Final Seance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle
by Massimo Polidoro
Prometheus Books, £21.99, ISBN 1573928968
In 1932 Ernst and Carrington wrote Houdini and Conan Doyle, a fascinating account of the relationship between Houdini, the famous magician and investigator of psychic fraud, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an educated medical doctor famed for his Sherlock Holmes books, but also a renowned proponent of Spiritualism. In Final Séance Massimo Polidoro becomes our tour guide, embellishing and updating Ernst and Carrington’s subject matter with extensive research. Beginning with the mutual interest in the Davenports in 1920, possibly their first meeting, then giving us a florid whirlwind chronological tour of investigations.
These investigations, and especially the subsequent comments by Doyle, are related with a waggish smile from Polidoro. Despite this there is utmost respect for their obsessional hunt for truth. Massimo’s mammoth tour of mediums investigated by the two central figures takes us through Eva C., Nino Pecoraro, Ada Besinnet, Margery Crandon, and George Valiantine with many more gracing these fascinating pages. Correspondence between Houdini and Doyle provides an intriguing insight into a friendship that has as its battleground one of the most interesting periods in the history of psychical research.
Frequently we see Doyle attempting to gloss over Houdini’s reputation, somewhat of a hindrance, in an effort to have him sit in on séances. Conversely, we are given eyewitness accounts of Houdini’s replications of mediumistic phenomena and his attempts to convince Doyle not to turn to a paranormal explanation so facilely. The “Final Séance” that the book title refers to occurs in Atlantic City where, even now, fortune-tellers and parlour-room psychics ply their trade. It is this simple séance that holds the key to the friendship’s demise, and one can almost feel the frustration with which Houdini tries to deny his own apparent psychic ability that Doyle so readily insists he has. Polidoro’s tour of this unique duo with their common Spiritualism interest forging a friendship that moulded psychical history books, provides us with delightfully written snapshots – perfect for showing the guests at your next circle!
