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MAGIC
By
MISDIRECTION
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We have seen how disguise has made things seem to be something else. We have, as well, witnessed disguise being employed to make things seem different from what they are. Also, significant things have been disguised making them seem insignificant or by submerging them in miscellaneous details. Finally, we have even cloaked purposes so that they are not recognized for what they truly are.
Deeper and deeper we are probing into the mind of the spectator. More and more we are influencing the perceptions of that spectator so that things reach his mind with an illumination of the deceptionist's coloring. He is seeing things the way the magician wants him to. Not as they truly are.
Even deeper we drive the probe now.
The very act of leading him is disguised. Through suggestion and inducement, the performer enters the spectator's mind casually-gently-indirectly. The very conclusion, to which the spectator is insidiously and inexorably driven, may seem to the spectator to be of his own persuasion. But it is not.
His judgment and understanding are influenced through indirect and guarded presentations by the deceptionist, presentations shaped to the interests and objectives of the performer.
The magician's suggestion is a subtle but positive act of putting something into the mind of the spectator. This biased stimulus instigates a mental process by means of which the spectator responds to the influence of the performer. Often through a progression of ideas, the desires of the performer are entertained, accepted and even put into effect.
Actually the spectator makes an uncritical acceptance-whether it be of a statement, of an idea or of a proposal-this spectator being temporarily docile and submissive to the influence of the deceptionist.
And if, perhaps, the spectator does not yield to the suggestion of the performer, he may be moved through influencing his reasoning and judgment. In this manner he is induced by persuasion, by influence or by allurements. In spite of the fact that the magician is the moving force, it may seem, even to the spectator, that the spectator's decision is voluntary, made by himself-as, indeed, it may be instead of forced upon him by the performer.
But the invoking of either suggestion or inducement, or both, is actually disguised force.
Let us see how suggestion works.
It is something like hypnotism. In the beginning, the performer may start with facts, truths of which the subject is definitely and conclusively aware. Gradually the deceptionist leads the mind of the spectator from these known facts to things which the spectator himself may not personally know to be true, but things which are feasible, reasonable, possible. From the realm of the unfamiliar, but reasonable and possible, the spectator is lured to the improbable-even to the impossible.
A mind reader picks up a sealed billet. The spectator knows that a question has been written and sealed inside. He knows that the mentalist cannot read the message. He knows that the contents of the message are clearly evident in his own mind. He has heard stories of thought transmission from one mind to another. Perhaps, he himself has experienced something bordering on similar phenomena. Externally, the mentalist seems to be straining to divine the question. It is highly unlikely, the spectator knows, that, even if he can grasp the sense of the question, he can discern the writing literally. And the performer is apparently verifying this fact. Even though he seems to be getting the sense of the question, the mentalist clearly demonstrates that what he gets is fragmentary. The performer's very manner reflects uncertainty. He is groping, as he would if thought reading or divination were possible. Finally, the kernel of the thought is there, even if the actual question itself is not verbatim.
By suggestion, the magician has demonstrated an ability to read a sealed question.
But the performer may go further. Now he may employ inducement, in the form of an apparent demonstrated fact, to persuade the spectator that he has actually witnessed the divination of a written message. This may influence his powers of reasoning and judgment. Then, through the always alluring possibility that something in the future may be revealed to him, facts which would be of intense and vital importance, the spectator is induced to give credence to what the mentalist predicts for the future.
In the field of mental endeavor, tell me, what disguises-except disguised forcing of the spectator's reason and judgment-do the demonstrators employ?
A spectator holds a wooden pencil between his hands, holding it by the ends. The performer brings a folded dollar bill down upon the pencil gently, as if to mark the spot of impact. It comes down once, twice. Then with a violent sweep, the pencil is apparently broken in two-fractured with a mere piece of paper. Suggestion does the work. It forces the spectator to assume that the bill has broken the pencil. But it has not, of course. Yet each time the bill was brought in contact with the pencil, prior to the actual breaking, the banknote was silently suggesting, "I am going to do something to the pencil...I am going to do something to the pencil."
The magician takes a ball or an orange. Once, twice he makes a tossing motion. The action is telling the spectator's mind, "This is going to be thrown into the air. This is going to be thrown into the air."
At the same time, it is showing the spectator: "It is going to go up this way-up this way." And the spectator's attention follows along the indicated direction.
But on the backward, preparatory motion, preliminary to the actual throw, the ball or orange is dropped into a body servante or the coin is hooked to the trousers leg.
Through suggestion and inducement, at the climax of the burned bill trick explained previously in this text, the spectator is forced to believe that the recovered bill has come from within a multiple-wrapped package. We know it has not. It never has been within the package. Actually, except for suggestion-powerful in this case in forcing an erroneous conclusion-the recovered bill has no connection with the package upon which so much attention has been concentrated.
In the Mulholland version of The Spirit Bell, the one that seems to ring at the command of the performer even when covered with an inverted tumbler, the spectator is forced to his conclusions through suggestion. Of course, the bell in question does not ring. A duplicate bell hidden upon the performer's person does the ringing. Very definitely, the sound comes from the performer. But through suggestion and inducement the spectator is forced to believe that it comes from the covered bell standing silently some distance away.
In The Arabian Bead Mystery are the beads cut from the string and do they actually fall separately? Or is it suggestion? In The Jumping Peg Trick does the peg actually move, or is it suggestion? In The Ball and Tube Trick does the steel ball actually get smaller, or does the spectator react to suggestion?
Throughout the entire field of operative magic, constantly, to a greater or lesser degree, suggestion and inducement are employed by the skillful magician to force his desires. This forcing is accomplished, as pointed out before, casually, gently and indirectly, for the purpose of disarming the spectator, for the purpose of concealing and disguising this act of imposing the magician's will. In this manner, the performer may be certain of accomplishing his purpose because, to the spectator, it seems that the latter is yielding to his own desires, of his own volition.
What the spectator does voluntarily has an entirely different complexion, in deception, than what he is forced to do.
Its very definition indicates where and when it may be employed effectively.
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