Repository
What follows is an alphabetized list of major illusions and effects. The list includes PUBLIC DOMAIN, LICENSED, and PROTECTED illusions. Please review our DEFINITIONS page for more detail on the differences between these categories.
DISCLAIMER: The Illusion Repository assumes no risk or responsibility for the information listed here nor for your purchases or builds and provides this list as a professional courtesy.
If you are truly interested in purchasing one of the “protected” illusions, please call your favorite builder and see if they are authorized to build the illusion. Oftentimes a builder may simply pay a fee to the designer for the right to build a single unit (a one–off). In that case, the builder may not be listed, but would still be authorized by the designer to build the illusion as a one-off.
The other way to purchase an illusion from this list would be to directly contact the designer. Often the designer can recommend a preferred builder. (e.g. Jim Steinmeyer prefers that clients contact him directly.)
In some cases the illusions listed here are NOT available for purchase or performance. Some have been exclusively licensed to individual performers and are not available to the public. So when in doubt, CONTACT THE DESIGNER! And don’t worry – most designers (including the “big names”) are more than happy to help – it’s their job!
Short Description A bed of spikes penetrates a spectator from the audience
Short Description An especially visual variation of the Sawing-in-Half using a spectator from the audience.
Short Description A portable version of the classic Bryce Screens - an illusion for producing an assistant from behind a set of screens.
Short Description The magician pretends to let his audience see how he produces his assistant. But when the production is made, although the audience saw the assistant crawl into the box, she is gone and a man produced instead.
Short Description An assistant vanishes from atop a thin pedestal. She reappears inside a curtained cabinet. She disappears from the cabinet and reappears at the back of the venue.
Designer Jan Rouven, Mathias Fischedick, Frank Alfter
Short Description The magician lies on a table under several hanging swords. An assistant chooses strings tied to the swords. Each string drops a different sword and all swords will miss the magician's body except for one which will plunge through his chest. The assistant chooses all the safe swords and the magician is spared.
Short Description An assistant enters a beer barrel and is impaled with multiple rods. The rods are removed and she emerges unharmed.
Short Description A "chinaman" appears in an empty cabinet. His head is removed and placed into a box. The head then appears back on his body in side the cabinet.
Short Description In this illusion, a drawing comes to life. It's a 21st century sawing-in-half illusion without assistants or boxes.
Short Description The assistant is systematically taken apart into seven pieces. Each piece remains alive and active throughout the routine.
