Houdini - the ghost buster 心存善念2022-02-12 03:20:49
Houdini exposed fake Spiritualist practices by having himself photographed with the "ghost" of Abraham Lincoln. （Wikimedia）
For Harry Houdini, Séances and Spiritualism Were Just an Illusion
The magician spent years campaigning against fraudulent psychics, even lobbying Congress to ban fortune-telling in D.C.
Bryan Greene
While Houdini, by his own estimate, investigated hundreds of Spiritualists over a 35-year span, his participation in one investigation dominated international headlines in the years prior to his trip to Washington. In 1924, at the behest of Conan Doyle, Scientific American offered a $2,500 prize to any medium who could produce physical manifestations of spirit communications under stringent test conditions. “Scientific American was a really big deal in those days. They were sort of the ‘60 Minutes’ of their time,” says Jaher. “They were investigative journalists. They unveiled a lot of hoaxes.” The magazine formed a jury of eminent scientific men, including psychologists, physicists and mathematicians from Harvard, MIT and other top institutions. The group also counted Houdini among its members “as a guarantee to the public that none of the tricks of his trade have been practiced upon the committee.”
After dismissing several contestants, the committee focused its attentions on upper-class Boston medium Margery Crandon, the wife of a Harvard-trained doctor. Her performance, if a deception, suggested a magician’s talent rivaling Houdini. While slumped in a trance, her hands controlled by others, Crandon channeled a spirit that reportedly whispered in the ears of séance sitters, pinched them, poked them, pulled their hair, floated roses under their noses, and even moved objects and furniture about the room.
The contest’s chief organizer, who Houdini criticized for being too cozy with Crandon, declined to invite the magician to the early séances, precisely because his tough scrutiny threatened to upset the symbiotic relationship between the medium and the jury. “She was very attractive and ... used her sexuality to flirt with men and disarm them,” says Joe Nickell, a onetime magician and Pinkerton agency detective who has enjoyed a fabled career as a paranormal investigator. “Houdini wasn’t fooled by her tricks. … [Still], she gave Houdini a run for his money.” Fearful that Scientific American would award Crandon the prize over his insistence she was a fraud, the magician preemptively issued a 40-page pamphlet titled Houdini Exposes the Tricks Used by Boston Medium “Margery.” Ultimately, he convinced the magazine to deny Crandon the prize.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-harry-houdini-seances-and-spiritualism-were-just-an-illusion-180978944/