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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
The evidence for wonder is weak. Let us test it: Tell someone a joke and now they know it, tell it them again and see if they think it just as funny the as first time you told them. Show someone a card trick, and now show them the method and now they know, show it them again and see if they enjoy it just as much as the first time. If this theory of wonder holds true then why doesn’t it work when it is tested?
When the secret in known the surprise that is lost is the wonder of how it’s done. With magic there is often no surprise factor at all: “Come and see Spondooni The Great make Big Ben vanish!” The wonder is how on Earth will or he did he do it. There is no surprise about it vanishing as he told us what was going to happen beforehand. They might want to see him do it again and again and wonder again and again how it‘s done. Show them how and the that’s when the wonder of it is lost. There is nothing spiritual about the wonder of magic is there?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-08-14 12:08, tommy wrote: It works just fine. As per that old roman letter. Let's not confound wonder with surprise.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
What old roman letter?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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tnscot Loyal user 220 Posts |
When I first heard about magicians who expose, I thought it was a great idea and tried it myself. The spectators didn't respond very positively, and the police didn't think it was a good idea at all. Perhaps I misunderstood the term?
Posted: Aug 14, 2007 1:03pm On a serious note: Quote: On 2007-08-14 12:08, tommy wrote: Show someone a card trick, and now show them the method and now they know, show it them again and see if they enjoy it just as much as the first time. If this theory of wonder holds true then why doesn’t it work when it is tested? Personally, I don't think that's acurate. At least, not as a blanket statement. No, I do not expose magic out of respect for others int he community. But I can honestly say that I have ALWAYS taken more delight in watching somebody perform an excellent slight or illusion that I know, and being amazed at how well they do it, than by watching "a magic trick". Granted, this may not be the case for everyone....but I think that people who are true magic fans can appreciate the art in the trick as much as the trick itself.
As Always,
Scot Legdermain |
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George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-08-14 12:08, tommy wrote: Sorry to sound like I'm arguing , but I happen to believe the evidence is very strong and very clear. We can choose to pooh-pooh it, and believe we have grown out of it, and ignore it, but, if we let ourselves feel and respond like human beings instead of like grown-up cynics, then we can still feel wonder over and over. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, J.K. Rowling, and many many singers and musicians have made very successful careers out of making us (the general public) feel that child-like wonder over and over again. But, for some reason, a lot of people involved in magic seem to feel that none of this applies to magic: it's all about the surprise, and the secret, and keeping the secret, and knowing something the other guy doesn't know. I don't know where your comment about the wonder of magic being "spiritual" came from, but I happen to agree with you. I don't see anything spiritual about it at all; I just see the wonder of magic as a normal thing -- maybe call it an emotion -- that we all had when we were kids, and that we decided to grow out of. Just like seeing a firefly doesn't "grab" us any more because we've seen them before and we learned in grade school how they work. Walter Cronkite was known for being able to feel wonder -- emotion -- about things he reported, and it endeared him to his audience far more than any recent newscaster. During one of the early Mercury flights, when the rocket took off, he just sat there like a kid and said, "By golly, will you look at that." Yet he had been there before, and he knew how the rocket worked, and he had talked with the astronauts, and so forth. Nothing spiritual there either. Just a human being responding in a human way. And BTW, I agree totally with Drew's comment about the etiquette of magic.
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Sleight.
Works better with the that old Roman letter.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Cited from Page 13 of the Farelli book on John Ramsay's Routine with the Cups and Balls, here's the text in question:
"... in which it is the very trickery that pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein." full source cited there is 45th epistle to Lucilius as contained in the Loeb Classical Library, Vol 1.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
I do believe that magic is the world of dreams, that magicians conjure it up and I find the science wonderful.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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longhaired1 Veteran user Salida 316 Posts |
Well I keep reading and hoping Alex will wrap this up with a profound thought that will bring all of this into perspective and edify us all in some grand way. Apparently that won't be happening soon...
