Do you believe in magic?

I don't believe in magic. I know that, behind every trick, there's a secret. But I still love watching magicians do their work; it's amazing to see what they can do with these illusions.

My favourite tricks would have to be ones that are seemingly impossible, like water escapes and disappearing acts, but I also like card tricks. I do have one card trick, and it's called 52 Pick Up. My sister loves it when I play that trick on her, because she always forgets what happens after the trick is done.

 

Spoiler: stuff that may or may not be off-topic

Mm...honestly, I've believed in magic since I was four, and mythical beings that are linked to magic in some way coughdragonscough since five. I always feel like there's still a LOT more to the world that we don't know about, and some stuff that can't be explained...sometimes because we refuse to believe it. (My dream for the future in StreetPass Mii Plaza is to be a witch. And I'm completely serious about that.)

Of course, I've always got little miss Miranda and lots of not-so-sensible school children to attempt to convince me otherwise, along with that whole "deep down, I know it's not true" thing. Oh whale, I can live in my fantasies however long I want to, and the only thing that could stop me is myself and/or the voice in my head.

Wait. Were we talking about magicians?
...
Oh. Magicians have no link to magic whatsoever. If they tell you otherwise, they're lying.

Uhm, I'm not really that big a fan of magicians. The tricks just aren't...flashy enough, I suppose. They're just...boring to me, I suppose. I prefer magic to little tricks.

 

Call me a skeptic, but I have a difficult time accepting things that can't be understood from what is observed of it (see my thread about belief in ghosts). Like, I can see the before and after of the magic trick, but I know that based on what I saw (hence illusions and misdirection), the in-between doesn't make sense. Sometimes, when magicians are really good, I wonder if they have some kind of technology or tool on their side. If it's a really good physical magic trick, like levitation I can't see through or object-movement I can't identify, I wonder if the magician is secretly an Avatar-like bender of some kind.

I can do a little bit of mind-reading magic. A little bit of suggestion and misdirection can go a long way. I was so good at one particular mind-reading card trick one time that my lovely guest from the not-audience started to get ahead of me and and move cards on her own, though I'm supposed to do it so I can control what's happening. I held up the act, kept my cool, and manipulated the situation in the last second to recover the right card even though I hardly touched the deck at all.

 

Oh oh oh it's magic, you knooooow, never believe it ain't so.

I do believe in magic. The magic of science. If I remember anything from science it's that you can neither create or destroy mass that isn't already there.

I mean it's fun to watch since there's always a secret behind it. Unless you're Penn and Teller.

 

Both of these things are me. I do not believe in magic, I just believe in science. There is a scientific reason behind everything. However, I do like to watch these TV shows that feature complex magic tricks (did you guys see that video in which a guy placed a beer tap on a tablet screen, turned the tap and beer started to come out?)

 

I dont believe in magic. But i like to watch magicians. My favourite magician is steven frayne i dont know you know him or not , he is also called by the name dynamo. I always try to figure out some tricks in his magic but i am not able to do so. I dont know what he does but i can say his tricks are amazing like walking on water and running on building though i have not seen them with my eyes. I dont know but i always think there are tricks which the do, now the term magician is not for the person who does magic it has became the person who does tricks and claims its a magic.

 

The idea of magic (in a real-world setting) stems largely from a sense of wonderment. Even as we grow older this sense is preserved in some form or another.

When we are young, we think that such things are amazing and stupendous, and we think this person must have special powers that are awesome and for the sole purpose of providing amusement to children. When we grow older, we realise that's actually correct - they do have special powers solely for the purpose of entertaining children. (We don't think the powers have exactly the same form as when we were younger, but still.)

Then when we grow older, there are two large responses to seeing magic tricks. (There are actually more than two, but these two are the most common, and important to express my point.) The first one falls along the lines of "He probably had it up his sleeve or something; that's not that special". The second one is more akin to "He probably had it hiding somewhere on his person, but that was pretty cool, so I'm going to enjoy it anyway". Those who remain fond of performance magicians fall into the second group, while those who are more indifferent to legerdemain (or don't care and don't want to care) fall into the first.

I am of the second group. During the time when I volunteered at my church's Awana program, once a year we would have a guest appearance by a professional magician, who was also one of the church members. (Said magician is extremely skilled at his craft, but I digress.) For the children, he would always perform the same act year after year. It was fairly basic stuff, nothing too flashy or stupendous, but it had the basic elements of magic. I would always sit in and watch each time he showed up, even though I knew it was the same act and would go through the same motions. Why? Because I think the ability to skillfully manipulate small objects is quite astounding. I certainly don't have a trained eye to catch everything, but I don't care, because it was pretty cool.

Where am I going with this, however? The impact of magic, and how you choose to receive it, will depend entirely on your outlook. Magic is a deception, an illusion, a trick to make the audience see what the performer wants them to see. That is all there is to it. The question is, are we okay with being shown something different, the desired image that the performer is trying to create? Your answer has nothing to do with your views, your personality, your mind, your thought process, or anything like that - just your opinion on that question alone.

As for myself, very few things take me by surprise anymore because of how analytical I've become, so I welcome the wonderment and the change of pace.