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Made by Andy James, working individually

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Definition:
Patternicity is a basic human function to search for human like patterns in inanimate or non-human objects.

Connection:
As is a trend in my current padlet wall another good example of patternicity comes from religion. As shown in the TED talk video previously in the course, there was a church in Florida that had its windows stained with what people claimed to be the Virgin Mary. It was more or less just the vague shape of a human but with the location where it appeared people took it as a sign from above and began holding service by it, giving people hope and taking a bit of money in return. Ironically on the other side of the building where the sprinklers would spray the palm trees in front of the windows similar shapes would appear, more or less accounting for the fact that it is not a miracle, just people wanting to believe there is one.

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Definition:
Proof of verbosity is the use of giving more information, claims and allegations than is needed to prove their point so they may make something seem true.

Connection:
People always want to think that things are more than they seem, especially when it comes to something political. When JFK was assassinated in his motorcade some would say it was the work of the Cuban government. As the cold war was still ramping up at the time and tensions between the US and Cuba were high, despite the fact the shooter was caught and he stated his motives people to this day still believe there is a connection back to the Cuban government.

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Those who questioned the findings of the Warren Commission and began positing alternative theories spawned a cottage industry of books, documentaries, and, later, Web sites that continued to thrive into the 21st century. Among the first books to challenge the Warren Report were Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission's Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J.D. Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald (1966) and Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth (1966).

Cuba is central to a number of conspiracy theories. One theory, that the Cuban government was responsible, gathered steam after the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee) revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had made several attempts to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In denying the allegations, Castro argued that such an action would have posed too great a risk of retaliation by the United States. This line of thought finds great significance in a trip that Oswald made in late September 1963 to Mexico City, where he remained until early October and made repeated attempts to contact the Cuban and Soviet consulates.

At the other end of the Cuban political conspiracy spectrum were theories that attempted to tie the assassination and Oswald to anti-Castro groups who were angry at Kennedy for his decision to withhold U.S. military support for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. (Kennedy's lack of support for the invasion is also cited as a motive by those who hold that vindictive elements within the CIA were behind the assassination.) These theories emphasize Oswald's efforts on behalf of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans in April-August 1963 and his encounters with individuals from both pro- and anti-Castro groups.

Cuba is also on the margins of the theories that blame the assassination on organized crime, tangentially connected because of the CIA's efforts to recruit the Mafia, through Chicago syndicate boss Sam Giancana, to help kill Castro, whose revolution had ousted organized crime from Cuba. More central to the motive proposed for the mob wanting to kill President Kennedy were the aggressive efforts by his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, to investigate and eradicate organized crime. Ruby also figures into some of these theories because of his connection with organized crime as a result of his involvement with gambling.

One of the most-developed theories was pushed by Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans, who alleged that anti-Castro and anticommunist elements within the CIA were behind a conspiracy that involved Oswald and a coterie of rabid New Orleans anticommunists-businessman Clay Shaw, private detective and former FBI agent Guy Banister, and David Ferrie, who had been in the same Civil Air Patrol squadron as Oswald in the 1950s. Banister and Ferrie died before Garrison brought his case to trial, but Shaw was found not guilty in 1969. The book Garrison later wrote about his pursuit, On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy (1988), was a touchstone for Oliver Stone 's movie (1991).

Yet another theory put Johnson at the center of a plot to kill Kennedy to clear his own path to the presidency. Evidence for this theory was supposedly provided by a statement by convicted Watergate conspirator and former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, who claimed that Johnson had ordered CIA agents to kill Kennedy.

Subsequent congressional responses

While still frames from the Zapruder's 8-mm footage had been published in November 1963 in Life (which had purchased the rights to the film), the footage itself did not receive a wide viewing until 1975, when it was shown on the Good Night America television program. In showing Kennedy's head jerking backward, the film seemed to indicate that a shot had come from in front of the president and not from Oswald's sniper's nest, adding seeming support to those who argued that there had been a second shooter on Dealey Plaza's grassy knoll. The uproar generated by the American public's response to the film and by the revelations that the CIA had withheld pertinent information from the Warren Commission contributed to the establishment in 1976 of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which investigated not only the assassination of Kennedy but also that of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although the HSCA's findings were largely in line with those of the Warren Commission (including the conclusion that a shot by Oswald had killed the president and that a single bullet had hit both Kennedy and Connally), its bombshell revelation was a Dictabelt audio recording made from a Dallas motorcycle policeman's microphone that was said to provide evidence of four shots-that is, three by Oswald and a fourth by another shooter. That fourth shot, a miss, was thought to have come from the grassy knoll. As a result of this acoustic evidence, the HSCA concluded that there had been two shooters and that the assassination was likely the product of a conspiracy. The committee also concluded that neither any U.S. security or intelligence agencies (including the CIA) nor the government of Cuba or the Soviet Union had been involved. It did not rule out the involvement of organized crime or anti-Castro groups, but it could not prove it. Not long after the committee published its report, however, the reliability of the acoustic evidence and the conclusions drawn from it came under broad criticism, greatly undermining the HSCA's assertion that there had been a conspiracy.

