When primeval man saw the first flash of lightening he saw the magic of the gods and with the thought of homeage to his own paticular gods there came man-made magic. The first attempts were pretty elementary, but showed a natural cunning that could beguile those of lower mental stature. Those early magicians were the forerunners of the latter-day magician who would make the mysterious entertaining.
PRE-CHRISTIAN ERA
Of the pre-Christian era, there is only the sketchiest description of the feats used by the wonder workers. The earliest record of a magical performance is to be found in the "Westcar" papyrus, now resting in the Berlin State Museum. This papyrus, prduced approximately a thousand years after the appearance of the Egyptian magician Dedi, before Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid (c. 2700BC) tells the story of how this magician supposedly 110 years old, traveled to the court of Cheops and then: "He knows how to fasten on a head that has been cut off, and he knows how to make a lion walk behind him with his leash on the ground. And he knows the numbers of the secret chambers in the sanctuary of Thoth. The papyrus is incomplete, but in the translation by Professor Battiscombe Gunn, we read: "Then a goose was brought to him with its head cut off. The goose was placed on the western side of the pillared hall. Then Dedi uttered a magic spell and the goose rose up quivering. And when one had reached the other the goose stood up, cackling. Then he had another goose brought to him, and the same was done to it. Then his Majesty had an ox brought to him, its head being cut off, falling to the ground. And then Dedi uttered a magic spell and the bull stood up lowing."
A thousand years elapsed between performance and record, so what really did happen, is really anyone's guess. However, the idea of decapitating and restoring is something that seems common to magicians throughout the ages.
THE CUPS & BALLS
The oldest trick known would appear to be the "Cups and Balls", and while there is no mention of the Dedi or, for that matter, any other early Egyptian magician performing this trick in the pre-christian era, it would seem that in many parts of the world, as far apart as Greece, China and India, forms of this particular piece of deception were being used to entertain and mystify the spectators. In its early form it was usual to have three cups metal or otherwise and for a small ball to vanish and then tavel to and from the cups into the performer's hands. Today, the trick is a magical classic and is part of most magician's repertoire.
There were other kinds of magic practiced by the the priests in the Greek temples. Here, more sophisticated trickery was used, involving ingenious apparatus that could cause a voice to issue from a statue, fire to blaze on command from an earthen vase, and doors that opened at the command of the priest. Such mysteries were, according to the priests, the magic of the gods.
THE DAWN OF MAGIC IN EUROPE
Time passes before magic makes its mark as entertainment on the European scene. Only a minority of its population were educated, and to the ignorant, and something most possible fostered by the priests of those days, there was a fear of witchcraft, and with that fear, the thought that those who could cut and restore a hankerchief could well be in league with the Devil.
Nevertheless, there were many favoured, in both England and in the Western parts of Europe, and the magician as an entertainer employing minimal apparatus and a fair proportion of skill, toured the counties in question, performing to crouds surrounding.
BRANDON
History tells us of Brandon, at the court of Henry VIII, and of how he, this master entertainer, one day while in the Royal courtyard, drew the attention of the favoured company to a pigeon perched on top of a wall. Taking a piece of chalk he drew the lower part outlining the illustration of a bird. Then taking a dagger in his hand, he struck the centre of the outline, and the pigeon suddenly dropped from the wall to be found dead at the courtiers feet. Such a feat, so seemingly magic, and yet performed by simple means made the King think that one who could do such to a bird quite equally could do the same to a King, and Brandon was warned to keep such a feat out of his repertoire.
WITCHCRAFT & SIR REGINALD SCOT
In the sixteenth century there was to be an event that was to help purvey to so many believers what was assumed to be witchcraft.
At Smeeth, a village in the county of Kent, England, there lived one Reginald Scot, a gentalmen hop farmer, who not only did much to improve the quality of the hop (hic!), but also performed his duties as justice of the peace. One day, before him, at the magistrates court at Rochester, there appeared a young girl named Margaret Simons, charged with witchcraft. Scot was struck by the cruelty of the prosecution and superstitions about witchcraft and wonders accomplished seemingly by diabolic influence. For this purpose he set himself the task of understanding a knowledge of the tricks used by entertainers of the day, and in one, a Frenchman named Cautares, he found an excellent teacher. With the knowledge gained of many feats, which, when performed before ignorant people, supernatural means could be the explanation, he put pen to paper and in 1584 his monumental work, 'The Discoverie of Witchcraft' was published in London. Within the 560 pages of the first edition, one chapter, 'The Art of Juggling Discovered', deals with the conjouring tricks of the time, and it is of interest to find that the principles used to bring about the effects of those items are still used in contemporary magic today.
