Henry Ridgely Evans

“I have, since I was three years old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable.”—SHAKESPEARE; As You Like It—V. 2, 68.

I.

The leading exponent of the magic art in the United States today is the famous Harry Kellar. He makes a specialty of pseudo-clairvoyance, second sight, feats of levitation, spirit cabinets, and mechanical illusions. Seizing upon the craze for Hindoo necromancy, mahatma miracles and the like, he presents many of his tricks and illusions as examples of Eastern thaumaturgy. Unlike Herrmann, who bubbled over with wit and humor and acted the comedian, Kellar assumes a Sphinx-like demeanor and envelopes himself in a mantle of mystery. Herrmann was the tricksy Mephistopheles of Goethe’s Faust. Kellar is the Arbaces of Bulwer’s Last Days of Pompeii—the Egyptian sorcerer and initiate into the rites of Isis and Osiris; or, better still, the Brahmin adept of Crawford’s Mr. Isaacs. Kellar’s entertainments appeal to the scholarly inclined. To see him at work, one is transported in imag­i­na­tion to a Hindoo temple where mahatmas exhibit their miracles. His patter is more or less based on Oriental ideas. For example, “The Yoge’s Lamp,” which is a very fine trick, invented by a German conjurer, Herr Conradi, of Berlin. The effect is as follows: On a pedestal stands a lighted lamp. Enveloping this lamp with a foulard, the magician carries it across the stage and places it upon a small gueridon with a glass top. A portion of the chimney of the lamp is in view all the time, and within the silken folds of the foulard the light may be seen shining through with subdued effect. Kellar now fires a pistol. The foulard drops upon {238} the table, and the big lamp vanishes with lightning rapidity. It seems to melt away. It is a seemingly impossible feat, because the glass-topped table has no possible place of concealment about it. The foulard is afterwards passed to the spectators for examination. I am not at liberty to reveal the secret of this surprising trick. I must preserve a discreet silence, in deference to the wishes of Mr. Kellar. As originally invented by Herr Conradi, the lamp reappears in a frame hanging in the center of the stage. But Kellar’s method I consider more artistic, and in better keeping with the mise en scÈne. Without patter this feat of magic would fall comparatively flat. In Kellar’s hands it is invested with a halo of supernaturalism which is very effective. The following is a brief rÉsumÉ of the story of the lamp: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have here on this pedestal a copper lamp of antique pattern which was loaned to me by a celebrated Brahmin who presides over a shrine in the Holy City of Benares, India. I have his permission to use it in my thaumaturgic sÉances, but I must return it to him at a certain hour every evening, as it is needed in the ceremonial rites of the temple at Benares. That hour has now arrived. (A bell strikes the hour, slowly and solemnly. He wraps the foulard about the lamp, which he places on the table.) I shall count three—the mystic number of Brahmin theosophy—and fire this pistol. Instantaneously the atoms composing the lamp will be disintegrated by the force of my will and fly through the fourth dimension of space to India, where they will reassemble and materialize in their former shape, and the lamp will appear upon the altar of the temple as of old.”

Of course no one credits this rhodomontade, but the conjurer’s purpose is accomplished. The trick is given a mystical setting and a certain kind of pseudo-scientific explanation. And all things are possible in nature, for have we not the x-rays, radio-activity, wireless telegraphy, and forces undreamed of a few years ago by the physicists?

