Houdini vs The Witch of Lime Street

Magic, deception, and obsession come together to create one of the most interesting rivalries between Mina Crando, aka the Witch of Lime Street, and none other than the great escape artist, Harry Houdini.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is So Bizarre, a podcast where we find the weirdest stories from history and share them with you. I'm Bianca. I'm Nicole. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Hi Bianca. Hi, Nicole. So before we start, do you have a bizarre story to tell us?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Um a little one. I do have a little one. Um I'm really excited to get started though because I feel like you've been talking about this story and I'm I'm waiting with bated breath. I have been talking it up. Uh so I can't wait to see what it is. But I do have a weird story. Um basically, so my mother's side of the family um is from northern Spain, like the Bass Country. And a while ago, they were doing renovations to my grandmother's house, my great grandmother's house, where her whole family grew up, and they had to knock down a wall, like a really old wall, like hundreds of years old, to like put some support there. And when they knocked down the wall, guess what they found?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Oh god. I'm going between a bunch of really old dolls. Um, or it's not gonna be skeletons. Actually, those are my two guesses. Dolls or skeletons.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

You're kinda close. It was a lot of teeth and hair.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

That's so much worse. That's so much worse.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

And the theory was that What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:50

How were they arranged?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

It was arranged apparently quite purposeful, and I think that part of the country does a lot of like folklore and you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Okay, so we're talking burial ritual and not serial killer.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Not serial killer. Apparently, it's like a some sort of like protection spell for the house. That's nice. Is the way that we got got it spun.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

So I'm I'm boarding that train.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes, I'm on the train. So that's what we heard, and we were like, oh, I guess that's nice. Like, thanks. Thanks, Great Graham. That is a great story.

unknown 2:33

I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

And we were all kind of like, oh, that's that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Okay, Bianca, so you're ready for my story?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I'm very excited. Yes, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Okay, so this is gonna be an episode about a rivalry between the witch of Lime Street and none other than Harry Houdini.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Wait, that's so topical to the story that I my little Witchy. I know. Okay, we're we're shirt.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

This story takes place in 1920s Boston. I'm gonna go into some background first because it's very important to understand the core of this rivalry. The 20th century had a huge resurgence of spiritualism. For those who don't know, spiritualism is a movement that's centered around communicating with the dead through mediums, seances, and other paranormal practices. The reason for this rise in spiritualism is pretty clear, it's a time where so many families lost their loved ones in a combination of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. So both of these events led to many devastated people that wanted to seek solace and attempt to communicate with the deceased. From there, it became a big social trend. People held seances with friends at home, influential people would invite mediums to their house for social gatherings, and the use of Ouija boards became popular, which you I know for a fact are a fan of Ouija boards.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Love a good Ouija board.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Have you ever had a an experience, let's say?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

You know what? I haven't. That's it. I haven't.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

But I'm hopeful.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, not with a Ouija board.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So a different No, I don't know why I said that.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I haven't had an experience, but I have felt like things are watching me, but that could be my anxiety. Okay, but you're hopeful. I'm very hopeful.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Okay. So books, newspapers, and Hollywood films help spread the interest in the paranormal that led to the involvement of famous figures in these practices. Which everyone loves a celebrity telling them what's cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

I do love a celebrity telling me what's cool. But I really like that concept of the spiritualism at that time. Because it was just like this weird thing that, like, I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, like rich people did. Like they were really like the hoity toity.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, so they had so they had parties at their house essentially. I would fucking love it. Like a dinner party, except they had a Why don't we do that? Because I don't like I don't like ghosts. I don't want to know about it. I I'm not a you don't want to know. I I'm okay. I don't want to seek it out. I don't want to seek it out.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

You know you're the person in the horror movie that the ghost happens to because of that attitude.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

No, opposite. The person who believes too much or do the person who feels the strongest about ghosts is the per No, actually you're right. I know No, but it would only be right if I was like, I don't no, that's not true. If I was like, I don't believe in it at all. Ghosts are stupid. Ghost doesn't exist. And then I would be the first person.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And then you would be like r levitating in your bed.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

But I I I think I feel like I'm fine if I'm ghost neutral.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Okay, so all of this leads to our main characters. One, Harry Houdini, initially open to spiritualism, and he used it in his acts, but then became its greatest skeptic. And uh we will get into that later. And our next character is Mina Marjorie Crandon, aka The Witch of Lime Street. She's a psychic medium famous for her seances and abilities to contact the dead.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

