Tag: Deception

A Test in Inattentional Blindness: Are You Ready?

Jack Queen


!!! WARNING !!!

The following test may cause extreme temporary self-contempt! Participate at your own risk, and don’t blame me for your likely failure, please!

 

O.K., first question to all you cardicians out there: About how many hours of your life have you logged in so far toying or practicing with a deck of cards in your hands? 1,000 hours? 10,000? Maybe even 100,000? (That would be my guess for the likes of Richard Turner and Roberto Giobbi!)

Anyway, you are pretty familiar with a standard poker deck of cards in USPCC design, aren’t you? I bet you bet you are!

So, here are a few simple questions then. If you have a deck in your hands right now, put it away. If you don’t carry one now, good. Keep away from the nearest box. And don’t peek! (I would notice.)

Ten questions to shake your cardboard world:

(1) How many different print colors do the regular court cards display, including black?
(Don’t guess! Envision the cards and try to remember their precise look!)

OK, that was quite easy for a starter, wasn’t it? Go on…

(2) When we look at all twelve court cards, how many of them are looking to our left?

I think I already got you on this one. But there’s more to come…

(3) How many court cards are shown in profile (and not full-face)?

(4) Which Queen is holding more than just a flower in her hand?

(5) Which King does not hold a sword?

(6) Which Jack is holding what looks like a fancy mirror (or maybe even a magic paddle)?

(7) How many Jacks do sport a fancy mustache? (And which ones?)

(8) And how many Kings don’t? (And which ones?)

(9) Only the Jack and Queen of which suit do not look into the same direction?

(10) Bonus question: How many of the regular 52 cards of a deck feature an asymmetrical design?

OK, that’s it.

And here’s my Super Ultimate No Stooges-Threads-Magnets-Switches-MO Prediction:

You have failed miserably! You mostly have no clue.

But don’t worry, almost everybody is in the same boat with you!

And now go back to your deck for a reality check and study the cards closely, as closely as probably never before in your life! I won’t post the correct answers here so later readers can enjoy (?) this test, too.

If you got just five (or even more) answers out of ten right (by knowing, not by lucky guessing!), I bow deeply and salute you! In that case, if you shoot me a proud and honest e-mail at zzzauber [at] arcor dot de, I will be happy to send you a free commercial and visual trick with a marvellous card-finding sword stunt performed by one of the Kings!

<<>>>

To make you feel better, I’ll post a brief explanation of this disturbing phenomenon in a few days. Rejoice, this is not about you and your shortcomings; it’s all about our brain, the way we perceive, filter and store information (or don’t)! That’s why so often we look, but don’t see…

 

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by Categories: ENG, Funtasta, Täuschungen, TheoryTags: , , , 1 Comment

Where Magic and Warfare Meet

EMHC Vienna 2019 Head

Today’s the day! I am humbled and excited to speak at the 8th European Magic History Conference (EMHC) in Vienna, Austria. You can download the full program brochure here.

I’ll be pursuing some of the many roads where magic and warfare intersect, which is quite a fascinating and multi-layered topics. These aspects include

  • the surprisingly military lingo of magicians
  • the constant “wars” some magicians are fighting
  • some magicians who were also involved in military deception (like Robert-Houdin, Jasper Maskelyne, John Mulholland, and Barton Whaley)
  • how, particularly during the Second World War, entire “ghost armies” appeared and disappeared; trucks turned into tanks and vice versa; dummy planes, trains, tanks and explosive sheep (!) helped to mislead or surprise the enemy; and deception plans were used successfully in at least five major operations of the War
  • the fact that the concept of deception has been rooted deeply in strategic and tactical warfare for thousands of years
  • the main similarities and differences between military deception and our friendly art of deception for entertainment purposes
  • some magic victims of warfare and
  • some truly “magical” war anecdotes.

I have read and acquired way too much material to put it all into my 25 minute presentation, so I guess I’ll be sharing quite a few bits and pieces here over time. Stay tuned!

Here’s my favorite picture from the presentation:

TankIllusion

 

 

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Wishful Thinking and Automatic Rejections: Erdnase and Voynich

ZZZauber_Erdnase_Fr
An early quest in Genii Magazine

This fascinating article by medieval scholar Lisa Fagin Davis published in The Washington Post was brought to my attention the other day via a post over at the Genii Forum.

Dealing with the annoying recurrent and premature claims by various authors for having solved the riddle of the legendary Voynich manuscript, Davis shares a number of critical observations and very reasonable recommendations. With striking similarity they also match the proceedings and the heated discussions over new “findings” about the Erdnase authorship in our field of interest.

