CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/26/2019

'The Spectacle of Illusion' is a new release this week!

We are proud to have published The Spectacle of Illusion, London-based professional magician-turned experimental psychologist Dr. Matthew L. Tompkins' new investigation of the history of deception, magic and the paranormal. A brilliant study revealing the many ways that the human mind allows, even wills, itself to be tricked, this should be standard reading for anyone interested in aesthetics, human behavior or psychology. "Illusions are possible because, like any complex system, our minds exhibit certain structural eccentricities, which, in our day-to-day lives, are often adaptive or negligible," Tompkins writes. "Magic tricks and misdirection techniques exploit such eccentricities, and can be interpreted as benevolent entertainments, malevolent frauds and everything in between. Magic reminds us that everyone can be deceived, and that, in general, when something appears to fundamentally violate well-established laws of physics, you are probably experiencing it from a very particular angle…" Featured image is an 1866 double exposure photograph, by F.A. Dahlström, of German magician Jacoby-Harms "overcome at the sight of airborne instruments."