There’s a fascinating story in the NYT about the science of how magic works and what that says about consciousness. Teller and some other magicians are included in the article (and the study in question apparently):
As he ran through the trick a second time, annotating each step, we saw how we had been led to mismatch cause and effect, to form one false hypothesis after another. Sometimes the coins were coming from his right hand, and sometimes from his left, hidden beneath the fingers holding the bucket.
He left us with his definition of magic: “The theatrical linking of a cause with an effect that has no basis in physical reality, but that — in our hearts — ought to.”
Yeah, I’m a sucker for this stuff, in every possible sense. (The magic, the science, the theory, etc.)