The Myth Behind The Illusion

The Myth Behind The Illusion

The success of a magician “lies in making a human connection to the magic.” Create an illusion in the audience’s mind, and they’re hooked.

But to understand magicians, we need to understand the art of that creation. We can learn from the history of magic’s golden age (from the 1890s to the 1930s) and some legendary tricks (including the Levitation of Princess Karnak and Harry Houdini’s Disappearing Elephant) and the fierce rivalries that dominated the craft.

Certain secrets rely on engineering, artistry and sheer chutzpah. Magicians advertise deceit, then perform it. Unlike political chicanery... dishonest trickery..magic is a kind of pure trickery.

Audiences pay for a ruse, not a lecture on fraud. Do we believe movie special effects are real? Of course not, but it doesn’t detract from our enjoyment. Similarly, while many 19th-century spiritualists were rightfully debunked as frauds and charlatans, audiences loved the antics. Some, such as the Davenport brothers, were a magnet of controversy and a wild hit, successfully mixing “religion, agnosticism, science, superstition, and fraud.”

The magic duo Penn and Teller have a trick called “The Honor System.” Instead of putting a curtain around the box from which Teller is to escape, they simply invite onlookers to keep their eyes closed, and open them once he is out.

Those who take them up on the deal see Teller locked into a secure wooden box, and after a spell of eyes closed, they see him magically, inexplicably free. Those who peek see just how easily the trick is worked. Penn and Teller know that they can give away the secret of this or other tricks and there is still a show. The gadgets used in the illusions aren’t the story, the performance is.

The hardware Harry Houdini used to make Jenny disappear was surprisingly simple (as are most of the gadgets that make magical effects). It was a product of a boom in the art of conjuring that had started around sixty years before.

“It’s all done with mirrors” is a dismissive phrase, and yet the history given of mirror illusions shows that they have been refined in countless ways, from putting ghosts on the stage to producing a talking disembodied head on a table. The ghost craze also manifested in spiritualism, and magicians were keen to cash in on the craze.

Among them were the Davenport brothers of Buffalo, who allowed themselves to be bound with ropes inside a cabinet, whereupon in the dark, ghostly hands appeared, instruments were played, and so on.

The brothers were tied up before the manifestations, and after, so it seemed as if they could not have been working the tricks. Other magicians could easily see this was a rope escape trick, dressed up in the fancy of the day. But spiritualists only saw the Davenports as demonstrating the truth of communication with the afterlife. The controversy didn’t hurt business at all.

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