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Smoke and mirrors is a classic technique in magical illusions that makes an entity appear to hover in empty space. It was documented as early as 1770 and spread widely after its use by the charlatan Johann Georg Schröpfer, who claimed to conjure spirits. It subsequently became a fixture of 19th-century

phantasmagoria Phantasmagoria (), alternatively fantasmagorie and/or fantasmagoria, was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images – such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts – typicall ...

shows. The illusion relies on a hidden projector (known then as a

magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that uses pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lens (optics), lenses, and a light source. ...

) whose beam reflects off a mirror into a cloud of smoke, which in turn scatters the beam to create an image.

Idiom

The phrase "smoke and mirrors" has entered North American English to refer to "obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information." The earliest known use of the idiom came from the biography ''How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer'', published in 1975. It was written by the American political journalist

Jimmy Breslin James Earle Breslin (October 17, 1928 – March 19, 2017) was an American journalist and author. Until the time of his death, he wrote a column for the New York ''Daily News'' Sunday edition.''Current Biography 1942'', pp. 648–51: "Patterson, ...

, who reported the

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Nixon's resignation in 1974, in August of that year. It revol ...

political scandal in Washington first-hand. Breslin described politics as the theatrical use of "mirrors and blue smoke" to make people see what they wish to see. The idiom was flipped and shortened to its current form and had become a common term in politics by the end of the 1970s.

References

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Idiom

See also

References

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Further reading