This book reveals the investigations of Samri Frikell (real name Fulton Oursler), a close friend of Houdini, and his tireless search for the methods of fraudulent mediums.
Also includes actual secrets of fake mediums, who shamelessly bilked the public out of their hard-earned savings.
The author, a former senior editor of Reader's Digest and other major publications, keeps the reader entertained and informed.
Existing copies of the first edition are very scarce on the used market, selling for well over a thousand dollars apiece!
This edition has been completely reset in new type, with edits by T. A. Whitney. Now you can own this valuable and informative work at a price that won't break the bank.
Contents:
PRELUDE
- DO DEAD MEN EVER TELL TALES? by Howard Thurston
- WHY I CHASE GHOSTS by Samri Frikell
- TRICKS THE MEDIUMS DO (Producing Visible Apparitions—Haunted Slates—Clairvoyance—Trumpet Seances—Bound in the Dark—Psychometry—Spirit Raps—Other Stunts)
PART ONE : Materialization
- JUDAS ALWAYS TURNS UP by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- THE ARREST OF THE NEW YORK SPIRITUALISTS (A compact with Doyle—My father's ghost—And darling Marie—Working with the police department—A sensational seance—Police—We tell it to the judge!)
- THE STRANGE CASE OF ADA BESINNET (The ghost girl of Toledo—Katie King—Doyle talks with his son who was killed in the War—The specter of Sir Ernest Shackleton—I, too, go to Toledo—My Experiences with the medium—And my explanation.)
- THE GHOST THAT GREW IN A CABINET (My spirit journey to Chicago—Tales of miracles—I see the miracles—The frightened camera man—The Scientific American prize—I expose the mediums)
- DID HOUDINI EXPOSE MARGERY? ("Yes!" says Houdini. "No!" says J. Malcolm Bird)
- OTHER MATERIALIZATION TRICKS (Manufactured Ghosts—Tambourines Float and Stars Dance in the Dark—How Mediums Escape from Ropes—How Spirit Raps are Produced—Table Tipping—Tables Rise in the Air—Another Method—Trumpet Seances—Spirit Slates—Direct Voice—Spirit Paintings—
- Turned-Vest Test—Talking Hand—The Haunted Bracelet)
PART TWO : Mysteries of the Clairvoyant Mediums
- THE MAN WHO ASTOUNDED EDISON (What Edison said he saw—What I saw—What Edison didn't see—What Houdini saw—What the German
- scientists saw—You be the judge)
- THE MYSTERY OF THE BURIED ABBEY : (Bligh Bond's story of the Glastonbury ruins as he told it to me—What I regard as the real clue to the mystery)
- ALL PUBLIC MIND-READERS MYSTIFY (Rubini in the home of Houdini)
- HOW QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED (Crystal gazing—How "Readings" are given—The Testimony of a famous mind-reader)
- MEDIUM TRICKS YOU CAN DO AT HOME (Living or dead—The Burning Question—The New Dictionary Test—Foretelling the Name—A startling Mind-reading trick—Thoughts read and told)
- THE SPANIARD WITH THE X-RAY EYES (Exposed by Houdini)
PART THREE : Other Spirit Mysteries
- GHOST PHOTOGRAPHS! (The great Hyslop hoax—An adventure in Chicago—Other methods)
- SPIRITS IN THE MOVIES (An adventure in Paris—Houdini and Von Schrenk Notzing)
- THE MYSTERY OF HOUDINI'S DEATH
- THE MYSTERY OF THE FLYING DAGGER (A graphic account of curious phenomena witnessed by Vienna scientists investigating psychic manifestations)
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- RECOMMENDED TITLES
Comb bound so the pages lay flat for ease of study.
Makes a great gift for mentalists, magicians, psychic entertainers, ministers, or anyone in law enforcement.
Published by St. Vitus Press (an imprint of Blamepro.com).