March 14, 2025 • 43 mins
Harry Houdini is remembered today for his legendary escapes and illusions, but he also had a lifelong obsession with the paranormal. After dabbling in fake seances himself, Houdini made it his mission to uncover frauds and expose mediums. This would put him on a collision course with his spiritualist friend, Arthur Conan Doyle, and leave him fearing for his life.
This is the first of a three-part series.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin In summer nineteen twenty two outside the Ambassador Hotel
in Atlantic City, New Jersey, two of the world's most
famous men are relaxing in deck chairs with their wives.
(00:36):
One man is famous for his astonishing escapes from handcuffs,
strait jackets, orb and buried alive Harry Houdini, the world's
greatest mystifier. The other man is Sir Arthur Coman Doyle,
famous for his novels about the world's greatest solver of mysteries,
(00:57):
Sherlock Holmes. Has the celebrated detective like to say, when
you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not only a
famous author, but also the best known advocate for the
new religion of Spiritualism. That religion is growing quickly. Spiritualist
(01:23):
mediums say they can pass on messages from departed loved ones,
and the world has no shortage of bereaved relatives. The
Great War and the Spanish Flu have cut down swathes
of young people, including Sir Arthur's son. Sir Arthur has
no doubt whatsoever that it's possible to communicate with the dead,
(01:48):
Houdini is keenly interested in whether or not that's true.
A couple of years earlier, Sir Arthur had seen Houdini's
show and invited him for lunch. They've been friends ever since.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Houdini, if agreeable, Lady Doyle will give you a special seance,
as she has a feeling, but she might have a
message come through at any rate she is willing to try.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The message in question would be from Houdini's mother, whose
death nine years earlier had devastated the great magician. As
Houdini once said.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
If God, in his infinite wisdom, ever sent an angel
upon earth in human form, it was my mother.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Houdini had always been a mother's boy, even as a
grown adult. He liked to lie with his head on
her breast to listen to her heartbeat. In the weeks
before her death, it had some strange sense of foreboding.
Visiting his father's grave, Houdini suddenly felt an urge to
(02:59):
lie down in the dirt. What on earth are you doing,
asked his brother. I want to lie on the spot
where our mother will one day rest. Houdini replied, for
goodness sake, said his brother, don't be so morose. But
their mother too may have had a premonition. As Harry
(03:22):
boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic for a month's
long tour of Europe, she whispered, perhaps I won't be
here when you return. Then again, she said that every
time he went away. Hoodini was just about to go
on stage in Copenhagen when he got a telegram. He
(03:44):
slipped it in his pocket. No time to read it.
Now the show was a triumph, the after party in
full swing. When Houdini remembered the telegram and took it
from his pocket. His mother was dead a stroke, aged
(04:05):
seventy two. Houdini promptly fainted. When he came back around,
he canceled the rest of his tour and took the
first ship back to New York, where he spent night
after night, week after week, sitting solemnly by his mother's grave.
(04:28):
I can't seem to get over it, he wrote to
his brother.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I believe in a hereafter, Houdini later said, And no
greater blessing could be bestowed upon me than the opportunity
once again to speak to my sainted mother.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And so on the beach in Atlantic City. So Arthur
Conan Noyle turns to Houdini's wife, Bess.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
You understand, missus Houdini, that this will be a test
to see whether we can make any spirit come through
for Houdini, and conditions may prove better if no other forces.
You do not mind if we make the experiment without you.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Go write ahead, Sir Arthur.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I will leave Houdini in your charge.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So Arthur and his wife lead Houdini to their suite
in the Ambassador Hotel. They draw the curtains and invite
Houdini to sit with them around the table, on which
is placed a pencil and pad of paper. The three
of them sit with their hands on the table until
Lady Doyle's hands begin to.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Shake spirits, do you have a message?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Lady Doyle's whole body begins to convulse, her hands thumb
on the table. Then she grabs the pencil and starts
to write. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales.
(06:32):
This is the first in a series of three cautionary
tales about Harry Houdini and the afterlife. We're going to
go with Houdini on a journey from that seance in
Atlantic City, a journey that will take him in front
of lawmakers in Washington, d c make him powerful enemies,
cost him a friendship and a fortune, and leave him
(06:56):
fearing for his life.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
They're going to kill me.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That's to come. Our story starts in eighteen seventy four
when Harry Dani was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Or that
was the story he liked to tell. It wasn't true.
The baby boy who would become Harry Houdini was born
Eric Weiss in Budapest in what was then the Austro
(07:25):
Hungarian Empire. Eric was four years old when his father
took the family to America. They settled in Appleton, where
Eric's dad had friends who installed him as the local rabbi.
Young Eric developed a strange fascination with locks. He went
(07:46):
around the house using a button hook to pick the
locks of drawers and closets. When he ran out of
locks at home, he sneaked out one night and worked
his way down the town's main street, picking the locks
on the doors to every shop. Here's another story Hudini
(08:06):
liked to tell. At age eleven, he worked as an
apprentice in the town's locksmith shop. One day, the sheriff
came in with a handcuffed prisoner that had come from
the courthouse. This man's been let off, the sheriff explained,
But I can't find the key to the cuffs. Can
(08:26):
you get them off him? The locksmith handed Eric a
hack saw and said, you do it. I'll go for
a beer with the sheriff. Eric was left alone in
the shop with the burly, rough looking prisoner. He worked
away at the handcuffs that the hack saw blade made
(08:46):
no impression in the steel. Then the blade snapped, and
so did the prisoner. You're lucky you didn't cut me up.
Soaring through the cuffs would take forever, and Eric really
didn't want to find out what would happen if he
did cut the prisoner up. Might button hook work handcuff
(09:09):
locks must be harder to pick than those of drawers
and closets and shop doors, but it was worth a go.
Eric found a loop of piano wire and improvised a hook.
He poked and probed, wiggled and jiggled. This was harder
to pick than all those other locks, but after a
(09:30):
minute the cuff popped open. The eleven year old boy
and the big, burly prisoner looked at each other in astonishment.
Eric got to work on the other cuff that came
off more quickly. Then the shop door opened. Back came
the locksmith and the sheriff. Eric quickly hid his piano wire.
(09:54):
All the locksmith saw was that the handcuffs were off.
