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In my English1 class (9th grade eng), we've been reading old Greek mythologies and stories. A little while ago, we discussed the virtues and not-so-virtues of Odysseus. One of the qualities that fit into both virtuous and not virtuous was the fact that he decieved left and right (my name is Nohbdy for example). This bump in the road led to a three day discussion on whether all deception is bad. When this topic came up, I was at the peak of my philosophical sophmoricness. It's dying down now, but (at the time) I just finished Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and started Sophie's World, so I felt like thinking about thinking about thinking about etc... Digressing is a key activity in my day.

Anyways, the issue was whether or not all deceptions are bad. A question that had that puzzley feel to it that made it seem like a lot of fun to solve. As a sleight of hand kinda person, (and the fact that "sleight" means deception), made me take on the beliefs of the majority of the class. They believed that ALL deceptions are bad. One person in particular believed this more strongly than the others. I talked others into at least accepting a middle ground- a deception that is insignificant. But this person (nothing agains her) stayed with Deception=Bad. (To be im-PC, she believes this because of her religion)

Now, to define deception; which was the thing I decided to do at the time. I defined deception as anything that isn't the whole, absolute [give or take some deeper philosophical things about absolutes] truth(s) on a given subject. The class agreed on with this definition.

Then came the decision of what "bad" is. The kneejerk reaction the rest of the class used was to list examples of "bad" that are related to deception. Not too surprisingly, the first reply post (I've edited this post multiple times) was directly related to magic. This is a magic community, after all. (Digressing here) The evidence given by my classmates for or against the thesis of deception being bad (I wasn't the only one talking, although at times it felt like it) were mostly anecdotal (or ridiculous)and worth very little ultimately. My initial thought was that there was no answer since "good" and "bad" are opinions. My teacher pushed this idea more with an example of a primitive tribe where the firstborns of each family were sacrificed to a volcano. Although this seems unjust and "bad" to us, this was totally normal for the tribe. The influences that people have modifies their views of good and bad.
Basically, my teacher handed me a big puzzle piece.
Neat!
This led me to the conclusion that separated the words "lie" and "deception". All deceptions are. No opinions attached. Once the opinions come in, then the deception gets separated into different catagories. My diction isn't sufficient as far as all of the names for the catagories, but I concluded that deceptions that are bad in the eyes of the witness fall under the catagory of lies. Lies are bad deceptions. I gave a visual demonstration to some of my friends in the class. It consisted of a big circle called deceptions. INside the circe, there was another circle called lies/bad. The influences on a person changes the size and shape of the inner circle for them. The person who believes that all deceptions are lies has both circles covering the same amount of space.

This conclusion solved the puzzle for me, but If anyone sees flaws, please point it out.

I'll add other comments in separate posts from now on.

All malicious deception is very very bad.
Deception for humour or comedy (ie: magic) is fine, as long as the audience knows its for entertainment.

Thats how I see it anyway.

Great post!

Nice to see you grappling with the big issues. We had a thread on here not so long ago about illusion vs deception raised in Otserlind's essays on magic, and the general tenor of the discussion was on the context in which magicians and mentalists deceive their audiences.

Sleight of hand and misdirection allow for a range of options and freedom of choice by the performer to create the illusion that something amazing has just happened.

In many ways, the audience and the performer enter into a 'contract' where the audience wants to suspend disbelief to be amazed and the performer promises to deliver a series of amazing effects, experiments, and/or illusions. The audience thinks,

'I will sit here and enjoy the effects, I will choose to be entertained and accept that the performer will deceive me, lie to me, and produce amazing effects that I cannot explain. The better the presentation and legitimacy of the conext, the more I will be entertained'

The performer thinks,

'I will misdirect you, play one-ahead, and misrepresent what I am doing to fulfil my side of the contract: produce amazing effects. The more convincing I am and the more I can present the effects in a fair manner, the more amazing the effects.'

The ethical side enters the debate when the foundation of that contract is somehow not established and/or violated in some way. Banachek has some nice lines on this in Psychological Subtleties, where he provides a description of how to present mental effects.

Some performers have not established the contract and claim to have a number of powers without establishing the context and may end up providing unhelpful or even harmful advice to the audience. Downright charlatans misrepresent what they are doing and earn money from the deception.