Kellar was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1849—the famous year of the California Argonauts. When quite a young lad he {240} was apprenticed to the drug business. In this respect he resembles the great Cagliostro. One day while experimenting on his own account, during the absence of his master, he charged a copper vessel with soda and sulphuric acid, the result being a terrific explosion which tore a hole in the office floor overhead. Thus he began life by making a great noise in the world, and has resolutely kept it up. After the fiasco with the chemicals, he was dismissed by his employer, whereupon he boarded a freight train and went to New York City, where he became a newsboy. His energy and winning manners attracted the attention of Rev. Robert Harcourt, an English clergyman, who adopted him, and gave him a good education. The reverend gentleman intended preparing young Kellar for the church, but such was not to be. Seeing an advertisement in a Buffalo paper that the renowned “Fakir of Ava” wanted a boy to travel with him and learn the trade of magician, Kellar determined to apply for the place. He set out for Buffalo and went to the Fakir’s bungalow, a quaint old house in the environs of the city. “When he entered the yard, the Fakir’s little black-and-tan dog jumped at him in a friendly way, and showed great delight at the meeting. The Fakir soon appeared, and after he had talked with the boy for a short time, said: ‘I have had about one hundred and fifty applications for the place, but that little dog has shown great animosity to every boy who entered the gate until you came. You are the first one he has made friends with. I will give you a trial.’”27 The result was that Kellar became acolyte or familiar to the Fakir of Ava, and all because of a dog. This was reversing the old proverb, “Love me, love my dog” to that of “Whom my dog loves, I love.” The reader will remember that Mephistopheles first appears to Faust in the shape of a dog. Perhaps the Fakir’s canine was possessed with the Devil, and recognized a future master of the black art in Kellar.

After traveling several seasons with the good old Fakir, Kellar started out on his own account. It was an uphill fight. He met the Davenport Brothers and Fay, alleged spirit mediums but in reality clever conjurers, and joined them, first as assistant, then as agent, and afterwards as business manager. He traveled {241} with them over the greater part of the United States (including California) and Canada, over the Continent of Europe, through Russia, via Riga, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nijni-Novgorod and Odessa; thence back again to the United States. In the summer of 1871 he piloted them through Texas. They traveled all over that State in wagons. There was no railroad beyond Hearne then, and their route was from Galveston to Houston, Columbus, San Antonio, Austin, Lampasas Springs, Dallas, and Shreveport, and thence by boat down the river to New Orleans.

In the spring of 1873, he left the Davenports, from whom he learned the secrets of rope-tying and the cabinet act, and formed a combination called Fay and Kellar. Eventually he went into partnership with two Chinese magicians. This company was known as the Royal Illusionists. After touring Australia, India and China, Kellar dissolved partnership and came to the United States. During his stay at Calcutta, India, the Asian of Jan. 3, 1882, printed the following effusion, a paraphrase on Robert Heller’s verse about himself and Anderson:

Kellar has written several monographs on his art—mainly contributions to magazines; all highly suggestive and entertaining. He says: “There are six qualifications which are the essence of the successful magician, pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur, necromancer—call him what you may. They are: The will, manual dexterity, physical strength, the capacity to perform things automatically, an accurate, perfectly ordered and practically automatic memory, and a knowledge of a number of languages, the more the better.”

Speaking of his experiences as stage helper, or chela, to the so-called Fakir of Ava, he says (Independent, May 28, 1903): “The ‘face’ of many a pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur has been saved and his defeat turned into a glorious victory by the merest chance. One of my first adventures with the Fakir of Ava affords a capital {242} illustration. We were doing the watch trick—taking a timepiece from some one in the audience, passing it upon the stage in a platter, destroying both platter and timepiece in plain view of the spectators, loading the fragments into a pistol, firing the weapon at a target and bringing the watch—whole and sound—to life again upon the face of the mark, in plain sight of the audience. But on that particular day the target concluded not to do its share of the performance. No watch would it produce; the machinery was out of order. We had to work hard to ‘save face.’

“Disguised as an usher of the house, I went down into the audience with the timepiece, hoping to be able to slip it unobserved into the pocket of the owner. He was sitting at a distance from the aisle; I found it impossible. I did the next best thing—slipped the watch into the waistcoat pocket of the man who sat next to the aisle on the same row with the owner. Then I returned to the stage.

“The Fakir in the meantime was discussing learnedly upon some other subject. When I returned, the question of the whereabouts of the watch was called up and a bell on the stage was summoned to answer questions; one ring for ‘yes,’ two for ‘no.’

