April 07, 2004
The illusion of an illusion
"The trick was not even an illusion; it simply did not and had never existed." Try this for a measure of the capacity of a crowd, a cultural milieu, to generate and perpetuate hyperstitional realities without the least crumb of a 'material' basis.
Coincidentally read a review of a book whose theme follows on from the debunking of tulipmania thread: The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick reveals how this famous trick, in which a Fakir's boy assistant is seen to climb up a rope and disappear into the sky, was nothing more than a myth fuelled by the popular need, in an age of disenchantment, to believe in the inexplicable; stoked by a hoax article in the Chicago Tribune, an article whose intent was to lampoon those gullible enough to be taken in by 'eastern' charlatans!
Once the meme was out, not only did it persist, but the substance of the trick grew in the telling, becoming a grotesque bloody pantomime, with the fakir chasing the boy up the rope and from his invisible perch, tossing down bloodied limbs which then reassembled themselves. And, of course, the visual image of the fakir with his basket, and the boy disappearing into thin air, was to remain a staple of exotic illustration and trick photography for decades. And in fact, as this poster shows, it was ultimately to become a real illusion in the repertoire of at least one magician.
Posted by robin at April 7, 2004 07:49 PMEliade disagrees:
When, after his Illumination, the Buddha returned for the first time to his native city, Kapilavastu, he exhibited several "miraculous powers." To convince his relatives of his spiritual capacities and prepare them for conversion, he rose into the air, cut his body to pieces, let his head and limbs fall to the ground, then joined them together again before the amazed eyes of the spectators. This miracle is described even by Avaghoa[in the Buddhacarita, vv. 1551 ff.], but it is so essentially a part of the Indian tradition of magic that it has become the typical prodigy of fakirism. The famous rope trick of the fakirs creates the illusion that a rope rises very high into the sky; the master makes a young disciple climb it until he disappears from view. The fakir then throws his knife into the air, and the lad's limbs fall to the ground one after the other.
This rope trick has a long history in India, and is to be compared with two shamanic rites--the future shaman's initiatory dismemberment by "demons" and the shamanic ascent into the sky. The "initiatory dreams" of the Siberian shamans will be recalled: the candidate witnesses the dismemberment of his own body by the ancestral or evil spirits. But then his bones are put together again and fastened with iron, his flesh is renewed, and, on returning to life, the future shaman has a "new body" that enables him to gash his flesh with knives, run swords through himself, touch white hot iron, and so forth. It is remarkable that the Indian fakirs are reputed to perform the same miracles.
In the rope trick they, as it were, subject their assistants to the "initiatory dismemberment" that their Siberian colleagues experience in dreams. In addition, although the rope trick has become a specialty of Indian fakirism, it is also found in places as distant as China, Java, ancient Mexico and medieval Europe.
[Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask, originally published as Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaques de l'extase, Librairie Payot, Paris (1951), Bollingen Series LXXVI, Pantheon Books (1964), pp. 428 ff. Eliade also refers us to his volume, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, translated by Willard R. Trask from the original French Le Yoga. Immortalit et Libert, Librairie Payot, Paris (1954), Bollingen Series LVI, Princeton University Press (second edition, 1969), pp. 321 ff., where he repeats two paragraphs identically in his text. See also by Eliade, "Remarques sur le `rope trick,'" in Culture and History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, edited by Stanley Diamond, New York (1960), pp. 541-551.]
Posted by: mark k-p at April 7, 2004 08:24 PMmy god, keep those footnotes under control!
I wonder whether the author is aware of this - if not, he hasn't done his research very well, has he?
Of course, still interesting from the pov of a hyperstitionology, is what made the Chicago Tribune _believe_ that they'd made it up...
Sorry about the footnotes, must be catching :-) Actually, I just copied the lot from a website..... But this looks to be an incredibly rich hyperstitional space....
Posted by: mark k-p at April 7, 2004 10:33 PMShould add to Mark’s erudite comment:
The initiatory dismemberment of a neophyte is not necessarily accomplished by ‘Demons’ but sometimes by gods and angels and sometimes by the Earth itself.
What makes me hyperstitionaly suspected of the fakir's rope is that it mainly narrates the lineage of a cost-effective line of flight or more precisely, a flight along vertical axis (axis mundi) ... it’s always under the danger of becoming a domesticated line of flight taken by Angelic forces (pseudo-GAS) along whose itinerary, the ascent / descent panorama is mapped in the form of a holy and ‘secured’ nomadic climate (klima: slope, zone). Even angelic wings have structurally adapted to taxis-flight: soft, economically efficient, morphologically asymptomatic. However, if an angel takes the (anti)route of Kata- [1] (becoming a Fallen angel), it’s recomposed and prosthesized by new flight-machines by which a fallen angel can easily transgress the predetermined axis mundi, opening new gates (highly collapsible, dangerously contaminative zones) to other dimensions, engineering a radically inter-dimensional line of flight. Semitic / Mesopotamian / Persian and Etruscanian (derived from Semitic cultures) demons or Fallen angels possess such flight-machines appearing as additional wings, alipes (winged-feet) and tales. Winged-feet are the extraordinary machines for shrouding the demon into the darkness; they work like mini-propellers making the line of flight diverged to other dimensions and inclined axes, crossing and penetrating the zones abruptly and epidemically.
Morphological studies of demonic wings: 1.skeletal wings sometimes supplemented by tails are fearsome musical machines roaring during the flight corresponding with ‘Solar Rattle’ composed by solar magnetic storms (murmuring while performing planetary rituals) 2. multiplicity of traces (such wings leave an entangled mess behind), 3. hardened by embedded materials extracted from multiple zones and universes that the Demon traverses (bio-demonic khemistry of wings) 4. Wings are NOT necessary for the flight; each region of the body is a blade for lacerating dimensions, a hammer, a probe and screw propeller. (Wreaking an acoustic havoc)
>But this looks to be an incredibly rich hyperstitional space....
with all these dismembered limbs, there's surely a mainline h.s. route from here to Dionysus-central too...
Posted by: undercurrent at April 8, 2004 09:48 AMJust read 'Carter beats the devil' by David Gold and be done!
Posted by: Phirippirip at May 27, 2004 12:34 PM
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