Medicine, Magic And Religion By W. H. R Rivers

The World of Magic

Do you believe in magic? People including myself often get amazed by the tricks made by the magicians and left mesmerized and wondering how that happens even after the end of the show. Is there really magic or are they just merely illusions of the mind? What is magic? This question has many answers and that magic is not easy to define. Magic is defined by yahoo as the art to control natural events by invoking the supernatural and a power that is used to cause evil things. Magic is an art that can be learned but never taught, another explanation given by encyclopedia about magic is, it has something to do with superstition. In the book entitled Medicine, Magic and Religion by W H R Rivers, magic is defined as
Coin magic, card magic, street magic, levitation, bar tricks, quick tricks are some of the variations of magic that has been used by many magicians throughout the world. Some of the tricks that are famous have secrets behind it that can be revealed. Everybody wonders how a magician can make a person levitate, or float on air. Well, that is exactly the secret to the trick! All good Magic Shops sell Compressed Air Bricks. These are made in a factory in Cleveland. Regular air is sucked into this machine, compressed and shaped into bricks. Because they are made out of air, they are invisible and cannot be seen. But they also make bricks with blue air. A magician will use these blue bricks to practice the trick. There was a picture of Ralph holding a blue Compressed Air Brick (CAB). (Floating a person in the air revealed. Retrieved March 2009, at World Wide Web:
He makes sure to stack them high enough. During the show, the magician has to be careful when he walks around so he doesn't accidentally knock over the bricks, then comes the trick. When his assistant lies down, she looks like she's floating, but she's really just laying down on the Compressed Air Bricks! Another trick is the cabinet escape which is a classic escapology trick, where the magician is trapped in a cabinet and required to escape from it. Often, the magician can be bound in handcuffs, rope and sacks before being placed in the cabinet. Some escapes involving a performer in a box or crate are just upstaged versions of classic cabinet escape. The magician has already escaped from the cabinet via a cabinet escape method before it is even placed in the predicament situation. Another famous trick is the ambitious card or elevator card. This is when a playing card seems to return to the top of the deck after being placed elsewhere in the middle of the deck. This is a classic effect in card magic and serves as a study subject for students of magic. Most of the card performing magicians has developed his own way to do it. (Magic of Magicians. Retrieved March 2009, at World Wide Web: http://www.magicofmagicians.com/rts/index.asp?siteid=1416.) Lastly the assistance revenge is a teleportation act where the magician and the assistant trade places while one is tied