Hindu Magic: An Expose of the Tricks of the Yogis and Fakirs of India

by Hereward Carrington

When the fakir places his hands beneath the cloth the first time, then, he gets hold of the seed, and proceeds to manipulate it in such a manner as to extract from the upper end of the seed about an inch or so of the plant it contains. He may extract the seed altogether from the earth for that purpose, and replace it in the earth again at the conclusion of this manipulation, banking up the earth around the seed again before removing his hands. The fakir then removes both hands, and proceeds with the playing of his tom-tom, and whatever other mummeries he may see fit to perform, in order to impress his onlooker. After a while the cloth is removed, and the seed is found to have sprouted, and an inch or so of the stem and the first green leaves are seen to be sprouting from the earth. The illusion is perfect, and the onlookers are more taken up with gazing in wonder at the miraculous growth and discussing it one with another than with critically examining the seed and the sprouting plant. If the conjuror wishes to show the roots sprouting from the lower end of the seed, he merely has to place these roots in the seed before the performance begins, and extract them in the course of his manipulation of the seed, previously explained. The preparation of the seed is concealed by the fact that a duplicate seed is first exhibited to the spectators, and that seed is frequently examined by them. Before the seed is placed in the ground, however, the conjuror finds occasion to change it for another, prepared in the manner described. No one thinks of examining the seed after the performance is concluded.

To return, however, to the method of working the trick. After the conjuror has shown the growth from the seed the first time, he covers the seed with a shawl and again places his hands beneath the cloth and works out a little more of the mango; then repeats his incantations and his tom-tom playing; finally showing the shoot a second time, when it is found to have grown a considerable amount in the interval. Amazement is correspondingly great! This performance is gone through several times, until the folded mango shoot is all worked out of the seed, the growing tree being covered each time by the shawl. When the shoot is all worked out of the seed, there is a fair-sized shrub standing before you.

But there are some cases in which the mango-tree is reported to have grown to a height of several feet, and even to bear fruit; and the explanations offered would not explain such cases, it may be said. That is admitted; and I shall now endeavor to explain how these more marvellous feats are performed.

It must be remembered that Hindu fakirs seldom or never travel singly, but always in troupes of threes and fours; and, during the performance of one of the fakirs, the others assist him by passing him the articles he uses in his performance—jars, water, earth, etc. Now, every time the conjuror moves the shawl from the growing plant, he tosses the shawl to his assistant, and shows his hands empty. When receiving the shawl back from his assistant, he also shows his hands empty; then shakes out the shawl and shows both sides of it—showing, in this way, that nothing is concealed in the shawl, and that he introduces nothing under cover of the said shawl. To all appearances, nothing could be fairer. And, indeed, nothing is fairer at first; but the conjuror shakes the shawl less and less vigorously every time he places it over the mango-tree, until, towards the end (the seventh or eighth time, let us say) he hardly shakes it at all. The spectators, having seen it empty so many times, get into the habit of mind of thinking it is empty as a matter of course, and pay no attention to this part of the performance, after the first few times. Their thoughts and attention are centered upon the mango-tree and its growth. So, when the conjuror has worked out all the shoot from the seed, he must perforce introduce a fresh shoot of larger proportions; and he does this in the following manner: He passes on word to his assistant, by means of a secret sign, that he has reached the end of his present stock of “occult vitalizing influence”—in other words, the mango shoot—and the assistant, in passing him back the shawl or cloth this time passes him back another cloth, which he has secretly exchanged for the original one—the one the conjuror began operations with. This second cloth is double, and contains a very large mango shoot, more or less doubled up in the manner of the first shoot that was placed within the mango seed. A slit in the cloth enables the conjuror to extract the second shoot, and place it in the mound of earth, working this shoot out to its natural size with his fingers. When this large shoot is worked out to its full limit it is a very large tree, and the conjuror has only to remove the cloth to display it to his astonished onlookers. The cloth just employed is exchanged for the original while the eyes of the spectators are fascinated by the huge tree just exhibited to them, and when the trick is concluded this cloth is handed for examination; and, of course, no trickery is discovered in connection with it. The whole performance is a very pretty chapter in the psychology of deception.

