Clashing senses with Magic

Anna Cole, Staff Writer

Ramsey Theater was packed last Wednesday night for Jim Munroe’s magic show, “The Maze.”

Munroe is from Tampa, Fla. and after a promising career in baseball ended due to an injury, he turned his efforts to magic.

“Magic is when the world you know is happening and what you are sensing with your five natural senses clash, creating wonderment,” Munroe said during his show.

There was indeed a lot of wonderment as an audience member in a slightly hypnotic state picked random numbers that corresponded to an old lottery ticket. Munroe also predicted a random phone number from the Norfolk area phone book.

Munroe might have also caused some squeamish feelings in audience members as he pulled a string out of his stomach, hammered a nail into his nose, and repeatedly stabbed a knife in between each of his fingers with a cloth bag taped around his head.

This was more than a magic show, however. Munroe often referred to something called “The Maze” and the different ways to get out of it as a transition into the different sections of his act.

“‘The Maze’ is a proverbial maze we create for ourselves,” Munroe said.

Munroe shared with the audience what he found to be the way out of the Maze after a short 90-second break when audience members were given the chance to leave if they wanted to.

He then shared his story about how he was a religious skeptic and how his battle with leukemia gave him a new philosophical view and he accepted religion.

When he received his diagnosis, the doctors gave him two months to live, because at the time there was no cure for his cancer. Munroe explained that he was saved by a bone marrow transplant from a 19-year-old girl.

At the end of the show, audience members were given the chance to register as bone marrow donors with the organization, “Be the Match,” for free, which normally costs $100. That night 212 WSC students registered to be potential bone marrow donors. Munroe’s show has already saved 45 lives.

“This isn’t a magic show,” Munroe said. “This is a social experiment called The Maze.”