Foundation Nation
Foundation Nation
S5 - E5: Part 1 of a special 3 part series "A Magician's Tale from Seattle's Nate Jester"
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Step into the captivating domain of mentalism and magic with Seattle's own Nate Jester, whose sleight of mind dazzles and astounds. Our latest episode peels away the layers of this mystical world, as Nate reveals the intricate dance between psychology, probability, and showmanship. It's a laughter-filled journey that leaves us marveling at the 'magic' woven into the fabric of everyday life, from the miracle of creation to the spellbinding forces of nature. With Nate's guidance, witness how the extraordinary emerges from the ordinary, proving that sometimes, reality can be as enchanting as any illusion.
As we waltz through Nate's personal narrative, we traverse the landscape from intimate magic gigs to the corporate sphere, and back again to the limelight of entertainment. This episode illuminates the misunderstood art of hypnosis, clearing the fog of myths to reveal its true, mesmerizing nature. We give a standing ovation to the magicians who've shaped American culture, like David Blaine and David Copperfield, and reflect on TV's transformative effect on modern-day magic and mentalism. So, join us for a spellbinding session that promises to leave you both amazed and a firm believer in the power of credible amazement. Nate's expertise in magnifying the allure of corporate events with magic is just a play button away—prepare to be enthralled.
The Art of Mentalism and Magic
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to Foundation Nation . I'm your host , matthew Cote . Today on the podcast , we're going to talk about some interesting recent goings-ons in our beautiful state and maybe even a few things going on in this amazing round thing we call home . Hey , I'm Matthew Cote . This is Foundation Nation . Welcome to another episode underneath the SeaTac Airport . I am here with a special guest on a three-part mini-series Nate . What's up ?
Speaker 2Yeah , my name is Nate Jester . I'm a mentalist . Here in Seattle I entertain private parties and corporate events . Thanks for having me .
Speaker 1Yeah , man . So this is our first episode together and we're going to talk about wait , where'd you go ? No , it's not that kind of magic , no disappearance shit . We're going to talk about I don't know like magic in the wait . Hold on , I got to turn my brain on . I'm going to open up my can of Mountain Dew . Hold on , I got to drink some Get that sugar going .
Speaker 2I'm on coffee today .
Speaker 1Yeah , it gets late in the day . I can't drink coffee anymore . I got to switch over to the cold beverage . All right , I am getting hungry though . So okay , let's see . So magic is amazing . I wanted to thank you . Matt V's Christmas party you attended and I dude everybody . Everybody was like who was this guy ? It was fun . Yeah , the stuff , some of the stuff you did , was just crazy , exciting , too Cool , Really very enjoyable . If anybody needs like somebody to come and , you know , make their wife disappear , this is your man .
Speaker 2Oh , man Doesn't sound right yeah .
Speaker 1Poof Dog , neighbor fence , whatever . So what I wanted to talk about a little bit was like kind of the history of magic , Like what do you know about the history of magic and mentalism ? Because I know there's two . Actually , maybe you should start out that what's the difference between mentalism and magic ?
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Help me understand that .
Speaker 2Okay , yeah , I get that a lot . So I am a mentalist , I've been studying magic and I've been a magician for many years . The best way I feel to describe it is a magician will find your card . A mentalist knows your card , so it's more cerebral , it's more . I think it's more thought provoking and impressive .
Speaker 1Okay , yeah , so are you reading a lot of , oh , I guess . Tell me if I can answer . I don't want to answer that . I don't want to know the secrets , because I know there's rules about this shit and stuff . I don't want to like blow the gig , but yeah , no , you're not getting that . Yeah , so the only really question I have is there a lot of body language that you're reading ? I mean , as a person , are you ? What is your special ability as a human being ?
Speaker 2So definitely not supernatural . I always say this in my shows . Is that I'm an illusionist , giving you the impression I can read minds ?
Speaker 1Okay , all right .
Speaker 2I say that once . But the illusion is really strong by the end of the evening . You're going to think I can read minds .
Speaker 1Okay , okay .
Speaker 2So we use in my son a lot of guys and entertainers . Mentalists use different techniques . I use a technique that I would describe as layering . So , yes , body language . I've looked at a lot of statistics , studies , psychology and probability , experience and also BS .
Speaker 1BS .
