Did you hear the rapture is happening? Or already happened, I’m not sure, I haven’t been keeping up. Feels like proclamations of the end times are being spread every other weekThis one had a bit more traction because of TikTok and the faithful arrogant have been giving away their worldly possessions in the USA, all in the belief that they are going to be beamed up to heaven in the rapture any day now.
Funny stuff because every time one of these things comes around it’s related to loose interpretations of the book of revelations, casting barcodes or chip and pin as the mark of the beast, but there’s never any of the wrath of God stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria¹.
You think you’ll never see any proper signs of the end times…
… and then one day your Dad tells you Penn and Teller just became members of The Magic Circle.
As a member of the Magic Circle I am honour bound to never reveal the secrets of the magical arts. I am however a member of the WWE, which is why I can break a thousand hearts right now by revealing that wrestling is fake. It’s ballet for muscle bros (and muscle hoes) where scripted fights are the dance arrangements between the soap opera plot points and rivalries. Unlike ballet however, the musclerinas and any associated participants stay in character for interviews, talk show appearances and presidential runs².
Just like ballet the gymnastics involved require huge amounts of practice, not to mention strength, and of course the physical stature to pull it all off. But the trophies and such are passed around like plot McGuffins. The real competition behind the scenes is merch sales and fanclubs. If you want to know who really won at wrestling, look to Hollywood. John Cena and Dwayne “The Johnson” Rock³. They were so good at generating a genuine reaction from the crowds that they could turn it to movie stardom. This is doubly impressive for Dwayne, partly because his name is Dwayne, but mostly because unlike Cena (who was a Babyface for his entire pre-movie career) he managed to somehow maintain a fanbase through multiple heel/face turn cycles.
For those of you who know less about wrestling than I do⁴, the terms Babyface and Heel denote the heroes and villains in the ongoing wrestling saga, going right back to the begining. Much like ballet tells a story between the dances, the interviews and promotions between wrestling matches tell the story which drives the rivalries and alliances played out in the ring. But characters are complex and sometimes two wrestlers ostensibly on the same team will have a disagreement in the story and in order to keep storylines flowing one of them will swap sides as a result, making whats called a heel turn. This is like Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith turning to the dark side because from his perspective the Jedi are evil.
You might think it far fetched that a falling out between two friends would lead one person to reject everything they had in common to literally join up with the people they were fighting against, but this happens in real life all the time, particularly amongst celebrities⁵.
This system is called Kayfabe and was kept secret for the longest time, as wrestlers would adapt their personas to match their real life circumstances, such as Hulk Hogan (a face) becoming Hollywood Hogan (a heel) in the period of 1996 to 1999 when he was a movie star after such hits as Suburban Commando (1991) and Mr Nanny (1993) propelled him to the level of fame where he could make shit you’ve never heard of like Santa With Muscles (1996), Shadow Warriors: Assault on Devil’s Island (1997), and Shadow Warriors II: Hunt for the Death Merchant (1999). It may astound you to hear that Hulk Hogan was a face from 2011 to his death in 2025, unable to use his final endorsement of Donald Trump to turn heel one last time.
As far as the world knew, wrestling was real, and so we’re all the rivalries that went along with it. However, Kayfabe doesn’t hold like it used to. The perception of wrestling now is more like that of a pantomime thanks to social media circulation of hilarious old promo bits. How did anyone take the Steiner maths seriously? How did anyone take the cream of the crop seriously?
The only Kayfabe which has lasted into the 2020s is the idea that Donald Trump was ever a successful business man⁶ and the rivalry between Penn and Teller and The Magic Circle.
So now that, during their 50th anniversary tour, Penn and Teller were granted honorary membership of the magic circle, you may be wondering, as I was, who orchestrated this. Was this a heel turn by the Circle or a face turn for the bad boys of magic? Well this was definitely a decision made by the Magic Circle. Honorary membership means Penn and Teller neither applied nor auditioned, and haven’t paid any fees. The Magic Circle sprang it on them and simultaneously altered the exposure rule (though some call it a clarification). The official statement was:
Seemingly revealing methods in order to enhance an experience of magic and wonder is not the same thing as giving away secrets for the sake of it.⁷
And this fascinates me. Because that means that, based on previous judgements, being hired to teach magic secrets to kids who want to learn magic can get you in trouble, but revealing a secret to regular punters as part of a presentation in a public show is apparently just fine.
I think that whereas there is a temptation to present the Magic Circle as the establishment face and the Penn and Teller as the heels, the bad boys of magic, you have to wonder if the circle’s establishment authority was the heel all along and Penn and Teller are the faces who were so good that they won over the magic circle.
The longer official statement from the circle boils down to the simple fact that regardless of the approach taken, the authorities at the Circle and Penn and Teller all want the same thing: to advance the art of magic. This shift in attitude from the exposure committee suggests that the circle is now on board with the notion that their way isn’t the only way to do this.
This is a good thing, I’d be insane to suggest it isn’t, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit sad to have lost the drama of that battle, even if I know its fake.
Maybe I should actually get into wrestling⁸.
¹ Ghostbusters (1984)
² Amongst his many failed careers, Donald Trump once tried to become a wrestling promoter, and the bully energy he carried with him through that has only gotten worse over time.
³ Do you like what I did there? Thats what we in the business call a “joke”.
⁴ Knowing less about wrestling than me is a feat in itself.
⁵ There are so many examples I can cite but the obvious standout is Graham Linehan, who went from supporting the primarily queer intersectional feminists being attacked by gamergate to joining up to a full on fascist agenda against queer intersectionality, simply because some people criticised a joke he made in bad taste, thus turning from face to heel. I wish I could say his face only started looking like that after his heel turn because that would be some Emperor Palpatine shit but in the real world your physical appearance has nothing to do with who you are on the inside – even though that is a viewpoint that Linehan himself obviously disagrees with.
⁶ Yes, some people actually still believe this. It may be too late for humanity.
⁷ This is slighlty paraphrased for brevity from the official statment from Laura London on the members facebook page after an influx of posts asking why Penn and Teller had been allowed to join. Allowed is kind of a laughable verb for them being directly handed one of the highest honours in UK magic.
⁸ Okay so as you might have guessed, I was aware of wrestling in the 90s but was never interested in it until my interest in videogames led me to watch Stephanie Sterling, who then became a wrestler. I now have a passing interest in wrestling and would be fascinated to see one of their matches live.