Empire of Enchantment: The Story of Indian Magic

by John Zubrzycki

Overview

India's association with magicians goes back thousands of years. Conjurors and illusionists dazzled the courts of Hindu maharajas and Mughal emperors. As British dominion spread over the subcontinent, such wonder-workers became synonymous with India. Western magicians appropriated Indian attire, tricks and stage names; switching their turbans for top hats, Indian jugglers fought back and earned their grudging respect.
This book tells the extraordinary story of how Indian magic descended from the realm of the gods to become part of daily ritual and popular entertainment across the globe. Recounting tales of levitating Brahmins, resurrections, prophesying monkeys and "the most famous trick never performed," Empire of Enchantment vividly charts Indian magic's epic journey from street to the stage.


This heavily illustrated book tells the extraordinary, untold story of how Indian magic descended from the realm of the gods to become part of daily ritual and popular entertainment across the globe. Drawing on ancient religious texts, early travelers' accounts, colonial records, modern visual sources, and magicians' own testimony, Empire of Enchantment is a vibrant narrative of India's magical traditions, from Vedic times to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190914394
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2018
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

John Zubrzycki has worked in India as a diplomat, consultant, tour guide, and correspondent for The Australian. His background is in South Asian history and Hindi, and his doctoral thesis (University of New South Wales) concerned historical links between Indian and Western stage magicians. John's previous books include The Last Nizam and The Mysterious Mr Jacob.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter I: Of Levitating Brahmins and Prophesizing Apes
Chapter II: Casting Indra's Net
Chapter III: The Lovers of Jinns
Chapter Iv: In the Court of the Kings
Chapter V: A Bed of Nails
Chapter VI: The Juggler's Child
Chapter VII: Tricks of the Trade
Chapter VIII: Crossing the Kala Pani
Chapter IX: Spell-casters in the Strangers' Home
Chapter X: The Fakir Invasion
Chapter XI: Motilal's Magical Menagerie
Chapter XII: From Turbans to Top Hats
Chapter XIII: "The Most Famous Trick Never Performed"
Chapter XIV: A Rope Trick in a Snow Storm, a Fire Walk in Surrey
Chapter XV: The Maharajah of Magic
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

11/05/2018
Men walk on fire, assistants are stabbed before reappearing unharmed, and white magicians attempt to evoke the Orient in journalist Zubrzycki’s (The Mysterious Mr. Jacob) underwhelming, Eurocentric history of Indian stage magic. The first half of the book delves into mythology and religious tradition, revealing that many of the tricks most associated with Indian magic have their origins in ascetic practices and religious beliefs. The second half examines the cross-pollination of Indian and Euro-American magic and their practitioners. Cultural appropriation and the Europeanization of upper-class Indians sped this process along, Zubrzycki says, until it culminated in the persona of India’s best-known magician, P.C. Sorcar, who in the 1950s and ’60s took “Indian magic where it had never gone before, presenting Western-style tricks in elaborate Oriental settings.” Zubrzycki draws almost exclusively on British sources, repeating their views without interrogating their biases, and frames success in Indian magic in terms of acceptance by British and American magicians. He spends far more time on Sorcar’s conflicts with Euro-American magicians than on his impact on Indian magic. Readers looking for an Indian perspective or India-centric cultural history should look elsewhere. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A valuable and entertaining book."—The Washington Post

"A fantastic and thoroughly engaging history of Indian magic . . . bristling with . . . tales of conjurors, tricksters, illusionists, jugglers, and cunning conmen across the centuries."— The Financial Times

"Exceptionally well-crafted and brilliantly told, Empire of Enchantment brings alive the most enchanting tales and traditions from the history of Indian magic, packed with an extraordinary cast featuring emperors and politicians, street performers and thugs. Travelling with Zubrzycki from distant antiquity down to our own, more recent times, what this book offers is a universe of pure, unadulterated delight."— Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

"A strange, deeply learned but consistently entertaining salmagundi of marvels, myths and outrageous cons .— a surefooted survey of a vast terrain."—The Spectator

"John Zubrzycki has found the most wonderful story — the sort all writers look for and long for — and told it brilliantly. This is — quite literally — a book of marvels."—William Dalrymple

"An amazing, brilliant, and incredibly erudite book. Zubrzycki's knowledge is dazzling, and his discussions of Indian magicians and their Western imitators or denigrators allow him to tell marvellous stories about animal trainers, snake charmers, not to mention, thieves, Thugs, folk healers, spies, automatons, and about fascinating characters—Thurston, Sleeman, Sorcar —and many more."—Lee Siegel, Professor of Religion, University of Hawaii, and author ofNet of Magic: Wonders and Deceptions in India

"Delightful and charming . . . Empire of Enchantment is much more than a history of Indian magic. It is an extraordinarily riveting social history of India, and of India's encounter with the world."— The National

"Fascinating."— The Telegraph

"Weaving, with his own magical touch . . . an utterly fascinating history of a wonderful cultural tradition . . . Zubrzycki has it all, and his scholarship ranges far and wide. . . . a readable and fast-paced book."— Asian Review of Books

"Hugely entertaining . . . a vividly illuminating history of the place of magic in Indian life . . . [a] fabulous book of marvels and wonders."Literary Review

"Explores the history of magic rituals in India and the way they shaped western imaginations . . . [with] a pleasing sense of humor . . . and an eye for the absurd."— The Times

"John Zubrzycki has found the most wonderful story- the sort all writers look for and long for- and told it brilliantly. This is- quite literally- a book of marvels." — William Dalrymple

From the Publisher