When asked how to become magicians, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) suggested to get inspired by David Copperfield. No, not the one who made the Statue of Liberty disappear: Chesterton was referring to the protagonist of the famous novel written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

According to Chesterton, the city of London portrayed by Dickens in his books has something more than the real thing:

Herein is the whole secret of that eerie realism with which Dickens could always vitalize some dark or dull corner of London. There are details in the Dickens descriptions – a window, or a railing, or the keyhole of a door – which he endows with demoniac life. The things seem more actual than things really are. (1) 

An example of such evocation? Dickens tells of that time when he entered a coffee shop and was shocked to see the name of the place written backwards:

In the door there was an oval glass-plate, with COFFEE ROOM painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backward on the wrong side MOOR EEFFOC (as I often used to do then, in a dismal reverie), a shock goes through my blood. (2) 

The English writer suggests that it just takes a mirror to transfigure the mundane and make it unusual. According to Chesterton, the expression MOOR EEFFOC brilliantly condenses the fundamental rule to inject magic in the world:

The letters of the words COFFEE ROOM are not so strange, but through the mind of the artist they give birth, although being the same, to MOOR EEFFOC, mysterious and fearful words, similar to the ones inscribed by a supernatural hand on the walls of the King. Change settings, persons, common facts and look at them through Dickens’ fantasy glass, and you will get creatures and places similar to the ones you already know, but they will gain an extremely funny or terribly weird dimension. (3) 

The MOOR EEFFOC effect also struck J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). According to The Lord of the Rings’ author – who wrote about it in his essay “On Fairy Stories” – such effect allows to see the queerness of things that have become trite, seeing them suddenly from a new angle. Such an attitude allows the “recovery of freshness of vision.” (4) 

Cultivating such freshness of vision allows to turn the ordinary into magical, bringing to light surprising elements. According to the founding father of positive psychology Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, cultivating a vigilant gaze – tuned into the wonderful elements of everyday life – is a key to well-being. Analyzing the ingredients that contribute to happiness, the scholar has called “flow” the mind state of someone completely involved in an activity and getting gratification from it. To access the flow state we need to shift attention away from ourselves and our concerns. Focusing on the surrounding world and its details, we do not waste mental energy to satisfy the whims of our ego:

Being in control of the mind means that literally anything that happens can be a source of joy. Feeling the breeze on a hot day, seeing a cloud reflected on the glass facade of a high-rise, working on a business deal, watching a child play with a puppy, drinking a glass of water can all be felt as deeply satisfying experiences that enrich one’s life. To achieve this control, however, requires determination and discipline. (5) 

To facilitate the access to the “flow state” many disciplines emerged, such as meditation, yoga and tai chi. Along with these, someone conceived magical experiences that encourage the same capacity, rewarding those who are able to exercise a high level of attention and providing amazing stimulations when you least expect them. It is the case of a series of installations that the creatives of yet | matilde have placed . . . in the toilets of a restaurant!

Few places foster distraction as public toilets, places that are always the same, where we perform activities that do not require any intellectual effort. To help defuse the autopilot and regain control of our attention, the Turin-based artists have installed next to the sink a mysterious sculpture made up of illegible letters. When I stumbled upon it, for a moment, I wondered how to decipher the code contained in these strange shapes. Only after a few seconds I realized that the mirror was the key to solving the riddle: in the reflection the writing was perfectly readable.

Installation by yet|matilde at the restaurant “Alla lettera”, Piazza Bodoni, Turin (Italy).
Quote by Edith Wharton (1862-1937).

The aha! moment when your brain goes click! – and suddenly everything becomes clear – brings with it a feeling of awakening from numbness. In that magic moment, “the things seem more actual than things really are.”

This kind of experiences are the focus of some stories that, together with Ferdinando Buscema, I collected within the pages of the book Amaze. Reading the book Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said:

Amaze is a startingly original introduction of a magical perspective into everyday life. It could have been written in the Middle Ages, but then it would have lacked the backing of modern science which the authors summarizes so well; or it could have been written today, assuming anyone had the deep historical and philosophical knowledge that Tomatis and Buscema bring to the argument . . . In any case, now that it is written, the reader will never find life boring again.

Notes