The Globe and Mail - 22.02.2020

SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O OPINION | O9

‘W

hat’s old is new, and
what’s new is old” is an
appropriate aphorism
for magic – that is, for conjuring.
It was true for the first golden
age of magic – roughly 1880-1930,
as depicted in the chromolitho-
graphs on display at the Art Gal-
lery of Ontario, drawn from the
Allan Slaight Collection at the
McCord Museum in Montreal.
And it remains true for what can
be described as the current gold-
en age, ushered in by Canadian
magician Doug Henning through
his television specials in the early
1970s.
As every culture, every society,
every country seems to have its
own form of magic, magic was
and is a global phenomenon. So
much so that Charles Carter, for
example, carted 31 tons of equip-
ment over the course of seven
world tours between 1907 and

1936. And the tricks – the effects –
      magicians perform today are es-
      sentially the same because, like
      notes on a musical scale, there are
      only eight basic effects. The first
      four are the ability to make things
      disappear and reappear; to trans-
      form a person or object into
      something else; to make a person
      or object pass through or pene-
      trate something; and to suspend
      the law of gravity. The remaining
      four effects are based on purport-
      ed psychic phenomena: divina-
      tion, clairvoyance, telepathy and
      telekinesis.
      Interestingly, these effects can
      be used for good or evil. Teleport-
      ing a playing card to an unexpect-
      ed location can generate much
      mirth – but it can also determine
      who receives a winning hand in a
      game of Texas Hold’em. One can
      divine another’s innermost
      thoughts on stage in a grand feat
      of entertainment, or use that
      same skill to “advise” (more cor-
      rectly, direct) a bereaved soul in
      deeply personal areas of love, life
      and financial affairs. The desire
      for spiritual advisers was particu-
      larly rampant in times of global
      conflict, such as the First World
      War. This same need for counsel is
      just as prevalent today as people
      seek answers to what magicians
      remind us in these posters are
      “the most enduring questions of
      all time.”
      Today, the internet facilitates
      fraud and deceit; back then, magi-
      cians had to work at it. Unscrupu-
      lous operators would draw on in-
      formation assembled and traded
      among spirit mediums, the same
      way a scouting report is used to
      size up promising athletes, as the

fraudsters moved from town to

town. A popular ruse was posing

as a door-to-door Bible salesper-

son. More often than not, the

fraudster would be given access to

the family Bible. A quick peek

would reveal branches of a family

tree with more than enough per-

sonal information for a spirit me-

dium to establish their creden-

tials. Today, it’s just a few clicks

away using ancestry.com.

Magicians were masters of cul-

tural appropriation. There are

many examples in the exhibition,

particularly of Western magicians

portraying themselves as Asian –

both onstage and off – capitaliz-

ing on the then-burgeoning inter-

est in all things exotic. My favou-

rite: Fu Manchu, the onstage per-

sona of David Bamberg, an

eighth-generation Dutch-Jewish

magician who was raised in the

United States and educated in En-

gland and found fame in South

America performing as a Chinese

magician who spoke Spanish.

(Not to be confused with the vil-

lainous Dr. Fu Manchu of Sax

Rohmer’s novels and the films

starring Christopher Lee.)

Appropriation, however, is a

two-way street. To the best of our

knowledge, the Chinese Linking

Rings is not Chinese, it’s Italian.

And today, most who perform the

feat employ technique and chore-

ography first created in the 1930s

by Canadian magician Dai Ver-

non. So magicians, then and now,

“sample” material, borrowing

from each other, sometimes with

credit, usually without, and al-

most never with compensation.

My own sense is that this “creative

commons” dilutes the power and

promise of the craft, both within

and outside the community.

As an aside, you don’t see

much, if any, magic appropriated

from First Nations. Perhaps that’s

because their sense of magic is of-

ten rooted in nature. When Mr.

Henning, for example, performed

his floating ball, where a large sil-

ver sphere floated around the

stage on a tour of the Arctic, he

was surprised by the lack of re-

sponse it generated. When he

questioned community elders

about it after the show, he learned

that, although the audience en-

joyed the performance, they be-

lieved it paled in comparison to

the spectacle of the floating ball

they see every day – namely, the

sun, as it rises and sets. And they

were right.

And then there’s outright theft.

In the first golden age, magicians

such as Harry Kellar often stole se-

crets through industrial espion-

age. Wanting the secret to the lev-

itation, Kellar hired Paul Valadon,

who had worked backstage for

John Nevil Maskelyne, the inven-

tor of the piece. Then, once he

knew the secret, he dismissed Va-

ladon from his employ.

