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Q: I know in Mindfreak every season you evolve and give us new -- you take us to new places with your illusions. Will you be doing the same kind of thing with Believe?

C.A: Absolutely. You know, when you see Believe, and I've had people that have seen Believe already 37 times, and I'm always trying to do the best. You know, for me it's about being the best I can be for me and whether that's on television with a new season of Mindfreak or doing Believe, you know, ten times a week, I always want to make it better.

And there's always room from improvement on both fronts. And I'll be trying to improve everything that I do for my entire career probably until the day I die because that's -- you know, I want perfection but I'll never get perfection. It's just you always find things that could be better.

Q: Now are you looking to incorporate a death-defying feat in each episode of Mindfreak from now on or is this just the one-time thing?

C.A: Well I'm doing five hours and it begins as you know this Wednesday. And each week I explore, you know, because it's an hour I have the ability to have some flexibility and do different things whether it's a life-threatening demonstration or it's a demonstration like when I'm able to levitate in impossible conditions or I'm able to produce something or do something, you know, produce a shopping cart full of merchandise in one continuous shot literally within a split second. I'll blow your mind. It's one of my favorite illusions that I did this season.

Or do some really intimate piece of magic, you know, in a complete random place. You know, each demonstration because they're so diverse, each episode I have the opportunity to do different things. But I'm trying to keep the common thread, you know, with that theme. You know, levitation, the risk there is is that, you know, if you have spectator floating 20 feet in the air and they fall, well that's a real problem.

Q: Yes, no kidding. I also wanted to know, overall are most people intrigued by you or scared of you?

C.A: It's different. I think that in the beginning when I first came out people were very scared of me and they didn't really quite know, you know, because I blur the line between reality and illusion. A lot of what I do is completely real. It's not a trick. You know, the mind, body and spirit is probably the most amazing thing and it allows you if you push it enough to be able to do incredible things. And they're not illusions.

But I also do things that are pure illusion. And I try to cross that line and allow the audience to determine what is real and what is an illusion. And you know, I think people now who haven't heard of me, know who I am, know what I do and I think they kind of realize what I am about. And I don't think -- I think some people are still scared of me but I think it's more -- I think they connect with their inner child to what I'm doing because it shows that anything in life is truly possible.

Q: You know, like any performer, you're prone to some criticism and people kind of talking about your act. How do you tune that out so it doesn't really get in the way of your work?

C.A: Well for me it, you know, everybody's entitled to their opinion and for me, you know, as George Lucas once said, "There's two types of people in the world. There are positive people, there are destroyers and there are creators." And I choose to align myself with a positive creative force in the world. And I really don't listen to negativity. It breeds nothing positive.

So, you know, it doesn't really have any effect on me at all quite honestly. The fact that people are talking about me, you know, what intrigues me is when you see something and people are talking so negatively that don't do it for a living. You know, it's like, "Why are you wasting your life talking about me? Is it because maybe no one will ever talk about you?"

It doesn't matter to me. The only thing that I'm interested in is being the best that I can be and pushing my envelope and being true to myself and my family and my friends and having the three things that you can't buy in life, love, health and happiness.

Q: You touched a little earlier on one of the things you do is that you're reading people's muscles you said.

C.A: Yes, basically I studied martial arts for years. And Hellstromism is muscle reading. And what I mean by that and I'll give you a specific example of that. If you hide something and I don't know where you hid it and then I ask you to hold on to my arm or my shoulder, I then walk around the room. Now if I come close to it, your body is going to naturally, psychologically, you don't even realize it but it does, it will react a certain way.

I have to be so in tune with myself and you even though I just probably have met you and be able to determine with how you're responding with little subtle muscles and movements whether I'm getting warmer or I'm getting colder. And that's really what muscle reading or Hellstromism is in its barest, most organic form.

Q: I know sometimes it's an ability to read people and their energy and you know, feeling what they're feeling. Do you have a hard time turning that ability off? As far as if you walk into a room, do you have to more or less mentally turn that off so that you aren't always reading other people?

C.A: For me I'm always, you know, I'm a student of humanity and psychology and looking at, you know, body language and how somebody speaks, how somebody dresses and I'm always -- my mind is always working. I wish I could turn a lot of how my mind works off, especially when I'm trying to go to sleep. But it just doesn't work that way.

And the fact of the matter is, no, it's always on. I'm always kind of -- you know, if I go -- I'll give you an example, mass levitation, okay. I attempt to levitate more than 12 people at the same time. I have over 1000 people in front of me. I have to assess really quickly who's going to be a good candidate for my demonstration.

You know, if somebody's going to be difficult, you know, it's not going to work. I have to look for people that are interested and open to the power of suggestion and those people I need to read very quickly. And that's why I assess each person like I do. And it's something that I just do naturally and I don't -- it just doesn't turn off.

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