^* Magic secrecy fundamentally ended in the sixteenth century, with the publication of The Discoverie of Witchcraft. This book, which reveals that performance magic is achieved by natural means, was intended as an argument against the existence of witches, and as a protest against witch hunts. Today, the magic publishing industry is huge. Amazon.com currently sells 79,119 books on magic (almost seven times more than “romance novels,” currently 11,653 on the Amazon site). That’s not even counting the instructional DVDs. Many more YouTube videos disclose magic tricks and provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform them.