It's more a psychological topic than a magicial one, but I think it is somewhat related to magic performances.

For the uninitiated, suspension of disbelief refers to the psychological state where a person VOLUNTARY and WILLINGLY block out their normal logical and analytical thought process for a period of time, usually in order to enjoy a certain emotional stimulation.
This is most clearly demostrated when we watch TV, movies, theater, or while playing computer games and/or reading books. We KNOW that what we are seeing is not real, but we allow ourselves to believe that it is real.

I'm wondering if anybody know any good resources/materials on this subject?
Especially about the environmental and psychological conditions that will bring about this state of mind.

Also, anyone out there has specific thoughts to share about the relevance of suspension of disbelief with regards to magical performances?


Cheers

The suspension of disbelief is a hard state to get into. It involves full focus & relaxation on one particular item to the point where the rest becomes of non existence or rather, none of importance.

More often then not, we enter this so called "trance" like state unexpectatedly. It is much harder to enter it consiously.

Bizzarist like to use a focus point to attempt this feat. Hypnosim uses other points like maybe a pendulum, of certain thoughts.

For example, the focusing on the flame of a candle for a certain amount of time (given the right atmosphere and no interruptions whatsoever), tend to gradually cause a person's vision to become hazy and they would blink more, and eventually find it hard to keep them open. This is what they term as going into "another state of mind"

Other aspects that can help in getting into the state would be dealing with subconsious aspect such as having a fragrance, soothing music. However, most of the time, the person should be relaxed (quite hard for our stressful lifestyle).

You can try out "Erotic Seance" by Anabelle, but for certain reasons, I do not wish to disclose more info on this effect :rolleyes:

Wonder am i going :off: or not :g:

Cheers!

Ok...if I was unclear in the 1st post, i was talking about the conditions where we can bring on the suspension of disbelief in the spectator, not in ourselves. B)

wow, after all that i typed, just to find that i addressed the wrong issue.. :huh:

Try burning a borrowed $50 dollar bill.

It does provide emotional stimulation.

Plus it works both ways.

Just to add and make it safer when performing as suggested, please make sure that the bill does not belong to someone from the police force

And if possible, have an OUT if you really do it. It will defintiely be one of those effects that requires one.

I'll remember to carry an ID. 52 outs in one pack.

If that isn't enough, there's always the Goodbye Vanish courtesy of Steve Fearson.

Which reminds me, the Goodbye Vanish does bring out a suspension of disbelief along with Station Manager.

Ha. Ha. Ha. :unsure:
Hilarious guys. Hilarious. <_<

But seriously, wouldn't it be great if we can induce a state of suspension of disbelief in the spectator?
When we watch a movie, we don't think, "how come spiderman's web like hanging from clouds?" or "How can Lois not recognise Superman?".
Wouldn't it be nice if we can consistantly duplicate that kind of acceptance from specs?

Cos spidey was using a new IT hookup
And Superman was concealed as a coin bender.

Sorry I couldn't resist.
I shall stop.

LOL..... :lol: <_<

Anyway, i just realised how difficult it is to google this subject matter. I would have thought there would be concrete psychological investigation into this most interesting phenomenon. But I can't seem to find much helpful material.
Anyone has any helpful resources to share of the subject?

However, I did found something kinda useful, although it was meant for creative writers. Here it is in case someone finds it useful:

http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/disbelief.html

and here's a really technical one..

http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol7-2003/n46ortega-rodriguez

I'm not sure Aloy,

I think for someone to suspend disbelief, first they gotta be real comfortable with the media or performer.

Like watching a kung fu movie, or watching a WWE wrestling match ( for some of us anyway)
We know its all scripted, yet we suspend our disbelief and just watch and enjoy the show for the show. I'm not watching to figure out how a wrestler delivers a piledriver to his opponent but his opponents' head never actually even hits the mat but looks as though it did. (wrestling fans will understand what I'm saying here)

For us to replicate that as magicians, I believe we gotta make the spectators comfortable with us. Laugh with us or at us. Its ok, as long as they connect with us, then hopefully, they'll root for us.

And when they start rooting for us, maybe, just maybe, then we'll get them to just enjoy the performance instead of trying to figure out how its done.

