The 19 types of Magic Tricks
Have you ever seen a magician (if not, HELLO!!) pull a coin from behind someone's ear? Or perhaps levitate, or even make the Statue of Liberty vanish?
Magic has captivated audiences for centuries, making us wonder, "How on Earth did they do that?!".
But how many tricks are there exactly? Probably too many to count, to be honest, but magic can be split up into different genres or categories. So let's buckle up and dive into the different magical effects that magicians use to amaze and astonish. First, though, what are the general types of magic you may see?
Three Main Types of Performance Spaces
The magic you experience often depends on the setting. Think of it like this:
Close-up Magic
Magic up close and personal
You are at an event and suddenly a person wafting some playing cards asks if you want to see something cool - then a coin appears out of thin air, or as mentioned your ear! Welcome to Close-up Magic...
Close-up Magic is where the magic is performed right in front of your eyes, and even in your own hands, usually to to small groups or individuals. This type of magic is performed at locations such as?weddings,?parties,?corporate events, to even on the streets as seen on TV. The performance is usually only short, from 5 to 10 minutes per group, as the magician will mingle among all guests at the event. Each new audience will be a brand-new show to the magician!
Parlour Magic
A More Intimate Stage
Parlour magic is a more formal setting where a magician will perform their show to a usually seated audience, situated in medium-sized rooms such as lounges, function rooms, or private homes. Other names for this include stand-up magic, cabaret magic, and platform magic.
A magician can perform more involved and complex tricks. They can be seated at a table to perform elegant card magic or standing in front of people like in a comedy club with various props.
Stage Magic
Grand illusions & theatre extravaganzas
When you imagine a stage magician, you might picture a classic image: a man with flowing hair and a sequined jacket, performing grand illusions alongside glamorous assistants in their revealing costumes! While this image evokes iconic magicians like David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and Lance Burton, it doesn't have to be on this scale - it can range from more intimate shows performed to large audiences, such as a local theatre, or on a platform to a few hundred spectators.
Acts seen on stage include the mentioned illusions, but they also include manipulation acts to music, mentalist shows or comedy magic combining both stand-up comedy and magic. A well-known magician with a great manipulation act is Jeff McBride’s mask routine, which you can?check out here.
Magicians may also specialise in just one type of magic trick, such as performing at children’s parties. It would amaze you how many people still consider magicians children’s entertainers only!?
A common speciality is mentalism, where the performer will use tricks of the mind to show apparent psychic ability. A Notable practitioner of this is Derren Brown, whose live shows and TV specials have long confused people. I have seen his show several times, and it still blows me away!
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The Different Types of Magic Trick Unveiled
Often I get asked how many tricks there are (many thousands!), but we can break many down into categories. Much talk on this among some magicians says there were only 8 different general effects, though this may be a myth as many pieces do not fit into these narrow categories.
The 8 banded around are Levitation, Penetration, Prediction, Restoration, Transformation, Transposition, Appearance, and Vanish.
Instead, Magician Dariel Fitzkee, pen name of Dariel Fitzroy (1898–1977), wrote in 1944’s?The Trick Brain?that we can boil all tricks down to 19 types
Now it's time to talk about those 19 types of magic. Strap yourself in!
1. Vanish
First of the list, we have a vanish! Vanishing an object like a coin is often the most iconic thing people think of thinking of in magic. If I had a pound for every time a spectator asks me “Can you make my wife disappear?”, I’d be a very rich man! Just watch when small children ask you to close your eyes as they quickly put an object behind their back or in a pocket.
Imagine the mentioned glamorous assistant stepping into a wooden box, only to vanish before your very eye or a dove held in the magicians’ hands vanishes alongside the whole cage. In close-up magic, we may see a coin placed in the magician’s hand, then when he opens it… gone!
Some of the most famous vanishes in history include David Copperfiel's vanish of the Statue of Liberty. You can see footage of this on?YouTube. And you can talk vanishes without mentioning Houdini on the 7th of January 1918, when performing at the New York Hippodrome made an elephant vanish from a cabinet. Sadly, no film exists showing this miracle.
2. Production
The polar opposite of vanishing is, of course, an appearance, and it's just as popular. Often linked with vanishes in a routine where the item will suddenly reappear in a different place. Picture a magician waving his wand over a top hat and suddenly pulling out a white rabbit, or after making the coin vanish, a simple wave of the hands makes the coin reappear.
3. Transposition
I am sitting here, and you're sitting there, whoever that may be. A flash of light and smoke... Woo, I am now sitting on your seat and you are standing on stage in front of everyone! That is transformation - the phenomenon where two objects change places with each other.
