Fade up. Illuminated by a single, hard light source to the left of screen, white hair backlit to create a corona around his head, the bearded, sagelike face of Preston Gabriel turned toward the camera. In a low, rumbling voice reminiscent of Orson Welles, he spoke. “Psychokinesis, the claimed power to affect matter by mind alone. Spoon bending, moving small objects, causing items to fall over or fly through the air solely by the power of the mind. Is it real, or is it illusion? Tonight we find the answers on … Gabriel’s Magic!” Spooky, haunting music played. Blue and fiery red images collaged across the screen: Preston Gabriel, dressed in his signature black and looking much like a wizard himself, materializing a flute, then turning it into four doves in his bare hands, levitating a girl from a table, making money appear in a volunteer’s hand, vanishing a girl from a chair, lying on broken glass while a truck runs over him, producing a girl from an empty cabinet with a puff of smoke, stabbing a selected card with a knife from a cascade of falling cards in midair.
