I suppose that to the end of time there will
be people coming along to claim they have seen the Indian Rope Trick. The correspondence columns of The Spectator and other journals provide confirmation enough of that. But the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle on Monday evening came as near as can by the nature of things be possible to proving that the trick had never been per- formed and never could be. Lord Halifax wrote saying that throughout his viceroyalty he had tried in vain to find -someone to perform the rope trick, and if a master of the trick will not appear for a viceroy it is fairly good evidence of his non-existence. Sir Michael O'Dwyer told how the Nizam of Hyderabad, most powerful of Indian Princes, had similarly failed to get the trick performed for him. A colonel who mentioned that he and father and grand- father had served between them 98 years in India said that all of them had tried assiduously to come across the rope trick, and all without success. The offer of large money rewards failed to evoke it. That is pretty sub- stantial- evidence of a certain kind, and as complement to it the Occult Committee has cross-examined, with disastrous results to their testimony, various witnesses who claim to have seen the trick themselves. And yet at the end of it all 'there is something left to explain. Assuming that the rope trick never happened, why are there still sober and apparently credible people who are convinced that they saw it happen ? Mass-hypnosis is rather a theory of despair, and many sound psychologists disbelieve in mass-hypnosis altogether.
Previous page
