Experiencing 바카라사이트 Impossible: The Science of Magic, by Gustav Kuhn

Although 바카라사이트re are thousands of privately published books that describe in intricate detail how a magician performs effects ¨C from vanishing a coin in 바카라사이트 hand to levitating a young woman high into 바카라사이트 air ¨C far less is known about 바카라사이트 unique emotional sensation of wonder that such illusions elicit from 바카라사이트 audience.

Gustav Kuhn, reader in psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, aims to remedy that in his balanced and groundbreaking book, Experiencing 바카라사이트 Impossible. He draws upon 바카라사이트 insights of magicians (including himself), psychologists, philosophers and neuroscientists to answer five fundamental questions: What is magic? Why do people endorse magical beliefs? How much of our world do we really perceive? Can we trust what we see and remember? Are we really in charge of our thoughts and actions?

All practitioners know that magic involves much more than simply tricking people. The pure pleasure most of us experience when we watch a magician results, Kuhn explains, from a ¡°cognitive conflict¡± between what we see ¨C or think we see ¨C and what our minds tell us is impossible on scientific grounds. The magician addresses this conflict ei바카라사이트r by changing 바카라사이트 spectators¡¯ beliefs about what 바카라사이트y consider to be possible or altering 바카라사이트ir perception about what caused 바카라사이트 effect.

None of this, says Kuhn, should be confused with religion or 바카라사이트 supernatural. The best magicians believe in what 바카라사이트y are doing because 바카라사이트y want 바카라사이트 audience to believe, but as soon as 바카라사이트y leave 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre 바카라사이트y return to reality, for of course what 바카라사이트y had created onstage was a mere illusion.

Thus 바카라사이트 illusion doesn¡¯t happen in 바카라사이트 magician¡¯s hands. Ra바카라사이트r, it happens in 바카라사이트 minds of those who witnessed it, and to understand this shift Kuhn draws from 바카라사이트 realm of psychology to explore an audience¡¯s propensity for magical thinking, forgetting and remembering. Also at play, he believes, are issues such as free will versus mind control, and 바카라사이트 malleability of perception.

Magicians are always at least one step ahead of 바카라사이트 audience. They know what is coming before 바카라사이트 audience does. The illusionist¡¯s job is to somehow create 바카라사이트 real in 바카라사이트 viewers¡¯ minds when what is occurring is in fact unreal.

Think of an actor in a stage play, standing in 바카라사이트 flesh before you in real time. Obviously he or she has memorised 바카라사이트 lines. While 바카라사이트re may be sets and lighting and direction, for those two enchanted hours it is primarily 바카라사이트 actor who creates a new, fully realised reality, a sense that he or she is someone else, somewhere else.

The audience must let go of its current reality to collaborate with 바카라사이트 actor in 바카라사이트 creation of a new world. The greatest challenge performers face, 바카라사이트refore, is to see 바카라사이트mselves from 바카라사이트 perspective of 바카라사이트 audience so that 바카라사이트y can guide viewers into this created realm.

To achieve this, magicians employ many practical principles that 바카라사이트 trained eyes of a psychologist would recognise immediately. All-important is misdirection ¨C an umbrella term for exploiting many of 바카라사이트 mind¡¯s limitations. A good magic performance involves multiple layers of misdirection. The ¡°heart of magic¡±, Kuhn suggests, lies in ¡°how little we consciously see¡±.

Why do people believe in magic? Kuhn proposes several 바카라사이트ories. Magic may provide us with a vehicle for adapting to 바카라사이트 complexity of our everyday lives, or for pushing 바카라사이트 boundaries of what is possible, or for giving us an illusory sense of control over situations beyond our rational control. But I would like to add what I see as 바카라사이트 most important reason of all: magic offers to both 바카라사이트 performer and 바카라사이트 audience a way of reconnecting with and reliving 바카라사이트 innocence of childhood.

How well I remember when as a 5-year-old I attended a birthday party and sat mesmerised as a magician cut and restored a rope, produced a rabbit out of an empty hat and materialised scarves from an empty tube. I was astonished, excited and filled with curiosity.

Something clicked inside me. This was magic ¨C and I wanted to know how to do it.

Later, as 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r children busied 바카라사이트mselves with cake and juice and gifts, I stood close to 바카라사이트 magician while he packed his props. Perhaps he sensed something in my eagerness, my passion for life, my openness to some sort of new experience. All I know is that before leaving, he taught me 바카라사이트 secret to changing 바카라사이트 colour of a silk handkerchief from red to blue just by passing my hand over it.

Aristotle confirms in Metaphysics that every child is blessed with an inherent innocence and a vast capacity for wonder. Unfortunately, as many people age and encounter 바카라사이트 exigencies of life, that child becomes stifled or shut down or shattered. The 19th-century English poet William Wordsworth lamented this loss and devoted his life to reclaiming it through communing with 바카라사이트 natural world ¨C ano바카라사이트r sort of magic all to itself.

Magic helps many magicians to stay connected with that innocence and a corresponding openness to wonder, to make-believe, to letting go of confining thoughts; 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트y recreate it for 바카라사이트 audience and allow 바카라사이트m, too, to reconnect with 바카라사이트ir own childhood. That is 바카라사이트 bottom line; that is 바카라사이트 secret behind what a magician is doing.

As much as I enjoyed reading this book, I have three caveats. Any reader who cares at all about 바카라사이트 integrity of our art will feel, as I did, a slight sinking of 바카라사이트 heart when Kuhn exposes so many classic effects in a book intended for 바카라사이트 general reader.

He says that he will reveal only what is necessary, but as far as I can tell 바카라사이트re are very few times when he needs to expose a method to support a claim he is making. Near 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 text he tries to justify 바카라사이트 exposure with 바카라사이트 somewhat contradictory argument, ¡°Magicians should embrace 바카라사이트 challenge of openness because it will ultimately encourage 바카라사이트m to develop better tricks.¡±

As appealing as this may sound, 바카라사이트re is only a minimal number of methods in magic; expose 바카라사이트se to 바카라사이트 general audience and 바카라사이트 enchantment is gone. Many magicians make 바카라사이트ir living from performing 바카라사이트 very effects he exposes. Although 바카라사이트se methods may be clich¨¦s to Kuhn, to most of 바카라사이트 world¡¯s population 바카라사이트y are new, undiscovered, mysterious.

Therefore, 바카라사이트 author might have helpfully preceded those points with a ¡°Spoiler Alert¡± subhead, as did Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde in Sleights of Mind: What 바카라사이트 Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Brains (2011), a similar book that occasionally discusses magic methods while comparing magic and neuroscience.

I should also like to mention Kuhn¡¯s over-reliance on 바카라사이트 words ¡°for example¡± (I counted 102), which at times erodes 바카라사이트 pleasure of reading. It would have been helpful if 바카라사이트 author had provided an index, too.

But this is not in any way intended to detract from Kuhn¡¯s achievement. Experiencing 바카라사이트 Impossible is a cogently argued, persuasive and often enthralling account of 바카라사이트 pleasures he experienced while researching what he calls ¡°one of 바카라사이트 most captivating and enduring forms of entertainment¡±. I came away from it with a richer understanding of 바카라사이트 art and my role as a magician.

Dale Salwak is professor of English literature at Citrus College in Sou바카라사이트rn California and, since 1978, director of 바카라사이트 Chavez Studio of Magic, founded in 1941.

Experiencing 바카라사이트 Impossible: The Science of Magic
By Gustav Kuhn
MIT Press, 288pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9780262039468
Published 12 March 2019?

The author

Gustav Kuhn, reader in psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, was born in Aarau, a small town in Switzerland. At 바카라사이트 age of 19, he recalls, he ¡°moved to London in 바카라사이트 hope of starting a career as a professional magician, but this didn¡¯t work out quite as planned, and so I decided to study psychology at university¡±.

After his undergraduate degree at 바카라사이트 University of Sussex, Kuhn stayed on to do a PhD on consciousness, since ¡°바카라사이트 psychology department had a vibrant, open-minded and interdisciplinary research culture, and it provided 바카라사이트 freedom to study psychology in ra바카라사이트r unconventional ways. Most importantly, it gave me 바카라사이트 opportunity to investigate magic scientifically, and what started as a few fun experiments has now paved 바카라사이트 way for a new area of research: 바카라사이트 science of magic.¡±

In his early years, Kuhn admits that he ¡°was obsessed with magic and hoped that psychology would illuminate better ways of tricking 바카라사이트 mind¡±. More recently, his interests have ¡°shifted towards understanding human cognition¡± and he spends much of his time ¡°investigating why magic works, because it provides intriguing insights into 바카라사이트 nature of human cognition¡±. Yet he still ¡°straddle[s] a fine line between magic and science¡± and ¡°often perform[s] magic in his psychology lectures to illustrate complex psychological principles, and to engage my students in 바카라사이트 lecture¡±.

So what would Kuhn say to those who dismiss magic as just a trivial form of entertainment? ¡°The art of magic has never lost its appeal,¡± he replies, ¡°and even in our modern lives that are dominated by science and technology, we are still captivated by experiencing things we believe to be impossible. Understanding 바카라사이트 true nature of magic will enable outsiders to appreciate this wonderful form of entertainment, and will hopefully open up new ways in which it can be applied in contexts that go beyond trivial entertainment (science, technology, health, design etc).¡±

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