Apollo is a friend of mine - and he's without a doubt one of the most talented, intelligent performers working today. He has a frighteningly sharp understanding of misdirection, and how to control where you are looking and when.
While a magician of sorts, Apollo's talent is unique from magic in that the secret is just as entertaining as the effect. Our company [http://theory11.com] is a collective of artists in the magic industry, but Apollo's expertise extends much further, to applications in law enforcement and military intelligence.
Apollo practices not only pickpocketing, but also putpocketing, where he plants an object on the spectator (in their pocket, etc). Their reaction, upon reaching into their pocket to discover a random, rubber shrimp, is pretty funny.
Interesting to note is that when Apollo is doing a stage performance, the audience often KNOWS he is a pickpocket. The participant on stage KNOWS he is going to try to steal something. But the more they consciously try to prevent it, the easier he can divert their attention right where he wants.
Most impressive about Apollo isn't what he does, though - it's how he does it, and how deep his understanding is of why it works. If you're interested in that sort of thing, definitely check out the book Sleights of Mind (featuring Apollo's insight on the neuroscience of magic) and the television special Brain Games, with Apollo and David Copperfield. Both are fascinating.
Fun to see theory11 on Hacker News. Great company, I'm a fan.
I wonder how many HN users are magicians. I've always felt a strong connection between hacking and magic - both involve trying to "hack" a problem in a way that ordinary minds will never think of.
In fact, I credit magic with teaching me the roots of skepticism and rationality - once you know how to explain seemingly unexplainable things, you realize that things that you can't explain mean a lack of knowledge on your part, not a lack of explanation on the universe's part. And when you have smart people around you arguing that it simply can't be done, when you know the secret, you realize even smart people get fooled into thinking that what they can't explain must be supernaturaly.
Magic tricks are hacking! You are hacking someone's mind, particularly their assumptions and attention. The exploits to human psychology and attention are just as sure as the exploits to crack or unlock a smartphone and many other software exploits. The difference is that software can be patched but the evolved behaviors that are the root of the exploits used by magicians are very hard to "patch". For example, if I say the word "ball", if you have understood this word then you have no choice but to have a certain mental state that is predictable to a magician. You do not have conscious access to the low level machinery for understanding speech and if there is some magic trick involving, say, implanting an idea in your mind using words, then you often CAN NOT avoid being fooled.
Moreover, a good magician will prevent you from stopping to think about what he is doing by merely talking and distracting/leading your attention to the next ruse he wishes to perpetrate. Unless you know the tricks or have exceptional mental control, e.g., from years of meditation practice, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed and check-mated by a good magician.
What's amazing about magic tricks is how strong the effects can be. For some tricks, if you didn't know that it was a trick, there is simply no other explanation than that it is magic. A good magician doing closeup magic can follow your gaze and know what you're looking at in order to adjust his strategy in real time. The evidence that might clue you in to the trick is fleeting and if you miss it, due to distraction and showmanship, then the magician has caught you and has succeeded in pickpocketing you, making you think an object has disappeared or that he has read your mind.
EDIT:
And your point about magic and skepticism is particularly apt. A lot of supernatural belief is based on unexplained things in people's everyday life. These are kind of like "natural" magic tricks. People might encounter unexplained events in their everyday life and jump to the conclusion that it is supernatural because they don't know where to look to find the natural causes. And if the natural antecedents are forgotten or fade away then all that is left is unexplained event that seems supernatural. For example, one time I was sitting at my desk and I noticed that a Styrofoam cup on an adjacent desk just started moving. It was as if the Invisible Man decided to slide the cup about 5 inches. If I didn't investigate what was going on then I would have no choice but to conclude that it was magic because there was no visible natural cause to it. As I tentatively approached the cup, I realized that the desk it was sitting on was at a slight incline. Moreover, there was a small puddle of water on the desk from the air-conditioner above it that had been leaking. The puddle of water had slowly, due to gravity, seeped beneath the cup and eventually the cup overcame friction to slide down the thin slick film.
Now, if I had not checked for physical causes immediately, then the water may have dried up and the true cause for the seemingly supernatural event would have been lost to time. Magic helps skepticism because it makes you cognizant of the fact that things can appear to be supernatural if you are not ready at all times to check for natural explanations.
I have a friend who used to be very into sleight-of-hand. He described some of his time at a magic camp once, apparently it was a mark of superiority if you managed to putpocket another magician, so they would spend some effort on doing it to each other. I think it's a great mental image -- some poor magician emptying aces out of his pockets in the evening, "damn it, damn it."
I'll definitely look up Apollo. I've been interested in mentalism and magic for a long time but only learned one sleight of hand trick which I'm not very good at. Looks like Derren Brown, who is currently my favorite magician, might have some competition.
Our team produces instructional videos and downloads that teach sleight of hand (and a wide spectrum of magic effects). Some take a little bit of practice to perfect, but the result is well worth the effort!
While a magician of sorts, Apollo's talent is unique from magic in that the secret is just as entertaining as the effect. Our company [http://theory11.com] is a collective of artists in the magic industry, but Apollo's expertise extends much further, to applications in law enforcement and military intelligence.
Apollo practices not only pickpocketing, but also putpocketing, where he plants an object on the spectator (in their pocket, etc). Their reaction, upon reaching into their pocket to discover a random, rubber shrimp, is pretty funny.
Interesting to note is that when Apollo is doing a stage performance, the audience often KNOWS he is a pickpocket. The participant on stage KNOWS he is going to try to steal something. But the more they consciously try to prevent it, the easier he can divert their attention right where he wants.
Most impressive about Apollo isn't what he does, though - it's how he does it, and how deep his understanding is of why it works. If you're interested in that sort of thing, definitely check out the book Sleights of Mind (featuring Apollo's insight on the neuroscience of magic) and the television special Brain Games, with Apollo and David Copperfield. Both are fascinating.
- jonathan bayme