Performance won't make someone, like you, NOT want to know the method, but a good performance will make you not think about it in the moment. Joshua Jay's "What do audiences really think" shows this. A good percentage of people like to figure out the method when watching magic. A good performer should keep these people from guessing methods/heckling you while performing. I think what ChristopherT and other people who say they never get hecklers means is that their performance style makes it so people don't care about the method in the moment, and also want the magician to succeed, so they don't heckle. I don't think they mean that they can get people to NOT guess how it is done entirely.
You're actually incorrect about something. NOT everyone thinks magic is just "hard work/theatre", smokes and mirrors. The same article shows that a LARGE percentage of people think magic may be possible. Same goes for mind reading and talking to the dead. I'm not saying I don't agree with perhaps a magic special that introduces the lay audience to beginner magic. What I'm trying to convey is that assuming the audience doesn't think magic is real, is detrimental to your scripting and performance. That limits your material to a kind of magic that I would only perform for friends and family. They know I'm not really magical. They know it's smoke and mirrors because they know me...but when I perform for strangers I'm allowed to flirt with people's uncertainty of if magic is real or not, because I don't assume that they think what I do is just hard work and theatre.
I also don't think the Mods were wrong for locking the other thread. It was really pointless. A lot of your points for and against exposure seemed to be the consensus in the other thread, but one individual was trolling, so it got locked.
