Was Vernon Wrong?
2026 Feb 01
“In magic, today as always, the effect is what counts. The method or methods used are always purely secondary.” - (Dai Vernon)
On the Daily Magician they debated ‘The Professor’, Dai Vernon’s adage. I think it’s paywalled but the title is “Is it finally time to admit Dai Vernon was dead wrong?”
What’s the difference between doing a trick where some tech does all the work for you, and a method that takes years of practice. An analogy: famous actors could now not act themselves but licence AI to do a film for them. Is that ok? Is it ‘art’?
They ask for responses so I wrote them an email with my take. Here it is:
A person’s intention is at the heart of it. If they think of ‘magic’ as gigs, money, tricks, fame then they are doing what most entertainers have always done. Given any technology, back to medieval times and beyond, there have been those who are trying to get everything they can out of it. This is their intention - they want to get rather than give.
At the same time there are those who aspire to ‘magic’ as one of the last forms of live theatre and as such place themselves in its historical context and want to enable an experience for an audience that can be truly transcendent. They want to give rather than get.
The first way, ‘get over give’ is your basic capitalism. Everything is thought of as a commodity. All things are measured by the profit motive however that is measured.
The other way, ‘give over get’ is your basic ’living from the heart’. Questions like ‘is there compassion?’, ‘is it beautiful?’, ‘how can the experience of wonder and astonishment be strengthened?’, and so forth, these are the questions of someone trying to live a human life. As such it as a rebellion against a mechanised, grabby Brave New World approach which is so ugly.
It’s ironic to talk about authenticity in regards to an art form that has deception as its modus operandi, but that’s what your conversation is really about in my view. The choice of a method is entirely contextual and for me, part of the context is how I feel about it. When I do an effect for someone that has taken real craft to achieve, they may feel the same way about it as if it was done with AI or something, but I don’t!
The intention and inner authenticity of a performer is what drives that expression of magic and I think it’s that that really goes over to people. If the method is hidden from them then the question is really how does the performer feel about it!?