“‘Is the watch on the stage?’

“‘No,’ replied the obedient bell.

“‘Is it in the audience?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Is it on the first row?’

“‘No.’

“‘The second—the third, the fourth, the fifth?’

“To each question came a ‘no.’

“‘Is it on the sixth row?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Is it the first man on the row?’

“‘Yes.’

“The eyes of the audience focused upon the unfortunate occupant of the seat.

“‘Look in your pocket, sir,’ said the Fakir of Ava, in his politest, most persuasive tones. {243}

“‘Go on with your show there and let me alone,’ shouted the enraged seat holder.

“‘But I pray you, look in your pocket,’ said the Fakir.

“The man obeyed and produced the watch. The trick, called in stage vernacular a ‘life saver,’ made a hit vastly more impressive than the one originally planned but spoiled by the perverseness of the target.”

Kellar’s greatest and most sen­sa­tional illu­sion is his “lev­i­ta­tion”—raising a person and leaving him sus­pended in mid-air with­out any ap­parent means of sup­port, seem­ingly defying the law of grav­i­ta­tion. An explanation of this sur­pris­ing feat is thus described by a writer in the Strand Magazine (London):

“An assistant is introduced, laid upon an ottoman, and then sent off into a hypnotic trance (?). The performer takes an ordinary fan and fans the body while it rises slowly about four feet in the air, where it mysteriously remains for any length of time desired. A large solid steel hoop is given for examination, and after the audience is satisfied as to its genuineness it is passed over the body from head to feet, behind the body and over it again, at once dispelling the idea of wires or any other tangible support being used, the body, as it were, journeying through the hoop each time. The suspended assistant is now fanned from {244} above and gently descends to the ottoman as slowly and gracefully as he rose from it. He is then brought back to his normal state out of the trance, and walks off none the worse for his aerial pose.

“This seeming impossibility is performed by the aid of a cranked bar (Fig. 2 and A, Fig. 3) and a pulley to raise it, the bar being pushed through from the back at the moment when the performer is ‘hypnotizing’ the subject, and in the act of placing a light covering over him he guides a clamp (B, Fig. 3) and fixes it to the top of the ottoman upon which the subject rests, and which rises, unseen, with him, the edges being obscured by the covering. The bar being the same color as the back scene cannot be noticed, and resting upon a stand (C, Figs. 2 and 3) behind the scenes the same height as the ottoman it is kept firm by the aid of strong supports. Being also double the width (D, Fig. 3) at this part greater leverage is obtained to hold the board upon which the subject rests secure from tilting either way. By means of a pulley arrangement (E, Fig. 2) the assistant behind raises and lowers the body, looking through a small hole in the scene and timing the performer’s movements with exactness. Fig. 1 shows the illusion as it appears. Fig. 2—a side view—shows the {245} means of suspension and the pulley for raising the bar and telescopic stand. Fig. 3 almost explains itself. It shows the method of passing the ring over the body. By putting it on at (1) and passing it as far as the center of the bar (A) it can be brought around and off the body at (2), apparently having passed right over it, although not free from the crank; it is then passed behind the body as far as (3), when it can again be placed over the end (1) and drawn across once more, this time being, of course, quite free, having made an apparent circle right around and across the body. It seems evident to the audience that the subject is so raised and suspended by the performer’s magic power alone.

“The sleeping subject is now lowered, and in the act of being ‘dehypnotized’ the performer slips the crank off, which is immediately drawn in from behind, the subject and performer sharing the applause. It is almost needless to explain that the ‘hypnotism’ is mere sham to heighten the effect and admit of an excuse to stoop in order to fix the cranked bar.”

So far, so good. The above method was undoubtedly the one used in Mr. Kellar’s original presentation of the illusion. But he has since made numerous improvements in it which have puzzled not only the public but the conjurers as well.