 At some performances , a panel or " jury " from the audience was invited on stage to verify that no trick mechanism was being employed — that he was actually swallowing the items in question and delivering them back through acts of regurgitation . Sometimes Ali would stroll into the audience during his nut swallowing trick . His stomach exposed by his standard costume , he invited audience members to pat his stomach , allowing them to hear the nuts rattling within . One newspaper reported that Ali 's feats , essentially controlled vomiting , were performed in " a manner without the least bit of unpleasantness or anything bordering on repulsiveness . " Not everyone felt the same : at least one of Ali 's engagements was cut short once the proprietor realized that the nature of the act " was killing their supper shows " . Famed escapologist and magician Harry Houdini remarked in his 1920 work Miracle Mongers and Their Methods that water spouting was a " performance that could not fail to disgust a modern audience . " 
