Presto Chango ALAKAZAM
Another common magic word is ‘Alakazam’. This incantation is said to have its origins in the Arabic language, and there is a similar-sounding word in that language, ‘Al Qasam’, which means oath. It has also been suggested that ‘Alakazam’ is a proper name, and that this magic spell was supposed to invoke the powers of a certain person by the name of Alakazam. (Source)
used in a sentence:
He is unlikely to be judged kindly by subway and bus riders if they do not see—alakazam !—quick improvement in fraying service. — Clyde Haberman, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2009 Love words?
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Alakazam! The Neuroscience of Magic
March 11th, 2013 • 10:03
It’s not every day that you see a magician mentioned in the “Acknowledgements” section of a peer-reviewed scientific paper. But last month, when the open-access journal PeerJ launched, there it was: magical act Penn & Teller got a mention both in that section of the article AND in the title.
In the paper, Stephen L. Macknick of Barrow Neurological Institute and two other researchers explore why Penn & Teller’s classic “cups and balls” magic trick works so well … by using some tricks of the cognitive-neuroscience trade. They monitored the eye movements of study participants who were watching Teller perform to understand the finer points of the illusion.
Below, you’ll see an extended version of Penn & Teller performing the age-old trick, but you can also see the videos that accompanied the paper here.
Penn & Teller Explain Ball & Cups on Jonathan Ross 2010.07.09
As I mention in this week’s print Newscripts, Teller had assumed “cups and balls” fools the audience—even with transparent cups—because when he picks up a cup from the table, he tilts it and causes a ball sitting on top to fall. He thought audience members were distracted by the ball’s motion and therefore didn’t notice him sliding a new ball under the cup before placing it back on the table.
Macknick and his team disproved this notion by demonstrating that viewers’ eyes didn’t stray very much from Teller’s hands when he dumped the ball. Only when he held one of the balls up or placed it on the table did he misdirect a subject’s gaze significantly.
Some Newscripts readers might at this point be scratching their heads and asking why cognitive neuroscientists are helping magicians work on their acts.
Well, Macknick told me that back in 2007, neuroscientists (a subset of them who study human consciousness) held a conference in Las Vegas. During the planning phase of the meeting, they were trying to figure out ways of drawing the public and press in, so they decided to feature magicians. After all, Macknick tells me, the tricksters are everywhere in Sin City: on the sides of buses and plastered on giant billboards. “We realized that magicians are artists of attention and awareness,” he explains. “Not only that, but they’re also better at those things than scientists.”
After the success of the conference, cognitive neuroscientists began teaming up with magicians to test theories about why illusions fool the human brain. “There are now a dozen or two labs studying magic across the world,” Macknick says. But, he adds, the magicians are putting in a lot of time and effort, “so they want science to contribute back to magic, too.”
That’s why Macknick’s team investigated “cups and balls.”
Although Teller’s intuition about the trick was incorrect, Macknick says the results of the study are still interesting. “We don’t know why, but it seems the illusion’s success might have something to do with Teller’s hands,” he says. “It could be that we’re very attracted to his hands, and that’s what draws attention.”
This phenomenon seems to hold true for another magic trick Macknick and his team have examined. “Magicians oftentimes think social cues are an important part of misdirection,” Macknick says. For example, magician Mac King does a trick where he tosses a coin up in the air with one hand a few times and then tosses it through the air to his other hand. Except when King opens the opposite hand … no coin.
According to Macknick, that’s because King never throws the coin to begin with. He only makes it look like he tosses it (he actually palms it in his original hand). Many think the trick works partially because the magician follows the “coin” from one hand to the other with his gaze or looks at the audience. This is like looking over a person’s shoulder and saying, “What’s that behind you?” for fun. But Macknick says when he covers a magician’s face in the types of studies he conducts, participants still get flummoxed by the illusion.
“So it appears that social misdirection involving hands is much stronger than social misdirection from a magician’s gaze,” Macknick explains. “It’s not known in science whether attention to body motion is stronger than attention to gaze,” he adds, but it’s a direction his team will take in the future.
