“A Matter of Ethics”Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

A Matter of Ethics.

The misuse of our art, hobby, craft, profession, passion by those who would bilk the credulous should be of concern to all of us for it reflects on all of us. I agree with Dave Boyd that we cannot change with a simple disclaimer the held beliefs of those who see us perform, but we must make that disclaimer less we too become part of that nefarious group preying on the vulnerable.

Remember that those practicing our art not too long ago were considered in league with the devil. Witches were burned here in Europe and North America based on firmly held beliefs not evidence. The major church of that time held that witches must be, as so many people believe in them.As part of the dialogue, despite that it may be an old chestnut, I offer again my complete essay on ethics for this subject.

When a magician performs for an audience, even an audience of one, the audience is asked to suspend disbelief for the length of the performance. Fiction writers do the same thing. Neither the novelist nor the magician is working within the “real world.” As magicians, our make-believe world is a magic world where, assuming we do our parlor tricks well enough, the audience goes along and is entertained, even mystified. They leave the theater, restaurant, party or whatever venue we are working knowing that we are not in league with the devil or that we have not violated the Laws of Nature. We just did tricks that they don’t know how to do. Well-written, and sometimes not so well-written, fiction does the same thing. The modern novelist tells his public up front that the characters and the situations in which they find themselves are not real. He tells the reader that they should not confuse the characters with any person living or dead.

No reasonable person accepts a book of fiction with this disclaimer as a work of non-fiction. In the real world, works of fiction without a disclaimer have often been accepted as fact with disastrous consequences. “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” and its part in leading to the Holocaust is arguably the most egregious example in history.

As magicians we do not put a disclaimer in front of our act reminding the public that what they will see and experience is a trick, a swindle or a flim-flam, even though it is. We do not have to tell the audience that we are going to pull the wool over their eyes and do things that are impossible. This is understood. After all, the Statue of Liberty is not really going to disappear. Is it? The single sponge ball the magician just put in someone’s hand is not capable of spontaneous reproduction. Is it?

Why is it necessary for an ethical fiction writer to warn his public that what they are about to experience on the printed page is not real, but not for the magician? Is it ethical for a magician to fool his public without warning, but not for others? In a recent national television program, the magician told his audience that he wasn’t sure if he could do a trick. Of course he did it very well much to the public’s amazement. Was he unethical?

Of course not.

That is part of the magician act and is expected. The subject of ethics in the organized magic…

A Matter of Ethics.

Of course not.

That is part of the magician act and is expected. The subject of ethics in the organized magic community is primarily limited to protecting “The Secrets of the Trade.” The International Brotherhood of Magicians only addresses ethics in the organization’s by-laws by prohibition of exposure of “any magical effect.” Not only is it not considered unethical when the magician refuses to tell or show the secrets of his performance, but an I.B.M. member risks expulsion if he does.

I do not doubt that other formal or informal magic organizations hold the same position. I did a search of the I.B.M.’s “The Linking Ring” on CD under the word ethics and found 621 instances where the word was used in various articles since 1929.

Those articles I read, with only two exceptions, addressed the ethics of exposure or the buying and selling of magic equipment from other than the owner/originator of the material. (Here ethics require that I admit to not reading all 621 uses of the word ethics. I limited myself to the period from 1979 to 1999 plus a 1956 article by Burling (Volta) Hull.)On the Ring 2100 Internet newsletter, the selling of cheap knockoffs of magic equipment was recently an item of ethical interest. Ring 2100 members were asked, and rightly so, not to purchase illusions from dealers who did not pay royalties to the effect’s creator.

The stealing and marketing of someone else’s intellectual property is unethical, if not a crime. Back issues of “The Linking Ring” show that intellectual theft has been a problem for decades and most likely since the first cave man said, “Pick a flint. Any flint.” Both formally and informally within the magic community revelation of the fraternity’s secrets, the use without permission or the sale of another’s creations are considered grave breaches of ethics.

Those magicians found to be exposing secrets, performing another’s act or selling illusions and routines they did not create are considered pariahs. Continued violations of the accepted ethical standards of magic may lead to expulsion from an organization and blackballing from working in public.

There is one area of ethics that seems to be overlooked by the magic community. I find almost no consideration has been given to ethical treatment of the public. I consider that our ethics are also violated when a credulous member of the audience approaches the magician and tells him that he knows the magician has “special powers” and the magician makes no attempt to dissuade this belief. At this point the magician crosses the boundary from entertainer to charlatan. Of course the Professor’s Nightmare is not going to do this.

On a larger scale we can also rule out a belief that Roy was really turned into a white tiger. The “special powers” accusation most often happens in a mentalist or spiritualist act. This thought is not new with me. Reginald Scott more than three hundred years ago wrote, “The conjurer has a responsibility not to abuse the name of God or to pretend to device powers. It is his duty to acknowledge the humane nature of his art and to detect and reveal those who do otherwise.”

More recently Burling (Volta) Hull warned in the March 1956 Linking Ring, “Do Not make claims of possessing any ‘super-normal powers.'”James Randi wrote that he gave up doing a mentalist act when too many people wanted private readings from him and could not be made to understand that what he did in his act was just that, his act. Despite his disclaimers that he had no special powers, many people would not and could not understand this.

The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk, as the clich? goes. Through his foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida he challenges all those who would claim “special powers” with a one million dollar prize “to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”

Perhaps Randi’s ethics are what make him Amazing. Dr. Ray Hyman tells in a 1998 interview published in an issue of the magazine “Skeptic” of his experiences performing a mentalist act while he was still a young man. He told the audience at the beginning that he had no special powers. Still after the show women would come up to him and tell him personal things and ask for a personal reading. He was just a kid and still people wanted to believe. The argument is often made that people want to be fooled and we do no harm when we deceive them.

After all, isn’t deception what magic is all about? Is the magician harming anyone when he tells an audience member that they “will experience adversity in the future, but will overcome it and find happiness?” As in most questions of ethics, the answer is not as easy to divine as whether the letter R has any meaning to an audience member.

I read recently David Blaine’s book “Mysterious Stranger.” Even though I pride myself on my skepticism in the paranormal, I must admit that I was taken aback when David did a cold reading of me as the reader of his book and perceived that I have a scar on my left knee. Wow! How could he know that I had a knee replacement?

Has David Blaine “special powers?” Of course not, as David explains in his book, most people have a scar on their left knee. Cold reading in a magician’s act is as old as magic. There is no more harm in it than pulling a rabbit from a hat. But it is no longer an act, no longer entertainment when the magician crosses the line and makes no effort to dissuade the public of his “special powers.”

At that point, I contend, the magician is no longer entertaining his audience; rather he is deceiving them under false pretenses. Those who prey on the credulous are stealing from them. The magician who uses those incapable of critical thinking for his own ends whether it is for money or ego is committing an unethical act and should be treated no differently than a magician who steals another’s illusion. Responsible, ethical magicians must expose them for what they are.

By exposing I do not mean revealing the principals of cold reading or palm reading for that matter. I simply mean that when asked if someone can really bend spoons with their mind or talk with the dead that we must do a simple demonstration and explain that it is a trick. Mind reading seems mysterious to the layman because we know how and he doesn’t.

Can we protect everyone from charlatans? No, of course not. Some people, for whatever reason, cannot or will not accept a reasonable explanation. They prefer blind belief in paranormal to a rational explanation. All we can do is our best for our art.

I would like to hear from anyone who agrees with me (of course!) and from those who do not. I would also like to hear from any magicians here in Germany.

Peter W Barber An American in Bad Mergentheim