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Speaker 1: Ectoplasm. That's ghost slime. We got there, We did it, ectoplasm.

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Speaker 1: Most people actually associate ectoplasm with the movie Ghostbusters, big

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Speaker 1: green ghost guy, slimer, sliming around, actoplasmic residue, sampleuisms, exter

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Speaker 1: real thing somebody blows and knows and you want to

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Speaker 1: keep it to analyzem. I always thought that Dan Ackroyd

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Speaker 1: and Harold Ramos, who wrote Ghostbusters ever read a book,

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Speaker 1: used the word ectoplasm just because it's sort of sounded ghostie.

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Speaker 1: But it turns out Dan Ackroyd was raised a spiritualist.

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Speaker 1: He's a third generation spiritualist. Here's an interview he did

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Speaker 1: with his father, Peter Ackroyd discussing just that very much.

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Speaker 1: So my my experience going up to the old farmhouse,

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Speaker 1: which was used partially as a cottage by various members

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Speaker 1: of the family through through my youth and college years

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Speaker 1: and second city years. Uh, just as you'd see life

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Speaker 1: magazines or National Geographic lying around many cottages, we had

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Speaker 1: the American Society for Psychical Research journals lying right, and

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Speaker 1: all kinds of books that were handed down from uh,

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Speaker 1: from my from Sam and Morris, who was dad's father,

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Speaker 1: Bell telephone engineer, So the whole family was sort of

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Speaker 1: steeped in this, uh this kind of just accepted fact that, uh,

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Speaker 1: spirits do exist and can can you communicate if you

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Speaker 1: find a talented medium him or her who is willing

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Speaker 1: to give themselves up to the controls and the controls

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Speaker 1: are the entities from the other side that come through.

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Speaker 1: And so that combined with an article in the a

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Speaker 1: spr Journal about quantum physics and parapsychology and my love

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Speaker 1: of old ghost movies from the thirties and forties, Bob Hope,

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Speaker 1: Abbot Costello, the Bowery Boys, um that sort of funeral

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Speaker 1: married together to to produce the first draft of Ghostbust.

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Speaker 1: This is the best. Dan Ackroyd is a based multigenerational spiritualist, which,

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Speaker 1: as we've discussed, is pretty rare, but his grandfather was

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Speaker 1: a member at Cassadega's sister camp in lily Dale, New York,

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Speaker 1: and a number of the publications and organizations he's discussing

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Speaker 1: in that clip are relevant to what we're talking about today.

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Speaker 1: The second Spiritualist revival of the nineteen twenties and the

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Speaker 1: most famous schism in all of spiritualism, the one between

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Speaker 1: Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But before we

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Speaker 1: can get there, let's get you up to speed on

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Speaker 1: ectoplasm Baby. We've talked a lot on Ghost Church about

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Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters, the founders of American Spiritualism, who by

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Speaker 1: the mid eighteen nineties had passed into spirit in semi

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Speaker 1: obscurity and poverty. Some of the reasons that their mediumship

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Speaker 1: had been discredit at it over the years had to

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Speaker 1: do with an increased demand for physical manifestations of spirit,

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Speaker 1: basically adding in magic tricks to existing mediumship to make

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Speaker 1: it a little flashier, a little show ear and meet

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Speaker 1: this consumer demand for a real spectacle. When contacting their dead,

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Speaker 1: Americans liked things big and slimy and loud. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of our thing. But it led to many, many widely

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Speaker 1: debunked practices that were a long way from these simple

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Speaker 1: table wrappings that defined the Fox Sisters seance. Maggie Fox

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Speaker 1: said this when she first disavowed her religion publicly back

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Speaker 1: in in a column that we've read on the show before,

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Speaker 1: called the Curse of Spiritualism, she writes, fanatics ignore the wrappings,

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Speaker 1: which is the only part of the phenomena that is

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Speaker 1: worthy of notice and rush madly after the glaring humbugs

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Speaker 1: that flood New York. So what phenomena is she talking

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Speaker 1: about here? Well, it was the kind of stuff that

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Speaker 1: organizations like the Society for Psychical Research, which was founded

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Speaker 1: as a nonprofit in the UK in two were dedicated

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Speaker 1: to busting. They'd investigate this sort of phenomena to determine

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Speaker 1: whether they were authentic or not. Things like spirit photography,

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Speaker 1: the practice where you're dead would appear in a translucent

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Speaker 1: picture with you, as well as physical manifestations basically the

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Speaker 1: seance on steroids, practices that took mental and trance, mediumship

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Speaker 1: and in the pitch dark of the seance room. Added

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Speaker 1: things like spirit hands, which was a slimy hand that

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Speaker 1: reached across to you in the dark from across the vale.

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Speaker 1: Things like slate writing, where a spirit would write messages,

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Speaker 1: trumpet mediumship, which is still in occasional practice in Cassadeca today,

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Speaker 1: and ectoplasm, which if a medium could goop it out,

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Speaker 1: basically served as goes Lube. I guess, oh you didn't

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Speaker 1: like to hear that? You didn't like to hear Jamie say,

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Speaker 1: ghost lube will imagine how I feel huh. Ectoplasm became

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Speaker 1: more common in the mid eighteen nineties post boxes and

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Speaker 1: was said to manifest in mediums while in a trance state,

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Speaker 1: almost as proof that they had contacted the other side.

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Speaker 1: It came out a little different from every medium. One

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Speaker 1: psychical researcher named gusav Gelli described it like this, very

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Speaker 1: variable in appearance, being sometimes vaporous, sometimes a plastic pace,

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Speaker 1: sometimes a bundle of fine threads, or a membrane with

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Speaker 1: swellings or fringes, or a fine fabric like tissue. But

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Speaker 1: others defined ectoplasm somewhat differently. Let's get our friend, iconic

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Speaker 1: spiritualist and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

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Speaker 1: on how he describes ectoplasm viscous last a substance which

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Speaker 1: appeared to differ from every known form of matter in

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Speaker 1: that it could solidify and be used for material purposes. Wow, disgusting.

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Speaker 1: Here's a secret. Unlike many elements of spiritualism, particularly transcend

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Speaker 1: mental mediumship, which I am still inclined to believe to

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Speaker 1: some extent, there is no modern spiritualist I've spoken to

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Speaker 1: or seen writing that stands by things like ectoplasm or

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Speaker 1: the spirit hands, nor the facial manifestations and full bodies

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Speaker 1: that are sometimes said to accompany them. These super extreme

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Speaker 1: practices have been pretty thoroughly debunked over the years, and

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Speaker 1: we could spend hours talking about specific examples, many of

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Speaker 1: which involve the majority male investigators, ghostbusters, if you will,

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Speaker 1: going after female mediums relentlessly, not only until they're busted,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes until they're ruined. This is of interest to me.

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Speaker 1: Ectoplasm was often revealed to be cheesecloth covered in egg

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Speaker 1: white or potato starch, gauze, handkerchiefs, rubber gloves. Honestly, the

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Speaker 1: photos of what was said to be ectoplasm are pretty funny.