Well done, Eric said the locksmith, good work. Much later,
after his handcuff escapes had made him famous, who do
you like to say that only two people had ever
seen how he got the handcuffs off, his wife Bess,
(10:16):
and a rough looking prisoner he'd met when he was
eleven and never saw again. Ladied Oil scribbled furiously on
the pad of paper. She was channeling the spirit of
Houdini's mother. As she reached the end of the page,
(10:37):
so Arthur tore it from the pad and solemnly handed
it to Houdini. He began to read.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Oh, my darling, thank God, thank God, At last time
through I've tried oh so often, I want to talk
to my boy, my own beloved boy.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The message began with a sketch of a crucifix. Curious thought, Harry,
has my mother, the rabbi's wife converted to Christianity in
the afterlife? He keeps reading, I'm so.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Happy in this life. It is so full and joyous.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
It is so different over here, so much larger and
bigger and more beautiful, so lofty, all sweetness around.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
One and another thing. Why is she writing in English?
Houdini's mum had been well educated in the Austro Hungarian Empire.
She spoke five languages. English was not among them, and
in all her years in America, she'd never felt the
(11:58):
need to learn Why bother she thought everyone she knew
spoke German. Had she finally decided it was important to
learn English now that she was dead.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I always read my beloved son's mind, his dear mind.
There is so much I want to say to him,
But I am almost overwhelmed by this joy of talking
to him once more.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So much she wants to say, she says, and yet
she isn't actually saying any of it. Nothing personal, nothing
that only a mother would know. She doesn't even mention
that today would have been her birthday. If she'd read
his mind, she'd know he'd been thinking about that. No,
(12:52):
it's just page after page of this generic, breathless burbling
about how much she loves him and looks over him,
and how happy she is with the afterlife. And how
happy he'll be when he joins her.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Oh so happy, a happiness awaits him that he has
never dreamed of. Tell him I am with him?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What an absolute load of twaddle, thinks Houdini. Did Lady
Doyle really believe she'd been channeling the thoughts of Houdini's mother.
It seemed so, but who could tell. According to Bess,
Lady Doyle had earlier been asking a lot of questions
(13:39):
about Houdini and his mum. Sir Arthur, though, had no
doubts at all. He was a true believer. He looked
at Houdini with pleasure and pride. He was convinced that
he had given his friend the greatest of gifts. A
message from his beloved mother proved positive that she lived
(14:03):
beyond the grave. Houdini liked Sir Arthur. He didn't want
to say what he was really thinking, so he smiled
politely cautionary tales will be back. After the break In Appleton,
(14:34):
Wisconsin in the eighteen eighties, things were not going well
for young Eric Weiss's family. Eric's dad, the rabbi, lost
his job. His growing congregation, it seemed, wanted someone more
in tune with the America that had come to than
the Europe had left behind. Possibly they weren't impressed that
(14:58):
the rabbi, like his wife, hadn't bothered to learn any English.
The family moved to Milwaukee, then to New York, but
work was hard to come by for German speaking old
school rabbis in failing health. Teenage, Eric chipped into the
family finances doing any job he could. He was a
(15:21):
shoe shiner, a newspaper seller, a delivery boy. When he
wasn't earning money, he was a boxer, a runner, a swimmer.
He trained himself to contort his body. He read every
book on magic he could find, and he put on
any act he could in any show that would have him.
(15:44):
He was the trapeze artist, Eric the Prince of the Air.
He was the card magician Eric the Great. Then he
was half of the brothers Houdini, doing a trick he'd
learned from a book. First, the brothers Houdini asked volunteers
from the crowd to come on stage. Lend us your jacket.
(16:07):
They asked one Harry, as Eric had now renamed himself,
put on the jacket. The volunteers tied him up with ropes.
They put him in a sack. They tied up the sack.
They put him in a trunk, and they locked the trunk. Now,
said Harry's brother, watch closely. He pulled a curtain in
(16:30):
front of himself and the trunk. He clapped once. From
behind the curtain, he clapped twice. On the third clap,
the curtain was thrown aside by Harry, who'd escaped from
the trunk. Harry and the volunteers unlocked the trunk, untied
(16:51):
the sack, and out of its stepped Harry's brother, trussed
up in just the same way Harry had been a
mere few seconds before. They untied the ropes, and yes,
Harry's brother was wearing the first volunteers jacket. The Brothers
Houdini took their act to Coney Island, where they shared
(17:15):
a stage with performing Monkey's Morbidly Obese Women, clowns, and
a singer.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Russy Sweet Rose a bell I'll off for more.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Than I can tell.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
She casts a spell.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Harry was twenty, Bess was eighteen. In three weeks they
were married. Is three weeks long enough to really get
to know someone. I know that your father passed on,
says Harry to his new wife. But I still don't
know his first name. No, wait, don't tell me. Write
(18:03):
it on this piece of paper. Don't show me. Now,
crumple up the paper and put it in the stove.
Now you see. I take the ashes of the crumpled paper,
rub them on my forearm, and Harry shows Bess's arm.
(18:24):
Her father's name is written on it in blood red letters.
Bess turns white as she suddenly remembers the folklore she'd
been taught as a child.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
The devil, disguised as a handsome young man, lured girls
to destruction. It was clear to me that I had
married the devil.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Bess screams and runs out of the door. Harry bursts out,
laughing and races after her, calms her down, brings her home,
gets out his magic book and shows her exactly how
the trick was done. Soon, the brothers Houdini have become
(19:16):
the Houdinis. It's Bess who's pulled out of the sack
in the trunk. Audiences love it, but it's over all
too quickly. It can't sustain a show on its own.
Harry and Bess go on tour with a circus, and
Harry picks up every skill he can from his fellow
(19:37):
acts from a man who has no arms. He learns
how to use his toes as dexterously as his fingers.
He learns how to swallow needles and a thread and
regurgitate them with a thread through the needles. He starts
to do escapes from handcuffs. That life on the road
(19:59):
is a struggle. Harry and Bess trek from one obscure
small town to another. They're never earning enough. Nothing they
try really catches fire, until at last they stumble across
and act that they're brilliant at that causes a sensation.
