CONJURING, the art, sometimes called White or Natural Magic, and long associated with the profession of "magician," consisting of the performance of tricks and illusions, with or without apparatus. Historically this art has taken many forms, and has been mixed up with the use of what now are regarded as natural though obscure physical phenomena. The employment of purely manual dexterity without mechanical apparatus may be distinguished as legerdemain, prestidigitation or sleight of hand.
Whether or not the book of Exodus makes the earliest historical reference to this form of natural "magic" when it records how the magicians of Egypt imitated certain miracles of Moses "by their enchantments," it is known that the Egyptian hierophants, as well as the magicians of ancient Greece and Rome, were accustomed to astonish their dupes with optical illusions, visible representations of the divinities and subdivinities passing before the spectators in dark subterranean chambers. The principal optical illusion employed in these effects was the throw ing of spectral images upon the smoke of burning incense by means of concave metal mirrors. But the desired effect was often produced in a simpler way, by causing the dupe to look into a cellar through a basin of water with a glass bottom standing under a sky-blue ceiling, or by figures on a dark wall drawn in inflammable material and suddenly ignited. The flashes of light ning and the rolling thunders which sometimes accompanied these manifestations were easy tricks, now familiar to everybody as the ignition of lycopodium and the shaking of a sheet of metal.
Judging from the accounts which history has handed down to us, the marvels performed by the thaumaturgists of antiquity were very skilfully produced, and must have required a consider able practical knowledge of the art. The Romans were in the habit of giving conjuring exhibitions, the most favourite feat being that of the "cups and balls," the performers of which were called acetabularii, and the cups themselves acetabula.
The history of conjuring by mechanical effects and inventions is full of curious detail. Spectral pictures or reflections of moving objects, similar to those of the camera or magic lantern, were described in the 14th and i6th centuries. Thus, in the House of Fame, bk. iii., Chaucer speaks of "appear ances such as the subtil tregetours perform at feasts"—pictorial representations of hunting, falconry and knights jousting, with the persons and objects instantaneously disappearing; exhibitions of the same kind are mentioned by Sir John Mandeville, as seen by him at the court of "the Great Cham" in Asia; and in the middle of the i6th century Benvenuto Cellini saw phantasmagoric spectres projected upon smoke at a nocturnal exhibition in the Colosseum at Rome. The existence of a camera obscura at this latter date is a fact; for the instrument is described by Baptista Porta, the Neapolitan philosopher, in his Magia Naturalis (1558). And the doubt how magic lantern effects could have been pro duced in the 14th century, when the lantern itself is alleged to have been invented by Athanasius Kircher in the middle of the 17th century, is set at rest by the fact that glass lenses were con structed at the earlier of these dates—Roger Bacon, in his Dis covery of the Miracles of Art, Nature and Magic (about 126o), writing of glass lenses and perspectives so well made as to give good telescopic and microscopic effects, and to be useful to old men and those who have weak eyes. Towards the end of the 18th century Comus, a French conjuror, included in his entertain ment a figure which suddenly appeared and disappeared about three ft. above a table—a trick explained by the circumstance that a concave mirror was among his properties.
A new era in optical tricks began in 1863 when John Nevil Maskelyne (b. 1839), of Cheltenham, invented a wood cabinet in which persons vanished and were made to reappear, although it was placed upon high feet, with no passage through which a person could pass from the cabinet to the stage floor, the scenes, or the ceiling; and this cabinet was examined and measured for concealed space, and watched round by persons from the audience during the whole of the transformations. The general principle was this: if a looking-glass be set upright in the corner of a room, bisecting the right angle formed by the walls, the side wall re flected will appear as if it were the back, and hence an object may be hidden behind the glass, yet the space seem to remain unoccupied. This principle, however, was so carried out that no sign of the existence of any mirror was discernible under the closest inspection. Two years later the same simple principle ap peared in "The Cabinet of Proteus," patented by Tobin and Pepper of the Polytechnic Institution, in which two mirrors were employed, meeting in the middle, where an upright pillar con cealed their edges. In the same year Stodare exhibited the illusion in an extended form, by placing the pair of mirrors in the centre of the stage, supported between the legs of a three-legged table having the apex towards the audience ; and as the side walls of his stage were draped exactly like the back, reflection showed an apparently clear space below the table top, where in reality a man in a sitting position was hidden behind the glasses and ex hibited his head ("The Sphinx") above the table. The plane mirror illusion is so effective that it has been reproduced with modifications by various performers.
