Sublime

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

Mulholland developed two manuals: Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception and Recognition Signals. The first was based on close-up, sleight-of-hand moves used by magicians, adjusted slightly for in-field use,

Max Malini, a stout Polish sleight-of-hand artist from New York City, operated with a sense that magic only existed as a moment—something that just was, with no explanation of why. He wanted his magic to blend seamlessly into everyday situations—bending, but not breaking, the objective reality so many people were quick to accept as fact.

Xavior held court at a corner table and showed a small crowd his work on Raise Rise, an effect invented and made famous back in the 1990s by legendary magician Ray Kosby. In this trick, the spectator’s card is placed toward the bottom of the deck, protruding halfway (or out-jogged, in magic parlance). The card then magically rises up and up the dec

Harry Kellar was also badly fooled when he saw it in the summer of 1901. He was America's greatest magician, a rough-and-tumble showman. He'd been born Heinrich Keller in 1848 in Erie, Pennsylvania. As a boy, Harry worked as a drugstore clerk, a newsboy, and custodian for the Erie Railroad before he ended up in Buffalo, New York and responded to a

My favorite videos were the private home recordings of sleight-of-hand legends like: Del Ray. Miller. Grayson. Thompson. These were the guys Walt referred to as “the heavyweights.”

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