A Magician Among the Spirits by Harry Houdini - HTML preview

FOOTNOTES

1 “Oh, no, Houdini, I never was more serious in my life.”

2 Sir John Franklin was a celebrated Arctic explorer. In 1845 he was appointed to the command of an expedition sent out by the British Admiralty in search of the northwest passage. The expedition sailed from Greenhithe, May 18, 1845, and was last spoken off the entrance of Lancaster Sound, July 26, 1845. Thirty-nine relief expeditions, public and private, were sent out from England and America in search of the missing explorer between 1847 and 1857. McClintock found traces of the missing expedition in 1859, which confirmed previous rumors of its total destruction.

3 New York World, October 21, 1888.

4 See Appendix A.

5 Could this possibly have been “in answer to prayer” as now claimed?

6 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his book, “Our American Adventures,” states:

“The original house was removed by pious hands and reconstructed, as I understand it, at Lily Dale. It is not generally known that when it was pulled down or it may have been before, the bones of the murdered peddler and his tin box were discovered buried in the cellar, as was stated in the original rappings. The rappings were in 1848, the discovery in 1903. What have our opponents to say to this?”

According to Margaret Fox’s confession, Doyle’s statements are misleading and contrary to the facts.

7 There were three investigations by competent investigators. One in Buffalo by medical doctors, one in Philadelphia by the Seybert Commission of the University of Pennsylvania, and one in Boston by a committee of professors from Harvard University. Any one of the three would have resulted disastrously for the medium had the conditions and requirements demanded by the investigators been complied with. A suspicion was well founded in the minds of the investigators as to the actual solution of the problem, but they were not permitted to proceed to a finish, the mediums hedging each time when a crucial test was proposed.

8 I have been warned while writing this book to be careful regarding my statement of the confession of Margaret Fox. I am also fully aware of the fact that Dr. Funk writes in his book, “The Widow’s Mite”:

“Margaret Fox, not long before her death, confessed that she and her sister had duped the public. This unfortunate woman had sunk so low that for five dollars she would have denied her own mother and sworn to anything. At that time her affidavit for or against anything should not be given the slightest weight.”

Mr. W. S. Davis, himself a practicing medium, who knew Margaret Fox Kane personally, wrote me:

“One would think that Margaret Fox got drunk, and in that condition, was induced to confess that she was a fraud, but when she became sober she renounced her confession. That is what we would think to hear some Spiritualists talk. She was sober when the made her confession; she was sober when she appeared in the theatre and gave her exposé. In fact she was usually sober. She drank considerably during the later years of her life, and often drank too much, but usually she was sober. One of her reasons for drinking was that her hypocrisy had become more and more distasteful to her. Living a constant lie got on her nerves, and, when the later years came, she didn’t have the same degree of vital force that she had in her younger days to battle off the dictates of her conscience.”

9 New York World, October 22, 1888.

10 From Ruben Briggs Davenport’s “The Death Blow to Spiritualism.”

11 Ibid.

12 These statements are fully corroborated by letters on file in my library and I consider it not only a privilege, but a duty as well to truthfully present them here.

13 Ira, the surviving brother, was so touched by this little act that he taught me the famous Davenport rope-tie, the secret of which had been so well kept that not even his sons knew it.

14 It was in Paris too that the other brother, William Henry Harrison Davenport, met the great Adah Isaacs Menken, called the “Bengal Tiger,” and though not generally known she later became his wife. She was considered one of the “Ten Super-Women of the World.” She was born within a few miles of New Orleans, La., in 1835. Upon the death of her father she embarked on her stage career and instantaneously won success.... She made her first appearance in New York City at the National Theatre in 1860. She was married a number of times. Her first marriage was to John C. Heenan, the prize fighter, better known as “Benicia Boy.” She was the first woman to do the Mazeppa in tights, playing the rôle both in America and Europe. While in London she became the literary and professional star of the hour and her hotel was the meeting place for such men as Charles Dickens, Swinburne, Alexander Dumas, Charles Reade, Watts Phillips, John Oxenford, The Duke of Hamilton and many others. She wrote a book of poems named “Infelicity,” which she dedicated to Charles Dickens. She had a penchant for being photographed with many of her admirers and there is a rare photograph of her and Swinburne which he tried hard to suppress. Another famous one is of Dumas and the fair lady.

