cedar City, Utah
December 1st
Penguin Magic
Columbus, Ohio
December 3rd
Helena Motors
Helena, Montana
December 6th
Jackson Contractor Group
Missoula, Montana
December 8th
SLC IBM Christmas Party
Salt Lake City, Utah
December 9th
Nightingale College
Salt Lake City, Utah
December 10th
Private House Party
St. George, Utah
December 13th
Private Corporate Event
Delta, Utah
December 14th
Private Corporate Event
Seattle, Washington
December 15th
Smoke & Mirrors
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
January 4th-5th
Weber State University
Ogden, Utah
January 7th
House of Cards
Nashville, Tennessee
January 8th-10th
Tennessee Theater Festival
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
January 10th-13th
Utah Theater Association Festival
Salt Lake City, Utah
January 17th-19th
Holladay Arts Council
Holladay, Utah
January 25th
Lakeland University
Plymouth, Wisconsin
February 7th
Corporate Event at The LINQ
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 4th
Poof! Too
Hermosa Beach, California
March 23rd
FanX
Salt Lake City, Utah
April 18th – 20th
Mountain View High School
Santa Clara, California
June 7th
“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” -Colin Powell
I really like this quote from Colin Powell – it rings so true for me. But I must add that in my life, realizing my dreams also took a little magic!
This month marks my 10-year anniversary as a full-time speaker and entertainer! October is also my birthday month, and on Halloween, I’ll be 40 years old!
Conventional wisdom says that I’m over the hill, but it feels like I’m just getting started. It has been an exciting and difficult journey so far, but have I achieved the goals I set for myself all those years ago? Some of those goals have been accomplished; some have changed. I have always loved Bill Gates’s statement that “people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten.” Never have I felt the truth of these words more deeply than I do now.
I began the Mysteries of the Mind monthly newsletter just a few short weeks after becoming an independent presenter and performer. Looking back on the first newsletter in my archives, it is shocking to see what life was like in October of 2008! I only had six shows on a list of upcoming events that stretched over four months – and those four months of shows combined wouldn’t be enough to cover my bills for a single month.
I’m fortunate to be able to say that I believe my thirty-year-old self would be impressed (and surprised!) by all of the things that my forty-year-old self has accomplished. What do you plan to do in the next year? In the next ten? I can attest that you will have incredible success waiting for you if you keep pushing towards your goals.
Looking Back!
You can join me in my retrospective and retrace my journey through some of my old newsletters here:
In the photo above you see me performing magic with Shahene Pezeshki at the home of Nathan Meier for a Halloween party in the early 90’s! Who let these kids have a lighter and dry ice!
The best advice that I can give to anyone starting down the same track is this:
Be an optimist. Winston Churchill identified as an optimist, because “it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” For me, being an optimist doesn’t mean that I am always happy; it means that, with hard work and determination, I believe that tomorrow can be a better day. In 1989, when Colin Powell published his Thirteen Rules of Leadership, he ended his list by saying, “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” This is because when we fall, we have to get up, brush ourselves off, rest, and try again the next day. Optimism is the impetus that makes this possible.
These past ten years have been amazing, and I can’t wait to see what we all accomplish in the next ten! The world is full of people who want to help you and see you succeed. Find them, and focus on growing and strengthening those relationships so we can all succeed together. Create every day, and get your creations out into the world. The world is ready for your insights, your wisdom, your beauty, and your brilliance. Next month, I will debut a brand-new demo video and a brand-new website to send me off into my second decade! Until then, thank you for being with me on this journey. Please let me know what I can do to make your world better!
If you know anyone who could use my services, remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and all your other special events. I’m never too busy for you and your friends! Your friend, Paul Draper Paul@MentalMysteries.com Http://www.MentalMysteries.com 801-541-2976
“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”– Lucille Ball
A huge tree fell in my backyard: I had about 60 of these logs to cut up and haul. The biggest one was between 150 and 175 lbs. They averaged about 100 lbs. each. Don’t worry: I used my legs to lift bigger pieces!
A huge tree fell in my backyard. I have about 60 of these to cut up and haul tonight. Wish me luck! London is in charge of lemonade and water,Shahene is coming over soon for added muscle!
(Ironically, this video of my tossing logs into a dumpster had over 2,300 views the same week that a professionally shot and edited demo for one of my university shows only received 400 views!)
I was also caught throwing axes in a three-piece suit at FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention with #axearena. Not bad for my first try!
London caught me throwing axes in a three piece suit at FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention with #axearena. Not bad for my first try!
Maybe it is time to become a lumberjack! Anybody know where I can find a big blue ox?
MUM and Mystique
I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. I just sent in my article for November! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here:
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.“ – Tennessee Williams, American playwright
This month, I’ve just returned from New Orleans and am just about to head off to San Francisco. Next up: New York! And lots of Cleveland! Ha!
In truth, every place I travel across America has its own rhythms, cuisines, art, culture, history, and heritage that I love to experience.
