0:00

Ectoplasm. That's

0:06

ghost slime. We got

0:08

there, We did it, ectoplasm.

0:12

Most people actually associate ectoplasm

0:14

with the movie Ghostbusters, big

0:17

green ghost guy, slimer, sliming

0:19

around, actoplasmic

0:21

residue, sampleuisms,

0:25

exter real thing somebody

0:28

blows and knows and you want to keep it to analyzem.

0:31

I always thought that Dan Ackroyd and Harold

0:34

Ramos, who wrote Ghostbusters

0:36

ever read a book, used the

0:38

word ectoplasm just because it's sort

0:40

of sounded ghostie. But

0:43

it turns out Dan Ackroyd

0:45

was raised a spiritualist. He's

0:48

a third generation spiritualist. Here's

0:50

an interview he did with his father, Peter Ackroyd

0:53

discussing just that very

0:55

much. So my my

0:58

experience going up to the old farmhouse,

1:00

which was used partially as a cottage

1:02

by various members of the family through through

1:04

my youth and college years

1:06

and second city years. Uh, just

1:09

as you'd see life magazines or National

1:11

Geographic lying around many cottages,

1:13

we had the American Society for Psychical

1:15

Research journals lying right, and all

1:18

kinds of books that were handed down from uh,

1:20

from my from Sam and Morris,

1:23

who was dad's father, Bell telephone engineer,

1:26

So the whole family was sort of

1:28

steeped in this, uh this kind

1:30

of just accepted

1:32

fact that, uh, spirits

1:35

do exist and can can you communicate

1:37

if you find a talented medium

1:40

him or her who is willing to give

1:42

themselves up to the controls

1:44

and the controls are the entities from the other side

1:46

that come through. And so that combined

1:49

with an article in the a spr Journal about quantum

1:51

physics and parapsychology and my love of

1:53

old ghost movies from the thirties

1:55

and forties, Bob Hope, Abbot Costello,

1:58

the Bowery Boys, um that

2:00

sort of funeral married together to

2:02

to produce the first draft of Ghostbust. This

2:04

is the best. Dan Ackroyd

2:07

is a based multigenerational

2:10

spiritualist, which, as we've discussed,

2:12

is pretty rare, but his grandfather was

2:15

a member at Cassadega's sister

2:17

camp in lily Dale, New York, and

2:19

a number of the publications and organizations

2:22

he's discussing in that clip are relevant

2:24

to what we're talking about today. The

2:27

second Spiritualist revival of the nineteen

2:29

twenties and the most famous

2:32

schism in all of spiritualism,

2:35

the one between Harry Houdini

2:37

and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But

2:39

before we can get there, let's get you up

2:42

to speed on ectoplasm Baby.

2:44

We've talked a lot on Ghost Church about the

2:46

Fox Sisters, the founders of

2:48

American Spiritualism, who by

2:51

the mid eighteen nineties had passed

2:53

into spirit in semi obscurity

2:56

and poverty. Some of the reasons that

2:58

their mediumship had been discredit at it

3:00

over the years had to do with an increased

3:02

demand for physical manifestations

3:05

of spirit, basically

3:07

adding in magic tricks to existing

3:10

mediumship to make it a little flashier,

3:12

a little show ear and meet this consumer

3:15

demand for a real spectacle.

3:17

When contacting their dead, Americans

3:20

liked things big and slimy and

3:22

loud. It's kind of our thing. But

3:25

it led to many, many

3:27

widely debunked practices that

3:29

were a long way from these simple

3:31

table wrappings that defined the Fox

3:33

Sisters seance. Maggie

3:35

Fox said this when she first

3:37

disavowed her religion publicly back

3:40

in in a column

3:42

that we've read on the show before, called the

3:44

Curse of Spiritualism, she

3:46

writes, fanatics ignore

3:48

the wrappings, which is the only part of the

3:50

phenomena that is worthy of notice and

3:53

rush madly after the glaring humbugs

3:55

that flood New York. So

3:58

what phenomena is she talking

4:00

about here? Well, it was the kind

4:02

of stuff that organizations like the Society

4:05

for Psychical Research, which was

4:07

founded as a nonprofit in the UK in

4:10

two were dedicated to busting.

4:13

They'd investigate this sort of phenomena

4:15

to determine whether they were authentic

4:18

or not. Things like spirit photography,

4:21

the practice where you're dead would appear in a translucent

4:23

picture with you, as well as

4:25

physical manifestations basically

4:28

the seance on steroids, practices

4:30

that took mental and trance, mediumship

4:32

and in the pitch dark of the seance room.

4:35

Added things like spirit hands,

4:38

which was a slimy hand that reached

4:40

across to you in the dark from across

4:42

the vale. Things like slate writing,

4:45

where a spirit would write messages,

4:47

trumpet mediumship, which is still in

4:49

occasional practice in Cassadeca today,

4:52

and ectoplasm,

4:54

which if a medium could goop it out,

4:57

basically served as goes

5:00

Lube. I guess, oh

5:03

you didn't like to hear that? You didn't

5:05

like to hear Jamie say, ghost lube

5:07

will imagine how I feel huh. Ectoplasm

5:11

became more common in the mid eighteen nineties

5:13

post boxes and was said

5:15

to manifest in mediums while in

5:18

a trance state, almost as proof

5:20

that they had contacted the other side. It

5:23

came out a little different from

5:25

every medium. One psychical

5:27

researcher named gusav Gelli described

5:30

it like this, very variable

5:32

in appearance, being sometimes vaporous,

5:35

sometimes a plastic pace, sometimes

5:38

a bundle of fine threads, or

5:40

a membrane with swellings or fringes,

5:42

or a fine fabric like tissue.

5:45

But others defined ectoplasm

5:47

somewhat differently. Let's get our

5:49

friend, iconic spiritualist and

5:51

creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir

5:54

Arthur Conan Doyle, on how he

5:56

describes ectoplasm

5:58

viscous last a substance

6:01

which appeared to differ from every known

6:03

form of matter in that it could solidify

6:06

and be used for material purposes. Wow,

6:09

disgusting. Here's a secret.

6:11

Unlike many elements of spiritualism,

6:14

particularly transcend mental

6:16

mediumship, which I am still inclined

6:18

to believe to some extent, there is

6:21

no modern spiritualist I've spoken

6:23

to or seen writing that

6:25

stands by things like ectoplasm

6:28

or the spirit hands, nor the facial

6:31

manifestations and full bodies

6:33

that are sometimes said to accompany them.

6:36

These super extreme practices have

6:38

been pretty thoroughly debunked over

6:40

the years, and we could spend hours

6:42

talking about specific examples, many

6:45

of which involve the majority male

6:47

investigators, ghostbusters,

6:49

if you will, going after female

6:51

mediums relentlessly, not

6:54

only until they're busted, but sometimes

6:56

until they're ruined. This

6:59

is of interest to me. Ectoplasm

7:01

was often revealed to be cheesecloth

7:03

covered in egg white or potato starch,

7:06

gauze, handkerchiefs, rubber gloves.

7:09

Honestly, the photos of what was

7:11

said to be ectoplasm are pretty

7:13

funny. It's mostly mystical

7:16

looking women with a mouth or a vagina

7:18

full of soggy fabric. But

7:21

it's important to consider why this caught

7:23

on so much and the very gender

7:25

dynamics that are at play. The physical

7:27

medium will be talking about a lot today.

7:30

Mina Crandon was known specifically

7:33

for manifesting ectoplasm and

7:35

spirit hands from her vagina.

