what is the Indian rope trick in its most basic form?
Peter Lamont: A rope rises up into the air. A boy climbs up the rope and when the boy gets to the top he vanishes into thin air. So it’s simple in the sense that it’s a simple plot. It’s not simple because it’s actually impossible to do. Any magician will tell you that without a stage, and the story goes it was done in open airwithout that, you cannot make a boy disappear at the top of a rope. You can make a rope go stiff. You can get somebody to climb up it. But you can’t get somebody to disappear. So all the experts say it can’t be done. Amanda Smith: Then what piqued your interest in the Indian rope trickindeed to write a whole book about it? Peter Lamont: I’ve been going to India for many years. I’ve always been fascinated by the country. I’m a magician and I’m a historian. So it’s always been out there as something that’s interesting. But it wasn’t until fairly recently that I started to wonder what the hell was going on, because until recently I assumed, like everybody else, it w
