talkmagic.co.uk

Hold on a sec.

because I disagree with all of you 1000+ girls and boys.


If you don't think you're gonna like what you're about to read,

Then just don't read it.


I disagree.

Actually I just can't believe you!

I believe that most of you actually love what you are doing, you love

magic. And yet you fail to see that magic is not about the secret.

Do you really believe that magic is a riddle?

Do you believe that a magic trick is a problem that needs to be solved?

Do you believe that people are so stupid and that we are so smart that we can trick them?


I am sure that most of you are aware of the fact that

PEOPLE LIKE TO BE DECEIVED!

People just want someone to remind them that there is more to this world than what they can feel with their five senses.
They know that we present illusions and they know that there is a hidden technique employed to make the illusion work. By experiencing an illusion, they have already chosen not to think logically, they have subconsciously CHOSEN TO BE DECEIVED.


At the end most people say: "how do you do that???"

Do you think they really want to know?
Most of the time they don't really want to know. They want to be tricked.

IF THEY DO WANT TO KNOW, IT IS YOUR FAULT.

Yes exactly. You've read that right. It is your fault only.
You have presented a riddle to which you know the solution and they don't. That implies that you are smarter and it hurts their ego.
If this happens to you then you should not call yourself a Magician. You are the spoiler not youtube.

BUT, I know that most people around here are not like that.

I know that most of you have a respect for magic, or else you wouldn't spend your valuable time on this forum and I wouldn't care talking about this at all.

So let's assume that you present some Magic to humanity and not just tricks.

Then you should know that magic is really not about the secret at all.
Magic is achieved by a variety of factors including the secret technique.
Performing requires things such as acting, knowing how to speak and how to stand. And this is quite obvious if you tend to look at magic as an Art.


I have already said some things that might seem strange. But I am not over yet. Here it goes............

THE SECRET IS NOT VITAL TO THE ILLUSION.

Yes again you have read correctly. It is not vital. I have personal experience on this but before anything else, let's see what Mitch Williams said about this on another Internet discussion:

____________________________________________________________
Q: What's your take on the exposure in magic in recent years, re: the Fox TV specials, Masked Magician, internet, etc?

A: In general I think that we magicians can sometimes take ourselves too seriously, and we often tend to underestimate the lay public's ability to "get it". My take in talking to people after those TV specials is that they see right through the attempt to de-value what we do, and it only helps us get more respect in their eyes, even if only indirectly. In any case I find it hard to get too worked up about the exposure thing. I'm not so sure it's a bad thing in the long run. It might even be one of the best things that could happen to us (the magic community). WE'VE created this, by making the "secrets" our whole point, our precious little treasure that we selfishly guard with our lives. I've always felt we should focus a WHOLE lot less on the "secrets" and more on simply creating moments of wonder. Hidden methodology is only one of many, many tools that we use to create those moments. And the more we focus on the other, in my view MUCH more important tools, the less important the "secrets" become.
Here's a challenge: create a routine where you explain to the audience exactly how it's accomplished, technically, right before you perform it. The stated point being that you want to free them from the distraction of trying to "figure out" what's going on, so they can appreciate it on other levels. And then you so surprise them with the performance, the concepts, the emotion, and get so caught up in all of that yourself, that knowing how it's done only makes the experience of wonder more intense. "He told us how it was done, and he still blew us away with it!"
There's some food for thought at least! And if anyone actually takes up my challenge, please do let me know how it turns out!
_____________________________________________________________



So you are still reading, wondering what else I'm going to say.
That's interesting.


As I said in my intro (not so long ago) I call myself a juggler. One of my favorite styles is contact juggling. If you have never seen a contact juggler in performance you should really do.
It mainly involves the manipulation of a crystal ball traveling on your hands and body in what seems to be invisible predetermined paths.
I very good contact juggler who has excelled at the technique can make the balls movement seem totally not associated with the body and hand movements.

The effect is magical. When I contact juggle, people almost always associate it with magic.

