
Our hospital volunteering is now virtual during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Click for your magic show
David Copperfield, master illusionist and founder of Project Magic and Daniel Rosenthal, discuss teaching David's therapeutic magic tricks to physically-challenged children and adults.
Daniel performing in 2007.
“This is the first time I’ve heard laughter here.”
This sentence inspired the birth of MagicIsMedicine.org.

Hi! I’m Daniel Rosenthal.
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People ask why I started MagicIsMedicine.org – magicians, physicians and medical staff sharing the healing power of magic with patients.
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When I was eight, I gave my first shows for cancer patients in Kaiser Hospital’s Infusion Clinic in Santa Rosa, California. I’d never seen so many sick, fearful children. Many were bald and needed wheelchairs. I was shocked, but managed to hold it in.
Each time I performed, I saw worries disappear and laughter appear. Magic takes patients on adventures – and they don’t even have to leave their hospital beds or wheelchairs.
After one of my hospital shows, a chemotherapy patient told me: “This was the first time I’ve heard laughter here.” That day in 2007, MagicIsMedicine.org was born.
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As requests from hospitals grew, I recruited physicians and magicians to advise me.
That’s when I met Dr. Robert Albo, a respected surgeon and magician. Dr. Albo became my role model. He encouraged me to become a medical doctor who can perform magic for patients. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a physician.
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I perform magic in hospitals for hundreds of patients - from wounded vets in the San Francisco VA to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, and at UCSF Family House and Stanford’s Ronald McDonald House.
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Dr. Albo suggested I meet David Copperfield. This renowned illusionist taught me special therapeutic tricks he’d designed to help patients’ neuromuscular dexterity, cognition and memory.
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I now also train physicians and their partnering physical therapists to use therapeutic magic to help stroke, Parkinson’s to muscular dystrophy and ALS patients regain coordination and cognition.
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MagicIsMedicine.org sends volunteer professional magicians to perform in hospitals from California to Florida to New York. Each show is different depending on the patients’ needs.
![KaiserPatient[1].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b4c2e5_fc43697410e84128b7177e6bbfa109bf.jpg/v1/fill/w_366,h_273,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/KaiserPatient%5B1%5D.jpg)
The late Dr. Robert Albo, clinical professor of surgery at UCSF School of Medicine, encouraged Daniel to become a physician.
Dr. Marian Diamond, the late neuroscience pioneer, discusses therapeutic magic and the brain with Daniel.

