Continuing my special Halloween week of resurrected GHOST POSTS, here's an updated post from August 10, 2014.
On April 11, 1923, Houdini visited the First Spiritualist Temple in Los Angeles to investigate a ghostly phenomena that had drawn recent headlines. It was here that he had an experience even he could not explain.
If we believe him. Here's the story.
Mrs. Mary Fairfield McVickers was a well-known spiritualist who stated that when she died, a photo should be taken of her casket at 5 o'clock on the day of her funeral, and that she would appear. A year later, she died, and a photograph was taken precisely as requested during her funeral at the First Spiritualist Temple in Los Angeles on March 23, 1923. Sure enough, on the photo appeared several smudges of light that resembled faces hovering near her coffin.
Houdini was well aware of how "spirit photographs" were created using double exposure, and he believed this was what conjured the funeral ghosts. But he would give the spirits another chance. He travelled to the church with photographer Nathan B. Moss of the Keystone Press Illustration Service. He brought along a sealed package of 14 photographic plates purchased from the local Kodak representatives, Howland & Dewey. With Moss as his witness, and to ensure no trickery, he had asked a stranger who was standing next to him at the counter, Mr. Mat Korn, to select the package of negatives from the store's stock.
Under the exact same conditions as the McVickers photo, Houdini had Moss take ten photos of the altar (and a few of himself examining the church). Houdini and Moss then traveled to the Chamber of Commerce Building to develop the images in their darkroom.
Nine photos contained nothing. But one photo contained a mysterious streak of light across the same black curtain precisely where McVickers' "astral projections" had appeared. Even Houdini was forced to admit: "I cannot say that this is a spirit photograph of Mrs. McVickers, nor can I deny it. Photographers who examined the plate declare that the negative was flawless and that nothing was on it to cause this white figure. I am having the plates sent to Rochester for a final examination."
Houdini also sent the photo to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for his opinion. Surprisingly, the man who was taken in entirely by the
Cottingley Fairies photos expressed skepticism.
"I am by no means convinced that it is a psychic effect," Doyle wrote back to Houdini. "The plate may have been scratched in some way–indeed the way the the line broadens out at the end suggests a scratch."
Houdini historian Patrick Culliton suggests Houdini may have faked the photo to draw attention to a lecture he would be giving that same week at the
Hillstreet Theater (this was one of his first on the topic of fraudulent mediums). Publicity for Houdini's lecture did play up that he would discuss the mystery photo, and having the bystander pick out the plates does feel suspiciously like a magic trick. But would Houdini really want to launch his career as a serious psychic investigator by perpetuating his own fraud?
Houdini never discovered (or admitted) what caused the mysterious light streak, and it remains the one spiritualistic phenomena that he admittedly couldn't explain.
The First Spiritualist Temple still stands today at 906m E. 23rd St. The inside has been renovated, so the location where the photo was taken is no longer identifiable. However, the outside remains almost exactly as it appeared when Houdini visited in 1923 and might have had his one true encounter with a spirit.
Visit Patrick Culliton's website
Houdini's Ghost to read newspaper accounts and Houdini's own written testimonials about exactly what happened that day at The First Spiritualist Temple of Los Angeles.
Come back tomorrow at 1:26 PM for another GHOST POST.
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