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Transcript of Perspectives on Magic: Scientific Views on Theatrical Magic
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Perspectives on Magic
Scientific Views on Theatrical Magic
Peter Prevos
ThirdHemisphere
Publishing
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c Peter Prevos (2013)
Third Hemisphere Publishing, Kangaroo Flat, Australia
thirdhemisphere.net
This work is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-ShareAlike3.0
Australia License. You are free to Shareto copy, distribute and transmit the
work under the following conditions:
b Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author
(but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
a Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may
distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
ISBN 978-0-9875669-1-1 Paperback
ISBN 978-0-9875669-2-8 eBook
Typeset in LATEX
Edited by Marissa Van Uden MarissaVu.com
Cover design by Pair of Aces Design PairOfAcesDesigns.com
Cover photo Vincent Giordano Dreamstime.com
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Contents
Preface v
WHY THIS BOOK?
Acknowledgements x
WHO HELPED ME WRITE THIS BOOK?
1 Introduction 1
WHAT IS MAGIC?
2 The Science of Magic 12
HOW DOES MAGIC RELATE TO SCIENCE?
3 The Art of Magic 23
IS MAGIC A PERFORMANCE ART?
4 Magic Networks 37
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A MAGICIAN?
iii
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iv
5 The History of Magic 54
WHAT ROLE DID MAGICIANS PLAY IN THE PAST ?
6 The Power of Magic 70
WHAT IS THE PRACTICAL USE OF CONJURING?
7 The Magic of Teaching 81
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM MAGIC TRICKS?
8 The Deception of Magic 97
HOW CAN WE BE SO EASILY BE DECEIVED?
9 The Future of Magic 112
WILL MAGIC BECOME OBSOLETE?
10 Epilogue 124
WHAT IS THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC?
Bibliography 134
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Preface
WHY THIS BOOK?
For as long as I can remember, performing magic has been a part
of my life. To be more precise, I am an occasional conjurer and
use sleight-of-hand and other forms of deception to feign being areal magician. I started adding magic to my life as a schoolboy in
the Netherlands. I devoured books from the local library, collected
magic sets from the toy shop, and constantly attempted to amaze
friends and family. My passion for magic was unrelenting in those
early years, and I showed magic tricks to anyone who was interested
and, in my enthusiasm, also to those who were not. I performedin many local talent contests and at family birthday parties and even
some paid performances. Magic was, however, not the career I chose
to follow.
After completing an engineering degree I took on a job that al-
lowed me to travel to exotic places where communication was of-
ten complicated by language barriers. In those situations, magictricks and balloon animals were the perfect tool to overcome these
barriers and make instant friends. Soon after I started my career
I achieved my personal goals in engineering and began a degree
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Why this book? vi
in philosophy to study the mysteries of existence. Because of all
the serious thought involved with this study, I became disillusioned
with the triviality of magic. I was no longer able to see the meaning
of conjuring beyond the mundane trickery and clichs employed by
magicians.
Much of magic has a look at me aspect, and it can be an
egocentric performance art. In retrospect, I was disillusioned be-
cause at that time I did not have sufficient insight to move beyond
the stereotypes. As such, I replaced my passion for magic with a
passion for philosophy and completed a degree in this subject. It
was only years later that I realised that my interest in philosophy
was actually strongly related to my interest in magic, and that magic
is an inherently philosophical performance art. I read some books on
the history of magic which described the connection between magic
tricks and divination and other esoteric practices. I began to realise
that the ancient shaman, the tribal philosopher, was also a conjurer,
a master of sleight-of-hand.
A magic performance is in essence a theatrical experience that
challenges reality as we know it, which is an inherent philosoph-
ical quality. Magic challenges the mind in a way that no other
performance art can. My passion was rekindled when I discovered
the works of Jay Sankey, Tommy Wonder, Eugene Burger and Jeff
McBride, some of the magicians that inspired me the most. Their
work displays a passion and a philosophical understanding of the-
atrical magic that takes it beyond mere trickery. Reading their books
and watching their videos renewed my enthusiasm for this quaint
performance art.
I still occasionally perform magic shows, but now my main in-
terest in magic stems from what it can teach us about ourselves and
about the world around us. My passion for academic research has
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Why this book? vii
never waned, and at the time of completing this book I am a PhD
candidate at La Trobe University in Melbourne, researching organ-
isational culture and customer service. Being a graduate student
provides me access to the ivory tower of academia and its immense
knowledge networks. During my research I discovered an article by
professors Terence Krell and Joseph Dobson from Western Illinois
University, advocating the use of magic tricks to teach theories of
organisational behaviour. This started me on a quest to establish an
annotated bibliography of scientific and professional literature re-
lated to conjuring. To my pleasant surprise I uncovered a vast num-
ber of journal articles and scholarly books that discussed magic from
many different perspectives. Studying magic scientifically started at
the end of the nineteenth century with psychology experiments. The
last few decades there has been a renaissance of scholarly research
into magic, with publications in many different fields of science.
The idea to write this book came to me when I discovered that
anyone not formally associated with academia can be charged more
than thirty dollars to purchase a short article from an academic jour-
nal. This places access to much academic knowledge outside the
reach of most people. It is unfortunate that the collective knowledge
of the world is locked up behind ironclad copyright contracts and
is not available freely to the taxpayers who funded much of this
research. Another motivation to write this book is that science is
sometimes just as esoteric as magic. Scientific knowledge is of-
ten shrouded in an obscure language that is only comprehensible to
those initiated in its traditions, and each field of science is a subcul-
ture with its own language and methods. The main purpose of this
book is to unlock the literature on theatrical magic to non-scientists
who are interested in this ancient performance art. My objective in
writing this book is to show that theatrical magic has much to offer
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Why this book? viii
beyond frivolous entertainment. This book is an attempt to unlock
the professional and scientific literature on conjuring for those with
an interest in deceptive theatre.
In order to provide a broad understanding of the art of conjuring,
this book contains the collective musings of a wide range of pro-
fessionals and academics, including teachers, psychologists, occu-
pational therapists, mathematicians, and sociologists. Magic tricks
are used by health care professionals to aid them in rehabilitation
programs, by teachers to illustrate principles of science, and by psy-
chologists to better understand how the mind works. Magic research
also provides a unique perspective on cultural history, and in recent
years there has been a steady stream of scholarly works interpreting
the role of magicians in society. Studying this extensive collection of
literature about magic has uncovered many interesting insights into
magic, its past, present and possible future as a performance art.
Given the variety of scientific subjects covered in these pages,
this book is also an enquiry into the nature of science itself. The re-
search described in this book shows that there is no such thing as the
science of magic but that artful deception can be investigated from
many diverse angles of human enquiry, ranging from the humanities
and psychology to software engineering and nursing. My journey
through the wide variety of literature available on this subject taught
me that only a multidisciplinary study can provide a meaningful
understanding of a social phenomenon such as magic. Each field
of intellectual endeavour provides a unique perspective on magic as
an art form, as a psychological curiosity or as a means to achieve
practical goals beyond entertainment.
In contrast to most other books about magic, this book does not
contain any descriptions of how to perform magic tricks. There are
no explanations of new moves to make a card change from black
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Why this book? ix
to red, no sleights to make a coin disappear, like is usually the case
in books about magic. One chapter is dedicated to why magic tricks
work, but not discuss any details on howthey work. This book has
been written for both experienced magicians and people with only
a passive interest in magic. My aim is to provide magicians with
a deeper understanding of their craft and to inspire them to keep
evolving the performance of magic. For people with only a passive
interest in magic, this books aims to provide insights into a quaint
performance art that is generally surrounded in secrecy and muffled
by clichs, without breaking the magicians code.
