"What is Magic?": A Conversation (via text) Between H.B. and J.R.

Fingers feeling stiff, but much better now this week. Thankfully. Enjoy a text conversation from earlier this year between two magicians.

H.B.
    Q: what is magic?
J.R.
    ARTFUL DECEPTION
H.B.
    What do you mean by that? What is artful in the context of deception? Why is deception artful? What makes certain deceptions magic and other ones lying?
    (Also there's antifaro stuff on the new ellusionist thing)
J.R.
    Deception isn’t inherently artful. Deception is artful when it is done without direct personal/emotional/material subversion or gain by the practitioner, and done, instead, for “art”. It’s all about the framing of the experience. This is what makes certain gambling demonstrations “magic” in my opinion, and actual gambling deception “not magic”.
H.B.
    What is an example of a gambling demo that is not magic? And what is an example of one that is?
    Sorry to grill you... The Tony Chang thing got me thinking, which is nice... You've a bit more experience so I'm picking your brain
J.R.
    Actual cheating at the card table isn’t magic. However, telling someone you’re going to cheat is, and which classifies it as demonstration of skill, Fitzkee talks a bit upon in Trick Brain
H.B.
    Ok... I accept that and am filing away the reading rec... What does magic intend?
J.R.
    Intends to disrupt
H.B.
    What do you mean by that? I'm also extremely impressed with how quickly these answers are coming
J.R.
    Well, the topic comes up fairly often actually. But it exists in order to create a disruption in people’s perception. It exists to find these natural gaps in the mind and make them just a little bit bigger. Sometimes you can fit a finger in, sometimes your foot, and sometimes you can stand in it. A wave of astonishment, to paraphrase Paul Harris [found in opening essay of Art of Astonishment, V1]. And sometimes the magician themselves can even splash around for a moment or two.

-- J.R. + H.B.