Criss Angel

Career as an Illusionist

Criss Angel has filmed two seasons of his hit A&E television show Mindfreak. He is currently working on his third season. He has created daring demonstrations, which has incited some to guess at how they are done. They include walking on water, building floating, and cutting himself in half in a unique way. Criss Angel has won Merlin Magician of the year a record three times: 2001, 2004, and 2005.


Competition and popularity

Fans of Criss Angel have compared him to similar street magician David Blaine, to the point of assuming there is a rivalry going on between them. However, Criss has indicated that he doesn't see any such rivalry existing between them, noting that Blaine had come to visit him and offer his support during his 2002 Oasis stunt.
In a November 2002 issue of the New York Post, Blaine was quoted as being weary of the lesser-known Criss Angel's taunts, and challenged Angel to attempt to match Blaine's efforts to survive without food or water (a challenge Angel did not accept and that Blaine attempted on his own).


Legitimacy

Some of Angel's levitation tricks have been explained by Criss himself, notably on a DVD which is available for purchase from his official website store. The levitation featured on the DVD was an original invention of Jacob Spinney. Angel often claims that several of the levitations, teleports and demonstrations of telekinesis he performs are done through the power of the mind, body and spirit attained through meditation. Some of the other methods are well known within the magic fraternity and have been performed previously by magicians such as David Copperfield, David Blaine and the Pendragons. Angel is writing a book entitled Mindfreak: Secret Revelations from the Master of Surreality. Many viewers and critics allege that Angel is only a "video illusionist," using camera special effects, post-production effects, forced viewing angles, and assistants acting as amazed spectators for the TV audience[citation needed]. Many magicians who perform magic without camera tricks resent these methods while others simply see them as modern tools of magic on television[citation needed]. Criss Angel himself claims he does not use camera trickery, and had made an attempt to debunk these rumors during the second season by introducing a "Spectator's Point of View camera", a handheld video camera given to a what he says is a random person in the audience to shoot the action in any way he or she wants. However, the camera has seemingly fallen out of favor as the second season continued, only showing up very sporadically. He has even revealed the methods for some of his tricks to viewers at home, (although the effects are usually very simple such as making a toothpick disappear, or making a styrofoam cup float.) Angel guest starred on an episode of "Las Vegas" in which he says "If it's real, it's not magic!".


Musical career

Criss Angel was in an industrial rock band called Angeldust, which he started with Klay Scott (now known as Klayton of Celldweller) after Klayton's previous band Circle of Dust broke up. Angeldust released an album called Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion in 1998 and performed in Madison Square Garden. He has also released several more CDs as Criss Angel.
In a more recent tone, Criss Angel created the video MF2 featuring Sully Erna, the lead singer of Godsmack. The video debuted on Yahoo! videos.
Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion is being re-released and can be pre-ordered from Criss Angel's site Criss Angel Store