Among the acoustic wonders of antiquity were the speaking head of Orpheus, the golden virgins, whose voices resounded through the temple of Delphi, and the like. Hippolytus explains the trick of the speaking head as prac tised in his day, the voice being really that of a concealed assistant who spoke through the flexible gullet of a crane. Towards the close of the loth century Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.) constructed (says William of Malmesbury) a brazen head which answered questions; and similar inventions are ascribed to Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and others. In the first half of the i 7th century the philosopher Descartes made a speaking figure which he called his daughter Franchina ; but the superstitious captain of a vessel had it thrown overboard. In the latter part of the same century Thomas Irson, an Englishman, exhibited at the court of Charles II. a wooden figure with a speaking-trumpet in its mouth ; and questions whispered in its ear were answered through a pipe secretly communicating with an apartment wherein was a learned priest able to converse in various languages. Johann Beckmann, in his History of Inventions (about 17 7o, Eng. transl. by W. Johnston, 4th ed., 1846), relates his inspection of a speaking fig ure, in which the words really came through a tube from a con federate who held a card of signs by which he received intelligence from the exhibitor. Somewhat later was shown in England the figure of an infant suspended by a ribbon, having a speaking trumpet in its mouth—an illusion in which two concave mirrors were employed, one of them concentrating the rays of sound into a focus within the head of the figure ; and the mirror nearest the figure was hidden by a portion of the wall-paper which was perforated with pin-holes. In 1783 Giuseppe Pinetti de Wildalle, an Italian conjuror of great originality, exhibited among his many wonders a toy bird perched upon a bottle, which fluttered, blew out a candle, and warbled any melody proposed or improvised by the audience—doing this also when removed from the bottle to a table, or when held in the performer's hand upon any part of the stage. The sounds were produced by a confederate who imitated song-birds after Rossignol's method by aid of the inner skin of an onion in the mouth ; and speaking-trumpets directed the sounds to whatever position was occupied by the bird. About the year 1825 Charles, a Frenchman, exhibited a copper globe, carrying four speaking-trumpets, which was suspended in a light frame in the centre of a room. Whispers uttered near to this apparatus were heard by a confederate in an adjoining room by means of a tube passing through the frame and the floor, and answers issued from the trumpets in a loud tone. Subsequently appeared more than one illusion of a similar order, in which the talking and singing of a distant person issued from an isolated head or figure by aid of ear-trumpets secretly contained within parts in which, from their outside form, the presence of such instruments would not be suspected.
Lucian tells of the magician Alexander in the end century that he received written questions enclosed in sealed envelopes, and a few days afterwards delivered written responses in the same envelopes, with the seals apparently unbroken; and both he and Hippolytus explain several methods by which this could be effected. In this deception we have the germ of "spirit-reading" and "spirit-writing," which, introduced in 184o by John Henry Anderson, "The Wizard of the North," became common in the repertoire of modern conjurors,—embracing a variety of effects from an instantaneous substitution which allows the performer or his confederate to see what has been secretly written by the audience. The so-called "second-sight" trick depends upon a system of signalling between the exhibitor, who moves among the audience collecting questions to be answered and articles to be described, and the performer, who is blindfolded on the stage.
