The hat-trick is a classic magic trick where a performer will produce an object (traditionally a rabbit or a bouquet of flowers) out of an apparently empty top hat. [1]
The hat-trick is a classic magic trick where a performer will produce an object (traditionally a rabbit or a bouquet of flowers) out of an apparently empty top hat. [1]
In its simplest form, the trick works by placing the hat on a specially made table or chest. Both the hat, and the surface it is placed on, will have a hidden opening in them, through which an object stored in a compartment in the table or chest can be pulled. Alternatively, the performer can produce an item hidden in their sleeve using sleight of hand and misdirection. This eliminates the need to place the hat on a surface, and also allows the performer to give the hat to an audience member for inspection. However, producing a rabbit from a hat using nothing but sleight of hand is a much more difficult trick. [2]
This trick is also traditionally performed for children, since it is a basic trick with basic props.
It is said that the earliest magician to pull a rabbit out of a hat was Louis Comte, in 1814, [3] though this is also attributed to the much later John Henry Anderson. [4]
This magic trick is so well known that it has been referenced in a wide variety of media. The top hat used for the trick has become almost synonymous with stage magicians, and is commonly used as an icon to represent magic (such as the example on the right). Likewise, rabbits are so commonly associated with the trick that rabbits are often used to represent magic in general.
The cups and balls is a performance of magic with innumerable adaptations. Street gambling variations performed by conmen were known as Bunco Booths. A typical cups and balls routine includes many of the most fundamental effects of magic: the balls can vanish, appear, transpose, reappear and transform. Basic skills, such as misdirection, manual dexterity, sleight of hand, and audience management are also essential to most cups and balls routines. As a result, mastery of the cups and balls is considered by many as the litmus test of a magician's skill with gimmick style tricks. Magician John Mulholland wrote that Harry Houdini had expressed the opinion that no one could be considered an accomplished magician until he had mastered the cups and balls. Professor Hoffman called the cups and balls "the groundwork of all legerdemain".
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
In theatrical magic, misdirection is a form of deception in which the performer draws audience attention to one thing to distract it from another. Managing audience attention is the aim of all theater, and the foremost requirement of all magic acts. Whether the magic is of a "pocket trick" variety or a large stage production, misdirection is the central secret. The term describes either the effect or the sleight of hand or patter that creates it.
Card manipulation is the branch of magic that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, especially in close-up, parlor, and street magic. Some of the most recognized names in this field include Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini, Ed Marlo, S.W. Erdnase, Richard Turner, John Scarne, and Ricky Jay. Before becoming world-famous for his escapes, Houdini billed himself as "The King of Cards". Among the more well-known card tricks relying on card manipulation are Ambitious Card, and Three-card Monte, a common street hustle also known as Find the Lady.
Coin magic is the manipulating of coins to entertain audiences. Because coins are small, most coin tricks are considered close-up magic or table magic, as the audience must be close to the performer to see the effects. Though stage conjurers generally do not use coin effects, coin magic is sometimes performed onstage using large coins. In a different type of performance setting, a close-up coin magician will use a large video projector so the audience can see the magic on a big screen. Coin magic is generally considered harder to master than other close-up techniques such as card magic, as it requires great skill and grace to perform convincingly, and this requires much practice to acquire.
A trick deck is a deck of playing cards that has been altered in some way to allow magicians to perform certain card tricks where sleight of hand would be too difficult or impractical.
David Frederick Wingfield Verner, better known by his stage names Dai Vernon or The Professor, was a Canadian magician.
The bullet catch is a stage magic illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at them — often in the mouth, sometimes in the hand or sometimes caught with other items such as a dinner plate. The bullet catch may also be referred to as the bullet trick, defying the bullets or occasionally the gun trick.
Alexander Herrmann was a French magician, better known as Herrmann the Great. He was married to magician Adelaide Herrmann, known as the Queen of Magic.
This is a glossary of conjuring terms used by magicians.
Muscle reading, also known as "Hellstromism", "Cumberlandism" or "contact mind reading", is a technique used by mentalists to determine the thoughts or knowledge of a subject, the effect of which tends to be perceived as a form of mind reading. The performer can determine many things about the mental state of a subject by observing subtle, involuntary responses to speech or any other stimuli. It is closely related to the ideomotor effect, whereby subtle movements made without conscious awareness reflect a physical movement, action or direction which the subject is thinking about. The term "muscle reading" was coined in the 1870s by American neurologist George M. Beard to describe the actions of mentalist J. Randall Brown, an early proponent of the art.
Servais Le Roy was a Belgian magician, illusion designer and businessman. He is known for the act Le Roy, Talma and Bosco and as the inventor of the classic levitation illusion Asrah the Floating Princess.
Close-up magic is magic performed in an intimate setting usually no more than 3 meters from one's audience and is usually performed while sitting at a table.
The Tarbell Course in Magic is a notable encyclopedia of magic amongst professional and amateur magicians. It has eight volumes; the first five were part of the original home-study correspondence course compiled in 1928 by Harlan Tarbell, the remaining three volumes being added on later.
Platform magic is magic that is done for larger audiences than close-up magic and for smaller audiences than stage magic. It is more intimate than stage magic because it does not require expensive, large-scale stage equipment and can thus be performed closer to the audience and without a stage. Many of the tricks performed by platform magicians are sufficiently angle-sensitive as to make them impossible to perform as micromagic. Most working magicians are parlor/platform magicians.
Children's magic is a specialized aspect of parlor magic and is meant to entertain children. It is typically performed at birthday parties, churches, preschools, elementary schools, Sunday Schools or libraries. It is often the only type of magic most Westerners experience other than that seen on television. This type of magic is usually comedic in nature.
Chink-a-chink is a simple close-up magic coin trick in which a variety of small objects, usually four, appear to magically transport themselves from location to location when covered by the performer's hands, until the items end up gathered together in the same place. Variations, especially the Sympathetic Coins also known as Coins-n-Cards, have been performed since the 1800s. Popular modern variations are Shadow Coins and Matrix. A variation using playing cards as the objects is known as Sympathetic Aces.
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.
Jerry Andrus was an American magician and writer known internationally for his original close-up, sleight of hand tricks and optical illusions, such as the famous "Linking Pins".
The art form of card flourishing, commonly referred to as cardistry, grew out of simple flourishes used in close-up magic by magicians in the 1990s to early 2000s. Chris Kenner's notable two-handed Sybil cut from his 1992 publication Totally Out of Control has carried great influence and gave birth to a series of advanced flourishes which today represents the foundation of the performance art. Sleight of hand pioneers Dan and Dave Buck popularized cardistry on the world stage with their instructional DVD releases from 2004 and 2007. Journalist Kevin Pang of Vanity Fair characterized the art of card flourishing as, "It's yo-yo tricks performed by cardsharps with the street cred of a Parkour video. There's a name for it: cardistry."
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