Magic and science have in common that they both are driven
by questions. The inherent nature of scientific research means that
with every answer many new questions arise. It is my hope that this
anthology of the existing literature on the science of conjuring will
raise new questions and spawn further research into this fascinating
performance art.
Peter Prevos, Kangaroo Flat, May 2013.
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Acknowledgements
WHO HELPED ME WRITE THIS BOOK?
This project has taken me almost four years to complete and would
have been impossible to publish this book without the help of oth-
ers. I owe a gratitude to the many scholars in different fields thathave taken the effort to publish papers and books on a niche subject
such as theatrical magic. I also need to acknowledge the many
anonymous subjects of experiments conducted by psychologists and
occupational therapists. They are the unsung heroes of some of the
research described in this book.
My magician friends from Melbourne and overseas have beenvery supportive during this long project, and although many may
have wondered whether this book would ever be published, their
continued interest is what sustained my motivation to keep working
on this book. Thanks to Tom Stevens for his permission to use
one of his Facebook updates. Also, a special mention for Alex
de la Rambelje, who gave me invaluable feedback on my thoughtsabout magic and let me use his university thesis on the theatrical
aspects of magic performance. The invaluable feedback provided
by magicians Nicholas, The Honest Con Man, Johnson, Gary Co-
x
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Who helped me write this book? xi
hen and Brendan Croft, all from Melbourne, and Tony Barnhart, a
cognitive scientist and magician from Phoenix, and Fritz (with a Z)
from Amsterdam, kept me motivated to continue working on this
project. Also a word of thanks to my wife Sue, who was so kind
to proofread the text and had to endure conversations with me from
behind a laptop screen.
This book was edited by Marissa van Uden, my secret weapon
in completing this project. It is only through her insightful feedback
and critical reading of my drafts that I was able to transition an oth-
erwise tedious annotated bibliography into a readable book. Lastly,
my thanks to Susan Hobbs of Pair of Aces Design for her patience
with me in designing the cover for this book and the artwork for the
associated website.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
WHAT IS MAGIC?
The magician introduces three cups and three balls. Using a magic
wand, he commands the balls to dematerialise from his bare hands
and rematerialise under the cups. The balls seem possessed by super-
natural powers as they appear, disappear and penetrate solid matter
at the mere whim of the magician. This supernatural choreography
ends with pieces of fruit appearing under the cups where the ballsonce were. The spectators applaud after witnessing this ancient
miracle. Although they are impressed and entertained, a nagging
thought lingers in their minds: How did he do it?
Among the spectators is a group of university colleagues who
reflect on what they just experienced. They enjoyed the show as
much as everyone else, but they have very different questions thanthe rest of the audience. The psychologist wonders how it is possible
that his mind was so easily deceived by the performer. How can it be
that we are tricked to be seeing something that contradicts our com-
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What is magic? 2
mon sense view of the world? The psychologists friend, a professor
in humanities also enjoyed the show. She wonders how the fruit
appeared under the cups, but also ponders the cultural significance
of magic and the reasons it has remained popular for millennia and
across different cultures. Her husband, who works as an occupa-
tional therapist at the local hospital, is also an amateur magician.
He contemplates the incredible hand-eye coordination and muscle
control required to perform the trick he just saw, and he wonders
if magic tricks could be used in occupational therapy. Meanwhile,
another magician sitting in the back of the room has a very differ-
ent perspective. Although she is fully aware of how the performer
directed the attention of the spectators and used sleight-of-hand to
create the illusion of magic, she was nevertheless impressed and en-
tertained by the performance, in particular by the flawless execution
of the Vernon Wand Spin and other technical manoeuvres. She is
even more impressed by how the performer was able to hold the
spectators attention with his beautifully executed choreography and
enthralling presentation.
This anecdote illustrates how the performance of magic tricks can
have very different meanings to different spectators, depending on
their personal perspective. It also shows that the question ofhow
a magic trick is done and what specific techniques have been used
to create illusions is only one of many questions that may be raised
in the minds of the audience during a magic performance. In the
following chapters, we will explore the many facets of conjuring
and discuss the many questions raised by scientists and professionals
from diverse areas of expertise. But before we can delve into their
research, we need to define what it is that magicians actually do and
review the different interpretations of what constitutes magic.
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What is magic? 3
The relationship between magic and science is a complex one.
On the one hand they are considered each others opposites, while
on the other hand they can be seen as stages in a continuum of human
knowledge. The word magic is usually reserved for anything that
contradicts what we consider to be the laws of nature. Some adopt
a less confrontational view and think that the difference between
magic and science is related to a lack of knowledge. This confusion
is as least partly created because the word magic can be used in
different ways. The meanings of words, especially those ingrained
in the cultural fabric of society, evolve as the values that underpin the
culture change. Magic is, in the words of philosopher Walter Gal-
lie, anessentially contested concept: terms that describe a complex
aspect of humanity (such as culture and religion), that are laden
with value and whose meanings can be debated at length without a
final definition ever being agreed upon.
There are three ways of looking at essentially contested concepts
such as magic. The dogmatic view places magic in diametrical
opposition to science. A belief in magic is usually seen as a rejection
of science and vice versa, thinking scientifically as a rejection of
magic. This is the view of many scientists who use the term magical
thinking to refer to theories that are contrary to the principles of sci-
entific thinking, such as astrology and homoeopathy. In thesceptical
point of view, no claim to truth is made, and magic and science are
seen as equally subjective personal perspectives. It should be noted
that the philosophical use of the word scepticism in this context is
different to that used by the many sceptic societies. In philosophical
scepticism, all claims to truth are considered equally invalid, both
magical and scientific. The popular sceptic societies, such as the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry or the Skeptics Society, are not
philosophically sceptical as they only question paranormal theories
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What is magic? 4
and assume the primacy of science. However, neither the dogmatic
view nor the sceptical view is insightful regarding the relationship
between magic and science. Both lead to either diametrically op-
posed views, where one side aims to annihilate the other, or to ni-
hilistic views devoid of all meaning. Gallies third option, an eclectic
view of magic, gives credence to both magic and science as valid
aspects of the human experience and as ways to make sense of the
world. In this interpretation, magic and science dont compete with
each other but are complementary world views. The eclectic view is
more productive because using value judgements for either science
or magic prevents a full understanding of magic as a phenomenon
of human culture. Magic has always been an integral part of human
culture; it still plays an important role and will, despite advances
in science, continue to do so in the future. What is perceived to be
either magical or scientific will, however, change continuously along
with cultural perspectives.
