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How does one get into this line of work, Irish Country Living wonders? The career in question being none other than a magician, mind-hacking hypnotist. For Keith Barry it all started at the age of five with a Paul Daniels magic set.
“I was getting magic sets all the time for Christmas and birthdays,” says Ireland’s premier magic man. “Then when I was 15 I started to learn hypnosis. When I was in my early 20s I started to study psychology and at the age of 23 I just took a chance to see if I could do it full time and never looked back.”
In college Keith studied chemistry, but his then-girlfriend, now-wife Mairead, studied psychology. He started to read her course material, something that was invaluable to his career going forward.
“I need to understand how our brains work and how the subconscious mind works, so that I can alter and tweak it. Much like a computer I guess, I can hack into people’s brains. I can plant thoughts and extract thoughts, because I know how the subconscious mind words.”
Deception
The inner workings of the mind are central to the tricks Keith performs. He states openly that there are no mythical forces behind his work, something clearly portrayed in his upcoming new live show, the very aptly named Deception.
“I don’t necessarily think I have a lot of sceptics, it’s only human nature for people to try and figure out what I am doing,” explains Keith. “Here’s the thing, I’m openly a deception artist, I’m saying that I’m going to deceive you and I do deceive you. What I say to people is put your sceptic mind set aside and just come along. Prepare to laugh your head off, have a really enjoyable experience and get fooled badly as well. Afterwards then if you want to become a sceptic and try to figure it all out, well that’s just part of the course.”
With each tour, Keith completely changes the live show. The opening scene in Deception, which will begin travelling Ireland next month, is based on the Jonestown Massacre.
There is also an acid and water Russian roulette, €10,000 gamble to see if audience members can deceive the man himself and, as Keith puts it, “the most bizarre, weird ending of a show I have ever come up with”.
Over the years, Keith has done some pretty amazing stunts, and all over the world too.
He has headlined Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas and his TV shows have aired across the globe.
Some of his more memorable moments include blindfold driving Nicole Scherzinger and hanging 150ft in the air over a crowd of 15,000 people at Winterval in Waterford, trying to escape from a straitjacket with his head wrapped in cling film.
Of course, many will remember his escape from a shed destined to be blown up by explosives.
“That was probably not the most intelligent thing to do, because at the end of the day if someone makes a mistake, I’m getting blown up. I enjoy looking back at all the different things that I have done, I have had a varied career,” reflects Keith.
“Obviously, at the end of the day I don’t have a death wish. But there is always a serious sort of a risk with these things. Last year at the Magic Mad House tour, the end of the show was me performing an underwater escape and I had to hold my breath for up to three minutes at a time.
“The danger there is if you pass out in the tank then ultimately there is a chance you could drown if they can’t get you out quick enough. So I do worry about these things and over the years my body has gotten pretty battered from it all. I carry a lot of small, niggling injuries because of everything.”
A magical family
However, along with the risks associated with Keith’s work, there are upsides too for his personal life, as hypnosis has come in very handy from time-to-time.
For the birth of their second child, he hypnotised Mairead during childbirth, which meant that she needed no epidural or painkillers.
“She’s a huge advocate of it now and she tells people that hypno-birth is a really good way to go,” says Keith.
His two kids, Breanna and Braden, also dabble in a bit of magic, but in the Barry household it is just a hobby like any other.
“They can both do a bit of magic. They can both say the alphabet backwards, they can hack into brains and all that kind of stuff. They like it as a hobby, but it’s no bigger of hobby than their karate or rugby at this stage.”
Deception will tour across Ireland from December to March. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketmaster at the cost of €30. For more information and a full list of dates, see ww.keithbarry.com
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