Newsgroups: alt.magic
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 00:48:41 -0400 
From: "Daniel S. Efran" <de0t+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: accomplices ethical?
	<1992Apr16.200116.18520@cirrus.com>

Excerpts from netnews.alt.magic: 16-Apr-92 Re: accomplices ethical?
Rahul Dhesi@cirrus.com (1151)

> What is the difference between magic and cheating?  It is this.
> Sometimes you are asked to take something on faith without having the
> chance of confirming it yourself, or seeing some other member of the
> audience confirm it.  If what you were asked to accept on faith turns out
> to be untrue, you were cheated and it was not magic.
> -- 
> Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@cirrus.COM>
> UUCP:  oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi


I agree with your examples (which I'm not quoting here), but this
explanation is too 
broad.  Example:  Cards and coins are expected to be genuine, but often
are not.  
This does not make, say, the "coin in the bottle" effect not-magic. 
That effect is 
most certainly magic.  But if you name someone's thought-of card, and
that person
is an accomplice, you are definitely cheating.  What's the distinction? 
I think it's
pretty obvious, though it's hard to pin down in words.  

Basically, magicians are expected to do the seemingly impossible, in an
entertaining way,
through the use of skill and cleverness.  (This extends to clever
gadgetry, though
most people feel that pure skill is somehow better.)  Forcing a card is
clever.  Asking
someone to "think of" the 7 of hearts before the show is not clever. 
Doing a mind-
reading trick with an accomplice is not clever.  You're not *doing*
anything.  A mind-
reading act on a television show (not a DC special, just a sitcom or
something) doesn't
impress anyone, because it's obviously scripted in advance.  Nobody's
doing anything
mysterious at all -- they're just reciting what they've already
rehearsed.  Big deal.

This, incidentally, weakens DC's tv shows even when he *does* use real
spectators --
you feel like what you're watching is polished, edited; if he screws up,
you're never
going to see it.  They'll just do it over.

Camera tricks and accomplices don't impress anyone because they're too
easy.  In magic
that doesn't use these things, you're "cheating" in terms of the methods
you use, but
you are *really doing what you say you're doing* -- the coin really does
appear to be
in the bottle.  You really did find the person's card.  You really did
float around the
stage (even if you use wires, it's ok if nobody sees them).  You're
actually accomplishing
what you claim to.  How you find the spectator's card isn't the issue
(everyone *knows*
"there's a trick to it").  What's important is that you *really do* find
the person's card.

[Change of topic]

I used to dislike David Copperfield quite a bit.  These days (I haven't
seen the most recent
special, so I can't comment on the 'flying' or other new effects) I have
more tolerance for
him.  He's a very good performer.  He has an entertaining character
(personality), a good
sense of the dramatic (usually; there's no excuse for stuff like the
'bluescreening across the
grand canyon' he once did), a good choreographer, good taste in
music....  I respect him as
a performer -- I'm generally entertained when I watch him.  However, as
a magician, he's
not very skilled.  His slight of hand skills are pretty pathetic (watch
his clumsy card-palming
on the 'orient express' show) and most of the work is done by assistants
and apparatus.
He's pretty much just a figurehead.  But he's a very good one, and
that's important too.  I
wish he'd rely more on himself for the magic, but as a performer in
general he's just fine.

ObMagic:

Does anyone have any good ideas for mentalism-type effects?  I need some
good, showy
mind-reading type stuff, preferably something other than selected-card
tricks, preferably
not *too* much slight of hand (though some is ok).  If you can tell me
how to do it, that
would be great, but if you can't, just a plot summary would help too --
I might be able to 
devise my own method or modify the concept somewhat.  I'm really looking
for ideas more 
than actual methods.  In general, I'm always interested in trading
effects with people, either
here or by email (if you don't like posting secrets to the board). 
Anyone else want to do
this?

ObEthics: (You can stop reading now if you're sick of "Ethics of magic"
discussions.)

In terms of situations like my last paragraph, should we refrain from
sharing methods that
appear in books?  Lecture notes?  Purchased effects?  What if we've
modified the method,
or just the patter?  What about just sharing ideas (not methods)?  What
about methods that
are on the market, but that you've figured out yourself (and thus not
paid for)?

[I should make it clear that I mean sharing among magicians, not with
laypersons, and in private
or by email, not in public or on bboards.]

I'd say sharing effect ideas is always ok -- this is basically just
advertising -- and sharing
methods is pretty definitely not ok in the case of purchased effects,
probably not ok for
lecture notes (especially if you paid for the notes or the lecture; if
you didn't, then it's
probably ok to share them -- it's as if the person you're telling had
also attended the lecture),
and probably ok for books, especially the older / more available ones. 
I see no problem with
sharing information you've figured out for yourself.  The more changes
you make to someone
else's effect, the more ethical it is to share it with others, I'd say,
with the extreme case
being something totally original, which is obviously yours to do with as
you please.  Basic utility
moves & slights are probably mostly public domain too, though it's nice
to give credit whenever
you can.

Those are my opinions (and I'm sometimes willing to be somewhat
unethical by my own standards);
I'd be interested in hearing what other people think, though we should
probably keep the
discussion to a minimum to avoid pissing off the people who are sick of
"ethics of magic" threads.
If you have _a lot_ of ranting to do about this stuff, perhaps it'd be
better done in email.

Well, I've rambled enough for one message.

	---Daniel Efran
----------------------------------
An it harm none, do as you Will.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
Organization: Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA