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Kuda Bux

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Kuda Bux
Kuda Bux walking on hot coals in 1935
Born(1905-10-15)15 October 1905
Akhnoor, Jammu and Kashmir
Died5 February 1981(1981-02-05) (aged 75)
California, US
NationalityPakistani
Other namesProfessor K.B. Duke
OccupationMagician

Kuda Bux (15 October 1905 – 5 February 1981, born Khudah Bukhsh) was a Kashmiri magician and firewalker.

Biography

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Khudah Bukhsh was born in Akhnur, Kashmir in 1905, to an ethnic Kashmiri family.[1] His father worked as a railway ticket inspector. Bukhsh later became a Pakistani citizen.[2][3] When he was thirteen, he left home to learn magic from a performer named Professor Moor.

After a few months, he joined a theater group as a magician. Three years later, Kuda went to Hardwar to study with a yogi. He pretended to be religious to be accepted as a disciple. The yogi taught Kuda to train his subconscious mind, which is how he claimed to be able to perform all of his feats.[4]

In the mid-1930s, he arrived in the United States where he worked steadily as a magician.[1] He was also known as DareDevil or The Man Who Can See Without His Eyes. In the 1950s, he had a short-lived TV show called Kuda Bux, Hindu Mystic.[5]

He eventually lost his eyesight to glaucoma.[6] Early in her career, Joan Rivers traveled to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré with Kuda to perform as his assistant. They did the Indian basket trick, and Kuda sawed her in half. After Rivers started telling jokes during the illusions, Kuda fired her.[7] The Magic Castle gave him a Performing Fellowship in 1970.[8] In his old age, he was a nightly regular at the Castle where he would play cards with magicians Dai Vernon and Hy Berg.[9] He died in 1981 in his sleep, aged 75.[9]

Career

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Kuda Bux was a skilled magician with a seven-decade career. His first job was attracting audiences for Professor Moor by performing the linking rings.[4] Bux was a deft card magician and was described as "a genius with silks".[7][10] He generated publicity for his performances by seeking the scrutiny of scientists.

Blindfolds

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In one of his best known performances he would cover his eyes with soft dough balls, blindfold himself, swath his entire head in strips of cloth, and yet still be able to see.[6][11] While blindfolded he would read the dates on coins which were held in a spectator's hand, read the fine print of a magazine, thread a needle while covered in a wine barrel, duplicate words he had never seen written, shoot a can on children's heads with a pellet gun and many other tricks.[12] Bux once cycled with his eyes covered along Broadway in New York City.[6]

Over the years, Bux gave differing accounts about how the trick worked. He told researcher Harry Price that he used his nostrils to see.[13] He once said any piece of exposed skin was all he needed to perform the trick and read The Life of Samuel Johnson from behind a door with his hand.[4] Fellow magician John Booth wrote that Bux was a dedicated showman who made a point of using reading glasses when he was not onstage. Booth befriended his colleague when he was a regular at the Magic Castle.[9]

Roald Dahl wrote a non-fiction story about Bux's blindfold routine for Argosy in 1952. Twenty-five years later, he changed Bux's name to Imhrat Khan and kept the bulk of his Argosy report intact as the framed story in "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar".[14]

Firewalking

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In 1935, Bux walked over hot coals in front of an audience of scientists from the University of London Council for Psychical Research and news reporters.[15] On September 9, he made a test walk across a 25x3x1-foot trench. Bux felt the trench was too shallow and narrow. Eight days later, the trench was twice as wide but 3 inches shallower. Bux's feet were checked before and after the firewalking demonstration to verify that no protective chemicals, topical creams or herbs were used. It was a very windy day and the surface temperature of the fire was over 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius).[16] The September 17th stunt was photographed and filmed.[17][18] Time reported that Bux wept when he was asked to repeat the walk a third time and refused to do it.[19]