New Orleans:
When I began my full-time professional magic career, the Bourbon Street Casino was the first casino in Las Vegas where I had a regular show. The Orleans was the first casino to put my face on the marquee. This week, I had a wonderful sold-out show at a hidden, second-story speakeasy on the actual Bourbon Street in the real New Orleans! Isn’t it beautiful how life comes full circle?
FanX:
I will be appearing again at FanX® Salt Lake Comic Convention™ in September performing, moderating panels, and interviewing celebrities! Will you be there? Watch Here
My Hometown City Hall:
This five-foot-tall image created by artist Jim McGee is now hanging alongside nine other portraits in my hometown city hall.
Each piece of art comes with a statement from the subject about their experiences living in Holladay, Utah.
Visit the art in person or my Facebook page online to find out more!
Opening Act for Houdini:
Artist Alan Firestone hand-painted this stunning alternative history poster! Wow! I’ll be taking this artwork to be framed this week. Thank you, Alan, for the beautiful gift. As we know, Houdini died on Halloween night in 1926 and didn’t make it to the show, so it looks like we will be going on without him! (But I bet you could catch him after the show during our midnight séance!)
Finally, I want you to know that if there is ever anything I can do to make your life better, you can count on me! Just email or call any time.
If you know anyone who could use my services, remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for you.
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett
MUM & Reviews
I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. Just sent in my article for September! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here
In New Orleans’s famous Jackson Square, I enjoyed this wonderful street performer playing the water-glasses! The last time that I saw him perform was about a block away from this very spot in 2002! Sixteen years later, now in his eighties, he is still living a beautiful life filled with music.
When I first ran across him all those years ago, I was still an anthropologist, and it was a time before the advent of cameras in phones. I took a shot of him with my SLR camera and kept walking. He shouted after me, “So you could afford a camera, film, and development, but you couldn’t afford a dollar for my tip glass? You’ll remember that every time you look at my photo.” Of course, I ran back and tipped him in 2002, and I gave him another $25 during this trip! Watch Here
I Can Read Your Mind
Paul Draper, blindfolded with duct tape, steel coins, and a leather mask, can still peer into your thoughts and read your mind!
Check out this fun, quick clip from a recent corporate performance: Watch Here
TAOM (Texas Association of Magicians)
August 31st – September 3rd in Houston, Texas!: Watch This
If you want even more success, travel, growth, and happiness than you are already enjoying, I can suggest from experience that you deepen your understanding of why empathy works physiologically and how to harness this cool natural tool to live a better life.
In past newsletters, I have shared stories about contagious yawning – the phenomenon that, when we see others yawn, or even read about yawning, causes most neurotypical people to have a tickle of a desire to yawn, as well. This communal yawning is particularly present in younger people who yawn along those individuals they feel some social closeness with. Taking this a step further, contagious yawning also passes inter – species barriers, as domesticated dogs and chimpanzees have been known to catch yawns from one another and even from humans.
It delights me to no end that the “mirror neuron network” – the brain cells that become active when an organism is watching an expression or behavior that they themselves can perform – that plays a part in this is also responsible for the contagious nature of laughter. But watch out! These mirror neurons are also activated by compassion for negative feelings such as fear and sorrow. When we watch a great actor or an individual in our lives display these emotions, our minds mirror their faces, then our faces mirror their faces, and suddenly, we cry in the theater or laugh out loud at the gym because we feel some of what they feel.
Imagine being in the natural world as a preindustrial hunter – gatherer with your tribe. A few members of your tribe yawn late at night, setting off a yawn – fest that lets everyone know it is time for the community to go to sleep – long before the invention of clocks. The next day while hunting, everyone is filled with anxiety and anticipation: will we be able to take down the mammoth, or will the big cats get us first?!? The ability to mirror the emotions on the faces of the older and more experienced hunters can put us in the right mindset for how to work together. We mirror the emotions of our leaders and pass those feelings through the community. When we are in a dangerous situation, tensions can run too high, and a rock falling can set off an enormous fight – or – flight response. Some have speculated that one benefit of laughter is to release that tension within a group and let everyone know that we are safe.
Laughing together, celebrating together: these are amazing tools to bring people together and release tension and fear. Empathy is about feeling what others feel and about others feeling what you feel. Empathy brings us together and makes us more powerful at communicating our needs, working as a team, and sharing common goals. Empathy allows us to simulate others’ affective and cognitive mental states internally. We literally feel what they feel. As humans, we tend to use the self as a reference point to perceive the world and gain information about others’ mental states. When we can simulate others’ emotional states, we experience very special cases of direct empathy.
It’s well – known that the pathways in the brain are malleable. Intense training can cause structural changes in the brain regions that are necessary to produce a desired, trained behavior. Scientists coined the term neuroplasticity to describe the way that the human brain changes in response to our experiential learning. If you want to know what others are thinking and feeling, you can develop greater empathy by training your brain to be better at receiving those messages. Let me know if you want to learn about improving the functionality of your right supramarginal gyrus a portion of the brain crucial in controlling empathy and perceiving others’ emotions, to have greater empathy and a better understanding of those around you. It all starts with learning tools to help with your emotion recognition, perspective – taking, and affective responsiveness.
