Like most boys, I suppose, I had a strong interest in learning magic when I was younger. A sad state of affairs really, the more I look at it.
I have to assume it started with amazement. Then quickly went downhill from there. While amazement may not have been lost at first, it was tainted with the notion that there was a “trick” involved. Following that knowledge came the desire to know the trick and/or catch the magician at the trick.
Somewhere around 30-40 magic books and a handful of instruction videos later, I find myself at the end of a sad road with no way back. While learning magic is probably higher on my priority list than many 34 year olds, it’s not high enough to justify any substantial amount of my time.
Where that leaves me, unfortunately, is lacking the wonder that used to come from watching magic and also lacking the skill to perform it myself… something that could have possibly brought that wonder back.
I’m guessing there was a time in magic’s history when there were yet to be any books written about it. There was certainly no internet available with which to learn a trick with a simple Google search. The skill and knowledge was probably handed down from master to apprentice with great care. This tradition would certainly lend to the mystery.
Now, every high school student with a deck of cards is a potential “magician”. But with the advent of all this knowledge and the “everyman” magician, magic has lost its heart.
It seems to me that when I was younger and part of a crowd watching magic, the response to a magic trick was most often, amazement coupled with requests to “do another!”
Not much time has passed, but these days the response seems purely educational. Instead of wanting to be amazed, people want to see the same trick again. They don’t want to be amazed. They want to know how it’s done.
The other day I was chatting online with some folks about the difference between cults and accepted religions, namely Christian Science Vs. Christianity. Someone said one difference is that Christians are “sincere in their stupidity.”
Now I don’t know if they were targeting specific aspects of the Christian faith with that comment or religion in general, but I think that is what sparked my recent thoughts on magic.
Sincere in my stupidity. Sincere in my ignorance. I guess that’s were I’d like to be with magic again. To regain that sense of wonder. To enjoy it without having to explain it.
I think life would actually be richer if all of us were more “sincere in our stupidity”. How much more enjoyable might things like the Northern Lights, magic tricks, legends, etc be if we were ok with not explaining them? Maybe the encountering of the thing can be more important than the explaining.
I believe in a God that can and has done the unexplainable. If denying that means living in a world where every mystery can be explained by man… where the only wonder is the wondering how, then I choose to remain sincerely stupid.
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