There’s a lovely little story in Eugene Burger’s book Magic And Meaning about an aboriginal¹ custom of going out hunting evil spirits once a year, each time taking the young boys who have come of age and are ready to face the monsters themselves. The boys must take a brave stand against the unseen creatures roaring in the distance as the group splits up, and only those brave enough to face the beast will learn that the roaring is produced by a strip of carved wood swung around on a piece of cord² by one of the elders, and there are in fact no monsters. The instruments are then burned in a great fire, leaving ash to show the creature was defeated without the lack of a corpse giving the game away³.
This could be considered the earliest form of magic, similar to the magic of Father Christmas, The Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy⁴. A magic for everyone, a secret kept by the elders but which is eventually known by all.
But of course, when we normally talk about magic, we talk about the performance of apparent miracles by secret methods known by very few. Indeed, revealing these secrets to the world at large would destroy an entire performing art, industry, and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of magicians.
Or at least, that’s the theory.
Indocilis Privata Loqui is the Latin motto of The Magic Circle. The translation of it is “not apt to disclose secrets” and it reflects the first rule of The Magic Circle, the big one, the “Do not talk about Fight Club” secret.
Fun fact though, it’s not actually rule number one. It’s rule number 2.5⁵:
RULE 2 – OBJECTS The objects of the Society shall be:
….
2.5 To oppose the wilful disclosure of magical secrets other than to magicians or bona fide students and historians of magic.
This rule was recently up for debate however, on Monday the 30th of April 2018, a live debate was held on whether that rule needed to be changed. I was watching over a live stream, which is probably for the best because after the positions of the debaters on stage was explained, they opened to the floor for questions and had I been there I would have torn them a new one. You see this wasn’t an attempt to open up a debate. This was to squash dissent and mollify those who feel, I would argue correctly, that the rule needs to change.
Ordinarily a debate has an objective speaker whose job is to keep the two sides on topic, and an authoritative representative for each side of the debate. The debate on rule 2.5 was between three proponents of rule 2.5, one of whom said that he would be playing devils advocate against it, and one of whom said he was going to stay out of it. This objectivity and advocate stance lasted until the end of the opening statements. After that, the three of them answered audience questions entirely from a position supporting rule 2.5 staying exactly as it is. The situation was even worse than that sounds however, as the problem with advocating for a position you don’t actually support is that you tend to misrepresent that position. So the advocate against rule 2.5 spoke as a proponent of abolishing the rule entirely.
Now, while nobody in the audience wanted to abolish the rule, anyone speaking against it was apparently siding with the straw man position of abolition. Just so you know, I personally think the kind of dickheads who expose the methodology behind magic bringing joy to millions are worse curmudgeons than the arseholes who tell young children there’s no Santa, to their faces, at malls, in the queue to the grotto. The exposure rule, as it’s called, is both protection from a club full of such dickheads and also an excellent excuse for magicians to give when frankly they don’t want to tell people their secrets. Because why would they?
The problem with the exposure rule is the list of three classes of people who are allowed to know the secrets.
“Magicians” makes sense. Obviously, magicians need to know how to do magic.
“Historians of magic” is a little shakier, technically since most cultures have some form of magical art, often pertaining to ritual or initiation as explained above, so anyone who studies history for long enough will end up studying magic.
“Bona fide students of magic” is… complicated. Who can call themselves a student of magic? At what point does a person learning magic become a student? Surely at some point a person who knows nothing must be taught something. What of the publication of magic books for beginners? What of the sale of magic tricks for children? What about magic lessons for beginners?
The magic circle actually has a board of people whose job it is to arbitrate on these matters and they also have, outside of the official club rules, a list of guidelines for better navigating the process. These guidelines state that to abide by the rule, members mustn’t disclose any secret of magic on purpose to anyone in any way unless they’re magicians⁶, and to limit discussion of secrets originated within the Society to members. It also says not to publish secrets of magic in any publication that isn’t solely dedicated to magic.
Lots of magicians want to give magic lessons, lots of magicians want to publish their tricks, lots of magicians want to invite friends and family members into the magic community. To do any of these things you need to ask the exposure committee and they often say no.
A good example is magic lessons for kids. You’d think a desire to learn magic would solidly define someone as a student of magic but no. According to the committee, you cannot guarantee that the kids actually want to learn magic. They might be there because of pushy parents. So magic sets for kids, they’re right out presumably? Because they can be bought as gifts and who knows if they really want them?
Well… Actually that’s fine. In fact the vice president of The Magic Circle is Marvin Berglas, son of the famous David Berglas and owner of Marvin’s Magic, the biggest producer of kids magic sets in the UK, possibly in the world.
So that’s fine, right? No conflict of interest there.
The exposure committee hand-waves this double standard by saying that kids don’t remember the contents of magic sets they don’t want but what kind of indelible knowledge do they think is being taught at kids magic lessons? Almost as though ones standing within the organisation could somehow influence the judgement of the supposedly detached and objective exposure committee.
