The methods of diverting the spectator’s attention are various.  There is the use of the eyes, as before shown.  Then there is the spoken word, the performer telling the onlookers to observe some certain object or action, and the effect is to cause them to watch it, as they are told.  They follow the line of least resistance.  The combined effect upon the spectator of the spoken word and the eyes together is generally irresistible.

Another important factor is this:  A performer should always let any suggestion, right or wrong, soak well into the spectator’s mind before attempting to change it.  This is for two reasons.  In the first place, if the suggestion is correct, if, e. g., the performer really does place an object in his left hand, and it is shortly found to have vanished from that hand, he is annoyed by hearing some one say that he was not really sure it was there in the first place, as “it was covered up so quickly.”  If, on the other hand, the suggestion given was a false one, if, e. g., the performer says he has placed an object in his left hand, when, in reality, he has not done so but has palmed it in the right, then it is still necessary to allow a certain time-interval to elapse between the performing of the action which apparently placed the object in the hand, and the showing of the hand empty, for this reason.  If the hand into which the object is supposedly placed is immediately shown empty, the natural conclusion of the sitter is that the object was not in reality placed there at all, but was retained in the other hand, which would be the fact.  If, however, the performer allowed some time to elapse, between the action of placing the object in that hand (supposedly) and the showing of the hand empty, he, meanwhile, keeping his eyes fixed on the hand, suggesting to the sitters that the object is there, and in every way acting as if it were there, the idea will gradually gain a firm hold on the minds of the spectators that the object is there, in reality, and they are correspondingly surprised to find it ultimately vanished.  It is just such a knowledge of “the way people’s minds work,” as a friend once said to me, which enables the conjurer to deceive the public; and it is precisely the same cast of mind that the medium possesses.  He is, in fact, a good judge of human nature.

Another fact that must be borne in mind is that, when once a spectator has seen a movement made two or three times in the same manner, he frequently “sees” the performer make that movement on another occasion, when the performer had, in reality, only started to make the movement, and suggested the rest.  Thus, if the performer throws a ball up into the air two or three times in succession, and on the fourth occasion merely pretends to throw it up, really retaining it in the other hand, the great majority of the spectators will really “see” the ball ascend into the air on the fourth occasion, and will so state, on being asked.  We here depend upon association and habit.[1]