The Secret History of Magic: The True Story of the Deceptive Art - Hardcover

Lamont, Peter; Steinmeyer, Jim

 
9780143130635: The Secret History of Magic: The True Story of the Deceptive Art
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0143130633 ISBN 13: 9780143130635
Verlag: TarcherPerigee, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Pull back the curtain on the real history of magic – and discover why magic really matters
 
If you read a standard history of magic, you learn that it begins in ancient Egypt, with the resurrection of a goose in front of the Pharaoh. You discover how magicians were tortured and killed during the age of witchcraft. You are told how conjuring tricks were used to quell rebellious colonial natives. The history of magic is full of such stories, which turn out not to be true. Behind the smoke and mirrors, however, lies the real story of magic.
 
It is a history of people from humble roots, who made and lost fortunes, and who deceived kings and queens. In order to survive, they concealed many secrets, yet they revealed some and they stole others. They engaged in deception, exposure, and betrayal, in a quest to make the impossible happen. They managed to survive in a world in which a series of technological wonders appeared, which previous generations would have considered magical. Even today, when we now take the most sophisticated technology for granted, we can still be astonished by tricks that were performed hundreds of years ago. 
 
The Secret History of Magic reveals how this was done. It is about why magic matters in a world that no longer seems to have a place for it, but which desperately needs a sense of wonder.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter Lamont is a historian and psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, and a specialist in the history and psychology of magic. His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals and national newspapers, and his critically acclaimed books include The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick (one of the New York Times' "books of the year" of 2005).

Jim Steinmeyer is a world-renowned magic designer and author, who has created many of the mysteries featured by professional magicians, and special effects featured in popular Broadway shows. His books include The Last Greatest Magician in the World, the Taschen coffee-table book, Magic, and the Los Angeles Times bestseller, Hiding the Elephant.

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Chapter 1

Origin Myths

A long time ago, in ancient Egypt, there was a magician whose name was Djedi. On one particular day, Djedi was summoned to appear before the Pharaoh. So he went to the palace and stood before the Pharaoh. And he performed a miraculous feat with a goose.

He severed the head of the goose from its body. He placed the head of the goose on one side of the great hall and the body of the goose on the other side of the hall. He then uttered some magic words, and the body of the goose stood up. It began to walk toward its own head. The head and the body became reconnected, and the goose stood up and cackled at the Pharaoh. Djedi then proceeded to do the same thing with a long-legged bird. Then with an ox.

"This," according to the historian of magic Sidney Clarke, "is the earliest conjuring performance of which any record has come down to us." Clarke wrote that in the 1920s, and since then, historians of magic have agreed. For almost a century, they (no, we, because we are historians of magic, too) have claimed that the first recorded magic trick was the decapitation and resurrection of a goose.

In fact, the story is a myth. It appears in the Westcar Papyrus, which was discovered in the 1820s. The story is one of a series of five tales that describe miraculous deeds. Djedi himself is described in mythical terms: it is said that he is 110 years old and is able to consume five hundred loaves of bread, half an ox, and one hundred jugs of beer. He also promises to make it rain and predicts the birth of future kings. Beyond this romantic tale, there is little reason to believe that Djedi even existed.

Nevertheless, if you read a standard history of magic, this is how it begins. Historians are not trying to deceive you. This is not an attempt to conceal reality in order to create an illusion. Historians of magic, in certain respects, have been more like a magic audience. Sometimes we have not looked closely enough, or we have looked in the wrong place. Too often, we have listened to what magicians have claimed and believed too easily what we have been told. As a result, in the story of magic, things are not always as they appear to be. If you want to know what really happened, then you need to distinguish between myth and reality.

When you take a closer look, behind the unbelievable tales, you discover the more extraordinary truth. The real history of magic is a story of people from humble roots who traveled the world, made and lost fortunes, and deceived kings and queens. In order to survive, they concealed many secrets; yet they revealed some, and they stole others. They exposed the methods of mediums and psychics, and they pilfered those of rivals. They engaged in deception, exposure, and betrayal in an ongoing quest to make impossible things happen. And they managed to survive in a modern world of wonders by providing us with a unique kind of wonder.

