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Henry Dean - Hocus Pocus or the whole art of legerdemain in perfection By Henry Dean
Describes classics such as the cups and balls, gypsy thread, ball vase, and various popular card and coin tricks still performed today. Learn how to make a shiner from a coin and a drop of water or beer, how to make a double-faced coin, how to eat fire, and other tricks and stunts. A book like this reminds us how old magic really is. We think that the latest and 'newest' trick being hyped and hawked online is indeed new, when in fact it is far from new and often is based on ideas and methods hundreds of years old.
Clearly, Henry Dean was a magic dealer because several times he advertises his wares, such as
"...if any person wants to be furnished with these blowing books, they may have them at my shop on Little-tower-hill...
He even offered himself as an instructor in the magic arts:
Any person that is desirous to learn any part of this art, they may be taught by me. - H. Dean.
- The Preface To The Reader
- A Description of the Operation
- How to pass the Balls through the Cups
- The Operation of the Cups is thus
- How to shew the wonderful Magic Lanthorn
- To seem to swallow a long pudding made of tin
- To seem to eat knives and forks
- To put a lock upon a man's mouth
- How to shew the magic bell and bushel
- How to put a ring through one's cheek
- How to shew the Hen and Egg-bag, and out of an empty bag to bring out above an hundred eggs, and afterward, to bring out a living hen
- How to cut the blowing book
- To shew the trick with the Funnel
- How to make three little children dance in a glass upon a table
- Bonus Genius: or Hiccius Doctius
- Of conveyance of Money
- To convey money out of one of your hands into the other by Legerdemain
- To convert money into counters, and counter into money
- To put one tester into one hand, another into the other hand, and with words to bring them together
- To put one tester into a stranger's hand, and another into your own, and to convey both in to the stranger's hand with words
- How to shew the same, or the like feat otherwise
- To throw a piece of money away, and to find it again where you left it
- How to make a groat or tester to leap out of a pot, or run along upon a table
- To make a groat or a tester to sink through a table, and to vanish out of a handkerchief strangely
- A notable trick to transform a counter to a groat
- An elegant feat to make a two-penny piece be plain in the palm of your hand, and be passed from thence where you list
- To convey a tester out of one's hand that holds it fast
- To convey a shilling, being in one hand, into another, holding your hands abroad
- To transform any small thing into any other form by folding paper
- Another experiment of the like nature
- Of cards, with good caution how to avoid cozenage therein, especially rules to convey and handle the cards, and the manner and order how to accomplish all difficulties and strange things wrought with cards
- How to deliver out four aces, and to convert them into four knaves
- How to tell one what card he seeth at the bottoms when the card is shuffled in the stock
- Another way to do the same, having yourself never seen the cards
- To tell without confederacy, what card he thinketh on
- How to make a card jump out of the pack, and run on the table
- How to tell what card any man thinketh on, and how to convey the same into a kernel of a nut or cherry stone, and the same again into one's pocket; and how to make him draw the same, or any card you please, and all under one device
- How to let twenty gentlemen draw twenty cards, and to make one card every man's card
- How to change a pack of cards into all manner of pictures
- How to knit a knot upon a handkerchief, and to undo the same with words
- How to take three button moulds off two strings
- To cure the tooth-ach
- To know if it be a head, or woman, and the party to stand in another room
- Fortunatus' wishing post, or how to make any person dance naked
- To seem to cut a hole in a cloak, scarf, or handkerchief, and with words to make it whole again
- The Egg Box is looked upon to be as good a trick and as cunning a slight, as any that is done, but because it cannot be expressed in words, I have put these figures underneath to explain it.
- To make a room seem to be all on fire, mighty dreadful to behold
- How to eat fire, and to blow it up in your mouth with a pair of bellows
- How to walk on a hot iron bar, without danger of scalding or burning
- How to make a knife leap out of a pot
- The melting-box
- How to light a candle by a glass of cold water, or other liquor, without the help of fire
- A trick upon the globe-box
- To tell the names of all cards in the pack, before you see them
- How to hold four kings in the hand, and by words to seem to transform them into four aces, and afterwards to make them all blank cards
- To tell or name all the cards in the pack, and yet never see them
- To shew one what card he taketh notice of
- To tell the number of spots on the bottom cards, laid down on several heaps
- To make any two cards come together, which any body shall name
- How to make a cat draw a fellow through a pond of water
- How to burn a thread, and to make it whole again with the ashes
- To cut a lace asunder in the middle, and to make it whole again
- How to pull innumerable ribbons out of your mouth, of what colour you please
- To draw a cord through your nose, mouth, or head, so sensible, as it is wonderful to see.
- To thrust a bodkin into your forehead without hurt
- How to thrust a bodkin through your tongue
- How to cut your arm off, a pitiful sight, without hurt or danger
- How to kill any fowl, but especially a pullet, and with words to give it life again
- To thrust a piece of lead into your eye, and to drive it about with a stick between the skin and flesh and forehead, until it be brought to the other eye, and there thrust out
- To make the constable catch the knave
- To seem to change a card into a king or queen picture
- To seem to turn a card into a live bird
- Three or four cards being laid down, to tell any one which of those cards he touched
- To tell one what card he took notice of
- How to let a gentleman hold ten pieces of money in his hand, and to command them unto what number he can think on
- To thrust a dagger into your guts, very strangely, and to recover immediately
- How to cut a man's head off, and to put the head into a platter, a yard from his body
- To seem to turn water into wine
- To make sport with an egg
- To fetch a shilling out of a handkerchief
- To cause the beer you drink, to be wrung out of the handle of a knife
- How to make it freeze by the fire-side
- To cut glass, a famous invention
- How to make two bells come into one hand, having put into each hand one
- How to make a sheet of paper called Trouble-wit
- To make sport in company
- How to command seven half-pence through a table
- How to turn a box of bird-seed into a living bird
- How to command a sixpence out of a box
- How to call for any card in the pack
- Another way to call for a card
- To tell one what card any one thinketh on
- Another way to tell one what card is noted
- How to make a card jump out of an egg
- How to make the fountain of command
- To seem to kill a horse, and to cure him again
- A very strange trick, whereby you may seem to cut a piece of tape into four parts, and make it whole again with words
- A device to multiply one face, and make it seem to be a hundred or a thousand
- To make the fulminating thundering powder
1st edition 1722, 11th edition 1795, 106 pages; this digital edition is based on the 11th edition; PDF 59 pages.
word count: 24099 which is equivalent to 96 standard pages of text
