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Harry Houdini: Spiritualism
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Grand illusionist Harry Houdini wasn't one to be taken in by anybody else's trickery. He was especially suspicious of spiritualism, which was all the rage during the 1920s. to the full satisfaction of [a panel of five] judges." One of those judges was Houdini. … Joseph Gangemi has taken several of these historical ingredients and, in his debut novel, Inamorata, whipped them into a wonderfully light and savory souffle.
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The association - and eventual bitter breakup - of Houdini and Doyle began as far back as 1908, when as a publicity stunt Houdini wrote a letter to "Holmes, " asking for help in catching scalawags who were stealing his tricks. By 1920 the two had formed a friendship that seemed connected not only by their talent but by their tragedies - just as Houdini had lost his beloved mother, Doyle lived in grief over the death of his son, Kingsley, a casualty of World War I. Each man sought to explore spiritualism as a way of making possible contact.
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"Sir Arthur," remembered Ernst, "came to the conclusion that Houdini really accomplished the feat by psychic aid, and could not be persuaded otherwise." Doyle's reaction, and the refusal to consider trickery even when admitted by the trickster, was so typical, noted Houdini, that "here is little wonder in his believing in Spiritualism so implicitly."
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