These extremes are used as a pedagogical device to make the point about the context-specific nature of the kind of deceptions in which we as performers engage on a regular basis.

Your class will no doubt be considering the ethics of 'white lies' and the use of deception for good, etc.

If you try to convince yourself that everything is black and white in the Universe you will find yourself deluded, bitter and at a loss (not to mention, living out life as a hypocrite). Truth of the matter is, all things must be set into balance; grey is the path of the genuine mystic or enlightened Seer.

We are taught in Sunday School that it is wrong or taboo to kill and yet, in order to heal someone from Cancer we must kill a living organism. If we are to uphold the law and do nothing, then we have still broken the law as the result of our inaction because that inaction will still result in a death that was potenitally unneeded e.g. we must choose which of the two living things that must die, the answer being "that which is the more destructive and less productive" when it comes to the idea of community and the survival of humankind. This same rule proving applicable in the great scope of things such as issues of war; this lesson revealed in the tale of the great Baghavada Gita and the wisdom of Lord Krishna as he shows the young prince how, at times, we must release thsoe beset with carnal focus and passion from their mortal lives so that they might re-learn what it is to be connected to the ALL and thus, remember their own humanity vs. self-serving and conquest.


and you guys thought I was just joking about starting a new religion...

Sadly, what I just outlined has been taught for well over 5,000 years on this planet via the majority of wizards, prophets, magi, and shaman and human kind still don't want to catch on to the fact and move to the next level of understanding and what would be seen as genuine progress in both, carnal and spiritual matters.

Aye, it's the intent that matters, not the deception itself.

Self deception is another kettle of fish entirely.

In his book "The Full Facts of Cold Reading", Ian Rowland claims that his postbag is full of A) letters asking him for psychic advice and B) letters stating he is a charlatan for claiming to be psychic. As anyone who has read his book will know, Ian Rowland is a confirmed skeptic and debunker. So the question raised is why then does the general public still badger him for psychic readings AND accuse him of being a fraud?

The answer is that A) the public actually want to be deceived into believing in psychic powers (they all know at some level that they're being deceived but accept this deception) and B) they only become upset when they find out that they've been deceived, and thereby have to face up to the fact that they had accepted the deception in the first place.

And although I've used the analagy of psychic powers, the same also holds true of more mainstream magic. Any magician who has used a gimmicked deck to impress a crowd, then had the gimmick discovered by the same crowd will know just how upset that crowd can become. Okay, they won't lynch you - but they will (at best) laugh at you, and accuse you of being a con-man or cheat. As though they really thought you were doing "proper" magic until the deception was uncovered.

Craig's right - they is no black & white, only grey.

For the record, I have worked both for shut eye and open eye clients. I have no difficulty in doing this morally. It's all about introducing magic into lives that otherwise would be without magic. And I have no intention of getting into another discussion about the rights & wrongs of professional psychics.

Hello. I trust you are well and happy.

Interesting thread. Are deceptions good or bad? This is an area I have given some thought to. I am a practicing Buddhist and thought you may appreciate a Buddhist perspective on the issue. I am aware that not many of you, if any, share my spiritual beliefs. That is ok. I'm not interested in converting you, just sharing my perspective. In doing so however I will be disagreeing with certain points made by some of you. I suppose that is to be expected with an issue like this.

I am assuming that 'good', in this context, means ethical or moral and that 'bad' means unethical or immoral.

As we all know magic depends upon deception and lies in order for it to succeed. Every time I perform a card trick I am lying to the spectator. Does this make my behaviour unethical? In order to answer this we need to look at what makes an action ethical or unethical.

Tomo hit it on the head when he said "it's the intent that matters, not the deception itself". It is the state of mind informing an action that makes it ethical or unethical. If my actions are informed by hatred, unawareness or selfishness (as many of them, regrettably, are) then it is unethical. If they are informed by attitudes of awareness, kindness and generosity then they are ethical. This has interesting implications. Lying, for example, could be an ethical act if it is motivated by kindness and awareness. I suppose the same could be said for killing, although I cannot personally think of a scenario in which killing another sentient being could be ethical. I am, however, prepared to keep an open mind about it.

