As part of my continuing quest to make up for never paying attention in math class as a child, I’m reading another book on randomness and irrationality.

And it’s awesome.

It’s called The Black Swan and it’s based -funnily enough- on Black Swan Dynamics.

Here’s why I think it applies to the practice of magic:

You know how when a spell achieves its result via an unpredicted synchronicity, at the time you go “woah, that’s awesome.” (I never expect that feeling to diminish, incidentally.) The outcome feels unmistakably outside your regular experience.

But… When you look at it after the fact -or worse- try to describe how the result manifested to someone else it starts to look… Well… Unmagical.

I would say that’s because a magical result is a Black Swan Event.

The following video is the author of the book explaining what a Black Swan actually is.

Characteristics of a Black Swan

1. The event is an outlier: in that it lies outside the realm of regular expectation. Nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.
2. It carries an extreme impact.
3. It looks perfectly explicable after the fact despite absolutely no one predicting it would happen. The author calls this “retrospective predictability”. He also says that a Black Swan is not just when the highly unpredictable happens, it’s when the highly predictable doesn’t happen. (See why I immediately leaped to magic?)

Challenges of the Black Swan

Literally just about every major historical (and recently financial) event is a Black Swan. The purpose of the book is to highlight the fact that modern humans are trained to look for things they already know rather than receive training in how to prepare when the unknown shows up.

This is a glaring oversight when you think about it.

It’s down to the fact that humans just don’t like admitting that we don’t know something. This trait stretches across national security, real estate, archaeology, finance, health and medicine… You name it.

“Why do we, scientists or non-scientists, hotshots or regular Joes, tend to see the pennies instead of the dollars? Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading the newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?”

That’s from the intro.

Black Swan logic makes what you don’t know far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many Black Swans may be caused or exacerbated by their being unexpected.

The example the author uses here is 9/11 -everyone’s go-to example.

” …(H)ad the risk been reasonably conceivable on September 10, it would not have happened. If such a possibility were deemed worthy of attention, fighter planes would have circled the skies above the twin towers, airplanes would have had locked bulletproof doors, and the attack would not have taken place, period. Something else might have taken place. What? I don’t know.

Isn’t it strange to see an event happening precisely because it was not supposed to happen? What kind of defense do we have against that? Whatever you come to know (that New York is an easy terrorist target, for instance) may become inconsequential if your enemy knows that you know it. It may be odd that, in such a strategic game, what you know can be truly inconsequential.”

Thing about 9/11 is… It’s extremely easy to predict in retrospect. Everyone became an overnight Afghanistan expert, skilled in discussing the great Clash of Civilisations that extends back to Xerxes and beyond. Ain’t nobody was talking about this at the school gate on September 10.

A Black Swan career spell example

1. 18 months ago, I cast a spell to improve my long term career prospects. The role I was in wasn’t moving me up fast enough. I expected to be handed more responsibility or an extra magazine or two. (It was a magazine company, obviously.)
2. I get a phone call from one of the world’s leading cable networks offering me a new job back in London. I’d met them four months ago before moving out of town. Their first, second and third choice for the high profile international role had fallen through. (I know! Fourth?!? Are you kidding me??)
3. I move back to London and take the job. Looks very normal when looked at from this side of it, but getting a phone call from a TV company that covers 170 countries out of the blue for a role I had been turned down for months prior when all I wanted was a few extra projects… Well… Black Swan.

What you can do about Black Swans

1. Is it glib to say “learn to summon them”? At least, be prepared for major manifestations to be unexpected and also
2. Resign yourself to the fact that it will sound unmagical in retrospect. That’s a brain trick! Don’t fall for it. And don’t bother talking about it with muggles, maybe?
3. Buy the book. I don’t do Amazon affiliate links. If I recommend something it’s because I think you will like it.

Note:

Black Swans go very well with most of the books I have listed here if you’re in an Ama-shop mood.

What about you? What Black Swans have you seen in your life? See if you can put them in the same ’3 steps’ format. It really helps you see them clearly.