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Speaker 1: It's mostly mystical looking women with a mouth or a

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Speaker 1: vagina full of soggy fabric. But it's important to consider

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Speaker 1: why this caught on so much and the very gender

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Speaker 1: dynamics that are at play. The physical medium will be

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Speaker 1: talking about a lot today. Mina Crandon was known specifically

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Speaker 1: for manifesting ectoplasm and spirit hands from her vagina. So

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Speaker 1: while the concept is maybe a little silly, what I've

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Speaker 1: been finding is yet another crack in this reputation that

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Speaker 1: spiritualism has built for itself as being a religion that

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Speaker 1: has historically supported and respected women, and there's no better

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Speaker 1: story to demonstrate that and the politics of the last

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Speaker 1: major spiritualist revival in the United States. Then the feud

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Speaker 1: between Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle over the mediumship

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Speaker 1: of Mina Crandon, a story that leads to history's most

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Speaker 1: iconic magician. Oh nope, wait, oh, I am so sorry

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Speaker 1: about that. The Chris Angel that lives under my bed

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Speaker 1: took issue. Sorry, second most iconic magician, Harry Houdini dedicated

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Speaker 1: years of his life to ruin her life. It's a

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Speaker 1: witch hunt baby. Today on Kay welcome back and happy

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Speaker 1: Ectoplasm episode to all who observe. I still have a

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Speaker 1: lot to tell you about my last day in Cassadega,

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Speaker 1: but this week we've got a lot of spectral goop

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Speaker 1: to wade through. Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini wouldn't

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Speaker 1: actually meet until but Doyle had become a spiritualist publicly

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Speaker 1: back in the eighteen eighties, at the time joining the

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Speaker 1: Society for Psychical Research in eight the same year he

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Speaker 1: killed off his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes in the

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Speaker 1: adventure of the Final Problem. Holmes would be brought back

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Speaker 1: by the early nineteen hundreds, but at this time Doyle

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Speaker 1: was trying to make a clean break from the King

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Speaker 1: of Deduction for a reason unbeknownst to many at this time,

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Speaker 1: Doyle's father, who was said to have had mediumistic talents

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Speaker 1: as well as being a deeply depressive painter who struggled

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Speaker 1: with alcoholism, had been committed to an asylum in the

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen eighties after displaying erratic behavior. Going back to

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Speaker 1: when Arthur Conan Doyle was a kid, this seems to

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Speaker 1: have inspired a streak of extreme pragmatism in his most

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Speaker 1: famous son. Arthur Conan Doyle trained to be a doctor,

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Speaker 1: and when he did begin writing fiction, it was about

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Speaker 1: a character who famously used logic and not art to

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Speaker 1: ground the story. Do you want to take us to it?

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Speaker 1: What do we know about this court kid? Has not

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Speaker 1: left us with much? Just the shirt, the trials, they're

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Speaker 1: pretty formal. Maybe he was going out for the night

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Speaker 1: and the trousers a heavy duty polliat said nasty, same

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Speaker 1: as the shirt cheap. They're both too big for him.

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Speaker 1: So some kind of standard issue uniform dressed for work.

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Speaker 1: Then what kind of work God that shows annoying? So

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Speaker 1: in three Arthur Conan, Doyle's father dies, and while they

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Speaker 1: hadn't been completely estranged, Doyle began to think back on

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Speaker 1: the judgments he had made on his father's beliefs. His

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Speaker 1: father used to send the family paintings with messages attached

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Speaker 1: like this, keep steadily in view that this book is

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Speaker 1: ascribed wholly to the produce of a madman. Whereabouts would

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Speaker 1: you say was the deficiency of intellect or depraved taste?

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Speaker 1: And Doyle started to con it are that his father's

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Speaker 1: leaned towards the supernatural may have had something to it

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Speaker 1: all along. So he removed himself from the logic and

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Speaker 1: pragmatism that had won him the respect of the world

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Speaker 1: through homes and instead threw himself into spiritualism hard, beginning

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties all the way up to his

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Speaker 1: death in ninety. His wife Jean was said to be

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Speaker 1: a medium and also became passionately supportive within the religion.

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Speaker 1: So by the late nineteen tenth he'd sort of become

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Speaker 1: a figurehead within spiritualism and had thrown all of his

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Speaker 1: professional credibility into it with a lot of success, I

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Speaker 1: might add he had been touring across the US and

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Speaker 1: UK lecturing. He wrote twenty books on the topic of spiritualism,

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Speaker 1: with titles like The Case for spirit Photography, to the

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Speaker 1: Coming of the Fairies, to my favorite, The Edge of

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Speaker 1: the Unknown. The Coming of the Fairies also rocks, though

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Speaker 1: it's kind of this aimless series of photos of people

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Speaker 1: and fairy toys and the rest of it is basically

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Speaker 1: Arthur Conan Doyle being really defensive and saying things like this,

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Speaker 1: The cry of faith is sure to be raised and

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Speaker 1: will make some impression upon those who have not had

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Speaker 1: the opportunity of knowing the people concerned or the place.

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Speaker 1: If you knew his friends, you'd believe in fairies. So chill. Also,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of long descriptions of elves. There

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Speaker 1: is an ornamental rim to the pipe of the elves,

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Speaker 1: which shows that the graces of art are not unknown

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Speaker 1: among them. And what joy is in the complete abandoned

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Speaker 1: of their little graceful figures as they let themselves go

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Speaker 1: in the dance. They may have their shadows and trials

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Speaker 1: as we have, but at least there is a great

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Speaker 1: gladness manifest in this demonstration of their life, Doyle wasn't

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Speaker 1: the only major public figure who is excited about spirit communication.

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Speaker 1: Throughout the nineteen tens and nineteen twenties, Sigmund Freud would

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Speaker 1: join the British Society for Psychical Research and started to

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Speaker 1: think that telepathy was possible in the conscious and unconscious realms.

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Speaker 1: Classic Freud Upton Sinclair, who is most famous for The Jungle,

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Speaker 1: a book that I read for my book about hot Dogs.

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Speaker 1: Upton Sinclair had a wife named Mary who believed herself

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Speaker 1: to be psychic, and he published a book on these

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Speaker 1: so so results of testing her abilities, called mental Radio.

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Speaker 1: Carl Young participated in family sciences early in life, wrote

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Speaker 1: his doctoral thesis seeking a medical precedent for medialistic behavior,

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Speaker 1: and went on to become the founder of psychoanalysis while

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Speaker 1: continuing to attend seances into his fifties. Rudyard kipling sister

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Speaker 1: had been a medium, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended

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Speaker 1: up at the forefront of the spiritualist revival that was

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Speaker 1: in large part brought on by people's desire to reconnect

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Speaker 1: with lost soldiers from World War One. Just as the

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Speaker 1: first major spiritualist craze had piqued during the Civil War.

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Speaker 1: He famously and tragically found out that his beloved son

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Speaker 1: had been killed in battle in nineteen eighteen, shortly before

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Speaker 1: giving a speech about spirit communication. But he still went

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Speaker 1: on saying this not too worry, Not to worry, my

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Speaker 1: son survived. The world had changed and it had stayed

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Speaker 1: the same. Emphasis was still on expansion on technological progress,

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Speaker 1: and you start to see known scientists and inventors actively

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Speaker 1: engaging with spiritualist ideas because of its alleged connection to science.

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Speaker 1: Remember to this day this is one of the major

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Speaker 1: spiritualist principles. We have communication scuttle, and so the science

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Speaker 1: community becomes very involved. You'll find people like Thomas Edison

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Speaker 1: developing ideas like the spirit phone, and eventually abandoned n

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Speaker 1: idea that he toyed around with that was supposed to

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Speaker 1: literally let you ring up your dead uncle. There was

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Speaker 1: also Sir Oliver Lodge, a scientist who at first was

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Speaker 1: famous in being integral to the invention of radio and

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Speaker 1: developing ideas around electromagnetism. He then found a second act,

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Speaker 1: writing one of the most famous spiritual texts ever called

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Speaker 1: Raymond or Life and Death, a channel text in which

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Speaker 1: Lodge's son Raymond, who had been killed at Flanders in

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Speaker 1: ninetift spoke to him from beyond the veil to tell

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Speaker 1: people what happened after death. It was a best seller

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Speaker 1: for three years and popularized the idea of the summerland,

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Speaker 1: where spirits are said to go when they have moved on.