JAMES VI ERA
With the passing of the Tudors, there came to England the first of the Stuarts, James VI of Scotland, and the First of England, a man who was fanatical about witches and witchcraft. To him, Scot's book was anathema and all copies were ordered to be burned. Most fortunately for students of conjouring and even more so for the collectors of antiquarian books many escaped the bonfire and in recent years a fair copy of the book can fetch several grand at an auction.
The coming of the seventeenth century in Europe in particular, saw little change in the methods used by the jugglers and conjurers. In Germany and Holland one heras of Pottage and Ockes Bockes (Hocus Pocus), and in respect of the term Hocus Pocus there seems evidence to show that in the early part of the century, an English conjurer used that name.
PLAYING CARDS
Playing cards had been introduced and the conjurer put them to good use, as he did also with the tricks of the Asiatic and Oreintal conjurers among which one using an empty cloth bag, from which several real eggs and a live hen or cockerel were produced, still remains a classic to this day. This trick became a favourite of Fawkes of whom much has been written. Here was a conjurer who only commencing his conjuring career at the end of the seventeenth century came to London but with his private soirees he not only presented the famous egg-bag trick but featured tricks with cards and dice and exhibited a wonderful clock that, when touched by the hand, would play many tunes as well as imitating instruments and bird songs. Fawkes, whose exact age was not known, died in 1731 leaving to his widow a fortune at the time.
PINETTI
The eighteenth century was to see the emergence of a larger magical canvas and for such, one must look to the Italian Giovanni Guiseppe Pinetti. While in the main, the entertainers of the day who specialised in conjuring had performed in the streets, at fairs or in private rooms, using mostly small-type magic, Pinetti, with magnificent and ornate settings brought magic to the theatre. With his entouage, Pinetti travelled far. In 1784 he was in England featuring an early form of Second Sight and breaking the London run for one night to give a Royal Command performance before King George III at Windsor Castle. He travelled to Portugal, Germany and finally in 1800 to Russia where at the comparatively young age of 50, he was to die.
During his years of performing Pinetti was to suffer from the many writers who attempted to expose his tricks, these being quite new to the public. Pinetti was a great publicist, always adopting the richest clothes, riding in the best of carriages, and using every means available to exploit his talents. One such trick that had been used by many conjurers since depends on the performer to approach a baker's stall and upon taking a bread roll and opening it, find a gold piece inside. This would be repeated while crowds gathered around. Whether or not real gold pieces were used and whether as legend has it he distributed them to the assembled company, we shall never know. Most probably the coins used were token disks bearing the name of Pinetti.
Indeed, many were to follow the path initiated by Pinetti and with the coming of the nineteenth century one heras of Blitz who was born in Hamburg, came to England as a small boy and with the contemporary tricks of the day added to magic a new dimention, namely that of humour. He was to be welcomed just as much in the United States as in England and in his book '50 Years in The Magic Circle' one gets the impression of his work and the success that attended it.
THE CHINESE LINKING RINGS
At this point in time, there were to be heard the accounts of Oriental, Asiatic, and North American magicians, the first two mentioned with tricks that would soon be in the European repertoire, and the last named with their unusual tent-shaking phenomena.
From the East, already there had arrived a trick that was to become one of the great classics of magic, popularly known as the Chinese Linking Rings. In this effect a number of solid metal rings would link and unlink in a truely magical fashion.
One trick that Blitz capitalized on was that where a bullet loaded into a gun was fired at the performer, a dangerous trick indeed, and one that has caused many deaths, including that of the famous Chung Ling Soo.
The pattern of Pinetti was to continue with many contemporary performers among them Philippe and then Anderson, The Great Wizard of the North, but paradoxically the complete breakaway was to come from a Viennese civil servant, Joseph Nepomuk Horzinser. Here was a man certainly a century ahead of his time, introducing his many originations and his new style of magic which was to be exeplified so many years later by the truly great magicians of our times.
