How do you feel about revealing a magicians tricks?

Against.Definitely against. I don’t want to know how David Copperfield makes his panties disappear. no,no,no

Totally in support of it when dealing with superstitious people. Magic is an illusion. All tricks have a natural and scientific explanation.

If people are not superstitious and just want to enjoy the shows no revelations are necessary.

I’d rather reveal their spleens utilising a rusty blade & a blow torch.I don’t care for magicians at all.

Penn & Teller do it inoffensively.

I’m with @mattbrowne—there is such enormous superstition and gullibility and scientific ignorance in the world that it makes sense to reveal how easily we are fooled. What’s the difference between a so-called psychic and magician? None really—they both perform tricks that defy the senses and produce an altered sense of reality.

The magician however, states up front that he/she is performing an illusion for the purpose of entertaining you, and people applaud the performance for the brilliant art that it is. Psychics, by contrast, performs the same tricks and claim they’re real—and plenty of idiots believe them.

I don’t really care either way. Revealing the trick does kill it though so I guess if you like magic tricks, it’s bad. I think we should really ask that magic be titled something else like visual deceit. So, magicians can be called visual deceit…ists. And they can perform visual deceits. :) “Tonight! I will perform visual deceits unbeknownst to all man! Visual deceits so daring and dangerous blah blah blah”

Most people understand that magicians are simply entertainers who utilize the tricks of optical illusion on stage instead of in the movies. If you are a fan of “how they did it” you will enjoy see the answer, but if you would rather just enjoy the spectacle, you won’t.

@ucme Your comment is way over the top – my father was a magician, and I was his assistant during my teens

Understanding a magic trick doesnt really make it any less magical to me. I know its just an illusion in the first place, when i know how it works, it if anything adds to it because im impressed with the skill generally required to pull off such an illusion.

@uberbatman Really? I feel differently lots of times. When the trick is something creative, learning how it was done makes it more amazing to me. But lots of times it ruins it, especially when the trick is “the spikes in the door are connected to a computer that has them retract so that it only looks like…”

Lets just say I have that walking on water thing down and I’m not telling you how it’s done. LOL