The release and popularity of Stone's in 1991 sparked a new round of conspiracy speculation, to which Congress responded with the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board (the members of which were not sworn in until 1994). From 1994 to 1998 this independent board reviewed, declassified, and made available millions of pages of previously sealed or secret documents from the Warren Commission, the HSCA, the FBI, the CIA, and scores of other governmental organizations. The board also conducted some new interviews.

The act required that the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) release all of the related documents within 25 years. As the October 26, 2017, deadline for the release of the remaining undisclosed documents approached, U.S. Pres. Donald Trump effusively anticipated the disclosure. At the 11th hour, however, the White House was inundated with requests from the CIA and the FBI to redact several hundred documents in the interest of national security. It was thought that some of the intelligence agencies' concerns related to fears that the remaining documents included the identities of U.S. intelligence sources who might still be living and at risk of retaliation. After some hesitancy, Trump complied with the agencies' requests, placing some 300 files under further classified review, which was to be completed within six months, but authorizing the release of nearly 2,900 other unseen documents. In so doing, Trump advised the intelligence agencies to be "extremely circumspect" in any request for further delays, noting that the "need for continued protection can only have grown weaker with the passage of time."

Historians were dubious that any of the newly released documents would provide conclusive evidence for any of the conspiracy theories. Some pundits cautioned against cherry-picking supportive information. Among the documents released were a minutely detailed account of Oswald's trip to Mexico City and memos from high-level intelligence officials, including one in which FBI director J. Edgar Hoover bemoans the Dallas Police Department's failure to heed FBI warnings of the need to protect Oswald during his fatal transfer from the Dallas Police jail. Another Hoover memo describes the Soviet government's response to the assassination and the KGB's conviction that Johnson was involved.

As the April 2018 deadline for the reevaluation of the files that had been held back drew near, NARA released additional batches of documents, some which had never been seen. Most of the documents released, however, already had been made public but were re-released with fewer redactions. In all, during 2017, NARA released nearly 35,000 documents related to the Kennedy assassination, including some 16,000 that were released in full. On April 26, 2018, the Trump administration surprised many observers by announcing a three-year extension of the deadline for the release of some documents, which it had deemed needing to remain confidential because of "identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns." The new deadline for the further release of documents was set for October 26, 2021.

In October 2021, as a result of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to security agency requests that the release of certain documents continue to be prolonged, Trump's successor, Pres. Joe Biden, postponed the release of additional documents and announced that they would be provided in two batches. The first batch would come on December 15, 2021, and the second by December 15, 2022, after an "intensive one-year review." The tranche released in December 2021 consisted of 1,491 documents, most of which, again, had been published earlier with more redactions. Once more, there were no bombshells, though new light was shed on Oswald's overtures to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City during the period before the assassination and on his attempt to secure a travel visa to Cuba, where he then would have ostensibly waited to obtain a visa for the U.S.S.R.

The release in December 2022 was made up of 13,173 documents, many of which came from the CIA, including a number involving Oswald's movements and contacts. Documents revealed that in December 1960, nearly three years before the Kennedy assassination, that the government had opened a file on Oswald, following his failed defection to the U.S.S.R. in 1959. Released documents also indicated that the CIA initially was concerned that Ruby and Oswald had been connected before their fateful encounter, but it was determined that they did not know each other. This release of documents meant that about 95 percent of the CIA's records relating to the assassination had been made available to the public.

Biden directed the National Archives and security agencies to conduct a six-month review of the remaining documents. By June 30, 2023 (when 1,103 documents were released), more than 2,600 additional documents had been released. Some 99 percent of documents in the collection were now available to the public. The intelligence agencies and archives then established "transparency plans" for the release of the remaining redactions and documents (4,684, according to The New York Times) as the reasons for their classification become no longer applicable. A number of observers believed that the most important revelation of the June 30 release was the disclosure of the name of the agent who had been tasked with overseeing Oswald's correspondence, Reuben Efron.

All of the attempts to make previously classified information public were taken in the belief that removing the government's veil of secrecy from the assassination would help bring closure. However, decades after the event and the investigations, speculation continues and conspiracy theories still abound.

