The magicians trying to change the world – one card trick at a time

Forget trying to saw Debbie McGee in half - some conjurers are using their skills to help surgeons, refugee children and even imagine a better future

What image does the word "magic" conjure up? Paul Daniels sawing Debbie McGee in half, or Harry Potter chanting "Expecto patronum"? Or perhaps just a sweaty little man (they are almost always men) trying gamely to placate a party of sugar-high six-year-olds with balloons while their parents slip out the back?

With its razzmatazz, secrecy and ritualised trickery, being a magician is not a calling most associate with a social conscience. But there is an intellectual dimension to magic that was already old the first time someone thought of putting an egg into a bag and then making it disappear (believed to be in the 16th century). Good magicians have always understood and exploited the psychological blind spots of their audience. In 1876, a magician known as Professor Hoffmann collected a series of articles he had written for a popular boys' magazine into a book, Modern Magic, which explained how classic tricks were performed. "He believed young people should learn to perform magic because it would be useful in their professional lives and in the furtherance of the British empire," one present-day acolyte, Will Houstoun, tells me. "Magic teaches you to stand in front of a room and talk, problem-solve, deceive and spot deception."