LAW AND MAGIC LINKS
last updated 03/12/2008
Under construction
|
THE LAWS OF MAGIC |
||||
LAW AND MAGIC IN THE NEWS
Relative Wants Houdini's Body Exhumed: Suspects Murder
Related Bibliography
William Kalush and Larry Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America First Superhero (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006).
Fox Plans Psychic Reality Show
According to this April 4, 2007 Hollywood Reporter story, the Fox News Network and a co-creator of the hit comedy series Friends are going ahead with a series to test applicants for the "most gifted" psychic. Perhaps they should start, though, by testing whether psychic ability really exists.
Read Joe Nickell's account of assisting with a new big screen film, The Reaping, here (from CSI Online).
A Texas appellate court has overturned the conviction for theft by coercion of fortune teller Jennifer Nicole Evans, ruling that the prosecution failed to show that Evans "never threatened to hurt anyone", a required element of the crime. The prosecution will appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Was the appropriate crime with which to charge Evans crime by deception? See an account of the appellate court's ruling at Maro Robbins, Tarot Card Reader Wins Appeal, San Antonio Express-News, Dec. 28, 2006, at 1B. The case is Evans v. State, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 11016.
A group of Japanese magicians has sued
two Japanese tv networks over what they say is essentially theft of intellectual
property. Note that a US magician attempted to sue the Fox Network using a
similar theory some years ago; he was unsuccessful. See
Rice v. Fox Broadcasting.
La Celestina
Allen, Charlotte Vale, Night Magic (New York: Atheneum, 1989).
Baum, L. Frank, The Wizard of Oz
Clarke, Susanna, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Bloomsbury, 2004).
Douglas, Carole Nelson (author website). Ms. Douglas writes books featuring a mystery solving cat. One of the human characters is a magician.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Faust
Gold, Glen David Carter Beats the Devil (2001). A novel featuring the (real life) magician Charles Carter ("Carter the Great"). Gold is married to the novelist Alice Sebold.
Hoffman, Alice, Practical Magic
Kelley, Patrick A.,
Rawson, Clayton
Rawson, Clayton, The Great Merlini: The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective (Boston: Gregg Press, 1979).
Rawson, Clayton, Death From a Top Hat (Boston: Gregg Press, 1979)(reprint 1962).
Rawson, Clayton, The Headless Lady (Boston: Gregg Press, 1979)(reprint 1962).
Rawson, Clayton, The Footprints on the Ceiling (Boston: Gregg Press, 1979)(reprint 1962).
Rawson, Clayton, No Coffin for the Corpse (Boston: Gregg Press, 1979)(reprint 1962).
Rowling, J. K., Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Magicians in Literature
Claxton, Michael Jay, The Conjurer Unmasked: Literary and Theatrical Magicians, 1840-1925 (Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2003). Discussion of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford; Robert Browning’s Mr. Sludge, the Medium; Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and their treatment of magicians.
Hoppenstand, Gary, Crime and the Magician Detective as Symbols in Patrick A. Kelley’s Sleightly Murder, 12(1) Clues: A Journal of Detection 57-72 (Spring/Summer 1991).
LAW AND MAGIC IN POPULAR CULTURE
Hundreds of films have featured magicians as characters. Here is a sampling in which magicians, psychics, fortunetellers, astrologers, clairvoyants, palm readers, witches and wizards and spiritualists have played key roles.
The Amazing Mr. X (1948). Turhan Bey is a medium who puts a widow in touch with her late husband. Many twists and turns in this low budget but well acted thriller.
The Clairvoyant (1934). Claude Rains is a fake clairvoyant whose predictions suddenly seem to come true.
Columbo Goes to the Guillotine (TVM 1989). Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) deals with a psychic (Anthony Andrews) who murders a magician who could reveal his trickery (Anthony Zerbe).
Family Plot (1976). Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern as a hapless medium and her accomplice, a would-be actor, trying to find a missing heir (William Devane). Alfred Hitchcock's last film. Both Family Plot and The Amazing Mr. X reveal how mediums conduct seances.
The Great Houdini (TVM 1976). Paul Michael Glaser as the fabled magician and Sally Struthers as his faithful wife Bess.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). The first of a string of films based on the J. K. Rowling fantasies, this movie plays the magic "for real."
Houdini (1953). The classic biopic starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
The Illusionist (2006). Edward Norton as a magician in turn of the century Vienna. Based on a Steven Millhauser short story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist."
New York Stories (1989). Three short films about the city. One, "Oedipus Wrecks", directed by and starring Woody Allen, features Allen as a lawyer whose magic trick goes awry.
Practical Magic (1998). Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as two sisters with magical powers who discover that love has powers greater than their own.
The Prestige (2006). Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine star in this film about competing magicians in turn of the century London.
Smokin' Aces (2006). Hired killers chase after a third-rate Lake Tahoe magician.
Scoop (2006). Woody Allen is a third rate magician and Scarlett Johanssen is an aspiring journalist on the trail of a serial killer in this comedy drama set in London.
The Wizard of Oz (1939). Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Frank Morgan, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley star in this classic, an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novel about a little girl's trip to a fantastic land populated by witches, Munchkins, flying monkeys, and a wizard who can make dreams come true.
Shows
The Magician (CBS, 1973-1974). Series starring Bill Bixby as a professional magician who investigates crime.
Blacke's Magic (NBC, 1986). Starred Hal Linden as a professional magician who solves crimes, not always murders, with the help of his father, a con artist.
Medium (CBS, 2005-) Stars Patricia Arquette as a medium who assists the District Attorney by sensing guilty parties. Supposed to be based on the career of Allison DuBois. Available on DVD in the US.
Ghost Whisperer (2005--) Jennifer Love Hewitt is a medium who solves crimes. Available on DVD in the US.