Final witness?

Indeed, later in 2023, new doubt was cast on the Warren Commission's conclusions with the publication of The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After 60 Years, a book by Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents assigned to protect the first lady on that fateful day. Landis, who had been riding on the bumper of the car that was following the presidential limousine, was traumatized by the event and left the Secret Service only months after Kennedy's death. In 2014, having spent most of his life trying to forget the assassination, he read a book about it and came to believe that he held pieces of key information that had never come to light because he had kept them a secret. The Warren Commission's conclusions were partly based on the discovery of the "magic bullet" on the stretcher that had borne Connally in Parkland Memorial Hospital. Six decades later, Landis claimed that after the first lady left the limousine at the hospital, he found the bullet resting on the top of the back of the seat of the car and, seeking to prevent it from falling into the hands of a scavenger, put it in his pocket, brought it into the hospital, and, without telling anyone, put it on the president's stretcher, irrationally thinking that would be the best place for investigators to find it. (How the bullet had been transferred to Connally's stretcher is uncertain.) His account, the centerpiece of The Final Witness, was dismissed by skeptics who focused on Landis's failure to report these actions at the time. But for those who found it credible, the revelation suggested that the bullet in question had struck Kennedy in the back and then become dislodged, rather than penetrating his neck and hitting Connally. If true, some argued, this interpretation indicated that Connally would have to have been hit by another bullet, once again raising the possibility of a second shooter.
Jeff Wallenfeldt

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Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Conspiracy Theories

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Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Conspiracy Theories: Alternative theories about the assassination included blaming Cuba, organized crime, anti-Castro and anticommunist elements within the CIA, and Lyndon Johnson. Government entities of interest are the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), the President John F.

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Definition:
A conformation bias is the practice of only seeking out evidence that furthers your beliefs or ideals and ignoring or forgetting about other information or facts that don't align with what you want.

Connection:
A big conformation bias you will find to this very day is the anti vaccine movement. With all of the proven tests, thoroughly done studies and millions of lives helped by having basic vaccinations such as polio and HPV. There are groups of those who will go out of there way to sift through hundreds of scientific studies and call them false claims stating the one claim they find over and over as the answer to all things, only believing in that study because it furthers their own agenda that vaccines are bad.

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The psychology of the anti-vaccine movement

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For people who care about vaccines, the last 18 months have been a wild ride. Never has the world watched with such anticipation the development of a vaccine, to the point where even preliminary trial results made international headlines.

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Definition:
Mystical energy is the belief in natural unexplainable ways that a human can feel, such as chi or a spiritual awakening. To make their claims more legitimate they will make up new words or use scientific sounding words to make their claims seem more realistic.

Connection:
Number 9 in the article link states that after facing a near death experience some may find themselves to be a different person than who they were before with no explanation other then the super natural on the other side. But such an event would be extremely shocking to a person and could leave you clinically depresses or with post traumatic stress disorder, both of which have the same described effects on a humans mental state.

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9 Signs You’ve Had a Mystical Experience

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There is one particular state of consciousness that can change your life forever. This holy moment can only be described as ‘ecstatic’ in that your connection to life expands significantly. In this profound state of being, you feel that life is full of beauty and sacredness – yet this feeling is not…

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Definition:
All natural is a misleading marketing trend to trick you into thinking something is better for you than it actually may be, with a loose definition you can describe near anything is all natural as it all came from the Earth.

Connection:
In the food industry it is a common marketing term to call certain eggs 'free ranged'. To meet these standards the chickens must have access to the outdoors for at least 1 hour per day. The trick is that they only 'need' to have access for that hour, so farms that use this marketing term on their eggs they sell will open the door to the missive coupes with a chicken wire fence outside the door and this meets the agricultural stands to deem them free range chicken, thus being able to increase the sale value on the eggs. There is a great long follow up video to the super size me documentary describing the chicken industry that I will link here.

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Definition:
A red herring is way to distract you from following the evidence to the legitimate conclusion. It is a tactic used by most often by conspiracy theorists to guide you away from the truth and make you believe what they want you to believe.

Connection:
A common red herring you have probably heard about many times are the many conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks. From jet fuel can't melt steel beams to no people of the Jewish faith were killed in the attacks. All of the theories are easily disproven with tests, records and common knowledge the key to throwing out red herrings is that when one of your points is disproven, you do not acknowledge it and move on to your next one. For example stated above if they say no Israel wasn't behind the attack after you show them the death records of hundreds of Jewish people dying in the world trade center they will just move right on to the next conspiracy and ignore all facts and logic you stated to them.

