The “secrets” of the magicians

A cousin, whom I’ve always admired, once asked me, “What’s the deal with magicians and their secrets? Why?”

I understand that, at first glance, this attitude may seem selfish, an unwillingness to share the secret to feel special compared to others. And while this is true in many cases, there are other reasons that, based on my experience, I’ll try to explain.

Not only magicians have secrets
In the words of the renowned American magician Max Maven: “Doctors have secrets, lawyers have secrets, tap dancers have secrets, professional wrestlers have very good secrets. But only magicians carry their secrets up their sleeves, keeping the existence of those secrets so close that they can’t be ignored, causing damage to the interaction between the magician and the audience. The audience is led, incorrectly but inevitably, to a false definition of what constitutes ‘good magic.’ That definition is simply that it ‘worked.’
If a hat is convincingly shown to be empty, with no ‘funny moves,’ no flashes of hidden mirrors or double bottoms, and then a rabbit is pulled out of that hat, this is judged as ‘good magic.’ But this is the equivalent of hitting the correct notes in the correct order, that’s not what makes ‘good music’; it’s just the beginning of making good music.”

This makes us realize that we only want to know “the secret,” not out of a search for “truth,” but rather to satisfy our own ego, to believe that we know. Imagine for a moment that we don’t know how to ride a bike, and in front of us is someone riding one, circling around. When we ask them how they do it, they’ll explain as best they can, in their own words, how they manage it. So, do we now know how to ride a bike? I think we’ll agree that we don’t, riding a bike requires getting on it and maybe even falling a few times until we learn. It takes time and an understanding of the elements involved and how to use them.

As we live in an era where “information” is literally at our fingertips, we’re led to believe that we can know “everything.” And while this premise may seem close to reality, it’s a fallacy to think we can know everything about everything.

Not everyone wants to know

Many times, I force myself not to learn too much about methods because I stop finding the sense of magic at every step, that magic that I believe we encounter when we take an idea to the extreme of what’s explainable or understandable, and once we reach the edge, we push it. And as it falls, the feeling of the impossible explodes from our stomach, of the contradictory, of life itself and the entropy of the universe. I believe that within each of us, there’s a balance that we must navigate carefully and consciously, because once you “know,” it’s very difficult to “un-know” (if that’s even possible).

If someone is truly determined to learn a trick, personally, I wouldn’t have any problem sharing the method (if I know it). However, don’t get frustrated with the answer when, after learning it, there are still questions on the horizon, sometimes even more than before.