John Elbert Wilkie

Hoax

In his book on the topic, Peter Lamont claimed the story of the trick resulted from a hoax created by John Elbert Wilkie while working at the Chicago Tribune. Under the name “Fred S. Ellmore” (“Fred Sell More”) Wilkie wrote of the trick in 1890, gaining the Tribune wide publicity. About four months later, the Tribune printed a retraction and proclaimed the story a hoax.The retraction received little attention, and in the following years many claimed to remember having seen the trick as far back as the 1870s.According to Lamont, none of these stories proved credible, but with every repetition the story became more widely believed despite being only a myth.^[2]

Lamont also claimed that no mention appears in writing before the 1890 article.He argued that Ibn Battuta did report a magic trick with a thong, and Jahangir with a chain, not a rope, and the tricks they described are different from the “classic” Indian rope trick. He said that the descriptions of the trick in Yule’s editions (1870s) of Marco Polo’s book are not in the body of the work, but in a footnote by Yule, and only refer to these non-classic accounts.^[3]

Lamont’s popular but controversial work dismissed the accounts such as Shankara’s and Melton’s as irrelevant to his theme.This is because his book is not really about the trick itself, but about what he called the 20th-century legend of it being Indian, the fame of the trick, which peaked in the 1930s.It is this fame, chapter 8 of his book claimed, which originated from Wilkie’s hoax.^[44]

Magic techniques

The magician John Nevil Maskelyne in 1912 reported a possible explanation for the trick from a witness to whom he had spoken.It was suggested that theposition of the Sunwas crucial to the trick:

The jugglers brought a coil of what appeared to be a large rope.As they uncoiled it and held it up it became stiff; it was evidently jointed bamboo with the joints made to lock.It was covered to look like a rope, and it formed a pole about thirty feet long.A diminutive boy, not much larger than an Indian monkey, climbed up to the top of the pole and was out of sight of the audience unless they bent forward and looked beneath the awning,when the sun shone in their eyes and blinded them.As soon as the boy was at the top of the pole the jugglers made a great shouting, declaring he had vanished.He quickly slid down the pole and fell on the ground behind the juggler who held the rope. Another juggler threw a cloth over the boy and pretended that he was dead.After considerable tom-tomming and incantation the boy began to move, and was eventually restored to life.^[45]

In 1935,Harry Pricesuggested that a strong sun and jointed rope could explain the trick.He translated an article by the German magician Erik Jan Hanussen who claimed to have observed the secret to the trick in a village near Babylon.According to Hanussen the spectators were positioned in front of a blazing sun and the “rope” was actually made from the vertebrae of a sheep covered with sailing cord that was twisted into a solid pole. A “smoke producing preparation”, combined with the blinding sun, gave the illusion of disappearance for the boy.^[46]

Will Goldston, who was mostly skeptical, wrote that a possible explanation for the illusion of the suspended rope may have been abamboorod, covered with rope.^[47]Others such as P. C. Sorcar have suggested that a long horizontal thread or wire was used to support the rope.^[48][49]Joseph Dunningerhas revealed methods of how the suspended rope could be performed by camera trickery.^[50]

Analyzing old eyewitness reports, Jim McKeague explained how poor, itinerant conjuring troupes could have performed the trick using known magical techniques.^[51]If a ball of cord is thrown upwards, one end being retained in the hand, the ball rapidly decreases in size as it rises.As it unwinds completely the illusion of the ball disappearing into the sky is striking,especially if the pale cord is similar in color to any overcast cloud.Before the cord has time to fall the climber leaps up, pretending to climb, but really being lifted by a companion.Skilled acrobats could make this quick “climb” look very effective until the climber’s feet are at or even above the lifter’s head. Then a noisy distraction from other members of the troupe is the misdirectionneeded which allows the climber to drop unseen to the ground and hide.This type of “vanishing by misdirection” is reported as having been used very effectively by a performer of the basket trick in the 1870s.^[52]

The lifter continues to look upwards and holds a conversation with the “climber” using ventriloquism to create the illusion that a person is still high in the air and is just passing out of sight.By now there is no cord or climber in the air, only an illusory climber as Shankara described (see above under “accounts”). Ventriloquism is quite capable of producing this remarkable effect, and a report from near Darjeeling by a school headmaster who witnessed the trick states specifically that ventriloquism was used.^[53]As to the falling of the pieces of the climber, according to an Indian barrister-at-law who saw a performance about 1875 which included this feature, it appears to have been produced very largely by acting and sound effects.^[54]When a magician acts out the visible catch of an imaginary deck of cards thrown by a spectator, or throws a ball in the air where it vanishes,the appearance or disappearance really occurs at the location of the magician’s hand, but to most spectators (two out of three in actual testing^[55]) the magic appears to occur in mid-air.McKeague explained the falling body parts as being produced by much the same acting technique.He explained Melton’s account of seeing the limbs “creep together again” (see above under “accounts”) as being the result of contortionists’ techniques.

It has always been the outdoor disappearance of the climber, away from trees and structures,which has led to claims the illusion is “humanly impossible”.^[56]McKeague’s explanation not only solves the mystery of the mid-air disappearance but also provides an alternative explanation for the Wiseman-Lamont observation discussed above that eyewitness reports were more impressive when much time had elapsed.In the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the fame of the trick increased performers would have had increasing difficulty in puzzling audiences with it, until finally the disappearance of the climber ceased to be a feature and the rare witness who had seen it spoke of a time long before.This is because misdirection of attention is extremely unlikely to be effective when the audience is expecting the disappearance,a fact which also explains why no one could claim any reward for a performance where it was specified the disappearance must be included.The increasing fame of the rope trick and the basket trick ended the possibility of using “vanishing by misdirection” in the methodologies for both tricks.^[57]

John Keelreports that he was told the secret of the trick in 1955 from an aged mystic who claimed to have performed it in the past.A horizontal wire is stretched above the site, anchored at ground points of higher elevation, rather than obvious nearby structures.The rope has a weighted hook, and an invisible thread which is draped over the wire above;when the rope is tossed upward the thread is used to pull it and hook it in place.The magician wears loose baggy clothing, in which are concealed the “body parts” that he tosses down.The boy then conceals himself inside the magician’s voluminous outer garment, and clings to him as the magician climbs down seemingly alone.Keel describes his public attempt to perform a simpler version, but failing badly, according to “two articles and a cartoon that appeared in Indian newspapers”.^[58]

Penn & Teller examined the trick while filming their three-part CBC miniseries Penn & Teller’s Magic and Mystery Tour.According to that miniseries, the tour travelled the world investigating historical tricks, and while in India they travelled to Agra, where they recreated the trick.^{[citation needed]}

Penn and Teller invited two British tourists shopping nearby to see what they claimed was a fakir performing the trick.As they walked back, an assistant ran up and claimed the fakir was in the midst of the trick, so they rushed the rest of the way so they wouldn’t miss it. As the witnesses neared the room they dropped a thick rope from a balcony.The witnesses saw what they thought was the end of the trick, the rope falling as if it had been in mid-air seconds before.A sheet was then removed from a boy with fake blood at his neck and shoulders, hinting that his limbs and head had been reattached to his torso. According to their account, the rumour that a British couple had witnessed the trick was heard a few weeks later in England.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of the trick

Horace Goldin performing the trick on stage

 

Lieutenant F. W. Holmes photograph from 1917	Carl Hertz “Great Indian Rope Trick” poster c. 1920	Illustration of David Devant performing the trick on stage

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Joseph Dunninger demonstrating how the trick can be faked in pictures	A stage recreation by Howard Thurston	Harry Blackstone Sr. on stage c. 1948