Do you think there is any overlap between magic,
as is performed by you and Penn & Teller, and critical thinking?
Well I’ll change the terminology again, I don't want to be rude in doing this,
but you see the term I prefer for what you call magic is conjuring.
That is an English word that is not very often used in this country, and most parts of the
world.
Magic would be controlling nature, it would be changing the natural condition
of objects, and substances, and people, and whatnot.
I don't do that I cheat, and that's called conjuring, it's approximating the effect of
real magic.
So between conjuring and critical thinking do you think there is any overlap between
those two things?
Well I hope there is, I certainly hope there is.
Because the conjurers have this peculiar expertise a very particular expertise which
equips them to analyze and to handle the claims that are made by the so called psychics
and clairvoyance and people who speak to the dead, well I too can speak to the dead
“Hi”, you know but will they answer?
I think Shakespeare said something to the effect, "I too can speak to the dead, but
when I speak to them, will they answer?"
That's the good question you see.
I can do it, anyone can do it, but you get an answer?
Conjuring is done for purposes of entertainment of course.
It’s like juggling, or like singling.
We are actors, actors playing the part of magicians you see.
Now if you saw, and I often use this metaphor if you will.
Um, you’re in a small town you have never been before, there is a nice theater in front
of you, You’ve got some hours to kill this Saturday,
oh there’s a matinee coming up, oh its hamlet.
I haven't seen a performance of hamlet in a long time, oh I know that fellow he is very
good and, so you go in buy your tickets, so you sit
there enjoy the performance, you know the procedure.
The play is over everyone applauds, one hopes, and then curtain calls and outcome the actors
and the last guy to come out is a fellow in a blonde wig, and he steps to the front of
the stage, imagine this situation, takes off the blonde
wig and says: ‘Ladies and gentlemen.
Please hold your applause I have to confess something to you,
you see I am not just an actor, I am a prince of Denmark’.
You would be totally insulted by that, because you know there are no princes of Denmark and
such.
Okay, but what is your reaction to that insult?
You're offended by it.
But we have people all over the world, let alone this country, astrologers, and clairvoyance
and fortune tellers, and whatnot.
People who tell you they can do these things.
And you're not insulted by that.
And you should be completely insulted by that.
You should be so offended that you do something about it.
And you get your back up, get your hackles up as they say.
I’m a hackle raiser from way back, I assure you.
The fact that somebody says they can study the movement of the planets among
the stars at night and from the movements predictable,
thousands of years in advance of course now according to astronomers,
but they can think about it and they can predict what is going to happen to you.
How many children you will have, what they will be named, what their fortunes will be,
who you will marry, all of these things.
What's the, again the technical, um, bullshit, that’s what it is yeah.
Yes, I keep forgetting, popular word invented by my friends, Penn & Teller.
Well not invented, but certainly used by them, very copiously.