Conjuring, as understood at the present day, signifies the production of effects apparently miraculous by natural means.
The art of producing apparently supernatural phenomena has been cultivated from remote antiquity. The earlier professors of the art claimed bonâ-fide supernatural powers; and in ages when the most elementary principles of physical science were unknown beyond a very limited circle, it was not difficult to gain credence for such a pretension. The modern conjurer makes no such claim, but tells the public frankly that his marvels are illusory, and rest either on personal dexterity or on some ingenious application of natural principles. Of the conjurers of remote antiquity we have few reliable records; though it is a tolerably safe conjecture that the prestige of the ancient mysteries rested in no small degree upon effects of natural magic. It may also be gathered that the conjurers of old were familiar with certain forms of optical illusion, in which the use of plane and concave mirrors, and a partial anticipation of the principle of the magic-lantern, played prominent parts. Chaucer mentions illusions of his own day of which the above seems the most probable solution. In the accounts of very early writers, however, large deductions must be made for the comparative ignorance of the observer, and the desire, common to all narrators of extraordinary occurrences, to make the marvel as marvellous as possible. Perhaps the earliest really trustworthy authority is Reginald Scot, who in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) has enumerated the stock feats of the conjurers of his day. The list includes swallowing a knife; burning a card and reproducing it from the pocket of a spectator; passing a coin from one pocket to another; converting money into counters, or counters into money; conveying money into the hand of another person; making a coin pass through a table, or vanish from a handkerchief; tying a knot, and undoing it 'by the power of words;' taking beads from a string, the ends of which are held fast by another person; making corn to pass from one box to another; turning wheat into flour 'by the power of words;' burning a thread and making it whole again; pulling ribbons from the mouth; thrusting a knife into the head or arm; putting a ring through the cheek; and cutting off a person's head and restoring it to its former position. Strange to say, many of these feats, which were doubtless already old in the time of Scot, are still performed, with more or less variation of detail, by conjurers at the present day.
The conjurers of Scot's time, and even of much later date, were accustomed, in order to facilitate the substitutions on which a great part of their tricks depended, to wear an apron with pockets, known (from its resemblance to a game-bag) as the gibécère. A later school suppressed this tell-tale article of costume, and used instead a table, with cover reaching nearly or quite to the ground. This table concealed an assistant, who worked most of the required transformations, &c., either handing the needful articles to the conjurer as he passed behind the table, or pushing them up through traps in the table-top. Conus the elder, a French conjurer who flourished at the close of the 18th century, made a further improvement by discarding the concealed assistant, and using an undraped table with a secret shelf (now known as the servante) behind it, on which his substitutions were made. His immediate competitors did not follow his example, a whole generation of later conjurers, including Comte, Bosco, and Philippe, retaining the suggestive draped table. Its death-blow, however, was struck by Robert Houdin (1805-71), with whom about 1844 a new era began. His miniature theatre in the Palais Royal was remarkable for the elegant simplicity of its stage arrangements, and in particular for the complete suppression of the boîte à compère ('wooden confederate'), as Robert Houdin sarcastically terms it. The new style took with the public, and by degrees Robert Houdin's contemporaries found themselves compelled to follow his example.
To Robert Houdin belongs the credit of devising some of the best-known and most ingenious pieces of magical apparatus, as also that of the application of electro-magnetism, then little understood, to the production of magical effects. The well-known magic drum, that beats without visible drumsticks, the magic clock and bell, and the chest, light or heavy at command, are all fruits of his inventive genius.
The most modern school of conjurers, following the lead of Wiljalba Frikell, and at present represented by Hartz, Hermann, Buatier de Kolta, Verbeck, Lynn, Bertram, &c., generally aim at producing their magical results with the minimum of visible apparatus. There are, however, signs of a reaction in favour of more spectacular illusions, such as those of Messrs Maskelyne and Cooke, in which the resources of optical and acoustic, as well as mechanical science, are laid under contribution in aid of conjuring proper. See the articles MAGIC and JUGGLERS.
For practical information as to the methods of conjurers, see Hoffmann's Modern Magic (6th ed. 1886) and More Magic (1889); Sleight of Hand, by Edwin Sachs (2d ed. 1885); Robert Houdin's Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie (1868; reprinted in 1878 under the title of Comment on devient Sorcier) and Magie et Physique Amusante (1877); and an anonymous work, Recueil de Tours de Physique Amusante (published by De La Rue of Paris). The three last-named works have been translated into English by Hoffmann, under the titles of The Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, The Secrets of Stage Conjuring, and Drawing-room Conjuring respectively.