SCIENCE OF MIND-READING
“SOMETIMES I start my performances by hammering a nail into my nose, partly because it gets people’s attention. Some people in the audience respond by wincing, some people touch their own noses because they think they can feel the nail going into their own noses. That is empathy. It is the people who don’t react at all you have to watch out for!”
Self-styled “research magician” Stuart Nolan loves to entertain and inspire in his shows but is deadly serious when it comes to the science of magic. Now the performer with a degree in cellular biology is attempting his latest trick - teaching a group of strangers a series of mind-reading techniques in a two-hour workshop and then asking them to perform their new skills in front of an audience in Huddersfield.
He gave me a sneak preview of what he will be doing, as well as taking the opportunity to explain his theories about the importance of magic and the way it is presented. “We seem to be in an era where we have decided magic is all about tricks and equate it with being fooled. I’m interested in kinds of magic where is not about being fooled but where things can be magical even if you know how they are done,” he says.
“There has always been something in the idea that magicians are on the side of science and scepticism. The role of the magician is to say I’m going to do this by trickery. In a way it makes them the most honest profession - I say I’m going to trick you and then I do it. In a subtle way, you are saying be sceptical and don’t believe everything you see. That has always really interested me, the idea of encouraging people to be more sceptical.”
The technique he will be teaching the willing volunteers is one based on a detailed study of body language and a technique called “the ideomotor response” - the theory that the mind can trigger unconscious responses from the body through imperceptible muscle movements.
Nolan says: “There has been research that if people stand up and are asked to think about something in the future, they lean forward slightly and if they are asked to think about something in the past, they lean back slightly. My theory is because of the structure of our language we imagine the future to be in front of us and the past to be behind us.”
The technique Nolan will teach is derived from a Victorian mind reader who would have objects hidden in the audience. “He would hold the hand of the person who had hidden the object and ask them, don’t lead me but imagine that you are leading me to the object. By imagining that you are leading someone, various muscle movements happen in your hand and the magician would train himself to be able to sense those small muscle movements.”
Nolan has worked on mind-reading with the research institute CogNovo and with Pervasive Media Studio for a show at the Venice Biennale. He says those with the highest success rate in learning the technique include musicians, tango dancers and athletes jobs that rely on unconscious reactions. He says the nose hammering trick is a useful show starter because it gets a conversation going about people’s unconscious physical responses.
Nolan gives me a preview of some the techniques he will teach at the forthcoming workshop. It includes picking up four match boxes stacked on top of each other and then just lifting the top one on its own. Surprisingly the single box feels heavier than the four together - leaving me with a furrowed brow as I try to understand how it works. Even when Nolan explains that the bottom three are empty and the top is full of lead shot, the single box still feels heavier when I try again.
Nolan says this is down to a trick of the mind where the brain believes one box should weigh around onequarter the amount of four and adjusts the force used to pick it up - resulting in it feeling heavier than expected. “It shows our physical experience is determined by not just what is true but by expectation and perception.”
Nolan than explains how someone holding a pendulum can be persuaded to make it move first from side-toside and then in a circle simply by the apparent power of the mind. To my surprise and despite my best attempts to keep my hand totally still, the trick works. Nolan says that while it appears my hand is still, actually it is making tiny muscle movements to move the pendulum in response to my brain that I’m physically unaware of. He says there is a parallel to research which shows tennis players who visualise hitting good serves actually improve their accuracy as their body practices the movements without them being fully conscious of it.
He says that out of an audience of around 100 people, there are usually only one or two people - “always men” - who can’t do it. “Either they have the kind of mind where they are trying to work out why it is working or they think it is New Age rubbish! I try to explain the science beforehand and say it is athletes and actors who are best at it and then people normally want to be able to do it.”
Victorian spiritualists used to use pendulums as part of attempts to show they were communicating with the dead and Stuart says ouija boards work on a similar principle. “I don’t believe in the spirit world. I think people who claim they can communicate with the dead are bad and evil, preying on people while they are suffering.”
His main trick for the workshop involves people working in pairs to in an apparent mind-reading demonstration and to maintain the air of mystery for those attending on the evening, I will explain no further than that.
The techniques he is looking at also have real-world implications, with research taking place to devise an app that would unlock a smartphone only when the minute muscle movements of its owner are detected. Nolan’s past has seen him work for an interactive television company designing games and interfaces before being employed as a lecturer in digital media design at the University of Huddersfield prior to becoming a full-time magician.
He says there is a parallel between design and magic, pointing out that apps on an iPhone are designed to make users behave as though a collection of pixels is something real. “It is referred to as the user illusion. That waste paper bin icon or folder icon isn’t actually a real bin or folder but you act as though they are. Most design is about designing illusions.”
He says the magician’s role has changed in the era of Donald Trump and his act now includes a segment where he tries to guess which card someone has picked from the tone of their voice while the audience shouts ‘Fake News’ at him. “Playing the part of a charlatan in the age of Trump has become a more complicated proposition. Going on stage and doing ‘I’m a charlatan, I’m lying to you’ with a wink is different from doing it five years ago. It has got more complex and it shouldn’t feel the same.”
Scientist-turnedmagician Stuart Nolan believes he can teach a Yorkshire audience to become mindreaders in under two hours. Chris Burn learns the tricks of the trade. We are in an era where magic is all about tricks. I’m interested in kinds of magic where it is not about being fooled but where things can be magical even if you know how they are done. Stuart Nolan, research magician