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Mandrake - Your wish is my command!

Yaaaay!!

Curses! Foiled again!

Man, I think thats low when somebody reveals a trick like that. For them to go out of their way to write a post about exposing a trick, thats pretty low and against the "Magician's Code". Shame on you...

AJ82 wrote:Appreciate the trick for what it is

Hey everyone!

I'm new here (first post actually) and a complete noob to magic, meaning I know close to nothing about how any tricks are done - and I like it that way - and even if I do know, I'm still amazed if I see someone pulling it off well.

Anyway, I thought I could use this discussion to jump in instead of just lurking in the background. If I understood the first poster correctly, he was exposing the spider trick by saying that an actor/stooge was involved. Now correct me if I've got the magician's "code of honor" wrong or something, but personally I feel this means it's not even a magic trick in the first place. He's only ACTING as if he's performing magic and therefore to expose it as such, IMO, is fair game.

Yes, I know that magicians don't actually have supernatural powers, but it's one thing to use props to create an illusion but another to use fake spectators. Like, I am HUUUUUGE fan of Derren Brown . I don't care how many props etc. he uses or much of his work is or isn't actual NSP, hypnosis or whatever method he claims to be using - as long as he's true to his word that "at no point are actors or stooges involved in the show", I'm one happy button and he'll never fail to amaze me.

But if it should turn out that he does in fact use actors (and now don't tell me if he does for I don't even wanna know! *sticks fingers in ears and chants incoherently*), I'd feel very, very cheated and I wouldn't see his magic as "tricks" anymore, but only as deceit.

So, I guess my question for all you more experienced magicians/fans out there: Where does the "magic" stop for you? Is using actors, i.e. fake laymen, really okay for you as long as the magician thereby manages to amaze real laymen like me, as apparently done in the afore-mentioned "spider-trick"?

Well I guess what being a magician means to you. If anyone in the general public thought you were using stooges, they would not call you a magician but a cheat, a phoney and a fraud.

There is the magician who does his magic essentially for himself - not to entertain an audience, but to boost his ego. Then there are those who purely wish to entertain their audience. They are not so much a leader in to a world of magic but more a tour guide, even closer to a tourist. They perform their magic to entertain others, not primarily themselves.

For me, it's all about intention. If you are using stooges just to make yourself look and feel good, better than you are, then I would say that's not right. If, however, you are using a stooge as a way of sharing true magic with your audience, I think of that as acceptable. It's not a cheat at all.

Unfortunately the distinction is not as obvious in performing for 'real people'. Which I guess says a lot about the general perception of magicians.

I agree with Cardza. As he's mentionned again, Derren in his book mentions stooges and states that he dispises magicians / mentalist who use them so I don't think that you need to worry about whether Derren uses them.

The problem with the anti-stooge argument is that most people tend to forget the most important aspect of it.

THE STOOGE IS NOT THE SPECTATOR.

If a stooge is employed - the effect is not meant for the stooge. The stooge plays his part to create the magical effect for everyone else.

For instance, say the spider effect employed the stooge to supply the hat. The magic is now meant for everyone standing around. Zabreena, it is a magic effect - and as such, the original poster shouldn't be exposing the method used. Plain and simple.

You can say you don't like stooges, that's fine. But I think the majority of the complaints on these forums come from people who don't actually understand why they're used. In any effect I've seen TV magicians use stooges, I have yet to see them used for on camera responses afterwards.

Keep having this argument all you want - but please try to remember THE STOOGE IS NOT THE SPECTATOR! As such, his reactions are not the reactions you use to judge the effectiveness of the performance.

Demitri wrote:In any effect I've seen TV magicians use stooges, I have yet to see them used for on camera responses afterwards.

Keep having this argument all you want - but please try to remember THE STOOGE IS NOT THE SPECTATOR! As such, his reactions are not the reactions you use to judge the effectiveness of the performance.

I thought about this a lot after reading your post and I understand your point and I guess I even agree with it as long as stooges are really used as help to perform a trick instead of, well, giving theatrical statements to the camera and the rest of the "real" audience" afterwards.

I haven't seen this particular trick, but if Criss Angel pretended to pull a random spectator (who was really in on the trick) out of a crowd, ask for his biggest fear and then pulled a spider out of his hat and the stooge acted as though he was close to heart attack yada yada and thereby freaked out the REAL spectators even more, then for me it has more to do with deceit than with a proper magic trick. If, one the other hand, he would ask, say, ME for my biggest fear (which indeed would be spiders) and then pull one out of MY hat, it'd be magic! Then again, I would probably die of a heart attack for real (after sueing the Bejesus out of him, mind), so I guess I understand why he would use a stooge here.

Seriously though .... like I said, I've been thinking about this quite a bit, esp. after watching a few other performances by Criss Angel and other magicians yesterday. And I realize the line between using stooges and fake spectators who help you pulling off a trick - which I'm convinced were indeed used a couple of times - can be a very thin one (after all it's all about the show, isn't it?) ... and I can't really explain any better what I'm really trying to say *quickly blames it all on language barriers * so I better shut up now.

Anyway, thanks for your replies.

I think the argument here is whether its wrong or not to have stooges pretend to be the spectator to enhance the astonishment of the viewer at home. One example of this has to be the Criss Angel walking on water illusion - The people swimming in the pool while he walked on the surface of the water just had to be in on it but during it and afterwards they pretended like it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. I don't see how he could have possibly had people swimming in the pool unless they were in on it just incase someone inadvertedly ruined the illusion.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on that, Misanthropy. I think it is indeed possible to have genuine spectators during the water walk segment. The environment might need to be controlled in certain ways, but it's possible.

I'm sometime baffled when magicians say that something tha they see for themselves can't be possible, yet this is the very essence of what we are trying to achieve for ourselves. I agree with Demitri on the swimming pool effect and it's possibilities. It's just as easy to deceive a magician as it is a lay person with the right effect and conditions. We're just as vulnerable as lay people otherwise we wouldn't be so interested in magic.

In response to Demitri's earlier post, I would agree to a point that many on these boards do not understand the part that a stooge plays but amongst those who do, some, and possibly many still don't like the use of the stooges (although I suspect that many perhaps wouldn't recognise if and when one were used).

I suspect that in all but the rare occasions these days, the stooge is something that never used by 99% of magicians, most of whom spend their time learning the lastest tricks from DVD's instead of learing the classics of magic.

I have to say, even if you did think that Criss Angels trick was corny or whatnot. He has spent plenty of time working on his magic and is quite good at what he does. He hasnt ceased to amaze anyone i know and is gaining popularity quick. But to go and expose a magician for one of their tricks you didnt like is kinda low. I know personally when sceptics try to expose my tricks and dont follow the rules it really brings me down because it ruins the mysticism of the magic. Its kinda like reading a book or watching a movie when someone tells you the ending. It just ruins it for you. Well thats what i have to say, and good luck to all of you with sceptics. ha

Demitri wrote:I have to respectfully disagree with you on that, Misanthropy. I think it is indeed possible to have genuine spectators during the water walk segment. The environment might need to be controlled in certain ways, but it's possible.

controlled in certain ways like telling the spectator not to swim in his way? Even if most of them were genuine spectators he must have had at least a couple in on it to keep the distance between him and the other spectators.

To go back to the using stooges point,

Why is using a stooge any different to using any other prop in a trick? When doing an ID routine you are deceiving people in the exact same way! They assume you are using a normal deck of cards just the same way spectator X may assume the the stooge is just spectator Y.