". . . it has been my life work to invent and publicly present problems, the secrets of which not even the members of the magical profession have been able to discover, and the effects of which have proved as inexplicable to the scientists as any marvel of the mediums, and I claim that in so far as the revelation of trickery is concerned my years of investigation have been more productive than the same period of similar work by any scientist;
that my record as a 'mystifier of mystifiers' qualifies me to look below the surface of any mystery problem presented to me and that with my eyes trained by thirty years' experience in the realms of mystery and occultism it is not strange that I view these so-called phenomena from a different angle than the ordinary layman or even the expert investigator."
Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Scholar Minor.
This week we’ll be talking about the famous escape artist, Harry Houdini. Our opening quote comes from his book A Magician Among the Spirits, published in 1924 - two years prior to his death.
Houdini’s lifetime saw the meteoric rise of the Spiritualist movement - which, in a nutshell - suggested that everyday people had the ability to contact the spirits of the dead and communicate with them. Some people experimented with Spiritualism by themselves, while many others utilized - often at great expense - the services of Mediums.
Harry Houdini was an illusionist himself. And when Mediums began to be outed as frauds, using sleight of hand or even nefarious means to make money off the grieving post-war population, Houdini began devoting much of his time to exposing fake clairvoyants.
After some early involvement with Spiritualism himself, it seems that Houdini's quest to debunk false Mediums came from a very personal and sincere place. As he explains in A Magician Among the Spirits,
"After delving deep [into Spiritualism] I realized the seriousness of it all. As I advanced to riper years of experience I wa brought to a realization of the seriousness of trifling with the hallowed reverence which the average human being bestows on the departed, and when I personally became afflicted with similar grief I was chagrined that I should ever have been guilty of such frivolity and for the first time realized that it bordered on crime."
We are lucky that Houdini wrote extensively about Spiritualism, having many connections to the Spiritualist community and a wealth of experience in illusions and magic at his disposal. Despite his skeptical attitude toward communication with the dead, however, Houdini remained open-minded.
Thanks for joining me this week as we delve into the story of Harry Houdini as a debunker, as the spooky season - my favorite season - nears.
Houdini was born Erich Weisz in 1874. The location of his birth is disputed. During his lifetime, Houdini said he was born in Appleton, Wisconsin - though his birth certificate states his birthplace as Budapest, Hungary. Most historians believe that Houdini was, in fact, born in Budapest - but wished to be considered a born-and-raised American by the public. Houdini was one of seven children born to Hungarian rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz and his wife, Cecelia. The family emigrated from Hungary to Wisconsin..
After moving to New York city with his father, the young Houdini became interested in trapeze, magic, and circus performance - performing trapeze for the first time at age 9. As a youth he adopted the stage name Harry Houdini - Harry from "Ehrie", his nickname - and Houdini as an homage to his childhood hero, French magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin.
Harry married Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner, or "Bess", in 1893. Bess would perform at his side until his death. Houdini's career took off in 1899 when he began performing in Vaudeville venues with the help of manager Martin Beck. Theatrical escape rapidly became central to Houdini's act and it gained him worldwide fame. He earned the nickname "The King of Handcuffs'' and began selling out shows in Europe and in the States.
Houdini would extricate himself from almost any trap imaginable. Local police forces were invited to search him and lock him up, in handcuffs and cells, from which he would escape with ease. Houdini would be submerged in water or milk, locked in boxes and barrels, hung from great heights, and buried alive. While Houdini would always have a passion for prestidigitation, his incredible feats of escape came down to incredible physical agility and his incredible knack for picking locks and solving puzzles.
Though the paranormal was hugely popular at the turn of the century, Houdini didn’t market himself or his act as one based on supernatural powers. As he explained in a 1925 interview in Popular Science Monthly:
"I produce my effects by natural, physical means; by utilizing well-known laws of science and mechanics for the purpose of mystifying. I have no occult powers . . . I cannot transfer my thoughts to another person's mind except through some recognized form of communication. I cannot bring back the spirit of one who has departed. If you were to lock me in this room, I could not escape except by means of a key, violence, or the employment of the purely physical skill I have acquired at escaping from restraint."
