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MAGIC
By
MISDIRECTION
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The second important division of deception artifices-the first being disguise in its various forms, as detailed-is control of the spectator s attention.
Disguise, of course, influences perception and discernment. Now, where disguise cannot be used effectively, it is necessary for the magician to prevent perception of things which might be significant. The way to do this is to interfere with what is perceived. This is done by taking the spectator's attention away from significant and perhaps revealing things.
Most magicians call it misdirection.
A search through the literature of magic fails to disclose anything close to what I believe to be satisfactory in the way of a definition of the term.
In an earlier pamphlet MISDIRECTION FOR MAGICIANS, I tried to define it. In that work I said, "The prefix mis means wrong or wrongly. The dictionary defines direct as to determine the direction of; to point out a way to; to guide; to instruct.
"We can, then, for our purpose, define misdirection as the act of guiding wrongly, the act of wrongly pointing out the way, or perhaps more properly, the act of deliberately misguiding from cause to an erroneous effect, to serve an ulterior purpose.
But I believe the term, misdirection, used, as it usually is, to refer to the act of controlling the attention of the spectator, is too narrow. Anything that misleads a person, by intention, is due to misdirection. It is caused by the performer purposefully directing the spectator down a wrong course and away from the right One. The act of misdirecting is the effective employment of disguise or attention control in order to deceive. It directs or leads the spectator away from the true solution.
From the broader interpretation, then. the entire contents of this work have to do with misdirection.
At the moment, however, we are specifically concerned with that portion of misdirection that has to do with the control of the spectator's attention. Anything that exercises dominance or rule over the spectator's attention may be said to control it.
The form of control may take several guises.
One method of exercising control over the attention of the spectator is to forestall it. Obviously, what the performer plans to do must capture the attention of the spectator sooner or later. If eventual attention is anticipated, if the critical thing is done before the spectator's attention is fixed upon it, it will be impossible for that specific thing to catch the spectator's awareness. We might call this act, performed before the spectator's attention realizes its significance anticipation.
Another control over the attention of the spectator is to accomplish relaxation of the attention before the significant thing is done. In this case, the spectator is misled to believe that the performer has accomplished his objective. Since the deception has been accomplished. in the view of the spectator, vigilance is no longer required. The significant thing is done after the attention has relaxed. We could term this premature consummation.
Attention can be maintained only a limited length of time. The attention faculty becomes dulled after vigilance of some duration. Repetition of the same thing soon dulls the attention. Then, the repetitive act becomes monotonous, and the individual act is no longer attended with vigilant attention. This third method of attention control might be called monotony.
Fourth on this list might be termed confusion. In this case so many varied individual interests are presented for the spectator's observation that it is impossible for him, in the limited time available, to select the significant from the insignificant. In a desperate and hurried attempt to inspect and weigh the multiple interests presented, the spectator is able to give only superficial, hasty attention to the individual things before him. The result is that the attention is scattered over too much.
Extremely important and much the most subtle of all of these expedients is the fifth stratagem, diversion. This artifice turns the attention aside. It diverts attention from significant things by substitution of a new and stronger interest. The term diversion connotes a lack of attention at the proper point. It is at the critical point where the attention is turned from the proper course and lured away to a false course. This is accomplished through a new interest or a false interest disguised as the original one.
Distraction is the sixth artifice in attention control. In some respects is resembles diversion, but actually it is definitely different. Diversion entices or lures away the attention in such a manner that the change in course seems to the spectator to be voluntary. On the other hand, distraction forces the attention from the significant thing. Often it is violent. Distraction implies inability on the part of the spectator to think properly about anything. Contrast this with the seeming voluntary change in attention accomplished through diversion.
Specific direction, a bald, undisguised act of definite direction, supplies a seventh expedient for controlling attention. It is not the least bit subtle. Quite clearly it moves the attention openly from one place to another. Whether the specific direction is in the form of an act, a verbal direction or a gesture, it frankly tells the spectator to swing his attention to a specific place.
Let us see what these artifices look like in action.
When the performer comes out at the beginning of his act or program, loaded and ready for his opening production, he has anticipated the attention of his spectators. He has prepared and has performed his essential requirements before there was any audience attention upon him.
In The Cards To the Pocket trick, actually before the spectators are aware that the trick itself has begun, the first six cards are loaded into the pocket during the early stages, while apparently laying the preliminary groundwork. First, the magician counts the cards. This is one preliminary step before the actual presentation of the trick. Then the pocket is shown empty. This is another preliminary step. Still, the execution of the actual trick has not begun, so far as the spectators are concerned. But in this second preliminary step the performer has anticipated the attention of the audience. He has loaded the first group of cards in advance, before the audience has any idea as to what is to be done with the cards he has counted.
Another version of this trick, in which three cards are deposited in the pocket in advance of the trick, utilizes anticipation. It is impossible for the spectator to fasten his attention upon the loading of the first set of cards. This is because the loading was done prior to performance, out of sight of the audience.
When the magician, having apparently finished his trick, gives some indication to the audience that he has concluded, the vigilance of the spectators relaxes. In this instant, with the actual conclusion still to come, the performer may make his final load. This is an example of premature consummation. With relaxed attention, the load may be made unnoticeably.
In Stephen Shepard's glass trick, later to be discussed in detail, a tumbler is vanished from beneath a paper cover that has been molded around it. As far as the spectators are concerned, apparently the vanish of the tumbler is the conclusion of the trick. Thus, the moves necessary to load the glass upon the person of the spectator-assistant are not followed with the alert attention that has attended the performer's doings prior to the vanish.
Performers of the past used to conclude their offerings, apparently, and bow deeply. During the bow, while the attention had relaxed, they would seize the handles of two telescopic flag staffs. Then, as they straightened up, they made a final production of the two staffs with large flags flying from them.