The discourse on science versus magic is complicated by the fact
that the word magic itself is deceptive. This simple word can be
used to describe different aspects of the human experience. The
word magic can refer to either the theatrical illusion of magic or
supernatural magic. The often paraphrased definition of a theatrical
magician by the nineteenth-century French conjuring legend Jean
Eugne Robert-Houdin illustrates this duplicity: A magician is an
actor playing the role of a magician. This quote has been cited
by numerous magicians to remind themselves that showmanship is
tantamount in a good magic act. However, if it wasnt for the double
meaning of the word magic, this sentence would be a tautology:
a statement that explains nothing. It would be like saying that a
scientist is an actor playing a scientist. The magician seems to be
both a pretender and a real magician, both the deceiving conjurer and
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What is magic? 5
the powerful wizard. A more precise version of Robert-Houdins
definition can be found in an 1877 translation of the phrase by En-
glish magician Professor Hoffman: A conjurer is not a juggler; he
is an actor playing the part of a magician. Before the eighteenth
century, before science became the dominant source of knowledge
in Western culture, the word magic was reserved for the dark arts
or witchcraft. The terms juggling or legerdemain were used to
describe the performing of innocent conjuring tricks by entertainers
pretending to be magicians. As the belief in the metaphysical foun-
dations of magic began to wane, so did the distinction between su-
pernatural and theatrical magic, until eventually the words juggling
and legerdemain faded from the English language, with respect
to references to magic. The more specific terms, such as conjur-
ing, legerdemain and sleight-of-hand are still used in theatrical
magic circles, but rarely used in common language. The distinction
between the entertainer and the true magician has, however, been
maintained in other European languages. For example, the Dutch
word goochelaar, which has the same origin as the word juggler,
is used specifically for a person pretending to be a magician to en-
tertain people. The English language is unfortunately burdened with
using the same term for wholly different concepts.
The contemporary uses of the word magicreferring to either
theatrical conjuring or supernatural magicare quite distinct from
each other, and the proponents of each type of magic form their
own subcultures. Theatrical conjurers tend to meet in magic clubs
and share their secrets through conventions, books and more re-
cently through video and on-demand Internet videos. The believers
in supernatural magic also enjoy meeting regularly to share infor-
mation. Modern day witches organise themselves in covens and
their community has spawned a cottage industry of instant spells,
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What is magic? 6
instruction books and courses on how to control your life through
these forces. Although both subcultures are based on the idea of
magic, they are quite distinct from each other. One major difference
is that conjurers tend to be sceptical of supernatural explanations.
Research conducted by Peter Nardi, emeritus professor of sociology
and regular author on conjuring-related matters (not to be confused
with a magician of the same name) showed that magic performers
are more sceptical about the existence of magical phenomena than
the general public, and by extension even more sceptical than those
who follow New Age beliefs.
If a conjurer is an actor playing the part of a magician, then
what is it that magicians claim to actually do? Attempts to define
magic in strict terms have not been very successful, and there exists
a myriad of theories explaining what magic is. According to the
anthropological view a belief in magic is the belief that supernatural
forces can be invoked by a qualified person (such as a shaman or
magician) through the power of spoken words or the appropriate
actions, usually performed as part of a ritual. Magic in this sense
contrasts with scientific theories. Science is deeply rooted in the
philosophy of cause and effect and focuses on material causes that
eventuate without interference of the scientist. Science is an imper-
sonal and passive philosophy, while magic is based on active human
interaction with metaphysical powers. It is in this aspect that magic
and science seem diametrically opposed.
An alternative view was proposed by English science-fiction wri-
ter Arthur C. Clarke, who considers magic and science as parts along
the same continuum of human experience. He expressed this suc-
cinctly in his Third Law of Prediction, which states that Any suf-
ficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In
Clarkes interpretation, the demarcation between magic and science
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What is magic? 7
is not a fixed point; rather, it moves depending on the level of sci-
entific knowledge of the person experiencing the magic. The Third
Law carries in it a presumption that magic will be increasingly eclip-
sed by science as the level of knowledge about the universe in-
creases. All magic is, in this sense, reduced to science that has
not yet been made intelligible. For example, appliances that are
commonplace in a contemporary house, such as a vacuum cleaner
or microwave, would most certainly seem magical to a housewife
of the nineteenth century. The Third Law portrays an optimistic
view of science in the sense that it will progress towards a complete
explanation of the world around us. However, Clarke is wrong to
place magic and science along the same continuum. Magic is not
in opposition with science or an extension of science, because they
both seek answers to different questions. Supernatural magic is a
belief system that aims to provide answers to questions related to
themeaningof things, while science is a system of knowledge that
seeks to explain things, their origins, functions and so on. Magic
provides an answer to the question why?, while science provides
explanations and answers to the question how? Science and magic
are, as such, not incompatible with each other but complementary
aspects of the human experience.
The position one might take in the discourse of magic versus
science does not actually matter. Magic, as a supernatural occur-
rence, might or might not exist factually, it most certainly exists in
a cultural sense. For those with a belief in magic it is a vehicle to
provide meaning to their lives. The key to understanding magic as a
human phenomenon is neither to explain magic as an alternative to
science nor to discount it as irrational nonsense, but to understand it
as an integral phenomenon of human existence. By viewing magic
as a normal part of human culture instead of a physical phenomenon
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What is magic? 8
that needs to be explained, we can form a much richer understanding
of social reality. Magic provides the hope that the unrelenting and
unpredictable forces of the natural world can be overcome. In this
sense magic shares a purpose with science and technology, in that
their purpose is also to make the world more understandable and
controllable.
Besides the duplicitous meaning of the word magic as either a
supernatural occurrence or a form of entertainment, the word is also
used for something that causes astonishment, even when obviously
caused by explainable physical processes. Magician Paul Harris sees
astonishment as our natural state of mind; he associates it with a
childs mind-set in which there is little knowledge of the world and
everything is magical. This mind-set is the reason that performing
magic tricks for children below four years of age is difficult: they
do not perceive the presented reality as special because, to them, the
whole world is already magical.
The word magic is often used in advertising to communicate
that a product has properties beyond what can normally be expected.
Numerous gadgets, such as self-inflating balloons, cloths with aston-
ishing absorption rates and numerous others, are called magic by
marketers because they possess properties that appear miraculous.
A search in the American trademark register reveals thousands of
entries that use the word magic. For example, a company produc-
ing herbal nutritional supplements uses the name Jungle Magic
to communicate the idea that their herbs have properties beyond the
regular garden herbs, and a series of cooking appliances sell under
the name of Cook Magic. Using the word magic in the branding
of products and services taps directly into the human desire for a
magical world where mundane activities can be undertaken almost
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What is magic? 9
effortlessly. Just as primal cultures believe magic can help to ensure
a bountiful hunt, modern day marketers use magic in their hunt for
new consumers.
Another range of products in this category are magic toys de-
signed around natural processes that seem magical to the casual
observer. For example, levitating rings that use magnetic repulsion
to defy gravity, or a set of concave mirrors that creates the illusion
of a coin that is so realistic people try to pick it up. English physics
teacher David Featonby laments this use of the word magic in these
cases. He writes that it hides the fact that these so-called magical
toys are based on known principles of physics: Take the mystery
out of physics, but leave the wonder, is his advice. Featonby dis-
tinguishes between two types of magic: the first is sleight-of-hand
and trickery, or conjuring; the second is hidden science, which relies
on the audience having no full grasp of the science involved. Given
that most people are not aware of the science behind the illusions
or do not experience similar effects in their daily livesthe toys are
considered magical because they cause astonishment. For practising
magicians, however, there is no difference between these two types
of magic: both sleight-of-hand and hidden science are considered
valid methods of creating the illusion of magic.
The final way the word magic can be used is to describe the
quality of an experience. Watching films or plays or walking in
a forest can be a magical experience, meaning that these expe-
riences have an ephemeral quality, a feeling that only poets can
reconstruct in words. Magicians may try to invoke this feeling in
their audience through their theatrical performance. For example,
Australian magician Raymond Crowe creates a mesmerising display
of shadows on a projection screen using nothing but his hands and
a spotlight. Although no deception is used to hide the method by
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What is magic? 10
which the shadows are created, the audience often describe seeing
his performance as a magical experience. He also uses mime
to enhance the magical illusions that he crafts on stage. Crowe
masterfully manipulates a ball to create the illusion that it is floating
while never really letting go of the ball with his hand. Through his
performance, Crowe emphasises the narrative of a floating ball that
tries to escape from him, not the impossibility of the method. Crowe,
who calls himself an unusualist instead of a magician, expressed
the magical nature of his art in a lecture to a group of magicians in
Las Vegas: The older I get, the more I like magic that is not a trick.