From a Buddhist perspective (well, from this Buddhist's perspective.....I can't speak for anyone else) an ethical action is one that is conducive to spiritual progress and an unethical action is one that is detrimental to spiritual progress. That is my view. It is clear. It is, if you like, stated in terms that could be classed as being black and white.

I have to admit, Craig, that I find your notions of balance woolly and vague. What does it mean to 'set things in balance'? I do not think that having a clear ethical framework makes one a hypocrite. None of us are perfect and any true spiritual progress begins with an acknowledgement of where we are at. Sometimes we will fail, but again this is not hypocrisy but human nature. I am not sure that your example of cancer treatment holds water. Is a cancer cell a sentient being? Does it have a conciousness, or central nervous system that experiences pain? Is it in fact a being, as opposed to an organism? After all I'm sure we have no qualms about eating carrots or potatoes, both of which are organisms. It has occurred to me that your use of emoticons may have indicated irony, or sarcasm. Personally, and I am prepared to accept I am in the wrong here, my feeling is that when people talk about shades of grey and balance they are avoiding taking responsibility for their actions but then we have never met and it is difficult to make judgement calls like that based on a few words on a screen. Perhaps you could clarify.

So is doing magic unethical. Well, I don't know. (Ha! No answers here!) I suppose it depends on the intention of the magician. Is he performing magic to stroke his own ego? Is he doing it to earn vast sums of money? To have sex with lots of people? Is she doing it to entertain her friends or cheer up a sick child? It is these sorts of considerations that determine the ethical nature of magic. I suppose I believe that the outcome, although an important consideration is not as important as the intent.

I thought DrTodd raised some valid points regarding contracts. Generally people know that they are seeing a trick. They know that the magician is not really making a rabbit appear out of nowhere or whatever. They agree to be lied to and manipulated.

Anyway, this looks like it could be an interesting thread and I look forwards to seeing what comes out of it. If you think my thinking is flawed I would be happy to hear from you.

Best regards
blackmahakala

Blakmahakala:

Great post! Nice to have the your Buddhist perspective. I would be interested in how your Buddhism meshes with your magic and what kind of magic you perform. I take it from your post that your do some card work, but it would be interesting to know what else you do and how that squares with your faith.

DrTodd wrote:Blakmahakala:

Great post! Nice to have the your Buddhist perspective. I would be interested in how your Buddhism meshes with your magic and what kind of magic you perform. I take it from your post that your do some card work, but it would be interesting to know what else you do and how that squares with your faith.

Fully agreed. And, for the record, I also agree with Blackmahakala.

Mike.

To the vast majority of the people who practice magic, presenting effects as genuine magic or psychic ability is seen as ignoble. Rude. Unethical. Bad.
But as long as the performer doesn't cause harm to people (cough Uri Geller) I'm not sure what's wrong with this form of presentation. I'll admit, I'm entering the peak of my sophmoricness, but the way I am now, I don't see the harm in it.
I know people can bombard me with examples of when this presentation is wrong, but to do so would me to offer me a red herring. Anecdotal evidence against "psychic" presentation is something I'm trying to avoid. I'm not sure how to put my thoughts into words about this, so I apologise for my vagueness. As soon as I find the right way to get my point through, I will.

Hello there.
Hopefully life is being good to you all.

I started off with the stuff in Mark Wilson's complete course (to my mind the book for beginners) with a view to performing for kids parties. After a couple of shows realised I don't like large crowds of children which was a shame as I was really proud of my homemade square circle. I've spent the last couple of years working on card skills mostly using RRTCM and Ellusionist dvds.

Just bought ESP2 and am road testing it on friends. I like the idea of mentalism but it's a completely different ballgame to what I'm used to. Once my limited budget allows I think I'll have to get 13 Steps. My understanding is that it is the mentalists bible. Of course, this will raise certain ethical questions for me. Will claiming to have special powers (or whatever line my patter will take) be more unethical than doing card tricks? I suppose for mentalism to work the audience has to believe that something really spooky is actually happening whereas I can present a card trick as just a trick. DrTodd mentions Banachek's Psychological Subtleties. Does he go into the ethics of mentalist effects? If so I would be very interested in reading that. In fact does anyone know of any literature that goes into the ethics of the performer/spectator relationship?