Speaker 2And a lot of it has to do with taking the audience in a direction where , wherever we go , your experience and your knowledge can keep driving the ship . So you're going to get to your destination . But how and where we , how we get there and how amazing it is is sometimes unknown to myself .
Speaker 1But it all works out , do you think ? Okay , okay , all right . Mentalism and magic are two different things . So do you think ?
Speaker 3there's , yeah , yeah is so .
Speaker 1Do you think there's actual , real magic in the world ? I mean , man , I mean , is that a question that I can ask you ?
Speaker 2yeah , so I don't believe in and magic .
Speaker 1Yeah , you don't believe in magic .
Speaker 2I believe in miraculous things .
Speaker 1Give me an example . Have you witnessed a miraculous thing ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I think this earth and us being here . Yeah is the most Miraculous thing any of us .
Speaker 1That's a good way to put it . I mean , I really I I felt like I believed in magic until you say that , but maybe it is miraculous things because you know , when you have a kid it came from absolutely nothing . That is crazy that crazy yeah .
Speaker 2I got nothing . You have kids , yeah , I got two boys .
Speaker 1Yeah , just , it came from absolutely nothing , right , my boy . And then , and then it grew Into like me and you . Yeah , he's sitting right . Yeah , you know , and we can build a spaceship and we can build a computer . We can make coffee Podcast , podcast . Yeah , it's just , it's , it's that's some crazy shit . Yeah , you know it .
Speaker 1Whenever I think about Like different elements on the planet , you know so they , when I was in college , they always said the amount of water that we have on the planet , it's the same amount . That's always been here . Right , it just it goes , it goes up , it circulates , it turns into snow and rain , it comes down , it just keeps recirculating . We have the same amount of water , but one thing we don't have the same amount of is people , because we make them from nothing , you know . So we have the same amount of steel , the same amount of granite , the same amount of sand . You know , all that shit is just recycling over and over . Okay , but we , we , the one thing that we can bring to this planet is humans from nothing . That , so that has an impact on it always made me think about that , you know , and so I was like so that's , that's pretty , pretty Pretty , it's miraculous , yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , I'm right there with you .
Speaker 1So what's your favorite book ? What's your favorite Do you have ? Is there a mentalism book out there that like for kids or something ?
Speaker 2Oh , for kids . That's definitely not gonna be my favorite , but Mentalism is not for kids .
Speaker 1It's not for kids .
Speaker 2So I say I'm a mentalist . Mentalists do mentalism . Okay , so a lot of people ask me that just throw that out there . So if if , like somebody's kid , five , ten years old , 15 was looking to get into magic ? Nowadays there's YouTube , there's a lot of resources out there , there's a lot of books , there's . We're in Seattle here , so Pike Place Market Magic Shop . Oh okay , local business town in the market They've got a ton of books and resources .
Speaker 1Okay , okay so .
Speaker 2I like the old school books , the stuff that just these guys , these Entertainers that aren't around anymore but they had some ideas . I'm just cutting edge stuff and I go back in the day and read that stuff .
Speaker 1That's fun ? I bet that's fun . Oh , it's is there . Is there anything you know about like the oldest magic book that's around ? Or is there a name you know like that ? Yeah , some kind of ancient old book that started it all ?
Speaker 2so I couldn't tell you about a book . But I know magic is , you know back in , you know the beginning of time , nearly it's very . It's one of the oldest art forms of entertainment . Yeah , back with shamans , it was . It was used for conveying medicinal purposes . Yeah , yeah , and then I think it came over here to the United States with Indians . Oh , okay , yeah , native Americans .
Speaker 1Oh , okay .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that's the better term .
Speaker 1Yeah , native , yeah , yeah , yeah , you know , seattle's named after a chief . I do , chief Seattle .
Speaker 2Yeah , and you know , you know it's pronounced or it's actually spelled Seattle .
Speaker 1Oh , oh , that's really hard to say , Don't call me on this .
Speaker 2It's really and nobody could say it which is why they Spell it s e a t t l e . But I think the correct original spelling of chief Seattle Just laughing at myself is like s I e t l e , s I e t l e , something like that .
Speaker 1I can look it up , maybe that's cool , that's cool yeah .
