“Toward me,” Houdini said, and the megaphone flew through the air and crashed in front of him. Then Walter levitated a megaphone and boomed: “Have Houdini tell me where to throw it.” After a break, he ordered an electric bell enclosed in a wooden box brought to Houdini’s feet.
On cue, the spirit of Walter whispered his arrival, even touching Houdini on the inside of his right leg. Soon enough, an eerie whistling filled the room. Margery greeted the panel and took her seat within a three-sided Chinese screen, the lights dimmed. He canceled his shows and headed for Boston. Having already exposed the tricks of other celebrity mediums, Houdini was sure the committee was about to be duped once more. When he learned the committee was prepared to endorse Margery, he was outraged. The New York Times reported the development with a straight face: "'Margery' Passes All Psychic Tests Scientists Find No Trickery in Scores of Séances with Boston Medium."īut Houdini, who’d suggested creating the panel after Scientific American approached him to investigate Spiritualism, had yet to offer his approval. Bird and Carrington had already examined Margery more than 20 times and were ready to hand over the money. Malcolm Bird chaired the committee, which included psychologist William McDougall of Harvard, former MIT physicist Daniel Comstock, and two members of the Society of Psychical Research, Hereward Carrington and Walter Prince.
This was no fly-by-night group of spook hunters. It wasn’t long before Doyle had recommended her to the editors of Scientific American, which was offering a $2,500 prize to the first medium who could verifiably demonstrate to its six-man investigative committee a “visual psychic manifestation.” Her refusal to be compensated for her miracles only added to her credibility. Witnessing a séance in his London home, he became convinced of Margery’s supernatural powers. The most famous of its 14 million believers was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and a man of impeccable reputation. In the summer of 1924, Margery occupied the red-hot center in the raging national debate over Spiritualism, an 80-year-old religious movement that centered around the possibility of communicating with the dead. Margery herself had become a messiah to hundreds of thousands of Americans. And as reputable magazines and newspapers increased their coverage of paranormal phenomena, mediums became rock stars. Spirit guides emerged to help the bereaved, usually for hefty fees. Reeling from losing an estimated 15 million people in the Great War and 21 million more to the Spanish-flu pandemic, people were searching for ways to connect with the dead. Today we remember the era’s jazz, speakeasies, and glitz, but the ’20s were also the zenith of America’s obsession with the spirit world. Photos show this otherworldly substance flowing from her nose and ears, but mostly it emerged from beneath a sheer kimono like a string of entrails-an “ectomorphic hand” that Walter used to carry out his commands. Margery, by contrast, was charming and attractive-at least when she wasn’t showing off her most convincing psychic talent: extruding a slithery, viscous substance called “ectoplasm” from her orifices. Even by ghost standards, Walter was unfriendly, answering questions and quoting scripture in a gruff disembodied voice. And she was renowned for conjuring the voice of her dead brother, Walter, whose spirit rapped out messages, tipped tables, and even sounded trumpets.
Followers called her “Margery” detractors knew her as the Blonde Witch of Lime Street. They had come to witness the psychic feats of the nation’s most credible spirit medium, a pretty 36-year-old flapper with blue eyes and a bob. Munn, editor of Scientific American, and an esteemed panel of scientists. The evening temperature hovered in the high 80s when the famed magician Harry Houdini trudged up to the fourth floor séance room at 10 Lime Street. On July 23, 1924, Boston was suffering from a brutal heat wave.