15 They were married in London during March, 1866.

16 Long after Ira died his only daughter, Zellie, a well known actress, told me that while her father and I were so absorbed in discussing and experimenting with the rope trick she and her mother cautiously slipped behind the curtains and watched us through the bedroom window.

17 Ira told me that at first they used to work unbound in a corner of the room with a curtain to conceal their methods. At one of their seances they were asked if the Spirits would work if the Brothers allowed themselves to be tied. This led them to try out different rope methods, gradually developing the one used all over the world which Ira taught me, saying smilingly after he had done so: “Houdini, we started it, you finish it.”

18 I had the honor of being instrumental in launching and directing Dean Kellar’s farewell at the Hippodrome in New York City and he selected me to be his last assistant. As a part of the performance he presented with some table tipping what he called the “Davenport Cabinet and Rope Mystery.” After the performance he walked to the footlights and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am finished giving performances to-night. As I will have no further use for the cabinet and table I publicly present them to my dear friend Houdini.”

In this cabinet, made in imitation of the one used by the Davenport Brothers, the benches are fitted into a groove making it possible for them to be slipped out in case of an extra severe tie-up, giving enough freedom to ring bells and do a number of other things without releasing the hands in the usual way. This is something of an improvement in mystery cabinets.

19 They rubbed vaseline into their hands and wrists to facilitate their movements. The rope generally used was similar to the Silver Lake sash cord.

20 It was sometimes claimed that after their demonstrations were over the Davenports turned the papers and remarked them. This Ira said was a deliberate lie as they never left their places throughout the entire performance.

21 At one of their seances a man tied the brothers so tightly that it was necessary for them to make a desperate struggle to effect a release. The next night the man tried a more difficult test, simply laying the ropes all over their bodies, but the Davenports worked so slowly, deftly, and with such inexhaustible patience that they saved their reputation.

22 Nor did he hesitate to tell me that he sometimes used as many as ten confederates at a seance for protection.

23 William Fay, in order to be prepared for an emergency, always carried a piece of rope in his mandolin, and boasted to his partners:

“I’ll not chaw the ropes like you fellows, I’ll cut.”

24 The original cabinet of the Davenports, made of bird’s-eye maple, was pawned for thirty pounds in Cuba many years ago and is still there.

25 In order to prove to the public that they did not make use of their hands test conditions were imposed by filling both the brothers’ hands with flour and then tying them behind their backs. Almost every publication that has written an exposé of the Davenport Brothers claims with glee that the trick was performed by putting flour into their pockets from which they took a fresh handful after the manifestations were finished and pretending that their hands were clenched all the time. It is claimed that once a committeeman instead of placing flour in their hands filled them with snuff and after the manifestations had been performed they had their hands fulls of flour. Ira told me that this was a deliberate lie as they did not need to get rid of the flour in their hands as they could do all the tricks with their hands clenched using the free thumb.

26 The levitation act which has helped to swell the ranks of the Spiritualists and which mystified scientist and laymen alike, was one of the simplest deceptions ever practiced on the guileless masses by cunning mediums. A reformed medium in Bristol, England, told me that he would endeavor to free himself from his restraints, and by deft manipulations managed to pick up a person who sat in a chair nearby. Although the sitter had only been lifted a few inches from the floor he believed in all good faith that his head had actually brushed the ceiling, this impression being created by the medium gently passing his hand over the top of the sitter’s head.

27 As to the delusion of sound. Sound waves are deflected just as light waves are reflected by the intervention of a proper medium and under certain conditions it is a difficult thing to locate their source. Stuart Cumberland told me an interesting test to prove the inability of a blindfolded person to trace sound to its source. It is exceedingly simple; merely clicking two coins over the head of the blindfolded person.

28 This refers to our contemplated tour of the world. When I first became acquainted with Ira Davenport in 1909 I found that he was very anxious to re-enter the entertainment field and we set about planning a tour of the world together. By combining his reputation and my knowledge and experience we would have been able to set the world agog. Under no circumstances, however, would we have claimed our performance Spiritualistic, but just a mystery entertainment.