Magicians use the word magic in all four of the previously described
interpretations: to describe their performance art as well as to in-
dicate the supernatural world they are simulating. Magicians not
only create the illusion of magic in the supernatural sense of the
word but also create a sense of astonishment through their theatrical
performance and provide audiences with experiences that have a
magical quality. In this book the words magic and conjuring are
used interchangeably in the context of theatrical magic, which is the
craft of creating illusions. Theatrical magic is the performance art
which blurs the boundaries between magic and science. Although
spectators are most often placed in the frame of the scientist and ask
themselveshowthe magic is performed, as a performance art magic
has the ability to shift those questions towhyit is possible that they
have occurred.
The following chapters of this book cover the work done by the
many scholars who have written about theatrical magic in an attempt
to better understand magic as a performance art itself and how the
performance of magic tricks helps us understand human behaviour.
The essence of science is asking questions, and in this book some of
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What is magic? 11
the answers to the questions that can be asked about theatrical magic
are described. Is magic a performance art or simply a playful form of
deception? What is it like to be a magician? What role did magicians
play in society of the past? What is the practical purpose of magic
and what can we learn from magic tricks? And, the question most
often asked by scientists, how it is possible that we can be so easily
deceived?
The answers to these questions not only provide a range of per-
spectives on magic, they also provide an insight into the diversity of
the sciences. This books shows that there is no such thing as the sci-
ence of magic. There is no single science of magic but rather various
scientific perspectives on magic, and these perspectives leave many
questions still left unanswered. The final question asked in this book
is about the future of magic itself. Will magic slowly disappear as
technology renders all miracles common, as predicted by Clarkes
Third Law of Prediction, or will there always be a role for people
who are able to entertain through artful deception?
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Chapter 2
The Science of Magic
HOW DOES MAGIC RELATE TO SCIENCE?
The foundation of all science is to ask questions of the reality around
us and of ourselves. Because of the inherent complexity of the nat-
ural environment and of the human mind, a wide range of different
sciences exist, each asking their own questions and each using their
own specific methods to find answers.
The fields of endeavour most often portrayed as being represen-tative of science itself are the physical sciencesmost importantly
physics, chemistry and earth sciences. Physics and chemistry are,
on one hand, in stark contrast with what magicians aim to achieve,
while on the other hand magicians thankfully exploit the gaps be-
tween the audiences knowledge and scientific knowledge to create
the illusion of magic. The relationship between magic and the dif-ferent fields of science is bidirectional. Magicians use the principles
of the natural sciences, linguistics, psychology and formal sciences
as methods to create the illusion of supernatural magic and schol-
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How does magic relate to science? 13
ars in these fields study theatrical magic as a phenomenon. Many
self-working magic tricks are based on principles of chemistry or
physics, and, in mentalism, information theory can be used to create
the illusion of miracles such as clairvoyance or telepathy. In sleight-
of-hand magic, illusions are created by exploiting the psychological
peculiarities of how we perceive the world. Because the words a ma-
gician uses can subtly alter the perception of the spectator, linguistics
is also important, especially in mentalism, which is essentially magic
with information. Magicians also use the engineering principles of
the applied sciences to construct self-working mechanical tricks and
grand illusions performed on the large stage.
Magicians also regularly rely on the formal sciences, such as
mathematics and information science, to perform magic tricks. The
formal sciences have no subject in themselves and bind all other
sciences together as almost all sciences rely on mathematics. The
subject of mathematics is not about physical things in reality, but
abstract concepts such as numbers, geometric shapes and computer
algorithms. It is in this way that mathematics can be considered
magical and mysterious. In the early days of mathematics, geomet-
rical knowledge was guarded as an esoteric secret and was known
only to the initiated. Even today, mathematics and conjuring are still
closely intertwined as many magic tricks rely on the principles of
mathematics.
What scientific research and magic shows have in common is
that the spectator of a magic show is akin to a scientist observing
a natural phenomenon. Both scientists and spectators are observing
something that they dont understand. However, a spectator does
not have access to a laboratory with the necessary tools to uncover
the truth, like a scientist would. The magician presents an alternative
version of reality in which the known laws of physics can apparently
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How does magic relate to science? 14
be broken at his will, but spectators must observe passively, without
being able to investigate everything in detail. Spectators consciously
know they are being fooled and will instinctively seek out the true
cause of what they experience. Their subconscious mind will cre-
ate causes for what the spectator sees, even if those causes appear
magical. The magician, as the prime-mover of his own temporary
universe, has a home-ground advantage over the spectators and can
direct the spectators observation, preventing them from extracting
the truth from their perceptions. The relationship between a scientist
and the phenomena she studies is very different to that between a
spectator and a magic trick. Nature cannot deceive scientists in the
way a magician deceives audiences. Scientists force the truth from
reality by interrogating it with complicated equipment and sophisti-
cated techniques, a privilege the spectators of a magic show do not
have.
Magic and science are, from a methodological perspective, each
others opposites. While magic relies on secrets and deception, sci-
ence relies on transparency and open communication. Scientists are
keen to explain their latest findings to the public to obtain recog-
nition, whereas magicians thrive on secrecy and mystery and hide
their knowledge from public view. Hiding the real physical causes
creates the illusion that supernatural magic is at play because, even
though the audience does not rationally believe in the supernatural,
the magician has removed all other logical options. For example,
there are logically only three ways in which the illusion of levitating
somebody can be achieved: either the person is resting on some-
thing, is hanging on something, or is propelled by an upward force.
It is the task of the magician to make all three possible explana-
tions seem implausible to the audience. This is usually achieved
by using a hoop or similar prop to emphasise that the suspension
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How does magic relate to science? 15
is fully independent of any supports or wires. Given the current
state of science, using an upward force is not plausible as a method
because technology to cause objects that are heavier than air to fly
are extremely noisy. The audiences minds are convinced by the
theatrical rhetoric of the magician that none of the three possible
methods are used, even though these are logically the only solutions
available. A fine example of this is the flying illusion as performed
by David Copperfield. His illusion is theatrically beautiful because
it is as close as possible to our own experiences of flying in our
dreams. Copperfield subtly reminds us in different ways that the
use of supports or wires cannot be the method used to fly across the
stage, leaving the audience in a state of pure astonishment.
Magic and science also have a lot in common: magicians and
scientists share both a curiosity about the world around us and a
desire to untangle its many secrets. Albert Einstein, the archetypi-
cal scientist, is quoted as saying, the most beautiful thing we can
experience is the mysteriousit is the source of all true art and
science. It is in the reverence of the mysteries of nature that magic
and science find each other. Scientists force an answer from nature
by using the scientific method and freely share the outcomes of their
work with others. Magicians also have an understanding of the
physical world and the mind, but rather than using this knowledge to
explain how reality works, magicians use it to distort reality and do
not share their knowledge with the audience.
Before the mid-eighteenth century, the performance of magic was
heavily steeped in the occult. Magicians presented themselves as
heirs of the ancient traditions of sorcery, alchemy, and divination.
