Experiencing

the impossible
Gustav Kuhn considers the science of magic,
and what it reveals about the human mind

The magician picks up a

little ball, conceals it, and
after waving a magic wand,
it mysteriously disappears
– only to reappear under
a cup that has been in full
view the entire time. You
watch, fully understanding
that objects cannot simply
materialise from thin air.
Yet this is exactly what
you have just experienced:
the impossible.

32

Nick Ellwood/www.nickellwood.co.uk/
M
agic is one of the oldest forms
of entertainment, and for
thousands of years conjurors
have used sleight of hand
(such as the ‘cups and balls’)
and other forms of deception
to manipulate your conscious
experience. Magic deals with
some of the most fundamental psychological and
philosophical questions – consciousness, deception,
free will, beliefs, and so on. Yet it has received far
less academic attention than most other art forms.
However, during the last two decades, scientists
have begun taking a keen interest in understanding
the mechanisms that underpin these mysterious
experiences. In doing so, we may gain new insights
into how the mind works.
Whilst magicians are less concerned with
understanding the inner anatomy of the mind,
their real-world experience in developing magic
tricks has helped them identify profound errors in
human cognition. Indeed, most magic tricks rely on
exploiting surprising and powerful cognitive errors,
and magicians have informally learnt to understand
psychological principles that push our perceptual and
cognitive processes to their breaking points.
The MAGIC lab
Many of our pioneers in psychology, such as
Alfred Binet, had a keen interest in studying magic
(Thomas et al., 2016). During the early days of
the psychologist april 2019 magic
psychology, philosophers and psychologists studied
magic to further their understanding of perception,
consciousness, and even free will (Dessoir, 1893;
Triplett, 1900). However, after this brief flurry of
interest, the scientific study of conjuring lay largely
dormant. Until, that is, the last decade or so: there
has been an exponential increase in the number of
published scientific studies that focus on performance
magic, and an interdisciplinary group of scientists
from across the world are using magic to investigate
a broad range of psychological mechanisms (Kuhn
et al., 2016; see also https://scienceofmagicassoc.org/
home#research).
In the MAGIC (Mind Attention and General
Illusory Cognition) lab at Goldsmiths, we have
scientifically studied magic tricks to explore the
human mind. For example, we use cutting-edge
eye-tracking technologies to investigate how magicians
misdirect our attention, and this work informs us
about why people fail to see things right in front of
their eyes. Jeniffer Ortega studies misdirection and
has demonstrated how misdirection techniques create
huge gaps in our conscious experience – gaps that few
of us are consciously aware off (Ortega et al., 2018).
Magic works because we are typically unaware of our
mind’s limitations, and most magic techniques rely
on exploiting these surprising cognitive biases and
limitations. Magicians don’t simply manipulate what
you perceive – they manipulate your false beliefs
about how much you can perceive. For example,
we intuitively feel that looking is equal to seeing,
and we often advise people to keep their eyes on the

