Video by Eric Keith

The hands are small and almost porcelain in color with agile fingers. Through these hands, graceful and explosive movements can make coins travel undetected through thin air, silver lose its rigidity and playing cards flip, fold and dance with precise choreography.

It's magic - and it's something special for 29-year-old professional magician Jason Dean. It's provided him a good living and allowed him to travel the country performing for unsuspecting strangers, private parties and members of the some of the biggest hard rock bands around.

Mr. Dean is obsessively dedicated to becoming the gateway to a world where anything is possible. But when a medical condition threatened to make his own magic career disappear, the performer became a person who would forever appreciate the possibilities of his own life.

Building The Steps

Growing up, Jason Dean, born Jason Rethemeyer, was always ready to entertain. His father, Troy Rethemeyer, owner of Confidential Cleaning in St. Joseph, remembers him donning a cowboy hat and running through the bleachers in Kemper Arena trying to give the crowd a show during the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. His mother, Pam Randol, recalls Mr. Dean getting sent to the principal's office in the third grade because he sat backwards in his desk chair just to get a few laughs.

He got a particular glee watching magicians perform and seeing the audience's reactions at a young age, but he got his tiny hands on his first deck of playing cards thanks to his grandfather, Fred Thomas. Mr. Dean would visit him at his lake house every summer and his grandpa would show him a few tricks, teaching him to stack a deck of playing cards before he was 10 and using his grandson's innocence to his advantage during poker games with his friends.

"He was like, every time I hand you the deck, do that thing I taught you," Mr. Dean says. "It looked harmless and cute."

Mr. Dean stepped out to pursue a real career in magic at 18. Shortly after he and his father moved to St. Joseph in 2000, he would try out close-up magic tricks on random participants strolling around local malls. Mr. Dean prefers intimate interactions instead of elaborate staging and taking objects that are mundane, whether it's cards, coins, silverware or a salt shaker, and making them miraculous.

"It was the idea that I was using something they can relate to," Mr. Dean says. "They can relate to a deck of cards. They can't relate to a big shiny box with a dragon on the side."

Mr. Dean later performed his first big show for a private party at the Anderson Ford auto dealership. Through traveling around performing for crowds in area restaurants and bars, he continued to make contacts that would eventually lead to him getting hired to go on tour with popular hard rock and metal bands like Disturbed, Godsmack and Sevendust, an entertainer wowing performers who regularly played for thousands of people.

On the surface, Mr. Dean's success in magic might seem solely based on luck; more on being in the right places at the right time than skill. But just like in magic, things are not always what they appear.

A Secret Place

The people who witnessed one of Mr. Dean's first performances at age 18 don't know about the years he spent away in isolation perfecting his craft.

He "borrowed" a magic book, "Expert Card Technique," from a library, and it would be the first of more than 500 published works on the subject he would collect to study up on magic's art and history.

While most kids would be under their beds at night reading comic books with a flashlight, he was perfecting card tricks and shuffling. He kept a deck of cards, 52 good friends plus two jokers, on him at all times in case he wanted to do a trick for someone. He'd be shuffling under dinner tables, at the movies and even while driving.

"People call it a hobby. It's more than that. It's a sickness," Mr. Dean says.

But with the exception of his immediate family, he hid his passion from children at his school. His choice hindered many romantic pursuits and got in the way of maintaining close friendships as he tried to separate the two worlds. He tried to fit in by trying out for his school basketball team, but as soon as a pass jammed his finger during practice, he quit. The coach was perplexed. As for Mr. Dean, he had different and secret priorities.

"He didn't understand I didn't quit because I was hurt. He damaged a tool," Mr. Dean says. "This hand has to pick up these playing cards so I can go home and practice later."

Mr. Dean's father would walk in and find his son passed out Indian style in front of a deck of cards. He has always been encouraging of his son's dreams and knows why he made the sacrifices he has.

"He wouldn't want to come out and do it until he had it mastered," Mr. Rethemeyer says. "I always taught my kids to follow your dreams so that you love what you are doing and your dreams will take care of you."

Ms. Randol had her concerns about Mr. Dean's relentless pursuit of magic. She wanted him to have a back-up plan in case it failed. Only after she saw her son perform for crowds and saw his charisma, skills and personality draw them in did she feel safe in his decision.

"I had a reality check," Ms. Randol says. "This is it. This could be his calling."

A Passion At Risk

One morning when Mr. Dean was in his early 20s, he woke up and his life changed forever. That's because when he opened his eyes, the entire right side of his body was numb.

He'd had signs of this before. His fingertips would occasionally tingle, but he just thought it was because of his compulsive card shuffling. Only later, after visiting with doctors and numerous tests, would he find out that he had multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system.

His attacks were varied in their intensity. One day, his fingertips would go numb for a few minutes. His mother would notice Mr. Dean's hand twisting up involuntarily at his side during conversations. He's already gone blind in each one of his eyes for anywhere from three weeks to six months.

"When it got to its worst it could get, I started realizing I'm probably not going to be able to do what I want to do and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it," Mr. Dean says.

But through physical therapy and medication, Mr. Dean's MS subsided into remission. There is always the possibility that his symptoms can come back, but Ms. Randol says that as long as Mr. Dean has magic, he has something more positive to focus on than his disease.

"It's in his body. It's always going to be there," Ms. Randol says. "(Magic) won't let him sit back and wonder, 'Why is this happening to me?' ... It busies his mind, and magic is something you have to think about."

Living For The Craft

The Jason Dean that you see perform today is one who appreciates the life and opportunities that have been placed before him. As he continues to gain success, he remains grounded by the disease that threatened to take away his ability to perform.

He's currently perfecting new tricks in his Kansas City home before he travels to Spain for his own headlining magic tour in January. Luckily, a man of his skill can perform magic anywhere, because wonderment and fascination have no language barriers. But no matter where he performs, the escape his craft provides his audience also serves the hands behind the illusions.

"It's a release for me. I can have no audience in front of me and I can be in front of a mirror practicing alone and it just feels right," Mr. Dean says. "I don't know of any art form or anything out there that can make someone feel that thing that magic does."

Lifestyles reporter Blake Hannon can be reached at blakehannon@npgco.com