Speaker 3Foundation nation is proudly sponsored by jays technology solutions . Call jays technology solutions at two , five , three , three , seven , six , seven , five , seven , nine for all your computer repair , I , t and network solutions .
Speaker 1So if , if , if a kid wants to get into mentalism , what age Would you recommend ?
Speaker 2Mentalism is so advanced .
Speaker 1It's advanced like adults .
Speaker 2I don't even do mentalism for kids . They don't get it . It's more , it's for a sophisticated audience . Yeah so it will works really well with my corporate groups . Yeah , private parties , you know , just like older people , 40 and up 30s . Yeah , they'll get it . Yeah , it just depends on the temperament and age group . But okay , you have to understand how impossible something is right before you can be blown away .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , the younger kids , they , they need something . Wow , like if I pull out some like Make something light on fire or something's flashy , very eye-peeling , that's what they like and that's what's amazing , okay .
Speaker 1So what about the , what about the , the , the younger , what ? What's ? What's the trend in in in your industry these days ? Like what's trending right now . More is because I'm just thinking . What you do has to be done on in person and A lot of people are playing on their phones .
Speaker 2Yeah , so I use . I mean , you probably remember I think I can remember your holiday party in December . We did some illusions with people's phones Doing taking some photos . Yeah , um , you can use social media a little bit , but , um , yeah , I like to use whatever is topical . Okay so phones are very popular . I had a local company here watch the cell phone , and so they hired me and I just created a bunch of illusions with their phone .
Speaker 3Yeah , that's cool . Yeah , yeah that's fun .
Speaker 2The phone's not around anymore , I can say it . They was on fire phone . Oh , oh yeah , I was doing yeah .
Speaker 1I never even heard of it . Yeah , that's how bad it was eight years ago or so Amazon fire phone . Actually I do remember somebody having that and they were telling me nothing but problems . That's right .
Speaker 2I didn't want to go into it too much .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , I create all these illusions that I'm doing it at their event . Yeah , there was problems with the phones . Yeah with the illusions that I was doing . I was like that's not me .
Speaker 1Yeah well , amazon , you know they , they , they definitely command a serious amount of , you know , consumerism information , so they're thinking a lot going on , they're , they're . They're probably okay not having one succeed , hey , so you can't be successful , you don't try it .
Speaker 1No , you get it's a hundred fails in one attempt . You know , and if you , and if you sit back and you look at the one , the one that succeeded , you'll you'll realize that the only reason you secede is because you failed a hundred times . Yeah , you know , it doesn't . You don't just like open the door and win no , so that's , that's . That's kind of the fun thing . So , uh , tell me a little bit about where you , where you're raised , where were you raised ? In what world did you come from ?
Speaker 2I grew up in a small town , school district number one , still come Washington school district number one Like still a come . You know that exit i5 by fort lewis mccord , jordy case yeah . Yeah , um it's uh .
Speaker 1Is it past the tanks ?
Speaker 2It's the dupe on , still will come exit .
Speaker 1Oh , okay , it's right around there . Yeah , yeah the direction , but yeah , down at the water .
Speaker 2It's a pretty place , it's yeah , very pretty .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think I I went through there a few times , yeah , so you grew up there .
Speaker 2So I grew up there , moved to Seattle when I was 18 and , uh , just , I've been gigging
US Magic and Mentalism
Speaker 2it . I started out doing uh magic in restaurants , so I'd walk around , uh , while people are waiting for their food , do some close-up card tricks and stuff uh , definitely on the magic side . And so I had about three or four different restaurants per week and and did that Yep .
Speaker 1So that was your primary gig or your side gig .
Speaker 2I did that full time that was , and I did really well at it . And then I kind of took a hiatus for a number of years and went in corporate America . I still did magic occasionally , in my opinion . I didn't know how to market myself , okay , and I wasn't able to tap into my showmanship ability , okay . I was really into the technical aspect of it , right , making it amazing and pretty .
Speaker 1And then now I realize it's it's a joke around a little , it's 60% , 70% entertainment . Yeah .
Speaker 2And 30% , 40% illusion .
Speaker 1How do you feel about that ?
Speaker 2I feel great . Yeah , that's good . Yeah , I love it . I love that's what I love to do . I just love entertaining people . Just it feels so good and you work so hard to get there and when they feel good , you feel good . Yeah , it's an awesome , awesome experience .
