The Genii Forum

Hi.

Does anyone have any details on the construction and opperation of the Wrap Around Illusion (I think that's what it's called)? It's the one that is a big sheet with a rod at either end. I think you wrap one person up in it and another person appears in their place.

Thanks a lot,

Dan

Also, what are the angle restrictions on the Wrap Around?

Thanks!

Dan

Dan,

At your local bookstore, pick up Dover's edition of A Book of Magic for Young Magicians , also known as Secrets of Alkazar , by Alan Kronzek. The easiest version of the Wrap-around Exchange is there. It is also in the Complete Course in Magic by Mark Wilson, also available in any well-stocked bookstore.

I will hunt up the material I promised you tonight and send it to you tomorrow.

Jon

Awesome! Thanks Jon. Many of my books are in storage, otherwise I'd have known that it was in the Wilson book.

Thanks again,

Dan

Dan, you might also want to check out the write up in Greater Magic.

Hopefully, with all these sources, you will find an author who has actually tried to fool an audience with this. It's a dificult thing in many ways, in practice. Remember that sheets stand up by themselves only in illustrations, and if you're planning on doing this with just a plain sheet, at one moment the angles will probably stink.

Good Luck, it can be done, but you've got to be willing to rehearse.

I've performed it with a cloth sheet having two vertical poles attached, each one about the same height as the cloth, each three or four feet in from the ends which are held by one assistant and the magician, and each pole about four feet apart from the other. The poles provide grip and stability for the two additional people, who are exchanged.

Decent angles may be had by performing it in the corner of a room, the cloth serving as the longest side of an equilateral triangle.

Thanks to Bill Mullins for calling my attention to the unlikeliness that an equilateral triangle might even HAVE a longest side.

Thanks to Russell for pointing out that I am an anal retentive math geek.

Thanks to Russell for pointing out that I am an anal retentive math geek

Is there really any other kind? :D

I can only say that because I, too, am a math geek.

Doug Henning did this very effectively in one of his TV Specials, and also in his touring show. If memory serves he had more than two poles sewn into the cloth. Possibly four.

The angles are not good. You need to have the audience in front of you. If they can see behind the sheet, the illusion will be exposed.

Dennis Loomis
www.loomismagic.com