A classic example of a transposition trick is the "Copper and Silver" coin trick: the magician shows a copper coin and a silver coin in each hand and then closes their fists. In the blink of an eye, opening their hands the coins have seemingly switched places. On stage, a pretty impressive routine is the metamorphosis effect made famous by The Pendragons. It seems impossibly fast! Oh and skimpy assistant costume alert!!!
4. Transformation
The idea of transformation has captivated humanity for centuries, just think of the biblical story of Jesus turning water into wine, medieval alchemists turning lead into gold, and the idea of humans turning into werewolves during the full moon. The idea of something turning into something else is shown throughout nature and culture, the concept of one thing becoming another has always held a powerful allure.
Transformation is a cornerstone of magic - the fairy waves her wand and the pumping is now a carriage. In close-up magic, watch as a random playing card changes into your thought of card, or watch the woman put into a box suddenly turn into a Tiger! It could be even a state change. A cup of water is held and then the magician pours out a lump of ice.
5. Penetration
OK, stop laughing at the back! Pushing one object through another has long been a staple of magicians.
An assistant (of course glamorous!) enters a wooden box, the magician then stabs dozens of swords into the box... Oh no has he killed her? No, she steps out unharmed to whoops and cheers...
In close-up magic, you may see them pushing a pen through a matchbox to only find out the box contains a large solid block of metal or prepare to be amazed as two elastic bands pass through each other, even while held in your hand!
6. Restoration
One of the most famous restoration tricks is the classic sawing-in-half trick. A person in a box will be sawn in two, both halves separated before being restored to normal without even a scar!
The first public performance was by British magician P. T. Selbit in 1921 at the Finsbury Park Empire Theatre in London. Horace Goldin made the arms, legs, and head visible in his 1921 performance, which is the version most are familiar with today. The image shows P. T. Selbit performing this in the mid-1930s. This was taken to extremes with Copperfield's death-saw, where his whole body is visibly cut in two by a descending electric saw!
A close-up version you may see me perform is a very much scaled-down version with no threat to human health! This is the Torn and restored Card. This classic card trick involves tearing the card into two pieces, or even four pieces, and restoring it right in front of your eyes.
7. Animation
Animation gives inanimate objects the power of movement.
Early magicians may have used the power of shadow puppets to create mesmerising shapes on the wall or automata where human-type machines move without apparent help.
In close-up magic, you may see your wedding ring move in your palm, or a stick figure drawn onto the back of a playing card may move and find your card… Comedy magician David Williams has a great routine where he?animates his… raccoon! (You'll have to see his act to understand the magic!).
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8. Anti-Gravity
"Wingardium Leviosa!". Anti-gravity, better known as levitation – the ability to cause an object or person to rise or remain in the air without physical support, is arguably a pretty impressive sight.
A close-up magician will make your wedding ring float between our hands, whilst a stage magician will make a person float in the air. Illusionist David Copperfield is famous for his stage flying routine, where he somersaulted in the air and passed through hoops.
Nevil Maskelyne developed the classic routine in 1900, but it was made more widely known in the States by Harry Keller, who named it "The Levitation of Princess Karnac" and first performed it in 1904.
This trick, though, is reputed to have been “borrowed?*” from Maskelyne. Keller tried to buy it, but Maskelyne would not sell, so Kellar hired someone who had worked with Maskelyne, thus creating his version from his notes.
*?stolen!
9. Attraction
No love spells here!! In the world of magic, "Attraction" is where a magician becomes endowed with the power of magnetism (no animal magnetism here guys!).
A magician may hold his finger over the pack of cards and your selected card will rise from the pack towards his finger. Another time, you may be asked to tap the top of the pack of cards and your signed selected card keeps rising to the top.
10. Sympathetic Reaction
Sympathetic Reaction describes a phenomenon where two or more objects or people seem to mirror each other's actions. A card trick known as the Sympathetic Cards involves a red-backed pack of cards mysteriously sorting itself out in the same condition as a mixed-up blue pack. It's as if the cards are somehow "communicating" with each other!
11. Invulnerability
Imagine being immune to pain and injury! You could be like Superman. Whilst it may sound like a fun dream, magicians have used this theme to create acts.
Many sideshows display superhuman toughness by having performers having nails hammered into their noses or blocks bashed over their heads. When I was part of a stage magic show many years ago, I had my head placed in a box, where blades were shoved in and set alight. I am still here to tell the tale!?
12. Physical Anomaly
Fitzkee states this as the exception to normal physical rules or reactions. Bit of a weird one, and the title sounds a little outdated now!