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Speaker 1: I've read sections of it, and it's a very sad

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Speaker 1: and pretty remarkable book, one that is sort of half

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Speaker 1: spiritualist propaganda and half just a father deeply missing his

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Speaker 1: son who was killed in combat and is trying to

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Speaker 1: make sense of it. He includes letters that Raymond wrote

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Speaker 1: while he was alive, and you could really feel his

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Speaker 1: grief between reminders that death means nothing, saying things like this, Indeed,

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Speaker 1: it is not right that we should weep for death

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Speaker 1: like his. Rather, let us pay him our homage and

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Speaker 1: praise and imitation by growing like him, and by holding

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Speaker 1: our lives lightly in our country service, so that, if

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Speaker 1: need be, we may die like him. Lodge was a

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Speaker 1: friend of Doyle's, a former president of the Society for

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Speaker 1: Psychical Research who had a so so reputation as an

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Speaker 1: investigator after falling for several mediums who later revealed themselves

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Speaker 1: to be frauds. Now. Look, I want to hold space

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Speaker 1: for how genuinely cool I think it is that, like

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Speaker 1: the Foxes, the Ectoplasmic Sisterhood had a pretty good run

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Speaker 1: at the top of the twentieth century. They were doing

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Speaker 1: things that would have gotten them tried and killed under

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Speaker 1: witchcraft laws in the past. They were physically autonomous. They

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Speaker 1: were essentially turning the horn tendencies of straight male attendees

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Speaker 1: at a seance right back against them. I think it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. It looks like a hell of a show,

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Speaker 1: and also it's a little silly and it makes me laugh. Sorry. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: as books like Raymond were becoming popular, ectoplasmic mediums were

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Speaker 1: being taken out right and left. A famous example is

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Speaker 1: Ava Carriere or Eva c who was famous for having

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Speaker 1: these wild seances where she would materialize a spirit named

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Speaker 1: be and Boa, a Brahmin Hindu spirit who was said

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Speaker 1: to be over three hundred years old who Ava appeared

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Speaker 1: to have made up. The spirit she called Bean Boa

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Speaker 1: was later revealed to be a combination of kind of

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Speaker 1: obvious cardboard cutouts and hired actors. But Carriere was heavily

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Speaker 1: focused on and investigated by these psychical research firms, likely

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Speaker 1: because of her methods and who she was. She was,

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Speaker 1: first of all, a queer, a woman. She performed with

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Speaker 1: her girlfriend, who was twenty five years her senior, and

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Speaker 1: she performed in a very sexualized way. She'd often be

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Speaker 1: nude during seances. She'd produce ectoplasm from every orifice. Her

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Speaker 1: girlfriend slash assistant would sometimes finger her in front of

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Speaker 1: everyone to assure them that the ectoplasm was there. In

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Speaker 1: addition to hired actors and three hundred year old spirits,

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Speaker 1: Eva C was also said to occasionally have sex at

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Speaker 1: the end of the seances, either with her girlfriend assistant

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Speaker 1: or with an attendee. Doyle and Houdini both saw her perform,

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Speaker 1: and Doyle was pretty convinced, Houdini not so much. But

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Speaker 1: in her day she got quite a bit of press,

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Speaker 1: and many seemed relieved when her methods were proven to

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Speaker 1: be false. She was too sexually dangerous. All this to

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Speaker 1: say Eva C. Happy pride wherever you are, and to

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Speaker 1: mention that while agencies like the spr did bust spirit

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Speaker 1: photographers and slate writers, their most high profile targets or

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Speaker 1: women who were known to use their bodies and gush

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Speaker 1: ghost moubes from their holes and what about that Houdini,

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Speaker 1: the same Houdini who grew up in a poor Hungarian

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Speaker 1: Jewish family in Wisconsin with six siblings, who established himself

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Speaker 1: as a magician at carnivals, often using some of the

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00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: same hot and cold reading techniques that phony mediums do.

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Speaker 1: Hot reading being preresearch targeted at a mark, and cold

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Speaker 1: reading being saying something vague that someone's bound to pick

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Speaker 1: up on and acting like you knew the whole time.

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Speaker 1: But eventually he settled on what he was passionate about

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Speaker 1: and became primarily known as an escape artist, known for

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Speaker 1: things like the water torture cell, the straight jacket escape,

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Speaker 1: the buried Alive thingy. He also became an extremely effective

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Speaker 1: self promoter. Ego was a big part of what Houdini did.

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Speaker 1: This was the guy who would say, of like this,

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Speaker 1: no prison can all be. No handle leg irons or

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Speaker 1: steel locks can shackle me, No ropes or chains can

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Speaker 1: keep me from my freedom. This is the guy who

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Speaker 1: advertised in eighteen ninety seven saying, Rudini the Great will

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Speaker 1: Sunday night give a seance in the open light. Rudini

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00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,680
Speaker 1: kind of goes on this journey and his attitudes towards

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Speaker 1: spirit communication throughout his life. Early on, he says he

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00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:29,800
Speaker 1: was always interested in spirit communication and didn't disbelieve in

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Speaker 1: it at all. The only catch was he understood many

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Speaker 1: of the methods that fraudulent mediums had used because he'd

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00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: used some of the same tactics in his early magic days.

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Speaker 1: This interest was compounded by two important events in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen tens, the first being the death of his beloved

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Speaker 1: mother in thirteen. Udini was very close with his mother.

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Speaker 1: A book I read to prepare for this episode, called

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Speaker 1: The Witch of Lime Street, used this brutal phrase, saying

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Speaker 1: the umbilical cord was the only rope Houdini had never

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00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 1: slipped go off. He openly wept mid interview when he

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00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,440
Speaker 1: learned of her death. They were very close, and after

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00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 1: her death, Rudini eagerly attended spiritualist seances in hope of

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Speaker 1: making contact, but wasn't convinced by any of the mediums

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Speaker 1: he spoke with. He framed it like this in his

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four book A Magician among the Spirits. From

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Speaker 1: my early career as a mystical entertainer, I have been

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Speaker 1: interested in spiritualism as belonging to the category of mysticism,

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Speaker 1: and as a sideline to my own phase of mystery shows,

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Speaker 1: I have associated myself with mediums joining the rank and vile,

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Speaker 1: and held seances as an independent medium to fathom the

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Speaker 1: truth of it all. At the time, I appreciated the

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Speaker 1: fact that I surprised my clients, but while aware of

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Speaker 1: the fact that I was deceiving them, I did not

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Speaker 1: see or understand the seriousness of trifling with such sacred

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00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,159
Speaker 1: sentimentality and the baneful result which inevitably followed. To me,

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Speaker 1: it was a arc. As I advanced to riper years

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Speaker 1: of experience, I was brought to a realization of the

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00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: seriousness of trifling with the hallowed reverence which the average

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00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: human being bestows on the departed, And when I personally

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Speaker 1: became afflicted with similar grief, I was chagrined that I

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00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:16,439
Speaker 1: should ever have been guilty of such frivality, and for

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00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: the first time realized that it bordered on crime. So yeah,

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00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: he felt, as many have over the years, that a

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Speaker 1: magician is more ethical than a medium, because with a magician,

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Speaker 1: it's understood that what is happening is not real. But

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00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: if a medium does the same thing, and calls it

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00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 1: religion he felt that was inherently exploitative. Rudini walks this

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Speaker 1: line carefully throughout his years of spiritualist busting in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. The way he presents it is it's not

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Speaker 1: that he doesn't believe in it, it's just that he's

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00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: only seen fakery. The second thing that happens in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen tens is a conversation Houdini has with a formerly

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Speaker 1: famous spiritualist named I A. Davenport. He's come up on

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Speaker 1: this show before. He was half of a spiritualist team

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00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: called the Davenport Brothers, two teenagers named Ira and William

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00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: who had hopped onto the spiritualist train after being inspired

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Speaker 1: by the Foxes in the early eighteen fifties. They became

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Speaker 1: known for their spirit Cabinet, where they would be tied

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Speaker 1: together in a closed box full of instruments. The box

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00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: would close, the instruments would mysteriously be played by the spirits.

