Sleight of Hand

With the return of magic many jobs have rendered obsolete. One of the industries which was forced to completely re-imagine itself was the magical entertainment business. When there were true illusionists, people no longer found slight of hand as entertaining. Previously called illusionist, their monikers were quickly changed due to lawsuits about deceptive practices. Knowing you were going to see slight of hand took the 'magic' from the show, and soon the money dried up for that profession.
Slight of hand was a technique used by practitioners to fool and audience into believing that they were witnessing the practitioner doing magic. Usually this entailed distracting the audiences attention from one hand while working the trick with the other. This might be making a coin 'appear' from within your ear, or making a car disappear from a stage. Mirrors and other tools could also be used to perform these tricks.
Slight of hand would often include card tricks as well. This might be having you select a card from an unopened deck and then 'finding' the card you had selected. Sometimes the cards would push themselves from the deck. Sometimes it would also include the signature of the person who selected the card.
Small objects were more often used to perform these feats of magic. This could range from coins to items taken from a person like watches, wallets, etc. These skills were more akin to street thievery than magic.
A great practitioner of this art was Houdini. He was famous for his sleight of hand tricks. He was also adamant about proving that real magic did not exist. He did not want others to be fooled by false practitioners, especially those who pretended to be mediums with the spirit world.
You can still see shows like this off the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
We have included a video reference in this article. Please see that link to understand this better from a visual perspective.

Type

Entertainment