The chair test, illustration #7, is accomplished on the same principles, only the positions in holding the chair are a bit different. The subject is told to hold the chair against his body firmly, grasping it at A and B. He is to maintain his position and keep himself steadily on his feet when the performer places her hands upon the chair at C and D.

The modus operandi of overcoming the subject and keeping the process going, is exactly the same as detailed in the last two experiments.

In making these tests, the performer exerts what little pressure is needed in first getting the subject off his balance so gradually and slowly that it becomes imperceptible. To prove this, Miss Hurst used to place her hands over those of the experimenters, and they always reported that they felt no appreciable pressure. Doctors who felt her arms said that muscles did not seem contracted during the tests. In her biography, The Georgia Wonder included an important paragraph, to wit: “Then also I got to be an excellent judge of human nature. I could discern the temperaments, idiosyncrasies, delusions and superstitions of a man almost as soon as he came on the stage. I could tell skeptics from the rank of believers at a glance. I learned how to adapt myself to them. Practice produces experience and experience perfects practice, and I had an abundance of both.”

And that’s as clear an explanation of Lulu Hurst’s “Unknown Power” as these pages can afford. To our knowledge it is the first attempt to correlate, for magicians, the possible effects and WHY they work. Only through such understanding can the profession develop new and other entertainment forms from the principles herein laid down.

It will be necessary for the performer to evolve an introductory talk for the demonstration and this should necessarily be serious in its request for audience assistance and a sincere attention to the strange powers of the lady. If there is any appreciable demand for it we’ll be glad to lay out such a beginning from the authentic material we have collected about this type of mystery.

It is very much more effective when a small lady shows so much mysterious force, but it is very mysterious also, when a magus demonstrates several of the stunts during his performance, especially the one-foot balance test (1), the downward thrust effect (2), and the umbrella test (5). Some magi might even go to the length of explaining (?) that they suffered a severe electrical shock when very small. It would make logical this odd emanation of power from their bodies, even if it didn’t make quite evident the reason for their becoming magicians.

There are several natural tricks of magic that would lend themselves to this kind of act, and it wouldn’t be at all difficult to build a routine which should be a distinct novelty in modern nite clubs. The “Magnetic Girl” billing hasn’t been used since 1900. At any rate, good luck, and don’t lose your balance.