Two Ways of Seeing Magic

When I had mastered the art of deception and illusion and had come to know every sleight of hand and angle, I learned every trick ever known. But I had lost something, too. I had lost the imagination and curiosity I once had when I was young and witless. All the interest, the speculation, the imagination, the questioning, had gone out of the great art of magic! I still remember the time when I would be in utter shock when a magician would show me magic. The magician used his magic to withdraw my card out of thin air; a quarter goes through a soda can; the card I had carefully chosen slowly levitates from the deck; my quarter gets bite in half by a man with teeth of steel; numerous red sponge balls erect from only one; quarters come out of my ears; and playing cards shoot up in the air reflecting light off its red and black numbers and suites. I stare in amazement and become another believer of magic.

I stand in disbelief. Now knowing that magic is truly real. Only to think about how I would tell all my friends that I had just witnessed it first hand. But a day came when I began to stop thinking that it was special; another day came when I stopped imagining how magic was admirable and unique. Then I realized that when I was young I had been exaggerating about the magic that I had seen, and as I look back I think about how magic is really made up of deception and illusions: "The card that had been plucked from the air had really been behind his hand using the art of sleight of hand; the quarter didn't go through the can but was dropped in when he opened it; the card that levitated from the deck wasn't a real deck but a rigged deck; the man with teeth of steel had not really bitten a quarter but had used a fake one; the sponge balls didn't magically come out of one but they were actually stuck together; money didn't come out of my ear, it came from his hand; distractions and misdirection are used to trick the viewer, and how does the audience not notice this?"

All the excitement and speculation was gone out of magic. The only value it gives me now is how to create magic. I look back at my childhood and now notice how simple it was to recreate magic and amaze people. Why are people so intrigued by something so unreal and fake? In my eyes it seems so simple but why don't others see it the same way? Maybe it is because I now know how most magic is done? Or maybe it is because magic is classified

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