Accordingly, the conjurer whose object it is to deceive does so by creating an interest in some unimportant detail, while he is performing the real trick before your eyes without your noticing it. He looks intently at his extended right hand, involuntarily carrying your eyes to the same spot while he is doing the trick with the unobserved left hand. The conjuror's wand is extremely serviceable in directing the spectator's attention to the place where the performer desires to have it.[1] So, again, when engrossed in work, we are oblivious to the knock at the door or the ringing of the dinner-bell. An absent-minded person is one so entirely "present-minded" to one train of thought that other impressions are unperceived. The pickpocket is psychologist enough to know that at the depot, the theatre, or wherever one's attention is sharply focused in one direction, is his best opportunity for carrying away your watch. It is in the negative field of attention that deception effects its purpose. Houdin gives it as one of his rules never to announce beforehand the nature of the effect which you intend to produce, so that the spectator may not know where to fix his attention. He also tells us that whenever you count "one, two, three," as preliminary to the disappearance of an object, the real vanishing must take place before you say "three," for the audience have their attention fixed upon "three," and whatever is done at "one" or "two" entirely escapes their notice. The "patter" or setting of a trick is often the real art about it, because it directs or rather misdirects the attention. When performing before the Arabs, Houdin produced an astounding effect by a very simple trick. Under ordinary circumstances the trick was announced as the changing of the weight of a chest, making it heavy or light at will. The mechanism was simply the attaching and severing of a connection with an electro-magnet. To impress the Arabs, he announced that he could take a man's strength away and restore it again at a moment's notice. At one time the man could raise the chest with ease, but the next he would not have power enough to move it an inch. The trick succeeded as usual, but was changed from conjuring to sorcery—the Arabs declaring him in league with the devil.
The art of misleading the attention is recognized as the point of good conjuring, the analogues of the diplomacy that makes the object of language to conceal thought; and a host of appropriate illustrations might be derived from this field. The little flour-
- ↑ "Again, a mere tap with the wand on any spot, at the same lime looking at it attentively, will infallibly draw the eyes of a whole company in the same direction"—Houdin. Robert Houdin, often termed "the king of the conjurers," was a man of remarkable ingenuityand insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valuable. His conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist, and a reference to his writings will well repay the reader.
