The next step after beginner? ....Intermediate, I suppose? XD (I'm a beginner).
First, I'd
personally abandon YouTube when it comes to magic tricks, if I
personally were you. Why? Because firstly, I
personally feel it's disrespectful to reveal the secrets of magic for
free. Secondly, I feel it takes a lot of the fun out of being a magician. Thirdly, I feel it's undignified for magicians to not put in the hard work to figuring magic out, opting to instead take the easy route by typing words into a search engine. ....But I might just have too high of standards; I've been called a brutally stubborn, cynical, condescending jerk on many occasions. Perhaps they're right...but I think I'll become a better magician in the end because of it...because I'm obsessed, because I take it so seriously; because of my seemingly "near impossible" standards. I'm a perfectionist, and freely admit that I'm a tad eccentric; I've even been called delusional before, but for other matters entirely haha....which I'm sure you'll inevitably find out at some, as it's quite a fascination of mine, and I'm bound to bring it up in conversation sooner or later, and (I'm making a prediction here; write down the time and date hahaha), you'll all probably think it defies all logic as well. XD Fear not though; I won't bite your heads off when you do; I'll understand completely. XD
Now...perhaps I should go into more detail as to why I feel the way I do about the first three areas I mentioned at the start of this writing.
I feel that to tell someone how a magic trick is done is disrespectful in a number of ways; it's disrespectful to the magicians who originally created that trick, and now neither they nor their families benefit in any financial form whatsoever because their work is being essentially plagiarized for all the World to see, nowadays more than ever, in this international society of Global Connectivity via the World Wide Web and Smart Phones. Secrets abound...and nobody stops to think if perhaps anybody out there is suffering the
consequences of the revelations of those secrets, because someone gave it away when it was
not their secret to share. In my opinion, if you want to become a magician, you should do it the
old-fashioned way: Buy books written by magicians who want to share the knowledge of magic for a reasonable price; not for free, because then ANYONE could be a magician, and if EVERYONE'S a magician...
nobody is. (Haha; see what I did there; it's a modification of a line from the Disney Pixar film "The Incredibles". XD). Anyway...it's not only disrespectful to the magicians to reveal their secrets, it's disrespectful to their families who may rely on them for financial support. Some of the BEST magic tricks in the world can be found for sale online at over ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Not "just anybody" is going to want to buy that, nor should they! This way, the true MAGIC of the effect will remain in
safe hands: The hands of Magicians. And every magician should know all about, and wish to abide by, the infamous Magician's Code: Never Reveal the Secret.
Lastly, it's disrespectful to
yourself;
don't take the easy way out, you should
want to become
better than that.
I also believe that revealing the secrets of magic, (
Unless the price is right,
of course! XD), takes the FUN out of magic, also, for a number of reasons haha. It takes the fun out of it for
you, first off. At least, for me
personally, I've always had the most fun as a magician, when
watching other magicians perform illusions, hen trying to
figure out how the
heck they did that! I'll watch it over, and over, and over, and over, until I think I finally know; then it's just a matter of trying to
perform better than they can, OR, find a NEW way to do it! I looove puzzles, and so for me, magic is all just one big puzzle to figure out. I'm STILL working on the Mental Magic Square Trick; tomorrow it will be exactly one week that I've been studying it, (it's in one of my six magic books; figure I'll just stick with these six for now instead of trying to buy more books and DVDs; it gets REALLY expensive because I'm, as you know, a tad eccentric; I wouldn't just want to buy the first season of "Mindfreak", I'd want to by the WHOLE SERIES! XD Secondly, revealing the secret takes the fun out of magic
for the beloved audience members. They WANT to believe in magic....they
need to believe in magic. To be told that there's no such thing as magic is a
crushing blow to their
fragile inner children. When you appear to perform a
miracle right before their very eyes, you are creating in their minds a
magnificent bubble of
pure, unadulterated disbelief, and they will NEVER forget it....just so long as you make them BELIEVE, and
never reveal the secret. That's your job as a magician in my opinion.
Thirdly, I formerly stated that there were three reasons I feel strongly about the Magician's Code, and the third reason was that it would be
undignified of me. I feel I need no further explain as to the why of this matter, aside from redirecting you to my explanations in the last couple paragraphs or so, and try to combine it into a Bigger Picture; I think you'll be able to understand truly and fully then why I feel such an act is undignified.....unless of course you're getting filthy rich because of it hahahaha. XD
--Hamelden