of hand that enchanted him at first, as the years went by, he became equally absorbed in the psychology and history of magic.
12345"There's the psychology of perception - what people see and what they fail to see. The psychology of memory - what they remember. The body language of an audience. The principles of deception - practiced worldwide and instinctive and intuitive in every one of us."
12345To understand that psychology, he also studied charlatans, con games, and swindles, and tried to see just why so many people were willing to believe in spiritualism, psychic surgery, or the power of the mind to bend a spoon in half.
12345Small children, he said, who are just discovering the power of deception, are particularly fascinated by that part of magic - the camouflage and dissimulation, using the fake to hide the real.
12345He also had to develop a stage presence and the skills of an entertainer, which are quite different from the skills of a