7:38

So while the concept is maybe a

7:40

little silly, what I've been finding

7:43

is yet another crack in this reputation

7:46

that spiritualism has built for itself

7:48

as being a religion that has historically

7:51

supported and respected women, and

7:54

there's no better story to demonstrate that

7:56

and the politics of the last major

7:58

spiritualist revival in the United

8:00

States. Then the feud between

8:02

Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan

8:05

Doyle over the mediumship

8:07

of Mina Crandon, a story that

8:09

leads to history's most iconic

8:12

magician. Oh nope, wait,

8:14

oh,

8:19

I am so sorry about that. The Chris Angel

8:21

that lives under my bed took issue. Sorry,

8:24

second most iconic magician, Harry

8:27

Houdini dedicated years

8:29

of his life to ruin her

8:32

life. It's a witch hunt baby.

8:34

Today on Kay

9:38

welcome back and happy Ectoplasm

9:41

episode to all who observe. I

9:44

still have a lot to tell you about my last

9:46

day in Cassadega, but this

9:48

week we've got a lot of spectral

9:51

goop to wade through. Arthur

9:53

Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini wouldn't

9:55

actually meet until but

9:58

Doyle had become a spiritualist

10:00

publicly back in the eighteen eighties,

10:03

at the time joining the Society

10:05

for Psychical Research in eight the

10:09

same year he killed off his most

10:11

famous creation, Sherlock Holmes

10:13

in the adventure of the Final Problem.

10:16

Holmes would be brought back by the early nineteen

10:18

hundreds, but at this time Doyle was

10:20

trying to make a clean break from

10:23

the King of Deduction for a reason

10:25

unbeknownst to many at this time, Doyle's

10:28

father, who was said to have had mediumistic

10:31

talents as well as being a

10:34

deeply depressive painter who

10:36

struggled with alcoholism, had

10:38

been committed to an asylum in the

10:40

mid eighteen eighties after displaying

10:42

erratic behavior. Going back to when

10:44

Arthur Conan Doyle was a kid, this

10:47

seems to have inspired a streak

10:49

of extreme pragmatism in his

10:51

most famous son. Arthur Conan Doyle

10:53

trained to be a doctor, and when he

10:56

did begin writing fiction, it was

10:58

about a character who famously used

11:00

logic and not art to

11:02

ground the story. Do

11:05

you want to take us to it? What

11:09

do we know about this court kid?

11:12

Has not left us with much? Just the shirt, the

11:14

trials, they're pretty formal.

11:16

Maybe he was going out for the night and the trousers a heavy

11:19

duty polliat said nasty, same as

11:21

the shirt cheap. They're both too big for him. So

11:23

some kind of standard issue uniform dressed for work.

11:25

Then what kind of work God that shows

11:27

annoying? So in three

11:29

Arthur Conan, Doyle's father dies, and

11:32

while they hadn't been completely estranged,

11:35

Doyle began to think back on

11:37

the judgments he had made on his father's beliefs.

11:40

His father used to send the family paintings

11:42

with messages attached like this, keep

11:45

steadily in view that this book

11:48

is ascribed wholly to the produce

11:50

of a madman. Whereabouts

11:52

would you say was the deficiency

11:55

of intellect or depraved

11:57

taste? And Doyle started

11:59

to con it are that his father's leaned

12:01

towards the supernatural may

12:03

have had something to it all along. So

12:06

he removed himself from the logic

12:08

and pragmatism that had won him the respect

12:10

of the world through homes and instead

12:13

threw himself into spiritualism

12:15

hard, beginning in the eighteen nineties

12:18

all the way up to his death in ninety.

12:20

His wife Jean was said to be a

12:22

medium and also became passionately

12:25

supportive within the religion. So by

12:27

the late nineteen tenth he'd sort of become

12:29

a figurehead within spiritualism

12:31

and had thrown all of his professional credibility

12:34

into it with a lot of success, I

12:36

might add he had been touring across

12:38

the US and UK lecturing. He

12:40

wrote twenty books on the topic

12:43

of spiritualism, with titles like

12:45

The Case for spirit Photography,

12:47

to the Coming of the Fairies,

12:50

to my favorite, The Edge of the Unknown.

12:52

The Coming of the Fairies also rocks, though it's

12:54

kind of this aimless series of photos

12:57

of people and fairy

12:59

toys and the rest of it is basically

13:01

Arthur Conan Doyle being really defensive

13:03

and saying things like this, The cry

13:06

of faith is sure to be raised

13:08

and will make some impression upon

13:11

those who have not had the opportunity

13:13

of knowing the people concerned or

13:15

the place. If you knew

13:18

his friends, you'd believe in fairies. So

13:20

chill. Also, there are a lot of long

13:22

descriptions of elves. There

13:25

is an ornamental rim to the pipe

13:27

of the elves, which shows that the graces

13:30

of art are not unknown among

13:32

them. And what joy is

13:34

in the complete abandoned of their little

13:37

graceful figures as they let themselves

13:39

go in the dance. They

13:41

may have their shadows and trials

13:44

as we have, but at least there

13:46

is a great gladness manifest in

13:49

this demonstration of their life,

13:52

Doyle wasn't the only major public

13:54

figure who is excited about spirit

13:56

communication. Throughout the nineteen

13:58

tens and nineteen twenties, Sigmund

14:00

Freud would join the British Society for

14:02

Psychical Research and started

14:04

to think that telepathy was possible

14:07

in the conscious and unconscious

14:09

realms. Classic Freud Upton

14:11

Sinclair, who is most famous for

14:13

The Jungle, a book that I read

14:15

for my book about hot Dogs. Upton

14:18

Sinclair had a wife named Mary who

14:20

believed herself to be psychic, and he

14:22

published a book on these so so

14:24

results of testing her abilities, called

14:27

mental Radio. Carl Young participated

14:30

in family sciences early in life,

14:32

wrote his doctoral thesis seeking

14:34

a medical precedent for medialistic

14:36

behavior, and went on to become the founder

14:39

of psychoanalysis while continuing

14:41

to attend seances into his fifties.

14:44

Rudyard kipling sister had been a

14:46

medium, but Sir Arthur Conan

14:48

Doyle ended up at the forefront

14:50

of the spiritualist revival that was

14:52

in large part brought on by people's

14:55

desire to reconnect with lost

14:57

soldiers from World War One. Just

14:59

as the first major spiritualist craze

15:02

had piqued during the Civil War. He

15:04

famously and tragically found

15:06

out that his beloved son had been

15:08

killed in battle in nineteen eighteen,

15:10

shortly before giving a speech about

15:13

spirit communication. But he still

15:15

went on saying this not

15:17

too worry, Not to worry, my

15:20

son survived. The world

15:22

had changed and it had stayed the same.

15:25

Emphasis was still on expansion

15:27

on technological progress, and

15:30

you start to see known scientists

15:32

and inventors actively engaging

15:34

with spiritualist ideas because

15:36

of its alleged connection to science. Remember

15:39

to this day this is one of the major

15:42

spiritualist principles. We have

15:45

communication scuttle,

15:52

and so the science community becomes very

15:54

involved. You'll find people like Thomas

15:56

Edison developing ideas like the

15:58

spirit phone, and eventually

16:01

abandoned n idea

16:03

that he toyed around with that was supposed to

16:05

literally let you ring up your dead uncle.

16:08

There was also Sir Oliver Lodge, a

16:10

scientist who at first was famous

16:13

in being integral to the invention of

16:15

radio and developing ideas

16:17

around electromagnetism. He

16:19

then found a second act, writing

16:21

one of the most famous spiritual

16:23

texts ever called Raymond

16:26

or Life and Death, a channel text

16:28

in which Lodge's son Raymond, who

16:31

had been killed at Flanders in ninetift

16:33

spoke to him from beyond the veil

16:36

to tell people what happened after

16:38

death. It was a best seller for three

16:40

years and popularized the idea

16:42

of the summerland, where spirits

16:44

are said to go when they have moved on. I've

16:47

read sections of it, and it's a very

16:49

sad and pretty remarkable book,

16:52

one that is sort of half spiritualist

16:54

propaganda and half just

16:56

a father deeply missing his son who

16:59

was killed in combat and is trying

17:01

to make sense of it. He includes letters

17:03

that Raymond wrote while he was alive, and

17:06

you could really feel his grief between reminders

17:08

that death means nothing, saying things

17:10

like this, Indeed, it is not right

17:13

that we should weep for death like his. Rather,

17:15

let us pay him our homage and praise and imitation

17:18

by growing like him, and by holding our lives

17:20

lightly in our country service, so that,

17:22

if need be, we may die like him.

