I was directed to a video clip from a thread on the Café. I believe the performer in the clip had originated the routine. I mentioned on the thread that I understood the mechanics of the effect but appreciated the artistry. I received a PM from a regular poster with an Inner Circle rating, whom I believe to be a knowledgeable, respectful magic thinker. He asked how I thought a specific part was accomplished.

OK ethics guys, would telling him be exposure, even though it was something I observed?
How would you respond to a PM like that?

Old school here. Don't tell him.

Make him beg and suffer.

Seriously, if the person in question is actually a magician (however you define that) it would not be considered exposure under most of the ethical codes of the various magical organizations. He's asking your opinion, not a cut and dried answer, anyway.

But if you feel uneasy telling how you think he did it, then don't do it.

New School here. Tell him.

This site is supposed to be about "Magicians helping Magicians" If one doesn't subscribe to that ethic, there seems little point in coming here.

Ahhh. But is telling more helpful? I have heard the opposite argued.

By the way BlackShadow, your signature link is dead. Is that a comment on ethics?

Thanks for telling me. I'll remove that. It was quite a good essay by Rick Maue about what is wrong with magic today. The basic thrust was that exposure was a non issue compared to other cancers like people ripping off other creations and passing them off as their own.

BlackShadow let me help a little. Compared to world hunger exposure is also not a problem. So what?

To throw out other problems that are worse so you can avoid talking about the first problem is classic deflection and you can do it with any arguement, but it does not answer the question. It is seen in every political debate we have.

So forget other problems or cancers you see. I can name a LOT of them. Magicians who are so bad performers that they end up exposing through bad performance are a bad problem, magic shops selling to ANYONE with the money. There are lots of problems out there and none of them are relevant to the original question.

So to answer the question, don't tell him. I love what cryptologists call a "self authorizing language". The concept is that once you can read the language, you are entitled to know what is being said. If you study enough, and practice enough and perform enough, eventually magic truley has quite few actual secrets. But you must do your research. NOT by asking "how is it done?", but by reading, trying, and practicing. Then once you can see what is being done, you not only will know the answer, but you will have a deeper respect for the secret.

The main thing is when you simply tell someone a secret they have NO respect for it. IF they have to earn it as I have outlined, then a respect for the process of learning has happened. This is what keeps magical secrets in my opinion and this is what has vanished from our "art".

Sorry for the rant. BlackShadow please don't take this personally.

I guess I really am old school. Let me try to clarify my answer if there's still time.

Black Shadow quotes:


My point exactly. If this guy wanted to know what I thought about somebody else's material, perhaps he would explain his reasons for wanting to know, and be very specific. Would he want to know so he could devise a method that would suit his own purposes? Or would he want to know simply out of his magician's intellectual curiosity, with no intentions of ripping off the work? I would demand an answer before anything.

And even then, I probably wouldn't because I'd be discussing someone else's work. I'd go the extra mile and get the other person in the loop, just to find out how they felt about it.

I've always interpreted "Magicians Helping Magicians" as being inclusive of all magicians and magic, including those originators who aren't protected very well except by old-school, sticks-in-the-mud like me.

But that's just me. You gotta make your own choice about what "Helping" means to you.

No problem Danny. I realise there are loads of different views on this. Some people like to help people when they ask, others are stuck with a code which grew up before even books were invented, let alone the internet. I prefer to take a more modern stance on this. We won't agree, so I'll agree to disagree with you, rather than hijack the thread with all the age old exposure versus not arguments that I'm sure we've all heard before

Thing is people are not entitled to information they have not earned. No matter how instant our world has become things still need to be earned.

Many miss this point, and our art suffers from it.

BS,

If I want to know about sombody's work, I ask them.
If I want to know whose work something is, I can ask in public.

To do otherwise seems disrespectful, as I would like my work to be respected.

JT

You know, there is a school of thought that would suggest that if you are in doubt, do not. Why? Because once you have told him, it's done, no going back, the act is commited. If you do not tell him, that state is forever alterable/amendable.