29 The start of the Liverpool riot can be laid indirectly to Ferguson. He protested the way the boys had been secured and without waiting for instructions or a word from the Brothers, whipped out a knife and cut the ropes. Ira told me that it was too bad that Ferguson did that for they never could have secured them so they could not have produced some manifestations.

30 Ira told me that during the disturbance in Liverpool, John Hughes, Fenian head, offered him five hundred Irishmen to clean up any mob of Englishmen.

31 Ira told me that he believed that their success so diminished the popularity of the theatre where Irving was playing that the stars were forced to resort to various schemes to counteract the dwindling receipts at the box office.

See Appendix B for Irving’s speech.

32 The reader should not confuse this man Jacobs with Jacoby, the German escape-artist, a rope specialist who invented a number of rope tricks that are still well worth presenting.

33 He wrote me a letter on July 5th, 1911, and was waiting to see me at the time of his death on the 8th. I was to leave New York on receipt of his letter but his daughter Zelie wired me of his passing away.

34 When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was appearing in Australia in 1920 he met Bendigo Rymer, the grandson of J. S. Rymer, who had entertained Home lavishly. Bendigo showed Sir Arthur a number of letters from his grandfather which proved conclusively that Home had been guilty of taking advantage of the man’s friendship. Rymer had entertained Home in England and sent him to Rome with his son to study art. From Rome young Rymer wrote his father that as soon as Home had been able to elbow his way into society he totally ignored him though as host he was paying Home’s expenses. Finally Home ran away and lived with a titled English woman, shunning Rymer altogether.

Sir Arthur in his book, “The Wanderings of a Spiritualist,” says in reference to Home: “For weeks he lived at her villa, although the state of his health would suggest that it was rather as a patient than a lover.” In his introduction to Madame Home’s book Sir Arthur entirely forgives this rude action of Home and strongly defends his base ingratitude.

35 Home, the Spiritualist, is giving readings in Boston. Has he given up his Spiritualism in disgust at finding that people who strained at his manifestations have swallowed the Davenports? We are glad to think he has adopted an honest profession at last, and we hope before long to see his rivals rising to sweeping a crossing or something as respectable.—London Fun, 1864.

36 “Incidents in My Life,” London, 1863—“Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism,” 1877.

37 It is quite unnecessary for me to repeat the many proofs of fraud perpetrated by Home, but if the reader is interested he will find many such cases reported by Mr. Frank Podmore in “Modern Spiritualism,” London, 1902, and “Newer Spiritualism,” London, 1910. Mr. Podmore was a Spiritualist himself and a member of the Society of Psychical Research and would naturally make out as good a case for Home as he could honestly.

38 See Appendix F.

39 She only lived about four years.

40 In his introduction to the 1921 edition of “D. D. Home’s Life and Work,” by Madame Home, Doyle declares that he commends the book to the student, saying:

“Very especially the second series is commended to the student of Home, because in it will be found all the papers dealing with the Home-Lyon lawsuit showing conclusively how honorable was the action of Home.”

Does he wish us to infer that it was Home who brought the suit against Mrs. Lyon, rather than the opposite?

Does he wish it understood that he is sincere in his commendation of a charlatan?

Throughout the introduction he defends Home and seems to deliberately twist the history of the man.

41 It is interesting to note that Sir William Crookes, the eminent scientist, who must have known of the history and character of Home as unveiled at the Lyon trial, should have permitted himself to fall within the mesh of D. D. Home.

42 Taking for granted that the committee in the room was not able to see or permitted to leave the table the method Home could have used with the greatest ease was: first actually get out of the window, or pretend to; then, go back and noiselessly crawl on all fours through the door into the next room and shake the window; and lastly, boldly return to the first room, closing the door with a bang.

There is a possibility that a man of Home’s audacity with levitation feats might have resorted to swinging from one window to another, which means nothing to any acrobat with a wire properly placed in readiness.

The idea of Home losing his physical weight and floating out of the window head first is merely a suggestion of his, a ruse which is still being used by mediums.