Mostly, when we amatuers perform, we give the specs the feeling of " hey look, I fooled you cos you can't figure out how its done". Maybe it really is the case of us amatuers trying to fool the spectators. We're not trying to entertain. Maybe we behave like we're better than you cos " i can do a DL".
I don't think specs will connect and root for someone if they felt they'd been made a fool of. Thus, no suspension of disbelief.

I hope I conveyed my thoughts properly.

I dunno. Just my 2 cents. Thanks for bringing this up. Had me thinking a lot.
Sorry I don't have materials for this.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

I was just thinking as with all psychological reactions, there should be some conditions that will facilitate it.

Like the 1st link I provided. It talks about details are what makes something believable.
Superman is such an unconvincing concept, an alien that looks like human but can defy gravity, and only needs to put on a pair of specs to make himself unrecognisable, but we all can accept it.
Because he has very human problems, problems courting Lois, problems with other humans, problem doing the right thing.

And what you said abt making the spec connect and comfortable too.
Any more thoughts about what makes a spec suspend disbelief?

Good post Jeff :)

If a stranger walks up to me for 50 dollars to do a trick, and even if he'd promise to return it to me, I'd worry he'd run off with my money. I'd distrust him.

If David Copperfield came to me and asked for 50 bucks to do a trick even though its the first time I'm meeting him , I'd give it to him. Cos He's DC. I seen him on TV so many times.

Maybe thats why the Mondo Magic guys cant get such good reactions in Singapore. Asians are less trusting of strangers. No suspension of disbelief cos we're not comfortable.

there i go ranting off on a tangent again.

Well, one way is to be as humane as possible. Like what Williamson mentioned, the more human you are they will like you more. Things like, dropping something, accidentally knocking on something, that sort of things.

Ok, like some, I do not believe in the suspension of disbelief in magic.

It just does not work out. If I watch a levitation, and I know its IT, but I choose not to believe it to "enjoy" the performance, then its just that. An artistic performance, a display of skill, but it is not elevated to becoming a magical effect.

As magicians, we all know what the ideal reaction from the spectator is. We want them to jump right out of their seat, declare loudly that there is no humanly way the effect could be accomplished.

If the spectator is really in the state of suspending his disbelief, will he ever have such a reaction?

In order for someone to declare something impossible, his mind must (consciously or subconsciously) continually work to eliminate all possible solutions. And then, having no clue whatsoever, surrender to the idea of magic.

Imo, there is no place for suspension of disbelief in magic.

In my opinion, suspension of disbelief is a choice. It can never be incited or created by any means. Unless you are Derren Brown (or anyone who can heavily implant suggestion to audiences), I believe that you can never achieve that with your own means.

Wouldn't it be perfect of every audience we perform chooses this state to respond to your magic? I'm sure it would be. I personally choose to adopt that attitude when watching other people perform. I do not see the technical aspects of it (I choose not to.) so I can enjoy the effect fully. Then if I want to inquire about the technicals, I watch again.

I believe that suspension of disbelief is and will remain a choice, not some state that a performer can easily tap into.

Till the day "your power of suggestion" works,
llamalamer

i actually believe that suspension of disbelief can be acheived. Maybe i am just dumb :lol:

I personally feel its in the presentation and not in the effect.

Anyone decent magician can do a ACR or a haunted deck effect after some practise. But what reaction would the spectator get from seeing it performed as just an effect? Well, some will be skeptical, some will be wondering whats the method and some will of cos be shocked and jump out of their seats thinking how would that be possible.

However, we are missing something here. To those that try to enjoy the effect as a mere performance of skill and to those that feel that "how is that possible", no suspension of disbelief is achieved as they simply feel that there must be some explanation to it.

Now you might now wonder what i mean in presentation, despite the example above:

Take cold reading for example: One major point used in cold reading is the fact that the audience finds the association themselves. How is this achieved? By Generalisation (sorry, I won't go further as this is explained in books such as the dance by Bred Henderson).

This is step 1 of cold reading as it makes the spectator more inclined to accept your suggestions and other demostrations, and of course, the beginning to enter the so called suspension of disbelief whereby they will eventually stop questioning and start to want to believe in your upcoming performance.

As mentioned by Aloy, psychology is at work here of course. Let me explain this further:

There is a 'kid' in everyone of us. No matter what form of education that we have been thru, there is always something that we wish is true and with the hopes of seeing it in reality. The longing for this (usually subconciously) is what we can make use of to bring a spectator into the state mentioned. Hence, this is also one reason as to why its so hard to get a spectator into such a state. We have to first analyse and understand them.