Jack is right. You can't unring a bell.

Once they know the damage is done.

The rapidity of communications has not made the code of ethics that was regarded as our creed invalid. Maybe we can't plug all the leaks. But we don't need to contribute to the leakage, either.

The key here is "Magicians Helping Magicians." It's not "Magicians Helping Magicians steal other people's material." I'm all for helping someone. That's how I learned. But I expect something more than, "How'd he do that?"

This afternoon, I got a call from a Muggle lady: "I saw a magician last night who did a trick with some water bowls. He drank them dry, then they refilled themselves. Do you know what that is called?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"It's not mine to share."

"Where did he get it?"

"He made them?"

"He MADE THEM?"

"Yes Ma'am."

I'm not going to tell Madam Muggle that she can go to the ZZM web site and order the trick. She just wants the secret. And once she had it, she couldn't perform it. It looks easy, but it requires acting.

She never once indentified herself as a magician.

We're all coming from slightly different angles here. Though I would have told he inner circle chap, I wouldn't have told the woman who rang Bill. In fact I would have taken the easy way out and said I didn't even know of the bowls of water effect let alone how it was done. For me it's easier to tell a white lie, than to face ever more pressing questions and possible embarrassment on both sides.

My criteria for sharing stuff is that the person is seriously interested in learning magic. And, 99% of people who spend hours and indeed days of their life meandering around long technical threads on text based boards ARE seriously interested. Even more so those with 200 or 1000 posts. That's proof enogh for me.

BS, you are fine sharing your own stuff as you so choose, but what about the works of others?

BS that is nonsense. Many of those with lots of posts are NOT professional magicians. Your criteria needs a LOT of work.

I don't use whether someone is a professional magician as the criterion for sharing information that I have permission to share. I go by the same criterion as the military. Information is dispensed on a "need to know" basis.

For example: about a year ago, a fellow posted that he had purchased some magic tricks for his son, a five year old, and he had lost the instructions to the paddle trick. He wanted to know if anyone could help him out.

Some of the responses he got were really rough. After all, this was THE PADDLE TRICK!!!! WOW!!

I PM'ed him and found that he did, indeed, have a paddle. To me -- father with paddle (for the paddle trick) + five year old kid who has a desire to learn how to do the trick = need to know. So I gave him detailed instructions on the paddle move.

But I would not put it on an open forum.

A big number from posts only indicates that the person spends a lot of time in the computer boasting his ego, Just like I just did... Of course I am working (performing) for the next three days...(did it again)

That, of course, doesn't apply to everybody

Whether it is a professional magician or not does not come into it for me. A genuine desire to learn does. After all how do you think "professional" magicians learned. At some stage they were newbies with a desire to improve and not necessarily doing paid shows, or even any shows.

In terms of what stuff I may be prepared to share, it's really anything which has been publicly displayed. I would include public display as posting a performance video on the internet or putting a product in a marketplace. Say somebody did that, and another magician sent me a message to ask about some detail, then I would share and discuss what I had worked out by looking at the video or general magical knowledge. If someone had privately shared some information with me and asked it shouldn't be passed on then I wouldn't pass it on.

If a colleague in the office, who I know had no interest in performing magic, looked over my shoulder at a magic video and asked me how it was done, I would plead ignorance. But to go back to the original question, it was a query about sharing information with a person who had a clear interest in magic. OK, one can dismiss participation on a magic forum as marking time, or ego boosting, but if you are really concerned about whether that person should have the information, then spend 5 minutes looking at their posting history and it will soon become clear what their level of knowledge is, and if they are truly interested in performing magic.

I'd challenge anyone to name a 1000 post (inner circle) member on this board who, from their posting history, does NOT demonstrate a clear interest in magical performance, a fair degree of existing knowledge, and a desire to improve. It's all very well to randomly pour scorn on such people, but can one demonstrate your argument is correct by providing some examples. That, I doubt.