What is magic?

Magic is defined as an extremely unexpected result that is achieved deliberately by the magician.

Here I will show that magic is nothing but trickery.

Magic tricks

The magician is deceiving the audience by misleading his attention. While the audience is focused on something else, the magician is doing the magic.

Self fulfilling prophecy

When you believe the prophecy, you make actions that make it happen.

Random predictions

For a group of 800 people, predict A for 400 and not A (the opposite) for the other 400.

Now you made true prediction for 400 people. Divide this group to 2 groups of 200 people and repeat the procedure. After 5 iterations, you will have a group of 25 people who believe that your predictions will always come true.  (bible code)

Brain correlation

The brain is a neural network that finds correlations on its sensory input. we tend to remember correlated data and ignore non correlated input data. This way the magician does "magic": when the magic succeeds, you remember it and when it fails you forget it.

Clever Hans

Clever Hans was a horse who seemed to be able to solve arithmetic exercises.

Hypnosis (healing)

When the healer is hypnotizing you to believe and feel what he wants.

Placebo effect

Placebo effect occurs when a person believes that the medication that he takes or the medical treatment is causing him to fill better, even when the treatment has no biological effect.

 

Who was clever Hans? ►

 

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See also

• What is the placebo effect?
• Do black cats bring bad luck?
• Is astrology real or fake?
• Can people predict the future?
• Is mind reading possible?