For decades, possibly centuries, magicians have fretted and argued over if and when it is acceptable to reveal the secrets of their tricks and illusions.
Now two British academics — who are magicians themselves — have written what is believed to be the first detailed study examining what is known in the trade as “exposure”.
Gustav Kuhn and Brian Rappert, academics from the universities of Plymouth and Exeter, asked hundreds of magicians from around the world about attitudes to exposure.
Photo: AFP
They found that exposing another magician’s trick when they are still alive was a big no-no, with fewer than 3 percent feeling this was acceptable.
However, it was deemed much more justifiable to expose a trick invented by a magician who was dead or to explain how an illusion you had developed yourself was done.
It was seen as wrong to reveal a trick for self-promotion and, while many thought it reasonable to pass on the secrets of a trick to a fellow magician, it was much less acceptable to draw back the curtain to someone who just wanted to know how it was done for the sake of it.
Photo: AP
Rappert and Kuhn, both members of the Magic Circle, are readying themselves for flak when their paper is published on Monday.
“It’s a huge, really controversial topic within the magic community,” said Kuhn, of the school of psychology at the University of Plymouth and an exponent of closeup and street magic. “Magicians get emotional about it.”
As in most aspects of modern life, money appears to come into it. Kuhn said: “If you pay for a magic trick, it’s OK to expose the magic secrets. If you pay me for the secrets, then I’m allowed to expose it, but if I give you the secret for free, then that’s not OK.
Photo: AFP
“Magic could only advance through the sharing of certain secrets and magicians need to make a living so that financial transaction seems to play a really important part.”
Kuhn was at the center of a storm in 2019 when the global charitable foundation Wellcome Trust ran a free exhibition called Smoke and Mirrors in London that explicitly explained general principles in magic, such as misdirection and forcing.
Kuhn, whose research featured in the show, said some magicians saw the free access to such information as a violation of the rules and he was formally investigated by the Magic Circle’s exposure committee.
“It seems very unlikely that the exhibition would have created the same kind of controversy had visitors been charged an entry fee,” he wrote in a paper.
It also examines some of the history of exposure, highlighting how the first president of the Magic Circle, David Devant, was forced to resign after extracts from his book Secrets of My Magic appeared in a popular magazine.
The paper investigates twisty tricks where some exposure arguably enhances a show. For example, the magician Caleb Morgan performed the classic trick in which he stuffed a silk bandana into his clenched hand only to open his fist to show the bandana had transformed into an egg.
Morgan then revealed the egg was plastic with a hole in the back for the bandana to enter — before cracking the egg to demonstrate it was, in fact, a normal egg.
Rappert, whose work includes using magic to convey how disclosure and concealment figure in everyday life and international relations, said this sort of exposure seemed acceptable.
“Some said it was perfectly fine to unveil a closely guarded secret if it’s in the context of performing a trick that relies on a different method.”
Kuhn and Rappert argue the study is needed because the internet has made it much easier for tricks to be exposed and therefore changes the rules of the game.
Their paper ends with a comment from the Magic Circle, which was shown the research before publication. The organization sternly makes it clear it was founded in 1905 upon the tenet of protecting the secrets of magicians.
But it adds: “The ramifications and implications of exposure are a grey area which are little understood and understudied. We welcome and applaud any research of this nature that helps us all to gain a better insight and understanding.”
The paper, Towards a Theory of Exposure, is available in the Journal of Performance Magic.
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
July 21 to July 27 If the “Taiwan Independence Association” (TIA) incident had happened four years earlier, it probably wouldn’t have caused much of an uproar. But the arrest of four young suspected independence activists in the early hours of May 9, 1991, sparked outrage, with many denouncing it as a return to the White Terror — a time when anyone could be detained for suspected seditious activity. Not only had martial law been lifted in 1987, just days earlier on May 1, the government had abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist
Hualien lawmaker Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) is the prime target of the recall campaigns. They want to bring him and everything he represents crashing down. This is an existential test for Fu and a critical symbolic test for the campaigners. It is also a crucial test for both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a personal one for party Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫). Why is Fu such a lightning rod? LOCAL LORD At the dawn of the 2020s, Fu, running as an independent candidate, beat incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and a KMT candidate to return to the legislature representing
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
RSS