Macknick’s book, “Sleights of Mind”
NOVA special featuring Penn & Teller, Macknick, and other magicians
Talking About Thinking
A group blog by Cognitive Psychology students
Alakazam- Alakazoo! Magic uses cognitive psychology to pull one over on you!
She transforms before your very eyes! (using smoke and mirrors!)
is Magic really all smoke and mirrors? In the literal sense, no. Not all magicians utilize smoke and mirrors to captivate and awe-inspire their audience; well, the good ones don’t at lease. So what is a magician’s secret to a great magic trick, without the use of smoke and mirrors? A magic trick that utilizes principles of cognitive psychology. Many magic tricks are actually taking advantage of how the audience views the world. An excellent example of this is a simple card trick that involves a dollar bill and a regular playing card. The trick is a simple one, once it is explained, but it takes advantage of the principle of unintentional blindness, that is, the trick happens all in front of our eyes and we don’t see it. So it seems that magic is more than just smoke and mirrors after all.
So how do magicians utilize cognitive psychology in their magic tricks? Most of their tricks are taking advantage of the flaws in the human eye. The eye can only see vivid details from a particular spot, which we learned in class is called the fovea centralis. The rest of the eye that relays visual information to the brain does so less accurately. To compensate for this, we must continuously move our two foveas, one for each eye, on to whatever thing, or stimulus, we wish to get a better view of. But moving our foveas is not the only compensation tactic we utilize to make up for the flaws of our eyes vision. Our brains have the ability to manipulate the information that our eyes send and do not send. For example, our peripheral vision is not good at picking up color. Were able to see color in our peripheral vision because our brain is inferring the color. At face value, our brains ability to manipulate what we actually see seems like a great thing, but this ability has its faults as well. When we are concentrating on something particular, our brain, in attempts to simplify our life, is also capable of ignoring some of the information that our eyes are sending it. This phenomenon is referred to as inattentional blindness. Most magician’s magic tricks are performances that take advantage of a cognitive psychology principles, like the two mentioned, in one form or another. There you have it, I guess the rabbit is out of the hat.
An excellent example of how magicians utilize cognitive psychology in their magic tricks is provided below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9k0WeIoPI&feature=youtu.be
Were you surprised by the sheer simplicity of the trick? I sure was! If you were like me and didn’t notice how the magic trick was first performed, don’t beat yourself up about it-it’s just a little hocus-pocus! As you can see from the video, the card trick takes advantage of both our eye’s poor peripheral vision and our brain’s ability to ignore sensory information. At first the magician presents a normal appearing playing card and a dollar bill. He folds the dollar bill around the card a few times, snaps his finger and boom! The card magically seems reversed on the bottom as it slides between the dollar bill. Unfortunately, there is no magic. The magician has not only cleverly concealed the fact that the card is ripped, but also folded it before his audience without them noticing it. For the most part, the rip is concealed by the magician’s thumb, but when it is exposed it is most likely to go undetected. This is because the audience is probably paying attention to the green dollar bill, and our peripheral vision is not strong enough to pick up the hints of the ripped card. At exactly 0.37 in the video, you will notice that the bottom left corner of the card, right under the ‘LAR’ of the word dollar, is more shaded than the rest of the card. This is because the magician is starting to push this part of the card backwards in preparation for the trick. Within a few seconds of this, at .40 the magician uses his pinky, ring finger, and middle finger to push the rest of the portion of the ripped card back as he unfolds the dollar bill in front of the card. Here, the magician is taking advantage of the phenomena of inattentional blindness. While he unfolds the dollar bill open, most audience members are probably focusing on the dollar bill and are not noticing his three fingers reaching behind the card to push the ripped portion of the card back. Thus before he even snaps his finger, which most probably recognize as an attempt to divert their attention, the trick has already been played. Thus, this cleaver magician has provided us with a perfect example of how magicians utilize cognitive psychological principles to perform their magic tricks.
