Author: Maya Lopez (Blog Chief Editor)
Dealing with pseudoscience propaganda and facing the limitations in “debunking” approaches are our usual days here in CUSAP, but I started to wonder when did this “debunking” became a thing as we know it? As many of us share the sentiment, this day and age seems like a misinformation paradise with so much internet content with suspicious scientific evidence spreading virally. On the other hand, there are numerous content that attempt to fact check or “debunk” – pointing out the error of the information and exploring the actual science relevant to the topic -. These contents are often done by experts themselves – from cosmetic chemists addressing the suspicious beauty science to notable science communicators addressing exaggerated negativity towards science, or even discussing the “too ambitious attempt” to reinvent basic math. And these contents do pretty well, to a point where I’m sure it can be recognized as a whole genre. According to the Wikipedia page on “debunker” (yes, that’s the thing), one of the most ancient examples goes back to Cicero who “debunked” divination through his philosophical treatise published in 44BC. However today, I want to share a story of one name that keeps appearing in the modern section and gets referenced by multiple other notable debunkers: Harry Houdini. Pop culture icon who is well recognized through the various references from Kate Bush’s pop tune to J-drama Trick, to this day – Erik Weisz is a magician and an escape artist who is arguably the first celebrity debunker combating pseudoscience.
Houdini the medium buster and his influencer style feuds and drama:
In the 1920s, when he started to go full ham against spiritualists (which was a popular movement at the time – understandably being the time of grief for many people who just experienced WWI), he was already a well-known magician for nearly two decades. To be fair, stage magicians were apparently known to do these mystic debunking from the late 19th century, but his celebrity status, his continuous pursuit, and his “feud” with notable spiritualists and famous figures arguably brought the spotlight to these debunking at an unprecedented level.
He was a magician by trade, which allowed him to easily identify tricks the fraudulent mediums employed which fooled even scientists. In fact, such abilities shined when he was a committee member of Scientific America in 1922 which held an international competition to find scientific proof of ghosts, offering $5,000 to any psychic and medium (yes really) who could stand the tests of scientists. It was a legitimate attempt on the “modern science” against wildly popular psychic mediums. While many mediums shied away from the public test, some took the challenge. However, Houdini exposed these cases as a fraud.
Notable psychics (and their tricks) vs Houdini:
| medium | assertion of the medium | trick |
|---|---|---|
| George Valiantine of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. | Predicted aliens to visit Earth in the 1920s. Can communicate to spirits through a séance. | Physically left the seat in the dark and touched the seance attendees as a “touch of the spirit”. |
| Mina Crandon, aka “Margery” | From communicating with the dead via séance sessions and materializing “telepasmic hands”. She also claims to have been producing (?) “ectoplasm”. | He actually debunked her in two of her séances each time trying to convey rest of the committee that she has been physically moving to “show the sign of ghosts” (via bell ringing, etc). She is one of the most notable figures he “combatted” so definitely check it out if you want to know the whole fiasco. |
| Joaquín Argamasilla, aka “Spaniard with X-ray Eyes” | Clairvoyance; can therefore “read” numbers/dice within a box. | Houdini specifically revealed that he was peeking at the number through a blindfold and a small lift of the box lid. |
| Nino Pecoraro | Has a deceased medium guiding him. Can make instruments play without touching. | Houdini and others suspect him to be escaping rope ties and actually manipulating instruments. → events prevented via impromptu tightening of rope leading to a later confession. |
As he further became a renowned medium-buster, Houdini further pursued his cause by going to séances undercover with a reporter and a police officer, further exposing what he deemed as nefarious activities that are “defrauding the bereaved.” While these continuous and successful debunk of notable psychics of the time can be seen as a feud on its own, perhaps the most notable feud is between a celebrity author, who you might not suspect to be a strong patreon of “unscientific spiritualism” when his most famous work is the Sherlock Holmes series…
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thinks Houdini’s supernatural, while H.P Lovecraft co-authored denunking essay:
In fact, many of the notable medium tested in the Scientific America committee was brought in by the choice of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. While he is known for his medical degree and beloved for creating the epitome of the rational-detective archetype: Sherlock Holmes, he himself was deeply spiritual – beliefs ranging from communicating to the dead through séance and fairies.
Houdini and Doyle were initially friends, but Houdini’s persistent attitude against spiritualism eventually pulls them apart. Doyle would even invite Houdini to his house where his wife and self-acclaimed medium performed “automatic writing” to communicate to Houdini’s dead mother – only for Houdini to sit through hours of the session and only then reveal that all those 15 pages of English message in perfect grammar can’t be hers as she is not even fluent in English-. Furthermore, his debunking of Margery – who was unlike other publicity-seeking mediums and Doyle trusted extremely – caused a new suspicion on Doyle: what if Houdini is the most powerful medium? Doyle started to believe that all his magic acts were well…in fact magical and any medium performing in front of him failed because he was blocking their powers through his supernatural abilities (should I write a piece of Aurther the OG conspiracist?). Houdini was hoping that Doyle would realize that this was not the case, and one day invited Doyle to his mansion where he “performed slate-writing” – a method medium often used to supposedly communicate the message from the dead through unguided writing -. He essentially performed a magic trick, hoping to disillusion his friend with the following message:
Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion … I won’t tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily “supernatural,” or the work of “spirits,” just because you cannot explain them….
