"The hand is quicker than the eye," is a saying often heard among people who are being entertained by a prestidigitator. Magicians themselves also use this expression, but not in the same sense as their public uses it, because not one of them believes this to be the truth.
The writer was a magician on the vaudeville stage for twenty-five years, and he as well as the other performers in his profession practiced misdirection in various forms. The attention of the audience was deliberately attracted to a certain point so as to leave the spot free from observation where the trick actually was occurring. At times this misdirection was very subtle. In fact, when the smoothness of the execution reached a high point, detection was almost impossible. In a theater seating approximately three thousand persons, those persons who could see through the performance and catch on to what was actually happening could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Magicians would class the observation powers of such persons as far above the average.
Paul writes (Mark 8:18), "Having eyes, see ye not?" The revelation of Christian Science has focused light on God's perfect spiritual creation, which before this had largely remained unobserved. The attention of men had been centered on the material sense of life. They had been misdirected and were unable to detect the real.
