Perhaps even more so when the communication triggers emotion or empathy. I enjoyed reading your comment, and it made me smile

It's a pretty garbage take to say that "magic is just a lie". You might as well say that all fiction is a lie. All metaphors are a lie. Similes & allusions? ...All lies.

But if you want to look at it in such a dismal way, it's not entirely incorrect, either.

All magic is a lie. What is the problem?

Santa Claus is a lie. So?

Magic is a celebration of lying.

Danny on Page One of this thread put it well that you are presenting theater. With that also comes imagination and illusion. An intriguing way to open with a routine is to say, "What if...?"

Here's a wonderful thing about art: we each get to choose the language we use to define what we do. I do not think magic is by definition a celebration of lying, any more than film is a celebration of lying. Film creates the sense of motion by showing still images in sequence at 24 frames per second. Is this a lie? No, it's a simulation, a representation, just like a cave painting or a sculpture, a board game, a stage play, a TV show, a comic book, or a magic trick is a representation. To assert that there is no other way of looking at, thinking about, or defining magic beyond lying is, well, silly and needlessly confining. Sure, magic can be about lying. But MUST it be about lying? Must it ONLY be about lying and nothing else? Of course not. There are many ways to think about this art form. I choose to look at and define it in ways that present wider vistas to explore and contemplate. To me, magic is simulated impossibility. It is a representation of things that are impossible according to the rules of the everyday world. It's not lying, it's pretend, it's make-believe — a directed act of creative imagination. Choose your own adventure.