A Magician Among the Spirits

by Harry Houdini

We read in the newspapers of some payroll bandit who holds up the paymaster of a big concern and steals thousands of dollars, or of burglars entering homes and stores and breaking open safes and taking valuable loot, but these cases which we read of are nothing in comparison to some of the news which never reaches our ears, news of mediums who, because resourceful in obtaining information have made millions of dollars; blood money made at the cost of torture to the souls of their victims.

Suppose a medium comes to your town. He advertises a private seance. Like the average person you are curious and wish to be told things about yourself which you honestly believe no one in the world knows not even your most intimate friend. Perhaps you would like to learn some facts about a business deal, or know what is to be the outcome of a love affair, or it may be that you seek the comfort and solace that one is hungry for after the death of a near one. You go to this medium and are astounded by the things which are told you about yourself.

I do not claim that I can explain all the methods used by mediums to obtain this knowledge. A reader might attend a seance where the medium would use altogether different means to get the facts, but I am familiar with a great many of the methods of these human vultures. I think though that it is an insult to that scavenger of scavengers to compare such human beings to him but there is, to my mind, no other fit comparison.

The stock-in-trade of these frauds is the amount of knowledge they can obtain. It is invaluable and they will stop at nothing to gain it. They will tabulate the death notices in the newspapers; index the births and follow up the engagement and marriage notices; employ young men to attend social affairs and mix intimately with the guests, particularly the women.

It is seldom that one of these mediums will see a person the day he calls but will postpone the seance from a day or two to a week or more. As the person leaves the building he is followed by one of the medium’s confederates who gathers enough information about him to make the medium’s powers convincing when the seance is held.

It is a common occurrence for mediums of this stamp to hunt through the court records of property and mortgages. Cases have been known where they have employed men to read proof sheets in the press rooms of newspapers to find material with which to “foretell” events at seances. They frequently tap telephone wires. It is customary for these mediums to search letter boxes, steam open the letters, and make copies for future use. They have been known to buy the old letters sold to paper mills by big concerns, one useful letter, out of a ton of rubbish, being enough to pay them a great profit. It is also a common thing for mediums to “plant” assistants as waiters in restaurants for the purpose of overhearing conversation, especially in restaurants of the better class, business clubs, and luncheon clubs, where men of note freely discuss their plans and secrets, and in the “gilded lobster palaces” of Broadway and many hotel cabarets in other towns there are men who check and tabulate the good spenders and who in one way or another, usually when the victims are under the influence of drink, get into their confidence and secure information which is sold for money.

My attention was called to a case where it was said that a medium “planted” clerks in a Metropolitan hotel who would open, read, and re-seal the letters of guests. The medium was also able to get girls at the switchboard who intercepted messages and made a typewritten record of telephone conversations for him.

In many apartment houses the elevator boys, superintendents and servants are bribed to make a daily report of the inside happenings of the house. Most of the mediums work in the dark and many of them have employed expert pickpockets who cleverly take from the sitters’ pockets letters, names, memorandums, etc., while they are being interviewed. These are passed to the medium who tells the sitter more or less of their contents. Having served their purpose they are returned to the pockets of the sitter who, none the wiser, goes out to help spread reports of the medium’s wonderful ability. Mediums’ campaigns are planned a long time ahead. They make trips on steamers gathering, tabulating and indexing for future reference the information to be overheard in the intimate stories and morsels of scandals exchanged in the smoking rooms, card rooms, and ladies’ salons.

A man in a confidential moment told some very intimate secrets of his business to a chance traveling acquaintance while they sat in the smoking compartment of a Pullman car. Unfortunately for him this acquaintance belonged to an unscrupulous gang of mediums who used the information to blackmail him. These gangs of clairvoyant blackmailers will stop at nothing. They will move into the apartment house in which their victim lives and watch his habits. When sure of ample time they will break into his rooms, not to steal valuables, but information which nets them far more than the small amount of diamonds and cash which they might snatch. If it is possible to steal the records of great political parties how much easier to steal the secret papers of a family. If you doubt that information leaks out look up some of the cases that have been brought to the attention of the courts; cases where papers from secret organizations were missing; where the most intimate documents have been given publicity. Such information is far more difficult to obtain than the records of the dead. The Bar Association protects its reputation by weeding out lawyers who prey on clients but it cannot so easily discover a dishonest employee in a lawyer’s office who takes advantage of information which he knows to be sacred and secret.

Mediums are especially desirous of keeping in touch with disgruntled employees. There is no limit to what they will do. They have been known to arrange for the employment of accomplices as domestics and chauffeurs in families where they were particularly anxious to get information and have frequently had dictagraphs placed in homes by fake or disloyal servants and after a month or so of tabulating secrets and information were prepared for a seance at which the sitters could only account for the amazing things told them by believing the medium had occult aid. The result was an unqualified confidence in the mediumistic powers which in the end cost the sitters an exorbitant sum.