"I am a great admirer of mystery and magic. Look at this life -- all mystery and magic."- Harry Houdini (Schulz). That said, when the mystery began to transform into deceit as a way to take advantage of the grieving, Houdini put his foot down. As arguably the greatest magician and escape artist to ever live, Houdini impacted the world. He influenced ideas surrounding spiritualism until his untimely death and perhaps even after.
Born as Erich Weisz in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874, Houdini’s journey had just begun. At just 13 years of age, he moved to New York with his father and became enthralled with trapeze arts. In 1894, his professional career took off, albeit with a rocky start.
Renaming himself Harry Houdini after his nickname “Ehrie”
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It was not until after he started performing wondrous escape acts with handcuffs, that he became a big deal and married
Bess, his loving wife and stage partner (Biography.com Editors).
Being an escape artist was not Houdini's only passion, he loved to expose fraudulent mediums. After his mother's passing in 1913, Houdini sought out mediums for comfort and out of genuine curiosity since spiritualism was on the rise after World War 1. Many others did the same, they were “...seeking comfort in bereavement…” (Richard and Adato) in a way that seemed helpful, and if not, amusing. According to the series Surviving Death, spiritualism tends to gain followers during times of trauma and uncertainty and so it makes sense that the movement grew after such a great war (“Mediums: Part 1”). Yet, rather than being awed,
Houdini insisted it was pure trickery that he could not stand for; he believed these mediums to be vultures, and that “...these practitioners were preying upon people in their time of grief who were desperate to contact deceased loved ones…” (Dunn). In 1920, he started a second career dedicated to exposing as many mediums as he
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Another layer of the shared repercussions belong to women. Inadvertently, Houdini created another excuse to belittle women, as spiritualism is a female dominated field.
Throughout history women have been perceived as less than, as objects with no right. If they tried to change that, they were called crazy or burned at the stake for being witches. In the age of spiritualism, women gained an outlet to speak up and feel empowered, but as more mediums were exposed by Houdini and the likes, they were once again seen as being silly women. Today, women are still judged as too emotional and unintelligent. Perhaps not knowingly, but it is deep rooted into our behaviours, that's just how the patriarchy works; inequality is still disturbingly prevalent (Supernatural in Popular Culture, lecture date 2/8/23).
Before his actions developed further, Houdini met his demise in a rather unfortunate and mysterious way. On October 31, 1926, Houdini died from a ruptured appendix at age 52.
Either from a university student punching him in the stomach and causing profound agony or angry spiritualists who poisoned him in defiance of his attacks, we will never know. But before his death, he made a rather amusing deal with his wife, Bess. To prove he had