Excerpt from Sealed Mysteries: Explaining the Latest Card, Mysteries and Spirit Tricks Made Public for the First Time, With Directions for Constructing Trick Cards

The recent tendency toward Impromptu Magic is due largely to the increased opportunities for social intercourse, supplied by the numerous Magical Societies, at which magicians are wont to gather for the purpose of amusing and amazing one another, with feats in the higher form of Magic that appear inexplicable even by the known principles of Illusion.

The poularity of such off-hand Wizardry is fostered by the professional, who is invariably called upon to offer an example of his ability so soon as his profession is known, and if forced to explain that he is without apparatus at hand he is looked upon as a poor sort of Magician, who cannot perform without mechanical apparatus. He is therefore stimulated to keep at hand, at least one or two impromptu mysteries.

Of late years many followers of professional callings, such as Law, Medicine, Politics, Science, Banking, and a surprising number of the Ministry, have taken up the Art of Magic, realizing its value as a mental recreation aside from its fascinating entertaining qualities. Salesmen and traveling men find it a material aid to business. All these, prefer magical effects of a seemingly impromptu nature.

In this volume, the first publication devoted to the higher form a of impromptu magic, the author and editor have endeavored to select only the finest and most subtle of the many tricks of this nature, of recent invention, which have never before appeared in print.

The author, Mr. Burling Hull, who needs little if any introduction to magical students, owns the largest collection of card tricks in existence, beside which, he has invented a series of over thirty tricks with Special and Mechanical cards, as well as numerous tricks in sleight of hand, with cards and other objects, entirely aside from his work in the line of mechanical and stage apparatus. This alone renders him better able to speak authoritatively on the subject, than probably anyone else, while his experience as the leading magical instructor of the East, enables him to deal with the subject in a manner which is most readily comprehensive to the magical student. Always original, Mr. Hull has added to the various experiments much that will improve them, as well as suggestions for the alteration and improved construction of the majority.

Care has been taken to place the credit for the various inventions where it is due, a feature which is sadly neglected by so many present day writers.

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