Call it Magic

When you call it “magic,” it sounds cheesy. Picture overly dramatic guys in top hats or women in skimpy outfits. Maybe a Las Vegas douche bag in a puffy silk shirt.  Gross.

But a series of very real techniques allow people to do unexpected things. Misdirection. Technically perfect slight of hand. Lucky guess. Candidate selection. Extraordinary planning and preparation. Most importantly, the magician just starts the trick without telling you what the trick is. You don’t know what you are supposed to look for the first time around. So you look everywhere.

Magicians create extravagant drama around these techniques. 200 Years ago, people still thought that magic might be real. Or that humans could harness the mysterious power of God. So the magician’s drama was “I am harnessing supernatural power.” That’s dead.

Derren Brown is doing something much more interesting with the techniques of magic. Here is a wonderful video with Derren Brown and Simon Pegg.  It appears that Derren has near-magical psychological powers.

Pretty amazing, right? But he is less careful in this next video. Derren claims to psychologically manipulate the subject, but he actually performs several basic slight of hand tricks in front of the camera. Watch Derren’s hands at 2:43.

It makes me wonder about the Simon Pegg video. What’s happening behind the scenes that we aren’t seeing? Is it really an elaborate slight of hand dressed up as a massive psychological manipulation? I don’t believe Simon Pegg is a willing stooge – but what if he’s being tricked in a different way than it appears?

Perhaps Derren knows that no one really believes in actual supernatural magic anymore. So he performs a slight of hand trick and passes it off as a psychological/mind control feat. When mixed in with real psychological tricks, it feels very powerful. I’ve never been interested in magic, but I’m so inspired by this. It’s brilliant.