43 See Appendix C for Lord Adare’s story.

44 There are numerous versions of the cause of his death. Mme. Blavatsky, who made a special investigation of the deaths of prominent mediums, wrote: “This Calvin of Spiritualism suffered for years from a terrible spinal disease, brought on through his intercourse with the ‘Spirits,’ and died a perfect wreck.”—“Key to Theosophy,” 1890.

45 Table lifting was a strong card with her.

46 “She was taken in a menial position into a family given to Spiritualistic practices. Being called one day to make up the circle at a seance, certain new and surprising manifestations took place, and she was pronounced to be a medium. So it appears that the Spiritualists actually pushed her into the matter, and she immediately took advantage of the opportunity.”—Proceedings, Society for Psychical Research, November, 1909, pp. 311, 312.

47 Robert Owen, Prof. Hare, Prof. Challis, Prof. Zollner, Prof. Weber, and Lombroso were all near the end of their lives when they embraced Spiritualism.—See “Spiritualism,” by Joseph McCabe, page 207.

48 Another adroit method of freeing one hand when the sitter thinks he has evidence that the two hands of the medium are being kept busy, is for the medium to keep up a continuous clapping of the hands, working the hands near the face or some other exposed part of the body and simply change the clapping of one hand against another to the clapping of one hand against the body. In the dark the effect is the same and the sitter believes that both the medium’s hands are busily engaged in clapping.

49 Not difficult to accomplish in the dark.

50 Mr. Baggally had a reputation as a conjuror and I think he has done much in the way of exposing mediums. He is also a believer in telepathy and has recently published a book on that subject, “Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent,” Chicago, 1918.

51 The “human-clamp” is one of the simplest and yet one of the most effective and mystifying means of table levitation. The medium and her subjects place the tips of their fingers on the top of the table lightly. The medium gently rocks the table back and forth until she gets it in a correct position to place her foot, or the hem of her dress, under one of the legs. When she perfects her position she presses down with the hand above the table leg that is resting on her foot. From then on it is only a matter of raising the foot to whatever height she wishes the table to rise. If she wants it levitated to a great height, she gives it an upward kick and then withdraws her foot, and the table rises and falls true to the laws of gravitation.

52 At one time during the series of tests in New York City, a man from Philadelphia, Mr. Edgar Scott, who was standing in the background, took advantage of the darkness and crawled along the floor to the cabinet and attempted to grab Eusapia’s foot while she was using it for trick purposes but just as his hand touched her foot Eusapia had a spasm of screeching. Professors Jastrow and Miller were witnesses of this fact.

53 Palladino wanted her own interpreter, also a personal friend, but that obstacle was avoided. Neither was her business manager, Mr. Hereward Carrington, present on this particular occasion.

54 The full details of this seance were published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Section “B,” August, 1910.

55 In an interview with Walter Littlefield, a noted journalist, Palladino revealed three methods by which she was able to employ substitution in regard to hands at the table, four in regard to foot substitution, half a dozen methods of table levitation, several ways of producing knocks, two ways in which she produced the illusion of a current of air coming from her forehead. She told him that she was not annoyed when caught practicing tricks, nor did she deny their use when caught. She said to him, “All mediums indulge in tricks—all.” She also told him that she was a good Catholic, went to Mass, made her confession, and said she hated to hear people talk about “super-normal,” or “supernatural” phenomena.

The famous “current of air from the forehead” which Mr. Littlefield mentions was simply her breath blown with force and diverted by her under lip.

56 I am informed on good authority that Eusapia threw her legs into the laps of her male sitters! That she placed her head upon their shoulders, and did various other things calculated to confuse and muddle men, all of which was explained on the theory of “hysteria.” In her younger days Eusapia was a buxom woman and it is not strange that a lot of old scientists were badly flabbergasted by such conduct.

57 See Appendix D.

58 I have a full record of the proceedings in my reference file.

59 In order to prove that fraud and trickery were the tools which had been used in fleecing the unwary, magicians were induced to appear in evidence, and on May 27, 1888, Alexander Hermann gave a public Demonstration at the Academy of Music in New York City for the purpose of duplicating the phenomena produced by Diss Debar and as an aid to the New York Press Club Fund.

