The Magician and the Spirits Read online

  “‘The first thing the knowledge . . . happy than the earth-life.’”: Our Second American Adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle, p. 31.

  “‘broken down . . . a solace to their feelings’”: MAtS, p. xvii.

  “asylums would be flooded . . . diversions.”: MAtS, p. 190.

  “‘People have been going mad . . . besides Spiritualism.’”: MAtS, p. 143.

  “realize the suffering, losses . . . curse.”: MAtS, p. 180.

  “The Washington Times . . . ‘Alfred’s Spiritual guidance.’”: MAtS, pp. 181–82.

  “the majority of people who are fleeced . . . among thieves.”: MAtS, p. 227.

  “adventurers . . . obtained by these two”: MAtS, p. 67.

  “one of the most extraordinary fake mediums . . . the world.”: MAtS, p. 66.

  “the daughter of King Louis I . . . thousands of dollars.”: MAtS, p. 67.

  “whose work, in spite . . . proof of Spiritualism.”: MAtS, p. 38.

  “‘We were touched by the invisible.’”: Blum, p. 22.

  “a life of positive luxury . . . earthly sustenance”: MAtS, p. 39.

  “custom of living . . . dupes.”: MAtS, p. 40.

  “dematerialize . . . rematerialize”: MAtS, p. 44.

  “saturated with delusion . . . superstitious.”: MAtS, p. 46.

  “The average medium . . . stopped.”: MAtS, p. 190.

  FINGERPRINTING A SPIRIT

  “startling swindles . . . sort of fraud.”: MAtS, p. 115.

  HOW DO I DISTRUST THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

  “‘Now, don’t, sir! . . . was truth’”: The Table-Rappers: The Victorians and the Occult by Ronald Pearsall, p. 97.

  OUT ONE WINDOW, IN THE OTHER

  “under the same conditions . . . laws of physics.”: MAtS, pp. 48–49.

  8: Science and Sincerity

  “Psychical science, as we here try to pursue it . . . world of thought.”: Presidential Addresses to the Society for Psychical Research, 1882–1911, p. 86.

  “Gladly would I embrace . . . claims”: MAtS, preface.

  “serious-minded . . . pseudo-mediums.”: Miracle Mongers, pp. 96–97.

  “fortified . . . grief.”: MAtS, p. xviii.

  “perfect willingness . . . deceived”: MAtS, p. 216.

  “‘The objective side . . . the matter.’”: MAtS, pp. 207–8.

  “permit his pen . . . moved to compassion”: MAtS, p. 206.

  “‘DOYLE IN DENVER’ . . . ‘blasphemous and absurd.’”: Silverman, p. 295.

  “‘There is nothing that Sir Arthur will believe’ . . . ‘not friendly.’”: Silverman, p. 297.

  “There is not the slightest doubt . . . hoodwinked”: MAtS, p. 205.

  “immune . . . magnetism”: MAtS, p. 47.

  “fairer-minded . . . impartial”: MAtS, p. 193.

  “deeply impressed . . . levity.”: Seybert Commission, “Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism in Accordance with the Request of the Late Henry Seybert,” p. 3.

  “No one . . . barred”: Seybert, p. 85.

  “an unwillingness . . . difficult and expensive.”: Seybert, p. 135.

  “this phenomenon . . . legerdemain”: Seybert, p. 105.

  “We . . . single novel fact.”: Seybert, p. 125.

  “‘science ignored . . . could not explain.’”: Blum, p. 40.

  “‘you will find . . . surface of history.’”: Blum, p. 25.

  “‘Something hit me . . . you still!’”: Blum, p. 97.

  “‘universal proposition . . . ears and wits’”: Blum, p. 204.

  “I am not a scoffer . . . first to acknowledge my mistake.”: MAtS, p. 179.

  9: It Takes a Flimflammer to Catch a Flimflammer

  “All mediums hate . . . séance.”: MAtS, p. 192.

  “contributions . . . even to punctuation.”: MAtS, pp. 83–84.

  “one of our number . . . writing the answer.”: Seybert, p. 16.

  “the only way to conduct a successful [investigation] . . . rehearsed.”: MAtS, p. 192.

  “‘an eminent professional juggler’ . . . ‘manifestations are’”: MAtS, pp. 86–87.

  “‘It is much more lucrative . . . honest magician.’”: Daniel, p. 191.

  “the grave scientist . . . logic.”: MAtS, p. 60.

  “with my own eyes . . . ears”: MAtS, p. 208.

  “on good authority . . . conduct.”: MAtS, pp. 50–51.

  “mal-observation . . . subconscious mind.”: MAtS, pp. 191–92.

  “This love of the dead . . . experiments”: Young, James C. “Magic and Mediums: Houdini, Man of Many Tricks, Tells of Duplicating Feats of Spirit Workers—All ‘Revelations’ Easy to Explain,” New York Times, May 7, 1922.

  “One little sign even . . . converted.”: MAtS, p. xvi.

  “unusual for the eye . . . tricks.”: MAtS, p. xv.

  “deceived once . . . observer be.”: MAtS, p. xviii.

