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Comment by rickdale | Hacker News Reader

Magic is fascinating. Theres a magician that is in the first season on his tv show called Michael Carbonaro. The show is called the Carbonaro Effect. Basically, he sets up scenarios and goes on to fool people using magic. My favorite scenario that I saw was when he was showing people how to rebean ground coffee beans and the lady he was showing it to said, "Yeah I know how this works. I used to run a coffee shop."

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The Carbonaro Effect is interesting because it isn't telling the person ahead of time that they are performing a magic trick. The trick is to have them believe a serious proposition in a serious place.

I dislike that it's a lie to the person to start. I do magic because I love to do magic, and want to share my passion with you. I don't enjoy lying or deceiving you in a serious manner like that.

But to each his own.

As an amateur magician myself, I've always thought of magic as "deceiving with the intent to delight".

The difference being, to me as an audience to your magic, is that I know that I'm being deceived and still delighted by it.

Well said, and point taken.

To add to GP's point, telling the audience they're being deceived makes the trick even harder to pull off. I'm sure many will run along with the trick, but some people like me will keep an eye on suspicious moves and, as GP said, still love to be deceived even when paying attention.

That's why I love up-close magic tricks and loathe magician TV shows full of cut shots and stooges in the audience.

EDIT: Either Criss Angel or Dynamo just downvoted me! :P

This is one reason I love Penn & Teller. They never insult their audience by claiming to actually have magic powers. It's hard to beat their cups and balls trick using clear plastic cups while explaining exactly how the trick is being done, yet it's still almost impossible to follow the sleight of hand for most people. It's so impressive.

Being deceived ~= learning, which we crave.

Also, he can get away with much simpler / basic tricks because people aren't expecting it. It's more of a prank that uses magic than the traditional magic as an art form.

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