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I just read "the Principles of Magic" by Richard Osterlind. He brings up some very interesting perspectives on the art of magic. As such, I was wondering what view points the forum had on this particular idea. The following statements are the thrust of the topic of misconceptions in magic. So I ask, What do you think is the biggest misconception in magic is?

1. Magic is the art of deception.
2. Magic is the art of illusion.

Agree, disagree, or provide another misconception. Discuss.

Archimage

I think magic is an art of deception from your two examples.

My reason is because when we perform a magic trick, we're decieving out audiences through illusions and tricks and such.

Even though it's all in illusion and such, in the end, we're still decieving the audience, thus magic is an art of deception.

But saying that just makes magic sound bad. LOL

hmm. That is interesting. Osterlind follows this line of logic as well, but he says that if this were true, then the art of magic is only one step above the actions of a criminal with the only difference being no thievery or harm was done to the spectator.

If this were the case, then magic is not an honorable profession nor hobby.

You also bring me to another point about "deceiving the audience", but I will save this thought for another thread. I don't want to convolute this topic. I am anticipating some very interesting comments.

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We are engaged in what the linguists call a performative contradiction, where most of our speech acts involve doing precisely what we say we are not doing.

E.g. We say, 'I'll place this coin in my left hand.' In contrast, we do the retention vanish. We say, 'I'll put your card in the middle of the deck.' In contrast, we do a DL and put the top card in the middle of the deck. Add your favourite examples from stage, close-up, mentalism, etc.

The whole of our performances combine speech acts that are on a continuum that ranges from total agreement (we do what we say we do) to total contradiction (we do not do what we say we do).

It thus seems that deception is a feature of what we do (but not a constant feature), illusion is the result. The better we mix the total agreement aspects in our performances with the total contradictions, the better the illusion. Audiences want to believe that we are presenting a fair set of conditions and we strive to create the idea that conditions are fair, even though we use selected deception at precise moments to pull off the effect.

archimage wrote:If this were the case, then magic is not an honorable profession nor hobby.

Yeh. Like I said, just gives magic a bad name. But I guess everything has it's good perspective and it's bad perspective.

I don't think that with my limited vocabulary, I can fully understand DrTodd's post. But I do understand a general view of it. Hopefully... Eitherway, I still feel magic is a more deceptive art. The illusion is only the result and it's the feedback that we get that makes it greater. But it's still deception. Or maybe I'm just narrowly biased.

Anyways, yeh, anticipating more views on this topic.

I have to say, I do find both of those things to be true. Magic is the art of deception yes, but that's why we do it and that's why people like it.

It's called a trick and people know this.
We don't pretend to have real powers, so everyone knows what we're doing is some kind of trickery. Whilst we may be deceiving them, the person is expecting to be deceived, and gets entertainment out of being deceived, therefore, I would say it is unfair to call magic a non-honourable art form.

Just my thoughts though

I like Richard Osterlind's view in this regard. I certainly look at what I do as a lot more than a trick. I see myself as someone who uses a number of methods to create real magic - real magic being an experience, allowing the spectator to participate in the mysterious...

Winston Churchill said "Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

Alright so lets face it.. we decieve people to entertain them. The art comes from the skill involved in that deception and how well they are decieved. Also if the intention behind that deception is simply to entertain, where is the harm?

Movies decieve us all the time, through the use of special effects they make the impossible feasible. And it doesn't stop there, simply by definition an actor is decieving his audience, presenting a false impression of themselves.

Another thing is that sometimes by presenting a deception we can challenge people to look more carefully at what they perceive to be true and this is a fine and healthy prospect.

The good magician is not malicious in their deception, they seek to amuse, bewilder and challenge their fellow man's perception of reality. They entertain people and make them forget about their everyday problems for a while and therefore in my honest opinion that makes being a magician a very honourable proffession (but then I would say that wouldn't I)?

I think these are good answers and Taneous was closest to Osterlind's views. Not to say that any of them are incorrect or correct, just interesting points of views. Here is Osterlind's explanation:

Magic was never the art of illusion, deception or lying.

Yes, illusion plays a part in the construction of magic, but it is not the goal of the art. If that were true then other forms of art could be considered in the same light.

For example, a painting by Rembrant and the emotional feelings it conveys are not real, it is an illusion, a deception. It is actually only paint and canvas.

A classic novel of a story that never happened, with characters who never existed should hold no power over your feelings, because it is a lie. A deception, an illusion. It is only words on paper.

A symphony of Beethoven on CD is only an electronic reenactment of an orchestra playing music by a compser wh has been dead many years. The vibrations on your speaker are not the actual vibrations of instruments and represent an illusion of what you would hear at an actual concert. Anyresemblance or connections to the great themes of life is an illusion.

You get the point.

Art itself is not an illusion. Art does not trick you into feeling, but causes you to react by its nature. Look past the physical part of the art to the spiritual. The magical arts are no different than other forms of art. Magical arts are the formation and creation of mystery and its practitioners should do this on the highest artistic and moral levels.

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Flash wrote:Winston Churchill said "Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

Alright so lets face it.. we decieve people to entertain them. The art comes from the skill involved in that deception and how well they are decieved. Also if the intention behind that deception is simply to entertain, where is the harm?

Movies decieve us all the time, through the use of special effects they make the impossible feasible. And it doesn't stop there, simply by definition an actor is decieving his audience, presenting a false impression of themselves.

Another thing is that sometimes by presenting a deception we can challenge people to look more carefully at what they perceive to be true and this is a fine and healthy prospect.

The good magician is not malicious in their deception, they seek to amuse, bewilder and challenge their fellow man's perception of reality. They entertain people and make them forget about their everyday problems for a while and therefore in my honest opinion that makes being a magician a very honourable proffession (but then I would say that wouldn't I)?

LOL

You sure would. Who'd want to bad-mouth themselves afterall?


(Had to edit because archimage posted before me thus my comment wouldn't make sense to prior post. )

Magic is an illusion.

A big misconception is: "That's impossible!" Which is a great reaction to get! However, is it? Are we performing the impossible, or are we performing an illusion... more at the end of my post.

Magicians are not liars. We simply omit the truth from our magic. It's not lying, it's a simple deception.

i.e. if you perform a coin vanish, you are simply decieving your audience into believing the coin has gone. It's an act, because you are in control of the deception. You act over the deception, which is, perhaps, that you've got the coin backpalmed. However, by omitting this information (the actual mechanics of the effect) you are'nt lying... you're simply not telling the whole truth.

Mindreading for me is a good example: again, depending on how you perform, this can be seen as a decption, or a lie, or both, or neither... example:

1. You ask the spectator to think of an object and write it down. You tell them you will, by the powers you've been given, replicate their drawing.
This is both a lie, and a deception... it's a lie because you CANNOT read their mind, and you have no special powers. It's a deception, because you are actually gaining knowledge about what they drew by untold and secret means.
Therefore, you are LYING by saying you have powers, and that you are extracting the info from them telepathically, and you are DECEIVING them by taking a peek, or using a stooge.

2. You perform the same effect, WITHOUT mentioning being a mindreader or somesuch empowered psychic. You never mention the method you are using, you just do it.
In this case, you are neither lying or deceiving... you are never saying you will do anything, and you're making no claims about methods.

So, in case two, because there is no lie or deception, does that qualify as magic?

I see the biggest misconception in magic as being that magician's have special powers. Now, I am not talking about people actually BELIEVING this (although in many cultures, magic IS believed to be performed by people with special powers). I am talking more about magicians who purport to HAVE special powers.

For me, it's all about illusion. Illusion is a much better word that deceive or lie.

Illusion is less of a negative word, and covers a myriad of magic (if not all). And taken in the context of "By putting apple juice in his whisky tumbler, he gave the ILLUSION that there was scotch in there" it is plain to see that all we as magicians are doing is creating a temporary illusion with whatever we do:

1. Card vanish—giving the ILLUSION that a card has disappeared
2. Needle thru arm—giving the ILLUSION that a needle penetrates flesh
3. Sponge ball multiplication—the ILLUSION that one ball becomes many
4. ESP—the ILLUSION that you are reading a spectators thoughts
5. Levitation—the ILLUSION of someone rising from the ground
6. Professor's nightmare—the ILLUSION of ropes changing length

and so on.

Therefore, my own view is that it's all covered by this one word.

Magicians are illusionists. The misconception of whether your public believe you are in possession of magic powers is their own, but if you keep it real and perform with the attitude that it's all an illusion, you are much more truthful.

Magicians are not the only illusionists. As mentioned, actors are illusionists, movies are illusions, salesmen (yes! they give you the illusion that what you are buying is worth the price!), and many other professions are the same.

Again, my old famous Sherlock Holmes quote helps me work out what is a good effect and what isn't:
"Eliminate the impossible, and whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth"

Example: one of my favourite effects is a simple lit cigarette vanish into the spectators shirt/blouse/sweater/hanky. Now, the spectator has a lit cigarette pushed into the fabric of their clothes, and yet when you show your empty hands and an unburned garment, the reaction is 'that's impossible!'

But it isn't impossible at all. Because I've just done it. By performing the illusion, it's obviously not impossible because I've just MADE it possible.
Therefore, yes—it is improbable. It is improbable that I've made the cigarette vanish into thin air, granted.
So, eliminating the word 'impossible' the spectator knows that it's pure skill and sleight of hand which accomplishes the illusion.

By CLAIMING to do the impossible (which, by virtue of it's own dictionary definition, it is not possible to do!) I am lying.

Performing the impossible is simply not possible!

I believe, therefore, that a magician's role is to prove that things are NOT impossible! It's the art of the possible which we deal with here. Making impossible things possible is a magician's role.

So for me, the biggest lie in magic is magicians who CLAIM to do the impossible.

