Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/171

 mind is open, and I am not attacking spiritualism as a religion, but only attacking the fraud mediums and the miracle mongers.

You ask for my views on sleep. Strange to say, we spend almost a third of our lives in this peaceful state. Some humans require more sleep than others. I rarely take more than six or seven hours out of the twenty-four. I use sleep as a necessity; others as a luxury; and still others as a life-waster. There are a number of books on the subject. I believe that sleep rests the energy of life, and that the tenant (yourself) who occupies your body permits the landlord (nature) to make repairs in your abode while you sleep. If human beings would realize that they hold only a limited lease on their bodies, then they would not abuse them so unknowingly.

No. 5

Columbia, Mo.

Dear Mr. Houdini:

Do you believe that a person who suddenly lost a very dear friend would naturally be in a better position to communicate with the departed than one less acquainted, if there actually is such a thing as communication wth the dead?

Answer

Yes, I positively believe that any person who has lost a dear friend or relative would be in a much better position to communicate with the lost one. I think that is why the shock of suddenly losing beloved ones often causes persons to imagine things.

No. 6

Erie, Pa.

Dear Sir:

Have you ever heard of John Slater, whose home was in California? I think he is the man who comes to Lilly Dale, N. Y. every summer and lectures and gives readings. What do you think of his work?

Answer

You ask my opinion of John Slater. What do you mean, as a human being, as a clairvoyant, as a spiritualistic-evangelist, or as an impossible lecturer before a high-grade audience?

No. 7

Harrisburg, Pa.

Dear Mr. Houdini:

In the first installment of your story, "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," you state that you were playing Vienna at the time. If I am not mistaken, I had the pleasure of viewing one of your performances, though it might have been in Berlin. I was very much interested in the story, and, knowing as I do the superstitions of those people, I can appreciate the predicament you were placed in. I await your further experiences with interest.

Answer

Yes, I have appeared in Berlin a number of times. My first appearance there was at the Berlin Winter Garden about twenty-five years ago. I played there consecutively for almost fifteen years, and was then brought back as a feature of the Hippodrome Circus by Director Busch. As a matter of record, I have played almost every principal city in the world, except in South Africa and South America.

No. 8

Montreal, P. Q.

Dear Sir:

It seems a trait peculiar to magicians to make war against the religion of spiritualism. Despite the incessant warfare it has lived through, it stands today on firm foundation, and has marked a steady growth.

The writer is a native of Scotland and has had the pleasure of seeing you perform on several occasions abroad. I want to relate to you the facts of a "so-called" exposure of spiritualists in Glasgow in February, 1878. Some of them are a trifle vague and for this reason I refer to the book of James Robertson entitled "Spiritualism, The Open Door of the Unseen Universe," for authenticity. This experience I have found to be general among so-called "exposes."

"No man was ever more liberal in speech and condemned intolerance with a louder voice than Professor Huxley, who certainly was one of the strongest forces of the age. Nothwithstanding his clearheadedness, he became the dupe of a vulgar American showman, and for a time allowed prejudice to dominate his reasoning faculties. Though he had said that 'no event is too extraordinary to be impossible,' yet he would never open his mind to the possibility of spiritual phenomena being true. It was beyond the extraordinary. He had refused to investigate the subject when the Dialectical Society called for his presence, saying. 'If it is true, it does not interest me.' He had repeated the same sentiments to Alfred Russel Wallace; yet, when he heard there was a person in America who was prepared to expose the whole matter, he opened his arms wide to receive him. The clever American played his cards well—so well as to dupe the most intellectual man in the country. The story he fabricated was greedily accepted. He said he had had a dear friend who, while in a state of feeble health, had fallen into the hands of the spiritualists and become insane. Roused by the wrongs done to this friend, his sole mission was to execute vengeance by exposing the arts by which the imposture was practised on the softheaded and credulous portion of the American and British public. He had succeeded in discovering the vulgar but skilfully veiled secrets, and now stern virtue called upon him to lay bare to the world the full explanation of the frauds. Robert Dale Owen had been a credulous fool, Professor Crookes a weak-minded dupe, Professor de Morgan a person without brains, and Alfred Russel Wallaee and Cromwell Varley were blinded and incapable observers. The great American high-souled gentleman of independent fortune was mightier than all the scientific and literary men who' had attested the truths of spiritual phenomena. He had grappled with the mystery, and for humanity's sake alone had come out into the open with a clean soul to do the world a great service.

"No one thought of asking for his credentials. So hateful was the word spiritualism that they swallowed his story without questioning about the dear friend who had been caught in its toils, and the independent means of the high-souled and spirited exposer. The opponents of spiritualism were only too overjoyed to find a missile to hurl at it and its supporters. Huxley was delighted, and patronized the arrant quack in London. Genuine phenomena could not interest him; the spurious clainted his attention at once. The crafty American, who could not impose on the spiritualists of America, found a fruitful field on English soil. Huxley wrote to some of the professors of the Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, asking them to take this great champion of truth under their wing. How much the showman did to pull the strings himself is not known, but in February, 1879, the Glasgow newspapers were flooded with long advertisements to the effect that Washington Irving Bishop, 'B. A.'—which I should read 'Bold Adventurer'—had been invited by the prominent men of Glasgow to give a startling exposure of spiritualism, an exposition by human means of all the startling manifestations claimed by spiritualists to be done by the spirits of the dead. The man of ordinary capacity could scarcely have read the flaming announcements without seeing that here was a showman pure and simple, who knew his business, knew how to bring out telling headlines so as to draw the public.

"In case all who were interested might not have a chance of seeing for themselves how feeble minds could be im-