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Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle
This is the story of an unusual friendship between two of the most intriguing characters of the early 20th century--renowned escape artist Harry Houdini and celebrated mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes). Both men were fascinated by the occult practice of spiritualism, Houdini as an ardent skeptic who often publicly exposed fraudulent mediums and Conan Doyle as a true believer who became convinced that the dead could and did communicate with the living.Despite their differing perspectives the two men not only respected each other but became friends. The correspondence between them on the subject provides a fascinating glimpse not only into the personalities of two talented and interesting celebrities but also into a psychic phenomenon that is the ancestor of today's channeling craze.Based on original correspondence, photographs, and his own extensive research, Massimo Polidoro reconstructs this unusual friendship between a believer and a skeptic, which weathered mediums, seances, an apparition of Houdini's departed mother, automatic writing by Conan Doyle's wife, public debunkings, and hurt feelings. He also discusses the final rift that ended the friendship of the two strong-willed men. Fans of Conan Doyle, Houdini, magic, and the historical roots of the "New Age" will be delighted by this amazing story.
- GenresSpiritualismNonfiction
264 pages, Hardcover
First published May 31, 2001
3 people are currently reading
102 people want to read
About the author
Massimo Polidoro
97 books162 followersScrittore, giornalista e Segretario nazionale del CICAP, è stato docente di Metodo scientifico e Psicologia dell’insolito all’Università di Milano-Bicocca. Allievo di James Randi, è Fellow del Center for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) e autore di oltre 40 libri e centinaia di articoli pubblicati su "Focus" e numerose altre testate. È all'esordio con il suo primo thriller intitolato: "Il passato è una bestia feroce" (Piemme).
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December 27, 2018
Some friendships survive all vicissitudes, even periods of dislike. Most notably the two American Revolutionary figures Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Close friends from 1776 onward, to the point that Jefferson left his daughter with John and Abigail Adams for a few years in the 1780s, the two would split when Adams became the first Vice President under the U.S. Constitution, and Jefferson the first Secretary of State. Adams was a Federalist, but Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party to confront Federalist policies, and their friendship cooled, and then worsened into a mutual dislike when Jefferson became Adam's Vice President and then his successor as President. The campaigns in 1796 and 1800 were quite vitriolic. Adams left Washington and did not attend Jefferson's inauguration. This situation of mutual dislike lasted until 1813 when a mutual acquaintance (Dr. Benjamin Rush) managed to get the two ex-Presidents to start writing each other - a correspondence that lasted until they both died (on the same day) in 1826.
That is a special exception. Most great friendship rifts remain permanent. And one of the oddest but most noteworthy is chronicled in "Final Séance" by Massimo Polidoro. A writer and historian on occult subjects (and an editor of "The Skeptical Inquirer", of which he has written articles in, he is fully competent to delve into the events behind the friendship of Harry Houdini, the greatest escapologist in recorded history (closest rival for a different reason was the English housebreaker/burglar Jack Sheppard), and the writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, and Professor George Edward Challenger, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Beginning with an exchange of letters, when Conan Doyle and his wife came for a tour in the U.S. in 1920 he and Houdini finally met, and even spent some weeks vacationing together in Atlantic City. Both were among the most famous figures in the world of the day, and both had many similarities. One which they shared as an interest was spiritualism. Houdini (as a magician) was interested in the occult, and in particular this interest increased when his mother died. Conan Doyle had also long been intrigued by it, but it took a back seat to his writing (look at his story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", which debunks the concept of vampirism to the point that Holmes reading his material on the issue dismisses it as rubbish. But by 1917-1918, the Great War, and the deaths of his oldest son, his mother, his brother-in-law, and millions of his fellow Europeans in the war, convinced him to make spiritualism into a new religion that the writer felt would give closure and comfort to the millions of survivors of the war dead.
The two friends could see that both showing interest in the subject was not the same thing as sharing an enthusiasm for the subject. Conan Doyle would have found a kindred sprit in the enthusiasm of British scientist Sir Oliver Lodge. But this was based on real personal losses, and Sir Arthur's big heart - so many were mourning their dead, and only spiritualism, with it's promise of communicating with the departed, and eventual reunion with them offered solace and peace to millions. To be fair the 1920s and early 1930s was an age when spiritualism was spreading and finding some degree of social acceptance. People WANTED to believe to feel better.
