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The
TRICK
BRAIN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The penetration effect presents a somewhat different problem for analysis.
Like those effects which have been discussed before, the effecting of an apparent result of matter penetrating matter without blemish to the objects used, may seem to take place both covered and uncovered. The permeation may seem to be instantaneous or gradual. Anything, animate or inanimate, may be the obstacle or the penetrator.
It is obvious that matter cannot really pass through matter without leaving evidences of the passing. That would be contrary to all physical law.
Therefore, there can be only a few ways of simulating such an accomplishment. The penetrator must either go around the penetrated or through it, if the original penetrator actually appears on the opposite side. Or the effect must be accomplished by vanishing or somehow disposing of the original penetrator, with a substitute duplicate penetrator appearing in its place on the opposite side. Or the penetrator must be collapsible in some manner to give the effect of partial penetration from one side. Or the penetrator may be separable in parts, in which event the separated part must go through or around the obstacle—or a duplicate to the separated part is substituted. Or some secondary effect, which gives the effect of penetration without an actual penetration, may imply the accomplishment of the objective.
If the penetrator actually passes through the obstacle, some type of secret passageway must be supplied. This may be an invisible opening such as the block from tape trick that was popular a few years ago. Or the opening may be covered subtly, as with The Rod Through Glass Trick, mentioned before in this work.
If the object doing the penetrating passes around the obstacle, it must do so by means of a secret passageway or else it is conveyed around beneath or behind some type of cover. This cover, of course, may be psychological. Then, too, there is one more expedients. The obstacle may be moved aside during the act of penetration, either partially or wholly, after which it is moved back, as in the case of The Ball Through Bolt Trick.
Naturally, if the original penetrator is vanished and a duplicate is substituted on the opposite side of the obstacle, you have a combination of a vanish and a production—the vanish of the original and the appearance of the duplicate. As an effect of vanish and appearance, of course, it is so only as to method, not as to external appearance to the spectators.
Yet the penetrator may actually penetrate the obstacle. In this event it is necessary to substitute a new, unmarred obstacle at the climax.
For an example of the first general expedient, I can cite no better example than the old Needle Through Body Trick. Here, the penetrator, a large needle, is conducted around the body by means of a secret channel, which acts as a guide.
Almost the same expedient is employed in The Ball Through Glass or The Ball Through Bolt, except that the obstacle is moved aside. Both of these are recent pocket tricks. In both cases the obstacle is moved aside to permit the penetrator to pass, after which it is moved back again.
The trick known as Block Go, wherein a solid block is dropped into a square chimney only to penetrate a plate of glass and emerge from a second chimney below, is an example of the penetrator being conducted around the obstacle. The block is conducted around the glass plate through stratagem. The old familiar method of conducting or conveying within, behind or beneath something makes another appearance here.
The second method, utilizing a secret passageway through the obstacle, is demonstrated in an English method of removing a large block from a tape. Here the block is so carefully built that a secret opening in the block itself, permitting the tape to be pulled through, is almost impossible to find. The Massey penetration of a rod through a glass plate, referred to before, supplies a passageway which is hidden beneath a clip ostensibly intended for the support of a covering card. Of course, the basic secret in The Linking Rings depends upon a secret passageway in the key ring. This latter trick, however, is a complex combination of penetration principles.
The Linking Rings also supplies an example of the third method, substitution of the penetrator. In most routines the method is applied in several ways. Originally, usually, a solid ring is shown as the penetrator, after which the key ring is substituted. Or a solid chain of two is held in the hand as two separate rings. Another solid ring is struck down upon this chain. The hand holding the chain seizes the single separate ring and allows one of the linked rings to fall in its place. Thus, the penetration is accomplished by substituting a penetrator that has already penetrated.
The Penetrating Glass Through Hat supplies another example of the substitution of penetrators, in one version. After the hat is shown empty a duplicate glass is maneuvered into it secretly. The original glass is covered with a foulard. Built into the foulard is a ring form, but equipped with legs so that it gives the appearance of a glass standing beneath the foulard. The original glass is disposed of in a well, after which the form gives the appearance of the covered glass being perched upon the crown of the hat. Whisking the foulard away gives the appearance of the glass having penetrated the crown of the hat. Of course, the glass disclosed beneath the hat is the duplicate.
The use of a duplicate obstacle gives us a fourth method. A very clear example is the trick of removing a paper disc from a string upon which it is threaded. Here the penetrator is the cord. The obstacle is the disc. The performer merely tears the disc, thus permitting the cord to penetrate, after which a duplicate disc is substituted. This principle is used in The Drumhead Tube.
