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Author: Rick Carruth

That’s not magic: Penn, Teller and Derren Brown reveal all (or do they?)

That’s not magic: Penn, Teller and Derren Brown reveal all (or do they?)

Brian Logan for the Guardian..

In tune with our sceptical times, magicians debunk the supernatural. But are they really as rationalist as they claim?

It’s odd that we use the same word to describe those who merely pretendto make magic happen on stage. Few in their audience – kids notwithstanding – may ever have believed that stage conjurors genuinely dabble in the supernatural, but at least that’s what the acts occasionally purported to do. They called themselves magicians because they enjoyed generating the sense that what they did on stage was real magic.

Not any more. These days, the big magic acts – including the biggest of them all, Penn and Teller, who are in the UK this week – debunk the supernatural. Derren Brown’s another prime example..

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How Magic Can Help Underprivileged Israeli Teenagers Get Ahead..

How Magic Can Help Underprivileged Israeli Teenagers Get Ahead..

Iris Mansour for The Tablet..

Ophir Samson was sitting with a friend last year at one of his favorite restaurants in Jaffa when a young waiter approached the table, reached behind Samson’s ear, and pulled out a gold coin. After a brief moment of confusion, Samson smiled as he managed to place him: Over eight weeks in early 2012, Samson had taught magic tricks to a group of 15 teenagers at Jaffa’s Arab-Jewish Community Center. More than a year had passed, but this former student clearly remembered what he’d been taught.

The kids at the Community Center, Samson said, were typical teenagers: hard to control but energetic and engaging. They’d call their British-born teacher “Harry Potter” but would quiet down at the chance to learn a trick and the subtle steps and technical skills—practiced for hours, yet unnoticed by an audience—that turn a rusty amateur into a confident magician.

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