The magic of Alan Wakeling holds the unique place of a historical book as well as an instructional book. Alan Wakeling was a great magician that helped prove that magic was practical on television. This book follows his career through his relationships with mentors and colleges and shows all of the magic he created along the way.

The narrative was very interesting as well as the magic. Wakeling lived in a different era than today and the methods apparatus and props definitely show this. I am primarily a close up worker and have some experience in a parlor setting but I have very little experience as a large scale illusionist. This book covers magic from all of the above genres and everything in between I’ll go over my favorite pieces.

The Billiard Ball routine is a beautifully illustrated routine that showcases a ton of strong magic. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of magicians in todays world that would put aside the time to learn such an intricate routine that has been put to the test over thousands of performances. If you’d like to dive head first into a wonderful shelled billiard ball routine Steinmeyer has provided about 30 pages documenting every step.

Psychic Blackjack is a 2 person mind reading act where the psychic correctly predicts the outcome in a quick game of black jack. The principles taught here have many applications.

The Wakeling Egg Bag is a fun routine with a slightly different design than the usual egg bag that gives the performer great opportunities to make stunning disappearances and productions.

There is a fun section where it talks about Wakeling and his circus act. Three or four big box illusions are discussed including a magical puppet theater, his version of the tip over trunk, a couple production cabinets and clever way to crush a girl flat. These are all rarely used illusions that look like they have slipped past the eyes of many.

Steinmeyer includes a very cool bar act that is reminiscent of think a drink. The method and apparatus are definitely unusually complicated for todays standards but the depth of preparation that was required for this is something we seem to have lost over the ages. If this act was revived it would be so off the wall that I’m sure it would fool scores of magicians and laymen alike.

There are so many wonderfully developed acts here that it is difficult to pick and choose the best. One of the gems in the book is the numerology act. This is a whole act from beginning to end using number tiles, dice and mathematics to show that numbers control the universe. It all culminates in a tape recorded prediction similar to the kind that Max Maven popularized on the World’s Greatest Magic specials. Basically the spectator moves their finger from tile to tile listening to the instructions on a tape to finally land on the one that was predicted.

There’s a section on close up specialties that I love. It includes his handling on Grandmother’s Pearls (which I use in my childrens show), card to wallet, and a four ace production that wa used by Lance Burton on national television.

It finishes off with some of his better known contributions to stage magic including a humorous handcuff escape, his unique take on the princess card trick with a surprise ending, his version of paper balls over the head and the Wakeling Sawing,which in my opinion the best boxed sawing out there. The sawing alone has been performed by Rick Thomas and Kalin and Jinger.

That really only scratches the surface. This is a different kind of magic book that provides you with full acts and routines. It gives methods of some huge illusions, mentalism, parlor and close up work. This is a good read and there’s probably something for everyone. It should be noted that this is magic from another time when people put years into developing their acts. This is not a random one trick DVD but a biographical manual explaining the secrets of an almost forgotten legend of our craft.