The Edge of the Unknown

Who was the greatest medium-baiter of modern times? Undoubtedly Houdini.
Who was the greatest physical medium of modern times? There are some who
would be inclined to give the same answer. I do not see how it can ever
now be finally and definitely proved, but circumstantial evidence may be
very strong, as Thoreau said when he found a trout in the milk jug. I
foresee that the subject will be debated for many years to come, so
perhaps my opinion, since I knew him well, and always entertained this
possibility in my mind, may be of interest. If others add their
experience in order to support or disprove my own surmises, then some
result may eventually be obtained.

I will first give some of my own personal impressions of Houdini. I will
then dwell on some phases of his career which show his singular
character, and I will then endeavour to give the argument as to the
source of his unique powers.

Let me say, in the first instance, that in a long life which has touched
every side of humanity, Houdini is far and away the most curious and
intriguing character whom I have ever encountered. I have met better
men, and I have certainly met very many worse ones, but I have never met
a man who had such strange contrasts in his nature, and whose actions
and motives it was more difficult to foresee or to reconcile.

I will first, as is only proper, dwell upon the great good which lay in
his nature. He had the essential masculine quality of courage to a
supreme degree. Nobody has ever done, and nobody in all human
probability will ever do, such reckless feats of daring. His whole life
was one long succession of them, and when I say that amongst them was
the leaping from one aeroplane to another, with handcuffed hands at the
height of three thousand feet, one can form an idea of the extraordinary
lengths that he would go. In this, however, as in much more that
concerned him, there was a certain psychic element which he was ready to
admit freely. He told me that a voice which was independent of his own
reason or judgment told him what to do and how to do it. So long as he
obeyed the voice he was assured of safety. "It all comes as easy as
stepping off a log," said he to me, "but I have to wait for the voice.
You stand there before a jump, swallowing the yellow stuff that every
man has in him. Then at last you hear the voice and you jump. Once I
jumped on my own and I nearly broke my neck." This was the nearest
admission that I ever had from him that I was right in thinking that
there was a psychic element which was essential to every one of his
feats.

Apart from his amazing courage, he was remarkable for his cheery
urbanity in every-day life. One could not wish a better companion so
long as one was with him, though he might do and say the most unexpected
things when one was absent. He was, like most Jews, estimable in his
family relationships. His love for his dead mother seemed to be the
ruling passion of his life, which he expressed on all sorts of public
occasions in a way which was, I am sure, sincere, but is strange to our
colder Western blood. There were many things in Houdini which were as
Oriental as there were in our own Disraeli. He was devoted also to his
wife, and with good reason, for she was as devoted to him, but again his
intimacy showed itself in unconventional ways. When in his examination
before the Senatorial Committee he was hard-pressed by some defender of
Spiritualism who impugned his motives in his violent and vindictive
campaign against mediums, his answer was to turn to his wife and to say,
"I have always been a good boy, have I not?"

Another favourable side of his character was his charity. I have heard,
and am quite prepared to believe, that he was the last refuge of the
down-and-outer, especially if he belonged to his own profession of
showman. This charity extended even beyond the grave, and if he heard of
any old magician whose tombstone needed repair he took it upon himself
at once to set the matter right. Willie Davenport in Australia, Bosco in
Germany, and many others of his profession were the objects of these
pious offices. Whatever he did was done upon a large scale. He had many
pensioners whom he did not know by sight. One man embraced him in the
street, and upon Houdini angrily demanding who the devil he was, he
answered, "Why, I am the man whose rent you have paid for the last ten
years." He was devoted to children, though he had none of his own. He
was never too busy to give a special free performance for the
youngsters. At Edinburgh he was so shocked at the bare feet of the
kiddies that he had them all into the theatre, and fitted them then and
there with five hundred pairs of boots.