why do you need to trick yourself if you already know it's a trick?
how is that even possible without some serious cognitive dissonance?
This is a good question.
I generally have a lot of trouble to trick myself if I already know it's a trick. Actually I cannot reliably do it, unless it's some kind of physiological phenomenon or an optical illusion.
Like the knee reflex thing. Works reliably.
Or grinning like a madman, laughing out loud and jumping around somewhat in order to forcibly improve my mood. Only works for short duration and the physical excercise (dancing to loud music) seems more important than the grinning, although both help.
Or having that trick with the disappearing coin from Derren Brown's book performed by a friend to me, after I did it a couple of times to them, and explained it. Even though I totally knew what was going on, it totally fooled me. Several times. So yeah there I knew I was being tricked and it still took me a good few concentrated stares to actually see that the coin was already gone before it (did not) went into the other hand. Amazing trick that one, btw. And so simple I could do it within the first try.
Anyway, those are the only (types of) instances I have ever reliably managed to trick myself while knowing fully well I was being tricked. Involuntary reflex, physiological reaction and optical illusion/misdirection.
Other kinds of tricks, like actual psychological tricks, while being aware that I am tricking myself, no.
I totally suck at placebo-ing myself too. We talked about this before. Valerian root, didn't do shit. Except for the shit part.
Even the timeframe within which it is supposed to work is unclear. Some personal accounts I heard people say they felt more relaxed within an hour or so. While on other websites there was talk of taking it over a longer period of time 1-2 pills a day like you'd do with anti-depressants.
Then someone said, was it Rat or LMNO maybe, that it might work better if I said out loud to myself "This will relax me" and tell all my friends it works and then pretend and basically "fake it till you make it". Of course I did not do this, because I don't wanna lie to my friends if it means spreading rumours about some stupid piece of homeopathic herb pills that are sold for way too much [price probably helps for people that dont know they're being tricked], that they actually work while in reality it's all placebo.
So I dunno if that could have worked.
But do that once, okay, but do it more often and it kind of borders on the pathological lying. Tell fairytale stories to your friends about untrue events that did not take place, continue until they believe it's true and yeah they will behave as if some part of it is true. The ex of one of my exes was like that. I never met the fuckhead, but he totally fucked with her head. Years later we stumbled upon stories that did not make sense if you looked at them clearly. Ok she was young and impressionable. And she got out without too much damage so all is good.
What I mean is, trick yourself while knowing you are tricking yourself, even if that's possible, you're only lying to yourself.
But trick others while knowing you are tricking them, is of course a lot easier, and you're lying to them, and depending on the situation it might make you harmless or a complete dickhead.
And of course there's tricking others while also believing your own bullshit. I think this is a big one for those mediums, psychics and the like. The small-time ones, the "real" ones [not the big ones that throw up big shows, they probably know really well what they're doing]. That's sad IMO. The fact that they let that happen to themselves without being aware of it shows to me they are not at all as perceptive as they claim to be.
Just in case the proponents of "magic" do not know, but the last two reasons are the main reasons for debunking that shit.
That's the reason why it's better to not call it all just "magic", but, depending on what you're really doing, mindhacks, psychological tricks, physiological tricks, optical illusions, misdirection, delusion, deluding yourself, or just plain straight out lying your face off and conning people. That's roughly on a scale from useful to harmless to bad.
Lumping it all under the category "magic" kind of loses those subtle distinctions. And there's no Karma, Rule of Threes or Light and Dark Energy stories that are gonna help you make those distinctions ANY better than plain and simple calling the stuff you're doing for what it really is. Makes things a lot more clearer too.
Oh, and on the subject of mindhacks, there is this O'Reilly book by that name which I thought was kind of boring, not much useful things in there. But there is a followup to that book called "Mind Performance Hacks" which is more about the practical side of those mindhacks, which does contain quite a number of useful tricks. So if you are into no-magic, no-bullshit tampering with your mind, check it out.
