They Came, They Saw, They Conjured : Awed Students Reappear Week After Week at CSUF for Magic Training

When these students finish this course, they will not have earned bachelor’s degrees. But they sure will be fun at parties.

They are administrators, dentists and engineers with one thing in common: a childhood love of the art of illusion. That fascination has pushed them to enroll in Cal State Fullerton’s program in magic: three semesters of intense study in manipulating decks of cards and breaking the laws of physics--at least in the eyes of mystified onlookers.

Students have driven from as far as Yucaipa in the San Bernardino Mountains to take classes one night a week from David Thorsen, who retired as chairman of the music department at Cal State Fullerton in 1992 and has performed magic for 58 years. Since 1991, he has taught the University Extended Education magic course, which has produced 101 graduates.

“It’s a pleasure to see the joy of people when you perform, and then their joy of discovery in the teaching of it,” said Thorsen, 68. “It’s the only class I’ve ever had where the students are waiting for me at the door when I arrive.”

Thorsen learned magic as a child by reading books and talking to older magicians, picking up the skills and secrets that are passed along in only the strictest confidence. His father built him a small stage with curtains and magic props when he was a youth, and he performed before a tough audience--the neighborhood kids--in the garage of his home in northern Michigan.

Thorsen said he sees no reason why magic can’t be taught in a class to anyone who missed the same chance he had as a kid.

In last Monday’s class, 20 men and women tried not to laugh as they carefully grasped pieces of rope and attempted a series of maneuvers that ended with a plastic ring dropping through the air and magically hanging from the rope.

Thorsen stood before the class and did it in a split second, as his students buzzed in amazement and awe. “Now do it a thousand times,” he said.

They peeked at their neighbors and began contorted and deliberate moves as rings clattered on the ground. “I don’t think this works,” one student muttered.

Graduates of the course say the initial frustration and difficulty is worth enduring. Some become so hooked they continue their education in magic, taking private classes in Thorsen’s Fullerton home.

During the day, Philip Henderson is a mild-mannered assistant dean at UC Irvine Extension. At night, he is a David Copperfield-in-training, wearing a tall, black hat and fulfilling his childhood fantasies to be a magician.

“In my work, I have to do presentations, so I wanted to improve my presentation skills,” said Henderson, 47. “In magic, you want the audience to see what you want them to see, and not see what you don’t want them to see.

“That’s a skill that’s useful when you have to work with campus administrators,” Henderson said laughing.

He’s not the only one who has sneaked a magic act into his work. Joe Fiktarz, a Downey children’s dentist, uses tricks in his office to calm down children who see his drills and picks as instruments of torture.

“I don’t advertise it at the office, though, or I’d never get any work done,” said Fiktarz, 44, a member of the Magic Castle, a club for magicians in Hollywood. “I do make their little teeth disappear sometimes, though, and they say: ‘Hey! I’ve got to give that to the tooth fairy!’ ”

Class graduate David Pearson doesn’t look like a magician, but then, he doesn’t look like Red Boots the Clown, either. Pearson, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney for 25 years, does outside work as a clown at children’s parties and performs simple magic he learned long ago.

But Pearson realized his presentations to law enforcement officials about criminal justice necessitated more mature entertainment. So he enrolled in Thorsen’s class.

“I’d do mind-reading routines during lectures to police,” Pearson said, “and after class they’d come up to me and instead of asking about the law, they’d say: ‘How did you do that trick?”’