They performed in mystical outfits, mumbled magical invocations
and related their performances to a belief in supernatural magic.
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How does magic relate to science? 16
After the scientific ideals of the Age of Reason began to take hold
and industrialisation spread across Europe, Robert-Houdin reinven-
ted the magic show and changed it from a fringe activity that was
viewed with suspicion to a middle-class form of entertainment. He
based his magic shows on science instead of the occult and ever
since Robert-Houdin, the large majority of magicians have distanced
themselves from their occult roots. Magicians began to embed their
performances in a scientific aura instead of referring to mystical
occurrences, which evolved into the abstracted type of magic we
know today.
Robert-Houdin was one of the first to abandon the mysterious
sorcerer outfit of the past and replaced it with a fashionable gen-
tlemans suit. He portrayed the image of an entrepreneur of the
industrial age, and was a magician for a new scientific age. He wrote
that in order to be a good magician, it is necessary to have studied
the physical sciences, such as chemistry, mechanics and electricity.
Many of his tricks were based on his knowledge of science and
technology and he presented these feats as scientific demonstrations.
However, unlike a scientist, Robert-Houdin did not share his knowl-
edge with the audience. In 1856, after he had retired as a performer,
Robert-Houdin was asked by the French colonial government to
perform for some of the leaders of the Arab tribes in Algeria. Magic
was one of the problems colonising nations had to face when trying
to pacify the exotic cultures. The Marabouts, religious and spiritual
leaders of Algeria, were perceived by the locals to possess magic
powers. The French, who perceived this as a threat to their authority,
invited Robert-Houdin to help them neutralise the Marabouts influ-
ence by staging a magic competition. For this performance, Robert-
Houdin did not portray himself as a man of science as he would
do in Paris; instead, he compared himself with the local traditional
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How does magic relate to science? 17
magicians. In one of his tricks, he humiliated a strong Arab by invit-
ing him to pick up a box that was held down by an electromagnetic
charge, and later humiliated the volunteer further by giving him an
electric shock. His performance was enough to convince Marabout
magicians that the French occupiers were more powerful than them,
thereby thwarting colonial unrest.
The event did actually take place, but the details are lost in time.
The political nature of the performance set-aside, the story is deeply
symbolic for the self-image of European magicians at that time.
In his writings, Robert-Houdin portrays the Marabouts as primi-
tive tricksters who were not able to compete with the science-based
magic he and his contemporaries performed in Paris. His story has
the structure of a traditional mythological story in which an archety-
pal conflict between scientific civilisation and magical beliefs is fought
out. This performance can also be interpreted as a symbol of Robert-
Houdin reckoning with the past, demonstrating that magic has moved
away from the esoteric and into the enlightened age of science.
With the popularity of the shows by Robert-Houdin, embed-
ding a magic show in the principles of science became increasingly
popular. Robert-Houdin himself presented a trick in which his son
seemed to defy the laws of gravity as a demonstration of the pow-
ers of ether as he claimed that inhaling these vapours would make
somebody as light as a balloon. Magicians in the nineteenth century
often adorned themselves with the title of professor, not only to
provide themselves with an aura of respectability but also to indi-
cate that their performances were a demonstration of the miracles of
the natural world instead of the supernatural. They showcased an
ambiguous distinction between magic and science, claiming to use
scientific principles while simultaneously performing magic tricks
that seemingly contradicted the known laws of nature. Magic and
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How does magic relate to science? 18
science were closely intertwined in their performances. Magicians
of that age talked of wonderful chemistry, of recreational mathemat-
ics, and amusing physics in one instance, and of thought transfer-
ence, communication with spirits, and levitation in the next.
In contemporary magic shows, magic and science are still often
intertwined. German magician Thomas Fraps performs a show in
which regular magic tricks are used to demonstrate the principles
of science. For example, Fraps uses a the classical cut-and-restored
rope trick to demonstrate the principles of molecular biology: he
uses genetic scissors to snip out mutated genes and then magi-
cally restore the rope. On the reverse, science can also be used
to demonstrate magic. Many physics teachers perform scientific
experiments that at first instance seem like magic to their students.
Main difference between using magic tricks to demonstrate science
on the stage and presenting science as magic in the classroom is
that in an educational setting the secret of the magic trick has to be
revealed.
One controversial branch of science that has a close relationship with
magic is parapsychology, which is the scientific study of supernat-
ural phenomena. Parapsychology is where the battle lines between
science and magic are most sharply drawn. In this specialised branch
of psychology, researchers investigate the existence of supernatural
occurrences such as mind reading, remote viewing and extrasensory
perception. The term parapsychology was coined by Max Dessoir,
one of the first psychologists with an interest in magic tricks.
Magicians and mentalists have long been actively involved in
exposing fraud psychics who claim to possess supernatural powers.
Magicians play a key role in the many sceptic societies around the
world and regularly assist scientists who are investigating supernatu-
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How does magic relate to science? 19
ral claims to ensure the scientists are not deceived by the subject. To
have magicians in attendance during parapsychology experiments is
only a recent phenomenon; in the past, scientists were often deceived
into believing that a subject possessed supernatural abilities. Men-
talists can be so convincing that they fool even scientists who are
trained in critical thinking to believe that they have real supernatural
powers.
Feigning psychic abilities is frowned upon by conjurers, and
there is a long tradition of magicians (most famously, Harry Houdini
in the early twentieth century) exposing fraud mediums. Magicians
enjoy playing this role because, as previously mentioned, they tend
to have a lower level of belief in supernatural phenomena than the
general population does. In contemporary times, American magi-
cian James Randi is the driving force behind this movement. In
the early 1980s, he orchestrated an elaborate hoax named Project
Alpha to show that it is possible to deceive scientists into believ-
ing that supernatural powers exist. The project was mimicked a
deception perpetrated by Uri Geller some years earlier where he
managed to convince a group of distinguished scientists that he pos-
sessed real supernatural powers. Geller was so convincing that the
deceived scientists even published their results in the 1974 edition
of the prestigious scientific journal Nature. In his re-enactment of
this earlier episode, James Randi managed to covertly place two
young amateur magiciansSteve Shaw (who now has a career as
mentalist Banachek) and Michael Edwardsinto a parapsychology
laboratory. The two successfully performed many spoon bending
experiments and were able to convince the attending parapsycholo-
gists that they had psychokinetic powers. The magicians found that
it was very easy to deceive the scientists because they did not follow
strict protocols. Shaw and Edwards employed basic misdirection
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How does magic relate to science? 20
techniques used by magicians. They would drop one spoons in their
lap and bend it below the table with one hand, while simulating to
psychokinetically bend a spoon in their other hand. The two became
well known for their believed abilities in parapsychology circles,
until Randi decided to reveal the true identity of the purported psy-
chics. The revelation of their perpetration sent shock waves through
the parapsychology community because the researchers believed by
them to be genuine psychics. There was so much publicity about
the deception by the magicians that the McDonnell Lab was even-
tually closed. Since Project Alpha it is considered good practice
for researchers of paranormal phenomena to enlist the help of an
experienced magician to be able to rule out the use of deception to
fake psychic powers.
The art of conjuring is practised by an estimated half a million peo-
ple around the world. Most magicians that actively perform are
amateurs or semi-professionals that are otherwise also engaged as
lawyers, occupational therapists, psychologists, computer scientists,
teachers and so on. Most of the works referenced in this book were
written by such scientists and professionals from many otherwise
unrelated fields of science, who share an interest in theatrical magic.
