Houdini: A Life Worth Reading (9 page)

While playing at the London Hippodrome in 1904 I was confined to my room by orders of my physician. During this illness I was interviewed by a reporter who, noticing the clippings and bills with which my room was strewn, made some reference to my collection in the course of his article. The very day on which this interview appeared, I received from Henry Evanion a mere scrawl stating that he, too, collected programmes, bills, etc., in which I might be interested.

I wrote at once asking him to call at one o’clock the next afternoon, but as the hour passed and he did not appear, I decided that, like many others who asked for interviews, he had felt but a passing whim. That afternoon about four o’clock my physician suggested that, as the day was mild, I walk once around the block. As I stepped from the lift, the hotel porter informed me that since one o’clock an old man had been waiting to see me, but so shabby was his appearance, they had not dared send him up to my room. He pointed to a bent figure,
clad in rusty raiment. When I approached the old man he rose and informed me that he had brought some clippings, bills, etc., for me to see. I asked him to be as expeditious as possible, for I was too weak to stand long and my head was a-whirl from the effects of la grippe.

With some hesitancy of speech but the loving touch of a collector he opened his parcel.

“I have brought you, sir, only a few of my treasures, sir, but if you will call—”

I heard no more. I remember only raising my hands before my eyes, as if I had been dazzled by a sudden shower of diamonds. In his trembling hands lay priceless treasures for which I had sought in vain—original programmes and bills of Robert-Houdin, Phillippe, Anderson, Breslaw, Pinetti, Katterfelto, Boaz, in fact all the conjuring celebrities of the eighteenth century, together with lithographs long considered unobtainable, and newspapers to be found only in the files of national libraries. I felt as if the King of England stood before me and I must do him homage.

Physician or no physician, I made an engagement with him for the next morning, when I was bundled into a cab and went as fast as the driver could urge his horse to Evanion’s home, a musty room in the basement of No. 12 Methley Street, Kennington Park Road, S.E.

In the presence of his collection I lost all track of time. Occasionally we paused in our work to drink tea which he made for us on his pathetically small stove. The drops of the first tea which we drank together can yet be found on certain papers in my collection. His
wife, a most sympathetic soul, did not offer to disturb us, and it was 3:30 the next morning, or very nearly twenty-four hours after my arrival at his home, when my brother, Theodore Weiss (Hardeen), and a thoroughly disgusted physician appeared on the scene and dragged me, an unwilling victim, back to my hotel and medical care.

Such was the beginning of my friendship with Evanion. In time I learned that some of his collection had been left to him by James Savren, an English barber, who was so interested in magic that at frequent intervals he dropped his trade to work without pay for famous magicians, including Döbler, Anderson, Compars Herrmann, De Liska, Wellington Young, Cornillot, and Gyngell. From these men he had secured a marvellous collection, which was the envy of his friendly rival, Evanion. Savren bequeathed his collection to Evanion, and bit by bit I bought it from the latter, now poverty stricken, too old to work and physically failing. These purchases I made at intervals whenever I played in London, and on June 7th, 1905, while playing at Wigan, I received word that Evanion was dying at Lambeth Infirmary.

After the show, I jumped to London, only to find that cancer of the throat made it almost impossible for him to speak intelligibly. I soon discovered, however, that his chief anxiety was for the future of his wife and then for his own decent burial. When these sad offices had been provided for, he became more peaceful, and when I rose to leave him, knowing that we had met probably for the last time, he drew forth his chiefest treasure, a superb book of Robert-Houdin’s programmes, his one
legacy, which is now the central jewel in my collection. Evanion died ten days later, June 17th, and within a short time his good wife followed him into the Great Unknown.

After reading this chapter, you will know more about

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
  The creator of Sherlock Holmes was a devout believer in Spiritualism.
  

• A Magician Among the Spirits:
  Houdini’s book sought to expose fraudulent mediums.
  

