Now published online in *The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism*, "The Experience of Magic." To my knowledge, this is the first systematic philosophical study of magic published in a professional academic journal. It is the first step in a larger project that I'm working on with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. (I've posted this in the "Food for Thought" section, but since the paper also discusses work relevant to psychology, I thought I should also post here.)

I'm pleased to report that the essay won the 2015 John Fisher Memorial prize from the American Society for Aesthetics and is receiving a good deal of attention from philosophers and psychologists, in particular. One of the most gratifying things about this work is that I've been told again and again by non-magicians that they take from it a new appreciation and respect for magic. So, even if much of what I say is wrong, something good is coming of it.

The essay discusses the ideas of many people you'll be familiar with, including Teller, Whit Haydn, and Darwin Ortiz.

Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, I cannot post the essay here directly, and it's behind a paywall. However, if you'd like a copy, please just PM me your email address. The link directly to the journal is here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11......abstract

All comments and criticisms are very welcome, and I encourage you to make them publicly on this thread!

I should add that you can find an earlier draft of the paper on my website: www.jasonleddington.net. Just look under "research" and "publications."

Also perhaps of interest, Will Houstoun briefly discusses my thinking about magic in episode 14 of the "Magical Thinking" podcast at http://www.artofmagic.com. The lengthy interview, very capably conducted by Elliott Terral, is very much worth a listen. The discussion of my work comes in a conversation about the problem of defining 'magic', between (roughly) 33:30 and 40:30.

See: https://www.artofmagic.com/blogs/podcast......un-ep-14