Says Magician Was Foe of Spiritism in Public, but Had Different View in Private

The late Harry Houdini, magician, who was known for his fight against mediums, was in reality the greatest psychic medium of modern times, according to Sir A. Conan Doyle, who begins in the issue of Mystery Stories out today a study of Houdini.

Admitting that Houdini’s public attitude was uncompromisingly anti-spiritism, Sir Arthur wrote:

“But this was not in the least his attitude in private. I suppose that there are few leaders of the movement, and few known mediums, who have not letters of his taking the tone that he was a sympathetic inquirer who needed but a little more to be convinced. His curious mentality caused him absolutely to ignore the experience of any one else, but he seemed to be enormously impressed if anything from an outside source came in his own direction.

“On one occasion Houdini showed me a photograph which he had taken in California. ‘I believe it to be the only genuine spirit photograph ever taken!’ he cried. To my mind, it was a very doubtful one, and one which no sane spiritualist would have passed for a moment. But, in any case, if his was, as he claimed, genuine, why should he put down all others to fraud?”

The creator of Sherlock Holmes writes that since the death of Houdini he had received several messages purporting to come from him, but “none of them contained the conclusive proofs upon which I insist.”

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