Any magic convention has roughly the same basic ingredients. The mornings and afternoons are filled with lectures on various aspects of the art, ranging from how to perform for kids, to the delicate question of whether you let the audience think you actually have uncanny skills at reading their minds, to how you get two rubber bands to melt through each other. In the evenings there are shows, ranging from grand spectaculars in full-sized theaters to more intimate displays of what is sometimes known as parlour magic. This year, for example, we watched a Chinese gymnast pluck a dozen doves from thin air, witnessed two madcap Brits reenact a Victorian conjuring show, and observed a traditional séance with the aid of low-light cameras.

The magicians themselves are an odd assortment—retired and practicing stars mobbed by groupies of all ages; the wise men and women of the art, most of whom are unknown to the public but revered among wizards; the brilliant inventors, such as the highly successful industrial chemist who has invented the world’s greatest version of the torn-and-restored newspaper trick; lawyers; bikers with brawny tattooed arms; accountants; doctors; bus drivers; social workers; and nimble-fingered 15-year-olds who can make the cards spin. I hung around with a literature professor by day who is a producer at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles by night; a venerable retired marshal of Harvard University; and a top Washington litigator. As my friend the (now retired) steely-eyed spymaster observed, one eyebrow lifted, “In the mansion of magic there are many rooms.”

Any magician’s favorite place in a convention is the dealer’s room—in this case a good 17,000 square feet with 50 or 60 companies selling all kinds of neat things. There are drones that do card tricks; gizmos to produce fire and smoke; elegantly machined (and exorbitantly priced) sets of cups for the oldest trick of them all, the cups and balls; used books; vintage posters; silk handkerchiefs by the crate; tables that float; and gaudily painted boxes that make things appear, disappear, or transpose. But it isn’t simply the wares. The salespeople demonstrate the latest tricks cooked up by inventors from around the world, including Korea, Japan, China, South Africa, and Germany, as well as the United States. The more you perform, the better you get—and since these folks are performing all the time, they are really, really good. Knots of magicians cluster around these little shows. We buy stuff, but we also chatter. The dealer’s room is a Diagon Alley that accepts Muggle credit cards.

Most of the people manning the booths are single-proprietor artisanal manufacturers, so good-natured friends take turns demonstrating just for the hell of it. (Another friend of mine, one of the top arbitration lawyers in Washington, used to take his lunch break working the counter at Al Cohen’s famous magic shop here many years ago.) Often the demonstrations turn into discussions about the best techniques for pretending to do something you didn’t, impractical suggestions for improving a prop, and tall tales about the miraculous effects achieved with an ever-so-slight twitch of the right thumb. Magicians are a friendly lot. You may be an elegantly attired nightclub artiste, a roly-poly middle-aged guy with a flowing beard, a teenager with purple hair, an eminent psychology professor, the guy with the bright orange overalls and porkpie hat, or a train conductor. It really does not matter. They all mix amiably, social and economic differences mattering a lot less than whether you’ve got the chops to do the four aces trick really well. That is part of the appeal of magic too. You never lack for generously-given advice—profound, competent, or completely beyond your performing range.