INDIAN MAGIC

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVII, Issue 102, 12 May 1939, Page 4

INDIAN MAGIC

“THE SCIENCE OF YOG ” CURIOUS DEMONSTRATION. LONDON, April 15. The business of magic is really very simple. An earnest young Indian named Lenz made it quite clear to me last night at the annual dinner and entertainment of the British Ring (International Brotherhood of Magicians) at Pagani’s restaurant, W. (w'rites a “Daily Mail” reporter). Mr Len Allan (the full name of this 27-year-old magician, recently arrived from Bombay) set a handfffi of cotton wool ablaze by just looking at it. He told me it was all done by the science of Yog. Taking a blank look for a hint, he added, gravely: “The idea is to transmit the vibrations of the body force —the soul force, if you like—through the ether and bring about a chemical transmutation of the cosmic.”

The brotherhood behaved itself admirably during dinner, but when everything had been cleared away the magicians set about amazing the magicians.

How did Mr George Gibbon get out of that steel boiler only 30 seconds after we had examined it and screwed down the lid? GIRL POISED ON SWORD. And how did “James” (Mr Dave James, once a builder in Sydney, Australia), pluck all those cigarettes from the air? In a quarter of an hour he produced 100, all lighted, one of them in a long holder. We saw “Zeanit” place his daughter in a trance, lay her across the points of three swords, take two away, and leave her with her shoulder poised miraculously on the third. But where were the woman magicians, you ask? I found myself sitting next to one —24-year-old Miss Diana Sullivan, of Dulwich, S.E., by day a shorthand typiste, by night a magic folder of paper into wondrous shapes. “Some magical societies admit us; others don’t,” she told me. “So far as I know there are about a dozen women magicians in London. I want to get them all together and form a society of our own.” Yes, please take her seriously. Consider the brotherhood itself. There were only seven members when Mr Oswald Rae, still the president, formed it 12 years ago. To-day there are 250 members in Great Britain, 4000 abroad.