Harry Houdini

“ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has repeatedly told the Spiritualists that I will eventually see the light and embrace Spiritualism. If the memory of a loved one, gone to the protection of the hands of the Great Mystifier means Spiritualism, then truly I do believe in it. But if Spiritualism is to be founded on the tricks of exposed mediums, feats of magic, resort to trickery, then I say unflinchingly I do not believe, and more, I will not believe. ”

“ We have prohibition of alcohol, we have prohibition of drugs, but we have no law to prevent these human leeches from sucking every bit of reason and common sense from their victims. It ought to be stopped, it must be stopped, and it would seem that the multiplicity of exposures and the multitude of prosecutions that have followed rational investigation should be sufficient to justify, yes, demand legislation for the complete annihilation of a cult built on false pretence, flimsy hear-say evidence, and the absurdity of accepting an optical illusion as a fact. ”

“ Suppose a medium comes to your town. He advertises a private seance. Like the average person you are curious and wish to be told things about yourself which you honestly believe no one in the world knows not even your most intimate friend. Perhaps you would like to learn some facts about a business deal, or know what is to be the outcome of a love affair, or it may be that you seek the comfort and solace that one is hungry for after the death of a near one. You go to this medium and are astounded by the things which are told you about yourself. ”

“ I intend, however, to expose Spiritualism because I think it is my sacred duty. If I cannot do it who can? I who have been the beginning of it? At least I hope to reduce the ranks of the eight million Spiritualists in the country. I go into it as into a holy war. I am waiting anxiously and fearlessly for the moment when I can show the world, by personal demonstration, that all Spiritualism is a fraud and a deception. ”

“ Under the name of this dreadful, this horrible, hypocrisy—Spiritualism—everything that is improper, bad and immoral is practiced. They go even so far as to have what they call ‘Spiritual children.’ They pretend to something like the immaculate conception! Could anything be more blasphemous, more disgusting, more thinly deceptive than that? In London I went in disguise to a quiet seance at the house of a wealthy man, and I saw a so-called materialization. The effect was produced with the aid of luminous paper, the luster of which was reflected upon the operator. ”

“ Many sitters, devoid of the sense of acute observation, prefer to garnish and embellish their stories with the fruits of their fertile imaginations, adding a choice bit every time the incident is reported, and eventually, by a trick of the brain, really believing what they say. It is evident, therefore, that by clever misguidance and apt misdirection of attention, a medium can accomplish seeming wonders. The sitter becomes positively self-deluded and actually thinks he has seen weird phantoms or has heard the voice of a beloved one. ”

“ Is it true logic, logic that would stand either in court or club room, to say that a medium caught cheating ninety-nine times out of a hundred was honest the hundredth time because not caught? Would the reader trust a servant who stole ninety-nine articles and then professed innocence when the hundredth article was missing? ”

“ I cannot accept nor even comprehend the intelligence which justifies the conclusion, so often put in print as the opinion of brainy men supporting Spiritualism, that admits the possibility of a result being accomplished by natural means but nevertheless assert their sincere belief that the identical performance by a professional medium is solely of supernatural origin and guidance, nor can I understand the reasoning that, acknowledging the disreputable character of certain practitioners or mediums, deliberately defends the culprits in the performance of what has been proven a crime. ”

“ Sir Arthur thinks that I have great mediumistic powers and that some of my feats are done with the aid of spirits. Everything I do is accomplished by material means, humanly possible, no matter how baffling it is to the layman. He says that I do not enter a seance in the right frame of mind, that I should be more submissive, but in all the seances I have attended I have never had a feeling of antagonism. I have no desire to discredit Spiritualism; I have no warfare with Sir Arthur; I have no fight with the Spiritists ”

“ Spiritualism has been the cause of much discussion between men of science, men of magic, and believers in the “Spirit World.” Countless investigations, wise and otherwise, have been held in most of the countries of the globe. Many of them have been made by fair-minded, unbiased men; men who delved deep into the unknown with a clear conscience and whether successful or not were willing to give the world the result of their probings. Men who were not afraid to admit that their experience was not sufficient to cope with the medium’s skill and years of training and that they had been fooled. ”

“ It would be difficult to determine just when Sir Arthur and I first discussed Spiritualism, but from that talk to the present we have never agreed upon it. Our viewpoints differ; we do not believe the same thing. I know that he treats Spiritualism as a religion. He believes that it is possible and that he can communicate with the dead. According to his marvellous analytical brain he has had proof positive of this. There is no doubt that Sir Arthur is sincere in his belief and it is this sincerity which has been one of the fundamentals of our friendship. ”

“ The thing that first aroused my suspicion and disbelief and started me to thinking and investigating, was, why could not the dear departed communicate direct with their relatives and friends? why talk, or rap, or write or materialize through a medium, the majority of whom are ignorant men and women, though shrewd and cunning; and if through a medium why should the medium need a control, especially of an old Indian chief or prattling Indian maiden? ”

“ It was not strange that Kellar did not detect Eglinton’s method instantly nor is it strange that he acknowledged that he was baffled. No magician is immune from being deceived and it is no way beneath a magician’s dignity or demeaning to professional reputation to openly admit that he cannot always account for what he thinks he sees. ”

“ I cannot understand how any reasonable person could see in this woman anything more than a fairly clever charlatan, whose success was due more to the credulity of her audiences than the skill of her performances. What did all her exposures amount to? Those who believed have continued to believe, and in spite of the old saw, ‘Truth is mighty and must prevail,’ the name of Eusapia Palladino will be on the lips of men long, long after her exposers are forgotten dust. ”

“ If all the investigators were to adopt the rational methods of the Seybert Commission they might easily discover the truth and no longer submit to imposition by charlatans nor aid and abet them by accepting as true the claims made by a class which they admit is of a low type, dishonest, and otherwise disreputable. If sincere, they would assist in all reasonable attempts to detect fraud and not accept the irrational pretext that light and touch are detrimental to the health or life of a medium. ”

“ From my early career as a mystical entertainer I have been interested in Spiritualism as belonging to the category of mysticism, and as a side line to my own phase of mystery shows I have associated myself with mediums, joining the rank and file and held seances as an independent medium to fathom the truth of it all. ”

“ I do not affirm that the claims of Spiritualism are disproved by such failures but I do say that if under such circumstances one dared to investigate properly and sanely, and to cross-examine, as he most certainly would do in any other form of investigation, scientific, or in the other walks of life, Spiritualism would not be so generously accepted. In justification the psychic says that darkness or excessively dim light is perfectly legitimate and that tangible investigation might result in injury or even death to the medium. ”

“ I am informed that so great has the “medium” craze become in Berlin that the grief-stricken residents have spent great sums of money in the hope of discovering mediums who will “guarantee them a glimpse behind the veil.” It is with the deepest interest and concern that I have watched this great wave of Spiritualism sweep the world in recent months and realized that it has taken such a hold on persons of a neurotic temperament, especially those suffering from bereavement, that it has become a menace to health and sanity. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen:—In introducing to your notice the remarkable phenomena which have attended the gentlemen, who are not brothers, who are about to appear before you, I do not deem it necessary to offer my observations upon their extraordinary manifestations. I shall therefore at once commence a long rigmarole for the purpose of distracting your attention, and filling your intelligent heads with perplexity. I need not tell this enlightened audience that the manifestations they are about to witness are produced by occult power, the meaning of which I don’t clearly understand ”

“ With what is perhaps pardonable pride we point to the genius of American enterprise in scientific advancement but it is with decided chagrin that I repeat that, as modern Spiritualism was born in America, so also have been most of the phenomena that under the mask of Spiritualism have unbalanced so many fine intellects the world over. ”

“ I have said many times that I am willing to believe, want to believe, will believe, if the Spiritualists can show any substantiated proof, but until they do I shall have to live on, believing from all the evidence shown me and from what I have experienced that Spiritualism has not been proven satisfactorily to the world at large and that none of the evidence offered has been able to stand up under the fierce rays of investigation. ”

“ One of the most startling swindles I ever heard of a medium working was called “finger-printing a Spirit.” In this test the medium shows the sitter finger prints of the departed soul. I hesitated at first about including this fake, fearing to add to the stock of unscrupulous mediums but I finally concluded that the public should know about it. The scheme was first discovered by a sculptor who dabbled some in Spiritualism. One day, several years ago, a workman fell from the top of the building, in which this man had his studio, and was killed. ”

“ The ancients’ childish belief in demonology and witchcraft; the superstitions of the civilized and uncivilized, and those marvellous mysteries of past ages are all laughed at by the full grown sense of the present generation; yet we are asked, in all seriousness, by a few scientists and scholars, to accept as absolute truth such testimony as is built up by their pet mediums, which, so far, has been proven to be nothing beyond a more or less elaborate construction of fiction resting on the slenderest of foundations, or rather, absolutely no foundation. ”

“ What would he or any of his confreres, who were supposed to be adepts at that time, say if they could visit a seance of some of our present day clairvoyants who are appearing before the public and making use of radio, wireless, induction coils, etc.? What a wonderful bunch of letters they might write because of the simple fact that they could not tell how the effects were produced. It is ridiculous for any magician to say that the work he witnesses is not accomplished by conjuring or legerdemain simply because he cannot solve the problem. ”

“ I rarely believe a full hundred per cent the explanations I hear or read. It is to be said to the credit of the investigators that they do not deliberately make misstatements but the nature of the brain is such that it is almost impossible to avoid mal-observation and these mal-observations are the curse of investigation.
Investigations under conditions favorable to the192 medium cannot be termed “investigations.” They are nothing more than a demonstration of the medium’s power to divert the attention, carrying it at will to any place they wish and numbing the subconscious mind. ”

“ I have persuaded my whole soul, brain and thought to a point where the medium has my attention to such an extent that at the finish I feel as much exhausted as the medium who shows to those present the effects of great strain irrespective of its cause. ”

“ Sir Arthur’s father, Charles A. Doyle, was also an artist of great talent though not in a commercial way. His home life is beautiful and Lady Doyle has told me on numerous occasions that he never loses his temper and that his nature is at all times sunshiny and sweet. His children are one hundred per cent children in every way and it is beautiful to note the affection between the father, mother and the children. He is a great reader who absorbs what he reads but he believes what he sees in print only if it is favorable to Spiritualism. ”