Mind magician · Stuttgart
I don’t read minds.
I just listen more closely.
What happens here has nothing to do with the supernatural. And yet playing with the idea is something special – for me and for the audience. It is a craft: a feeling for theatre, a trained attention to language, body language, gesture and expression, plus a sense of people, psychology – and yes, hypnosis too. In the end it always comes down to the same principle: look closely and listen closely. To what people give away when they are convinced they have given nothing away at all. What exactly makes the difference between classic conjuring and mind magic, I explain in detail on the page Magician or mentalist?.
That honesty takes nothing from the evening. Quite the opposite: it is what makes it exciting. Anyone who knows there has to be an explanation goes looking for it – and still does not find it.
The standard
Nobody is made a fool of
There is a kind of magic where someone is brought on stage so that the room can laugh at them. I find it dreadful. With me the audience is not the material but the fellow player.
In practice that means:
- Nobody has to come to the front who does not want to
- There is no punchline at a guest’s expense
- Anyone who joins in looks better afterwards than before – not worse
- And if something goes wrong, I say so rather than covering it up
That sounds like stating the obvious. After a few evenings in other performers’ audiences you know that it is not.
Anyone who agrees to take part in a mind-magic experiment with me in front of an audience is extending me an extraordinary amount of trust. Putting that trust at risk would run completely counter to what I understand by working together – and to the person behind Magic, Mind & More: me, Joachim Jögel. I want to enjoy every show at least as much as the audience does – and as much as everyone who made the evening on stage possible in the first place. What I like best is to show my art not for people but with them – approachable, as equals, with real pleasure in the shared moment.
The path
How it came about
- 2019
The first stage
Premiere of “Am Anfang war…” at a birthday party on 13 April. First fully rehearsed show, first realisation: the audience notices more than you think.
- 2019
A face for the thing
A logo of my own, business cards, a trade registration. A hobby turns into something you write invoices for.
- 2020
Pictures
An intensive photo session puts my favourite illusions into the frame. Long underestimated – but without pictures nothing happens.
- 2023
Magic, Mind, Menü & More
Bringing kitchen and stage together becomes a format in its own right. First dinner show with “Farbenzauber”.
- 2024
70 years of “Zum Kube”
Two evenings for the anniversary of the inn in Großaspach, with pieces from three shows.
- Today
Currently five shows
Five shows running side by side in the repertoire at the moment, every one of them bookable as a dinner show too, plus specials such as a Halloween evening at “Lieblingsmensch” in Stuttgart – and over the years countless birthdays and weddings I was glad to be a guest at. Still the same rule: the best moment is rarely the planned one.
The question I get asked most after a show
“How do you do that?” – and there is an honest answer that satisfies nobody: with a great deal of practice and very little magic.
I prefer the second most common question: “Could you do that for us as well?” The answer to that one is usually yes.
Getting to know each other
Best if we have a quick word.
Ten minutes on the phone say more than any website. Afterwards you know whether it fits – and I know what your evening needs.