The Third Strategy: Imagine First
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.”
—Albert Einstein
Scene: This really happened . It’s 1983, and the world’s most famous illusionist, David Copperfield, is performing in a worldwide television special—his ninth. This time, he’s in China. Think China, and you cannot help but think Great Wall. Now, with the cameras feeding video across the planet, and with a live audience arrayed on both sides of the timeless landmark, David Copperfield makes his appearance.
Begun in the seventh century BC, the Great Wall of China extends over three thousand miles and was built to prevent the passage of the most powerful invading armies in history. Copperfield proposes not to storm it or climb over it or travel three thousand miles around it, but rather to walk through it.
Among the many cameras deployed to cover the event is one mounted on a crane and boom, remote-controlled to follow him from one side of the Great Wall to the other, without ever cutting away. A platform, on which an open-framework cubical rises, has been erected against the Wall. White sheets are now affixed to the frame, creating a curtained cube through which only silhouette shadows are visible. Copperfield enters the cube. In the background, we hear the electronic beeping of a heart monitor. It is the sound of his heart.
We clearly see Copperfield’s silhouette, one hand extended to caress the stones. It looks as if he is feeling for a way through the incontestably solid wall, when, suddenly, the hand, then the arm, the shoulder, leg, torso, and profile dissolve into the Great Wall of China. We see his other arm, the trailing arm, stretch backward, and we watch as it, too, slips into the Wall, outstretched fingers the last part of his body to disappear. Assistants scurry to remove the sheets, revealing a totally empty cubical.
Now the crane-mounted camera dollies in, up, and over the Wall, passing in one continuous shot to the other side. The picture settles on another framework cube, identical to the one Copperfield had entered. It is open, not draped in sheets. Assistants mount the stairs to the cube platform and raise a single white sheet against the stonework of the Great Wall itself. As they hold the sheet in place, we see first one hand, then two, and then a face push against it— from beneath the sheet and, presumably, from inside the Wall. It is as if we are witnessing some otherworldly being struggling to be born into our dimension . . .
Suddenly, the sound of the heart monitor, persistent and steady throughout, increases urgently in tempo—beep, beep-beep-beep. Just as suddenly, it becomes a single continuous tone. Flatline!
The assistants instantly let the sheet drop from the Great Wall. No one—nothing—is there! One of the assistants hurriedly presses his ear to the stones. Again, however, there is nothing and no one.
As the assistant slowly backs off and draws down a sheet to cover one side of the cube frame, the heartbeat sound slowly returns. Another assistant draws a sheet to cover the side of the cube that faces the camera, and a third sheet is secured to completely enclose the cube. The assistants then step away,
One of Copperfield’s outstretched hands appears in silhouette, then the other, followed by the shadow profile of his face and upper torso. The magician seems to be dragging himself— willing himself—to the other side when, suddenly, he tears off the sheet facing the camera and appears before us, all smiles. He has just walked through the Great Wall of China.
Please click here for short chapter video summary.
And please place your order here and write an Amazon review:
Thanks!
–Team DMG Global
