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Table of Contents
Magic tricks are neither paranormal nor supernatural in any way—magicians create illusions via deliberate deceit. It is an act in which the artist portrays one reality to the audience while concealing another—actions that only they know of.
See the fact file below for more information on Magic Tricks, or you can download our 30-page Magic Tricks worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information
ORIGIN
- If the phrase “abracadabra” brings up images of a magician with a deck of cards at a birthday celebration, you’re not alone.
- Magic is frequently the first type of entertainment that many of us encounter, beginning with the “peekaboo” disappearing trick.
- Our thoughts are naturally inclined to defy what we know to be true. The techniques that mystify and delight us change as our brains grow and evolve.
- Magic is a performing intellectual art in which the practitioner persuades an audience that it has witnessed seemingly impossible acts performed by natural methods.
- Since ancient times, humans have practiced magic with honest and dishonest intentions. While some individuals have created and polished illusions to delight their fellow man, others have used deceit to dominate and exploit the unwary and uninformed.
- Until the seventeenth century, fair artists sometimes integrated magic tricks into their presentations as entertainment. People began to believe less in witchcraft in this era, and the art form entered a polite society, with affluent customers paying for the private spectacle.
- The contemporary theatrical art form was founded in the nineteenth century by Frenchman Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871).
- When he opened a magic theater in Paris in 1845, Robert-Houdin transformed magic into a performance art that people paid to watch on stage. He pushed other magicians to shift to permanent sets that could be erected with technology meant for complicated illusions.
- Hungarian-born American illusionist Harry Houdini (1874-1926), who took his name after Robert-Houdin, popularized escapology at the turn of the century. He stunned audiences in the United States and Europe by breaking free from handcuffs and shackles in death traps.
- Magicians gained a new platform to create illusions for even larger audiences with the arrival of television, with its restricted camera frame, editing options, and even planted audience members.
- Illusionists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have advanced the art form and made it immensely profitable through specials and series.
STYLES OF MAGIC TRICKS
- Magic has numerous forms, and each magician contributes their style and viewpoint to their act. However, a handful of tried-and-true illusions have been passed down from generation to generation of magicians, who utilize them separately and in diverse combinations.
- Production: The magician creates something out of thin air, such as plucking a rabbit from an empty top hat.
- Disappearance: The opposite of production. It is when the magician vanishes something or someone.
- A classic example is a ball that appears to vanish in mid-air, although magicians have “disappeared” items as enormous as national landmarks.
- Modification: The magician changes the form or qualities of an object, such as changing the color of a flower or converting a dollar note into a dove.
- Reconstruction: The magician appears to destroy an object and then restores it. Cutting an assistant in two or breaking a sheet of paper and then making them whole are typical.
- Transportation: The magician uses disappearance and production to make objects appear to travel from one location to another.
- Translation: The magician performs double transportation, in which numerous items switch places.
- Get away: The magician frees himself from restrictions like handcuffs or a straight jacket.
- It might be paired with a death trap, such as the water tanks from which straight-jacketed Harry Houdini famously escaped.
- Levitate: The magician defies gravity by creating something.
- Penetration: The magician seems to transfer a solid item through another. One example is the famous technique of joining and unlinking steel rings.
- Prognosis: Despite his seeming lack of knowledge, the magician forecasts an outcome or an audience member’s decision, such as the card selected from (and secretly retained at) the top of the deck.
FAMOUS MAGICIANS
Houdini, Robert (1805 – 1871)
- Nationality: French
- Notable for: Being regarded as the Father of Modern Magic.
- Robert Houdin began his career as a watchmaker before turning to creating sophisticated illusions and tricks.
Herrmann, Alexander (1844 – 1896)
- Nationality: French
- Notable For: Being one of the first magicians to produce a live rabbit from a hat.
- Herrmann was born into a family of magicians. His brother Compars Herrmann mainly coached him, and the two traveled the world together, performing in front of big crowds.
Kellar, Harry (1849 – 1922)
- Nationality: American
- Notable For: Being dubbed the “Dean of American Magicians.”
- Harry Kellar was well-known for his magic performance in which he “elevated” a female through the air. Kellar also borrowed rings from audience members, loaded them into a rifle, and “fired” them into a locked box.
Houdini, Harry (1874 – 1926)
- Nationality: Hungarian-American
- Notable for: Dangerous escapes and complex illusions.
- Erik Weisz, better known as Harry Houdini, a magician and illusionist, pushed the frontiers of illusion and magic. The “Milk Can Escape,” the “Chinese Water Torture Cell,” the “Overboard Box Escape,” and the “Buried Alive Stunt” were among his most daring acts.