The lateral thinking, scientific spectator will know that you're simply not able to play with physics. A coin CANNOT physically penetrate a sheet of glass. That would be IMPOSSIBLE. However, by creating the ILLUSION of a coin passing through a sheet of glass is very possible.

Ergo, a MAGICIAN is an ILLUSIONIST who proves the IMPOSSIBLE is POSSIBLE.

Seige,

You are on target when speaking that the physical nature of magic is an illusion. However, I believe by reading some of your past posts, you'd agree, the the goal of the art is not the illusion itself or the techniques used to create them, but the emotion the art of magic evokes in our spectators and in ourselves. That emotion the magican creates is beyond the physical manifistation of illusion it is the spiritual creation of mystery "How did you do that?!" the wonder, the awe.

To limit ourselve to the techniques of creating the illusion without the artistic goal of creating the wonder and awe is why many magicans do poorly. They do not convey with their personality, or connect with their audience. The differences between the technique and the art is similar to a poloroid picture that is an exact representation versus a work of art that shows the same picture, but conveys memories and evokes profound feelings.

Archimage

Spot on. Which is why in my above post, I state that the reaction is the most important aspect of your illusion.

My own theory is that if you CLAIM you are doing the impossible, when the impossible actually happens, the reaction is much stronger.

i.e. if I TELL you that I am going to push a coin through plate glass, you are expecting it. However, if I don't CLAIM to be doing anything and just get on with it, the ILLUSION is much stronger.

Which is why I disagree with magicians who CLAIM to be able to do things BEFORE they do them. I love the element of surprise, and proving the impossible is what we as magicians do best.

So, yes, I agree that the method is secondary. CREATING the illusion is paramount.

I have seen 'amateur' magicians who's act falls down because of phrases like the following:

"Take a card. Now I will impossibly make your card appear behind the window"

"Watch this coin, I am going to make it vanish"

"Place your card anywhere in the deck. Now you agree, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to know what card you selected"

Can you seen what I am driving at? I think I am having a 'bypass of coherent explanations' today. I just re-read my post and it doesn't even make sense to me!

By claiming you are about to do something impossible, you are basically admitting that it MUST be possible, otherwise, how can you do it?

I usually slate Blaine, but I found that his handling of his career-making levitation was spot on. He didn't at any point say that he was going to levitate. He simply said 'watch this'. When he levitated, the element of surprise was unreal. Fantastic!

The bottom line I am trying to get through is that I believe it's wrong to lull the speccy into the sense that you're about to do the impossible. It's far STRONGER and more ENTERTAINING if the impossible literally just happens, with no explanation.

Like I said, we are ILLUSIONISTS. The ILLUSION is created by the performance, and the outcome.

Nice post seige.

Now, this may seem narrow minded or ignorant or whatever, but to achieve this illusion, doesn't that still mean the magician is decieving the spectator/s?

Illusion: A false idea or daydream.
Deceive: To trick or mislead.

Thus deception fits better into what a magician does where as the illusion is the result of this deceiving and the portrayal of a magician able to make the impossible possible, is the end belief.

Like you said, when the magician says something, he is lying to his audience. Thus he is deceiving them. Through this deception, an illusion is created that the magician is able to do what others normally can't. So by deceiving them, the audience believes that the magician can make the impossible, possible.

Now, if the magician doesn't say anything, then he isn't lying. But from the illusion created, the audience is mislead into thinking the magician has some sort of powers, thus being decieved. Yes, not saying that you'll make the coin disappear will have a greater affect on the audience as they weren't expecting it, but still, this illusion still deceives them.

You're also saying that the magicians role is to prove that the impossible is possible. But then isn't that decieving the audience because it's really impossible? But through an illusion, it is possible.

So magic revolves around deception, using illusions to create this deception. Then, once the audience is deceived, a false belief is formed, that magicains can make the impossible, possible. So they are deceived.

So Okay. We are illusionist. But we can only be an illusionist by deceiving them audience in the first place. We don't have to tell them. Let the illusion decieve them.

archimage wrote:Seige,

You are on target when speaking that the physical nature of magic is an illusion. However, I believe by reading some of your past posts, you'd agree, the the goal of the art is not the illusion itself or the techniques used to create them, but the emotion the art of magic evokes in our spectators and in ourselves. That emotion the magican creates is beyond the physical manifistation of illusion it is the spiritual creation of mystery "How did you do that?!" the wonder, the awe.

To limit ourselve to the techniques of creating the illusion without the artistic goal of creating the wonder and awe is why many magicans do poorly. They do not convey with their personality, or connect with their audience. The differences between the technique and the art is similar to a poloroid picture that is an exact representation versus a work of art that shows the same picture, but conveys memories and evokes profound feelings.

Archimage

Yep. The reaction is the important part. Unless they believe that it's actually happening, there is no real magic in it. But it still comes down to the illusion and how well you can deceive them.

So even though the feedback is very important, the magic, do get this feedback, is it an art of illusion or deception?

Again, I think deception. Or at least at the moment. Opinions change here and there and your perspectives and seige's are very good.