Houdini was more skeptical. He had tried the use of spiritualists in an attempt to communicate with the spirit of his mother, but he was a showman/magician and could spot evidence of pre-planning of effects, and outright physical lying that ruined the performance of spiritualists he saw. In a way he is like the author's fellow editor of "The Skeptical Inquirer", James Randi (also a great magician), who can demonstrate how an occult "effect" was faked. The fakery which occurred so many times to Houdini on his personal quest angered him, and made him determine on a new career of revealing how the spiritualism racket actually worked.
This resulted in a collision course between the friends. Conan Doyle was always big hearted, and he saw the new religion he would serve for his last decade of life as a key to happiness for millions now in sorrow and agony due to their loss of dear ones in the war. He felt he HAD to believe. And Houdini felt equally he HAD to show the fakery. The final blow came in a stupid kind of way (as these usually do). Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle (who also believed in the occult) learned of the secret sorrow of Houdini seeking to communicate with his mother. So Lady Conan Doyle actually held a séance Houdini attended and she spoke to the dead Mrs. Weiss (Houdini's original name was Erich Weiss). At the time Houdini seemed curiously neutral on the subject of the séance and the message from the dead. But later he wrote a letter to Conan Doyle explaining why he had to reject the message and Lady Conan Doyle's performance as a medium in the event. It seems Houdini's mother gave the message to Lady Conan Doyle in English. This was odd to the magician as his mother only spoke Yiddish and Hungarian all her life - even in the U.S. The letter implied, though Houdini did try to soft pedal it, that Lady Conan Doyle was a liar. This struck Conan Doyle in the heart, as he loved his second wife deeply, and she was acting with the best of motives when she acted as a medium at this time. But Houdini was secretly wounded too, as the subject of this fakery (whether the intention was well meant or not) was one of the two women in his own life (the other being Mrs. Houdini) he was really close to. The tear finally was in the friendship, and only widened as the years past, until Houdini's death in 1926, and even in Conan Doyle's last work, "The Edge of the Unknown" in 1930. Conan Doyle even claimed that Houdini had secret magical powers which enabled him to perform his amazing escapes - a view Houdini would never have accepted as he knew his feats regarding practice and planning to succeed.
In the end one wishes the two could have had a happy middle to meet at, but the viewpoints were too opposite to ever bridge the distance. Conan Doyle wanted to believe despite the evidence of for the sake of the hurting survivors of the worst war in history, while Houdini could only see the mediums and their assistants as the worst type of criminal. And once the good names or the figures of their dearest relatives got involved nothing could restore the mutual pleasure the friendship had initially created. Yet it was potentially salvageable. After all, Houdini's admirers still try to see, every October 31st (the anniversary of his death) if he will speak the hidden message he left in an envelop with his wife if he could talk from the great beyond. Well, if anyone could have done so, one imagines it would have been the great escapologist.
It could have been different, had the two men been different themselves. One writer would suggest that both were right and wrong at the same time, as one saw the mediums and others like them as in the forefront of great hope and promise, while the other only saw sordid greed and fakery in the same group. Conan Doyle could not believe there were self-interested fakes involved in spiritualism and creating a racket of his crusade. Houdini could not see that a gentler view would be that some of these mediums were frauds, and others possibly were honest. Today many would probably share the skepticism, but seeing how such things as daily horoscopes and belief in
"New Age" studies such as ESP are part of the world too shows that the split still exists, and probably always will.
Houdini would make many enemies in showing up the frauds, and some were of more influence than Conan Doyle. One couple who had found some slight happiness from mediums were President Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace, who used mediums to "communicate" with their younger son Cal Jr., who died from blood poisoning in 1924. Houdini's crusade involved exposing the medium that gave them the comfort. They were not happy as a result. And Sir Arthur would hurt his own reputation as a writer of substance for decades after his death due to his crusading spirit. Indeed, the creation of the "Baker Street Irregulars", "The Sherlock Holmes Society", and myriads of similar groups in the 1930s onward probably stemmed in part from separating the author's then reputation as a type of crank from his greatest creation. Ironically, to do this, a pleasant fiction was created that Holmes and Watson, Irene Adler, Moriarty, and the rest were real people, and that Dr. Conan Doyle was a well known writer of stories like "J. Habbakuk Jephson's Statement" (about the mystery of the Mary Celeste - called "Marie Celeste" in the 1883 story), and was simply a middle man "literary agent" for Dr. Watson. Conan Doyle would have been up in arms about that type of reaction to his own writings.