The audience included many prominent people and notables including Col. Cockerell; Edward S. Stokes, of the Hoffman House; Joseph Howard; District Attorney Fellows; Ex-Judge Donohue; Lawyer Newcombe; Judge Hilton; Luther R. Marsh; and “Dr.” Lawrence, one of the attaches of the Diss Debar Temple.

Professor Hermann read spirit messages, did table tipping, cabinet, light seance, and produced spook pictures, finishing with a dark seance of ghostly music and materializations.

60 New York Times, April 21, 1888.

61 New York World, June 18, 1888.

62 When the London press was full of sensational stories following the arrest of Laura and Theodore Jackson, Carl Hertz, on picking up his paper one morning, was astonished to recognize the woman who had lured young girls into joining her immoral cult as Ann O’Delia Diss Debar, with whom he had measured swords at the Marsh trial. He got in touch with Scotland Yard immediately and gave it all the information he had regarding Diss Debar’s connection with fraud activities.

63 “Miss Croisdale, who was one of the victims, testified that she had been initiated into the ‘Theocratic Unity,’ the sect which the Jacksons claimed to head, with a rope fastened about her; passes were made over her, she said, with a lamp, water and a saw: Jackson told her that he was Christ re-incarnated. Miss Croisdale then described the oath in which she swore she would allow no one else to hypnotize her and she would keep all the secrets under the penalty of ‘submitting myself to a deadly and hostile current of will set in motion by the Chief of the order, with which I would be slain or paralyzed without visible weapons, as if blasted by lightning.’ Mrs. Jackson (or Diss Debar) looked as if she wished to carry out the threat on the spot. Miss Croisdale further testified that Theodore had outraged her in his wife’s presence. Jackson declared he was physically incapable and demanded a doctor’s examination to prove his statement.”—Dispatch from the London Times in the New York Sun, October 11, 1901.

64 Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1906.

65 New York Sun, October 11, 1901.

66 If alive she is now (1924) seventy-five years old.

67 See Appendix E for Police Record.

68 If the reader cares to look the matter up I would refer him to Podmore’s “Modern Spiritualism,” Vol. II, pages 204 and 221; also to the story of Dr. Slade in the same volume; to the proceedings of the American S. P. R., Vol. II, part I, pages 17, 36–59; to Abbot’s, “Behind the Scenes with Mediums,” pages 114 to 192; to “Revelations of a Spirit Medium,” page 121–157; to “Bottom Facts,” pages 143–159; to the Report of the Seybert Commission; “Spirit Slate Writing,” by Wm. E. Robinson, and newspaper exposures without number.

69 According to “The Medium and Daybreak,” October 6, 1876, Slade “discovered” the phenomena of slate-writing while experimenting at the private house of Mr. Gardiner Knapp, New Albany, Indiana, where Slade was visiting.

70 As he reached for the sponge, which had been placed purposely on centre of table, he held slate just below range of vision and with the reaching for sponge, twisted slate around, blank side on top and pretended to wipe off the sentence he had “read”—when in fact he had written something entirely different.

71 In regard to involuntary and subconscious table rapping and tapping: Some people rap and tip table in all seances of table tipping and rapping. I have attended seances where I have caught some one obligingly cheating to relieve the monotony, and the imposition once started is forced to be kept up.

72 Coined by Andrew Jackson Davis, in 1845, and meaning the hereafter. Now used frequently by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

73 See Appendix F.

74 In those days there were no dry plates and with the old “wet” plates it was quite possible to expose a plate, develop it, and then prepare it again and expose it the second time. When this was done both pictures appeared in the print. Such a plate could be used under the strictest test conditions without detection.

75 In speaking of Spirit photography, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle usually brings up as proof positive, that his fairy photographs are genuine. According to the London Star, December 20, 1921, there were many interesting developments regarding these:

“Messrs. Price and Sons, the well known firm of candle makers, inform us that the fairies in this photograph are an exact reproduction of a famous poster they have used for years, to advertise their night lights.

“‘I admit on these fairies there are wings, whereas our fairies have no wings,’ said a representative of the firm to a Star