From 2006 biography: The Secret Life of Houdini (Atria Books)
However, Doyle’s belief was firm and their fallout only became a matter of time. Nevertheless, Houdini continued to pursue his fight against spiritualism and found notable collaborators (after death anyway,) along his journey. Houdini hiers H. P. Lovecraft – now renowned creator of the cosmic horror genre, Cthulu lore in his own right – and his friend C. M. Eddy, Jr., for a project on a book to debunking religious miracles titled: The Cancer of Superstition.
Debunking of his lifetime:
Perhaps most famously, his final “evidence” against spiritualism was ultimately upon his death. He had told his wife – Bess – in advance a secret code which he promised that he would deliver whatever it took after death if such a spiritual realm existed. This approach – is not only romantic – but is arguably quite a scientific one in its philosophy (albeit not bulletproof). His hypothesis was there are no ghosts and an afterlife of the spiritual realm that can be contacted. So he sought to prove that by setting up a risky test (even though mediums may very well attempt various fraudulent techniques) which if mediums succeed, would disprove his theory suggesting that the spiritual realm is real and can be contacted. Perhaps this can be seen as his last glimpse of hope that somewhere out there a true medium can prove him wrong and the world of the dead actually exists to everyone’s comfort. Or perhaps he intuitively understood the need for a risky test and that he could only be certain of their fraud through an active attempt to disprove his theory.
Either way, while Bess encountered some attempts of fraud (which was later exposed), she did not encounter a genuine instance where the message: “Rosabelle believe” came through. 1936, after the one last unsuccessful séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, Bess put out the candle that was burning beside a photograph of Houdini since his death. Later she is noted to have said “Ten years is long enough to wait for any man,” ending her search for one last voice from her loved one.
Legacy of debunking and backfire effect:
Houdini – as one of the OG celebrity debunkers – immediately shows his influence. Even in his days, apparently, multiple magicians followed suit: The Amazing Randi, Dorothy Dietrich, Penn & Teller, and Dick Brookz, to name a few. Furthermore, his debunking certainly remains iconic to this day inspiring modern debunkers across the world both in real life and as a fiction archetype.
However, I think the bright “success” of Houdini also illustrates the inherent limitations of debunking. Despite his debunking of individual mediums, for example, this does not necessarily put an end to the whole spirituaslim trend at the time. This itself is perhaps inevitable, but I think it speaks to how easy for “made-up” and pseudoscientific claims to proliferate while debunking one by one will always be a game of catch-up. The proliferation is perhaps unstoppable so long as the interest is there as a trend. Furthermore, it can be argued that the debunking also fueled the trend to some extent. It made a whole spectacle out of debunking and the harder you criticize the fraudsters, the “true medium” somewhere out there will seem ever more so valuable and coveted.
Finally, the relationship between Doyle and Houdini envokes the backfire effect – which is warned in the Debunking Guidebook (yes this is also a thing!) where if the message by the debunker spends too much time on the negative case, if it is too complex, or if the message is threatening – it can only strengthen the belief of those you are trying to debunk. The slate-writing magic performed by Houdini for example seems emblemeatic. Perhaps Doyle felt “threatened” (whether knowingly or not) about his intelligence as his message essentially was that just because you couldn’t understand the mechanism it’s not supernatural. Or maybe it was a more direct threat to his motivated belief – where Doyle’s attachment to the idea of the “spiritual realm” was much stronger than that of Houdini to a point where he couldn’t just let it go. Or perhaps not explaining how this trick was done (as Houdini often guarded his magic tricks and their IPs inevitably as part of his magic career) acted as a barrier and the final proof required to rule out the possibility that Houdini is actually supernatural.
Regardless of whether Houdini’s tactics and debunking are the best approaches against the modern pseudoscience epidemic, it is an interesting lesson that we can learn from the past. Perhaps there are no “perfect cure-all” tactics but let us all embrace our inner Houdini and wear our skeptic hats when presented with phenomena unexplainable by modern science. While supernatural and occult have their own charm (I’ll admit it, who doesn’t love good ghost hunts and mysteries!), let us consider if some of such explanations would feed into “defrauding the bereaved.” And at those moments let us be as brave as Houdini and be willing to stand our ground to say no, and propose an explanation that is as scientific as possible.
Featured Sources and recommended reading:
I hyperlinked most sources but here are a few that might be of your interest 😉
Scientific American Artilces:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/houdinis-skeptical-advice/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-vs-the-supernatural/
The debunking handbook:
https://skepticalscience.com/the-debunking-handbook-redirect-page.shtml
→ fun video on the mysterious death of Houdini (and his extent of debunking mystics)
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