Mindfreak [logo]Has any­one ever seen Criss Angel’s A&E series Mindfreak?:“Mindfreak(Official web site for show)”:http://www.crissangel.com/?

It seems like most of his “magic” is staged, espe­cially in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions where the illu­sion seems out of ordi­nary — in some cases sur­real — and yet the skep­tic in me assumes he’s using clever cam­era angles and audi­ence plants.

Case in point, in one par­tic­u­lar trick he asks a woman to write the name of an ani­mal on a slip of paper. He then takes the paper, glances at it notic­ing she wrote “but­ter­fly”, folds the piece of paper and mag­i­cally — out of thin air — sum­mons a real butterfly.

In my opin­ion, the aver­age per­son would prob­a­bly choose some­thing with a bit more flare, like Griz­zly Bear or Bad­ger (and yes, UHF comes to mind) and not some­thing so sim­ple. Which again leads to me to believe that the major­ity of tricks per­formed on cam­era are con­trived to the point where magic isn’t just slight of hand any­more, it’s purely act­ing and mak­ing sure the per­for­mance itself plays out in a con­vinc­ing manner.

What are your thoughts?