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Did Spiritualists murder Houdini?
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 UNITED STATES. An extraordinary claim that illusionist and escapologist Harry Houdini may have been murdered by Spiritualists is being taken seriously by his great nephew and others.
George Hardeen, whose grandfather was Houdini’s brother, Theodore, believes Houdini’s remains should be exhumed so that pathologists can explore whether Houdini – who received tremendous publicity for his anti-Spiritualist performances – was poisoned, rather than dying from peritonitis, following a punch to his stomach that damaged his appendix, as indicated on his death certificate.
The allegation – described as audacious in one review – is made in a book, The Secret Life of Houdini: the making of America’s first Superhero, by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. It was published in America on Halloween last year to coincide with the 80th anniversary of Houdini’s death.
Numerous books have been written about the remarkable feats of Houdini (real name Ehrich Weiss), yet Kalush (founder of the Conjuring Arts Research Centre) and Sloman (an award-winning writer) have apparently uncovered facts about the illusionist that have never before been published. These include the claims that he spied on Germany for Scotland Yard, monitored anarchists in Russia, and helped the US Secret Service with its anti-counterfeiting activities.
 But it is the astonishing suggestion that his sudden death at the age of 52 was murder, not due to an accident, and that Spiritualists – perhaps even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes (pictured, left, with Houdini) – were responsible, that has excited most interest. In fact, the claim reads more like a plot from a Sherlock Holmes novel than a real-life possibility.
The evidence offered by the authors comes from a surprising source: the granddaughter of one of the mediums he investigated and claimed to have exposed: Margery (pictured below right, whose real name was Mina), the wife of a Boston doctor, Le Roi Crandon, and one of the most famous mediums of her day.
Margery Crandon came close to satisfying scientists that her physical mediumship was genuine – but Houdini’s involvement in tests changed their views (she is pictured, below left, with Houdini and the other two investigators who tested her). Spiritualists, on the other hand, accused Houdini of falsifying the evidence against her, rather than admit that she had genuine paranormal powers.
 Anna Thurlow, Margery Crandon’s 38-year-old granddaughter, is said to have supplied much of the evidence on which the authors have based their claim. In an Associated Press report, she is quoted as saying that during a 1924 séance, her grandmother’s spirit control, Walter – Margery’s dead brother – greeted Houdini with a threat:
“I put a curse on you now that will follow you for the rest of your short life.” Thurlow added: With people that delusional, you have to question what they’re capable of. If there’s any circumstantial evidence that Houdini was poisoned, we have to explore that.”
Kalush and Sloman make the incredible claim that “the Spiritualist underworld’s modus operandi in cases like this was often poisoning”, but since they have not yet published any notes relating to this charge, we do not know to which cases they are referring – assuming they even exist.
Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of Spiritualism’s most prominent supporters, enjoyed a long-term friendship though they agreed to differ on the subject of Spiritualism. They eventually fell out over Houdini’s apparent exposure of Margery Crandon, who had Doyle’s full support.
 It seems that any evidence of murder has gone to Houdini’s grave in a New York cemetery, along with many of his magic secrets. But now a team of top experts is working on a bid to exhume Houdini, with the full backing of his great nephew.
George Washington University forensic science professor James Starrs, together with Kalush and Sloman, held a press conference on 22 March to announce their exhumation plan. Their legal papers will be filed on Monday 26 March but it could be a few months before the exhumation takes place.
Washington Post writer David Segal, however, thought there might be another motive: “But the more they talked about exhuming the body, the more it seemed like the point was reviving the sluggish sales of a nearly moribund book”.
Famous for his ability to get out of straightjackets, handcuffs and a variety of other restraints, his grave was said to be the only place from which Houdini could never escape. If exhumed, he will prove even that claim wrong.
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Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007
Category: Mediumship
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