The illusionist

Nicolai Friedrich belongs to the new generation of magicians whose remarkable stage presence amazes the audience. His mental magic breaks the boundaries of traditional magic, leading his audience to believe in the existence of the paranormal! Not only does he appear to read minds, he is able to control and influence thoughts too. While on India tour with Ashvin Gidwani Production, he talks about tricks, treats and hi art... 

What is magic?
Magic is the art of making the impossible possible! 

So, you can make impossible possible...
Everything I do can be learned, however, it takes a lot of time and practice to reach a certain level of perfection. You may call it a gift that I always liked to be on stage and enjoy to practice and create new things.

When did you realise you can perform magic?
At the age of four, I saw the performance of a magician in a circus. I was so thrilled and amazed by this experience that I wanted to become a magician myself. From then I invested all my time and money in learning new magic tricks and so it started to develop. To be honest at the beginning I was not a very good magician but I wanted it so badly that I practised hard enough and it finally paid off. I realised that I am quite good at it maybe at the age of 15.  

Magicians try hard to hide their tricks, you wrote a book on it?
In my book I do not explain magic tricks. It’s about the much more interesting question not how but why magic tricks work. I explain how our perception works and why we do not see things though they happen in front of our very eyes. I also explain how our mind works and how we can be easily manipulated by others. Overall I try to give my readers some kind of a mental toolbox they can use in their everyday life. 

These tricks can be learnt online nowadays, how is yours different from others?
The magic I do cannot be learned online. Of course you can learn few simple tricks this way to enchant your friends and family but to become a professional magician it takes much more. I can assure you the real secrets of magic stay in books and are not available online.

Which is your most difficult trick?
The new ones are always the most difficult, till they reach a certain level of perfection. At the moment I am working on a lottery prediction which is very difficult. I will let you know when it is working properly (winks). However it is designed to work on stage only. The real lottery cannot be predicted this way, otherwise I would have done it for sure (smiles).  

Have you ever tricked anyone in real life?
Not in a negative way. However, if you know what a person is thinking you can use this knowledge in a positive way you both benefit, for example by selecting the right Christmas present. Also, if you detect that somebody is lying you can ask the right questions to signal him you know the truth and offer him an elegant way out instead of exposing him.

Which country/people believe in your magic the most?
I think it is absolutely not about believing since I do not want to proselytize but to entertain people. I have had very good experiences with Asian people because they love to be amazed and express those feelings very well. 

Which country/people has most number of cynics?
Germany has a lot of skeptics but I like those people because I have the ability to surprise them. I love to see the doubting eyes of a sceptic change into the glancing eyes of a child.  

Do unbelievers in the audience bother you?
Not at all. As I said it’s not about belief! As far as the performance of a magician is concerned I also do not believe in real magic and I do not want people to believe that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer and I want to enchant and amaze my audience, this also works with unbelievers, trust me (smiles).

What is your most dangerous trick? Has that ever gone wrong?
I have painful memories of a trick where I had to find a sharp nail that was straight up hidden under one of five paper cups. I had to smash my hand down onto four of them and unfortunately it was hidden under the third one so I ended up in the hospital after this stunt. Luckily, I fully recovered and I even dare to perform this effect again. I also once performed a stunt for the German Television where I had to fly a small plane though I was blindfolded. This one was really dangerous because we had very strong cross winds that day so it would have been difficult to fly even without the blindfold.