You're right! And it also should give immense confidence in performance. If the misdirection is half decent, it's amazing what you can get away with.

I think novice performers often beat themselves up about getting every move and sleight absolutely perfect and fear that any minor flaw in execution will get discovered. But a lay audience don't know what to look for (or, with good misdirection, they won't).

Of course it is different performing in front of magicians - the hardest people to misdirect and therefore the most challenging audience of all.

Mike

It really can go beyond amazing. It's sometimes scary to know that it is possible to have that much control over other people's thinking. To me, that comes with a heavy burden of responsibility.