Magic (illusion)

Techniques

One principle that underlies many magic tricks is misdirection, which is the act of drawing to audience's attention to one location while, in another location, the magician performs a crucial manipulation undetected. For example, during a simple coin trick a magician might pretend to transfer a coin from his left hand to his right, while actually keeping the coin in the left. In order to create misdirection, the fingers of the right hand will appear to close over the coin, and the fist is prominently displayed to the audience; the left hand hangs loosely, as though it were empty.

Some think Misdirection is all on a physical plane, essentially getting a spectator to 'look elsewhere' rather than at the 'secret move'. It can also mean to re-direct or re-structure the spectator's perception of the action taking place. For example, telling a person to look into the empty box when really a secret compartment hides something. the word 'empty' used to restructure their perception of the box. Another example is when placing something from one hand into another accompanied by the appropriate phrase and expression when really the item is not placed where it is said to go. (sidebar: do headlines and sensational journalism misdirect the reader from the more important news info?)

Many different techniques are used to create misdirection, and all require great amounts of practice to perfect. One technique is the use of natural-looking and confident movements, which the magician uses to disguise any surreptitious manipulations (as in the previously described coin trick.) Another technique is the use of a confident flow of chatter from the magician, known as "patter." Patter may take the form of a story, or it may simply be the magician (selectively) narrating the actions being performed. Either way, it directs the attention of the audience wherever the magician wishes.

Another technique of misdirection is the use of optical illusions to hide or displace the location or size of objects. When the sides of a box are painted with concentric rectangles, or a hollow tabletop is beveled so that it is thicker in the center than at the edges, such containers appear to be much thinner than they actually are. These are often used in stage illusions, since they allow an assistant to hide in a space that appears to be too small to fit in, or to turn sideways and assume different positions in a box when there appears be too little room to move.

Apart from misdirection, some magic tricks can be classified by the type of technique used. For example, card magic includes a set of standard techniques for pretending to shuffle a set of cards, concealing cards in the hand (referred to as "palming"), and so forth; coin magic has a similar set of techniques for hiding and transferring coins. However, the majority of magic tricks cannot be classified in this way, and are sometimes referred to as "general magic."