The comings and goings of the assistant in many magical performances soon become commonplace to the spectators. Attention finally relaxes on these, as they are happening constantly. The repetitious monotony of this action finally causes the spectator to ignore such happenings completely. Then, often the action is used by the performer as a means of accomplishing some secret objective, such as bringing on a needed load, or carrying away some significant property.
In the burned and restored banknote trick, discussed earlier, repetition of the same action, taking the various wrappings from the assisting spectator, was used to accustom the spectators to an insignificant action which later became significant and vital.
Often, anticipating the necessity of making a peculiar move sometime during the routine, a performer will accustom the spectators to the external appearance of the move by repeatedly doing it. Finally, it becomes an established and to the specific performer-a natural movement or position. As such, it has no special significance, and it secures no special attention. Later, when the particular action or position is necessary, it arouses no special interest and reveals no damaging clue as to the means of deception.
Card table performers use monotony constantly. For most card men, executing the second or bottom deal requires a special manner of holding the deck. So that the peculiar position will not attract special attention and telegraph when the sleight is being used, most card men make a special effort to hold the pack in the special position at all times, whether actually doing the sleight or not. Often, where both the second and bottom deals are being used, and where each has special requirements in position, a compromise is effected which allows one position to be maintained for all types of deals.
It has been mentioned here before that the use of the multiple wrappings in the burned bill trick make it difficult for the spectator to determine just when the bill is loaded. This is a definite application of confusion. At any stage in the trick, given the appropriate circumstances necessary, this loading action might take place. But the spectator is confronted with so many interests in this connection, and the development of the trick moves so fast, that proper attention at any place is virtually impossible.
In the same way, the conventional Nest Of Boxes Trick applies this principle of confusion. The number of boxes used governs the number of loading opportunities.
In the burned bill trick, the incident of the blank check is a confusing detail. While it is just a bit of by-play, as it is ultimately discovered during the course of the trick, at the time it happens there is nothing to indicate that the actions attendant upon it are not vital and significant.
The spectator is somewhat in the same dilemma as the colored lady who sat down on a buzz saw. It is difficult to determine specifically just which tooth "bit" her.
Magic is full of examples of the application of diversion. Since this stratagem entices attention away by substituting a new interest, anything that might catch interest might be employed. In everyday life this might be accomplished by the passing of an attractive girl, by seeing an appetizing dish or by coming upon a beautiful scene.
The movement of the performer's interest, apparently, from one place to another, is diversion. Using The French Drop, the ball, as discussed before, seems to be taken in the right hand. The performer's attention seems to follow the movement of this empty right hand, a hand simulating possession of the ball. The attention of the audience follows along. The judicious introduction of something in an attractive design, or in attractive color, will catch interest. Even the introduction of a new, interesting idea perhaps promising a possible solution of the method of deception, later to be exploded, will attract attention.
Distraction, which carries with it a strong suggestion of surprise, might be a sudden happening to something or someone apart from the performer. It may be a sudden sound or noise or movement such as a cry, a shot, a crash, or the sound of something falling. It must tend to force attention away from the previous interest, violently. The spectator response must be forceful, in a different direction. That it must startle the spectator does not follow necessarily It must compel, however. Temporarily, it rather makes the actions of the performer of secondary importance to some other interest.
The use of distraction by Thurston, in his performance of The Triple Trunk Mystery, may be remembered. A large rubber ball was shot from a cannon. It landed in the audience among the spectators. All attention, of course, followed it. Here was a missile, perhaps a cannon ball, perhaps accidentally, hurtling toward the audience. As the attention followed the ball, even as it stayed while the ball bounced from person to person, the girl, who had been loaded into the cannon, escaped from it and made her way backstage.
In another case a sudden shot is heard at the rear of the audience. All attention immediately swings toward the sound. The performer is seen running down the aisle, the performer, apparently, who a moment before was vanished upon the stage. Meanwhile, the assistant who substituted for the performer during the vanish, is escaping from the cabinet into which he had been placed.
In still another case, an assistant suddenly stops, stoops and picks something from the stage floor. During that moment attention is carried away from the performer, so that he may make a difficult movement or exchange, unseen. There have been performers who, like Imro Fox, seemed to stumble, following which, while he looked at the floor in surprise, the pass was executed. A sudden change in the direction of a movement, as from a horizontal path of action to a vertical one, in making a pass, is a distraction. So also is the case where the performer, or an assistant, seems to knock something from a table accidentally, as a covering for a move.
Little needs to be added to what has already been said in connection with specific direction. The performer may deliberately move the attention to another place, if there seems to be a logical, unsuspicious reason for it. Actually, there is nothing subtle about it, as has been emphasized before.
For example: A girl is vanished from atop a table, in a puff of smoke. Perhaps she has merely been covered temporarily with a blind that blends with the background. But the magician swings around to the opposite side, indicating a cabinet and saying, "Behold!" The outline of the girl is seen to be gradually appearing within the second cabinet. Meanwhile, the original girl has stepped quickly and quietly through a trap in the backdrop, and the masking blind has silently and swiftly returned whence it came. After the materialization of the second girl, the performer and his assistants industriously and thoroughly take apart the site of the original vanish, piece by piece.
Another performer, having vanished a ball, apparently plucks it from behind his knee. This ball, however, has been concealed in a small pocket in the performer's trousers leg. But the performer definitely and specifically directs the attention to the apparent recovery of the ball. And while the attention is upon the second ball, the original ball is surreptitiously deposited in another pocket.
During The Multiplying Billiard Ball Trick, the magician specifically directs attention upon the hand in which the second ball of the series is appearing. While he does this, and while the spectators are looking at the appearing ball, an additional ball is stolen from a secret supply hidden somewhere on the performer's person.
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