The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1899-12-07
THE LIFTING TRICK.
1t Is Easy 10 Perform, But
9ard to Understand.
Four MEN. Each Holding His Breath
and Using but One Finger, Lift an
Iron Plate weighing Is4 PousdB.
An Indian Fakir's Trick.


An Indian Fakir's Trick.
"A few of us have lately been expert
menting with the old trick of lifting peo-
pie on ones finger tips" said a young
man who lives Mt fashionable boarding
house on 81. Charles street. Our pur-
pose was IS obtain some accurate, intel
hgent data on very mysterious phenom-
enon. and we kept careful record of sy-
erything we did. Some Of the results
were very surprising. We began by lift
ing a living person. One of our party lay
down at full length on an extension TIA
Bile, and two OF us stood at each side, OPP
posite his shoulders and knees. At Civ
en- signal all five took ten deep breaths in
unison. then each Of the four Mt the sides
placed one finger Of the right hand under
the PROSTATE mans body and lifted,
meanwhile holding our breath. In the
majority OF trials. say three out Of five.
he came up without perceptible effort,
and several times he was lifted as high
I as we could stretch our arms. There Is
absolutely no sense of weight, and the
thing rs so absurdly easy that each man
at the table is bound to feel vaguely sus-
picious that he has been tricked and that
the others really do the lifting. / felt so
that it was utterly impossible.
'"rhe lightest Of our subjects weighed
149 pounds, and no four people on earth
could ordinarily lift a man of that size
on their finger tips without visible strain.
We tried great many variations, but
the plan | have described was the only
one that proved generally successful. The
essential point seemed to be to secure q
certain rhythm in breathing, and when
ever we hit the lift was made with I'M
failing certainty, but il any one of us
broke STEP SO to speak, the experiment
failed. We were all deeply in earnest so
we had no trouble on account of giggling
or Mysteries. | was lifted repeatedly my
self, and the feeling is indescribable.
| Floating in water is as near as l can
| come to it.
after a great many experiments with
living people" continued the speaker.
Eve tried innnimate objects. We took
square iron plate. weighing 1S4 pounds.
formerly used in hearth. and placed it
| on a stool. Four OF us stood at the cor
ners and went through the same routine
that l have already Notwithstanding
| in unison and then suddenly lifting. To
our great surprise. this experiment proved
fully as successful Us the other, and in 40
|
| Such a test, by the way. is dangerous. be-
! cause if there is the slightest catching Of
a breath while the heavy object lifted is
In the air it instantly comes crashing
down with its full weight. Several Of US
narrowly escaped being hurt by the iron
slab, and that suggested another and very
interesting device.
| I'VE took 4 large spring steelyard,
graduated up to 200 pounds, and made it
self registering by attaching a bit of PEN
| ell to the pointer and putting a slip OF
| paper over the scale. Then we hooked it
| into a ring in the floor and fastened the
\ other end to the underside of a short
piece of plank. The plank was supported
across q couple of chairs, and We tried
| lifting it exactly as we did the iron slab.
| That put a tension on the steelyard, and
the effect was exactly as il we We're lift
ing something that grew heavier and
| heavier the higher it went. Our breath
ing had no effect whatever on the spring,
| but the apparatus. while crude, was val
liable in showing our normal lifting pow
| er. We found We were unable to get
above Il pounds without clearly percep-
tible effort. and to register 20 pounds re-
| quired pronounced exertion- OF course
we could push the board up on our four
finger tips until the pointer stood at 100.
but that was gymnastie feat that
strained every muscle. We found that
the raising of the 1874 pound slab re-
quired infinitely less apparent force than
the registering of 10 or II pounds on the
steelyard. That disposes OF the theory
that the weight was SO divided We didn't
feel it,
"Now, how is one to account for all
I 70
looks like a clear inversion of the law Of
gravitation, and the experiments are SO
simple that any five people who are seri-
Gus and sensible can perform them with
out the slightest trouble. They recall
very strongly to my mind the deviation
trick of Indian jugglers. l have never
seen the thing myself, but Professor Ed
| ward Baldwin. who is known as an ex-
poser OF spiritualistic humbuggery, once
gave me q graphic description of per-
Torrance which he witnessed at Bonn
bay. The fakir, who was very old, stuck
four swords in the earth and had young
fellow lifted up and laid on the hits, two
under his shoulders and two under his
calves, He was stretched out rigid about
a yard above the ground. The fakir then
withdrew the swords, one at time, and
the assistant remained in the air without
visible support. Baldwin declared it was
trick. but admitted that he couldn't see
through it.
Still it was really more inexplicable
than our own experiments. One might
say in regard to lifting living person
that some sort of electric sympathy was
established, that the phenomenon was in
some way due to animal magnetism, but
how about the iron plate? The metal has
certain fixed gravity, and how that
gravity can be modified or overcome by
anything we might do, no matter what.
Is a problem that battles conjecture. Our
rhythmic breathing undoubtedly was q
direct bearing on the result. because we
are unable to accomplish anything with
} out it, but whyf 1 have pretty fair
Imagination, but / haven't been able to
get within q mile Of theory, even when
leave probability entirely out of eonsid'
tration."-New Orleans Times-pemocrat