The Indian miracle rope (or rope) is a spell trick that has boggled the imagination for centuries and generated innumerable guesses. Some argue that this is just a myth or an illusion that occurs under the influence of hypnosis.
For centuries, European travelers have brought stories from India about incredible tricks performed by itinerant Indian magicians. But the performances with the famous miracle rope amazed the imagination more than others.
Such stories caused a lot of speculation and speculation, including the version that this is just a myth, because it was not possible to find a person who had seen an amazing trick with his own eyes. One thing is for sure: the Indian miracle rope has caused more heated discussions than any other type of spell. Was it really? If so, how was it done?
Perhaps part of the answer is hidden in the special training of those who show an unusual number. Many Indian magicians (or "fakirs", which translated from Arabic means "beggar") are able to perform truly remarkable feats - such as controlling their nervous system through willpower, which is achieved by constant exercises according to the methods of yogis.
In addition, fakirs are fluent in the art of art, the gift of instilling illusions and doing tricks with spells. In the West, many numbers of their repertoire are classified as "mass hallucinations" or "mass hypnosis." Moreover, they say that there is not a single person who himself was an eyewitness to the trick or personally knew it.
Doomed, apparently, to extinction, the Indian miracle rope will be remembered - if remembered at all - as a mass illusion or a colorful myth. And if someone does not agree with this, he can be forgiven, since this riddle has a very long and sensational history.
It is unlikely that the West would have heard of the miracle rope and at least one person would have taken these stories seriously, if not for the notes of the great Moroccan naturalist and writer of the Middle Ages Ibn Battuta. In 1360, among other distinguished guests, he received from Akbakh Khan an invitation to dinner at the royal palace in Han-Chu in China. After a plentiful meal, Akbakh Khan invited the satisfied guests to follow him to the garden, where everything was prepared at the beginning of the amazing entertainment. Here is what Ibn Battuta wrote about this in his diary:
“After the feast, one of the artists took a wooden ball with several holes in it. He passed a rope through them. Then he threw the ball up so that it disappeared from view and remained there, although there was no visible support.
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When only a small end of the rope remained in his hand, the artist ordered one of the assistant boys to grab onto the rope and climb up, which he did. He climbed higher and higher until he too disappeared from view. The artist called him three times - there was no answer. Angry, he took the knife, grabbed the rope and also disappeared into the sky.
Then the artist descended to the ground, bringing with him the hand of his assistant, who was the first to climb the rope; then he brought a leg, a second arm, a second leg, a torso, and finally a head. The assistant, naturally, died. The clothes of the artist and the boy were covered in blood.
The fakir placed the bloody parts of the body on the floor, one to the other in their original order. Then he got up and lightly kicked the folded body, which again turned out to be a child - completely normal, safe and sound."
Since there is no rational explanation for such extremely unusual phenomena as levitating ropes and miraculous resurrection, subsequent generations viewed Ibn Battuta's messages and the like as idle talk or hype, designed to draw a few coins from the most gullible. Medieval scholars declared the rope trick a lie. In the 19th century, it was explained in terms of the exciting new science of hypnosis.
The enterprising American newspaper "Chicago Daily Tribune", experiencing difficulties with circulation in the 1890s, announced its entry into the discussion and sending its journalists - the writer S. Ellmore and the artist Lessing - to distant India on a bold mission. They were tasked with photographing, sketching and sketching, and ultimately proving that the trick was just a trick.
Although the Indian miracle rope was known to be rarely shown, the Americans soon returned to Chicago with a few sketches and photographs that seemed to deal a devastating blow to the stunt's fame, proving that it was, as it was supposed, “a massive hallucination . When the film was developed, the picture showed only an Indian in baggy pants, surrounded by a hypnotized crowd.
There was no hardened rope along which it was possible to climb up. Naturally, the conclusion was that what was "seen" was the fruit of collective suggestion. The newspaper ran an article and it became clear that the efforts of the discerning Tribune journalists had culminated in a triumphant revelation.
Several months passed, and light was shed on another "daring trick" - luck turned away from the Chicago Tribune. Lessing-Ellmore's works were exposed as fakes, which they actually turned out to be. Lessing never set foot on Asiatic land, much less witnessed the Indian rope trick he slandered.
Moreover, a journalist named “S. Ellmore did not exist at all. Yielding to pressure, the publisher himself came up with a rebuttal, declaring the crime as a joke aimed at increasing demand for the newspaper.
Thirty years later, the newspapers were again full of articles about the miracle rope, as a certain Colonel Elliot approached the London "Circle of Magic" with a proposal to solve the problem once and for all.
In March 1919, the colonel awarded a prize of five hundred pounds sterling to anyone who can demonstrate a trick under the conditions of careful scientific supervision. Due to the complete absence of fakirs in London itself, an ad was published in the Times of India promising a fabulous reward for any Hindu capable of performing a feat with an Indian rope. However, the tempting offer remained unanswered.
The prim gentlemen from The Circle of Magic had to agree with the parapsychological supporters that the Indian miracle rope was the result of a "collective hallucination." It didn’t even occur to them that the fakirs were by no means the idle rich who spend the day in the gentlemen’s club reading the English-language newspapers. Most of the fakirs of that time did not even know how to read their native language, much less speak and read English.
