Seances

The Witch of Lime Street: Seance, Seduction and Houdini in the Spirit World

The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by [Jaher, David]

Although the skeptic vs. spiritualist rivalry between Harry Houdini and Mina Crandon (a.k.a. “Margery the Medium”) has been well-documented previously, we’ve never seen it explained in such exacting detail nor depth, nor so well contextualized in the social and intellectual mileu of Jazz Age America, as in David Jaher’s The Witch of Lime Street.

The book is social history written with a novelistic sensibility (and has recently been optioned as the basis for a feature film), delineating the peculiar personality politics of the post-First World War spiritualism controversy.

Our only criticism is that perhaps too much space was devoted to play-by-play descriptions of “Margery’s” seances, which – although obviously a key point of interest – did tend to repetitively resolve into “weird things happening in a dark room”. That minor quibble aside, this is a must-read book for anyone interested in the causes and effects of the ’20s seance craze.

“Houdini’s Girl Detective” now available

The anthology Houdini’s ‘Girl Detective: The Real-Life Ghost-Busting Adventures of Rose Mackenberg is now available in both print and ebook editions.

Following the devastating losses of human life incurred during the First World War and then the Spanish Influenza Pandemic, bereaved families turned to the nascent religion of Spiritualism, which promised them contact and communication with the spirits of the dead. Sadly, but inevitably, most of those families fell prey to the cynical trickery of “ghost racketeers”, whose seances were con games designed to separate their victims from their hard-earned cash.

Enter Rose Mackenberg, a private detective trained by the great magician and escape artist Harry Houdini to infiltrate and expose the ghost racket. Rose became the most prominent and prolific member of Houdini’s “secret service” of investigators. Throughout the 1920s, she was instrumental in debunking hundreds of phony spirit mediums.

Houdini’s Girl Detective is an illustrated anthology of Rose’s original expose articles, first published in several North American newspapers during 1929. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of the ghost racket, offering a deeply skeptical take on ectoplasm, spirit rapping, table-tipping, “love and luck potions” and similar chicanery.

Recommended for anyone with an interest in the causes and effects of the Jazz Age spiritualism craze.

“The Capture of a Spirit” (1880)

Capturing a phony spirit This historic antique wood engraving, titled “The Capture of a Spirit – Sketches at a Recent Spiritualistic Seance,” represents the dramatic exposure of a fake spirit medium named Florence Cook (1856-1904).

During the first heyday of Spiritualism, Cook became one of the its most famous practitioners. She was noted for her purported ability to produce full-form spirit materializations of “Marie,” her spirit guide. During a seance, Marie would step out of the “spirit cabinet,” often singing and dancing to the delight of clients.

At a materialization seance in 1880, one of the attendees, Sir George Sitwell, reached into the spirit cabinet and grabbed Marie. When the lights came up, Marie was found to be Florence Cook, clad only in her corsets and petticoat and wrapped in white drapery.

A classic case of “pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain” …

Houdini and Doyle: World of Wonders

Each short episode of this promotional webseries for Houdini and Doyle showcases a different magic trick, escapology feat or exposure of spiritualistic fakery with some connection to either Harry Houdini or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Hosted by Rebecca Liddiard, who co-stars in H&D as Constable Adelaide Stratton, the webseries is a co-production between Smokebomb Entertainment, Shaw Media and the Canada Media Fund.

In the interests of education, it’s worth noting that the “demonstration of hypnosis” in Episode 10, involving Miss Liddiard standing upon a “hypnotised” subject’s body while they lie supported by two chairs, is a feat quite easily performed by any reasonably athletic person as long as it is carried out carefully; no hypnosis is required.

Houdini and Doyle, Episode 5: The Curse of Korzha (reviewed)

Edwardian-social-issues-of-the-week: Spiritualism and the deep emotional bond between parents and children

“Supernatural” crime: Spiritualism (?)

H&D has really hit its stride, with another strong story following last week’s lively Spring Heeled Jack caper.

We open by following the mysterious Madame Korzha as she leads a group of police constables and distraught parents through the shadowy streets of London in search of a kidnapped child named Julia. Madame Korzha certainly seems, in this scene, to possess some sort of preternatural powers, as she unerringly guides her followers into the subterranean tunnels, where they discover the girl, clutching a doll and upset but unharmed, along with a note written in blood:

NO INNOCENCE.