The word science is usually reserved for the natural sciences, but
the scientific work on conjuring presented in this book shows that
science is a much broader concept that deals with the full spectrum
of human experience and the natural world. To fully understand a
complex phenomenon such as magic, a range of perspectives be-
yond the natural sciences need to be included in the review. The art
of conjuring has been studied by scientists and professionals from
three different domains: social sciences, the applied sciences and
psychology, each providing their own perspective.
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How does magic relate to science? 21
The largest field of study with links to theatrical magic are the
social sciences. The social sciences, sometimes also called the hu-
manities or behavioural sciences, studies everything people do or
believe. While the objective of the natural and social sciences is to
explain the world around us, the objective of the social sciences is
to understand the social world. This understanding is an inherent
subjective state of mind and seeks to find the meaning of actions
from the actors point of view. Scholars in the social sciences are not
necessarily seeking for a final answer to their questions, but are en-
gaged in an ongoing narrative to improve our understanding. From
the perspective of the social sciences, a wide variety of questions
can be asked of conjuring: Why are there more male than female
magicians? What was the cultural significance of the popularity of
magic at the end of the nineteenth century? Is magic entertainment
or a performance art? The social sciences cover a wide-ranging field
of studies that can help answer these questions. Most important to
conjuring are performance studies and cultural history, which re-
searches the act of performing magic shows in the present and in the
past. Researchers in film theory, linguistics and gender studies have
also published their ideas of theatrical magic. The social sciences
place the performance of magic in its historical or contemporary
context. The answers provided by scholars in humanities can thus
help us understand both society itself and the role magicians play
within it.
In the applied sciences, such as health care and teaching, the
fruits of labour of the natural scientists, formal scientists and social
scientists are used to improve peoples lives. Engineers use the
theories of physics to build bridges or manufacture computers, and
health care professionals implement the latest findings in biology
to improve our health, and so on. It is in these fields of human
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How does magic relate to science? 22
endeavour that magic fulfils a practical role. The health sciences are
a fertile field for magicians to participate in, especially in occupa-
tional therapy where magic tricks are used to assist with improving
peoples abilities and self-esteem. Magic tricks are also used in
psychotherapy and as a means to reduce anxiety in children who
must undergo medical treatment. Another applied science where
magic can help professionals perform their tasks is teaching. Many
magic tricks are based on the principles of physics, chemistry or
mathematics, which makes magic a perfect tool for playfully illus-
trating the abstract concepts of these sciences.
Research into the psychology of magic is as old as the science
of psychology itself. Pioneers in this field, such as Alfred Binet,
recognised already in the nineteenth century that studying the tricks
performed by magicians could teach us about how the mind works.
Magicians have extensive experience with using the weaknesses of
our perception mechanisms to create illusions. Research on the
psychology of magic is currently a very active field and a plethora of
journal articles has been published in recent years. In psychology,
the main question being asked is how our brains can be so easily
deceived into perceiving something that is not true. Studying both
magicians and more importantly the reactions of their audiences pro-
vides an insight into how the human brain processes information and
help us better understand how we experience the world in general.
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Chapter 3
The Art of Magic
IS MAGIC A PERFORMANCE ART?
Theatrical magic is the art of pretending to perform supernatural
magic and, thus, is a form of theatre. The performer is not showing
a simple demonstration of supernatural powers, but a theatrical in-
terpretation of what a real magician could be like. Interesting aspect
of a magic performance is that the audience knows they are being
deceived. No ethical boundaries are, however, crossed because of anunwritten and often unspoken social contract between the spectators
and performers. The audience is prepared to momentarily believe in
the portrayal in front of them and willingly suspends disbelief for
the duration of the performance.
Suspension of disbelief is a central concept in theatre and film
and occurs when the audience is enticed to postpone judgement con-cerning the implausibility of what is presented. We suspend our
disbelief when watching a film or stage play so that we can avoid
thinking about what is actually happening and immerse ourselves in
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Is magic a performance art? 24
the story. This suspension of our credulity is only temporary and
as soon as the curtain closes or the silver screen goes dark, we are
snapped back to normality. In science fiction literature, the term
cognitive estrangement is sometimes used to describe the psycho-
logical process of accepting a story as reality. As in magic, science
fiction presents a world in which the impossible seems possible:
people drive flying cars or travel through time, objects levitate, and
people can predict the future. Cognitive estrangement involves using
the audiences lack of knowledge to promote their suspension of
disbelief. In science fiction, this lack of knowledge is often created
by the fact that the scientific advances or technological wonders
presented do not yet exist. Magic, as a form of storytelling art, is
very much aligned with science fiction. In magic, the asymmetry
in knowledge between the spectator and the magician is also central
to the art, and secrecy is its main currency. The magicians knows
the secrets and is the only person that knows what will happen next.
The spectators are left in a continuous state of not-knowing, which
moves the balance of power securely with the magician and as such
provides a platform for deception.
One form of magic where a genuine suspension of disbelief is
still possible is mentalism. This is a form of magic in which the
performer appears to demonstrate extraordinary mental or intuitive
abilities, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and so on.
Mentalism is essentially performing magic by enacting impossibil-
ities such as mind reading, metal bending or clairvoyance. The
science of the brain is not as advanced as the science of the physical
world, and, as expressed by Clarkes Third Law of Prediction, there
is ample opportunity for spectators to believe that mentalism could
be real supernatural magic. Many people are prepared to believe that
Uri Geller can actually bend metal with his mind or that John Ed-
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Is magic a performance art? 25
ward can actually communicate with deceased people. Some believe
so strongly in the existence of the paranormal that they proclaim
that English mentalist Derren Brown actually possesses supernatural
powers, even though he openly admits to being a magician and using
deception.
Cinema is a form of art that has a lot in common with magic.
Cinema is an inherently deceptive art. Both in magic and cinema, the
viewer is deceived into temporarily believing something is occurring
that, in reality, is not. The deception created by magicians is explicit
as the inherent purpose of conjuring is the transcendence of what we
know about physical reality. In cinema, the deception is implicit and
occurs in three layers. Firstly, our brain is tricked into interpreting
the continuous stream of still pictures as a moving image. Secondly,
relying on the principles of ventriloquism, the mind is tricked into
thinking the sounds emanating from the speakers are actually com-
ing out of the actors mouths. And lastly, audiences suspend their
disbelief and embrace the idea that they are watching real people in
a real world.
The magician and the film director have similar problems to
solve: both seek to create an alternate reality that the spectator can
temporarily believe to be real, both seek to create a high level of
believability, and both aim for the spectator to suspend disbelief and
accept the narrative presented as real. Given the social contract be-
tween spectators and magicians, which acknowledges that deception
will be used, nobody truly believes that the performer has genuine
magical powers. The audience knows that subterfuge and deceit
will be used to create the illusion of magic. This is also the case
with cinema: viewers are consciously aware that they are sitting in a
theatre watching a two-dimensional screen, but they are conditioned
to suspend disbelief in order to immerse themselves in the story.
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No matter how similar magic and cinema are in their deceptive
aimwhich is to create a temporary reality that seems plausible
these two forms of performance art are separated by distinct dif-
ferences. The major difference is that audiences watching a magic
show continuously ask themselves the question How is it done?,
while visitors of a cinema are more likely to wonder What happens
next?. However, this difference did not exist in the early days of
cinema, as will be discussed in chapter five.
Magic is a form of theatre by virtue of it pretending to be a
manifestation of supernatural magic, without claiming it to be real.
