I happened to stumble across the book "Sleights of Mind" on the Amazon website and ordered it. I enjoyed it tremendously and would recommend it to any serious student of magic theory and misdirection.

The book is written by two neuroscientists, who explain how magic uses, exploits and "hacks" the hardwired circuits in the human brain to produce the illusions and magic tricks that we all know and love. If you've ever wondered exactly how a Retention Vanish deceives the eye, why Black Art renders objects invisible, why the Professor's Nightmare appears to be three equal lengths of rope, or how a false transfer works, this is the book for you. The section on the old "Magician's Choice" gambit is also good, and should be of interest to pitchmen and anyone else who sells anything. Click HERE for more info.


Numerous professional magicians, including Randi, Jamy Ian Swiss, Johnny Thompson and Teller, contributed to the book and their insights are fascinating. The anecdotes are good, too -- such as the time a magician challenged noted physicist Richard Feynman to explain how a trick (Ambitious Card) was done. After Feynmann had indeed figured it out, the magician did the exact same trick again but used a different method, which drove Feynman crazy. The scientist couldn't believe that "a magician would stoop so low." But we all know better, don't we? SETH

This looks great! Thanks for the tip.

Reading it right now. So far so good.