Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Sorta Sophisticated with Pete and Amanda. All right, so I've been spending way too much time on this whole Magic Castle thing that I'm trying to pull off, you know, like our little venture, our side quest that we're trying to figure out. Magic Castle in Orange County, California. Thank you. Yes. Anyway, so I was going down that rabbit hole yet again on biz, by sell, trying to figure out where to buy and what to do and all that. And I found out that on Halloween this year, the Magic Castle is hosting an auction of Harry Houdini's stuff.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Ooh.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yes. 100 items. Things he actually owned. We have to get our ass over to the Magic Castle. Okay, I think that's a good publicity stunt. Whatever. We need to do this now. Not only do we need to get to the Magic Castle, we need to. Our dream needs to become a reality.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: And we're getting closer.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Okay, but why Halloween?
[00:00:44] Speaker A: So why Halloween? Because Harry Houdini, do you know he died a hundred years ago on Halloween?
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:00:51] Speaker A: October 31st, 1926.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Like, naturally died.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: We'll talk about that.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Oh, spooky.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Yes. A hundred years ago.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. The Magic Castle's doing this whole thing for the 100 items. 100 years. New York is also doing something, his estate, where, like, he actually lived and breathed and all that stuff. They're doing seances. A lot of seances. A lot of people in dark suits dressed up with candlelights and vigils and summoning of the dead. Like, it's gonna be some serious shit. Yes.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: For real.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: For real. Yes. But here's the weirdest thing about all of it. Even though Houdini was a famous magician, do you know he spent, like, the last umpteen years of his life trying to debunk and prove that, like, psychics and mediums were all full of shit.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Like, even though he was in, like, the same field or the same vibe. Yeah. Genre. I guess. Yeah, yeah. No, like, he was pissed. It's a whole thing. He actually went to Congress at one point to, like. What do you call that? Testify. Yeah, he was testifying in Congress against these people.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: That kind of makes, like.
I guess magicians and mediums are kind of different.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: We're getting into this. Oh, this is part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, I thought this was just wild, that, like, here we go down this rabbit hole, 100 years anniversary, magic Castle. It all fit together.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: But you just said that for his 100th anniversary.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yes. Of his death.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Of his death. That they are doing Seances and getting mediums involved. But he was anti them.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: No.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, this seems like a little no.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: You're right. We're just going to get into all of it. I don't even know what to say about that. You're absolutely right. Because it is weird. It's like a juxtaposition of why they're doing that. If he was against them, because Whatever. But maybe it's like, just because it's all the same genre and everything. But here's the thing. Of course we'll talk about Harry Houdini. Duh. Because, like, that's what this podcast episode's going to be about. But it got me thinking. Why do we have this, like, us, like, humans have this inclination. We want to believe. Like, we so desperately, like, want to believe magic's real. We want to believe. Psych. It's. It's crazy to me, like, how we're super smart, but we still want this thing in our life and we sort of secretly hope it's real. So there's going to be a little philosophy behind this whole app too. Does that make sense?
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely on the side of magic isn't real. No, no, no. I'm not brilliant. Like individuals who are able to completely agree slight of hand and all the things.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: But you want to believe it. The whole reason you pay is because you like being fooled. This is like.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Well, I do. I love going and trying to, like, figure it out.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Okay, okay, fine. So maybe said differently. That's what we're trying to do.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Okay, got it. Okay. So official title then is he promised his wife he'd come back from the dead, and she waited 10 years.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Again, the guy, dun, dun, dun.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: You'll see. Because he flipped. You'll see. He flipped. Don't spoil all this stuff. Okay, here's our promise today. Ready? First, how the world's greatest liar, Harry Houdini, became the world's greatest lie detector about the whole mediums and psychics. Yeah. Because it turns out the best person to catch a fake psychic would be a professional magician who also is fake. Okay. Second, the cheat code. So you can explain exactly how psychic reads work. You know what I mean? So when you're at a dinner party, you could, like, set up a little seance and fool people. And finally, we're gonna tell you the secret code Harry Houdini gave his wife before he died and why she did actually truly wait 10 years through a bunch of seances before she finally gave up waiting for him. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. Welcome back to Sort of Sophisticated, the podcast where culture, curiosity and chaos collide. Have you memorized that yet? Culture, curiosity? Because the last time I sort of threw it at you, you sort of bumbled through it. You were like, chaos, bumble through life. What do you want me to seize and carrot and cut and clarity, and you messed the whole thing up. I'm Pete. That's Amanda, which is like four different z's.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: That's all I'm saying.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: We're in episode 125.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Like, is that. Is that celebratory? 120, or do we have to do like, 100? 150. 200. Like 125.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Celebrate. 125.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: All right, so we should. We should have a drink. Excuse.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Technically.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Excuse me. What?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Episode 125.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: So we've been over.
Over two years.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Two and a half years. Dude. We're on, like, we're almost done by December. Well, we started, if you remember, in, like, random, like, March or something. In, like, 24. Yeah, yeah. So by the end of this year, we're, like, done with season three. Bro, we're already on season four. We better have better character stories and, like, character arcs because we're in the depths of our seasons. This is big. Okay, word of the week. You ready? Ready. Word of the week is fungible.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Fungible.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Fungible, yes.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Does it have to do with fungi?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Fungi. Fungi probably does have to do with fungi. Fungible means interchangeable with something. It comes from the Latin fungi. You're absolutely right. Which means to perform or to discharge a duty. Lawyers in the Middle Ages use the phrase fungi vice to serve in place of. Or fungi vice. I don't know if I'm saying that right to describe goods that could stand in for each other, like grain, oil or. Or coins. And then by the 1700s, it became a term in our English language. A dollar is fungible. A dollar is fungible. That's how I like. They, like, if I borrowed 20 bucks from you and then you give me 20 bucks back, it's a different $20 bill. That's coming back to me. It's all $20 are exchangeable. They're fungible.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Interchangeable.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Interchangeable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've heard of nft?
