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Magic in Theory
 
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Magic in Theory (Hardcover)

by Peter Lamont (Author), Richard Wiseman (Author)
2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: University of Hertfordshire Press (22 Nov 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0900458933
  • ISBN-13: 978-0900458934
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 924,165 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Product Description
Magic, properly performed, is a complex and skilful art, and is capable of deceiving anyone. One of the reasons why so little information is available to non-magicians interested in the topic is that magicians are understandably relectant to expose conjuring methods. Magic is a secretive business. Psychologists have long recognised that they may have much to learn from the techniques used by magicians to fool their audiences. Parapsychologists are aware that many individuals claiming to be psychic use magic tricks to fabricate paranormal phenomena. Failure to detect such fraud can lead to serious consequences, including loss of funding and negative publicity. Greater theoretical understanding of conjuring and psychic fraud will raise awareness of how vulnerable observers can be. Parapsychologists, psychologists and magicians have all written about the strategems that lie behind successful conjuring. Each has approached the topic from different viewpoints. This book is an attempt to draw together these different theoretical approaches and present them in a way that is accessible to a non-technical readership. It is partly based on interviews conducted with present-day magicians, many of who are internationally recognized by the magical fraternity for their insight into conjuring psychology and theory.

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2 Reviews
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Mostly useless, 29 April 2007
By M. Wilkinson (Portsmouth, Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
I found this book in a bibliography of a recent thriller that had some elements of magic within it and ordered this to chase up the theme and learn more about it. Perhaps I should have thought more about it but from the title you could be forgiven for thinking it would be interesting. The fact is its not. The talk about misdirection is really just common sense things and makes you feel that the standard of writing is really quite amateurish. If you're interested in pursuing magic you won't find more than a couple of well described tricks which would be unimpressive even if it all went to plan. It says most books on magical theory are for magicians... ok... why would someone not interested on the insider's perspective want such a book? Well they wouldn't.

Steer clear of this book. If you want to learn magic there are many many better books. If you want to learn the psychology, ideas about misdirection, then it might be best to pick that up from the other books as you go along. Don't waste your money on this.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Mostly very academic and rarely interesting, 30 Dec 2007
By Theis Egeberg (Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
It is a very academic attempt at writing a framework for describing magic. I doubt it will ever be used as it isn't intuitive or very rich in terminology. The book might do well in some circles but among magicians I think it will fail. The thing that gives it two stars is its very concise and elegant description of misdirection, that chapter I will read over and over again... thinking about it I might as well tear those pages out and throw away the rest of the book.
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