Never Believe What you See

Have your eyes played tricks on you before? How often have you awoken suddenly in the middle of the night and stared incessantly at the curtain because there’s a gargantuan spider crawling right toward you!? It’s super freaky. But when you leap up, toss the covers aside and flip on the light switch, it’s simply the fan blowing on the fabric. Well, that’s an out-of-focus eye trick that we’ve all suffered – minus the spider, maybe.

Eye tricks, or optical illusions, are very commonplace in the world today. Many magicians take advantage of the fact that the human eye is easily able to be misled. Those tricky photos hanging on the wall of the doctor’s office offer entertainment as we wait patiently to see the doc. Even some of the ‘Net’s online casinos have attempted to toy around with sensory, offering some form of illusion to the many players of the world.

Simply put, an optical illusion is a perception that differs from reality. For instance, you look at an image and see a row of dice that seem to be suspending in mid air, but in reality, the dice on arranged flatly on the table. The information that your eye gathers and then sends to the brain gets jumbled and confused, and what you think you see isn’t what you see at all. There are three main types of optical illusions: Literal illusions create different images; Physiological illusions effect the brain’s stimulation, as in causing the picture to move; and Cognitive illusions, like subliminal advertising, cause the brain to make unconscious inferences.

There are countless optical illusions in the world, but what are some of the best? If you wanted to browse the web and search for some optical illusions, the options are literally endless. You’ll find many eye tricks that will involve closely staring, guessing, measuring, and taking part in them in an interactive way. But a person who can perform an optical illusion in front of your eyes in live time is a true force to be reckoned with in the world of illusions. So by that standard, the masters of illusions – the magicians of the world – are the best out there.

Of course, this is always up for debate. Some like the pictures and the way they’re always able to trick even the most trained eye. But even those who contend that magicians are the best at this art are still torn over who exactly is the best at his or her respected craft. Some say the newcomers like Chris Angel are the best out there. Angel, who performs regularly in Vegas and has a hit TV show on the A&E channel, is a gifted young illusionists. He’s made people disappear in front of live audiences. He’s walked on water, both across a pool and a lake – while people were in attendance and swimming under him. He’s even been hit by a truck on live TV and seemingly disappeared on impact.

David Blaine is another young master of illusion, although most agree not nearly as popular as Angel. To Blaine’s credit, he’s appeared to fly in front of a live crowd, and has brought dead animals back to life. He’s had a handful of primetime television specials; albeit mostly for his endurance tricks that tend to have little to do with illusion.

But the undisputed king of illusions is the master himself, Mr. David Copperfield. Copperfield, in front of television cameras and a small audience seated on Liberty Island, made the Statue of Liberty disappear before their eyes. And not only did the Statue disappear, but he then proceeded to bring it back. This is considered to be the greatest feat an illusionist has ever accomplished.

We all know that Copperfield’s illusion was just that – an illusion. But that still doesn’t stop people from being absolutely amazed over the feat. It also doesn’t stop people from wanting to know exactly how he did it. After all, making the Statue of Liberty disappear isn’t exactly some sensory trick found at your local online casinos to entice you to play blackjack. We’re talking about a 200-ton, 300-foot statue!

Although Copperfield has never revealed his Statue secret, or any of his secrets for that matter, other magicians have given detailed accounts of how David made the monument go bye-bye. For starters, you have to understand the setup. Copperfield had two towers on a stage which supported an arch and held a curtain. The audience was seated on a stage, facing the archway and could only see the Statue directly through it. Don’t forget that it was the dead of night.

After the curtain closed on the Statue, the stage slowly began to turn. While David kept the audience entertained, the stage turned, the lights around Liberty turned off allowing an extra set to be turned on, and the helicopter flying overhead mirrored the stage’s movements. When the curtain finally dropped, the Statue wasn’t “gone,” per se, it just wasn’t there. To bring it back, Copperfield re-raised the curtain, and reversed the stage.

It might not be that picture on the wall, but Copperfield’s illusion is still considered among the best ever. They’re completely different tricks on different scales – but one thing’s for certain: We love to be tricked.