• Mina “Margery” Crandon:
  Houdini eventually exposed the famous Boston medium after a long and public struggle.
  

• Robert Gysel and Rose Mackenberg:
  These informants joined Houdini in his campaign to debunk Spiritualism.
  

Spiritualism, a religion and movement born in the late
eighteenth century, became very trendy after World War I. Spiritualists believed that the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living through mediums. They did so during séances, in which a group of “sitters” came and sat in front of a medium, holding hands in a darkened room while the medium summoned the spirits of the dead.

Houdini had in the past scorned Spiritualism as fraudulent and manipulative of mourning individuals who had lost loved ones. At the same time, the loss of his mother left him yearning for the ability to reach her somehow. Whatever his real beliefs, he made a pact with Bess and several other friends to speak a certain word if summoned by a medium after death, in order to have final proof on the matter. Further, even at the height of his crusade against Spiritualism, he never claimed to attack the tenets of the religion itself; rather, he set out to expose fraud on the part of persons who claimed to be mediums.

The worlds of magic and Spiritualism overlapped both practically and culturally; the popularity of Spiritualism ignited the public’s interest in magic, and further, magicians and mediums used similar techniques to perform their arts. Houdini’s fame as a magician and manic drive to expose all that threatened his trade put him on an inevitable crash course with the religion. The collision was played out in part through his friendship with the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, most renowned for his authorship of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, was also an evangelical Spiritualist in his later days after having lost his son in Word War I. Well-known as a writer, Doyle was originally an eye doctor and belonged to a scholarly level of society that Houdini often seemed to ache to join. In addition, Doyle fit the role of an ideal man of the time; he was tall, muscular, athletic, wealthy, and cultured. He and Houdini shared a passion for the sport of boxing. When Houdini traveled to Europe in 1920, he mailed Doyle a copy of his book,
The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin
. Doyle read it and wanted to discuss Houdini’s representation of the famous Davenport Brothers, magicians whom Houdini had met. Doyle believed that the brothers were able to do their escape art because they were mediums, able to de-materialize and reconstitute their physical forms. In his eagerness to make friends with Doyle, Houdini didn’t contradict him. In fact, Houdini indicated to Doyle that he was interested in looking into Spiritualism with an open mind. Doyle believed that Houdini himself might be able de-materialize in order to do his tricks.

Doyle sent Houdini to mediums Doyle trusted, one of whom performed the then-popular form of speaking with spirits by manifesting ectoplasm, a gooey substance in the shape of someone or something or that appeared to be a living substance. Houdini failed to be convinced by these demonstrations, recognizing the ways that such tricks could be arranged. However, his desire to be friends with Doyle, who he found intelligent and fascinating, led him to hold back from being open with Doyle about his doubts. Houdini attended many séances.

Doyle and Houdini’s friendship began to fall apart when Doyle came to the United States to promote Spiritualism in 1922. At that time, Doyle was especially passionate about a new trend in Spiritualism called “spirit photography,” in which everyday photographs captured a spirit image. Houdini, who knew something about film development from his film company (see Chapter IX), recognized that the “spirit” images could be doctored into the photographs. He even hired a team of investigators to try to find out the methods of famous spirit photographers. Houdini became less enthralled with Doyle as he saw how naïve Doyle was; magicians well known to Houdini, the Zancigs, had convinced Doyle that they were clairvoyants during a private session. Similarly, Houdini tried to explain to Doyle how the spiritualist phenomenon of “spirit hands,” or hands that appeared in wax during séances, could be made by humans. Doyle refused to give Houdini’s explanations any weight. While in the States, Doyle saw a famous medium named Besinnet, with whom Houdini tried to gain a meeting through Doyle’s introduction. However, Besinnet refused to answer Houdini’s requests, probably wisely, as Houdini had done some research on her methods and had likely already concluded that she was a fraud.

