Word: plunketts
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...horizontal rod in this case projecting out from the vertical pole through the folds in the drape, and being disjoined and disposed of before the removal of the tent. But there are several other possible methods that the semi-secrecy of the tent would have permitted. In any event, Plunkett's assertion that "evidently we were not meant to see this part of the performance, or it would all have been done in the open" is incredibly naïve. If the demonstration were genuine and aboveboard, why should there be any part of it not meant...
...retired magician I salute a fellow member of the ancient art of magic who performs in India under the name of Subbayah Pullavar and who thoroughly mystified P. T. Plunkett, the tea planter, and Pat Dove, the camera man, as well as the editorial staff of the Illustrated London News...
...sculpturesque attitude of repose. Except for his long-nailed right hand cupped over the top of a cloth-draped pole, there apparently was nothing to keep him from falling. Yet he maintained the horizontal for a good four minutes, according to a South India tea planter named P. T. Plunkett, who wrote an enthralled account of the seance to the Illustrated London News. Common theories that the trick is done by crowd suggestion had to be scrapped. Even the ablest exponent of Yoga cannot hypnotize a camera...
When Planter Plunkett was invited to a seance in the walled compound of his friend Pat Dove, he took along a camera and films. Long before Mr. Plunkett saw the Yogi, he could hear the monotonous roll of tom-toms. Coolies working in the adjacent field heard it too, and more than a hundred of them crept into the 80-by-80 ft. inclosure. Subbayah Pullavar, a gaunt, wiry Yogi, told Mr. Plunkett he had been "levitating" for 20 years, that his family had been doing it for hundreds. Mr. Plunkett was impressed by Subbayah's "long hair hanging...
Wrote Planter Plunkett: "The accompanying pictures tell the story of what happened, and I need only mention what steps we took to see that there were no illusions. . . . We . . . photographed every position of the performer and from every angle. . . . I held a long stick, and from outside the circle passed the end of it over and under and around Subbayah's body. . . . I can vouch for the fact that he had no support whatsoever except for resting one hand lightly on top of the cloth-covered stick. He remained horizontal in the air for about four minutes. The tent...