(20:25):
In Garnet, Kansas, in eighteen ninety seven, over a thousand
people are crammed into the Grand Opera House. That's one
in six of the town's entire population, the largest audience
ever to fill the building. Twenty three year old Harry
(20:45):
Houdini is who they've come to see because Harry Houdini,
according to the headline in the local newspaper, is apparently
a world famous medium. Houdini takes to the stage.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Allow me to introduce my assistant, Mademoiselle Beatrice, a trained
cycle pometric clairvoyant.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Bess settles herself in a chair lets out a groan
and slumps forward.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
She is in a trance state.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
The world famous medium had earlier prepared for the show
by walking around the cemetery in Garnet with a notebook
reading the gravestones. One freshly dug grave belonged to a
boy called Joe Osborne. He had recently died at the
age of six.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
A little boy, says Bess in her trance state.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
He's six years old. His name is Joe's a message
for his parents.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Does anyone know a little Joel?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
A murmur goes round the crowd. The Osborne's are the
Osborne's here? It seems not. Someone rushes out of their
home to fetch them.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
What is the message from little Joel?
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Joe says he is in a happy place, and he says.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Don't cry, mama, There'll be another one soon to take
my place.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Joe's dad is furious. How the hell did you know
my wife is pregnant. We haven't told anyone yet. If
the crowd had stopped to think, they might have realized
it wasn't hard to guess that a bereaved young couple
might try for another child. But Houdini simply shrugs and
(23:03):
modestly reminds them that ma'amoiselle Beatrice is a trained clairvoyant.
After all, Now, says Houdini, I understand there's recently been
a murder in your town. The crowd don't need reminding.
Just a few weeks earlier, a local woman called Anna
(23:24):
was found dead in her home, bleeding from the head.
The sheriff hasn't solved the case, but Houdini says he
can unmask the murderer because.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
You cannot hide an nefarious deed from her spirits.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
He turns to Bess, still slumped in her chair.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Was Anna murdered in her own home?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
With what instrument?
Speaker 5 (24:02):
She was hacked seventeen times with a butcher's knife?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Did she know her killer?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
What is the killer's name?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Bess was silent.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Answer now, what is his name?
Speaker 6 (24:23):
His name is ash.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
With a fearsome wail, Bess throws her hands in the
air and collapses back on her chair.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
She's fainted. Is there a doctor in the house?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
The case of Anna's murderer, Alas would have to remain unsolved.
That the people of Garnets have never experienced an evening
like this. Harry Houdini has had them eating from the
palm of his hand. At this rate, he actually could
become a world famous medium. Harry and Bess, after years
(25:06):
of struggle, have finally hit upon an act that promises
to make their fortune, but they decide they can't keep
doing it. Harry is haunted by the looks on the
faces of the Osborns. He'd been playing with their emotions,
exploiting their grief. It's not right. Harry and Bess give
(25:32):
up the medium act and go back to scraping a
living with their magic tricks. The thing about magic, Harry says,
is that you don't have to lie. You tell the
audience you're going to deceive them, and you do. Unlike
pretending you can raise the dead, magic is an honest
(25:52):
way to make a living. A quarter century later, in
nineteen twenty two, a few months have passed since the
say Aunt's in Atlantic City, where Ladied Oil channeled the
spirit of Houdini's dead mum. The New York Son asks
(26:14):
Houdini to write an article about his thoughts on contacting
the dead.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
My mind is open. I am perfectly willing to believe,
but I have never seen or heard anything that could
convince me that there is a passibility of communication with
the loved ones who have gone beyond.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
When a copy of The New York Sun finds its
way to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he's outraged, or, as
he writes to Houdini.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I felt rather sore about it.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
You see, he tells Houdini, he knows from experience the
purity of his wife's mediumship. He reminds Houdini of that
utterly convincing message Lady Doyle had received from his mum
in Atlantic City.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
I saw what you got and what the affe effect
was upon you at the time.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Houdini, it seems, had been a little too convincing with
the politeness of his smile. Cautionary tales will be back.
After the break, the young lovers Harry and Bess struggled
(27:38):
on with the traveling circus. Harry would try his hand
at anything except pretending to raise the dead. He was
the Wizard of Shackles, the King of Cards. He briefly
did a turn filling in as the wild Man of
Mexico in a cage, growling and eating raw meat. Harry's
(28:02):
brother in law gently offered a way out. I know
people at the Yale lock factory said, it's a bit
steady work. If things are no better in a year,
Harry told Bess, I'll take the job. Whenever the circus
arrived in a new town, Houdini would present himself at
(28:23):
the local police station challenged the police to handcuff him
and escape. It would usually get him a few lines
in the town's paper. But when he did it in Chicago,
everything changed completely unexpectedly for Harry Houdini. The Chicago Journal
(28:43):
put him on the front page Amazes. The detectives read
the headline with a flattering illustration of Houdini and the handcuffs.
The publicity bumped him up to the top of the bill.
It was the big break Houdini had been waiting for.
Fame begets fame if you work at it, Whodini did.
(29:07):
He kept upping the an. He'd escape from being buried
alive under six feet of dirt. He'd be handcuffed on
a bridge and tossed into the river below. He'd be
put in a straight jacket and dangled upside down from
a tall building. Most impressive of all was the Chinese
water torture cell. Houdini invited volunteers onto the stage to
(29:32):
inspect his cell, a steel and mahogany cabinet standing five
and a half feet tall with a glass panel on
the front. The volunteers filled it up with buckets of water,
while Fundini's legs were locked into wooden stocks.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
How long can you hold your breath?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
He asked the audience.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I challenge you to hold your breath along with me.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Houdini was handcuffed, hoisted upside down, and lowered headfirst into
the cabinet, the water sploshing over the sides. A curtain
was drawn in front of the cell. The band began
to play. Time ticked by one by one. Audience members,
(30:23):
holding their breath, gave up and exhale. Still, time ticked by,
the band kept playing. An assistant of Houdini would look
with mounting concern at the cell behind the curtain. He's
holding an axe, ready to smash the cabinet. Surely something's
gone horribly wrong. No one could hold their breath for
(30:46):
this long. Then the curtain would be thrust aside. There
was Houdini, dripping and gasping. How did he do it? It
was honest work, As Houdini said, he promised to mystify you,
(31:07):
and he did. That's the fun of a magic show.
You're mystified by exactly how the magician did it, even
though you know in general terms it's going to be
some combination of showmanship and misdirection, mechanical trickery, hidden compartments
and the like, and physical skill on the part of
(31:28):
the magician. In Houdini's case, don't underestimate the physical skill.