17:25

Lodge was a friend of Doyle's, a former

17:27

president of the Society for Psychical

17:29

Research who had a so so reputation

17:32

as an investigator after falling

17:34

for several mediums who later

17:36

revealed themselves to be frauds. Now.

17:39

Look, I want to hold space for how

17:41

genuinely cool I think it is

17:43

that, like the Foxes, the Ectoplasmic

17:46

Sisterhood had a pretty good

17:48

run at the top of the twentieth century.

17:51

They were doing things that would have gotten them tried

17:53

and killed under witchcraft laws in the past.

17:55

They were physically autonomous. They

17:58

were essentially turning the horn tendencies

18:00

of straight male attendees at a seance

18:03

right back against them. I think it's

18:05

pretty cool. It looks like a hell of a show, and

18:07

also it's a little silly and it makes me

18:10

laugh. Sorry. Meanwhile,

18:12

as books like Raymond were becoming

18:14

popular, ectoplasmic mediums

18:16

were being taken out right and left.

18:19

A famous example is Ava Carriere

18:22

or Eva c who was famous

18:24

for having these wild seances

18:26

where she would materialize a spirit

18:29

named be and Boa, a Brahmin

18:31

Hindu spirit who was said to be

18:34

over three hundred years old who

18:36

Ava appeared to have made

18:38

up. The spirit she called Bean Boa

18:41

was later revealed to be a combination

18:43

of kind of obvious cardboard cutouts

18:46

and hired actors. But Carriere

18:49

was heavily focused on and investigated

18:52

by these psychical research firms,

18:54

likely because of her methods and who

18:56

she was. She was, first

18:59

of all, a queer, a woman. She performed

19:01

with her girlfriend, who was twenty five years

19:03

her senior, and she performed in

19:05

a very sexualized way. She'd

19:07

often be nude during seances. She'd

19:10

produce ectoplasm from every

19:12

orifice. Her girlfriend slash

19:14

assistant would sometimes finger her

19:16

in front of everyone to assure them

19:19

that the ectoplasm was there. In

19:21

addition to hired actors and three hundred

19:23

year old spirits, Eva C was also

19:26

said to occasionally have sex

19:28

at the end of the seances, either with

19:30

her girlfriend assistant or with

19:33

an attendee. Doyle and Houdini

19:35

both saw her perform, and Doyle

19:37

was pretty convinced, Houdini

19:40

not so much. But in her day she got

19:42

quite a bit of press, and many seemed relieved

19:45

when her methods were proven to be false.

19:48

She was too sexually dangerous.

19:51

All this to say Eva C. Happy

19:53

pride wherever you are, and to mention

19:55

that while agencies like the spr

19:57

did bust spirit photographers and

20:00

slate writers, their most high profile

20:02

targets or women who were known to

20:04

use their bodies and gush ghost

20:07

moubes from their holes

20:09

and what about that Houdini, the same

20:11

Houdini who grew up in a poor

20:14

Hungarian Jewish family in Wisconsin

20:16

with six siblings, who established

20:18

himself as a magician at carnivals,

20:21

often using some of the same

20:23

hot and cold reading techniques that

20:25

phony mediums do. Hot reading

20:28

being preresearch targeted

20:30

at a mark, and cold reading being

20:32

saying something vague that someone's bound

20:35

to pick up on and acting like you knew

20:37

the whole time. But eventually he settled

20:39

on what he was passionate about and

20:41

became primarily known as an escape

20:43

artist, known for things like the

20:46

water torture cell, the straight

20:48

jacket escape, the buried Alive

20:50

thingy. He also became an extremely

20:53

effective self promoter. Ego

20:55

was a big part of what Houdini

20:58

did. This was the guy who would say, of

21:00

like this, no prison can all

21:02

be. No handle leg irons or steel

21:04

locks can shackle me, No ropes

21:06

or chains can keep me from my freedom.

21:09

This is the guy who advertised in eighteen

21:11

ninety seven saying, Rudini

21:14

the Great will Sunday night give a seance

21:16

in the open light. Rudini kind

21:18

of goes on this journey and his attitudes

21:21

towards spirit communication throughout

21:23

his life. Early on, he says

21:25

he was always interested in spirit

21:27

communication and didn't disbelieve

21:29

in it at all. The only catch was

21:31

he understood many of the methods

21:34

that fraudulent mediums had used because

21:36

he'd used some of the same tactics in his early magic

21:39

days. This interest was compounded

21:41

by two important events in the

21:43

nineteen tens, the first being

21:46

the death of his beloved mother in thirteen.

21:49

Udini was very close

21:52

with his mother. A book I read to

21:54

prepare for this episode, called The Witch of Lime

21:56

Street, used this brutal phrase,

21:59

saying the umbilical cord

22:01

was the only rope Houdini had never

22:03

slipped go off. He

22:06

openly wept mid interview when

22:08

he learned of her death. They were very close, and

22:11

after her death, Rudini eagerly

22:13

attended spiritualist seances

22:15

in hope of making contact, but wasn't

22:18

convinced by any of the mediums he spoke

22:20

with. He framed it like this in his

22:22

nineteen twenty four book A Magician among

22:25

the Spirits. From my early

22:27

career as a mystical entertainer, I have

22:29

been interested in spiritualism as belonging

22:31

to the category of mysticism, and as

22:33

a sideline to my own phase of mystery

22:36

shows, I have associated myself

22:38

with mediums joining the rank and vile, and

22:40

held seances as an independent medium

22:42

to fathom the truth of it all. At

22:44

the time, I appreciated the fact that I surprised

22:47

my clients, but while aware of the

22:49

fact that I was deceiving them, I did not see

22:51

or understand the seriousness of trifling

22:54

with such sacred sentimentality and

22:56

the baneful result which inevitably followed.

22:58

To me, it was a arc. As I advanced

23:01

to riper years of experience, I was brought to

23:03

a realization of the seriousness of trifling

23:05

with the hallowed reverence which the average

23:08

human being bestows on the departed, And

23:10

when I personally became afflicted with similar

23:12

grief, I was chagrined that I should ever

23:14

have been guilty of such frivality, and for

23:16

the first time realized that it bordered

23:18

on crime. So yeah,

23:21

he felt, as many have over the years,

23:23

that a magician is more ethical than

23:25

a medium, because with a magician, it's

23:28

understood that what is happening is not

23:30

real. But if a medium does the

23:32

same thing, and calls it religion he

23:34

felt that was inherently exploitative.

23:37

Rudini walks this line carefully throughout

23:39

his years of spiritualist busting

23:42

in the nineteen twenties. The way

23:44

he presents it is it's not that he

23:46

doesn't believe in it,

23:48

it's just that he's only seen

23:51

fakery. The second thing that happens

23:53

in the nineteen tens is a conversation

23:55

Houdini has with a formerly famous

23:58

spiritualist named I A. Davenport.

24:01

He's come up on this show before. He was

24:03

half of a spiritualist team called

24:05

the Davenport Brothers, two

24:08

teenagers named Ira and William

24:10

who had hopped onto the spiritualist train

24:12

after being inspired by the Foxes

24:15

in the early eighteen fifties. They

24:17

became known for their spirit Cabinet,

24:19

where they would be tied together in a closed

24:22

box full of instruments. The box

24:24

would close, the instruments would

24:26

mysteriously be played by the spirits.

24:29

The box would open, and the boys

24:31

would still be tied together as if nothing

24:33

had happened. This was revealed to be

24:35

a magic trick and not a supernatural

24:38

event. Many times there

24:40

were two magicians slash investigators

24:42

that followed the Davenport Brothers all

24:44

around England in order to bust

24:46

them. Ira is said to have

24:48

talked to Houdini in nineteen eleven, shortly

24:51

before his death, and finally admitted

24:53

that the spirit Box was a hoax and

24:56

shared how he did it. Houdini describes

24:58

the conversation like the US with a classic

25:01

Houdini Bragg wedged in there. He

25:03

said that he recognized in me a past master

25:06

of the craft, and therefore spoke openly

25:08

and did not hesitate to tell me the secrets

25:10

of his feats. We discussed and analyzed

25:12

the statements made in his letters to me, and he frankly

25:14

admitted that the work of the daven Board Brothers

25:17

was accomplished by perfectly natural means

25:19

and belonged to that class of feats commonly

25:21

credited the physical dexterity. Not

25:24

once was there even a hint that spiritualism

25:26

was of any concern to him, instead discussing

25:29

his work as straightforward showmanship. Arthur

25:32

Conan Doyle refuted this last

25:34

claim, saying that while the spirit

25:36

Box had been disowned, Ira

25:39

had remained a practicing spiritualist.

25:41

So before they even meet, the boys

25:44

are already fighting by

25:46

the late nineteen tents, Houdini and Doyle

25:48

were pretty engaged in spiritualist

25:50

ideas, but from opposite advantage

25:53

points. Houdini was growing

25:55

steadily more discouraged with it and

25:57

more and more convinced that mediums

25:59

were wholesale frauds and unethical,

26:02

while Doyle had become the

26:04

figurehead of the movement, a missionary

26:07

the tom cruise of the situation.

26:10

So it's only a matter of time and in Ny

26:13

they finally meet. Doyle

26:15

recounts his impression of Houdini

26:17

in his book The Edge of the Unknown.

26:20

Budini is far and away

26:23

the most curious and intriguing

26:25

character whom I have ever encountered.

26:29

I have met better men, and I have

26:31

certainly met very many worse ones,

26:34

but I have never met a man who had

26:36

such strange contrasts in

26:38

his nature and whose actions

26:40

and motives it was more difficult

26:43

to foresee or to reconcile.

26:46

And Houdini says this of Doyle,

26:48

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the sincere

26:51

and confirmed believer in spirit phenomena

26:53

whose acquaintance I esteem advises

26:55

me that I do not secure convincing results

26:58

because I am a skeptic and I

27:00

therefore want to make it clear that I am

27:02

not a scoffer. Doyle had gone

27:04

to see a show of Houdini's at the Great

27:06

Theater in London and was blown

27:09

away. Houdini was eager to meet

27:11

him too. He'd been intrigued to hear

27:13

that Doyle answer Oliver Lodge

27:16

believed to be communicating with their dead

27:18

sons. The men both had great

27:20

and trustworthy reputations. Why

27:23

not to have a talk with them. The

27:25

two began to exchange letters, and Houdini

27:27

was still very much open to the concept

27:30

of spirit communication around this time.

27:32

He just wanted to see one medium who

27:35

didn't fall back on what he felt were

27:37

cheap magic tricks when their psychic abilities

27:39

failed them. This motivated him

27:41

to do something Doyle had been doing

27:44

for years. He started to investigate

27:46

many of the same European physical

27:48

mediums. Unlike Doyle, Houdini

27:51

was unmoved by basically everyone and

27:53

immediately starts this creepy

27:55

pattern of becoming annoyed that

27:58

mediums vaginas are not being

28:00

more thoroughly inspected.

28:03

At no time, to my knowledge, did the search

28:05

include the orifices of her body.

28:09

Stop. Stop. You

28:11

might remember that this is a pattern

28:13

carried over from the Fox Sisters years

28:16

and the many humiliating physical inspections

28:19

that they underwent in their careers as

28:21

mediums. In this era of investigation,

28:23

where goo was literally gushing

28:26

from orifices, the inspections

28:29

became all the more invasive. However,

28:32

despite Houdini's cavity search

28:34

preferences and disagreement

28:36

on the authenticity of the mediums that

28:38

Doyle endorsed, they became

28:40

friends, and Houdini felt that the

28:43

Doyles, Sir Arthur and his wife

28:45

Jane the medium, genuinely believed

28:47

what they were saying. Based on their

28:49

early interactions, it seemed like Houdini

28:52

was inclined to be won over by the Doyles.

28:55

He had a short lived film career in the

28:57

early twenties that included a

28:59

nine movie called The

29:02

Man from Beyond, a silent

29:04

movie where the idea of reincarnation

29:06

is integral to the plot. He

29:09

even cites Doyle's work in

29:11

the text, Doyle happened to

29:13

be in New York when this movie premiered. He

29:15

was there going on this hot streak of spiritualist

29:18

lectures that were selling out Carnegie

29:20

Hall night after night, packing

29:22

the house with war widows that wanted

29:24

to get in touch with dead soldiers, and

29:27

the Doyles loved the movie. They were

29:29

touched to see the Man from Beyond

29:31

advertised with blinds like audiences

29:34

everywhere were welcome at his evidence that loved

29:36

ones gone to the great beyond. I'm not lost

29:39

to us forever. Variety

29:41

said that Houdini's attempt to marry

29:43

magicians logic and spiritualist

29:45

logic was a failure. The

29:48

two things don't go together, it said, but

29:50

the boys didn't care. They enjoyed writing

29:52

each other letters, and Doyle felt

29:54

optimistic that Houdini would come around

29:57

while he continued to tour with images

29:59

of fairies and spirit photography

30:02

and yes, a strong

30:04

endorsement of Eva cs

30:06

ectoplasm until the

30:09

Atlantic City trip. In

30:27

the Houdini's and the Doyles spent

30:29

the weekend in Atlantic City, New

30:32

Jersey together. I mean incredible.

30:35

I love it, But after two blissful

30:37

years of friendship, this trip was

30:39

unfortunately the beginning of the end.

30:42

At some point in the trip, Jean felt

30:45

comfortable enough with the Houdini's to

30:47

ask if they would sit for a mediumship

30:49

session with her Harry, specifically

30:52

in an attempt to contact his mother. Interestingly,

30:55

like the Fox Sisters, this story

30:57

has been covered on Drunk History, and

31:00

Lucia's Dylan gets it pretty

31:02

good, with the exception of being

31:04

completely dismissive of spiritualism,

31:07

mediums and Houdini's latent

31:09

misogyny. Oh here's

31:11

the clip, Sir Arthur Conan do. I was like,

31:14

I want you to sit down and have this seance,

31:16

and I have my wife is

31:19

going to speak your mother's

31:21

words through handwriting.

31:25

Really, Budiny, shut up

31:28

quite uh, I know your skeptical. Let's

31:31

just do this. His

31:33

wife was like, Hey, we're all

31:35

here, we're doing the seance. Let's

31:38

speak to Houdini's mother, so

31:41

then it would happen. Oh,

31:45

my son, I'm so happy to speak

31:47

to you. I'm gonna put a cross on top

31:50

of this thing, short across

31:52

on the top of the thing. Mrs Houdiny

31:55

was Jewish. In reality,

31:58

Jeam channels over is

32:00

of handwriting from Houdini's mother, and

32:02

while the cross thing is true, what

32:05

disillusioned Houdini was the fact that

32:07

his mother barely spoke English

32:09

and he didn't feel that she would ever have communicated

32:12

with him in that language. But he didn't

32:14

say that to the Doyle's In the moment, the

32:17

Doyles thought that Houdini was moved,

32:20

and they left for England, seen off by

32:22

Houdini and Bess at the wharf, thinking

32:24

that they had finally sold him on

32:26

it. So a quick moment of acknowledgment

32:29

for Harry Houdini's wife, the often

32:31

overlooked Best Houdini, who

32:34

both inspired a Kitler song and

32:36

said a lot of confusing and vaguely horny

32:38

early twentieth century things that make me laugh,

32:41

such as saying that she sold her virginity

32:44

for an orange. What I

32:46

digress privately.

