Henry Ridgely Evans

The very word magic has an alluring sound, and its practice as an art will probably never lose its attractiveness for people’s minds. But we must remember that there is a difference between the old magic and the new, and that both are separated by a deep chasm, which is a kind of color line, for though the latter develops from the former in a gradual and natural course of evolution, they are radically different in principle, and the new magic is irredeemably opposed to the assumptions upon which the old magic rests.

Magic originally meant priestcraft. It is probable that the word is very old, being handed down to us from the Greeks and Romans, who had received it from the Persians. But they in their turn owe it to the Babylonians, and the Babylonians to the Assyrians, and the Assyrians to the Sumero-Akkadians.

Imga in Akkad meant priest, and the Assyrians changed the word to maga, calling their high-priest Rab-mag; and considering the fact that the main business of priests in ancient times consisted in exorcising, fortune-telling, miracle-working, and giving out oracles, it seems justifiable to believe that the Persian term, which in its Latin version is magus, is derived from the ChaldÆan and is practically the same; for the connotation of a wise man endowed with supernatural powers has always been connected with the word magus, and even to-day magician means wizard, sorcerer, or miracle-worker. {x}

While the belief in, and practice of, magic are not entirely absent in the civilization of Israel, we find that the leaders of orthodox thought had set their faces against it, at least as it appeared in its crudest form, and went so far as to persecute sorcerers with fire and sword.

SAUL AND THE WITCH OF ENDOR. (After Schnorr von Carolsfeld.)

We read in the Bible that when the Lord “multiplied his signs” in Egypt, he sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to turn their rods into serpents, that the Egyptian magicians vied with them in the performance, but that Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods, demonstrating thus Aaron’s superiority. It is an interesting fact that the snake charmers of Egypt perform to-day a similar feat, which consists in paralyzing a snake so as to render it motionless. The snake then looks like a stick, but is not rigid. {xi}

JESUS CASTING OUT DEVILS (After Schnorr von Carolsfeld.)

Symbolizing Christ’s power even over demons, according to the view of early Christianity.

CHRIST WITH THE WAND.

From a Christian Sarcophagus.†

† Reproduced from Mrs. Jameson’s and Lady Eastlake’s History of our Lord, London, 1872, Longmans, Green & Co., Vol. I., pp. 347 and 349.

{xii}

How tenacious the idea is that religion is and must be magic, appears from the fact that even Christianity shows traces of it. In fact, the early Christians (who, we must remember, recruited their ranks from the lowly in life) looked upon Christ as a kind of magician, and all his older pictures show him with a magician’s wand in his hand. The resurrection of Lazarus, the change of water into wine, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the healing of diseases by casting out devils, and kindred miracles, according to the notions of those centuries, are performed after the fashion of sorcerers.

The adjoined illustration, one of the oldest representations of Christ, has been reproduced from Rossi’s Roma Sotterranea (II, Table 14). It is a fresco of the catacombs, discovered in the St. Callisto Chapel, and is dated by Franz Xaver Kraus (Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, I, p. 153) at the beginning of the third century. Jesus holds in his left hand the scriptures, while his right hand grasps the wand with which he performs the miracle. Lazarus is represented as a mummy, while one of his sisters kneels at the Saviour’s feet.

Goethe introduces the belief in magic into the very plot of Faust. In his despair at never finding the key to the world-problem in science, which, as he thinks, does not offer what we need, but useless truisms only, Faust hopes to find the royal road to knowledge by supernatural methods. He says:

“Therefore, from Magic I seek assistance,

That many a secret perchance I reach

Through spirit-power and spirit-speech,

And thus the bitter task forego

Of saying the things I do not know,—

That I may detect the inmost force

Which binds the world, and guides its course;

Its germs, productive powers explore,

And rummage in empty words no more!”

{xiii}

MOSES AND AARON PERFORMING THE MIRACLE OF THE SERPENTS BEFORE PHARAOH

(After Schnorr von Carolsfeld.)

