On Sept. 7, the Magician for Non-Believers, Peter Boie blew the minds of University of New Haven students. From first year students to graduating seniors, the innovative performance had everyone wanting more by the end of the night.

To start off the show, Boie displayed his mentalism magic trick abilities by asking a student to embody the words that were written on a card given to him, which either read “weak” or “strong.” To the student’s best ability, he tried to ignore the sign and give it all that he had. Somehow when the card read weak, despite the student’s valiant effort, he didn’t have the strength to push the magician away and vise-versa. When given the “strong” card he had no problem with the task.

To make the show more interesting, Boie called up a young woman and asked her to record how many licks it would take her to get to the center of a tootsie pop, during the course of the show. Something fairly simple, right? Of course, he saves the grand reveal for the end of the night, leaving students glued to their seats wanting to know the outcome.

With a variety of tricks throughout the night, fun music, and punny jokes, Boie put on a dynamic show that left students mystified by his mentalist abilities. From raising a card from an untouched deck with the exact card the student was imagining and spiritual imitations to escaping a straitjacket; it seemed like Boie made a believer out of everyone, even the biggest skeptics.

Peter Boie’s first professional show was at the age 16, but he said his love for everything magic, started at the early age of three.

“The earliest memory of a magic trick was from a friend of the family who was a magician… he pulled a quarter from my ear and I guess you can say it had an impact on me,” he said. “I always like to be creative and enjoy slight of hand and manual deck dardy stuff.”

Boie expressed his gratitude for magic, in that it brought him out of his comfort zone. He claimed that he was once a shy person and magic inspired him to be “un-shy, which gave (him) a good mix, and a chance to be out in front of people.”