When you think of magic, two things will usually come to mind; an artist on stage, performing fantastic acts such as card tricks, illusions, mind reading and hypnosis; or a more esoteric practice – someone, usually by themselves, enacting a ritual in an attempt influence their world by invoking supernatural assistance. In some ways, there would seem to be some similarities between these two scenarios.

My guest for this episode is Mark Bell, who has performed all across the world as the ‘magical mystery artist’ Mark Obscura. He is an expert in Hypnosis, Mentalism and Illusion among many other talents and has led a life regularly interrupted by unusual incidents featuring ghosts, unexplained lights in the sky and a range of puzzling synchronicities. As such he has an open minded approach to understanding the relationship between his career and these odd life experiences that made for a really interesting conversation.

To find out more about Mark, you can follow him on Twitter or visit his website here.

(James Randi clip provided from Wikipedia)