And there is a simple trick and technically very easy..... (edson's enigma for the record) During this trick, the juggler makes contact with the ball with both hands but the effect created is weird. When I perform it, people think that the ball is floating! Even after I show the exact technique that is employed they can still see the "magical" effect.

Did you notice. There is no secret in contact juggling.



Still not fully convinced that the secret is not important to the effect?

Take a moment and think of a very common trick. For example, simple coin vanish.

I am sure you have seen thousands of coins vanishing. Most of the secrets of coin vanishing are ancient. The palming technique dates back to the History of Witchcraft! (for those unfamiliar It is one of the first books to expose magic effects, if not the very first...)

This technique was exposed even before we were all born. And here we are, doing our wow coin magic and all sort of effects based on this ancient technique.

When I perform this, very few people say "it is in your other hand" and not because they know it beforehand, but because I have failed as a performer by not perfecting my technique.


I could go on writing about this forever. But I have a life of own, so I'll close with this very important comment.

I learned my first coin vanish at the age of 13. I was lucky enough to learn about a dozen card tricks for the next 3 or 4 years. It was then that I realized that magic tricks were exposed at the internet. It was then that I really had a chance to learn magic after all these years. If it weren't for exposure I would have never discovered magic.


And I'll tell you something else

I don't like it that you have a "restricted area" just as I don't like secrecy in general.

I may be new on the forum, and I may disagree with 1000+ people on the subject but this is MY OPINION and I want to say it.

Secrecy is counter productive. This very moment, thousands of people want to learn magic and you present a major obstacle to them. Get over it!!

Themagicwand said:

Do you really think that the lay people you will meet out there in the real world have nothing better to do than spend every waking hour pouring over YouTube to find out how magicians do "things" just in case they should ever bump into a magcian who wants to show them an ACR?

I couldn't agree more.
Get over it! Grow up!



P.S. As you can see, I have spent a considerable amount of time and gray matter to present my point of view. If you disagree please post and express yourself BUT if you don't have anything more to say than to reject this thing JUST DON'T POST. Thank you.

one of the points you did not cover in your opinion is one of the major reasons for the petition, namely utube exposure takes food out of the creaters mouth and stifles there creativity and willingness to spend sometimes years on a project.

eg. you invent the paperclip, you spend five years refining it and spend thousands of pounds marketing it, then some nice caring person makes a movie about how to make it, a lot of people make ther own and your sales hit the toilet, you starve.
are you happy about it.

presentation is the real secret to magic and you rarely find that on utube so I'm not overly concerned with exposure of magical basics any magician should know.
only today i fooled a young lady with a french drop and a palm load and because she asked taught her the french drop, then confused her with the same routine using a retention vanish, i know i will get a booking out of it.

people using utube to present a trick is all well and good, i have done and will again but to borrow a trick video off of a friend who downloaded it then post the exposure on utube just to show how smart he is.
is counter productive to the magic comunity on the whole and does a great diservice to the creator of the effect.

when i do kids effects which are as old as the hills, i'll often joke i downloaded the instructions off of utube last night.

I think you missed the point on the petition to ban exposure - at least the way I see it. No one here is trying to prevent others from learning the secrets of magic, far from it.

You seem to completely miss the point of this forum - as it's very existence is to promote magic, the discussion of magic, and to help all of us progress in our studies of magic. How exactly are we an obstacle when forums such as this one are one of the greatest resources we've ever had?

The way I see it, the petition to ban exposure and teaching of effects on sites like Youtube was due to the FACT that such videos are explaining the methods of marketed materials. In many cases, the effects have a copyright (Criss Angel's levitation, Wayne Houchin's stuff, Daniel Garcia's effects, etc.). It's one thing to show people your own techniques as far as your contact juggling goes - it's another to take material from a book or dvd you purchased and displaying it on the internet for all to see, free of charge. People make their living from such materials - and to allow Youtube to continue the practice takes money from these people.

Yes, people like to be deceived. They like to suspend disbelief and experience wonder and amazement - but that's not something that is in question here, nor does it really relate to the exposure petition.