So I'm just gonna throw in this tiny little sprinkle of another character who is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Mmm. Only because he's such a fun person. What a freak. What a freak. Yes, bring him in the party. Fucking freak. Such a fucking freak. So he is the creator of Sherlock Holmes, obviously, and he was a huge advocate for spiritualism. He initially was a doctor, but then his son died along with most of his male family members, so his brother, brother-in-law, some cousins, and he started devoting War plague. War plague combo. War plagues. War plague combo. So he started devoting more time to traveling and giving lectures on Contact the Dead. And the reason he's important is because he was close with both Houdini and Marjorie at different points in their lives. Alright, so I'm gonna do two timelines leading up to an event. We'll start with Houdini, who we all know. Harry Houdini was born Eric Wise on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His parents, Mayor Samuela Wise and Cecilia Steiner, were Jewish immigrants who moved to the United States in 1887 when Eric was about four years old. He was one of seven children. That's too many. Sorry. It just you gotta if you can make a small soccer team. They settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. Oh. Where his father became the town's first rabbi. Isn't that fun? Oh it's fun. They struggled financially and eventually moved to New York, living in public housing. As a child, Eric took several jobs, making his public debut as a nine-year-old trapeze artist calling himself Eric the Prince of Air. That sounds so cute. The fresh Prince of Air. Shut up. So stupid. Such a stupid joke. I'm sorry, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

The hook is coming out, it's taking Nicole away.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

At some point, his father sent him to apprentice as a locksmith, which helped him on later on with his career. And when his father died, he made a real go at becoming famous to support his mom. I will say this. I could feel that. The fresh prince of air. Big old mama's boy. No, but even when he was older, he would, when he was feeling bad about his career, go and like snuggle in his mom's bosom. To paraphrase, I'm serious. I read that in mo like on multiple websites.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Alright, that's upsetting.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Alright, we'll move on. Eric and his brother Dash started performing some illusion acts where he took the name Houdini. They mostly did underground houses of horror and freak shows, where he learned many of his skills. He also started performing seances along with his illusions, taking advantage of the rise of spiritualism. I'm so on board for that. Get this, get this. Whenever he traveled to a new town to perform, he went to the graveyards to write down names and sat in pubs eavesdropping to learn about town gossip.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Okay, I isn't that the This is the job that I feel like I've been training for. Exactly. Wow. Also, I l Okay, but isn't this a simpler time where you could just go to your local there was probably one bar and you could just sit there and then just hear all the gossip. Like I don't know what that would look like in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

You just go to the local bar and then you just like hear someone talking about their music way too much. Exactly. They're their DJ. I started this indie band, and let me send you the SoundCloud link.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Let me say get out your phone. Pre-save the link. Pre-save the single.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

He also would pay someone like a little bit of money, like the town gossip to hear what's going on. Smart. Super smart.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh, Harry.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

It's also very I I don't know if I would think of I don't know if I would put that much effort into one town I was going to on a tour of like 30 towns.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

That's that's that good, good old, old world work ethic.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, he has a birth. Alright, so he starts performing his famous handcuff act, but he was still an opening act, and he's doing this for a while. He marries a fellow performer. Hot Wilmina Beatrice Rahner. AKA we're calling her Bess. She replaced his brother in the act, which became known as the Houdinis. For the rest of Houdini's performing career, Bess worked as a stage assistant. Okay, so this is where I'm gonna input Arthur Doyle again. Doyle seeks him out, and he's his biggest fan and advocate for so many years because spiritualism. Their families traveled on vacation together, and Doyle had never let go of the idea that Houdini was a talented medium and could speak to spirits. He was also convinced that his wife herself was a medium and held seances with her and Houdini. But eventually, Houdini decided it was a waste of his talents. In 1900, he toured Europe and the act was super successful and it became known as the Hancuff King, and he focused only on escape acts. He insisted that these weren't illusions and that he was just skilled at escaping. So I my interpretation is that he soured on spiritualism. He realized that people were making so much money off other people that were grieving. And he was so proud that he was like, No, my acts are not just illusions. I actually know how to get out of handcuffs, I actually know how to do these things. And as we know, Houdini was famous for being very strong in a physical sense. Like he trained himself to not have to breathe underwater, or he like trained himself to do these physical things that had nothing to do with illusions. And then the rest was just like a like a show.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Do you think that also a part of it was that he was he didn't like the grift of it? No, he's a grifter. Oh, he's a grifter.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Definitely a grifter.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Good old grifter.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah. He just was a very proud person that was like, I worked really hard to get to this point where I can do this feat, and I don't want to be associated with spiritualism.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I can do a lot. Watch me.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Exactly. Tie me. Tie me, hold my breath. So all of this led him to again talking about being weird about his own talents. He would go to other magicians' shows who we heard were copying him, and he would call them out and he would challenge them to escape his own cuffs.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah. He's a little weirdo. What a little baddie. Yes. He is actually a little baddie. For the next 20 years, all he does are different escape acts. He frees himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and stray jackets, often while hanging from a rope in sight of street audiences. So fun fact, A propose um him being a spiteful little bitch. Which I not a little bitch, I love him. In 1906, Houdini created his own publication, The Conjurer's Monthly Magazine, but he only made it to two volumes because he couldn't resist using the journal for his own crusades, attacking his rivals, and praising his own appearances.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

