Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

Around this time, the popular American magician Howard Thurston hired his own secret weapon: Guy Jarrett. Jarrett worked with a range of materials and engineered complex props like the Siamese Cabinet. During the trick, Thurston would wheel out the cabinet, open all its doors to show it was empty, and then close it back up. A second later, people w

World-famous magicians have been hiring inventors for decades. In the early twentieth century, Houdini’s success was contingent upon the mechanic Jim Collins, his right-hand man, who was a master of wood and metal. He began working for Houdini in 1910 and helped build his most famous illusions, including Water Torture Cell, which took the pair thre

In the early twentieth century, Harry Kellar went to great lengths to obtain the secret of John Nevil Maskelyne’s Levitating Lady trick. Maskelyne was quickly becoming one of the most lauded stage performers in the world, and Kellar, who was still performing stale illusions from years past, saw that his influence was on the decline.

Historically, many of magic’s most successful illusions have become instant for-sale commodities. In 1921, the British illusionist P. T. Selbit debuted Sawing Through a Woman, the quintessential woman-in-a-box stage illusion that would instantly captivate the world and forever change stage magic. After word spread, American magician Horace Goldin c