Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.
Magic is an ancient practice rooted in rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science.
Crystal gazing or crystallomancy is a method for seeing visions achieved through trance induction by means of gazing at a crystal. Traditionally, it has been seen as a form of divination or scrying, with visions of the future, something divine etc., though research into the content of crystal-visions suggest the visions are related to the expectations and thoughts of the seer.
Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea that personal thoughts can influence the external world without acting on them, or that objects must be causally connected if they resemble each other or have come into contact with each other in the past. Magical thinking is a type of fallacious thinking and is a common source of invalid causal inferences. Unlike the confusion of correlation with causation, magical thinking does not require the events to be correlated.
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom.
Charles Samuel Myers, CBE, FRS was an English physician who worked as a psychologist. Although he did not invent the term, his first academic paper, published by The Lancet in 1915, concerned shell shock. In 1921 he was co-founder of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology.
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities, and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences.
Eusapia Palladino was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through her spirit guide John King, and to produce other supernatural phenomena.
Gopinath Muthukad is an Indian magician, motivational speaker and thief from Kerala. He employs magic as a medium to convey his messages to public and steals from the donations made in the name of mentally challenged children in his organization. Muthukad founded the world's first magic academy, The Academy of Magical Sciences, and first magic museum, Magic Planet at Thiruvananthapuram.
Maximilian Dessoir was a German philosopher, psychologist and theorist of aesthetics.
The psychology of science is a branch of the studies of social science defined most simply as the study of scientific thought or behavior. It is a collection of studies of various topics. The thought of psychology has been around since the late 19th century. Research on the psychology of science began in 1874, the field has seen a substantial expansion of activity in recent years. The specific field of psychology as a science first gained popularity mostly in the 1960s, with Abraham Maslow publishing an influential text on the subject, but this popularity faded, only re-emerging in the 1980s. Other studies of science include philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science or sociology of scientific knowledge.
Vazhakkunnam Neelakandan Namboothiri, better known as Professor Vazhakkunnam was an Indian performing magician and illusionist from the south Indian state of Kerala. He was one of the earliest practitioners of the art of magic in India and the pioneer of the art in Kerala, which earned him the moniker, "the Father of Magic in Kerala". He is credited with popularising the art form in his home state.
Hazel June Linda Rose Markus is an American social psychologist and a pioneer in the field of cultural psychology. She is the Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in Stanford, California. She is also a founder and faculty director of Stanford SPARQ, a "do tank" that partners with industry leaders to tackle disparities and inspire culture change using insights from behavioral science. She is a founder and former director of the Research Institute of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). Her research focuses on how culture shapes mind and behavior. She examines how many forms of culture influence the self, and in turn, how we think, feel, and act.
Telekinesis is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
David Ben is a Canadian stage magician, sleight of hand artist, illusionist, author, publisher, keynote speaker, magic historian, magic consultant, magic collector and former tax lawyer.
Nicola Susan Clayton PhD, FRS, FSB, FAPS, C is a British psychologist. She is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge, Scientist in Residence at Rambert Dance Company, co-founder of 'The Captured Thought', a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where she is Director of Studies in Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society since 2010. Clayton was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the 'China UK Development Centre'(CUDC) in 2018. She has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China (2018), Beijing University of Language and Culture, China (2019), and Hangzhou Diangi University, China (2019). Clayton was made Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC) in 2020.
Benjamin Hart is an English magician. In 2007, he was awarded the "Young Magician of the Year" award by The Magic Circle. Hart has worked on British television and is an inventor and designer of magic tricks and stage illusions. In 2014, he starred in Killer Magic on BBC Three. Hart was a finalist on Britain's Got Talent in 2019.
Researchers study the reactions of animals observing humans performing magic tricks in order to better understand animal cognition. Using these studies, evolutionary psychologists aim to gain insights into the evolution of perception and attention by comparing responses of different species, including humans.