Blackstone Sr, Harry (1885 – 1965)
- Nationality: American
- Notable for: Inventing and performing the “Sawing a Woman in Half” trick.
- This magician, known as “The Great Blackstone,” invented numerous new feats, including “the floating light bulb” and “the vanishing bird cage.” He was also an expert at card tricks.
Vernon, Dai (1894 – 1992)
- Nationality: Canadian
- Notable For: Being one of history’s best sleight-of-hand magicians.
- Dai Vernon was famous all over the world for his card tricks. He was the teacher of several well-known magicians, earning him the moniker “The Professor.”
Cardini (1895 – 1973)
- Nationality: British
- Notable for: Being a master at card manipulation is what made him famous.
- Richard Valentine Pitchford, also known as “Cardini,” was named the “greatest exponent of pure sleight of hand the world has ever known” by the New England Magic Society.
Sorcar, P.C. (1913 – 1971)
- Nationality: British-Indian
- Notable for: Achieving international recognition as a magician.
- P.C. Sorcar was at the pinnacle of international fame in the 1950s and 1960s. He rose to prominence after performing his cutting a lady in half illusion on television in 1952.
TIPS FOR DOING MAGIC TRICKS
- Learn to do a few tricks well. Mastering a card trick or two coin tricks and being able to execute them repeatedly is enough to put on magic performances. It’s pointless to do 15 unimpressive tricks.
- Practice, practice, and more practice. Whether you want to master simple magic tricks with a rubber band for fun or become a professional magician with complicated acts, preparation is necessary.
- Tricks at any level will be uncomfortable and difficult at first but will become easier with practice. Work on a trick step by step until you’ve mastered it.
- The step-by-step instructions will gradually become fluid motions. You aim to improve to the point where your sleight of hand is unnoticeable. Every failure is an opportunity to learn, so relax and enjoy the process!
- Keep in mind that magic is an act. The key to a good trick is never revealing what you’re doing behind the scenes to create the illusion. Concentrate on your performance rather than what you’re doing behind closed doors.
- Perform in front of an audience as often as possible. Magic is a deceptive art form that necessitates the participation of at least two persons.
- You can’t do the trick and be tricked by it simultaneously. It is not a magic trick if you do not perform it for someone. The more you practice performing in front of an audience, the more at ease you will become. Furthermore, the crowd reaction is exciting!
- Don’t be concerned. If you make a mistake when performing in front of an audience, the world will not end. Maintain control by behaving confidently regardless of what happens.
- Put your spin on it. Your ways and perspective will make a magic trick or presentation remarkable. Even if you do the same tricks as other magicians, your showmanship will set your display apart.
EASY MAGIC TRICKS
Psychic Math Power
- Showing off your arithmetic talents and including a magic trick is always a winning deception. Not only will your audience feel duped, but they’ll also go insane trying to figure out why something so easy is so tough to crack.
- When the number 9 is multiplied by any integer between 2 and 9, the digits always total 9.
Do this:
- Request that a person chooses a number between 2 and 9. Then have them double that amount by nine.
- Request that they append the answer’s two digits (it will always be 9.)
- Subtraction of 5 from that number (it will always be 4.)
- Assign a letter of the alphabet to a number, such as A=1, B=2, etc. They will receive a D since their response will be 4.
- Tell them to think of a nation beginning with that letter but not to speak it aloud. They will select Denmark 99.9% of the time (since nobody has heard of Djibouti?)
- Tell them to think of an animal that begins with the second letter of that country’s name but to keep it a secret.
- Pause and seem to think about it. “I don’t suppose Denmark has elephants, except zoos,” you reply casually.
The Vanishing Coin
- This one may take some practice. You will need the following:
- a scarf in a dark solid hue made of flimsy cloth
- a rubber band (possibly one close in color to the scarf)
- a coin
- Before you start, wrap the rubber band around your thumb and the next three fingers on your left hand.
- Keep the rubber band hidden from your audience. Put your hand on your side or in your pocket.
- When ready, take the scarf with your right hand and drape it on your left. Ask for a penny and place it on the scarf.
- As you fold the scarf, whatever you like, open your fingers and grab the coin with just a smidgeon of the scarf.
- As the rubber band is trapping the coin, remove your fingers from it. Once your penny is firmly trapped (but not evident), wave the scarf or let it fall to the floor to demonstrate that it has ‘disappeared.’
- Make sure no one sees the rubber band.
- You may also do the trick in the opposite direction by putting the scarf over your left hand, pressing down using your right hand, and letting the rubber band fall to your left hand.
- Remove the scarf to reveal the coin.
