Description:

Harry Houdini Initialed Letter Mentioning A. C. Doyle Challenging Famous American Medium Ada Bessinet, Who He Would Try to Unmask Just Days Before His Death

A 1p letter signed by Harry Houdini (1874-1926), the world-famous illusionist, as "H" at center right. See another Houdini in this auction from the same correspondence, with the exact same "H" on a full name signature. July 13, 1925. N.p. On watermarked onion skin paper, typed "COPY" at top. Expected wear including flattened transmittal folds and a few extra gentle wrinkles. Exhibiting a partial rusted paper clip impression at top left, and a slightly darkened and chipped right edge. Double hole-punched at left. Else near fine. 8.375" x 11."

In this correspondence, Houdini boldly challenges one of America's most famous female mediums, the "Toledo seer" Ada Bessinet (1890-1936), to conduct three seances with him so that he could determine if she was a genuine clairvoyant. (Bessinet's name is also spelled "Besinnet.")

Houdini wrote in part:

"Having written you a number of letters asking for a seance and having sent you a copy of a letter of introduction given to me by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and for which I hold registered receipts, I hereby challenge you $10,000., the money to be given to charity, if you will permit me at three of your seances and if I do not detect you in every manifestation you present.

You are to give me three seances, everyone present will be controlled so that you can have no silent worked or confederate. All I ask of you is to give me three days' notice so that the proper committee can be selected.

If I do not hear from you in forty-eight hours on the above, I will publicly issue my challenge…"

Ada M. Bessinet is listed in "Hartmann's Who's Who in Occult, Physic and Spiritual Realms…in the United States and Foreign Countries" (New York: Occult Press, 1925) as one of the "Spiritualist Associates, Mediums, Healers and Ministers" in Ohio on p. 71, where her specialization is described as "materialization." Attendees of Bessinet's seances reported visual and auditory anomalies, including what appeared to be the faces and voices of the deceased. Bessinet's endorsement by the Scottish writer and spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) secured her celebrity. In late April 1923, Doyle had attended a seance led by Ada Bessinet in Toledo, Ohio during which he claimed to have seen his dead mother and nephew.

Ada Bessinet also had many powerful detractors, including even James Hewat McKenzie (1869-1929), a British parapsychologist whose work primarily legitimized the claims of many mediums. Houdini's close collaborator Fulton Oursler (1893-1952), aka Samri Frikell, had exposed Bessinet previously, and other notable investigators, Hereward Carrington and J. Malcolm Bird of the "Scientific American," were not convinced of her abilities. Bessinet was accused of throwing her voice, using props including a gramophone and masks, and moving freely around the completely dark seance room.

Ada Bessinet formally refused Houdini's challenge on August 3, 1923, as announced to readers of the "Baltimore Sun" on August 4, 1925. In this article, the "internationally known" medium explained that she had refused a series of such invitations. Houdini was only temporarily thwarted. On October 24, 1926, the night of his last disastrous magical performance in Detroit, Michigan, Houdini wrote Fulton Oursler that he intended on traveling to Toledo the following week to again press "that fraudulent woman Ada Bessinet" for a meeting. Sadly, Houdini would die of peritonitis before he could do so, just seven days later. [For more information, see Christopher Sandford, "Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini" (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2011), p. 133, p. 228.]

During the last half of his career as a celebrated illusionist, stuntman, and entertainer, Houdini emerged as one of the world's preeminent psychical researchers. After over 30 years of applied study, Houdini had built up a massive archive of relevant scholarship, and his expertise on the subject enabled him to routinely lecture at American universities. Houdini actively investigated fraudulent mediums, in his view thus preserving the real art and craft of explicable magic. In the 1920s, Houdini had famously sponsored cash prizes (drawn from numerous sources) to be presented to any genuine medium. Houdini's investigations into mediums had resulted in dozens of convictions. In fact, just a few weeks before challenging Ada Bessinet, on July 2, 1925, Houdini had unmasked New York City medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook, who had been using a metal trumpet to impersonate a dead child.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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