Maskelyne On The Indian Rope Trick
How to perform an Indian rope-trick
—The truth about the real rope-trick—
My £2,000-challenge to young magicians.
In the old days of magical performances, many entertainments were given in the performance of what was said to be the Indian rope-trick. This was on the stage. Because it was performed on the stage it was a very easy matter for a magician to put over a good show merely by flinging a rope into the air and letting an Indian climb it—to disappear into the ‘flies.’ The rope was usually attached to a thread which was taken into the ‘flies.’ It was trickery of the clumsiest and most unimaginative kind, but it succeeded because audiences had not seen too much of this type of illusion. The thread was invisible, and with good showmanship it was exceedingly easy to carry the trick through.
This so-called Indian rope-trick is still easy to perform and may gain applause. You can do it with very little preparation, but I would strongly advise you to leave it alone unless you want a stage-career, and then you will have to think up some new and novel method of presenting it.
Before going any farther, let us examine the whole business of the Indian rope-trick and see what it is supposed to be and what it really is. First I will tell you the story in its most fantastic form—that is, as it is told in India by those who believe it to be possible of accomplishment. In an open courtyard stands an Indian magician, surrounded by spectators. A rope is thrown almost casually into the air by the magician and immediately becomes taut. Then an Indian boy climbs the rope and is followed by the magician, who holds a knife in his teeth. The boy vanishes into space at the top of the rope. The magician lashes about in the air with his knife, and then, to the horror of the spectators, the limbs of the boy fall separately from the sky.
These limbs are collected by the miracle-man and crammed into a sack, which is closed with cord. A few minutes later the sack is opened again, to allow the boy to emerge—completely restored to life and with all his limbs intact.
This, in a few brief sentences, is the legendary tale of the famous (or infamous) Indian rope-trick; but let me say at once that it is utter nonsense! It is quite beyond the power of man to achieve what has just been described, and I want you to get the fact fixed firmly into your heads, so that you will not imagine there is anything supernatural about any kind of magic. I have no hesitation in saying that you can do anything that an Indian magician can do —equally well, or better—once you have served your apprenticeship in magic.
JASPER MASKELYNE
Before Magic Edition
PDF | 301 Pages
Jasper Maskelyne, the famous illusionist, presents a practical book that enables the curious to become expert entertainers in the art of magic. A guide filled magic effects you can perform with cards, coins, handkerchiefs, pieces of paper, rope and other common objects are described in detail. Chapters are also provided on stage management, thought-reading, disappearing tricks, apparatus, chemical tricks, entertaining in dress-clothes, jugglery and ventriloquism, and the art of make-up.
Coming from the famous Maskelyne family of magicians, Jasper also shares some excellent advice on rehearsing, structuring, writing, and booking a magical performance.
Before Arnold de Bière, a great magician and illusionist, died, he claimed to have solved the secret of performing the trick in the open air. “By the autumn,” he said a few days before his death, “ I shall be able to do it. I shall perform it in the open air, and I am convinced that it will deceive anybody.” Whether de Biere had found a method of doing an Indian rope-trick of sorts in the open no one will know, because his secret died with him. I can tell you that at last, after years of patient research, I have perfected half of an Indian rope-trick. I can make a fourteen-foot rope rise into the air in an open space and stand straight up after being examined by the audience. It is then possible for a boy to climb my taut rope, but there the trick ends. I cannot make the boy disappear into space!
So far I have not demonstrated my completed half of the trick, and maybe I never shall; but I will pay the sum of £2,000 to anyone who will perform the whole trick in Piccadilly Circus, London, or in an open field before responsible witnesses, the lad vanishing from the top of the rope without such artifices as a smoke-screen. He must just vanish into the sky!
Actually the Indian rope-trick has never been performed to anyone’s satisfaction in India. Lots of people have claimed to have seen it done, but when they are cross-examined, it is always proved that they have obtained the story from some one else who has seen it done. Do not waste your time thinking that there is anything so utterly and completely miraculous in Indian magic. Naturally, if you ever succeeded in faking this trick so successfully that a hundred people drawn from all classes of the community were ready to swear in a court of law that they saw the boy vanish, your fortune would be made; but I would suggest that you spend your time more profitably learning tricks and illusions that are equally baffling to watch, but quite practical when it comes to their performance.
