Magician Halts Algerian Revolt

It took place in 1850s French Algiers. Revolution brewed against French rule, a populist uprising fed and nurtured by Algerian shamans called Marabouts-an Arab religious sect who used magic tricks as proof of their power, and thus stirred the people to revolt.

From the time that the French first claimed Algeria as a territory, the unpredictable and impulsive native population meant trouble to those administrating it. Again and again for obscure, sometimes unstated, reasons the wild tribesman erupted in wild orgies of bloodletting.

Before the Arab incursions into North Africa in the eighth century, the inhabitants of the region had been pagan. Under Muslim influence, orthodox Sunni Islam became the faith of the larger number of the population, but within the larger body of Muslims a cult of holy men, Marabouts, developed their own variation of Islam. The Marabouts claimed baraka , divine grace, and the ability to perform miracles. While the more orthodox Sunni were located in the urban centers, the Marabouts were well-established in the rural and mountainous areas of Algeria and other parts of North Africa.

In 1856, the Marabouts, who controlled the will of the tribesmen by dazzling them with feats of magic, had all of Algeria on the brink of revolt. 

 

Marabout teacher, (pic Matt Probert)

The Algerian wizards were highly accomplished, and anyone who commanded their power was listened to attentively. Many of the locals were wholly certain that when a Marabout showed them magic it was the real deal. Tricks such as eating glass without suffering any injury (a standard geek trick) and healing wounds were common practice. Faced with these god-like powers, people were willing not only to sit up and pay attention to the magic itself, but also inclined to go along with what the Marabouts wanted – and what they wanted was the French out of their country.

 

In a wise decision the colonial administration decided to try to beat the Marabouts at their own game and sent for Robert-Houdin, who had been entertaining the courts of Europe and had gained a reputation as the greatest magician in all the continent.

Robert-Houdin was small in stature, but to the Arabs who had seen him perform, his magic was as powerful as any of the Marabouts. The diminutive Frenchman had gained his initial success almost immediately after arriving in Algeria. Disguised as an Arab, he and a native confederate stole into one of the magic-religious ceremonies. His professional eyes quickly saw through the trickery of the Marabouts, and he was convinced that he could easily duplicate anything which they had done in the ceremony. 

The next day the colonial administration announced that a "French Marabout" would put the native variety to shame. Curious, nearly every Arab around Algiers turned up for the show. 

Even though Robert-Houdin unmasked every Marabout trick which he had witnessed, the Arabs who had gathered to view his performance remained mostly unimpressed. Only when he produced a small box and called on a fiercely anti-French native to assist him did the little magician raise a murmur of curiosity and excitement from the crowd.

"Lift this box," he asked the man. The Marabout follower, who was broad through the shoulders with a thick, muscular torso, had no trouble raising the little metal box over his head. 

"Now," said Robert-Houdin, after taking the box from the man, "I will make you as weak as any of your wives,"

He then began an impromptu magic ritual, bringing his hands around the box several times, chanting incantations before placing the little box on the sand at his feet. 

"Now, see if you can lift it," the little magician said confidently. 

The Arab bent to the sand, grasped the box with both hands, and pulled. It would not budge. Surprised, he threw his strength into it, his strong back and torso straining against the magic box. But as much as he groaned and strained, the box would not budge. 

"By the beard of the prophet," the man exclaimed to those who had gathered, "I cannot lift it from the ground." 

Then, as if he did not believe what he had said, he tried to lift it again. But when he touched it a howl of pain came from his mouth and his body writhed in agony, as he was unable to release his hold on the little iron box. 

The night before, Robert-Houdin had buried a strong electromagnet in the sand, and when the native bent to it the first time, Houdin threw the switch which held the iron box to the ground with enough force to prevent any man from lifting it. The second time Houdin allowed the current to pulse directly through the box, giving the native the first electric shock of his life. 

Mercifully the magician released the switch, and the dazed Arab straightened up slowly. When he had recovered the full use of his senses, the man fled in fear from the magic box which had caused him such pain.

While still a very young man Robert-Houdin, fell in with a traveling mountebank named Torrini. This man impressed upon the young magician the difference between an exhibitionist and a showman. Torrini also taught Robert-Houdin the trick which was destined to make him famous.

Tonini had his apprentice mark a bullet with a scratch mark, then he apparently loaded a pistol with it and had Robert-Houdin fire at him from point blank range. To the young man's surprise, the bullet appeared between Tonini's teeth, easily identifiable by the scratch mark which had been etched into it. The older magician had switched hullets, substituting a metallic ball which shattered on contact with anything solid and had palmed the original marked bullet into his mouth.