As for the restricted area - I see no problem with it. Gaining access isn't difficult to do - you just need to show the moderators that you have an active and real interest in the study of magic. We're not hoarding our secrets - but we're certainly protecting our ideas from the occasional passerby who stumbles upon the forum for some reason or another. The restricted area is also here to prevent exactly what the petition protects. We discuss ideas from material we have purchased and studied, and thus there is a need to protect those ideas from public exposure. The respect for our "art" extends to our "artists" - and though you may disagree and say we should grow up, I will continue to respect my fellow magicians (and myself) and not let speak openly about such things.

If the secret isn't vital - may I ask this question:

When you perform your simple coin vanish - do you tell every audience or spectator EVERY TIME what the technique is?

I would assume you don't. Why? Not because you're presenting an obstacle - but because the magic disappears once the secret is known. You say the secret isn't vital to the illusion - but it certainly is.

You mention acting, performance, how to speak - but you seem to be overlooking that all of those elements are there to cover the method (or, in this case - secret). I stand a certain way so the audience can't see what I'm doing. I speak a certain way to draw attention, I look people in the eye to misdirect them.

These are all vital portions of the overall effect - you're correct in saying that, however - without the secret or method, none of the rest of these things are necessary. We aren't misdirecting because we have nothing better to do. We're misdirecting because if they aren't distracted, they'll see the method. If they see the method, it's no longer magic.

The secret is absolutely vital. If you read a murder mystery and they tell you the butler is the killer on page one - then it's no longer a mystery, it's just someone giving an account of a story. The difference with the story is the secret is revealed in the end. With us - the secret remains - because, as you said - people like to be deceived.

a typical discussion in the secrets forum section would be thus, (actual trick described dosn't exsist).

(bilbo baggins) I'm having some trouble with my clink coin, it keeps jamming on me.
(oddball) put some three in one oil in the hindge and take 1mm of the flange.
(bilbo) cheers that helped, any help with the charlier pass.?
(oddball) i find that if you drop your lead hand a split second before you do the pass, gravity will do the rest.
(bilbo) why didn't i think of that, i'll give that a try, (mankind) to stopp the snapback when you stack add a bit of felt to the hinge, don't dend the pin like (healer) recomends you'll break it.

if you don't have a clink coin then the advice will be essentialy usless to you, but without the freedom we'd be left with text speek.
having trouble with cc it jams.
oil the h** and take 1mm of the flg.
;}, any help with the cp.

get the picture.

Demitri nailed it when he said that the magic vanishes once the secret is gone. You can seriously confuse people with a coin through table achieved by a french drop, but I guarantee you if you tell them how simply you did so the sense of annoyance they'll get from being fooled so easily will instantly negate any sense of wonder they may have had. At best they'll just frown and forget about it, why did you bother in the first place?

*gets coat* what these guys said...

I learned my first coin vanish at the age of 13. I was lucky enough to learn about a dozen card tricks for the next 3 or 4 years. It was then that I realized that magic tricks were exposed at the internet. It was then that I really had a chance to learn magic after all these years. If it weren't for exposure I would have never discovered magic

I think that if you realy want something hard enough to practice hours and hours a week to perfect it then the average bod should look a bit harder.

I am a magician and I only want to know how to do tricks I can use.
I do not like exposure on you tube for the simple reason that 90% of it seems to be some guy who thinks he is great destroying the trick. If people watch youtube then they are exposed to arogant performances or tutorials of tricks that they the veiwer have no intention of perfecting.

Having said that once perfected any trick will fool any person. I know I still get fooled by a simple tt down the magic club

As for the masked magician, he did it for the money. Nothing else. Why do I know this, because of the bitter commentry about how the magician trys to fool but we now know better. 'all it is is a box and a bit of string' no mention of the hours of practice and imaculate timeing. It's the contempt that annoys

Most youtube tutorials, performances and the masked magician should be banned not for exposure but for not giving the respect magic as an art deserves.