In 1926, when the Maharajah of Jodhpur was in England for the polo-season to celebrate the birth of a son, he invited me to give a special show in a marquee erected in his garden. I transported practically the whole of the show from St George’s Hall, London, which was then the Maskelyne House of Magic, and he was delighted with everything I showed him. At dinner a little later I asked him about the Indian rope-trick. “My dear Maskelyne,” he said, “it is just a myth. As you have your legends, so have we in India. I am always asking to see the rope-trick, but I have not seen it performed—yet. I am told that so-and-so has seen it, but when I trace this person out, he is quick to reply that it was his father who saw the performance. Then the father says that it was his father, and, as he is dead, he cannot be questioned.” And so I have accepted the word of a ruler of a great portion of India that the Indian rope-trick in its original conception is just a fairy-tale. The Maharajah added that if ever he found a man who could perform the trick he would cable for me to come over at once. Need I add that I am still waiting for that message to arrive?
Just to add proof upon proof that this trick is impossible to perform and has, indeed, never been done, I would like to tell you who are starting on your careers of magic, or who are now extremely interested in the subject, that my own grandfather sent a man to India with a similar £2,000 offer to anyone who could perform the trick in the open air at Earl’s Court, London. The man returned from India without spending more than his expenses. A few years ago some foreign magicians actually advertised the fact that they were going to perform this, the greatest rope-trick of all time. The day before the performance was due to take place, they got into communication with me and asked if I would be so kind as to tell them how it was done. I must confess that I laughed till I cried at such colossal impudence. Some people have suggested that the spectators of the trick are hypnotized into believing that they see something that does not actually take place; but although this might be possible with an audience of one or two, it could not be done with a large crowd.
Going back to the performance of the Indian rope trick on the stage, as it was first performed by Maskelyne and Devant in 1907, it took the form of a sketch called The Magical Master. In this little playlet, David Devant carried a portmanteau, which he emptied in front of the audience. The contents consisted of the dismembered portions of a dummy Indian. The legs, arms, head, and trunk of the figure were then replaced in the bag after having been wrapped up in a piece of cloth. The cloth then moved, and gradually a living figure rose up underneath it. This was discovered to be the living image of the dummy Indian. The whole trick was performed on a stool isolated from the ground, and this seemed to astound the audience more than the sight of the same man, in the next part of the trick, disappearing up the rope. As a matter of fact it is not surprising, because the old idea will persist that the man merely climbs into the ‘flies.’
When Houdini was asked if he could offer any explanation of how the Indian rope-trick was done, he used to smile expansively and answer, “There is no such trick.” That shows clearer than anything else what reliance may be placed upon this story, because if anyone could have tackled it, that person would have been the renowned Houdini. It must not be thought, however, that this great man dismissed it without proper investigation. I know that he went into the subject with his usual thoroughness, only to be convinced in the end that it was entirely without foundation.
And so we arrive at one conclusion, and one conclusion only—that the Indian rope-trick is all nonsense! Keep this fact always in front of you, but, at the same time, do not neglect the opportunities it presents. You might be able to invent something startling based on this fictitious story; you might be able to kill the old idea that the Indian boy merely climbs into the flies by something amazingly original, or you might be able to devise some way of doing the trick in the open. If you can do either of these things, then you have a big money-making proposition waiting to be exploited.
I will leave you to consider the Indian rope-trick from all angles. I will merely add that you cannot hope to benefit from it unless you adopt a stage-career. Rope-tricks of this character are definitely stage tricks and not suitable for the drawing-room or the concert platform. You need heavy curtains, a good deal of stage-property, an orchestra, and apparatus of all kinds if you are to put on a good Indian-rope trick act.
Lastly, let me remind you once again of that offer of mine—an offer which members of my family have made for so long. I will pay the sum of £2,000 to anyone who can perform the rope-trick as described in the legend. Let it be clearly understood what he is to do: he is to stand out in the open air, and he is to be surrounded by spectators; he is to throw one end of a rope into the air, and the other end is to be on the ground; the rope is to become stiffened; and a boy is to climb up it and disappear into space. That is all that is required to earn £2,000; so go ahead, and see what you can do about it. But do not be too optimistic—because, well—it just cannot be done!
