The Best YouTube Channels to Learn Magic

All without spending any money!

When I first learnt magic over 15 years ago, I was taught by another magician and then directed to an online source (Ellusionist) to find more magic to learn. From there I went down the rabbit hole of forums such as The Magic Cafe, books, DVDs and eventually the local community of magicians to really build my knowledge and experience in magic.

Now, it’s even easier to learn magic with so much so readily available online for free, but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

Let’s dive into the best free resources for magic I can recommend if you are new to magic and want to get an idea of whether you want to pursue it further or not beginning with the most common place on the internet!

YouTube

YouTube is the biggest search engine in the world that isn’t Google where you can learn almost everything you want, from how to replace the battery in your car key to how to make something out of leather.

When it comes to magic, I highly rate the following channels:

Jay Sankey

The king of magic creativity, Jay Sankey churned out hundreds of tricks at his peak and now he is teaching a whole bunch of his unique brand of magic on his channel. The effects range from beginner to intermediate with the advanced and more exclusive items behind a paywall, whether on his website store or subscription service Inside Deception. They use a variety of items from the usual cards and coins to household objects like straws, rubber bands and post it notes.

You can’t go wrong with checking out a trick or two of Sankey’s and seeing if you enjoy it.

Doug Conn

Doug Conn can be considered the grandpa of YouTube magic.

In a world where most older magicians shun social media and the perils of exposure, Doug has gained a following by showcasing good classic magic with respectful teaching so that you understand the ins and outs of the effect he’s teaching you. You aren’t going to get a quick explanation of the effect, but detailed teaching and references to the original creators incase you want to explore more.

New magicians these days are lucky to have Doug around to learn from on YouTube.

Jeremy Tan

What if you want to get started with card magic but you don’t know where to start, how to shuffle, let alone know what a “mechanic’s grip” is!?

That’s where Jeremy Tan’s card magic course comes in, it takes you through the basics of what you should know as a beginner and includes a few tricks as well to get you confident and on your way. His channel has a bunch of card tricks taught and if you want to make a jump to the next level, there’s a paid course with more secrets expertly taught.

If you watch any magic on social media, you may have come across his videos and soon you’ll be having people saying “Whaaat?” at your magic!

Rick Holcombe

If you want to learn magic with coins, the best beginner book to buy is Bobo’s Coin Magic, but if you want to see the sleights in action and some of them taught, you have to check out Rick Holcombe’s channel.

He teaches full coin routines and goes into such detail with his smooth voice it will motivate you to practice even in your dreams. You may not have realised how expansive coin magic can be, but this channel will give you a glimpse into how much variety of magic can be accomplished with coins.

Spidey

Even though this channel isn’t active anymore, the videos that are on there are a great start in building your knowledge and confidence in the art of mentalism.

Spidey is a very accomplished mentalist, having commercially released a few effects like A.B.See and Akkelian Envelopes. And his channel has a great range of mentalism using notepad and playing cards.

Michael O’Brien

For theory on how to be a good magician and magic reviews Michael O’Brien’s channel is a great place to understand the theory and business side of magic.

It’s aimed at magicians of all experiences and answers questions that working magicians would benefit from. He also had a paid subscription service on YouTube with further teaching and group meetups.

David Ung

Okay, this is more of a shameless plug than an actual recommendation of a channel.

However in an attempt to sell you on my channel, I have performance videos, vlogs, reviews and thoughts on magic just like the ones you read here. In fact some of the posts here I’m repurposing for YouTube so that more people can benefit from my writings, but in video form.

If you feel like it, subscribe to my channel along with my Substack here!

If you have any other channels you enjoy, please link it in the comments, I know I’ve missed a bunch that I haven’t highlighted such as Jason Maher, Xavier Spade, Daniel Madison just to name a few.

Next time I’ll look at other free online resources that aren’t on YouTube!