Case file · High strangeness
The Cairo magician's ink mirror
The English Arabist Edward Lane watched a Maghrebi magician in Cairo pour ink into a boy's palm. The boy then described absent people named by the audience, among them Lord Nelson.
1834 CE · 30.05, 31.26 · status: account
The account
Lane's 'Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians' (1836) reports that some descriptions were striking and others wrong. Visitors to Cairo kept trying the 'magic mirror' for decades.
The sceptical view
Lane suspected leading questions and lucky guesses. Later observers noticed that results were poor when the questions were controlled.