For Justin Sight, it all began with an annual ABC Family special and a magic set.
“They were running this marathon of a show that would play yearly on NBC called World’s Greatest Magic,” Sight said in a phone interview. “It was the greatest thing that could have happened to me. I was totally sucked into [the magic].”
After watching this special, Sight took any chance he could to experience magic. That Christmas, he received his first magic kit. Now 15 years later, he has turned magic into his career. In addition to his repertoire of illusions, the 25-year-old New York City street magician has another proverbial trick up his sleeve.
Sight is legally blind.
[The College] wanted me to share my story and do a little magic with it.”
He was born with Stargardt’s macular degeneration, a genetic condition that causes progressive vision loss. It is estimated to affect about one in every 8,000 to 10,000 individuals. There is currently no corrective treatment for this condition.
To play off of the idea that ‘you don’t always have to see it to believe it,’ the magician took the stage name Justin Sight.
Born in Poland and raised mostly in Connecticut, it wasn’t until his adult life that Sight became interested in New York City. At the end of high school, he attended college for exercise science, intending to be a body builder. He quit college and spent time looking for work, a task made difficult by his limited eyesight.
After months of searching, a friend hired him as a doorman at a hospital that was, by train, about two hours from New York City. He began making trips to the city in search of spiritual groups and connections. What started as a search for self turned into something more. He moved to the city fulltime two years ago, calling them the best of his adult life.
“Because magic was a part of my life, I always had a deck of card on me and I started doing tricks while I was there,” Sight said of the NYC. “I started feeling like I really belonged there. It was the energy.”
He was invited to Elizabethtown College to perform Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, in Leffler Chapel and Performance Center.
“[The College] wanted me to share my story and do a little magic with it,” he said. “With me it isn’t just magic. It is magic used as a metaphor to illustrate these inspirational or spiritual concepts.”
While a magician never reveals his secrets, he noted his favorite trick is levitating objects. In YouTube videos, he explains the physics that makes levitating objects possible.
“The response I was getting from doing magic made it seem like there was so much promise and possibility here,” Sight said.
Watch clips of his tricks or learn more about his magic. http://www.justinsightmagic.com/.