32:49

Houdini's opinion of the seance and

32:51

officially begun to permanently sour.

32:54

By Halloween of that year, he told the New

32:56

York Son spiritualism is nothing

32:58

more than spook tricks, and mediums are either

33:00

crooked or hysterical. This

33:03

piste. Mr Sherlock Art He

33:05

felt that Houdini was being dramatic

33:07

for press, and wrote as much to him in a letter.

33:10

They sent me The New York Sun

33:13

with your article, and no

33:15

doubt wanted me to answer them. But

33:17

I have no fancy for sparring

33:19

with a friend in pub when

33:22

you say you have had no evidence

33:24

of survival. You say what I

33:26

cannot reconcile with my own

33:29

eyes. I know by

33:31

many examples the purity of

33:33

my wife's mediumship, and I

33:36

saw what you thought and what the

33:38

effect was on you at the time.

33:41

You're right that you are very sore. I

33:43

trust that it is not with me, because you, having

33:46

been truthful and manly all your life,

33:48

naturally must admire the same traits and

33:50

other human beings. Now

33:53

boys and at this point,

33:55

Houdini went on the offensive

33:58

and signed up to be a judge this high

34:00

profile panel sponsored by the

34:02

Scientific American to determine

34:05

once and for all if mediumship

34:08

could be scientifically proven.

34:10

After trying to nail down the science behind

34:12

spiritual phenomena, if any,

34:15

for months and years, the Classic

34:17

magazine offered five thousand dollars

34:19

in nineteen twenties money to

34:21

any medium who could prove to a panel

34:23

of scientists and experts that their

34:25

abilities were scientifically legitimate.

34:29

This might sound kind of weird

34:31

that a science magazine would want to write about

34:33

ghosts, but this was actually pretty

34:36

standard for this time. I mean, spiritualist

34:38

ideas were included in the earliest

34:40

publications of psychology.

34:43

In pamphlet from

34:45

the Liverpool Psychological Society

34:48

included a bullet point saying

34:50

it cared about the dissemination

34:52

of knowledge by means of the public instruction,

34:55

lectures, reading rooms, the press,

34:57

and spirit communion. They

34:59

bailed on the idea by the end of the century,

35:01

but it was there and again. These

35:03

spiritual revivals tended to

35:06

happen during times of rapid technological

35:09

and social progress, as well as

35:11

times of massive lost life.

35:13

This contest took place two years after

35:16

women had gotten the vote, while the gigantic

35:18

losses of World War Two were still at

35:20

the top of everyone's mind, while electricity

35:23

and radio were spreading across the country.

35:25

While scientific theories like evolution

35:28

had managed to tie in with spiritualism

35:31

and caused observers of the religion to

35:33

believe that spirits evolve

35:35

in addition to our bodies over time.

35:38

The second revival came at this interesting

35:40

time where science was not yet considered

35:43

not magic and most skeptics

35:46

were still open to alternative ideas.

35:49

A critical element to these

35:51

scientific American tests was

35:53

how rigorous the panel was allowed

35:56

to be with mediums who were subjecting

35:58

themselves to inspection. The

36:00

magazine listed materials like quote,

36:03

induction coils, galvanometers,

36:06

electroscopes, et cetera, Some

36:08

with the purpose of testing the electrical

36:10

condition of the medium at the moment when

36:12

phenomena are produced, others

36:15

to prove the presence or absence

36:17

of material objects unquote.

36:20

Doyle had tried to convince a Scientific

36:23

American editor named James Malcolm

36:25

Bird not to have Houdini

36:27

on the board. No such luck,

36:29

although Bird was considered to be an

36:31

extremely gullible man who would

36:34

flop so hard that he would lose his

36:36

standing both at the American Society

36:38

for Psychical Research and his

36:40

job at the Scientific American in

36:43

the next ten years. Once the

36:45

Scientific American open investigation

36:47

began, it went on for

36:50

over a year, with the rift

36:52

between Houdini and Doyle growing.

36:55

All the while, Houdini and the judges

36:57

found it pretty easy to dismiss most

36:59

of the media ms that came through. Many

37:02

who came in were women and would have to

37:04

wear a black bathing suit and

37:06

be marked and glow in the dark paint so

37:08

that the seance room could remain dark

37:10

as required. For some time,

37:13

the Scientific Americans Library became

37:15

a seance room where experts

37:17

discredited medium. After medium,

37:20

finding no real viable contenders,

37:23

Houdini was removed from the board at least

37:25

once when he broke a story ahead

37:27

of the magazine's publication, and,

37:29

in classic Puddini fashion, took

37:31

more credit then made sense. He

37:34

went back to touring his magic show

37:36

at the same time that Doyle was doing

37:38

one of his most extensive American

37:40

speaking tours yet. And they even run

37:42

into each other on the road and have

37:44

a picnic. But still Budini

37:47

cannot resist talking behind people's

37:49

backs, he wrote in a letter to his

37:51

wife Bess later, Doyle is

37:53

a historical character, and his word

37:56

goes far, in fact, much further

37:58

than mine. It is a little bizarre

38:00

that Houdini was being treated as

38:03

a scientist and a man of

38:05

letters that he never had really been

38:07

known for in these years,

38:09

but comments like this suggests

38:11

that that might have been how he wanted to

38:13

be viewed. The process of going

38:15

legit had begun and would continue

38:18

after these years of ghost busting ended,

38:20

when he would try to get back on track to further

38:23

his education and even become a college

38:25

professor. It's around this time

38:27

that Marjorie Mina Crandon

38:31

comes into the picture. Marjorie

38:34

is the subject of The Witch of Lime

38:36

Street, Seance, Seduction and

38:38

Houdini in the Spirit World by

38:40

David Jahr. Maybe I'm especially

38:43

partial to her because she begins life

38:45

as a poor lady in Boston who rises

38:48

the social ranks, marries a doctor

38:50

and becomes the most convincing and bewildering

38:53

medium of her era. Plus

38:55

her act was really horny. I mean, who cares

38:57

if it was real? It's a victimless crime.

39:00

And as an added dash of authenticity,

39:02

Marjorie had no real history of

39:04

interest in mediumship prior

39:06

to an impromptu science at a

39:08

party, pretty normal practice for the

39:11

time, where she blew people

39:13

away with what her friends thought was

39:15

a natural ability. So over

39:18

a year into the Scientific American

39:20

Contest, the judging board is

39:22

beginning to run out of hope until Mina's

39:25

husband, doctor Roy Crandon, submitted

39:27

her after being in touch briefly with

39:30

none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

39:33

Marjorie was extremely charming.

39:35

Many mediums of this time and still

39:37

now skew a little older, but

39:39

Marjorie was in her thirties, very

39:42

traditionally attractive, with a blonde bob

39:44

and a good sense of humor. And while she

39:46

was tested in many locations all

39:48

over Boston. The Scientific American

39:51

Board planned to come to her house

39:53

on Lime Street. The judging crew

39:55

included Deini, a psychical

39:57

researcher named Walter Prince, the

40:00

inventor of Technicolor, Daniel

40:02

Comstock, Harvard professor William

40:04

McDougall, an amateur magician

40:07

Haro Word Carrington. Keep

40:09

that last name in mind while preparing

40:11

for her formal tests. The way Marjorie's

40:13

mediumship manifested became

40:17

a lot. She did consent

40:19

to Judini's weird cavity search

40:22

and would then produce ectoplasm,

40:24

most notably from her vagina. She

40:27

would produce spirit hands from

40:29

her vagina that we're all cold and slimy.

