If you are a magician, you should fully understand exactly what you do. What is your definition of magic?

The general public often catagorises magic as techniques used for tricking people. Magicians are lying deceiving their audience. Professor Lawrence Hass suggests something very different:

Magic is an art form that celebrates impossible things, and in doing so, it can motivate an audience to look beyond the limits of their lives, and to imagine new possibilities for transformation. This definition of magic rejects the common misunderstandings about magic and explains why there have been magicians in every recorded human culture.

Lawrence gives us the following definition of magic:

The artful performance of impossible things that generates energy, delight, and wonder.

About Lawrence Hass

Lawrence Hass, Ph.D., is a magician and a philosopher. He is Associate Dean of McBride’s Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas and is Professor of Humanities at Austin College (Sherman, Texas). He performs regularly in Las Vegas and the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. He is also a celebrated teacher of magic and an award-winning author of essays and books about the art.

Dr. Hass’s work as a philosopher-magician has been featured in the New York Times, USAToday, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and on the Discovery Channel.