He really did keep himself exceptionally fit, and he wanted
you to know it.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Feel my muscles, they are like iron, he liked to say.
Or even punch me in the stomach as hard as
you like.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
But as his fame grew, Houdini faced an unusual problem.
His tricks were so confounding some people were sure he
must have had supernatural help. Since that night in at Kansas,
when Harry had disgusted himself by pretending to deliver a
(32:15):
message from a dead six year old, more and more
people had come to believe that spirits were real and powerful.
The president of the British College of Psychic Science, for instance,
one j. Hewitt Mackenzie, described seeing Harry on stage in London.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
A small iron tank filled with water was deposited upon
the stage and in it Ejudini was placed and iron
lid was securely locked. I felt a great loss of
physical energy, such as is usually experienced by sitters in
materializing seances. Houdini's body was completely dematerialized, then materialized on
(33:04):
the stage front, dripping with water.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
If I actually could do that, said an exasperated Houdini,
Trust me, I'd tell you.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I do not dematerialize or materialize anything. I simply control
and manipulate material things in a manner perfectly well understood
by myself and equally understandable by any person to whom
I may elect to divulge my secrets.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It wasn't only members of the College of Psychic Science
who doubted Houdini's insistence that he had no supernatural powers.
The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who recently had a
leg amputated, once draped her arm around Houdini's shoulder and
(33:56):
tentatively asked.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Him, Uddini, you do such marvelous things, couldn't you? Could
you bring back my leg for me? Good heavens, Madam,
certainly not. You're asking me to do the impossible.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Bernhardt leaned closer.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yes, but you do the impossible, are you?
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Justing may No, DENI, I've never been more serious in
my life.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Then there was the time he'd put on a magic
show for Teddy Roosevelt, with cards and silk handkerchiefs and
a trick sometimes used by mediums to claim to be
getting messages from the other side. He had Roosevelt write
a question on a sheet of paper, then seal it
in an envelope. Then the answer to the question appeared,
(34:55):
mysteriously chalked on a slate. The next morning. Roosevelt put
his arm around Houdini's shoulder.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Houdini, tell me the truth, man to man.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Was that genuine spiritual dualism?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Last night Roosevelt, even the famously astute former president, needed
it spelling out to him, No.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Colonel, it was hocus pocus.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Houdini became more and more frustrated by how credulous even
the sharpest minds could be, none more so than Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. We've heard in another cautionary tale all
about how the brilliant author was embarrassingly duped by children
(35:45):
who claimed to photograph fairies at the bottom of their garden.
Doyle even wrote to Houdini about the cottingly fairies.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
A fake, you will say, no, sir, I think not.
The fairies are about eight inches high. In one photo
there is a goblin dancing.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
It is a revelation.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And then HOODI he had what must have seemed like
an inspired idea. Perhaps if he could demonstrate to Sir
Arthur how easy it is to give the false impression
of supernatural powers, he might persuade his friend to be
a little more skeptical in future. At his home in
(36:31):
New York, Harry Houdini presented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with
a blank black slate, a perfectly ordinary slate. You agree,
Sir Arthur. We shall hang it from the ceiling so
it can't be interfered with, and cork balls. Choose one
(36:51):
at random, cut through it pure cork, you see. Now
choose another, and put it in this ink well so
it can soak up white ink. Now, take a slip
of paper, you have a pencil. Go outside, said Houdini,
Walk anyway.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
You like so you won't be observed, and write on
that slip of paper a question or a phrase, anything
you like.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Sir Arthur walked outside, found a quiet spot and wrote
an Aramaic phrase from the Bible, mene mene tekel Upharsin.
He walked back to Houdini's house. Take this spoon, said Houdini.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Lift the cork boar from the ink well and touch
it to the left side of the slate.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It stuck, then slowly it started moving, apparently of its
own accord, writing in white ink on the black slate,
Mayne mayne tekel Upharsin. Houdini turned to Sir Arthur.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
I won't tell you how I did it, but I
can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it
by perfectly normal means. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur,
do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you
see are necessarily supernatural or the work of spirits, just
(38:27):
because you cannot explain them.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Unfortunately, Houdini's demonstration had the exact opposite effect to the
one he had intended. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle left Houdini's
house utterly convinced that Houdini had supernatural powers and was
lying about it. Remember what Sir Arthur liked his protagonist
(38:52):
Cherlock Holmes to say, when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But when
a credulous mind meets an accomplished mystifier, Holmes's aphorism breaks down.
Sir Arthur simply couldn't tell where the improbable ended and
(39:15):
the impossible began. Over the years, Harry Houdini had been
many things, Eric, Prince of the Air, the handcuff King.
Now approaching the age of fifty, he took on his
last and greatest role, a champion of critical thinking. He
(39:39):
published a book, A Magician among the Spirits, in which
he introduced an aphorism of his own.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
The simple fact that the thing looks mysterious does not
signify anything beyond the necessity of analytic investigation for a
fuller understanding.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It may not be as pithy as Sherlock Holmes on
the improbable and the impossible, but as a guide for
clear thinking, perhaps it's better something seems strange, don't assume
it's supernatural, Engage your brain instead. Houdini introduced a new
(40:22):
element to his sellout shows. Alongside the tricks and the escapes,
he'd expose fraudulent local mediums who cynically preyed on those
made vulnerable by grief. He even tried to get the
law changed to have them thrown in prison, as we'll
hear about in the next episode of Cautionary Tales. One
(40:47):
night after a performance, a woman came up to him.
I'm from Garnet, Kansas. She said, I was in the
audience at the show you did twenty six years ago.
Houdini said, do you know the osbald I see a
little boy, the Osborne. His name is Why. Yes. They've
(41:09):
moved to California, but have their address.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
She has a message for his parents.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Houdini took the address and wrote the Osborne's a long
letter of apology. This episode relied on biographies including The
Secret Life of Houdini by William Callush and Larry Slowman,
(41:36):
and Houdini and Conan Doyle by Christopher Sandford. For a
full list of our sources, see the show notes at
Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales as written by me Tim
(41:56):
Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly. It's
produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design
and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional
soundersign is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio Bend
and Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice
(42:17):
talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah jupp
Messeam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The show also
wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
(42:39):
of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios in London
by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember
to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference
to us and if you want to hear the show,
add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show
page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash
(43:00):
plus
Pushkin In summer nineteen twenty two outside the Ambassador Hotel
in Atlantic City, New Jersey, two of the world's most
famous men are relaxing in deck chairs with their wives.
