The Quest or Instant Gratification - Your Choice

By Kenton Knepper

The QUEST that goes into finding certain methods is part of the magical JOURNEY.  One cannot grab the Grail without slaying a demon or going through certain portals of passage. While some in a magic club or website may have made their way with some real effort, others have just “found it” by seeming accident, and have little respect for any such things. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen club members pull out a tape measure and write down dimensions of another performer’s prop, or get an email asking for “more details” so they don’t have to pay for the secret.

These days I see people expecting instant results, free if possible and with very little respect given to those who’ve been around for decades.  When I grew up in magic (and I still am…) I did not call the Names in magic on the phone to tell them off or to ask them for free advice or as a way to get what I needed without having to study or read or think for myself.  I didn’t want to make myself a fool in their eyes.  I respected their time and their energy. I didn’t wish to appear arrogant, ignorant or just plain stupid.

Now I see many people who have no awareness of whether or not they are looking as if they are idiots. Lack of respect is expected, as is instant gratification.  Study is close to work and so many want nothing to do with that! “Give me, and now!” is the new demand.

Yet, magical illusion is akin to its esoteric brother.  “Secrets” of what some deem as “Ancient Wisdom” have also been revealed without proper preparation of the reader.  Having these secrets handed to such folks have not increased their understanding.  They have surface education or instruction only.  They KNOW little, if anything.

The difference, I suppose, is that in magical illusion such people try and book themselves as performers when they are not. They hurt others, as well as themselves.

Cynicism has made it appropriate to ignore such things as Quests and Journeys.  I think this is not helpful, nor anywhere near as “rational” as some may purport it to be.

As we give up the magic in magic, we make way for these sort of egoistic pitfalls.  There have always been non-professionals in magic clubs.  That has not been the trouble historically.  Lack of respect for those who have gone before, lack of willingness to work and travel a magical journey to arrive at a peak of new knowledge - that may be the significant difference.  There is knowledge gained by falling off the cliff and knowing for a fact what you should and should not do.  There is seeming knowledge when you have been told there is a ledge and not to walk off it.  This is know-ledge, not knowledge.  You know all right, but you don’t really KNOW.

This is why so much of what is selling these days at magic dealers is about seeming knowledge and not a true journey into awareness.  Dealers tend to sell what will sell and what sells most is not deep thinking, but the appearance of deep thinking.  Rarely do the true insights sell as much as how to more quickly and easily appear to understand the real secrets of magical performance.

Not everyone in a club or buying from a website is a performer and certainly not all professional performers.  They need not be.  But for such fine folks to get more than the basics handed to them on a silver or golden platter (or Youtube) is akin to receiving the Holy Grail without taking on step of the journey themselves.

You can hold the cup friends, and admire its apparent beauty.  But only The Few will comprehend The Glory.  All you have to do to be one of The Few is work at it, and be willing to take the journey it takes to get there. It’s not that some of us are so much more special. It’s simply that we took care to take a real journey, within and without, not merely make demands like a spoiled child.

Being The Few isn’t due to withholding something from others either.  Symbolic tales mean to suggest that preparation must be made before one can receive the greater gift.  Without such preparation, the unwitting often go to their deaths, and take others with them. So the stories go. So may better magic and mentalism go too, under the guise of progress and better teachers.

Perhaps a return to respect for The Quest, and those who take It, might be in order.  Maybe it has gone to a far enough to an extreme now that some will grasp that giving deeper knowledge to anyone who has not proven their ability to handle such secrets, has very real consequences.

For everyone.

But then again, only those who have taken the time to KNOW would know that.

And we are all still learning.

Besides, I first wrote this in 2003. It’s gotten worse, not better, when it comes to those willing to seek the higher work and the pause for deeper thought.

I salute those who take the Journey to magic, and pray there will be more, as a way of Return.  I raise a cup to your own Quest, my friends.

Cheers - To Those Who Journey With True Passion and Honest Study

This article was taken from Kenton Knepper's WonderWords blog at: blog.wonderwizards.com.

Modern Witchery

The Best Day in the Year

By Samuel Patrick Smith

The Best Day in the Year. "One of the illusions of life," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

Perfectionists - and I know one very well - want to to wait until all the lights are green before starting out. The problem is that all of the lights are never green at the same time. Therefore, we can't reach our destination unless we start. We can make course corrections along the way, but there's no substitute for being gripped with the realization that the present hour is the critical, decisive hour.

There's an old story about three frogs who were sitting on a log. Two of them decided to jump off. How many were left? Three! The frogs only decided to jump - they never actually took the leap. I guess they had never read Emerson or heard that the present hour is the critical, decisive hour.

Of course, we don't want to be like the confused cowboy who mounted his horse and rode off in all directions at once. We can't do everything at the same time But we don't have to do everything - we need only to do something, the something that is most important to us to achieve.

But how does one find the time to pursue his goals? After all, there are only one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. The answer is simple: know what we want and want it enough to take action. Business philospoher Jim Rohn says, "Reasons come first, answers come later." If we have a strong enough desire to get organized, master the routine, develop the relationship, write the book, or learn the subject, some of the ordinary, everyday time-wasters in our lives will lose their grip on us and start to fall away."

I once heard a story about a famous sculptor who was asked by a gawking admirer, "Is it difficult to sculpt?"

The great man replied, "Not at all, madam. You simply buy a block of marble and chip away what you don't want."

For most of us, there may be as much truth as humor to that statement. Looking at the block of time known as the immediate future, what do we want to chip away? Excess television or Internet time? Feuding with a neighbor or colleague? Procrastination, preoccupation, or a cluttered desk? If we look around we can easily find some time-wasters to chip away, but it's not enough to simply eliminate thing from our lives, master a difficult skill, or do something constructive, new ways to fritter away our time will take the place of the old ones.

When we understand that "getting around to it" is one of the illusions of life, today becomes the ideal time to tackle our goals and objectives.

And if my perfectionistic mind says, "When would be the best time to start cleaning off my desk?" Emerson, in a voice remarkably clear for a 206-year-old, says, "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

The following article was the "From the Editor" column piece of the May 2009 issue of The Linking Ring.

What is Magic?

The experience of the impossible.