Definitely a worthwhile read for fans of two great, flawed men, who were too separate and strong minded for their friendship to survive .
/
That is a special exception. Most great friendship rifts remain permanent. And one of the oddest but most noteworthy is chronicled in "Final Séance" by Massimo Polidoro. A writer and historian on occult subjects (and an editor of "The Skeptical Inquirer", of which he has written articles in, he is fully competent to delve into the events behind the friendship of Harry Houdini, the greatest escapologist in recorded history (closest rival for a different reason was the English housebreaker/burglar Jack Sheppard), and the writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, and Professor George Edward Challenger, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Beginning with an exchange of letters, when Conan Doyle and his wife came for a tour in the U.S. in 1920 he and Houdini finally met, and even spent some weeks vacationing together in Atlantic City. Both were among the most famous figures in the world of the day, and both had many similarities. One which they shared as an interest was spiritualism. Houdini (as a magician) was interested in the occult, and in particular this interest increased when his mother died. Conan Doyle had also long been intrigued by it, but it took a back seat to his writing (look at his story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", which debunks the concept of vampirism to the point that Holmes reading his material on the issue dismisses it as rubbish. But by 1917-1918, the Great War, and the deaths of his oldest son, his mother, his brother-in-law, and millions of his fellow Europeans in the war, convinced him to make spiritualism into a new religion that the writer felt would give closure and comfort to the millions of survivors of the war dead.
The two friends could see that both showing interest in the subject was not the same thing as sharing an enthusiasm for the subject. Conan Doyle would have found a kindred sprit in the enthusiasm of British scientist Sir Oliver Lodge. But this was based on real personal losses, and Sir Arthur's big heart - so many were mourning their dead, and only spiritualism, with it's promise of communicating with the departed, and eventual reunion with them offered solace and peace to millions. To be fair the 1920s and early 1930s was an age when spiritualism was spreading and finding some degree of social acceptance. People WANTED to believe to feel better.
Houdini was more skeptical. He had tried the use of spiritualists in an attempt to communicate with the spirit of his mother, but he was a showman/magician and could spot evidence of pre-planning of effects, and outright physical lying that ruined the performance of spiritualists he saw. In a way he is like the author's fellow editor of "The Skeptical Inquirer", James Randi (also a great magician), who can demonstrate how an occult "effect" was faked. The fakery which occurred so many times to Houdini on his personal quest angered him, and made him determine on a new career of revealing how the spiritualism racket actually worked.
This resulted in a collision course between the friends. Conan Doyle was always big hearted, and he saw the new religion he would serve for his last decade of life as a key to happiness for millions now in sorrow and agony due to their loss of dear ones in the war. He felt he HAD to believe. And Houdini felt equally he HAD to show the fakery. The final blow came in a stupid kind of way (as these usually do). Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle (who also believed in the occult) learned of the secret sorrow of Houdini seeking to communicate with his mother. So Lady Conan Doyle actually held a séance Houdini attended and she spoke to the dead Mrs. Weiss (Houdini's original name was Erich Weiss). At the time Houdini seemed curiously neutral on the subject of the séance and the message from the dead. But later he wrote a letter to Conan Doyle explaining why he had to reject the message and Lady Conan Doyle's performance as a medium in the event. It seems Houdini's mother gave the message to Lady Conan Doyle in English. This was odd to the magician as his mother only spoke Yiddish and Hungarian all her life - even in the U.S. The letter implied, though Houdini did try to soft pedal it, that Lady Conan Doyle was a liar. This struck Conan Doyle in the heart, as he loved his second wife deeply, and she was acting with the best of motives when she acted as a medium at this time. But Houdini was secretly wounded too, as the subject of this fakery (whether the intention was well meant or not) was one of the two women in his own life (the other being Mrs. Houdini) he was really close to. The tear finally was in the friendship, and only widened as the years past, until Houdini's death in 1926, and even in Conan Doyle's last work, "The Edge of the Unknown" in 1930. Conan Doyle even claimed that Houdini had secret magical powers which enabled him to perform his amazing escapes - a view Houdini would never have accepted as he knew his feats regarding practice and planning to succeed.