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The first 9/11 conspiracy theories appeared on the internet just hours after the attacks, on 11 September 2001, and with the rise of social media, have grown in scope and scale ever since.

Extensive reports by the 9/11 Commission, US government agencies and expert groups have refuted the existence of any hidden conspiracy.

But activist groups in the US and elsewhere, the 9/11 Truth movement, say the facts have been hidden.

Some leading members of the movement have also embraced conspiracies about Covid-19 and vaccines.

'World government'

And online clips from a series of films known as Loose Change have reinforced many of the falsehoods circulating.

Some claim the US government staged the attacks or knew of them in advance and allowed them.

And these falsehoods mesh with more recent online movements' belief global elites plan to curtail civil liberties in response to the attacks and facilitate the establishment of an authoritarian world government.

A claim widely shared online, "Jet fuel cannot melt steel beams," suggests the World Trade Center's Twin Towers were demolished by explosives.

Additionally, the fires reached up to 1,000C in some areas, causing the steel beams to warp and the eventual collapse of the buildings.

Uncontrolled fires

The collapse of 7 World Trade Center, a 47-storey skyscraper in the vicinity of the Twin Towers, has attracted many conspiracy theories, some of which were trending on major social networks on last year's 9/11 anniversary.

This building - containing offices of the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the Office of Emergency Management - collapsed hours after the Twin Towers without being hit by a plane or directly targeted.

7 World Trade Center was the first tower of its kind to collapse because a fire.

Go viral

The fact the collapse of 7 World Trade Center was announced in a live report by BBC News correspondent Jane Stanley - while it was still visibly standing behind her - has been cited by conspiracy theorists as evidence major media organisations were part of the inside-job plot.

The Reuters news agency had mistakenly reported the collapse of the building, which was also picked up by CNN, just before the live report.

Reuters later issued a correction - but clips of the report continue go viral in the days leading up to 9/11 anniversaries.

Business jet

Some online conspiracy theories suggest US missiles were fired at the Pentagon, as part of a government plot, and the hole left in the building was too small to have been caused by a passenger plane.

Meanwhile, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers tried to take control of the plane from the hijackers.

Online theories claim it was shot down by a white business jet flying into a nearby airport.

'Jewish elites'

Believers conclude the Israeli government mounted the attacks to goad the US into attacking its regional enemies or responsibility lies with powerful Jewish elites who control world events from the shadows.

But of the 2,071 victims of 9/11 who worked at the World Trade Center, 119 were confirmed to be Jewish and at least a further 72 were believed to be Jewish.

And some estimate up to 400 Jewish people might have died that day.

Similar theories surround other states, including Iraq and Iran, but no evidence of their direct involvement has ever been found.

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11 September 2001: The conspiracy theories still spreading after 20 years

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The first 9/11 conspiracy theories appeared on the internet just hours after the attacks, on 11 September 2001, and with the rise of social media, have grown in scope and scale ever since. Extensive reports by the 9/11 Commission, US government agencies and expert groups have refuted the existence of any hidden conspiracy.

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process Responses 

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process Responses 

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I choose to evaluate Post #5: All Natural

Define Problem:
In the documentary it goes over how the food industry tricks consumers with branding and perception into making the consumer think the food is healthier than is really is.

Gather Information:
To further understand the industry the presenter opens up his own business and farm to get the full picture on how things work and along the way finds the many loop holes used to miss-market things as all natural foods.

Evaluate Evidence:
Along the film the presenter gets into contact with the miss-practices of the industry and upon discovering what he was doing they tried to blacklist him to prevent the exposer of what he was intending to do. After the farmer he was working with went on live television to discuss how the industry really worked he was blacklisted from buying anything related to farming chickens by the big corporations with a monopoly over the industry.

Recognize Assumptions, Emotions, Biases:
With billions of dollars in the industry it can be very hard to find the real answers as the people who are making the money want you to know as little as possible so you buy more and buy happy. It is clear that there is a hatred of the industry going into the documentary but it is backed up by facts and proper documentation as to what is really happening.

Synthesize Evidence, Identify Alternatives:
1: The food industry knows what is best for the consumer and should be left to handle everything in their own way.
2. The food industry holds a monopoly over the product and can weave false claims such as 'all natural' with no consequences to make more profits.

Select Best Alternative:
I select number 2 as my best alternative.

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Definition:
Simplicity is a simple answer for a question that can be hard to understand that you bring yourself to the conclusion of believing.

Connection:
The meaning of life to some is an important question that can not be truly answered. Some will make them self believe in an all powerful entity that has all answers as they were the one that created and shaped our existence and they are our driving force. While there is no hard evidence to prove any of the claims some people just want to believe in at as it can bring comfort. Living their lives seeking the answer that they want and no getting the answers they may not want to hear.