Have you heard of that? Yeah, nft. That stands for Non Fungible token.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't know.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Yes. Non interchangeable. It was. The whole point is, like, that is a. One of a Kind digital thing that can't be swapped to for something else. An nft. A non Fungible token.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: I never knew what it stood for. Fun fact of the day, we're doing fungible.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Don't screw this up with fungi or fungus or anything like that.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Fungible. All right, how are you starting this thing?
[00:06:12] Speaker A: I'm gonna start by saying, if you like what you're listening to, then hit subscribe and follow us. New episodes every Wednesday morning at 4:30am for the early birds. Let's go. We should give a prize away for first listener at 4:30 in the morning on Wednesdays. What do you think?
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: I don't know what prize we give away. How do we contact them? I don't even know. Holy crap. Okay, anyway, here we go. Early Years. That's how I'm starting. I always start with early years. Let's go little, little baby Houdini. Okay, quick version. He was born Eric Weiss. Eric Weiss. In Budapest, Hungary, in 1874. 1874, like 150 years ago. Ish. Okay, so then he died when he was in his 50s. Spoiler. When he was 4 years old, his family immigrated to America. Want to guess where?
[00:06:54] Speaker B: New York. Where everyone.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Well, he ends up in New York.
Good for you. No, he goes to Appleton, Wisconsin, of all places. His dad got a job as a rabbi because they were Jews. Big family, seven kids, Dad's a rabbi, totally poor. All the kids need to jump in and find work because they can't make a living.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: But he was four.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Huh? No, like, when he was a little older.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Okay, okay.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: He started when he was like, nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So his dad loses his job in good old Appleton, Wisconsin. Which, by the way, how do you lose your job as a rabbi? Can somebody explain that? Like, how bad do you have to be as a rabbi to lose your job?
Oh, shit. You just gave me that look.
He touched people in places their bathing suit covers. No, he was probably just not a good orator.
He wasn't a good orator. Right. And besides, rabbis back then, they were totally fungible. Let's go. Oh, my God. I just killed him. That was so easy. Okay. Anyway, I think it was because he didn't speak English very good. Because he was from poo to best hunger.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: I feel like you had too much coffee today.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: I did. I did. A little bit. Anyway, nine years old, Eric. Eric Weisz has to start selling newspapers, shining shoes, doing whatever he could to help the family out. And then subsequently, they moved to New York. He joins a neighborhood circus as a trapeze artist and calls himself Eric, the Prince of the Air.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: That's super random.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Yes. That's how he got his, like, all his feels for, like, entertainment. Okay, yeah, yeah. So now they're in New York, he turns 18 years old, and his dad dies. Dies just as he's breaking into show business.
Sucked. But he made this big promise to his dad. Well, I don't know where he was in, like, birth order, like, if he was first or second, whatever. Anyway, he made this promise that he would take care of his mom for the rest of her life, like, just when he was becoming famous. I'm telling you that because that sort of fueled all his anxiety to, like, be awesome and, like, break into show business.
Absolutely. All that. All the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And that's about the time he decides to change his name, because Eric Weiss is not going to work. So he's studying all things circus and performing and magic and all the things that he's doing, and he stumbles across this memoir of a French magician named Robert Houdin. Robert Houdin. Do we. Have we heard of him? I have not.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: I have not.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: No. Okay, me neither.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Evidently, I'm not a good magician.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: No. I don't know. You know, probably heard of him. Brady probably heard of him. Let's go. We got to ask. Anyway, that's who he decides he's going to be. So his family nickname was. He was Eric. So they would call him Arie. Right. That was, like, his short name. So Arie turned into Harry. Harry. And then he just put I on the end of Houdin. So Harry Houdini from Robert Houdin.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Wow. I mean, that's a good stage name.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: It kind of is, right? Little alliteration, right.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: 100 years later, and we're still talking about it.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: So something works, right? So basically after that, he then rewrites his whole childhood because he's like, fuck it if I'm Harry Houdini now. Like, I don't want people to know I'm from Appleton. Who the fuck would want people to know they're from Appleton, Wisconsin? So he makes up all this shit so people wouldn't think he was an immigrant, right? They just said, hey, I was. I was from New York City. Let's go. And to be honest, he wasn't even, like, a good magician at first. At all. No, no, no, no, no. He put in his time like some of these other guys. I mean, some people don't hit it, right? Like, we've talked about this before, like, with some of these famous People. So, I mean, he's in dime museums, beer halls, Coney Island. He was doing all the little, like, sideshows on Coney island all day long. 10, 12, 14 shows a day.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Yes. And at one point, he was so broken that he tried to sell all his secrets to the newspaper and they didn't even want them. That's how, like, bad his secrets were, really. He couldn't even sell.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Anyway, somewhere around, like, come up with all new stuff. Like, obviously we know him as. It's great magicians.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: What happened? We know him as a great escape artist.
So hold on. Yeah, so hold on. So we're coming. Okay, so around the time he meets this girl named Bess.
She's a singer, dancer in, like, the act around town. So they're like running in the same circle and they get married. Guess how long it took them to get married after you met her?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Well, the way that you're setting it up, I'd have to say, like, super soon.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Fine.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: The next day.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Okay. Two weeks.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Isn't that insane? Whatever. Okay, so, right, no rush.
She officially joins his show and becomes Mrs. Houdini, okay? The stage partner. Okay? So this is the turning point. And now he's. He's got her. We're doing our side shows in 1899. Some big vaudeville manager sitting in the audience. That's how this works, right? You just. It could be a. You know what we need? We need a. We need a live audience. That's what we need. Because if we're just sitting here behind cameras, nobody can recognize.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Just go to a bar, set up, okay?
[00:11:08] Speaker A: That's what we're gonna do.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Be live. Let's go.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: This is why I need to buy my pizza place. Or the Magic Castle idea. That's what we need, okay? Anyway, so he's watching him, he sees his act, he's doing all these card tricks, he's doing his magic and. And he is trying to do some escape stuff. And basically the vaudeville guy looks at him and says, listen, you're run of the mill guy with all this other stuff, but this stuff you're doing with the handcuffs and the straight jacket, nobody's doing this escape stuff yet. And, like, you're Lear. And he wasn't perfect at it, but the fact that, like, it was in his act and it was new, he said, come with me. Like, we're gonna do this, but you gotta drop all the other magic bullshit that you're not really good at and you're gonna go full escape artist. We're gonna make you famous. That was it that became his shtick. Handcuffs, straight jackets, jail cells, lock crates thrown into rivers. The whole hanging upside down bullshit, everything. At one point, his act became. He would go into New York City police stations and tell the police officers, like live. Tell the police officers to lock him up in handcuffs. And then a crowd would form out and then he would get out of the handcuffs. And newspapers were like there and like, you know, eating it all up and writing all about his stories. This vaudeville manager guy was like a smart dude marketing him, right?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Do we even know how that, like, how he got out of the handcuffs?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: We don't know how he got out. We speculate how he got out of the handcuffs. We have ideas on what he did.
There was this one famous one where in 1904, in London, after he was noticed for a few years, the newspaper challenges him to get out of a pair of handcuffs that a locksmith specifically made to make sure Houdini couldn't get, like, studied Houdini and like, tried to figure out what he was doing and then put them on him. And it was like this whole shtick that was super famous. It was a whole spectacle. Goes behind this thing for like an hour. He can't get out. Da da. Like a curtain or whatever it is. Comes back out. Huge crowd, right? Asked at one point if they could take the handcuffs off so he could take his jacket off. Cause he's like sweating and freaking out, and they say no. So he literally, like uses his teeth to cut his jacket off of him so he could have more leverage, which I'm assuming has to do with like breaking his wrist or some bullshit like this. I don't even know. Anyway, goes back behind the curtain. Ten minutes later, he's out of the handcuffs. And no, I don't know how speculation is. Either he has keys hiding somewhere, right? Like a. Hide a key, like Bess, or somebody else had a key.
He did absolutely learn he was a master at picking locks. He absolutely was a master locksmith. So he knew all of the secrets about doing it. And I don't know about joints and like double jointed or whatever. So somewhere between all of that, there was no magic involved. This was either he had a key or he freaking figured it out. Yeah, right. Like, it was pretty, pretty bonkers. Yeah. Yeah. So then he's got to go bigger, right? Because now it's like once.
What is it? It's like once everybody figures out, okay, got it. He can do handcuffs. Okay. He can do straight jet. Now it's got now, go, go, go. Right?
[00:13:51] Speaker B: So then it's like the David Copperfield, where it's like, you start somewhere and then you got to go bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: And then you end up in Vegas doing 100 shows. Yes. This is the exact same thing. So he got super famous for doing this whole, like, milk can filled with water thing, which I understand, because then if you're underwater now, you're drowning, right? That's like a. It was like a huge sort of spectacle. Then he did the hanging upside down thing with the straight jacket over, like, a street with people underneath him. And he was trying to get out of the straitjacket while he's, like, spinning. And then finally, he did the Chinese water torture in the jail cell where the water was, like, climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing. Yeah, it was like crazy shit, right? Which, like, you think about, like, that adds so much the anticipation. Because if you're in the audience now, go back to, like, what we were saying about how we want to be fooled and everything. If you're in the audience and there's death, like, on the line, like, you know, people are submerged underwater. You know how long people can breathe. And I don't care how long you practice at that point, you now have massive anxiety for this whole thing, right?
You got Beth standing next to him. She's got the hammer. Cause she's gonna, like, have to break the glass. Like, it's. Have you seen Prestige? The movie Prestige?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: No.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: With Hugh Jackman. Oh, my God. Can you watch Prestige with Hugh? Homework. Homework for Amanda. Watch Prestige with Hugh Jackman. Great. Great movie. Anyway, my point of all that is, kept getting bigger. Kept getting bigger. Then in 1918, he goes full crazy. Forgets escaping. He's at the New York Hippodrome, famous old, like, place where they would do magic and everything. It's. It's gone now. But anyway, he decides to make an elephant disappear. That's it. That's.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Oh, is he the one who started with the disappearing things?
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yes, Jenny.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Jenny the elephant. She's going to disappear into thin air. And, like, here's the thing. Like, you know it's a trick. We know it's a trick. That's the whole point. But we both have to see it. We're, like, freaking out. Like, we know the elephant's not gone. We know it's hiding somewhere in plain sight. But we're still paying to watch this whole thing because. Holy shit. Anyway, that's. That's his background. That's his story, right? But then that's Where I flipped my brain to sort of like, why do we want to be fooled so badly? Because, like, Brady does this. I mean, he literally walks out on stage, and what's the first thing he's looking at? You saying, I'm about to lie to you for the next, whatever, half hour or hour, right? And you're like, okay, great. Let's see if you can really do it. Right? That's the plan.
Because we both know the terms of the deal.
Somehow that makes fun, right? That makes it all acceptable because we know he's pulling the wool over our eyes, or she's pulling the wool over eyes. But, like, that's not the. Like, everything's above board, so everything's fair. Right. And if I take that a step further. Cause I was like, I gotta know. Like, I gotta really understand.
I think it's about wonder.
The idea of wonder, right? When you're little, your kids right now, they're still experiencing the world for the first time, and so. And maybe your oldest is now finally starting to lose that sense of wonder. But for the most part. How long do you get that? 10 years. Everything.
Everything is about wonder. And now, as a grown woman, was the last time you could really say wonder.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Magic Castle.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Magic Castle. Think about it, right? When we go on our trips together, every once in a while, we're, like, certainly inspired when we see nature. Yes, that's probably another version of wonder, but not often. And I think that's what we keep coming back to. It's this idea that adults no longer are allowed to participate in wonder. And that's what we're paying for, and that's what we want. That's why we love magicians, escape artists, all that kind of stuff. But psychics, on the other hand, right? That's totally different. And that is where Houdini, as he grew up, sort of his arc of his career. At the beginning, he was all into it, and then he started realizing, I'm gonna draw the line. Like, I got a problem there. Yes. Two totally different things.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Okay, so in your professional opinion, then, what is the difference between a magician and a psychic?
[00:17:20] Speaker A: In my professional opinion?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like you've done enough research that we could just call you a professional.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: No, we're not.
That's why we're sort of sophisticated.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Okay. Fair.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Otherwise we'd be professionally sophisticated. Yeah, that doesn't sound. That doesn't flow. Okay, here's what I came up with. A magician is an honest liar.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Well, you said.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Because remember our lie scale? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A psychic is just a liar. A liar, liar. Psychics, pants are on fire.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Magicians genuinely believe, if they're a psychic, that they are communicating with the.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Some people believe that in the same way that we believe in ghosts. So what are you gonna do? Okay, see, like I said it already.
Magicians come out on stage and tell you, I'm gonna fool you, okay, And I'm gonna win, you know, the cost of entry. A psychic says, I'm gonna fool you because it's real and I'm not gonna tell you anything. And all of this is really real. And so, like, on the one hand, they both, you know, they both use misdirection. They both control how you look.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Tells you that it's real. What a psyche I feel tells you that it's real.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Yes, that's the difference. So anyway, back to this whole Houdini thing with, like, why he was into this and then wasn't into this. So it goes back to his mom. It was super personal.
So his mom died. That's where it all starts. So it's 1913, and now he's totally devastated and he can't let her go. He's super sad. So he needs to find a way to keep talking to her. And he genuinely wants this to be possible. And so he starts going to seances and getting involved, like a lot of them, like on the regular, trying to figure out if he could talk to his mom. But through all of these different things, he realizes, like, nothing is really happening. It's not really working. And psychics are basically doing all the same shit he does, like, make objects move or like, you know, knock on the table. And he sort of got pissed because he was like, I do the same shit, but I don't fuck with people's emotions. I tell people what I'm doing, but they're fooling audiences who are like, who are grieving. Like, he was. He was grieving. So the psychics were taking advantage of people who like, lost their mom in his case, or lost their kids and saying they could talk to people from the dead, which he took super, super personally. And you gotta realize, like, back at the time, I didn't know this spiritualism was like at this all time high. So in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that was like a religion. Spiritualism was spirit photography, automatic writing. Like mediums would go into these trances and speak in the voice of the dead and all this stuff. And folks were genuinely convinced this shit was real. And then World War I happens and millions of soldiers. I don't know if millions of soldiers, but you get the idea are dead. And, like, a lot of them don't come home. A lot of them. The parents don't get the bodies. So it's like, why not? Sure, I'll try a psychic. So all these psychics were taking advantage of all these sad. In this case, Americans who were just missing their sons from the war.
And Houdini was like, no, this is not. This is not okay. That psychics can profit from something like this. And he distinctly drove a wedge and said, I can't participate.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: I mean, good for him that he kind of, like, saw behind the curtain maybe and realized that maybe not everybody's a true psychic, you know, and it could be a shim. Sham.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Wait a second now I have a question. You just said maybe not everybody's a true psychic. Are you suggesting there are real psychics?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I'm not going to close the door on the possibility.
No, not like. Not somebody who likes to conspiracy theory stuff.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Okay. I'm going on record. I don't believe.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: I don't. You won't close the door.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Well, I feel like there.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: I don't believe.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: You believe in the spiritual world.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Right. There is like a spiritual war that happens, like, on earth.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Okay. Do I believe that there are certain people that can get in touch with that and then subsequently communicate that to me?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Well, not like. No, not like specific people. Okay, but do you think there are people who are more in tune with the spiritual? Oh, okay. Yes.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: But I'm not calling them psychics. Yes, fair. I believe there are people that are more in tune. I believe once they try to translate that to other people, that's where I sort of go, okay, hold on, Time out. But no, I absolutely believe there are some people who just have their tuning fork different than mine. And, yes, I can buy what you're selling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, fun fact about this whole psychic thing. So do you remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? The guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes?
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Okay. His wife became a super famous psychic during this time.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Really?
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Yes. And Houdini became friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: And did he fight with them?
[00:21:52] Speaker A: No, no, they were friends. They did a whole seance thing together. His wife.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Arthur Conan Doyle's wife says, I am going to help you communicate with your mom. I'm finally gonna figure this whole thing out, so. Oh, my God. This is insane. You can't make this shit up. So it's 1922. She. I don't know. Her name, Arthur Conan Doyle's wife, Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle, holds a seance specifically for Houdini in Atlantic City. And during the seance, was able to literally create pages and pages of messages from Houdini's mom to Houdini.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Okay. So you would think this is working, right? Because now there's evidence that, like, she's pages and pages. She's commut. Right, here's the deal. So he gets pissed because he knows there's a couple problems right away because, you know, he's. Now he's in full debunking mode.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:22:36] Speaker A: So first of all, her messages were in perfect English. So you would argue she was from Budapest, Hungary. She didn't speak English very well, if at all.
