cuejoey said:
i think the best part of magic is the mystic about trying to figure out how a trick occured........i recently bought a trick from an internet magic store ....the grand kids go crazy over it........lots of fun.......
This is a good point actually because it brings up 2 types of people.
I'm not going to try to oversimplefy things and say there are *only* 2 types, but for the purposes of discussion lets assume it to be true.
Type 1 is in the majority and likes to be entertained via magic and just likes the experiance and doesnt really want to know how its done. Often some of the "magic" is lost when they find out methods. Also their true feelings about wanting to know might be masked because given the simple oppertunity(reading a post on a msg board they frequent or watching a TV show) they might accept the exposure, but in the end they'd rather just be amazed.
Type 2 is the type of person that really appriciates the secrets and work involved, they want to figure out effects because the methods amaze them, and if they had time would probably be magicians themselves. They are however the minority(at least from my experiance in the US)
My main arguement is that with the current world of information, a type-2 person can easily find information about magic by themselves from magic-related sources.
As such, I find that on non-magic forums and whatnot exposure should be kept to a minimum because of the type 1's that might come across it, and type-2's can easily find the information themselves.... so really no one is missing out with this system of non-exposure.
I'm not against teaching people magic, I'm against the un-needed and many times unwanted exposure that comes from many sources. One popular source is a self-rightious individual who feels it is their job to inform everyone about how its all simple tricks and misses no oppertunity to squash amazement in others.(no one here has exhibited this trait but I did want to bring it to people's attention that there are these types of people around and it *does* hurt people's appriciation for no reason other than selfishness)
-macgyver
ps to colin and others who posted methods: I am not saying any of you are the self-rightious individual I am talking about or that I have any say in what you do or do not expose or even that you really did something wrong.(Until you heard an opposiing opinion of why un-needed exposure is bad I don't expect anyone to spend much time thinking about it).
So please take these post not as guidelines on how you should act but rather as a different viewpoint on un-needed exposure and something to consider in the future when something like this comes up.
pps I also want to *slightly* disagree with donovon on the comparison between magic and pool again, because I feel again that magic is really an art of secrets and an economy of secrets and not a good comparison.
However his example does hold merit as the person who plays pool 5 times a year might not have the drive to learn the system, just as people on a pool forum might not have the drive to learn magical secrets...
I do support people getting into magic and I feel that all secrets both in pool and magic are availible to anyone with the drive to really learn them, I just oppose(in magic specifically) the notion that secrets should be exposed to those that dont have the drive to learn.
thanks all for reading and taking the time to re-examine your thoughts on things like this, as I know it is a subject that many don't have the chance to spend time thinking about.