“illusions.” On seeing Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp , the African 
audience concluded that Europeans were magicians who could 
restore life. They saw a character who survived a mighty blow 
on the head without any indication of being hurt. When the 
camera shifts, they think they see trees moving, and buildings 
growing or shrinking, because they cannot make the literate 
assumption that space is continuous and uniform. Nonliterate 
people simply don’t get perspective or distancing effects of 
light and shade that we assume are innate human equipment. 
Literate people think of cause and effect as sequential, as if 
one thing pushed another along by physical force. Nonliterate 
people register very little interest in this kind of “efficient” 
cause and effect, but are fascinated by hidden forms that 
produce magical results. Inner, rather than outer, causes 
interest the nonliterate and nonvisual cultures. And that is why 
the literate West sees the rest of the world as caught in the