Robert Houdin

The Marabouts had responded as hoped to Robert-Houdin's first performances in Algiers, but the core of the rebellion, forever moving across the desert sands, had not been present to become impressed by the demonstration.

Robert-Houdin resolved that he would seek out the most powerful of the Marabouts and discredit them with superior feats of magic. To this end he began a trek across the desert. traveling without a military escort, putting on shows wherever enough Arabs would gather.

For several weeks Robert-Houdin moved over the sands, finding only a few scattered groups of Marabouts to dazzle with his magical brilliance. Then, through an informant, he learned where the main force of the rebellion had gathered.

Traveling to the obscure desert oasis, Robert-Houdin was greeted by the chief magician of this particular Marabout group, who waved a pistol in his face.

"You will die tonight," was the hostile man's promise.

The little Frenchman seemed unperturbed. But the entire Arab camp had come under the power of this magician, and Robert-Houdin knew that he had little chance to escape alive if he failed to impress them.

Forever a showman, Robert-Houdin did not let his confidence slide. When he was threatened with the pistol again, he told the Marabout to remove the bullet then to give him the pistol.

Morbidly curious, the man complied, watching carefully as Robert-Houdin began going through a magic ritual, waving his hands over the pistol.

"Now put a mark on the bullet and shoot me if you must," he commanded the Arab magician. Once again the Marabout complied, claiming the pistol immediately after the Frenchman had dropped the bullet down the barrel.

This is the public "dragons" display at

Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin's house in

Blois, which has been turned into a

museum. The "dragons" move in and

out of the windows in a theatrical display.

A statue of Robert-Houdin is at lower right.

"Now you will die," the Marabout repeated his promise. 

He pointed the gun at Robert-Houdin and discharged it at point blank range.

Blood spurted from the magician's chest, and Robert-Houdin staggered, nearly falling. Then, miraculously, he regained his balance and spat the marked bullet from his mouth, so that it landed at the feet of one of the most important sheiks. The desert chief picked up the ball and found the mark which the Marabout had scratched into its side. 

''This is real magic," the sheik told the Marabout contemptuously.

With the Marabouts discredited, the rebellion in Algeria fell apart. Robert-Houdin had received the recognition he craved by doing his former master, Torrini, one better. He had loaded the hollow metallic cartridge with blood so it would splatter when it hit his chest. To the Arabs, the "French Marabout" had powers which exceeded any of their own.

The scroll Robert-Houdin received in recognition of his services is still on display in the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Missouri. He wrote this and many other tales into his memoirs, The king of the conjurers (1859). The book became required reading for many aspiring magicians, and for one of them its effect was profound.

Young magician Erich Weiss, who was born in Hungary but whose parents moved to Wisconsin when he was four, was so impressed by the French conjurer’s feats that Robert-Houdin at once became his hero, to the point where he even based his stage name on the French master – and thus was Harry Houdini born. Robert-Houdin died in 1871, but he has been truthfully referred to as the father of modern magic.

So, that’s how one retired magician averted a war in Algeria in 1856 – a case of brilliant conjuring versus supposedly real magic. But some of you are probably feeling cheated – what about the real thing? 

 

(The above story has been pieced together from three sources. Brad Steiger, an article from Fortean Times, and finally from Whiskey and Gunpowder.

 

 POST SCRIPT (from flixist)

 

There's a line from David Hughes's Tales from Development Hell that captures the whole absurd process of failed film development: "This [script] is perfect. Who can we get to rewrite it?"

The first movie covered in the book is all about Smoke and Mirrors, a historical epic about the real-life illusionist Robert-Houdin being sent to Algeria to debunk a tribal leader with divine powers. It was stage magic combined with Indiana Jones and Lawrence of Arabia. A pitch like that has lots of possibility for adventure, swashbuckling, and grand theatrics. There's the the clash of illusion and magic to explore, as well as the contrast between logic and invention. There's a problematic colonial aspect to it too that makes the story messy (in the good way, I think), and two males leads that would have been fine foils for each other: the introspective illusionist Robert-Houdin, and Darcy, the dashing Legionnaire with a wooden hand.
Smoke and Mirrors was a hot property when the first draft hit in 1993, but then after years and years of rewrites, recasting (Sean Connery was interested at one point and got some rewrites, then ditto later on with Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones), and so on, the film vanished. Almost 20 years after that first draft was the hottest thing around, Lee and Janet Scott Batchler still think the movie may yet be made.
The fitting title of that first chapter: "Disillusioned."

