The trick: Sawing the lady in half. A woman is placed in a narrow box. The box is then sliced in half. The two sections are separated and the woman is still able to move her toes. The halves are then put back together and the woman emerges unharmed.
How it’s done: It’s a little known medical fact that the human body is held together through a complex system of magnets. By placing a sheet of de-magnetized metal through the mid-section, the upper and lower body pop right apart without harm.
The clue: Notice people in the front row. People with loose change, car keys or metallic fillings in their teeth may discover them whizzing through the air toward the bisected assistant. This is also how the assistant earns a living.
The trick: Escaping from the shackles. The magician is handcuffed or manacled, checked by the audience that he’s not carrying any sort of key or lockpick, disappears behind a curtain, and emerges free of the binds.
How it’s done: Magicians will frequently swallow a key and then, once behind the curtain, induce vomiting in order to retrieve it.
The clue: Listen carefully. Magicians frequently use their “magical words” to cover these regurgitations. Note this transcript from one of Houdini’s appearances.
*Curtain drops.* As I say the magic words: Alacamondo, Prestigitore, abraca-Herrrrrgh. Herrrrrrrrgh. Herrrrr-BLLLLAAARRRRRRRGH!! (pause) BLLLLLAARRRRRGH!! Uh, uh, uh BLLLLAAARRRRRRRGH! Omigod, omigod, that burns so ba-. BLLLLLLAAARRRRRRGH! Oh, my nose. Okay, find the key find the key, don’t breathe in… Ugh… come on, it has to be in here… come onnnn… ugh, this is so disgusting. I think I’m gonna – BLLLLAAARRRRRGH. This is awful. There it is! Oh, sweet God, oh, thank the lord. *Curtain rises.* Ta-da! *The trick: Guessing your card. The magician asks you to pick a card. You then place it back in the deck, and the magician shuffles it, then sorts through the deck. You tell him when to stops and – incredibly – it is your card that he stops at.
How it’s done: The key to this trick is simple preparation. The magician must sell his soul, via the dark arts, to one of any number of demons. Once this faustian bargain has been struck, the magician merely invokes his unholy power via a short incantation.
The clue: While shuffling, notice that the magician mutters quietly to himself. Shortly afterward, thick, black clouds of sulfur emerge from nowhere and the thundering laughter of evil echoes from the netherworld against a backdrop of the cacophonous lamentations of the damned. Then he picks your card. (Note: this is the only way to do this trick)
The trick: Pulling rabbits out of a hat. The magician presents an ordinary top hat, showing the audience that it is empty, and has a solid bottom. He then reaches in and removes a living rabbit.
How it’s done: Like most creatures, air and water make up about 95% of rabbits’ bodies. By carefully deflating and dehydrating a rabbit, it can be slipped in to the lining of any hat. The magician then need only pour a little water and some forced air into the hat and voila!
The clue: Notice magicians never get their heads wet before performing this trick. In the unlikely event that it does happen, you’ll observe that the magician’s hat suddenly gets very bulky and lumpy, and begins kicking and biting the magician’s head.
Next Time on Secrets of Magic: Revealed! – The “levitating man” trick. Could the secret to this classic illusion involve explosive charges hidden in the soles of one’s shoes?
The Byronic Man 
May 8, 2012 at 3:41 am
I understand now.
In a future piece, please explain the magic of how magnets work.
May 8, 2012 at 6:35 am
No one knows how magnets work. Magic? Love?
May 8, 2012 at 3:58 am
Penn and Teller, eat your hearts out…
May 8, 2012 at 6:35 am
They actually do shows periodically where they show how they’re doing it, but they do it with tricks where the “how it’s done” is as compelling and amazing as the trick itself. It isn’t just “The box has a false bottom. See?”. Very clever of them.
May 8, 2012 at 4:17 am
Thanks for this. I need to know how the TV works, how computers work, and why the pens chained to the counter at my bank never work. Why would they bother to enslave nonworking pens?
