One of the performing arts of India that baffled me and kept me in total disbelief, was what was often quoted by the Europeans as the Indian Rope Trick. During the act, the performer throws a rope into the air and it stays stuck in vertical position and a boy climbs it. I have not seen it performed but have read a lot about it. In the early 1930s this was a topic of great interest and as The Hindu said “The Indian Rope Trick was and even now a perennial topic of discussion in the Indian and Foreign press.”
As quoted by paper reports, this magic trick seemed to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. It is also described as “the world’s greatest illusion” that involves a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy assistants.
Some historians say that this was a hoax perpetrated in 1890 by John Wilkie of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Magic historian Peter Lamont has argued that there are no accurate references to the trick predating 1890, and later, magic performances of the trick were inspired by Wilkie’s account.
Though now we don’t see or hear of this trick, anymore, there has been much written about it in the early thirties. A reader, (quoted from A Hundred years of The Hindu) N. Naryanan from Madras wrote on January 7, 1933. “I was one who witnessed the rope trick actually performed before several thousands of spectators opposite the Crawford Market in Bombay in May 1928. We saw the trick performed successfully and there was a dispute among the audience whether the trick did really happen and within a few minutes a movie cameraman was called in and the performance took place while the scene was shot. We saw the trick once over but the very next day when the film depicting the performance was shown we found that the rope as soon it was thrown up simply came down and was lying on the ground, while the boy who climbed was merely tugging at the air. What we actually saw was not proved by the camera and on reference to the fakir of this strange phenomenon we found that the whole of the audience was mesmerised in a mass.” The magicians admit there is a thing called mass mesmerism wherein people actually see, hear and feel certain things that actually do not take place.
Another reader from Sussex England, Lt. Col. Ralph Nicholson, wrote on January 30, that he was in agreement with a previous correspondent in his belief that the rope trick was a genuine feat performed in India “despite the efforts of some Europeans to deny its existence”.
The correspondence on this subject was started in The Hindu by a letter from a reader who criticised the view expressed by Sir Eric Dennison Ross, the orientalist, that the rope trick was a myth. V. Rangacharya, the correspondent, quoted an account by Dr. Heasoldt in the Orient Review of the performance of the rope trick by a sadhu in Baroda. Dr Heasoldt said he saw the miraculous feat on four different occasions.