(00:36):
One man is famous for his astonishing escapes from handcuffs,
strait jackets, orb and buried alive Harry Houdini, the world's
greatest mystifier. The other man is Sir Arthur Coman Doyle,
famous for his novels about the world's greatest solver of mysteries,
(00:57):
Sherlock Holmes. Has the celebrated detective like to say, when
you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not only a
famous author, but also the best known advocate for the
new religion of Spiritualism. That religion is growing quickly. Spiritualist
(01:23):
mediums say they can pass on messages from departed loved ones,
and the world has no shortage of bereaved relatives. The
Great War and the Spanish Flu have cut down swathes
of young people, including Sir Arthur's son. Sir Arthur has
no doubt whatsoever that it's possible to communicate with the dead,
(01:48):
Houdini is keenly interested in whether or not that's true.
A couple of years earlier, Sir Arthur had seen Houdini's
show and invited him for lunch. They've been friends ever since.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Houdini, if agreeable, Lady Doyle will give you a special seance,
as she has a feeling, but she might have a
message come through at any rate she is willing to try.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The message in question would be from Houdini's mother, whose
death nine years earlier had devastated the great magician. As
Houdini once said.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
If God, in his infinite wisdom, ever sent an angel
upon earth in human form, it was my mother.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Houdini had always been a mother's boy, even as a
grown adult. He liked to lie with his head on
her breast to listen to her heartbeat. In the weeks
before her death, it had some strange sense of foreboding.
Visiting his father's grave, Houdini suddenly felt an urge to
(02:59):
lie down in the dirt. What on earth are you doing,
asked his brother. I want to lie on the spot
where our mother will one day rest. Houdini replied, for
goodness sake, said his brother, don't be so morose. But
their mother too may have had a premonition. As Harry
(03:22):
boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic for a month's
long tour of Europe, she whispered, perhaps I won't be
here when you return. Then again, she said that every
time he went away. Hoodini was just about to go
on stage in Copenhagen when he got a telegram. He
(03:44):
slipped it in his pocket. No time to read it.
Now the show was a triumph, the after party in
full swing. When Houdini remembered the telegram and took it
from his pocket. His mother was dead a stroke, aged
(04:05):
seventy two. Houdini promptly fainted. When he came back around,
he canceled the rest of his tour and took the
first ship back to New York, where he spent night
after night, week after week, sitting solemnly by his mother's grave.
(04:28):
I can't seem to get over it, he wrote to
his brother.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I believe in a hereafter, Houdini later said, And no
greater blessing could be bestowed upon me than the opportunity
once again to speak to my sainted mother.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And so on the beach in Atlantic City. So Arthur
Conan Noyle turns to Houdini's wife, Bess.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
You understand, missus Houdini, that this will be a test
to see whether we can make any spirit come through
for Houdini, and conditions may prove better if no other forces.
You do not mind if we make the experiment without you.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Go write ahead, Sir Arthur.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I will leave Houdini in your charge.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So Arthur and his wife lead Houdini to their suite
in the Ambassador Hotel. They draw the curtains and invite
Houdini to sit with them around the table, on which
is placed a pencil and pad of paper. The three
of them sit with their hands on the table until
Lady Doyle's hands begin to.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Shake spirits, do you have a message?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Lady Doyle's whole body begins to convulse, her hands thumb
on the table. Then she grabs the pencil and starts
to write. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales.
(06:32):
This is the first in a series of three cautionary
tales about Harry Houdini and the afterlife. We're going to
go with Houdini on a journey from that seance in
Atlantic City, a journey that will take him in front
of lawmakers in Washington, d c make him powerful enemies,
cost him a friendship and a fortune, and leave him
(06:56):
fearing for his life.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
They're going to kill me.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That's to come. Our story starts in eighteen seventy four
when Harry Dani was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Or that
was the story he liked to tell. It wasn't true.
The baby boy who would become Harry Houdini was born
Eric Weiss in Budapest in what was then the Austro
(07:25):
Hungarian Empire. Eric was four years old when his father
took the family to America. They settled in Appleton, where
Eric's dad had friends who installed him as the local rabbi.
Young Eric developed a strange fascination with locks. He went
(07:46):
around the house using a button hook to pick the
locks of drawers and closets. When he ran out of
locks at home, he sneaked out one night and worked
his way down the town's main street, picking the locks
on the doors to every shop. Here's another story Hudini
(08:06):
liked to tell. At age eleven, he worked as an
apprentice in the town's locksmith shop. One day, the sheriff
came in with a handcuffed prisoner that had come from
the courthouse. This man's been let off, the sheriff explained,
But I can't find the key to the cuffs. Can
(08:26):
you get them off him? The locksmith handed Eric a
hack saw and said, you do it. I'll go for
a beer with the sheriff. Eric was left alone in
the shop with the burly, rough looking prisoner. He worked
away at the handcuffs that the hack saw blade made
(08:46):
no impression in the steel. Then the blade snapped, and
so did the prisoner. You're lucky you didn't cut me up.
Soaring through the cuffs would take forever, and Eric really
didn't want to find out what would happen if he
did cut the prisoner up. Might button hook work handcuff
(09:09):
locks must be harder to pick than those of drawers
and closets and shop doors, but it was worth a go.
Eric found a loop of piano wire and improvised a hook.
He poked and probed, wiggled and jiggled. This was harder
to pick than all those other locks, but after a
(09:30):
minute the cuff popped open. The eleven year old boy
and the big, burly prisoner looked at each other in astonishment.
Eric got to work on the other cuff that came
off more quickly. Then the shop door opened. Back came
the locksmith and the sheriff. Eric quickly hid his piano wire.
(09:54):
All the locksmith saw was that the handcuffs were off.
