title: Secrets of Conjuring and Magic: Or How to Become a Wizard (Cambridge Library Collection - Spiritualism and Esoteric Knowledge)
author: Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin
description: Originally published in French in 1868, this conjuring manual by Robert-Houdin (1805-71), the best-known stage magician of his time, revealed the secret techniques behind the coin and card tricks popular with Victorian audiences. This English translation by Louis Hoffmann, a barrister and writer on magic tricks, appeared in 1877.
zlib_text: file:///F|/rah/Robin%20Hobb/Hobb,%20Robin%20-%20Assassin%203%20-%20Royal%20Assassin.txt
  Royal Assassin
       
  PROLOGUE
  Dreams and Awakenings
       
      WHY IS IT forbidden to write down specific knowledge of the magics? Perhaps 
  because we all fear that such knowledge would fall into the hands of one not 
  worthy to use it. Certainly there has always been a system of apprenticeship to 
  ensure that specific knowledge of magic is passed only to those trained and 
  judged worthy of such knowledge. While this seems a laudable attempt to protect 
  us from unworthy practitioners of arcane lore, it ignores the fact that the 
  magics are not derived from this specific knowledge. The predilection for a 
  certain type of magic is either inborn or lacking. For instance, the ability for 
  the magics known as the Skill is tied closely to blood relationship to the royal 
  Farseer line, though it may also occur as a "wild strain " among folk whose 
  ancestors came from both the inland tribes and the Outislande