KARTENKUENSTE & ZAUBERKUENSTE
Most fortunately much of his magic has been preserved in written form through the efforts of Ottakar Fischer, and two of his books, 'Kartenkuenste' and 'Zauberkuenste', bring to light conjuring that is just as much twentieth century as nineteenth.
Fortunately for those unable to read the German language, we owe a debt to SH Sharpe for his translation of 'Kartenkuenste', and the book has been published in Canada translated by John Gilliland.
JEAN EUGENE ROBERT-HOUDIN
In the field of card magic, many feats offered by magicians of today, bear the imprint of Hofzinser. In Europe, aside from Hofzinser, it didn't progress until almost the middle of the century and the days of mechanical conjuring but a certain change was to come. In France, a young man, a watchmaker of twenty years had studied, experimented, invented and perfected a number of conjuring tricks that he felt certain could raise the status of the conjurer. So sure was he, that in 1845 he rented a suitable room in the Galerie de Valois in the Palais Royal and this was converted into a suitable theatre for his performances. The name of this conjurer who can without fear of contradiction be called 'The Father of Modern Magic', was Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. While the first performance was hardly a success, as is the case with so many first performances, those which followed soon established his supremacy and he was to continue an active life performing all over Europe for a decade. Unique indeed is the fact that, because of the trouble with the natives of Algeria in 1856, the French government persuaded Robert-Houdin to show that his powers of magic were greater than those of the native magicians, and with such feats as the Bullet Catching and an illusion of that time called 'The Light & Heavy Chest' he succeeded.
His name will never be forgotten for in his book 'Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie', though now more than 100 years old, the stature of his magic is written there forever.
The half-century mark had come and gone, many of Robert-Houdin's presentations having been copied by other contemporary European conjurers, chief amongst them, Anderson. A decade was to pass before there was any noticable change but one came suddenly making the efforts of the conjurers of the 1850s completely outdated.
JOHN NEVILLE MASKELYNE
The man responsible for this change was Cheltenham-born John Neville Maskelyne. As was Robert-Houdin, Maskelyne had been apprenticed to the craft of watchmaking, and he too had a great interest in conjuring. During a visit to a performance held in Cheltenham Town Hall, of the Davenport Brothers who professed to be producers of spiritualistic phenomena, Maskelyne probed part of their secret and he stood up at the conclusion of the performance and loudly announced that not only were the Davenport Brothers frauds, but further that within a month he would, in the same hall, duplicate, using natural means, the experiments that had been witnessed that afternoon.
Maskelyne kept his word for using as a partner George Cooke, he and Cooke decided that the presentation of magic could be the profession for them. The year was 1865 and with the exposé of the Davenport seance, plus somethnig quite new, an escape from an examined box, the professional careers of Maskelyne and Cooke commenced with a performance in Jessop's Aviary Gardens in Cheltenham.
A tour of the country followed. The box of tricks became part of a sketch, 'La Dame et la Gorilla' a trick that later assumed other names including 'Will, the Witch, and the Watchman' and was performed under the name of 'The Witch, the Sailor and the Enchanted Monkey'by the American illusionist Kellar. It was in 1873 that Maskelyne and Cooke came to London and after appearing at a few concert halls in the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly.
THE MAGIC OF DAVID DEVANT
The hall was rented for a period of only three months, but so successful was this magical combination that both stayed until 1904 when because of rebuilding of the hall, they had to leave. During this period, the British public had seen new life put into magicial performances. There had been the birth of the 'Levitation', some wonderful automata including the wrist player, 'Psycho' and more than that, the visits of other famous magicians, including famous French magician Buatier de Kolta, inventor of such well-known tricks as 'The Vanishing Lady' and 'The Vanishing Birdcage'. Above all, there was David Devant, who, with personal charm, stage presence, and his inventiveness, stands out as the greatest magician Great Britian has ever produced. No one who saw him will forget such masterpieces as 'The Artist's Dream' or 'The Glowing Ball'. In 1905 the new abode for Maskelyne was St.Georges Hall but Cooke suddenly died and Devant was to become the new partner.
