Learn Magic by Henry Hay

Learn Magic is a classic magic book for serious beginners. It teaches 20 lessons and focuses not just on effects, tricks and moves, but also on the 'how to learn magic' aspect. Beautifully illustrated by Hans Jelinek.

Henry Hay's larger magic book for beginners, The Amateur Magician's Handbook is broader in scope and already assumes some basic knowledge about magic.

Paul Fleming wrote:

Some three or four years ago, we examined (in Review No. 19) a little book by Barrows Mussey, entitled Magic. The same author, writing under another name, has now given us a new treatise for beginners in conjuring which is not only larger but far more likely than his earlier book to make a competent performer of the reader.

This book, Learn Magic is a volume of 287 (viii +279) pages, illustrated with 92 figures. There are two preliminary chapters on how to watch and how to be a magician; twenty chapters (or "lessons"), six of which deal with cards, two each with coins, balls, and silk handkerchiefs, and one each with rope, thimbles, thumb-tips, escapes, mind-reading, eggs, tricks with cloth bands and turbans, and conjuring accessories such as tables, servantes, and the magic wand; and a final chapter on stage illusions.

As is suggested by the title, Learn Magic is not a book that was written for those who are already conjurers, unless they happen to be conjurers of the "magic shop" variety who think of magic in terms of handiwork of the tinsmith and cabinetmaker. To such unfortunate souls Mr. Hay's book may be strongly recommended as proof that a moderate amount of personal skill will produce vastly better magic than hundreds of dollars' worth of suspicious-looking apparatus. The well-read magician will already have learned this lesson – and, let us hope, profited by it. For him, the contents of Learn Magic will in the main be familiar material, for Mr. Hay – like Hoffmann, Sachs, Tarbell, Hugard, and other writers of general treatises -has naturally had recourse to the common stock of principles and feats that has been accumulating for many decades.

Hence, we find in this book such well-known tricks as The Afghan Bands (which in this form might well have been credited to James C. Wobensmith), The Turban Trick, The Sack Escape, The Egg Bag, "One Ahead" Mind Reading, The Rising Cards (three methods), The Torn and Restored Paper Strip, Handkerchief Production and Color-change, The Sympathetic Silks, The Miser's Dream, The Cards Up the Sleeve, The Sponge Balls, the Multiplying Billiard Balls, A Thimble Routine, and a host of other feats. There are, in addition, explanations of dozens of sleights with cards, coins, balls, and thimbles; of "codes" used in apparent thought-transference; of black-art tables, bottomless glasses, mirror glasses, and other kinds of conjuring equipment.

Indeed, we incline to the view that more ground has been staked out here than an author should attempt to cover in a volume of this size. We feel, too, that stage illusions should have been omitted, for two reasons: (1) because the space used could have been employed more advantageously in giving fuller explanations of tricks which the reader has some chance of being able to present, and (2) because there seems to be no good reason for giving the "general reader" – the specific audience to which Learn Magic is addressed – any knowledge, however superficial, of the principles employed in stage illusions. Mr. Hay's excuse for these exposures – to give the beginner "some basis for judging the illusionists" he sees – is pretty lame.

Drawing upon the experience of many years of professional performing, we question the soundness of some of the author's statements and the wisdom of some of the advice he offers the beginner. He says (p. 12) that it is best not to memorize patter, though such famous performers as Kellar, Germain, Powell, and Rouclere took pains to be letter-perfect in their lines. He writes (p. 17): "The fear of detection and the dropping of anything you practice with will go on as long as you do magic." This is certainly not true of a number of performers with whom we are acquainted. Nor is it true, as the author says (p. 6), that "things go wrong at every performance of every magician who ever lived." Some magicians unquestionably suffer from nervousness, and things do go wrong at times, but we see little to gain and much to lose by teaching that it is normal for performers to be fearful of detection and for things to go wrong. The magician for whom things habitually go wrong (who is also the one most likely to experience fear of detection) is almost certainly the careless performer, who has not given sufficient time to preliminary preparation or who undertakes to present new effects without proper rehearsal. We believe the beginner should be taught that slovenliness leads to disaster in conjuring, and that the magician who is a credit to his art is the one for whom things do not frequently go wrong!

In speaking of the use of confederates, Mr. Hay says (p. 70): "The only objection in my eyes is that you can't be ready at a moment's notice to do the trick (and that your stooge may not be much impressed with your powers as a magician)," completely ignoring the fact that both the confederate and the performer are dishonest with the audience – the former in bearing false witness and the latter in causing him to do so. He instructs the performer (p. 26) to hold a coin between his teeth (an act that can scarcely be recommended as being in good taste); and says (p. 7) that "John Mulholland … has a trick with two half dollars, a trick in which he asks someone – preferably a good-looking girl – to sit on his knees and hold his wrists!" We refuse to believe that one about Mr. Mulholland until we have actually seen it!

Apart from a mercifully small number of such lapses, Learn Magic impresses us as an exceptionally good book to place in the hands of the would-be magician. It is exceedingly well written, though personally we are not fond of the staccato effect produced by the frequent use of one-word sentences and one-line paragraphs. The text is unusually clear, despite the brevity of some of the explanations. The illustrations are very good – "perhaps the best ever printed in a magic book," says the author in the foreword. Finally, the book is well printed on good paper, and neatly bound in blue cloth with gold-stamping on the spine. It is so modestly priced as to be an unusual bargain, whether purchased as a first book of magic for the beginner or as a refresher course for the more advanced student.

1st edition 1947, 2nd edition 1975; 1st digital edition 2013, 210 pages.

