SPECTACLE OF ILLUSION

Sub-titled 'Magic, the Paranormal and the Complicity of the Mind', this beautifully designed Thames & Hudson publication investigates the arts of deception as practiced by mesmerists, magicians and psychics since the early 18th century. Magician turned experimental psychologist Matthew Tompkins exposes how sleight of hand and the power of suggestion have tricked the minds of even the most rational and cynical observers. Many of the 534 spectacular illustrations and posters are from the Wellcome Collection on all manner of ephemera such as automatic writing, a sorcery manual, spirit photography, a ghost hunting kit and more. Here are the psychical researchers, spiritualist phenomena, parapsychological investigators, séances, inducing a mesmeric trance, skulls which phrenologists have robbed and great seers like Andrew Jackson Davis in the late 19th century, magnetic sleep passed from practitioner to patient, methods for curing your own ailments without drugs, doctors, expense or exposure, and posters boasting fanciful captions. There are accounts of cosmic afterlife and spirit worlds, a spirit rapping hand used during séances to 'rap out' messages ostensibly from beyond the grave although actually controlled by the medium, and the spirit trumpet which during a séance once the room was dark would mysteriously begin to rise and float in the air, emitting 'spirit voices' and perhaps even ectoplasm. Crystal gazing and pendulums, the case for telepathy and energy flow, the great Houdini and his handcuffs and chains, crate escapes and magic tricks sawing a beautiful woman in half, the decapitation act with a wax likeness 'victim' as a dramatic stage trick, visual illusion to try for yourself and the princess card trick explained, the book is a cabinet of curiosities. 224 big glamorous pages, fully illus., colour.