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Magic or conjuring is the art of entertaining an audience by performing illusions that baffle and amaze, often by giving the impression that something impossible has been achieved, almost as if the performer had magic or supernatural powers. Yet, this illusion of magic is created entirely by natural means. The practitioners of this mystery art are called Magicians, Conjurors or Illusionists.

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Does Fashion Matter When Doing Magic Tricks?
By Search EzineArticles.com
Dressed For SuccessSo you have an awesome magic trick you want to perform onsomebody. You’ve practiced it thousands of times, perfected itin front of the mirror and now are ready to Read more...

Art Of Misdirection
By Harlan Tarbell
Directing the eyes of your audience is another great power you have and the principle of the Art of Misdirection plays a tremendous part in Magic.

The audience follows your eyes. You have a palmed coin in your left hand, for example. You hold it in a natural position and look at your audience and use your right hand while giving them the patter. Your audience will follow your eyes to your right hand and will not even glance at your left hand, which has the coin. That is why I told you in Lesson 1 not to watch your hands. Even a hasty glance will lead someone in the audience to follow your glance and suspect that you have something concealed.

You may try this little experiment to prove to yourself that people follow your eyes. Pretend you are throwing a coin up into the air and look up to an imaginary point that the coin reached — but really retain the coin in your hand. The eyes of the spectators will look upward just as you did. You can do this many times and each time the audience will look upward.

Almost every trick has some element of Misdirection in it. So remember, in performing your trick — NEVER LOOK AT THE OPPOSITE END OF YOUR EFFECT. By the opposite end, I mean the thing you are really doing -- that is, looking at your hand which is holding the coin, rather than looking upward for the effect. If you look at your hand, the audience will look at your hand—that is the opposite end. If you look upward, the audience will look upward -- that is the effect.

That is the basis of Misdirection. Whatever you direct their attention to, the audience will look at. In the Dissolving Coin trick you use the Art of Misdirection when you direct the attention of the audience to the dropping of coin (?) in glass. Every person in that audience is watching to see what will happen when handkerchief is lifted and you must look in that direction also. Meanwhile, you can put your left hand in your pocket to dispose of the coin without being detected.

One thing you must keep in mind is that it is a psychological fact that a person does not hold his attention on any one thing for more than a few seconds. Your job is to keep renewing his attention by the things you say or by varying the thing this person is to attend to -- until you get your work out of the way. You must work fast so that you don't bore the spectator and find him watching you instead of the thing he should be watching. You must remember that his attention wanders and you must be quick so that you are through

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with your "opposite end" before his attention comes back to you. To get the Art of Misdirection clearly into your mind, I want you to practice this little move: Stand before your mirror and watch yourself.

Take a coin in your left hand. You are going to get the effect of passing it to your right hand. For a few times really pass the coin from your left to your right hand. This is to give you Naturalness in faking the pass and also to give you an opportunity to observe how your eyes go from your left to your right hand. After you have done this a few times, go through the same moves but retain the coin by finger palming it in your left hand. Close your right hand as if you had the coin. Your eyes must follow the pretended passing of the coin just as they did when you actually passed it. Your audience will follow your eyes to your right hand and will not even notice your left hand.

It is unbelievable until you try it yourself how easily large objects — even a rabbit — can be moved about almost under the very noses of the audience without their seeing or suspecting anything if you know the Art of Misdirection.

Nearly the whole art of Sleight of Hand depends on this Art of Misdirection. Your seemingly miraculous effects depend on speed and cleverness in directing the attention of the audience away from the opposite end of the effect -- away from what you are really doing. You will find this intensely interesting when we begin to study Sleight of Hand. In training you to be a Magician, I am training you to be so well equipped with the principles of Magic and effects that you can vary your tricks to fit any occasion and to be ready to meet any emergencies when you are performing.

I give you variations of tricks based on the same principle. Sometimes it may be necessary to repeat a trick within a short period of time and some of the old audience may be in the new one. You can throw these spectators off the track by presenting the trick by a different method of working. You can add some little twist to the trick, and even those who see it for the second time will not discover how you do the trick. There are "close investigators" in some audiences. You will have no difficulty in mystifying them if you vary your effects, even just a trifle. I give you also similar effects based on different principles. A magician often fools another magician with just this style of working. He will introduce a new twist of some kind or a new method of working and he has his fellow magician puzzled.
Harlan Tarbell was the mentor of many gnerations of magicians through his famous correspondance course The Original Tarbell Course In Magic

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Art Of Misdirection
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Directing the eyes of your audience is another great power you have and the principle of the Art ofMisdirection plays a tremendous part in Magic.The audience follows your eyes. Read more...

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