User:Jng20fgp/sandbox

Modern day Mentalism Sandbox.

Contents

1 Background of magic

2 Modern day Mentalism

3 Research

4 References

A brief background of magic as entertainment.

Magicians for years have attempted to fool individuals with ‘magic’ and this deception comes in many forms. A sleight of hand artist such as Slydini would be able to make everyday items such as coins or cards disappear, change, or appear (see Now you see me film 2013). This close up magic could be argued to be more believable as the magic happens right in front of the spectators’ eyes, which is worlds apart from the stage performer such as David Copperfield. The stage magician had the advantage of performing from a distance, often on a theatrical set of some sort however the bigger the stage the bigger the magic would have to be, no longer would card or rope magic astound the audience it needed big grand illusions often very theatrical (see Illusionist film 2006). A close up performer would only have their own personality or persona in a performance without the aids of lighting or music. This form of skill quickly drew an audience of performers with a much darker agenda then to entertain, the doors were opened to the swindler or con man. Skills that were previously used to entertain and astound people now became foul of the people that wanted to cheat spectators out of money or items albeit in a casino environment or on a side street. There is one type of magician as yet unmentioned, this style of magician my only be armed with a scrap of paper and a pencil but has an ability to know your pin number, date of birth, even the name of your first love. Mentalists like Max Maven uses a more psychological approach to magic that those of the dexterous card magicians or athletic stage magicians.

Mentalists of modern day are often seen as mental athletes but unlike someone can memorize several shuffled decks of cards (Dave Farrow, total of 59 decks) or solve a Rubix in 3.47 seconds (Yusheng Du) mentalism is 80% performance. The Mentalist uses the performance to their advantage, now here there is 3 different types of available playing cards however, all with completely different uses dependent on belief. Playing cards used in games and magic tricks, ESP (extra sensory perception) for the study of connection between people (and magic tricks) the last one is maybe the cards that most people are more uncomfortable with, Tarot cards for fortune telling and could be argued magic tricks.

So, returning to mentalism in modern day and the psychology behind it. Many people believe that a mentalist appears to have psychic powers, or a sixth sense rather than a learnt skill (like Geraint’s video clip) and this premise is what the performer use to their advantage. Many historical uses from the mentalist would involve acts such as seances, telepathy, and telekinesis. In order to debunk the fraudsters that their powers were purely magic trick he offered a very hefty wager, Randi himself was an accomplished magician and had a very scientific mindset. In 1964 Randi offered $1,000 to anyone that could prove their power was indeed supernatural, this offer rose to the sum of $1 million which still stands even after his death.

The ability that the mentalist appears to possess unlike the magician can be argued into turning sceptics into believers, the observer of magic sees it as just that ‘a trick’ In 2015 Mohr, Koutrakis, and Kuhn attempted to explore this phenomena that the paranormal could be explained via learnt magic tricks. The background research on this study makes an interesting read for anyone with an interest in magic or the paranormal and can be sourced back historically. Mohr, Koutrakis, and Kuhn study in 2015 used the Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacky 2004) which is separated into seven subscales and being answered using a 7-point Likert scale. Once this questionnaire had been completed, they were asked to interpret the event they were about to experience. Participants were then to experience two different events, the Mental Dice Task from Brugger et al, 1990 and a psychic demonstration performed by a member of The Magic Circle. The complete experiment has been timetabled in this image.

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For the purpose of this sandbox the detailed results will be available in the reference section to the actual paper if what the researchers found is of interest.

With this study the original idea that it is the contextual framing that is evident in how an individual perceives the event albeit magical or paranormal.

Another researcher of magic and mystery, Richard Wiseman has explored magic and its use to perform psychic phenomenon in many papers. The paper Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the séance room by Wiseman et al 2003 found that the type of performance for the event were determined to positively correlate to the observer’s perception of the anomalous event. With this being said this research shows that although there is no evidence that paranormal activity exists there is no evidence to show that it does not. Likewise magic maybe a set of skills that an individual can learn and not theoretically real but the magician toolbox that the evolves through training can, if wanted, move out of the magician stereotype and explore the unknown paranormal or psychic pathway.

In order to further research of the modern mentalist many factors must not be overlooked, as with many psychological studies individual difference will be present. Other factors to further understand the use of magic in mentalism is the observer’s religious beliefs, geographical biases, and cultural biases. As many of the tests or experiments have been conducted in either the UK or USA with a participant base of mainly higher educated participants further research into cultural differences in the perception of the anomalous events observed may effect the results found so far.

References

Brugger, P., Landis, T., and Regard, M. (1990). A sheep goat effect in repetition avoidance – extra-sensory perception as an effect of subjective-probability. ''Br. J. Psychol.'' 81, 455–468.

Mohr C, Koutrakis N and Kuhn G (2015) Priming psychic and conjuring abilities of a magic demonstration influences event interpretation and random number generation biases. ''Front. Psychol.'' 5:1542.

Raz, A., Olson, J. A., Kuhn, G., eds. (2016). The Psychology of Magic and the Magic of Psychology. Lausanne: Frontiers Media. doi: 10.3389/978-2-88945-008-4

Tobacky, J. J. (2004). A revised paranormal belief scale. ''Int. J. Transpersonal Stud.'' 23, 94–98.

Wiseman, R., Greening, E., and Smith, M. (2003). Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance room. ''Br. J. Psychol.'' 94(Pt 3), 285–297.