Jim Steinmeyer designs magic tricks that other magicians use. He knows the ins and outs of illusion. He's written several books on the subject and, in one, he claims, "Magicians don’t protect their secrets from the audience, they protect the audience from their secrets." Indeed, the magic is in the presentation, not in knowing how it's done. But magic as we know it has been around for quite a while. The ancient conjurers became traveling vaudevillians who morphed into Las Vegas showmen and street mentalists. By this point, many stage tricks have been explained in books. Some have been revealed in lawsuits. Even Harry Houdini has had the secrets behind his most well-known tricks exposed.