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MAGIC
By
MISDIRECTION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As one delves more and more deeply into the fundamental happenings during the process of deception with magic, it becomes evident that two designs are taking shape. Repeatedly, what the magician does is made possible through two general methods of attack upon the spectator's mind.
As has been emphasized here again and again, the spectator's mind is reached through his perceptions. The first general method, used constantly, but intermixed with the true, is that a great portion of what the spectator perceives is disguised in some manner. This holds true of both what the magician uses in the way of properties and what he does. Many of the things that the spectator sees, hears, feels, and otherwise receives through his perceptive senses come to him in a false light. He is not actually seeing what he believes he is seeing. The same may be said of the other senses.
Things that cannot be seen in their true light, without destroying the deception, are disguised in such a manner that the deception is maintained.
Where it is impossible to allow something to be perceived in its true light, and where disguise is impossible or inadvisable, the second essential method of deception is employed. This is in controlling the spectator's attention. In other words, where scrutiny is damaging, scrutiny is diverted in some manner.
The Changing Bag will illustrate this. Suppose the bag were to be used for the exchange of a quantity of questions. The performer desires to obtain the spectators' questions for offstage reading by his assistant. At the same time, he wishes to give the impression to his audience that the questions have been untouched.
The device itself is disguised as a bag mounted on a frame. Actually, of course, it is not a simple bag at all. It is a double bag, built in such a way that the interior of one bag simulates the interior of the other, In this case, the duplicate bag simulates the interior of the bag into which the original questions were dropped.
After the questions have been dropped into the bag, the handle is turned and the second lining takes the place of the original one. Simultaneously, a duplicate set of papers, representing the original set, occupies the bag, disguised as the original set. When these are dumped out in a glass container, or upon a tray, they are disguised as the original questions.
The usual changing bag is not an object with which the usual spectator is familiar. It is unlike anything within his regular, everyday experience. Therefore, the spectator cannot accept this device by as being just a simple bag. The performer, consequently, reduces the attention upon it to a minimum by making it seem of no particular importance. He uses the device without undue emphasis upon it, and when he has dumped out the duplicate questions, he puts it aside negligently. If it does not seem important to the magician, it will not seem important in connection with the deception. Also, in this particular case, at this stage of the proceedings, no deception has taken place, as far as the spectator is concerned. The use of the device seems preliminary to the actual trick. So, since it is an accessory used prior to the presentation of the deception, in the spectator's eyes, the performer can get away with minimizing it. Thus, he can divert attention from it.
Suppose, however, The Changing Bag is used to change the color of a handkerchief, apparently, or to cause a cut rope to become whole. Here the deception takes place in connection with the bag, directly. Since the bag is not a familiar thing to him, the spectator's suspicion will immediately center upon it. Why not? The change seems to take place within the bag. What is to stop this spectator from thinking that some kind of an exchanging device is incorporated therein? Try as he might, the performer can not minimize the importance of the bag as he did with the billet exchange. This is because The Changing Bag openly took an important part in the deception. In the former case, the magician contrived matters so that the use of the bag seemed secondary.
Now, however, it is right up in front of the spectator for suspicion. If it is left that way, the deception is extremely weak. The spectator knows the deception is due to some mechanical arrangement within the bag.
To avoid this, the performer might disguise The Changing Bag as something with which the spectator is familiar. Thayer did this when he designed a similar device for use with The Mutilated Parasol Trick. He disguised the bag as a ladies handbag. And in this disguise he immediately diverted much suspicion from it because many spectators viewed it in terms of handbags with which they were familiar.
There is still another way of overcoming the difficulty. That is by diverting attention away from the bag before the spectators have an opportunity to consider the part it plays. Whipping out a six-shooter and pumping lead into a nearby spectator would distract attention from the bag. But it would not benefit the deception. In fact, the deception would be ruined because it would be completely forgotten. So a bit of judgment is necessary in selecting the method of diverting the attention.
An attractive feminine assistant, perhaps scantily dressed, undoubtedly would compel a diversion of the attention, if she were to make an appearance at this time. Attention would swing with sufficient time interval allowed to permit the magician to exchange The Changing Bag for a similar—appearing device not equipped to make the necessary exchange. Then, of course, if time and lift mean nothing to the presentation, the spectators' suspicions may be completely dispelled by allowing them to examine the substitute thoroughly, even to the extent of chopping it up in little pieces. The attention would swing, certainly. but it would not swing satisfactorily if the girl came on crying, "Now look at me…" or with an expression to that effect. The diversion must not be obvious.