If I understand the original question it is what would I say to a non-magician who exposes secrets for fun that would change his mind and stop him from pursuing his evil ways. Firstly, I wouldn't waste my time. However, back when I did waste my time doing such a thing, here is what I did: There is a rather infamous exposer of magic secrets on the web who has also authored a number of websites. His primary excuse for exposing secrets is that he was not a magician and so the code did not apply to him. I agree that is the case. I emailed him and complimented him on his websites, and informed him that I would be reproducing his websites verbatim on my own servers but would be signing my name to them and claiming his writings as my own. He was furious and fired off a nasty email telling me how unethical it would be for me to claim his work as my own. I 'splained to him that since I'm not a writer those ethical rules didn't apply to me , so I was preparing to go forward with my plan (or so I said). Before he raised the conversation to the level of legal issues etc. he informed me that he thought I was probably just a magician "trying to make a point" (I was) and started blocking my emails. So that's how I dealt with at least one "exposer". It was fun for about fifteen minutes, and a life lesson in using the internet to annoy strangers from halfway around the world. Other than that, my mini-crusade did not have a whole lot of impact. |
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George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-08-14 13:33, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Well, either the writer of the epistle was definitely not interested in becoming a magician, or maybe Lucilius was the owner of "The Magic Inn" back then and he was meant to post the epistle on the wall.
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
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Patrick Differ Inner circle 1540 Posts |
Longhair writes:
Quote:
Before he raised the conversation to the level of legal issues etc. he informed me that he thought I was probably just a magician "trying to make a point" (I was) and started blocking my emails. And he figured that out all on his own? Good for him. Actually, I applaud your attempt. Regardless of your success, you made a darn good effort. And that is really what this is about. Most people would say something like, "it can't be done" and leave it at that. To me, that mentality is a cop-out mentality. Victory belongs to only those who dare. That means cajones.
Will you walk into my parlour? said the Spider to the Fly,
Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy; The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I've a many curious things to show when you are there. Oh no, no, said the little Fly, to ask me is in vain, For who goes up your winding stair -can ne'er come down again. |
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Alex Linian Inner circle Peru 1277 Posts |
Four long pages….
And you have not convinced me. I think that we can all agree with. At this point I don’t think you will convince, and we probably agree on that as well. I started this thread because I’ve been wanting to make a point, to extend a warning, to share a realization I’ve had, over the past few years. And that it this: We need to evolve. Exposure will happen, and (as this thread proves) there is no reason why it shouldn’t. I started this thread, and asked for a reason, because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I stated clearly that “I will lose my job”, and “It’s more fun not to know” did not count as answers because I had already explored them from an exposer’s point of view. You provided me with answers and complained that I was simply playing Devil’s Advocate; that I was simply stating the opposite point of view, and claimed that doing this was easy. And it was, but only because I had already thought about these questions… Four long pages… and every answer I got was the same “Lose my job”, “More fun not to know” answer. (Sad really, as I was hoping I would get to question my beliefs as well. It didn’t happen.) Yes, while it is not apparent, half of the replies in this thread are “I’ll lose my job” answers. Delusive reasons, excuses to simply not evolve, which make sense only to magicians because of their fear to lose their jobs. The truth is that you cannot tell someone they don’t have the right to learn published information, information that you yourself learned from a source other than yourself. You cannot tell someone what to do with this information, or how to present it to others, especially when the only reason why you do what do, is because others did it successfully in the past. You cannot claim to know how this information is intended to be used, unless you discovered it yourself. (You also cannot claim that you have a “need to know”, then not back it up when I ask you to… you cannot try to prove your point by asking me for an exposer’s need-to-know, and when I provide it for you, decide to simply state “So what”… it just backs up my argument. Glen.) As you can see, all of these statements are based on my rights as a human being. Your arguments were based on my debts to you as a “magician”, which is simply delusive. While we form communities and create our own rules, we cannot change the fact that we have as much rights as anyone else. The illusion that we posses information others don’t deserve might work inside our little matrix, but it just doesn’t hold up in the real world. ..... I mean…“Magicians”… What does that