Often misconstrued when given as a gift -- the Rod of Death.  From the Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn strategy handbook.

Before turning a woman into an orange tree, be sure your climate zone accommodates citrus.  From The Magic Catalogue by William Doerflinger.

The long-held gambits and counters are finally revealed, so that anyone can one-up the greatest scoundrels of all: magicians.  It's all in Upmanship Tricks: Secrets of One-Upping Magicians.

Cheese divination, jester scepters, and cheating at a game of Go Fish: it's Prof. Oddfellow's Penetralia.

"Cousened" is an obsolete version of "cozened," so the conjurer is himself tricked.  From Poets' Wit and Humor by W. H. Wills and illustrated by Charles Bennett and George H. Thomas, 1860.

How a theatrical ghost walks.  (But no mention of how ectoplasmic perambulation occurs.)  From Spook Crooks by Julien J. Proskauer, 1932.

Houdini holds a beaker for a giant robotic mad scientist, from Cine-Mundial, 1918.

From The Charm by Walter Besant & Walter Pollock, illustrated by Chris Hammond & A. Jule Goodman, 1896.

From Le Journal Amusant, 1906.

Houdini menaced by a robot, from Cine-Mundial, 1918.

Reblog if you have ever produced a rabbit from thin air while surrounded by germs.  From Le Chariviari, 1884.

From Cine-Mundial, 1932.

From Queen Nature's Fairy Helpers by Alice Edgerton, 1921.

We're delighted that our mystical spell for a wishing well (which debuted in Fiddler's Green magazine, no.4) inspired a magical presentation by renowned mentalist Mark Edward for his book of mysterious séance magic, Total Darkness.