John Fabjance prepared to trick the three men before him at the Wood Dale Police Station.
Sgt. Bob Hadley and Patrolmen Jordan Anderson and Steve Pernice looked on in anticipation.
“This is one of the greatest tricks,” Fabjance said as he pulled out a false thumb. “You just curl your thumb like this. I’ve got a couple of sizes for you to try on.”
“How can we relate this to the DARE program?” Anderson asked.
“It could illustrate a lot of different things,” Fabjance said. “For example, many things are an illusion; they’re not what they appear to be. And the rope trick is good to use with self-esteem issues. There’s a lot of playing around with the audience, and they love it.”
Fabjance was teaching the police a lesson–a lesson about magic, that is.
The Mt. Prospect resident, who is a magician and an educator, is drawing on the innovative training program he has developed to help police officers put a touch of magic into their work, something Fabjance has been doing for the last 20 years.
The “police magic” began a couple of years ago when Hadley saw Fabjance perform for a drug awareness program at a Wood Dale junior high. Hadley envisioned having police officers use magic to build rapport with kids and hold their attention while teaching them important information about drugs and alcohol. He also saw an application in the department’s safety, crime prevention and senior programs.
“I saw the kids really enjoy the program and get something out of it on making responsible decisions,” Hadley said. “They’ve got to know that for every choice, there’s a consequence.”
With Fabjance’s ability to captivate audiences with his magic performances and Hadley’s sincere interest in helping kids, it seemed like a natural for the two to team up.
“We are interested in using (magic) in our work with the community because it hasn’t been done before, and everyone young and old is fascinated by magic,” Hadley said. “We want to use it in our various programs and implement it in the drug awareness presentations because I believe it increases the enthusiasm and attention span of the audience.”
The Wood Dale officers are just beginning to use magic in their work. But Hadley is so enthusiastic about the concept that on March 25, the Wood Dale Police Department will host an interactive, hands-on training session at its facility for police departments throughout DuPage County.
Fabjance will use a large screen to show the movements required to perform each trick.
Even police officers with no experience in magic can come and learn from Fabjance because the tricks they’ll learn are self-working, with no manual dexterity or manipulation required. “As long as you don’t drop the trick, you will look like a magician,” he said.
On this day, Fabjance demonstrated a few easy-to-learn tricks.
“Try linking about seven of these (paper clips) together like a chain,” Fabjance said. He instructed the officers to hold the paper-clip chain over a drawn circle on a piece of paper. Amazingly, the chain moved–without being moved–in the shape of a circle. And when the paper clips were held over a straight line, the chain moved back and forth along the line.
“It’s the same principle as the Ouija board,” Fabjance said. “You make it happen unconsciously.”
At the end of the training session, the three policemen had learned how to use a card trick, a pencil through dollar bill trick, a rope trick and others to apply to their community-oriented police work.
Fabjance uses magic as motivation through his Mt. Prospect-based company, Magic Management. After teaching at the high school and college level for 17 years, Fabjance began presenting various theme programs for businesses on communications, motivation and selling, and adding a twist of magic to sales meetings, conventions and trade shows. His work expanded to development of a substance abuse awareness program for schools and colleges using magic as a teaching tool and which also encouraged students to take advantage of counseling and assistance programs.
He has presented his programs nationwide to more than 1,200 schools and businesses since he formed his company in 1987.
Fabjance has done several programs for employees and families at Kimberly-Clark Corp. in Neenah, Wis. “The magic and humor get people’s attention. Then John shares some very helpful information about the use of alcohol and drugs,” said Jim Smits, manager of the employee assistance program at Kimberly-Clark. “It’s a very effective way of reaching kids and families. They’re more receptive to listening to a topic like this in that kind of environment. We’ve had great responses from employees and family members.”
Fabjance doesn’t preach abstinence or temperance but presents the theme of alcohol awareness in a non-threatening manner that students can relate to and will remember.
“Magic is a powerful and effective tool for learning, teaching and changing beliefs, attitudes and perceptions in people,” Fabjance said. “Unconscious messages go unchallenged. There’s nothing to challenge.
“For a magic trick to work, people must do certain things in their minds while watching the trick. They have to fool themselves, go into denial and see things that aren’t there, while missing things that are there, right in front of their eyes.
“This is similar to the process people go through when they deal with alcohol and drug problems. So the program shows kids–in a safe and supportive environment–how they can be fooled by drugs and alcohol and how to protect themselves from being fooled.”
During one of his skits, he borrows a credit card from a student in the audience. Like a credit-card philosophy, people think they can enjoy drugs or alcohol now and pay later, he said. Then he destroys the card as the audience shrieks. But the card appears in its original condition back in the person’s wallet.
“It’s easy to take control from another person. Often when people think they’re in control, they really aren’t,” Fabjance said. “I show students just how vulnerable they are.”
With the increasing need for effective drug and alcohol abuse education, Fabjance believes every community should have at least one officer trained to present a program using the specially developed techniques from his program.
“Magic confronts our thinking patterns in a non-intimidating way,” he said. “While it may be fun, it also offers the opportunity to have people open doors in their minds to accept new ideas.
“Magic doesn’t happen on the stage,” Fabjance said. “It happens in our minds. We make our own magic in life.”