In the end one wishes the two could have had a happy middle to meet at, but the viewpoints were too opposite to ever bridge the distance. Conan Doyle wanted to believe despite the evidence of for the sake of the hurting survivors of the worst war in history, while Houdini could only see the mediums and their assistants as the worst type of criminal. And once the good names or the figures of their dearest relatives got involved nothing could restore the mutual pleasure the friendship had initially created. Yet it was potentially salvageable. After all, Houdini's admirers still try to see, every October 31st (the anniversary of his death) if he will speak the hidden message he left in an envelop with his wife if he could talk from the great beyond. Well, if anyone could have done so, one imagines it would have been the great escapologist.
It could have been different, had the two men been different themselves. One writer would suggest that both were right and wrong at the same time, as one saw the mediums and others like them as in the forefront of great hope and promise, while the other only saw sordid greed and fakery in the same group. Conan Doyle could not believe there were self-interested fakes involved in spiritualism and creating a racket of his crusade. Houdini could not see that a gentler view would be that some of these mediums were frauds, and others possibly were honest. Today many would probably share the skepticism, but seeing how such things as daily horoscopes and belief in
"New Age" studies such as ESP are part of the world too shows that the split still exists, and probably always will.
Houdini would make many enemies in showing up the frauds, and some were of more influence than Conan Doyle. One couple who had found some slight happiness from mediums were President Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace, who used mediums to "communicate" with their younger son Cal Jr., who died from blood poisoning in 1924. Houdini's crusade involved exposing the medium that gave them the comfort. They were not happy as a result. And Sir Arthur would hurt his own reputation as a writer of substance for decades after his death due to his crusading spirit. Indeed, the creation of the "Baker Street Irregulars", "The Sherlock Holmes Society", and myriads of similar groups in the 1930s onward probably stemmed in part from separating the author's then reputation as a type of crank from his greatest creation. Ironically, to do this, a pleasant fiction was created that Holmes and Watson, Irene Adler, Moriarty, and the rest were real people, and that Dr. Conan Doyle was a well known writer of stories like "J. Habbakuk Jephson's Statement" (about the mystery of the Mary Celeste - called "Marie Celeste" in the 1883 story), and was simply a middle man "literary agent" for Dr. Watson. Conan Doyle would have been up in arms about that type of reaction to his own writings.
Definitely a worthwhile read for fans of two great, flawed men, who were too separate and strong minded for their friendship to survive .
/
April 7, 2025
A STORY OF FRIENDSHIP (BASED ON SPIRITUALISM) THAT ULTIMATELY ENDED
Italian author and skeptic (he is the Executive Director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) Massimo Polidoro wrote in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of this 2001 book, “I would not have written this book had I not seen, when I was five years old, the Houdini movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh…. Later in my youth I discovered the Sherlock Holmes stories and was completely captured by their ingeniousness. Another surprise, however, was … when I learned that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle; … had been friends! I wanted to know all about these two amazing personalities … For years I collected books, newspaper clippings, letters, and anything that pertained to these two great men, until I had so much material that I could write a book on them…”