Magic. It’s mystical! Its stupendous! It’s a big fraud! It also uses cognitive psychology to fool its viewers into believing that it is real. Well, at least the stuff you see on the street corner and in las- Vegas anyway. The real stuff is just referred to as technology now days. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Author C. Clarke. Though, to be fair, even technology utilizes cognitive psychology on its users in some form or fashion. So the next time you hear someone say “all magic is-is a bunch of smoke and mirrors”, you can say “Actually, it’s all cognitive psychology baby!”
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We know magic tricks aren’t real, yet we continue to be fooled and impressed by them time after time. So how do magicians still manage to keep audiences on their toes? They mess with our brains of course! Jonathan Hsu of MTheory Magic (https://www.facebook.com/mtheorymagic) stopped by the Digg office to show off his skills, and teach us why we’re all so gullible. Want more great videos? Subscribe to us here: 
/ @digg or head to http://digg.com/video to watch the best videos on the ‘net. See more videos like this in the full How to/ How Do Videos Playlist: • How to/How Do Videos #magician #cards
Orange Colored Sky
Nat King Cole
About Orange Colored Sky
“Orange Colored Sky” is a popular song, written by Milton DeLugg and Willie Stein and published in 1950. The best-known version of the song was recorded by Nat King Cole (with Stan Kenton’s orchestra), but a number of other singers have recorded it, including Cole’s daughter, Natalie. That recording by Nat King Cole was recorded on August 16, 1950 and released by Capitol Records as catalog number 1184. It first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on September 22, 1950 and lasted 13 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 11. (Some sites list a 1945 date for this recording, but this is apparently in error.) The first known recording was on July 11, 1950 on KING records catalog number 15061, with Janet Brace singing and Milton Delugg conducting the orchestra. The recording by Jerry Lester was released by Coral Records as catalog number 60325. It first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on November 24, 1950 and lasted one week in the chart, peaking at number 30. Jerry Lester was the host of the late-night NBC series Broadway Open House, on which co-writer DeLugg was musical director. Because of the exposure that the song received on that show, “Orange Colored Sky” has been said to be one of the first songs to become a hit through television exposure. « less
Nat King Cole – Orange Colored Sky
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Orange Coloured Sky
Song by Nat King Cole
I was walking along, minding my businessWhen out of an orange colored sky(Flash, bam, alakazam)Wonderful you came by I was humming a tune, drinking in sunshineWhen out of that orange colored view(Flash, bam, alakazam)I got a look at you
One look and I yelled timberWatch out for flying glass‘Cause the ceiling fell in and the bottom fell outI went into a spin and I started to shoutI’ve been hit(This is it, this is it, I’ve been hit)
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I was walking along minding my businessWhen love came and hit me in the eye(Flash, bam, alakazam)Out of an orange colored sky
One look and I yelled timberWatch out for flying glass‘Cause the ceiling fell in and the bottom fell outI went into a spin and I started to shoutI’ve been hit(This is it, this is it, I’ve been hit)
I was walking along minding my businessWhen love came and hit me in the eye(Flash, bam, alakazam)Out of an orange colored, purple stripedPretty green polka dot sky(Flash, bam) alakazam and goodbye
Wow, I thought love was much softer than thatFor the most disturbing sound
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You know it was not until recent times that we started seeing the sand from the Sahara blowing all across the earth. Suddenly all the way over here in the USA we were having Sahara Desert SAND STORMS. Not just here either in countries across the Earth.
Take a look at this article. Notice the title. Right out of the Nat King Cole Song.
Flash, bam, alakazam
AuthorMoving with Mitchell / Posted on
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. I decided to do a post today (I usually skip Thursdays) because I wanted to show you what our day looks like. It’s another muddy rain thanks to the sands of the Sahara Desert. The top photo is what it looked like for our walk at 10:30 this morning. It’s gotten significantly worse.
