Conjuring Credits

The Origins of Wonder

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misc:indian_needle_trick [2017/06/28 16:58] – external edit 127.0.0.1misc:indian_needle_trick [2024/02/26 20:45] (current) – Corrected mention of "needles" to "nails". stephenminch
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 ====== Indian Needle Trick ====== ====== Indian Needle Trick ======
  
-Described by Cardano in his //Subtlety and Subtle Inventions//. Balthazar Bekker in //The Enchanted World//, 1694, Book IV, Chapter 4, also refers to the trick of "nails and thread in the mouth"Guillemin, in his //[[http://askalexander.org/display/22807/An+Illustrated+History+of+White+Magic+Before+Robert+Houdin/115|Illustrated History of White Magic]]//, p97says this is probably the first reference to this trick. But he is not clear as to where Cardano'descriptions fit into this claim, as they must have come before 1694, Cardano's lifetime being 1501-1576.+Cardanoin his //Subtlety and Subtle Inventions//, 1550-1560, described the feat of swallowing and regurgitating a packet of nails and a length of thread: "producing nails and thread from one's mouth". Cardano does not mention that, upon regurgitation, the nails were threaded or tied to the thread. The feat seems one only of regurgitation of dangerous items. Balthazar Bekker in //De Betoverde Weereld//, 1691, Book IV, Chapter 4, Item 5, p. 28, translates the passage about the nails and thread feat from Cardano's Latin into Dutch. Only when we get to the 1694 French translation of the Bekker text (p. 67), are "threaded nails" mentioned, which has proved a misleading translation that suggests that Cardano had described the Needle Trick. 
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 +It has been recorded and generally accepted thatc. 1818, Khia Khan Khruse (stage name of Louis Antonio Khruse or Cruz) was the first to substitute needles for beads in the trick of swallowing lose beads and thread and bringing the beads back up threaded (see Sidney W. Clarke'//[[https://askalexander.org/display/12752/The+Annals+of+Conjuring/393|Annals of Conjuring]]//, 2001, pp396 & 398). The Needle Trick did not come from Indiabut this was probably assumed due to Khruse'stage identity as an East Indian conjurer and the identification of the bead-threading trick with India.
  
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