Speaker 1Well , the , I think the magic , the mentalism , that well , you know , the first time I ever saw it was at the Piaut Fair .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1And it was I don't know what you call it , but it was like they talk and then people like hallucinate or something , and then they go on stage and do crazy stuff .
Speaker 2So you're talking about a hypnotist ?
Speaker 1Yes , yeah , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2Often confused but different . Yeah , Very similar .
Speaker 1It felt like some things were happening . You know , yeah , and I remember sitting there and some this lady so was sitting next to me she got up and was like in a trance and she's got up and walked over and walked on stage and started dancing like Michael Jackson . I think I was like nine or 10 . Yeah , and I was like what this is like ? I don't know what's happening .
Speaker 2Oh , I've read up on that . I know a number of mental or a hypnotist .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , is that actually ? Or does she work for him , or what's happening ?
Speaker 2Apparently from what I've read and know , is hypnosis is real . Okay , but it's not what you would think .
Speaker 1Okay .
Speaker 2So you can't make somebody who's hypnotized do something they wouldn't normally do if they weren't . So it's a comfort level . I've heard hypnotists best describe it . As you know , when it's late at night you're coming home from work and you're driving , and you're just driving the same old road and you're stopping and going and you know , at stop lights and you get five miles down the road and you just like kind of blank out and you're like whoa , I don't remember stopping at those stop lights behind me , Right , and you're like I don't remember what you did , but you were in a hypnotic state .
Speaker 2Okay , yeah , that's how it's been explained to me .
Speaker 1Okay , so they just use that as entertainment purposes , and it gets kind of goofy and crazy .
Speaker 1It's pretty funny . Yeah , it was . I was more shocked because I thought I was going to like levitate or have to walk up there or something , cause the lady was sitting next to me the whole time and she was like I am never going to do this , this is so embarrassing . And she did it and all of a sudden she just quieted up , got up and left . I still Like I , and I've never gone back since I was just cause I was scared , you know , it would take me up there and I was like no , no sir , I go up there and be dancing like Michael J no .
Speaker 2I don't think you'd be take . Only a certain type of people can be hypnotized , induced .
Speaker 1Oh induced , oh induced Okay .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1Well , so what do you think ? How would you ? How would you , if you're going to put a title on magic in the United States , what would ? How would you say it ? Like anybody coming to the United States from the rest of the world magic and mentalism . If you're going to put like kind of a title on it or a discri one sentence description , what would you ? What would you say ? Like hey , I'm going to United States , what's it like ? What's the magic mentalism game looking like ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I think it's pretty strong . Strong , yeah , I mean we got David , we got the greats , we got David Blaine , David Copperfield , you know . I mean remember back in the day when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2The Learjet speaking of here we are yeah .
Speaker 2You know , david Blaine , there's guys overseas , yeah , there's . You know , you've got America's got talent . Magic was really big . You had Colin McLeod O's , who he didn't win but he got pretty far . You got the guy from Chicago Can't recall his name , but he did really
Magic Entertainment and Believable Amazement
Speaker 2well . I mean , it's just very popular now and people want more and it's very strong , it's very popular , it's good , it's good clean entertainment . It's unbelievable . People want to be amazed but they have to believe the amazement Before they even go . Well , I mean , there's AI now . There's people are editing videos . There's a lot of things you can watch and hear and really question it . So if you can take reality , if you can take them to an unbelievable place and make it so unbelievable , it just it makes it incredible . So it has to be very believable .
Speaker 1Right , it's got to blow their mind .
Speaker 2Yeah , it has to be tangible , like something that is it feels so real , but you know it's not .
Speaker 1Okay , so the magic game in the United States is strong , yeah , entertaining and fun . Does that sound right yeah ?
Speaker 2Okay , yeah , we got the magic castle in Hollywood .
Speaker 1Yeah right . All right , Okay . Well , I wanted to thank you for coming on . I'm Matthew Cote . This is Foundation Nation .
Speaker 2Yeah , thanks for having me . I'm Nate Jester . If you want to take your company's event to the next level , you can find me on my website , seattlemagiciancom .
Speaker 3Foundation Nation is proudly sponsored by Jays Technology Solutions . Call Jays Technology Solutions at 253-376-7579 for all your computer repair , it and network solutions .
