I. THE MAGICIAN
The magician Karl Germain with the pianist Ethel Leginska
The Ohioan magician Karl Germain, around the turn of the 20th century, sometimes opened his stage act with an illusion he called “The Cabinet of Cagliostro.” An assistant would enter the cabinet, pull down shades on three sides, step out, and pull down the front shade. After the cabinet was turned all the way around, the front shade would fly up, showing that the magician had appeared inside. Then he would step out and say,
“It is only a step, as you see, ladies and gentlemen, from the invisible world—it takes but an instant to glide from the astral plane into the material world. The world is filled with forms of beings and of things invisible to all save those who are gifted with psychic vision. To prove to those who have only physical eyesight that this is so, I will materialize a few of the astral forms I see about here. Observe, for instance, this beautiful silk floating about invisibly in space. I touch it and wish it to become visible to you, and there you are.”
I found this magician on the internet. I was looking for my ex-boyfriend, who had the same full name, but CARL, not KARL. He was in Seattle and I was in Ohio and, a whole year after he ended our brief relationship, I was still texting him, and he was still replying days later: 🔮.
On the internet, nobody can disappear. The internet said Karl the magician said, “Conjuring is the only absolutely honest profession—a conjuror promises to deceive and does.”
(Quote and first image from Germain the Wizard and his Legerdemain by Stuart Cramer; second image from The Secrets of Karl Germain by Stuart Cramer; third image from the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck)