In Carter's second Best of 2024 pick, we're returning to explore the remarkable life of legendary magician Harry Houdini and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. We’ll be back with new episodes of Conspiracy Theories next week! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Harry Houdini in 1926?
Lights, camera, Carter. Hey, Conspiracy Theories listeners and viewers. We've introduced a lot of new things to the show this year, including video. In my second best of 2024 pick, we'll revisit our video episode covering the mysterious death of famed magician Harry Houdini. You can hear the audio everywhere, but you'll only be able to watch it on Spotify.
We'll be back with new episodes of Conspiracy Theories next week. Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of violence and death. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen.
If you're listening on the Spotify app, you can watch a video version of this episode right in the app and be sure to swipe up after the story and let us know what you thought. In the summer of 1924, expert magician and escape artist Harry Houdini sat in an office in Boston, holding the hand of a woman he barely knew. He strained his eyes to watch her, but couldn't see a thing.
They were sitting in complete darkness. The woman was Marjorie, a self-proclaimed medium who maintained she could commune with the spirits of the dead. But like so many others in her profession, she did her best work in a pitch black room. It was more than a little suspicious. Now, it was up to Houdini to prove that she was a fake, a flim flammer like the rest of them.
The only problem was, she was very good. I mean, she couldn't really be speaking with the dead, could she? Then a male voice, totally unlike Marjorie's, boomed. You won't live forever, Houdini. You've got to die. I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day until you die. And then you'll know better. Houdini had made enemies before, but he did take note of this particular warning.
After all, it's not often that a curse is placed upon you by a ghost. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday and be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. And we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, just swipe up and give us your thoughts.
You may know Harry Houdini as one of the greatest magicians in history. He was a huge celebrity in his time. Then he died under strange circumstances on Halloween 1926, leaving many to wonder, was his death just an accident or was it planned at the hands of someone who had it out for him?
Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found David J. Herr's The Witch of Lime Street and The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman extremely helpful to our research. The audiobook editions of both works are available for Spotify Premium subscribers in Spotify's audiobook catalog, where you can check them out after listening to this episode.
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Chapter 2: How did Houdini's rivalry with mediums begin?
Doyle said a prayer, then they waited for Cecilia to arrive. Normally, Houdini kept one eye open during seances, always on guard. But today, he felt a yearning that he never expected. Jean picked up the pen, channeling Cecilia for 15 pages. Houdini read and reread them, cherishing each word. For a moment, he thought Doyle was right. This was true comfort. But then...
he realized the words sounded nothing like his mother. First and foremost, he always spoke to her in her native Hungarian. If Jean had truly been channeling the voice of Cecilia, she wouldn't have written in English. Houdini's comfort curdled into anger. He began to think that maybe Doyle, who he considered his friend, was just like the rest of them, a con artist.
He manipulated Houdini's emotions over his dead mother to try to convince him. The magician never wavered again in his opinion of mediumship. They were charlatans, every single one. and he would do everything in his power to stop them from preying on the bereaved. Houdini attended more and more seances, sometimes wearing a disguise.
He'd study the medium's movements, figure out their tricks, and then he'd perform them for a live audience, proving to the public that spiritualist mediums were really just masters of illusion. In 1924, he compiled his exploits in a tell-all book, A Magician Among the Spirits.
It was a takedown of pretty much every well-known medium who ever existed, all the way back to the Fox sisters, who, by the way, were not only retired from seances, but dead. He explained their tricks using photographs and diagrams. He even dragged Arthur Conan Doyle for supporting mediums, officially torching their friendship. Was it a little hypocritical of him? Maybe.
Houdini was extremely secretive about his own tricks, and here he was putting medium secrets on display. But that's not how Houdini saw it. At least he was upfront about being an illusionist. He felt he was on a crusade to expose them all. He was famously quoted as saying, "'It takes a flimflammer to catch a flimflammer.'" In other words, he was just the person for the job.
But there was one medium who wasn't so easy to figure out. Someone who had already impressed Houdini's colleagues so much that Houdini risked his own reputation to prove she was a fraud. She was known professionally as Marjorie. Marjorie, whose real name was Mina Crandon, was an upper-crust society wife of a Boston surgeon, Dr. Leroy Crandon.
He was one of the scientific thinkers who'd become interested in finding scientific proof of an afterlife. Before 1923, Marjorie hadn't taken spiritualism all that seriously. Until one day, she decided to attend a seance on a whim. A medium told Marjorie he sensed a spirit among them. He asked her, did she have a brother who died? She did, although she brushed this off as a common fishing tactic.
But the medium knew things about her brother. Was he blonde and tall? Yes. Liked to play pranks? He did. Then the medium's face grew serious. Marjorie's brother had an important message for her. She had the gift of mediumship. As in Marjorie should be running these seances. Her mind raced. To her, the news kind of made sense.
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Chapter 3: What was the cause of Houdini's death?
Any medium who could win over the magazine's committee would win $2,500, or what would be about $45,000 today. If it seems weird that a science publication would host a seance contest, you're not wrong. But remember, in the 1920s, the line between real and pseudoscience was kind of blurry. When Houdini heard about the contest, he insisted on joining the panel of judges.
And then he basically said not to even worry about getting the prize money together. There'd never be a winner. And for a while, no one even came close to claiming the prize, just as Houdini promised. Houdini was so scathing in his article about one failed contestant, the rest of the panel worried nobody else would even apply.
The contest started to leave a trail of ruined reputations in its wake. And then Marjorie came along. She'd been a medium for less than six months when suddenly she was being considered for the Great Spirit Hunt. Now, Houdini was still performing, and he was super famous throughout North America and Europe.
He understandably didn't want to be bothered unless a medium made it far enough along in the testing process. So before Houdini ever met her, Marjorie already had most of the judges convinced she was the real deal. She'd been giving dozens of sittings with them for months while Houdini was touring. How did she win them over so handily?
At one sitting, a small white dove suddenly appeared out of thin air. Everyone gasped and then clapped and cheered. Malcolm Byrd and the other judges were amazed. They all searched the seance room at the beginning of the night. There was no sign of a dove. They had also locked the doors and placed a wax seal on them so they'd know if someone had slipped inside in the dark.
But the seals were still intact. They were so astounded by the dove trick, the men went around and asked all the local pet shops if Marjorie had bought a bird from them. During another round of tests, a former MIT physicist challenged Marjorie, or rather Walter, to tip a weighted scale that was under a cover while he took photographs. Somehow she pulled it off and he couldn't figure out how.
During these tests, the people sitting next to Marjorie had a special job called a control. Basically, the controls would hold the medium's hands. They'd also sit ankle to ankle or even place Marjorie's feet in their laps. It creates a silly picture, but in a dark seance room, this was how everyone could ensure she wasn't just sneaking around pulling strings.
And at this point in the contest, she was doing great. The Boston Herald printed an article declaring that most of the jury was convinced of her powers. But she still had to make it past Houdini. Both of their reputations were now on the line. The whole world was watching the contest. It was a big deal.
Scientific American had been publishing updates about the spirit hunt, and most of the local Boston newspapers followed the story as well. Marjorie versus Houdini was the spiritualism showdown of the decade. Houdini had been so outspoken about what a sham mediums were that if Marjorie was able to prove him wrong and win the prize, he'd be humiliated.
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Chapter 6: How did Houdini's death influence beliefs about his life?
Scientific American had been publishing updates about the spirit hunt, and most of the local Boston newspapers followed the story as well. Marjorie versus Houdini was the spiritualism showdown of the decade. Houdini had been so outspoken about what a sham mediums were that if Marjorie was able to prove him wrong and win the prize, he'd be humiliated.
And she was essentially representing a whole religious movement. Harry Houdini finally arrived in Boston to face Marjorie in July 1924. Their meeting was surprisingly jovial, but Houdini never forgot what he was there to do. Seated in a chair next to Marjorie, Houdini acted as one of the controls.
He wanted to be able to feel the slightest movement, so he rolled up his pants to the knee and pressed his ankle bone right on Marjorie's. The seance circle joined hands and Walter arrived. He performed several of his usual tricks. Bells rang, objects floated. Walter had his fun with the Victrola, making the record slow and stop. The Crandons were pleased. It had been a good showing.
Houdini, on the other hand, drew one simple conclusion. Marjorie was a fraud. He felt certain that she was slowly moving her foot during the seance, doing it so delicately that no previous control had ever noticed. With that free foot, she was able to move whatever mechanisms were ringing the bells and allowing the objects to levitate.
He didn't have an explanation for the record player, but he was sure he'd figure that out eventually. The next night, Houdini kept his leg pressed even tighter against Marjorie's. Again, he rolled up his pants so he could feel the slightest movement. For the first half of the seance, he felt nothing. But Walter didn't perform any of his tricks either.
At one point, Marjorie allegedly told Houdini that the buckle on his garter was hurting her. He was pressing her leg so hard the metal was digging into her skin. Houdini agreed to take them off for the seance. But when he reached down, he discovered the truth. Marjorie's stockings had gotten caught in the metal buckle. She couldn't move her leg at all because of it.
Lo and behold, once the stocking was free, Walter started ringing bells and floating objects. To Houdini, it was the nail in the coffin. He told the other panel members to call off the hunt, but they had a hard time believing him. Marjorie and Walter had shown them amazing things. Was Houdini really sure she was fake?
So Houdini went to his greatest lengths yet to prove he was right and put an end to the contest, no matter how many enemies he might make. Harry Houdini was certain Marjorie was a fraud, just like all the other spiritualist mediums he'd uncovered, but he still had to prove it. At the next seance, he unveiled a wooden control box.
Instead of having people hold Marjorie's hands and feet, a system she had obviously outsmarted, Houdini had her sit inside the box he built. He promised that if Marjorie could still work under these conditions, he'd accept her talents. So, Marjorie climbed into the box, the lights went out, and Houdini waited.
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