Well done, Eric said the locksmith, good work. Much later,
after his handcuff escapes had made him famous, who do
you like to say that only two people had ever
seen how he got the handcuffs off, his wife Bess,
(10:16):
and a rough looking prisoner he'd met when he was
eleven and never saw again. Ladied Oil scribbled furiously on
the pad of paper. She was channeling the spirit of
Houdini's mother. As she reached the end of the page,
(10:37):
so Arthur tore it from the pad and solemnly handed
it to Houdini. He began to read.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Oh, my darling, thank God, thank God, At last time
through I've tried oh so often, I want to talk
to my boy, my own beloved boy.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The message began with a sketch of a crucifix. Curious thought, Harry,
has my mother, the rabbi's wife converted to Christianity in
the afterlife? He keeps reading, I'm so.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Happy in this life. It is so full and joyous.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
It is so different over here, so much larger and
bigger and more beautiful, so lofty, all sweetness around.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
One and another thing. Why is she writing in English?
Houdini's mum had been well educated in the Austro Hungarian Empire.
She spoke five languages. English was not among them, and
in all her years in America, she'd never felt the
(11:58):
need to learn Why bother she thought everyone she knew
spoke German. Had she finally decided it was important to
learn English now that she was dead.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I always read my beloved son's mind, his dear mind.
There is so much I want to say to him,
But I am almost overwhelmed by this joy of talking
to him once more.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So much she wants to say, she says, and yet
she isn't actually saying any of it. Nothing personal, nothing
that only a mother would know. She doesn't even mention
that today would have been her birthday. If she'd read
his mind, she'd know he'd been thinking about that. No,
(12:52):
it's just page after page of this generic, breathless burbling
about how much she loves him and looks over him,
and how happy she is with the afterlife. And how
happy he'll be when he joins her.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Oh so happy, a happiness awaits him that he has
never dreamed of. Tell him I am with him?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What an absolute load of twaddle, thinks Houdini. Did Lady
Doyle really believe she'd been channeling the thoughts of Houdini's mother.
It seemed so, but who could tell. According to Bess,
Lady Doyle had earlier been asking a lot of questions
(13:39):
about Houdini and his mum. Sir Arthur, though, had no
doubts at all. He was a true believer. He looked
at Houdini with pleasure and pride. He was convinced that
he had given his friend the greatest of gifts. A
message from his beloved mother proved positive that she lived
(14:03):
beyond the grave. Houdini liked Sir Arthur. He didn't want
to say what he was really thinking, so he smiled
politely cautionary tales will be back. After the break In Appleton,
(14:34):
Wisconsin in the eighteen eighties, things were not going well
for young Eric Weiss's family. Eric's dad, the rabbi, lost
his job. His growing congregation, it seemed, wanted someone more
in tune with the America that had come to than
the Europe had left behind. Possibly they weren't impressed that
(14:58):
the rabbi, like his wife, hadn't bothered to learn any English.
The family moved to Milwaukee, then to New York, but
work was hard to come by for German speaking old
school rabbis in failing health. Teenage, Eric chipped into the
family finances doing any job he could. He was a
(15:21):
shoe shiner, a newspaper seller, a delivery boy. When he
wasn't earning money, he was a boxer, a runner, a swimmer.
He trained himself to contort his body. He read every
book on magic he could find, and he put on
any act he could in any show that would have him.
(15:44):
He was the trapeze artist, Eric the Prince of the Air.
He was the card magician Eric the Great. Then he
was half of the brothers Houdini, doing a trick he'd
learned from a book. First, the brothers Houdini asked volunteers
from the crowd to come on stage. Lend us your jacket.
(16:07):
They asked one Harry, as Eric had now renamed himself,
put on the jacket. The volunteers tied him up with ropes.
They put him in a sack. They tied up the sack.
They put him in a trunk, and they locked the trunk. Now,
said Harry's brother, watch closely. He pulled a curtain in
(16:30):
front of himself and the trunk. He clapped once. From
behind the curtain, he clapped twice. On the third clap,
the curtain was thrown aside by Harry, who'd escaped from
the trunk. Harry and the volunteers unlocked the trunk, untied
(16:51):
the sack, and out of its stepped Harry's brother, trussed
up in just the same way Harry had been a
mere few seconds before. They untied the ropes, and yes,
Harry's brother was wearing the first volunteers jacket. The Brothers
Houdini took their act to Coney Island, where they shared
(17:15):
a stage with performing Monkey's Morbidly Obese Women, clowns, and
a singer.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Russy Sweet Rose a bell I'll off for more.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Than I can tell.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
She casts a spell.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Harry was twenty, Bess was eighteen. In three weeks they
were married. Is three weeks long enough to really get
to know someone. I know that your father passed on,
says Harry to his new wife. But I still don't
know his first name. No, wait, don't tell me. Write
(18:03):
it on this piece of paper. Don't show me. Now,
crumple up the paper and put it in the stove.
Now you see. I take the ashes of the crumpled paper,
rub them on my forearm, and Harry shows Bess's arm.
(18:24):
Her father's name is written on it in blood red letters.
Bess turns white as she suddenly remembers the folklore she'd
been taught as a child.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
The devil, disguised as a handsome young man, lured girls
to destruction. It was clear to me that I had
married the devil.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Bess screams and runs out of the door. Harry bursts out,
laughing and races after her, calms her down, brings her home,
gets out his magic book and shows her exactly how
the trick was done. Soon, the brothers Houdini have become
(19:16):
the Houdinis. It's Bess who's pulled out of the sack
in the trunk. Audiences love it, but it's over all
too quickly. It can't sustain a show on its own.
Harry and Bess go on tour with a circus, and
Harry picks up every skill he can from his fellow
(19:37):
acts from a man who has no arms. He learns
how to use his toes as dexterously as his fingers.
He learns how to swallow needles and a thread and
regurgitate them with a thread through the needles. He starts
to do escapes from handcuffs. That life on the road
(19:59):
is a struggle. Harry and Bess trek from one obscure
small town to another. They're never earning enough. Nothing they
try really catches fire, until at last they stumble across
and act that they're brilliant at that causes a sensation.
