What is it that attracts people to magic shows? Indeed magic is probably the only form of entertainment that transcends all age, gender, racial, ethnic and miscellaneous boundaries to wow its audience.

For a good magician, no compliment could be greater than hearing his spectators gasp and from the viewer’s perspective, it is the art of performing new, innovative and different tricks that renders the effort worthwhile.

Every time people go to a magic show, they look forward to watching the impossible happen. But is it truly impossible?

As a warm-hearted and friendly magician would tell you, no, it is definitely not impossible although mastering the act might take time.

But the first step entails gaining cognizance of the various tricks and to facilitate better understanding these are categorized under nine broad sub-headings which are discussed here on free magic tricks and illusions as follows –

• Production – Producing something appears to be second nature to all magicians – after all while watching a magic show it is inevitable that a rabbit will be revealed from within the hat or a bird will fly out from a handkerchief.
  
  The act of producing something from scratch is referred to as production. Magicians often employ this technique as one of the first tricks to capture the attention of their audience and spark their interest.  
  
• Vanish – An antidote to production is the vanishing act wherein an object in plain view suddenly disappears into thin air much to the astonishment of the audience.
  
  It is a magic trick that never fails to draw squeals of surprise in the case of small objects like coins or an umbrella to gasps of horror in the case of something prominent.   

These two tricks namely production and vanishing are two sides of the same coin wherein the magician needs to make something disappear in order to produce it and vice versa.

An attribute that distinguishes magicians from commoners is their ability to achieve that which others cannot even imagine, for example –

• Transformation – To transform an object from its present appearance into something totally different. In a way it is a combination of disappearance and production wherein an object, say a hat, is first made to disappear and then reappear as an owl.  
  
• Restoration – Restore an object as impeccably as possible like a shattered glass subsequent to having destroyed it so that it appeared to be undamaged.

Magicians often rely on seemingly supernatural techniques of movement as a way of manifesting their powers and do so in the following ways –

• Teleportation – Teleporting objects and living things from one spot to another without any mobility being apparent, meaning things just seem to fly from one spot to another often drawing a reaction of ‘how did that happen?’.
  
  To make things more interesting, the magician at times exchanges objects too. Referred to as transposition, meaning double transportation so that the canary is found sitting on a sofa and the lady enclosed within a cage.
  
• Escape – How did he manage to survive? This is another question that is frequently heard in magic shows and marks a reaction to an accomplishment of escaping from a seemingly impossible situation like being trapped and headed for a churning blade, being walked over by an elephant and so on.
  
  Many magicians involve an assistant too while performing this act which is known in the magician’s jargon as escape.

For a magician it is extremely important to keep the audience mesmerized and to attain this objective, the following tricks can be performed –

• Levitation – To levitate meaning defiance of gravity, wherein the object or the human being gives the impression of floating in the air – something that only birds are naturally equipped to do.
  
  Although nothing more than optical illusion, levitation in any form and of any object whether it is inanimate or living and breathing never ceases to draw looks and expressions of disbelief.
  
  Contemporary magicians like David Copperfield and Peter Marvey depend on this trick to win over their audience with each having developed his own formula.

• Penetration – Have you ever wondered how performers in magic shows manage to pass through the wall, mirror or any other opaque surface?
  
  Known as penetration or ‘solid-through-solid’ it is a trick whereby the magician or his subject seemingly passes one solid object through another.
  
  The most common sequence in this context is that of a sword being driven through a girl’s torso with no apparent harm caused to them.
  
• Prediction – Mind games and tricks are important weapons in a magician’s arsenal and a good magician uses them effectively to predict outcomes in a hitherto unknown situation.
  
  Guessing the amount of change in the pocket of a spectator, the card that he might have picked from the pack of cards or breaking news pertaining to some recent social cause are tricks that come under this category.

Now that you have learned the types of magic tricks and what they entail, do you  not think you are in a better position to start practicing after having adjudged which trick to break the ice with?  

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