So his first thought was, like, really? So now you're a translator and you can translate my mom's Hungarian? Okay, got it. Don't know if I'm buying that. Right. Second, there was a cross, like a Catholic cross at the top of each page that she wrote down. Ms. Doyle wrote down.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: He was like, no, she was Jewish.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: They were Jewish. Right? Well, I don't know if she was Jewish, but yes, her family was Jewish. And then last, the actual day of the seance happened to be his mom's birthday.
Now, Harry knew that, and of course his mom knows that, but nobody else knows that. And it doesn't come up in any of the communication between Harry and his mom. Like, oh, my God, thanks for contacting me on my birthday, or whatever. So he was like, wait a second. If you would think that, like, if
[00:23:22] Speaker B: it was my mom.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: If it was my mom and today's her birthday of all days, there is no way that that wouldn't come up. Right.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: So what'd he do? Was he still friends?
[00:23:31] Speaker A: No, he put her in handcuffs. What, took her off to jail? Yes, he did. Yeah, that was it. Threw the key away. Yeah. Swallowed it. Swallowed it. No, he didn't. He was nice. He was like, you do what you do. He was like, oh, okay. Thank you so much. He was super polite. But then later went on record and, like, went out into the newspapers and everything and said she was an absolute total hack about everything and sort of debunked it and said, this is what was wrong with it. And then him and the Doyles fell out. We're no longer friends and they hate each other. And it's a super sad ending to all of that story. So more of a reason why he went full anti psychic, you know?
[00:24:04] Speaker B: It's kind of like today, though, right? With, like, all the politicalness that's going on.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Politicalness?
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Is that a word?
[00:24:10] Speaker B: I don't know. It is now, but, you know, like how he couldn't be friends with somebody who had a different belief system than him.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Well, but careful, because it goes back to. She was.
She was manipulating. Yes. Manipulating him, sure. Like she was grooming.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: But, like, I feel like that's also on the political scale. Right.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: For those on.
When they're too far on one side or the other, they're doing all the things. You're absolutely right. I think it sucks. Right. Okay. Back on track.
Best psychic story of the whole episode. I got one more psychic story.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Okay. Then we'll get back to Harry Houdini. Okay. Some lady named Mina Crandon, okay? Everybody called her Marjorie. She's this Boston socialite lady back in the day, married some super renowned surgeon guy. She's the most famous medium in America at that time. More famous than Arthur Conan Doyle's wife. Her stances were, like, incredible. Like bells ringing, tables moving, the whole thing. And her whole shtick is that people could possess her body and then speak through her.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Like split personality kind of stuff. Right, Whatever. Okay. Full on personality changes.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Anyway, so around this time, Scientific American, this magazine, puts up a prize to debunk this whole thing once and for all. I don't know how much. It was 2,500 bucks. Okay. We're gonna give it to the medium that proves genuine, real spirit communication under controlled conditions.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Okay. This is happening. So they put together a committee to test people. And in 1924, Marjorie becomes the leading candidate because she's the most renowned at this point. And right from the start, literally, the committee is already, like, convinced that she's gonna win. They're already, like, giving her the check. Except they added one new member to the committee.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Oh, man. Houdini.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Houdini. Houdini got added. Yes. And he's. And he. Full screen, he's like, no, you know what he does? He goes sherlock Holmes on this shit. That's what he does. He's pissed at Arthur Conan Doyle, so he's like, I'm gonna Sherlock Holmes this shit. That's exactly what he does. He shows up and he's ready to go. He's gonna figure it out. So here's what he does. One of Marjorie's, like, biggest tricks was something called a bell box. Yeah, I had no idea. So apparently it's this little wooden box that sat on the floor with a bell inside that would only ring if you press down on the lid. So now it's on the floor. So you're. Imagine being around this table, Right? But underneath the table is this box. Okay. Everybody holds their hands above the table. Magically, ding. A person enters her and starts, like, communicating from the spirit world. Okay. Now her own seances, of course. Margie would, like, you know, control the room, set up the whole room. She decided where everybody sat, where the box would go, so on and so forth. But since Houdini's on this committee, he decides he's not gonna let that happen this time. So he puts the box on the floor between his feet. Okay. Now she's gotta figure out how to get to that box.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Right?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Right. Okay. And he takes a seat right next to her in the circle. Not like a crossromer, where it's a little bit easier for her to read. No, no, no. He's now right next to her and the box is wedged in between. So making it, like, literally impossible for her to somehow figure out how to get her foot around his. Yeah. Okay. Insane. This is how insane Houdini was. Just to make sure he would feel any movement under the table, he wrapped a bandage around his leg, like, super, super tight for, like, two days beforehand. So his right leg swelled up like, twice the size. So it would be super, super sensitive. Like, even, like his. Yes. No, it's insane, right? He's figuring this shit out once and for all. Anyway, Voila. Lights go out. He feels her ankle slowly slide over.
He feels her barely touching him. Dang. Then her leg slides back. She totally got nailed. He fucking caught her. It worked. Like, she had to.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Did she admit it, though?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: She absolutely did not admit. He published. He went to the papers. Published how? He thinks she did it all. Da, da, da. This is what I felt. Da, da, da. And they didn't give her the prize. So theoretically, he won. But she never came out and, like, admitted it one way or the other.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, she did. That would be end of her career.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: You know, it's crazy because at that time, I have to believe all these people, they're just looking for closure of some sort. So they're willing to get it from anywhere.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Right. And not just him, but just the people that were using psychics and, you know, all that was going on.
But they still exist today. They do, but are they the same?