Houdini's Quest for Mystery

 A Crowd can feel spiritually restored after a great show. It has all the ingredients; deep group connection and a charismatic leader standing elevated before the crowd, guiding them through mysteries and good times. It is religion, it is showbiz, it is Life.

The Crowd has witnessed magic, they have glimpsed mystery. The showman knows just how much they all long for someone to tell them, and demonstrate, with ‘undeniable proof,’ that mind reading, contacting the dead, or any other supernatural feat, is indeed possible.

As the curtains come down and the lights come up the Crowd feels closer to the Truth, whilst the Showman sometimes feel further from truth and community than ever. If you are the one giving guidance and answers, who guides you?

Eric Weisz.

Erik Weisz was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874. His family was Jewish and he loved his mother very much. As a young boy he read Robert-Houdin, the French father of modern magic's, autobiography. In it the aging conjuror recounts the tale of how he was sent to Africa to represent his country in a standoff between the two nation's greatest magicians.

"In 1856, the Marabouts, who controlled the will of the tribesmen by dazzling them with feats of magic, had all of Algeria on the brink of revolt. In a wise decision the colonial administration decided to try to beat the Marabouts at their own game and sent for Robert-Houdin, who had been entertaining the courts of Europe and had gained a reputation as the greatest magician in all the continent."

 (Read the full story here.)

Robert Houdin.

Robert-Houdin won the challenge in a clever use of technology. With electromagnetism and electric shocks he left the Marabouts awestruck. This chapter in Robert-Houdin's book made the young Eric Weisz decide that he wanted to become a magician. With unparallelled tenacity he set out to become the greatest magician of all time. But one can't conquer the world with a name like Eric Weiz, and like so many showmen before him he transformed himself into a Showman. Erik Weisz became Harry Houdini,who went on to become so famous his name can now be found the dictionary.

Although he started as a magician, the King of Cards,  and did a brief stint as a wildman, it was his escapes which would make him the King for which he is remembered: The King of Escapes.

Houdini as a young magician.

Houdini was very attached to his mother. This connection was so strong, Houdini feared that his mother's eventual death might drive him insane. As strange as this might sound it started a cascade of events which led our hero onto the next phase of his career; a debunker of spiritists and mediums. But where did this antagonism for spiritism come from?

The tools and demonstrations of the spiritist movement are Real Magic, meaning secular magic, the type that pulls rabbits out of hats. Effects such as tables levitating, ESP, spoon bending, and strange knocking on tables in the dark with messages from beyond, are all the domain of a branch of Real Magic called mentalism. This subdivision of magicians deal with telepathy, telekinesis, and so forth. So why did he attack fellow Craftsmen? Hasn’t a magician sworn not to divulge the secrets of magic to the Crowd?

'My two sweathearts'
 Houdini, Wife and Mother.

Houdini loved magic. He fastidiously researched the magic arts. Part of his study was a fervent collecting of any book, article, or mention of magic of any kind. He purchased several private collections and with his considerable wealth, wide acclaim and wide travel, he soon amassed perhaps the world's greatest library of magic; occult, alchemical and otherwise. But with each subsequent initiation of secular magic for the ever inquisitive, if not down right obsessive Houdini, the boundaries of supernatural magic was pushed before him.

Houdini in his famed library.

Houdini’s fear of madness hovered in the back of his mind. He began visiting asylums and graves of famous magician's and mystics. Eventually he met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the archdeacon of Spiritualism. 

In the late 1800’s this was a great obsession of the western world. It was not presented as stage magic, this was the foundation stones for a spiritual movement. It was like a religion grown from late night magic shows in carnivals. Tricks and illusions performed in the dark, whilst the participants held hands around a table, ghostly spirit-like lights would appear, ectoplasm, a ghostly manifestation, spewed forth from the spirit's mouth and onto the table, it was a great night out. 

People would be able to talk to their loved ones who had passed on. Unsaid things and unfinished business could come to final resolution. It was beautiful and heartfelt and much needed by the Crowd, but what was the story of the the presenters of these strange shows? The Showmen who created these very peculiar shows, what did they think they were doing?

Did they believe what they did was real? Were they just fraudsters making a quick buck when the popular imagination swung into their field of expertise? And finally: Did their intent make the Crowd's experience of the seance any less real?

