LINCOLN'S GHOST

A lively history of those who would call up the dead.

Like later magician James Randi, the renowned escape artist known as “the Amazing Randi,” Harry Houdini devoted much of his later life to combatting “spiritualism,” much in vogue then as now. “This thing they call ‘Spiritualism,’” Houdini testified before a congressional committee, “wherein a medium inter-communicates with the dead, is a fraud from start to finish.” That the matter should have wound up before a panel of legislators wasn’t so strange: Houdini argued that spiritualism was the province of bunko artists, and, pressing for a law to forbid its practice, he claimed to have had numerous mediums arrested for committing fraud. Against him, however, were arrayed some formidable opponents, including one medium who argued that any suppression of spiritualism represented an assault on the free practice of religion. Interestingly, as Ricca (Mrs. Sherlock Holmes) writes, there was another political dimension to spiritualism: Claims were widespread that Abraham Lincoln himself was a believer, and even as Houdini was testifying, both President Calvin Coolidge and a number of sitting members of Congress were alleged to have consulted mediums and attended séances. So, too, did Houdini himself—research yielded a curse from a supposed dead man that the magician would soon die, as indeed happened. Still another odd dimension that Ricca explores are the spiritualist connections of presidential assassins John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and Leon Czolgosz; an early conspiracy theory surrounded the first, claiming that he escaped capture and execution and lived out a long life in the West. Some of Ricca’s sidelights are a touch odd, particularly his musings on hermaphroditism (though they’re not entirely out of place). Still, his broad-ranging research is impressive, and his narrative flows smoothly and often entertainingly.

A highly readable work of social history that, courtesy of Harry Houdini, takes us into odd realms indeed.