If, instead, you wish to change the behavior of others, there is no greater truth than the Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
For now, just know that any success that I might enjoy now or in the future can be attributed to four things:
Optimism, enthusiasm, empathy, and perseverance.
Keep optimistic, my friends. Things will get better. Tomorrow, the sun will rise, and it will be a new day, ready for you to have a fresh start!
“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.” – Homer
MUM & Reviews
I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. Just sent in my article for August! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here
I’ve also been enjoying performing in historic theaters all over the United States!
Please let me know if there is a theater in your area that I should reach out to. Here is a recent review:
“What an amazing show! We sold out the house and had to add chairs! The staff and I are still marveling at Paul Draper’s show and sharing our favorite moments. Young and old, our audience was amazed by him. So many positive comments after the show! We are already planning on having him back next season.”
Jason Richards Executive Artistic Director St. Croix Festival Theatre St. Croix Falls, WI
Master Mind
If you missed any of my MASTER MIND series on LIES, PERSUASION, and MEMORY skills that played around the country on ABC, all of the links are now posted and available! Each quick segment is two to four minutes long, and they are all available here:
A Harvard study that began almost 80 years ago shares the secrets of a long and happy life!
It is very rare to see a human study last this long and collect so much amazing data.
When the study started, the researchers interviewed 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 without any idea where the study would go or who the participants would become.
Some of the subjects went on to be leaders in business, industry, and even one president of the United States!
(Watch the video to find out which one)
The study was later expanded to include a group of economically underprivileged young men from the inner city of Boston who lived in Depression-era tenements without running water. Today, the study also includes the wives and children of many of the original participants, now numbering into thousands of people over multiple decades.
What have they found?
It isn’t cholesterol levels, wealth, or fame that helps to identify who will live the longest, happiest, and healthiest lives. Although determining a single cause for longevity and quality of life wasn’t even an imagined outcome for the original researchers, the current leaders of the study have found that the people who reported and appeared to experience the most satisfaction with their relationships and friendships at age 50 were healthier than their less-satisfied counterparts at 80.
Sadly, on an average day, one in five Americans report feeling lonely – and this fascinating study shows that isolation leads to less happy, less heathy lives in which people lose their brain function more quickly and die earlier.
But there is a solution!
We all feel the importance of interpersonal connection in our hearts, and this study gives us solid data that a vital key to unlocking fulfillment in life is our ability to create social connections with family, friends, and community. If we truly want to live happier, healthier, and longer lives, we need to find ways to replace screen time with quality time. This is about having warm, close, in-person relationships, relationships in which both parties feel that they can really count on one another. Living in high-conflict relationships has been shown to be negatively impact our health, but good relationships can protect our bodies and our brains.
When we retire, we should strive to replace work relationships with new friends. And we should seek to volunteer, join new groups, and continue to participate in the communities we build at all stages of life. When we live lives filled with people who can count on us, and whom we can count on in return, we immediately make the world better.
Since it is one of my major life goals to build healthy relationships with as many people as possible, both on stage and off, this study delights me!
Over 9 million people have watched the recent TED talk associated with this study. If you haven’t, give it a listen!
Then go out and have a moment of genuine connection with a co-worker, family member, or friend today, and let them know that they can count on you! Read & Watch Here
Magic Auction in Vegas
In other news, if you love MAGIC and will be in Las Vegas this month, I will be the auctioneer for the Las Vegas Magic Auction May 21st!
This is my 15th year as auctioneer for this charity event that helps give magic and public-speaking classes to underprivileged kids.
Also, if you ever need an auctioneer for your fundraiser, charity event, or magic convention, I’m available! Here is a small sample of my style from a recent fundraiser in Utah for a Christian school. This was my third year as their auctioneer – if I can help raise over $400 each for a child-sized table and a lemonade stand, just imagine what I can do for you!
If you find yourself in Utah this summer, let me know! The University of Utah has hired me back for another year of 18 shows! Every new student going through student orientation will have a chance to catch a live performance of Mysteries of the Mind! I love being a part of programs like this that unify communities and allow me to bring people together to celebrate themselves and each other.
Finally, I want you to know that if there is ever anything I can do to make your life better, you can count on me! Just email or call any time.
If you know anyone who could use my services, remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for you.
“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.” – Homer
Testimonials and Accolades
The Chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Clark Nguyen, Ph.D from Berkeley, sent this testimonial after Paul Draper performed at the IEEE MEMS convention in Las Vegas. The audience consisted of 700 IEEE members hailing from Europe, Asia, and North America.
Testimonials from the day chair of the West Palm Beach Young Presidents’ Organization, a member of the Beverly Hills Young Presidents’ Organization, and a partner of a major Hollywood law firm.
If you missed any of my MASTER MIND series on LIES, PERSUASION, and MEMORY skills that played around the country on ABC, all of the links are now posted and available! Each quick segment is two to four minutes long, and they are all available here:
