• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
www.all-about-psychology.com 
(Article Originally Published in Popular Science 1925)
This article forms part of an initiative to make important, insightful andengaging public domain works freely available. See following links toaccess material that has already been published under this initiative.
http://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-ebook.html http://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-journal-articles.html http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/forensic-psychology-ebook.html
 A similar initiative relating to forensic science publications has also beenlaunched.
http://www.all-about-forensic-science.com/forensic-science-ebook.html 
 
1
While I was playing an engagement in a mid-western city late last spring, a newspaperreporter called on me at the theater."Houdini," he said, "there's a spiritualistic medium who has been in town for morethan 25 years. Would you care to come round with me and look him over?"Now, telling me that a supposed genuine medium is in the same town with me is likeinforming an enthusiastic fisherman that he's near a trout stream. For 35 years - duringmy whole career as a professional magician - I have been studying and investigating so-called, psychic phenomena - spiritualism, occultism, clairvoyance, mysticism, telepathyand similar manifestations of apparently supernatural origin.My investigation has been literally continuous. I never have dropped it for so long as aday. The practice of my profession has taken me to virtually every country on earth,and my travels have enabled me to observe and study the psychics of many lands. Andmy interest in the subject is more keen, if anything, today than it was when it firstengaged my attention. This probably is because my interest in psychic phenomena ispersonal rather than professional.I have pursued my investigations because I have found them a fascinating kind of scientific research, not merely because seeking to explain the mysteries produced byothers may seem to bear some relation to the work of one who is himself aprofessional mystifier.Also, the really tremendous popular interest in occult phenomena that has sprung upin recent years has stimulated me in pursuing my investigations. Every day that Iappear on the stage, hundreds of people in the audience ask me question regardingspiritualism, telepathy, and kindred subjects. Every day my mail contains hundreds of questions of the same sort.The public wants to know whether there are such things as "spirits,' whether it ispossible for one man by mere exercise of his will to transfer his thoughts intelligibly tothe brain of another man, and so on and so on. And as a servant of the public, whichevery public performer undoubtedly is, I consider it my duty never to let a chance slipof obtaining authentic data on the subjects regarding which the public is looking
 
2
constantly to me for information. So it was with eagerness that I accepted thereporter's suggestion that I accompany him and another man, who proved to be thecounty prosecutor, out to the medium's home.Now, despite any impression that may have been created by my activity in exposingfraudulent mediums, in regard to spiritualism I am not a skeptic. Although I have foundno genuine physical phenomena medium, by which I mean one who does not producehis effects by purely natural means that any trained magician can duplicate, I have stillan open mind. I am willing to be convinced - even to believe, if a medium candemonstrate to me that he actually possesses true psychic power. And when I went tothe home of that veteran medium it was with every hope that he actually might provecapable of establishing communication with the spirits of the dead. One who hadsustained his reputation for more than a quarter of a century in the same city, Ireasoned, well might be assumed to be genuine. Besides, I am far too busy to wastemy time "investigating" self styled mediums, who generally are believed to be frauds.Once again, though, I was disappointed. This medium was just another trickster. His"psychic power" was due to his ability as a conjurer. His methods, in short, weremerely a crude adaptation of those by which professional magicians mystify audiencesfrom the stage. He was exceedingly clever, but I had unmasked him before his séancewas completed, and as a result he was arrested as a fraud. Moreover, after myexposure of this man, the police of the city began a drive against fake spiritualists,which resulted a few weeks later in rounding up 20 of these swindlers who prey uponthe credulous, the grief-stricken, and the troubled.This man was what is called a "trumpet medium." The term probably requires anexplanation. A trumpet medium is one who evokes the "spirits" with the aid of trumpets - cones of metal or other material that resemble the fog horns carried by theold-time sailing vessels. The trumpets ordinarily are placed on table around which themedium and those attending the séance sit in a "circle," each person clasping handswith those on his right and left.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...