During the summer of 1922, Houdini and Bess joined Doyle and his family in Atlantic City for a weekend of fun and relaxation. During this visit, Doyle’s wife, who claimed to be able to perform “trance-writing,” a method of communicating with spirits by which the medium writes messages from the dead, summoned Houdini for a session. In that session, with Doyle present, she produced fifteen pages of writing supposedly from Houdini’s mother, Cecilia. While the Doyles thought that Houdini came out of this experience with unmistakable proof of his dead mother’s presence and Spiritualism as a whole, Houdini really emerged highly skeptical that his mother was involved with the writing. However, he said nothing of this to the Doyles, wanting to keep the peace.

In October 1922 Houdini got into trouble with both the magician community and the Spiritualists when he published an article explaining a common trick of both, the placement of a radio transmitter inside a non-descript household object to create noises and voices seemingly from magic or spirits. The Society of American Magicians, of which Houdini was president, formed a special committee to make sure that neither Houdini nor other magicians exposed any more of their trade secrets. The SAM also criticized Houdini for writing a monthly column in a New York paper, teaching young readers how to do minor magic tricks. Houdini further clashed with Howard Thurston, his deceased mentor Keller’s protégée. Thurston was a believer in Spiritualism and had attended séances with Besinnet. Thurston was also one of the few magicians what came anywhere close to Houdini’s skill and fame, the more likely reason for their rivalry.

After Doyle returned to England, Houdini and his friend began to have disagreements by letter about various aspects of Spiritualism. In October of 1922, Houdini published an article in a New York paper essentially stating Houdini’s conviction that mediums and séances were fraudulent. Doyle was sent the article by someone, and for the first time the friends argued openly about Spiritualism. Houdini explained how the trance-writing session that he had endured with the Doyles in Atlantic City had left him convinced not of Spiritualism’s truth, but of its lack thereof. Doyle answered by explaining away each of the reasons that Houdini had found to disbelieve the truth of the session. Soon, Doyle and Houdini were fighting publically in an exchange of letters published in
The
New York Times
. When Doyle returned to the United States for a second tour, the two men met up in Denver, Colorado. Despite efforts to patch their relationship, Houdini agreed to meet with a reporter who had written an article claiming that Doyle had dared him to come to a séance, where he would produce Houdini’s mother. This publicity put more strain on the friendship. After Doyle had returned to England, Doyle similarly reacted gullibly to a supposed jab by Houdini in a California newspaper. The two men finally dissolved their friendship.

By 1924, Houdini was becoming recognized nationally as an investigator and educator on the subject of fraudulent techniques used by mediums. He toured the United States, giving lectures at universities about the history of Spiritualism and the ways that fraudulent mediums produced their effects. Houdini also “tested” mediums. Most famously, he reproduced the powers of a renowned Spanish medium who called himself Argamasilla, who claimed to be able to see through metal. He also duplicated mediums’ use of telepathy, organizing a test at his house in which he went into another room while his guests selected topics at random, returning to the room to explain (correctly) what he had “telepathically received” from them while in the other room. He jokingly performed a “teleportation” of a writer to a benefit held by the Society of American Magicians, pretending that the speaker was communicating via radio, but concealing the man in the banquet hall, who emerged after announcing he was teleporting in for the event. During his push to expose fraud among mediums, Houdini wrote and published a book called
A Magician Among the Spirits.

Houdini’s most longstanding battle in his fight against fraudulent Spiritualist mediums began in January of 1924, when he was nominated to an investigative committee put together by the magazine
Scientific American
. The purpose of the committee was to determine who, if anyone, would be the winner of two cash prizes offered to the first two individuals who produced a psychic object or photograph while working under the committee’s strictly controlled test conditions. The other members of the committee were largely academics and scientists, including two individuals from the Society of Psychical Research (the SPR), a United Kingdom-based nonprofit dedicated to objectively researching paranormal phenomena. J. Malcolm Bird, an editor at
Scientific American
, served as the secretary for the committee.