- Lamont, Peter.
The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick.
New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004. ISBN 1-56025-661-3.
-
Charmed by a mysterious swami, the end of a rope rises up
of its own accord high into the air. A small boy climbs the
rope and, upon reaching the top, vanishes. The Indian rope
trick: ancient enigma of the subcontinent or 1890 invention
by a Chicago newspaper embroiled in a
circulation war? Peter Lamont, magician and researcher
at the University of Edinburgh, traces the origin and
growth of this pervasive legend. Along the way we encounter a cast
of characters including Marco Polo; a Chief of the U.S.
Secret Service; Madame Blavatsky; Charles Dickens; Colonel
Stodare, an Englishman who impersonated a Frenchman
performing Indian magic; William H. Seward, Lincoln's
Secretary of State; Professor Belzibub; General Earl
Haig and his aptly named aide-de-camp, Sergeant
Secrett; John Nevil Maskelyne, conjurer, debunker of
spiritualism, and inventor of the pay toilet; and a
host of others. The author's style is occasionally too
clever for its own good, but this is a popular book
about the Indian rope trick, not a
quantum field theory
text after all, so what the heck.
I read the
U.K. edition.
January 2005 