Houdini’s rational and scientific approach to illusion put him at odds with much of the Spiritualist movement, and his desire to expose those who would profit from the grief and gullibility of the public only grew in the final years of his life.
If you are a frequent Scholar Minor listener, you’ve likely already heard me talk about the Spiritualist movement in some detail. I highly recommend you check out episode 3 "Spiritualism and Seances", and episode 16 "Spirit Photography", for a more detailed look at this incredible cultural phenomenon.
In an era where death was seemingly waiting around every corner, folks in the 19th and early 20th centuries developed a particular fascination with morbidity. The Spiritualist movement emerged as a way for people to find closure through communication with the dead. As you can imagine, following loss, many people were eager to believe they were receiving messages from passed loved ones - and, of course, many talented charlatans saw this as an opportunity for profit.
This falsification of spiritual encounters made Houdini furious - particularly following the death of his mother from a stroke in 1913. Houdini was very close to his mother; his dedication to her in A Magician Among the Spirits declaring: "If God in his infinite wisdom ever sent an angel upon earth in human form, it was my mother."
When Cecelia fell ill, Houdini was overseas in Denmark, and she had already passed away by the time he was able to return home to America. In her memory, Houdini became an advocate for the fledgling holiday of Mother's Day - which was formally recognized a year later in 1914. Houdini was deeply affected by Cecelia’s death, and it would make his efforts to debunk fraudsters in the Spiritualist movement deeply personal.
One of Houdini's dear friends was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, renowned creator of Sherlock Holmes - and dedicated Spiritualist. Doyle and Houdini began exchanging letters following some of Houdini's performances in Brighton, England. Their friendship flourished in the following years. Unfortunately, disagreements regarding the validity of spirit communication would eventually cause much friction between the two.
Arthur Conan Doyle had become a fervent Spiritualist following the death of his son Kingsley in the first world war. Though Houdini and Doyle acknowledged their disagreements on the topic before, they had been able to look past it - until Sir Arthur's wife invited Houdini to a seance in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1922.
The Doyles were convinced that Houdini would be able to contact his mother's spirit at the event. During the seance, Lady Doyle claimed to receive messages from the departed Cecelia through automatic writing.
Unfortunately - the messages were in English. And Houdini’s mother had not known English. As Houdini describes:
“. . . Although my sainted mother had been in America for almost fifty years, she could not speak, read nor write English but Spiritualists claim when a medium is possessed by a Spirit who does not speak the language, she automatically writes, speaks, or sings in the language of the deceased; however Sir Arthur has told me that a Spirit becomes more educated the longer it is departed and that my bleed Mother had been able to master the English language in Heaven."
Houdini became increasingly vocal about his distrust of the Spiritualist movement following his experience with Lady Doyle's seance. Following the publication of an article in the New York Sun, in which Houdini again expressed criticism of Spiritualism, Arthur Conan Doyle sent him a letter entreating him to reconsider the evidence he had received at the Atlantic City seance.
". . . I felt rather sore about it,” writes Doyle, “You have all the right in the world to hold your own opinion, but when you say that you have had no evidence of survival, you say what I cannot reconcile with what I saw with my own eyes. I know, by many examples, the purity of my wife's mediumship, and I saw what you got and what the effect was upon you at the time . .
However, I don't propose to discuss this subject any more with you, for I consider that you have had your proofs and that the responsibility of accepting or rejecting is with you. And it is a very real lasting responsibility."
Houdini approached debunking from an interesting perspective - as he, himself, was an illusionist. In A Magician Among the Spirits, Houdini breaks down the various types of mediumship and how they can be explained without the involvement of the otherworldly.
As you might expect, many of Houdini’s debunking efforts were directed at those purposefully deceiving others for profit using Spiritualist techniques. But Houdini made a point to mention that not all spiritualists were malicious - sometimes natural events, coincidences, or a person’s subconscious could deceive them without their noticing.
Despite disagreeing on the validity of the results, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also remarks on this good-faith-but-mistaken element of the Spiritualist movement - referring to them as the “nice old lady mediums”.
The consciously malicious fraudsters, however, became Houdini’s primary focus. He would attend seances in disguise at times, or alongside others intent on finding real evidence of paranormal happenings. This included the Society for Psychical Research.
