Manipulating the mind
The smaller, quieter half of magician duo Penn & Teller talks about how magic manipulates the human mind:
”Magic is an art, as capable of beauty as music, painting or poetry. But the core of every trick is a cold, cognitive experiment in perception: Does the trick fool the audience? A magician’s data sample spans centuries, and his experiments have been replicated often enough to constitute near-certainty. Neuroscientists—well intentioned as they are—are gathering soil samples from the foot of a mountain that magicians have mapped and mined for centuries.”
The most interesting principle: “If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.” This probably happens more often in our lives than we think…