THE EGYPTIAN SNAKE NAJA HAJE MADE MOTIONLESS BY PRESSURE UPON THE NECK

(Reproduced from Verworn after Photographs.)

{xiv}

Faust follows the will o’ the wisp of pseudo-science, and so finds his efforts to gain useful knowledge balked. He turns agnostic and declares that we cannot know anything worth knowing. He exclaims:

“That which we do not know is dearly needed;

And what we need we do not know.”

And in another place:

“I see that nothing can be known.”

But, having acquired a rich store of experience, Faust, at the end of his career, found out that the study of nature is not a useless rummage in empty words, and became converted to science. His ideal is a genuinely scientific view of nature. He says:

“Not yet have I my liberty made good:

So long as I can’t banish magic’s fell creations

And totally unlearn the incantations.

Stood I, O Nature, as a man in thee,

Then were it worth one’s while a man to be.

And such was I ere I with the occult conversed,

And ere so wickedly the world I cursed.”

To be a man in nature and to fight one’s way to liberty is a much more dignified position than to go lobbying to the courts of the celestials and to beg of them favors. Progress does not pursue a straight line, but moves in spirals or epicycles. Periods of daylight are followed by nights of super­sti­tion. So it happened that in the first and second decades of the nineteenth century the rationalism of the eighteenth century waned, not to make room for a higher rationalism, but to suffer the old bugbears of ghosts and hobgoblins to reappear in a reactionary movement. Faust (expressing here Goethe’s own ideas) continues:

“Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,

That no one knows how best he may escape.

What though the day with rational splendor beams,

The night entangles us in webs of dreams.

By super­sti­tion constantly ensnared,

It spooks, gives warnings, is declared.

Intimidated thus we stand alone.

The portal jars, yet entrance is there none.”

{xv}

The aim of man is his liberty and independence. As soon as we understand that there are no spooks that must be conciliated by supplications and appeased, but that we stand in nature from which we have grown in constant interaction between our own aspirations and the natural forces regulated by law, we shall have confidence in our own faculties, which can be increased by investigation and a proper comprehension of conditions, and we shall no longer look beyond but around. Faust says:

“A fool who to the Beyond his eyes directeth

And over the clouds a place of peers detecteth.

Firm must man stand and look around him well,

The world means something to the capable.”

This manhood of man, to be gained by science through the conquest of all magic, is the ideal which the present age is striving to attain, and the ideal has plainly been recognized by leaders of human progress. The time has come for us “to put away childish things,” and to relinquish the beliefs and practices of the medicine-man.

The old magic is sorcery, or, considering the impossibility of genuine sorcery, the attempt to practise sorcery. It is based upon the pre-scientific world-conception, which in its primitive stage is called animism, imputing to nature a spiritual life analogous to our own spirit, and peopling the world with individual personalities, spirits, ghosts, goblins, gods, devils, ogres, gnomes and fairies. The old magic stands in contrast to science; it endeavors to transcend human knowledge by supernatural methods and is based upon the hope of working miracles by the assistance of invisible presences or intelligences, who, according to this belief, could be forced or coaxed by magic into an alliance. The savage believes that the evil influence of the powers of nature can be averted by charms or talismans, and their aid procured by proper incantations, conjurations and prayers.

The world-conception of the savage is long-lingering, and its influence does not subside instantaneously with the first appearance of science. The Middle Ages are full of magic, and the belief in it has not died out to this day.

The old magic found a rival in science and has in all its aspects, in religion as well as in occultism, in mysticism and obscurantism, treated science as its hereditary enemy. It is now {xvi} succumbing in the fight, but in the meantime a new magic has originated and taken the place of the old, performing miracles as wonderful as those of the best conjurers of former days, nay, more wonderful; yet these miracles are accomplished with the help of science and without the least pretense of supernatural power.

The new magic originated from the old magic when the belief in sorcery began to break down in the eighteenth century, which is the dawn of rationalism and marks the epoch since which mankind has been systematically working out a scientific world-conception.

