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The Magic Circle Banned This Magician
AI Prompt: “A magician getting kicked out of a magic club building.”
You deserve an update on a story from last month. Why? Well, mainly because it involves The Magic Circle. In their words, The Magic Circle is “the most famous magic society in the world”. The London-based society has over 1,500 members worldwide, including famous names like David Copperfield and Dynamo.
King Charles III is even a member of the society.
It was founded in 1905 to promote and advance the art of magic. Magicians have to prove their skills to gain entry and abide by their Latin motto, which they say translates to “not apt to disclose secrets.”
The Magic Circle also only showcases out-of-focus photos on their website — perhaps that’s something to do with keeping everything secret.
One Ahead covered The Magic Circle when David Penn awarded Criss Angel with honourary membership and when the society appointed its youngest and first female president. The society first allowed women to join in 1991, and 25 years later, it was reported that only 5% of its members were female.
Get ready for a fascinating peek behind the closed doors of The Magic Circle.
Shit, that’s the sort of thing Scott Perry would say to get your attention.
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Part 1. The Backstory
As One Ahead covered last month, there was a huge magic product review drama. It all started with a product review of a magic trick called “The Fall” by Noel Qualter. The trick is a card-through-window effect performed through a plastic bag anyone can carry. The product trailer was confusing, but most product reviewers welcomed the product. One Ahead’s take on it all was that if you see the trick and like the look of it, that’s how it’ll look when you buy it.
A magician named Scott Perry uploaded a review to YouTube that was critical of the product for many reasons. Perry called the product a “complete waste of time” and urged potential buyers to watch his negative review before they buy it.
Perry’s review mostly took aim at the trailer, which he believes misrepresents the product. He argued that the trick couldn’t be performed 360 degrees surrounded because the magician’s body would be in the way of anyone's view who was standing behind the performer.
Perry also pointed out that if someone were on the ground looking up at the performance, they would see an exposed view of the method.
One of Perry’s main reasons he said he wouldn’t want to perform the trick was the noise he claimed the method makes when performed.
Backlash ensued.
Alakazam Magic Shop waded in with a video response defending Noel’s product – which had already sold out in their shop.
Other product reviewers like Steve Faulkner came out with follow-up reviews, diving deeper into their experience with the product.
Scott Perry released a follow-up video of his own, in which he exposed 80% of the trick’s method to defend his accusation that the trick was very loud to perform.
Replying to a comment from a user upset at this method exposure, Perry replied saying he felt exposure was okay in the context of a product review so long as the trick’s method is not exposed in its entirety.
Perry was then interviewed about the ordeal by Monster Magic.
There’s a beautiful moment in which Perry is asked to listen to two audio clips.
In one clip, the magician slaps the card on the bag, and it magically penetrates through the bag using Qualters The Fall method.
In the other clip, the magician hits a card on the bag, and the method and trick do not occur.
The interviewer asks Perry if he can distinguish between the loud sound Perry claimed the method makes and the sound of no-method taking place. Perry was unable to differentiate between the two.
Perry even commented on the published interview, writing:
Hopefully the magic community can move forward and I, of course, will take everything on board to improve future reviews.
And that brings us to where One Ahead wrapped up coverage of the story last month. The Fall appears to be sold out or unavailable at all the major magic stores. Perry went back to posting regular magic reviews aimed at the professional performer.
Part 2. The Magic Circle Circle’s Back
The Magic Circle has a long history of kicking out magicians for exposure and reinstating them at a later date. Several well-known magicians have faced the consequences of magic exposure, including celebrity magician Stephen Mulhern, whose membership was suspended after he taught a trick on children’s television.
Penn and Teller have even created and performed a 13-minute trick about The Magic Circle’s ardent stance on magic exposure. This all happened after The Magic Circle told them they could not be members due to their much more relaxed stance on secret keeping.
Penn & Teller are infamous for revealing tricks during their performances, like in their cups & balls routine performed with clear cups. Penn said:
“The Magic Circle said, in so many words, that they don’t care about magic as an art form. They don’t care about magic as entertainment. They only care about magic as keeping secrets. A little coven of old men in London keeping their stupid secrets.”
If you look at The Magic Circle’s track history with magic exposure, there’s not so much nuance between exposure, entertainment and teaching; it’s a hard stance on secret keeping.
When Perry exposed Qulter's magic trick on YouTube to thousands of viewers, Noel Qualter took action and reported the incident to The Magic Circle, who have since said Noel’s complaint was one of many about Perry’s magic exposure. And The Magic Circle took the complaints seriously, noting that Perry had “clearly and deliberately revealed the workings of a trick.”