Houdini, Doyle and Stratton are naturally intrigued to learn that a psychic appears to have been of actual use in a police investigation. Harry and Adelaide are sceptical of her abilities and suspect that she may have had inside knowledge of the kidnapping, but Doyle is, inevitably, more open to the possibility of spirit guidance. The enigmatic Madame Korzha further ingratiates herself with Doyle by revealing that she is a fan of his Sherlock Holmes stories.

We then meet dock worker Mitchell Pearce, the father of a girl who was kidnapped and murdered under similar circumstances about a year previously. Suspecting some connection between the two cases, the police ask Madame Korzha to investigate alongside Houdini, Doyle and Stratton.

The team learns that the message on the wall was not written in Julia’s blood and that the doll she was found clutching was not hers. After having purportedly consulted with her spirit guides, Madame Korzha then guides them to the kidnapper’s deserted lair in an abandoned doll factory. Houdini is ever more convinced that she must somehow be in cahoots with the kidnapper(s).

The normally phlegmatic Inspector Merring, who seems to be taking these abductions very much to heart, reveals that yet another girl has been kidnapped. Young Julia, fortunately, has now recovered from her ordeal enough to be able to reveal that the masked man who took her was bearded and that she had managed to scratch his face. Houdini notes darkly that Madame Korzha’s assistant has a beard …

Shortly thereafter, Doyle, Houdini and Stratton attend a seance at Madame Korzha’s residence. Despite Harry’s ability to predict some of her pronouncements via his knowledge of cold reading, she also appears to be unaccountably privy to certain details about Doyle’s life and his relationship with his wife. At the dramatic climax of the seance, Madame Korzha and her assistant appear to instantly and impossibly swap places in the room; but Houdini remains unconvinced. Later, Houdini returns to Korzha’s residence, apparently so as to expose her as a fraud, but they end up sleeping together. Houdini steals her passport, then realises that Korzha has stolen his wallet.

It turms out that Madame Korzha’s Romanian passport is a forgery and that she actually hails from Croydon; her real name is Edith Pilkie. Houdini is now almost certain that she has organised the kidnappings so as to cast herself as a heroine by rescuing the children, and so drum up more business as a psychic investigator.

However, re-examining the photographic evidence, Houdini then realises the Hargreaves and Pearce girls were bound differently – and recognises the knots used on Julia as those commonly used on London docks. The team confronts Mitchell Pearce, who has evidently gone mad with grief, and who confesses that he kidnapped Julia and the latest missing girl to draw attention to the failure of the police to solve his own daughter’s abduction and murder. During a struggle with Houdini and Doyle, Pearce accidentally shoots himself and dies.

Heading to the London docks, the team finds Pearce’s latest victim bound to a ladder and about to be drowned by the rising tide, but Houdini leaps into the frigid water and is able to release her just in the nick of time. She is revived and reunited with her parents.

Doyle, meanwhile, has deduced how “Madame Korzha” was able to function so well as an investigator – she has been using Sherlock Holmes’s methods of detection! She hands him an enigmatic note (and returns Houdini’s wallet) before disappearing into the night. Following clues in the note leads Houdini and Doyle to the London Public Records Office, and to photographic evidence that Adelaide Stratton has been hiding her real identity from them.

Observations:

The highlight of this tautly-plotted episode is definitely the mysterious Madame Korzha herself. The ultimate reveal that she is actually a genius-level detective and magician, posing as a sophisticated foreign psychic in order to help people because Edwardian Londoners would not take a working-class woman seriously as a detective, is a brilliant premise. If H&D does get a second season, we look forward to this character’s return.
Edith Pilkie’s masquerade as the exotic Madame Korzha is reminiscent of the imposture of Mary Baker as “Princess Caraboo of Javasu” during the early 19th century.
Harry Houdini’s love/hate sparring with Edith/Korzha may be a nod to his real-life crusade to expose the clever and wealthy Boston medium Mina Crandon, a.k.a. “Margery”, during the mid-1920s.
It’s nice to see Inspector Merring do something other than stand gruffly behind his desk. The reveal that he lost his only son during wartime, which has especially sensitized him to missing child cases out of empathy with the parents, offers him some more depth and humanity.
Houdini’s guilty admission that he, himself, once worked as a fraudulent medium is historically true; it was early in his magic career and he stopped doing it when he realised the potential harm he was doing to true believers.

RATING:

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Eight ibangs out of a possible ten for episode five, which introduces an intriguing new character, deepens the mystery of Adelaide Stratton’s real identity and offers a solid blend of mystery and action.