Psychology
Amazing Psychology: In the Mind of a Magician
by Aria Akachi
Most people have the magician the image of this mysterious artist, with a magic wand, often dressed in a cloak and a top hat, ready to bring out a rabbit. They have the image of this prodigy able to make appear or disappear all kinds of things from nowhere: doves, cards, scarves …
For the general public, the magician can also cut his partner into several pieces without hurting him or even levitating. Some people, even, swear to have seen such an illusionist go from one place to another in the twinkling of an eye: for a moment he is there, under your eyes, and the moment after he finds himself the opposite of the room.
He is an indestructible person: he can be locked in a box pierced with javelins and come out unscathed. It can even, it is said, read in your most secret thoughts and predict the future.
The art of mastery of attention
How does a magician manage to persuade a large audience that he is capable of performing such miracles? What psychological strategies does he use to provoke astonishment, surprise, and manipulate the conscience of his fellows? Prestidigitation is an ancient art.
Since the dawn of time, man has wanted to possess powers that others did not have. And failing to develop real, he found ways to simulate them. Thus, over the centuries, the illusionists, become masters in the art of diversion of attention and persuasion, have instinctively developed terribly effective strategies to convince, both on stage and in their daily lives.
Because the magician of today is involved in the world of business. He does not necessarily have a suit, hat, it’s mostly a man or a woman research that studies human behavior intuitively.
There are a lot of masters who have been able to bring the art of conjuring to the highest level: Dai Vernon , Albert Goshman , Fred Kaps and many others. All were able to combine talent with reflection.
All were able to transmit their vision of this art. And this is the chance of the magicians: they evolve in an environment in constant research and development. Being interested in magicians and understanding their mechanics allows you to broaden your vision of the world, to access new ways of thinking and thinking.
These skills, useful in the professional and personal life, also allow to develop his creativity, his fine motor skills, his capacity for learning: the list, really, can quickly become exhaustive.
Since 2006, several researchers have been interested in magic tricks from a cognitive and cerebral point of view. Especially in the United States, where the team of Susana Martinez Conde and Stephen Macknik , surrounded by eminent magicians like Adam , Apollo Robbins , James Randi , Max Maven, studies the techniques used by illusionists to manipulate consciousness. They called this science neuromagic.
The neuromagie studying millennia practices magicians in order to better understand the attention and consciousness. The purpose of this new approach is obviously not to update all the secrets of magicians, but rather to better understand the brain, perception, memory.
Future applications seem to be moving toward therapy, especially for people with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as those with attention disorders.
So why this site? Many magicians dread what is commonly called the debauchery of revealing their stuff in a purely gratuitous way. You may have experienced it through the small screen: a few years ago, in particular, a masked magician presented a series of shows revealing the greatest secrets of magicians.
This program, very poorly perceived by the magical world has not yet shaken in its tracks: today more than ever, the art of conjuring is developing, the world of magicians evolves … and the public too. It is above all our passion for this art that is illusionism, but also for the psychology and the mysteries of the brain, which pushed us to write this book.
With however a trigger. For some years now, and probably for longer than it seems, it is not uncommon to meet wizards who, for one reason or another, have chosen to leave the artistic milieu. Some are committed to put forward a product, so as to create a strong emotion.
Others intervene in the training environment and draw parallels between conjuring and other themes, Suzanna Martinez Conde and Stephen Macknik
Psychology and illusionism
Although the approach is very interesting, it is not always easy to understand the links that unite the psychological techniques of magicians with the daily lives of professionals. Can the springs of the psychology of illusionism adapt to everyday life? If so, in what ways?
Through this manual we invite you to enter the fascinating world of these enchanting artists who are commonly called “magicians”. A word of warning however: when reading this blog, you will not know how to cut a woman in two. You will not know how David Copperfield removed the Statue of Liberty.
If you want to know the secret of levitation, you will be at your expense: no explanation will be given here. But then what is the interest of this blog? Simply to show you that, despite the incredible complexity of your brain, as well as your ability to reason, or to create, you remain at the mercy of the slightest illusion of everyday life.
The purpose of this site is not to reveal tricks of magic, but to understand this science – because it is a science – that allows the magician to create illusions. What is an illusion if not an effect of persuasion? What does a magician do when he removes a coin? Does it really disappear? No of course not.
On the other hand, he persuades you that she has disappeared. What does a mentalist read in thought? Is he really able to guess what you hide deep within yourself? No, but it makes you believe it strong enough for you to be convinced. The magicians, at a certain level, are masters in the art of convincing.
They manage to stifle the critical spirit of the spectators and lead them to consider as true an illusion, whether visual or cognitive. These psychological techniques are not only used by the magicians. In any fiction, whether in the cinema or the theater, we find the same springs that contribute to suspend, the time of a show, a recreation, our ability to perceive the truth from the false.
These same stratagems are also used by advertising or marketing and rely mainly on ancestral knowledge of manipulating your beliefs, values and analytical ability. The goal of this site is first to train you to the magical arts (which requires a job, a self-investment AND financial) and give you some keys to human behavior.
To make you aware that your critical mind can play tricks at any moment. By introducing yourself to the theories and practices of the magicians, you will undoubtedly gain in communication, negotiation and persuasion skills, and you will strengthen your self-confidence.
Because, you’ll quickly understand: a magician, if he wants to carry out an illusion, must have a perfect mastery of his body language and verbal, his expressions, his movements. Here, precision is the key word. In the end, you will also learn to stay more critical and to balance things out.
About the Author
Aria is a blogger passionate about entrepreneurship, startups and the web in general. She worked in several web agencies and is now an independent web marketing consultant. She is a lot passionate about writing keeping in mind what the modern genre follows. She creates attractive content pieces for particular businesses and help them grow their niche.
One thought on “Amazing Psychology: In the Mind of a Magician”
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As a clinical counselor, I often use my skills as an amateur magician in therapy: it helps to get an alliance with kids and teens, by revealing how some tricks are done, helps kids who feel they have no control in their lives feel a bit of control, and makes excellent object lessons for adults in the area of making assumptions, cognitive bias, and where we put our attention.