At the time, Perry was an apprentice of The Magic Circle. As an apprentice, Perry had access to mentorship and guidance towards taking his entrance exam. An apprenticeship is a route many members take towards full membership in the secret society.
The Magic Circle contacted Perry and asked him to take down the exposure video, and when he did not do so, the Circle’s Disciplinary Panel met to discuss what would be a fair consequence. Their recommendation was shared with council members, who followed their advice and emailed Perry the following:
The Magic Circle takes exposure seriously, especially when perpetrated by its Apprentices or Full Members.
As a consequence of your actions, and in light of your refusal to swiftly remove the offending videos, you are immediately suspended from The Magic Circle for a minimum of six months. If all exposure videos are not deleted from all of your social media channels within ten days of this mail being sent, the suspension will become permanent.
The sanction recommended by the Disciplinary Panel, which the council upholds, also requires you to apologise in writing to Noel Qualter for exposing the workings of his original trick and to apologise in writing to The Magic Circle Council for not following the exposure rules of The Society, which you agreed to abide by when becoming an Apprentice. These apologies will be kept on file and may be referred to at a later date should further offences arise.
If the two apologies are not forthcoming within four weeks of this note being sent, then the six-month suspension will become permanent.
There you go, then. You break the rules of a silly little magic society you paid to join, and you’ll suffer the consequences – remove the video and write two apologies, or you can’t be a member.
Whilst it all does sound grandiose and comical, it seems The Magic Circle had no choice but to follow their own rules when members reported the incident.
“A little coven of old men in London keeping their secrets.”
Part 3. Perry Goes To The Press
At this point, Perry doubles down and starts firing on all cylinders. He starts posting shorts and takes on a different persona. He speaks directly to the viewer and shares cherry-picked emails as he insists he was “blackmailed” and banned by The Magic Circle.
Scott Perry said, in part:
“This is hilarious - I have officially been banned from The Magic Circle because of my review of the magic trick The Fall.”
Perhaps the strangest thing about these short videos is that Perry chooses to film them lying on his hardwood floor, looking up at the camera. You need to know that was a joke because one of the people we sent this draft to didn’t realise, but you’re smart enough to realise anyway.
Scott Perry then decided to take a bad boy stance and go to his local press with the story about The Magic Circle suspending him. You can see the appeal in a story like this about the mysterious Magic Circle.
What is surprising, though, is just how thorough the local newspaper was with its story coverage. It contacted Qualter, and The Magic Circle for comment – something One Ahead can never be arsed to do. Even more surprising… both Qualter and The Magic Circle actually commented on the story.
Perry’s comments are, well, give them a read:
“...it was very strange to receive such backlash over a simple review of a magic trick. It was very disappointing to see magicians I admired as a child act unapologetically disrespectful to my personal and professional life.
Even more surprising to have an organisation as prestigious as The Magic Circle blackmail me to bend the knee. This isn’t how the world works anymore. Times are changing.
I think it’s silly and small-minded of The Magic Circle to give someone a lifetime ban for something as simple as a review of a product. They said I have exposed the method and workings of the trick, but that’s simply not true. They’re just being precious.
No one can guess the actual method or working from my video, and they can’t recreate the trick either. This is why I keep an arm’s length from the magic community. It’s full of a lot of very odd and slightly deranged individuals. There are some great people dotted around, but they’re rare.”
Fascinating. It’s unclear if Perry genuinely believes a good way to keep an arm’s length from the magic community is to join the magic circle and post magic product reviews for magicians on the internet. Anyway, try to remember how he said, “no one can guess the actual method or working from my video,” because it’ll become comical soon.
The Magic Circle had this to say to the local newspaper:
“All Apprentices agree to abide by the rules of the society, one of which is not to deliberately reveal or expose secrets of magic tricks. Recently we received several complaints about a video Mr Perry had posted on YouTube, which clearly and deliberately revealed the workings of a trick.
In this case, the trick was a new creation by a seasoned Member of The Magic Circle. The complaints triggered our internal review process, which concluded that Mr Perry had deliberately exposed the workings of the trick and broke the rules he had previously agreed to abide by.
The sanction imposed by The Magic Circle is a suspension from the Apprenticeship scheme, which may be limited to six months should he remove the offending videos and offer suitable apologies. To that extent, the future of Mr Perry’s relationship with The Magic Circle is in his own hands.”
