Many conjurors make a practice, in the course of their performances, of indicating such and such expedients of the art, and of boasting that they themselves do not employ the method in question. " You observe," they will remark, " that I don ' t make the pass--that I don ' t change the card," etc; and yet, a moment later, they use in some other trick the expedient they have just revealed. It follows, as a natural result, that the spectator, being thus made acquainted with artifices of which he would otherwise have known nothing, is put on his guard and is no longer open to deception.
11. Be careful with the” magician in trouble” premise
It is not unusual to see conjurors affect; pretended clumsiness which they call a " feint." These hoaxes played on the public arc in very bad taste. What should we think of an actor who pretended to forget his part, or of a singer who for a moment affected to sing out of tune in order to gain greater applause afterwards? I do not here refer to the " feints " employed in conjuring to imitate some act which is designed to mislead the mind or the attention of the spectator. The feint, in this latter case, being executed with extreme dexterity, has no existence for the spectator, but passes in his mind for a genuine act. An artifice of this kind is one of the most effective aids in the performance of a conjuring trick. We shall recur at proper time and place to this subject. backfiring. A trick performed on this principle is out of the pale of conjuring altogether; it is at best what schoolboys would describe as a " good sell."
14. Use correct language
As a matter of course, a conjuror should speak with perfect grammatical correctness. He should, moreover, avoid coarse " chaff," personal observations and practical jokes, and should in like manner eschew pedantic and affected language, Latin quotations, and especially puns. The only wit for which the public gives a conjuror any credit, is the wit of his dexterity.
15. Dress for the occasion
It will be hardly necessary, I imagine, to dilate upon the absurdity of wearing the long robe of a magician. Let us leave tinsel and high-crowned hats to mountebanks; the ordinary dress of a gentleman is the only costume appropriate to a high class conjuror. The most probable result of assuming the conventional garb of a wizard will be to make the wearer an object of derision.
This article is based on the original work published 1868 in The secrets of conjuring & magic by Robert Houdin, translated by Louis Hoffman in 1877.
12. Don ´ t hide bad technique with big gestures
Some conjurors use an excessive amount of gesture in order to cover their manipulations. This is wrong. Genuine conjuring demands perfect simplicity of execution. The more simple and natural the movements of the performer, the less likely is the spectator to detect the trick. It is true that in this case a very much higher degree of dexterity is required than in the former.
13. Use stooges with care
If you ´ re employing confederates among the audience, be very careful. Stooges are tricky business and you always run the risk of the trick
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