This could be explained though in the most famous magic trick of all time. Pretending to remove your thumb. You know that one surely! A lot of other similar types of tricks can be seen in freaky bizarre type magic where body parts are stretched, the head twisted around 350 degrees, or as Fitzkee states - a person's shadow moves separate from the performer... Peter Pan for real!
13. Spectator Failure
In these acts, a spectator will lose the ability to perform some simple tasks, suggesting some special power of the magician has is at play. A classic is where the spectator is invited on stage and a magician lifts a box or chest. The spectator can’t budge the objects no matter how hard they try. A lot of stage hypnotists may perform this type of material.?
14. Control
Telekinesis! Where the mind of the performer seems to direct a subject or move an inanimate object - an example is where a mentalist demonstrates their psychic powers and makes an object inside a see-through sealed box move.?Throughout history, many "psychics" have claimed they could do this for real but of course, they're using magic tricks!
A well-known example is the sad case of James Hydrick, a former stage performer and self-declared psychic. He attempted to prove his powers on national TV, by making a pencil move after it was positioned atop a pedestal and covered by an upside-down aquarium tank. James Randi, the famed magician and skeptic fraud buster put in some controls, proving that James was a fraud. He later admitted his fraud. Things got even worse as he was later charged with a range of crimes including child molestation where he remains incarcerated to this day in a psychiatric hospital.
15. Identification
This is a staple of mentalism, where the performer discovers the identity of something written down or chosen. Imagine you have picked a playing card from the pack and shuffled it back in. The magician just spreads the pack over the tables and points to one card... It is your's, BOOM!!!
16. Thought Reading
Similar to identification, but in this case, the performer reads the thoughts of another person—perhaps the thought of a playing card. Instead of having the pack handed back, you pick a card shuffle back in but keep hold of it. The magician looks into your eyes, and names the card and a secret name swirling around your mind. How did they get inside your head!!!
Skilled mentalists pay close attention to body language, facial expressions, and even the slightest hesitations in speech. These seemingly insignificant cues can provide valuable clues about your thoughts and intentions.
17. Thought Transmission
Imagine now instead of the performer near you reading your mind, the performer's assistant at the other end of the room names what you have chosen from the magician. Several acts use more than one performer, basing the act on their telepathic abilities. Examples include contemporary Victorian/Edwardian-themed performers Morgan & West, to one of the most famous acts, the Piddingtons.
The Piddington's were composed of husband and wife team Sydney and Lesley. One BBC broadcast had Lesley kept under armed guard at the Tower of London across the river from the BBC studios. They still managed to guess items and names from the studio audience.
18. Prediction
A prediction, as the name states, is where the magician has, well, predicted something that will happen later in the show. From sealed envelopes containing future news headlines to anticipating the card a spectator freely chooses, prediction effects leave a lasting impression and are great ways to finish a show. A simple version I might even do is predict what playing card someone picks.
Derren Brown even predicted the Lottery Numbers live on air in one of his shows!
Here is a simple prediction trick that you can perform for yourself.
The Danish Elephant Trick
Bonus?– You can alter this to have an orange kangaroo from Denmark. The same maths gives us again Denmark, but use the last letter to get the animal, the Kangaroo. The last letter names a fruit – An orange if all goes to plan. You could also have a backup of the country Dominican Republic in your pocket.
19. Extra-Sensory Perception
So here we have number 19, the last item on this list! Are you still reading? I knew that... I had a feeling. ESP is the talent of being able to know information beyond the normal senses.. call it psychic powers if you will. Common props used by the magician are the classic ESP cards, known as Zener cards. These were created by Karl Zener in the early 1930s. They are 5 cards that comprise 5 shapes: Star, Cross, Wavy lines, Square, and Circle.
A magician may deal the cards face down out on a pile and the spectator shouts STOP. They name the selected card without them even seeing it.
That’s them all!
"That's them all! Those are the 19 types of magic tricks Fitzkee named. Of course, there may be more, but this covers a vast range. Sometimes more than one will be used per trick. Different props can be used and the tricks could be grand illusions or small card tricks, but they all use these principles.
I hope this has been at least slightly informative. Or at least not completely boring! Magic is a fascinating art form with endless possibilities for creativity and entertainment. If you're curious to learn more, I encourage you to explore further. There are countless resources available online and in libraries to help you delve deeper into the world of magic.
Have you ever been amazed by a magic trick? What's your favourite type of magic? Share your thoughts and experiences with me. Instagram : yorkshire_magician, Facebook : yorkshiremagician
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