Every year, magic gains popularity because it offers more rewards than almost any other hobby. The time spent learning and practicing tricks is a pastime in itself.

Partial Contents: At the Gates of the Supernatural; The Mysteries of the Pyramids; Ancient Oracles, the Sibyls and the Fates; Magic from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the End of the Middle Ages; Supernatural Sciences and Curiosities; General Theory of the Horoscope; General Keys of Astrology. Numerous charts and diagrams. Several rare rituals are included. This massive work on magic should be in every magician's library.

Every year, magic is gaining greater popularity because it offers more rewards than almost any other hobby. The time spent learning tricks, practicing them and working out individual notions is a pastime in itself.

Harry Blackstone was one of the great magicians of the twentieth century. Along with his equally famous peers Houdini and Thurston, Blackstone's feats of legerdemain dazzled audiences around the globe.

The present volume is Blackstone's legacy to the parlor magician. All of the props required can usually be found in the average household and those not easily at hand may be purchased at a neighborhood shop. Indeed, here are 200 tricks... feats of magic... which will mystify and entertain but may be performed in anyone's living room.

88 new tricks (no duplication with Self-Working Card Tricks): impromptu card tricks, telephone tricks, shuffle setups, telepathy with cards, gambling secrets, tricks with torn and folded cards, card-forcing secrets, card tricks with props, vanishing cards, tricks with aces only, card deck that operates like a calculator, more. 96 illustrations.

Highly instructive book analyzes every phase of conjuring-from sleights, devices, misdirection an, controlling audience attention, to incorporating patter and the effective use of assistants. Includes 60 original routines, plus advice for their presentation. For novices and veteran conjurers alike.

Clear explanations and over 70 illustrations demonstrate how to position your hands to make lifelike shadows of a lumbering dinosaur, a pair of playful monkeys, an eagle taking flight, a cat scratching itself, a howling wolf, a neighing horse, a dog that eats a rabbit, and many other figures. Good advice also on how to organize a performance of your own shadow art.

Easy-to-master crowd-pleasing tricks, require a deck of cards and offer beginners experience in handling an audience. Instructions.

From risque cabaret performances to engrossing after-hours shop talk, "Trade of the Tricks" offers an unprecedented look inside the secretive subculture of modern magicians. Entering the flourishing Paris magic scene as an apprentice, Graham M. Jones gives a firsthand account of how magicians learn to perform their astonishing deceptions. He follows the day-to-day lives of some of France's most renowned performers, revealing not only how secrets are created and shared, but also how they are stolen and destroyed. In a book brimming with humor and surprise, Jones shows how today's magicians marshal creativity and passion in striving to elevate their amazing skill into high art. The book's lively cast of characters includes female and queer performers whose work is changing the face of a historically masculine genre.

From risque cabaret performances to engrossing after-hours shop talk, "Trade of the Tricks" offers an unprecedented look inside the secretive subculture of modern magicians. Entering the flourishing Paris magic scene as an apprentice, Graham M. Jones gives a firsthand account of how magicians learn to perform their astonishing deceptions. He follows the day-to-day lives of some of France's most renowned performers, revealing not only how secrets are created and shared, but also how they are stolen and destroyed. In a book brimming with humor and surprise, Jones shows how today's magicians marshal creativity and passion in striving to elevate their amazing skill into high art. The book's lively cast of characters includes female and queer performers whose work is changing the face of a historically masculine genre.

An illustrated, illuminating insight into the world of illusion from the world's greatest and most successful magician, capturing its audacious and inventive practitioners, and showcasing the art form's most famous artifacts housed at David Copperfield's secret museum. In this personal journey through a unique and remarkable performing art, David Copperfield profiles twenty-eight of the world's most groundbreaking magicians. From the 16th-century magistrate who wrote the first book on conjuring to the roaring twenties and the man who fooled Houdini, to the woman who levitated, vanished, and caught bullets in her teeth, David Copperfield's History of Magic takes you on a wild journey through the remarkable feats of the greatest magicians in history. These magicians were all outsiders in their own way, many of them determined to use magic to escape the strictures of class and convention. But they all transformed popular culture, adapted to social change, discovered the inner workings of the human mind, embraced the latest technological and scientific discoveries, and took the art of magic to unprecedented heights. The incredible stories are complimented by over 100 never-before-seen photographs of artifacts from Copperfield's exclusive Museum of Magic, including a 16th-century manual on sleight of hand, Houdini's straightjackets, handcuffs, and water torture chamber, Dante's famous sawing-in-half apparatus, Alexander's high-tech turban that allowed him to read people's minds, and even some coins that may have magically passed through the hands of Abraham Lincoln. By the end of the book, you'll be sure to share Copperfield's passion for the power of magic.

Clear diagrams and step-by-step instructions for performing 18 simple feats of prestidigitation: Strength Test, Untangled, Elastic Lock, Mystic Spinner, Rollaway, Heavyset, The Great Escape and many more, using such ordinary objects as coins, rubber bands and string.

Derren Brown's television and stage performances have entranced and dumbfounded millions. His baffling illusions and stunning set pieces - such as The Seance, Russian Roulette and The Heist - have set new standards of what's possible, as well as causing more than their fair share of controversy. Now, for the first time, he reveals the secrets behind his craft, what makes him tick and just why he grew that beard. Tricks of the Mind takes you on a journey into the structure and pyschology of magic. Derren teaches you how to read clues in people's behaviour and spot liars. He discusses the whys and wherefores of hypnosis and shows how to do it. And he investigates the power of suggestion and how you can massively improve your memory. He also takes a long hard look at the paranormal industry and why some of us feel the need to believe in it in the first place. Alternately hilarious, controversial and challenging, Tricks of the Mind is essential reading for Derren's legions of fans, and pretty bloody irresistible even if you don't like him that much... HIS NEW BOOK, A LITTLE HAPPIER: NOTES FOR REASSURANCE IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW.

This is the story of the Golden Age of magic and of the world's most legendary magicians: the eccentric personalities who patented the first ghost and competed fiendishly in the race to make things materialize, levitate and disappear. We meet Harry Kellar, the ruthless thief of secrets who was the model for the Wizard of Oz, and PT Selbit, the first man to saw a woman in half on stage. We meet John Nevil Maskelyne, whose Egyptian Theatre was a London institution for sixty years. Hiding the Elephant is the masterwork of a man who has dedicated his life to magic, who knows the tricks inside out, and still believes.

When twenty-something James Valentine pays an unscheduled visit to a fortune teller in Whitby, he is told that he's going to meet three women that will influence his life in ways that he could never imagine! It's the fabulously funny story of a struggling magician trying to find true love somewhere amongst the gay bars, working men's clubs and cake shops of a West Yorkshire town. A fruit cake, an International drugs dealer and the Heimlich Manoeuvre play pivotal roles in this tale of romantic failure set during the 80's in the un-glamourous locale of Huddersfield.