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Magic by Misdirection

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Magic by Misdirection
FitzkeeMisdirection.JPG
Image Courtesy of ProfB
AuthorDariel Fitzkee
PublisherSaint Raphael House
Publication Date1945
LanguageEnglish
Preceded byThe Trick Brain
 

Magic by Misdirection was part of a trilogy of books on the theory of magic by Dariel Fitzkee.

The other two were The Trick Brain and Showmanship for Magicians.

Reviewed in Genii 1945 December

Content

Introduction

  • Which is the cart and which is the horse
  • Exposing the wheels
  • Made to measure tricks
  • Hand-me-downs in magic
  • Are the classics best?
  • What makes a trick great? Life
  • Seven corpses
  • Peregrinating professors
  • A "classic" is born
  • Classics, capability and cads
  • Blockbusting old ideas
  • The spectator's think-tank
  • Seeing and believing

Chapter I: Real Secrets of Magic

  • Taking up where we left off
  • New gods for old
  • Exposing the exposure
  • Skill or duffer
  • Giving the bird to the bird cage
  • Aren't we all duffers?
  • Ignoring the important
  • True skill
  • The real secrets of magic
  • False whiskers and attention
  • True or false

Chapter II: The Importance of Interpretation

  • More of the same
  • Exposure is impossible
  • Can you read a magician's mind?
  • The performer paints his own picture
  • Interpretation to confound
  • Conviction
  • By these signs ye shall know them
  • Acting-Diebox deception.

Chapter III: Conviction and Naturalness

  • The important ingredients
  • If you believe it, it's so
  • Convince yourself
  • Spectator instinct
  • Naturalness
  • How to convince without argument
  • Disguise and attention
  • Attention control comes forward
  • Reasons
  • The importance of convincing yourself

Chapter IV: What Actually Deceives the Spectator

  • Money to burn
  • Marked and borrowed, but found in an impossible place
  • Behind the scenes
  • The plant
  • Pilferage
  • Disappearing rubber
  • No machinery necessary
  • All through psychology
  • The spectator's viewpoint
  • Disguise and attention
  • Money cheerfully refunded

Chapter V: The Psychological Expedients

  • Through the microscope
  • Simulation
  • Dissimulation
  • Interpretation
  • Maneuver
  • Pretense
  • Ruse
  • Anticipation
  • Disguise
  • Diversion
  • Monotony
  • Premature consummation
  • Confusion
  • Suggestion
  • Disguise plus disguise plus attention control
  • And more of the same

Chapter VI: Reaching the Spectator's Mind

  • The attack on the spectator's understanding
  • External appearances and interpretation
  • Suggestion and implication
  • Danger in the direct statement
  • You can't force the spectator's conclusions
  • Inducement and persuasion
  • Confusion with a bank note
  • Deduction versus induction

Chapter VII: Processes Within the Spectator's Mind

  • The spectator must be deceived
  • The spectator's perceptions
  • The mind, only, perceives
  • The spectator's consciousness
  • Magicians must attack the spectator's understanding
  • Mind stimuli and idea association
  • The spectator's mind is not a pushover
  • He is consciously intelligent
  • Details do the trick

Chapter VIII: The Importance of the Norm

  • How the spectator views the performer's appearance
  • The important norm
  • Discord brings damaging attention
  • Characteristic naturalness
  • Bewilderment not deception
  • Disguise
  • Dice and rabbits
  • Palming a card
  • Diversion
  • The importance of naturalness

Chapter IX: The Norm in Speech

  • Speech in deception
  • The norm in speech patterns
  • Variations "telegraph"
  • What as well as how
  • Subject matter norm
  • Undue emphasis
  • The strength of implication
  • An example with bonds
  • With tubes
  • The norm in attitude
  • What magic really is
  • Imitation magic
  • Speech in attention diversion
  • The scorched thumb
  • Any solution destroys deception
  • Things important to the magician

Chapter X: The Norm in Properties

  • Properties in deception
  • Familiar things accepted more quickly
  • Handling for deception
  • A lesson from Kellar
  • Pulling the lesson apart
  • Applying the Kellar lesson
  • Tricky appearance destroys deception
  • A general idea satisfies the spectator
  • Strengthening deception by appearance of properties

