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It seems that more recently, the secrets and enjoyment of magic are dying out. It seems that with those secrets magic originally sat. Now a day, people see magic tricks and say, "What a fake! It isn't real. It's obviously a trick," or, "I know how he does that!" Perhaps the secrets of magic aren't all it has to offer. Perhaps this is the problem.

Perhaps with recent obsession with exposure, people start thinking, "How does he do that?" instead of, "Wow! That looks cool."

However, it would be hard for magicians to say that it doesn't rely on secrets at all. Other wise they might as well be referencing performing in general.

Is it the audience of magic that has been steered wrong, or is it the magicians? Perhaps magicians have become obsessed with exposure. Perhaps it is caused when magicians say things like, "Oh my! Wikipedia has way too many exposures! We have to find a way to stop them!" instead of saying, "Why is my audience trying so hard to figure my magic out, instead of enjoying it?"

Magic relies in secrets at the beginning of its performance, but in the end, the audience must enjoy the magic enough to not be bothered by them. The problem is the way the general audience these days views magic. How can we change that view, and maybe our view, to improve the world of magic?

-Ben

magicmindben wrote: Perhaps it is caused when magicians say things like, "Oh my! Wikipedia has way too many exposures! We have to find a way to stop them!" instead of saying, "Why is my audience trying so hard to figure my magic out, instead of enjoying it?"

I really like that, it's so true. I don't think Magic is over, but it certainly is going through a rough time.

I have just returned from a T.M night out and this thread is the perfect place for this story.

The last person I performed to before leaving was a Pr**k in every sense of the word. He was rude, and obnoxious and when I tried to perform a card trick on him he insisted that he shuffle the pack, i let him and started again, before i could begin the trick he asked to shuffle again. Realizing I was wasting my time I said 'no let me just perform the trick.' He refused and started telling me I was c*** (not the best), said i was trying to cheat and threatened me with violence when pointed out that magic is fundamentally cheating.

Afterwards while at the station waiting for a train I started talking to a young couple of around 21, when they herd I was a magician they asked me for some tricks. I moved right into the routine I didn't get to do with the other guy and it blew them away. I then performed a few other tricks and the girl was so impressed she asked for my number to hire me for her party.

Perhaps modern tools such as television and the internet have made people more jaded with magic. But in my mind, in any time and place you will always find people who are so stupid they will think a magic trick is some sort of challenge to there intelligence.

Don't be discouraged by it (especially if your still at school thats the worst place for that kind of behavior) there are always people who will enjoy a good magic trick whether its due to the performance or simply the illusion.

Magic is defiantly not on the way out.

For curiousity sake what trick did you perform to blow them away?

He does lots of tricks that can "blow people away"

I'd be interested as well as he spent the day wowing people.

This is probably the wrong place to say it but there are people who just do not want their meals interrupted by wandering magicians. If they were told it would happen when they booked or turned up, fine; even if they were not, if they can just say 'no thanks' , also fine. Experience suggests 'no thanks' does not work. I hate to play devils advocate here but there really are people out there who just want a quiet one-on-one or more meal without violin players/rose sellers/ wandering magicians butting in.

I think that the difference is whether they come to you or you go to them.

Just a thought.

I was baffled by that idiot too. He let me perform a couple of tricks for him with little problem (well, he tried to cause trouble but in fact his trying to make me do it "his way" only made the effect stronger). I'm not sure what his problem was, maybe he was feeling threatened by that point...

Anyway, I realised earlier on today when doing a mind reading trick for a group of girls that you sometimes don't have to explain the trick when they ask, or even say anything. They asked how it was done and they started throwing theories out there themselves (most involving derren brown's explanations, of course!). I just sat there silently. I think that made it even more powerful, because they're trying to come to their own conclusion that they were happy with themselves. Who needs to hear a short girl who wear glasses explain some NLP rubbish?

Its true. Its always so much better to let them come up with there own ideas on how its done.

Jean Eugene Roberts wrote:... he insisted that he shuffle the pack, i let him and started again, before i could begin the trick he asked to shuffle again....

I had a guy like that in a group I was showing card tricks to some time ago. I just let him shuffle as much as he wanted. Then I asked him if he wanted to shuffle some more. When he was happy, I had him pick a card from this red bicycle deck. By chance I had an unboxed blue back deck in my jacket pocket. I told him to show the card to the others and turned away, while switching the decks. I covered the back with my hand and told him to stick his card anywhere in the deck. Then I turned the cards face up and began shuffling with overhand shuffle, cards facing the audience. Then I fanned the deck towards them so they saw the faces, I saw blue backs but only one red back. I pulled it partly up and said: This is your card. Not only did you pick this card, but - and then I lowered the fan, showing them and saying at the same time - you picked the only card with a red back.

I haven't seen this anywhere, it just developed as it went. But it sure quieted the heckler.

I think with this particular guy it was odd as I'd done something for him and he was asking for more. I was'nt there when it turned ugly but it really didn't seen like he'd be a big heckler.

I think sometimes you just get people like that even though they asked to see something. As mentioned there are people not wanting interupting and a polite sorry for disturbing you enjoy your evening or what have you costs nothing.

Agecroft wrote:I think with this particular guy it was odd as I'd done something for him and he was asking for more. I was'nt there when it turned ugly but it really didn't seen like he'd be a big heckler.

I think sometimes you just get people like that even though they asked to see something. As mentioned there are people not wanting interupting and a polite sorry for disturbing you enjoy your evening or what have you costs nothing.

I did warn them when they sat there that they'd be pestered by us magicians and he said he wouldn't and to leave them alone, then started chatting and asking for tricks, he was a weird one.

It is my personal opinion that magicians are too fully concerned with the exposure of their secrets, when in fact the performance is the secret key to magic.

