ישראל קליוסטרו : אילוזיה = אילו + זה – היה

Until recently, I believed the digitalization process we are undergoing will make the well-known 'Western magician' disappear. Could a kid who experienced virtual 3D world, creating, killing, and resurrecting fantastic characters, get excited by yet another rabbit pulled out of a hat? Will a self-bending spoon do the trick?

Seems like the 'Organic magicians' place is in the Museum of History

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Apart from the fact that animal rights groups successfully assimilated the idea of not toying with animals on stage, the prophecy came true, audiences' age is dropping to 4-7 years olds, and magicians still pull rabbits out of hats, only less often.

However, it is not the digitization process which kills the magician, it is the net. The internet has allowed peeping into any human deviation, fantasy or thought. It contains the complete information about the universe and its inhabitants, not excluding magicians' most precious secrets. Short films cracking Uri Geller and his successors' enigmas are uploaded online on a daily basis, and if you only Google 'spoon bending' you'll find known Rabbis harnessing the phenomenon to their benefit.

"Should a magician reveal his secrets?" It used to be an ethical question, today the question is "for how much?". Perhaps it is not an ethical question at all, after all, many politicians were also 'caught in the act', only they can afford to pay the fees of reality-altering lawyers. Maybe lawyers are the magicians of the future?

Will revealing their secrets make professional magicians vanish?
Just as religions don't cease to exist, so won't magicians. The human need to believe in deities is eternal, but the new televised, idolizing variety, which created the 'New Uri Geller', breaks rating records just as 'real' magic does.

Magicians' secrets were exposed several times at recent years. 'Maariv' published series of articles exposing magicians' tricks, and a masked magician 'told it all' every Saturday night on Channel 2 news. Does anybody remember? Does anybody care?

Fortunately for us, magicians (and for politicians as well), those who don't want to know or see will not. An hour after reading a secret or watching it on television, most people forget it and only remember that the magic included a secret door, a magnet, or an invisible string. "He must be using a mirror or an accomplice volunteer…".

Theories remain, naïve and theoretic. The same principle applies to politicians, people tend to quickly forget their scandals. It is much easier to expose Uri Geller, but at least he make people happy, especially children.

That brings me to another peculiar phenomenon. In the past, grown-ups used to believe, or used to want to believe, in Uri Geller. Today, television gave children the power and they increased Geller's rating and made him a winner.
Children still want to dream and believe, they also do it better.

 

 

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