THE GOLDEN AGE
The turn of the century came and passed, and for two decades there was the 'Golden Age of Magic'. There were many changes; digital dexterity had arrived, and with it, artists like the American Thurston and in particular, Downs, specialized in coins and cards. There too was Fowler, the 'Watch King', using only watches and clocks and adding novelty in the variety theatres were the inventors of stage illusions, Servais le Roy, De Kolta, Oswald Williams, Owen Clarke, Walter Heans, Louis Nokola, and supreme among this company Percy Selbit, who, during his lifetime had no equal in the field of magical invention. In thinking of him one calls to mind such great feats as 'Sawing through a Woman', 'The Elastic Lady', 'The Human Pincushion', 'Through the Eye of a Needle', and 'Crushing a Woman'.
There were so many big acts. The Oriental extravaganza of Chung Ling Soo, namely Robinson, had such good makeup and publicity that he was thought be the public to be a real Chinese. One feat that was included in his mammoth programme was the infamous bullet-catching trick, where, at the Wood Green Empire, London, on the night of March 23rd 1918, it cost him his life, as in the past, it had killed others. There were so many big acts - Levante in Australia, Dante in America, Roland, Nicola, and one performer, who though a conjurer, made his reputation by escaping from any form of restraint: Harry Houdini. An immigrant from Hungary, he proved through his too short life to be a master showman. In every country that he visited he proved that there were no handcuffs, leg-irons, bolts or bars to stop him escaping. His death in 1926 caused by an accidental blow, took from the international magic scene one of its most colourful characters. Ever since his death he has been honoured by magician in the country of his adoption, and as a permanent memorial there is now a Houdini Museum near Niagra Falls in Ontario, Canada.
These days marked the heyday of variety, but with the Hollywood spectaculars and the opulence of the super cinema, by the thirties, the loyalty of those who had been the mainstays of variety was waning and the death of throes of variety were beginning. There was still magic. Cardini, one of the greatest mime-manipulators of all time, continued to lead the procession of good magicians. He had travelled the hard way before there came that worldwide success, from which the innumerable would be imitators who never reached the magical heights of the original.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
The Second World War came, and with it the inevitable demand for entertainment. Such entertainment acted as a lifesaver to all those capable of bringing laughter or joy and mystification into a troubled world. It was a temporary shot in the arm, but once again the public had the chance to see something new in magic. Making just as big a hit as Cardini had done in the thirties was Channing Pollock with his superb dove act in the fifties, and just as had been the case with Cardini, imitators sprang up throughout the world.
There, too, was the greatest magical extravaganza seen since the days of Chung Ling Soo, presented by Kalanag, with his own magicial revue.
There was a bigger demand for a special type of magic, namely that of Pseudomentalism, and successes in this field were scored by Dunninger, Chan Canasta, Fogel, Koran, and the current president of the Magic Circle, David Berglas. Today this scene has taken on even greater glamour with the emergence of Uri Geller.
But the days of invention were still with us, and in South African-born Robert Harbin one saw so much that was akin to Selbit. Today the illusions that he personally originates have to be capable of performance surrounded by an audience, which calls for greater ingenuity, and one of his most famous inventions, 'The Zig-Zag Girl', must have been seen in every part of the globe.
Holland has been the producer of so many original and clever magicians, supremem among them, Fred Kaps. The call for small magic on many occasions has produced outstanding magicians like Al Goshman and should many think that magic is the perogative of the male sex, the distaff side has shown its ability, two of its outstanding representatives being June Merlin of Great Britiain and Elizabeth Warlock of Canada.
UNDER THREAT
But in much the same way that once the cinema posed the threar of competition against the live variety theatre, today there is an even stronger competitor in television. Fortunately, the demand for live theatre exists, and in the best cabaret nightclub spots the public can enjoy modern magic presented surrounded.
And so today, the fascination for magic exists whether presented live or through the television medium. Paul Daniels, David Copperfield, and Lance Burton are today's TV stars.
ORGANISATION
One must not forget the societies and clubs wherever magicians gather. Of these the oldest and still surviving is the Society of American Magicians (SAM), while in Britain, the Magic Circle, founded in 1905, is nearly as old. Though a later arrival in the twenties, the largest is the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM), branches of which have been formed throughout Britain, and indeed the rest of the world.
