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The English philologist Robert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon" [3] or (according to Merriam-Webster) "to befuddle often with drugged liquor." [4] Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, [4] whose ...
Ambitious Card Routine – A common trick where a card seemingly rises to the top of the deck. Also called ACR. Angles – the lines of vision of people sitting at certain position in the audience which enable a secret to be spotted* usually extreme left or right or behind. If a trick is "angly" it can only be done with limited audience viewpoints.
The phrase "smoke and mirrors" has entered North American English to refer to "obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information." [ 1 ] The earliest known use of the idiom came from the biography How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer , published in 1975.
How it works in a magic trick: “It’s rare that a magician straight-up lies to you,” Barnhart says. “Instead, they encourage you to lie to yourself through your assumptions.”
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close-up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means.
The Cardiff Giant, a hoax of a hoax; P. T. Barnum had a replica made because he could not obtain the "genuine" hoax item. The CERN ritual , a supposed occult sacrifice on the grounds of CERN . China Under the Empress Dowager , co-authored by Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet using a forged diary as a major source, with a manuscript of Backhouse ...
Advertisement for a reproduction of the trick by stage magician Howard Thurston. The Indian rope trick is a magic trick said to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. Sometimes described as "the world’s greatest illusion", it reputedly involved a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy assistants.
Randi's book, The Magic World of the Amazing Randi (1989), was intended as a children's introduction to magic tricks. In addition to his magic books, he wrote several educational works about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus, as well as reference material on other major paranormal ...