However, several years after the aforementioned "Circle of Magic" action, several Irish and English soldiers serving in India witnessed a performance that almost completely coincided with the miracles described by Ibn Battuta in the 14th century.
The rope trick is often interpreted as a form of hypnotic suggestion. However, imagine yourself in the shoes of a hypnotist, wandering through India and giving performances to any assembled audience. It is logical to assume the following. Your audience consists of, say, fifty Hindus from New Delhi (who almost always speak English) and fifty Lamaist Buddhists from Sikkim (few speak English), the northern province of India.
Not knowing how to speak either Hindi or Tibetan, you begin hypnosis in English, and soon your skill begins to take effect. You make them go into a deep sleep state and "see" a dragon with golden wings. And then you notice that the English-speaking Delhi are contemplating the mythical creature, and fifty Buddhists are sitting opposite you, waiting for the start of the performance.
The principle is quite clear. As far as we know, hypnotic suggestion has always been accompanied by speech; if the subject does not understand the language in which the suggestion is made, he will not enter the state of hypnosis. Since mass hypnosis is not the answer to the question that interests us, then another explanation of the trick should be sought.
The amazing property of the rope is carefully kept secret and passed from father to son as a heirloom. At all times, people who knew the secret of the trick could be counted on the fingers of one hand - moreover, they say that this number is very risky and with the slightest mistake you can break your neck. It is believed that by the 1940s, the fakirs who performed this amazing act had become too old to perform with the wonder rope. But if this trick is not a myth, then how was it done?
Let us suppose that the secret is hidden in the rope itself and that in a straight state it is supported by a mechanism made of inserts (metal or wood) or a device hidden in the ground. The main secret is literally hanging in the air.
When this number was first performed - long before the invisible wire often used by modern illusionists - the elaborately crafted long, strong cords were black.
Since they were by no means “invisible,” the trick was always demonstrated at dusk, when the black cord became invisible against the darkened sky. In addition, the number should have been performed on a fairly cramped site and in no case in the middle of a vacant lot or other open space.
However, in order to avoid exposure when setting out in the valley, it was enough to settle between two hillocks or mounds. The cord was pulled between them so that it was hidden in the foliage of the trees. To be sure to hide it from the prying eyes of skeptical spectators, the fakir began his performance in the deepening twilight and at first “warmed up” the crowd with jokes and banal tricks until the sky finally turned black.
Then the assistants took out the lanterns and placed them on special stands around the magician who was sitting on the ground, who preceded the main trick with a rather boring and long traditional preface in order to distract the attention of the audience.
Imagine the following scene: having settled down at a distance of only three or four meters from the audience, the fakir is constantly telling something, takes a rope out of a wicker basket, repeatedly bends and twists it, throws it into the air, showing everyone that the rope is completely ordinary.
Usually, magicians do not risk attaching a weighting wooden ball under the eyes of the audience and weaves it into the end of the rope in advance. And so, continuing to joke around, he waving his raised arms and throwing her up again …
The spectators are already tired and do not notice how the fakir deftly inserts a metal hook into a special hole in a wooden ball. This hook is tied to a very thin and strong hairline, invisible against the black sky. The cord rises to a height of approximately eighteen meters, where it is thrown over the main horizontal cord.
The spectators, blinded by the light of the lanterns, see that the rope rises into the air, obeying an unknown magical force. With a sharp contrast between the illumination of the site and the blackness of the sky, it seems to them that it is floating in the air, having risen to a height of 60-90 meters. The spectators simply do not see that the fakir's assistants hiding in the shelter are pulling her upstairs.
When the magician orders his assistant - a boy aged eight or nine - to climb the rope, the audience understands well the child who stubbornly refuses to follow into the frightening unknown. Of course, in the end, the boy gives way, climbs higher and higher and eventually disappears from view - at a height of about ten meters, he is out of reach of the light of the lanterns. When he gets to the main cord, he clings to it with a hook and checks the reliability of the rope attachment.
Meanwhile, the fakir unsuccessfully calls the boy - he does not deign to answer him. The enraged magician grabs a huge knife, grips it with his teeth and rushes upstairs after the assistant. After a few moments, he, too, disappears into the darkness, and the audience hears only his angry swearing and the boy's death cries. Then - oh horror! - body parts of the unfortunate victim begin to fall to the ground.
In fact, these are parts of the body of a large monkey, wrapped in bloody rags, similar to the clothes of a boy. They were hidden under the fakir's spacious robe. The last to fall is the severed head, wrapped in a turban. Naturally, the audience does not show any desire to inspect it.
Four assistants rush to the remains of their comrade with loud laments. Meanwhile, upstairs, the boy is hiding in the empty spacious robes of the fakir. The magician goes down with him, and the attention of the audience is riveted primarily to the "bloody" blade in his teeth. At the sight of a dismembered body, the fakir "realizes" what happened, begins to "repent" and falls to the ground next to the remains.
The assistants, trying to console the owner, surround them with a tight ring. At this time, the boy slips out, and the parts of the monkey's body disappear again under the clothes of the magician.
The assistants move away, and the spectators see the fakir bent over the pieces of the victim's body piled together. Finally he gets up and utters a few magic words, after which he strikes a sensitive sharp blow, and suddenly - lo and behold! - the boy comes to life.
From the book "The greatest mysteries of anomalous phenomena"