ABSTRACT
Misdirection is the magician's word for deception or cheating. It implies the twofold essence of deception, the play between alternatives where the real is dissimulated or hidden while the false is simulated or shown. Most magic tricks involve visual deception. The magician cleverly manipulates the various cues and clues upon which the eye depends to help the brain form perceptions. Magicians make only occasional use of acoustical deception, but when they do, it is most effective. The two remaining senses, smell and taste, are seldom used deceptively by magicians they leave those largely to perfumers and food processers. The only magic trick that combines both smell and taste is the Inexhaustible Bottle. Alas, for young ladies and others, there is no real magic; cheating is cheating and forewarned is forearmed, for beyond the arena of the magician's stage, those who cheat for gain lie in wait perhaps for loss in the world of the eightfold way minus magic.