Today, you can find an explana-

tion of how to make someone

float in a few keystrokes. Spoiler

alert: Most explanations of magi-

cal effects posted online are incor-

rect. This is not surprising. The re-

al secrets are hard to describe be-

cause, essentially, magic is the cu-

mulative effect of hundreds of

apparently inconsequential de-

tails. These details fall within the

rubric of Michael Polanyi’s con-

cept of tacit knowledge – the hard

to describe but ever so essential

details that are usually transmit-

ted through apprenticeship or

mentorship.

Also, magicians lie. Believe me.

We just can’t help it. By delivering

false narratives with conviction

and using the power of suggestion

to anchor false memories into the

minds of the audience, magi-

cians, then and now, were/are

purveyors of “fake news.” Take,

for example, the Indian Rope

Trick. In this effect, the magician

causes a rope to levitate into the

sky, then instructs a boy to climb

up the floating rope. But, to the

dismay of the magician, the boy

vanishes. The magician scurries

up the rope with a scimitar in

hand to find the child, then chops

the boy’s body to bits, which then

fall to the ground! Once the magi-

cian returns to the ground, he

places the boy’s body parts into a

basket, then miraculously con-

jures the boy back, whole and

alive. Talk about an effect! Unfor-

tunately, it never happened – at

least not like that, although

scores of people swear they saw it

performed on the streets in India.

So, fake news then. Fake news

now. At least, as master magician

Karl Germain quipped, magic is

the most honest of professions: A

magician promises to deceive

you, then does so. Politicians?

Master magicians of the first

golden age were also masters of

that era’s social media. Houdini,

after being nestled beside U.S.

president Theodore Roosevelt in

a group shot, had the photo al-

tered to remove the others – pho-

to-shopping before Photoshop –

then distributed the doctored

photo to the media as though it

were a “selfie” with his good

friend Roosevelt.

Houdini was also the progeni-

tor of the “flash mob.” Spreading

the word that he would perform a

dangerous feat, such as escaping

from a straitjacket “used on the

criminally insane” while hanging

upside down from a flagpole atop

one of those newfangled sky-

scrapers, Houdini would attract

crowds in the tens of thousands.

George Bernard Shaw once de-

scribed Houdini as one of the

three most famous people in the

world, the other two being Jesus

Christ and Sherlock Holmes – and

two of them were fictitious.

Finally, here are two major dif-

ferences between then and now.

Today, if a magician portrays

himself or herself in a poster with

an imp whispering secrets into

their ear, the magician is likely to

hear complaints about importing

or supporting demonic spirits in

the workplace. I speak from expe-

rience. Back then, the general

public, or even organized reli-

gious groups, showed little con-

cern that the devils depicted in

magic posters were doing just

that.

Second, there was little pre-

occupation with “fooling them,”

as there is today. Today, most ma-

gicians present their feats as puz-

zles to challenge the uninitiated

rather than communicate a sense

of wonder or put forward a view of

the beauty in the mysterious, feel-

ings and sensations that Roger Fry

and Clive Bell may have riffed on

in their exploration of aesthetic

emotion. But make no mistake,

the best in magic does just that.

Magic can evoke emotion – an

aesthetic emotion, the same gen-

erated by a painting by David

Milne, Emily Carr or Lawren Har-

ris – if presented properly and if

the audience is willing to take

time to savour it. This is more

challenging in the digital age,

when people prefer answers im-

mediately – even if they are based

on false memories and narratives

• rather than embark on a journey
  to the realization that perhaps
  there are some things better left
  unexplained.

AdolphFriedlander,ComediansdeMephistoCo.AlliedwithLeRoy-Talma-Bosco,1905.Everyculture,societyandcountryappearstohaveitsownformofmagic.©McCORDMUSEUM

HOCUSPOCUS

Beforetheinternetgaveeveryonethetoolstodeceive,magiciansweremasters

ofmysteryandmisinformation–andatleasttheaudiencewasusuallyinontheact

DAVIDBEN

OPINION

ArtisticdirectorofMagicanaand
aguestcuratorofIllusions:TheArt
ofMagic,whichopenedatthe
ArtGalleryofOntarioonFeb.22

Magicianslie.

Believeme.

Wejustcan’thelpit.

Bydeliveringfalse

narrativeswith

convictionandusing

thepowerofsuggestion

toanchorfalse

memoriesintothe

mindsoftheaudience,

magicians,then

andnow,were/are

purveyorsof

‘fakenews.’

KellarandHisPerplexingCabinetMysteries,1894,StrobridgeLithographingCo.©McCORDMUSEUM