Igor Lipinski

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“The wonders of magic seem to prove that happiness is born of ignorance, but when we study the mysterious art more carefully we learn that knowledge gives birth to more genuine happiness.”

- Karl Germain, American Magician

Several years ago, I read an excellent interview on the neuroscience of magic. In the interview conducted by Jonah Lehrer for WIRED magazine, Teller (of Penn & Teller) reveals the true purpose behind the art of magic:

“People take reality for granted,” Teller says shortly before stepping onstage. “Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn’t mean it is simple.”

For Teller (…) magic is more than entertainment. He wants his tricks to reveal the everyday fraud of perception so that people become aware of the tension between what is and what seems to be. Our brains don’t see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with relatively simple algorithms for what things are supposed to look like. Magicians capitalize on those rules. “Every time you perform a magic trick, you’re engaging in experimental psychology,” Teller says. “If the audience asks, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ then the experiment was successful. I’ve exploited the efficiencies of your mind.”

But perhaps the most beautiful definition of magic comes from Teller in the NYTimes article on the same subject. So what is magic?

“The theatrical linking of a cause with an effect that has no basis in physical reality, but that – in our hearts – ought to.”

On being present

This is a short clip from a theater masterclass that voice and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg gave in NYC a few years ago. I have seen it for the first time when TED featured it on its main website. Listen to her two stories on the importance of theater and the importance of actors in today’s society.

“Being present, being in a moment, being engaged, being connected (…) And as an actor, a performer, a sportsperson, if you are not able to get present, you cannot succeed.” I agree with her completely. As a society, we are loosing our presence. Theater, and for that matter music too, is an extremely powerful medium that enables us to regain that lost connection with each other and to create the sense of shared joy and contagious energy. But if the performer isn’t fully engaged in his work or he doesn’t quite believe in it, he won’t play the truth and the connection will never be made.

Finally, let’s turn to magic. In the most fascinating book on psychology of magic performance Derren Brown’s “Absolute Magic”, Brown quotes Teller (of Penn & Teller), Las Vegas-based magician and one of the most ingenious minds in the contemporary theater. As Teller wisely captures in his conversations with Brown, “In most magic, as far as I can see, the plot is, “I wish for something. I get it. And it’s what I want (…) The “cause” in this case is the “magician’s will.” He wills it; it comes true. This is not a drama about a human being. It is the depiction of a god, generally a capricious and trivial one. And it’s just as dull as the biography of any omnipotent being would be. It contains not a smidgen of genuine conflict. And without this conflict, the magician in a position of god-like power at all times has not a flicker of humanity… Now, lest you think I’m talking about staging everything as a “magic play” (which generally revolt me) let me say at once to be true conjuring, the scene must be here in the theatre or the cabaret or the room; the time must be now at 7:10p.m. Philadelphia time. The characters must, at least in some sense, include the magician, the audience, the stagehands, ideally the security guard. Here and now is all part of the grammar of this art form.”

Here and now is all part of the grammar of this art form.