THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 151 



Accordingly, the conjurer whose object it is to deceive does so 

 by creating an interest in some unimportant detail, while he is 

 performing the real trick before your eyes without your noticing 

 it. He looks intently at his extended right hand, involuntarily 

 carrying your eyes to the same spot while he is doing the trick 

 with the unobserved left hand. The conjuror's wand is extremely 

 serviceable in directing the spectator's attention to the place 

 where the performer desires to have it.* So, again, when engrossed 

 in work, we are oblivious to the knock at the door or the ringing 

 of the dinner-bell. An absent-minded person is one so entirely 

 " present-minded " to one train of thought that other impressions 

 are unperceived. The pickpocket is psychologist enough to know 

 that at the depot, the theatre, or wherever one's attention is 

 sharply focused in one direction, is his best opportunity for car- 

 rying away your watch. It is in the negative field of attention 

 that deception effects its purpose. Houdin gives it as one of his 

 rules never to announce beforehand the nature of the effect which 

 you intend to produce, so that the spectator may not know where 

 to fix his attention. He also tells us that whenever you count 

 " one, hvo, three," as preliminary to the disappearance of an object, 

 the real vanishing must take place before you say " three," for 

 the audience have their attention fixed upon " three," and what- 

 ever is done at " one " or " two " entirely escapes their notice. The 

 " patter " or setting of a trick is often the real art about it, be- 

 cause it directs or rather misdirects the attention. When per- 

 forming before the Arabs, Houdin produced an astounding effect 

 by a very simple trick. Under ordinary circumstances the trick 

 was announced as the changing of the weight of a chest, making 

 it heavy or light at will. The mechanism was simply the attach- 

 ing and severing of a connection with an electro-magnet. To im- 

 press the Arabs, he announced that he could take a man's strength 

 away and restore it again at a moment's notice. At one time the 

 man could raise the chest with ease, but the next he would not 

 have power enough to move it an inch. The trick succeeded as 

 usual, but was changed from conjuring to sorcery — the Arabs de- 

 claring him in league with the devil. 



The art of misleading the attention is recognized as the point 

 of good conjuring, the analogues of the diplomacy that makes the 

 object of language to conceal thought ; and a host of appropriate 

 illustrations might be derived from this field. The little flour- 



* " Again, a mere tap with the wand on any spot, at the same lime looking at it atten- 

 tively, will infallibly draw the eyes of a whole company in the same direction" — Houdin. 

 Robert Houdin, often termed " the king of the conjurers," was a man of remarkable inge- 

 nuity and insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valu- 

 able. His conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist, and a 

 reference to his writings will well repay the reader. 