You gotta love a like an original like Rupert Murdoch right there. He's like, here's my spin. Here's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

And all of you suck. And all of you suck. You're doing what I'm doing, but I'm doing it better. And mine's magic and yours isn't. And I'm and then I'm hotter too. I'm better. Yeah. So I'm gonna come to your shows and have you seen Bess? Ruin. She's hot too. Now let's meet the witch of Lime Street. Mina Marjorie Crandon, born Mina Marguerite, in 1888, grew up on a farm near Picton, Ontario, Canada. She moved to Boston as a young woman where she worked as a secretary at a local church. There she met and married Earl Rand, a grocer, and they had one son. Later, following a hospital visit for surgery, she met Dr. LeRoy Godard Crandon, a prominent Boston surgeon.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I love how like exotic these Canadian names are.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Maybe I'm just pronouncing it.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

No.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

No, it's exotic. Alright. After divorcing Rand in January 1918, she married Dr. Crandon later that year, and they resided at 10 Lime Street in Boston. Mina began experimenting with seances as a hobby, possibly to distract her husband from a morbid obsession with mortality. She claimed that she could channel her dead brother Walter Stinson and gave seances for friends and associates of her husband. Walter, who had died young, was said to be her spirit guide, often manifesting through her seances with loud knocks, object movements, and even voice projections. I love this. Even by ghost standards, Walter was unfriendly, answering questions in a gruff voice. Mina, by contrast, was charming and attractive with blonde hair and blue eyes. So I I feel like that's why they believed it.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

She was being a weird She was blonde, blue-eyed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

And they're like, yeah, that tracks.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, again, I'd watch that. I'd wanna I want to go to that dinner party.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Under the new stage name Marjorie, her seances became a high society spectacle, attended by scholars, scientists, and spiritualist believers. She became well known for her risque and sometimes bizarre, if you will, uh seances. It was not uncommon for her to hold sessions in the nude, and according to some, she was especially adept in manifesting ectoplasm from different dot orphoces.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

I bet she was.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

I bet Mina Marjorie was. Yeah, it was a whole thing during that era. So enter Arthur Doyle again. His relationship with Houdini started to sour on account of Houdini's rejection of spiritualism, and Marjorie seemed to be a legit and promising psychic medium. So he befriended her and started advocating for her, which was a big deal because at that point he was famous. We are now at the point in the story where this all comes together and it culminates in a sort of showdown in the early to mid-1920s in Boston.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

What a what an arc for a Canadian grocer's wife. True.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

She did really well for herself. She yeah, knocked it out. Okay, so we're in Boston, early 1920s. The Scientific American magazine.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Wait, can you give me a Boston accent for this?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

I r you know I'm not good at accents. Boston. You like them apples? Yeah, no, I can't. You can do I can't do accents. It's not your fault.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I'm just doing goodwill hunting.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

The Scientific American magazine launched a competition offering a significant cash prize to anyone who could provide genuine evidence of psychic abilities. The caveat being that it has to be under controlled conditions. Marjorie's husband signs her up for the competition, where Houdini serves on the judging committee.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

That's gonna be a harsh joke.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Around this time, Houdini developed an obsession for debunking psychics and mediums, and he wanted to show that they were taking advantage of the bereaved. After hearing that Marjorie was the front runner and gaining popularity, he started attending seances in disguise, accompanied by a reporter and a police officer.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I fucking doubt that disguise flew. I what disguise is Harry Houdini? He's probably wearing a mustache. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Or an old lady shell, he's like, oh let me in, I'm just a sweet old lady. I feel like the wigs at that time were like just straws coming out of a hat.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Houdini claimed to have seen her performing a bunch of tricks, like making noises with her feet and lifting objects that she claimed were moving on her own. In spite of this, he didn't expose her publicly because he wanted proof beyond doubt. The official sittings for the competition began in January 1924. The conditions of the seance room were controlled at just about every sitting. The newspapers were quick to favor Marjorie. Headlines read Marjorie, Boston Medium passes all psychic tests. Scientists find no trickery in a score of seances. Boston Medium baffles experts. Houdini obviously was infuriated. Rumors also spread that Marjorie had somehow outwitted Houdini. The spiteful bitch.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Uh the spiteful bitch is not gonna like that.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Nope. And that her powers were most likely genuine. But in his desperation to expose her as a fraud, he was caught tampering with the panel's tests, which made him look bad.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Why though?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

