by David Jaher
Houdini was performing in Little Rock, Arkansas, when he received the wire urging him back to New York. His first reaction was irritation with Bird, who had not bothered to inform him that another psychic was performing for the jury. This was what came of excluding him from the proceedings: the commission was stumped. Not a deliberate fraud? he scoffed. Pecoraro’s dark sport was not practiced while unconscious! Even though he was booked, Houdini decided to cancel his engagements and return to the metropolis. Finally he would have the opportunity, or so he imagined, to put his stamp on the contest: to save the journal from disastrous embarrassment.
Like no psychic the committee had yet investigated, Houdini saw Pecoraro as a throwback to his sawdust days. He believed the medium was doing the Davenport act, the performance he had once mastered. Sitting in the train car that carried the Houdinis, as Dr. Hill’s wagon once had, across the prairie, the magician could hear the barker. He envisioned Pecoraro on the dingy stage. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up to see the Boy Medium. Just one thin dime, ten coppers, two nickels, the tenth part of a dollar! Come see the Italian Occult Expositor. This tent for Pecoraro! Bird’s latest candidate was an escape artist. And nothing rankled Houdini like a performer muscling in on his territory, let alone one who claimed his feats were supernormal.
♦
The arrival of Houdini at the Scientific American offices was a great surprise to almost everyone. Yet the psychic’s poker face betrayed no fear of the expert now supervising the test séances. Houdini was impressed by Nino’s well-developed chest and shoulders; he said the medium had a better physique for escape art than he did. And he had an unspoken message for the strapping Italian psychic: You will not take the prize.
On the evening of December 18, there began what Walter Prince saw as a match between escape artists. As Houdini went into action, Dr. Prince quickly recognized—as did most of the eighteen other observers in the library—that he truly was the master of his profession: the Einstein of the science of deception! As Houdini directed, Nino’s hands were placed into gloves that were stitched snugly at the wrists; the gloves were then sewn to his undershirt; the psychic’s arms thrust into a jacket that was reversed; the mitts sewn to the sleeves of the coat; the coat to his trousers; and for the last sartorial bind, the contestant’s collar was strung snugly around his wiry neck. Throughout the process, Houdini tried to limit the medium’s discomfort. If Nino did feel that his bindings were severely applied, he never complained. He stared blankly into space: hypnotized already, or so it appeared, by the master of escape.
The Great Houdini was just warming up. He told his audience that they should not restrain the medium in the way the commission had previously—for “even a tyro could get his hands loose from sixty yards of rope.” Explaining how the long lengths gave an escape artist slack, Houdini lashed Nino with dozens of short pieces of rope. He made a labyrinth of loops around the contestant’s body then tied them with square knots that left lengths long enough to bind him to the chair. Next the chair was secured to the baseboard of the cabinet with a metal strap, a wire cord, and sealed with wax. It took more than ninety minutes for Pecoraro to be controlled to Houdini’s satisfaction. Studying his handiwork, Bird was in awe. While he had always tried to ensure the comfort and indulge the whims—a garden for the flower medium!—of the psychic candidates, he did not think that Houdini was manhandling the Boy Medium. It was fair, Bird felt, for the committee to make cheating an excruciating proposition for Nino. Anyway, what was a gauntlet of rope to those who left their bodies? When his work was done, Houdini said that he could not guarantee the medium wouldn’t get loose, only that he would never get back.
Not long after the circle formed, the raspy voice of Nino’s spirit control was heard from the psychic cabinet. While the ghost at first expressed no hostility toward Houdini, there was a galvanic tension in the library. Previously the spirit of Palladino had been remarkably good-humored during the sittings. She hadn’t sulked, cursed in Italian, or exhibited any of the other disagreeable habits she had while alive. She had seemed particularly pleased to reunite with her old manager, Carrington, telling him that what she once did as a medium she now directed from the Other Side. As Houdini expected, the ghost that had been so active during the prior tests did nothing this time but talk. Eusapia complimented him on the thick web he had spun around the psychic. She said that she would manifest despite his best efforts to stop her. But the séance was a blank. When she asked for the circle to sing, no instruments came to life. An hour into the sitting, a few weak and suspicious raps were all she wrought.