In primitive society religion is magic, and priests are magicians. The savage would think that if the medicine-man could not work miracles there would be no use for religion. Religion, however, does not disappear with the faith in the medicine-man’s power. When magic becomes discredited by science, religion is purified. We must know, though, that religious reforms of this kind are not accomplished at once, but come on gradually in slow process of evolution, first by disappointment and then in exultation at the thought that the actualities of science are higher, nobler and better than the dreams of super­sti­tion, even if they were possible, and thus it appears that science comes to fulfil, not to destroy.

Science has been pressed into the service of magic by ancient pagan priests, who utilized mechanical contrivances in their temples to impress the credulous with the supernatural power of their gods.

The magic lantern, commonly supposed to be an invention of the Jesuit Kircher, in 1671, must have been secretly known among the few members of the craft of scientific magic at least as early as the end of the middle ages, for we have an old drawing, which is here reproduced, showing that it was employed in warfare as a means of striking terror in the ranks of the enemy. We have no information as to the success of the stratagem, but we may assume that in the days of a common belief in witchcraft and absolute ignorance of the natural sciences, it must have been quite effective with super­sti­tious soldiers {xvii}

[The apparatus is quite crude in comparison with modern instruments of the same kind. It possesses no lens, the picture being drawn in an upright position upon cylindrical glass, presumably blackened with the exception of the figure. So far as known this is the oldest record of the use of the magic lantern.

Fontana’s lantern was used, as F. M. Feldhaus informs us (Gartenlaube, 1905, Nov. 23, p. 848) by the encignerius or antwere maister, i. e., the master of siege and fortress defenses, who from an appropriate hiding-place projected the image upon a convenient wall in the outside works of a fort so as to let assailants unexpectedly be confronted with the hideous form of a demon.]

While magic as super­sti­tion and as fraud is doomed, magic as an art will not die. Science will take hold of it and permeate it with its own spirit, changing it into scientific magic which is destitute of all mysticism, occultism and super­sti­tion, and comes to us as a witty play for our recreation and diversion.

It is an extraordinary help to a man to be acquainted with the tricks of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teurs, and we advise parents not to neglect this phase in the education of their children. The present age is laying the basis of a scientific world-conception, and it is, perhaps, not without good reasons that it has produced quite a literature on the subject of modern magic.

It might seem that if the public became familiar with the methods of the magicians who give public entertainments, their business would be gone. But this is not the case. As a peep behind the scenes and a knowledge of the machinery of the stage only help us to appreciate scenic effects, so an insight into the tricks of the pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur will only serve to whet our appetite for seeing him perform his tricks. The pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur will be forced to improve his tricks before an intelligent audience; he will be obliged to invent new methods, but not to abandon his art.

Moreover, it is not the trick alone that we admire, but the way in which it is performed. Even those who know how things can be made to disappear by sleight of hand, must confess that they always found delight in seeing the late Alexander Herrmann, whenever he began a soirÉe, take off his gloves, roll them up and make them vanish as if into nothingness.

It is true that magic in the old sense is gone; but that need not be lamented. The coarseness of Cagliostro’s frauds has given way to the elegant display of scientific inventiveness and an adroit use of human wit. Traces of the religion of magic are still prevalent to-day, and it will take much patient work before the last remnants of it are swept away. The notions of magic still hold in bondage the minds of the uneducated and half-educated, and even the leaders of progress feel themselves now and then hampered by ghosts and super­sti­tions.

We believe that the spread of modern magic and its proper comprehension are an important sign of progress, and in this {xix} sense the feats of our Kellars and Herrmanns are a work of religious significance. They are instrumental in dispelling the fogs of super­sti­tion by exhibiting to the public the astonishing but natural miracles of the art of legerdemain; and while they amuse and entertain they fortify the people in their conviction of the reliability of science.

