"The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," written by Otis Adelbert Kline, was the first serial to appear in Weird Tales. Part one was in the first issue, dated March 1923. Part two followed in April of that year. At the opening of part one, the narrator learns that his uncle has died. That would make "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes" the first "Uncle story" in Weird Tales. You might question whether the "Uncle story" was or is actually a thing, but I'm pretty sure that it is. I remember when we were kids watching and enjoying a movie called Let's Kill Uncle (1966), with Nigel Green in the title role. A Thousand Clowns (1965) starring Jason Robards and Barry Gordon, may also be an Uncle story. Maybe what we need is an Internet Uncle Story Database (IUSDb).
The narrator of Kline's story lets us know that his Uncle Jim was involved in researching psychic phenomena. He was a member of the London Society for Psychical Research and its American counterpart. Both were real organizations. The London society was formed in 1882, the American Society for Psychical Research in 1884. In "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," there is a séance, some automatic writing, and a lot of ectoplasm flying, flowing, and oozing through the room. These elements of spiritualism appear in earnest in the story, although, to his credit, Kline didn't exactly fall for spiritualism. Instead he proposed a materialistic or naturalistic explanation for all of its elements. He also placed everything under God, and so nothing under God can be called supernatural. To call anything under God supernatural would of course be an oxymoron.
Kline had stories in several issues in Weird Tales over the next year. He wrote the essay "Why Weird Tales?" for the first anniversary number of May/June/July 1924. He probably also edited (or co-edited) that issue. After a little more than a year, Kline seems to have begun changing his tune when it came to spiritualism and psychic phenomena. Here is the opening text from his Dr. Dorp story "The Malignant Entity" (Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924):
"I TELL you, Evans," said Dr. Dorp, banging his fist on the arm of his chair for emphasis, "the science of psychology is in much the same stage of development today as were the material sciences in the dark ages."
"But surely," I objected, "the two centuries of investigation just past have yielded some fruit. It cannot be that the eminent men who have devoted the greater part of their lives to this fascinating subject have labored in vain."
The doctor stroked his iron-gray Van Dyke meditatively.
"With a few--a very few exceptions, I'm afraid they have," he replied, "at least so far as their own deductions from observed phenomena are concerned."
"Take Sir Oliver Lodge, for example--" I began.
"The conclusions of Sir Oliver will serve as an excellent example for my analogy," said the doctor. "No doubt you are familiar with the results of his years of painstaking psychical research as expounded in his books."
"I believe he has become a convert to spiritism," I replied.
"With all due respect to Sir Oliver," said the doctor, "I should say that he has rather singled out such facts as suited his purpose and assembled them as evidence to support the spiritistic theory. It may seem paradoxical to add that I believe he has always been thoroughly conscientious in his investigations and sincere in his deductions."
"I'm afraid I do not quite follow you."
"There are times in the life of every man," continued the doctor, "when emotion dethrones reason. At such a crisis the most keen-witted of scientists may be blinded to truth by the overpowering influence of his own desires. Sir Oliver lost a beloved son. Only those who have suffered similar losses can appreciate the keen anguish that followed his bereavement, or sympathize with his intense longing to communicate with Raymond. Most men are creatures of their desires. They believe what they want to believe. Under the circumstances it was not difficult for a clever psychic to read the mind of the scientist and tell him the things he wanted to hear."
"But what of the many investigators who have not been similarly influenced?" I inquired. "Surely they must have found some basis--"
I was interrupted by the entrance of the doctor's housekeeper who announced--"
Poor Oliver Lodge. But then nobody made him or people like him try to force their beliefs onto the world. Kline could just as easily have been writing about Arthur Conan Doyle, who also lost a son and who also, seemingly, let his feelings get in the way of his proper thinking.
