What Magic Teaches Us About Beliefs & Polarization | Jeanette Andrews
🔍 Key insights
Magic as Consensual Deception – Jeanette Andrews describes magic as the rare act where we consent to be deceived. It reveals how belief, trust, and scrutiny can coexist in paradox.
The Ethics of Manipulation – Magic might be a way to experience ethically with deception, offering a model for how influence and intention intersect.
Perception, Belief & Cognitive Bias – From phenomenology to data visualization, Andrews shows how magicians expose the fragile scaffolding of our perception — the ways our minds “fill in the gaps” of reality.
📚 Go deeper
🎥 Related videos:
Gustav Kuhn – The Neuroscience of Magic – A cognitive scientist explores how magicians exploit the limits of attention and perception.
Apollo Robbins — The Art of Misdirection – A legendary pickpocket demonstrates how attention works—and how it fails.
Donald Hoffman – Do We See Reality As It Is? – A cognitive scientist argues that our perceptions evolved to hide reality, not reveal it.
📖 Further reading:
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – A foundational book on how our minds are built on shortcuts, illusions, and biases.
Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms – Explores the psychology behind illusion, audience perception, and belief.
🎧 Podcast to listen to:
Magical Thinking — You Are Not So Smart — The episode explores how our tendency toward “magical thinking” reveals how easily we deceive ourselves and others, and what that means for perception, memory and belief.
💡 Think for Yourself
When was the last time you knew something was false but still felt it was real (e.g., ghosts)?
How do you decide when to trust your senses and when to doubt them? Is it reliable?
☁️ Thought Experiment
You and a friend attend the same magic show. Afterward, you describe moments they swear never happened. If your memories disagree, whose version of reality is true?
Cheers,
Kevin