MagicGizmo

Magic is one of the oldest of this old world’s arts, yet is ever young.

As long as the human mind delights in mysteries, so long it will love magic and be entertained by magicians. `

To see something happen before the eyes and suddenly pass into a shadow-land of unreality, then to behold the impossible emerge swiftly again into the full light of consciousness and substantiality, baffles the reason and fascinates with a spell of witchery.

To be able to produce these illusions, without revealing their secret, and to leave the impression of a conquest of material forces by supernormal power, is the acme of the magician’s art.

Yet magic, like every art, must keep pace in progress with the advance of human intelligence and learning and research. Simple transformations in color, form, or substance are known of common knowledge to students of optics or chemistry.

The tricks with which the wizards of ancient days deluded their believers would not today mystify a child of seven. The amateur magician of this day and age must be more artful than the professional conjurer or sorcerer of ancient days. In short, it is not given to everyone who essays the practice of magic to succeed in attainment of high art.

Success can come only by making this oldest of arts ever new. Only by most ingenious combinations and elaborate artifices can the simple acts of legerdemain be made to seem intricate and puzzling to the acute observer. Your art can never arrive at the perfection of art until your handling of the illusion produces a thrill of genuine surprise in all who behold it.

That is the end and aim of the entertainment, and I urge upon all who are seeking to advance and perfect themselves in sleight-of-hand that they must never cease to cultivate also that glibness of tongue and entrancing, style of discourse which will hold the observer’s attention quite closely as his eyes are held in observation.

Nor must the magician overlook that in the setting of the stage and in every detail of costume, lighting, scenic arrangement or properties, and all accessories he must provide a picture and supply an atmosphere which conduce to mystery.

It is in these particulars that magic becomes an art of distinction, and may be practised with great entertainment to the spectators, and gain of fame and fortune to the magician.

When I am asked to what I attribute my success in the profession, I say, chiefly to two things: Incessant and indefatigable practice of the fundamental passes, tricks, and feats which are the basis of all magic ; and then my own original development of extraordinary combination of these simple formulae with an elaborate overlay of artistic trappings, suggesting oriental occultism, or fairylands of enchantment; or the arcana of necromancy and the apparitions of imps and demons from another sphere.

You can never interest the modern public unless you are continually giving them something new.

But if you do succeed each season in producing some new illusion which seems novel, no matter how old its solution may be, your fame as an entertainer is secure.

I would also urge upon all those who take up the study and practice of magic, either for parlor amusement or for professional career, that they must never forget that someone out among the spectators has a pair of eyes as sharp as their own.

Somebody sitting as an innocent onlooker may be just as clever as you. He may have read how tricks are performed, even if he himself cannot perform them. He may and very likely does think that he is smart enough so that you cannot fool him.

He is the one to whom you must play. You must be just clever enough to put over an old trick in a new way, or a trick entirely new, or some illusion which befools him completely. Then you have him at your mercy - perfectly docile, attentive, and quite humble after that. But if not, that one spot of disdain and sniffling superiority which refuses to be puzzled will so assert itself in the audience-room as to affect the atmosphere in which you work, making you nervous and ill at ease, until you blunder.

It is absolutely essential that you keep control of your audience and not let - them dominate you.

The most successful professional magicians have been those who could read human nature and correctly estimate the character of their spectators, and so modify their discourse and sometimes their illusions as to fit the different kinds of people that they might confront.

In this, never make the mistake of belittling the intelligence of those who watch your work. Always there is someone keen, alert, and quick to apprehend, and you must never play below his or her level.

Indeed, you never can afford to hold your spectators lightly. It is better to let them make the mistake of holding you too lightly.

When they suddenly discover that you are making fools of them, that you are putting it over on them again and again, their revulsion of feeling is extreme. They now take you most seriously. You can thereafter do with them what you will.

So, in summing up these few remarks which occur to me as the result of a lifetime spent in the practice of magic for my own amusement and the entertainment of others, I would say to all beginners, Keep three things in mind - these three:

First - Practice constantly new sleights, novel devices, and invent new combinations of old feats. You must have something always new wherewith to dazzle.

Second - Make your work artistic by clothing each illusion with all the glamor and shadows of fairyland, and the suggestions of incantations and supernatural powers in order to prepare the observer’s mind for a mystery though there be no mystery.

Third - Study your spectators and seek to put them under your control even as the mesmerist does his subjects, so that their minds should be receptive to theories of the occult, and their eyes be shut to the obviously simple explanations of your prestidigitation.

Finally, I need not say that the end of all magic is to feed with mystery the human mind, which dearly loves mystery.

So leave every mystery forever unexplained!

And in the hope that you may, by thus entertaining others, find enjoyment for yourselves, as I did for many years, I tender you my best wishes for your success, and the hope that through you the magician's art may have new masters to perpetuate it.

(signed) Harry Kellar