(20:25):
In Garnet, Kansas, in eighteen ninety seven, over a thousand
people are crammed into the Grand Opera House. That's one
in six of the town's entire population, the largest audience
ever to fill the building. Twenty three year old Harry
(20:45):
Houdini is who they've come to see because Harry Houdini,
according to the headline in the local newspaper, is apparently
a world famous medium. Houdini takes to the stage.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Allow me to introduce my assistant, Mademoiselle Beatrice, a trained
cycle pometric clairvoyant.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Bess settles herself in a chair lets out a groan
and slumps forward.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
She is in a trance state.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
The world famous medium had earlier prepared for the show
by walking around the cemetery in Garnet with a notebook
reading the gravestones. One freshly dug grave belonged to a
boy called Joe Osborne. He had recently died at the
age of six.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
A little boy, says Bess in her trance state.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
He's six years old. His name is Joe's a message
for his parents.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Does anyone know a little Joel?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
A murmur goes round the crowd. The Osborne's are the
Osborne's here? It seems not. Someone rushes out of their
home to fetch them.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
What is the message from little Joel?
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Joe says he is in a happy place, and he says.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Don't cry, mama, There'll be another one soon to take
my place.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Joe's dad is furious. How the hell did you know
my wife is pregnant. We haven't told anyone yet. If
the crowd had stopped to think, they might have realized
it wasn't hard to guess that a bereaved young couple
might try for another child. But Houdini simply shrugs and
(23:03):
modestly reminds them that ma'amoiselle Beatrice is a trained clairvoyant.
After all, Now, says Houdini, I understand there's recently been
a murder in your town. The crowd don't need reminding.
Just a few weeks earlier, a local woman called Anna
(23:24):
was found dead in her home, bleeding from the head.
The sheriff hasn't solved the case, but Houdini says he
can unmask the murderer because.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
You cannot hide an nefarious deed from her spirits.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
He turns to Bess, still slumped in her chair.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Was Anna murdered in her own home?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
With what instrument?
Speaker 5 (24:02):
She was hacked seventeen times with a butcher's knife?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Did she know her killer?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
What is the killer's name?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Bess was silent.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Answer now, what is his name?
Speaker 6 (24:23):
His name is ash.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
With a fearsome wail, Bess throws her hands in the
air and collapses back on her chair.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
She's fainted. Is there a doctor in the house?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
The case of Anna's murderer, Alas would have to remain unsolved.
That the people of Garnets have never experienced an evening
like this. Harry Houdini has had them eating from the
palm of his hand. At this rate, he actually could
become a world famous medium. Harry and Bess, after years
(25:06):
of struggle, have finally hit upon an act that promises
to make their fortune, but they decide they can't keep
doing it. Harry is haunted by the looks on the
faces of the Osborns. He'd been playing with their emotions,
exploiting their grief. It's not right. Harry and Bess give
(25:32):
up the medium act and go back to scraping a
living with their magic tricks. The thing about magic, Harry says,
is that you don't have to lie. You tell the
audience you're going to deceive them, and you do. Unlike
pretending you can raise the dead, magic is an honest
(25:52):
way to make a living. A quarter century later, in
nineteen twenty two, a few months have passed since the
say Aunt's in Atlantic City, where Ladied Oil channeled the
spirit of Houdini's dead mum. The New York Son asks
(26:14):
Houdini to write an article about his thoughts on contacting
the dead.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
My mind is open. I am perfectly willing to believe,
but I have never seen or heard anything that could
convince me that there is a passibility of communication with
the loved ones who have gone beyond.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
When a copy of The New York Sun finds its
way to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he's outraged, or, as
he writes to Houdini.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I felt rather sore about it.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
You see, he tells Houdini, he knows from experience the
purity of his wife's mediumship. He reminds Houdini of that
utterly convincing message Lady Doyle had received from his mum
in Atlantic City.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
I saw what you got and what the affe effect
was upon you at the time.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Houdini, it seems, had been a little too convincing with
the politeness of his smile. Cautionary tales will be back.
After the break, the young lovers Harry and Bess struggled
(27:38):
on with the traveling circus. Harry would try his hand
at anything except pretending to raise the dead. He was
the Wizard of Shackles, the King of Cards. He briefly
did a turn filling in as the wild Man of
Mexico in a cage, growling and eating raw meat. Harry's
(28:02):
brother in law gently offered a way out. I know
people at the Yale lock factory said, it's a bit
steady work. If things are no better in a year,
Harry told Bess, I'll take the job. Whenever the circus
arrived in a new town, Houdini would present himself at
(28:23):
the local police station challenged the police to handcuff him
and escape. It would usually get him a few lines
in the town's paper. But when he did it in Chicago,
everything changed completely unexpectedly for Harry Houdini. The Chicago Journal
(28:43):
put him on the front page Amazes. The detectives read
the headline with a flattering illustration of Houdini and the handcuffs.
The publicity bumped him up to the top of the bill.
It was the big break Houdini had been waiting for.
Fame begets fame if you work at it, Whodini did.
(29:07):
He kept upping the an. He'd escape from being buried
alive under six feet of dirt. He'd be handcuffed on
a bridge and tossed into the river below. He'd be
put in a straight jacket and dangled upside down from
a tall building. Most impressive of all was the Chinese
water torture cell. Houdini invited volunteers onto the stage to
(29:32):
inspect his cell, a steel and mahogany cabinet standing five
and a half feet tall with a glass panel on
the front. The volunteers filled it up with buckets of water,
while Fundini's legs were locked into wooden stocks.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
How long can you hold your breath?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
He asked the audience.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I challenge you to hold your breath along with me.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Houdini was handcuffed, hoisted upside down, and lowered headfirst into
the cabinet, the water sploshing over the sides. A curtain
was drawn in front of the cell. The band began
to play. Time ticked by one by one. Audience members,
(30:23):
holding their breath, gave up and exhale. Still, time ticked by,
the band kept playing. An assistant of Houdini would look
with mounting concern at the cell behind the curtain. He's
holding an axe, ready to smash the cabinet. Surely something's
gone horribly wrong. No one could hold their breath for
(30:46):
this long. Then the curtain would be thrust aside. There
was Houdini, dripping and gasping. How did he do it? It
was honest work, As Houdini said, he promised to mystify you,
(31:07):
and he did. That's the fun of a magic show.
You're mystified by exactly how the magician did it, even
though you know in general terms it's going to be
some combination of showmanship and misdirection, mechanical trickery, hidden compartments
and the like, and physical skill on the part of
(31:28):
the magician. In Houdini's case, don't underestimate the physical skill.
He really did keep himself exceptionally fit, and he wanted
you to know it.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Feel my muscles, they are like iron, he liked to say.
