Revealing Houdini's secrets spells disaster for Magic Circle

HIS death-bed wish was that the secrets of his great illusions be destroyed, but 76 years later a row has erupted over the unlocking of one of Harry Houdini’s most famous mysteries.

Curators at a Wisconsin museum have launched a controversial exhibition featuring a step-by-step guide to the stage maestro’s trademark Metamorphosis illusion, in which he appeared to escape magically from a locked trunk while handcuffed and tied inside a sack. It took him just three seconds.

Magicians and illusionists from all over the world, including David Copperfield, have called the Outgamie Museum in Houdini’s boyhood town of Appleton to accuse officials of betraying the master performer’s legacy.

"The art of magic is reliant on not knowing how the trick is done. All that sense of wonder and awe will be gone once the secret is revealed," complained magician Ron "Rondini" Lindberg, one of the most vocal critics of the AKA Houdini exhibition. "The museum does not understand the ethics or the concept of what is right and what is ‘selling out’."

But museum director Terry Bergen, who has hired security guards to patrol the exhibit for fear of sabotage attacks, says the answers to Metamorphosis have long been available in books and on the Internet. He has dismissed magicians’ complaints as "playground posturing".

"They perceive our museum role to be a shrine for Houdini. We don’t see ourselves that way, we see ourselves as an educational institution that explores local history," he told the Appleton Post-Crescent newspaper.

"It’s not a point of view that magicians understand at all. The entire industry of magic is based on deception and withholding information, it’s been a match made in heck from the beginning."

While the Houdini Club of Wisconsin, Society of American Magicians, International Brotherhood of Magicians and World Alliance of Magicians have registered firm but polite protest, other individuals have been unrestrained in their criticism.

Born Ehrich Weisz in Hungary in 1874, the boy who was later to become the world’s greatest escapology pioneer moved to the US with his parents at the age of four. Among his early feats was the ability to crack the lock on his mother’s pantry to steal apples.

So inspired was he by the works of French magician Jean Robert-Houdin that at the age of 15 he added the letter ‘i’ to his hero’s name, took it as his own - Houdini - and went on the road. He performed Metamorphosis more than 11,000 times during his career and developed an impressive repertoire that included escaping from buried coffins, burglar-proof safes, a plate-glass box, the Death Row prison cell once occupied by US President James Garfield’s assassin and even from the inside of a giant squid carcass.

Yet even he got into trouble with fellow magicians for revealing the methods behind some of the most popular tricks. He published a book giving away various handcuff secrets, a magazine article lifting the lid on a curious act known as the talking tea-kettle, and freely explained how he managed to wriggle out of strait-jackets by deliberately dislocating both shoulders.

While the museum gives up the secret of his Metamorphosis trunk - in short, it involves a trap door - defenders say the real magic and awe of the maestro lay not in his equipment but in the unmatchable speed with which he could perform the act - just three seconds.

They point to the performer’s incredible stamina, unique physical skills and mind-over-matter attitude as the real focus of the Houdini mystery, citing his mantra: "My brain is the key that sets me free."