Illusions

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Illusions are what most magicians call magic performed on stage with a complex or grand set-up. Performers of this art are known in the industry as illusionists. Illusionists are able to suspend disbelief and / or are able to perform routines that apparently break the laws of physics and matter in general. Illusionists mainly use to their advantages their stages and the natural properties of matter to the extreme degree. They are able to use common principles creatively so that laypeople (the audience) will not be able to comprehend how such feats are accomplished.

Popular practitioners of this branch of magic include David Copperfield, Lance Burton, Penn and Teller, The Pendragons, Spellbound and so on.

Categories of Illusions

Although there is much discussion among magicians as to how a given effect is to be categorised, and in fact, disagreements as to what categories actually exist -- for instance, some magicians consider "penetrations" to be a separate category, others consider penetrations a form of restoration or teleportation -- it is generally agreed that there are very few different types of illusions.

Perhaps because it is considered a magic number, it has often been said that there are only seven types of illusion:


Production
The magician pulls a rabbit from an empty hat; a fan of cards from 'thin air'; a shower of coins from an empty bucket; or appears in a puff of smoke on an empty stage-- all of these effects are productions, the magician produces "something from nothing".


Vanish
The magician snaps his fingers and a coin disappears; places a dove in a cage, claps his hands and the bird vanishes, including the cage, stuffs a silk into his fist and opens his hands revealing nothing, or waves a magic wand and the Statue of Liberty magically "goes away". A vanish, being the reverse of a production, may use a similar technique, in reverse.


Transformation
One example: a magician requests a volunteer to "pick a card, any card" from a deck. With a flourish the magician shows the card to the volunteer and asks "is this your card?" -- it is not the card, and the magician tells the volunteer, "here, hold it for a second", handing them the card and then picking card after card from the deck, none of which is the card the volunteer picked. The magician asks, "will you look at that first card again?" -- whereupon the volunteer finds it has magically become their card.


Restoration
The cut-and-restored rope is a restoration: a rope is cut into two pieces, the two pieces are tied together, the knot vanishes, leaving one piece of rope. A newspaper is torn to bits. The magician rubs the pieces together and the newspaper becomes whole. A woman is sawn into two separate parts and then magically rejoined. A card is torn in fourths and then restored piece by piece to a normal state. Restorations put something back into the state it once was.


Teleportation
A teleportation transfers an object from one place to another. A coin is vanished, then later found inside a tightly bound bag, which is inside a box that is tied shut, inside another box, which is in a locked box... all of which were across the stage.

The magician locks his assistant in a cage, then locks himself in another. Both cages are uncovered and the pair have magically exchanged places. This is a transposition, a simultaneous, double teleportation.


Levitation
The magician "puts his assistant into a trance" and then floats her up and into the air, passing a ring around her body to show that there are 'no wires' supporting her. A close-up artist wads up your dollar bill, and then floats it in the air. A playing card hovers over a deck of cards. A penny on an open palm rises onto its edge on command. A scarf dances in a sealed bottle. Levitations are illusions where the conjurer magically raises something -- possibly including the magician him or herself -- into the air. There are many ways to create the illusion of levitation with names such as the Balducci, the King, the Zero Gravity performed by presten kerkstra.


Penetration
Where one solid object passes through another. For example when the magician links two apparently solid steel rings, or in the "cup and balls" trick in which the balls appear to pass through the cup are penetration illusions.

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