When sombody says to me magic is easy I now say tounge firmly in cheek.
"Magic's very easy. Easy as playing the piano. All a pianist has to do is hit a key with a finger at the right time in the right order. But than again they do have the instructions right in front of them "

I think exposure is something we now have to live with. There is so much information out there that eventually only those seeking it will find it. As for the masked magician I have no respect for him at all.......It's commercialism and a few sigs ain't going to stop a multi million pound corporation from making a few more million.

As for the secrets area. Good on them. I like the fact that TM has one. It stops pratts like me making comments about stuff I sort of know about rather than actually knowing about. I am not of the standard that would be able to use such a facility. When I am then I am sure someone will let me know. It is not for me to say how good I am. It is up to me to be good enough consistantly enough for long enough for someone else to belive I am good enough.

Brickmaster wrote:......There's some food for thought at least! And if anyone actually takes up my challenge, please do let me know how it turns out!

Why doesn't he tell us how it worked for him???? He can go first

Brickmaster wrote:.....The palming technique dates back to the History of Witchcraft! (for those unfamiliar It is one of the first books to expose magic effects, if not the very first...)

This technique was exposed even before we were all born. And here we are, doing our wow coin magic and all sort of effects based on this ancient technique.

Please don't compare books to youtube....some one profits from there work in books....and others destroy the profits from that work on youtube...you are comparing apples to oranges.

Brickmaster wrote:THE SECRET IS NOT VITAL TO THE ILLUSION.

Yes again you have read correctly. It is not vital. I have personal experience on this but before anything else, let's see what Mitch Williams said about this on another Internet discussion:

I agree it is not VITAL but it is a part of it.....Penn and Teller have done well without keeping the secret......From an art perspective......not sure you understand the "art" as it is. Secrecey is part of it much like frames are a part of painting....pictures need framing but the frame is not vital to the art.....they are simply one element of the entire presentation of the art.

Brickmaster wrote:I learned my first coin vanish at the age of 13. I was lucky enough to learn about a dozen card tricks for the next 3 or 4 years. It was then that I realized that magic tricks were exposed at the internet. It was then that I really had a chance to learn magic after all these years. If it weren't for exposure I would have never discovered magic.

From a growth of the art perspective....I understand the fact that exposure got you interested, but that doesn't mean that the simple road is what gets everyone interested.....I will make the point that likely as many have been turned away from the art because they invested countless hours perfecting something and the first person they showed said...."thats stupid...I know how that was done!" Imagine if the first coin trick and 4 or 5 card tricks you learned when younger did not work on anyone as they "knew them all" You can't compare yourself and a handful of coin and card tricks as a kid to a magician that has time and money invested in the art.

Brickmaster wrote:And I'll tell you something else

I don't like it that you have a "restricted area" just as I don't like secrecy in general

That doesn't suprise me really......how about the legal reasons for it?

Do you really think that the lay people you will meet out there in the real world have nothing better to do than spend every waking hour pouring over YouTube to find out how magicians do "things" just in case they should ever bump into a magcian who wants to show them an ACR?

I couldn't agree more with this last comment......that is why most of us could care less from a performance perspective...it is more out of respect for those that legally - and yes I did say legally - have the rights to the material presented. I think you are arguing one issue with the facts from another....and are misguided when it comes to Why exposure should be stopped. It has less to do with the secrecy and more to do with....oh why bother (Clicks submit)

I find it hard to agree with many of the statements made in your post despite it being an interesting read. My reason is that the way that the post reads to me, many of the arguments that you use are made from different perspectives. There appears to be little common rationale.

Magic is partially about the secret but it is not the be all and end all. presentation plays a significant factor.

Do you believe that a magic trick is a problem that needs to be solved?

- actually yes, but I see the tricks as a problem for the magician to solve and not the audience. If you don't solve the handling and presentation then there is no trick.

Do you believe that people are so stupid and that we are so smart that we can trick them?

- we can trick people but not to make them look stupid, we trick people to entertain them and they allow us to do so ost of the time.

I won't go on but these two examples of many are how you can look at the same question or statement from totally different perspectives and as pointed out, you need to look at the perspective of the petition.