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Speaker 1: The box would open, and the boys would still be

357
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: tied together as if nothing had happened. This was revealed

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00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: to be a magic trick and not a supernatural event.

359
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: Many times there were two magicians slash investigators that followed

360
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: the Davenport Brothers all around England in order to bust them.

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Speaker 1: Ira is said to have talked to Houdini in nineteen eleven,

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Speaker 1: shortly before his death, and finally admitted that the spirit

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00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 1: Box was a hoax and shared how he did it.

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00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: Houdini describes the conversation like the US with a classic

365
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 1: Houdini Bragg wedged in there. He said that he recognized

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Speaker 1: in me a past master of the craft, and therefore

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00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:09,679
Speaker 1: spoke openly and did not hesitate to tell me the

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00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: secrets of his feats. We discussed and analyzed the statements

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00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 1: made in his letters to me, and he frankly admitted

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Speaker 1: that the work of the daven Board Brothers was accomplished

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Speaker 1: by perfectly natural means and belonged to that class of

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00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: feats commonly credited the physical dexterity. Not once was there

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Speaker 1: even a hint that spiritualism was of any concern to him,

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Speaker 1: instead discussing his work as straightforward showmanship. Arthur Conan Doyle

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00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: refuted this last claim, saying that while the spirit Box

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00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: had been disowned, Ira had remained a practicing spiritualist. So

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Speaker 1: before they even meet, the boys are already fighting by

378
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,679
Speaker 1: the late nineteen tents, Houdini and Doyle were pretty engaged

379
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: in spiritualist ideas, but from opposite advantage points. Houdini was

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00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: growing steadily more discouraged with it and more and more

381
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: convinced that mediums were wholesale frauds and unethical, while Doyle

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00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: had become the figurehead of the movement, a missionary the

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00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: tom cruise of the situation. So it's only a matter

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00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: of time and in Ny they finally meet. Doyle recounts

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Speaker 1: his impression of Houdini in his book The Edge of

386
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Speaker 1: the Unknown. Budini is far and away the most curious

387
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: and intriguing character whom I have ever encountered. I have

388
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 1: met better men, and I have certainly met very many

389
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 1: worse ones, but I have never met a man who

390
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: had such strange contrasts in his nature and whose actions

391
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:45,360
Speaker 1: and motives it was more difficult to foresee or to reconcile.

392
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 1: And Houdini says this of Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

393
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Speaker 1: the sincere and confirmed believer in spirit phenomena whose acquaintance

394
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: I esteem advises me that I do not secure convincing

395
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Speaker 1: results because I am a skeptic and I therefore want

396
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,400
Speaker 1: to make it clear that I am not a scoffer.

397
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: Doyle had gone to see a show of Houdini's at

398
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: the Great Theater in London and was blown away. Houdini

399
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: was eager to meet him too. He'd been intrigued to

400
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: hear that Doyle answer Oliver Lodge believed to be communicating

401
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: with their dead sons. The men both had great and

402
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: trustworthy reputations. Why not to have a talk with them.

403
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: The two began to exchange letters, and Houdini was still

404
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: very much open to the concept of spirit communication around

405
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: this time. He just wanted to see one medium who

406
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: didn't fall back on what he felt were cheap magic

407
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: tricks when their psychic abilities failed them. This motivated him

408
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,199
Speaker 1: to do something Doyle had been doing for years. He

409
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: started to investigate many of the same European physical mediums.

410
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: Unlike Doyle, Houdini was unmoved by basically everyone and immediately

411
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: starts this creepy pattern of becoming annoyed that mediums vaginas

412
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: are not being more thoroughly inspected. At no time, to

413
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: my knowledge, did the search include the orifices of her body. Stop. Stop.

414
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: You might remember that this is a pattern carried over

415
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: from the Fox Sisters years and the many humiliating physical

416
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: inspections that they underwent in their careers as mediums. In

417
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: this era of investigation, where goo was literally gushing from orifices,

418
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: the inspections became all the more invasive. However, despite Houdini's

419
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: cavity search preferences and disagreement on the authenticity of the

420
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: mediums that Doyle endorsed, they became friends, and Houdini felt

421
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: that the Doyles, Sir Arthur and his wife Jane the medium,

422
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: genuinely believed what they were saying. Based on their early interactions,

423
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: it seemed like Houdini was inclined to be won over

424
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: by the Doyles. He had a short lived film career

425
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: in the early twenties that included a nine movie called

426
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: The Man from Beyond, a silent movie where the idea

427
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: of reincarnation is integral to the plot. He even cites

428
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: Doyle's work in the text, Doyle happened to be in

429
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: New York when this movie premiered. He was there going

430
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,719
Speaker 1: on this hot streak of spiritualist lectures that were selling

431
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: out Carnegie Hall night after night, packing the house with

432
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: war widows that wanted to get in touch with dead soldiers,

433
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: and the Doyles loved the movie. They were touched to

434
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: see the Man from Beyond advertised with blinds like audiences

435
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: everywhere were welcome at his evidence that loved ones gone

436
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: to the great beyond. I'm not lost to us forever.

437
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: Variety said that Houdini's attempt to marry magicians logic and

438
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: spiritualist logic was a failure. The two things don't go together,

439
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: it said, but the boys didn't care. They enjoyed writing

440
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: each other letters, and Doyle felt optimistic that Houdini would

441
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 1: come around while he continued to tour with images of

442
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: fairies and spirit photography and yes, a strong endorsement of

443
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: Eva cs ectoplasm until the Atlantic City trip. In the

444
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: Houdini's and the Doyles spent the weekend in Atlantic City,

445
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: New Jersey together. I mean incredible. I love it, But

446
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: after two blissful years of friendship, this trip was unfortunately

447
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end. At some point in the trip,

448
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: Jean felt comfortable enough with the Houdini's to ask if

449
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: they would sit for a mediumship session with her Harry,

450
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: specifically in an attempt to contact his mother. Interestingly, like

451
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters, this story has been covered on Drunk History,

452
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: and Lucia's Dylan gets it pretty good, with the exception

453
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: of being completely dismissive of spiritualism, mediums and Houdini's latent misogyny.

454
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: Oh here's the clip, Sir Arthur Conan do. I was like,

455
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: I want you to sit down and have this seance,

456
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: and I have my wife is going to speak your

457
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: mother's words through handwriting. Really, Budiny, shut up quite uh,

458
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: I know your skeptical. Let's just do this. His wife

459
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, we're all here, we're doing the seance.

460
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: Let's speak to Houdini's mother, so then it would happen. Oh,

461
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: my son, I'm so happy to speak to you. I'm

462
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: gonna put a cross on top of this thing, short

463
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: across on the top of the thing. Mrs Houdiny was Jewish.

