Sleights of Mind: What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our brains | 
"Magicians understand at a deeply intuitive level that you alone create your experience of reality, and they exploit the fact that your brain does a staggering amount of outright confabulation in order to contruct the mental simulation of reality known as "consciousness." This is not to say that objective reality isn't "out there' in a very real sense. But all you get to experience is a simulation."
"Have you ever had a boss who made a dumb decision that became immutable policy long after she realized she had been wrong? Cognitive dissonance. Have you yourself ever made a dumb decision concerning your children, but then stuck to your guns so as to "provide consistency"? Cognitive dissonance..."
"Magicians love cognitive dissonance, since it leads spectators to feel as though they've made decisions freely for themselves... When you make a decision between two things that seem equivalent, cognitive disonance frequently comes into play. You elevate the value of your choice for the simple reason that it was your choice."
"Magic tricks work because humans have a hardwired process of attention and awareness that is hackable. By understanding how magicians hack our brains, we can better understand how the same cognitive tricks are at work in advertising strategy, business negotiations, and all varieties of interpersonal relations. When we understand how magic is in the mind of the spectator, we will have unveiled the neural bases of consciousness itself."