I suspect that many of us on TM don't like or agree with secrecy but some secrets are necessary and are base don trust whereas some secrets are based on anothers desire to restrict freedom or choice. There is a difference.

dat8962 wrote:.....many of the arguments that you use are made from different perspectives. There appears to be little common rationale.....

......... but some secrets are necessary and are base don trust whereas some secrets are based on anothers desire to restrict freedom or choice. There is a difference.

Couldn't agree more with both points...dat

If the young gentleman who dont like secrets. Please List his bank account number, sort code, phone number, mother maiden name, NI number, pass words for his email , paypal accont and tell me his crediit card number, 3 digits on the back. start and expiary date and his post code? It would be really nice.

The way I see it this young rapsaclion (even worse then his beardship) dont secrets because he wants to do how the tricks are done and dosent want to put the hard work in to get it or pay for it. I reckon he may the type who has tured his hand at shop lifiting but only from the "big" shops.

On one hand if they dont know the name of the trick its going to be jolly hard to find out how its done you cant type in "the one where he has 5 cards they are all queens then turn to king then aces"

But it is stealing in lose terms. If you invented something and i copied it not only that showed the world and his brother how to do it you would be rather miffed i would say.

I bid you good day sir.

Brickmaster wrote:I don't like it that you have a "restricted area" just as I don't like secrecy in general

But do you know why we have a Restricted Area? Have you checked to see the reasoning? In fact there are three of them and there are stickies and plenty of posts in connection with what's in there and why they exist. Like it or not, they were there long before you arrived and they'll be there long after most of us are gone. So whether someone likes the idea or not is irrelevant, the Restricted Areas exist and are valid.

Firstly, I'd like to back up what some of these fellows have said and disagree with you when you say the secret/technique is not vital.

The other night I was at the bar with some friends and did some basic sponge ball and coin stuff. I ended up doing ball to spec's hand many times ( ) simply because people saw across the table the reaction it was getting and wanted to experience it.
One girl was shocked/impressed etc, and so went on to watch me do it several times. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the way, she cottoned on to what was happening. Now, she was still impressed, but it was more of a "aah, I see... really good though!" Did she enjoy it? Yes. Would she consider hiring a magician even though she had seen how it was done? I like to think so. But then...

Another girl did much the same - she experienced it, and because of a combination of perhaps one more drink inside her and the fortune that the next ones she saw me do were very well executed (if I don't say so myself), she was gob-smacked. The last time she watched me she said, "that's just crazy, I was actually watching to see what your hands were doing, trying to catch you out, and I didn't see a thing."

So. Of course, people want to be fooled. Of course, many tricks can be deconstructed and mulled over (don't we all love those spectators who just dribble possible methods for the next half hour despite the fact they have no clue ), and of course most people aren't trying to catch you out because they want a good time. And, if we're being honest, that's the level that most of us function at a lot of the time.

However. There is a higher level. There is a better magical experience - it is possible to do something that will simply pull the rug out from under their feet. As magicians, we perhaps forget this is possible, because our reaction to seeing a new effect performed is to smile smugly and say "yeah, that's great, I can see that frying people..." - because we know two minutes later we're going to be able to buy the boringly simple secret, or because we spotted a classic pass or something.

But - it is possible to fool someone so badly, they have no way to physically put together what just happened. my favourite effect for this is the Curzon envelope, and if ever my motivation is low in terms of practice, I think back to walking into that magic shop and seeing that effect and how it made me feel.

I see a card in an envelope on the table. It's blue backed. The magician offers me a choice of card from a red deck, and I do a drawing on it. He simply cuts my card into the deck, and places the deck on the table. Now he goes straight to the envelope, no funny motions - he picks up the envelope, pulls the single card out, and it is my card. Nothing stuck together, no flaps... my signed card has somehow been on the table all along.

Now, I'm sorry, but no amount of "entertainment factor", no amount of "trying to go along with it" changes the fact that I simply could not get my head around what happened on that saturday morning.

