But he isn't a standard stage magician. In this context, he's not a stage magician but a TV magician. DB may have his own position on TV magic but he seems to be doing pretty well with it I would say. And this is anyway a different subject than whether or not he ever used stooges.
I think that DB has sometimes crossed the line or at least come close to it. For example, it appeared for a while that he was endorsing NLP which is something that dishonest people are actually peddling as the real deal to people who don't know better. But I believe DB has acknowledged criticism in the past and steered away from such things.
I think that 'the point' of DB is to entertain and I think that's a good thing and worthwhile in itself. But within the field of skepticism I believe 'the point' of magicians is not just to expose frauds (which you agree DB has done) but also to show people that they can be fooled, including people who are intelligent and who employ critical thinking.
Maybe we disagree because you feel that this is not valid if the spectator leaves the show with incorrect ideas of exactly how he or she was fooled. I don't think that's the case and I'm willing to forgive DB if some people never realise how duped they have been, because it surely shows many other people that if a self-confessed trickster like DB can achieve an effect, then so can people who are making money by claiming similar effects to be the real deal.
Someone may think she's a skeptic because she thinks she can figure out how the tricksters do their tricks and she would not be fooled. But she would be a poor skeptic. To become a better skeptic, she'd be helped by a magician showing her that in fact she can also be fooled.
I think it's also brilliant magic and brilliant skepticism. The absurdity of the claims don't make them immoral. That line depends on the consequences of the false beliefs the magician creates. DB has I believe crossed the line a few times but overall I think he's a great positive for skepticism.
As a comparison, stage magicians typically don't reveal their tricks. The audience very often walks away from the performance thinking they have an idea of how the trick was done, which is often very far from the truth (such as believing some extremely complicated technology must have been developed). We don't blame these magicians because the false beliefs created are mostly harmless. DB in my mind is testing the limits a bit more but that also makes him more interesting, although some of the recent shows have not been so interesting in their own right I would say, but that's a different matter.
DB is a stage and TV magician but the differentiation is irrelevant. I am using that phrase to distinguish him from someone who may use psychological techniques, leaving asside the issue of feasibility. Most of DB's fans believe that DB uses techniques that other magicians do not, and this has been in a large part responsible for his success. The fact is, the evidence suggests this is not the case and the psychological aspect is just a gimmick.
I see this as being damaging for true scepticism because in DB we have a sceptic who does not tell the truth. That seems naive in talking about the methods of a magician but it isn't. There is a big difference between a person not revealing their methods and a person misrepresenting their methods. For example, when Randi replicated Geller's spoon trick he didn't claim that he had hypnotised the audience into seeing something that was not there. If he had have done this then his replication would have been worthless as it would have replaced one woo-woo explanation with another. Of course Randi actually revealed his method but even if he hadn't, a statement saying that he had used a standard magician's trick would have been perfectly acceptable. If a woo buster asks us to believe in woo then I see them as little different to the ones they are trying to expose.
In terms of whether you find DB entertaining, of course that's up to you. It's a subjective choice so it's not a case of me being right and you wrong or vice-versa. However, my thinking about it is very much different to yours.
If a stage magician cuts a woman in half then that's entertaining to me because it's fun to speculate on how he might have done it. There is no solution such as 'he cheated' because it makes no sense. Clearly he didn't cut the woman in half but the wonder comes from the illusion and the difficulty in providing any explanation that fits.
Consider now DB who tells a woman he never met before the contents of her dream the night before, in detail, along with numerous other items of very specific information. Unlike the sawing-the-woman-in-half the choices are clear
1) He is psychic
2) He obtained the information through psychology and watching the woman's face
3) He used some type of mind control to make her say what he wanted
4) He obtained the information through normal means before or during the show
We can discount 1, 2 and 3 because they are impossible and that leaves us with 4. There is no mystery. I don't find any entertainment value in someone repeating some memorised information. I could do that trick, so could you, so could anyone, so where's the fun?
When that expands to an entire show the fun factor is further reduced because at least the stage shows include elements that cannot be explained in this way. Take the murder at the country house. Again, the choices are clear: DB possesses some type of paranormal ability or the subject was playing along or had been told what to do. There is no other reasonable conclusion. The former is not true and the latter, whilst true, is not interesting.
As I say, the entertainment aspect is subjective, but that's my take on it.
