The Illusion of Magic

I want to start by telling you that all of the "fairy tales" and stories about the powers of wizards, Witches and magicians are true!
Kraig, Donald Michael, Modern Magick: 11 Lessons in the High Magickal Arts, (2nd Ed.)Llewellyn Publications, Minnesota, 2001, p.1
A magician would never perform the 'Maleeni Head Spin' because it must be done in full view of the audience. Illusion works by sleight of hand and misdirection of the eye. It could never pull off a stunt so open to scrutiny. To be fair, in 'The Amazing Maleeni', it is presented as a silly bit of TV, with poor CGI and no logic to its performance.
Under normal circumstances, we don't prefer to be hoodwinked. If we think someone is trying to get one over on us, or just plain con us, we generally wouldn't be best pleased. If you've ever felt someone has made a fool of you - and who hasn't? - you're likely to have felt shamed and angry, probably in equal measure.
Usually, the person who makes you feel this way, will then take the moral high ground and make you feel you are drama-queening a situation largely of your own imagination.
Human relations are complex interactions of personalities and perspectives. Fundamentally, there is very little that any two people can agree on. Agreement is a choice, not a result of shared perspectives.
Look at any political party and you will find general agreement on broad ideology - and just as much disagreement. Brexit occurred because the Labour Party was not unified enough to put up a strong enough case against. If the leader of the Labour Party had as much support then as he enjoys now, Brexit would never have happened.
We needn't look to ideology to realise we are deceit-avoidant. If only in others.
Ourselves we deceive all the time. We do so in order to deceive others. Apparently, if I am able to deceive myself about myself then I will find it easier to deceive another. If I believe what I'm saying, I won't demonstrate the tell-tale body language of the liar.
The truth is whatever you believe.
On such terms, we should hold no faith in ourselves or anyone else. It is all a con!
While that may be true, it would make of human life a chaos unbearable.
As much as I might hate myself for it, I must live with, work with and interact with people I would avoid like the plague if given the choice. Work denies me choice.
It is an interesting conundrum for a believer in free will. It takes a degree of flexibility to be able to say we are possessing of free will while knowing full well that every day I must forego my freedom of will in order to suffer those who superimpose themselves upon my life. It doesn't contradict free will that we give it up. The reasons we are willing to deny our freedom of will underscores our need for self-deception. How could we live with ourselves otherwise?
Life is a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking deceptions and illusions - always with a piece of the puzzle missing.
Not able to admit to the daily norm of our self-deception, we release pent up tensions in a moment of carnival:
During carnival, rank (otherwise pervasive in medieval society) is abolished and everyone is equal. People were reborn into truly human relations, which were not simply imagined but experienced. (cf. Andrew Robinson, In Theory Bakhtin: Carnival against Capitalism, Carnival against Power)
The magician confronts us with the reality of deception, allowing us to openly experience and even enjoy what otherwise would endanger of very sense of self. The carnival of magic
is a brief moment in which life escapes its official furrows and enacts utopian freedom. It is a form of life at once real and ideal, universal and without remainder. Its defining feature is festivity – life lived as festive. It is also sanctioned by the highest ideal aims of human existence, not by the world of practical conditions. (Ibid.)
Billy LaBonge breaks down the barriers that would normally exist between the magician on stage and his audience until Maleeni responds directly to his taunting - no longer is it the magician in control but the audience - roles are rotated - as Maleeni's head is soon to be.
As if to prove that this is only an extraordinary moment and not the norm, Maleeni's trick proves fatal - apparentely. But this too is illusion.
Illusion is reality and reality but another form of deception.

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