As to the cases in which, it is asserted, fruit grows upon the tree grown in this manner, I have no exact explanation of that fact, and I frankly confess my disbelief in its occurrence. I have diligently searched for any first-hand account of this fact, and have never found one; nor have I been enabled to meet anyone who could assert that he had seen it himself. It seems to rest on the same hazy foundation as the famous rope exploit, to be discussed later on.

I may say that my father was an old Anglo-Indian, having lived ten years in Calcutta, but he never saw this finale to the trick, though he had many times seen the mango-tree trick performed, as described above. Nor had he ever met anyone, in all that time, who could state that he had witnessed the feat with his own eyes. It would seem, therefore, to be one of those “grand finale” flourishes which happened to be placed at the end of some magazine writer’s description of the mango-tree trick, in order to make it appear as wonderful as possible—and gained wide credence on that account!

There is then, so far as I have been enabled to discover, no first-hand account of fruit growing upon the mango-tree, that has been made to grow in the manner described; and until such evidence be forthcoming, I think we are entitled to say that it has never been done. However, there are certain considerations which might make us admit that such was the case—and yet the fruit might be obtained and placed there by fraudulent means! One such method would be for the fruit to be introduced under the cloth, in the act of covering the mango-tree. The introduction of the fruit would be comparatively easy if some of the methods about to be explained were employed. At all events, this feat is no more difficult—certainly no more “miraculous”—than that performed by Kellar, in which roses are made to grow from empty flower pots—which roses are cut and distributed to the audience immediately. In this instance, two empty flower pots are shown (they may be examined, if desired) and filled with earth. Seeds are then sprinkled over the earth, and watered. A tube, open at both ends, is then shown empty, and examined by the audience. It is made of card-board, and everyone can see that it is quite unprepared. First one flower pot and then the other is then covered with this tube, and upon removing the tube, the seeds are found to have sprouted into full-grown bushes, fully eighteen inches in height, and covered with roses—at least fifty, on both plants. These roses are cut off immediately, and distributed among the audience, who testify to their genuine character. In a very similar illusion, on a small scale, a glass tumbler is filled with earth, and covered for a moment with a borrowed hat; upon removing which it is found that the seeds have blossomed into a plant about six inches high. If flowers can be made to grow under such circumstances, therefore, why not fruit upon mango-trees, grown under similar conditions, and before far less critical audiences, who have already had their critical faculties blunted, moreover, by a succession of unexplained marvels?

So far, I have described only one method of performing this mango-tree trick, and there are several other methods, which I shall now briefly enumerate—since the method above described is the one in general use, without a doubt. Another very good method, however, is the following, which was first made public, if I remember rightly, by Mr. Charles Bertram, the conjuror, to whom I am indebted for the secret, in this instance.

In this case the conjuror makes his mound of earth as in the last instance, and has a prepared seed, which he exchanges for an examined seed at a convenient moment. The seed in this case is, however, prepared in a slightly different manner. It is split in two, and emptied of its contents. Then one end of it is wedged open by means of a small wedge of wood, and several small pieces of string are inserted into the other end, which, when hanging down from the seed, after being placed in the mud, exactly resemble roots. The seed is then fastened together, so that the two sides or halves will not fall apart. This seed the conjuror exchanges for the examined seed at some convenient moment, and this is the one placed in the ground.

The juggler then hands round for inspection four bamboo sticks, and a piece of thin cloth. After the sticks are handed back to him, he places them in the ground, slanting towards a common centre, and ties the tops of the sticks together with a bit of string. Around these sticks is now stretched the cloth, thus making a sort of tent, about three feet in height and open at the back. The thinness of the cloth allows the interior to be dimly seen through it. The mound of earth, containing the seed, is within this tent, it having been built round it, in fact. The juggler suddenly appears to notice that the cloth is too thin, allowing the interior to be seen through it, and proceeds to cover the tent with a thicker piece of cloth. The conjuror in this case has a rag doll, which he uses very much as our Western magicians use their wands; and with this he proceeds to make passes over the tent, about the seed inside the tent, etc. He also waters the seed several times. After a time, the cloth is lifted up, and the spectators see that the tree is several inches in height. This performance is repeated several times, the passes, waterings, etc., being gone through each time, and generally a wait of several minutes is necessitated, during which waits the conjuror performs some other trick, such as the diving duck, the cups and balls, or the colored sands, all of which I shall explain later on. At the conclusion of the performance the juggler removes the cloth, and the mango is found to have grown to a very respectable height.