Psychological and Conjuring Tricks Employed by Strolling Jugglers and Fakirs

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Black versus White Magic Series · 22 pages

A study of deliberate deception, which is a different subject from the rest of the series and a useful one to have in it. Blavatsky is entirely willing to say that a great deal of what passes for magic is conjuring, and she is more interested in explaining how the tricks are done than in defending the performers. Her observation is nonetheless a challenge to Western complacency: there is no professional wizard of the North, South or West, she writes, who can compete with anything approaching success against the untutored, naked sons of the East.

The second half moves from technique to principle, and states the position the series rests on: the basis of magic is the life-principle, a blind force obeying a controlling influence — and all magical operations consist in freeing oneself from the coils of the Ancient Serpent. Placing that alongside an account of stage trickery is deliberate. A reader who can tell the two apart is better protected than one who believes everything or nothing, and the distinction is the practical use to which this section is meant to be put.

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