Fire Tricks.—Fire tricks, such as walking on burning coals, breathing flame and smoke from a gall-nut filled with an inflam mable composition and wrapped in tow, or dipping the hands in boiling pitch, were known in early times, and are explained by Hippolytus (iv. 33) . At the close of the 17 th century Richard son astonished the English public by chewing ignited coals, pour ing melted lead (really quicksilver) upon his tongue and swallow ing melted glass. Galen speaks of a person in the end century who relighted a blown-out candle by holding it against a wall or a stone which had been rubbed with sulphur and naphtha ; and the instantaneous lighting of candles became a famous feat of later times. Baptista Porta gave directions for performing a trick en titled "many candles shall be lighted presently." Thread is boiled in oil with brimstone and orpiment, and when dry bound to the wicks of candles; and, one being lighted, the flame runs to them all. He says that on festival clays they are wont to do this among the Turks. "Some call it Hermes his ointment." In 1783 Pinetti showed two figures sketched upon a wall, one of which put out a candle, and the other relighted the hot wick, when the candle was held to their mouths. By wafers he had applied a few grains of gunpowder to the mouth of the first, and a bit of phosphorus to that of the other. A striking trick of this conjuror was to extinguish two wax candles and simultaneously light two others at a distance of 3 ft., by firing a pistol. The candles were placed in a row, and the pistol fired from the end where the lighted candles were placed; the sudden blast of hot gas from the pistol blew out the flames and lighted the more distant candles, because in the wick of each was placed a millet-grain of phosphorus. A more recent conjuror showed a pretty illusion by appearing to carry a flame invisibly between his hands from a lighted to an unlighted candle. What he did was to hold a piece of wire for a second or two in the flame of the first candle, and then touch with the heated wire a bit of phosphorus which had been inserted in the turpentine-wetted wick of the other. But in 1842 Ludwig Dobler, a German conjuror of much originality, surprised his audience by lighting two hundred candles instantaneously upon the firing of a pistol. This was the earliest application of elec tricity to stage illusions. The candles were so arranged that each wick, black from previous burning, stood a few inches in front of a fine nozzle gas-burner projecting horizontally from a pipe of hydrogen gas, and the two hundred jets of gas passed through the same number of gaps in a conducting-wire. An electric cur rent leaping in a spark through each jet of gas ignited all simul taneously, and the gas flames fired the candle wicks.
J. E. Robert-Houdin (1805-71), who opened his "Temple of Magic" at Paris in 1845, originated the application of electromagnetism for secretly working or con trolling mechanical apparatus in stage illusions. His Soirees fan tastiques at Paris gave him such a reputation that the French Government actually sent him to Algiers in order to show his superiority to the local marabouts ; and he ranks as the founder of modern conjuring. He first exhibited in 1845 his light and heavy chest, which, when placed upon the broad plank or "rake" among the spectators, and exactly over a powerful electromagnet' hidden under the cloth covering of the plank, was held fast at pleasure. In order to divert suspicion, Houdin showed a second experiment with the same box, suspending it by a rope which passed over a single small pulley attached to the ceiling ; but any person in the audience who took hold of the rope to feel the sudden increase in the weight of the box was unaware that the rope, while appearing to pass simply over the pulley, really passed upward over a winding-barrel worked as required by an assistant. Remarkable ingenuity was displayed in concealing a small electro magnet in the handle of his glass bell, as well as in his drum, the electric current passing through wires hidden within the cord by which these articles were suspended.
Down to the latter part of the i8th cen tury no means of secretly communicating ad libitum motions to apparently isolated pieces of mechanism had superseded the clumsy device of packing a confederate into a box on legs draped to look like an unsophisticated table. Robert-Houdin employed vertical rods each arranged to rise and fall in a tube, according as it was drawn down by a spiral spring or pulled up by whip-cord which passed over a pulley at the top of the tube and so down the table leg to the hiding-place of the confederate. In his centre table he had ten of these "pistons," and the ten cords passing under the floor of the stage terminated at a keyboard. Various ingenious automata were actuated by this means of transmitting motion; but the most elaborate piece of mechanical apparatus con structed by Houdin was his orange tree. The oranges, with one exception, were real, stuck upon small spikes, and concealed by hemispherical screens which were covered with foliage ; and the screens, when released by the upward pressure of a piston, made half a turn, and disclosed the fruit. The flowers were hidden behind foliage until raised above the leaves by the action of an other piston. Near the top of the tree an artificial orange opened into four portions ; while two butterflies attached to two light arms of brass rose up behind the tree, appeared on each side by the spreading of the arms, and drew out of the opened orange a handkerchief which had been borrowed and vanished away. Levitations.—In all ages a very popular magical effect has been the apparent floating of a person in empty space. An endless variety of ingenious apparatus has been invented for the purpose of producing such effects, and the present article would be incom plete without some reference to one or two of the more modern examples. A very pretty illusion of this kind is that originally produced under the title of "Astarte." A lady is brought forward, and after making her bow to the audience she retires to the back of the stage, the whole of which is draped with black velvet and kept in deep shadow. There she is caused to rise in the air, to move from side to side, to advance and retire, and to revolve in all directions. The secret consists in an iron lever, covered with vel vet to match the background, and therefore invisible to the audience. This lever is passed through an opening in the back cur tain and attached to a socket upon the metal girdle worn by the performer. The girdle consists of two rings, one inside the other, the inner one being capable of turning about its axis. By means of this main lever and a spindle passing through it and gearing into the inner ring of the girdle, the various movements are pro duced.