Magicians would never have the potential threat of exposure if they presented their magic in such a way that produced mystery and amzement.

But it seems that magicians are too concerned with their petty gimmicks are sleights than the actual showmanship and charisma that actual magic centers around.

Also if a believer in karma understands what i am saying here; Magicians have had quite a history of debunkers and masquerading exposers of those who they thought to be charalatans. Its funny that we took it upoun ourselves to destroy the careers of people who lived behind secrets when in fact that too is how a magician makes his livlihood.

I may sound disgrintled, but I am not, I am though trying to be brutaly honest. Magicians unfortunatley got what was coming to them. You cant live behind secrets forever. Look at history. And if we are so concerned with our secrets why not give up our careers as superior showman and become meager hobbyists or armchair wizards.

Exposure, is a tricky subject because we live in a time of unlimited knowledge. Forums like this one and online magic shops.... The ones we as magicians shop at, are the common culprits of this unlimted grasp of our secrets. I don't see the rosicrucians nor the freemasons flaunting their rituals around. They may have progressed to the point passed "secret society" yet they still maintain their provacy. Unfortunatley we have those people in our fraternity who do not realise that it is we who are not protecting what we are so despertley trying to keep under wraps. Look around and youll see the access of information everywhere you go.

If you want to see a change be the Change as Ghandi would say.

But let me wrap up with two points that I will repeat.

Performance, is magic's greatest secret

Exposure, the common Magicians biggest fault

I'm of the opinion that it's pretty tough out there at the minute.

The finger of blame can be pointed in various directions, it's up to you which way you send your bile.

Personally, i think there's an abundance of people running around showing off their XCM and sleights without the first idea how to handle specatators. I think the great thing about David Blaine was the way he seemed to genuinely believe his own magic. He acted like he was a channel for magic and was as amazed as his audience when something weird happened.
While it's great that kids are turning their attention to cards, its a shame none of them dedicate time towards mis-direction and showmanship.

I seem to recall Derren Brown writing something about the danger of appearing smug in Absolute Magic. Something about how if you show an effect to a couple, the male is more likely to appear stand offish as you are clearly wowing his good lady and he is unable to offer any explanation. Us chaps arent keen on that you see, its a threat.

I was in a magic store the other day, and there was a young man doing magic behind the counter. His audience was an American family, the children clearly fascinated by what they saw. After a trick, the Father asked how long he'd been doing magic, the ' magician ' rolled his eyes and answered with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Now, i admit it was a banal,
generic kind of question, but surely we all get asked that from time to time. You should expect it, and certainly be greatful they are showing an interest. The sarcasm and general bad attitude continued throughout the performance, the young man acting like his excrement contained no odour, and by demonstrating a few card tricks he was somehow superior to the family good enough to spend some of their holiday watching his magic.

I felt rather embarrassed, to the point that i walked out and said to my good lady that is was possibly the worst performance i'd ever seen. Not through any lack of technical ability, it was the lack of charm and manners that ruined any hope of making someone's day/week/month/rest of life.

Sometimes the effects we perform can reverberate through someone's life. They may pick up pasteboards themselves, or spend an entire evening down the pub discussing what they saw and trying to solve it.

To me, this is magic. Its what the internet magicians are missing. Whether you approach people on the street or require smoke and mirrors on a stage to get your results, it should all hope to leave a tattoo on the spectator's brain.

Exposure has it's pluses and minuses. It forces the magician to constantly come up with new things, but also means you get the inevitable smart *rse who knows how it's done and will then proceed to inform everyone.

Im sure with the advent of cinema and the end of vaudeville, people said it was the end of magic. Clearly it was not so. People always want to be mystified, it adds colour to the grey-ness of the everyday, it takes people out of themselves. Its what i've loved about magic since i first saw Paul Daniels on tv as a kid. There are some truly talented people out there, and i have faith in the saying ' The cream always rises to the top, and the mud settles at the bottom '.

I appreciate that this post was a little rambling, sorry.

Is magic over?

I never knew i begun

To paraphrase Frank Zappa, "Magic isn't dead (or over)...it just smells funny..."

From my days of playing in bands, I've noticed that rock has been declared "dead" more times than I can count...with MTV even proclaiming it on the air in 1997.

I haven't been practicing magic long enough to know if the case is the same here, although I suspect if you asked those who have they'd likely confirm it. I think some of the above comments point out what some of the possible culprits are in this situation. I like to think that not everyone is as smug as the above-mentioned guy.

I'm also in agreement that more focus will need to be put on the performer and the performance...BY the performer. It's likely that some new approaches may need to be considered. I don't perform professionally, or in public. For the time being my performances are limited to my fiance (a former magician's assistant back in the day) and her daughter....and sometimes a few people connected to them. For an example of a different approach, when you're performing for someone who was behind the scenes like my fiance, she immediately assumes a gaffed card, or some trick maneuver. If she continues to burn the deck any more, I swear the fuses in her eyes are going to blow! It's not much better with some of my nieces and nephews, either.....although the assumption of a trick deck by the audience also got me thinking how I could turn that to my advantage.

With all those deck-burning tendencies in mind, I attempted a certain card trick which can actually be done without any cards, courtesy of a certain Mr. B********* - and you could hear her jaw hitting the floor. She then had me perform it again for her daughter; over the phone no less...similar result. Is it safe to say this trick dates back to world war II, if not earlier?

At the risk of sounding a bit too obvious, I think it's safe to say that magic from here on out is going to require better performances by better magicians. The internet and exposure via YouBube are here to stay, barring a nuclear conflict - so to me that's almost a moot point. As far as I'm concerned, these iMagicians are just going to make those who truly know what they're doing look even better.