Then his mother died. He had worried himself sick over this and then it happened. He was grief stricken. But since he didn't immediately descend into madness, at least not so that he has to be locked up in an Asylum, Houdini dug deeper and deeper into the spiritualist movement to find one real medium amongst the fraudsters and showmen. But there was none. Each new con-man pretending to be the voice of his departed mother added to his grief.

Perhaps this is where we find why Houdini, the magician, could debunk his fellow magicians, something a magician swears not to do. Of course he was angry and disappointed, but there was more to it than that. He picked up on a subtle difference between the mediums and mentalists.

The mediums claimed not to be magicians and used their knowledge of the magic Craft to make them spiritual gurus. This is nothing new, it's been done since the dawn of time, but they abused the Showman's Craft. This made them fair game. Houdini could as a magician debunk the mediums with good conscience. 
(The very fine line of spiritual guidance using the power of tricks to move Crowds gave birth to the Shaman, Showman and perhaps religion itself.) 

Houdini also debunked spiritualists, shown here 
demonstrating how illusions could be used to make it 
seem as if he is mollifying the vengeful ghost of Abraham
Lincoln with a book on modern rail splitting techniques.

"Houdini said that no medium had convinced him of his or her genuineness, as much as he would like to believe that spiritualism is a possibility. He gave instances of media who had admitted being frauds. Many, he said, are “plain crazy.” 

New York Times, 19/5-1924

Every tale and every lead brought before him by spiritualists, Yogis or esoteric wizards would crumble before the showman’s knowledge. He sought a different magic and thought he had found it in the spiritist movement. Perhaps this is not so strange since his friend Conan Doyle was the one spinning the tricks and illusions of the séance mediums into story. I have myself been under this man's spell in his world of Sherlock Holmes. Who would not be swayed by the story telling prowess of Conan Doyle? Houdini wanted to believe, but couldn't.

There was no proof of any supernatural events having occurred that were not immediately explainable by the Craft. He really wanted to know. He wanted to discover supernatural magic so bad it increased the fervor of his search for a way to communicate with his mother on the other side. His disappointment with each successive medium began to infuriate him and turned him against the many charlatans praying on those weakened by grief and without knowledge of Real Magic. He now made himself the champion of these uninitiated people and took to the stage claiming that he would recreate any trick of any medium immediately right there on stage to prove them charlatans and cheaters.

Until the untimely end of his life Houdini never found even the tiniest shred of evidence that there was any other magic than the one that he, so spectacularly, had mastered.

 “During his life, Houdini, never escaped into genuine magical tradition, though not for a lack of trying: a man inspired, he was also a man who never identified his inspiration. His psychic struggle that ran through his life like a ghostly parallel to his physical efforts was directed towards plumbing a great mystery.”

The Death and Resurrection Show, by Rogan Tylor.

If Houdini couldn’t find any so-called supernatural magic, if the king of magicians can’t find it, who can? Who would be better qualified to separate charlatans from the real deal? Without the knowledge of the Showman’s arts, how could anyone expect to know secular magic from miracles or supernatural events?

The truth Houdini discovered was perhaps the most terrible of all: the core of mystery is like the onion, empty but for the layers surrounding it. Peeling them back stings the eyes, tears will blind you, but if you persist to the core you will find a sweet nothing. (How Zen.) And this sweet nothing must be filled by us. We must live our lives fully aware of this absurdity. We want and crave inherent meaning in things, but upon inspection the architects of this meaning turns out to be ourselves.

This is the fate of the showman. The one who knows all the tricks of the Craft has ‘proofs’ of the impossible for the Crowd, but not for himself. He must stand alone and find a different kind of solace. 

Houdini was schooled, better than most, in the Craft. He found that the spiritists were but mirror images of himself. Where he had expected and hoped to find something more he found nothing but his own Craft. The snake bites its tale. It is perfect.

He glimpsed a truth from the Way of the Showman: there is sacrifice necessary for the good of others and this sacrifice creates real meaning for both the ones who give and those who receive. Meaning made by Man for Man, so it is artificial, but real non-the-less.

“Houdini could see from the reaction of his audiences that they expected and received much more than mere entertainment from his performances. Like him, they wanted answers to big questions; release from the doubts that plagued them; escape from the physical boundaries that imprisoned them. And they loved and worshipped him for the stupendous efforts he made on their behalf. Such a life certainly proves one thing: Showbiz, whether it likes it or even knows it, is bound by unbreakable chains to the shaman’s enduring magic. Even Harry Houdini could not escape from that.”

The Death and Resurrection Show, by Rogan Tylor.