I totaly agree with you. The only time it is RIGHT to expose someones magic trick is if they claim they have super powers. One guy who was on phenomenon last year claimned he could talk to the dead. his effect was which toy a spectator would select. He said he talked to someone who died and that person told him who it was. Criss angel chalanged him and asked him then ask your dead friend what is in this envelope? He didnt answer, they got into a huge fight and then there was a commercial.

Dont claim that you have super powers unless of course you are an Indigo or Crystal kid. This may sound dumb, fake, BS or something other. Well i can tell you that what i am about to say is 100% Real. 30% of the kids born since 1992 where sikic.

If you dont believe me then thats okay. Anybody who is religous may not believe thats okay, i respect that you dont. If you dont believe but want to take the time to do research on Indigo Children or Crystal Children, then google has everything you need to do.

Sorry to change the subject a little, yes exposure is wrong on so many levels. But im sure you would agree with me that its okay to expose someone claims they can ... Well you make up what should go in the dots cause well if you have researched enough into this then you would know, anything is possible, nothing is impossible and everything is nothing.

Nice post though i totaly 100% agree with you.

He said that it was for entertainment purposes only, during the show. While saying that, he basically said, without saying it, that he does not possess supernatural powers.

Wow, that's very interesting... I didn't know that word was even in the English language.

But yeah, magikrn said it... it was for entertainment purposes only, and Chris was being arrogant, cocky, and rude when he did that. It just showed how stupid he is, and how much of a whiny baby he can be when the spotlight's not completely on me.

Who cares if the Masked Magician is exposing "sawing a lady in half". I've never seen him expose a DL or TT....And the things he does expose have
way more than one method to them, he's usually giving the worst and most obvious method. I actually tuned into this program the other day and was on the floor laughing. I got all fired up about this being on tv and for what? Am I making elephants appear in front of a circle of PAID spectators? what a joke

You were actually rolling around on the floor... laughing? Pics or it didn't happen.

Exposure may be against magician's code, but it certainly isn't WRONG. Exposure is being 100% honest, fighting exposure is fighting the truth and THAT is WRONG.

If exposure is wrong, then you must hate places called Magic Shops. They have the nerve to expose magic for personal gain when other people are willing to do it for free.

Exposure isn't wrong, its part of magic. Exposure is what keeps magicians evolving. We don't evolve if our secrets are kept. In fact, we don't exist if the secrets are kept. Without exposure there couldn't be magicians like us. How many of the tricks you do were EXPOSED TO YOU?? I guarantee about all of it. You might have invented a TRICK but you probably used a sleight that was exposed to you. I have a nice card to pocket trick I invented, but it uses some sleight of hand I did not invent so I cannot take full credit.

Exposure is a hobbie to some non-magicians. You must expect it. You are doing something that SEEMS impossible but isn't because of a clever trick--this presents magic as a puzzle to the intelligent spectator. If you are trying to convince people you have REAL MAGIC POWERS you are wrong and a liar.

So yea...I feel exposure is against magicians code, but its not immoral from the perspective of laymen. Some laymen will call US immoral for doing magic because they know we are using a clever trick to do what we do.
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What if a magician gets more recognition than you because he is a mind reader using a svengali deck to force cards? If you attempt to use a classic force and EXPOSE THE CARDS to show that the spectator could've taken any one of these cards, in a way you expose because you are narrowing the method down. "Okay so he's got 52 different cards and they aren't all the same...hmmm...so its not done the way I thought it was...how is it done?"

Now that spectator will ask the svengali pro to show him the cards and he won't be able to...now you ruined his act that he possibly supported himself with because you wanted to expose something...the svengali magician will cry to you and you'll say "Tough, learn better tricks."
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This post isn't really about my beliefs, just contributing some deep thought lol responses plz!

LOL

Exposure, is nothing more than stealing from other magicians. This may not be true in every case, but when people go on Youtube, and post the explanation of a magic trick, they are robbing the creator. And in the end, it hurts the art of magic by making these creators less willing to produce additional magic effects.

What magic shops are doing isn't exposure. They are selling you the secret. Big difference. You are paying your dues, not stealing the material.

Exposure is defended by people who don't truly love magic. They are cheap, and unwilling to pay respect to the people that they should be. When you purchase a magic product, you aren't paying just for the secret. You're paying respect to the creator.

