mgnfcnt

The fact is I did not appreciate until much later in my own life, what subterfuge and sacrifice it took to be independent and undefeated by the pressures of reality. -Niall Williams, This is Happiness

The way I sometimes explain this to my students is by comparing it to a sideshow. There used to be a part of carnival sideshows where a magician would cut a woman in two. It was all done with mirrors and so on, but it looked real and the audience was spellbound by it. By the end of the show, the lady would come back on the stage along with the magician so that everyone could see that it was a conjuring trick. Racecraft is a conjuring trick that does not need a conjurer. The onlookers’ minds are also conjuring the spectacle for them. Racecraft does not end with the performer and the illusion appearing on the stage in their rightful being. It’s a permanent illusion. It can be a death-dealing illusion. - Barbara J. Fields