Magic trick

“ But I am able to inform you that this is merely a simple magic trick which the robber stole from Glinda the Good, and by good fortune I know how to destroy these flames as well as how to produce them. Will some one of you kindly give me a match? ”

“ The fascination which the general public finds in clever tricks and illusions is little to be wondered at, but it is a mistake to suppose that all the outfit which the modern magician needs is a few paper roses, a pack of cards, some coins, and a wand. The fact of the matter is, that usually the most entertaining tricks are those which are produced at considerable expense in the way of apparatus and stage fittings. It is for this very reason that the secret of the illusion is always so closely guarded by the prestidigitateur. ”

“ Careful rehearsal, preferably before an expert friend, will furnish the best hints as to the danger-spots in the working of a trick, and how best to devise patter to meet them.
A final word of advice—advice that has been often given, but cannot be too often repeated if you really aim to carry your audience with you. Never lose sight of the fact that you are, in the words of Robert-Houdin, “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and take your office seriously. In particular, never before an audience use the word “trick,” which at once gives away all your pretension to magical power. ”

“ The trick is in truth a mere affair of dexterity; the performer having acquired by long practise the power of placing the pea under any thimble he pleases. What I propose to show you is a similar effect, but more surprising, because, as you will see, there is no room for dexterity, or indeed any form of trickery; so that I have to depend entirely upon my magic power. I shall use a shilling, as being more easily seen than a pea, and three cards from this pack to represent the thimbles. ”

“ When they have made their selection, you have only to pick up the non-chosen heap with the hand containing the palmed card, and the chosen heap with the empty hand.
You may with truth assure the audience that you could go on all the evening predicting their choice with equal certainty, but it is best not to repeat the trick too often. You will do wisely to pass on at once to the next trick, which will enable you to display your powers of divination in a yet more surprising form. ”

“ Which is found to be the case.
The trick may of course be worked with any two pairs of cards, the mat being loaded and the corresponding cards forced accordingly.
TELL-TALE FINGERS
The discovery, in some more or less mysterious way, of an unknown card is one of the stock feats of the conjurer, and indeed in one shape or another is one of the most hackneyed of card tricks. But the wise magician never discards a good trick simply because it is an old one. He repolishes it, adds a bit here, takes away a bit there, presents it in a new shape and with new patter, and behold! ”

“ The late Alexander Herrmann—"Alexander the Great"—was equally non-communicative. "Thirty minutes with Herrmann," "A bouquet of mystical novelties," etc., sufficed to describe a dozen or more brilliant feats of legerdemain. Arrange your magical novelties in groups, e.g.: two or three coin tricks, three or four handkerchief tricks, etc., and not a coin trick, then an illusion with a handkerchief, followed by another feat with a coin. Lead up to the best trick in each group with several smaller feats of a more or less similar nature. ”

“ This, of course, he will do; and the trick may very well end here, with the satisfaction on your part that you have kept your secret, and that, even when removed from the sphere of your adverse influence, your pupils will fail in performing the trick, making the attempt, as they naturally will, with the full piquet pack. But it is just possible that a contretemps may arise, for which it will be well to be prepared. Some one of the audience, more acute than the generality, may suggest again counting the cards, to see if all are there when the trick succeeds. ”

“ You again place the cards as before, remarking that the trick is simplicity itself when once the principle is known, and on this occasion you draw special attention to the necessary arrangement of the cards. Having completed the trick for the second time, you invite some of the audience to try their hands, which they do, and of course succeed, there being really no difficulty in the matter. When one or two have tried and succeeded, they will probably disparage the trick, as being absurdly easy. ”

“ To an acute mind, even such a slight hint as this will suggest enough to destroy half the effect of any subsequent trick in which a similar process of disappearance or exchange is employed, and even in the case of less intelligent spectators it will tend to diminish the prestige of the performer, by showing by what shallow artifices an illusion may be produced. ”

“ It is surprising, in conjuring matters, how much even the smallest percentage of fact increases the power of the average spectator for swallowing fiction. The patter for the trick which follows has been arranged upon these lines.
The requisites for the trick are a pack of cards from which three known cards have been withdrawn and palmed (or so placed to be in instant readiness for palming) , a hand-mirror, and a silk handkerchief. ”

“ A trick known by the name of the Indian Trunk, the Mysterious Trunk, the Packer’s Surprise, etc., formerly had much success in theaters of prestidigitation. This trick, which may be presented in several ways, is executed by different means, one of which we shall describe.
The following is in what the experiment consists: The prestidigitateur has a trunk brought to him, which he allows the spectators to examine. When every one is certain that it contains no mechanism, a person comes upon the stage and enters the trunk. It is found that he fills it entirely, and the cover is shut down. ”

“ It need scarcely be said that the nature of the trick, if trick it is (the suspension of the rope by some unknown power, the ascent of the boy into the clouds, the tumbling down to earth of the separate members, and, finally the joining together of these into a live form again) , would forbid any such performance taking place in reality—except on the stage, e.g., when appropriate apparatus can be arranged to perform this feat—an illusion of this sort being mentioned in Mahatma, Vol. ”

“ As the magician after having summoned up and marshalled before him a phantasmagoria of shadowy figures, at length perceives them fading from his sight, and, conscious that the spell is fast departing, lays down his rod, so we, approaching to the end of our task, find that the charm is beginning to lose its power, and that the beings we have conjured up are melting rapidly from our vision. Even now they seem to us only as a dream. Yet there is one glimpse more afforded to us before the magic curtain falls on them forever. ”

