Magicians

Magicians
Why magicians need to be burned at the stake

When I was a kid there were many things about real life I was yet to realise, such as having a mortgage to have a house for instance. I was yet to realise that watching those variety stage shows on TV were performed by professionals with skill, even the ones who just sang a song, hence the thought "I'd like to be able to do those things" would gradually fade away as I got older. Despite that thought gone, it's still an enjoyable thing to be entertained, with one exception.

One thing that used to fascinate me was magic. There was these people in tuxes, doing things that were impossible to you or I. Making things appear or disappear, putting ladies into a trance and have them float in the air, sawing them in half and yet somehow restoring them without any damage, correctly predicting the card that the audience member pulled out of the pack.

But just like Santa Claus coming down my (blocked up) chimney on Christmas Eve, the Easter bunny hiding chocolate eggs in the garden on Easter Saturday, and storks flying down from the skies to bring another baby, eventually I found out the truth about magic. Despite what they were claiming to do, it turned out they weren't producing, vanishing or levitating people or objects, or indeed reading people's minds after all. They were tricking me into believing they could do such a thing.

Eventually I realised that magicians are the most secretive, vain, stuck up, egotistic, selfish, narcissistic entertainers it has ever been my misfortune to get conned by. Their ego and proudness seem to run to infinity as they talk and boast about doing "things" that nobody else can. And even the ones that don't talk, they smirk proudly about their apparent ability to defy the laws of physics and common sense.

And even though some of their acts may be mighty impressive and/or dangerous, their respect is washed away by something far worse than their ego. Their conspirational and tight-lipped secrets and mechanisms that make the tricks "work". If something appears impossible, I want to see how. Yes I can be impressed by a trick, but I don't want to have my mouth perpetually open and having several weeks of sleep and every spare thought-time interrupted by the constant thought of "How did he/she do THAT?"

Other kinds of skills, whether it be playing a musical instrument or juggling, or even more mainstream skills such as hitting a ball with a stick to make it go in a certain direction forming the basis of many sports, can be tricky to learn and master. But if you want to be able to do those things and ask somebody who can do those things well, they'd only be too happy to offer tips and training schedules in order to get you on your way.

Magicians on the other hand, although possessing some precise manipulative skills, will usually instead boast of their ability to keep a secret or in some cases offer you the prospect of death. That is so selfish that I can just visualise a magician that is not in a performance scenario, witnessing somebody having trouble with a computer or a vending machine. Somehow they know what the problem is, come over and fix it for them. The person says "Thanks, it always seems to do that. How did you fix it?", the magician would then say "That's a secret". The person would then hate the magician for the rest of their life.

The only purpose I can see from the magicians' selfish and secretive attitude is "Hey, I can do these things, and you can't, so I'm much better than you. And I'm not telling you how I did it, so I am personally making sure that I will always be much better than you, and there's nothing you can do about it.". Can you ever get any more narcissistic than that?

Just why the hell do they like to boast of their superhuman capabilities, which don't appear to go beyond the stage, or table in front of you? If they really are able to produce the card that I selected earlier, why don't they go and correctly predict the next lottery numbers, win themselves a fortune and buy a hillside mansion to live in?

And they may be apparently able to stab their female assistants with knives and blades and somehow have them miraculously repaired afterwards, so why do you never see them in Accident and Emergency effortlessly healing those who've just been stabbed by a robber in the street?

We know why, because those superhuman capabilities are just tricks. We all know that he's not really going to actually saw this woman in half, so why does he still say "I'm going to saw this woman in half"? What a blatant lie.

That alone is perfect proof that magicians cannot be trusted at all, but it does get worse. Many tricks are used to con people, such as someone offering a wager to taking part in a challenge, in which some secret mechanism resulting in the better always losing, effectively theft of money. Since I know magicians can do a such a thing, I would never trust them to look at my nice watch, or borrow some money. If someone did a pick-pocketing or watch-stealing trick to my uncle, I wouldn't put it past my uncle to then produce his police identity card and arrest him on the spot. After all, the magician did steal the item, which is a crime.

Now if you're a magician and you're getting a bit upset by this essay, I ask you this. Why should I worry if I cause offence to the kind of people who perform stupid tricks to inflate their ego on their helpless audience? The kind of people who keep their methods tightly to themselves like some sort of conspiracy to justify the grin on their faces, full in the knowledge that most people will think they are the greatest?

And for those who have a keen interest in taking up magic, I would advise you to look into the cynical part of your heart and think about all that is dark and evil about magic, before swearing The Oath and selling your soul to Satan.