Deception is not the defining feature of a magic show; other perfor-
mance arts also use deception. The defining feature of a magic show
is its ability to provide spectators with a sense of astonishment. With
magic being a form of theatre, magicians prefer to call themselves
artists in the sense that actors and musicians are considered artists.
The fact that magic is a form of theatre does, however, not imply
that it is also a performance art. Not every form of theatre can
automatically be called an art. Magic can, however, not be simply
compared with other forms of performance arts because it has some
special features not shared by other forms of theatre. In the follow-
ing pages, we will review the literature on the performance aspects
on magic and explore whether, and under which conditions, magic
can be considered a fully fledged form of art.
Now that we have characterised magic as a form of theatre, are
we then also justified in saying that magic is a performance art?
Magic has a fairly low status compared to other forms of theatre.
Jerry Seinfeld expressed it in his usual observant manner in his book
Seinlanguage: What is the point of the magician? He comes on,
he fools you, you feel stupid, shows over. You never know whats
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Is magic a performance art? 27
actually happened. Its like, Heres a quarter. Now its gone. Youre
a jerk.
The place of magic in performance art is highly debated among
contemporary magicians. Online magic shops such as Theory11
and Ellusionist call their magicians artists, and the influential ma-
gicians of the McBrides Magic & Mystery School aim to elevate
magic to a serious performance art. The aspirations of magicians to
become recognised as artists are not widely supported by the general
community. Bengali magician Aladin lamented the perception of
magic as a tributary of popular entertainment. In thePerformance
Research journal he writes about how he is caught up within the
stereotypes society holds about magic. Aladin struggles with his
identity as a magician and he sees the magic communitys own un-
willingness to eschew critical, theoretical or dialectical enquiry as
a major cause for its low status as a performance art.
Dramaturgical analysis of magic performances are almost ex-
clusively written by magicians themselves, with Showmanship by
Magiciansby Dariel Fitzkee and Magic and Showmanshipby Hen-
ning Nelms as often-cited examples. The academic literature on
theatre studies largely ignores magic as a performance art. Standard
reference workThe Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance,
for example, has only one short entry on magic shows and brief
lemmas on Harry Houdini and Harry Kellar. Academic journals in
the field of performance studies are also mostly silent on the perfor-
mance of magic tricks and other types of variety performances. Aca-
demic quarterlyThe Drama Review, a journal that focuses on perfor-
mances in their social, economic and political context, has published
only a handful of articles on magic in the past four decades.
The low status of magic as a performance art has been illustrated
in a short polemic in the journal Stage Directions. Magician Jeff
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Is magic a performance art? 28
Busby wrote a letter to the journal in response to an earlier statement
by theatre writer and educator John Bliss, who criticised a theatre
university graduate for working as a magician. In Busbys opinion,
this gave the impression that being a magician is beneath being an
actor. Even though Busby disagrees with Bliss, he acknowledges
that many magicians are embarrassing exemplifications of amateur-
ish copies of what is considered a minor variety act, and encourages
a change in attitudes towards magic by both magicians and theatre
professionals. Busby closes by stating that being a magician is not
necessarily merely a temporary job for an otherwise unemployed
theatre professional. Magic can be a full form of theatre. The belief
in the character of a magician epitomises, in Busbys view, what a
genuine actor in that part should be.
Theatre director and Shakespeare scholar Bernard Beckerman
takes an egalitarian view of all types of performance art and does
not distinguish between low and high art. Beckerman does not view
magic as a lowly form of entertainment and included it in his review
of all forms of theatre. In his theoretical reflections on theatre,
he includes magic as one of the three types of shows: shows of
glorification, such as parades, festivals and the like; shows of skill,
such as the circus, jugglers and acrobats; and shows of illusion,
such as drama and magic. Beckerman does not equate magic with
circus and jugglers, as is usually the case, but places it in the same
category as drama. Beckerman distinguishes between magic and
drama by the way illusions are used in performances. For example, a
ballet dancer actually extends the human limits, while the magician,
just like the actor in a drama, only pretends to extend them. He
paraphrases Tennessee Williams by saying that a stage magician
creates an illusion that has the appearance of truth, while the actor
portrays truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
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Professor of philosophy Warren Steinkraus provided a detailed
analysis of magic as a form of theatre in a 1979 article in theJournal
of Aesthetic Education. In his article, Steinkraus places magic firmly
within the classification of minor performing arts and concludes that
a magic performance is rarely enriching, but nevertheless amuses
and evokes awe. What makes conjuring a minor form of art, accord-
ing to Steinkraus, is that it offers minimal emotional consequences.
Magic tricks do not move us; the only pervasive feelings they arouse
are surprise and wonder. In his opinion, magic is thin from an
aesthetic point of view because once one has discovered the mystery
of how a trick was created, the attraction vanishes. This is not a
recent point of view. Roman senator Seneca once wrote to his friend
Lucillius, It is the very trickery that pleases me. But show me how
the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.
In 1974, drama teacher and stage director Julian Olf described the
similarities and differences between magicians and other types of
performance artists. According to Olf, hiding the true method of a
performance is not unique to conjuring; it is central to all performing
arts where, unlike visual arts such as painting, the work is performed
right in front of the eyes of the spectators. We only ever see the
end result of a painting, a statue or a play and not the many failed
attempts that were part of the creation process. In performance art,
this issue is complicated because the audience is present while the
art is being created in front of them. Olf points out that there is a
double concealment in performances: actors need to conceal both
their own personalities and the effort required to achieve this decep-
tion. The craft of the magician is the ability to perform a simple
action that conceals a complex one. In effect, a magician has to play
two roles simultaneously: the part of the performance that can be
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Is magic a performance art? 30
seen by the audience, and the part that is hidden from the audience.
All performance artists use control of attention and concealment to
create the required effect on the audience. Actors pretend to be
somebody they are not, dancers hide the enormous physical strain
they are under, painters create three-dimensional worlds on a two-
dimensional canvas, and magicians hide the real cause of the effects
they create. In the words of novelist Alex Miller, art bewitches us
with its tricks, its illusions, its lies, its forgeries, its sleight-of-hand.
The main difference between a regular theatre and magic is that the
overarching objective of the conjuring performance is to create a
sense of astonishment with the spectators. In other forms of theatre
the objective is to tell a story. Although deception is also used in
drama to achieve this objective, it is only a means to tell a story and
not necessarily used to create a sense of astonishment.
There exists an inherent tension in the performance of magic.
The magician seeks to create an experience of astonishment and
aims to direct attention away from the deception. The audience
is, however, naturally attracted to the deceptive aspects of the per-
formance and seeks out the method used to create the illusions.
Contemporary magicians, such as Eugene Burger and Robert Neale,
stress that the purpose of magic performances is story telling, but
the social contract between the magician and the spectator places
prime focus of the performance on deception. This social contract is
based on the fact that spectators know they are being deceived. Olf,
discusses the inherent tension between the visible and the hidden
performances of magicians, and writes that the audience is bent
on believing [the magician] in spite of themselves, and disbelieving
him because of themselves. The magician is confronted by an
audience fighting for the integrity of their perception and intellect.
Scientific research using brain scanners has confirmed Olfs deliber-
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Is magic a performance art? 31
ations about a tension in the spectators mind. This research shows
that people watching magic tricks are placed into a position where
they focus on method because their brain is seeking to regain the
cognitive control that the magician removed. Olf concludes that this
tension, the cat-and-mouse game between magician and audience,
is essential to magic performances. Without it, the magician would
be unconditionally believed, and his performance would no longer
be considered theatre but a demonstration of supernatural powers.
