R.D. Adams exposed

Here's a photo I recently found of the infamous "R.D. Adams" who claimed to have been Houdini's mechanic and privy to all the magician's secrets. In 1929 Adams offered up a series of wildly inaccurate "exposures" of Houdini's feats in Modern Mechanics magazine.

It interesting that this happened in the same year (1929) as the Arthur Ford seances. Houdini seems to have been a target for fraudsters this year. Adams' exposures included the Water Torture Cell, Walking Through a Brick Wall, and the Vanishing Elephant. Below is an ad for the series.

Curiously, even though today we can see that Adams' explanations are clearly bogus, both Leonard Hicks and Joseph Rinn claimed Adams did indeed reveal the correct methods. Even to this day Adams explanations still sometimes appear in print and online as legitimate.

So what is the real story of R.D. Adams? Was he simply an opportunist peddling fake secrets to a gullible publication? But if that was the case, why was he not debunked by the many vigilant Houdini friends and supporters out there, such as Dunninger, Hardeen, Bernard Ernst or even Bess herself? And why no action by the S.A.M.? Is it possible Adams was actually a front man for the Houdini estate? Could this have been a scheme to make some money for Bess in her time of need after the Ford scandal? As the methods were bogus, there was no real betrayal of Houdini's secrets, and this explains the silence and even support for Adams' explanations. Something to think about.

If one is interested in learning Houdini's real secrets (some of them, at least), two excellent books are Houdini's Fabulous Magic by Morris N. Young & Walter B. Gibson and Houdini The Key by Patrick Culliton.

Related:

• How Houdini didn't vanish an elephant
• German Houdini booklet and the brick wall exposure
• Houdini's secrets brought to you by Camel cigarettes

How Houdini didn't vanish an elephant

As a follow up to my post about the German Houdini booklet and Modern Mechanic' bogus explanation of Walking Through A Brick Wall, I thought I'd share that magazine's equally incorrect explanation of Houdini's vanishing elephant. This appeared in the December 1929 issue as the conclusion of a three part series by the mysterious "R.D. Adams."

Unlike Walking Through A Brick Wall, we actually don't know for certain how Houdini vanished his elephant. But we know it wasn't as shown above. In fact, even the presentation is incorrect here. Houdini vanished his elephant from a large cabinet, not from behind a screen. The best theories of how Houdini may have accomplished this feat appear in Jim Steinmeyer's brilliant Hiding The Elephant and Patrick Culliton's essential Houdini The Key.

Curiously, even though "R.D. Adams" offered explanations that today appear to be false, both Leonard Hicks and Houdini's close friend Joseph Rinn claimed Adams' did indeed reveal the correct methods.

Related:

• German Houdini booklet and the brick wall exposure
• The vanishing Vanishing Elephant photos
• Houdini's other elephants

German Houdini booklet and the brick wall exposure

Arthur Moses recently uncovered this 20 page German "Harry Houdini" biographical booklet from 2014. It runs 20 pages and is #8 in "Personlichkeiten" series. According Arthur, the booklet is nicely done with many photos and illustrations.

One curious thing the booklet contains is an illustrated "exposure" of Houdini's Walking Through A Brick Wall on page 18. The explanation is pretty far out. It includes mechanical hands and Houdini disguised as a brick layer to sneak around the structure.

This actually first appeared in the November 1929 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions in an article that professed to be an exposé of Houdini secrets by his "mechanic" R.D. Adams. I've never heard of R.D. Adams, and many of the explanations were wildly inaccurate, including the brick wall. This is all the more amusing because the real secret of Houdini's Walking Through A Brick Wall is one of his most widely known and published.

This booklet can be purchased as part of a bundle with The Houdini Code DVD at the website www.magiccenterharri.de.

Thanks Arthur.

Related:

• When Houdini walked through a brick wall
• Arthur Moses updates his Houdini Periodical Bibliography
• The Houdini Code (DVD)