Abstract

Discusses accounts of magical or spiritual ascension found in legends and among primitive people, as well as variations of the rope trick. The latter usually involves a rope thrown into the air which is then ascended by a child and later the magician. Subsequently the magician hurls down the dismembered body of the child which upon his return to the ground is found intact and unharmed. These feats are explained as due to mass hypnosis or trickery involving wires. Magical flight is seen as lacking objective reality, stemming rather from an unconscious wish of primitive man for freedom.