Isabel was here, so we went for coffee at Hotel Ilunion. I kept my mask on for the walk over because I didn’t want to inhale the wet Saharan sands. You can see from the photos how orange our world is once again. The winds were powerful while we were at Ilunion. They’ve calmed significantly since then, so people are out for walks — many maskless.
ORANGE THE WORLD
ORANGE – It’s about much more than Citrus
Before our steady and heavy rain overnight, we had enough rain in one week to satisfy our needs for four months — and that doesn’t include all the snow in the mountains. That’s good news for us, despite the mud. Except that San Geraldo had the car washed the other day.
Click the thumbnails to see the Saharan sand.
• From inside the hotel at 11:30, I watched people getting blown (and not happily).
• Desde el interior del hotel a las 11:30, vi a la gente siendo mamada (y no felizmente).
• Desde la terraza a las 15:30.
• Desde la sala de estar.
• Y desde mi oficina.
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My Baby Must Be a Magician
The Marvelettes
The Magic Land of Allakazam Short Documentary
They have an entire website where you can participate in magic related events and view all the old programs. Check it out
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Welcome to the Allakazam Archives!
Featuring The Legendary Magic of MARK WILSON & NANI DARNELL CustomerService@AllakazamArchives.com LINK: https://allakazamarchives.com/allakazam-archives/
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ala– under-, lower, nether, sub-, inferior Derived terms Estonian words prefixed with ala– alus Finnish Etymology From Proto-Finnic *ala, from Proto-Uralic *ëla. Cognate with Estonian ala– and Hungarian alatt . Pronunciation IPA ( key): /ˈɑlɑ-/, [ˈɑlɑ-] Prefix ala– ( comparative alempi, superlative alin )
Numerology
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(indica espacio) no te pongas tan allá, que no te oigo don’t stand so far away, I can’t hear you. allá donde sea possible wherever possible. allá abajo/arriba down/up there. allá lejos right back there. hacia allá that way, in that direction. más allá further on.
Numerology
Numerology
Pythagoras 7
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Allaka Meaning, Pronunciation and Origin
Allaka Meaning
Emotional, Entertainer, Strong
Numerology
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Dictionary.com K – Definition
k – Symbol.
K eleventh Roman letter, from Greek kappa, from Phoenician kaph or a similar Semitic source, said to mean literally “hollow of the hand” and to be so called for its shape.
Smith was the first striker, and went out on three strikes, which is recorded by the figure “1” for the first out, and the letter K to indicate how put out, K being the last letter of the word “struck.” The letter K is used in this instance as being easier to remember in connection with the word struck than S, the first letter, would be. [Henry Chadwick, “Chadwick’s Base Ball Manual,” London, 1874]
K eleventh Roman letter, from Greek kappa, from Phoenician kaph or a similar Semitic source, said to mean literally “hollow of the hand” and to be so called for its shape.
Ancient Egypt: the Mythology – Ka – egyptian myths
Ka (ka) Appearance: In art the ka was portrayed in several ways: a person identical to the person whom it was associated with, as a shadowy figure, as a person with two upraised arms on his head. The hieroglyph for the ka was the shoulders and arms with the arms bent upwards at the elbow, similar to the “touchdown” gesture in American football.Meaning: The “ka” is a very complex part of the symbolism in ancient Egyptian mythology and represents several things: the ka is a symbol of the reception of the life powers from each man from the gods, it is the source of these powers, and it is the spiritual double that resides with every man.
The ka as a spiritual double was born with every man and lived on after he died as long as it had a place to live. The ka lived within the body of the individual and therefore needed that body after death. This is why the Egyptians mummified their dead. If the body decomposed, their spiritual double would die and the deceased would lose their chance for eternal life. An Egyptian euphemism for death was “going to one’s ka“. After death the ka became supreme. Kings thus claimed to have multiple kas. Rameses II announced that he had over 20.