A fifth stratagem is the use of a duplicate part of the penetrator. This will give the effect of a penetration taking place. For example, The Finger Through Hat is accomplished through the use of a duplicate finger tip affixed to the opposite side of the hat.
A dagger penetration, put on the market a few years ago, illustrates a sixth method. This dagger was a wooden one. It appeared to be solid but actually it was in two parts. A section of the blade was held to the remainder by means of a strong magnet. To give the appearance of penetration, the magician merely separated the two sections, placing one part on each side of a sheet of paper, for example. The magnet still would hold the divorced tip. The paper could be shown with the dagger apparently piercing it. Yet upon removal there would be no sign of the passage. Here the penetrator was separable.
It is hardly necessary to search for an example of a collapsible penetrator with which to illustrate the seventh expedient. Too many people are already familiar with The Brad Awl, wherein the blade recedes into the handle.
An eighth way of accomplishing an apparent penetration is through a pretended permeation. We do this with The Linking Rings when we pick up a chain of three, already penetrated, and pretend to link them. This seems like a weak expedient but accomplished performers of the rings can testify as to its effectiveness.
There is still another way of obtaining an appearance of penetration. This is secured through some secondary effect that convinces the spectator that a penetration has taken place. Grant's Shooting Through a Woman will serve to illustrate it. In this trick the penetrator is the bullet. The girl is the obstacle. Behind the girl is a sheet of glass suspended in such a manner that the plane of the glass faces the girl. When the performer fires, the sheet of glass behind the girl is broken.
Here, of course, the penetrator, the bullet, is not shown as having penetrated at all, although in some versions a duplicate bullet is sometimes exhibited. Actually, a spring, rat-trap-like device built into the table breaks the glass.
Now let's examine some random tricks in order to investigate methods in more detail.
Several tricks come to mind in connection with the method of moving the obstacle, or penetrated object, to one side in order to permit the penetrator to pass. In the familiar solid through solid frame, the frame upon which is tacked a handkerchief, the obstacle is moved aside and afterwards moved back.
During The Princess Illusion, also known as The Girl Without a Middle, the obstacle, the girl, is moved aside when the back door is opened. She is moved aside to allow the blades to pass, and she is again moved aside to allow the spectators' line of sight to pass through the cabinet.
Thurston presented an illusion in which a piece of pipe was shoved through a girl's torso, after which milk was poured in one end of the pipe and came out the other. The pipe did not go straight through the frame. Rather it angled off a bit from center. In addition, the girl pushed herself against one side of the frame. This allowed the pipe to pass her.
Thayer produced an illusion called The Demon of Doom. This was a set of stocks through which the subject's neck and wrists passed. Large spikes were driven apparently through the neck and the wrists. Actually, the final spikes were made of springs and followed a channel around the openings.
Sawing Through a Woman has been accomplished through several methods. In the most common method, two girls are used. The presence of one of the girls is unknown to the spectators. Here the original girl moves aside, while the ankles and feet of the additional girl are substituted in place of those of the visible subject. In another method, the girl simply moves aside, as she does in the buzz saw version. Still another method has the girl maneuvering around past the saw after it has cut halfway through the box.
A partial shell of the penetrator gives the appearance of a partial penetration. A billiard ball shell, pressed over a handkerchief beneath which is a solid ball, gives the appearance of the ball half way through the cloth. The same type of expedient is used in connection with a penetrating thimble method.
In The Blue Phantom, which is a progressive penetration, a shell, simulating a duplicate penetrator, takes the place of the original penetrator during the first stage, and a solid duplicate, lifted from a secret hiding place, masquerades as the original penetrator in the second stage. All that was necessary to provide were secret hiding places for the shell, the duplicate checker and the original checker.
A shell, hidden in one of the chimneys, masquerading as the original block, permits the original block to be spirited around the glass plate in Block Go. In the old Chinese Coin Trick, a duplicate coin, shown as the original coin removed, even before the original coin has been taken from the string, accomplishes the necessary relaxation of the spectator's vigilance long enough for the original coin to be removed from the string under the guise of taking the end of the string from one of the spectators.
