I have just concluded my series on misdirection and I was looking through my earlier postings, namely, “How To Do Magic Tricks #7 – Principles and Techniques Used in Performing Magic”. In that articles I mentioned about the four principles of how to do magic tricks, namely, “The Principle of Force”, “The Art of Misdirection”, “Verbal Manipulation” and “The Art of Sleight of Hands”. I have also submitted an article on that topic to Ezine Articles and upon comparison, I found that the article that was submitted to Ezine Articles was clearer and more concise. I am therefore re-posting my article here for reference.

How to Do Magic Tricks – Four Key Principles

Have you ever wondered how magic tricks work? As an ignorant child, I was told by my brother that magicians have very fast hands. The magician’s hands move so fast that you cannot see it. Otherwise, magic tricks are done by using camera tricks. To say that a magician uses camera tricks to perform his magic would have been one of the greatest insults directed at a magician. This is as good as saying that the magician is unskillful and uses the camera to deceive the audience. You do not need a magician to do that. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can perform magic using camera tricks.

Generally, magicians design and perform their magic tricks by operating according to a few principles. They are the principles of force, misdirection and verbal manipulation. Besides these, magicians spend a great amount of time practicing what is known as the sleight of hands. These are skillful hand movements used to conceal, deceive and confuse what the hands are actually doing. It is not true like what my brother told me that magicians have hands that move so fast to a point that the movement is invisible to the audience. Although certain sleight of hands do require the hand movements to be quick but most other sleights do not necessarily require quick hand movements. Sleights done skillfully can be performed before your very eyes and you will not notice what has been done. Some master magicians who possessed such skills are Tony Slydini and Dai Vernon.

The principle of force as the word implies, forces the audience to make a selection that is predetermined by the magician himself. This can be done in many ways. Where counting and mathematics is involved, the magician is using some mathematical formula that work out to a unique answer. Otherwise, it can be done using a gimmick such as a trick deck. Most of the time, it is pure sleight of hands where playing cards are involved. A force is used particularly in magic tricks where the magician tells you what you have selected such as a card or a word from certain pages of a book.

The principle of misdirection aims at directing the audience attention away from what the magician is actually doing. Simply said, it is misleading you to look away in another direction from where the magician is doing his stuff. The master of misdirection is the late Tony Slydini, possibly the only person who could still fool the late Dai Vernon (master of sleight of hands). One of the way where misdirection operates is to use big hand movement and looking at the movement of the hand intently. This is a body language that will naturally lead the audience to look in the same direction as you (the magician) are looking. At this moment, you (the magician) will be able to do what you need to do quickly with the other hand where the audience is not looking. I have noticed that Tony Slydini often confused his audience by making repeated hand movements. While the audience suspected him to do something with a certain hand movement, he had not done anything absolutely. However, during one of those times when he repeated the same movement, he would have done something sneaky when the audience had dropped their guard after seeing the same movement several times. Tony Slydini is known not to use any gimmicks in performing his magic tricks. He relies purely on misdirection and his sleight of hands.

Finally, magicians use verbal manipulation to talk you into doing what he wants you to do as well as convincing you of what he has done and predicted. It is like saying nothing and yet seems like having said everything at the same time. The use of verbal manipulation is also another way to operate the principle of force. Fortune tellers and spiritual mediums often use such skills to deceive people who seek guidance from them. Witches back in the dark ages who were burned may not necessarily truly know the art of black magic but merely convinces people of their power by using verbal manipulation as well as a combination of the above principles.

In my next posting, I will cover on the “Principle of Force” in how to do magic tricks.

If you wish to watch more of Tony Slydini’s magic tricks and to learn the secrets behind these magic tricks, you can find them in this almost 2-hour long Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD .

In this DVD (Slydini Lecture), Jim Cellini (Slydini’s disciple) performed the following magic tricks designed by Slydini.

1. Slydini Silks Routine.
2. Cut and Restored Rope.
3. Vanishing Silk.
4. Chinese Linking Rings.
5. Paperbox and Balls Routine.
6. Coins Through Table.
7. Silk Fountain (performed by Jim Cellini’s wife).

You may want to get this 312-page book. “Slydini Book, Annotated Magic of” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them.

Following these performances, Jim Cellini proceeded to explain each magic trick with the exception of the Chinese Linking Rings and the Silk Fountain. Anyway, the secret behind the Chinese Linking Rings is the same to any other magic performance using Chinese Linking Rings. In fact at one point, he carelessly exposed one of the ring’s opening at the early stage of the performance. The Silk Fountain performed by Jim Cellini’s wife was not skillful enough. For those who are fairly experienced with knowing how to do magic tricks will be able to figure out how this magic trick is done. If not, just watch closely several times and you will be able to figure them out by yourself. She is not experienced enough and her lack of proficiency in her sleight of hands actually gave away the secret of the magic trick. May be that was why the secret to this magic trick was not explained in this DVD. 

For the “Coins Through Table” magic trick, Jim Cellini explained in detail the ‘7 coins routine”, “6 coins routine”, “4 coins routine”, “2 coins routine” and “1 coin routine”. He covered the subtlety of the hand movements Slydini made and how he personally modified them for himself, as well as how to create the sound of the coins penetrating through the table and falling into the hand under the table. He went on to discuss an unpublished “Unique Coin Routine” which is the one where Slydini fooled Dai Vernon. I have left out the explanation in my earlier posting for this magic trick. Please refer to “How to do magic tricks #9 -  Slydini’s The Helicopter Card”.

The invaluable part of this DVD lies on the discussion that went beyond how each magic trick was performed. Jim Cellini covered quite a lot of important information on how Slydini taught him on his body, hands and legs movement on stage, how to sit in such a way so that the lapping technique can be done efficiently and effectively. These lessons are hard to illustrate in books and are seldom taught in any media. 

Jim Cellini explained many magic tricks performed by Slydini in which Jim Cellini did not perform in this DVD such as the cigarette magic tricks. He also told how these magic tricks came into existence.

Some unexpected bonuses are stories about Tony Slydini and Dai Vernon’s relationship, Slydini’s way of looking at magic and how he designed his magic tricks. Jim Cellini told how Slydini designed a card magic as Slydini performed it to Harry Lorayne by using his unique way of performing magic. It was quite hilarious.

The only pity is that you do not get to watch any footage of Slydini in this DVD. However, the materials in this DVD are first class. If you want to watch more of Slydini’s footage, you will get a lot of them in this two-disc DVD set, “As I Recall (2 DVD Set) – Tony Slydini”. You will also get to see Slydini’s students perform and explain some of Slydini’s tricks which include those other magic tricks by Slydini that are not performed in the “Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD”. 

Here are some video clips from this 2-disc DVD set.

Perhaps you may ask, “Why can’t I find all of Slydini’s magic tricks performed and explained all in one DVD?” First of all, I did not produce them. And that is how the way the market operates. Have you ever found a CD of your favourite artiste’s with all his or her songs recorded in it? Never!  

If you really want to know all about Slydini’s magic trick, you may want to get this 312-page book. “The Annotated Magic of Slydini” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them. I do believe that you can find the secret to Slydini’s “Helicopter Card” in here.