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rug

(82,333 posts)
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 11:33 AM Jun 2014

That's not magic: Penn, Teller and Derren Brown reveal all (or do they?)

In tune with our sceptical times, magicians debunk the supernatural. But are they really as rationalist as they claim?



Deconstructing magic … Penn and Teller. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Tuesday 10 June 2014 03.10 EDT
Brian Logan
theguardian.com

Richard Dawkins may or may not approve, but I was reading my daughter a story the other night that featured a "wicked magician". It's clear even to tiny children what a magician is: it's someone who, with an abracadabra here and a potion there, makes impossible things happen, and to hell with the laws of nature and the rules of everyday life.

It's odd that we use the same word to describe those who merely pretend to make magic happen on stage. Few in their audience – kids notwithstanding – may ever have believed that stage conjurors genuinely dabble in the supernatural, but at least that's what the acts occasionally purported to do. They called themselves magicians because they enjoyed generating the sense that what they did on stage was real magic.

Not any more. These days, the big magic acts – including the biggest of them all, Penn and Teller, who are in the UK this week – debunk the supernatural. Derren Brown's another prime example. It may say "magician" on their passports, but in fact they're the opposite: hyper-rationalists, sceptics of "magic" and superstition, who criticise credulousness from their stage-pulpit and warn us all not to be gullible.

Maybe this was always present in stage magic to some degree. But it's a curious phenomenon. It implies (to me at least) an anxiety on the performer's part about the art form's inherent falsity and smugness. No other artist gets paid to deceive his or her audience, to demonstrate repeatedly how much smarter than the audience they are. I can imagine a magician feeling ashamed of that, wanting to offset that air of fraudulence, and to give something back. And what they're best placed to give us is an instruction course in how easily we can all be manipulated and misled.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/10/magic-penn-teller-derren-brown-reveal-all-magicians

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That's not magic: Penn, Teller and Derren Brown reveal all (or do they?) (Original Post) rug Jun 2014 OP
Brown wrote a very good book on the topic. riqster Jun 2014 #1
"If they succeeded in curing us all of credulousness, after all, none of them would ever work again" AtheistCrusader Jun 2014 #2
Illusions also require credulity. rug Jun 2014 #3
OR deception. AtheistCrusader Jun 2014 #4
I always liked one of Penn's criticisms of most magic TlalocW Jun 2014 #5
like Spiked magazine, in fact MisterP Jun 2014 #6

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
2. "If they succeeded in curing us all of credulousness, after all, none of them would ever work again"
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 12:09 PM
Jun 2014

Bullshit. For starters, Penn is not just a 'magician', he's an 'illusionist', but more broadly; a Clown. And being a clown is serious business. In the vein of a motley fool, philosopher.

It's not all aooga-horns concealing squirt bottles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester

"You asked me to remind you to tell me about Arthur Koestler. That was another impact. I was doing nightclub comedy down in the Village. I was down there in ’63, ’64, and my friend told me about Arthur Koestler’s book about the act of creation and it had a section on humor. He was talking about the creative process. There was an illustration on the panel that showed a triptych. On the left panel, there were these names of artistic pursuits. There were poets, painter, composer. And one of them was jester. I was only interested in the jester. What he said about each of these, he said these individuals on the left hand side can transcend the panels of the triptych by creative growth. The jester makes jokes, he’s funny, he makes fun, he ridicules. But if his ridicules are based on sound ideas and thinking, then he can proceed to the second panel, which is the thinker—he called it the philosopher. The jester becomes the philosopher, and if he does these things with dazzling language that we marvel at, then he becomes a poet too. Then the jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically. I didn’t see that and say, “That’s what I am going to do, ” but I guess it made an impression on me."
-George Carlin


(Unfortunatly, Penn is also a hard-right libertarian, but hey, you can't win them all.)

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
4. OR deception.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 12:24 PM
Jun 2014

Being incredulous doesn't automatically grant you better powers of perception. Sleight of hand, misdirection, etc, do not necessarily rely on the credulousness of the target.

Though, the entertainment value of it, may depend on the target's willingness to suspend disbelief.

TlalocW

(15,359 posts)
5. I always liked one of Penn's criticisms of most magic
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 01:23 PM
Jun 2014

"Here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're a jerk."

In, "Penn and Teller Get Killed," (their movie, which I have a VHS copy of), a reporter asks Teller (who is mostly silent until the end of the movie), his opinion of most modern magic. He produces an appearing cane (common prop) then twirls it as he smugly dances away. A very wonderful way of saying the same thing as Penn.

And unfortunately, that has been the attitude of a lot of magicians who think that having a certain skill set - and one that is pretty useless outside of its own defined boundaries - makes them better than other people. The good magicians are those who don't claim supernatural powers but still instill wonder and draw people in and don't try to make themselves out to be smarter than the audience.

While I disagree with their politics, P&T's artistry is top notch whether it's Penn's monologue about freedom while "burning the flag" or Teller's silent shadow magic.

TlalocW

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