The trick of pushing a butcher knife through a coat, or that of pushing a pocket knife through a handkerchief, known as Ghost Power, both, are accomplished through the judicious use of duplicates. In the case of the butcher knife through the coat, the coat is hung over the back of an open chair. A large square of newspaper, about ten inches on each side, is held in the left hand and placed over the coat at the place of penetration. The butcher knife is taken in the right. It is jabbed at the back of the coat, the shape of its point being visible to the spectators when the piece of paper is drawn aside to see what progress is being made. But when the paper is drawn aside, the forefinger of the right is substituted for the knife point while the knife is taken with the left, behind the paper. When the paper is laid over the center of the coat again, the knife is immediately behind it, clipped with the tips of the fingers holding the paper. The performer seizes the knife handle through the cloth of the coat, pulls the knife and the coat away from the paper, and straightens the knife so it is at right angles to the plane of the paper. The knife point is directly towards the center of the paper. On the next jab the knife penetrates the paper. It is pulled through with the right hand. Apparently it penetrates through the coat and all.
Ghost Power is similar. In this case a duplicate blade is attached to a piece of elastic up the sleeve. Under cover of the handkerchief the duplicate blade is taken from the sleeve. The real knife is taken behind the paper as it is drawn aside. But during this time the performer is jabbing with the duplicate blade. When the paper has been laid in the center of the outstretched handkerchief again, the knife being immediately behind it, the duplicate blade is allowed to slip up the sleeve. The fingers of the right take the real knife through the folds of the handkerchief. The knife is straightened and pushed through the paper.
Thus the use of a duplicate penetrator, either solid or as a shell, has been demonstrated in several ways by the above.
The Glass of Water Through the Hat, either the Conradi table version or that of Petrie—Lewis with a candlestick, has a secret mechanism simulating the penetrator and its gradual penetration, while the original penetrator is put into position for its final disclosure as having penetrated. A piston of the same top diameter as the top of the glass is lifted beneath a handkerchief spread over the glass. The glass is stolen and conveyed into the hat secretly. This is not difficult because the spectators believe the glass to be present beneath the handkerchief. The hat is placed on top of the piston, apparently on top of the covered glass. The glass seems to penetrate through the hat gradually as the piston is slowly lowered.
Just to give you some idea as to what might constitute invention In the Conradi version the piston is lowered by water gradually running out of a cylinder. In another version, it is lifted and lowered by means of a thread. In the Petrie-Lewis method the slow penetration is accomplished by small shot running from a cylinder. An English method has the device built into a tray, operating on a lazy-tongs principle. Still another method uses a stem glass, the lower part of which is visible at the beginning of the trick. The actual base and the stem of the glass are really separate, the stem actually being a glass tube that drops into the center pedestal of the table.
The trick of placing a thin metal rod, such as the spoke from a bicycle wheel, in the nose and extracting it from the back of the neck is an out-and-out use of duplicates. The piece originally pushed into the nose is actually left in the head cavity. The duplicate is placed in the collar at the back of the neck prior to performance. One of Dr. Ervin's tricks, that of pushing a cigarette through a dinner plate, is accomplished through the use of two cigarettes, one on either side of the plate. Here the fingers gradually slide over one cigarette, slowly covering it, while the other is pushed into sight from behind the fingers.
Some versions of The Nest of Boxes have secret openings built into the back, through which the object eventually to be found is placed in the innermost box.
Many versions of the penetration trick are accomplished by means of optical illusions. One known as Seeing Through the Middle, is a tube which seems to penetrate straight through the middle of a person. But the tube really goes around the body. The illusion of seeing through the body is accomplished by means of a periscope-like arrangement of mirrors.
Another optical illusion of penetration is illustrated in Pintrix. In this one the penetrator snaps around the obstacle with such speed that it seems to be pushed right through. This is also true of the small pocket trick, known as The Yogi, in which a small figure seems to be beheaded.
Trick ties, which permit of quick release, also contribute methods. Disc-or-Ball has a small ball threaded on a double cord. Also threaded on the double cord are a number of discs having holes through their centers. These are threaded above the ball. The trick is accomplished by the peculiar way in which the ball is tied to the double cord. Both ends of the cord pass through the hole in the ball. They are pulled through until a loop extends from the hole at the opposite side. Then both ends are run through this loop. It is a slip loop that permits of easy removal of the ball. When the ball is removed, all of the discs will fall free. Afterwards the ball is replaced.
A trick done with metal rings depends upon the same principle. Chinese coins have also been used for this trick.
Yet exactly the same effect is accomplished in another manner. In this case the cord is actually threaded through the ball, without the trick loop. But the ball may be separated for removal from the cord.
Other penetrations of cords, even at least one illusion, are accomplished through the use of devices similar to the Caesar rope gimmicks. This permits the rope to be separated and rejoined.
