Dr. Vincent Sacco of Queen’s University’s Department of Sociology is the go-to guy when it comes to criminology, the deviant mind, the suspicious motives and what sociologists would call “other.”

So of course, the first words out of his mouth upon meeting a reporter for Kingston EMC would be “Want to see a magic trick?”

The esteemed professor believes there is a similarity of method — if not motive — between magicians and their evil counterparts in the non-magic world, politicians and advertising executives.

“The basic principles of how a magician fools you are the same ones that the advertiser and the politician use to fool you,” said Dr. Sacco.

In a recent presentation to the Toronto Alumni Association titled “Nothing Up My Sleeve: What I Learned from the Great Magicians,” Dr. Sacco performed magic in support of his thesis.

“I’d never performed magic in public before,” he said. “I even included the bending-a-spoon trick.”

Like many of us addicted to this profession of deception for entertainment’s sake, he was hooked as a preteen.
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