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't. Yeah. I don't know if they're the same. Let's see what we're talking about. We were talking about death, right? I want to talk to Gabby Again, I mean, in my grief episode that we talked about, like, I said, I pray. I pray because the only fucking time I can talk to my wife, I remember saying those exact words. Like, if there was a way that I could fundamentally, it doesn't have to be that strong. Just if there was a way where I was like, I could kind of believe this. Yeah, I would be all in on trying to figure out how to communicate with my wife, whether through dreams, whatever it is. And like you said, there are some people that are a little bit more connected to that world. And I, like, I'll be honest, I would love to be connected to that world, to figure it all out. So psychics that you go into like a strip mall and sit down, like, man, I have a hard time with that. I just don't buy it if you're making like a full on business about it. But if it's your friend who you've known for the last 40 years of your life, and you're like, no, they sort of can read aura and they could sort of see shit. And they know when I'm up and when I'm down and they sign up all day long and sit next to that person and sort of listen. What's so. It's in. So it's interesting because, like, I mean, I would say, like, we're both smart people, like, we're pretty intelligent. I mean, we're not doctors and lawyers and shit, but like, I mean, we're sort of. We're sort of sophisticated. Right? But here we are and we want to. I don't want to say want to believe in psychics, but we want to believe that we're all connected.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: That's all that. That's really the fundamental underlying piece of this. I think psychics just find a way to monetize it, which is sort of horseshit. But, like, anyway, that's sort of my shtick.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: But because we're so connected, like, I mean, we're all human. Isn't that what the psychics feed on, though?
[00:29:33] Speaker A: They absolutely do.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: But like, okay, it's very generalized.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Okay, okay, you want to. Can we do a practice test here? Okay, real quick.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Okay, let's see how this goes.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Here we are.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: We're gonna do this. Okay, listen to me. Tell me how. Tell me how accurate this is. Amanda. Okay, hold on. I gotta get in my seance mode.
Okay, here we are. You're independent, but you really sometimes value other people's approval.
You can be very outgoing, but you also Need a little bit of time alone to recharge.
You've had some disappointments that you've mostly moved past in your life, but occasionally they still cross your mind.
You have a lot of potential you haven't used yet. You're looking forward to using it all,
[00:30:13] Speaker B: but it's so gentle.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: How'd I do?
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Well, I guess, here's the thing.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: How'd I do?
[00:30:16] Speaker B: I mean, everyone again. You wanna find connection. And I think lots of times you're like, oh, yeah, no, that sounds like me. Now, granted.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Wait, this is my point. That's my point.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: What if I wasn't outgoing, though? What if I was introvert?
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Then you would have eaten the. But you need some alone time to recharge. Like, do you see what I'm saying? Like, oh, yeah, they play like, I mean, you just.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: This or that.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: You just debunked the whole thing. Like, duh. Like, it's super general. And so all you're doing is, what's confirmation bias? We fucking talked about confirmation all the time. So as soon as you've decided, okay, that I'm legitimate enough, okay, confirmation bias goes in all of a sudden. Oh, my God. Amanda, you said, have you ever done a psychic? Have you ever paid? Okay, well, I was at a party once, I don't know, 20 years ago, okay. And the psychic sitting there, and, you know, they start and it's like, oh, I'm getting. I'm getting the letter. The letter M.
You know, somebody with the letter M. And I'm like, the letter M. I'm like, fuck, Mom. Like, I don't know. Like. And my wife's name was Maria, right? Not Gabriella Marie. Her first name was Maria. Right? And I'm like, sure, the letter M. But, like, I mean, my point is, if they would have said somebody with the letter R, right? Like, it would have been. Okay. Like, you're.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: You already thinking of the brain, right?
[00:31:22] Speaker A: You rack your brain to find the person you're thinking of.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Right?
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Right. And then. And then I remember they said something about, well, you have a really big decision you have to make coming up. You're going to have to sign some papers. And I do remember at the time, like, I was, you know, there was going to be some contract I was signing. I forgot what it was. But, like, okay, it was so easy for me to. If I wanted to believe, you could. It was so easy for me to say, oh, my God, she nailed it. She got everything right.
And it was like, come on.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Wait, but isn't there, like, a scientific term for that.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: There is. There's total scientific term for it. It's called confirmation bias. No, there is. It's called the Barnum effect. Do you remember Barnum from, like, Barnum and Bailey Circus?
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Yes, Barnum effect. So very interesting. His whole philosophy was at a good show. There's a little bit of something for everyone.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: And somewhere in the 1950s, a psychologist named Paul Meehl noticed that fake personality readings work the exact same way as the circus. So he just sort of slapped Barnum's on it and they call it the Barnum effect. Actually, there was a psychologist, like, if you want the real science behind it, who proved it like two years earlier. His name was Bertram Forer.
1948, he gave his students a personality test.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Then he handed each of them what he said was their results. Personalized results, mind you. They rated 4.3 out of 5. That, like, that's how accurate they were.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Was it the same result to everybody he gave them?
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Every fucking paper he handed, it was the exact same thing. That's like the paragraph I just read to you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He pulled most of it from an astrology book. It was all bullshit. And they somehow all made it unique enough to believe it's crazy. It's absolutely bonkers. But okay, back to the whole sort of. We don't have to be stupid to get fooled. We don't. We can be smart people and still get fooled for sure. Our brain is wired to work for the other team. It wants to find patterns. It wants things to mean something. It's looking for all of those things. The psychic or the magician is just giving you something to work with because it understands how your brain works better than you do. Makes sense.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. Can I get back to Houdini?
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: And then we can be done.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: He has a die.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: This, right, this.
This ending is incredible. You just nailed it. Okay, so now we're at the. October 1926. All right. 100 years ago, he's in Montreal. Side note, I forgot to tell you. Houdini was this big fitness guy his whole life, too.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that kind of makes sense. Hanging upside down, struggling.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Kind of fit, right?