Or even punch me in the stomach as hard as
you like.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
But as his fame grew, Houdini faced an unusual problem.
His tricks were so confounding some people were sure he
must have had supernatural help. Since that night in at Kansas,
when Harry had disgusted himself by pretending to deliver a
(32:15):
message from a dead six year old, more and more
people had come to believe that spirits were real and powerful.
The president of the British College of Psychic Science, for instance,
one j. Hewitt Mackenzie, described seeing Harry on stage in London.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
A small iron tank filled with water was deposited upon
the stage and in it Ejudini was placed and iron
lid was securely locked. I felt a great loss of
physical energy, such as is usually experienced by sitters in
materializing seances. Houdini's body was completely dematerialized, then materialized on
(33:04):
the stage front, dripping with water.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
If I actually could do that, said an exasperated Houdini,
Trust me, I'd tell you.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I do not dematerialize or materialize anything. I simply control
and manipulate material things in a manner perfectly well understood
by myself and equally understandable by any person to whom
I may elect to divulge my secrets.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It wasn't only members of the College of Psychic Science
who doubted Houdini's insistence that he had no supernatural powers.
The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who recently had a
leg amputated, once draped her arm around Houdini's shoulder and
(33:56):
tentatively asked.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Him, Uddini, you do such marvelous things, couldn't you? Could
you bring back my leg for me? Good heavens, Madam,
certainly not. You're asking me to do the impossible.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Bernhardt leaned closer.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yes, but you do the impossible, are you?
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Justing may No, DENI, I've never been more serious in
my life.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Then there was the time he'd put on a magic
show for Teddy Roosevelt, with cards and silk handkerchiefs and
a trick sometimes used by mediums to claim to be
getting messages from the other side. He had Roosevelt write
a question on a sheet of paper, then seal it
in an envelope. Then the answer to the question appeared,
(34:55):
mysteriously chalked on a slate. The next morning. Roosevelt put
his arm around Houdini's shoulder.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Houdini, tell me the truth, man to man.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Was that genuine spiritual dualism?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Last night Roosevelt, even the famously astute former president, needed
it spelling out to him, No.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Colonel, it was hocus pocus.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Houdini became more and more frustrated by how credulous even
the sharpest minds could be, none more so than Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. We've heard in another cautionary tale all
about how the brilliant author was embarrassingly duped by children
(35:45):
who claimed to photograph fairies at the bottom of their garden.
Doyle even wrote to Houdini about the cottingly fairies.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
A fake, you will say, no, sir, I think not.
The fairies are about eight inches high. In one photo
there is a goblin dancing.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
It is a revelation.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And then HOODI he had what must have seemed like
an inspired idea. Perhaps if he could demonstrate to Sir
Arthur how easy it is to give the false impression
of supernatural powers, he might persuade his friend to be
a little more skeptical in future. At his home in
(36:31):
New York, Harry Houdini presented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with
a blank black slate, a perfectly ordinary slate. You agree,
Sir Arthur. We shall hang it from the ceiling so
it can't be interfered with, and cork balls. Choose one
(36:51):
at random, cut through it pure cork, you see. Now
choose another, and put it in this ink well so
it can soak up white ink. Now, take a slip
of paper, you have a pencil. Go outside, said Houdini,
Walk anyway.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
You like so you won't be observed, and write on
that slip of paper a question or a phrase, anything
you like.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Sir Arthur walked outside, found a quiet spot and wrote
an Aramaic phrase from the Bible, mene mene tekel Upharsin.
He walked back to Houdini's house. Take this spoon, said Houdini.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Lift the cork boar from the ink well and touch
it to the left side of the slate.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It stuck, then slowly it started moving, apparently of its
own accord, writing in white ink on the black slate,
Mayne mayne tekel Upharsin. Houdini turned to Sir Arthur.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
I won't tell you how I did it, but I
can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it
by perfectly normal means. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur,
do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you
see are necessarily supernatural or the work of spirits, just
(38:27):
because you cannot explain them.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Unfortunately, Houdini's demonstration had the exact opposite effect to the
one he had intended. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle left Houdini's
house utterly convinced that Houdini had supernatural powers and was
lying about it. Remember what Sir Arthur liked his protagonist
(38:52):
Cherlock Holmes to say, when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But when
a credulous mind meets an accomplished mystifier, Holmes's aphorism breaks down.
Sir Arthur simply couldn't tell where the improbable ended and
(39:15):
the impossible began. Over the years, Harry Houdini had been
many things, Eric, Prince of the Air, the handcuff King.
Now approaching the age of fifty, he took on his
last and greatest role, a champion of critical thinking. He
(39:39):
published a book, A Magician among the Spirits, in which
he introduced an aphorism of his own.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
The simple fact that the thing looks mysterious does not
signify anything beyond the necessity of analytic investigation for a
fuller understanding.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It may not be as pithy as Sherlock Holmes on
the improbable and the impossible, but as a guide for
clear thinking, perhaps it's better something seems strange, don't assume
it's supernatural, Engage your brain instead. Houdini introduced a new
(40:22):
element to his sellout shows. Alongside the tricks and the escapes,
he'd expose fraudulent local mediums who cynically preyed on those
made vulnerable by grief. He even tried to get the
law changed to have them thrown in prison, as we'll
hear about in the next episode of Cautionary Tales. One
(40:47):
night after a performance, a woman came up to him.
I'm from Garnet, Kansas. She said, I was in the
audience at the show you did twenty six years ago.
Houdini said, do you know the osbald I see a
little boy, the Osborne. His name is Why. Yes. They've
(41:09):
moved to California, but have their address.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
She has a message for his parents.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Houdini took the address and wrote the Osborne's a long
letter of apology. This episode relied on biographies including The
Secret Life of Houdini by William Callush and Larry Slowman,
(41:36):
and Houdini and Conan Doyle by Christopher Sandford. For a
full list of our sources, see the show notes at
Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales as written by me Tim
(41:56):
Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly. It's
produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design
and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional
soundersign is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio Bend
and Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice
(42:17):
talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah jupp
Messeam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The show also
wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
(42:39):
of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios in London
by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember
to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference
to us and if you want to hear the show,
add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show
page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash
(43:00):
plus
Host
Tim Harford
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