40:32

She could make tables lift, bell boxes

40:34

ring, and she tended to channel one

40:37

particular spirit, her

40:39

brother Walter, who had been tragically

40:41

crushed between railway cars years

40:43

before, and Walter as

40:46

channeled by his sister. Marjorie was

40:48

a real jokester in these

40:51

test seances, saying things like this

40:53

laugh and if you can't laugh, then look

40:55

in the mirror. He teased judges

40:58

and press, He flirt with whim in,

41:00

and he was said to have a deeply masculine

41:03

voice that threw itself all over the

41:05

place. His masculinity actually

41:07

seemed to be a big selling point for people.

41:10

Walter would mostly talk, but

41:12

he also moved the table, he pinched,

41:15

he teased. At one point, a judge

41:17

asked him to kick him in the face and

41:19

then said thank you when he did. Marjorie

41:22

was tested at Harvard and did well,

41:24

particularly with Scientific American

41:27

editor the famously gullible Jay

41:29

Bird, who started publishing glowing

41:31

reviews about her before she even formally

41:34

sat down with the Scientific American

41:36

board. So Houdini sees this

41:38

and says, I think I'll go

41:40

to Boston to test Marjorie

41:43

before Bird poisoned the well in her

41:45

favor permanently. By

41:47

all accounts, Marjorie Crandon and

41:49

Harry Houdini had a pretty warm

41:52

friendship, even when he was publicly

41:54

dragging her. This sounded similar

41:56

to his relationship with Doyle, who rarely

41:59

said anything unkind about Houdini

42:01

publicly. I don't get it. I'm assuming

42:03

he was very likable in person, but

42:06

she likes him. Marjorie later

42:08

writes him a letter that says, I

42:10

have been hearing some very nice things

42:13

about you lately, so I'm glad

42:15

to be able to say I know the great Houdini.

42:18

But she's still nervous before he arrives

42:20

at Lime Street, as demonstrated

42:22

by a letter that her husband, Dr

42:25

Crandon writes to Arthur Conan Doyle.

42:27

I think Psyche, my wife is somewhat

42:29

disturbed by it internally because of Houdini's

42:32

general nastiness. She's vomiting

42:34

merrily this morning. Make no mistake.

42:36

Houdini always thought that

42:38

Marjorie was a fraud, but it

42:40

didn't matter what he thought if he

42:42

couldn't explain how she was doing

42:45

it. So he conceals his frustration

42:47

in the moment. But after the spirit

42:49

Walter chides him, saying, you,

42:52

Houdini, think you're pretty smart. Houdini

42:55

started quietly forming theories.

42:58

Maybe there's a third party. He went

43:00

to a second seance test the next

43:02

night, as Doyle waited across

43:04

the ocean, getting regular updates from

43:07

Marjorie's husband. Rudini forms

43:09

more theories this night. Maybe she's

43:11

using her head to move the table without

43:13

it registering with the glow paint she wore.

43:16

But again he can't really prove it, so

43:19

she's moved on to the next round. The

43:21

Crandons are stoked about

43:23

this, and Houdini is getting frustrated.

43:26

Gone are the days where he seems to be sincerely

43:29

interested in spirit communication and

43:32

disproving Marjorie's abilities

43:34

becomes his central focus in

43:36

life. For the next test, Rudini

43:39

began working on a restraint for Marjorie

43:41

that he thought would prevent her from performing

43:44

any of the physical tricks he suspected

43:46

her of as Walter. While

43:48

he was doing this, the press around their

43:51

impending seance in the summer of nineteen

43:53

twenty four got huge.

43:56

Marjorie, who was going by mina

43:58

to protect her identity, had her

44:00

identity and addressed doxed in the

44:02

press, and her first marriage made a mockery

44:05

of People began heavily speculating

44:07

that Marjorie and a member of the Scientific

44:10

American Board, Carrington, were

44:12

having an affair. But before

44:14

those rumors could get two out of hand,

44:17

Budini completed his box,

44:20

a contraption that only allowed Marjorie's

44:22

head and hands to have freedom of motion.

44:25

He seems to find this fair, writing

44:27

to a friend that he would allow Marjorie Crandon

44:30

to keep the seance room dark. I

44:32

want to give Mrs Crandon every possible

44:34

chance to make good, and if she possesses any

44:36

psychic power, I will be the first to assist

44:39

her in this mission. During this trial,

44:41

the bells rang as usual, but

44:43

upon turning the lights on, the box

44:46

had been partially forced open.

44:49

Didn't look great for Marjorie. Her

44:51

support on the Scientific American Board

44:53

was dwindling, with only Carrington,

44:56

who was suspected to be having an affair

44:58

with her, fully in her corner. Houdini,

45:01

on the other hand, was ruthless

45:04

and very opportunistic at this time,

45:06

taking every chance he could to disparage

45:09

Marjorie publicly and monetize

45:11

his theory that she was a fraud. It

45:14

became a regular and popular part

45:16

of his live act, just being

45:18

a hater. It's the same ikey

45:20

feeling you get when a true crime podcast

45:23

is, like, we're going on tour to talk

45:25

about murders in your area.

45:28

At the end of August, another seance

45:30

took place where Marjorie's hands were bound

45:33

and nothing materialized. At

45:35

this point, the magazine felt she was beat, but

45:37

Walter the Spirit persisted, Houdini,

45:40

you think you're so smart, don't you. How

45:43

much are they paying you to stop this? Phenomena. Now

45:46

not to side with Walter, but

45:48

if I may, I don't think that shoving

45:50

someone in a tiny unventilated

45:53

box in a tiny unventilated

45:55

room is conducive for doing

45:57

anything much less. During

46:00

the dead, another science at

46:02

Boston's Charles Gate Hotel produced

46:05

the biggest controversy between Crandon

46:07

and Houdini yet. Marjorie

46:09

had a successful seance in Houdini's

46:12

box, but when it ended, he found

46:14

a ruler and accused her of using

46:16

it to pull off tricks. This

46:19

caused Walter the spirit to flip,

46:22

and he claimed that Houdini had done it

46:24

himself. I love what he says here.

46:27

Buckle in the ghost says

46:30

Houdini, You goddamn son of a

46:32

bitch, get the hell out of here. Never come

46:34

back. If you don't, I will. You

46:36

won't live forever. Houdini. You've got

46:38

to die. I put a curse on you now that

46:40

will follow you every day until you die, and then

46:42

you'll know better. Holy shit,

46:45

man. Judini was said by

46:47

those present to be pretty scared

46:50

and insulted at this outburst. He

46:52

was said to like sort of panic and be like,

46:54

my parents were married when I was born. What are

46:56

you talking about. Of course, Houdini

46:59

press sense this event much differently,

47:02

casting himself as the hero once

47:04

more. Decades later, a Houdini

47:07

biographer claimed that Houdini's

47:09

assistant had planted the ruler,

47:11

but even this fact has been disputed.

47:14

The man who had written the biography

47:16

was William Lindsay Gresham,

47:19

author of the famously anti

47:21

spiritualism and anti mediumship

47:23

novel Nightmare Ali, a

47:25

book that ironically mocks the exact

47:28

kind of physical mediumship that Marjorie

47:30

is performing. But at this point

47:33

in the trials, Judini felt that

47:35

one more slightly off science

47:38

would lose Marjorie the contest. Now,

47:41

Judini was known to be a bit of

47:43

a prude, and he seemed

47:45

deeply uncomfortable with the more sexual

47:47

aspects of Marjorie's persona.

47:50

Other judges would touch her while

47:53

she was making ectoplasm, not

47:55

with eva c sexual intensity,

47:58

but the whole process was a semi

48:00

erotic thing to do with a hot lady

48:03

in a robe while her husband was sitting

48:05

right there. Instead of participating,

48:08

Udini said nasty things about

48:10

her. He accused her of keeping

48:12

a refrigerator in her vagina,

48:14

as well as making some pretty unforgivable

48:17

accusations against her. Ahead

48:20

of their next seance, he said

48:22

that a time where Marjorie allowed

48:24

him to nap at her house on Lime

48:26

Street after a seance they performed

48:28

there, she had been trying to seduce

48:31

him. By all accounts, this

48:33

is not true, but I do want to demonstrate

48:36

that Houdini was coming at her

48:38

relentlessly and then locking

48:41

her in a box. At

48:43

their final seance, Marjorie started

48:45

sweating and overheated and

48:47

couldn't move and produced nothing.