Chapter XI: Disguise and Attention Control

  • The magician has but two courses
  • Disguise and attention control
  • With a changing bag
  • How important does it seem to the magician?
  • Substituting a stronger interest
  • Disguise in many forms
  • Physical and psychological disguise
  • Frames, stocks, bottles and miscellany
  • The effectiveness of mixing the true with the false
  • A magician's tool does not deceive
  • Disguising the tool

Chapter XII: Simulation

  • Harping on an old obsession
  • The true spectator response
  • We can only baffle
  • Seeing versus thinking
  • Simulation
  • The necessary support to simulation
  • Bowls, egg bags, cigarettes, cards, ropes, turbans, billets, rings, eggs
  • Ultimately all is acting

Chapter XIII: Dissimulation

  • Dissimulation
  • Acting again
  • Special decks
  • Preparing for dissimulation
  • More rising cards
  • Bottles, clocks, production boxes, egg bags
  • Dissimulation with cards
  • Distinctions
  • Many disguises

Chapter XIV: Maneuver

  • Maneuver for deception
  • An example with bottle
  • A routined series of movements
  • Maneuver with cards
  • Maneuver as used by Al Baker
  • The distinction

Chapter XV: Ruse

  • The ruse in deception
  • Purposes disguised
  • With billiard balls
  • With tied thumbs
  • Ruse with card sleights
  • In a divination effect
  • Illusions, cards, silks

Chapter XVI: Suggestion and Inducement

  • Disguise in many forms
  • Suggestion and inducement
  • Disguised force
  • The hypnotic process
  • In mind reading
  • Breaking a pencil
  • Oranges, bills, bells, beads, pegs, balls

Chapter XVII: Attention Control

  • Attention control
  • Misdirection
  • Many forms of control
  • Anticipation
  • Premature consummation
  • Monotony
  • Confusion
  • Diversion
  • Specific direction
  • Anticipation with cards
  • Varied examples
  • Tricks and illusions with attention control

Chapter XVIII: Anticipation

  • Spectator attention
  • The manner of controlling attention
  • To accomplish interest
  • Suspense
  • Animation
  • Detail on attention control
  • Anticipating the attention
  • Cups, balls, cards, running up decks
  • Fire and water

Chapter XIX: Relaxation, Monotony, Confusion

  • Premature consummation and Kellar's use of it
  • Stephen Shepard and his bird cage
  • Stripped of all illusions
  • With six silk handkerchiefs
  • The performer must set the pattern for the spectator
  • Thought force is concrete
  • The language of the mind
  • Monotony
  • Examples by Leslie Guest
  • Confusion
  • Balls, finales, rings, pellets coins
  • Confusion a la Blackstone
  • Keep it quiet

Chapter XX: Diversion and Distraction

  • Diversion for deception
  • With a handkerchief and a wine glass
  • Details
  • The power of suggestion
  • Specific detail
  • The most subtle stratagem
  • Its mechanics
  • Bowls, bat loads, cards, eggs, chickens
  • Leslie Guest again
  • With a rabbit
  • Distraction
  • Beware repetition
  • Clocks, girls, trunks

Chapter XXI: Samples of Attention Control

  • Attention control stratagems in action
  • Stephen Shepard and a tall glass
  • Madison with a pack of cards
  • An idea from seeing Tommy Martin
  • Cards to the pocket
  • Levitation
  • Switching the judge

Chapter XXII: Real Deception

  • Real skill in magic
  • Pulling levers
  • Banish the goofs
  • Psychology is the first requirement
  • Pulling the tricks apart
  • Planning the procedure
  • Misdirection covers weak spots
  • Misdirection aids interpretation
  • Multitudes of examples
  • Good deception is fundamentally good acting

Chapter XXIII: The Most Important Skill

  • Strong support
  • Robert-Houdin
  • Why never to reveal in advance
  • H J Burlingame
  • Nevil Maskelyne
  • Why never to repeat
  • Underestimated intelligence
  • Repetition
  • The card sharper
  • Deception for keeps
  • Scarne's greatest skill
  • Learn from the real masters
  • The real secrets of magic

Courtesy of Doug A's Magic Book TOCs

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