This page contains a list of magic tricks. In magic literature, tricks are often called effects. Based strictly upon published literature and marketed effects, there are hundreds of millions of effects; a short performance routine by a single magician may contain dozens of effects.
Some serious students of magic strive to refer to effects by a proper name, and are also concerned with the proper attribution of the effect's creator. For example, consider an effect where the magician shows four aces, and then they turn face up one at a time in a mysterious fashion. This effect might be recognized as Twisting the Aces, which is attributed to Dai Vernon, based on a false count invented by Alex Elmsley. Some tricks are listed merely with their marketed name (particularly those that are sold as stand-alone tricks by retail dealers), whereas others are listed by the name given within magic publications.
Read more about Magic Tricks: Stage Illusions, Close-up Effects, Mentalism, Levitations, Utilities/Accessories
Famous quotes containing the words magic and/or tricks:
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“Which I wish to remark—
And my language is plain—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I would rise to explain.”
—Bret Harte (1836–1902)