The Indian rope trick is a magic trick 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.
In the 1990s the trick was said by some historians to be a hoax perpetrated in 1890 by John Wilkie of the Chicago Tribune newspaper.Goto-Jones, Chris. (2016). Conjuring Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 162–164. Magic historian Peter Lamont has argued that there are no accurate references to the trick predating 1890, and that later stage magic performances of the trick were inspired by Wilkie's account.Lamont, Peter. (2005). The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History. Abacus. pp. 80–95, 208.
There are old accounts from the 9th century (by Adi Shankara), the 14th century (by Ibn Battuta), and the 17th century (by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir) of versions of the trick, but this is denied by Lamont as the accounts described are different from the "classic" Indian rope trick.Lamont, Peter. (2005). The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History. Abacus. pp. 7–8, 86–88.
The trick There are three variants of the trick, which differ in the degree of theatricality displayed by the magician and his helper:
In the simplest version, a long piece of rope is left in a basket and placed in an open field, usually by a fakir. The rope levitates, with no external support. A boy assistant, a jamoora, climbs the rope and then descends. A more elaborate version has the magician (or his assistant) disappearing after reaching the top of the rope, then reappearing at ground level. The "classic" version was much more detailed: the rope seems to rise high into the sky, disappearing from view. The boy climbs the rope and is lost to view. The magician calls to the boy, and feigns anger upon receiving no response. The magician arms himself with a knife or sword, climbs the rope, and vanishes as well. An argument is heard, and then human limbs fall, presumably cut from the assistant's body by the magician. When all the parts of the body, including the torso, land on the ground, the magician climbs down the rope. He collects the limbs and puts them in a basket or covers them with a cape or blanket. The boy reappears, uninjured.
Robert Elliot of the London Magic Circle, when offering a substantial reward in the 1930s for an outdoor performance, found it necessary to define the trick. He demanded that "the rope must be thrown into the air and defy the force of gravity, while someone climbs it and disappears".The Listener (London), Feb 13, 1935, p. 294
The accounts In his commentary on Gaudapada's explanation of the Mandukya Upanishad, the 9th-century Hindu teacher Adi Shankara, illustrating a philosophical point, wrote of a juggler who throws a thread up into the sky; he climbs up it carrying weapons and goes out of sight; he engages in a battle in which he is cut into pieces, which fall down; finally he arises again. A few words further on Shankara referred to the principle underlying the trick, saying that the juggler who ascends is different from the real juggler who stands unseen, "veiled magically", on the ground.Panoli, V. (tr.), Prasthanathraya vol. II, Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Co., Calicut, 2006, p. 325. In Shankara's commentary on the Vedanta Sutra (also called the Brahma Sutra) he mentioned that the juggler who climbs up the rope to the sky is illusory, and so is only fancied to be different from the real juggler, who is hidden on the ground.Gambhirananda, Swami (tr.), Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Sankaracarya, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, 1965, p. 70. The fact that Shankara referred to the trick's method was pointed out in 1934 in a discussion of the Indian rope trick in the Indian press.Varma, H. L., The Indian Rope Trick, Society of Indian Magicians, Bombay, 1942, p. 56. These Sanskrit texts of Shankara are the basis for the claim that the trick is of great antiquity in India.
Ibn Battuta, when recounting his travels through Hangzhou, China in 1346, describes a trick broadly similar to the Indian rope trick.Lee, Rev. Samuel, B.D. (translator), The Travels of Ibn Batuta, Oriental Translation Committee, London, 1829, p. 218.
Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveler, described a performance he saw in Batavia about 1670 by a troupe of Chinese jugglers. Grasping one end of a ball of cord in his hand, a juggler threw up the ball which went out of sight, then swiftly climbed the vertical cord until he, too, was out of sight. Body pieces fell and were placed in a basket. Finally the basket was upturned, the body pieces fell out topsy turvy, and Melton "saw all those limbs creep together again", the man being restored to life. A detailed engraved illustration accompanied this account.Meltons, Eduward, Zeldzaame en Gedenkwaardige Zee- en Land- Reizen, Jan ten Hoorn, Amsterdam, 1681, p. 468 ff. For the English translation of Melton's account, see: Yule, Henry (tr. & ed.), The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. I, John Murray, London, 1871, pp. 281–282.
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. (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 (or they from him), though he gives no indication where (or how) he learnt this.Pu Songling, (translated by Herbert A. Giles), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. 2, Thos De La Rue, London, 1880, pp. 186–189.
