Welcome to the worlds of Steven Michael Harris (Author, Theorist, Educator and Performer).
There are several techniques that help in creating a successful magic illusion.
1. Ask a question that is inherently flawed.
"How did the handkerchief move from here to here?" The audience struggles to solve the problem and never succeeds because they have accepted the floor rules of the magician in trying to answer a question that never can be answered when the handkerchief never did go from "here to here." (The proper question would be "How did I do this trick?" which is a question magicians rarely ask in such words, especially when the handkerchief never moved in the case where the trick was performed by pre-setting a duplicate or other technique outside of the realm of the question.)
When the answer to a question is not immediately obvious, people tend to seek answers of greater and greater complexity which brings them further and further from the truth.
2. Guide the audience toward a complicated way of solving the problem.
It is human nature to think that when the answer to a problem is not immediately obvious, to seek greater complexity in the explanation of the problem.
("I don't know the answer to this, therefore the answer is not easy.")
3. Misdirection is easier to accomplish if you inflate the language.
A big word creates more mystery than a short one. A technical term uncommon in ordinary discourse is better than a common one. Words of another language help especially. Words that establish an assumption of a truth that has not really been established, especially when that assumption is implied in a subtle way rather than stated, are very helpful.
4. Do your best to create the impression that years of special knowledge and training are needed to perform the trick or even to understand how to perform the trick.
This technique can even work on the smartest of people trying to figure out the mystery of a trick that could be performed by a ten-year-old an hour after purchasing the trick at a magic store. This also helps to increase the effectiveness of directing the audience toward answers of greater complexity. Give yourself a title and never refer to yourself without the title. You are never just "Steve."
5. Point out differences rather than similarities.
When a particular technique is used more than once during an act as the component of different tricks, new terminology and different explanations and setups will keep the pattern from being recognized and keep the mystery intact.
6. Claim that you are invoking forces beyond mortal understanding.
Basically this means that you involve religion. Those who believe in religious ideas that conflict with physics, common sense, daily experience, logic, and personal self-interest are the most likely to believe that the magician is performing "miracles."
7. In the act of performing a trick, never direct your gaze to the place on stage where the mechanisms of the trick are actually being played out.
When trying to figure out the explanation for a mystery, you can look forever to find an answer that will never come if you are looking in the wrong direction. (It is amazing how helpful a dramatic wave of the hand can be in misdirecting an audience in the performance of an illusion. The audience will think the hands had something to do with making the magic happen when the entire trick was performed by stage hands working behind the curtains.)
8. Use social misdirection.
Most people are basically insecure. They have been trained to believe that they must be humble and accept the wisdom of society over their own ability to think and decide. Let them know that what they are about to witness "has astounded many thousands of people on five continents." Most will immediately assume that it is not even worth trying to figure out how it is done if thousands of other people could not figure it out either. (Sometimes tricks have been figured out by people with forms of autism which inhibit their ability to catch social cues and understand the misdirection, so they have an easier time using logic to see how a trick is done. This, by the way, describes the "nerdy" nature of many people who go into performing magic and the same kind of characteristics that can be found in the scientists that have solved the biggest problems in history.)
If you have ever observed people trying to figure out how a magic trick was done, you will see them struggling through different stages. At first they will believe that they can figure out the answer, but the longer and longer they go without solving the mystery, the more complicated the theories they then present to try to explain the trick. The next stage is to beg for clues, sometimes in ways that imply that they now believe that the magician has knowledge beyond their immediate abilities. Eventually the frustration is great enough that they begin to believe that they "will never figure it out."
What I find the most interesting is what happens when you do show them how the trick is performed. Professional magicians don't tell their secrets mostly because it makes people really mad. The answer to the mystery is always much more simple than imagined. Intelligent people will not only become mad when told the answer, but will often argue that the explanation is wrong until they are walked through a repeat of the trick with the mechanisms exposed or until they learn to perform it themselves.
The rejection of a true explanation of the trick can come from an angry reaction concerning status when a person is stumped by somebody they consider less intelligent or with lesser status. As a person gets caught up in the progressive misunderstanding that greater and greater complexity of theory is needed to solve a problem, they don't think such a problem could possibly be solved by somebody of lesser intelligence. But the answers are always more simple than they think.
Every factor I have mentioned concerning the success of keeping a magic trick a mystery is behind the reason that the brain/mind mystery has not been solved until now. Look at the above list and then look at the medical establishment. It does not take very much imagination to see the parallels.
If a mystery has been around for a long time, an assumption of impossibility will surround attempts to get answers. But many answers are much more simple than people think. This gets especially sticky when religion steps in to say that the answers will only come from religion. Darwin’s theories of natural selection and evolution greatly simplify understanding of how a world of incredibly complex animal life could come to fruition. The beauty of his theories are in the simplicity. Simple ideas that work are more likely to stick around. If too many complex mechanisms need to be coordinated for something to happen, then failure of those mechanisms is more likely. (And just like the person who is angry when the simple mechanisms behind a magic trick are explained by a person without enough status, the religions who bought into the idea that only God could create the complexity of life on earth and have claimed that Darwin's ideas are wrong in spite of the massive evidence confirming his theories.)
If you believe any particular thing I write in this website can be proven to be untrue. Let me know. If I need to make a correction, I’ll do that. If you think it is untrue because of some current medical or scientific premise or belief, then check that premise as well. If you look into it deeply enough, you will find that your premise might be built up from another unproven premise. If I can show you ways that your premises might be false, wouldn’t it be important to take me seriously?
There is a lot at stake here. If I’m right about this, millions of lives could be immediately improved. Lives could be saved by a knowledge of how the brain works. I have figured out techniques that should be pursued to find treatments for a large number of different disorders. (The same mechanisms are behind the cause of most disorders in the DSM-IV, so these disorders are not really as different as is currently believed.)
If you believe that my statement that I have found the answer to such a mystery is proof that I am crazy or proof that I am delusional, then you have succumbed to the belief that the answer will never be solved much like the person who believes a magic trick will never be solved when the answer is really very simple.
Read the essays in this website. A lot of new ideas are in here. You might be emotionally inclined to reject my ideas as wrong. That is inevitable. Our emotions are the sum of our experiences in any situation. Too much change is being suggested in this website. It has to feel emotionally wrong because I’m suggesting change in a lot of previously held notions that have been rehearsed into our psyches. When you feel that something is wrong, try to explain why it is wrong. Think about it. What particulars about my writing can you prove to be untrue. If you can’t prove that I’m wrong, then keep reading. It takes a while to get it. You will have to read certain essays more than once to understand them. In some cases you might contact me with your misunderstandings because I must admit that the ability to think of a concept is not the same thing as the ability to communicate it. An explanation that works for one person is not the explanation that works for another. I’ll need to do a lot of tinkering with my writing in order to explain these ideas.
It’s all a magic trick.
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Copyright © 1997-2008
steven michael harris
Lexington, virginia, usa