There is still another way in which the attention may be swung from the bag. This is, as in the case of the attention diversion last suggested, the substitution of a new, and stronger, interest. Suppose The Changing Bag were used for changing a red handkerchief to a green one. After the change, the handkerchief now being green, the magician anticipates the spectators' suspicions in connection with the bag. Before the spectator has much opportunity to consider the part the bag plays, the magician says. "I suppose you think there is a red handkerchief still in the bag…" He turns the bag inside out, whereupon there is a shower of tiny red handkerchiefs. He asks, "Which one do you mean?"
Of course, he has had a double load in the secret compartment all of the time. The green handkerchief was on top, with the dozen or so small ones, safely contained together, beneath it.
Getting back to the use of The Changing Bag for the billet switch:
The fact that the changing device is disguised as a receptacle for collecting the billets has been mentioned. The duplicate billets are disguised as the original ones. Getting the original questions is disguised as removing a discarded accessory. Attention is diverted from the removal of the bag by the performer's actions with the duplicate billets, preparatory to reading them. Taking up the necessary time to allow the assistant to open and make notes of the questions is disguised as a lecture upon the possibility of mental telepathy. Bringing notes on the questions to the performer is disguised as bringing in a crystal, perhaps. Reading the notes is disguised as gazing into the crystal. Even the questions themselves are disguised. The language of the writer of the questions is not used. It is changed about. The performer reveals that he has the substance of the spectator's question, but he reveals it in a halting, groping manner, as if the information comes to him through extreme difficulty.
Things are disguised. Actions are disguised. Reasons are disguised. Results are disguised. Objectives are disguised. Maneuvers are disguised. Everywhere you look in connection with deception—be it performer, apparatus, movements or what not—one encounters disguise in some form.
And when the disguise is inadvisable or impossible, the spectator's attention is anticipated, dulled, dissipated, distracted or diverted from revealing details.
There are, of course, two kinds of disguise in connection with the physical properties employed by the magician. One disguise is strictly physical and mechanical. The other is psychological.
The roller blind in The Black Art Frame is a physical simulation of the real background. Two linked rings, held together, physically simulate two separated rings. The diagonal mirror in the mirror production box disguises the load space as empty space. The Demon of Doom, Thayer's spike illusion, disguises the passage of a flexible spike around the neck or a wrist. Most choppers or guillotines disguise the substitution of the cutting blade for a duplicate that has passed the obstacle.
The apparatus for the transposition of a bottle and glass physically disguises nested shell bottles as an ordinary bottle. It disguises the transfer of one shell to the location of the ultimate transposition, physically. It disguises one subject, physically, by concealing it with the other. All of these are physical disguises.
The sand in The Sand Frame disguises the frame containing the card as an empty frame. Sawing a Woman In Half—the most common version—disguises two women as two separate parts of one woman. This, too, is a physical disguise. Another apparatus for the same effect, different in method, disguises an entire woman as two separated halves. A single ring and a key ring, interlinked, physically disguise the separable pair as a permanently welded one.
The folding sausage is disguised as a solid one. The feather bouquet is disguised as real flowers. The forcing deck of cards is physically disguised as a pack of different cards. The Lota Bowl is disguised as a simple bowl or vase. The weighted clock hand is disguised as a simple spinning pointer. The mechanism for operating The Dr. Q Rapping Hand is disguised as a simple board. The form used in The Ashrah Levitation is disguised as a covered woman.
Everywhere one investigates, side by side with the true, the genuine and the real, may be found the disguise. If everything in the entire deception process were disguised, there would be no effective deception. This is because the effectiveness of the disguise rests in the spectator's lack of knowledge of when it is being employed. Where what is genuine and true is mixed with that which is an imitation, or that which is disguised so that it will not be recognized, there is no clue demarking reality and pretense.
Yet the disguise is much less effective, if it is used solely for the direct accomplishment of the trick. If it is used to accomplish the trick only, the magician's apparatus still remains a magician's special tool in external appearance. For example: The production box that employs a mirror. Such boxes usually are decorated extravagantly, decorated in a manner that bespeaks nothing but frankly magician's apparatus, fashioned for nothing but a magician's purpose. Obviously it is a magician's tool. It is a tool, as is developed during the trick, for the purpose of allowing a magician to produce a number of articles from what is apparently an 'empty space. But its emptiness is only apparent, even to the most gullible spectator. It cannot be empty. Things are taken from it.
