Is Tearing Up a Banknote During a Magic Trick Illegal? How We Become Trapped by Rules We Invented Ourselves

Every so often, I see a magician perform a trick with a banknote on television.

The magician borrows a ¥10,000 note from someone in the audience and tears it into pieces right in front of them. Naturally, its owner panics. Then, at the end of the trick, the note is restored, prompting a collective gasp of amazement.

It is a classic magic trick.

I have seen it many times over the years, but recently a question occurred to me.

Isn’t tearing up money a crime?

When I looked into it, I discovered something interesting.

Japan has a law that prohibits damaging or melting down currency. But the “currency” covered by this law means coins.

There is no equivalent provision that makes the act of damaging a banknote itself punishable. In other words, tearing up your own ¥10,000 note does not, by itself, violate Japan’s law against damaging currency.

I had always assumed that destroying money was a crime.

And when I thought about it, I realized that this very assumption is part of what makes the magic trick entertaining.

The Feeling That “You Are Not Allowed to Do That” Makes the Trick Work

No one reacts when a magician tears up an ordinary sheet of paper.

But the moment the magician tears a ¥10,000 note, everyone gasps.

It is not only because something worth ¥10,000 has apparently been destroyed.

There is also a feeling in the back of our minds:

Are you really allowed to do that?

It must be illegal.

Money should be treated with respect.

Tearing up a banknote is simply unacceptable.

All these ideas become mixed together in our minds, forming a single category of things that must never be done.

The magician takes advantage of that reaction.

The instant the banknote is torn, the audience’s attention shifts completely to the shock: “They really tore it!” and “Is that even okay?” What the magician’s hands are doing during that moment, I have no idea. If I knew, it would not be magic.

What is interesting is that something we regard as forbidden is not necessarily prohibited by law.

Laws, Rules, Customs, and Manners All Become “Prohibited”

This happens surprisingly often in everyday life.

When someone says, “That is prohibited,” is it actually prohibited?

Is it against the law?

Is it forbidden by an official company policy?

Is it merely an industry convention?

Or did a predecessor simply decide to do things that way?

In our minds, all these very different things are easily placed in the same box labeled “prohibited.”

This happens especially often at work.

“We cannot do that here.”

“Why not?”

“That is how we have always done it.”

“Which policy says so?”

At that point, suddenly no one knows.

The same thing happens in IT.

“We cannot use this tool.”

“We cannot connect to an external service.”

Ask why, and you will often hear the all-purpose answer: “For security reasons.”

But when you read the actual security policy, you may find that it says nothing of the sort.

An operational choice someone once made out of caution has somehow been promoted into an absolute rule that no one is allowed to break.

When Someone Says It Cannot Be Done, Check the Original Source Once

The phrase “it cannot be done” is also troublesome.

Is it legally impossible?

Is it prohibited by the contract?

Is there a technical limitation?

Or has no one simply done it before?

If we describe all these situations with the same phrase, “it cannot be done,” thinking stops there.

In the end, the most reliable approach is to check the original source.

For a law, read the statute.

For a contract, read the agreement.

For a service, read the terms of use.

For a system, read the official documentation.

For a company, read the formal internal policy.

I work in IT, and I have repeatedly encountered situations where everyone said something was impossible, only for the official documentation to state plainly that it could be done.

When people hear the same claim often enough, they begin to treat it as a rule.

Once they believe it is a rule, they remain within its boundaries voluntarily, even though no one is actually stopping them from crossing them.

That effect is surprisingly powerful.

The Most Frightening Walls May Be the Ones That Do Not Exist

This discussion has traveled a long way from a magic trick involving a banknote.

But similar invisible walls exist in both work and life.

“You cannot do that at your age.”

“People in this industry do not normally do that.”

“There is no precedent, so it cannot be done.”

If the wall is real, we may have to accept it.

But sometimes, when we approach it and reach out to touch it, what looked like a wall turns out to be nothing more than a line on the ground.

That is why, whenever someone tells me something cannot be done, I try to ask one question at least once:

Where is that written?

It probably makes me an irritating person.

But a surprising number of rules disappear as soon as someone asks that question.

A magician who tears up a banknote is not merely more skillful with their hands than the audience.

The magician understands the invisible walls that the audience has created in its own mind.

And then earns money by using those walls against us.

That said, I only admire how the trick works. I have no intention of testing the law by tearing up a ¥10,000 note myself.

Even if the law does not forbid it, I—the owner of the wallet—certainly do.