New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. x, 327 pp. (B&W photos, illustrations.) US$29.99, paper. ISBN 978-1-107-43382-3.
Conjuring Asia is a fascinating book that explores the complex relationship between Western “modern” magic and the “Oriental” magic of Asia, both real and imagined. That these two broad categories are themselves filled with ambiguity, contradiction, and competing perceptions is an indicator of the themes pervading the book. Goto-Jones is both a practiced magician and an academic, affording him a unique perspective and a complimentary set of writing quirks. He notes in his introduction that his target audience consists of magicians and scholars and thus cautions that the book eschews wider accessibility in favour of providing “meticulous footnotes and curious tangents” (10). This is an important warning for any reader, as Goto-Jones is correct that a non-specialist audience is likely to find the extensive footnotes and ever-present reflexive theorizing to be oppressive and distancing. As an academic, however, I am somewhat immune to reflexive theoretical discussions and welcomed the intriguing tangents, greater detail, and ability to dig deeper that the footnoting enabled.
The book is structurally split in half, with the first three chapters striking a more traditional academic tone in which to battle through the contradictions and confusions surrounding contested definitions while also introducing a collection of binary oppositions that include modern magic and mysticism/spiritualism/charlatanism, Old and New magic, and black and white magic. These discussions are framed in the context of competing views of Western magicians active during the “Golden Age” of modern magic, identified as extending from the middle of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century (9). Goto-Jones does not attempt to provide “a comprehensive history of the period” (14) but rather draws on figures and events to thematically illustrate the conflicting perspectives and paradoxes in his discussion. In particular, he draws attention to a seemingly unresolvable internal conflict in which Western modern magic is simultaneously repelled by and reliant upon other, sometimes older, varieties of magic and mysticism where performers claim to possess supernatural powers. Goto-Jones shows how modern magic was presented by famous practitioners, like Harry Houdini, as an honest performance art, entirely in line with scientific modernity, standing in opposition to charlatanism and conjurors who sought to “exploit the credulity of the magical beliefs of [their] audience” (82). And yet simultaneously, there was widespread recognition that for modern magicians to achieve or enhance their highly sought-after magical effect on audiences it was often necessary to adopt the practices, processes, and aesthetic sensibility of the older supposedly illegitimate magic and its associated performers.
In the concluding chapter for the first section, Goto-Jones seeks to tie together the various threads and provide “a theory of modern magic” complete with standardized terminology. He makes a valiant effort, but it feels at times he’s restating debates that have raged for over a century while adding the caveat that things are complicated and there is a “grey zone in between [the] positions” (97). It may be that this discussion is of more relevance to practicing magicians, as it at times comes across as an emic discussion, despite repeated attempts to link discussions to postcolonialism, Orientalism, and other critical approaches.
In the second half of the book, the focus shifts to more directly address issues of Orientalism in magic by devoting individual chapters to India, China, and Japan. These chapters are more descriptive than the analytical first section, which enables more space to be devoted to providing rich accounts of various colourful performers and to tracing the history of specific tricks. Goto-Jones considers both how the magic of India, China, and Japan was represented to Western audiences and how it was experienced and performed in those countries. This dual perspective is important as it avoids presenting the people and magicians of Asia as simply passive subjects of Western fascination by examining how they negotiated with and, at times, coopted use of Western colonial stereotypes.
These chapters at times feel slightly idiosyncratic and scattershot, but the accounts they provide are engrossing and there is much material that would be of interest to area specialists and critical scholars. I was already familiar with the history of the theosophists and other counter-enlightenment esoteric movements so the material in these chapters, along with the discussion of the emergence of modern magic in the first section, provided a lot of complimentary contextual detail. In this sense, Goto-Jones’ book serves as a valuable companion piece to Jason Josephson-Storm’s recent work The Myth of Disenchantment (University of Chicago Press, 2017), which details how modernity emerged not, as is widely held, from the embrace of scientific rationalism, but rather through an intertwining with a revival of interest in the occult, spirits, and magic.
The discussion so far is likely to have given the impression that Conjuring Asia is primarily a work of historical scholarship, notwithstanding the references to modern critical theory. This is not an inaccurate summary as it would be an incomplete representation given that Goto-Jones goes out of his way to include many extended scenes recounting contemporary magical performances, including those performed by David Blaine (52–54, 175–177) and Derren Brown (61–64). The linkages drawn between contemporary performances and the historical threads documented in the book are persuasive and insightful. To offer just one example: there is a compelling discussion of how David Blaine’s famous street levitation performances should be situated within the legacy of Indian levitation tricks and how they intentionally evoke “the idea of fakirs and gurus and the tradition of Orientalist magic” (201).
Conjuring Asia is a unique book dealing with a topic that has been somewhat overlooked by academic scholars, though not by historically minded practitioners. There is some repetition in the first section and at times it does feel like the work is being pulled in opposing directions, but even so I would heartily recommend the book, in particular to scholars interested in magic, mysticism, or the history of Orientalism.
Christopher M. Kavanagh
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom