The Séance at Castle D---
"The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was Houdini's second story for Weird Tales. It came in the form of a two-part serial. Part one was in the issue of March 1924. In part two, having escaped from the oubliette in the lower recesses of Castle D---, Houdini returns to the castle so as to rescue the Countess D--- and her sister Rosicka from the clutches of the villainous Popkens. As he explores the castle, Houdini hears the sound of a weird voice and finds that a séance is underway. Popkens is acting as medium. He's trying to convince Rosicka to reveal secrets that the Countess would not. "The voice droned on," Houdini recounts, "and I soon realized that Popkens was trying to make Rosicka think that it was her mother's voice commanding her to reveal the secrets." (Weird Tales, Apr. 1924, p. 54, col. 2). Popkens is of course the leader of a group of spirit-fakers, "unscrupulous charlatans," Houdini calls them. He drips with disdain for Popkens and his ways, remarking on Popkens' "audacity" and "effrontery" in carrying out this supposed communication with the dead.
Houdini intervenes, silently strangling Popkens into unconsciousness and then taking his place at the head of the table. In the darkened room, speaking in Magyar, he impersonates Popkens, now in the voice of Count D---, the deceased father of the Countess and Rosicka. Houdini feels his way in the dark and locates the two sisters, cutting their bonds. Then a tussle begins and the lights come on. Oh, no! Another crisis! Another fight! But don't worry, Houdini comes out on top and the sisters are saved.
It's my guess that "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was composed not by Houdini but by a ghostwriter. I have nominated Otis Adelbert Kline as the possible true author of the story. There are other candidates, too, including Harold Ward. In any case, the purpose behind "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was of course to tell a story, but it was also likely to have been part of Houdini's ongoing campaign against frauds and fake mediums. He was on a lecture tour that spring with those kind of people as his subjects and targets. That summer he engaged himself in on-site and in-person investigations of their activities, exposing at least one well-known medium--Mrs. Mina Crandon of Boston--as a fraud. You have to admire the Great Houdini for being so hard and steadfast against the whole business. We could use somebody like him today, a true skeptic and debunker to go after similar fakes and frauds in any number of fields of endeavor. But then there is no end to deception and human folly, nor to human depravity. The liars, fakes, and frauds, moreover the people who believe in lies and in fake and fraudulent things, are numberless. Skilled truth-tellers, skeptics, and debunkers are comparatively few. And now when they say unpopular things, they're silenced, cancelled, censored, or even imprisoned for their offenses.
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I quoted from Houdini's story above for a reason. I'll repeat part of the quote and add some emphasis:
". . . I soon realized that Popkens was trying to make Rosicka think that it was her mother's voice commanding her to reveal the secrets."
Those words stood out to me for a reason, and it has to do with what I have read of Houdini's life and his relationship with another teller of weird tales.
Four years before "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was published in Weird Tales, Houdini traveled to England, looking for mediums and possibly for the specific purpose of meeting Arthur Conan Doyle, whom he knew to be involved in Spiritualism. Houdini sent one of his books to Doyle as an introduction. On or about April 11, 1920, they met for the first time at Doyle's home. A friendship--or was it an acquaintanceship?--grew from there. Doyle and Houdini wrote back and forth and visited with each other, apparently more than once. Then, on June 18, 1922, in a hotel room in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Houdini attended a séance conducted by Doyle and his wife, Lady Jean Doyle. Lady Doyle would act as medium in an attempt to communicate with Houdini's mother, Cecelia or Cecilia (Steiner) Weisz, who had died on July 17, 1913, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Lady Doyle went into her trance and began writing messages, supposedly from the dear departed. Houdini was cooperative and polite, but the whole thing was obviously a fraud. Houdini recognized as much, either on the spot or after some time spent in thought:
First, Lady Doyle began by making the sign of the cross on her pad of paper. Houdini and his mother were Jewish. (Or I believe she was Jewish.) In fact, his father and her husband was a rabbi.
Second, Lady Doyle's messages were written in English. Cecelia or Cecilia Weisz, a native of Hungary, spoke and wrote five languages. According to Houdini, English was not one of them.
Third, June 16, two days before the séance, was her birthday.* Lady Doyle's messages made no mention of a day that would have been very special to a man who was so close to his loving and doting mother. (Although he was Jewish, Houdini referred to her as a saint.)
Fourth, the messages were written in Lady Doyle's own style of expression. Doyle admitted as much. (See the book by Randi & Sugar referenced below, after the asterisk.)
And fifth, on the night before the séance, Lady Doyle had pumped Houdini's wife Bess for information on the relationship the great escapist had had with his mother.
That hotel séance marked the beginning of Houdini's falling out with Doyle. In reading about their relationship, I have the impression that Doyle was more or less a fanatic when it came to Spiritualism. He seems to have been more interested in using Houdini for his own purposes than in forming any real friendship with him. He seems to have wanted to recruit Houdini into his own belief system, as fanatics do. And yet he acted like the injured party in their falling out. Imagine: Doyle and his wife not only lied and misrepresented themselves--they not only tried to trick and use and defraud Houdini--they also tried to exploit his relationship with his mother, his love for and memories of her, to manipulate him into coming over to their side in the debate over Spiritualism. I'm not sure that they were exactly malicious in what they were trying to do. Nonetheless, it was pretty rotten. What poor taste. How inconsiderate and hurtful. As Houdini (or his ghostwriter) wrote in "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," what audacity, what effrontery. What a lot of charlatans they and people like them were (and are). Either that or delusional. Or gullible in the extreme.
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According to Houdini, his mother spoke five languages, one of which was Hungarian. In "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," Houdini speaks Magyar, albeit with an American accent. So did he also know Hungarian, or Magyar? I don't know. Maybe that's a bit of evidence that his ghostwriter knew that Houdini was born in Hungary rather than the United States. Maybe the ghostwriter assumed that because he was born in Hungary, Houdini spoke Magyar, without thinking that German, or maybe even Yiddish, was more likely Houdini's native language.
So did that ghostwriter also know about the séance of June 18, 1922? Did Houdini, through his ghostwriter, strike against the fake medium who claimed to speak in his dead mother's voice? Was that the ghostwriter's reason for including the séance scene in his story? I don't know, but it makes you think. Of course we'll never know the answers to these questions unless we can dial up the Great Houdini (or one of the other Weird Tales authors) using some clunky old séance machine.
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*Some sources give her birthday, June 16, as the day of the séance. Another gives the date as July 17, erroneously calling it "the day after Mama's birthday." (Source: Houdini: His Life and Art by The Amazing Randi and Bert Randolph Sugar, Grosset & Dunlap, 1976.)
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| Weird Tales, March 1924. Cover story: "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" by Houdini. Cover art by R.M. Mally. |
Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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