Feature: Modern Magic


I wrote this feature ("For my next trick") about stage magic and scepticism for Prospect magazine. Two of the most interesting magicians I spoke to were Luke Jermay, who read my mind alarmingly specifically in Finsbury Park's Costa Coffee, and "scholarly magician" Todd Landman (of Essex University's political science faculty by day). They follow in a long tradition of magicians, stretching back to Houdini, who make no claim to supernatural gifts. Yet audiences impressed by the shows' artistry find themselves caught between a desire to believe and the will to doubt.

Here's an excerpt:

In his “scholarly magic” shows, Todd Landman uses tricks to make people reconsider the way they think. He says that, for a recent trick he performed at a party, he stopped a woman’s watch. She said, “‘That’s fantastic, you stopped the second hand for five ticks.’ But others were staring at me with their arms crossed over their chests, and said: ‘You didn’t stop her watch; you suspended our belief in time for five seconds.’ So I ask: which is more plausible? I love that grasping for explanation.”