What Was The First Magic Trick?

[Lavie Enrose]

My guess would be creating fire. Not just creating fire, but creating fire when, and where, one wanted.

Some people knew how to create fire, and many others did not. To the later, the controlled creation of fire might have been magic.

 

[rebecca]

Well, the first documented magic trick was cups and balls. Aside from that, who the hell knows?

 

[Lavie Enrose]

Well, the first documented magic trick was cups and balls. Aside from that, who the hell knows?

Actually, it is not. The Cups and Balls is no doubt one of the oldest magic tricks being performed today, but it is not the first documented.

 

[wittgenst3in]

Grak looked around the group and shouted "I will perform magic here today!".

And the tribe looked at one another and said "Yes..?".

Grak pointed and said "I will make the very sun dissapear. And it will not be back for over 11 hours!"

Toruk looked at the setting sun, and developed his pained expression yet again "It's not much of a trick though is it?".

 

[Lavie Enrose]

"It's not much of a trick though is it?".

No, it is not. But had Grak known the time and length of a solar eclipse....

 

[wittgenst3in]

No, it is not. But had Grak known the time and length of a solar eclipse....

Fortunately he was able to save the show by making his thumb appear to seperate from his hand.

 

[epepke]

My guess would be creating fire. Not just creating fire, but creating fire when, and where, one wanted.

Some people knew how to create fire, and many others did not. To the later, the controlled creation of fire might have been magic.

The movie The Emerald Forest has an interesting take on magic tricks in hunter-gatherer societies.

For a Hollywood fiction movie, it doesn't get the anthropology too bad (as opposed to Quest for Fire, for example.)

 

[carudatta]

Isnt the first documented magic trick cutting off a goose's head and putting it back on?

I mean Dedi's show at pharao Someone's court, as recorded in the Westcar Papyrus. He didnt do cups and balls - cant think why he didnt...

 

[Lavie Enrose]

Isnt the first documented magic trick cutting off a goose's head and putting it back on?

Many of the first magic tricks date back to ancient Egypt. The cutting the head off of a live animal, and "rejoining" the head with the "dead" animal, and bringing the animal back to "life" is one of the oldest from Egypt.

Also, many of the ancient priests used "magic" to impress and awe their followers; giant temple doors opening by themselves, for example. These would be like the big stage illusions we have today.

I mean Dedi's show at pharao Someone's court, as recorded in the Westcar Papyrus. He didnt do cups and balls - cant think why he didnt...

The Cups and Balls was most likely not known the the Egyptians at the time of Djedi. I know some claim a single depiction on an ancient Egyptian tomb of a person handling large bowls is the Cups and Balls, but many others (myself included) disagree.

But the main thing to remember is: Djedi was a "real" magician in the sense that people believed he could do real magic. He was a religious leader, a miracle worker, a prophet, not an entertainer like the magicians of today.

We have documentation of the Cups and Balls being performed in ancient Rome. Cups and Balls performers were called, "acetabularii" from the LAtin word for cup: "acetabulum".

 

[Lavie Enrose]

Re: Re: What Was The First Magic Trick?

The movie The Emerald Forest has an interesting take on magic tricks in hunter-gatherer societies.

For a Hollywood fiction movie, it doesn't get the anthropology too bad (as opposed to Quest for Fire, for example.)

Thanks. I will look for that movie, sometime.