The Indian rope trick is stage magic said to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. Sometimes described as "the world’s greatest illusion", it reputedly involved a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy assistants.
The trick almost certainly originates as a hoax, perpetrated in 1890 by John Elbert Wilkie of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. There are no known references to the trick predating 1890, and later stage magic performances of the trick were inspired by Wilkie's account.
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Although diverse accounts of the trick have appeared in print since the original was published in 1890, it remains essentially the same. There are three basic variants, which differ in the degree of theatricality displayed by the magician and his helper. Here they are.
It is commonly (though erroneously) believed that Marco Polo (1254–1324), a Venetian trader and explorer who gained fame for his Asiatic travels, witnessed the rope trick in India and China; see "explanation" below for further information.
Ibn Batuta, when recounting his travels through Hangzhou, China in 1346, describes a trick broadly similar to the Indian rope trick.
Pu Songling records a version in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1740) which he claims to have witnessed personally. In his account, a request by a mandarin that a wandering magician produce a peach in the dead of winter results in the trick's performance, on the pretence of getting a peach from the Gardens of Heaven. The magician's son climbs the rope, vanishes from sight, and then (supposedly) tosses down a peach, before being "caught by the Garden's guards" and "killed", with his dismembered body falling from above in the traditional manner. (Interestingly enough, in this version the magician himself never climbs the rope) After placing the parts in a basket, the magician gives the mandarin the peach and requests payment. As soon as he is paid, his son emerges alive from the basket. Songling claims the trick was a favorite of the White Lotus Society and that the magician must have learnt it from them, though he gives no indication where (or how) he learnt this.
It is said that similar tricks were performed during the Mughal Empire (16th-19th centuries). They reputedly occurred in the Indian subcontinent from Peshawar to Dhaka, and at important centers of Mughal powers, including Murshidabad, Patna, Agra, and Delhi. During the British Raj, the trick was allegedly witnessed around 1850 and 1900. The Chicago Tribune, in 1890, published an article about the trick, written by a journalist using the false name of Fred S. Ellmore—a story which was repeated in several other newspapers without its authenticity first being verified.
There had long been scepticism regarding the trick. Once The Magic Circle, convinced the trick did not exist, offered hundred guineas to anyone who could perform it. A man named Karachi, also spelt Kirachi (real name Arthur Claud Darby), a British performer based in Plymouth, endeavoured to perform the trick with his son, Kyder, on 7 January 1935 on a field in Wheathampstead, north of Hatfield in Hertfordshire, after being granted four days to prepare the site. The presentation was filmed by Gaumont British Films. His son could climb the rope but did not disappear, and Karachi was not paid.
In 1935, Karachi sent a challenge to the sceptics, for 200 guineas to be deposited with a neutral party who would decide if the rope trick was performed satisfactorily. His terms were that the rope shall rise up through his hands while in a sitting posture, to a height of ten feet, his son Kyder would then climb the rope and remain at the top for a minimum of 30 seconds and be photographed. The rope shall be an ordinary rope supplied by a well known manufacturer and shall be examined. The place could be any open area chosen by the neutral party and agreed to by the conjurers and the spectators could be anywhere in front of the carpet Karachi would be seated on. However the conjurers refused to accept Karachi's challenge.
In 1996, Nature published "Unraveling the Indian rope trick", by Richard Wiseman and Peter Lamont.
Wiseman found at least 50 eyewitness accounts of the trick performed during late late 19th/early 20th centuries, and variations included:
Accounts collected by Wiseman did not have any single account describing severing of the limbs of the magician's assistant. Perhaps more important, he found the more spectacular accounts were only given when the incident lay decades in the past. It is conceivable that in the witnesses' memory the rope trick merged with the basket trick.
Citing their work, historian Mike Dash wrote in 2000:
There are various explanations of the trick as stage magic. The trick was performed between two trees or similarly placed objects, and at night. A strong, narrow wire was placed between the trees, and when the rope was thrown above, it got hooked up with the string. This allowed the boy to climb, though not to vanish or be dismembered.
However, in his book on the topic, Peter Lamont exposed the trick as a hoax created by John Elbert Wilkie while working at 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. However, the retraction received little attention, and in the following years many claimed to remember having seen the trick as far back as the 1850s. None of these stories proved credible, but with every repetition the story became more ingrained.
Lamont also notes that no mention appears before the 1890 article. Marco Polo's supposed viewing was only offered after the article was published. Ibn Batuta did report a magic trick with a chain, not a rope, and the trick he describes is different from the "classic" Indian rope trick.
Penn and Teller followed Lamont's work and examined the trick while filming their three-part CBC mini-series, Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour. The tour travelled the world investigating historical tricks, and while in India they travelled to Agra where they recreated the trick.
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.
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