Without this tension, a magic performance would lose one of its
most important theatrical tools. The tension of getting caught is
therefore essential to the identity of a magician as an entertainer.
It is, however, also this tension that keeps magic from being ex-
perienced as a genuine form of performance art. When magic is
performed as a challenge, the audience is too distracted by their
quest to seek out the method to be enthralled by the performance
itself. Theorists of the performance of magic such as Tommy Won-
der, Eugene Burger and Henning Nelms encourage magicians to
reduce the urge of spectators to seek out the method by focusing
on storytelling. This way, the spectators mind is drawn more to
the question on what happens next rather than to how solving the
riddle of how something was done. However, because the purpose
of a magic performance is to create a magical effect, and because
the brain is naturally inclined to try to resolve the riddle, magic can
never be a fully-fledged storytelling art. No matter how artful the
performance, the niggling question in the spectators mind is how
did he do it?
One of the aspects in which magic differs from regular theatre is
active audience participation. In a paper published in The Drama Re-
view, Susan Condos describes the act of street magician Jeff Sheri-
dan, who used to perform at the Walter Street statue in Central Park.
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Condos describes how Sheridan interacts with the audience instead
of making them passive receivers of his performance. He breaks the
imaginary barrier between himself and the audience, which is known
in theatre studies as breaking the fourth wall. Generally, the distance
created by the imagined fourth wall is essential to help the audience
accept the fictional work as reality. In some instances, however, an
actor may wish to speak directly to the audience, reminding them
that they are passive observers. This technique was already used by
Shakespeare, but in drama the actors are generally pretending to be
oblivious to the fact that they are observed by a multitude of silent
spectators.
In magic, the fourth wall is often broken when spectators are
asked to assist the magician by picking a card or by lending objects
to be used as props. The spectator then becomes part of the per-
formance, which changes the dynamic of the performance. In Jeff
Sheridans silent act, he directly communicates with the audience
through mime to enhance their experience of the magic. He starts
his act immersed in his own actions, which attracts the attention
from the audience. Sheridan then moves his attention to one audi-
ence member, usually a woman, and the byplay draws the remaining
spectators further into the performance. The chosen spectator assists
with the performance by cutting some ropes, which are then artfully
restored. In this way the spectator forms an integral part of the
show. This is not a specific feature of Sheridans performance, but
is a basic technique used in almost all magic shows. In contrast to
traditional theatre, in magic breaking the fourth wall strengthens the
belief of the audience. Audience participation brings them closer
to the proceedings, which reduces suspicion of trickery, but partak-
ing in the performance actually reduces the ability of spectators to
find solutions to the deception because of the carefully controlled
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Is magic a performance art? 33
circumstances. Audience participation gives the spectators a false
sense of certainty. The closer the audience is to the actions of the
magician, the easier it is for them to accept the magic as unexplain-
able. On the other hand, this closeness also has a negative effect as
it reduces the ability of magician to tell a compelling story.
One of the most detailed scholarly accounts of magic as a perfor-
mance art was written by Alex de la Rambelje, who completed a
Bachelor of Performing Arts before becoming a professional ma-
gician. In his dissertation, de la Rambeljes analyses various ap-
proaches to the performance of conjuring and distinguishes between
three different types: skill-based presentation,dramatic presentation
and theatrical-technical construction.
In theskill-based presentation, the magician emphasises the skill
required to create illusions. This performance style is comparable
to a juggling act as they both focus on virtuosity as a predominant
performance element. In this approach, magic is limited to being
a puzzle, a riddle to be solved. In thedramatic presentation, the-
atricality is increased because the magic effects are presented so
that it engages the audience in some way, usually by attaching a
meaningful narrative to the magic. This approach moves away from
the limitations of the skills-based approach, but De La Rambelje
believes that the dramatic presentation is burdened by the fact that
the magic effect and the storyline can nullify each-other, leaving
the spectator confused about what to focus on. This approach is
often used in so-called Gospel magic, where the tricks are used to
illustrate stories from the Bible. The performance is no longer about
the magic, but about the story which it tells. The theatrical-technical
constructionapproach differs from the skill-based and the dramatic
presentation in that the magician entertains not while doing magic
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Is magic a performance art? 34
but with magic. This approach embraces the challenge aspect of
magic but tempers it by constantly interweaving the theatrical aspect
into the challenges. For example, the magician may react to the
tricks along with the audience. By acting just as surprised as the
audience at each magical occurrence, the magician is performing a
dramatic double act: the figure on stage is at once the agent and the
victim of the tricks, drawing even more interest from the audience.
The technical-theatrical construction type of magic is a format that
encompasses a dual awareness. The magician acknowledges that
technical skill is involved but tempts the audience into believing in
the idea of magic. The audience is constantly torn between knowing
that the magic isnt real and being seduced into the dramatic world of
the act. Within this dual awareness lies tension, a foundational tool
of theatre as a performance art. This dual awareness also creates an
intellectual tension in the mind of the audience where they get the
sense that the performer is two beings at once: a character in a play
and the technician of the tricks. In contrast, when watching a film in
which a character is dangling off a high cliff, the audience cannot be
sure how much of the fear belongs to the character and how much
belongs to the actor. Not knowing the true state of things is what
hooks the curious audience into paying attention to any performance
of magic.
Magic as a performance art often struggles to provide the aesthetic
or emotionally moving experiences that other performance arts can
achieve. An important aspect of magic as a performance art, in the
words of sociologist Robert Stebbins, is its unabashedly commer-
cial nature. Unlike other forms of performance arts, such as dance
and music, there are no formalised aesthetic ideals emanating from
the idea of magic as a pure art form. In the fine arts, such as painting,
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Is magic a performance art? 35
sculpture and so on, the distinction between art and commercialisa-
tion is quite sharply drawn, but in magic there is no such distinction.
Variety artists may have trouble making a living and may suffer like
many visual artists do, but this is not due to a continuous battle
between their art and making money, as is often the case in fine
arts. Professional magicians generally have no problems changing
their performances to suit the needs of their corporate clients or
integrating logos and products into their acts to promote business.
This has, according to Stebbins, consequences for any discussion
related to magic as an art form.
Magic as a performance art provides few aesthetic or emotion-
ally moving experiences. This is at least partially caused by the
fact that magic is embedded in easily recognisable symbols, such
as rabbits and top hats. Magicians are more often than not iden-
tifiable by the clothes and props they use, with little individuality
distinguishing them. They are therefore given the generic stamp
of being a magician rather than being identified as an individual
creative artist. Most people that watch a performance will remember
that they saw a magician, but are much less likely to remember
her name. There are many developments in contemporary magic
opposing its own stereotypes and new types of presentations are
being developed beyond the top-hats and rabbits.
An absolute answer to the question of whether magic perfor-
mances are a genuine form of art cannot be given, as art is dependent
upon its context. As shown by the perspectives presented in this
chapter, the majority of magic performances are not considered art
in the same way other types of performances are. In addition, just
because somebody is an artist does not imply that they produce art
in the aesthetic sense of the word. The English language suffers in
this respect as there is no specific word to denote an artist that pro-
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Is magic a performance art? 36
duces art for the sake of art or an artist performing to entertain. The
question posed in this chapter on whether magic is a performance
art should be answered positively. But as a performance art it is
limited by the stereotypes of magic, preventing it from reaching its
full potential. The question of whether magic is a performance art is
as much related