Somebody has played us for a bunch of April fools. The joker in the pack of performers was never discovered. A ll of the tricks of the magician can be reduced to seven basic effects. These include a disappearance , an appearance , a transposition of objects , a physical change in an object , an apparent defiance of natural law , an invisible source of motion , and mental phenomena . In the production of these effects the advance of magic has kept pace with science.
Many modern tricks use radio-control, electronics, and magnetic induction principles.
In addition to misdirection, the magician uses two other basic methods in the production of his pseudo-miracles. There are, in fact, over thirty methods of stage camouflage, some of them quite complex. These secrets are carefully guarded by the profession since they represent investments of many thousands of dollars. The final principle is simply the use of a little-known scientific law or bit of knowledge. These stunts work themselves.