Usually, in interviews, the questions go in one direction; in this one, they don't: "Pick a card. Got it? Don't show me." And he gets it right, inexplicably. Mag Stigman, the stage name of Ignasi Stigman — yes, Stigman really is his surname — receives us in the room where he usually rehearses his magic, in Gràcia, deck of cards in hand, with plenty of answers, and plenty of questions. Because magic is also about asking, just in a different way.
"There's a lot of neuroscience behind magic," and that's what these questions are about: distraction, the surprise effect of illusionism. "Most people think magicians are mainly skilled with their hands, but magic isn't really about manipulating objects, the way a juggler does; what magic manipulates most is the spectator's brain," their perception and attention. "It's pure psychology." And that's exactly what Stigman studied.
Now, psychology and neuroscience are working tools for him: selective attention lets us look at one thing while something else goes undetected; memory can reconstruct what we've just seen, and even our decisions can be more predictable than we think. "Magic shows that human beings are very vulnerable," he says. And it's precisely this vulnerability that the illusionist learns to read, knowing exactly when the spectator's brain will glance one way while the magic happens on the other side. Or the math, since in many cases numbers have a lot to say, often with logical, numerical explanations that make the tricks even more interesting once you know them.
Some of these explanations appear in the book Magia para cada día (Grup 62), with one goal: bringing magic down off the stage to transform it into a tool for education, communication, and connection. Written with journalist Carme Escales, the book takes illusionism into spaces where it isn't usually expected, inviting readers to look at communication and learning through a new, more magical lens.
The book is conceived as a practical guide showing how magic tricks can stir emotion, surprise, communicate, and captivate the mind. Using trick explanations and magic as its throughline, Stigman channels into the book the experience and knowledge built up over decades of magic — not only on stage, but also in educational and even professional settings.
The magician's fascination with the discipline began, fittingly, in an educational setting. Stigman was 14 when a magician visited the school where he was studying musical theater, and he was captivated. That visit left him wanting to know more, and — at a time with no online classes or YouTube videos — he began devouring books, especially from the specialty shop Magicus. "Back then the society of magicians was much more closed off, and there was this idea that if the secrets and techniques were shared, illusionism would disappear."
Book by book, he kept learning, and grew more and more interested, until the woman running Magicus vouched for him to join the magicians' association a year later. First, though, he had to pass an exam — and not only that, but also prove he wasn't joining out of gossip, curiosity, or a wish to expose secrets, but out of genuine interest and a desire to add value to the society of magicians. As he explains this, he keeps shuffling cards, up and down, down and up, with skill and precision: "Sometimes I do it without even realizing."
"Magic lets you connect with the inner child we all carry inside"
Stigman brings this same value to the world of illusionism today, with the same fascination that captivated him on day one — not just for magic's ability to leave a spectator open-mouthed, but for the emotions it can stir, the surprise. "What I'm after is having people leave a show better than when they walked in. Magic lets you connect with the inner child we all carry inside." Even for someone who comes only intending to spot the trick: "They come to figure out how it's done, thinking that if they watch closely enough, they'll see it. But it's been shown that after about 20 minutes of getting nowhere, you let it go, and you just enjoy it, and connect with that inner child. You accept that your brain can't work it out, and instead of getting frustrated, you laugh, and you start to enjoy it, to let yourself be surprised."
And this doesn't happen only on stage — as in the book, Stigman takes magic further, as a tool for communication and connection. Presentations, conferences, and marketing campaigns are some of the settings in which the magician has applied his knowledge of illusionism and psychology. For example, a software company has hired him on several occasions for a conference at the CCIB, where Stigman initially poses as one of the company's IT staff who happens to be into magic, doing tricks for attendees who stop by the company's booth.
Stigman also brings illusionism to corporate talks, where he addresses motivation and human resources through magic. And to schools too, where he uses magic to explain math and spark interest in numbers, and all the tricks they make possible. In fact, his show Matemagia builds on numerical patterns and probability to show students that behind a seemingly impossible effect there can be a numerical structure.
Surprise, in this sense, is a pedagogical tool. Stigman has explored this with David Bueno, a neuroscientist and author of the prologue to Magia para cada día, looking at how emotion drives learning. "When a message is delivered with emotion, it lands with more force; if you need to get a message across, the best way to make it land is through emotion. And in magic, we use a very powerful emotion, which is surprise."
It's this power of emotion that plays out on stage, and also in educational and professional settings, as explored throughout the book with Escales. Back in the rehearsal room, the cards return to the deck as Stigman talks about new (or old) tricks he's been reviving from old books. He's now adapting them, changing the mechanics without changing the emotion they produce — always chasing that powerful surprise, meant to move people and connect with them, which the magician has now brought into everyday life with Magia para cada día.