The frustrated Eusapia complained that Houdini had bound Nino like Christ to the cross. Angered by the slur, the magician had to be restrained by Bird from going after her. Later, Dr. Peccio also objected to Houdini’s control methods. He said the medium was in pain, that his circulation was cut off. Only if he tried to escape, Houdini shot back. Once more Bird backed his expert. The wails from the cabinet he ascribed to the anguish of defeat.
By the end of Nino’s third séance, the Scientific American staff agreed with Prince—who had called the effects “particularly stupid” from the beginning—and Houdini; the Italian candidate, whether consciously or not, was another false medium. Only Dr. Peccio, stating that he should be made a member of the jury, had not given up on his discovery.
Another sitting for Nino was arranged a few days before Christmas; this time without Houdini present. Unsurprisingly, Eusapia was in better form. The instruments blared. The curtain to the spirit cabinet billowed like a sail. “Marvelous, is it not?” Dr. Peccio boasted. When midnight came the medium went into hysterics: he frothed at the mouth then burst from his chair, ripping his bonds apart. Peccio later declared that his psychic ward had now done enough to win the prize. “I am entitled to the $2,500,” the doctor said—as if he had orchestrated everything. “I want it. He has given convincing proof. Absolutely. The money is as good as mine.” To his disappointment, the committee wasn’t satisfied. Bird announced that they needed to see more from Pecoraro. Further tests were arranged for January. But when the doctor found out that Houdini was going to be present for them, he and his psychic failed to show up to take their medicine.
1924: An Evening on Lime Street
Imagine yourself invited to one of Dr. Crandon’s evenings, including an invitation to dinner. Down in an old historic section of Boston you would find his house, suggesting memories of many historic things that occurred in Boston. After the quaint little Japanese butler admitted you to a charming parlor you would find yourself face to face with a handsome, middle-aged surgeon who knew the secret of hospitality and put you quickly at ease. Something about the pleasant expression in his blue-gray eyes that looked so clearly and honestly in yours would suggest to you other men of his profession of character and ability. If you had come prepared to be critical and hostile you would find it hard to keep that attitude towards so charming a gentleman.
When Mrs. Crandon was presented she would completely upset all preconceptions of the famous medium. A very attractive blonde with a charming expression and excellent figure the “Witch of Lime Street” proved to be a thoroughly feminine lady with the best traits of a mother and housekeeper. Her vivacity, with the doctor’s poise and dignity, made them a delightful pair for an enjoyable dinner. Both had a diverting sense of humor and the conversation would never lag.
After the meal, which frequently involved a little wine that warmed your heart, you would be invited into the library. There the atmosphere was that of literary Boston—comfortable chairs, books everywhere….Probably while the doctor was talking with you some of his friends would drop in for the séance of the evening. You might meet Dr. Mark A. Richardson, who had some reputation for work he had done on typhoid vaccination. You could not fail to like him. A representative of New England’s best ideals would be the impression he would give you. Certainly you would not be led by what you knew of his career or by his manner and conversation to think of him as a magician�
��s assistant. Nor would his wife give rise to any such idea….
After this social hour you would find yourself going with this interesting group up to the séance room. However you might feel about ghosts and goblins you certainly would feel that you were in for a diverting evening. In the dark room you would meet the most intriguing personality of all. True, he would be only a husky whisper. But what could he whisper!
—Dr. Henry C. McComas, a Princeton psychologist who investigated the Lime Street phenomena
♦
Boston had no brash celebrities or stars; it was known instead for its bright minds at MIT and Harvard. The Red Sox had traded Babe Ruth and the Blue Stockings drove Isadora Duncan from their city. For the time being the Crandons managed to avoid publicity, though what was happening in their séance room could not be kept entirely quiet. Whether the guest was a Harvard psychologist or Beacon Hill neighbor, the Crandons’ gatherings became a sought-after invitation when Mina returned from Europe. Roy lamented in a letter to Roback that so many were now attending the Sunday sittings, they “were in danger of becoming vaudeville!” While that was the last thing he wanted to happen, the demonstrations could be riotous.
