Editing Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (section)

===Second sight===
When Robert-Houdin first opened his theatre, it was sparsely attended and he realized that he needed something more extraordinary that would bring the public to his theatre. So he came upon the idea of doing a two-person mind-reading act, concocting a silly story about how his son Émile had created a game of hot and cold that resulted in Robert-Houdin using it for the stage.<ref name="ref3"/>

He named the trick "Second Sight", a title that was already used by magicians such as [[John Henry Anderson]], but the effect was entirely different. Anderson had a box into which items were inserted. The medium would then describe the contents inside. In Robert-Houdin's version, he walked into the audience and touched items that the audience held up, and his blindfolded assistant, played by his son, described each one in detail. It caused a sensation and brought the throng to see his shows.

Eventually, Robert-Houdin changed the method, so instead of asking his son what was in his hands, he simply rang a bell. This stunned those that suspected a spoken code. He would even set the bell off to the side and remain silent, and his son still described every object handed to his father.

Robert-Houdin made the test even more difficult. He placed a glass of water into his son's hands, and Émile proceeded to drink from it. He was able to perceive the taste of the liquids that spectators from the audience merely thought of.<ref name="ref5">{{Cite book |first1=Jean |last1=Robert-Houdin |last2=Wraxall |first2=Sir Lascelles |author-link2=Frederic Charles Lascelles Wraxall |year=1860 |title=Memoirs of Robert-Houdin |url=https://archive.org/details/memoirsofroberth00roberich |location=London |publisher=Chapman & Hall |edition=2nd |via=the Internet Archive |access-date=29 April 2016}}</ref> Even then, the audiences were not entirely convinced; they tried to trip up Émile by bringing in books written in Greek, or odd tools such as a thread counter.<ref name="ref2"/>