In speaking of modern magic, we refer to the art of the pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur, and exclude from its domain the experiments of hypnotism as well as the vulgar lies of fraud. There is no magic in the psychosis of an hysterical subject, who at the hypnotizer’s suggestion becomes the prey of hal­luc­i­na­tions; nor is there any art in the deceptions of the fortune-teller, whose business will vanish when the public ceases to be credulous and super­sti­tious. The former is a disease, the latter mostly fraud. Magic proper (i. e., the artifices of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­tion) is produced by a combination of three factors: (1) legerdemain proper, or sleight of hand; (2) psy­cho­log­i­cal illusions, and (3) surprising feats of natural science with clever concealment of their true causes. The success of almost every trick depends upon the introduction of these three factors.

The throwing of cards is mere dexterity; ZÖllner’s famous figures of parallel lines having an apparent inclination toward {xx} one another is a pure sense-illusion (see cut here reproduced); so is the magical swing; while fire-eating (or better, fire-breathing) is a purely physical experiment. But it goes without saying that there is scarcely any performance of genuine pre­sti­di­gi­ta­tion which is not a combination of all three elements. The production of a bowl of water with living fishes in it is a combination of dexterity with psychology.

The trick with the glass dial (which is now exhibited by both Mr. Kellar and Mr. Herrmann, the nephew of the late Alexander Herrmann) is purely physical. The machinery used by them is entirely different, but in either case no sleight of hand nor any psy­cho­log­i­cal diversion is needed, except in letting the accomplice behind the stage know the number to which he should point.

As an instance of a wonderful trick which is a mere sense-illusion we mention the magic swing, which is explained by Albert A. Hopkins in his comprehensive book on magic1 as follows:

“Those who are to participate in the apparent gyrations of the swing—and there may be quite a number who enjoy it simultaneously—are ushered into a small room. From a bar crossing the room, near the ceiling, hangs a large swing, which is provided with seats for a number of people. After the people have taken their places, the attendant pushes the car and it starts into oscillation like any other swing. The room door is closed. Gradually those in it feel after three or four movements that their swing is going rather high, but this is not all. The apparent amplitude of the oscillations increases more and more, until presently the whole swing seems to whirl completely over, describing a full circle about the bar on which it hangs. To make the thing more utterly mysterious, the bar is bent crank fashion, the swing continues apparently to go round and round this way, imparting a most weird sensation to the occupants, until its movements begin gradually to cease and the complete rotation is succeeded by the usual back and forth swinging. The door of the room is opened, and the swinging party leave. Those who have tried it say the sensation is most peculiar.

“The illusion is based on the movements of the room proper. During the entire exhibition the swing is practically stationary, while the room rotates about the suspending bar. At the beginning of operations the swing may be given a slight push; the operators outside the room then begin to swing the room itself, which is really a large box journaled on the swing bar, starting {xxi} it off to correspond with the movements of the swing. They swing it back and forth, increasing the arc through which it moves until it goes so far as to make a complete rotation. The operatives do this without special machinery, taking hold of the sides and corners of the box or ‘room.’ At this time the people in the swing imagine that the room is stationary while they are whirling through space. After keeping this up for some time, the movement is brought gradually to a stop, a sufficient number of back and forth swings being given at the finale to carry out the illusion to the end.

“The room is as completely furnished as possible, everything being, of course, fastened in place. What is apparently a kerosene lamp stands on a table, near at hand. It is securely fastened to the table, which in its turn is fastened to the floor, and the light is supplied by a small incandescent lamp within the chimney, but concealed by the shade. The visitor never imagines that it is an electric lamp, and naturally thinks that it would be impossible for a kerosene lamp to be inverted without disaster, so that this adds to the deception materially. The same is to be said of the pictures hanging on the {xxiii} wall, of the cupboard full of chinaware, of the chair with a hat on it, and of the baby carriage. All contribute to the mystification. Even though one is informed of the secret before entering the swing, the deception is said to be so complete that passengers involuntarily seize the arms of the seats to avoid being precipitated below.”

