How Magic Works: Social Engineering made easy

Flashy lights, smoke machines and disappearing ladies. We have all seen a Illusionist preform feats which boggle our minds. However, they are only that. Illusionists! They rely on sleight of hand to pull off their tricks. Really magic is much simpler to preform.

What magic essentially is, is the changing of mind set. The trick itself is convincing people that whatever you do or say is right, or that you are something you may not feel. This sounds a little complex and can be broken down and applied to anything that is going on around you.

The Game, written by Niel Strauss deals with the trial trial and error process of picking up women. Now what "Style" probably didn't realize while writing the book was that he created a personal myth, (which in all reality is changing how you go about things, and how you view the world), and was preforming magic, (By changing the way women viewed him in there world view).

This I found very interesting because it was as much intentional as it was unintentional. Yes he meant to change the views of women to suit his needs, but no he didn't mean to create a personal myth and thus a legend.

Another thing this exact dynamic has been applied to can be seen everynight at 6 pm. It's called the news. While the news itself has no personal myth, it does deal heavily with mythology, and since the news deals with mythology, it would stand to reason that it also "magical" changes public world views. Anyone I have ever talked with about the conflict in the middle east going on right now all say the same thing: "It's not as bad as the news makes it out to be".

This puts us in a perdicerment. Who are we going to believe? The soilders who have actually been there? Or the box that tells us that we are heading for world war 3 and that Jesus will soon be upon us? The myth perpetuated here is that almost all Musliem and Islamic people are terrorists. The world view is how horrible and dangerous the middle east is.

Starting to see a pattern here? This isn't something new. This knowledge has been around for a long time and can be applied to any situation. World War 2 also has another great example of this! Hitler was jailed for rallying people in a bar. While in jail he wrote a book called "My Struggle". The book itself was shoddily written and wasn't very easy to read because of Hitler's lack of skill. The book did outline how he planned to get into power, what he planned to do while in power and that he hated the Jewish people. Not all of what he wrote about came true, however he did perpetuate his own personal myth. His actions are what changed the world view in Germany.

Now before you go thinking that I'm a white power sympathsizer, I want to clairify that I am not. I'm merely pointing out the personal myth and how it changes world views. This is what magic is all about! No phoney spells to recite, no secret meetings at midnight and no sacrifices. All that there is to it is a pen and a peice of paper.

-A. Warren Johnson