Skepticism There has long been skepticism regarding the trick.Mulholland, John. (1958). The Great Rope Trick Mystery. This Week, 6 April. "The Indian Rope Trick is pure fiction. But mankind has always had an instinctive urge to manufacture the myth that it exists."Pritchard, William Thomas. (Will Dexter [pseud]). (1958). This is Magic: Secrets of the Conjurer's Craft. Citadel Press. p. 83 "Many magicians have devised apparatus to perform the Indian Rope Trick on a stage. But, as Jasper Maskelyne says, that's not quite the same trick as the one that's been created in myth and legend. Other illusionists have successfully staged the trick out of doors, but under those circumstances, a demonstration of pole balancing has been all they could offer to the spectators. No magician has yet sent a small boy up a rigid rope and caused him to vanish at the top, or to fall to the ground dismembered."Christopher, Milbourne. (January, 1959). The Greatest Magic Illusions Of All Time. Part 2. Popular Mechanics. pp. 108–109. "Many wizards worked out stage versions, but to date, no magician has done it in the open air, away from trees or buildings."Siegel, Lee. (1991). Net of Magic: Wonder and Deception in India. University of Chicago Press. pp. 197–221. Scott, Kirsty. (2001). "Mystery of Indian rope trick unravelled". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 June 2016.Carroll, Robert Todd. (2003). "Indian rope trick". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
Demonstrations and rewards
In 1911, Charles Bertram reported how he had visited India and communicated with over a hundred magicians in search of the trick. According to Bertram "none of them laid any claim to being able to perform it, and when they were questioned upon the subject, disclaimed any idea of ever having seen, and in many cases, having heard of it". He offered a reward of £500 but no magician took the challenge of demonstrating the trick.
In 1917, Lieutenant Frederick William Holmes stated that whilst on his veranda with a group of officers in Kirkee, he had observed the trick being performed by an old man and young boy. The boy climbed the rope, balanced himself and then descended. The old man tapped the rope and it collapsed. This demonstration did not include the disappearance of the boy. In February 1919, Holmes presented a photograph he had taken of the trick at a meeting with members of The Magic Circle. It was examined by Robert Elliot, who stated it was not a demonstration of the Indian rope trick but an example of a balancing trick on a bamboo pole. Elliot noted that "the tapering of the pole is an absolutely clear feature and definitely shows that it was not a rope". Holmes later admitted this, but the photograph was reproduced by the press in several magazines and newspapers as proof of the trick having been successfully demonstrated. Although discredited, the photograph is considered to be the first ever taken of the trick.
In 1919, G. Huddleston, writing in Nature, claimed to have spent more than thirty years in India and known many of the best conjurors in the country, but not one of them could demonstrate the trick.
Lord Frederick Spencer Hamilton in 1921 described an alleged demonstration of the trick, told to him by Colonel Bernard. Bernard described taking photographs of the boy climbing the rope, disappearing and reappearing at a courtyard in Calcutta. However, the courtyard had been filled with dense smoke and when he had developed the photographs they revealed that "neither the juggler, nor the boy, nor the rope had moved at all". This caused Hamilton to suggest that the juggler had somehow drugged or hypnotized Bernard. Elliot criticized this second-hand account as nothing more than "hearsay evidence". He found the details and lack of witnesses suspicious, concluding that Bernard had hoaxed Hamilton.Elliot (1934), pp. 88–90.
L. H. Branson in his book Indian Conjuring (1922) wrote that "the trick has never been performed out of doors. That is to say that a rope thrown up into the air has not remained suspended in mid-air, nor has any boy ever climbed up it. That when at the top he has not disappeared and that after his appearance he did not come down in bits, covered with blood or otherwise." Branson offered £300 to anyone who could demonstrate the trick in the open.
Magicians such as Harry Blackstone Sr., David Devant, Horace Goldin, Carl Hertz, Servais Le Roy and Howard Thurston incorporated the Indian rope trick into their stage shows. However, their stage versions involved the use of curtains, mirrors and wires. The real challenge was to perform the full trick including the disappearance of the boy in broad daylight, outside in the open air. Thurston considered this to have never been achieved and in 1927 offered a reward of 5,000 rupees to anyone who could demonstrate it.
The journalist James Saxon Childers reported in 1932 that he visited India with a desire to see the trick but noted that "the first conjuror I asked about the rope trick smiled at me, the second laughed, and the third swore that the trick could not be done, had never been done, and that only the amazing credulity of the Occident nurtures the rumor".
In 1934 the Occult Committee of The Magic Circle, convinced the trick did not exist, offered a large reward to anyone who could perform it in the open air.