The First Strategy: Forget Reality
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
—Albert Einstein
Scene: This really happened. It’s the mid-1970s, and Doug Henning is re-energizing magic with his own form of magical wonder. He walks onto a Broadway stage, his pants one of those strange 1970s colors, and he’s holding a newspaper, reading it, and turning to the audience: “The only thing a magician really does is to ask one question: ‘What’s real, and what’s illusion?’”
Henning pages through the newspaper and says: “Now, the illusion begins. I call this an illusion because I never actually tear the newspaper at all.” He rips the paper in half, and again, and again, and again, five times in total. Each time you see and hear the newspaper tear. “In fact, some people even come back stage after the show.” Henning admits. “And they say: I could have sworn you tore that newspaper …. But they’ve been deceived, because I haven’t actually torn the paper at all …. You can’t trust your senses. You don’t believe me?” “Oh, look!” Henning instantly restores the entire newspaper! Or did he ever tear it at all? The audience gasps and claps, but still Henning’s question runs in their mind: “What’s real, and what’s illusion?”
This is the same question a now famous “scientific and experimental film about perception” inspires. You may have seen it: Three people in white shirts and three in black pass a basketball back and forth. Viewers are asked to count how many times the players wearing white pass the ball. When the short film is over, audience members argue amicably over the number. Fourteen? Thirteen? Fifteen? Not one of them, however, comments on the man, dressed in an absurd gorilla costume, who strolls back and forth through the frame, even pausing to pound his fake gorilla chest. They are all “victims” of what psychologists call “intentional blindness.” Asked to count basketball passes, basketball passes are all they perceive. Asked whether Doug Henning is really tearing the newspaper, seeing and tearing the newspaper is all they perceive. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.
Please go to this link for a chapter one video summary.
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