I was mid way through writing a long post about magic, intellectual property, cryptomnesia, and theft, when a little piece of information was brought to my attention that I simply had to share.
In Australia, where the introduction of rabbits caused an ecological disaster that famously had to be controlled by the intentional introduction of a disease called myxomatosis into the wild¹, it is illegal to own a pet rabbit in all but two circumstances:
- In a controlled laboratory environment for testing
- As part of a magic show
This suggests the possibility that someone in Australia might have become a magician simply because they wanted a rabbit².
Frankly there are worse reasons.
¹ And less famously a second disease, rabbit calicivirus, because rabbits were reproducing at a sufficient rate to develop an immunity to the first and before long it was having very little effect on the overall population. Life uh…. finds a way.
² Further reading indicates that hamsters and gerbils are also banned in Australia, but unlike rabbits there is no special ruling for their use in entertainment. I think magicians have the potential to make real change in global culture here, if we all start to use hamsters and gerbils in our magic shows we can create a cultural precedent and Australia will be forced to incorporate an exception into their laws in order to keep their magic up to date. I had gerbils in my childhood and a hamster in university and they were both hugely influential to my early development to the point where I think banning them is cruel and unusual. Then again maybe Australian youths would feel the same about being raised in a culture where it’s impossible to look out of the window and see a wallaby rooting through the garbage.