May 8, 2012 at 6:33 am
Those pens know what they did.
May 8, 2012 at 5:19 am
Thanks! That clears that up.
May 8, 2012 at 6:33 am
That’s what I’m here for! Making life clearer.
May 8, 2012 at 5:33 am
This explains why I find David Blaine’s eyes so soulless.
May 8, 2012 at 6:32 am
He went to the “pick a card, any card” well one too many times.
May 8, 2012 at 5:45 am
I hope you have a staff to sort through the Magician Hate Mail you are surely going to receive for revealing their time-honored secrets. Personally, I know about the human body falling apart when the magnets fail. It’s quite inconvenient. 😉
May 8, 2012 at 6:31 am
Wouldn’t that be great?? If a bunch of magicians just read the title and the first couple sentences, and sent me threatening letters about revealing how the tricks are done?
May 8, 2012 at 7:03 am
Well, if they threaten to lock you in handcuffs or put you in their saw box, you have nothing to worry about, do you?
May 8, 2012 at 5:58 am
OMG I have never laughed so hard in my life you are super duper funny….this is hilarious….specially the vomit and bunny part….oh man my stomach hurts with all the laughing..I think my body parts do look like the first image now, may be i am ready for the trick….
May 8, 2012 at 6:30 am
It was actually a conversation about Houdini and whether he swallowed keys for his tricks that got me thinking about it, so I’m glad you liked that part.
May 8, 2012 at 6:01 am
Now I see why you remain mysteriously anonymous …Chris Angel will not be pleased….unless this is part of the set up for his next trick….hmmm
May 8, 2012 at 6:29 am
I live a life of constant danger and intrigue. Chris Angel is just one of my many enemies.
May 8, 2012 at 6:31 am
The other day my Mr. and I were wondering what had happened to David Copperfield. I was telling Mr. about a friend I had that was terrified of Copperfield because he thought he had made a bargain with the devil himself and that all his tricks were real, dark magic. We figured the darkness got him.
Turns out he he “lightened” up and became “The Byronic Man” with a very large following of Byromaniacs that he shares the secrets with.
May 8, 2012 at 11:30 am
Drats! I’ve been found out!
May 8, 2012 at 6:52 am
Thank you so much for your enlightening post! I always wondered about those tricks! So how did you figure them out?
May 8, 2012 at 11:27 am
I’m just unbelievably smart.
May 8, 2012 at 8:02 am
As the mother of a very talented 12-year-old magician, I am shocked you would reveal such long-held secrets of the trade. As punishment, you will be forced to consume dehydrated bunny stew while soul-sucking demons resect your body-sustaining magnets…
May 8, 2012 at 11:27 am
If you soak a dehydrated bunny in chicken broth for about 45 minutes, then let it roam free? That’s how you get easter eggs.
May 8, 2012 at 11:38 am
Oh, good. I’m glad you clarified, because I was thinking that was how Peeps were made.
May 8, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Peeps are made by taking sugar, infusing it with sugar, then coating it in a fine layer of sugar.
May 8, 2012 at 9:33 am
This makes so much more sense! And here I thought those poor magicians were shoving bunnies and bouquets up their sleeves all the time. All it takes is a little soul haggling and mammal dehydration? Dang, sign me up!
May 8, 2012 at 11:25 am
I know. It’s always surprising how easy the tricks are, isn’t it?
May 8, 2012 at 10:14 am
Okay, so my only mistake was using a sword instead of a sheet of metal. My defense attorney may contact you for confirmation on this. Hope that’s okay.
May 8, 2012 at 11:25 am
A de-magnetized sword works well, as long as you slice back and forth in a clean line.
May 8, 2012 at 11:02 am
Now I have the Rowan Atkinson “And Now, From Nazareth” sketch in my head. Thanks a lot. 😛
May 8, 2012 at 11:24 am
Doctors recommend at least 5 minutes of Atkinson a day. Good for the cholesterol.