The ka was more than that though. When the ka acted, all was well, both spiritually and materially. Sin was called “an abomination of the ka”. The ka could also be seen as the conscience or guide of each individual, urging kindness, quietude, honor and compassion. In images and statues of the ka, they are depicted as their owner in an idealized state of youth, vigor and beauty. The ka is the origin and giver of all the Egyptians saw as desirable, especially eternal life.
Kas resided in the gods as well. Egyptians often placated the kas of the deities in order to receive favors. The divine kas also served as guardians. Osiris was often called the ka of the pyramids.
The god Khnemu who was said to create each man out of clay on his potter’s wheel also molded the ka at the same time.
Princeton’s WordNet
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Ka noun – unknown god; an epithet of Prajapati and Brahma
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ka noun – A spiritual aspect of the individual, living within the body during life, and surviving the body after death. It was believed to be one of two spirits inhabiting the body, the other being the ba, which deserts the body at death.
Freebase
Ka Ka is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiceless velar plosive, like the pronunciation of ⟨k⟩ in “king”.
Editors Contribution
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ka – Destiny, one’s life force, related to “khef” – The Dark Tower by Stephen King.
Our ka was interlocked after we all shared khef (soul sharing), we are now ka-tet (Tet being a group, ka-tet being a group locked by destiny)
Submitted by anonymous on July 14, 2019
Anagrams for Ka » AK
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology is: 3
Pythagorean Numerology is: 3
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KÀ by Cirque du Soleil | Official Trailer
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MEANINGS
In Muslim Baby Names the meaning of the name A’zam is: Greatest. Biggest.
Zam – Wikipedia
ZAM Definitions.net
Zam
Zam is the Avestan language term for the Zoroastrian concept of “earth”, in both the sense of land and soil and in the sense of the world. The earth is prototyped as a primordial element in Zoroastrian tradition, and represented by a minor divinity Zam who is the hypostasis of the “earth”. The word itself is cognate to the Baltic ‘Zemes’ and Slavic ‘Zem’, both meaning the planet earth as well as soil. The element zam exists with the same meaning in Middle Persian, which is the language of the texts of Zoroastrian tradition. The divinity Zam however appears in the later language as Zamyad, which is a contraction of “Zam Yazad”, i.e. the yazata Zam. Zam of the earth is not related to the Zam of the Shahnameh. That Zam—Zahhak-e-Maar-Doosh —is the king of dragons that slew Jamshid.
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology is: 3
Pythagorean Numerology is: 4
Kaza Wikipedia
Kazam Wikipedia
Kazam is a UK wbased smartphone brand established in 2013 by former HTC employees. The brand gathered publicity by offering free screen replacements for their products.
Kazam
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology is: 6
Pythagorean Numerology is: 7
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Kazaam – Wikipedia
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http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/244113/ddg#244119OED Online offers a comprehensive etymology for alakazam. It says that it is apparently an arbitrary formation, invented to sound like a word in an unspecified foreign language, with the intention of creating an air of exoticism and mystery.
For the magical exclamation, OED says that it is perhaps approximately suggested by abracadabra.
The earliest form of the word is alagazam and it is suggested by the following (facetious) use in a street name (in the Daily evening bulletin, San Francisco, 1881):
Camp Capitola. Description of a New Seaside Resort in Santa Cruz County… The party who laid out the streets..gave vent to his facetious bent in naming them. Glancing at the names..are seen Fishbone avenue, Alagazam street, Rat Tail alley and Soda Water avenue.
OED also gives early examples in which this expression (in various spellings) is used facetiously with relation to the use of foreign words and phrases in English linguistic contexts with the intention to impress or to create an air of sophistication:
At this point the conversation was interrupted by the tones of a deep, rich bass voice belonging to a gentleman, who sat directly behind the alagazam idiot: ‘Asinus, asini, asiniorum’.
1884 Hawaiian Monthly May 119/2
I ain’t had a square meal sence. Been fillin’ up on Charley horse rusies, sooflay de allakazam, an’ all them French dishes.
