Word Count: 811 Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 2:04 AM
Should Magic Tricks Be Kept Secret?
"Without courage wisdom bears no fruit." - Baltasar Gracian
"Never reveal the secret to the trick." This is the First Commandment we each learned, often within moments of learning the mechanics behind our first trick. The First Commandment was not "Love magic," "Practice every day," "Be original," or "The tricks are mere vehicles." Rather it was about keeping secrets to ourselves.
I am reminded of Pat Conroy's wonderful book "The Prince of Tides" and how the mother in the story separately confided in each of her three children, "You are my favorite," and then swore each to secrecy. An ingenious and heinous way to keep the children both bound to her and divided from each other on a deep emotional level.
As magi, our obsession with secrecy has not kept us divided form each other. On the contrary, I find magicians to be the friendliest and most closely knit community I have ever had the good fortune to be a part of. However, our attitudes regarding secrecy have kept us apart from the majority of other artistic communities on the planet, and those same attitudes perpetuate widespread prejudice, ignorance and a lack of respect for our art.
This passionate commitment to secrecy is in no small part also responsible for the rampant theft, scarcity of originality and mediocre level of performance plaguing our global community. This secrecy is no true brotherhood nor measure of artistry, and the mechanics we are in such a rush to keep hidden have nothing to do with what makes what we do an art.
Too many magicians are afraid that, "if we give away the secrets we'll have nothing left!" The secrets are among the least artistic and most impersonal aspects of our craft. But of course, if all you have are the secrets, if you have not honed your skills, tended the love of your craft, developed your performance character or nurtured your creativity, then you may have nothing other than secrets. In this case, you are not a magician. You are a librarian or a collector or a consumer. There is nothing wrong with that, but do not confuse yourself with a magician.
Just as a magician's guilt about a movement only serves to draw the audiences attention to that same action, so too does our obsession with keeping secrets only serve to draw attention to the brute mechanics behind our routines.
Perhaps one day, as a community, we will shift our focus to the more transcendent elements of our craft and, not surprisingly, the focus of the general public will shift accordingly. This is the opposite of 'exposing' in that telling people about roughing fluid does not teach them a damn thing about our art. It only leaves the person with precisely enough trivial knowledge so that he is unable to enjoy a performance of the Invisible Deck and not a whiff of the understanding required to appreciate a stellar performance of that same trick.
To expose without educating is to do everyone on both sides of the footlights a grave disservice and to impoverish all involved. Callous and exploitive acts of exposure are no better than the toy collectors who buy tricks, practice them twice, perform them once and call themselves 'magicians.'
Instead of ignoble exposure, why not try to rise to the challenge of education? There are so many wonderful aspects of the art of magic that people would find intriguing and enriching. The psychology of misdirection, the challenges of script writing, the philosophy of performance, the many parallels between magic and acting, film, painting and dance, the beauty of sleight-of-hand and, of course, the fascinating history of our craft. The general public have heard of Spielberg, Van Gough, Michelangelo and Chopin. Why not Vernon, Slydini, Houdin, Takagi, Harris, Marlo, Tenkai, Ascanio, Tamariz and Kaps?
The cult of secrecy is a parasite curled up at the base of the spine of magic, forever feeding, draining each of us, keeping us in the dark, cut off from the world and so much smaller than we could be. The blood flowing through the veins of the art of magic does not consist of the small material secrets behind a parade of tricks. Its blood consists of far more profound stuff, and it is these immaterial aspects that we would do well to share with our audiences in an unprecedented fashion. Let us draw to magic ardent fans, humble students and knowledgeable aficionados and, at the same time, shake out the fakes, exploiters and the uninspired.
We have kept both the bath water and the baby locked away in the closet for too long. Let us share the beautiful baby and let the dark stale bath water drain away.
About the Author
Jay Sankey is a true magician's magician and is widely considered to be one of the most original thinkers and finest magic teachers alive today. He is also one of the most prolific magic creators on the planet. Visit www.sankeymagic.comfor more information about Sankey Magic. Receive a free trick every month
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