Magic and neuroscience
More end-of-series-writing-day and pre-start-of-book-writing-evening thoughts.
Some of you may have seen this article, it’s not new, but one of the few serious scientific appraisals of conjuring. A few friends are behind it – Teller is one of the most gracious people you might ever meet, John Thompson has a similar reputation, and Apollo Robbins is the king of pick-pocketing and a lovely guy. Richard Wiseman and Peter Lamont have written about magic in this context, and Richard Gregory has written one essay that I’m aware of – if anyone knows of any other serious work by psychologists on the subject, please post a comment.
Dx
Much of the reasons I developed a career in graphic design was of a keen interest in what is called the “visual message”. I know it sounds pretentious, but stick with me! To create, develop and amplify in anyway possible a corporate brand to their target audience – often the general public. The ‘concept(s)’ of this brand needs to ultimately be consistent throughout its working life and all aspects accounted for. Use of language, typography, layout, photography, illustration, paper type, space, shape and colour etc… all enhances and influences the visual development – conscious and unconscious mind. Simple methods in order to leave some impression.
Marketing in design is a subjective perception that is different from reality, not unlike the subject of this article!
“Apollo Robbins is the king of pick-pocketing”
You obviously haven’t met me then! I once picked a leg of lamb out of an anorexics pocket. Sorry, but you must go back and edit your entry!
Hm, I must be psychic … I had a vision of this one …
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
In case there is full article online available without subscription just email corresponding author and ask for a (digital) reprint.
There’s way too much in there, so you will have to make your own choice out of them. I’m not via workstation on there right now, so cant download the full articles either as simple as I normally could have done. If one of you reads french .. something about magicians in 18th century. And many, many others.
This paper is really old but possibly relevant.:
Occult Belief: Seeing Is Believing.
Singer, Barry; Reynolds, Craig B.; Benassi, Victor A.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (0021-8294)
01/12/1980. Vol.19,Iss.4;p.337
“a performance that arouses little excitement when performed by a magician may induce occult beliefs when performed by an alleged “psychic” An accomplice presented three common magician’s tricks, which resembled “psychic” performances, to six introductory psychology classes.”
Another old one but interesting to read
Triplett, N. (1900). The psychology of conjuring deceptions, American Journal of Psychology, 11, 439-510.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1412365
Also possibly ‘Towards a science of magic, Gustav Kuhn, Alym A Amlani’
http://alym.com/pdf/som.pdf
I am in constant search of this material. Thanks D. Main reason being that I am in the processes of writing a book about the psychology of illusion. I’m particularly interested in the concept of Theory of Mind, relative to mentalism effects involving differentiated audience experience or pre-show.
I highly recommend the Magic of Consciousness Symposium of the following website:
http://www.mindscience.org/magicsymposium/index.html
Teller, John Thompson, Apollo Robins, and James Randi share their wondrous knowledge on magic and psychology.
Brilliant.
Also nice for personal research which links up to this area: check the interactions around you a bit more thorough … Lots to see there … It says it all. Whole human society is build on those things … nothing would work anymore without it .. in a way. It’s being used for ages already … all those things, but most people will not be busy with it, if you’re healthy in normal social life, or is it, if you’re lucky. The power stuggle between people … the depressed I’s people will not want to see inside theirselves towards others (there are 2 types of depressed selves ..) and the things that can spin of from there if people will not go to their frontdesk function. But .. front desk function can also lead to stuff … quite interesting to study .. tells a lot about people, about yourself as well. The why’s and whatfor’s.
Some just love toying with these systems, but sometimes you need to see it way more serious. Not all people are toying/willing to be toys.
New book? Mainstream or magic? info please