The Other Side of the Prestige
Is Your Religion’s Founder Imaginary, an RfRx talk with David Fitzgerald
Submitted by Jenna Chiles
I saw my first magic trick when I was maybe 8 or 9. Magic was one of those forbidden things in our very Christian household, so I was mesmerized when I saw this trick. We had a young youth/children’s minister at our church that I’ll call Byron. Shortly after he was hired, Byron started doing what he called “illusions” before the sermon. All the kids would be invited up to the front of the church to get a closer look at the tricks. There would usually be some kind of lesson/Bible story in them, and then Byron would do the trick. I remember the grown ups being very *concerned* about Byron performing a magic trick in front of kids; so, he was allowed to do them only if he showed how the magic trick was done. They wanted to be sure the kids could see that the trick was only an illusion — magic was most definitely not real.
It was always entertaining to watch Byron perform, and I would always try to see if I could spot the reveal before he showed it to us. Byron had one special trick that he hid the reveal from all of us -his light up thumb. He would wave it around, have it glow and not glow. It was so cool. He would even let us see and touch his hand to prove nothing fishy was going on. I couldn’t…