In 1835 was first exhibited in England a trick which a Brahman had been seen to perform at Madras several years before. Ching Lau Lauro sat cross-legged upon nothing—one of his hands only just touching some beads hung upon a genuine hollow bamboo which was set upright in a hole on the top of a wooden stool. The placing of the performer in position was done behind a screen; and the explanation of the mysterious suspension is that he passed through the bamboo a strong iron bar, to which he connected a support which, concealed by the beads, his hand and his dress, upheld his body. In 1849 Robert-Houdin reproduced the idea under the title of ethereal suspension—professedly rendering his son's body devoid of weight by administering vapour of ether to his nose, and then, in sight of the audience, laying him in a hori zontal position in the air with one elbow resting upon a staff resembling a long walking-stick. The support was a jointed iron 'frame under the boy's dress, with cushions and belts passing round and under the body. Subsequently the trick was improved upon by Sylvester—the suspended person being shown in several changes of position, while the sole supporting upright was finally removed. For the latter deception the steel upright was made with polished angular faces, apex towards the spectators, and acted in a dim light on the same principle as the mirrors of a Sphinx table. Before lowering the light, the reflector bar is cov ered by the wood staff set up before it.
The mysterious vanishing or appearing of a person under a large extinguisher upon the top of a table, and without the use of mirrors, was first performed by Comus, a French conjuror very expert in the cups-and-balls sleight-of-hand, who, appearing in London in 1789, announced that he would con vey his wife under a cup in the same manner as he would balls. The feat was accomplished by means of a trap in a box table. Early in the 19th century Chalons, a Swiss conjuror, transformed a bird into a young lady, on the same principle. In 1836 Sutton varied the feat by causing the vanished body to reappear under the crust of a great pie. Houdin "vanished" a person standing upon a table top which was shown to be only a few inches thick; but there was a false top which was let down like the side of a bellows, this distension being hidden by a table-cloth hanging sufficiently low for the purpose, and the person, when covered by the ex tinguisher, entered the table through a trap-door opening upwards. Robin, in 1851, added to the wonder of the trick by vanishing two persons in succession, without any possibility of either escap ing from the table—the two persons really packing themselves into a space which, without clever arrangement and practice, could not hold more than one.
Among the most meritorious and celebrated mechanical illusions have been automaton figures secretly influ enced in their movements by concealed operators. In the 17th century M. Raisin, organist of Troyes, took to the French court a harpsichord which played airs as directed by the audience; but, upon opening the instrument, Louis XIV. discovered a youthful performer inside. In 1769 Baron Kempelen, of Pressburg, in Hungary, completed his chess-player, which for a long time re mained the puzzle of Europe. It was an illusion—the merit con sisting in the devices by which the confederate player was hidden in the cabinet and body of the figure, while the interior was opened in successive instalments to the scrutiny of the spectators. The first player was a Polish patriot, Worousky, who had lost both legs in a campaign ; as he was furnished with artificial limbs when in public, his appearance, together with the fact that no dwarf or child travelled in Kempelen's company, dispelled the suspicion that any person could be employed inside the machine. This auto maton, which made more than one tour to the capitals and courts of Europe, and was owned for a short time by Napoleon I., was exhibited by Malzel after the death of Kempelen in 1819, and ultimately perished in a fire at Philadelphia in 1854. A revival of the trick appeared soon afterwards in Hooper's "Ajeeb," shown at the Sydenham Crystal Palace and elsewhere. A chess-playing figure, "Mephisto," designed by Gumpel, was also exhibited. No space existed for the accommodation of a living player within; but, as there was no attempt at isolating the apparatus from mechanical communication through the carpet or the floor, there was nothing to preclude the moving arm and gripping finger and thumb of the figure from being worked by any convenient connec tion of threads, wires, rods and levers. In 1875 Maskelyne and Cooke produced at the Egyptian Hall, in London, an automaton whist-player, "Psycho," which, from the manner in which it was placed upon the stage, appeared to be perfectly isolated from any mechanical communication from without ; there was no room within for the concealment of a living player by aid of any optical or other illusion, and yet the free motions of both arms, especially of the right arm and hand in finding any card, taking hold of it and raising it or lowering it to any position and at any speed as demanded by the audience, indicated that the actions were directed from without. The arm had all the complicated movements neces sary for chess or draught playing ; and "Psycho" calculated any sum up to a total of 99,000,000.