How do I square magic with Buddhist practice? Well, it's a tricky one. First of all I enjoy magic, actually I love it and this is my main reason for doing it. I tend not to worry about the deception side of things, generally taking the line DrTodd laid out in his post. I enter into an unspoken agreement with the spectator whereby they allow themselves to be fooled by me. Whilst I am manipulating the spectator, it is not with any malicious intent. Admittedly my motives may be mixed; I like it when people are impressed or amazed. It strokes my ego, makes me feel good. But also I want to provide a perplexing, enjoyable mystery for people and people love mystery. I think one could even go so far as to say that people need a little mystery in their lives.

I think that magic is not incompatible with Buddhist practice, although I think the Buddha classed actors and entertainers as being inappropriate livelihoods for Buddhists. I'm not sure why, I'll have to think about it. You never know, I may start a thread denouncing magic as being unethical!

Anyway....

In order for magic to be successful one has to be aware. First of all one needs a basic awareness of the body in order to perform the sleights. One needs an awareness of the environment, covering angles and all that. One needs an awareness of the spectator. If they're not enjoying the effect you need to change it, mix it up or even stop. I think one needs to have an attitude of kindness and generosity. When performing one is doing for the spectator as well as for oneself. This is something that I can forget myself sometimes.

I think, also, that there is something ritualistic about magic. Certainly about card magic, anyway. One has to do things in a certain order so that the trick will work. Funnily enough the ambitious card routine is my favourite because I don't have to follow a set routine and can play a little bit with the structure of the trick. Anyway, back to the point. Ritual is very important to most schools of Buddhism. Certainly with Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism, I'm not so sure about Theravadan Buddhism (India, Thailand, Sri Lanka).

I suppose the most honest answer would be that I don't know how I square magic with Buddhist practice. It's working ground, I suppose. The thing about Buddhist ethics is that it's not a set of rigid rules. The ethical precepts that I try to live by, of which there are five, are more like training guidelines or principles rather than fixed dogmatic rules written in stone. I just try to ensure that I perform with awareness and with an attitude of wanting to give something to the spectator, as well as making their jaw drop by doing the seemingly impossible!

Hope this answers your question, or at least makes for interesting reading.

All the best
blackmahakala

Yes, Banachek has a lot of ethics, both implict and explicit in what he is doing. The book is a nice read on the ways in which to structure effects, but it assumes a relatively robust knowledge of magic and performance technique. He has also released Pyschological Subtleties 2.

I would also recommend Darwin Ortiz's books. I am in the middle of Designing Miracles at the moment, which is a lovely read grounded in philosophy and science.

You are correct, 13 Steps is often cited as the bible of mentalism along with Annemann. Go into 'support and tips' and have a look at the 'sticky' posted by Craig Browning on how to be a mentalist, where he outlines the steps to move beyond the 'steps' as it were.

I would have to agree, deception is not a bad area if performed for a knowing audience. Its just like the theatre, we all know when we see movies that what is happening is not REALLY happening. But with magic, even if it is not real persay, is it not real enough that the impossible has actually occured? If there is a way to do it, and it is done, them no buts or ands about it: Magic has taken place.

Best,

Kirk

Of course, we have also opened the can of worms of 'does intent equal justification?'

Example:

If I conclude that all life is both meaningless and cruelly predatory, and have the opportunity to eradicate all life on the planet, am I justified in executing global genocide to end the unnecessary suffering of both current and future generations?

On the flip side, am I justified in passing up the opportunity on the basis of 'live and let live,' knowing that current and future generations will continue to victimize each other and continue the pattern of suffering?

In each case, my 'intent' is to do what I believe to be the 'right thing,' but IS there a right thing?

It can be very tricky, as it is a matter of personal perspective.

Yes, there is an argument to be made for wiping out mankind in order to give the earth (and all over lifeforms) a chance to recover from the bloody awful mess we've made. However I don't think that we should spend too much time debating that particular argument as I believe that mother nature will sort us out good & proper in the next few hundred years. There's only so much poo-poo that she's prepared to swallow, and I think she's almost had her fill of our poo.