So in 1923, Kline included some of the trappings of spiritualism in his first story, but by mid 1924, he seems to have become more skeptical of the whole business--if Dr. Dorp was saying what Kline wanted him to say, that is. So what happened in the interim? Maybe Kline fell under the influence of Harry Houdini, who signed his agreement with Weird Tales magazine in February 1924 and who busied himself in and out of its pages with busting psychic mediums and debunking the claims of believers in spiritualism. I have suggested that Kline, as the probable author of nonfictional fillers in Weird Tales, borrowed The Terrific Register; or, Record of Crimes, Judgements, Providences, and Calamities (two volumes, 1825) from Houdini, who is known to have had a vast library. I have also suggested that Kline was the ghostwriter behind "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," published under Houdini's byline in Weird Tales in March and April 1924. It's clear that Kline was intelligent and widely read. Maybe he saw the wisdom in Houdini's point of view. And maybe the London Society for Psychical Research saw it, too (or came to see things the same way anyway, independently of Houdini), for in 1930, there was a split in its numbers. Arthur Conan Doyle left that year. Others may have also. I can't say for sure, as I haven't looked into this business very closely. And I don't really want to, for spiritualism and its related psychic or parapsychological phenomena are so thoroughly uninteresting to me, being as they are completely ungrounded in fact or reality. There are other, more interesting frauds and scams at work in the world. If you have only so much time to read about such things, you should choose the ones that interest you.
On November 18, 1922, Scientific American announced that it would pay $2,000 to anyone who could take a spirit photograph under test conditions and $2,500 to any medium who could produce physical effects from supposed spirits, again under test conditions or controlled conditions. (See Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls by William Lindsay Gresham [McFadden, 1961], p. 201.) Houdini put up $5,000 of his own money for similar purposes. Scientific American formed its Committee for Psychical Investigations, a name similar to but not to be confused with those of the London Society for Psychical Investigations and its American counterpart. At some point, Houdini became a member of that committee. And when his tour of the vaudeville stage ended in February 1924, he went out on a new lecture tour designed to talk about and expose fraudulent mediums. I'm pretty sure he was involved with Scientific American and its investigations for several months, possibly a year or more, around that time.
Houdini's stories and his letters column in Weird Tales, "Ask Houdini," coincided with his lecture tour that spring. In May 1924, his book, A Magician Among the Spirits, written on the same subject, was published. And that summer, Houdini exposed a psychic medium known as "Margery," real name Mina Crandon, of Boston, as a fraud. Houdini's investigation of Mina Crandon forms a major episode in his many biographies.
There had been plenty of that before and there would be still more to come for Houdini. Looking back on all of this, I have the impression that spiritualism in America was in decline by the mid to late 1920s. The lesson in all of it might have been: Don't mess with Houdini. By the way, there may have been some Houdini-adjacent content in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales in the form of a nonfiction filler entitled "Woman Fails to Win Psychic Prize." That item, on page 74, is about the Reverend Mrs. Josi K. Stewart of Cleveland, Ohio, whom Scientific American had shot down the previous October. She wanted the prize. She went home with nothing, perhaps not even a lovely parting gift. Was Otis Adelbert Kline the anonymous author of that brief article? Maybe. And here's another by-the-way: Scientific American is currently involved in another fraud and scam, in this case transgenderism. The problem this time is that the magazine is on the same side as the fraudsters and scammers, the people who are trying their best to harm children. Shame on them and everyone who believes as they do. We can only hope that Scientific American goes down the tubes as a result of this and so many other bogus and idiotic ideas that they have and have tried to promulgate in the world.
Weird Tales in 1923-1924 is full of content about spiritualism, psychic mediums, séances, spirits, psychic phenomena, automatic writing, ectoplasm, and so on. In the first half of 1924, the Great Houdini addressed those things in his "Ask Houdini" column and in his three ghostwritten stories. The kind of research I'm doing right now on spiritualism and psychic phenomena in Weird Tales could go on and on. But I'm getting close to the end of this series on Harry Houdini. I have one more part to go. Then it will be on to other things.
Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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