For all the screams and laughter, one of Roy’s experimental goals was to effectively muzzle the ABC Club. He and Dr. Richardson hoped to demonstrate that Walter’s distinctive voice and chortle could not be produced by any in the séance circle. Richardson would thus introduce his famous voice cut-out machine: a mechanism to prove no one opened their mouth while the spirit was supposed to be talking. By this process, which Mina likened to a group pacifier, a rubber nipple connected to a U-shaped tube was held in the mouth of each person in the séance room—all of whom were instructed to blow through its opening until columns of water ascended in one arm of the tube and descended in the other. When balance was reached, the sitters and psychic were told to use their tongues to close the hole in their nipples. All in the circle were thought to be silenced by the device: if anyone should open their mouths, the air pressure fell, causing water to displace in the free arm of the luminous U-tube. Mina thought it fortunate that séances were conducted in the dark, since it would have driven her to mute hysterics to watch her friends clench on their nipples while Walter repeatedly whispered, “David dug a deep and dirty ditch,” or “George is an extraordinary jazzy jay-bird, by jingo.” Dr. Crandon, who failed to see the humor, would claim that the unusual device achieved its aim. When in use it apparently gagged the sitters but not the ghost.
♦
To ring in the beginning of 1924, a gong placed out of the psychic’s reach began to chime. After delivering a blow to Aleck Cross’s chest with the hammer, Walter struck the instrument to the accompaniment of jazz on the Victrola. It would be a year of ghostly taps, ectoplasmic hands, and floating roses for the sitters—and of mysterious elliptical lights that flashed like darting eyes when Walter introduced his psychic animals. Although she had not yet committed to be tested by the Scientific American committee, Mrs. Crandon, as if preparing for a debut, began to expand her mediumship. In England and Germany, there was a scientific fascination with a phenomenon called telekinesis. Mediums in Europe, such as Evan Powell and the Schneider brothers, made vases and lampshades levitate and move about the séance room. Early in the year, Mina added these effects to her own program.
By then Mina and Walter’s mother, Jemima Stinson, had begun attending the Sunday séances. And a psychic named Sarah Litzelmann was sometimes invited, as her presence seemed to boost Mina’s power. With her arrival there began a strange flirtation between the ghost and the girl. “Walter, I have brought you three red, red, red roses,” Sarah announced at a dark séance a couple of evenings after Valentine’s Day. Walter answered with a rustle from the spirit cabinet, and a burst of chilling ardor. “I have brought you a yaller, yaller, yaller rose,” he murmured. After he repeated this refrain to two other women in the circle, Kitty Brown and his mother, single yellow roses materialized in the ladies’ laps. On another occasion, with Mina controlled, two carnations were placed on the séance table. When they began to move, and Mrs. Richardson expressed the urge to smell one, it was carried “with almost lightning speed around the circle,” grazing faces and tapping heads and noses, before floating underneath her chin and remaining there.
“Are you having a good time? Isn’t this a great party we’re having?” Walter played with more than flowers. In March, reports described an ashtray slithering across the séance table, rising to the ceiling, then gliding to the spirit cabinet and rattling against the walls while Mina, slumped in her trance, was restrained by Drs. Crandon and Richardson. Walter said he took his force from the minds of the sitters, though he complained that their mental strength was inadequate.
While the Harvard group continued to investigate Mina, they were unable to explain her new manifestations. Flowers caressed the ladies or slapped the faces of the researchers. Sitters were tickled, pinched, and had their hair pulled. Scientists had their trousers tugged by something that felt fuzzy, diaphanous, icy, or in other ways inhuman. Sarah Litzelmann was “pecked at, as if by kissing lips”; Mrs. Richardson felt something like a cobweb envelop her face; a digit like “an animal’s paw” stroked her calf and ankle. Another in the ABC Club, Frederick Adler, was startled by a buzzing sensation against his leg. “Yes, like a flea,” Walter whispered. “Scratch it, then,” challenged Adler, whereupon he instantly felt something clawing him. When Dr. Crandon wondered if this were a spoof, Walter struck his brother-in-law in the ribs ten times. With each invisible blow the ghost whispered, “I’m spoofing you, am I?”
