Indian Rope Trick

[kittynh]

I like to pick up older books at the library. One I got recently, was "Confessions of a Ghost Hunter" by Harry Price

There is a chapter about the "Indian Rope Trick". I enjoyed reading about this trick in Mr.Randi's book.

He tells of seeing a performance of this trick in England, and I respect the man already (I haven't finished the book yet) as he did not make the magician reveal how he did the trick! Though he said he had figured it out and that it was not supernatural, he did not print in his book how it was done either. The trick was performed by Karachi with his son Kyder climbing the rope.

There is also a very good description by in infamous Erik Jan Hanussen of seeing a far more eloborate Indian Rope Trick in India where the child climbing the rope is actually cut into little pieces, thrown down and then reassembled. From the description it's easy to tell what really happened, though it seems the rest of the audience was fooled. He claims to have taken photos of the trick with a secret small camera, it would be very interesting to see those photos!

 

[darling]

Apparently, the elaborate story was a hoax:
http://skepdic.com/indianrope.html

 

[kittynh]

When you read the accounts in the book, it's kind of sad that the actual performances are so bad. In the trick shown in England a velvet cloth was hung up and then the rope went up. Sadly, the rope shown to the audience was obviously not the same rope that went up. Also, the son just climbed it.

The Jan Hanussen version told of how really bad it was. The trick was performed facing into a setting sun, so you could barely look at it. The boy climbed up and some sort of smoke bomb was released. The body parts thrown down were obvious fakes, and it was all performed on soft sand. The magician climbed up into the "smoke" and then the body parts fell (they had been concealed under his cloak?) and when the magician climbed down, it is supposed the boy was under the cloak. Assistants that were in the sand pit holding the "rope" up then pulled the "body parts" into the sand, and the boy jumped out of a basket that the magician had been in front of moments before. It was all very poorly done.

Still I can't wait to get to the firewalking chapter tonight!

 

[Lavie Enrose]

The Indian Rope Trick is an interesting subject, and a classic of magic. Thurston did his version:

As for the "original" Indian Rope Trick, Penn & Teller went to India to see if they could find it:

Penn & Teller's Magic And Mystery Tour: India

Penn & Teller finally arrive at the Taj Mahal, on elephant, to see the famous rope trick. The rope which is examined by the crowd first, is supposed to rise slowly out of a wicker basket to the sound of Isamudin performing on a rattle drum and flute. But at a crucial point something goes wrong. The rope doesn't re-appear. They wait with the crowd as the sun begins to set.

Finally, just as darkness begins to fall, the trick is back on. The boy climbs the rope but he doesn't get chopped up and put back together. Although Isamudin performs a modern version of the rope trick, the traditional rope trick has yet to be recorded. Penn & Teller surmise that It's simply an amalgam of all the magic tricks in India that have over time become mythologized into one incredible legend. So Penn & Teller set off to perform their own version of the Indian rope trick to tell us how the legend came to be.

Their plan is to make people believe the Indian rope trick is real. They set up in a Delhi courtyard and recruit a bunch of locals to pretend that they've just witnessed the trick. They choreograph every detail right down to the chopped up boy with blood dripping from his rejoined limbs to see if they can convince someone that it actually happened.

Then they set off in search of a couple of tourists. Penn & Teller convince them to come and see the trick so their reactions can be filmed by the documentary crew. The results are hilarious.

The myth making worked. As Penn & Teller left all the local talk was of the Westerners who had finally filmed the Indian rope trick.