There are many versions of The Grandmother's Necklace Trick, from that using the small wooden beads, to oranges, or even to humans linked together. The ropes through coat, the trick called The Cords of Fantasia, and many other variations in many guises employ this principle.
All of the above penetrations are accomplished through the use of tricked arrangements of cord or tape-like restraints, or tricked knots.
In connection with ropes or tapes there are also many subtleties for maneuvering the penetrator rope or tape around the obstacle. Walking Through a Ribbon is exactly the same as an older die and frame trick as to method, in the original version. This is a waist high frame that is placed around a spectator. A long ribbon was run through a hole in one side of the frame, across in front of the spectator, and out through a hole in the opposite side. Spectators hold both ends of the ribbon. Yet the volunteer may walk out free. A front door in the frame conceals the secret.
A thread loop surrounds the first hole. This thread runs around the back of the volunteer and out the second hole. The ribbon is run through both holes, extending across in front of the spectator. But a short length extends from the second hole. Covered by his body, the performer apparently pulls at the short end to even the ends. Actually he pulls the thread. This catches the ribbon at the opposite side of the spectator and drags it around the back and out the second hole. This, of course, is covered by the closed front door. All the spectator need do is to walk forward. The penetration has already been made possible.
This is an excellent application of a method used for two inanimate objects being applied to humans in a larger form. Obviously, the method basically is but that of the penetrator passing around the obstacle. The grandmother's necklace principle is identical fundamentally.
A few tricks depend upon the use of a secret passageway through the obstacle, after which the passageway is removed. The familiar Ball of Wool Trick is an example. The tube supplies the passageway until the penetration has been effected, after which it is removed
In some penetrations the obstacle is destroyed, as we have pointed out before. This is true of The Drumhead Tube. This trick is not a matter through matter effect in the strictest sense, as the drum-head is affixed to preclude introducing anything inside the tube. But the insertion of the feke destroys the drumhead and substitutes a new one.
Yet in the lemon trick the bill actually does go through the lemon skin. In most versions the performer merely conceals the opening with his fingers.
Some tricks introduce the penetrator in the act of opening the obstacle to show that the penetration has taken place. The Card in Egg Trick is an example. Neither the card nor bill, whichever is used, is in the egg until after its surface is broken. The card or bill is shot into the egg from a wand or pencil or other device in the act of breaking the shell.
To show you how an identical method seems different, I might cite Petrie-Lewis' Goblin Tube again. A small handkerchief is found inside a small tube over the ends of which are stretched paper drum-heads. The silk is introduced into the cylinder by means of a thumb tip which contains it. With the tip on his thumb, the performer merely shoves his thumb through the paper and pulls forth the silk, leaving the tip behind inside.
I have mentioned De Muth's Milk Miracle before. When the mirror glass is covered with a silk, with a plate on top and the bottle standing on top of all, the effect is one of penetration. Yet the method is essentially a vanish and an appearance of a duplicate. The milk that seems to penetrate actually vanishes in a secret compartment, while the duplicate milk is revealed from a secret compartment of somewhat different type.
The expedient of utilizing a duplicate of the original penetrator presents many facets. In the guillotine trick, where a chopper of the Lester Lake type is used, the penetrator is, of course, the blade. This type of device brings the duplicate penetrator into view automatically. The original blade is concealed automatically as well.
But in some versions of the bill in cigarette or card in cigarette tricks, the duplicate penetrator is already in place. It will be recalled that the bill or the card, whichever is being used, is inserted in the cigarette, in some methods, before the trick is ever started. Then all that is necessary to do is to dispose of the original penetrator and disclose the duplicate as having penetrated.
Most escapes come under the classification of penetration effects.
The bulk of the rope ties depend upon some secret method of obtaining slack, thus permitting a secret passageway. Some of them are accomplished through destroying the original bonds and substituting duplicates.
Straight jackets are equipped with secret means of affording a passageway, or the performer resists restraint in such a way that potential slack is obtained.
By far the greater portion of escapes, such as milk cans, trunks, boxes, cages, spirit bolts, pillories, mailbags and the like depend upon secret passageways. These may be supplied through telescopic construction, panels, removable bars, split bolts, split construction and other similar devices.
Of course, some locks may be picked. Others are tricked to open by secret means.
Practically all methods previously enumerated for the conventional penetration have been utilized. These include duplicate performers—penetrators in this instance—secret passageways, destruction of the obstacle and substitution of a duplicate, trick ties and other expedients identifiable under the several general classes. Even Walking Through a Brick Wall utilizes the idea of the penetrator—the performer—going around the obstacle.
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