Table of Contents

8. FOREWORD
9. INTRODUCTION

   PART 1

   CHAPTER 1. HOW TO WATCH A MAGICIAN

13. The Greatest Magician?
15. The Different Kinds of Magic

    CHAPTER 2. HOW TO BE A MAGICIAN

19. Rehearsal Before Practice
19. How to Get Applause
20. Your Personality and Your Patter
21. Planning
22. Learning a Trick
24. Enlarging Your Repertory

    BOOK LIST

    PART 2

    LESSON 1. THE FLYING COIN

    LESSON 2. HANDLING A DECK OF CARDS

34. Dealing Position
35. The Overhand Shuffle
36. The Riffle or Dovetail Shuffle
37. The "Waterfall" Finish
38. Second Split for the Dovetail Shuffle
39. Fanning the Cards
41. The Card at the Number
44. Mind Control

    LESSON 3. THE LARIAT KING

44. Inventing Magic
45. The Lariat King
45. How the Trick Is Done

    LESSON 4. THE AFGHAN BANDS AND THE CUT TURBAN

50. How to Make the Afghan Bands
50. How to Work the Turban Trick

    LESSON 5. FINDING A SELECTED CARD, 1: FORCING

56. Forcing and Forcing Decks
57. The Svengali Pack
57. Forcing Sleights: The Fan
59. Forcing Sleights: The Slip
60. Another Knife Force
61. The Telephone Trick

    LESSON 6. FINDING A SELECTED CARD, II: LOCATIONS

63. False Shuffles
64. The Tap Location
66. The Glimpse
68. The Spelling Master
70. The Stripper Deck
71. The Long Card
71. The Double Card
71. The Short Card
72. The Pass, or Shift
76. The Red and Black Aces

    LESSON 7. ESCAPES

78. The Kellar Tie
80. The Sack Escape
82. The Chair Tie

    LESSON 8. THE EGG BAG

91. Palming an Egg
92. Egg Production Routine

    LESSON 9. MIND READING

95. The Billet Test
96. The "All-Alike" Gag
97. The "One-Ahead" Gag
98. The Envelope Test
99. Getting Impressions
99. Torn-Billet Reading
102. Stage Clairvoyance
102. Codes
102. Pointer Codes
103. Number Codes
104. Talking Codes
104. Silent Methods

     LESSON 10. REVEALING A SELECTED CARD

105. The Turned Card; Victim's Choice
106. The Card Nailed to the Ceiling
107. The Jumping Cards
107. The Transfixed Pack
109. The Rising Cards (Three Methods)
109. First Method
110. Second Method
110. Third Method
113. The Mental-Selection Spelling Master

     LESSON 11. THE THUMB TIP

115. Cigarette Vanish
117. The Torn and Restored Paper Ribbon
118. Handkerchief Vanish

     LESSON 12. A SILK ROUTINE. PART I

120. Preparing for the Act
121. Handkerchief Production (Elbow)
122. The Dissolving Knot
124. Shaking in a Knot
126. Silk from Candle
126. The Flying Knot
127. Handkerchief Production (Thread)
127. The Sympathetic Silks

     LESSON 13. A SILK ROUTINE. PART II

134. Preparing for the Act
134. Hand Silk-Dyeing
136. Silk-Dyeing (Paper Tube)
137. The "Lamp-Chimney" Vanish

     LESSON 14. THE MISER'S DREAM

139. Coins for Magic
140. The Finger Palm
140. The Thumb Palm
141. The Regular Palm
141. The Edge Palm
142. Palming Several Coins
143. The Back Palm
145. The Miser's Dream

     LESSON 15. CARD PALMING

150. The Top Palm
152. Palming Several Cards
152. Williams' Card in Pocket
154. Color Changes
154. Clip Color Change
155. Erasing the Spot
156. The Side-Steal Color Change
157. Reversing the Color Change
157. The Double Lift
158. The Back Palm
160. Five-Card Vanish and Recovery

     LESSON 16. TWO GREAT TRICKS OF CARD PALMING

162. Leipzig's Lightning Locations
164. The Cards Up the Sleeve
165. The False Count

     LESSON 17. THE SPONGE BALLS

168. The Basic Sponge-Ball Move
168. The Routine

     LESSON 18. THE MULTIPLYING BILLIARD BALLS

172. The Conjurer's Clothes
173. The Trap Pass
174. The Change-Over Palm
175. The Multiplying Ball Routine

     LESSON 19. THIMBLE MAGIC

179. Silent and Talking Acts
179. Quieting a Noisy Crowd
180. The Thimble Thumb Palm
180. Deliberate Vanish
181. Thimble Routine

     LESSON 20. YOUR MAGICAL OUTFIT

185. The Magician's Table
186. The Black Art Table Top
188. Servantes
189. The Bottomless Glass
190. The Mirror Glass
190. Flying Silk
190. Candy Production
191. Wands
191. Programs
192. Stage Management

     PART 3

     HOW STAGE ILLUSIONS WORK

194. The Floating Lady
196. The Vanishing Performer
197. The Trunk Trick
197. The Mirror Principle
199. Lost in the Crowd
199. Bullet-Catching
200. De Kolta's Cocoon
201. The Oyster Shell
201. De Biere's Costume Trunk
202. The Goldfish Bowls
203. The Rapping Hand
204. The Talking Skull
204. The Merry Widow
205. The Spirit Cabinet
206. The Milk Can Trick
207. The Basket Trick
208. The Sword Cabinet
209. Sawing a Woman in Two