Key sources
Kuhn, G. (2019). Experiencing the
impossible: The science of magic.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Green, D., Schertz, M., Gordon, A.M.
et al. (2013). A multi-site study of
functional outcomes following a themed
approach to hand–arm bimanual
intensive therapy for children with
hemiplegia. Developmental Medicine &
Child Neurology, 55(6), 527–533.
Kuhn, G., Olson, J.A. & Raz, A. (2016).
The psychology of magic and the magic
of psychology [Editorial]. Frontiers in
Psychology, 7(1358).
Lesaffre, L., Kuhn, G., Abu-Akel, A. et
al. (2018). Magic performances – When
explained in psychic terms by university
students. Frontiers in Psychology,
9(2129).
Olson, J.A., Amlani, A.A., Raz, A. &
Rensink, R.A. (2015). Influencing choice
without awareness. Consciousness and
Cognition, 37, 225–236.
Ortega, J., Montañes, P., Barnhart, A.
& Kuhn, G. (2018). Exploiting failures
in metacognition through magic.
Consciousness and Cognition, 65,
152–168.
Spencer, K. (2012). Hocus focus:
Evaluating the academic and functional
benefits of integrating magic tricks
in the classroom. Journal of the
International Association of Special
Education, 13(1), 87–99.
Subbotsky, E., Hysted, C. & Jones, N.
(2010). Watching films with magical
content facilitates creativity in children.
Perceptual & Motor Skills, 111, 261–277.
Thomas, C., Didierjean, A., & Kuhn,
G. (2018). It is magic! How impossible
solutions prevent the discovery of
obvious ones? Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 71(12),
2481–2487.
Thomas, C., Didierjean, A. & Nicolas,
S. (2016). Scientific study of magic.
American Journal of Psychology, 129(3),
313–326.
Triplett, N. (1900). The psychology of
conjuring deceptions. American Journal
of Psychology, 11(4), 439–510.
Vagnoli, L., Caprilli, S., Robiglio, A. &
Messeri, A. (2005). Clown doctors as a
treatment for preoperative anxiety in
children: a randomized, prospective
study. Pediatrics, 116(4), e563–e567.
Full list available in online/app version.
34
task. However, much of our
research shows that people
don’t fail to notice things simply
because they are not looking
in the right place; rather, they
miss things because their mind
is misdirected. In fact, much of
our work shows that people can
look directly at something, yet they
still do not see it. This work has
important practical implications and
explains why it is so dangerous to
drive whilst talking to others on a
mobile phone. Even though you are
looking at the cars in front of you,
the phone conversation distracts
your attention. And it is this mental
distraction, or misdirection, that
prevents you from noticing the
oncoming car.
Controlling your mind through
the magician’s force
Whilst magicians often manipulate
what you see, many of their
deceptive techniques deal with
non-perceptual mental processes,
and these mind hacks provide
intriguing insights into cognition.
For example, ‘forcing’ is a technique
by which magicians manipulate
your choice, such as influencing
you to pick a particular playing
card. The magician might ask you to
pick or think of a card, and whilst
you experience this choice to be
entirely free, the magician actually
forced you to choose that particular
card. Forcing is central to many
magic tricks, and over the centuries,
magicians have developed a wide
range of these powerful, and often
intriguing, mind-control techniques.
Jay Olson at McGill University
has shown that some of these
forcing techniques are extremely
effective at manipulating people’s
decisions without them noticing
how their thoughts have been
influenced (Olson et al., 2015).
Alice Pailhes, a PhD student
in the MAGIC lab, studies the
psychological mechanisms that
underpin a wide range of forcing
techniques, because insights into
this form of mind control can
provide new insight into our sense
of free will. For example, Alice
recently completed a study in which
she used simple gestures and hand movements, based
on a forcing technique developed by Derren Brown, to
covertly influence the card a person chose. She simply
used her hands to mime a diamond shape, and drew
an imaginary figure three in the air, whilst asking a
volunteer to think of a card. Fifteen per cent of the
participants chose the three of diamonds, much higher
than expected by chance with a 52-card deck.
Some of the magician’s forcing principles share
similarities with subliminal perception, a process by
which your thought can be influenced by unconscious
primes. However, most of the reported psychological
effects of unconscious priming are very small, or fail
to replicate. The magician’s forcing techniques are
surprisingly effective and therefore provide a unique
tool to study unconscious mind control. Our sense of
free will may in itself be a compelling illusion.
Misdirecting our reasoning
Other researchers in the MAGIC lab use magic tricks
to study how different deceptive principles influence
the way we think. The Theory of False Solutions is
a misdirection principle through which magicians
manipulate your decision-making process, and
the results from studying this phenomenon have
highlighted surprising ways in which misinformation
influences our thoughts.
Consider magic tricks in which magicians give
their audiences a potential, yet false, solution to the
trick. After a few moments, the magician demonstrates
that this solution is in fact wrong. These tricks are
sometimes also known as ‘sucker tricks’, and Tommy
Cooper performed them masterfully. Cyril Thomas
and I tested this misdirection principle in a scientific
experiment in which Cyril performed a very simple
magic trick in which a playing card magically travelled
from a deck of playing card to his back pocket
(Thomas et al., 2018). Some of the participants were
exposed to a false solution (the magicians palmed a
card), which was later shown to be false (the magician
showed his hand empty). Our results showed that the
false solution ‘fixed’ people’s mind and prevented them
from exploring alternatives: a phenomenon also known
as the Einstellungs Effect.
Our findings have important implications for
the way we process and think about information in
our daily lives. We are continually exposed to false
information, and it is often difficult to distinguish
between real and fake news. Our results carry the
rather worrying implication that even false ideas that
we know to be impossible could affect our reasoning
capacity and prevent us from discovering the truth.
How magic influences our beliefs
Throughout history magicians have pushed at the
boundaries of what we believe to be possible. Ancient
Egyptian priests used conjuring tricks to create the
illusion of communicating with deities; Victorian

