Secular and stage: magic in this belief world
Illusion, mentalism and the modern, non-religious study of magic.
Secular and stage magic is the non-religious side of the subject: conjuring, illusion, mentalism and the scientific study of how people are fooled. It is honest deception, in which the audience knows it is a performance. The same field includes sceptics and psychologists who study belief. This page covers the performing art and the modern critical study of magic, and does not reveal how any trick is done. It also includes the long modern debate over belief and evidence.
The performing art
Stage magic grew in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from fairground conjuring into theatre. Robert-Houdin, Houdini, Kellar, P. C. Sorcar and many others built the modern show. Magic societies and conventions keep a craft tradition. The art is global, with performers from India, China, Japan, Latin America and Europe, though the field has long favoured Western men in its histories. Public figures such as Houdini, Randi and, more recently, Derren Brown have popularised the idea that tricks can look like psychic powers, and that audiences should know the difference.
Honest and dishonest
The central ethic is that a magician does not claim supernatural power. Mentalists work near that line. Those who claimed real power, such as spiritualist mediums, were exposed by magicians including Houdini. The distinction between entertainment and fraud is the guide's own working rule: if the audience consents to being fooled, it is a show. Magicians in Britain, India and America have campaigned for consumer protection against fraudulent psychics, and some have given evidence in court.
Science of illusion
Psychologists and neuroscientists collaborate with magicians to study attention and perception. Research on inattentional blindness and the misinformation effect owes something to this. Sceptical organisations, from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry to local groups, investigate claims of psychic and healing powers and publish their findings. Performance of mentalism includes cold reading and suggestion, and honest performers announce that these are methods of entertainment and not supernatural gifts, a line that this guide tries to hold.
Who is in the room
Today the audience includes children's parties, television viewers and online followers. The art faces its own debates about inclusion, with more women and performers of colour, and about exposure on social media. Secular study of belief, including cognitive science of religion, treats magic as part of normal human thought. Seen from outside, secular magic shows that the pleasure of wonder does not depend on belief, and that curiosity and scepticism can go together.
Secular and stage on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
🇺🇸 United StatesCurse of Tippecanoe
An urban legend linking US presidential deaths to election years ending in zero.Belief · Cursing and harm Fading
🇺🇸 United StatesKennedy curse
A pattern of tragedies linked to the American Kennedy familyBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇨🇦 CanadaSpoon bending
A magic trick and paranormal claim involving the deformation of metal cutleryBelief · Wonder and entertainment · Power and authority Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 1 moreCurse of 1940
A superstition explaining a long championship drought for the New York RangersBelief · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 1 moreFinancial astrology
A practice linking planetary positions to stock market trendsBelief · Seeing and foretelling · Luck and prosperity Fading
🇺🇸 United StatesAshtar
A channeled extraterrestrial figure central to mid-century American ufology and New Age spiritualityBeing · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Living
🇦🇺 Australia and 3 moreNelson (cricket)
A cricket superstition about the score 111 and the leg-raising ritual to ward it offBelief · Luck and prosperity Living
🇷🇺 Russia and 1 moreTelekinesis
A purported psychic ability to move objects with the mind aloneBelief · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇷🇺 RussiaAugust curse
A Russian belief that severe disasters and national tragedies cluster in the month of August.Belief Living
🇺🇸 United StatesHail Satan
A Satanic exclamation used as ritual greeting, rebel cry, and pop-culture punchlineBelief · Power and authority · Cursing and harm Living
🇺🇸 United StatesBaseball superstition
Rituals and beliefs held by players and fans to influence game outcomesBelief · Luck and prosperity · Protection Living
🇬🇧 United Kingdom and 1 moreSuperman curse
An urban legend linking misfortunes to actors and creators in Superman adaptationsBelief · Cursing and harm Living
🇺🇸 United StatesSecond-term curse
A belief that U.S. presidents face greater trouble in their second term than their first.Belief Historical
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Kennedy curse: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News, Public domain, source
- Spoon bending: Sgerbic, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Curse of Tippecanoe: Albert Gallatin Hoit, Public domain, source
- Hail Satan: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0, source
- Baseball superstition: Johnmaxmena2, CC BY 4.0, source
- Curse of 1940: Trophy: Unknown Photo: Alexey Chernyadyev Derivative work: J . delanoy, CC BY 3.0, source
- Ashtar: Evedawn99, Public domain, source
- Second-term curse: Achille Beltrame, Public domain, source
- Nelson (cricket): Lemuel Francis Abbott, Public domain, source
- Telekinesis: Strobridge Lithographing Co., Public domain, source