[00:33:41] Speaker A: It was sort of this known thing that he would challenge anyone to punch him in the stomach to prove he could take it.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Like, that was one of the Shakespeare.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Okay, so some college student comes backstage before Houdini's, like, even ready kid punches him right in the gut. Totally caught him off guard. Just to prove that he could, like, Knock Houdini out?
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Is that how he died?
[00:33:58] Speaker A: No, no, no. It didn't work. But it hurt him, but it didn't work. He was, like, in pain and everything for, like, a few days later. But anyway. Where am I going with all this? Turns out on October 31, 1926, his appendix bursts.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: And he dies of peritonitis, which they believe is related to the punch he took in the stomach a few days earlier. So he didn't die then, but he died from. They believe he died from that punch.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Oh, dang.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Yes. Right? It gets even better. Before he died, Houdini and his wife Bess, you remember best. They made a pact that if one of them died. Okay, you remember at the beginning where I said, we're gonna talk about this whole thing with. Ten years later, she waited for him, okay? Just in case. If it turned out you could talk to a dead person, then that was really that whoever died first would secretly send messages to the one left alive. Some code that only the two of them knew. That way, nobody could fake. This code, okay, wasn't just a password.
Back when they were broke and, like, doing the mind reading act, they had a secret code where certain words stood for letters. Okay, so like, pray meant one letter. Or answer meant another letter. Or tell men another. Okay, so the message from the other side would be in only their code. So, of course, after he dies, all these mediums start claiming they've heard from Houdini from the other side. And in 1929, a guy named Arthur Ford comes forward to say he's got it.
First word, Rosabelle. And that was their song.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:35:15] Speaker A: It was engraved inside of her wedding ring. And then a string of code words that would spell out believe.
So it's ended up with Rosabelle, believe.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: So basically, you're saying that psychics are real.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: That's what everybody thought, even Bess, for about five minutes. Then people start poking holes. Here we go. Right? I mean, like, I know it's crazy. Cause you're like, okay, so turns out Rosabelle had already been printed in Houdini's biography that they released earlier in the year. That had sort of been forgotten about. And then second, I guess Bess had already sort of, after he died, became, like, a drunk.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: So skeptics sort of claim that she let all these codes leak to somebody, maybe her best friend during that time, or at least how the code worked. Either way, she actually believed it for a few minutes. But she's like, hold on a second. I don't Even know. And da, da, da, da. Now, there's too much gray cloud around this with the biography and with, you know, maybe I said something to somebody, so on and so forth. So literally, for the next 10 years, this poor lady on every Halloween would hold a seance, waiting to see if he would confirm. Rosabelle believe back. And finally, 10 years later, on October 31, 1936, she hears nothing. She blows out the candle she had kept burning next to him since literally the day he died, and basically quotes her famous line, 10 years is long enough to wait for any man. And that was it. And she gave up trying.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: It's crazy.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: You never talked back. So I think it was a total hoax.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: I don't think it was 10 years, man.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Do you and Trent have a code?
[00:36:40] Speaker B: No.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Do you think you would, like, in case you like Gabby? We didn't think that far in advance.
I have no code.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have a code either.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: If it was a code, it would probably be something dirty, though.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: That's how it worked.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah, probably.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: That's how she rolled for you.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: It would be.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: You know what I mean? You know? You know what? If we. If you or I died, we could have codes. We could use our words of the week. That would be remarkable.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: We are baking on the fact that I remember last week's.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: It would just be funny if, like. Like, because those are so random, like, what was last?
[00:37:03] Speaker B: It's true. We could just. Fungible.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Pandiculate. Do you remember pandiculate that you couldn't even hold your shit together. That will be our code word. If somehow some psychic is able to say pandiculate, then you'll know it was really.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: But can't pandiculate be, like fungible with another word?
[00:37:18] Speaker A: It could be. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Did you see Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze?
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Didn't they do something from. Yeah, yeah, they did. They had sort of that. Yeah. Because Whoopi Gold was a psychic and that.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So you gotta watch Ghost again.
And you got to watch Prestige.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Was there anything else besides this to death?
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Like, this is. This is crazy.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Just fun facts.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: We're going to do fun facts. Let's do fun facts first. And then I'll tell you what you got to go do. Because I'm sure there's shit that we got to, you know, we got to learn here. These are actually good ones because, I mean, these are magic fun facts. How can you not.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: Like, these are going To Houdini.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Let's go number one. Harry Houdini actually trashed his own hero,
[00:37:52] Speaker B: the guy he named himself after.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: The guy he named himself after? Yes. What was his name? Robert Houdin, The French magician?
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: So I guess in 1908, Houdini wrote a book called the Unmasking of Robert Houdin, accusing him of stealing other people's tricks and basically calling him a hack. I mean, what is that all about? He took the guy's name, loved him, worshiped him, and then flips. He's a flipper.
He's a flipper on psychics, and he's a flipper on Houdini.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Skeptic.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Total skeptic.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: Yeah. All right.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Well, good for him, I guess. All right, anyway, number two, did you know Harry Houdini was also a pilot?
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Think of airplanes like.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yes. Apparently in 1910, he bought one of the earliest versions of an airplane, shipped it to Australia while he was on tour, and made one of the first powered flights in Australia ever. Huh?
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Who knew?