You might notice that this post took a very long time to come out after the previous one when they’re clearly linked. The reason is I was going through some stuff with my heart condition, one result of which was that I couldn’t really spend too much time without a caretaker of sorts in case I dropped into a sudden tachycardia. Ever one to see an opportunity I realised that if I was going to Blackpool Magic Convention I would need someone to look after me, and my partner was busy with her job… So if I was going to invite some other family member to join me, I should really ask the exposure committee if that’s okay.
So I did. I asked via the Magic Circle members Facebook group. After a little deliberation the exposure committee said that obviously if I needed a carer that was okay, but that I should ensure my keeper understood the gravity and importance of the secrets they would be witness to.
That’s not the interesting part however. The interesting part was that between me asking and getting a response, many many other members chipped in to say I was wasting the committee’s time because whether I take a Muggle to a convention was nothing to do with the circle, that I was just stirring up trouble, that I shouldn’t have asked in a place where all the members could see, and various other complaints about the fact that I was seeking clarification.
Now I can’t be certain about this but I think there’s a reason, and it’s the same reason that we really needed a proper discussion about the exposure rule.
No one trusts the exposure committee. Not even you, the reader. Yeah, I went there. Back when I said Marvin’s Magic got a free pass on the exposure rule because he’s got a famous dad and a place in the committee and he’s a huge producer of magic, you all nodded, I could see you. There might be a reason kids magic sets are okay but kids magic lessons are a no go. I mean if a kid doesn’t want to learn magic, they won’t even open the box, let alone read the instructions. What are they going to do in a lesson they don’t want? Sit, listen and seethe with anger.
But the fact that the rule is vague and the committee’s decisions on individual cases are final and unquestionable raises feelings amongst members that there is some kind of charmed circle within the membership who are able to get away with things they cannot.
As such most members would rather assume that their actions are fine and not get the exposure committee involved, because they don’t trust that the committee will agree with their interpretation of the rule.
The author and illusion maker Jim Steinmeyer famously said “Magicians guard an empty safe”, referring to the fact that the secrets we so desperately protect are ultimately very simple and mundane when seen in the light of day. Indeed many magic secrets are already known to people who are regularly fooled⁷ by them, either because they read a book once or they had a magic set as a child and don’t realise that (for example) the burnt and restored napkin uses the exact same method as the vanishing hanky trick.
I think the circle has its own empty safe, and that empty safe is the exposure rule. The members would all rather believe that their interpretation of the vaguely declared rule allows whatever they want to do, and the committee would rather believe that the members are all super vigilant in making sure they’re on the right side of the rule and check whenever they are uncertain.
That fact that both of these groups are wrong, the rule is regularly interpreted in ways the committee would not approve of and the committee hardly ever find out when their rule is being broken, is the real big secret no one talks about at the magic circle. I’d go so far as to say that even the committee knows this, because if everyone raised this kind of issue every time they were uncertain, the exposure committee wouldn’t have time to answer them all but giving blanket responses to general cases runs the risk of accidentally outlawing previously accepted activities, and having to justify and explain exceptions.
The exposure rule exists as a thing to be feared. A shadowy unknown, not entirely dissimilar to the aboriginal spirits keeping the juniors in line. But it’s very important that only a charmed few are allowed to closely examine it, lest they realise it’s just a carved piece of wood on a bit of old string, being whirled around to make a lot of noise.
Personally I think the exposure rule does need to be changed; not to get it abolished but to bring it out of the shadows and give it some teeth.
I’m a member of the magic circle and I’m proud to say I stick to the exposure rule.
I think.
¹ It is important to be careful how one represents early civilisations, particularly ones which were later called savages and massively depopulated. In my previous post I referred to a tale of a “primitive tribe”. The important difference is that that section was a quote about a fictional tribe. Most early civilisations, though called primitive when encountered by colonialists, are relatively advanced, their progress has simply been along different axes. Lets face it, what would you rather have, children dying in textile mills due to the industrial revolution or equilibrium with nature and extremely progressive views on gender roles and mind altering substances? I know what I’d prefer.
² You may have seen such a device used in the Paul Hogan movie Crocodile Dundee.
³ Is this in fact the origin of mythic monsters who turn to ash when killed? I don’t know, I’m not a mythologist or a historian, but it’s fun to think about.
⁴ Sorry kids, spoiler alert.
⁵ Rule number one is The name of the Society shall be “The Magic Circle”, hereinafter on occasion referred to in these Rules as “the Society”. Rule 2.1 – 2.4 are other objectives: Promote and advance the art of magic, maintain permanent headquarters, maintain a library and museum, arrange lectures, exhibitions, conferences, entertainments and other functions.
⁶ To give them the benefit of the doubt I assume this means magicians, magic historians, and bona fide students, but the vagueness of these rules is the crux of the problem. The actual wording is simply “They be magician”, believe me when I say I’m simplifying the language without losing any detail. Because there isn’t really any detail.
⁷ I very much dislike the term fooled as it carries all kinds of negative connotations of the magician being a con artist who is somehow getting one over on the audience. Like ha, tricked you, I made you enjoy something ultimately mundane. For a split second you thought there was wonder and mystery in the world but there isn’t. There’s fucking nothing. What a sucker. What an absolute rube.