  “‘Fortune telling and mind reading . . . stock market tomorrow.’”: The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini and the Battles of the American Wizards by Jim Steinmeyer, p. 287.

  “‘The most common . . . met to mystify.’”: Steinmeyer, The Last Greatest Magician, p. 287.

  “objective psychic manifestation of physical character”: Silverman, p. 313.

  “‘I am amused . . . investigating you?’”: MAtS, p. 163.

  “dematerializing and reconstructing . . . wonderful power”: Silverman, p. 259.

  “My methods . . . superior.”: MAtS, pp. 211–14.

  “‘keep away every decent medium . . . antagonistic.’”: Jaher, p. 96.

  “‘pretending to tell fortunes . . . compensation.’”: Silverman, p. 392.

  “‘MR. HOUDINI . . . Applause.’”: Silverman, p. 396.

  ON TO SAFER SWINDLES

  “Spirit slates . . . ‘ouija board.’”: MAtS, p. 79.

  WHY DID THEY DO IT?

  “in her crafty prime . . . producer.”: MAtS, pp. 64–65.

  SUPPLYING PECULIAR EFFECTS

  “‘Our experience . . . the entire world.’”: http://www.prairieghosts.com/gambols.html.

  10: The End (or Is It?)

  “I have never received a word.”: MAtS, p. xii.

  “Mine has not been . . . willing to believe.”: MAtS, p. xix.

  “I had compacts with a round dozen . . . handgrips.”: MAtS, p. 269.

  “‘Houdini, this may be the end . . . side.’”: MAtS, p. xiii.

  “agreed-upon grip . . . back to me!”: MAtS, p. 269.

  “They were all loves . . . that I am willing.”: MAtS, p. 270.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. New York: Penguin, 2006.

  Chéroux, Clément, and Andreas Fischer. The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005.

  Daniel, Noel, ed. Magic, 1400s–1950s. 2009. Reprint, Cologne: Taschen, 2015.

  Davenport, Reuben Briggs. The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters, as Revealed by Authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken. New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1888.

  Doyle, Arthur Conan. Our Second American Adventure. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.

  Houdini, Harry. Houdini Exposes the Tricks Used by the Boston Medium “Margery” to Win the $2500 Prize Offered by the Scientific American. New York: Adams Press, 1924.

  _____. A Magician Among the Spirits. 1924. Reprint, Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2002.

  _____. Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: A Complete Exposé. 1920. Reprint, New York: Prometheus Books, 1981.

  _____. “S
ilent Second Sight.” Mahatma 1, no. 12 (June 1898).

  Jaher, David. The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World. New York: Crown, 2015.

  Kaplan, Louis. The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

  Lalicki, Tom. Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini. New York: Holiday House, 2000.

  Lamont, Peter. The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard. London: Little, Brown, 2005.

  Miller, Russell. The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.

  Pearsall, Ronald. The Table-Rappers: The Victorians and the Occult. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2004.

  Polidoro, Massimo. Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. New York: Prometheus Books, 2001.

  Rapaport, Brooke Kamin. Houdini: Art and Magic. New York: The Jewish Museum; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

  Redniss, Lauren. Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie; A Tale of Love and Fallout. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

  Roach, Mary. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. New York: Norton, 2005.

  Silverman, Kenneth. Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

  Society for Psychical Research (Great Britain). Presidential Addresses to the Society for Psychical Research, 1882–1911. Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1912.

  Stashower, Daniel. Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.

  Steinmeyer, Jim. Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003.

  _____. The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini and the Battles of the American Wizards. New York: Penguin, 2011.

  Weisberg, Barbara. Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

  Widen, Larry, and Judi Anderson. Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters. Wisconsin: Milwaukee Historical Society Press, 2007.

  WEBLIOGRAPHY

  American Experience. “Houdini: The Man Behind the Myth.” A companion website to the 2000 PBS Home Video. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/.

  Cox, John. Wild About Harry. http://www.wildabouthoudini.com/.

  Hodge, Brandon. Mysterious Planchette. http://mysteriousplanchette.blogspot.com.

  Interval, Tom. “Houdini in the New York Times.” http://www.houdinimuseum.org/articles/1926_11.01.html.

  Notaro, Joe. Harry Houdini Circumstantial Evidence. http://harryhoudinicircumstantialevidence.com.

  The Public Domain Review. http://publicdomainreview.org.

  Seybert Commission. “Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism in Accordance with the Request of the Late Henry Seybert.” eBook #11950: Project Gutenberg, 2004. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=11950.

  Taylor, Troy. “The Haunted Museum.” http://www.prairieghosts.com/gambols.html.

  Young, James C. “Magic and Mediums: Houdini, Man of Many Tricks, Tells of Duplicating Feats of Spirit Workers—All ‘Revelations’ Easy to Explain.” New York Times, May 7, 1922. Courtesy of Tom Interval, http://www.houdinimuseum.org.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Lisa Goodfellow Bowe, first reader and all-around first person; my brilliant agent, Jill Grinberg; publisher Ken Wright, whose enthusiasm drove the project from the beginning; my wise and gracious editor, Alex Ulyett; designer Kate Renner, copyeditors Janet Pascal and Laura Stiers, proofreaders Ryan Sullivan and Krista Ahlberg, and the other talented folk at Viking. Magicians, all.