A number of precautions were taken to prove the validity of a medium in question, and some experiments were conducted with the express purpose of proving that medium real or fake. For these experimental seances, the medium would first be thoroughly searched. The room in which the seance was to take place would also be scoured for signs of intended deception.
Houdini describes several of these seances that took place under the watchful eye of the Society for Psychical Research - informing us that in one case, the medium was required to drink only black coffee and eat only crackers prior to the experiment, so that any items they regurgitated during the seance would be identifiable due to the discoloration from the coffee.
The medium Eva Carriere, or Mademoiselle Eva, was required to wear a bubble-like net tucked into her tights that surrounded the entire upper half of her body - preventing any possible sleight of hand. At some of Eva’s seances, Houdini occupied the “control chair” at her side - physically holding her arm to detect any movements that could result in table tipping.
Houdini was able to catch Eva performing some tricks that would be well known to a magician - items that “disappeared” could simply be hidden in the mouth. Or ominous substances like ectoplasm could mysteriously appear if they’d been swallowed already.
Wishing to prove that spirit photographs were the result of clever camera tricks and not otherworldly visitation, Houdini had a photograph taken of himself and Abraham Lincoln. Though it wasn't Abraham Lincoln's ghost - just double exposure.
Other evidence of spiritual visitation, like ghostly fingerprints appearing on a table or mirror during a seance, could be created through the use of molds. This could be especially damaging as molds with fingerprints that matched those of a deceased person could result in some major inheritance confusion.
In 1926, Houdini testified as one of the primary witnesses during hearings for a bill intended to regulate mediumship. During the hearings, Houdini recreated some of the popular tricks used by mediums. He is recorded as being fairly aggressive with his tactics, producing a list of those who had lost great sums of money to mediums, and went so far as to call out those mediums in the audience he believed were charlatans. While the hearings became heated, the bill did not ultimately pass - and Houdini wouldn't be around to fight for it much longer.
During his lifetime, Houdini made pacts with many of his friends and colleagues - whichever of them passed away first would find a way to send a message to whoever was still alive. Houdini himself tells us that he made this promise with at least 14 people, including his wife, Bess.
Due to his incredible strength and muscle control, Houdini was able to tense the muscles in his abdomen in such a way to endure impressive punches from fans with no resulting injuries. This was a common trick that Houdini would employ to delight a crowd.
In October 1926, Houdini was met in his dressing room by several students from MGill University. Houdini was on tour despite recovering from a broken ankle. A student named J. Gordon Whitehead asked Houdini about the punching trick - and proceeded to punch Houdini in the stomach several times. Houdini was not prepared for these punches and witnesses stated he appeared to be in some real pain.
That night Houdini had worsening stomach pain, which only became more intense the following day. He developed a fever. A doctor was consulted, who suspected appendicitis and recommended immediate hospitalization. But Houdini didn't want to miss his opening night show - and he performed it, despite collapsing immediately afterward. When he was taken to the hospital his appendix was removed, but, tragically, it had already burst, causing peritonitis - a deadly infection. Houdini passed away on Halloween - October 31, 1926.
Historians and medical professionals have argued over the decades whether Whitehead's punches were truly responsible for Houdini's appendicitis. While there have been recorded instances of physical trauma resulting in a burst appendix, it is rare. It's also possible that the appendicitis just happened to occur at that time by coincidence.
It's even been suggested that Whitehead was a Spiritualist undercover, intending to "take care of" Houdini once and for all. That the punches were planned in advance, or that poisoning was the true cause of Houdini's death - no autopsy was completed - have been floated as sinister possibilities. But the truth behind Houdini's death remains a mystery.
Bess, Houdini's wife and devoted assistant, would hold an annual seance on Halloween for ten years following his death - without results. Bess declared that Houdini's intuition about spirit phenomena had been correct and he never contacted her from beyond the grave. She would maintain this until her own death in 1943. Despite Bess having no luck, magicians and Houdini fans continue holding seances in his honor every Halloween - just in case.
Thanks again, friends, for listening to another episode of Scholar Minor. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing.
My references are in the episode notes as usual, and feel free to contact me at ursaminorcontact@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.
Have a beautiful week, and I’ll talk to you again soon.