| Title | Invisble Thread |
| People | Reginald Scot, David Abbott, Al Baker, Fred Kaps |
| Year | 1584 |
| Source | "The Discoverie of Witchcraft", Reginald Scot. Magic City, Thread Reference by Leo Behnke. |
| Description | A very thin thread which under the right circumstances is invisible to the spectator. |
| Details | In Discoverie: WITH WORDS TO MAKE A GROAT OR A TESTOR TO LEAPE OUT OF A POT, OR TO RUN ALONGST UPON A TABLE A coin levitates out of a container or moves along a table. This used a black hair. There is also a note as to how to set the lighting to make the gimmick invisible to the audience. TO MAKE A POT OR ANIE SUCH THING STANDING FAST ON THE CUPBOARD, TO FALL DOWNE THENSE BY VERTUE OF WORDS. Something falls off a shelf using an assistant and black thread. Black threads were used througout 1850-1935 to move objects. The first routine involving a floating object onstage that was worth its publicity was the Floating Ball performed by Okito, who was personally taught the moves and basic routine by an amateur from Omaha, Nebraska named David Abbott. It was Al Baker who really started to do some clever work with threads for close-up magic. George Hadjikhani started animating spoons on the floor of the Magic Castle. He only told a couple of close friends how it worked. The next final push into popularity publishing of a manuscript by Ken Brooke on the floating cork by Fred Kaps which was based on a creation by Bruno Hennig from Germany in the late 1960s. Loops were the idea of Finn Jon from Europe. |
| Researched by | Stuart Joseph, Joseph Pecore |
| Category | gimmick |
| Subcategory | other |