Take myself for example:

I have grown up watching comic heros such as superman, batman, etc etc. Now, the logical side of me tells me that such things do not exist. however, it does not stop me from hoping and daydreaming about it. Whenever I watch superhero movies (And I have gone to every movie thats in the cinema, daredevil, batman begins, etc) I turn my logical self off and enjoy the flick. I do not go in questioning about the why superman can fly, why batman can be hammered by villians and somehow recover that fast with no bruises, etc. This is because a part of me wants to immense myself into such a world.

Now back to magic. Once we understand our spectator enough to know what they 'daydream' about, it is possible to use that opening to induce them to willingly suspend logic and (the key word here) want to believe what you are doing is geniune. They have to be willing as its something personal to them.

Sorry for the lengthy post :ph43r: and hopefully it makes some sense to a few :)

Actually, psychologists generally agrees the the suspension of disbelief is NOT a conscious choice by the audience. It is a choice true, but it's a sub-conscious one.
It's something the spectator sub-consciously allow themselves to experience, but it's not something they can turn on and off at will.

2 easy example of this is:

1) When you are watching a scary movie, you are not able to tell yourself that it's just a movie and stare at the screen and not get affected any further by the scare tactics. You cannot turn suspension of disbelief off.

2) When you watch really lousy acting with a very bad script, you cannot make yourself believe the story like and be moved to tears by the movie. You cannot turn suspension of disbelief on.


And I agree with you Andy.

I always felt that David Copperfield is so entertaining to watch because he is always so drama mama which actually appeals to something inside of us. Very often, we WANT to believe that he really can do the things because maybe somewhere in us (magicians especially), we somehow wish that magic can be real. B)

:huh: :huh: :huh:

I think Gordie bought out a very interesting point. :)

I have been thinking along the line that by bringing on the suspension of disbelief, we can make the spec better enjoy the effect, and also curb heckling.

But if the spec in the state of suspension of disbelief, will they still be amazed by the magic? Because they already BELIEVE that you CAN DO whatever you are claiming you can do. And whatever you demostrate is just a confirmation. Example of this:

We know it's ridiculous to believe that an alien in a red underwear can defy gravity. But when we watch Superman, we put our logic aside and accept that he CAN fly.
BUT
When he DOES FLY, we are not amazed by it anymore. It IS something very strange to watch but we are not amazed by it. Because of the state of suspension of disbelief, we accept that it is the most normal and believeable thing to do, and therefore not something to be amazed about.

Interesting thought Gordie.
That means to say, to bring out the maximum impact, we should actually encourage logical thinking instead of suspension of disbelief!
Because by leading them down the (wrong) logic path, they will find themself slamming into a concrete wall at the climax of the effect which results in the amazement.


But what about, for example, the case of watching a movie where there's a surprise twist at the very end, like in a criminal triller?
We generally know that the movie is going to end up a certain way which the good will win, but we are usually still amazed and usually impressed with the cleverness of the surprise twist.
So there you have it, suspension of disbelief to ignore the details that doesn't makes sense in real life, yet amazement at the end result none the less. Does this work?


Grand summary for those who cannot be bothered to read the post in full B) :

Is magical impact most powerful when the spec DO NOT believe that you can do something and you prove otherwise?

Or

Is magical impact most powerful when the spec ALREADY BELIEVE that you have magical powers and you proceed to demostrate them?


I am starting to think this is going to lead to an ivory tower discussion with no real conclusion :P
Both ways seems very possible :!!:

For me it boils down to my goals :-

when we perform are we intending to present a puzzle to our spectators or just to entertain them? To me, magic is a form of entertainment, like comedy or singing etc.

to me, watching a magic trick is like watching a fantastic scene from a movie, with no editing and cameras. Yes, its puzzling, but ultimately its there to be enjoyed, not to be solved.

To enjoy something esp like fantasy or magic, some degree of suspension of disbelief is necessary.

The only way I can think of to make someone suspend their disbelief is to make them feel relaxed and comfortable with the media or the presentation.

"hey how come the Hulk's shirt totally ripped up but his pants still ok?"
If you start analysing that, you actually may miss out on the story.

dang, we're getting real philosophical with comic characters.
Socrates would be proud. B)