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Sydney Piddington (14 May 191829 January 1991) and Lesley Piddington (1925 2 August 2016) were an
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n husband and wife
mentalism
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition ...
team who performed as The Piddingtons and gave one of the most famous stage and radio
telepathy
Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W ...
acts of modern times.
[ Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. p. 221. ] The Piddingtons never revealed their methods but did not claim to possess
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
powers. There has been speculation from magicians about how they may have utilized codes, confederates or mechanical aids.
History
Sydney Piddington spent time in
Changi Prisoner of War camp during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He discovered that maintaining the morale of prisoners in the camp was essential, and worked with fellow prisoner of war
Russell Braddon
Russell Reading Braddon (25 January 1921 – 20 March 1995) was an Australian writer of novels, biographies and TV scripts. His chronicle of his four years as a prisoner of war, ''The Naked Island'', sold more than a million copies.
Braddon ...
to develop a
mentalism
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition ...
act as entertainment for the troops. During this time, Sydney developed many unique and innovative techniques to give the appearance of mind-reading.
[Greenfield, George. (1995). ''A Smattering of Monsters: A Kind of Memoir''. Camden House. pp. 94-96. ] Other fellow prisoners at Changi included
Ronald Searle
Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's S ...
, who made sketches of life in the POW camp, and actor
John Wood, with whom Piddington travelled home to Australia.
Piddingtons website, biography section. Accessed 23 December 2017
Following the war, Sydney married Lesley Pope, to whom John Wood introduced him at a homecoming party given for Wood by the
Minerva Theatre, Sydney, Minerva Theatre.
Pope was the leading lady in the theatre's current production.
Sydney taught Lesley many of the tricks that he had developed. Together they designed a stage act, and found success on Australian stages. Soon after, the Piddingtons moved to London, and in time they were signed to present a series of live radio broadcasts for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. Seeking ever-impressive stunts, Sydney masterminded specialized tests to demonstrate Lesley's alleged ability to receive thoughts over a great distance.
The BBC Broadcasts
Many of the original radio broadcasts are still available. Among the more famous demonstrations undertaken by the Piddingtons were:
The Diving Bell Experiment - Lesley was submerged in a diving bell in a swimming pool in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
whilst Sydney conducted tests with a live audience at the BBC studios in central London.
The Tower of London - Lesley was kept under armed guard at the Tower of London across the river from the BBC studios, and was still able to determine items and names from the live audience.
The Stratocruiser Broadcast - A famous experiment where Lesley was taken to cruising altitude in a plane above a British military base. Amongst other demonstrations, she was able to determine the personal possessions of an audience member chosen at random by the panel of judges in the studio.
Secrecy of the Act
The methods behind the Piddingtons' act were a closely guarded secret, unknown even to the producers at the BBC. Following Sydney's death in 1991, Lesley is said to have told her grandson, "Even if I wanted to tell you how it was done, I don't think I would be able".
To this day, The Piddingtons are considered to be one of the greatest two-person telepathy acts of all time. Magicians have speculated that they may have utilized codes, confederates or mechanical aids.
The controls for their experiments have been criticized. Regarding their experiment that took place in the Tower of London, Lesley had produced a sentence that had been written on a blackboard in the BBC studio. However, the sentence had already been read on the
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
to listeners. Psychologist
Robert H. Thouless noted that "no examination of Mrs Piddington's clothes or hair seems to have been made to ensure that she had not a wireless receiving set concealed on her person."
In 2015, Martin Hart published a book which claimed to have finally revealed the secrets to the Piddingtons' tricks. The book is based on a notebook by Hart's grandfather who observed their methods while working on the BBC broadcasts.
In 2014,
Radiolab
''Radiolab'' is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. The show is nationally syndicated and is available as a podcast. Live shows were first offe ...
produced an episode on The Piddingtons, and later asked
Penn Jillette
Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. The duo has been featured ...
to comment. He discusses two of the tricks, one from the Stratrocruiser episode, and another from the Diving Bell. In the first, audience members write a short message or doodle on paper and place it into sealed numbered envelopes. Two are then selected from the audience members which Lesley correctly guesses. Jillette noted that the only reason to pick two envelopes initially was to disguise the fact that neither was ultimately used; Sydney switched the envelopes with ones containing pre-arranged messages. Had they selected only a single envelope, the audience member would have immediately noticed when Lesley announced a different answer, but with two selections, both audience members concluded they selected the other person's envelope. The second example is a classic example of a
book test The book test is a classic mentalism demonstration used by mentalists to demonstrate telepathy-like effects. The name refers to its early use as a test of mental powers.
Effect
An audience member (the "spectator") is called onstage to assist the m ...
, a trick that goes back hundreds of years. In the book test, some sort of method is used so that the same passage is selected every time. In some variations, this is accomplished with trick books, in others, some sort of
magician's force is used. The complex method of selecting the passage using mathematics suggests the latter method was used. Jillette notes that the whole show rests on a single misdirection; while the audience is trying to figure out the secret method that Sydney is using to talk to Lesley given the strange settings like being underwater, the real trick is that no communication is required and everything is pre-arranged.
See also
*
Julius and Agnes Zancig
Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copen ...
References
Further reading
*
Braddon, Russell. ''The Piddingtons''. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1950.
* Hart, Martin. ''Piddington's Secrets''. Manipulatist Books Global, 2015.
External links
Sydney Piddingtonentry in the
Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
Keep Them Guessingdocumentary on
Radio National
Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2.
History
1937: Predecessors an ...
, Australia
The Amazing Piddingtonsdocumentary on Radio National, Australia
You Are The Judge Radiolab episode
www.ThePiddingtons.com The official website for the amazing PIDDINGTONS.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piddingtons
Australian magicians
Mentalists
People educated at Ascham School
Married couples
People from Sydney