Mass Production
2026 Feb 08
Since writing Was Vernon Wrong? it has occurred to me just how big an impact industrial mass production had on magic. Beforehand it was much harder to make things look identical, but after we can have things, cards and coins in particular, be practically indistinguishable.
The existence of all these duplicates makes it much easier to mistake one thing for another. It enables our transpositions in particular. The mass standardisation of playing cards is the technology that lies behind the world of cardistry isn’t it!?
We no longer even think of the existence of duplicates in magic as being a product of technology, but of course it is. It didn’t take the heart out of magic in the long run, but it did change things quite a bit. It seems to me that the early 20th Century saw a shift in ‘magic’ away from ‘spiritual’ aspects and Shamanistic world views towards a materialistic mind set. The need to explain things in rational and scientific terms has lead magicians to present the apparently impossible in entirely new ways. For example, mentalist effects are often presented as Neuro-Linguistic Programming where the same effects used to be presented as evidence of ’ectoplasm’, ’telekinesis’ and so on. Psuedo-scientific explanations they may be, but they still rely on the scientific/materialist mind set.
There was, and is, a dehumanising effect with mass production - “the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself”. Is this not a similar conversation to how AI may come to influence magic? Where is the ‘art’? Where is the ‘craft’? It will be hard to create a sense of wonder in someone has stopped believing that ANYTHING they see is genuinely real. A new approach will be needed.
A magician once told me that during a kid’s show he noticed that the audience had stopped watching him. He had to wait for them to finish watching a youtube one of them had found that was exposing how he had done his last effect! This was DURING the show!
It seems to me that the ancient arts of the theatre are going to become a lot more important for magicians. I predict that the magic of character and story will endure but the guarding of secrets will fade.
We mystery workers will always be needed, but oh boy, we’re going to have to adapt. Oh ye magicians, get thee to a mime course! Study theatre! Look them in the eye, and MEAN IT!