Pages from adventures in magic

ADVENTURES IN MAGIC

By HENRY RIDGELY EVANS, Litt.D. Author of "The Old and the New Magic," "The Napoleon Myth," "House of the Sphinx," "Cagliostro mid His Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry"

NEW YORK

LEO RULLMAN 1927

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ADVENTURES IN MAGIC

By HENRY RIDGELY EVANS, Litt.D. Author of "The Old and the New Magic," "The Napoleon Myth," "House of the Sphinx," "Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry"

NEW YORK

LEO RULLMAN 1927

Copyright, 1927 by HENRY RIDGELY EVANS

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To My Wife FLORENCE KIRKPATRICK EVANS

I Dedicate This Little Book

CONTENTS

PAGE FOREWORD

i

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF NATURAL MAGIC

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOLS OF MAGIC

12

CHAPTER III.

T H E PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGIC

18

CHAPTER IV.

T H E WOES OF WIZARDS

27

CHAPTER V.

T H E WIZARD'S W A N D

30

CHAPTER VI.

A N ANCIENT SLBIGHT-OF-HAND TRICK

34

CHAPTER VII.

T H E CHEVALIER PINETTI

40

T H E PRINCES OF PASTEBOARDS

45

CHAPTER

VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

T H E MASTERS OF MODERN MAGIC

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THE CONJURER From a colored frontispiece in "Ths Universal Conjurer; or. The Whole Art of Legerdemain, etc." London, 1829

FOREWORD Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi.—EDGAR A. POE : Silence—a Fable.

AGIC!—immediately one thinks of the Arabian Nights, where genii are confined in brass bottles; where magic carpets are as common as modern Turkish rugs; where wicked old magicians go up and down the streets crying, "New lamps for old"; and Aladdin palaces are built over night. But necromancy is far older than the era depicted in the Arabian Nights; it dates back to the very dawn of civilization.

Magic in ancient times was closely allied to religion and the practice of the healing art. Egypt, Chaldea, and Babylon were the classic homes of sorcery and magical astrology. The Old Testament contains many allusions to necromancy, as witness the feats attributed to the Egyptian thaumaturgists, and in the story of Saul and the Witch of En-dor. But the leaders of Jewish orthodoxy in those days were opposed to such practices, and went so far as to persecute alleged wizards and witches with fire and sword. "Let no witch escape \" says Holy Writ.

"The old magic," says Dr. Paid Carus, "is sorcery, or considering the impossibility of genuine sorcery, the attempt to practice sorcery. It is based upon the pre-scientific world-conception, which in its primitive stage is called animism, imputing to nature a spiritual life analogous to our own spirit, and peopling the world with individual personalities, spirits, ghosts, goblins, gods, devils, ogres, gnomes, and fairies.''

Some years ago I went to see a performance by the late Imro Fox, a clever conjurer, that pleased me very much. The curtain rose on a gloomy cavern, in the middle of which stood a smoking caldron, fed by witches a la Macbeth. An aged necromancer, habited in a long robe covered with cabalistic characters, entered. He went through certain incantations, whereupon hosts of demons appeared and danced a weird ceremonial dance about the caldron.

Suddenly, amid a crash of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning, the wizard's cave was metamorphosed into a twentieth century drawing-room, fitted up for a conjuring seance; and the decrepit sorcerer was changed into a smiling gentleman in evening dress, who began his up-to-date presentation of modern magic. He disclaimed all pretensions to the occult, and attributed his effects entirely to sleight of hand and ingenious mechanism. In this exhibition was epitomized the entire history of the magic art. Begin-

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ADVENTURES IN MAGIC

ning in ancient times as an actual effort to propitiate the powers of light and darkness, to suspend at will the laws of Nature, to discover the destiny of man in the movements of the stars, to dispel sickness and the plague by incantations, to ward off demoniacal influences and the like, magic gradually assumed its present form as an amusing exhibition based on dexterity of hand and the wonders of optics, acoustics, electricity, and mechanics, with nothing supernatural about it.

Magic is usually divided into (i) White Magic, or the evocation of angels and beneficent powers; (2) Black Magic, or the summoning of demons; and (3) Natural Magic, or feats performed by dexterity and mechanical appliances, etc. Although believing implicitly in white and black magic, the medicine men, spirit doctors, and hierophants of olden times did not disdain to use natural means to overawe and surprise their votaries. In this brochure I purpose discussing natural magic or conjuring, leaving to others the fascinating subject of so-called genuine magic or sorcery.