1896 N.Y. Tribune 24 May 17/6
OED also adds that the form Alagazam is also attested earlier in popular music, earliest as the title of composition first released as a ragtime piano score and subsequently published with lyrics:
The theme and title of this composition suggested itself to the writer during a trip to the South where he saw a colored regiment, who, while marking time during drill..were uttering a peculiar refrain which sounded like—Alagazam! Alagazam! Alagazam! Zam! Zam!
1902 A. Holzmann ‘Alagazam!’ Cake Walk, March and Two Step 3
There are also two other examples:
Zam Zam Zam was the title they gave him Zam Zam Zam our mighty Alagazam. With the explanation given by Holzmann for the title of his piece compare the later composition by Harry von Tilzer and Andrew B. Sterling entitled Alagazam to the Music of the Band (1915). With forms showing apparently arbitrary variation in the final syllable (as alakazoop, alakazoo, etc.), compare the following comic song, where a different alteration of Alakazam (apparently presented as though the name of a foreign country, state, or city) features in each successive verse (The Countess of Alagazoop, The Countess of Alagazip, etc.).
1903 A. Holzmann Alagazam. Song. 5
They christen’d a girl somewhere in the world, The Countess of Alagazam. It has been suggested that the expression arose in the medicine shows that toured America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although contemporary evidence to confirm this appears to be lacking. – 1904 R. Cole Countess of Alagazam 3
1904 R. Cole Countess of Alagazam 3
The earliest example listed in OED for alakazam used as an exclamation imparting supposed magical power, as when performing a trick is from 1902 (as part of an extended magical formula):
It was a wishing-spell, and whoever repeated it could be anywhere or do anything he desired… It read like this: ‘Alakazam Bazazza Ki! Hickory Dickory Dock. Omega Om Opeeka Pi? O Donnerwetter Hoch!’
1902 Sun (Baltimore) 30 Mar. 12/1
There is also another possible origin from Arabic but there isn’t much evidence.
In the book Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons: The Origins of English in Ten Words (by Paul Anthony Jones), it is mentioned that there is a popular folk etymology claiming that the word is somehow derived from the Arabic al qasam, meaning ‘the oath’, in fact the true origin of alakazam is considered a mystery.
It is also mentioned in the book Magic Words: A Dictionary (By Craig Conley):
This word has its roots in an Arabic incantation.133 A similar-sounding Arabic phrase, Al Qasam, means “oath.”
Because Alakazam is a proper name, it may have originally been used as a magic word invoking the powers of a particular person named Alakazam.134
Alakazam has also been traced to a Hindu word meaning “flawless” and a spell intended “to stave off pain while performing some great act of physical endurance.”135
133 John Skoyles and Dorion Saga, Up Ann Dragons (2002)
134 Terry O’Connor, “Word for Word,” PlateauPress.com (2004)
135 TheMagicCafe.com (2005)
The book Magic Words: A Dictionary offers much more details about alakazam and all other magic words/phrases. It also gives an explanation about the word Ala which is part of Alakazam and some other magic words.
Ala not only appears in several magic words (like alakazam, alakazee, a-la peanut butter sandwiches, and alikazoola) but also can be a magic word on its own. Ala is the name of a dangerous demon that envelopes people, mentioned in antiquated Mesopotamian magical texts.
–ermanen
ALA (Superior) KA (Spirit or God) ZAM (the World/EARTH) –
INVOCATION TO THE GOD OF THE WORLD/EARTH!
| ALA | KA | ZAM |
| SUPERIOR | Spirit of god | god of the EARTH |
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Pythagoras 5
Chaldean 5
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Chaldean:3 Pythagorean : 3 |
Chaldean: 3 Pythagorean : 4 |
A’zam is: Greatest. Biggest
It is possible that A’zam is the name of the god or demon being called forth. We don’t know. They keep the true names and means occulted. But, as I have said before the demons know who they are invoking when the utter these “magick words”.
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