history. By downplaying biography, his-
torical trends are clearer and are analyzed
in more depth. Lamont’s expertise in psy-
chology shines as the authors effectively
convey what is and isn’t timeless in the
appeal of magic tricks.
Fittingly, the book opens with a de-
ception. Instead of perpetuating the myth
of two alleged ancient Egyptian magic
performances, the authors end up criticiz-
ing prior historians for taking them seri-
ously. One, the tale of Dedi, or “Djedi”, is
from an ancient papyrus scroll of fables.
The other is from the Bible, which they
critique while introducing The Secret His-
tory of Magic’stheme: that how magic is
perceived depends on the context in
which it is presented, whether as miracle,
fraud, or good or bad entertainment.
From there they move to the allega-
tions of persecutions of magical enter-
tainers for supernatural powers, which
mostly stop in the early 19th century.
These stories, too, are debunked, prima-
rily as based on a misreading of sources,
even before the modern era: “From Plato
to Augustine, we get the same picture
of...audiences who were aware that they
were being tricked.” Lamont and Stein-
meyer suggest that Reginald Scot’s in-
fluential 1584 Discoverie of Witchcraft
exaggerated prosecution claims as
“rhetoric.” Close reading of Scot, and of
later alleged prosecutions, suggests that
most criminal charges were for concur-
rent crimes, not for the performance of
magic tricks by themselves. (Often, it was
for the claimof having real magic pow-
ers). The myth of entertainers being pros-
ecuted is buttressed by other evidence,
such as the anti-witchcraft tract Malleus
Maleficarumhaving a caveat in support of
sleight of hand entertainers, and recently
discovered evidence of a king infamous
for his anti-witch zealotry hiring an en-
tertainer specializing in legerdemain.
A chapter discussing magicians and
the scientific revolution may be of par-
ticular interest to readers of Skeptic.
Natural philosophers David Hume and
Antoine Lavoisier, the printing press, and
the premiere of the Encyclopedia Britan-
nicaall contextualize magicians begin-
ning to market their entertainments as
“rational recreation,” using science (or
scripts about science) to sidestep accusa-
tions of triviality.
Was “The Father of Modern Magic”
another myth? No other magician re-
ceives more than a few pages in Secret
History, making the two chapters on
Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin stand out.
The first is devoted to most of the per-
former and inventor’s life and career,
with the point that we remember him
primarily due to his memoir, which fal-
ters under scrutiny. The authors largely
agree with Houdini’s infamous assess-
ment that his namesake was not as pio-
neering in presentational content or
style as is claimed in his memoir, and by
most subsequent histories.
Did Robert-Houdin use theatrical de-
ception to intimidate superstitious colo-
nial subjects? The authors applaud the
technology of electromagnetism, and pre-
sentational skill, of the trick he famously
used in Algiers in 1856, but according to
them it was likely only perceived as enter-
tainment. First, his performance was in a
modern theater, not spontaneous. Con-
trary to the memoir, there was no colonial
rebellion going on in Algiers at the time,
and diplomatic sources, not surprisingly,
barely mention Robert-Houdin’s perform-
ance. With these and other factors in
mind, the authors conclude their discus-
sion of Robert-Houdin with the statement
that subsequent historians have read his
memoirs uncritically because, as with
some ancient tales, stage magicians
wanted a founding myth.
Two chapters on magicians of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries focus
on the magic acts of traveling variety
shows and the also new “great man” led
full evening “illusion” shows. The au-
thors note that neither could have devel-
oped without railroads. Large scale
magic tricks go back to at least the 16th
century, but were not common features
of magic shows until three centuries
later, and the technology which magi-
cians used to create them is discussed.
The use of women as on-stage assistants
was new at this time, and came after the
appearance of showgirls in other shows.
The authors suggest that correlation is
causation when noting that the iconic
trick of the damsel in distress beingsawed in half successfully debuted dur-
ing the new silent film trend of women
in peril (and as women achieved the
vote in England and the U.S.). Houdini
and other magicians of his age are
mostly confined to these chapters.
Two chapters relate the paranormal
to stage magic. One theme is how spiri-
tual and scientific trends influenced and
contextualized 19th and 20th century
psychic entertainers. For example, mes-
merism influenced spiritualism and psy-
chic phenomena. All three are analyzed
as being more plausible in an age in
which long distance transmission of
sound was new, and psychology was just
emerging as a discipline. Stage magicians
borrowed from each of these, including
secretly using radio technology to simu-
late mindreading. The book’s theme that
context influences perception is repeated:
in the middle of a magic show, a mind
reading trick will be perceived less seri-
ously than when the same trick is per-
formed in a laboratory.
A chapter on the history of small
scale sleight of hand, absent from most
general histories, is a welcome addition
to this one. This discussion is enlivened
by the integration of social history and
aesthetics. The book’s final chapters dis-
cuss issues such as the impact of televi-
sion on stage magic, and the importance,
or lack thereof, of magic secrets. I espe-
cially appreciated their paragraph on the
iconic (and rare) rabbit from a top hat
trick in pop culture.
The best trick in the book is its inter-
weaving of history with psychology. Previ-
ous historians citation of the Bible as a
source justifies the current author’s dis-
cussion of it, but their tone paradoxically
combines empathy and scorn, such as “If
we had lived [in the 17th century] we
would have believed in God.” The assess-
ment of truth claims recurs throughout
The Secret History of Magic, from the analy-
sis of ancient texts to the English Royal
Society’s early struggle with epistemology
and the complicated rise of the scientific
study of the paranormal. Controversial
anecdotes of magical feats are analyzed
throughout the text, and the authors
training and expertise qualifies them
to assert that tricks that they “cannotR E V I E W S
6 0 S K E P T I C M A G A Z I N E volume 25 number 1 2020