Keith Barry is, according to this interview with a New Zealand newspaper, reading up on Erik Jan Hanussen. Who is Erik Jan Haussen? I’ll let Barry tell you…
“That’s what I love about it. That’s why I love flying so much because I can sit down and read. The book I’m reading at the moment is about Hitler’s Jewish clairvoyant, a guy by the name of Erik Jan Hanussen, and people don’t realise Hitler used a clairvoyant when he was in power.
“It was Hanussen who told Hitler to adopt the swastika and he taught Hitler all his brainwashing techniques,” he says.
If you’d also like to better your mentalism routine by informing yourself about Hitler’s taste in mind readers, you can pick up the book here.
“I did black out and it was real and because it’s a real challenge.”
The show’s crew desperately went to Barry’s rescue when they realised the trick had gone wrong.
“The curtain apparently came slowly down while my manager ripped the cling film off my face and I came too and quite literally, I know this sounds terrible because people didn’t see this but I just started spitting all over him and spluttering all over him,” Barry continued.
Although this certainly isn’t proof on if it was a planned stunt or not, we’d like to believe if it was staged Barry still spit on his manager for authenticity sake.
There has been some discussion over the last few days that Keith Barry’s botched escape on Friday, leading to him losing consciousness on stage, was part of his act.
My question is: why?
Let’s assume that it is. What does Barry get out of it? Publicity for sure, but publicity that at best paints him as injured and at worst as incompetent. The escape, although dangerous, isn’t particularly exotic. I guess it would heighten the tension for the next audiences he performed it for, but that seems a long way to go for a feeling that should already be built up by the end of a performance.
Meanwhile, let’s take a look at another hypothetically staged botched ending. David Blaine’s Drowned Alive. To be clear, I have no first hand knowledge that the ending to this 2006 ABC special was predetermined beyond random magic chatter.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume it was.
This makes sense. Blaine has already performed an amazing feet of endurance by sitting in a fishbowl for seven days and seven nights while his skin broke down and his liver began to fail. In terms of television viewers, he’d already performed a pre-produced hour of street magic. The final stunt to break the then-record of underwater breath holding for eight minutes and 58 seconds (while escaping chains and handcuffs) failed but the press the next day glowed about him.
The narrative defining his entire career was reinforced. Chiefly, that David Blaine is magician who attempts real, dangerous stunts that have a chance of doing real harm to him should he not complete them.
It also gave him a reason to break another breath holding record on Oprah a few years later.
But what do you guys think? When is it best to stage a failed trick, stunt or escape? If ever?
In a truly unsettling video, Keith Barry passes out onstage and needs to be assisted by his crew as the house lights come on, the curtain is lowered and his audience murmurs in stunned silence.
It all went down Friday during the finale of a show in Dublin. The escape features Barry wrapped in cling wrap from head to bound with rope.
Barry said: “I’ve been doing some work with a number of the athletes going over to London, helping them prepare mentally.
“It’s all about reprogramming their subconsciousness, learning how to readjust themselves when something goes wrong, that kind of thing.
Barry goes on to tell the paper that if the Irish National Soccer Team had employed his methods they might have fared better at the Euro 2012 tournament which just wrapped up.
We told you earlier this week the Dynamo revealed an accurate Euro 2012 finals prediction on television but he was not the only mentalist across the pond to make hay out of the idea. Keith Barry also freaked out a local radio team with a correct prediction of the winning team, the leading scorer and the fate of the local Irish national team.
Irish television psychic Wayne Issac, who claims his powers of telepathy are genuine, has been challenged by mentalist Keith Barry to prove his abilities as the real deal. Should Wayne succeed, Barry has agreed to pay out €50,000.
Wayne’s television program on TV3 has been the object of ridicule as of late. In this video below he seriously answers a question from a caller who’s life story is actually lyrics from the opening theme song to 90’s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
The challenge was initially posed on Twitter.
Some Irish smartarse also set up a fake Twitter account for the medium and started taunting Keith Barry. He didn’t take to kindly to the jibes and has now challenged Psychic Wayne to either put up or shut up. Barry says he’ll give him €50,000 if he can prove his ‘powers’ are real.
Wayne responded that he would accept the challenge if the terms of the test were fair. But why stop at a paltry €50,000? Wayne should double down and make the test a proving ground for James Randi’s $1,000,000 challenge as well!
If vindicated, he could look at his kingdom as he was finally there to sit on his throne as the prince of Bel Air.