Sleight Of Hand

In stage magic, SleightOfHand is generally the art of performing seemingly impossible illusions using sheer manual dexterity.

Also a great song by Pearl Jam.

It is also called Prestidigitation, but that's too hard to pronounce, spell, and remember.

In Software Development and other technical matters, SleightOfHand has become known as HandWaving, or magic hand waving. This is often generally a dismissive attempt to wave off technical details either due to a lack of understanding or an attempt to gloss over faulty assumptions.

I added this because I am a former stage magician (will hopefully be one again in the future) and I saw the WikiPages about HandWaving and magic hand waving. Cheers. -- JasonNocks

Very cool. I used to do amateur thaumaturgy - coin, sponge ball, cards, etc. I'm way out of practice, though; with luck I can do a flourish and a rough waterfall with a new deck. :-)

I eventually realized, though, that as with other things, like juggling, there's way, way more to entertaining an audience than technique, and I never really figured out that other more important part. -- DougMerritt

Is it really called thaumaturgy by the practitioners?

Actually, I wasn't really familiar with this term, so the answer is "not by everyone". -- JasonNocks

"thaumaturgy" is old-fashioned in this usage. I used to prefer "prestidigitation", but Jason said right out he didn't like it, so... :-) -- dm

So, what kinds of sleight of hand did you favor? -- dm

Actually, I used to do more stage magic (illusions, escapes, etc.). As you said, entertaining the audience is the primary focus either way. But I did come up with some of my own coin magic moves and was OK at palming cards, etc. How 'bout yourself? --jn

I was best with coins and some mentalism (including cold readings and pretty much every style of fortune telling), but liked cards better (palming, the endless variety of tricks, flourishes), and studied theory (including theories of "real" magic for e.g. patter), history, bios (I was a huge Houdini fan, also e.g. Thurston and Blackstone), but didn't have resources for props for stage magic -- except for propless or small/cheap prop illusions and escapes. At one point I was pretty good at escapes from ropes, chains, handcuffs, etc, and learned to pick key and combo locks for that purpose. I could hold my breath longer than anyone I've personally met (although far from any world records) -- I used to swim 200 meters underwater before coming up, could free-dive to 60 meter depth; would have been handy to combine with Houdini-style escapes, but I never did. I was really into every aspect, but didn't study acting until years later, which might have filled in the key missing element. Oh, I should mention I was an expert hypnotist, that actually was my best, but I dislike the traditional stage stunts, so I don't tend to think of it in the same category. -- Doug