The Magician and the Spirits: Harry Houdini and the Curious Pastime of Communicating with the Dead
The Magician and the Spirits: Harry Houdini and the Curious Pastime of Communicating with the Dead
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Penguin
Annotation: Famed illusionist Harry Houdini embarks on a quest to investigate spiritual phenomena and the possibility of communication with those on the "other side."
Genre: [Biographies]
 
Reviews: 7
Catalog Number: #167924
Format: Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin
Copyright Date: 2017
Edition Date: 2017 Release Date: 08/22/17
Pages: 152 pages
ISBN: Publisher: 0-8037-4018-2 Perma-Bound: 0-7804-2459-X
ISBN 13: Publisher: 978-0-8037-4018-1 Perma-Bound: 978-0-7804-2459-3
Dewey: 921
LCCN: 2016053762
Dimensions: 23 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
School Library Journal Starred Review (Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

Gr 6 Up-arry Houdini is best remembered as a magician and escape artist, but he also spent more than half his life tirelessly investigating mediums and séancescharlatans in disguise. Noyes's narrative blends the history of the spiritualism movement in the early 20th century with a biographical account of Houdini. Early in Houdini's career, between 1897 and 1899, he and his wife Bess performed as mediums and mind readers, but he later wrote that he regretted "trifling with the hallowed reverence which the average human being bestows on the departed." Influenced by the loss of his beloved mother in 1913 and his ongoing debate with friend and avid spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Houdini embarked on a mission to debunk spiritualism, which by 1924 "had become a full-on crusade." Noyes stresses that Houdini believed in an afterlife and probably hoped that communication with the dead was possible but he never found legitimate evidence. Since magic acts and fraudulent séances made use of many of the same methods, Houdini was adept at discovering trickery, which he exposed most notably in a 1924 lecture tour. Houdini is portrayed as a likable figure, motivated by his compassion for grieving people and respect for the deceased. The title has an appealing layout with frequent sidebars, copious photographs and archival theater posters, and a page border that subtly contributes to the book's Victorian flavor and spooky mood. Although some passages are a bit dry, the read is overall intriguing and likely to hook students. VERDICT Fans of magic, mystery, and debates on the supernatural will devour Noyes's take on Houdini.Magdalena Teske, Naperville Public Library, IL

ALA Booklist (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

Plenty has been written about Houdini's iconic escape routines and stage magic, but in this biography, Noyes focuses on a lesser-known facet of his career: his mission to debunk spiritualists. After his mother died, Houdini wanted to believe in the possibility of contact from beyond the grave. But his career gave him singular insight into tricks mediums deployed during seances, and, angered by the thought of mediums swindling grief-stricken people, he became determined to reveal the fakery of spiritualism. While describing Houdini's campaign to unmask fraudulent mediums, Noyes offers compelling tidbits about the many ways spiritualists performed their tricks, and helpful historical context for the popularity of spiritualism. Houdini's feud with avowed spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle is particularly fascinating, though the details of their clash get a bit lost. Still, there's plenty of intriguing information here, often in eye-catching inset boxes with additional background, and Noyes' attention to Houdini's outsize personality key component of his campaign against spiritualists ds compelling depth. A worthwhile addition to any nonfiction section, and ideal for kids intrigued by historical oddities.

Horn Book

Noyes uses Houdini's attempts to discredit the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Spiritualist movement as her entry point into the intriguing phenomenon. She provides historical context and relates incidents from Houdini's life, including his friendship with staunch believer Arthur Conan Doyle and his attempts to unmask "flimflammers." The book concludes that humans will believe in those fictions they wish to. Websites. Bib., ind.