spiritualists staged séances that
fuelled beliefs in the spiritual
underworld; and more recently,
magicians have helped perpetuate
beliefs in psychic powers. Most
magicians do not intentionally
aim to misinform the public, and
throughout history magicians have
often helped uncover spiritualists’ Gustav Kuhn is a Reader in
fraudulent claims. Magicians are Psychology at Goldsmiths,
honest about their deception and University of London.
typically tell the audience that what G.Kuhn@gold.ac.uk
they are seeing are simply tricks. www.magicresearchlab.com
The label ‘entertainment magician’
implies that what you are seeing is
not real. However, research shows that knowing that
they are witnessing a magic trick may not necessarily
be enough to protect people from the misinformation
in a performance. Indeed, in the MAGIC lab we
have used magic as a tool to investigate how such
misinformation influences people’s beliefs.
Over the last five years we have used conjuring
techniques to stage anomalous experiences in our
lecture theatre, and we investigate the impact of these
magic demonstrations on people’s beliefs. We do this
by staging a spiritualist mind-reading demonstration
(Lesaffre et al., 2018). As part of the experiment I
introduce the class to a psychic medium, who in reality the same tricks, but they claim to use unconscious
is one of my magician friends. We use multiple layers
of deception to stage a spiritualist demonstration in
Tommy Cooper performed ‘sucker tricks‘ masterfully
the psychologist april 2019 magic
which he convincingly pretends
to read people’s minds and
reveal information about a dead
relative. We have performed these
types of experiments on nearly
1500 students, and I have been
astonished by students’ willingness
to accept the demonstration as
being achieved through genuine
psychic powers, rather than
trickery. All of our participants were
highly educated individuals, and
yet many of them were perfectly
willing to accept scientifically
impossible claims. What is even
more worrying is that people endorse these beliefs
regardless of what they were told beforehand. In some
of our experiments students were told beforehand
that the performer was a magician, rather than a ‘true
psychic’. Despite knowing it was trickery, there was
virtually no impact on people’s beliefs, with many still
claiming that the phenomena were achieved through
genuine psychic powers.
We have found very similar results when magicians
perform magic tricks that rely on pseudo-psychological
principles. In the past, magicians claimed to read
your mind by contacting spirits; today they use
primes, body language, or micro-expressions to read
or influence your thoughts. Derren Brown is one of
UK’s most successful magicians, and has developed a
form of magic that blends trickery with psychology.
He proclaims that his performances work because he
uses ‘Mind Control’. For example, in one performance
piece, Derren Brown claims to use unconscious primes
to control an individual’s mind, which enables him to
predict with extremely high certainty, a ‘freely’ chosen
object by this individual. This explanation, however,
is the ‘packaging’ of the story he tells. Derren Brown
uses conventional conjuring techniques to demonstrate
scientifically implausible psychological phenomena
or to exaggerate the effects of plausible phenomena.
However, we have recently shown that these types
of magic demonstrations profoundly impact people’s
beliefs about the nature of psychology.
In our recently published study, a magician,
Yuxuan Lan, asked a volunteer to hold a coin in one
hand without letting Yuxuan know which hand it
was in. He then proceeded to read the volunteer’s
body language and claimed to be using psychological
profiling to deduce the hand that held the coin.
None of these psychological principles are possible,
and instead Yuxuan used a secret conjuring method
which guaranteed he knew which hand was holding
the coin. Before and after this demonstration, we
measured people’s beliefs in what Yuxuan claimed,
and our results were rather surprising. Witnessing this
magic performance significantly enhanced people’s
beliefs in these pseudo-scientific principles, and this
change in belief was independent of whether the
 participants were told the performer was a magician or
a psychologist. Again, these results demonstrate how
people ignore warnings about the inauthentic evidence
they encounter. Whilst most magicians do not
intentionally aim to misinform the public, these types
of magic performances can have a significant impact on
perpetuating false beliefs about psychology.
Using magic to enhance wellbeing
People rarely think of magic as a way to enhance
wellbeing, but such applications do exist and are, in
fact, growing rapidly in popularity. Until now, this
endeavour has involved a rather disparate group of
techniques, but Steve Bagienski and I have recently
developed a hierarchical framework to help organise
many of these approaches.
Our fascination with magic, and the wonder it
elicits, may connect to a deep-rooted curiosity that
encourages us to keep learning. I believe that we are
captivated by an apparently impossible event because
it pushes us away from the mundane knowledge that
we have already mastered and toward the unknown,
thereby serving an adaptive function in helping us to
expand our knowledge of the world. This starts early:
young infants typically look much longer at events that
violate their understanding of the world.
Might it be possible to harness this expansive
interest to boost creativity? There is evidence that
experiencing magic encourages people to explore
things from new angles. In one such study, children
watched movie clips from a Harry Potter film that
either did or did not contain strong magical content
(Subbotsky et al., 2010). Immediately after watching
these clips, the children completed several standard
creativity tests. Those who had watched the clips with
the magical content were significantly more creative
than those who had not.
Because seeing a magic trick triggers a strong need
to know how the trick was done, this need can also
be harnessed to enhance learning. For example, Matt
Pritchard performs magic in schools across the UK
with a specially designed magic show that encourages
children to learn about science. He does this by
performing relatively simple science magic tricks, after
which he asks the kids how the tricks were done. Our
intrinsic need to work out tricks is a natural way to
get children thinking more critically and to encourage
scientific thinking in a fun and engaging environment.
In addition, magic is simply fun, and Matt’s magic
shows put children in a better mood, which probably
helps them learn more efficiently as well.
Watching magic tricks has also been shown to
help manage pain and anxiety. For example, Gionatan
Labrocca and Edda Oliva Piacentini used magic tricks
to distract children before having their blood taken,
which significantly reduced the amount of pain the
children experienced. In one of my favourite studies,

