Comment 17 by littletrotsky13

A painfully long-winded article, did it have anything to do with reason and science except demonstrate that some people will spend a vast amount of time on something so trivial?

This part I found interesting and relevant:

Swiss tells Teller about the tour of the Copperfield warehouse and his rediscovery of the wall from Tannen’s. Though Teller grew up in Philadelphia, he recognizes the key moment memorialized by the wall. “There’s a moment in your life when you realize the difference between illusion and reality and that you’re being lied to,” he says. “Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. After my mother told me that there was no Santa Claus, I made up an entirely fictitious girl in my classroom and told my mother stories about her. Then I told my mother, ‘You know what—she isn’t real.’ ” He smiles with somewhat Pugsley Addams-like glee, and goes on, more soberly, “If you’re sufficiently preoccupied with the power of a lie, a falsehood, an illusion, you remain interested in magic tricks.”

There are of course a terrible amount of people who don't realize the difference between illusion and reality: Religion, "alternative medicine" and other kinds of humbug (to use a favorite word of Houdini, master magician and debunker).

I can enjoy a good, entertaining magic act and was lucky to catch Penn & Teller on stage in London in 1995. Don't know much about Jamy Ian Swiss who was one of the main subjects of this article, but he did a nice guest appearance on Mr. Deity.