mean? Most of the time, it simply means “I know something you don’t know”… and that’s the problem most have; that that is all they are. As soon as this knowledge is shared with the ones he makes a living from… he is ruined. And, truthfully, I almost think that he should be. It is almost unfair to the performers who do choose to evolve. ..... But I’m not saying that exposing for the sake of evolving is what needs to happen. What I’m saying is that sooner or later someone will find a different purpose for magic tricks, a different need-to-know for the audience, and those reasons will be just as valid as our reasons for keeping it secret. (Which btw, we should a reason for doing. Presenting tricks without a reason for not exposing is just as pointless as exposing their workings without knowing why.) The argument that “It’s more fun not to know how it works” has quite a lot of validity. However, when this new purpose for magic tricks is presented to the world, it will have to them who decide if they listen or they don’t. Simple as that. We can choose to watch and complaint, or we can choose to move forward, to evolve. Species survive when they adapt to their environment. And that’s what we need to do. We make a living out of using people’s perceptions to deceive them; yet those perceptions are changing and will continue to change, nowadays faster than ever before (we cannot ask them to stop). And so must we. Four long pages… and I hope I’ve provided some food for thought. Have fun evolving (or die). Alex Linian (P.S. As you can see DannyDoyle, I wasn’t keeping this thread going just for the sake of keeping it going. I was hoping for a different answer than the ones provided. Also, this will be my last post for a little bit. I'm working on a Lecture and it's taking up most of my thinking time.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Alex, of course you have the right to believe and perceive as you please, same as anyone else.
For there to be magic in your world though there also needs to be some gaps in knowledge and gray areas where impossible and actual sometimes overlap. This is also true for others. To act to remove those areas for others is not necessarily ecological for them. Children enjoy the myth of Santa and The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Adults enjoy living with other myths. What good is there in dispelling myths people hold dear?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-08-15 04:28, Alex Linian wrote: In my opinion learning magic the proper way and that is partly not to expose the secrets unnecessarily to people that have no use for them, has nothing to do with any of their "rights" to any education that they seek. It has to do with protecting the “trade” secrets of a profession and a hobby that used to honor it’s past and present masters ideas. Quote:
(You also cannot claim that you have a “need to know”, then not back it up when I ask you to… you cannot try to prove your point by asking me for an exposer’s need-to-know, and when I provide it for you, decide to simply state “So what”… it just backs up my argument. Glen.) Sorry Alex again I only have an opinion and to me this is not an argument. If you want to argue or have the "need" to argue you can argue about anything. In my opinion the lay audience is on a "need" to know basis. In my opinion the lay audience do not have a "need" to all the secrets of magic. In my opinion they have "no use" for them other than to satisfy a moment of curiosity. My opinion doesn't need to be backed up by anything other than common sense to have an opinion of why magicians should not expose magic. Again I suggest you read Robert-Houdin
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Alex
Exposing a magic secret to its audience, is akin to throwing acid on a fine painting in a public art gallery. Art belongs to all of the people all of the time. People create Art and people view it. A person who damages the art is a vandal. What do you mean we can't tell them not to damage the Art?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Doug Higley 1942 - 2022 7152 Posts |
You sound like a real pain in the ass. Dismissed.
Higley's Giant Flea Pocket Zibit
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Hmmm I almost like the idea as performance art. But I don't suggest doing that piece using a work which is not of your own creation and ownership.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-08-15 08:41, tommy wrote: Well said Tommy. Here! Here!
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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JackScratch Inner circle 2151 Posts |
Yup, you've proven it alright. You've proven that if you stick your fingers in your ears and sing "La la la" no one can tell you anything. Waste of a thread, I could have told you that.
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Clark Special user 957 Posts |
Your realization was, "We need to evolve." All of this...for that? Wow, how insightful. Did you come to this on your own? You seem to be an expert on "what we can all agree on", well, I think we can all agree that no one here is trying to "convince" you of anything. You asked for valid reasons and they have been provided.
It's obviously your 'visionary' mindset that keeps you from comprehending valid reasoning. Magic continues to evolve everyday, not from the threat of exposure but rather from the efforts of those who love our art.
“The key to creativity is in knowing how to hide your sources.”
Albert Einstein |
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