Notes on a Strange World

[Explorer]

Found this item in the latest Skeptical Enquirer:

http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-04/strange-world.html

Read the account of this interesting illusion by Houdini, but could not come to terms with a certain aspect of the trick.

When Houdini switched Doyle's piece of paper with his secret words written on it, with his own, in order to read the message he would have noticed that the paper wasn't the same type or size that he had used for the message.

The account by Ernst must be incorrectly stated. The piece of paper that Doyle used, must have been provided by Houdini himself, in order to make the switch a more credible match.

OK, I am nit-picking but does anyone agree with my comment?

 

[Avita]

It seems to me that Houdini, as a friend of Doyle, would have been familiar with the kind of writing paper Doyle liked to use and/or could have come pre-supplied with multiple kinds of pieces of paper.

 

[personable]

I dare say that in those days the types of paper available would have been somewhat limited, even more so when you consider that it would have to comfortably fit on one's person. So Houdini could have simply procured in advance, whatever types of paper those were. That's a possibility.

The other is of course that that aspect of the trick was mis-reported.

 

[Steven Howard]

When Houdini switched Doyle's piece of paper with his secret words written on it, with his own, in order to read the message he would have noticed that the paper wasn't the same type or size that he had used for the message.

Not necessarily. Houdini took Doyle's paper to "make sure it was folded", so he just needed a similar piece of paper that he could fold into roughly the same size. Doyle's attention would be focused on the slate, the inked ball, and Houdini's patter, not on the paper.

 

[Explorer]

Hmmmm!

Yes all possible explanations.

Now what about the hanging slate?

Houdini asked for the slate to be hung in the "centre" of the room away from the influence of any electrical forces.

The message was written by a cork ball (with a metal core) covered in white ink, clinging to the front side of the slate where Doyle placed it, held by the magnetic attraction of a magnet fixed to the end of a pole being fed through a hidden panel in the opposite wall, apparently. This was manipulated by some unseen assistant. The task for this assistant would be to write the Doyle message, remotely and more importantly, backwards, on the end of this pole with sufficient accuracy to be able to be read from the other side of the slate.

The slate was suspended in mid-air and would therefore wobble about and make writing very difficult especially using a pole where every error due to difficulty of control, would be amplified to a degree, depending on the length of the pole and the wobbyness of the slate.

To compound the difficulty, the magnet would have to maintain very close contact with the reverse side of the slate at all times, to prevent the possibility of the cork ball falling before the message was complete. The message was made up of separate words with gaps between them. How these gaps were made without the ball falling seems again, rather incredible.

Altogether, it seems to stretch the credibility and practicality of this illusion, beyond belief

Any ideas as to how these obvious limitations could have been overcome?