“Laugh,” Walter implored. “If you can’t laugh at anything else look at yourself in the mirror.” One night, on request, Walter produced an ectoplasmic finger with glowing bones, as in an X-ray photo. It raised and lowered like a gavel, making a tap on the table as it came down, then a luminous mass went over the side of the cabinet and six blows reverberated. “The best sitting yet,” Dr. Richardson recorded.
“There’s a wild night ahead.” Walter liked to tease Roy, and other sitters, by warning that spiders and furry worms had been unleashed in the pitch-darkness. “It’s like that in hell,” the ghost cackled. Sensing something crawling over his lips, Dr. Edison Brown slapped at the invisible insect. When Aleck Cross began to whimper, he received a strike across his palms. Mina felt a form like a cat rubbing against her legs.
At another gathering that winter, the medium manifested two triangles of light, like curved wings, that Walter said was a bat named Suzy. “She lugs me around,” joked the ghost; “I went to Europe on Suzy.” Suzy flapped in the face of Roback, but seemed more gently inclined to Dr. Crandon’s sister, Laura, whose shoulder it perched on while the others calmed down. There were other animals, “psychic livestock,” that Walter introduced to the circle, but the occult menagerie was not complete until Mr. Bird returned to Lime Street.
Margery
Be sure a future moves slowly toward its final augury,
Proclaiming sure and certain hope,
Outshining faith of Priest and Pope—
Revealed by grace of Margery
—CAPT. QUENTIN C. A. CRAUFURD, AN AWED VISITOR TO LIME STREET
A single validated case of spirit communication and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be vindicated, but how many exposures would it take before the anti-Spiritualists—magicians, fundamentalists, Menckenites, and hardboiled scientists—no longer had to see mediums featured in the newspapers? Bird observed that readers who wrote to the Scientific American were equally divided between skeptics and those sympathetic to the psychics. The magazine had been inundated with letters commenting on the committee’s handling of Pecoraro—some complaining that the psychic’s bonds had been too tight, others that he should have been tied more severely. But those who pointed out that clamor and competition inhibited spirit phenomena were starting to irritate a staff that was “excessively weary,” Bird wrote in his column, “of having these truisms dinged into our ears by
every occultist Tom, Dick and Harry.” Bird did not want it alleged that the commission was bullying sensitives, nor that the Scientific American was involved in a religious inquiry. Psychic phenomena, in his opinion, were not miracles. “If they happen,” he asserted, “they certainly happen through the operation of laws and causes as definite as those which produce a series of explosions in the cylinders of an automobile engine.” The problem, as Bird saw it, was that the Scientific American was stuck with lemons.
That winter—following the magazine’s exposure of Dr. Albert Abrams, the infamous electric healer—Bird was ready to return to a spook hunt that had bagged only the worst sort of quarry. “If one examines our experiences of the past fifteen months in search of a generalization,” he reported, “one must be struck by the lack of quality in the mediums who have come forward.” The Scientific American contest was designed to test the world’s great psychics. So where were they?
In an attempt to galvanize new candidates, Bird published a statement by one of the occultist Tom, Dick, and Harrys—a Spiritualist who warned of the opportunity his movement was squandering.
“What are you going to do about the Scientific American investigation?” the man had beseeched the National Association of Spiritualists at a meeting of that council. “Here is the best chance you have ever had to prove to the world that these things happen. If you do not take advantage of it, the world must and will conclude that you stayed under cover because you knew that you had nothing to show.”
Hear! hear! Bird wanted to respond. Christianity was launched by apostles who went bravely to the lions. Did not one reputable medium have the courage to face a skeptical magician and a few sympathetic scientists? At Munn’s behest, the magazine published in bold print the names of the famous psychics Bird was most interested in bringing to New York—including Evan Powell, Ada Deane, William Hope, and Miss Ada Bessinet of Ohio. He said that Munn & Co. would pay their way and put them up. It was now or never for them to step forward.
