Love it, leave it or change it

This is quite a good say­ing that someone remin­ded me of some time ago. I have been thin­king about it really hard. I’m tal­king about what to do in magic in these times, and what to publish and share with the magic com­mu­nity and how to do that.

After see­ing what’s going on at the Black­pool con­ven­tion this year I was sort of hor­ri­fied. Hor­ri­fied from the fact that ever­y­thing expan­ded to such a degree and hor­ri­fied from see­ing what kind of peo­ple are run­ning around at this con­ven­tion. Of course, ever­y­body has the right to attend almost ever­y­thing on this pla­net. But then I was thin­king how it were if I were to share all my secrets with all of them. And this is where I radi­cally chan­ged my attitude.

I rea­lize that an esti­ma­ted 70% of the peo­ple atten­ding the big­gest magic con­ven­tion ever are not the kind of magi­cian I would want to share my know­ledge and ideas with. What I saw on all the pic­tures from the dealer’s hall in Black­pool con­vin­ced me again not to attend this anymore.

I’m fully aware of the fact that magic has chan­ged a lot and that in these days the com­mer­cial aspect is pre­do­mi­nant. I see pic­tures of dea­lers sel­ling their stuff to any­body who is inte­res­ted in. Even to obvious lay­men of magic (at least, it appears from jud­ging the pic­tures). Look at the various pic­tures from the dealer’s hall and you will see all this has chan­ged into a huge indus­try, simi­lar to the toy indus­try. Gim­micks for grown-up kids, pri­ces, sel­ling and cus­to­mers are important. But not the secrets. Rea­ding some of the quo­tes here made me think .…

Good magic has always been depen­dent on how well the secrets are pro­tec­ted. There have been times where really important stuff was kept and hand­led in the under­ground. That means that only a sel­ec­ted few peo­ple, who were con­side­red worthy of it and could handle those secrets, had access to this know­ledge. Nowa­days ever­y­body can know ever­y­thing he wants; even stuff he can­not handle properly.

I fully agree with Jim Steinmeyer’s opi­nion that magi­ci­ans are guar­ding an empty safe (con­cer­ning secrets). So pro­ba­bly I’m not going to change any­thing. But what I can do is to limit the access to my own material.

I don’t want to say that it is a good idea to keep an inte­res­ted per­son away from some of the secrets he wants to know. We live in a free world and infor­ma­tion is flowing freely as well. But I don’t think it is reasonable to make it too easy for any­body to access cer­tain stuff. One thing to make sure this hap­pens is to do adver­ti­sing in the big magic maga­zi­nes, on the Inter­net in the social media, and so on. Ano­ther way to make sure to dis­tri­bute the secrets is the price. All this price dum­ping, all that the bar­gain packa­ges the dea­lers are offe­ring only helps in dis­tri­bu­ting secrets on a big scale, con­se­quently cate­ring to peo­ple who are only inte­res­ted in the know-how and in get­ting a good price.

Con­cer­ning my most important work, THE DE COVA FILES, I will change the pro­ce­dure. These books are not going to be adver­ti­sed on the offi­cial magi­cal mar­ket. They will not be available from any dea­ler (except me). You will get infor­ma­tion on it only if you are really inte­res­ted and into magic. Only then you will have the know­ledge where and when to get the books. Other­wise, you pro­ba­bly won’t even know they exist. And they will surely not be offe­red chea­ply or with that usual dis­count, package deals and bar­gain stuff.

Love it: yes, I do love magic and I do love the secrets.

Leave it: no way!

Change it: I just set what I’m going to change.

“A secret’s worth depends on the peo­ple from whom it must be kept.” – Car­los Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“The best way of kee­ping a secret is to pre­tend there isn’t one.” ― Mar­ga­ret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Pass it on!