“ They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and shew him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.
The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption of the uniformity of nature, but in its misapprehension of the particular laws which govern the sequence of natural events. ”

“ Probably the worms are supposed to feed on the victim’s soul, which is said to become “blue” when the charm works; the yellow stones are the emblem of trouble, and lightning-struck trees are reputed powerful in magic. If the charm does not work, the victim survives the critical seven days, and the magician and his employer are themselves in danger, for a charm gone wrong returns upon the head of him who sent it forth. (b) In homoeopathic magic the victim is represented by an image or other object. In the Malay Peninsula the magician makes an image like a corpse, a footstep long. ”

“ In introducing to my readers a series of simple but effective, tricks in magic, I would state that it has been my life study to popularize the art of sleight of hand, simply because, at the outset, I was impressed with the idea that, while having no desire to emulate the skilled professional magician, certain very novel and entertaining tricks were within the reach of all persons possessed with the least desire to amuse their friends. ”

“ The fairies put the kettle in the middle of the room, and the four magicians waved their wands over it, and moved slowly about it singing,—
“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire, burn, and cauldron, bubble!”
When the spell was finished, the smoke died away, and the Witch stooped over and ladled something out, which she threw into the fireplace. “Now, come, everybody!” she cried in a cracked voice, “and dip pot-luck out of the magic kettle.” ”

“ Therefore I can do any of the magic that's inside me, but nothing else. You, however, are a wizard, and a wizard should be able to do anything."
"Your Majesty forgets that my tools of magic have been stolen," said the Wizard sadly, "and a wizard without tools is as helpless as a carpenter without a hammer or saw." ”

“ All stages of proficiency may be traced from the simple layman who swings a bull-roarer to raise the wind, to the wizard who lives by his art, and is feared by all his tribe and far beyond it, or to the erudite magician who controls the demons and vies with the gods.
Magical things, objects or actions, in their simplest forms, are charms, spells and rites; and since the ends for which they can be used are either to protect oneself or to exert power over other persons or things, each of these kinds of magic-thing may be defensive or offensive. A defensive charm is called an amulet ”

“ He simply gave orders and caused all things to appear and to be made,—sun, moon, stars, wind, mountains, animals.
In many of the primitive stories, magic is the means by which the most wonderful effects are produced. It was believed that a magician could bring [45] about any effect he desired by the mere use of his will, and often without any visible symbol of magic power. Sometimes, however, magic wands were used, and sometimes ceremonies were performed for the purpose of producing magical results. ”

“ And then in a minute the squirrels fell on the mole and killed it, and Sep thanked them and rode back to the palace, for, of course, he knew that when a magician is killed, all his magic unworks itself instantly. ”

“ Brief allusion is further made to Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians, to the invocation of Samuel by the witch of Endor, to Circe and the comrades of Ulysses, and to several other passages in classical literature anent magic.
Definition of magic.
Next comes a formal definition of the Magi. They are “those who are popularly called malefici or sorcerers on account of the magnitude (a characteristic bit of derivation) of their crimes. They agitate the elements, disturb men’s minds, and slay merely by force of incantation without any poisoned draught. ”

“ The magician does not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects, that the performance of the proper ceremony, accompanied by the appropriate spell, will inevitably be attended by the desired result, unless, indeed, his incantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the more potent charms of another sorcerer. He supplicates no higher power: he sues the favour of no fickle and wayward being: he abases himself before no awful deity. ”

“ Next, the idea of whistling to produce a wind, or of sticking splinters of bone into a man's footprints in order to injure his feet, may be an idea not generally known, a thing not commonly done, a proceeding not generally approved of. It is thus marked off from the commonplace actions of drinking water to moisten your parched throat or sitting by a fire to get warm. When it is thus marked off, it is regarded as magic: not every one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power to do it, or not every one cares to do it. That is the second stage, the heyday of magic. ”

“ If he’s a magician, he knows you need that Bag, and perhaps he’s afraid of your magic. So he’s probably taken the Bag with him, and you won’t see it again unless you find the Magician.”
“That sounds reasonable,” remarked the Lamb, which was Dorothy. “Those pink brains of yours seem to be working pretty well to-day.”
“If the Glass Cat is right,” said the Wizard in a solemn voice, “there’s more trouble ahead of us. That Magician is dangerous, and if we go near him he may transform us into shapes not as nice as these.” ”

“ God and Nature alike have closed the Sanctuary of Transcendent Science and this in such a manner that, beyond a certain limit, he who knows would speak to no purpose, because he would not be understood. The revelation of the Great Magical Secret is therefore happily impossible. The replies which we are about to give will be the last possible expression of the word in Magic, and they will be put in all clearness, but we do not guarantee to make them comprehensible to our readers. ”

“ These phenomena, the principle of which was at first unknown, served to root faith in magic, and often abused even enlightened minds. The enchanters and magicians arrived, by divers practices, at the faculty of provoking in other brains a determined order of dreams, of engendering hallucinations of all kinds, of inducing fits of hypnotism, trance, mania, during which the persons so affected imagined that they saw, heard, touched, supernatural beings, conversed with them, proved their influences, assisted at prodigies of which magic proclaimed itself to possess the secret. ”