Mechanical Aids Help The Stage Illusionist

"How do they do it?"

The September 1930 issue of Modern Mechanix reveals how stage illusionist make use of modern mechanical miracles to perform their act asking:

“Have you ever marveled at the cleverness exhibited by jugglers and other stage performers? They’re clever, true enough—but mechanical aids help them put across their mystifying tricks.

A CLEVER magician produces a girl from thin air; a skillful juggler balances precariously on the rear leg of a chair; a wonder marksman shatters a ball on top of a girl’s head. It is all very wonderful, very mysterious, seemingly impossible. The furrowed brows of a legion of spectators voice the question: “How do they do it?””

The article continues, revealing the secrets behind a “modern” mindreading act:

“Mental telepathy, for which the public has had quite a flair in the past few years, employs many artifices. One of the simplest of these acts requires the medium to be securely blindfolded, a committee from the audience seeing to this part of the program. Nevertheless, she calls out the name and describes minutely any small object which her partner may receive on his tour through the audience. The effect, of course, depends upon the assistant concealed in the wings. He is equipped with a powerful field glass or telescope with which he views, through a slit in the curtain, the various items held up by the performer. The information is then relayed to the medium by means of a headphone set, with wires running under the stage covering, and the act goes along quite merrily.”

The full article can be viewed on the ever entertaining Modern Mechanix website.