464
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: In reality, Jeam channels over is of handwriting from Houdini's mother,

465
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: and while the cross thing is true, what disillusioned Houdini

466
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: was the fact that his mother barely spoke English and

467
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: he didn't feel that she would ever have communicated with

468
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: him in that language. But he didn't say that to

469
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: the Doyle's In the moment, the Doyles thought that Houdini

470
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: was moved, and they left for England, seen off by

471
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: Houdini and Bess at the wharf, thinking that they had

472
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: finally sold him on it. So a quick moment of

473
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: acknowledgment for Harry Houdini's wife, the often overlooked Best Houdini,

474
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: who both inspired a Kitler song and said a lot

475
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: of confusing and vaguely horny early twentieth century things that

476
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: make me laugh, such as saying that she sold her

477
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: virginity for an orange. What I digress privately. Houdini's opinion

478
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: of the seance and officially begun to permanently sour. By

479
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: Halloween of that year, he told the New York Son

480
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,479
Speaker 1: spiritualism is nothing more than spook tricks, and mediums are

481
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: either crooked or hysterical. This piste. Mr Sherlock Art He

482
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: felt that Houdini was being dramatic for press, and wrote

483
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: as much to him in a letter. They sent me

484
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: The New York Sun with your article, and no doubt

485
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: wanted me to answer them. But I have no fancy

486
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: for sparring with a friend in pub when you say

487
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: you have had no evidence of survival. You say what

488
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: I cannot reconcile with my own eyes. I know by

489
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: many examples the purity of my wife's mediumship, and I

490
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: saw what you thought and what the effect was on

491
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: you at the time. You're right that you are very sore.

492
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: I trust that it is not with me, because you,

493
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: having been truthful and manly all your life, naturally must

494
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: admire the same traits and other human beings. Now boys

495
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: and at this point, Houdini went on the offensive and

496
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 1: signed up to be a judge this high profile panel

497
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: sponsored by the Scientific American to determine once and for

498
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: all if mediumship could be scientifically proven. After trying to

499
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: nail down the science behind spiritual phenomena, if any, for

500
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: months and years, the Classic magazine offered five thousand dollars

501
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenties money to any medium who could prove

502
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: to a panel of scientists and experts that their abilities

503
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: were scientifically legitimate. This might sound kind of weird that

504
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: a science magazine would want to write about ghosts, but

505
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 1: this was actually pretty standard for this time. I mean,

506
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: spiritualist ideas were included in the earliest publications of psychology.

507
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: In pamphlet from the Liverpool Psychological Society included a bullet

508
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: point saying it cared about the dissemination of knowledge by

509
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: means of the public instruction, lectures, reading rooms, the press,

510
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: and spirit communion. They bailed on the idea by the

511
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: end of the century, but it was there and again.

512
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: These spiritual revivals tended to happen during times of rapid

513
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: technological and social progress, as well as times of massive

514
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:16,280
Speaker 1: lost life. This contest took place two years after women

515
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: had gotten the vote, while the gigantic losses of World

516
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: War Two were still at the top of everyone's mind,

517
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: while electricity and radio were spreading across the country. While

518
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: scientific theories like evolution had managed to tie in with

519
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: spiritualism and caused observers of the religion to believe that

520
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: spirits evolve in addition to our bodies over time. The

521
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: second revival came at this interesting time where science was

522
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: not yet considered not magic and most skeptics were still

523
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: open to alternative ideas. A critical element to these scientific

524
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: American tests was how rigorous the panel was allowed to

525
00:35:56,200 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: be with mediums who were subjecting themselves to inspection. The

526
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 1: magazine listed materials like quote, induction coils, galvanometers, electroscopes, et cetera,

527
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: Some with the purpose of testing the electrical condition of

528
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 1: the medium at the moment when phenomena are produced, others

529
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: to prove the presence or absence of material objects unquote.

530
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 1: Doyle had tried to convince a Scientific American editor named

531
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: James Malcolm Bird not to have Houdini on the board.

532
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: No such luck, although Bird was considered to be an

533
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: extremely gullible man who would flop so hard that he

534
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: would lose his standing both at the American Society for

535
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: Psychical Research and his job at the Scientific American in

536
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: the next ten years. Once the Scientific American open investigation began,

537
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: it went on for over a year, with the rift

538
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: between Houdini and Doyle growing. All the while, Houdini and

539
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: the judges found it pretty easy to dismiss most of

540
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: the media ms that came through. Many who came in

541
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: were women and would have to wear a black bathing

542
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: suit and be marked and glow in the dark paint

543
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: so that the seance room could remain dark as required.

544
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: For some time, the Scientific Americans Library became a seance

545
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: room where experts discredited medium. After medium, finding no real

546
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 1: viable contenders, Houdini was removed from the board at least

547
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: once when he broke a story ahead of the magazine's publication, and,

548
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: in classic Puddini fashion, took more credit then made sense.

549
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: He went back to touring his magic show at the

550
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: same time that Doyle was doing one of his most

551
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 1: extensive American speaking tours yet. And they even run into

552
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: each other on the road and have a picnic. But

553
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: still Budini cannot resist talking behind people's backs, he wrote

554
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: in a letter to his wife Bess later, Doyle is

555
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: a historical character, and his word goes far, in fact,

556
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: much further than mine. It is a little bizarre that

557
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: Houdini was being treated as a scientist and a man

558
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: of letters that he never had really been known for

559
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: in these years, but comments like this suggests that that

560
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 1: might have been how he wanted to be viewed. The

561
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: process of going legit had begun and would continue after

562
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: these years of ghost busting ended, when he would try

563
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: to get back on track to further his education and

564
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: even become a college professor. It's around this time that

565
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: Marjorie Mina Crandon comes into the picture. Marjorie is the

566
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 1: subject of The Witch of Lime Street, Seance, Seduction and

567
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:42,399
Speaker 1: Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jahr. Maybe I'm

568
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 1: especially partial to her because she begins life as a

569
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 1: poor lady in Boston who rises the social ranks, marries

570
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: a doctor and becomes the most convincing and bewildering medium

571
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: of her era. Plus her act was really horny. I mean,

572
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: who cares if it was real? It's a victimless crime.

573
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: And as an added dash of authenticity, Marjorie had no

574
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: real history of interest in mediumship prior to an impromptu

575
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 1: science at a party, pretty normal practice for the time,

576
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: where she blew people away with what her friends thought

577
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: was a natural ability. So over a year into the

578
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: Scientific American Contest, the judging board is beginning to run

579
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: out of hope until Mina's husband, doctor Roy Crandon, submitted

580
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: her after being in touch briefly with none other than

581
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Marjorie was extremely charming. Many mediums

582
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: of this time and still now skew a little older,

583
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 1: but Marjorie was in her thirties, very traditionally attractive, with

584
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: a blonde bob and a good sense of humor. And

585
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: while she was tested in many locations all over Boston.

586
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: The Scientific American Board planned to come to her house

587
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: on Lime Street. The judging crew included Deini, a psychical

588
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 1: researcher named Walter Prince, the inventor of Technicolor, Daniel Comstock,

589
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: Harvard professor William McDougall, an amateur magician Haro Word Carrington.

590
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: Keep that last name in mind while preparing for her

591
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:17,760
Speaker 1: formal tests. The way Marjorie's mediumship manifested became a lot.

