On Jan. 7, 1921, the audience at London’s Finsbury Park Empire theatre was introduced to what was destined to become the most famous illusion in magic.

People sat spellbound as P.T. Selbit secured his female assistant’s feet and hands to the ends of a box roughly the size of a coffin, closed the lid, and proceeded to saw the box and supposedly the assistant in half. At least that is how onlookers perceived what was happening. But when the saw was withdrawn and the lid opened, the assistant popped up unharmed with Selbit receiving wild applause. Certainly, he deserved credit for bringing the illusion to the stage, although French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, who inspired Erich Weiss to the extent that he adopted the stage name Houdini, had sketched a diagram of the illusion earlier, but never built it.

P.T. Selbit’s real name was Percy Thomas Tibbles, which he didn’t think suited an entertainer, so he spelled it backwards, dropped a “b” and came up with Selbit.

By the time Selbit introduced the “sawing in half” he had already made a name for himself with an illusion he called “spirit paintings.” The early 20th century was the heyday of spiritualism with many people being goaded into the possibility of contact with the “other side” by mediums adept at using magic tricks to demonstrate the presence of spirits. In darkened séance rooms, trumpets mysteriously floated in the air and tables tipped or even levitated.

Like most magicians, Selbit was irritated by fake mediums and staged séances in which he reproduced the spirit phenomena........

© Montreal Gazette