As it happened, I bought the effect, I perform it and I love it. And thankfully it's not well known. But I think that had I gone home, mulling it over, and just out of curiosity typed "envelope magic trick" into YouTube and found a tutorial or a poorly done attempt that revealed the secret, it would have spoilt it. It would have taken away the magic, and I wouldn't have told my friends about it and retained that memory of seeing something impossible.

As it happens, because I now know the effect, I can't remember it that well anyway - which is almost a shame. But causing this moment for other people is compensation enough.

I don't attain that kind of mind blowing magic all the time, and I don't mind that. I enjoy performing the magic you are referring to. But I do try to aim for it as much as possible, because if I fall short, well, people will still be enjoying themselves. But people simply "having a good time", "wanting to be deceived" is not a full substitute for a killer secret.




Ok, my second point, and this refers to how magic is viewed. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy some aspects of the modernisation that magic is undergoing. I don't like the disrespect and I don't like the hype, but I'm happy enough to perform in a more contemporary style, rather than always dinner jackets, cheesy patter lines and wands.

However, people still do have an image of magic. I pause DVDs or close books that I'm reading when my house mates come in so they don't catch wind of some technique that will ruin my next trick for them, and they quite like that fact. They cheekily pop their head round the door and say "watcha up to Tom, learning more secrets? Tell me one!", knowing full well I won't.
Of course, if they really wanted to, they could buy a book or DVD just like me and spoil the secret for themselves, but they wouldn't go that far. However, YouTube makes it easy, YouTube makes it tempting, and YouTube is free.

Whatever magic I do, I quite like fact that people will associate it with mystery, secrets... dusty books and magic wands. I might be doing the latest gorey, X-treme magic (unlikely!), but to them it will still be "magic", some secret which they are not party to and which they can enjoy thinking that they wish they were.
If magic tutorials become more widespread and professional magic secrets more "play ground" by nature, people's views of magic will change from something that is hidden and intriguing to a puzzle that you solve for yourself that night on YouTube, some stupid trick "the kids" are doing to each other.

Finally, in response to your comment about people not being sad enough to look it up and spoil it for themselves...

It doesn't take "people", it takes one. One single loud mouth who loves being the centre of attention, hears there will be a magician present at a party and decides he will "have a laugh" by learning some secrets and embarrassing the poor guy. Before, unless he spent hours and hours, the majority of what he got would be some bar "tricks" with matchsticks, the 21 card trick, perhaps the linking elastic bands.
Thanks to YouTube, I bet if you typed in "magic secrets revealed" you would get a delicious selection of professionally available effects that the poor chump may well be planning to use as a closer.

Still think that "everyone having fun" will save the day?

Finally, another facet of the way magic will be viewed...
YouTube encourages people not to find the satisfaction in magic by performing to real people and doing it well, but to learn as many secrets as you can, and preferably to put up your own "tutorial", because you can pretend to be Jay Sankey alone in your room. It is not breeding a generation of magicians, it is breeding a generation of smart arses, of magic spoilers.

And it is these people who will be associated with "magic", simply because there are more of them than decent magicians who are trying to keep real magic alive

Wow
First of all thanks for all the commentary. Your response was great and I am really happy to see that there are people that disagree with me because It helps me think and reconsider.

Life would be so boring if I was perfect.

I would really like to reply to all of you but that would take just too much time.

So I will have to limit myself to these statements......

First, I have read all the stickies in all the restricted areas. I'll take back what I said about the restricted area. You are right about that Mandrake. I understand that it hosts technical discussion. What really annoys me is that magic has become commercial and there is a whole fuss about it. Anyway, that also stays as it is, either I like it or not.

And second, Dear Markdini, your post is REALLY insulting. For your information, I have spent endless nights trying to perfect the techniques and presentation of many effects including my own (which are not so great but still they are MY own effects). I will not say more on this. I will just assume that you had a fight with your girlfriend or lost your job before you posted. (I admit I myself was in a bad mood when writing the original post..... just don't tell anyone )


PS Mandrake, thats a really nice avatar. Merry Cristmass