Bux repeated his firewalk at NBC Radio City Studios in Manhattan on 2 August 1938. A three-foot-deep (0.91 m) hole was dug in the Radio City parking lot. Wooden logs and bags of charcoal were set on fire in it. Bux took four steps across the pit before exiting halfway across. After Bux walked through the coals, a cameraman who had missed some of the stunt asked for a retake. Bux obliged by repeating the firewalk. Again, his feet were checked before and after the firewalking demonstration. Robert Ripley said, "Kuda Bux's feet were not even warm." There is newsreel footage of this event in the TV biography The Incredible Life and Times of Robert Ripley: Believe It or Not!.[20] It was the last time Bux would perform the stunt.[21]

Harry Price suggested that the feat was performed by specific placement of the feet.[22] Just days after Bux's 1935 walk, Joseph Dunninger gave a more logical explanation to his Universal Council for Psychic Research. He pointed out that charcoal cools rapidly, and it also has a protective layer of ash. By walking quickly on it, one could avoid being burned. Dunniger reminded his audience that firewalking is an old Japanese trick known as "hai-wattari" (火渡).[23]

References

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  1. ^ a b Cheri Revai (14 January 2008). Haunted New York City: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Big Apple. Stackpole Books. pp. 56–. ISBN 978-0-8117-4073-9.
  2. ^ Cosmopolitan. Schlicht & Field. 1959.
  3. ^ The World Almanac Book Of The Strange. 1977.
  4. ^ a b c Dahl, Roald. "The Amazing Eyes of Kuda Bux", Argosy. Volume 335, Issue 1. July 1, 1952. 94.
  5. ^ Carnegie, Dean (22 June 2012). "The Man With X-Ray Eyes-Kuda Bux". The Magic Detective. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  6. ^ a b c Randi, James (1992). Conjuring. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 216–8. ISBN 0-312-08634-2. OCLC 26162991.
  7. ^ a b Rivers, Joan. Enter Talking. Delacorte Press, 1986. 166–9.
  8. ^ "Hall of Fame, The Academy of Magical Arts". The Magic Castle. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  9. ^ a b c Booth, John Nicholls. Psychic Paradoxes. Prometheus Books, 1986. 45–50.
  10. ^ Saltman, David. "Where and How to Put a Little Magic In Your Trip", New York Times. February 6, 1977.
  11. ^ "The Man With the X Ray Eyes!", British Pathé. September 12, 1938.
  12. ^ ""The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar"". Roald Dahl Fans. 30 November 2015.
  13. ^ Price, Harry. "Walking Through Fire." The Listener, vol. 14, no. 349, 18 Sept. 1935. pp. 225–8. The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991.
    Reprinted in Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter. Putnam, 1936. 318.
  14. ^ "The Amazing Eyes of Kuda Bux". Roald Dahl Fans. 2017. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  15. ^ Melton, J. Gordon. (2013). The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. Visible Ink. p. 111. ISBN 1-57859-209-7
  16. ^ Price, Harry. "Fire-Walking Experiments: Report On Kuda Bux's Demonstration", The British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3899 (Sep. 28, 1935), p. 586.
    Reprinted in Confessions..., 375.
  17. ^ "Radio News-Reel." The Listener, vol. 14, no. 350, 25 Sept. 1935, pp. 521+. The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991.
  18. ^ "Fire walker walks on burning wood and charcoal (1935) - British Pathé". YouTube. 20 November 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  19. ^ "Science: Feet to Fire", Time. September 30, 1935.
  20. ^ Portnow Richard et al. directors. The Incredible Life and Times of Robert Ripley: Believe It or Not. Turner Home Entertainment 1994.
  21. ^ Miller, Caitlyn Renee. "Kuda Bux: Fire-walking for Fame and Fortune". JSTOR Daily. September 28, 2022.
  22. ^ Samuel, Lawrence R. (2011). Supernatural America: A Cultural History. ABC-CLIO. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-313-39899-5
  23. ^ "Firewalker Trick Bared by Expert", New York Times. September 19, 1935.

Further reading

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