Houdini Speaks Out: "I am Houdini! And you are a fraud!" - Paperback

by Arthur Moses (Author)

NEWLY REVISED 2014 EDITION - Harry Houdini became celebrated for the spectacular ways that he performed magic, stage illusions, and escapes. Attaining fame and heroism that most could only dream of, Houdini was embraced by the public as if he were their protector. A rampant pall of Spiritualism was cast over much of America and throughout the Western world. He was yearning to make contact to the ''afterlife'' to speak again with his own deceased mother. It was a paradox he would never understand; he could escape from every challenge set before him and made illusion appear as fact, yet he could not reach through to the departed. Houdini's own transformation was from magician to escape artist to Spiritualist debunker. His career professed trickery as long as it was for entertainment; it was when mediums pronounced their work as truth that he made it his passion to expose them as frauds. Revealing new insights, this ground-breaking updated edition vividly recreates Houdini's debunking lectures which he presented from 1922 until his untimely death in 1926. The reader becomes involved in understanding his struggles to reach into the afterlife to contact his late mother during an era filled with deceptive spirit mediums. Each of the fifty glass lantern slides that Houdini used to highlight his lectures are painstakingly recreated and matched to his original lecture text. - "HOUDINI SPEAKS OUT reveals that Houdini was more than magic and escapes. Houdini s passion to fight fraudulent spiritualists consumed his final years" David Copperfield - "Harry Houdini is a legendary stage magician whose legacy and influence have served to inspire practitioners of legerdemain down to the present day. Although very well known as a magician and as an escape artist, over time people have largely forgotten that he was also a believer in an afterlife and an exposure of fraudulent mediums who tended to prey on a gullible public. "Houdini Speaks Out: "I am Houdini! And you are a fraud!" by Arthur Moses recreates Houdini's 'solitarian' lectures which he gave from 1922 to his unexpected and early death in 1926. Each of the fifty glass lantern slides he used to highlight his lectures are recreated and carefully matched to his original lecture text. "Houdini Speaks Out" is a very strongly recommended addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library collections -- and should be considered mandatory reading by anyone with an interest in spiritualism, magic, and the occult." Midwest Book Review

Author Biography

Arthur Moses is a native of Fort Worth, Texas, where he still resides. He and his wife have two adult children. He became interested in Harry Houdini at an early age after reading a book about him and got captivated by his fascinating life. Although not a magician, the author is an avid collector and respected historian. Moses is a longtime member of The Society of American Magicians, International Brotherhood of Magicians, and Magic Collectors Association, for which he has written many articles about Houdini over the years. He has amassed thousands of items of Houdiniana and says he feels privileged to own the pieces he does, but explains he is only their temporary caretaker: "Someone has owned these before me, and someone will own them after me." With his extensive collection and bachground on Houdini, he often lectures to various civic groups, bringing along many of his rare items to share for what he calls "adult show and tell."