Demystify magic.

[Bereta_Eder]

This was thought after the capture the photo with that crazy Indian.

I was watching some time ago a program about magic tricks and it went all the way to India. Namely showing a man levitate half a meter or so off the earth. You watched it and thought there was no trick this is actually happening (as if). However it was revieled that under the deep red robe of the Shaman that went all the way to the ground, there was a tiny piece of wood, vertical then horizontal that was supporting him.

I wonder what are some other explanations for some other magic tricks. Namely:

_the thing where they put a girl in a box, cut her in three, parade the boxes and then "reunite" her.

_the trick with the rope and the flute. Where a rope is being "lifted up" in the air completely vertically.

You can think of others.

[Dis]

yes all of them can be explained.

but too many of those stuck up magicians have that stupid code where they don't reveal their secrests.

[The Mad Monk]

If you're talking about the trick where the assistant steps into three stacked boxes which are then moved around (or two assistants, or three, etc.), Penn & Teller exposed that one on a TV special about ten years ago.

It involved multiple trap doors and a crawlspace under the floor -- they demonstrated using a plexiglass stage.

[Bereta_Eder]

I would have liked to see that. because I remember one show on TV where the table was (or seemed to be at least) completely "open". It was just a piece of vertical wood with four "feet", or so it seemed.

[The Mad Monk]

Their specials are still out on VHS, I believe.

The specific one may have been "Don't Try This At Home", because it's listed as an NBC special, and we didn't have cable.

[Urban Ranger]

The Masked Magician also revealed a lot of stage magican tricks.

[TheStinger]

There is a bloke who goes around India and exposes all those fakir/shaman types he gets death threats.

There is also a British bloke who goes round pretending to be a medium and saying he his talking to dead relatives and at the end reveals he has no special powers at all.

He is brilliant as he exposes these people for what they are.

[Bereta_Eder]

What about the trick with the rope and the flute? Any ideas?

[TheStinger]

levers and pulleys or mirrors or trap doors or conealed entrances, something like that

[Bereta_Eder]

I was thinking about a very thin invisible nylon line attached to the end of the rope which could be pulled from someone from above. The only problem is that the fakires (?), the people who do this trick, usually do it in open space. So there is no window from a tall bulding or something to have someone pull the nylon line. And the rope is always completely vertical

[Bereta_Eder]

But it could be that there's a dwarf inside the basket who pushes the rope, which is rigid, from the inside! That must be it!
Maybe.
Or there's a whole in the ground below the basket and someone pushes it from there.

[Urban Ranger]

This is what is said about the Indian rope trick