The illusion is purely an instance of misguided judgment, which is commonly but erroneously called illusion of the senses, and belongs to the same category as the well-known ZÖllner figures mentioned above and consisting of heavy lines crossed slantingly by lighter lines. The heavy lines are parallel but appear to diverge in the direction of the slant.

Another very ingenious trick consists in apparently stabbing a man to death, the bloody end of the sword appearing at the back, yet leaving the man uninjured. Since the audience naturally will suspect that the point emerging from the back is not the true end of the sword, the trick has been altered to the effect of replacing the sword with a big needle (A), having tape threaded through its eye. When the assassin’s needle has passed through the victim, it can be pulled out at the other side, together with the tape, where it appears reddened with blood. The stabbing, when performed quickly, before the spectator begins to {xxiv} notice that the blade is somewhat reduced in size, is most startling, and makes a deep impression on the audience; but the artifice through which the manipulation is rendered possible is very simple. The sword, or needle, used for the purpose, is made of a very thin and flexible plate of steel, sufficiently blunt to prevent it from doing any harm. The victim, as if trying to ward off the dangerous weapon, takes hold of it and causes it to slip into the opening of a concealed sheath (B), which he carries strapped around his body, whereupon the assassin makes his thrust. The interior of the sheath contains a red fluid, which dyes the blade and helps to make the deception complete. The accompanying illustration sufficiently explains the performance.

While the performance of magical tricks is an art, the observation of them and also their description is a science, presupposing a quick and critical eye, of which very few people are possessed; and scientists by profession are sometimes the least fit persons to detect the place and mode of the deception.

How differently different persons watch the same events becomes apparent when we compare Professor ZÖllner’s reports of spiritualistic sÉances with those of other more critical wit­nes­ses. Pro­fessor ZÖllner, for instance, writes (Wis­sen­schaft­liche Ab­handl., Vol. III, p. 354) in his description of one of the experiments with the famous American medium, Dr. Slade, that Professor Fechner’s chair was lifted up about half a foot above the ground, while Dr. Slade touched the back of it lightly with his hand, and he emphasizes that his colleague, after hovering some time in the air, was suddenly dropped with great noise. The event as thus described is mystifying. However, when we carefully compare Professor Fechner’s account, we come to the conclusion that the whole proceeding is no longer miraculous, but could be repeated by pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teurs. Fechner writes that at the request of Dr. Slade, he himself (Professor Fechner), who was slim and light, took the place of Professor Braune. Dr. Slade turned round to Professor Fechner and bore his chair upward in a way which is not at all inexplicable by the methods of legerdemain. Professor Fechner does not mention that he hovered for some time in the air, but it is obvious that Dr. Slade {xxv} made the two professors change seats because he would scarcely have had the strength to lift up the heavy Professor Braune.

Similarly, the accounts of the famous painter, Gabriel Max, who also attended some of Slade’s sÉances with ZÖllner, make the performances of the medium appear in a less wonderful light. {xxvi}

Mr. Carl Willmann, a manufacturer of magical apparatus at Hamburg, and the author of several books on modern magic, publishes a circumstantial description of Professor ZÖllner’s double slates used in sÉances with Dr. Slade, which are now in possession of Dr. Borcherdt of Hamburg, who bought them, with other objects of interest, from the estate of the deceased Professor ZÖllner. The seals of these slates are by no means so intact as not to arouse the suspicion that they have been tampered with. To a superficial inspection they appear unbroken, but the sealing wax shows vestiges of finger marks, and Mr. Willmann has not the slightest doubt that the slates were opened underneath the seals with a thin heated wire, and that the seals were afterwards replaced.

