On this 1920 poster designed for a British tour, there are two women at the top. The one on the right is Datura. She can be seen below gesturing magically rather than being the one floated. She and Professor De Noran get top billing “in their mysterious act.” 

Professor De Noran was actually Philippe De Bischop (1880-1950), a Belgian magician who was considered the best illusionist from Belgium. He performed primarily between 1905 and 1924, touring his large stage illusion show through Europe and North Africa.

Datura was actually his wife, Elaine De Bischop. Besides acting as an assistant, she also did her own act, Systemic Memory. In an article in the July 1950 Sphinx, Victor Farelli writes: “She is the only woman I ever heard of who could memorize twenty-five numbers of three figures each. The numbers were freely chosen by members of the audience,and there was absolutely no faking. In addition. Datura occasionally performed the following novel interlude. Having memorized the order of a complete deck of cards, she would call out the name of each card while seated at a piano playing a piece of music. This was one of the most successful items in her Music Hall program, and always caused a sensation.”

Elaine became quite ill in Africa in 1924 and it ended their travels, which included France and Holland. They returned to do local shows in Belgium. Elaine also gave music lessons, while Phillipe became Belgium’s only professional magic teacher. One of his students was Suzy Wandas.