48:51

Udini wrote in his postmortem to the

48:53

Scientific American, I charged

48:55

Mrs Crandon with daily performing her feets

48:57

like a natural conjurer. She is not

49:00

simple or guileless that a shrewd

49:02

cunning woman. Ahead

49:04

of the results being announced in the Scientific

49:06

American, Marjorie complained

49:08

that Houdini's spirit box set her

49:10

up for failure, and even

49:12

after ostensibly defeating her, Houdini

49:15

continued to monetize Marjorie's

49:17

potential public humiliation. He

49:20

published a pamphlet called Houdini

49:23

Exposes the Tricks used by the Boston

49:25

medium Marjorie in Hurst Magazines,

49:28

where he explicitly accuses

49:30

Bird and Carrington as conspiring

49:33

with Marjorie, while she rallied

49:35

her spiritualist supporters and started

49:37

holding seances and public showings

49:40

again in spite of him. Houdini

49:42

wouldn't relent. He tracked down

49:44

a photo of her brother Walter's train

49:47

accident horrifying and

49:49

showed it in public. He also

49:51

showed off what he thought she was doing,

49:53

balancing spirit trumpets on her head

49:56

and using her feet to ring bells.

49:58

At this point, even Dennie's supporters

50:01

felt like it was getting weird. He

50:03

won. Why can't you let it go? The

50:06

truth of all the matter is that Marjorie

50:08

and my belief is a social climber,

50:10

oh right, misogyny.

50:13

He doesn't like her, so you see

50:15

this pattern of him using any gendered

50:17

attack he can think of to cut

50:19

her down. It's worth mentioning that

50:21

Marjorie and Arthur Conan Doyle are barely

50:24

speaking to press, and they don't speak

50:26

ill of Houdini publicly during this

50:28

time at all. Instead, Marjorie

50:31

focused on getting second opinions and

50:33

got a pretty favorable outcome

50:35

from a prominent psychical researcher

50:38

named Eric Dingwall, who had

50:40

busted a number of prominent mediums,

50:42

but outside of suspecting that she put

50:44

ectoplasm in her vagina in advance,

50:47

couldn't disprove her ability before

50:50

the Scientific American announced their verdict.

50:53

Marjorie was a nervous wreck, and

50:55

Houdini didn't give a ship. He

50:58

wrote to a friend, no surprises

51:00

me about Marjorie. A woman who would drag

51:02

her dead brother from the grave and exploit

51:04

him before the public as a means of gaining social

51:07

prominence, would do anything. The

51:09

results came out in February ninety

51:12

five, and Marjory lost

51:15

the money and the recognition.

51:18

Her spirit hands had been analyzed and

51:20

identified not as supernatural

51:23

material but as a hunk of

51:25

animal trachea. The Scientific

51:28

American contest technically continued

51:30

through the early nineteen forties, even

51:33

boasting a fifteen thousand dollar

51:35

prize at one point, but it was never

51:37

given this level of public attention

51:40

again, and spiritualism

51:42

never caught back on in the same way.

51:45

Marjory, to her credit, was a class

51:47

act about the loss, saying

51:49

in a public statement, the decision

51:52

does not bother me at all, and

51:54

I can certainly say I'm neither discouraged

51:56

or disappointed. Any further damon

51:59

must come from my husband and privately

52:02

she was depressed. Now referred

52:04

to as the Witch of Beacon Street, she

52:06

said she quote does not find myself

52:09

dancing around as joyously as

52:11

I once did unquote. Houdini,

52:14

on the other hand, rode out the success

52:16

of ruining Marjorie in public, and

52:19

for the remainder of his life dedicated

52:21

a lot of his time to exposing

52:24

medium trickery. Between his own

52:26

magic shows. He started this group

52:28

called my own Personal Secret

52:31

Service, Oh Babe, and

52:33

he would disguise himself as he went

52:35

from city to city, attending seances

52:38

and taking people down, often trying

52:40

to get mediums arrested for fraud.

52:44

While the antifortune telling and which laws

52:46

from generations past were mostly

52:48

dormant, some of them still did

52:50

exist. It's so bizarre. I

52:53

mean, it's this very successful person

52:55

traveling around the country like a godless

52:58

missionary, wearing mustachio disguises

53:00

and saying, surprise, bitch, it's

53:02

Houdini, and everything you ever believed

53:04

is a lie. I don't know where this

53:07

instinct comes from. I mean, it wasn't a

53:09

hard dedication to the truth.

53:12

Houdini stretched the truth all

53:14

the time, and he himself had

53:16

overcome so much personally, he'd

53:18

overcome poverty, he'd overcome

53:20

the American attitudes towards Jewish

53:22

people in the early twentieth century.

53:25

Houdini was treated anti semitically at

53:27

many points in his career, sometimes

53:30

by spiritualists. But

53:32

I still can't figure out why this

53:34

is the hill he chooses to die

53:36

on time and time again,

53:38

no matter who he has to take out to get

53:40

there. I think it connects more than

53:42

anything else that his not being able

53:45

to talk to his mom one last time. It

53:47

reached the point where Houdini was lobbying

53:49

President Coolidge to reinstate

53:52

anti fortune telling bills, And

53:54

even with all this going on, still

53:57

could not let Marjorie Crandon go

54:00

and sent a spy reporter to buddy

54:02

up with her. Read between the lines and

54:04

you will see I accused Marjorie of using

54:06

sex charm and it has been authenticated,

54:09

he told a friend. This

54:26

sequence of events sort of recalls

54:28

another successful, difficult to

54:30

bust female medium from the eighteen

54:32

seventies. Her name was Florence

54:35

Cook, and she channeled a woman

54:37

named Katie King, a daughter

54:39

of an imperialist gikes.

54:42

Cook could make her spirit guide

54:44

full body manifest during

54:46

seances. Arthur Conan

54:49

Doyle was known to show her spirit photographs

54:51

on the road. While Cook wasn't

54:54

framed for fraud at the time, a

54:56

similarly slight shamy dismissal

54:58

of her abilities was launched. A

55:01

man told the Society for Psychical Research

55:03

that he'd had an affair with Florence and

55:05

that she'd had a long standing affair

55:08

with William Crooks, the investigator

55:10

who was supposed to be investigating

55:13

her. In the end, Crooks

55:15

was knighted and moved on with his life

55:17

just fine, and Florence Cook

55:19

was revealed to have been dressing up as Katie

55:21

the whole time. You know how this

55:24

story goes at this point, when she died

55:26

of pneumonia in poverty in nineteen

55:28

o four, Houdini

55:31

reached the apex of being on

55:33

his bullshit in n when

55:35

he managed to get all the way

55:37

through to pitching to a Congress

55:40

subcommittee. He spent four days

55:43

arguing House Resolution eight nine

55:45

eight nine, which sought to ban

55:47

fortune telling in d C. This

55:50

turned into a complete circus.

55:53

Mediums and psychics from all over

55:55

came in protest and to defend themselves,

55:58

their religion, and their practices.

56:01

What this translated to was a Congress

56:03

floor full of psychics wild

56:06

but as it turned out, d C wasn't

56:09

really a smart venue for Houdini

56:11

to choose his hill to die on. In

56:13

the nineteenth century, two first

56:15

Ladies had held seance as in the White House,

56:18

and Florence Harding, who had lived there

56:20

in the previous presidency, famously

56:23

had a psychic advisor. In fact,

56:25

her psychic advisor showed up to

56:27

the congressional hearing to defend herself.