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Definition:
The unexplained is an event or act that we can not initially figure out ourselves so we draw our on reasons and conclusions as to what happened with no real evidence.

Connection:
Magic tricks are a great example of the unexplained. They are meant to wow the audience in ways that the untrained eye will never guess, from slight of hand to 'mind reading'. With a lot of practice, exact positioning of items and hand gestures they can make it seem as though an object disappeared and magically teleported into your pocket, even though with a bit of distraction and slight of hand they slide it in there without you noticing. But as you were a bit to distracted by the show they were putting on you didn't know it was happening and couldn't explain how it was done.

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Magic is something that has fascinated humankind since time immemorial. From entertaining kings back in the day to present day illusionists, magic is something that enchants in its typically mystifying ways. But do you know how they do it?

Well, here are 10 of the most amazing magic tricks revealed:

1. Levitation

You might remember Criss Angel creating quite a sensation with his levitation tricks. He was a master magician who levitated just a few feet away from the audience, leaving the onlookers clueless as to how he did it.

Explanation: Well, like every other magic trick, Angel used deception! Angel removed one foot from the shell of his shoe and stepped upward with the now-concealed leg. Meanwhile, his pants-leg and shoe remain behind. slowly rising as he hoists himself up, giving the impression that both his feet are in the air.

2. Walking on water

This again was made popular by Criss Angel, who even made it look convincing by dropping his show to the bottom to show that there's nothing but water below him.

Explanation: Angel was in fact walking atop plexiglass pillars! Plexiglass has a refractive index that's very similar to water's and is nearly invisible in water.

3. Card through the window

How many of you remember David Blaine pushing a card through a window? I always wondered how he did it, till I read an article that explained his modus operandi.

Explanation: Such a trick requires the participation of another person with an identical deck of cards (on the other end of the window). As part of the act, the volunteer shows the card to everyone but the magician. In the act, the partner on the other side of the glass gets to see it to, who slaps the card against the glass, making it seem like impromptu street magic.

Source: HalifaxVideos

4. The Guillotine

Ever seen a person being hacked by a guillotine, yet escaping unscathed? It's just a smart trick employed by magicians to entertain the audience.

Explanation: While the upper part employs a real, deadly blade (like the one used in a real guillotine), the lower part has secret compartments. There are tiny "stop blocks" that prevent the blade from reaching the magician's neck, while a trap door allows the magician's head/shoulders to drop out of sight as the blade falls.

5. Horizontal levitation

You must have seen women being suspended in mid-air without support? Ever wondered the science that goes behind it?

Explanation: There is always some kind of support or reinforcement. The video below would explain better.

6. Woman cut in half with a saw

The most common trick there is in the book. A woman is placed inside a box, with only her legs and head popping out of either ends. A chainsaw cuts through the box, cutting the woman in half, with her legs and head still moving! Ever wondered how they do it?

Explanation: It's all about the right stage setup and a tall volunteer! The video below will explain better.

7. Coffee turned into money

This was one of David Blaine's most famous magic tricks in which he turned a homeless man's cup of coffee into a cup full of coins.

Explanation: Concealed inside the coffee cup is another small cup, with a sponge at the bottom of it. Watch this video for a better explanation:

8. Zig-zag girl

In this trick, a woman steps into a cabinet and then the mid-section of the cabinet is pushed out of alignment.

Explanation: Unlike many illusions, this magic trick doesn't require secret compartments or trap doors. In this, the woman simply steps out of the vertical box, turns sideways, flattens her body against the left-hand wall of the box and then extends one hand behind her to wave through the hole in the displaced section of the box.

9. Vanishing coin trick

This is one of the most common tricks you see in shows and even on the streets. The magician takes a coin in his fist and closes it. He then opens the palm and the coin is gone.

Explanation: The magician applies chapstick glue to the back of his hand. He moves the coin to the back of his hand where it sticks!

10. Walking through a glass without breaking it

We end this list with another one of Criss Angel's mystifying feats of walking through a glass without breaking it.

Explanation: Angel's assistants are involved in the trick! His "spectators" are just actors who have been paid by him. In reality, the window is custom built into the frame. The window is tall and has a small opening cut out at the bottom, through which he emerges!

Go ahead, try them on your friends!

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Here Are The Secrets Behind 10 Of The Most Amazing Magic Tricks

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Magic is something that has fascinated humankind since time immemorial. From entertaining kings back in the day to present day illusionists, magic is something that enchants in its typically mystifying ways. But do you know how they do it?