Magic, the Paranormal and the Complicity of the Mind

Dr. Matthew L. Tompkins investigates the arts of deception as practiced and popularized by mesmerists, magicians, and psychics throughout history.

Professional magician-turned experimental psychologist Dr. Matthew L. Tompkins investigates the arts of deception as practiced and popularized by mesmerists, magicians, and psychics throughout history.

Matt, the author of The Spectacle of Illusion: Magic, the paranormal and the complicity of the mind, will discuss how illusions perpetuated by magicians and fraudulent mystics can not only deceive our senses but also teach us about the inner workings of our minds. And how modern scientists are increasingly turning to magic as tool for exploring human perception, memory, and belief.

Join Matt as he mixes historical stories with magical scientific demonstrations to reveal how our everyday cognitive processes can be much weirder than we imagine - and how complicit our own minds can be in the success of illusions. This talk will feature true stories of ghost rapping, mind reading, lethal autopsies, full-body-cavity ghost hunts, death defying stunts, and death…obeying stunts (i.e., stunts where the performers accidentally died for real, so literally the opposite of 'death defying’).

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