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