Rob Lake didn’t get an acceptance letter from Hogwarts on his 11th birthday, so he had to make his own magic.

“They don’t take Americans,” Lake said.

A childhood fascination with magic tricks and illusions led to a globetrotting career for Norman native Lake, who takes his magic act all over the world and will be back to perform his first hometown show in four years Saturday at Sooner Theatre.

Lake is the 2008 recipient of the Merlin Award for international stage magician of the year from the International Magicians Society, but his magic career began much earlier. Lake did his first magic show at 10 years old, but friends and family didn’t recognize how serious he was about it, he said.

“I don’t think anybody realized it was more than just a hobby,” Lake said. “[Even as a kid] I knew it was more than a hobby. I practiced and drove my family and friends crazy with card tricks.”

People found out just how serious it was when Lake dropped out of OU, where he was a health and exercise sciences major, in 2003 to pursue magic fulltime. He planned to come back and finish his degree, but had too many performance offers, he said.

Now, Lake still calls Norman home, but is on the road about 75 percent of the time performing about 500 shows in a year, he said. He staves off burn out with a healthy diet and training for triathlons and he staves off loneliness with his tight-knit collection of assistants and crew, a group he’s dubbed “the magic family.”

While the near-constant touring means he doesn’t get to see much of his friends and family in Norman or his dog, Lake is grateful for the opportunity to travel everywhere from Tokyo to London to Los Angeles.

“I love being on the go and traveling a lot,” Lake said. “It’s just part of what I do.”

Some of Lake’s most popular illusions include making a motorcycle vanish in mid-air and writing a prediction on a chalkboard at the beginning of the show that comes true. So far, he’s never been wrong, he said, but just in case something unexpected happens, he has three or four different methods for each trick to provide an alternate path.

Although Lake admits to simply doing illusions in his show, he’s open to discovering actual magic, and is studying the ancient history of it, he said.

“I definitely want to believe there’s at least a possibility for magic [to exist],” Lake said. “It’s very interesting how secretive the origins of magic are.”

Lake’s interest in the ancient extends to his show, where he often performs the oldest illusion in the world. It was depicted on pyramid walls and features three different colors of sand and water that had to be imported directly from the Nile River, he said.

For Lake, getting skeptics to suspend disbelief — even for a moment — is a big thrill of his job, and something that almost everyone seems to enjoy, he said.

“Especially now more than ever, people need an escape,” Lake said. “We all want to believe in magic and miracles.”

Saturday at Sooner Theatre, he’ll give that chance to a hometown crowd, including friends and family he hasn’t seen in a long time, Lake said. And they’ll give him something he can hardly find anywhere else in the world.

“[Norman] is one of the few places I can say ‘Boomer’ on stage and get a proper response,” he said.

Rob Lake will perform at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Sooner Theatre, 101 E. Main St. in Norman. Tickets range from $20 to $30, and are half-price for students. For tickets, call 321-9600.