Professor ZÖllner, the most famous victim of the bold medium, lacked entirely the necessary critical faculty, and became an easy prey of fraud. One of his colleagues, a professor of surgery in the University of Leipsic, had entered upon a bet with Professor ZÖllner that a slate carefully sealed and watched by himself could not be written upon by spirits; he had left the slate in Professor ZÖllner’s hands in the confidence that the latter would use all necessary precautions. Professor ZÖllner, however, not finding Dr. Slade at home, saw nothing wrong in leaving the sealed slate at the medium’s residence and thus allowing it to pass for an indefinite time out of his own control, thinking that the seals were a sufficient protection. It goes without saying that his colleague at once cancelled the bet and took no more interest in the experiment. {xxvii}

The foot and hand prints which Dr. Slade produced were apparently made from celluloid impressions, which could easily be carried about and hidden in the pocket. This explains why these vestiges of the spirit were not of the size of Dr. Slade’s hands or feet.

Mr. Willmann calls attention to the fact that the footprints, as published by Professor ZÖllner, were made from feet whose stockings had been removed but a few moments before, for they still show the meshes of the knitting which quickly disappear as soon as the skin of the foot grows cold. Professor ZÖllner did not see such trifles, and yet they are important, even if it were for the mere purpose of determining whether the spirits wear stockings made in Germany or America.

The accounts of travelers are, as a rule, full of extravagant praise of the accomplishments of foreign magicians; thus, the feats of our American Indians are almost habitually greatly exaggerated. The same is true in a greater measure of fakirs and Hindu magicians. Recent accounts of a famous traveler are startling, but the problem is not whether or not what he tells is true (for only a little dose of good judgment is sufficient to recognize their impossibility), but whether or not he believes his tales himself. The problem is neither physical nor historical as to the reality of the events narrated; the problem is purely psy­cho­log­i­cal as to his own state of mind.

The primitive simplicity of the methods of the Hindu jugglers and the openness of the theatre where they perform their tricks cause wonderment to those who are not familiar with the methods of legerdemain. Mr. Willmann, who had occasion to watch Hindu magicians, says in his book, Moderne Wunder, page 3: “After a careful investigation, it becomes apparent that the greatest miracles of Indian conjurers are much more insignificant than they appear in the latest reports of travelers. The descriptions which in our days men of science have furnished about the wonderful tricks of fakirs, have very little value in the shape in which they are rendered. If they, for instance, speak with admiration about the invisible growth of a flower before their very eyes, produced from the seed deposited by a fakir in {xxviii} a flower-pot, they prove only that even men of science can be duped by a little trick the practice of which lies without the pale of their own experience.”

Eye-witnesses whose critical capacities are a safeguard against imposition, relate more plausible stories. John T. McCutcheon describes the famous trick of growing a mango tree, as follows:

“The further away from India one is the greater appears the skill of these Hindu magicians. How often have we read the traveler’s tales about the feats of Indian jugglers, and how eagerly we have looked forward to the time when we might behold them and be spellbound with amazement and surprise. When I first saw the Indian juggler beginning the preparations for the mango trick I was half prepared by the traveler’s tales to see a graceful tree spring quickly into life and subsequently see somebody climb it and pick quantities of nice, ripe mangoes. Nothing of the kind happened, as will be seen by the following description of the mango trick as it is really performed:

THE SINGALESE CONJURER BEN-KI-BEY.
(After Carl Willmann.)

“The juggler, with a big bag of properties, arrived on the scene and immediately began to talk excitedly, meanwhile unpacking various receptacles taken from the bag. He squatted down, piped a few notes on a wheezy reed whistle and the show began. From his belongings he took a little tin can about the size of a cove oyster can, filled it with dirt and saturated the dirt with water. Then he held up a mango seed to show that there was nothing concealed by his sleeves; counted ‘ek, do, tin, char,’ or ‘one, two, three, four,’ and imbedded the seed in the moist earth. He spread a large cloth over the can and several feet of circumjacent ground. Then he played a few more notes on his reed instrument and allowed the seed a few minutes in which to take root and develop into a glorious shade tree. While he was waiting he {xxix} unfolded some snakes from a small basket, took a mongoose from a bag and entertained his audience with a combat between the mongoose and one of the snakes.

