A Note on Magical Deception

Responding to the two preceding articles, the author suggests another way that neuroscience may provide the key to a richer and more complex understanding of premodern magic. His interest is not primarily in intellectual magic or witchcraft; rather he seeks a better understanding of magical fraud. The work of Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik has proven a useful guide in the course of the author's research on Mellon MS 6, an early fifteenth-century paper codex written in Latin and a northern Italian vernacular, a compendium miscellaneous magical and alchemical procedures which the author dubs a "charlatan's tome."