Houdini's Conflicts With Spiritualism
Harry Houdini and his mother, Cecilia, were very close. When Houdini was buried, he was arranged so that his head rested on a pillow filled with his mother’s letter. Throughout his life, his mother supported him, and praised him as well as any other parent with such a child as him to be proud of. Perhaps it is because of this closeness, and the devastation that her death cause in him, that was the reason for his crusade against spiritualism. At times he claimed he was a firm believer in the practice, and at times, would publicly attack the practice. Harry Houdini and his mother never separated in spirit, he believed, and the main theory is that he was actually seeking out someone who could genuinely reunite his mother and himself.
Harry Houdini and spiritualism, i.e., the belief in seances and other methods as a certain means to communicate with the spirits of the dead, were never good bedfellows, despite his faith in the practice itself. Houdini did actually believe in spiritualism, and it’s debatable as to whether or not he was merely dedicated to the task of finding a real medium. Either way, after the death of his beloved mother, in the 1920’s, right up until his own death in 1926, Houdini spent a good deal of his time exposing and debunking fraudulent spiritualists. This crusade against phony mediums even went as far as the U.S. Congress, where Harry Houdini addressed spiritualism as one would address any problem.
Mostly unknown, except in the most eclectic of literary circles, is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned creator of Detective Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Houdini became close friends. Both of them had a strong interest in spiritualism, although for different reasons. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini did both believe in spiritualism; however, Houdini believed in exposing all the fraudulent mediums, while Doyle was more of the opinion that all said mediums and practitioners were genuine. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed that rather than actually debunking mediums and spiritualists, that Houdini himself was a powerful spiritualist that somehow blocked the powers of others.
Although he is immortal in film, photography, literature, and in the hearts and minds of people who are still mesmerized by his skill, Harry Houdini died on Halloween, in 1926. His death was attributed to basically his own neglect; he had been suffering from internal pain, later discovered to be appendicitis. Though a college student delivered several punches to Houdini beforehand under the premise that Houdini could withstand any blow. However, he was already ill, and the physical trauma only served to intensify the pain of his appendicitis. It was later determined that Harry Houdini died of the illness, and the trauma he received from the blows probably only expedited the condition.