He didn't have to do anything. Here's one of my favorite parts. Houdini publishes a pamphlet explaining how mediums perform their tricks with pictures and starts performing the same stunts at his own shows. He publicly challenges all mediums, saying if they wanted him to stop, he would pay them the equivalent of 150,000 in today's money if they could perform a trick he couldn't replicate. Doyle again. This led to Enter Doyle Enter Doyle again. This led to Doyle and Houdini becoming public antagonists, and Doyle came to view Houdini as a dangerous enemy. So it went hard for Marjorie, taking out spots in local newspapers to write about their legitimacy.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Okay, but okay. Sorry. I know that we're I'm getting involved now with this, and I'm getting a little upset because this is That's the point. You should be involved. I'm very involved. Okay, good. I think I'm in a podcast. I this is why I don't like psychics like this. I'm not saying that psychics aren't real, but I think that there's so many that just prey on people who are heartbroken, who have lost loved ones, and this screams that like Arthur Conan Doyle is like going to bat for her because he's lost all the men in his family and he's really sad.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Yeah, but he's not trying to trick anyone.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

No, but that's what I mean. Like he's like so It truly He wants to believe it because if it's not true, it's gonna be heartbreaking for him, and I think that that that's how a lot of these psychics work is they prey on that want in humans that they can talk to the other side, and that to me is really dark. So far, Nicole, I am Team Houdini. I'm sure he's weird, I'm sure he's got some crazy opinions. I don't want to know about it.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

You're team Houdini, at any point.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Right now, I am Team Houdini.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

But how do you know she's not a real medium?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I'm sorry, but she wasn't a median until like her husband got the sads, and then she was like, Don't worry, check this out.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

We're in the competition now. During her observed seance, Houdini placed the medium in a wooden box with a hole in the top for her head and holes on each side. According to reports from the session, her dead brother Walter took a dislike to Houdini. The top of the box was ripped off by an invisible force. How can you not believe that, Biok? Obviously she's legitimate.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Doctor husband, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

So then the seance continued the next evening, and Marjorie was placed back in the box. Shortly after she went into her trance, the committee asked that she ring the bell which had been placed in the box with her. Immediately, our dead little Walter exclaimed that Houdini had done something to the bell so that it wouldn't ring.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Well that's the thing. Houdini fucked up his credibility. Right? There's still Maru believing. Mar Marge stands.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

An examination of the bell revealed that a piece of rubber had been wedged against the clapper so that it would not ring. However, there was no proof that Houdini had tampered with it.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, duh, she did that.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

She wouldn't tamper her own thing. Yes, she would. Why? To disprove Houdini? I don't yeah. Alright, well, in 1928, Mina was officially proven guilty of fraud when a spirit's fingerprint perfectly matched Marjorie's. The witch of Lime Street continued to perform seances for the rest of her life. She is known as the twentieth century most controversial medium, and although a fraud she did predict during a seance that Houdini will be gone by November. Now get this. On October thirty first, aka Halloween. A fan went backstage to Houdini's show, punched him in the stomach, and Houdini died of a ruptured appendix. To this day, some believe it was a planned murder by a spiritualist in defense of Marjorie's mediumship.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I heard that he asked somebody to punch him to prove that he was really Oh, is that what you heard? Yeah. Word on the street. He was like, I'm the strongest guy out there. Punch me.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

So he asked someone to punch him. Yeah. He was like, punching the. Sounds like some Marjorie propaganda.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

No, and then and then he didn't have a chance to muscle up. And then the person.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

But if he asked them, then why wouldn't he have a chance?

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Because he's Harry Houdini. He was like, okay, punch me. And then he was like, probably getting ready, and the guy just went for it.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Team Houdini. It was a teenager.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Team Houdini.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived on for a few more years after Houdini died, and he died a believer.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Good for him.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Anyways, yeah. What do you well, we know your take.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

You're a Houdini girly. I'm a Houdini girly, but that was really good because that stuff fascinates me. Like, especially the spiritualism, because it was such a big thing with so many high society people, and it's like the involvement of so many big players like Houdini, like Arthur Conan Doyle. Like, you have all your players right there. You have all your hits. It's crazy that everyone's in the same arena.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Give me someone that can rescue me from any chain. Yeah. And then contact my enemies to tell them I still don't like them. Maybe I am a Houdini girl because I'm so spiteful. I just want to contact my enemies to be like, hey, I still don't like you, and I think that you're not cool even when you're dead. Okay, so what is your housewives? We all know I don't do housewives, but I have seen a few episodes and I love the taglines.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Oh, I'm doing one for each?

unknown 28:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

What do you get? I'm gonna do Marjorie's first. You know what? If you have one for both, I'm gonna do Marjorie's first.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

You girls might be raising hell, but I'm raising the dead.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Okay, that's really good. That's really good. How are you gonna top that with Houdini though? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Oh god, Houdini. Umy, you might try to put me in a box, but you know I'll escape right out.