Kirkus Reviews

There was a time, not long ago, when many people believed that death was no barrier to staying connected with loved ones. The idea was enthusiastically embraced by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the logically minded Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle saw nothing illogical in the ability of psychic mediums to connect the grief-stricken with their lost relations. A true believer and zealous evangelist for spiritualism, Conan Doyle believed such phenomena as automatic writing, frenzied trances, disembodied voices, levitating tables, ghost photography, and oral expulsions of ectoplasm were real and perfectly rational. Conan Doyle's friend Harry Houdini was dubious. The most renowned magician and escape artist of his time knew plenty about tricking audiences, and his investigations into these spiritual phenomena convinced him that mediums used trickery and illusion to dupe people like his friend. Noyes' engaging narrative explores how Houdini's public crusade to expose spiritualism as bunk and mediums as frauds strained his relationship with Conan Doyle. The account is illustrated with archival material and densely populated with odd, outrageous characters such as D.D. Home, whose levitation acts saw him sailing out windows feet first, and Eva C. who expelled "ectoplasm" from her mouth during séances. Sidebars take readers down numerous, entertaining detours. A compelling true story of magic, ghosts, science, friendship, deception, feuding, and sleuthing told with great flair. (photos, source notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Bibliography Index/Note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Word Count: 25,430
Reading Level: 8.9
Interest Level: 5-9
Accelerated Reader: reading level: 8.9 / points: 5.0 / quiz: 192003 / grade: Middle Grades
Reading Counts!: reading level:12.9 / points:9.0 / quiz:Q72085
Lexile: 1250L
Guided Reading Level: R
Introduction: Impossibility Commences
 
Who was Harry Houdini?
 
Almost everyone has a mental picture of this "mys­tifier of mystifiers," the most popular magician and escape artist of all time. Whether crouched over handcuffed wrists, liberating himself from a locked jail cell, or making an elephant disappear, he was a blaze of action--a force of mind, muscle, and will. His audiences gaped in wonder as he swallowed needles (or seemed to), bobbed upside down in a water-torture cell, or dangled topsy-turvy in a straitjacket from a tall building.
 
Over the course of his career, Houdini went by many names. He made his public debut at Jack Hoefler's Five-Cent Circus in 1883, a year after his family settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Billed as Ehrich, the Prince of the Air, the spry acrobat and con­tortionist was nine years old.
 
People who saw him later, performing in dime museums, sideshows, and jails, and on the big variety stages of vaudeville, knew him variously as King of Cards, Projea the Wild Man, Wizard of Shackles, or the World's Handcuff King and Prison Breaker. As he was quick to advertise, he was an "eclipsing sensation" who left no challenge unanswered. He was known in "every country on the globe," defying "duplication, explanation, imitation or contra­diction." And in a life dedicated to dreaming up dazzling tricks, stunts, and escapes, he was his own best invention.
 
The public knew him by many names but rarely the one he started life with. Born in Budapest, Hungary, in March 1874, Erik Weisz (later Ehrich Weiss) was the son of an impoverished rabbi and a doting mother. Neither parent learned to speak English after immigrating to America, but young Ehrich grew into the picture of New World energy and optimism. He was competi­tive and ambitious, physically powerful, and powerfully present, all traits that would help shape his career as the consummate showman.
 
What fewer people know about this most visible of performers is that for decades, Ehrich Weiss (who adopted the stage name Houdini early in his career and would one day autograph his books: "Houdini. That's Enough") was preoccupied with things the eye can't see.
 
Like many people in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen­turies, Houdini was intrigued (if not convinced) by the startling idea that spirits not only survive death but can also be contacted and can communicate with the living through a third party called a medium.
 
This book is the story of a rational and relentless showman whose debunking of deception put him in touch with odd and fascinating characters: mediums who said they could converse with the dead, criminal hucksters, deluded scientists, and committees and investigators with job titles like "Honorary Secretary of the Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures."
 
It's also the story of a devoted son devastated by the death of his "Sainted Mother," who swore to investigate spiritual phenom­ena with an open mind and to uncover and defend truth until the end.
 
In thirty years, Houdini concluded, in his 1924 book, A Magician Among the Spirits, "I have not found one incident that savoured of the genuine."
 
But it was not for want of trying.

Excerpted from The Magician and the Spirits by Deborah Noyes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

“Noyes makes history accessible and irresistible . . . Excellent.”*
 
A century ago, the curious idea that spirits not only survive death but can be contacted on the “other side” was widespread. Psychic mediums led countless séances, claiming to connect the grieving with their lost relations through everything from frenzied trance writing to sticky expulsions of ectoplasm.
 
The craze caught Harry Houdini’s attention. Well-known by then as most renowned magician and escape artist, he began to investigate these spiritual phenomena. Are ghosts real? Can we communicate with them? Catch them in photographs? Or are all mediums “flim-flammers,” employing tricks and illusions like Houdini himself?
 
Peopled with odd and fascinating characters, Houdini’s gripping quest will excite readers’ universal wonderment with life, death, and the possibility of the Beyond. 

*School Library Journal, starred review of Ten Days a Madwoman


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