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Performances we would recognise as conjuring have probably been practised throughout history. The same ingenuity behind ancient deceptions such as the Trojan horse would have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating in gambling games, since time immemorial. However, the respectable profession of the illusionist gained strength during the eighteenth century, and has enjoyed several popular vogues. Successful magicians have become some of the most famous celebrities in popular entertainment. Modern entertainment magic owes much of its origins to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in the 1840s. His speciality was the construction of mechanical automata which appeared to move and act as if they were alive. The British performer J N Maskelyne and his partner Cooke established their own theatre, the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly, in 1873. They presented stage magic, exploiting the potential of the stage for hidden mechanisms and assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's point of view. The greatest celebrity magician of the nineteenth century (or possibly of all time), Harry Houdini (real name Erich Weiss, 1874 - 1926), took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage magic tricks, many of them based on escapology. The son of poor immigrants, Houdini was genuinely highly skilled in techniques such as lockpicking and straitjacket escaping, but also made full use of the whole range of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. Houdini's showbusiness savvy was as great as his performing skill. In addition to expanding the range of magic hardware, showmanship and deceptive technique, these performers established the modern relationship between the performer and the audience. In this relationship, there is an unspoken agreement between the performer and the audience about what is going on. Unlike in the past, almost no performers today actually claim to possess supernatural powers (although there are exceptions to this, they are regarded as charlatans). It is understood by everyone that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight of hand (also called legerdemain), misdirection, deception, collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery (hence the illusions are commonly referred to as "tricks"). The performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skilful that the audience cannot believe their eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience play a role in which they agree to be entertained by something they know to be a deception. This is one of the few situations in which people willingly allow themselves to be lied to, and the audience trusts the performer not to exploit this, for example by cheating them out of money. Houdini strengthened this trust by using his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a tradition continued by magicians such as James Randi, P.C. Sorcar, and Penn and Teller. Magic has come and gone in fashion, but is currently (2004) enjoying a vogue driven by a number of highly successful performers such as David Blaine, David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, Derren Brown and many other TV and stage magicians. The mid twentieth century saw magic successfully make the transition to TV, which opens up new opportunities for deceptions. A widely accepted code has developed, in which TV magicians can use all the traditional forms of deception, but should not resort to camera tricks, editing the videotape, or other TV special effects - this makes deception too "easy", in the popular mind. Most TV magicians are shown performing before a live audience, who provide the remote viewer with a reassurance that the effect is not obtained by camera tricks. Many of the basic principles of magic are comparatively old. There is an expression, "it's all done with smoke and mirrors", used to explain something baffling, and often this is literally true of magic performances - even today, a lot of effects are achieved using mirrors. Modern performers have vanished objects as big as the Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty, and the Space Shuttle, using optical deceptions such as Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion first used in 19th century London. Harry Houdini led the field of vanishing large objects, by making an elephant disappear on stage, although not using mirrors.
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