First, however, we must begin the story, and we cannot begin with the antics of Djedi. After all, this story is fact, not fiction. So the first thing we must do is find a beginning, and if it is not Djedi, then where to start? As it happens, there has long been an alternative. The Westcar Papyrus was not translated for decades, until the end of the nineteenth century. By then, however, histories of magic had already appeared, such as Thomas Frost's The Lives of the Conjurors, which was published in 1876. Knowing nothing of Djedi and his resilient goose, Frost had to begin with a different trick. How, then, according to Frost, did the story of magic begin?

C

A long time ago, in ancient Egypt, there were two men whose names were Moses and Aaron. On one particular day, they were summoned to appear before the Pharaoh. So they went to the palace and stood before the Pharaoh. And they performed a miraculous feat with a stick.

Aaron cast his rod to the ground, and it transformed into a serpent. So the Pharaoh summoned his local magicians, and they performed a similar feat. Aaron proceeded to turn the waters of the Nile into blood, and then he made a plague of frogs appear. And, according to the book of Exodus, the Egyptian magicians did the same.

At the end of the nineteenth century, before the Westcar Papyrus was translated, we thought that the first recorded magic trick was a rod that transformed into a serpent. Thomas Frost did not explain how it was done, though he believed that it required "a high degree of skill." However, Henry Ridgely Evans, who wrote the next history of magic, suggested a theory. The rod, he reckoned, was not really a rod but a hypnotized serpent, stiff as a pole, which awoke from its trance when it hit the ground. This, they reckoned, was the first recorded magic trick, but Aaron was not the first magician. It was the Egyptian magicians, who did the same afterward, who were given credit for the first illusion. Aaron's version did not count, because it was considered a genuine miracle.

If you want to understand the history of magic, then you need to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, as this story reveals, this is not so easy. Of course, you must consider the reliability of the sources, but people interpret these differently. In the case of the Westcar Papyrus, for example, you merely need to take a closer look to see that it is a series of fables. However, in the case of the Bible, many people believe that it is true. Thus, what some regard as fiction, others believe to be real. Indeed, when the early histories of magic were being written, this was the standard view. It was believed that Moses and Aaron could perform miracles, but as heathens, the Egyptian magicians could not. Hence the conclusion that they resorted to trickery.

This made sense at the time, though it now seems a rather odd conclusion. But we always interpret the past in a way that fits with our present assumptions. We do this now, we did it then, and we did it long before. A few centuries earlier, for example, early modern folk took a different view. Like the Victorians, they believed in miracles, but most of them also believed in witchcraft. So when they discussed the book of Exodus, they considered other options. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, demonologists were eager to stress the dangers of witchcraft. In order to convince folk that witchcraft was real, they appealed to what everyone then regarded as the most reliable source: the Bible. In short, if witchcraft was in the Bible, then witchcraft must be real. And, according to the demonologists, the first case of witchcraft was when the Egyptian magicians managed to duplicate the miracles of Aaron.

However, while most early modern folk believed that witchcraft was real, some were skeptical. These skeptics saw innocent people being persecuted, subjected to torture and sometimes death, and they tried to persuade the majority that witchcraft was a delusion. But they did not question the accuracy of the Bible, so they had to provide an explanation for how the Egyptian magicians did what they did. Their strategy was to make the case that these were merely magic tricks. In an attempt to make this more convincing, some suggested how the tricks were done.

According to one skeptic, Thomas Ady, the first feat was accomplished by using "slight of hand to throw down an artificial Serpent instead of his staffe." Another skeptic, John Webster, added a few more details. He claimed that the fake snake was made of "painted linen, perfectly resembling a serpent, with Eyes and all." And, to make it seem more lifelike, "with the wiar . . . he maketh it to move." How, we might wonder, did he manage to duplicate the other miracles of Aaron? "As for the changing water into blood, and the producing of Frogs," Webster continued, "they were so easy to be done after the same manner, that they need not any particular explication."

Now, you...

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Verlag
TarcherPerigee
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0143130633
ISBN 13 
9780143130635
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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Hamburg
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