Teaching. Lovely word, that. The definition includes, “to impart knowledge or skill; to cause to learn by example or experience.” It invokes the admired and cherished two-way teacher/student relationship. The student seeks a teacher, who…well, teaches.

Exposure. Dastardly word. Clearly The Dark Side material. The definition includes, “an act of subjecting or an instance of being subjected to an action or an influence.” Subjecting. SUBJECTING I said! It invokes shoving unwanted, unsought after knowledge into the eyeballs and between the innocent synapses of those otherwise unwilling, unexpecting, and inculpable. I’d put this in the same category as the first plate of cooked cauliflower my mother put before me. (For all I know, that plate of…stuff…is still molding away somewhere because I know I didn’t eat it.)

So. When a teacher creates a lesson and students quite literally stand in line to learn — all of voluntary accord, mind you — you’d think some serious teaching is going on.

Well, that would be correct if you are dealing with reasonable, rational adult human beings. (Actually, I think even third graders would get this concept any odd Monday morning long before the lunchbell rings.) In the normal world — which is that outside the tiny, bizarre world of magic and mentalism — that is, indeed, so.

On the other hand, unreasonable, irrational human beings would call that exposure. Holy cow, Katy bar the door. Shocking, I know, but when you think about it, that definition fits when you consider these “adults” are acting like second graders anyway.

While reasonable people say “teaching” why do some others call it “exposure”? Good question.

Agenda? Jealousy? Elitism? All three?

Well, consider one definition proposed: sacrificing the secrets of our art for personal publicity and remuneration. So, selling books and videos to fellow performers who wish to learn is teaching, I suppose, if it is done without a desire for publicity and remuneration. (Note, the definition doesn’t actually preclude publicity and remuneration, just if the intent is to gain it.)

I recall the story of the alchemist who sold bars of lead to be placed under the bed of the mark. The mark was instructed that, should they think about the gold, they would wake up the next morning still possessing a bar of lead. So, you should desire the reward enough to pursue it — but if you actually do pursue it, you’re an exposer.

Well, the alchemist couldn’t turn lead into gold, and those poor souls can’t turn teaching into exposure, either.

Yet, the same oaf who presented the above definition, in the same breath, goes on to state that exposure is telling lay audiences how things are done.

I don’t know. Convenient definitions applied to inconvenient situations gives me a headache to think about it. So, allow me, please, to put on my Zen glasses. Please, pull up a grass mat, Grasshopper. I have a story to tell you.

Do you know the story of the Fox and the Scorpion?

Ahhhhhhh.

One day, a scorpion came to a wide river he wanted to cross. But scorpions cannot swim. So the scorpion asked the fox if he would carry him across the river because the fox can swim.

The fox said, “No! If I carry you, when we’re in the middle of the river you’ll sting me and I’ll die!”

The scorpion laughed and said, “Of course I would not sting you! If I did so, we’d both drown!”

So the fox agreed. The scorpion climbed on the back of the fox, and they both started across the river.

When they got halfway across, the scorpion stung the fox.

As they both began to sink into the river, the fox cried out, “Why did you sting me! Now we’ll both drown!”

The scorpion replied, “I know. But I’m a scorpion. It’s my nature.”

The dust storm currently being held aloft by all the hot air issued from the mouths of some of the stuffed (golf) shirts over Richard Osterlind’s impending release of his Easy to Master Mental Miracles is an interesting and deeply amusing thing to behold. I have this mental image of a room full of aged men rending their lapels and throwing soot and ashes on their balding heads, all the while shouting suspected Pig Latin epithets containing the name (or names) of the diety (or dieties) of their choosing.

All that’s left to complete the image is fitting themselves with topits and changebags made of sackcloth.

You know, it occurs to me that, as a potential purchaser of these DVDs, you have to ask yourself just how valuable these things are if so many of these self-appointed Grand Poobahs of Mentalism are willing to pop a blood vessel in or about the temporal lobe and risk a life of adult diapers and constant drooling (which, I know, may be hard to discern from their present condition) over the release date of the Osterlind DVDs.

I mean, you’d think this was The Big One, ‘Lizabeth.

While the Raccoon Hatters are foaming at the mouth as a direct result of drinking the exposure-flavored Kool-Aid served up by their leaders, they may want to turn their collective attention towards their own. I’d put forth the very real possibility that the “performances” of the many duffers, John Edwards-wannabes, and pudgy huffing weekend warriors in their midst results in far more exposure than a reincarnated Marilyn Monroe standing on the wrong end of a revving jet engine.

I mean, how many gray elephants can there be in Denmark, for pity’s sake? (“That’s funny… this can’t be right… there ARE no gray elephants in Denmark!”)

So why do they continue to engage in grade-school polemics?

Well, it’s their nature.