AP Photo

The Conjurer, by Hieronymus Bosch, depicts a medieval magician performing for a small crowd, while pickpockets steal the spectators' belongings. The painting, on display at the Musée Municipal in St.-Germain-en-Laye, France, illustrates that magicians have long known how to hack into our mental processes. The principles of magic, refined and perfected over the centuries, provide neuroscientists with new ways to study the brain and could help them in their quest to reveal how the organ performs the greatest trick of all - consciousness itself.