'And after a prolonged period Houdini would emerge, unscathed.' 'A curtain would go up, and the audience would wonder if he was suffocating,' Wolf explains. He explains that when Houdini performed his buried alive stunt (there's some controversy among historians about whether, and how often, the trick was performed), the audience would have seen Houdini enter a coffin, watch the coffin sealed inside a crypt, and then witness the crypt being buried in several thousand pounds of sand or soil.

Wolf, who has served as a special effects coordinator for several films and TV series, is a science educator for kids, and runs his own theme park called Stunt Ranch in Texas, says he's long been interested in how illusions are created and how people perceive reality through visual clues. In each episode, the trio explores how the notoriously secretive Houdini may have performed his most famous tricks, as well as some of the many mysteries of his life-including whether the magician may have served as a spy, and whether his sad death on Halloween in 1926 was truly an accident. Wolf is one of the stars of the new Science Channel show Houdini's Last Secrets, alongside Houdini’s grand-nephew George Hardeen and magician Lee Terbosic. 'The margin for failure on that is zero,' Wolf tells Mental Floss. Stunt expert Steve Wolf considers the buried alive illusion Houdini's most daring trick. It didn't exactly go off without a hitch, however: He clawed his way out-but it nearly killed him.

In 1915, he performed a trick in Santa Ana, California, that saw him buried beneath six feet of earth. But the master magician Harry Houdini was no stranger to stunts that would make other people sweat. When it comes to most people's biggest fears, being buried alive is right up there.

The secrets of houdini