What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.

This “fun, brain-twisting book . . . will make you think” as it explores more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and the social sciences (Sean Carroll, New York Times–bestselling author of Something Deeply Hidden). Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician’s purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn’t require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind, Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction. The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more.

You were placed in this world to experience love, happiness, peace, and joy. Discover the innate ability to use your thoughts and feelings to create and experience miracles in your life. Magic is real. It's all around you; and most importantly, it's inside of you. You have the power to create it. You are the creator of your life. Be that powerful version of you that you're meant to be. Whether you already know how to create magic in your life, or you want to know where to start, this book is for you!

The definitive collection of short fiction compiled from over twenty years of writing for the web.

2026. Six decades after magic overthrew technology. Kennedy Spaceport on the moon. Humanity's first settlement off Earth. Where a handful of powerful families live above the law. Journeyman wizard Donal Cuthbert runs through that spaceport. Pursued by the wrath of lunar Great Family. If he survives, the worst trouble of his life awaits him. Sleight of Mind, an exciting tale of adventure and intrigue at high space, with dueling wizards and battles between magic-driven ships. The second novel in the Rise of Magic series from Stefon Mears, author of the Cavan Oltblood series and the Spells for Hire series.

John Jacobs, the last helioship captain old enough to remember technology, has lost his long-time partner and faces ruin if he fails to fly where no commercial liner has gone before: Venus. But space remains wild between Earth and Venus, and Jacobs must overcome space elementals, mysterious pursuers, and even Earth Navy firepower to survive.Journeyman wizard Donal Cuthbert must take that flight to root out the truth about a forming interplanetary shadow government. And stop that conspiracy, even if he learns that his girlfriend serves it. But gathering information requires more than spells, and may lead to a duel he can only lose.Force alone will not help them survive. It will take a little sleight of hand ... and sleight of mind.