the audience as the assistant being sawn in half, and can be performed without any prior rehearsal with the audience volunteer. The audience volunteer lies down on a table. A frame is placed over her middle. The magician then presents an electric jigsaw and proceeds to align the blade into a slot in the frame. The magician switches on the saw and apparently uses it to slice through the audience volunteer's waist, which remains obscured by the frame. The saw emerges from the opposite side of the frame. Once the sawing is finished the frame is removed and the audience volunteer is revealed to be in one piece. Bow saw This variant begins in a similar way to the jig sawing and is also usually performed using an audience volunteer as the assistant, again without any prior rehearsal. With the assistant lying on a table, the magician fixes a frame over her midriff. The magician then presents a bow saw and proceeds to saw through the volunteer assistant, with the blade guided within the frame. Once the blade has apparently passed all the way through the volunteer assistant the frame is released and removed. It is then revealed that the volunteer assistant is encircled by the handle and blade of the bow saw. Buzzsaw A large apparatus is presented, consisting of a sturdy frame supporting a large buzzsaw or circular saw and a table sufficiently large to carry a person lying flat. It is shown that the table travels beneath the saw, leaving little or no gap, so that anything placed upon it in the path of the saw would be sliced through. The table is moved either by an electric mechanism or by some form of manual crank. The buzzsaw is generally driven by an electric motor. To demonstrate the saw is completely genuine, a piece of wood is placed on the table and sliced in two in full view. An assistant is introduced and placed in a horizontal position on the table. Sometimes the magician might give the impression of hypnotizing the assistant into a rigid trance before having her lifted onto the table. She is secured in place with two metal "straps" that close over her waist and which align close to the plane of the saw. She might also be further secured with straps or manacles at her wrists and ankles. A strip of wood is