56:30

The bill Houdini was proposing included

56:32

a two fifty dollar penalty

56:35

and language that implied it was scientifically

56:38

impossible to be a medium

56:40

rods from start to finish, mental degenerates,

56:43

or deliberate cheats. In the

56:45

end, Houdini lost this battle. Everyone

56:48

in Congress was kind of like relax

56:50

man, and he was thought to have gone too

56:52

far when accusing the sitting president

56:55

of seeking a psychic's help, said

56:57

Representative Ralph Gilbert of Kentucky.

57:00

I believe in Santa Claus, and I believe in fairies

57:03

in a way, and Houdini is taking

57:05

the matter entirely too seriously.

57:08

That's what I've been saying this whole damn

57:11

show. Ralph, thank you As

57:13

it turned out, Houdini didn't have much

57:15

more time to stir ship. He died

57:17

later that year, a very magician's

57:19

death mysterious, and

57:21

on Halloween, while backstage

57:24

in Montreal, he was approached by a man

57:26

who asked Houdini if he believed

57:28

in the Bible and quote, whether it

57:30

was true that punches in the stomach did not

57:32

hurt you unquote. Houdini

57:35

brushed it off and joked that his stomach could

57:37

handle a lot, and the guy punched

57:39

him several times hard in

57:41

the stomach. He died of appendicitis

57:44

just several days later. Houdini's

57:47

wife Bess spoke on his interest in

57:49

life after death often after

57:51

he passed, as in this radio clip,

57:54

Mary, you kneel my husband a long

57:57

time,

58:00

and you remember what he always said

58:02

about these things, that it was

58:04

impossible for the dead to return.

58:07

That's problem. He was right. Well,

58:10

if it would have been possible, I would

58:12

have had some sign from him

58:14

in the past ten years. Bes

58:17

always said that Houdini had told

58:19

her how he would manifest in the

58:21

afterlife, what he'd say

58:24

if he could communicate with her from beyond

58:26

the grave, and that for as long as a decade

58:28

she held annual seances on

58:31

Halloween to see if he would

58:33

return. He never showed. Ten

58:35

years is long enough to wait for any man, but

58:38

not for hardcore Houdini fans. The

58:40

spirit Circle still takes place every

58:43

year on Halloween. People are

58:45

still waiting. Sir

58:47

Arthur Conan Doyle was finally able to

58:49

take some pot shots at Houdini four

58:51

years after his death in his book

58:54

The Edge of the Unknown. Good

58:56

Ship like this, there was

58:58

no consideration of years old,

59:00

which would restrain him if

59:02

he saw his way to an advertisement.

59:05

But when Houdinie first dies, Doyle

59:08

is sweet in memorializing his

59:10

former friend, which genuinely

59:12

seemed to touch Udini's widow best.

59:15

She revealed the Doyle that among her

59:17

husband's gigantic collection of oddities,

59:20

there was one item he would never

59:22

sell, a notebook full of drawings

59:25

that have belonged to and been drawn

59:27

by Arthur Conan Doyle's father.

59:31

I mean, why can't men just be friends?

59:33

That's so nice. Doyle

59:35

himself lived until nineteen thirty, dying

59:37

of a heart attack. His last words

59:40

were telling his wife, Jean, whose mediumship

59:42

he had always believed in, you

59:45

are wonderful, Marjorie

59:47

continued to practice seances in Boston

59:49

until her death. When asked by a psychic

59:52

researcher what her secret was on

59:54

her deathbed, she remained

59:56

the best. I said, you can

59:58

go to hell. All you psychic

1:00:00

researchers can go to hell.

1:00:03

Why don't you guess? You'll all be guessing

1:00:06

for the rest of your lives, so

1:00:11

ectoplasm. Look, I'm not making

1:00:13

this show to tell you what is real and

1:00:15

what isn't in the spirit realm, I don't

1:00:18

know. And as much as I love the Houdini

1:00:20

Doyle saga, I think it's more

1:00:22

important to remember that the target

1:00:24

of their rage or religious feelings,

1:00:27

respectively, we're connected to

1:00:29

real bodies, much more vulnerable

1:00:32

than their own. And honestly, I

1:00:34

don't care if Mina Crandon was a fraud.

1:00:36

I think she was brilliant, pulling

1:00:38

yourself out of poverty against all odds

1:00:41

to live a life, scamming famous scientists

1:00:44

into thinking your vaginal discharge

1:00:46

is fucking magical. It's like,

1:00:49

are you serious? Can you tell me with

1:00:51

a straight face that isn't fucking awesome?

1:00:54

I hope Mina Crandon gets a movie someday.

1:00:56

Her story has never been really adapted

1:00:58

properly, and the Houdinian Doyle

1:01:01

story has been told badly and

1:01:03

more than once. Okay, one

1:01:05

more tangent. There was a show

1:01:08

on I t V in the UK called

1:01:12

Houdini and Doyle. I will

1:01:14

not dox the actors, but it's the most recent

1:01:16

past at this concept that reimagines

1:01:19

these men who really

1:01:21

just disagreed on spiritualism

1:01:23

and we're friends for no more than a couple

1:01:25

of years. But in this show

1:01:28

there buddy cops. It

1:01:31

got canceled after a few episodes, because

1:01:33

of course it did. But Houdini and Doyle

1:01:36

as buddy cops is such a startlingly

1:01:38

bad idea that it might actually

1:01:41

be an amazing idea. Every

1:01:44

religion for centuries has told us

1:01:46

the death isn't the end.

1:01:49

Nothing is as it was just ten years

1:01:51

ago, maybe not even death

1:01:55

a load of crap. I

1:01:57

can have this case myself without help from the

1:01:59

Rocks. Are a magician? Are your police officers?

1:02:03

We're working with the police. Yet, fear

1:02:06

is a good thing. It's

1:02:09

only when you admit that you're afraid the fear

1:02:11

loses its power. Houdini

1:02:14

and Doyle coming in two thousand

1:02:17

and sixteen to I t V Encore.

1:02:19

No, it's a bad idea, but you've gotta hand it to them.

1:02:22

They put that on television on purpose,

1:02:25

and the story of Houdini, Doyle,

1:02:27

and Mina Crandon in many ways

1:02:29

covers the peaks and valleys of the second

1:02:31

wave of American Spiritualism,

1:02:33

the last major revival of the movement,

1:02:36

although I would not rule out a

1:02:38

third on the horizon. I want to

1:02:40

end on a quote from Walter

1:02:43

the Ghost. Actually he once

1:02:45

said this through his sister Mina out

1:02:47

of seance, for life

1:02:49

is full of boxes closed and death

1:02:51

follows right along. The only

1:02:53

difference I can see is you sing

1:02:55

in your box when you're gone. Next

1:02:59

week, the end of Ghost Church

1:03:01

approaches. I have a dinner to

1:03:03

get to with one of the mediums of Cassadega.

1:03:05

I've got some secrets to keep, and I've

1:03:07

got some conclusions to reach.

1:03:10

See you there. And also

1:03:13

I have COVID nineteen right now and

1:03:15

I can't set boundaries, so I

1:03:18

know my voice sounds weird. Have a good

1:03:20

week. Ghost Church is

1:03:22

a Cool Zone Media production created,

1:03:24

written and hosted by me Jamie

1:03:26

Loftus. The show is produced by Sophie

1:03:29

Lichterman, edited by Ian Johnson,

1:03:31

Our theme song is by Speedy Ortiz.

1:03:34

That's Sadie Dupree, Andy Moholt,

1:03:36

Audreys White Sides and Joey Dubeck.

1:03:39

Music is by Zoe Bade.

1:03:42

Huge thank you to Paul ev Tomkins

1:03:45

for playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and

1:03:47

to Robert Evans for playing Harry

1:03:50

Dean. Additional parts were played

1:03:52

by the wonderful Ghost Church team

1:03:54

Ian Johnson and Sophie Lichton.

1:03:56

And thanks guys, Keep

1:04:01

the Kid