  Thanks, too, to Ken Silverman for his rich, invaluable biography—the gold standard—and to Kevin Connolly, John Cox, Joe Harris, Tom Interval, Brandon Hodge, Ron Nagy, Leslie Price, and Ken Trombly.

  Last but not least, thanks to Mark Osterman of Eastman Museum, who taught me to photograph ghosts, and to my patient models, who endured the old, slow, moody, stinking wet-plate collodion process—usually in a hot barn, draped in gauze—with creativity, good cheer, and a surprising (under the circumstances) sense of fun: Lisa Goodfellow Bowe, John Bresnahan, Karin Goodfellow, Audra Jones, Paige Jones, Cecilia LeBlanc, Kathy Noyes LeBlanc, and Michaela Wayshak.

  Spirit photograph/photo collage of Houdini, circa 1924.

  PICTURE CREDITS

  pp. ii, 4–5, 6, 16, 28, 40, 52–53, 54, 68, 77, 84, 92, 98–99, 100, 110, 113, 126: © Deborah Noyes; p. v: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-709]; p. viii: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112418] (crowd), Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112419] (inset); p. 8: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112443]; p. 9: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF33- 006165-M4]; p. 11: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC2-1505]; p. 12: Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; pp. 13, 73, 83, 147: Kevin A. Connolly Collection; pp. 14, 17 (Fox sisters), 20, 38, 42, 62, 70, 72, 94 (Brownings), 95, 97: Wikimedia Commons; p. 17: Rijksmuseum (Darwin); p. 21: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-5921]; p. 24: Library of Congress/Harry Houdini Collection [LC-USZ62-112378]; p. 25, 90, 122: courtesy of John Cox, www.wildabouthoudini.com; p. 26: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112436]; p. 30: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112416]; p. 33: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112427]; p. 34: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ppmsca-36412]; p. 36: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [2014636892]; p. 37: courtesy of San Diego magician Tom Interval, www.intervalmagic.com; p. 39: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection [LC-DIG-ppmsca-35545]; p. 43: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-34026]; p. 44: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112421]; p. 45: Wikimedia Commons/MS Am 1092 (1185), Houghton Library, Harvard University; p. 48: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-98125]; p. 49: Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division [LC-USZ62-112422]; pp. 56, 58, 124: author’s collection; p. 57: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-1846]; p. 60: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-cwpbh-02176]; p. 61: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum and Allen County Public Library; p. 63 (Buguet): Mary Evans Picture Library; pp. 63 (Hope), 65: National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library; p. 71: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112377]; p. 74: Ken Trombly Collection; p. 75: http://publicdomainreview.org; p. 80: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-96794]; p. 88: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-134506]; p. 89: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112425] (children), Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112381] (Houdini making spirit hands); p. 94: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-01273] (Diss Debar); p. 105: Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo; p. 112: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-112406]; pp. 113, 119: © Deborah Noyes/courtesy of Lily Dale Museum; p. 115: Wikimedia Commons/*AC85.J2376.Zz909c, Houghton Library, Harvard University; pp. 116–117 (Marriott): courtesy of Brandon Hodge, www.mysteriousplanchette.com; p. 117: British Library, London, UK © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Images; p. 120: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-12752]; p. 121: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-99115] (Margery), American Society for Psychical Research (Walter’s thumbprint); p. 125: Library of Congress McManus-Young Collection [LC-USZ62-99116]; p. 128: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-50392]; p. 130: Library of C
ongress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ppmsca-23994]

  INDEX

  The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

  Note: Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), 45, 107–108

  Barnum, P. T., 60, 114

  Beck, Martin, 15, 27

  Bisson, Juliette, 73–77

  Boucicault, Dion, 55

  Brick Wall illusion, 36

  British College of Psychic Science, 64

  Brittain, Anna, 69

  Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 95, 96

  Browning, Robert, 95

  Buguet, Édouard Isidore, 61–63

  Carrière, Eva, 71–77, 78, 87

  confederates, 79–80, 81–82

  Crandon, Mina Stinson, 120–121, 123, 124–125

  Crookes, Sir William, 42, 101, 104–106

  Darwin, Charles, 19

  Davenport, Ira, 23–26, 43, 55, 69, 117–118

  Davenport, William, 23–26, 43, 55, 117–118

  Deane, Ada Emma, 65–66

  deathbed portraits, 58

  Debar, Ann O’Delia Diss, 93–94, 114

  dime museums, 13, 14

  Dowling, John, 61

  Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 41–51

  credulity of, 65, 67, 102, 120

  and fairies in photographs, 65

  on hearing and seeing spirits, 114

  on Houdini’s beliefs, 129

  influence of, 48

  on magicians, 87

  and mediums, 46, 69–71, 75–76, 123

  North American lecture tours of, 46–51, 55, 63–66, 87, 91, 103–104

  relationship with Houdini, 43–51, 77, 85–89, 103–104

  and Scientific American prize, 122, 123

  and scientific approaches to Spiritualism, 101

  and séances, 47, 49–51, 77–78, 86