The Reverse Turn Card Trick
- This trick requires the trickee to select a card from the deck. You then place it in the center of the deck and use magic to turn every other card around except the one they picked.
- Flip the very bottom card of the deck around to perform this trick.
- While the trickee examines their chosen card, you turn the rest of the deck over so that the card on the bottom is now on top. Place the card they select face down in the center of the deck. It will be the sole card in the deck that has been flipped around.
- Instruct the trickee to clap their hands, and you’ll flip all of their cards. Slap your palm on the deck and slide the top card away when they clap their hands.
- The entire deck now appears to have flipped. Sort through the deck until you uncover the card that has been flipped over. That’s their playing card!
The Moving Pen
- All you need for this technique is a pen, a nice flat surface, and the skill to be sly. Inform your audience that you will use the ‘power of your mind’ or telekinesis to move the pen around the surface.
- Next, rub the pen on your sleeve or jeans, claiming that it activates the unique mental force field; you must infuse the pen with static electricity (remember, magic tricks are part performance and part illusion).
- Then, with your hand above the pen and your index finger pointing out, place it on the surface. Lean over and slide your index finger forward as you discreetly blow on the pen to ‘focus’ your mental energy on it. (It may take practice to be as subtle as you want).
- You might also cover your lips with a baseball cap while you bend over. However, most spectators are so focused on the pen moving and your finger that they won’t bother watching your mouth.
The Disappearing Water Trick
- In this simple magic trick, you will make water appear to vanish from the interior of a cup. This technique is more scientific.
- It will look like you put water into a cup, but no water will come out when you turn it over. This trick is straightforward and fun, especially when the audience has yet to learn what’s in the cup.
- This method requires sodium polyacrylate, a non-see-through cup, and a container to store water, or you may use a faucet.
- Before you begin, ensure one tablespoon of sodium polyacrylate is at the bottom of the cup. Of course, it is always a good idea to practice this method multiple times to ensure that you understand how much water to use with the amount of sodium polyacrylate in the cup. In this manner, you’ll know how much water to pour that will finally ‘vanish.’
- Pour roughly a quarter cup of water into the cup after adding the sodium polyacrylate. Give it some time now.
- You can use this time to mutter fictitious magic phrases that will cause the water to ‘disappear.’ Look into the cup while staring across the room, and when you see that the water has evaporated, turn the cup over to indicate that no water is pouring out.
- A key strategy here is to avoid seeing the cup’s interior before or after the trick. If you can smash the cup after the trick, that’s an excellent way to divert the audience’s attention away from the cup.
- If you’re unfamiliar with sodium polyacrylate, you can get it at most gardening and hardware stores. This material functions as a sponge.
Magic Tricks Worksheets
This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Magic Tricks across 30 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Magic Tricks, performances that use techniques like misdirection and deception to create illusions of impossible or supernatural feats, aiming to entertain and captivate audiences, such as making objects appear or disappear, mind-reading, and levitation, leaving them amazed and questioning how the trick was performed.
Complete List Of Included Worksheets
- Magic Tricks Facts
- Top Qualities
- Magic Style
- Magic Terms
- Magic Performance
- Magician’s Profile
- Tricks Revelation
- Got to Believe in Magic
- Step-by-Step
- Abracadabra!
- My Magic Trick
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the secret behind magic tricks?
Magic tricks often use misdirection, sleight of hand, illusions, and other forms of deception to create the illusion of impossible or supernatural feats. The secret to magic tricks lies in the magician’s ability to execute these techniques without being detected by the audience.
Can anyone learn to perform magic tricks?
Yes, anyone can learn to perform magic tricks with practice and dedication. Magic tricks require skills like dexterity, showmanship, and keeping secrets, which can be developed with proper training and guidance.
Are there any easy magic tricks for beginners to learn?
Yes, beginners can learn many easy magic tricks, such as the disappearing coin trick, the card force trick, and the rope cut and restore trick. These tricks often involve basic techniques that can be easily mastered with practice.
Do magic tricks always involve the use of props and equipment?
No, not all magic tricks require the use of props and equipment. Some magic tricks rely solely on the magician’s ability to create the illusion of the impossible through their performance and showmanship. However, most magic tricks involve the use of props and equipment to help create the desired effect.
Is it ethical for magicians to use deception to entertain audiences?
Yes, it is generally considered ethical for magicians to use deception in their performances, as long as the audience is aware that the performer is using tricks and illusions to create an entertaining show. Magicians often use disclaimers at the beginning of their performances to ensure that the audience understands that they are watching a show, not a demonstration of supernatural abilities.
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