Thus, I have extracted the relevant paragraphs from the article below and added the corresponding Erdnase references, so ((double brackets)) around original text and bold additions are mine:

Why do people keep convincing themselves they’ve solved this ((medieval)) mystery?

For ((centuries)) decades, the ((Voynich Manuscript)) Erdnase authorship has resisted ((interpretation)) discovery, which hasn’t stopped a host of would-be readers from claiming they’ve solved it.

Every few months, it seems, a new theory is trumpeted ((by the new media)) beneath a breathless headline.

But most would-be interpreters make the same mistake ((as Newbold)): By beginning with their own preconceptions of ((what)) whom they want ((the Voynich)) Erdnase to be, their conclusions take them further from the truth.

Like others before them, ((these)) authors tend to go public prematurely–and without proper review by the real experts. Word of each new solution spreads across the ((globe)) Genii Forum in minutes.

Almost Dozens of solutions have been proposed in the past ((century)) decades alone, most of them more aspirational than they are substantive.

I recently received an ugly and threatening direct message . . . referring in detail to my critique . . . For some, apparently, the stakes appear to be irrationally high.

. . . undercooked solutions presented without context lead readers down a rabbit hole of misinformation . . .

Every new ((Voynich)) Erdnase theory offers an opportunity for readers to exercise healthy, critical skepticism . . . Proposed solutions shouldn’t automatically be rejected (the default reaction of most ((medievalists)) Erdnasians), but they should be approached with caution. Seek out expert opinions, and do some follow-up reading. It shouldn’t take ((a Voynichologist)) an Expert expert to spot a leap of logic or an argument based on wishful thinking instead of solid facts.

. . . we tend to bring our preconceptions with us to the table. The more we burden the manuscript with what we want it to be, the more buried the truth becomes.

To truly understand the past, we have to let it speak for itself. The ((Voynich)) Erdnase Manuscript has a voice–we just need to listen.

Chapeau, Ms Davis, I’d say you’ve nailed it! For Voynich, Erdnase, and beyond.

I think it would be fun and revealing to browse through the Erdnase thread over at the Genii Forum again with this checklist in hand.

This brief text should be required reading for all (amateur) historians and over-enthusiastic secret-solvers, don’t you think? Please help spread the word!

Addendum:

Here’s a related article by the same author. It ends with this plea:

To those of you out there in Voynich-land who are even now working on decrypting or deciphering this “elegant enigma,” please take heed of Manly and Mendelsohn’s words of caution: in order to be accepted as legitimate, your solution must be logical, repeatable, take into account the verifiable published scientific analyses, and result in a reading that makes sense both intellectually and chronologically.

Solid advice!

Ah, were it not for the chronological discrepancy, I might have solved the Erdnase puzzle back here… 😉

 

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Georges Méliès, the Painter

Elsewhere I have already written (in German) about a fine recent art exhibition in Munich and Aachen on “Lust for Deception”–and thus manipulating perception–through the centuries. (You can see some pictures here.) It was a fitting tribute to include magician and movie pioneer Georges Méliès with a number of short, deceptive stop-trick clips which ran nonstop on a special screen.

But later, I was much more surprised to discover an amazing painting by the same artist in the huge trompe l’oeil section. I must admit that I had not been aware of his other immense talent. Had you? His “Self-Portrait of the Artist” (below, exact date unknown) certainly deserves special mention, both out of itself and in the light of his real/reel profession.

MeliesSelf
Web Screenshot

I have asked The Great Googelini for advice, but even he could not conjure up a significant number of other “traditional” paintings by Méliès. But as I learned here, he apparently aspired to work as a painter early on. Instead, he became a magician and a visionary pioneer of filmmaking who painted his own fanciful scenery and smokescreens.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Addendum 26.08.2019:

As I’ve just learned from French fellow magician and Méliès expert Frédéric Tabet at EMHC, the attribution of this painting to him (Méliès, that is) is highly questionable in the light of recent research. For example, the person depicted does not even remotely look like Méliès, nor does the signature match… So let’s be careful here!

By the way, Frédéric has an academic book out (in French) about Méliès and the relations of magic techniques and cinema in its early years. If you can read French fluently, you may want to check this out.

 

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Well Said, Mr. Lamont!

Magic is not about fooling the audience. Magic depends on successful deception, but that is the means, not the end. Of course, the audience should not know how it is done, but this is a basic requirement, not the goal. The goal is not to provoke the experience of not knowing how it is done. The goal is not the experience of ignorance; it is the experience of magic. The audience are not the enemy; they are the people for whom we provide this experience. The goal of the magician is to create the effect that something happens that cannot happen. This is a paradox. It is a source of wonder. This is a profound and worthy goal.

Peter Lamont on “What is magic?”

 

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