yea.

it's originally rooted in ritual, shrouded by mystery, and superstitious belief, on account of the outside observer. modern society sees it as "sleight of hand" trickery; the basis of the latter is to engage the observer into believing what they are perceiving.

I saw something on the discovery channel about illusions, particularly when one of the program's actors was staring up at a tree in an NYC park, then other actors joined him.

nobody stopped to look when it was the one actor, but after a group gathered, others stopped to look at what he was looking at. he claimed to see a snake in a tree, then others were convinced there was a snake in the tree too, and tried to justify seeing one. there was no snake in the tree.

the moral of the story: sometimes groupthink takes over, and shapes your beliefs/perceptions.