Before talking about exposure, you first have to understand what it is. It's not magic shops selling magic effects. It's not magicians talking among magicians about magic effects. So your whole argument is moot as it doesn't even address exposure.

Actually one of the cool things about a Svengali deck is that you can show them all different.

I guess that's true, but you certainly can't let a curious person handle the deck!

Yeah, when I look up how something's done, to see if I want to perform it, they're not losing any sales from me. I have no money. Unlike so very many, nobody's financially backing me or my performance.
Whenever, and I repeat, WHENEVER I make an effect, I immediately tell other magicians how it's done. The reason?

I make effects for the art of it.

If I see one of my effects being performed, I'm happy. See, magic isn't just about fooling people. If all your show has is a series of tricks, why on earth are you performing it?

Any trick can be figured out eventually. Real magic is an art; half of it is presentation. I refuse to cheapen my effects by selling them.

Excuse me?

The poor are, I suppose, "cheap."

No sir. I resent that.
Respect is paid through dedication.
The dedication to perform the trick correctly, the dedication to the art of magic.
You can buy all the tricks you want, but if you don't put in dedication, if you don't work hard, and you perform it badly, you are showing a GRAVE disrespect to both the original performer, and the creator.

Anyone can buy a trick. Anyone can learn a trick when it's exposed. The payment of respect comes from the dedication you give it, not from the power of your wallet.

Well, that goes without saying. If you show how an effect is done to non-magicians, you're essentially performing without any performance whatsoever. As I've said before, a show with tricks and nothing else bastardizes the art of magic.

(That said, some exposure performances CAN have drama and context. Case in point, Penn and Teller's "Blast off." That performance has a message; pretension is stupid.)

I think, even if we don't know the exact mechanism, we all have a basic idea of how Teller's trick "Shadows" works. Even if you know how it works, it doesn't detract from the grim beauty of the routine.
You know how books are written, but that doesn't detract from reading Poe, does it?

Oh, and lastly, don't knock Val Valentino. He's the guy that got me interested in magic.

How do you feel about Born to Perform w/ Oz Pearlman? I think its the best card DVD sold by Penguin. However, none of the secrets in this DVD belong to Oz or Penguin so what "dues" am I paying by buying this product? Don't get me wrong, I'd pay 50 dollars for the DVD if that was the cost, but I don't see your point here...To me this is exposure because its not Penguin's magic, its not Oz's magic, and they are willing to "expose" all the secrets to anyone willing to pay 30 dollars...even little youtube kiddies who expose magic every darn day.

What if I taught card magic, but only to people willing to keep it a secret. People willing to vow never to expose it purposefully and never to perform it until they master it...that is worth more than money to me because I am reassured that when *I* perform, some kid won't say "I KNOW HOW ITS DONE" and expose me....look at what magic shops did to the TT. Magicians definitely go through them so they need to have a stock of them. However, TTs are packaged individually with a silk so they can be SOLD CHEAPLY to LAYMEN who aren't even sure if they care about magic...the people who don't perform enough to wear out even ONE TT...terrible...

I could even go so far as to say magic shops are the biggest form of exposure because they aren't interested in keeping magic sacred nearly as much as they are looking to MAKE MONEY by SELLING it to LAYMEN or anyone willing to pay the price for the secret! Look at T11's instant download section for example...Exposure videos are on youtube because the CREATOR sold to the wrong person--someone who doesn't SHARE the passion for it. Exposure ONLY happens when the creator is careless with the secret. Don't give it to someone you think would expose it no matter how much you charge. If you aren't screening who you expose magic to, you must not care. However, if you do the same and make money doing it, you are a sell out and do not deserve any more respect than someone who doesn't care.

Again, this isn't MY opinion, just another thought I had lol.

Have you ever used a file sharing program to download music without paying??? Just as bad as exposure!!!

I knew someone like you would eventually post!

The thing I find that is disrespectful about exposure, is that many spectators won't have the desired experience if they know how a trick is done, and they may look up how it was done afterwards, and perhaps even ruin it for other spectators. It's true that many magicians become interested in magic through exposure, though I would say that it's more often a negative for magicians for the reason stated above.