Jonathan Creek (BBC,1997-2004). Alan Davies plays Jonathan Creek, a man who constructs stage illusions for an egotistical magician and is called on by a journalist named Maddie Magellan (Caroline Quentin) to solve baffling crimes. When Quentin left the series, Julia Sawalha became the character who embroils Creek in weird situations. The series is available on DVD in the US.
The Jonathan Creek Homepage (fan site)
Christine A. Corcos, The Magical World of Jonathan Creek
Sabrina the Teenage Witch (ABC, 1996-2004). Melissa Joan Hart plays an adolescent witch learning about life from her aunts, also witches. Penn and Teller guested in several episodes. Available on DVD in the US.
The Dresden Files (SciFi Channel, 2007--). Paul Blackthorne plays Harry Dresden, a wizard living in Chicago who tries to mediate between the human world and a world of the supernatural. Based on the Jim Butcher novels. Available on DVD in the US.
Episodes
CSI
Abracadaver. The CSI team investigates a disappearance during a magic trick. First telecast October 31, 2002. Available on DVD in the US.
Columbo
Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. Psychic Elliott Blake (Anthony Andrews) murders magician Max Dyson (Anthony Zerbe). Columbo enlists the assistance of a magic shop owner and a young magician to help him figure out the trick and trap the killer. First telecast February 6, 1989. Available on DVD in the US.
Columbo: Now You See Him.The "Great Santini" (Jack Cassidy) murders Jesse Jerome (Nehemiah Persoff). Columbo is soon on Santini's trail. First telecast February 29, 1976. Available on DVD in the US.
Dharma and Greg. Most of this nineties series centered on flower child Dharma's attempt to introduce her straight laced husband Greg to her interest in non-traditional and spiritual thought. Frankly he was more open to her ideas than she to his, but since this was the nineties, we were supposed to believe that this was the right outcome.
The Cat's Out of the Bag (aired April 11, 1998). Magician Teller (of the duo Penn and Teller) guests as a man who thinks (or claims to think) he's a cat. His partner Penn has an uncredited part as a pimp.
Ed
The World of Possibility (aired October 15, 2000). Ed explains copyright law to magician Stuckeyville Stan. Here's a review of the episode by Joel Zand.
Perry Mason
Perry Mason: The Case of the Glass Coffin (TVM 1991). Raymond Burr returns as the iconic lawyer to defend a magician accused of murdering his lover. The body turns up in the glass coffin of the title, the result of a botched illusion. First telecast May 14, 1991.
3rd Rock From the Sun
There's No Business Like Dick Business. After they see a magician's act, Dick and Sally decide to try their hands at the art of prestidigitation, with mixed results. First telecast January 16, 2001. Available on DVD in the US.
Will and Grace
Hocus Focus. Jack decides to try out a magic act with Karen as his upstaging assistant. First telecast May 2, 2002. Available on DVD in the US.
Many practicing magicians and theorists have explained the philosophy of magic. See the following books and articles for clarification of the principles of magic.
Lamont, Peter, and Richard Wiseman, Magic in Theory (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1999; reprinted 2005).
Mauss, Marcel, A General Theory of Magic
Comparisons of Law and Magic
In General
Baird, Peter, Corpus Juris Hocus Pocus, Arizona Attorney, October 1989, at 23. Peter Baird is one of the attorneys who was involved in the Miranda case (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), after which the "Miranda warning" was named). He is also a noted novelist (Beyond Peleliu).
Pradell, Steve, Family Law: Magic in the Courtroom, 26 Alaska Bar Rag 27 (September/October 2002).
History
General
Cotterill, Roger, Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain 96-99. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998) Discussing the intersection between law and magic.
Gurvitch, Georges, La magie et le droit (Paris: Dalloz, 2004). Reprint.
Gurvitch, Georges, La magie, la religion, et le droit, in 2 La Vocation Actuelle de la Sociologie (Paris: PUF, 1963).
Huvelin, P., La magie et le droit individuel, 10 Annee sociologique 1-47 (1905-1906).
Lee, Blewett, The Conjurer, 7 Virginia Law Review 370 (1921).
Lee, Blewett, The Fortune Teller, 9 Virginia Law Review 249 (1923).
Lee, Blewett, Psychic Phenomena and the Law, 34 Harvard Law Review 625 (1921).
Lee, Blewett, Spiritualism and Crime, -- Columbia Law Review 439 (1922).
Peters, Edward, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978). Essential to a study of this topic. Extensive bibliographies after each chapter.
Woodhall, Edwin T., Crime and the Supernatural (Kessinger Publisher, 2003). Reprint of the 1935 publication.
Roman Period
Geoffrey MacCormack, Formalism, Symbolism and Magic in Early Roman law, 37 Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 439 (1969).
Pharr, Clyde, The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law, 63 Transactions of the American Philological Association 269-295 (1932).
Rives, James B., Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime, 22(2) Classical Antiquity 313-339 (October 2003). (abstract only).
Byzantine Period
Marie-Theres Fögen, Balsamon on Magic: From Roman Secular Law To Byzantine Canon Law (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995).
Magic and Intellectual Property Law
Pierre Fleury-Legros, La protection du secret de l'oeuvre de magie par le droit de la propriété intellectuelle, Chroniques, 10 Novembre 2005, at 2808.
Pierre Fleury-Legros, Si j'avais un piano...., Jurisprudence, 2004, at 1589-1591.
Jacob Loshin, Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property Without Law
Magicians
International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM)
Society of American Magicians (SAM)
Scientists, Skeptics, Researchers, Research Organizations, and Skeptical Organizations
Henri Broch, Professor at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis
Back to the Law and the Humanities Website
Since April 10, 2007
© Copyright Christine Corcos 2007