Conjuring
The art of performing apparent impossibilities for entertainment, from the cups and balls to the modern stage.
Also: conjurer, legerdemain, juggler, cups and balls, Discoverie of Witchcraft
Conjuring is the performance of magic tricks as entertainment, and the audience knows they are tricks. Records of such acts reach back to a tale in the Westcar Papyrus about a magician named Dedi, and Roman writers describe the cups and balls. In 1584 Reginald Scot published The Discoverie of Witchcraft, the first English book to explain conjuring methods, partly to argue that witchcraft accusations were unfounded. Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin of Paris moved the art from the fairground to the theatre in the 1840s, which is why many call him the father of modern magic. The Victorian age brought large illusions, and television and Las Vegas shaped the late twentieth century. It remains a craft with books, societies and a code of conduct.