The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-07-01
MAGICIAN HOUDINI
SCOFFS AT MEDIUMS
Toronto Mail and Empire)

to denounce spiritist mediums. He
has been scrutinizing them for thirty
years. He has attended thousands of
seances, and he says he never seen a,
demonstration that he could not du-
plicate by mechanical means. He
does not deny that it may be possible
to pierce the veil; all he says is that
he has been unable to find a single
scrap of evidence to make him believe
that it has been pierced. He has had
compacts with seYen persons, all of
whom have died, to the effect that the
one who passed out first would send
back signal to the other if it were
possible. One of these friends died
twenty-five years ago. There has
come no sign. The last, to die was
his secretary, TO whom he was greatly
attached, and who said the day before
he died: 81 am coming back to you, no
matter what happens on the other
side, providing that there is any way
that can reach you. And if l can
come you will know it is l, because I
am going to will it so strongly that
you cannot be mistaken"
Houdini relates that some years ago
he was crossing to Europe on the same
ship as the late Theodore Roosevelt,
Victor Herbert and several other well
known people. of an intelligence and
culture above the average. He was
asked to give an entertainment in the
smoking and consented. He offered
to produce the spirits and have them
| answer any questions. Roosevelt
asked where he had been the previous
| Christmas Day. Houdini had slate
with the usual covering, and a few
minutes brought forth map done in
dozen colors of chalk, which indicat-
ed the spot where Roosevelt had been
on the famous River of Doubt. That
map was an exact duplicate of one
! that was to appear in Roosevelt
book, which had not yet been publish
ed. Houdini had never seen the map
and to make the mystery more baf-
fling, the name of w. L. Stead was
signed below the map, in a hand that
one gentleman present, familiar with
Stead's handwriting declared undoubt-
edly was his. Houdini had never seen
Stead's penmanship.
Houdini declines to tell how he pro-
duced the map and the signature, but
he remarks that if he could deceive
that select audience, how much easier
it is to deceive an audience that is
credulous to begin with and maybe he
is probably much weaker in average
intelligence. There can be not the
slightest doubt that had Houdini elect
ed to call himself a medium there
would be millions of people swearing
by him. Probably he would have been
hailed as the greatest medium in the
world and would be cited by Conan
Doyle as absolute evidence that we
can communicate with the dead. He
mentions the case of one medium who
was able to speak through trumpet
lying on table several feet away
from him.
If one saw this done he might be
pardoned for suspecting some super
natural agency, but Houdini says il
was only ventriloqual trick. He be-
lieves that the medium has really a
soft time of it, because the majority
of people who go to him are either
believers in the supernatural Or de-
sire to be convinced. They have some
longing to communicate with the dead
If they had not, in nine cases out OF
ten they would not go to the seance
They are practically consenting par.
ties to the frauds that the mediums
perpetrate. Many have dreams which
they ask the medium to interpret
Given a reasonable amount of credu-
lily, nothing is easier than to inter
Ipret dreams. In the vast majority OF
cases there is no meaning to them
Nothing follows in consequence OF
! them. Nothing occurs to show that
the medium has given wrong trans.
lation. Moreover, dreams that agitate
! usually have to do with warnings
There is something to be feared, some.
thing to be avoided in the future, and
since the vast majority of things that
people fear never happen, the medium
is credited with having given the ad.
: vice that leads to no untoward conse.
quences.
Mind-reading is, of course. a reality
and one suspects it was by means Of
this that Houdini was able to produee
the map of the River of Doubt. Hyp.
notism is also a reality, and some
times is quite as powerful. He tell: