On this topic, one of my favorite HN comments compares magic tricks to hacking someone's brain:

Magic tricks are hacking! You are hacking someone's mind, particularly their assumptions and attention. The exploits to human psychology and attention are just as sure as the exploits to crack or unlock a smartphone and many other software exploits. The difference is that software can be patched but the evolved behaviors that are the root of the exploits used by magicians are very hard to "patch"...

Full comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992826