One of the aspects of our London walks is the amount of research that we undertake to ensure that we bring you a wealth of fascinating information.
Amongst our tours we offer several self-guided Harry Potter London walks. These, of course, have a great deal to do with magic and wizardry and the stories are influenced by mythical and magical history.
Today magic is a harmless past time that can created feelings of wonderment in all types of audiences. But, as we discuss on several of our historic City of London walks, and as we mentioned at the end of yesterday’s article, this was not always the case.
Yesterday, we finished by describing how the Church, egged on by the over fevered imaginations of its clerics, began persecuting witches. Today we tell how one Justice of the Peace realised the injustice of this and set about writing the first magical text book in an attempt to counter the injustices that were rife throughout Europe.
A History of Magic - Part Two
In 1581, With the zealous fanaticism of the witch hunts raging across Europe, a girl named Margaret Simons appeared before Rochester Justice of the Peace Reginald Scott, charged with witchcraft.
Stunned by the pointless cruelty of the persecution, Scott devoted the next three years to constructing a well-researched argument that, he hoped, would explode the ludicrous superstitions once and for all.
In 1584 he published The Discoverie Of Witchcraft, which showed how jugglers and popular entertainers, using natural rather than supernatural means, could easily reproduce
the marvels supposedly performed by witches.
The section entitled The Art of Juggling Discovered revealed, for the first time in print, the secrets behind the tricks performed by the juggling fraternity. The book caused a sensation and was later denounced by King James I, who had all obtainable copies seized and burnt by the public executioner.
Scott’s book inspired many imitators and over the next three hundred years books on how to do magic became very much the vogue.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, magic came to be seen as little more than harmless fun and began taking root as popular entertainment. As a result more books came in to print to cater to the ever increasing demand.
Chief amongst the books that taught would- be magicians the secret of the art were what were known as the Hocus Pocus books, the first of which appeared in 1635, and which continued to appear in various editions over the next two hundred years.
As the superstitions of the past gave way to the ‘Age of Reason’ magicians literally came in from the cold and began to appear at in door venues where the audience would come to them rather than vice versa.
Freed from having to carry their props from town to town, and able to charge admission as opposed to touting for tips, magicians were able to develop ever more complex and spectacular illusions.
The most famous of this new breed of illusionist was Isaac Fawkes (also spelt Fawks ans sometimes Faux) who was immortalised by artist William Hogarth in his engraving Southwark Fair (1733). Nobleman and commoner alike attended Fawkes’s performances and, such was his success that, by the time of his death in 1733 he had amassed a considerable fortune of around £10,000.
The use of animals also became fashionable around this time. ‘Learned’ pigs, dogs, horses and cats, able to identify chosen cards and “read” spectators’ minds, proved extremely popular.
Capelli, an Italian conjuror, even had a company of cats, whose talents included the ability to play the organ, hammer upon an anvil and one cat that could understand both French and Italian!
Dr Samuel Johnson commented wryly on one porcine performer that:-
‘Had he been illiterate he had long since been smoked
into hams… Now he is visited by the philosopher and the
politician… and gratified with the murmur of applause…’
With the dawn of the 19th century, several magicians began to capitalize on their occult roots by astounding, astonishing and outright terrifying their audiences with illusions that seemed to summon spirits of the dead and fiery demons before their very eyes.
These ‘Ghost Shows’, several of which we have recreated from time to time on our Haunted London walks, despite eclipsing the popularity of sleight of hand for a time, gave mystery and spectacle to the magicians’ art.
Indeed, the origins of many modern stage illusions can be traced back to these ‘Phantasmagoria.’
One of the most influential magicians of the age was John Henry Anderson the self- proclaimed ‘Wizard of the North’ who, realising the importance of hype never missed an advertising opportunity.
His spectacular stage shows were announced with gaudy and boastful posters, plastered across such imaginative locations as the cliffs at Niagara Falls or even the sides of the pyramids in Egypt! His street parades set a trend that was eagerly followed by circuses, and his charitable performances raised so much money that he was made a life governor of eight British Hospitals.