“‘Ek, do, tin, char; one, two, three, four—plenty fight—very good mongoose—biga snake—four rupee mongoose—two rupee snake—mongoose fight snake. Look—gentlymans—plenty big fight.’

MODERN SNAKE CHARMERS. (From Brehm.)

“All this time the cloth remained peaceful and quiet, and there were no uneasy move­ments of its folds to indicate that the mango crop was flourishing. The juggler now turned his attention to it, however, poked his hands under the cloth, and after a few seconds of mysterious fumbling triumphantly threw off the cloth, and lo! there was a little bunch of leaves about as big as a sprig of water cress sticking up dejectedly from the damp earth. This was straightway deluged with some water and the cloth again thrown over it.

“Once more there was a diversion. This time an exhibition of a shell game, in which the juggler showed considerable dexterity in placing the little ball where you didn’t think it would be. Still the cloth revealed no disposition to bulge skyward, and a second time the juggler fumbled under it, talking hurriedly in Hindustani and making the occasion as interesting as possible. After much poking around he finally threw off the cloth with a glad cry, and there was a mango tree a foot high, with adult leaves which glistened with moisture. When his spectators had gazed at it for awhile he pulled the little tree up by the roots, and there was a mango seed attached, with the little sprouts springing out from it.

“The trick was over, the juggler’s harvest of rupees and annas began, and soon his crowd faded away. A few minutes later, from a half-hidden seat {xxx} on the hotel veranda, I saw the wizard over across the street, beneath the big shade trees, folding up the mango tree and tucking it compactly into a small bag.”2

To conjure ghosts has always been the highest ambition of performers of magical tricks, and we know that the magic lantern has been used for this purpose since mediÆval days, but modern necromancy has been brought to perfection by Robertson and Pepper, through the invention of a simple contrivance, known under the name of Pepper’s ghost, by which impalpable specters become plainly visible to the astonished eyes of the spectators.

For a description of these performances, as well as many other feats in the same line, we refer to Mr. Evans’ fascinating explanations in the body of the present volume.

Tricks performed by mediums are in one respect quite different from the feats of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teurs; if they come up to the standards, they are, or might be, based upon the psychic dispositions of people. Believers will gladly be caught in the traps set for them and are, as a rule, grateful for the deception, while determined unbelievers will either prove altogether hopeless or will become so bewildered as to be likely to become believers. Sleight of hand is always a valuable aid to the medium; but, as tricks pure and simple, mediumistic sÉances are not different from the performances of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teurs, and differ only in this, that they claim to be done with the assistance of spirits. Mediums must be on the lookout and use different methods as the occasion may require. They produce rappings with their hands or their feet,3 or with mechanical devices hidden in their shoes; neither do they scorn the use of rapping tables with concealed batteries and electric wires.

The instances here adduced are sufficient to show that even the most complete deceptions admit of explanations which, in many instances, are much simpler than the spectators think. {xxxi} Neither the marvelous feats of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teurs nor the surprising revelations of mediums should shake our confidence in science or make us slaves of super­sti­tion. The success of modern magic, which accomplishes more than the old magic or sorcery ever did, is a sufficient guarantee of the reliability of reason, and even where “now we see through a glass darkly,” we must remain confident that when we grow in wisdom and comprehension we shall learn to see “face to face.”

For all these reasons, knowledge of magic and its history, the false pretenses of the old magic and the brilliant success of modern magic should have a place in our educational program. I do not advocate its introduction into schools, but would recommend parents to let their children become acquainted with the remarkable performances of the best and greatest among modern magicians. We all should know something of the general methods of magic, and some time in our lives witness the {xxxii} extraordinary feats, bordering on miracles, with which a pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur can dazzle our eyes and misguide our judgment.

Modern magic is not merely a diversion or a recreation, but may become possessed of a deeper worth when it broadens our insight into the rich possibilities of mystification, while a peep behind the scenes will keep us sober and prevent us from falling a prey to super­sti­tion.