I have to think if you ask someone to define magic, they would say slight of hand in a matter of words. So why continue to fool ourselves just come out with it.

When people ask us "how did you do that" you might as well say, "fuck you" instead of "by magic". What would be so wrong with saying, "with slight of hand"?

I think the only people who really think we are doing real magic are the same people who believe we sold our soul to the devil and they just don't use common logic for anything.

Anyways, more funny videos!

I suppose calling it sleight of hand would make you look amazingly skilled but I think calling it sleight of hand can weaken interest by suggesting limits in a way.

I don't feel we can just say its magic but I don't feel we can just say sleight of hand either…

I know a number of magicians who claim that if we admit to using sleight of hand, we defeat the purpose of calling it "magic." These magicians claim that we tell the laymen that the only explanation is magic.

I think this is both simplistic and ineffective when performing for laymen. The only 3 magicians I know who have really been successfully claiming that their work is true magic are John Edward, Sylvia Browne and Uri Geller. Do we really want to be any of them?

Moreover, I think lay audiences feel insulted if we deny sleight of hand. Most of our audiences aren't stupid, and they know the things are impossible. They know they are entertained by our presentations and our skill. If they thought we were really performing magic, I think the interaction would be quite different.

Also, if magicians feel they must deny any use of sleight of hand, I think you den yourself many very interesting plot and presentational ploys. There are some great presentations based on sleight of hand or audience perception, or even talking honestly about how people are fooled (see most of Penn and Teller's act).

Anyway, there is my 4 cents for now.

I've never fooled one of you guys, not once. I think the only magician I ever fooled once was Bruce and only for a second. When he tried to reconstruct, he figured it out and was pissed that I got him with the two moves we were working on at the same time. Then again, I never really try to fool you guys, cause I guess I'm going after the same feeling I get fooling a laymen, which is almost impossible. The context is different.

I've been fooled by magicians a lot. I even admitted recently, either to you or one of our friends, that throwing things like overhand shuffles or ATFUS (which I canNOT stand… just ATFUS that is) will fool me. Not in a good way but… I miss the details. I lose track of an "exact" method. I may figure it out eventually, but I don't figure out the calculations in my head. I guess it's more puzzling in that case.

So I think there's a difference between a trick being puzzling, and "uhm… what the HELL was that?"

Dobson (and plenty of others) used to say fooling magicians is a lot easier than laymen, cause we know exactly what each other is looking for. That way, you can take advantage of it. It's more psychological misdirection than spatial in most of the cases. Lots of leading us down the garden path and whatnot. And we both know he could fool the hell out of magicians time and time again.

I guess what I'm saying is there's more of a continuum. The difference between a magician doing an overly complex impossible location (if it was TOO complex, you have a lot of possibilities to hang on, regardless of being fake methods of not) to, let's say, a magician doing some new and incredible bare handed coin vanish (not as many possibilities to hang on to, and if it managed it correctly, he's killed them all).

So maybe the formula is first, how many possible methods are there given the circumstances (and this is where the Too-Perfect Theory would throw in as many as possible… GAG), and how many are eliminated, the faster the better? Keep those low and you get a real fooler.

Here's a more interesting angle… laymen sometimes clutch onto obviously wrong (to us) methods. For a few reasons. In the Harris camp, maybe just to reconstruct their "boxes" so they can sleep at night. Magicians are a little different. We don't settle. So not only does our knowledge make us more susceptible to being fooled, but to being fooled longer and maybe even harder. Maybe fooling magicians can have an equal amount of impact in the long run?