cleaned slates in the mantel hiding place.
The medium then slips a rubber band around the pile of six slates. “You are certain, are you,” she rejoins, “that you have thoroughly cleaned each slate both back and front?”
“Oh, yes,”
the sitter answers.
Later, the prepared slate is “come upon” and handed to the sitter. On it is the message:
I greet you from the Life Beyond—send you my devotion, Mother
.
“Praise the Lord!” the associate cries.
“Oh, yes!”
the sitter answers.
Overjoyed.
The sitter stares at a cabinet in front of which is a blank canvas on an easel, a light shining through it from behind. The illumination in the room is low. Organ music plays mysteriously.
Inside the cabinet, the male medium is using a tiny hole in the curtain to spray an atomizer on the back of the canvas.
A face begins appearing on the canvas, that of a little girl.
The sitter sobs.
“Hallelujah!” cries the mediums associate.
Sulphocyanide of potassium is used for red, ferranocyanide of potassium for blue and tannin for black, the chemicals remaining invisible until sprayed with a weak solution of tincture of iron.
“You recognize the face?” the medium’s associate asks.
“Oh, yes!”
the sitter answers.
Weeping.
In the darkness, a female medium takes hold of the hand of the sitter to her left with her left hand. With her right, she removes a weighted artificial hand from beneath her robe and bends its flexible fingers over the arm of the sitter to her right.
“We must all sit very still now,” she declares.
She picks up the trumpet from the table and begins to swing it around, then puts it to her lips and hisses into it, then grunts, then moans, then finally murmurs,
“Hel-oooooo.”
“Hello,” the sitter responds.
“Do you believe?” the medium asks through the trumpet.
“
Oh, yes
,” the sitter answers.
The male medium’s associate stands in front of the cabinet, addressing the sitters. The medium’s hand slips out between the cabinet curtains, removing, from beneath the bottom of his associate’s robe, a veritable carload of luminous silk forms, faces, hands, costumes and reaching rods.
“Be it understood,” the associate vows, “Professor Oglethorpe has nothing in this cabinet with him save his spirit friends.”
“Oh, yes,”
the sitters say.
A séance room in darkness, a cabinet, its curtains extending to the ceiling.
Inside, a trap door is raised in the ceiling, a padded ladder lowered. Down which descend an endless legion of spirits enacting their ethereal performances.
All of these mediumistic ploys were well known to Harry Houdini.
He used all of them to discredit what he believed to be fraudulent psychics.
Occasionally, he went too far.
Margery
August 19-20, 1924
Boston, Massachusetts
T he dark hotel room was so still that even the shifting of his light weight on the chair was audible. Houdini spoke suspiciously. “You have her hands grasped firmly?” he demanded.
Dr. Prince sighed. “I have her left hand held in mine,” he answered.
Would the little man ever be satisfied? he wondered.
“I have the right hand,” Dr. Crandon said slowly and distinctly. “As always.”
“Yes,
her
husband,” muttered Houdini.
“
You
accepted him, sir,” Malcolm Bird reminded the magician.
Along with Dr. Comstock, Hereward Carrington and Professor MacDougall, he sat some distance from the cabinet.
Houdini made a disgruntled sound. His small hands swept quickly above the surface of the table which separated him from the cabinet.
Then he touched the electric light wired to a telegraph key; the bell box.
Mina Crandon, known to the psychic world as Margery, sat in the heavy wooden cabinet, only her head and hands protruding. Her eyes were closed, her head slumped forward.
“Very well,” Houdini addressed her. “Ring the bell if you can. Let me hear the bell ring.”
The bell rang so immediately that his look of smug assurance vanished in an instant,
The medium then slips a rubber band around the pile of six slates. “You are certain, are you,” she rejoins, “that you have thoroughly cleaned each slate both back and front?”
“Oh, yes,”
the sitter answers.
Later, the prepared slate is “come upon” and handed to the sitter. On it is the message:
I greet you from the Life Beyond—send you my devotion, Mother
.
“Praise the Lord!” the associate cries.
“Oh, yes!”
the sitter answers.
Overjoyed.
The sitter stares at a cabinet in front of which is a blank canvas on an easel, a light shining through it from behind. The illumination in the room is low. Organ music plays mysteriously.
Inside the cabinet, the male medium is using a tiny hole in the curtain to spray an atomizer on the back of the canvas.
A face begins appearing on the canvas, that of a little girl.
The sitter sobs.
“Hallelujah!” cries the mediums associate.
Sulphocyanide of potassium is used for red, ferranocyanide of potassium for blue and tannin for black, the chemicals remaining invisible until sprayed with a weak solution of tincture of iron.
“You recognize the face?” the medium’s associate asks.
“Oh, yes!”
the sitter answers.
Weeping.
In the darkness, a female medium takes hold of the hand of the sitter to her left with her left hand. With her right, she removes a weighted artificial hand from beneath her robe and bends its flexible fingers over the arm of the sitter to her right.
“We must all sit very still now,” she declares.
She picks up the trumpet from the table and begins to swing it around, then puts it to her lips and hisses into it, then grunts, then moans, then finally murmurs,
“Hel-oooooo.”
“Hello,” the sitter responds.
“Do you believe?” the medium asks through the trumpet.
“
Oh, yes
,” the sitter answers.
The male medium’s associate stands in front of the cabinet, addressing the sitters. The medium’s hand slips out between the cabinet curtains, removing, from beneath the bottom of his associate’s robe, a veritable carload of luminous silk forms, faces, hands, costumes and reaching rods.
“Be it understood,” the associate vows, “Professor Oglethorpe has nothing in this cabinet with him save his spirit friends.”
“Oh, yes,”
the sitters say.
A séance room in darkness, a cabinet, its curtains extending to the ceiling.
Inside, a trap door is raised in the ceiling, a padded ladder lowered. Down which descend an endless legion of spirits enacting their ethereal performances.
All of these mediumistic ploys were well known to Harry Houdini.
He used all of them to discredit what he believed to be fraudulent psychics.
Occasionally, he went too far.
Margery
August 19-20, 1924
Boston, Massachusetts
T he dark hotel room was so still that even the shifting of his light weight on the chair was audible. Houdini spoke suspiciously. “You have her hands grasped firmly?” he demanded.
Dr. Prince sighed. “I have her left hand held in mine,” he answered.
Would the little man ever be satisfied? he wondered.
“I have the right hand,” Dr. Crandon said slowly and distinctly. “As always.”
“Yes,
her
husband,” muttered Houdini.
“
You
accepted him, sir,” Malcolm Bird reminded the magician.
Along with Dr. Comstock, Hereward Carrington and Professor MacDougall, he sat some distance from the cabinet.
Houdini made a disgruntled sound. His small hands swept quickly above the surface of the table which separated him from the cabinet.
Then he touched the electric light wired to a telegraph key; the bell box.
Mina Crandon, known to the psychic world as Margery, sat in the heavy wooden cabinet, only her head and hands protruding. Her eyes were closed, her head slumped forward.
“Very well,” Houdini addressed her. “Ring the bell if you can. Let me hear the bell ring.”
The bell rang so immediately that his look of smug assurance vanished in an instant,
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