592
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:22,479
Speaker 1: She did consent to Judini's weird cavity search and would

593
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 1: then produce ectoplasm, most notably from her vagina. She would

594
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: produce spirit hands from her vagina that we're all cold

595
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: and slimy. She could make tables lift, bell boxes ring,

596
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: and she tended to channel one particular spirit, her brother Walter,

597
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 1: who had been tragically crushed between railway cars years before,

598
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: and Walter as channeled by his sister. Marjorie was a

599
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: real jokester in these test seances, saying things like this

600
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: laugh and if you can't laugh, then look in the mirror.

601
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 1: He teased judges and press, He flirt with whim in,

602
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: and he was said to have a deeply masculine voice

603
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 1: that threw itself all over the place. His masculinity actually

604
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,760
Speaker 1: seemed to be a big selling point for people. Walter

605
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: would mostly talk, but he also moved the table, he pinched,

606
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: he teased. At one point, a judge asked him to

607
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: kick him in the face and then said thank you

608
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: when he did. Marjorie was tested at Harvard and did well,

609
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: particularly with Scientific American editor the famously gullible Jay Bird,

610
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: who started publishing glowing reviews about her before she even

611
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: formally sat down with the Scientific American board. So Houdini

612
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: sees this and says, I think I'll go to Boston

613
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: to test Marjorie before Bird poisoned the well in her

614
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: favor permanently. By all accounts, Marjorie Crandon and Harry Houdini

615
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: had a pretty warm friendship, even when he was publicly

616
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: dragging her. This sounded similar to his relationship with Doyle,

617
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: who rarely said anything unkind about Houdini publicly. I don't

618
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: get it. I'm assuming he was very likable in person,

619
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: but she likes him. Marjorie later writes him a letter

620
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 1: that says, I have been hearing some very nice things

621
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: about you lately, so I'm glad to be able to

622
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: say I know the great Houdini. But she's still nervous

623
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: before he arrives at Lime Street, as demonstrated by a

624
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: letter that her husband, Dr Crandon writes to Arthur Conan Doyle.

625
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: I think Psyche, my wife is somewhat disturbed by it

626
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: internally because of Houdini's general nastiness. She's vomiting merrily this morning.

627
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 1: Make no mistake. Houdini always thought that Marjorie was a fraud,

628
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: but it didn't matter what he thought if he couldn't

629
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: explain how she was doing it. So he conceals his

630
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: frustration in the moment. But after the spirit Walter chides him, saying, you, Houdini,

631
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:58,720
Speaker 1: think you're pretty smart. Houdini started quietly forming theories. Maybe

632
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: there's a third party. He went to a second seance

633
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: test the next night, as Doyle waited across the ocean,

634
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: getting regular updates from Marjorie's husband. Rudini forms more theories

635
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: this night. Maybe she's using her head to move the

636
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: table without it registering with the glow paint she wore.

637
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: But again he can't really prove it, so she's moved

638
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: on to the next round. The Crandons are stoked about this,

639
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,879
Speaker 1: and Houdini is getting frustrated. Gone are the days where

640
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: he seems to be sincerely interested in spirit communication and

641
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: disproving Marjorie's abilities becomes his central focus in life. For

642
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: the next test, Rudini began working on a restraint for

643
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: Marjorie that he thought would prevent her from performing any

644
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: of the physical tricks he suspected her of as Walter.

645
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: While he was doing this, the press around their impending

646
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: seance in the summer of nineteen twenty four got huge. Marjorie,

647
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:00,479
Speaker 1: who was going by mina to protect her identity, had

648
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: her identity and addressed doxed in the press, and her

649
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: first marriage made a mockery of People began heavily speculating

650
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: that Marjorie and a member of the Scientific American Board, Carrington,

651
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,879
Speaker 1: were having an affair. But before those rumors could get

652
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: two out of hand, Budini completed his box, a contraption

653
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: that only allowed Marjorie's head and hands to have freedom

654
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: of motion. He seems to find this fair, writing to

655
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: a friend that he would allow Marjorie Crandon to keep

656
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: the seance room dark. I want to give Mrs Crandon

657
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: every possible chance to make good, and if she possesses

658
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: any psychic power, I will be the first to assist

659
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: her in this mission. During this trial, the bells rang

660
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: as usual, but upon turning the lights on, the box

661
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:50,840
Speaker 1: had been partially forced open. Didn't look great for Marjorie.

662
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,359
Speaker 1: Her support on the Scientific American Board was dwindling, with

663
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: only Carrington, who was suspected to be having an affair

664
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: with her, fully in her corner. Houdini, on the other hand,

665
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: was ruthless and very opportunistic at this time, taking every

666
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: chance he could to disparage Marjorie publicly and monetize his

667
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 1: theory that she was a fraud. It became a regular

668
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: and popular part of his live act, just being a hater.

669
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: It's the same ikey feeling you get when a true

670
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 1: crime podcast is, like, we're going on tour to talk

671
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: about murders in your area. At the end of August,

672
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 1: another seance took place where Marjorie's hands were bound and

673
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: nothing materialized. At this point, the magazine felt she was beat,

674
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: but Walter the Spirit persisted, Houdini, you think you're so smart,

675
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: don't you. How much are they paying you to stop this? Phenomena.

676
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: Now not to side with Walter, but if I may,

677
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: I don't think that shoving someone in a tiny unventilated

678
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: box in a tiny unventilated room is conducive for doing

679
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: anything much less. During the dead, another science at Boston's

680
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 1: Charles Gate Hotel produced the biggest controversy between Crandon and

681
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: Houdini yet. Marjorie had a successful seance in Houdini's box,

682
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: but when it ended, he found a ruler and accused

683
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: her of using it to pull off tricks. This caused

684
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: Walter the spirit to flip, and he claimed that Houdini

685
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: had done it himself. I love what he says here.

686
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: Buckle in the ghost says Houdini, You goddamn son of

687
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: a bitch, get the hell out of here. Never come back.

688
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,760
Speaker 1: If you don't, I will. You won't live forever. Houdini.

689
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: You've got to die. I put a curse on you

690
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 1: now that will follow you every day until you die,

691
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 1: and then you'll know better. Holy shit, man. Judini was

692
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: said by those present to be pretty scared and insulted

693
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 1: at this outburst. He was said to like sort of

694
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 1: panic and be like, my parents were married when I

695
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: was born. What are you talking about. Of course, Houdini

696
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: press sense this event much differently, casting himself as the

697
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: hero once more. Decades later, a Houdini biographer claimed that

698
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: Houdini's assistant had planted the ruler, but even this fact

699
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: has been disputed. The man who had written the biography

700
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: was William Lindsay Gresham, author of the famously anti spiritualism

701
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: and anti mediumship novel Nightmare Ali, a book that ironically

702
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: mocks the exact kind of physical mediumship that Marjorie is performing.

703
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: But at this point in the trials, Judini felt that

704
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: one more slightly off science would lose Marjorie the contest. Now,

705
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: Judini was known to be a bit of a prude,

706
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 1: and he seemed deeply uncomfortable with the more sexual aspects

707
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: of Marjorie's persona. Other judges would touch her while she

708
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: was making ectoplasm, not with eva c sexual intensity, but

709
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,839
Speaker 1: the whole process was a semi erotic thing to do

710
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: with a hot lady in a robe while her husband

711
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: was sitting right there. Instead of participating, Udini said nasty

712
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,720
Speaker 1: things about her. He accused her of keeping a refrigerator

713
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: in her vagina, as well as making some pretty unforgivable

714
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 1: accusations against her. Ahead of their next seance, he said

715
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: that a time where Marjorie allowed him to nap at

716
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: her house on Lime Street after a seance they performed there,

717
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 1: she had been trying to seduce him. By all accounts,

718
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: this is not true, but I do want to demonstrate

719
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: that Houdini was coming at her relentlessly and then locking

720
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,760
Speaker 1: her in a box. At their final seance, Marjorie started

721
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: sweating and overheated and couldn't move and produced nothing. Udini

722
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: wrote in his postmortem to the Scientific American, I charged

723
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: Mrs Crandon with daily performing her feets like a natural conjurer.

724
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: She is not simple or guileless that a shrewd cunning woman.

725
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: Ahead of the results being announced in the Scientific American,

726
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: Marjorie complained that Houdini's spirit box set her up for failure,

727
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: and even after ostensibly defeating her, Houdini continued to monetize

728
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 1: Marjorie's potential public humiliation. He published a pamphlet called Houdini

729
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: Exposes the Tricks used by the Boston medium Marjorie in

730
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: Hurst Magazines, where he explicitly accuses Bird and Carrington as

731
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: conspiring with Marjorie, while she rallied her spiritualist supporters and

732
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: started holding seances and public showings again in spite of him.

733
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: Houdini wouldn't relent. He tracked down a photo of her

734
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: brother Walter's train accident horrifying and showed it in public.

735
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: He also showed off what he thought she was doing,

736
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: balancing spirit trumpets on her head and using her feet

737
00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: to ring bells. At this point, even Dennie's supporters felt

738
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: like it was getting weird. He won. Why can't you

739
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: let it go? The truth of all the matter is

740
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: that Marjorie and my belief is a social climber, oh right, misogyny.

741
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: He doesn't like her, so you see this pattern of

742
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: him using any gendered attack he can think of to

743
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,839
Speaker 1: cut her down. It's worth mentioning that Marjorie and Arthur

744
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: Conan Doyle are barely speaking to press, and they don't

745
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: speak ill of Houdini publicly during this time at all. Instead,

746
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: Marjorie focused on getting second opinions and got a pretty

747
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: favorable outcome from a prominent psychical researcher named Eric Dingwall,

748
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: who had busted a number of prominent mediums, but outside

749
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: of suspecting that she put ectoplasm in her vagina in advance,

750
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 1: couldn't disprove her ability before the Scientific American announced their verdict.

751
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:57,439
Speaker 1: Marjorie was a nervous wreck, and Houdini didn't give a ship.

752
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: He wrote to a friend, no surprises me about Marjorie.

753
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: A woman who would drag her dead brother from the

754
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: grave and exploit him before the public as a means

755
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: of gaining social prominence, would do anything. The results came

756
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 1: out in February ninety five, and Marjory lost the money

757
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: and the recognition. Her spirit hands had been analyzed and

758
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: identified not as supernatural material but as a hunk of

759
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:30,879
Speaker 1: animal trachea. The Scientific American contest technically continued through the

760
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: early nineteen forties, even boasting a fifteen thousand dollar prize

761
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: at one point, but it was never given this level

762
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:43,359
Speaker 1: of public attention again, and spiritualism never caught back on

763
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: in the same way. Marjory, to her credit, was a

764
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,760
Speaker 1: class act about the loss, saying in a public statement,

765
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: the decision does not bother me at all, and I

766
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: can certainly say I'm neither discouraged or disappointed. Any further

767
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: damon must come from my husband and privately she was depressed.

768
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:06,799
Speaker 1: Now referred to as the Witch of Beacon Street, she

769
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: said she quote does not find myself dancing around as

770
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: joyously as I once did unquote. Houdini, on the other hand,

771
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: rode out the success of ruining Marjorie in public, and

772
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: for the remainder of his life dedicated a lot of

773
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: his time to exposing medium trickery. Between his own magic shows.

774
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: He started this group called my own Personal Secret Service,

775
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,879
Speaker 1: Oh Babe, and he would disguise himself as he went

776
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: from city to city, attending seances and taking people down,

777
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: often trying to get mediums arrested for fraud. While the

778
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: antifortune telling and which laws from generations past were mostly dormant,

779
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: some of them still did exist. It's so bizarre. I mean,

780
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 1: it's this very successful person traveling around the country like

781
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: a godless missionary, wearing mustachio disguises and saying, surprise, bitch,

782
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,839
Speaker 1: it's Houdini, and everything you ever believed is a lie.

783
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:08,399
Speaker 1: I don't know where this instinct comes from. I mean,

784
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 1: it wasn't a hard dedication to the truth. Houdini stretched

785
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: the truth all the time, and he himself had overcome

786
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:21,280
Speaker 1: so much personally, he'd overcome poverty, he'd overcome the American

787
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: attitudes towards Jewish people in the early twentieth century. Houdini

788
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 1: was treated anti semitically at many points in his career,

789
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:33,920
Speaker 1: sometimes by spiritualists. But I still can't figure out why

790
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 1: this is the hill he chooses to die on time

791
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: and time again, no matter who he has to take

792
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: out to get there. I think it connects more than

793
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: anything else that his not being able to talk to

794
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:48,439
Speaker 1: his mom one last time. It reached the point where

795
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:53,760
Speaker 1: Houdini was lobbying President Coolidge to reinstate anti fortune telling bills,

796
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: And even with all this going on, still could not

797
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 1: let Marjorie Crandon go and sent a spy reporter to

798
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: buddy up with her. Read between the lines and you

799
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: will see I accused Marjorie of using sex charm and

800
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: it has been authenticated, he told a friend. This sequence

801
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:30,720
Speaker 1: of events sort of recalls another successful, difficult to bust

802
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: female medium from the eighteen seventies. Her name was Florence Cook,

803
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 1: and she channeled a woman named Katie King, a daughter

804
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: of an imperialist gikes. Cook could make her spirit guide

805
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: full body manifest during seances. Arthur Conan Doyle was known

806
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:53,439
Speaker 1: to show her spirit photographs on the road. While Cook

807
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: wasn't framed for fraud at the time, a similarly slight

808
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 1: shamy dismissal of her abilities was launched. A man told

809
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research that he'd had an affair

810
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: with Florence and that she'd had a long standing affair

811
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,839
Speaker 1: with William Crooks, the investigator who was supposed to be

812
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: investigating her. In the end, Crooks was knighted and moved

813
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: on with his life just fine, and Florence Cook was

814
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: revealed to have been dressing up as Katie the whole time.

815
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 1: You know how this story goes at this point, when

816
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: she died of pneumonia in poverty in nineteen o four,

817
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: Houdini reached the apex of being on his bullshit in

818
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: n when he managed to get all the way through

819
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: to pitching to a Congress subcommittee. He spent four days

820
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: arguing House Resolution eight nine eight nine, which sought to

821
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: ban fortune telling in d C. This turned into a

822
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: complete circus. Mediums and psychics from all over came in

823
00:55:56,040 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: protest and to defend themselves, their religion, and their practices.

824
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: What this translated to was a Congress floor full of

825
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:09,000
Speaker 1: psychics wild but as it turned out, d C wasn't

826
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: really a smart venue for Houdini to choose his hill

827
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 1: to die on. In the nineteenth century, two first Ladies

828
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: had held seance as in the White House, and Florence Harding,

829
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:23,439
Speaker 1: who had lived there in the previous presidency, famously had

830
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: a psychic advisor. In fact, her psychic advisor showed up

831
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 1: to the congressional hearing to defend herself. The bill Houdini

832
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:35,840
Speaker 1: was proposing included a two fifty dollar penalty and language

833
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:40,240
Speaker 1: that implied it was scientifically impossible to be a medium

834
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:44,280
Speaker 1: rods from start to finish, mental degenerates, or deliberate cheats.

835
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 1: In the end, Houdini lost this battle. Everyone in Congress

836
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:51,919
Speaker 1: was kind of like relax man, and he was thought

837
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: to have gone too far when accusing the sitting president

838
00:56:55,280 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: of seeking a psychic's help, said Representative Ralph Gilbert of Kentucky.

839
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:03,320
Speaker 1: I believe in Santa Claus, and I believe in fairies

840
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:06,880
Speaker 1: in a way, and Houdini is taking the matter entirely

841
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: too seriously. That's what I've been saying this whole damn show. Ralph,

842
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: thank you As it turned out, Houdini didn't have much

843
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,479
Speaker 1: more time to stir ship. He died later that year,

844
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: a very magician's death mysterious, and on Halloween, while backstage

845
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 1: in Montreal, he was approached by a man who asked

846
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: Houdini if he believed in the Bible and quote, whether

847
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: it was true that punches in the stomach did not

848
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: hurt you unquote. Houdini brushed it off and joked that

849
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:39,640
Speaker 1: his stomach could handle a lot, and the guy punched

850
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: him several times hard in the stomach. He died of

851
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 1: appendicitis just several days later. Houdini's wife Bess spoke on

852
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:52,120
Speaker 1: his interest in life after death often after he passed,

853
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: as in this radio clip, Mary, you kneel my husband

854
00:57:56,400 --> 00:58:02,200
Speaker 1: a long time, and you remember what he always said

855
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:05,919
Speaker 1: about these things, that it was impossible for the dead

856
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 1: to return. That's problem. He was right. Well, if it

857
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: would have been possible, I would have had some sign

858
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: from him in the past ten years. Bes always said

859
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: that Houdini had told her how he would manifest in

860
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: the afterlife, what he'd say if he could communicate with

861
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: her from beyond the grave, and that for as long

862
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: as a decade she held annual seances on Halloween to

863
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 1: see if he would return. He never showed. Ten years

864
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: is long enough to wait for any man, but not

865
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: for hardcore Houdini fans. The spirit Circle still takes place

866
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 1: every year on Halloween. People are still waiting. Sir Arthur

867
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: Conan Doyle was finally able to take some pot shots

868
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 1: at Houdini four years after his death in his book

869
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 1: The Edge of the Unknown. Good Ship like this, there

870
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:02,400
Speaker 1: was no consideration of years old, which would restrain him

871
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: if he saw his way to an advertisement. But when

872
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: Houdinie first dies, Doyle is sweet in memorializing his former friend,

873
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 1: which genuinely seemed to touch Udini's widow best. She revealed

874
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 1: the Doyle that among her husband's gigantic collection of oddities,

875
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: there was one item he would never sell, a notebook

876
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 1: full of drawings that have belonged to and been drawn

877
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: by Arthur Conan Doyle's father. I mean, why can't men

878
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:36,400
Speaker 1: just be friends? That's so nice. Doyle himself lived until

879
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, dying of a heart attack. His last words

880
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 1: were telling his wife, Jean, whose mediumship he had always

881
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: believed in, you are wonderful, Marjorie continued to practice seances

882
00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 1: in Boston until her death. When asked by a psychic

883
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: researcher what her secret was on her deathbed, she remained

884
00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: the best. I said, you can go to hell. All

885
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 1: you psychic researchers can go to hell. Why don't you guess?

886
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 1: You'll all be guessing for the rest of your lives,

887
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: so ectoplasm. Look, I'm not making this show to tell

888
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: you what is real and what isn't in the spirit realm,

889
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. And as much as I love the

890
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 1: Houdini Doyle saga, I think it's more important to remember

891
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 1: that the target of their rage or religious feelings, respectively,

892
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 1: we're connected to real bodies, much more vulnerable than their own.

893
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 1: And honestly, I don't care if Mina Crandon was a fraud.

894
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 1: I think she was brilliant, pulling yourself out of poverty

895
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 1: against all odds to live a life, scamming famous scientists

896
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: into thinking your vaginal discharge is fucking magical. It's like,

897
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: are you serious? Can you tell me with a straight

898
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 1: face that isn't fucking awesome? I hope Mina Crandon gets

899
01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: a movie someday. Her story has never been really adapted properly,

900
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: and the Houdinian Doyle story has been told badly and

901
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 1: more than once. Okay, one more tangent. There was a

902
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:12,640
Speaker 1: show on I t V in the UK called Houdini

903
01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 1: and Doyle. I will not dox the actors, but it's

904
01:01:15,760 --> 01:01:19,720
Speaker 1: the most recent past at this concept that reimagines these

905
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 1: men who really just disagreed on spiritualism and we're friends

906
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: for no more than a couple of years. But in

907
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 1: this show there buddy cops. It got canceled after a

908
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: few episodes, because of course it did. But Houdini and

909
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: Doyle as buddy cops is such a startlingly bad idea

910
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:44,600
Speaker 1: that it might actually be an amazing idea. Every religion

911
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 1: for centuries has told us the death isn't the end.

912
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:53,120
Speaker 1: Nothing is as it was just ten years ago, maybe

913
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:57,840
Speaker 1: not even death a load of crap. I can have

914
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: this case myself without help from the Rocks. Are a magician?

915
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 1: Are your police officers? We're working with the police. Yet,

916
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 1: fear is a good thing. It's only when you admit

917
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: that you're afraid the fear loses its power. Houdini and

918
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 1: Doyle coming in two thousand and sixteen to I t

919
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 1: V Encore. No, it's a bad idea, but you've gotta

920
01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: hand it to them. They put that on television on purpose,

921
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: and the story of Houdini, Doyle, and Mina Crandon in

922
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,560
Speaker 1: many ways covers the peaks and valleys of the second

923
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:35,920
Speaker 1: wave of American Spiritualism, the last major revival of the movement,

924
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:39,440
Speaker 1: although I would not rule out a third on the horizon.

925
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: I want to end on a quote from Walter the Ghost.

926
01:02:44,040 --> 01:02:47,560
Speaker 1: Actually he once said this through his sister Mina out

927
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:51,480
Speaker 1: of seance, for life is full of boxes closed and

928
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:55,160
Speaker 1: death follows right along. The only difference I can see

929
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: is you sing in your box when you're gone. Next week,

930
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: the end of Ghost Church approaches. I have a dinner

931
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 1: to get to with one of the mediums of Cassadega.

932
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 1: I've got some secrets to keep, and I've got some

933
01:03:08,240 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: conclusions to reach. See you there. And also I have

934
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:17,320
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen right now and I can't set boundaries, so

935
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: I know my voice sounds weird. Have a good week.

936
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:24,960
Speaker 1: Ghost Church is a Cool Zone Media production created, written

937
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:28,480
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Jamie Loftus. The show is produced

938
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:32,479
Speaker 1: by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Ian Johnson, Our theme song

939
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:37,480
Speaker 1: is by Speedy Ortiz. That's Sadie Dupree, Andy Moholt, Audreys

940
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: White Sides and Joey Dubeck. Music is by Zoe Bade.

941
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: Huge thank you to Paul ev Tomkins for playing Sir

942
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:50,280
Speaker 1: Arthur Conan Doyle and to Robert Evans for playing Harry Dean.

943
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: Additional parts were played by the wonderful Ghost Church team

944
01:03:54,680 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 1: Ian Johnson and Sophie Lichton. And thanks guys, Keep the

945
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 1: Kid