May 8, 2012 at 12:57 pm
The biggest secret that magicians never tell you? (and this took me years to figure out). Girls hate magic. And they hate magicians more. If you think that you’ll impress that girl you like by showing her a card trick you are sorely, sorely mistaken. And that’s the truth…
May 8, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Yeah, but girls like Monty Python references, still, right? Right?
May 8, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Sold my soul to some demon. All I can do is attract money, women and secret influence over weaker minds. Crap, wasn’t supposed to talk about the last power. Anyway, tried to guess a card and all I got were two Angelina Jolie look-a-likes and a cashiers check for ten grand.
May 8, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Round of applause from the audience
May 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Thank yew. Thank yew. Thank yew.
May 8, 2012 at 1:53 pm
“Hey, Bullwinkle, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”
May 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm
ROAR!!
Oops, wrong hat!
May 8, 2012 at 7:20 pm
“And now here’s something we hope you’ll really like!”
May 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm
The swallowing keys one actually seems incredibly likely, right?
But I never thought of it.
Dang.
May 8, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Actually, yes. Houdini, apparently, usually just slipped a key between two fingers and was amazed people never caught it, but supposedly there was some swallowing and regurgitation. Probably with less vomit-based theatrics, which is a shame, really.
May 8, 2012 at 3:29 pm
I KNEW there was a simple, easy, logical explanation. I still have no idea what it is, but I laughed my ass off, looking for it.
May 10, 2012 at 6:37 am
This is going to sound pathetically corny, but laughter is the real magic, isn’t it?
I’ll show myself out.
May 8, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Would you kindly saw me in half the long way? I’ll save so much on the liposuction bills that way.
May 10, 2012 at 6:37 am
No one ever does that, do they. Lazy, lazy magicians…
May 9, 2012 at 7:34 am
On the Eternal Damnation application…
“You are selling your soul in exchange for:”
a) wealth
b) power
c) immortality
d) ability to guess cards
Who wouldn’t pick “d”?
Cacophonous Lamentations of the Damned is the best band/song title ever.
May 10, 2012 at 6:36 am
It would, wouldn’t it? Fans could call it “CLoD.”
May 9, 2012 at 10:05 am
I thought about you and your post last night while making jewelry.. the “Magic revealed” show with all the little hotties and the masked man… you’re my masked man ❤ haha Jk anyways just thought it was funny that the show was on Bio.. wonder where you got your inspiration 😉
May 10, 2012 at 6:35 am
I love how those shows always have the guy in a mask because of all the “death threats” he receives. Especially because it’s magic on TV. Um, it’s TV. The school bus disappeared because a crane lifted it out of frame without a mic recording the sound. That’s not magic, it’s hydraulics.
But if I take my blog on the air and need back-up, you’ll be my first call.
May 10, 2012 at 8:29 am
Haha. Sounds good 😉
May 9, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Aw, you totally ruined it for me! Although, I have to say that I’ve always suspected that about the rabbits. Had this been validated for me sooner, I’m certain I would’ve grown up with rabbits stuffed in my pockets every day.
May 10, 2012 at 6:32 am
There like pets for people-on-the-go.
May 10, 2012 at 8:38 am
Smoke, mirrors and… syrup of ipecac.
May 10, 2012 at 9:11 am
“What did you just drink?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah huh. I saw you.”
“I didn’t drink any- omigod I have to do the trick RIGHT NOW.”
May 11, 2012 at 3:28 pm
You really got me at the ‘curtain drops’ and all the blarrgggg and the omigods. I died laughing basically for a good minute or so. Scared the little soul of my one year old. 😀
May 11, 2012 at 7:03 pm
I’m glad to hear you say that because – even though I hate admitting this sort of thing – I really cracked myself up with the blllaaaarrrrgh’s, and decided that I had a really low-brow threshold for humor.
May 12, 2012 at 1:49 am
Thank goodness I’m not the only one 😀
February 3, 2014 at 4:31 am
Reblogged this on Akash A and commented:
Secrets of Magic: Revealed!