Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another. Managing the audience's attention is the aim of all theater; it is the foremost requirement of theatrical magic. Whether the magic is of a "pocket trick" variety, or, a large stage production, misdirection is the central secret of all magic. The term is used to describe either the effect (the observer's focus on an unimportant object) or the sleight of hand or patter (the magician's form of speech) that creates it.
Though it is difficult to say who first coined the term "misdirection", an early reference was made by an influential performer and writer, Nevil Maskelyne: "It consists admittedly in misleading the spectator's senses, in order to obfuscate from detection certain details for which secrecy is required." Around the same time, magician, artist and author Harlan Tarbell noted, "Nearly the whole art of sleight of hand depends on this art of misdirection."
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Henry Hay describes the central act of conjuring as being "a manipulation of interest".
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There are two basic ways to "misdirect" an audience. One is to encourage the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that the sleight or move may be accomplished undetected. The other approach has much to do with re-framing the audience's perception, where the minds of the audience members are distracted into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat, whereas in reality it has no bearing on the effect at all. Dariel Fitzkee notes that "The true skill of the magician is in the skill he exhibits in influencing the spectators mind." Additionally, sometimes a prop such as a "magic wand" is used to aid in misdirection.
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