Disappearances in magic shows partake in what philosopher Jason Leddington has termed an aesthetics of the impossible. “The distinctive aim of theatrical magic,” he writes, “is to produce an experience as of an impossible event.” ¹ For magicians, learning to craft the spectacle of disappearance is a basic tenet of the art. “The fundamental principles of a sleight of hand trick,” wrote Ellis Stanyon in 1912, “practically any trick or stage illusion for that matter, are Three Only in number, viz., Production, Disappearance and Change.”