Like most forms of refined enter tainment the conjuror's magic appears to have kept well abreast of the times. Certainly, at no period of the world's history has it ever been so popular as at present. As a natural consequence, so many skilled exponents of the art have never before existed. Yet there is one respect in which at the present day conjuring shows no advance upon the records of earlier times. The one great peculiar ity in connection with magic, at every period, has been the limited number of those who prove themselves capable of originating magical effects. This peculiarity has never been more thoroughly emphasized than at present. There are many who, as entertainers, are entitled to rank with the highest, but to only a few can prominence be justly given as originators. The only logical con clusion to be drawn is that to invent original illusions is a matter of no ordinary difficulty, and, indeed, all who have attempted work of that kind will admit that such is the case. When, however, an original principle has been invented, it may be utilized in producing many and apparently quite distinct effects. As an example of this, Maskelyne's "Cleopatra's Needle," invented in 1879, may be men tioned. The trick consisted of a piece of mechanism representing an exceedingly light model of the famous obelisk. So light was it, in fact, that it could easily be lifted with one hand. Upon an isolated stand, previously examined by the audience, a sheet of ordinary brown paper was laid, and on this the "needle" was placed. Thus during the performance communication with the obelisk was obviously impossible. Yet from within it human beings emerged in a most startling manner. The secret consisted in the fact that the "needle" was capable of being lifted by in visible means, and from the outset contained two or three persons concealed within it.
In 1886 M. Buatier de Kolta, in conjunction with J. N. Maskelyne, presented at the Egyptian Hall, London, a series of illusionary effects upon an entirely novel principle, to which they gave the name of "Black Magic." The main idea was based upon the fact—obvious when once it is pointed out that visible form cannot exist in the absence of shadow or vary ing tint. In other words, we can only distinguish forms when they exhibit either variations in colour or shade. Absolute uniformity must, necessarily, mean invisibility. To bring about this unif orm ity, the entire stage was draped in black velvet, giving it the ap pearance of a dark and immensely deep cavern. There were no lights within it, though from the front it was brilliantly illu minated. Upon the stage, thus prepared, the most startling appear ances and disappearances took place, within a few feet of the foot lights. The illusions were produced by the simple method of covering anything to be concealed by screens of black velvet. These could be brought almost to the front of the stage, and yet would remain invisible; thus, in an instant, persons or articles would appear, apparently from space, or would disappear into it. The principle involved in the production of these illusions was adopted subsequently by many conjurors, and has served to pro duce an almost endless variety of effects.
Oriental ingenuity, which furnished the original idea of the ethereal suspension trick, contributed the Chinese rings introduced into England in 1834; also the Chinese feat of producing a bowl of water with goldfish out of a shawl, first seen in England in 1845, and the Indian rope-tying and sack feats upon which the American brothers Davenport founded a distinct order of performances in 1859. Their quick escape from rope bonds in which they were tied by representatives of the audience, the instantaneous removal of their coats in a dark seance, leaving themselves still bound, and their various other so-called "phenomena" were exposed and imitated by Maskelyne, who, in 186o, greatly surpassed any feats which they had accomplished. He proceeded to exhibit himself floating in the air, to show "materialized spirit forms," and to present a succession of wonders of the spirit mediums in novel performances.
In the case of purely dexterous tricks, little advance has been made. Some new sleights, introduced from America, consist in an amplification of the method of concealing coins and cards at the back of the fingers. The principle has re ceived the incongruous title of "back-palming." By means of this method both back and front of the hand alternately can be shown empty, while, notwithstanding its apparent emptiness, the hand nevertheless conceals a coin or card. The first and fourth fingers are caused to act as pivots, upon which the concealed articles are turned from front to back, and vice versa, the turning being per formed by the second and third fingers. The movement is very rapid, and is accomplished in the act of turning over the hand to show the two sides alternately. The sleight requires an enormous amount of practice. Unfortunately this dexterity may be applied not only to conjuring but to cheating, particularly in the case of card-sharpers. It takes various forms: (r) marking the cards; (2) abstracting certain cards during the game for clandestine use; (3) previously concealing cards about the person; (4) packing the cards; (5) substituting marked or prepared packs; (6) con federacy; (7) false shuffles.
