Magic Tricks

I

Introduction

Magic Tricks, art of entertaining with tricks that are in apparent violation of natural law. The principles of deception that magicians use are psychological; the methods are manipulative and mechanical. The psychological principles are misdirection, suggestion, imitation, and concealment. The spectators do not see everything that happens, and they believe they see things that do not happen. Such faulty perception leads to false assumptions, fallacious logic, and, in the end, to the conclusion that the performer has achieved an impossible feat.

Sleight of hand (that is, deception by manual dexterity) consists in the performance of certain actions that are not perceived because they are concealed, or are misconstrued because they imitate some innocent, natural action. In the more difficult magical tricks, the performer employs sleight of hand without the use of special apparatus. Mechanical methods involve the use of camouflaged apparatus that the audience sees but does not comprehend and of apparatus that is not seen. The tricks employing apparatus include stage tricks in which objects appear, disappear, change, float on air, survive mutilation, or penetrate solid barriers.

Mentalism is a branch of conjuring in which the magician simulates telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition (see Psychical Research).

II

History

The earliest written records indicate that a distinction has probably always been made between magicians who are entertainers and the tribal witch doctors and medicine men who claimed that their incantations and spells could control nature and human destiny. The first magicians of recorded history were those of ancient Egypt. The Egyptian magician Dedi (fl. about 2700 bc) gave a performance in which he decapitated two birds and an ox and then restored their heads. Other Egyptian magicians were noted for their skill with the trick of the cups and balls. In this trick small balls seem to pass invisibly from one inverted cup or bowl to another. Finally, they are converted into larger spheres or such unexpected things as oranges or live baby chicks.

Sleight of hand with coins, dice, and, later, playing cards added variety to the performances of medieval magicians. The tricks of the cut and restored string and of thrusting a dagger through the arm without injury were performed in taverns and in marketplaces.

III

Famed Magicians

The Italian Giuseppe Pinetti was the most imitated magician of the 18th century. His repertory included automatons (that is, machines that operated by themselves); pretended second sight; and novel tricks with apparatus.

The 19th-century British magician John Henry Anderson, called the Wizard of the North, was a master publicist. Among his promotional schemes were elaborate street parades, flamboyant posters, and advertisements stencilled on pavements. His tricks frequently related to current news topics, and he often denounced as frauds people professing supernatural powers.

In the same period, the French magician Jean Houdin, a clockmaker who at the age of 40 became a professional magician, revolutionized the art of magic with his ingenious stage mechanisms and effective presentations. His textbooks were the first to treat magic scientifically, and he was the first to use electricity as an aid in stage mysteries.

Another 19th-century French magician who developed original techniques was Joseph Buatier, known as Buatier De Kolta. Two of his outstanding inventions were the vanishing birdcage, a trick in which a live canary and a metal cage disappeared at his fingertips, and the expanding die, in which a 20-cm (8-in) cube suddenly increased 20 times its original size and was then lifted to disclose a seated woman.

The popular conception of a magician as a slender man with a moustache, goatee, and satanic air probably started with the Herrmann family, for the famed magicians of this family all answered to the description. Carl Herrmann, a native of Vienna, won acclaim in Europe and America. His younger brother, the American magician Alexander Herrmann, called Herrmann the Great, and his nephew Leon Herrmann also toured extensively in America and abroad.

John Maskelyne and his partner David Devant, the leading British magicians at the turn of the 20th century, presented many of their acts in the form of skits or short plays. Their London theatre was world famous. The American magician Harry Kellar took his show, which included sleight of hand, illusions, and the duplication of feats performed by alleged spirit mediums, around the world. He was the best-known magician in America when he retired in 1908. His successor, the American magician Howard Thurston, performed throughout the United States for 28 years. His show included such spectacular features as the vanishing motor car, the Indian rope trick, and levitation. Harry August Jansen, who used Dante as his professional name, and Harry Blackstone carried on the tradition.

Another American magician, Harry Houdini, won world renown by effecting sensational escapes from police handcuffs, straitjackets, and prison cells. He frequently jumped in shackles from bridges and released himself underwater. The years before Houdini's death in 1926 were devoted to a relentless campaign against fraudulent mediums. His thorough knowledge of deceptive techniques enabled him to expose their methods.

One of the greatest box-office attractions in the history of magic was the feat of appearing to saw a woman in half. In the first performance of this act in London in 1921, the British magician Percy Tibbles, whose professional name was P. T. Selbit, cut through a box that contained a woman assistant. She emerged unharmed. Several months later Hyman Goldstein, whose professional name was Horace Goldin, presented an even more puzzling variation of the act in New York. The head, hands, and feet of his assistant were in full view throughout the operation. Later Goldin discarded the covering box, and, using a power-driven saw, performed the sawing-through and restoration in full view.

During the 1950s magicians began to reach larger audiences than ever through television. Among the leading magicians who made television appearances were the Indian illusionist P. C. Sorcar; the British performer Richard Pitchford, whose pantomimic sleight of hand act was widely imitated; the British magician David Nixon, who had a long-running television series; and the American magicians Milbourne Christopher, whose televised acts included making an elephant disappear and levitating an assistant, and Mark Wilson, who had his own weekly television programme.

During the 1970s there was a resurgence of interest in magic. The German magician Siegfried Fischbecker and his American assistant Roy Horn, who specialized in making tigers and other large animals disappear, performed in acclaimed productions in Las Vegas, United States as Siegfried and Roy. Doug Henning, a Canadian magician, and the American David Kotkin, known as David Copperfield, developed considerable theatrical skill as they performed in films and stage musicals as well as on television. Paul Daniels had an immensely successful magic show on television in the United Kingdom.

Comedic illusionists, such as the American pairing of Penn and Teller in the 1990s and the comically inept British magician Tommy Cooper who was prominent in the television schedules in the 1960s and 1970s, matched comedy with illusion to popular effect. At the start of the 21st century a new generation of magicians staged spectacular events, most notably the American endurance performer David Blaine, who was variously “buried alive”, “drowned alive”, and suspended in a Plexiglas box alongside the River Thames in London for 44 days. British mind control performer Derren Brown featured on television, memorably performing a Russian roulette routine. Meanwhile, in China, where the arts of magic have been practised for centuries, there are many magicians who have few equals anywhere.

IV

Magicians' Associations

Noteworthy associations of magicians include the Society of American Magicians, and the International Brotherhood of Magicians. The pre-eminent British association is the Magic Circle, founded in 1905.