Once, there lived a magician of prodigious skill.
People would come from all over the world to see his amazing feats of magic and gasp in awe and wonder at the seeming impossibilities he conjured at each and every show. None of them, not the highest accepted scientific authorities of the day nor the theological ecclesiastics, were capable of explaining his seemingly supernatural abilities.
Until one day, a man with a mind like quicksilver attended one of his shows, and every trick that he observed, he explained in natural terms to the audience on a web log thereafter. Time after time, the magician’s most vaunted and daunting tricks, constantly playing off some obscure physical phenomenon, were displayed and dissected for the simple illusions that they were. Some small segments of society were delighted by the thoughtful explanations of the stranger, whilst the majority despised and resented his uncloaking of this last of human mysteries in the modern world.
The magician and the scientist continued this dance for many years and, as it became clear that the magician was simply what he originally proposed to be - a showman with a flair for his trade - the prodigious numbers that originally swelled his audience dwindled, a more modest crowd of aesthetes who admired his skill and craft, and other men of science seeking a more modern version of the infallible dogma to which they subscribed via extrapolation of his feats.
Eventually, however, a socially minded priest who had once been an ardent attendee of the magician’s shows noticed these events and saw in them a great injustice, supposing that the scientist had tricked the magician from his hard earned prosperity, and knowing that the magician must be absolutely infuriated at the scientist for his constant attempts to tear him down.
Despite the magician’s unwillingness to cooperate, the priest, chalking it up to unnecessary reluctance to rock the boat and supposing the magician a man of character, litigated in the public courts on behalf of the magician for the social and financial damage which he supposed the magician to have suffered at the hands of the scientist. However, when it came time for the magician to take the stand, a surprising revelation became apparent.
"The defendant has constantly engaged in exposing the nature of your illusions to your audiences, has he not?"
"Yes, he has."
"And in the course of his campaign, the numbers attending your performances have dropped, somewhat considerably, also?"
"Indeed, they have."
"And has the defendant ever offered you any compensation for this clear consequence of his actions?"
"Not the sort to which you refer, neither apologies nor financial compensation, no."
"How does this make you feel, sir?"
"Elated."
The attorney was momentarily taken aback and eyed the magician warily, uncertain as to the direction the testimony had taken, but seeking to regain his footing.
"Could you please explain how, after constant malignant harassment with no offer of recompense for the damage done to your reputation nor financial consideration for the loss of revenue caused by the correlating drop in attendance to your exhibitions, you feel elation?"
On the other side of the court, the scientist leaned forward, fascinated by the turn of events.
"Certainly. This man is the reason that I began my trade. Prior to my current occupation I was not at all dissimilar from him; I could easily grasp that which many others could not and the only things which held mystery for me in the natural world were those which were construed as supernatural.
Over the course of my investigations into so-called supernatural phenomenon, I discovered a vast array of information and fact about the natural universe that described it more completely than I had ever understood before and, in knowing these facts and properties of the natural world, I was drawn to display them to other people, to show them the true wonders that we do not notice in the world around us every single day in an entertaining manner.
Alas my revelations and puzzles were taken at face value, despite my use of the kit of the most hackneyed showman in history, the magician. It was suddenly supposed that if I were seemingly capable of supernatural feats, I must indeed have been capable of supernatural feats! My faith in the natural reasoning ability of mankind was destroyed, until this man whom you now accuse as my hated enemy came along and showed the people, by demonstration and plain faced bludgeoning, that which I had attempted to show them with cunning, showmanship and mystery. From the perspective of my endeavours, his actions are perfectly in accordance with my own; we both seek to expand the scope of human consciousness, we merely do it in different ways.
My methods of deception, cunning and showmanship have earnt me an affluent lifestyle and the admiration of the ignorant masses but not that of my peers. This man’s method of clear and direct statement of fact have ended him up a defendant in our legal system, accused by a common peddler of the supernatural. This, it seems, is what happens when one demystifies the world and presents, without compromise, facts which the masses find unpalatable.
If you sought to elicit a dramatic response from me, you have succeeded, although I fear it is not directed at the scapegoat you had originally intended."
Years later, another great magician arose...
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
etherael's journal
accomplished
amused
tired
discontent
