Magician Mark Mitton explores how magical thinking (or, at least, a magician’s thinking) can help us through this crisis

Mark Mitton is a magician who is fascinated by using magic to better understand how we see the world. In addition to performing and producing events all over the world, Mark explores the theme of “Misdirection” from an interdisciplinary standpoint and regularly presents on “Perception” at universities and conferences. He was the apprentice to legendary sleight-of-hand master Slydini, and he has lectured with the late Nobel laureate Dr. Gerald Edelman of The Neurosciences Institute.

“I constantly compare where we are right now with Zoom communication and other platforms to movies in the 1890s and television in the late ’40s, early ’50s.”

— Mark Mitton

The pandemic has forced most of us to move from real life to virtual life—and we are mostly unhappy about the results. It’s not just that we miss the real thing, but that its virtual alternatives—endless hours on Zoom or Teams or some other platform—are such a pale imitation.

Are there different ways to use the tools? Since we may be stuck in this second best world for a while, can we find ways to make it better? Is there a cure for Zoom fatigue?

For answers, we turned to a magician. Magic used to be fundamentally physical, requiring a lot of interaction between the magician and their audience. Mark Mitton is a world class magician, whose performances produced Springsteen-like enthusiasm and engagement from those lucky enough to experience them. How did he move from three dimensions to two dimensions? What can he teach us about communicating during a pandemic?

Listen as host Alan Stoga explores how magical thinking (or, at least, a magician’s thinking) can help us through this crisis. And watch here for the queen of clubs.

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