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Because, like, when did that shit come out? When did they do Kitty hawk, Orville? Like, 1903, 1905. I don't know. Don't quote me on it. I'm only sort of sophisticated not very long before that. And in 1910, this guy's flying in Australia. Okay. All right, number three. Apparently he beat a famous Egyptian performer at his own games in the summer of 1926. This Egyptian mystic back in the day claimed he could survive in a sealed coffin underwater using only his mystical powers. It sort of worked. The guy actually lasted about an hour underwater. So Houdini, at the ripe old age of 52, right before he dies, decides he can beat this record and had himself sealed in a coffin and dropped into a hotel swimming pool in New York. And, spoiler, he won. He lasted an hour and a half. Then he climbed out and said there was nothing supernatural about it. It was just all about really calm breathing because you can imagine they left a teeny bit of space for oxygen, right? For air. So the one guy lasted an hour. Oh, my God, look at him. He was dying. And Houdini's just, if you slow your heart rate and control your breathing, all that oxygen doesn't turn into carbon dioxide fast.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: He's just a skeptic.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: He wanted to prove everyone knows how it works. Okay, number four, did you actually know he's buried in one of his own props?
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Really?
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, so apparently when he died, yeah. His body was shipped home from Detroit by train in a bronze casket.
He'd built for a new buried alive act that he was planning for his next upcoming season. Which is kind of ironic, because when you think about it, the coffin he was supposed to escape from on stage at his next act was the one he lives in now forever and hasn't even talked to his wife since then. Okay. And finally, Houdini and his wife Bess never ended up together after all. Like, I mean, in the ground.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Houdini's buried in a Jewish cemetery somewhere in Queens, New York, in a plot he picked out, like, next to his mom. And originally, Bess wanted to be buried next to him, but when she died in 1943, her Catholic family wouldn't let her be buried in a Jewish cemetery, so she's buried 35 miles away.
So the couple who made the pact to reach each other from the other side ended up separate anyway, all because of damn religion.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: That's sad.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: That's all I got. Fun facts out.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: You know, there's just one thing. Like, if someone dies and they have wishes, just grant them. What does that mean?
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Right. What does the family give two shits for? I think that's totally dumb.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Doesn't matter.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: All right, well, if anybody wants to learn a little bit more about Houdini, where can they go to learn a little more before Halloween?
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Yes. Let's see. First of all, if you got a story about something that you couldn't explain or you want to tell me why I'm wrong about your dead aunt and how you communicate with her, please DM me on Instagram. I would love to argue all that and have a lot of fun with it.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: By argue, he means engage, not argue. Engage. Oh, sorry.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Yes, I would love to engage. Let's engage. Okay. First, if you want to watch something, check out Houdini, the 2014 miniseries on the History Channel. Adrien Brody. Adrien Brody. He's a badass.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: He is.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: It's got the whole spiritualism feud, the Marjorie stuff, like, his whole death. It's basically like our podcast episode, but in a miniseries with, like, a way bigger budget, and it's awesome. Okay. Second, if you want to read something, two books. Houdini by Kenneth Silverman. That's the biography that you need to read, the one historians all use. But if you want something, like, super juicy. The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: They argue he might have been working as a spy. They float the theory that the spiritualists he went after might have something to do with his death. Like, this is all conspiracy stuff. You would love the Secret Life of Houdini. And finally, this one gave me chills. The final seance from 1936, the one best did on the roof of the Knickerbock Hotel in Hollywood. Mind you, that was actually recorded. The audio still exists.
I listened to it online. You can find clips of it. Yes, you can hear them calling for Houdini over and over with Beth sitting right there. Go listen to it. I got chills when I listened to it online the other day. It was amazing. Okay, that's all I got. This is it.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: All right, if you don't want to do any of that, just remember these details. It seems sort of sophisticated. Number one. Harry Houdini was born Eric Weiss in Budapest, Hungary in 1874 and grew up in Wisconsin, of all places, and New York as a poor kid doing odd jobs to help his family make ends meet. He was never a great card magician, so he became the world's greatest escape artists. Indeed.
He died on Halloween 1926. And this Halloween marks exactly 100 years since his passing.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: Let's do something awesome.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Number two. The difference between a magician and a psychic isn't the tricks they use. The same misdirection and the same reading of the room. But the difference is the honesties. A magician tells you it's an illusion and a psychic tries to convince you it's real.
Number three. Harry Houdini's crusade against fake mediums didn't start because he was a cynic. It started with grief. After his mother died, he went to seances hoping to reach her. But everything he saw was something he could do himself. He. That's when he realized that conning grieving people was downright mean spirited.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Go, Harry.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Number four. The Barnum effect. And confirmation bias means your brain is working for the psychic, not for you.
We remember the hits and forget the misses. Smart people aren't immune. Even the man who created Sherlock Holmes believed in ghosts and fairies.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: He did.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: And finally, Harry Houdini and his wife Bess made a pack. If the dead could talk, he'd send her a code only the two of them knew. A medium claimed to have it, but the code was probably leaked. She waited 10 years, held one final seance on Halloween 1936, and turned out the light. And this Halloween, 100 years later, people are sitting down at the table in his old house to try again. They are call that crazy.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: I know. I just got chills. Oh, I just got chills.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Maybe it'll be something.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: That was good.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Who knows?
[00:43:51] Speaker A: We Gotta watch that one.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Maybe he'll come back.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: They're gonna probably televise that. All right. Anyway, there you have it, dear listeners. We started today with a broke rabbi's kid selling newspapers in Wisconsin. It was Katzen. And we ended up with his widow turning out a light in a hotel roof in Hollywood. Here's the thing. Everybody wants to believe in something. One more conversation with somebody lost. Trust me, I wish I could. A sign, a little magic. That's not stupid. That's just being human. But wanting it is exactly what makes us easy marks. And Houdini knew that better than anybody. So go ahead and want it, just don't let anybody cash in on it. That's where you have to draw the line. And if we did our job today, you know, Houdini wasn't just the handcuffs guy. He was a mama's boy. A detective. A guy with a hell of a grudge and probably the most honest liar who ever lived. As always, if you liked what you just heard, hit, subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone whose aunt is genuinely gifted. Now you know. Until next time, stay curious, stay skeptical and hairy. If you're out there, Rosabelle, believe.