He recounts an incident, “Possibly showing Sir Arthur how easy it can be to be fooled by mediums, Houdini once gave an extraordinary demonstration…. ‘Sir Arthur,’ said Houdini, ‘I want you to go out of the house, walk … as far as you like in any direction; then write a question or sentence on that piece of paper, put it back in your pocket and return to the house… When he returned Houdini invited him to … touch the [cork] ball to the left side of the slate. The ball…. began rolling across the surface of the slate, leaving a white track as it did so… it was .. spelling the words: ‘Mene, mene, tekel upsharin,’ the very same words that Conan Doyle had written. The guests were speechless. Houdini turned to Conan Doyle and said: ‘Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion… but I can assure you it was pure trickery… I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you… do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily ‘supernatural’… just because you cannot explain them… I have given you this test to impress upon you the necessity of caution.’ … Sir Arthur… came to the conclusion that Houdini really accomplished the feat by psychic aid, and could not be persuaded otherwise.” (Pg. 77)
He reports that “Houdini and [Orson D.] Munn … [were] shocked at hearing that [J. Malcolm] Bird and [Hereward] Carrington had accepted [Le Roy Goddard] Crandon’s hospitality… How unbiased could their judgment be if they were guest of the party that they were asked to investigate? But the accommodations … were not the only blandishment offered… Carrington, for example, had borrowed some money from Dr. Crandon, and Bird had even received a blank check for his expenses. An even more dangerous influence, however… [was] Mina, who wore only a flimsy gown and silk stockings during the séance. She obviously enchanted Bird and only many years later was it known that she and Carrington had very likely slept together. ‘It is not possible to stop at one’s house,’ Houdini explained, ‘break bread with him frequently, then investigate him and render an impartial verdict.’” (Pg. 138-139)
He also recounts that “Arthur Ford… a pastor of the First Spiritualist Church in New York City… claimed that… he went into a trance and… a woman identifying herself as the mother of Harry Houdini … said that her son Harry had hoped for years to receive one particular word from her, the word ‘forgive,’ and added that ‘His wife knew the word, and no one else in all the world knew it… Ford’s supporters announced the Bess’s [Houdini’s wife] letter confirmed the authenticity of [Ford's claim]… The public, however, remained skeptical. The press … reported that the keyword had already appeared in print nearly a year before… in the Brooklyn Eagle…. Furthermore, it was not true… that the word was known only to [Houdini’s mother], Houdini, and Bess, and that ‘no one else in all the world knew it’…” (Pg. 218-219)
He continues, “A few months later… Ford announced that he had received the tenth and final code word of a message from Houdini… a séance was fixed… Ford went into a trance and began speaking in what he claimed to be Houdini’s voice. The voice … then began to sing… ‘Rosabelle’, [which] was the song sung by his wife in their early days… Not everybody was convinced, however. Joseph Dunninger … reminded [Bess] that the ‘secret code’ … [had been published] in the authorized biography … based on Bess’s ‘recollections and documents'; … Also, the fact that Houdini had had four lines of the song ‘Rosabelle’ engraved inside Bess’s wide gold wedding ring was hardly a secret.” (Pg. 219-221)
He points out, “Houdini’s approach to Spiritualism was more cautious… Although he tried to present himself to Conan Doyle as a longtime expert in the field, Houdini had never conducted an in-depth study of the subject… Also, it is not true… that Houdini was drawn to spiritualism following the death of his mother, seeking a medium who could put him in touch with her. She died in 1913 and it was not until Houdini met Conan Doyle, that his interest in Spiritualism would become central for the remaining years of his life.” (Pg. 238)
He concludes, “Personally, Houdini and Conan Doyle had liked each other from the start and could have been great friends until the end of their days; however, the subject that had brought them together, Spiritualism, in the end turned out to be so crucial in their own lives that it became the reason for their breakup.” (Pg. 242-243)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Houdini, Conan Doyle, or Spiritualism.