That a mysterious and apparently elaborate mechanical movement may, after all, possess the utmost simplicity is illustrated by the familiar conjuring trick known as "rising cards." Four cards having been chosen by the audience and re turned to the pack, this is placed end upwards in a glass goblet, or in a thin case not deep enough to hide the pack, upon the top of a decanter or upon a stick. At command, the cards rise, one at a time, out of the pack; one rises part of the way and sinks back again; one rises quickly or slowly as directed; one comes out feet first, and, on being put back, rises head upwards like the others; and one dances in time to music, and finally jumps out of the pack. At the conclusion there remain only the goblet or the case and the cards, subject to the minutest examination of any one from the audience, without a trace of moving mechanism visible. This was one of the chief jeux of Louis Christian Comte, the French conjuror and ventriloquist, at the end of the i8th cen tury, and in varied forms has been popular to the present day. Probably it was suggested by the earlier device of the golden head dancing in a glass tumbler, which is described in The Con juror Unmasked (179o). Several crown pieces were put in the glass, a small gilded head above them, and a plate or other flat cover laid upon the mouth of the glass; yet the head thus isolated jumped inside the glass so as to count numbers and answer ques tions. The secret communicator of motion was a fine silk thread attached to the head and passing through a tiny notch cut in the lip of the glass, and so to a confederate who pulls it. In the case of the rising cards the whole of the movements are effected by arranging a single silk thread in the previously prepared pack, passing over some cards and under others, and led behind the decanter or other support to the stage and thence to the con federate. As this infinitely simple mechanical agent is drawn altogether out of the pack after the last card has risen, literally no trace remains of any means of communicating motion to the cards.
Advancement in conjur ing is mainly to be measured in the improved manner of achiev ing the limited number of effects possible to the art. These are, chiefly, apparent creation, destruction and restoration, disappear ance ("evanishment"), surprising transformations, substitutions, transportation ("apporting") and similar acts seemingly done in defiance of natural laws.
The decapitation act (involving the apparent severance of the left arm, left leg or head of a man), introduced by Dr. Lynn in 1874 under the title of "Palingenesia," was revived, and a vari ation presented in the form of "sawing a woman in half." The effect is briefly as follows :—A woman whose hands and feet are bound is placed into a cabinet, in which there is little room for movement, in a reclining position. Cords are passed through the cabinet from the hands and feet ; in this way it is shown that the woman cannot move. The cabinet is closed and the whole sawn in half at about the waistline of the woman, after which the two halves of the cabinet are removed and the woman, still bound, is shown to be unharmed. The effects depend on optical illusions and mechanical principles cleverly utilized. Among acts done in apparent defiance of the law of gravitation is that known as "Asrah," which involves the disappearance of a floating form and its reappearance.
The most radical development in conjuring in the present century is the series of sensational escapes which were devised or developed by Houdini. His success de pended partly on his great physical strength and the fact that he was slightly bow-legged. In an outdoor exhibition he allowed himself to be suspended, head down, some 75 ft. above the ground, in which position he freed himself from a straight jacket previously fastened upon him. The release was accomplished by first gaining slack of about two inches at the shoulder. Another remarkable act was that from the so-called "Chinese water tor ture cell." The "cell" is a metal-lined mahogany tank having a front of plate glass. This tank was filled with water, into which Houdini was lowered head first, his feet being fastened in stocks, that is, a mahogany cover in two sections, brass-bound. When he was submerged, the cover was padlocked on the tank, which was enclosed in a curtained cabinet. By his unaided effort he effected an escape within the space of two minutes.
In his "overboard act" he was shackled with irons and placed in a box, which was locked, roped and weighted. The box was then submerged from a boat, to which he returned after freeing himself under water. The "milk-can escape" involved the use of a trick can. The top was locked to an outer section, which en veloped the inner can containing the liquid. A simple lifting movement put the operator safe from harm and made escape easy. Other sensational effects produced included the "evanishment" of an elephant from a cabinet situated in the centre of a fully lighted stage and the so-called "Hindu needle trick," in which upwards of oo needles and several yards of thread were ap parently swallowed, and afterwards withdrawn from the mouth with the needles threaded at intervals.
