Douglas Johnson’s inexperience is all an illusion.

The Illusions Magic Show magically appeared at Barsema Auditorium Tuesday night with Johnson, the International Magicians Bureau’s best magician for three years in a row.

At first, it was hard to know what to expect from this seemingly inexperienced magician. As the show started, I instantly realized this was no ordinary magic show. Johnson had an excellent stage show and presence throughout the night that included stories and random jokes.

The entire performance was filled with mind-boggling tricks that completely baffled the audience. Even after concentrating extremely hard on the magician and his tricks, they were still hard to figure out.

That’s not to say that his illusions were implausible, they were just mind-blowing. The show included making objects disappear, sticking swords through a box without slicing a volunteer and switching around objects when he was nowhere near them.

One part of the show included placing an audience member’s head on a guillotine that was previously proven to slice through a head of lettuce. Even though the audience knew there would be no execution, the level of tension in the room was so high, due to the master magician’s ability to create a dramatic show.

The most intriguing aspect of the entire show was that Johnson allowed the audience to point out how the magic trick was done. Once the audience member would vocalize the most logical way the trick was accomplished, Johnson would reveal to the audience that the theory was simply not possible. Human instinct is to try to “catch” the magician and the host played right into it by kindly edging them to think that one of his famous tricks had been solved. Time and time again though, the audience was baffled.

After the show, the nostalgic feelings I had were reminiscent of being a little kid again and seeing amazing magic take place. The fact that a vast majority of the audience clapped at the end proves that college students may not be too old to still be amused by magic.