The Prestige

For example, I sometimes open my act with an illusion called Chinese Linking Rings. I begin by taking up a position in the centre of a lighted stage, holding the rings casually. I make no claim for what I am about to do with them. The audience sees (or thinks it sees, or allows itself to think it sees) ten large separate rings made of shining metal. The rings are shown to a few members of the audience who are permitted to handle and inspect them, and discover on behalf of everyone present that the rings are solid, without joints, without openings. I then take the rings back and to everyone's amazement I immediately join them into one continuous chain, holding it up for all to see. I link and unlink rings at the touch of a spectator's hand on the exact spot where the joining or unjoining takes place. I link some of the rings into figures and shapes, then unlink them just as quickly, looping them casually over one of my arms or around my neck. At the end of the trick I am seen (or thought to be seen, et cetera) to be holding, once again, ten separate solid rings.

How is it done? The actual answer is that such a trick can only be performed after years of practice. There is a secret, of course, and because Chinese Linking Rings is still a popular trick that is widely performed, I cannot lightly reveal what it is. It is a trick, an illusion, one that is judged not for the apparently miraculous secret, but for the skill, the flair, the showmanship with which it is performed.

Now, take another magician. He performs the same illusion, using the identical secret, but he claims aloud that he is linking and unlinking the rings by sorcerous means. Would not his performance be judged differently? He would appear not skilled but mystical and powerful. He would be not a mere entertainer but a miracle worker who defied natural laws.

If I, or any other professional magician, were there, I should have to say to the audience: "That is just a trick! The rings are not what they seem. You have not seen what you think you have seen."

To which the miracle-worker would reply (falsely): "What I have just shown the audience is a product of the supernatural. If you claim it is merely a conjuring trick, then pray explain to everyone how it is done."

And here I would have no reply. I would not be able to reveal the workings of a trick, bound as I am by professional honour.

So the miracle would seem to remain a miracle.

When I first began performing there was a vogue for spirit effects, or "spiritism". Some of these manifestations were performed openly on the theatrical stage; others took place more covertly in studios or private homes. All had features in common. They allegedly gave hope to the recently bereaved or the elderly by making it seem that there was a life after death. Much money changed hands in pursuit of this reassurance.

From the viewpoint of the professional magician, spiritism had two significant features. First, standard magical techniques were being used. Second, the perpetrators invariably claimed that the effects were supernaturally produced. In other words, false claims were being made about miraculous "powers’.

This was what aggravated me. Because the tricks were all easily reproducible by any stage illusionist worthy of the name, it was irritating, to say the least, to hear them claimed as paranormal phenomena, whose manifestation therefore 'proved" that there was an afterlife, that spirits could walk, that the dead could speak, and so on. It was a lie, but it was one that was difficult to prove.

I arrived in London in 1874. Under John Henry Anderson's tutelage, and Nevil Maskelyne's patronage, I began trying to obtain work in the theatres and music halls found all over the great capital. There was in those days a demand for stage magic, but London was full of clever magicians and an entry into the circuit was not easy. I managed to take a modest place in that world, finding what work I could, and although my magic was always well received my rise to prominence was a slow one. The New Transported Man was then a long way from fruition, although to be entirely frank I had started to plan this great illusion even while I still hammered and fretted in my father's yard in Hastings.

At this time the spirit magicians were often seen advertising their services in newspapers and periodicals, and some of their doings were much discussed. Spiritism was presented to the populace as a more exciting, powerful and effective kind of magic than what they could see on the stage. If one is skilled enough to put a young woman into a trance and make her hover in mid-air, the argument seemed to go, why not direct that skill more usefully and communicate with the recently departed? Why not indeed?

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