Do Magicians Believe in the Paranormal?

Professor Richard Wiseman recently conducted an online survey examining whether magicians believe in the paranormal.

You may think that the results would conclude that magicians are a pretty skeptical lot, but they were not quite so indicative. The survey of over 400 magicians (and yes I was one of them – a non-believer I hasten to add) concluded that approximately 25% of the magicians believed in either telepathy, precognition or psychokinesis and that the same number had actually experienced said phenomenon.

He is quick to point out that it is “possible that the answers given by some performers do not reflect their genuine beliefs and experiences (after all, this is a group that deceive for a living!)” but none-the-less these results go against perceived wisdom (but not necessarily against previous similar surveys).

I find it staggering to believe that those whose livelihood is based around demonstrating the impossible are still duped into believing in the paranormal. Maybe the more knowledge you have the more your ego wont let you believe you can be fooled and so the only remaining option is that the paranormal phenomenon is real.

Professor Wiseman’s survey can be found here, and a detailed analysis of the results available on Skepchick.

Technorati: Magic discussion