"Hidden away in one of Robert Fludd's works, among Rosicrucian symbols and samples of precocious scientific thought is that rarest of all birds, a visual representation of a theatre of the Elizabethan type. Learned Shakespearians seem to have passed it by; and no wonder, for the engraving, occurs in one of Fludd's rarest books, the De Naturali, Supernaturali, Praeternaturali, et Contranaturali Microcosmi Historia published in Oppenheim in 1619; and the chapter in which it appears is, of all things, that on mnemotechnics, or in Fludd's language: "De Animae Memorativae Scientia, qui Vulgo Ars Memoriae Vocatur". Obviously, before we enter into a discussion of the print, we shall have to understand how a theatre, any theatre, came to find its place in an exposition of the mnemonic art."

-Another Globe Theatre by Richard Bernheimer

Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1958), pp. 19-29 (13 pages)
https://doi.org/10.2307/2867176

See this to get the gist of it:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1966/05......theater/

By the way, inter alia, Fludd was an alchemist, involved in architecture in the hermetic tradition, which means that he wanted to unite heaven and earth, in the hermetic tradition, the unification of both spirit and matter. That is the essence of Our Magic it seems to me: From a magical entertainer, the public expects two things, that is entertainment and magic and the entertainment is spiritual and the magic experiment is material by nature. These two opposite things are crossed x to create a simultaneity of opposites, a dilemma if you will, that is a unification of both spirit and matter.

Also, another aspect of the Globe Theatre was participation.

“It wasn't called the Globe for nothing. The globe, the world, where the stage went down into the audience and in those days they brought in audience participation. They made you get involved in the story and many people got carried away with the drama and thought it was all real and when that happens the actors know they're convincing, that it's working. When the audience forgets they're watching a fake, they're watching an act, then the actors are doing their job and it's getting across to the people that are convinced; because now you've inserted into their minds the possibility that whatever you're showing them can be real or is real and you've actually changed them. The alchemical change. You've changed them. You've cast a spell upon them. That's how it's done.” Said my old friend Alan Watt the conspiracy nut, may he rest in peace.

In this way, Fludd created a unification of both fiction and fact, which is more or less what we do for amazement and amusement.

Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE9fw00C......inFaulks

One of the things about Shakespeare, which is often missed, is how relevant his plays were: they touched on contemporary ideas and politics, but were often set in places other than England. Some of the puns and innuendos were geared to the "common people" in the pit, while others were geared to the "uppah crust" in the galleries. There was something for everyone.

Magic in all its guises has always had a broad audience. Our magic is a harmless outgrowth of sorcery and the like. Robert Fludd was a brilliant scientist but down to reasoning from a few false premisses, some of his conclusions were Monty Python-like and perhaps one might use such absurdities for patter.

False premises give me an idea.

One might take a scientific fact and claim the opposite is true, which can be proved in effect with an entirely rational experiment to create a card trick.

i.e.

Claim the Earth is Flat: which can then be proved by entirely rational means by using a Flat Earth Map, a pack of cards and a Snap Deal: when the cards are dealt onto the Flat Earth Map they are visible, but when they are dealt off the map onto the table, they fall off the edge of the world and vanish! Thus, the flat earth theory is proved.

One might come up with any number of ideas for card tricks using this idea and a little imagination.