Did you ever wonder where magic came from? Who were the first magic performers and what were their tricks?

Hello, and welcome to “Wunders.” I’m Paul from Wunderground Magic, Inc. and I’ll be your tour guide as we answer questions and dig beneath the surface to discover the fascinating and mysterious methods beneath our deceptions. This month we explore the Wunders of History and take an exciting journey through time, back even before the publication of the very first Tops Magazine in 1936.

Actually, you have to go back quite a few years before that, about 4000 years ago, to find the earliest surviving work describing magic and magicians in the Westcar Papyrus. The papyrus scrolls contain five stories of marvels from ancient Egypt. Some of them are fragments, some are too fantastic to have actually happened, but the fourth story tells the tale of a magician named Dedi who was able to reattach heads severed from animals and restore the animals to life. Here’s an excerpt, and I’ve included a photo of the papyrus in figure 1 below for those who want to read the original.

A duck was brought forth and its head was cut off, and the head was thrown to the right and the body to the left. Dedi spoke magic words. Then the head and the body came together, and the duck rose up and quacked loudly. The same was done with a goose. King Khufu then caused a cow to be brought in, and its head was cut off. Dedi restored the animal to life again, and caused it to follow him. Figure 1; The Westcar Papyrus contains the first known tale of a magical performer and his amazing feats.

King Khufu, anticipating the invention of the head chopper by some four thousand years (only $500 from Abbott’s,) tried to see how far he could push Dedi abilities. He had his jailers bring in some prisoners to see if Dedi could perform the same effect with humans. Thinking fast, Dedi said, “Surely it is not permitted to do such a thing to the noble cattle.” (Thus becoming the first recorded excuse for not performing a trick, which is only slightly older than “I could, but then I’d have to kill you.”)

As you may expect from a manuscript so ancient, much of it is unreadable or destroyed, but there’s no mention of the cups and balls anywhere in there. However, magical historians were very excited when the hieroglyph shown in figure 2 was discovered on the western end of the south wall of tomb 15 of Beni Hasan dating back even earlier, to about 4500 years ago. Many people (including Milbourne Christopher in his otherwise impeccable Illustrated History of Magic) claimed that this was the first depiction of any conjuring feat, that the cups and balls should be regarded as the very first magic trick. Samuel Birch claims that the hieroglyphs above the drawing translate as “atop of one another, but it is doubtful how it is played.” The other drawings on tomb wall suggest games and recreations. You can understand why magic historians would be excited to claim they were doing the same effect as the very first magicians, without having to decapitate any waterfowl.

Unfortunately, debunkers such as Gabe Fajuri note one rather significant problem with the claim that this depicts the cups and balls – there are no balls in the drawing. It could just as easily be a guessing game or a balancing game or some other recreation. In fact, the figure on the right may be performing an early form of the floating glass (or lump of pottery as the case may be.) The best that can be said is this could be the cups and balls, but it’s certainly not conclusive.

In his wonderful Cups and Balls Museum, magic historian Bill Palmer tells us “The earliest reference we have to the cups and balls is in a letter from Seneca the Younger to Lucilius sometime around 45 - 60 AD. There is also a reference to its performance in the writings of Alciphron of Athens, around 250 AD.” Cups and balls is certainly an ancient feat, and one you should definitely master before skipping ahead to the reattaching severed heads effect.

Ancient Greeks and Romans were very superstitions people who believed in heroes who came back from the dead, gods who looked like people but possessed mysterious powers, and demons who brought disease and bad luck. Magic, religion, and science were deeply intertwined. In order to enhance the illusion of divine abilities, priests would construct fantastic mechanisms such as the one illustrated in figure 3 from Hero of Alexandria that would open the temple doors when a fire was lit upon the altar. There were also statues with tubes that would make them appear to speak and doors connected to plungers that would sound trumpets when they were opened.

The word “magic” comes from the Persian word “magi” and denoted a follower of Zoroaster, who lived about 400 B.C. The magi were priests who could read the stars and tell what fates the stars foretold. The word was translated as “wise man” in the Christian Bible, and used when it says "there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.” It goes on to describe how these wise men brought gifts to Jesus, tricked Herod, and helped the family escape into Egypt where they hid out until Herod was dead.

Despite this early relationship between magic and Christianity, during the Dark Ages, magic became associated with witchcraft and practitioners were tortured, imprisoned or worse. It wasn’t a good time to perform such demonic feats as the ball and vase, so in 1584 Reginald Scott published an exposé called The Discoverie of Witchcraft. This was the very first book written in English about the methods of magic. It was intended to counter the witch-hunting craze by showing there were natural ways to accomplish feats previously regarded as demonic without resorting to supernatural explanations. Scott explained such effects as “how to deliver out four aces and to convert them to four knaves” (They really hated card tricks back then.), “how to make a book wherein you shall show every leaf therein to be white, black, blue, red, yellow, green, etc.” (In other words “the Magic Coloring Book.”), “casting the balls up into the hollowness of the candlestick so they don’t roll right out” (That would be the ball and vase.), and there’s the decapitation illusion again, though you can see in Figure 4 that some thought has been given to how to accomplish it with a human in the ensuing three thousand years.

Of course, once they read the book and saw the error of their ways, the good folk of the Dark Ages had a good laugh then forgave the magicians and everyone lived happily ever after. Or they would have if they could have actually, you know, read. Instead James I burned all the copies of the book that he could find in 1603, and continued to merrily burn witches for many years to come providing an important source of light during these dark times.

Some copies of Disoverie survived, but instead of gaining the wide exposure to reveal the methods of witchcraft as Reginald Scott had hoped, they became a manual for wanna-be conjurers of the day. (Though why anybody would wanna be a conjurer in those days is beyond me.)

As time passed magic, science and religion became more distinct. Few still believe magicians accomplish their art through supernatural methods. Astrology gave rise to astronomy; witch doctors gave rise to modern medicine; and alchemy became chemistry. Though we live in a more enlightened age, people still long to be amazed and to experience the wunders that only your magic can provide. Visit your local magic shop or magic club and discover the wunders of magic at your fingertips.