I was watching The Prestige the other day, which I realize is not very historically accurate, but it got me thinking: when people go to see a stage magic show today, there's almost an unspoken agreement between the audience and the performers that the magic isn't actually real, it's all just clever trickery. No one going to see a stage magician today actually think they literally conjure rabbits out of hats.
Was that always the case? If you went back to the 19th century, or even earlier, and went to go see a stage magician, did people understand what they were seeing? Or did they think the performer was doing "actual magic"?
Now, obviously, there have always been charlatans and mentalists who have used stage magic techniques to trick people into thinking they were seeing faith healing, or talking to dead people, or whatever. The Uri Geller and John Edward types. I'm not really talking about those kinds people: more like, if you went to see the 19th century equivalent of Penn & Teller, did you understand that they were just illusionists, not actual... you know... wizards?
As a follow-up: my favorite kind of magician banter is when they give history lessons in stage magic to set up their tricks. This Ricky Jay performance of the Cups and Balls is a stellar example. Now, I find it hard to trust what a magician says on stage (them being more interested in misdirection than historical accuracy), but I love hearing these stories, and I love reading history books, so: is there any good general history books about stage magic any of you could recommend?
If your question can be summarized as "Were there people who believed that stage magicians used "real" magic?" you may be interested in this earlier post, although it mentions the early 20th century rather than your period of interest in the 19th century.