Description:

Harry Houdini TLS Re: Henry Slade, Notorious False Medium, & Remigius Weiss, Who Exposed Slade to Seybert Commission: "There is nothing mystifying in the Slade document"

A 1p typed letter signed by Harry Houdini (1874-1926), as "Harry Houdini" near lower right. January 22, 1926. N.p., though the context of the letter indicates that Houdini was on the road traveling with a show. On watermarked stationery with "Houdini / 276 West 113th Street / New York, N.Y." embossed at the letterhead. Expected wear including flattened paper folds and a few wrinkles, as well as isolated minor scuffs and paper clip impressions affecting the edges. Double hole-punched along the left edge. Else near fine. 8" x 11."

Harry Houdini wrote this letter to German writer Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem (1884-1969) less than ten months before his death of peritonitis at the age of 52 on October 31, 1926. Von Klinckowstroem was an independently wealthy intellectual from Munich with whom Harry Houdini had occasionally corresponded. A historian of science, technology, and culture, Von Klinckowstroem was intrigued by the occult, especially the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, but he also showed a receptiveness to Houdini's skepticism about false mediums.

Houdini wrote in part:

"There is nothing mystifying in the Slade document. I am on the road all the time and can only send the material when I am in my Library. The first time I get to New York and time I will send you the photographic reproduction, which was given to me by Remigius Weiss'"

The "Slade document" mentioned by Houdini related to Dr. Henry Slade (1835-1905), a false medium who perfected the parlor trick of "slate writing," that is, producing messages supposedly inscribed by the dead. Dr. Slade quite successfully conned people on both sides of the Atlantic by using double slates, swapping slates, and even scrawling in chalk with his toes until he was exposed in a series of fraud investigations in the 1870s. Dr. Slade was before Houdini's time, but Houdini learned extensively about him and his methods through Remigius Weiss (known theatrically as Remigius Albus) (ca. 1852-1941), a former Philadelphia medium.

As Houdini explains at length in the famous treatise he authored, "A Magician Among The Spirits" (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924), Weiss had tricked Dr. Slade during one of their early November 1882 sessions and forced him to sign a full confession admitting that "his pretended Spiritualistic manifestations were and are deceptions, performed through tricks" ("Chapter VI: Dr. Slade and his Spirit Slates," p. 99). Remigius Weiss later testified about Dr. Slade before the Seybert Commission, a 10-man faculty panel from the University of Pennsylvania tasked with investigating modern spiritualism, from 1884-1887. The commission determined that the slate-writing employed by Dr. Slade and other so-called mediums was complete bunk.

The "Slade document" referred to in the letter almost certainly related to Weiss's expos' of Dr. Slade (could it have specifically referred to a photo of Slade's actual handwritten confession?) Whatever the exact nature of the document, Houdini promised to send von Klinckowstroem a copy as soon as possible.

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 a $30,000 cash prize (drawn from numerous sources) to be presented to any genuine medium. Houdini's investigations into mediums had resulted in dozens of convictions.

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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