On a related note, Mr Perry has subsequently claimed that The Magic Circle is ‘pale, stale and male’. This has come as surprise to me and will be news to our President, Megan Swann, who is a 31-year-old female magician who specialises in environmental magic.”
Oh, God.
In response, Scott said:
“Jacinda Arden was the president of New Zealand but resigned. Nicola Sturgeon was PM of Scotland but resigned. The percentage of female leaders in the world is a small percentage of males.
Voting to elect a female president of The Magic Circle provides them with the political ability to deny any such suspicion or accusation. This is how the stale, pale, male leaders of the world operate.”
That escalated quickly.
Noel Qualter had this to say:
“I make my living performing and inventing magic. I recently released a magic trick that Scott Perry, whom I have not met, reviewed and in doing so he showed the secret mechanism of the trick.
This is against the rules of The Magic Circle, of which I am a member. This year Mr Perry became an apprentice of The Magic Circle, a programme for magicians wanting to hone their skills with a view to becoming a member.
As such, he was bound by the rules of the society, which expressly forbid the revealing of secrets. I raised this ‘exposure’ with The Magic Circle, and its ruling council decided to suspend his apprenticeship for at least six months.”
It’s mad that everyone gave comments to a local newspaper for an online article. But anyways, it turned out that reading Quarter's statement in the published article was the first time Perry had found out that Qualter was one of the magicians who had reported him to The Magic Circle.
Perry swiftly took to YouTube with more bombshells to break to his audience.
“Well, this is the gift that keeps on giving. So it turns out that the reason I was brought to the attention of The Magic Circle and subsequently banned for life is because Noel Qualter, the creator of The Fall, he reported me for exposing the inner workings of his unique new invention in magic. How crazy is that? How precious are some magicians?”
At this point in the video, Perry added big text across the screen that reveals the trick's method. “FYI – *method exposed in full*”
Nothing says, “no one can guess the actual method or working from my video”, like plastering the method in bold outlined text over the video.
Some of the comments on this video read:
It’s a fair cop…just take the L with dignity, acknowledge that you crossed the line and wait 6 months… that would be the sensible/classy approach. You literally just doubled down for absolutely no reason other than arrogance.
Quote “It wasn’t even until 1991 that The Magic Circle voted to allow women to join the club. With the club being men only beforehand. How progressive of them.” Did you not know this before you were banned or is it just a convenient slam dunk now? Seems a bit disingenuous to take the moral high ground now.
Wow, very low move. All the best with your channel mate.
Perry has continued to position himself as a sort of saviour and the only magic reviewer to be trusted. He even posted a short video recently, which he claims exposes some magic reviewers as lying to their audience.
“YOU need to be careful which magic reviewers you are listing to because there is a lot that is not being said in the reviewing scene. And I’ll tell you why!
Since my review of The Fall, there have been a lot of petty comments and very unorthodox viewpoints and opinions. So, a few of my close friends have asked me how I know this information, and one person, one popular reviewer, did ask if I wanted to be added to a verified list of reviewers after my review of The Fall. I politely declined and said that I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to be added to the list.
And then also, here is an email from Dominic at magicshop.co.uk where he openly says to me that a certain popular reviewer actually gets paid per review for his reviews. So, be careful who you are listening to because not everyone has the correct information.”
Perry flashes a screenshot of the email, referring to Magic Orthodoxy, a popular YouTube magic product reviewer.
When One Ahead saw this video, we initially thought – well, shit, maybe we should be as good as that local newspaper and contact Magic Orthodoxy for comment. At the very least, we should check to see if he told viewers he was getting paid for the specific review on his channel.
But then we read the email Perry screenshot.
Dominic was not offering money for reviews on Scott’s YouTube channel.
Dominic did not say he had previously paid Magic Orthodoxy for the same.
He did offer to pay Perry for a second video shot specifically for the magic store’s website, in a section they call “Behind The Curtain.” Dominic links to the area of their website and says they’ve paid Magic Orthodoxy to film these brand-specific videos for them in the past.
It seems reasonable for a brand to pay someone for a separate video that the brand will own that showcases its product on its website.
What a load of nonsense.
There are some exciting takeaways from this story for you to think over.
Is The Magic Circle representative of modern magic?
Are we coming out of an era of secret-keeping?
Why was there more of a backlash within the magic community for Scott Perry, with his 1.6k subscribers, than for Oscar Owen, with his 1.1 million?
Why do magic reviews exist in the first place?
What does The Magic Circle’s Latin motto actually translate to?
Well, for that last question, according to translate.com, indocilis privata loqui translates to “uninstructed to speak privately.”
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