Logically classifiable under conjuring are those effects produced through natural means by many so-called spirit mediums and mind readers. The mortality of the World War quickened interest in psychic phenomena and thereby opened a frequently lucrative field for clever charlatans. A noted per former claimed a vision able to penetrate metal, reading the time through a closed watch case and deciphering messages placed in a closed metal box. It was subsequently shown that his power depended on normal vision, view of the objects being obtained by such adroit handling of the object that he was able to obtain a glimpse of the contents. A medium, "Eva" of Paris, attracted much attention by her ability, in suitable surroundings, to emit and reabsorb "ectoplasm," the movement of which, on investiga tion, was shown to be obstructed when a veil was placed over her mouth.
Another notable instance was that of "Margery" (Mrs. Crandon of Boston), whose acts of levitation, bell ringing and other phenomena, ostensibly through a spirit, "Walter," were investigated in 1924 by a committee on which were psychologists from Harvard and other universities and shown to be repro ducible by natural means. Among other effects commonly pro duced by mediums are slate writing, spirit photography and the revelation of information of which the medium is presumably un aware. The devices for securing these effects by natural means are very numerous, many of them requiring great adroitness of mind as well as much mechanical ingenuity.
Modern magic calls to its aid all the appliances of modern science—electricity, magnetism, op tics and mechanics; but the most successful adepts in the art look down upon all such aids and rely upon address and sleight of hand alone. The prestidigitator's motto is "The quickness of the hand deceives the eye" ; but this very phrase, which is always in a performer's mouth, is in itself one of the innocent frauds which the conjuror employs as part and parcel of his exhibition. The truth is that it is not so much upon the quickness with which a feat is performed as upon the adroitness with which the time and means of performing it are concealed that its success depends. The right opportunity for executing the required movement is technically called a temps. This is defined to be any act or move ment which distracts the attention of the audience while some thing is being "vanished" or "produced." Experiment will readily convince any one that it is absolutely impossible to move the hand so quickly as to abstract or replace any object without being perceived, so long as the eyes of the audience are upon the per former. But it is very easy to do so unnoticed, provided the audience are looking another way at the time ; and the faculty of thus diverting their attention is at once the most difficult and the most necessary accomplishment for a conjuror to acquire. It does not suffice to point, or ask them to look in another direction, because they will obviously suspect the truth and look with all the more persistence. The great requisite is to "have a good eye"— in French conjuring parlance avoir de l'oeil. An earnest, convinced look of the performer in a particular direction will carry every one's glances with it, while a furtive glance at the hand which is performing some function that should be kept secret will ruin all. The motto prefixed by Robert-Houdin to his chapter on the "Art of Conjuring" is—"to succeed as a conjuror, three things are essen tial: first, dexterity; second, dexterity; and third, dexterity"; and this is not a mere trick of language, for triple dexterity is required, not only to train the hand to the needful adroitness, but to acquire the absolute command of eye and tongue that any successful conjuror must have.
secrets of conjuring were for a long time Bibliography.-The secrets of conjuring were for a long time jealously guarded by its professors, but in 1793 a work appeared in Paris, by M. Decremps, entitled Testament de Jerome Sharpe, pro fesseur de physique amusante, which gives a very fair account of the methods then in vogue. In 1858 a still more important and accurate book was published—Sorcellerie ancienne et moderne expliquee, by J. N. Pousin ; and in 1868 J. E. Robert-Houdin issued his Secrets de la prestidigation et de la magie which is a masterly exposition of the entire art and mystery of conjuring. The last-mentioned book was translated into English by Professor Louis Hoffman, the author of Modern Magic. See also J. E. Robert-Houdin, Les Tricheries des Grecs; Hoffman, More Magic, and Later Magic; Edwin Sachs, Sleight of Hand; J. N. Maskelyne, Sharps and Flats; A. Plate and H. Hatton, Magician Tricks (1910) ; W. Goldston, Exclusive Secrets; N. Maske lyne and D. Devant, Our Magic (191I) ; L. Hoffmann, Latest Magic (1918) ; H. Houdini, A Magician among the Spirits (1924) ; H. Car rington, Magic for Every One (1927); H. Kellock, Houdini's Life Story (1928) ; C. J. S. Thompson, The Mysteries and Secrets of Magic (Phila., 1928) .
