{"id":6,"date":"2004-10-10T07:39:26","date_gmt":"2004-10-10T12:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/?p=6"},"modified":"2004-10-24T16:58:43","modified_gmt":"2004-10-24T21:58:43","slug":"within-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/10\/within-context\/","title":{"rendered":"Within context."},"content":{"rendered":"

“You took that out of context!”
\n<\/span>
\nEver hear that? Ever say<\/span> that to someone else?<\/p>\n

If I were to ask you to name something often taken out of context, chances are pretty good you’d mention the Bible, and rightfully so. (As a Christian, know that I am on record as stating as absolute fact that more Christians take the Bible out of context than anyone else. Another post for another day.)<\/p>\n

What is context<\/span>, and what does it have to do with magic?<\/p>\n

The dictionary defines<\/a> the word context<\/span> like this: “the circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.”<\/span><\/p>\n

If you were to watch through a peephole and see someone fire a handgun at another person who falls over apparently dead, you might first run for your own life, and then call 911<\/span>. That’s a reasonable reaction.<\/p>\n

But what if what you were watching was a play and the gun wasn’t real, and neither was the blood? The context has changed and calling 911<\/span> would be…inappropriate.<\/p>\n

Here’s my favorite example of the importance of context. It’s called, “The Farmer’s Horse,”<\/span> based on a story by Lui An. This version can be found in Alan Watt’s book, “Tao: The Watercourse Way”<\/span>:<\/p>\n

There is a story of a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck. He said, “May be.”<\/p>\n

The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune. He said, “May be.”<\/p>\n

And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. Again the neighbors came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, “May be.”<\/p>\n

The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg the farmer’s son was rejected. When the neighbors came to say how fortunately everything had turned out, he said, “May be.”<\/p>\n

The yin-yang view of the world is serenely cyclic. Fortune and misfortune, life and death, whether on small scale or vast, come and go everlastingly without beginning or end, and the whole system is protected from monotony by the fact that, in just the same way, remembering alternates with forgetting. This is the Good of good-and-bad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, Grasshopper<\/a>, back to magic.<\/p>\n

Much of what we do in the performance of magic typically is not experienced in the real world. (At least, not without Father Merrin<\/a> around.) So, to provide the why<\/span> of what we are doing provides the audience a context<\/span> within which we do these otherwise weird things.<\/p>\n

Context allows us to shift gears, go in — shall we say — convenient directions<\/span>, and naturally explain what would otherwise be unexplainable and thoroughly suspect.<\/p>\n

Context is the biggest secret<\/span> in magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You took that out of context!” Ever hear that? Ever say that to someone else? If I were to ask you to name something often taken out of context, chances are pretty good you’d mention the Bible, and rightfully so. (As a Christian, know that I am on record as stating as absolute fact that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}