Since the spectator is familiar with nothing like it, this spectator knows it to be a special piece of magicians' apparatus. If it is a special tool for magicians, it is not strange that he can take things from it. Like the typewriter, which is a tool for writing letters… Or like the teletype, which is a tool for typing telegraph messages… Or like the phonograph, which is a tool for reproducing music… There is nothing—and I repeat it—nothing deceptive about them. Equally, there is nothing deceptive about a tool for magicians. Many people do not understand the workings of a typewriter, or the Teletype, or the phonograph. Yet they are not deceived or mystified or deluded by these devices.
They know that through some mechanism, which they could understand if they cared to investigate it, the apparent magical effect is accomplished. In the case of the typewriter, the Teletype or the phonograph, they are not perplexed, amazed, confused, puzzled, deluded. Nor are they experiencing any of the results of a "mental impression of a supernatural agency at work." That cannot be expected. They can place their fingers upon the very tool that accomplishes the result.
What is different about an obviously magical tool?
Let us grant that the spectator cannot explain where the production comes from in the production box. Now J would like to ask you, , 'Do you know exactly how a typewriter works, common as it is?" If your typewriter were broken, could you put it together? Can you explain the exact working of the Teletype? Or the electric phonograph? Let us make it easy. Can you explain the working of the vacuum tube in the phonograph's amplifier?
Then why should not the spectator have a similar attitude toward a magician's tools?
The ultimate spectator reaction to a successful trick may vary. The spectator may be perplexed. This means that his thoughts are drawn by turns in different directions toward contrasting or contradictory conclusions. Perplexity is caused by want of full and definite knowledge.
The spectator may also be confused. This is a state in which the mental faculties are thrown into chaos. There is no clear and distinct action of the different mental powers. Bewilderment is akin to confusion, but it is not so overwhelming.
Delusion of the spectator would involve misleading his mind. He has a mistaken conviction that involves some mental error.
On the other hand, if he is laboring under some illusion, he has been misled by some mistaken belief, a belief wholly due to being misled by his senses.
But he might be beguiled, instead. If this is the case, he has been deceived through cunning or craft.
If the ultimate effect is mystification, the spectator experiences a state of being involved in something difficult to understand, something that might even be beyond human comprehension.
I think none of these prevail when a person witnesses the radio, television or the electric eye for the first time. If the person involved is particularly interested in the workings of these devices, perhaps at first his strongest emotion might be one of perplexity. This is almost the same mental state as that experienced when one first encounters a new puzzle.
But I feel certain this is not the ultimate mental state desired by the magician as the result of his deception.
As long as the trick is produced by a tool, or something that the spectator may assume is a tool, I am quite certain the spectator s ultimate reaction would not be the desired one.
That is why I stated a few lines back that disguise is much less effective, if it is used solely for the direct accomplishment of the trick.
Disguise may be used again. Disguise may be used to strengthen the effect. Disguise may be used to supplement its use for the accomplishment of the trick. Disguise may be used to disguise the tool, to make the apparatus look unlike a special device for a special purpose.
The special production tool may be disguised to look like a hat, which does not appear to be a special magician's tool. It may be disguised to look like a filing case, or a gift box, or a cash box. It may be disguised to look like something that the spectator knows is not a magician's tool.
Then, if properly used, the spectator does not accept it as a magician's special tool. He accepts it as the article with which he is familiar. To him it is a filing case, a gift box, a cash box, a cigar box, or anything else that the magician may choose. If these things are common things, objects with which the spectator is familiar, this spectator will accept them in terms, as he knows them. He will assume the device to be the same as the common articles with which he is acquainted.
Then the deception is stronger.
The deception is stronger because the common article is quite without special preparation, in the spectator's experience. This, then, in the spectator's opinion leaves nothing with which the magician may accomplish his trick, no mechanism complex or simple—with which to do what he seems to be doing.
Here the disguise is becoming psychological.
The disguise is becoming psychological because it is calculated to influence the processes of the mind. It shapes the spectator's conclusions and understanding, rather than just his perceptive senses.
Understanding, I remind you again, is what we learn through the senses, influenced by reasoning. Deception is an attack on the understanding. Therefore, deception is an attack on what we learn through the senses, influenced by reasoning.
Deception through the senses only is not as strong as deception which not only attacks the senses but also influences the reasoning. Disguise which deceives the senses is not as strong as disguise which deceives both the senses and the reasoning.
Therefore psychological disguise is a more powerful tool for the magician.
Disguise, as has been demonstrated in this chapter, may be physical only. It may be, also, physical and psychological. In the latter event it is more effective for deception.
But disguise may be entirely psychological. It may attack the mind without being physical in nature at all. Here you have the strongest possible type of disguise for the magician's purpose.
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