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36

Nick Ellwood/www.nickellwood.co.uk/
Dentists have dealt with strong-willed children by performing
magic tricks before sitting them down in the dental chair
researchers led by Laura Vagnoli recruited a group
of clowns to perform magic tricks to reduce anxiety
in children who were about to undergo surgery. The
clowns accompanied the children and their parents
into the operating room, performing tricks until the
anaesthetic was applied. This use of magic did indeed
reduce the children’s anxiety, but staff were concerned
that the clowns interfered with the rigid medical
standards of the operating room. On reflection, clowns
and medicine may not have been a perfect mix.
Dentists have likewise dealt with strong-willed
children by performing magic tricks before sitting
them down in the dental chair (Vagnoli et al., 2005).
The tricks made the children more cooperative, and
the researchers suggested that the magic might have
helped these children perceive the dentist as a playful
and approachable ally, thus reducing anxiety.
There has also been a long tradition of enhancing
physical and psychological wellbeing by teaching
people to perform magic. For example, Breathe Magic
developed a training programme to help children
with hemiplegia (a neuromuscular condition that
prevents people from using one side of their body).
These individuals struggle to do simple bimanual
tasks that we typically take for granted (e.g. tying a
shoelace). Whilst physiotherapy programmes can help
these children, children are typically poorly motivated
to engage in these programmes, which involve
repeatedly carrying out painful actions. Breathe Magic
used professional magicians in collaboration with
physiotherapists to design special magic tricks that
the psychologist april 2019 magic
encourage children to use both hands. The results were
remarkable. After a two-week summer magic camp,
the children significantly improved in many bimanual
tasks (Green et al., 2013), and learning these magic
tricks also seemed to help their self-esteem and gave
them a new confidence in socialising.
Teaching children how to perform magic tricks
might also improve learning for students with learning
difficulties. For example, Kevin Spencer developed a
Hocus Focus curriculum that motivates such students
by having teachers integrate the learning of magic
into their lesson plans. Spencer suggests that the
tricks themselves create a strong sense of curiosity
and improve self-esteem by giving students skills that
their non-disabled peers do not have. Teachers report
that magic tricks also help students to actively engage
with the content and to better develop their attention
and problem-solving skills. Although more research
is still needed before we can draw firm conclusions,
these results are encouraging. In collaboration with
Abracademy, we have been teaching magic tricks
to our psychology students at Goldsmiths, and the
results have been very promising. In one of our
randomised controlled trials we have found that the
workshops enhance the way in which students feel
about themselves and help students connect with the
Psychology Department and university more generally.
Magic elicits powerful emotions, and
understanding the nature of these experiences
will hopefully help us harness these psychological
principles to complement and enhance other
therapeutic approaches. Steve Bagienski has recently
identified and reviewed a large number of wellbeing-
and education-focused magic programmes. Only
a small handful of these have been empirically
evaluated, and we still don’t fully understand the
psychological mechanisms by which they work.
Whilst applying magic is unlikely to be a magic bullet
on its own, we do, however, strongly believe that it
provides an immensely useful – and often neglected
– tool alongside other therapeutic and pedagogical
approaches.
Beyond entertainment
I hope that this discussion provides a small glimpse
into some of the ways in which we are using magic to
further the understanding our mind. A full discussion
can be found in my recent book, Experiencing the
Impossible: The Science of Magic. The science of magic
has now become a research field in its own right and
the Science of Magic Association organises a biennial
conference dedicated to furthering our scientific
understanding of magic. The next conference will be
held in July 2019 in Chicago and will bring together
psychologists (e.g. Elizabeth Loftus, Dan Simons) and
world-class magicians (e.g. Mac King, Simon Aronson)
to discuss scientific findings and explore ways in which
magic can help answer scientific questions that go
beyond simple entertainment.