Italian author and skeptic (he is the Executive Director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) Massimo Polidoro wrote in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of this 2001 book, “I would not have written this book had I not seen, when I was five years old, the Houdini movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh…. Later in my youth I discovered the Sherlock Holmes stories and was completely captured by their ingeniousness. Another surprise, however, was … when I learned that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle; … had been friends! I wanted to know all about these two amazing personalities … For years I collected books, newspaper clippings, letters, and anything that pertained to these two great men, until I had so much material that I could write a book on them…”
He recounts an incident, “Possibly showing Sir Arthur how easy it can be to be fooled by mediums, Houdini once gave an extraordinary demonstration…. ‘Sir Arthur,’ said Houdini, ‘I want you to go out of the house, walk … as far as you like in any direction; then write a question or sentence on that piece of paper, put it back in your pocket and return to the house… When he returned Houdini invited him to … touch the [cork] ball to the left side of the slate. The ball…. began rolling across the surface of the slate, leaving a white track as it did so… it was .. spelling the words: ‘Mene, mene, tekel upsharin,’ the very same words that Conan Doyle had written. The guests were speechless. Houdini turned to Conan Doyle and said: ‘Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion… but I can assure you it was pure trickery… I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you… do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily ‘supernatural’… just because you cannot explain them… I have given you this test to impress upon you the necessity of caution.’ … Sir Arthur… came to the conclusion that Houdini really accomplished the feat by psychic aid, and could not be persuaded otherwise.” (Pg. 77)
He reports that “Houdini and [Orson D.] Munn … [were] shocked at hearing that [J. Malcolm] Bird and [Hereward] Carrington had accepted [Le Roy Goddard] Crandon’s hospitality… How unbiased could their judgment be if they were guest of the party that they were asked to investigate? But the accommodations … were not the only blandishment offered… Carrington, for example, had borrowed some money from Dr. Crandon, and Bird had even received a blank check for his expenses. An even more dangerous influence, however… [was] Mina, who wore only a flimsy gown and silk stockings during the séance. She obviously enchanted Bird and only many years later was it known that she and Carrington had very likely slept together. ‘It is not possible to stop at one’s house,’ Houdini explained, ‘break bread with him frequently, then investigate him and render an impartial verdict.’” (Pg. 138-139)
He also recounts that “Arthur Ford… a pastor of the First Spiritualist Church in New York City… claimed that… he went into a trance and… a woman identifying herself as the mother of Harry Houdini … said that her son Harry had hoped for years to receive one particular word from her, the word ‘forgive,’ and added that ‘His wife knew the word, and no one else in all the world knew it… Ford’s supporters announced the Bess’s [Houdini’s wife] letter confirmed the authenticity of [Ford's claim]… The public, however, remained skeptical. The press … reported that the keyword had already appeared in print nearly a year before… in the Brooklyn Eagle…. Furthermore, it was not true… that the word was known only to [Houdini’s mother], Houdini, and Bess, and that ‘no one else in all the world knew it’…” (Pg. 218-219)
He continues, “A few months later… Ford announced that he had received the tenth and final code word of a message from Houdini… a séance was fixed… Ford went into a trance and began speaking in what he claimed to be Houdini’s voice. The voice … then began to sing… ‘Rosabelle’, [which] was the song sung by his wife in their early days… Not everybody was convinced, however. Joseph Dunninger … reminded [Bess] that the ‘secret code’ … [had been published] in the authorized biography … based on Bess’s ‘recollections and documents'; … Also, the fact that Houdini had had four lines of the song ‘Rosabelle’ engraved inside Bess’s wide gold wedding ring was hardly a secret.” (Pg. 219-221)
He points out, “Houdini’s approach to Spiritualism was more cautious… Although he tried to present himself to Conan Doyle as a longtime expert in the field, Houdini had never conducted an in-depth study of the subject… Also, it is not true… that Houdini was drawn to spiritualism following the death of his mother, seeking a medium who could put him in touch with her. She died in 1913 and it was not until Houdini met Conan Doyle, that his interest in Spiritualism would become central for the remaining years of his life.” (Pg. 238)
He concludes, “Personally, Houdini and Conan Doyle had liked each other from the start and could have been great friends until the end of their days; however, the subject that had brought them together, Spiritualism, in the end turned out to be so crucial in their own lives that it became the reason for their breakup.” (Pg. 242-243)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Houdini, Conan Doyle, or Spiritualism.
January 15, 2015
It is sad to see how some people could be fooled so easily. A great example of misjudgement and delusional belief - the great writer Arthur Conan Doyle. A good read to see just how misguided and blind can one be.
On the other hand this is a fascinating view into 1920s when the "Spiritism" movement was the Thing. I would like to believe people these days have a more critical mind. But it might aswell just be that the methods change, but irrational people remain, who don't care about reasonable explanations. Just look at how there's a horoscope in every newspaper. Or like there are tv shows like "Britain’s Psychic Challenge".
All the more glory to Harry Houdini (and James Randi et al.) for exposing fraudsters.
On the other hand this is a fascinating view into 1920s when the "Spiritism" movement was the Thing. I would like to believe people these days have a more critical mind. But it might aswell just be that the methods change, but irrational people remain, who don't care about reasonable explanations. Just look at how there's a horoscope in every newspaper. Or like there are tv shows like "Britain’s Psychic Challenge".
All the more glory to Harry Houdini (and James Randi et al.) for exposing fraudsters.
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