An illustration from Past, Present and Future by James E. White (1909).

An illustration from Past, Present and Future by James E. White (1909).  The caption reads: "Table lifted from the floor without hands."

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm magazine.  The caption reads: "This magician carried them at will from world to world."

An illustration from In the Sweet and Dry by Christopher Morley and Bart Haley (1919), illustrated by Gluyas Williams.  The caption reads: "The Six Quimbletons or The Decanterbury Pilgrims In Their Artistic Revival Of Old and Entertaining Customs, Tableaux Vivants, Vanished Arts, Folklore Games and Conjuring Tricks Such as The Drinking of Healths, Toasts, Nosepainting, The Lifted Elbow, Let's Match For It, Say When, Light or Dark? and this One's On Me. Communion With Departed Spirits. Please Do Not Leave Before the Hat Goes Round."

Here's a sword suspension from 1848, about a year before Robert-Houdin debuted his famous broomstick illusion.  From Punch.

"The Grand Transformation!"  An illustration from an 1889 issue of Punch magazine.

There has always been a fine line between stage magic and occultism.  Here's a poorly-rehearsed stage magician who mangles his magic words and conjures up a demon, from Punch, 1908.  The caption reads, "An unrehearsed effect."

Father Time learns about the quantum cups and balls 116 years before physicists Billangeon and Nakamura publish their quantum cups and balls in the journal Nature.  An illustration from an 1896 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from an 1876 issue of Punch magazine.

a hole in something
what a card trick does to fingers

—Gary Barwin, "Because Birds"

To our knowledge, only one person has thoroughly described what a card trick does to a magician's fingers.  With each magical performance, the digitations are aroused to "borrow" or "liberate" according to new yearnings.  Some fingers steal people's secrets, under the delusion that possessing elements of a personal life makes them one's own.  Some steal other people's names, leaving in their wake individuals without any knowledge of who they were, forced to trust in the testimony of friends and relatives.  Some steal time, with the logical intention of prolonging their days; they steal past time when in the mood to dwell upon memories; they steal present time when feeling constricted by immediate limitations; they steal future time out of the very lives of children when hard hit by the panic of impending dissolution.  Some steal dreams, leaving others' sleep blank and uncharacterized.  Some steal sleep itself so as to hibernate like a bear, leaving victims staring, on the verge of despair and madness, night after night in the indifferent dark.  Some steal others' hope, though always leave just enough to keep them from suicide.  We find these insights in Wendy Walker's masterpiece The Secret Service (1992), which we have here paraphrased.

Cups and balls: an illustration from a 1901 issue of The Idler magazine.

A valentine from a 1903 issue of Life magazine.

Jollification expert Bernie DeKoven highlights our oddest work yet — a book that transforms other books in surprising ways.  As we confabulated with Bernie:

The Dictionary Game (see also Fictionary) turns a serious reference book into a gaming generator; the dictionary is playfully transformed from a tool for decoding puzzling words into a puzzle-making machine, where whimsically fake definitions take the stage.  But could any book, spontaneously pulled off the shelf, be transformed into a playfulness machine?  Could one’s entire home library be a gaming center?  That’s the lofty goal of a new publication that offers, among other oddities, cut-out paper spectacles for seeing more than is readily apparent in any book.

Please note that our Machinarium Verbosus is a book for the few—the very few.  If it’s important to one’s psychological well-being that the machinations of the Universe be neat and tidy and wholly comprehensible by the human mind, then absolutely do not proceed with this book’s experiments.  Let this constitute a very serious warning: do not take these experiments lightly, as any one of them may induce an existential crisis.

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Life magazine.  The caption reads: "Hallowe'en and candle-light.  Show me my true love to-night."