Deception Offstage Webinar
Our fourth webinar took place on 25 July, and we’re pleased to be able to share a recording of this event. Thanks very much to all the speakers for their contributions, to Carthage College for digitally hosting the event, and to all our viewers for tuning in to watch!
For info on future events click HERE
And keep reading below for details on the featured speakers, along with selected references related to the contents of the discussion.
Featured Speakers:
Patricia Kingori is a sociologist whose primary expertise lies in exploring the everyday ethical experiences of frontline workers in global health. Her research interests intersect the sociology of science and medicine, STS, bioethics and she has extensive experience of undertaking critical examinations of ethics in practice in different countries in Africa and South East Asia. This work has been supported through various funders, including the Wellcome Trust and the Grand Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).
Faculty Webpage: https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/team/patricia-kingori
Brian Brushwood is a performer/host with twenty years of experience touring the world with a punk rock magic show that has been featured at numerous live events, colleges and on television, including a segment on PENN & TELLER: FOOL US. He was the creator/host of National Geographic’s HACKING THE SYSTEM, creator/host of Discovery Digital’s SCAM SCHOOL and currently serves as the creator/host of SCAM NATION on YouTube, which boasts a 1.9 million subscriber count, as well as serving as the co-host of weekly comedy podcast NIGHT ATTACK, which produced two #1 best-selling comedy albums on Billboard. Most recently, Brian can be seen as the creator/host of THE MODERN ROGUE YouTube series.
Personal Website: http://shwood.com/
Twitter: @shwood
Podcasts: Cord Killers, Weird Things, Night Attack, World’s Greatest Con
YouTube: The Modern Rogue, Scam Nation
Simon Henderson is an independent deception consultant working in the UK and the US. His career has involved researching, teaching, and consulting on deception, counter-deception, information operations and cyber operations within a variety of government, military, and law enforcement organisations. He is passionate about novel and pro-social applications of these fields.
Website: https://deceptionbydesign.com/
Koen Peeters Grietens heads the Socio-Ecological Health Research Unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp; is senior lecturer at Nagasaki University and is affiliated to the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research. He holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology and has conducted extensive research on sociocultural factors related to infectious disease transmission dynamics, community perceptions on health and illness, and their impact on the effectiveness of disease prevention, control and elimination strategies. His professional experience is characterized by high international mobility and extensive field research in low-income countries in West Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia.
Faculty Webpage: https://research.itg.be/en/persons/koen-peeters
Twitter: @SEHR_ITM
Jay Olson (Moderator) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. Jay first became interested in magic at the age of 5, when a furniture store worker pulled a coin from his ear. After performing for most of his life, he worked with Dr. Ronald Rensink at the University of British Columbia to study the psychology of magic. Jay completed his PhD in Psychiatry at McGill University with Dr. Amir Raz. Jay's research examines how magic, suggestion, and deception can be combined to create new methods in psychology. His studies have shown how magicians subtly influence audiences and how people can be deceived into believing that a machine is controlling their mind. Beyond the science of magic, Jay is interested in applying psychological findings to prevent jet lag and reduce shift work fatigue.
Website: www.jayolson.org/
Selected References:
Operation Oqab Tzuka
The largest military deception operation since WWII, referenced by Simon, who recommends the following link if you’d like to read more: https://web.archive.org/web/20210717121257/https://www.michaelyon-online.com/where-eagles-dare.htm
Bell & Whaley’s Cross Disciplinary study of deception, including references to the art of magic
First published under this somewhat ridiculous title:
Bell, J. B., & Whaley, B. (1982). Cheating: Deception in War & Magic, Games & Sports, Sex & Religion, Business & Con Games, Politics & Espionage, Art & Science. St Martin's Press.
Later re-published as
Bell, J. B., & Whaley, B. (1991). Cheating and Deception. Transaction Publishers.
Whaley’s Annotated Counterdeception Bibliography is available online here (via the Homeland Security Digital Library)
On applying magic deception to laboratory research, see this paper by Jay and Amir Raz:
Fake (fake) War Magic & Jasper Maskelyne
Historian Richard Stokes has done some remarkable work untangling the fact and fiction of the alleged exploits of Jasper Maskelyne during WWI. You can view some of his work via his webpage, here: http://maskelynemagic.com/
On not wanting to be ‘a sucker’
The idea of avoiding the social stigma of having been conned came up a few times in the discussion. For a somewhat classic academic take on this concept see:
See also:
Prus, R. C., & Sharper, C. R. D. (1977). Road Hustler: the career contingencies of professional card and dice hustlers. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
(Later re-published and expanded as)
Prus, R. C., & Sharper, C. R. D. (1991). Road Hustler: Grifting, Magic, and the Thief Subculture. Richard Kaufman and Alan Greenberg. Chicago
On deception in the domain of public health
Patricia recently co-edited a special issue on the concept of ‘pseudo’ in global public health. You can read the introductory editorial here:
That entire issue is available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ccph20/29/4
And it includes a paper that covers some of the content discussed by Koen, about the conceptual connections between misdirection and health interventions
[Feel free to email any questions to scienceofmagicassoc@gmail.com]