In the basement of a listed building, the MAGICUM Berlin takes willing visitors on a surprisingly generous 600 square meters into the world of magic and the supernatural. After checking if you are “in harmony” with the help of Chinese singing bowl, you descend a few steps into darkened rooms filled with the scent of incense sticks. Involuntarily, one feels reminded of the surroundings of Sibyll Trelawney, fortune teller on Hogwarts in J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter universe.
Several exhibits of Buddhist and other Far Eastern deities adorn the corridors in which one sets out with the museum plan in one’s hands to take part in a kind of parcours. Here you can learn, for example, which planet your zodiac sign is assigned to and what meaning it has, which sign you would be in the Chinese zodiac and which characteristics are attributed to it. One gets to know examples of magic in art, searches for certain symbols in portraits and finds out what the Celtic tree horoscope says.
In addition, one learns what Pytagora’s theorem has to do with magic. There are also exhibits where one playfully deals with the riddles of logic and form and, quasi as a meditative exercise, assembles pyramids and triangles from wooden parts.
At the weekend and during the Berlin holidays, MAGICUM also shows magic shows with amazing card tricks and astonishing illusions.
