December 28, 2001

My Heroes, The Pale Blue Dot, Houdini's Last Stunt......

To bolster my own faltering faith in our species, I turn from time to time to my giants. Isaac Asimov, Dick Feynman, Martin Gardner, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, a list that comforts me and yet makes me feel so minor and so impotent. These masters spoke for me, and far more eloquently, than I ever could have done for myself. While I exult at any accident of original phrasing that I may stumble upon, these titans strewed their work with memorable and exhilarating words, as if with no effort. What I offer you here this week is a good example of what I mean.

Here's a sobering image from JPL/NASA. In his book, "Pale Blue Dot" (1994) Carl Sagan showed just where he obtained that provocative title. It's a photo that was taken by the space probe Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our neighborhood for the outer fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look back at its home planet. The camera was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away from Earth when it captured and sent back this lonely portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Carl wrote beautifully of the significance of that tiny image:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

I would add this to Carl's comments:

While acknowledging how very small this image makes us, I think that perhaps he saw the photo from a somewhat different view than that available to me and to most of us. Carl was immersed in exciting, innovative, ever-improving technology, all of which he was able to accept and incorporate into his philosophy and his everyday thinking processes. His poetic, sensitive, style of writing and thinking was hardly interfered with by the technology to which he was so attuned, but it may have distracted him from the one — to me — exhilarating and overpowering fact illustrated in this photograph: I rejoice that a fragile, quite imperfect, carbon-based, short-lived and very new species of Earth life was able to conceive, construct, and send a camera out into space, then command it to turn about and record an image of the place from which it originated.

Damn, but that's impressive! We've done alright, for being so insignificant on the cosmic scale. And we've got puppy-dogs and dixieland music, too.....

To see such inspiring words as I've quoted above, read Sagan. And look in on www.planetary.org for more of the same....


A couple weeks back, on the December 14th page, I wrongly attributed a quotation to Mark Twain. That gem (. . . and you say that WE are the ones that need help?) came from Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) which can be seen at www.FFRF.org — and the sooner the better. I suggest you take a subscription to their "Freethought Today" — the only freethought newspaper in the USA — by sending $40 to FFRF, P.O. Box 750, Madison, WI 53701. A good buy.


To try in some way to make amends for this mis-attribution, I'll offer you here a few genuine Twain quotes....

Man is a marvelous curiosity . . . he thinks he is the Creator's pet . . . he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea.

One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They have also believed the world was flat.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious — unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

Irreverence is another person's disrespect to your god; there isn't any word that tells what your disrespect to his god is.

That last one is of particular significance right now. I hope it's occurred to others that the terrorists — misguided Moslems with their own version of Islam — got their instructions from the "god of Abraham" that Christians also go to for advice and guidance. Yep. Same guy. And Jews get their information from him, too. Abraham himself was the butt of his gods little joke — remember when he was told to take his only son Isaac to some place named Moriah, and murder him just for a whim? And this Abraham was doing the deed when his god interrupted and told him he was only joshing. So just where does the communication break down here? Is running jet planes into skyscrapers and committing mass murder, a good deed, or a bad deed? How about bombing abortion clinics? Surely the messages don't come through so jumbled up that they get turned around somehow? Who's right here? Or — could it be? — maybe they're all wrong, and there aren't any gods, devils, ghosts, angels, imps, fairies, or elves, after all? I'm going to put some thought on that.....

And don't be too impressed with the differences between the zealots of Islam and the "moderates." They all adhere to the words in the Koran — just as Christians believe that it's all in their book, the Bible — and that Koran has a few gems in it that we should bear in mind. Remember: this is the Word of Allah, God, Jehovah, etc., and not just a suggestion. These are orders, and if you're with it, you're for it....

Slay or crucify or cut off the hands and feet of the unbelievers. The Koran, 5:34.

Kill those who join other gods. The Koran, 6:5-6.

From [the unbelievers] garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads a boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods. The Koran, 22:19-22.

Not very nice folks. We're much nicer, right? Forget about killing the witches and stoning to death the ungrateful children. And enslaving the dark-skinned. . . .

Just yesterday I happened on a very authoritative-looking cleric on TV, grandly attired in a trailing brocaded dress and lots of jewelry, who wagged his finger and furrowed his brow mightily (I felt, distinctly for my personal edification) and declared in sonorous tones that someone named Jesus was coming — "very soon, now" — and that I would be in deep trouble if he arrived and found that I was not in an attitude of supplication and abject fear. Well, that tears it. I'm just never to be found in that state, so I'm doomed.

But wait a minute. Is this the same chap that went away over 2,000 years ago and said he'd be back? Seems to me that when I was a kid, preachers were promising this return at any minute, and I'll bet that promise can be traced all the way back through the last 731,000 days since it was first announced. And I thought that Sylvia Browne was delinquent, at 116 days since she first made her promise. Hmmm. Maybe this procrastination is a religious thing, and that's why I don't understand it....


Our very good friend Massimo Polidoro has just published his twelfth book, "Final Séance," which deals with the strange friendship between magician Harry Houdini and writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the character Sherlock Holmes. Beautifully illustrated and carefully crafted, this volume — from Prometheus Books — investigates the relationship between the skeptical Houdini and the very gullible Conan Doyle, two men who saw the world in quite different ways. Here, Massimo shares with us an account of one of the Houdini "miracles" that made him the champion conjuror and escape artist of his day, a man about whom we still speak in hushed tones. Massimo is executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CICAP) and editor of its journal, "Scienza & Paranormal," European Representative for the JREF, and a Fellow of the American Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).

He can be contacted at: www.massimopolidoro.com; e-mail: polidoro@cicap.org

HOUDINI'S LAST MIRACLE: Submerged Under Water for 90 minutes!

By Massimo Polidoro

Harry Houdini, the greatest magician that ever lived, died 76 years ago, on October 31st, 1926, at the young age of fifty-two. Before his end came, however, Houdini would still astound the world with one, last impressive feat.

His campaign against fake mediums had been in full force for a few years, by 1926, and in May of that year his attention was caught by a new wonder, imported to the United States by psychic researcher Hereward Carrington, once a Houdini friend then turned "enemy" during the investigation of Boston medium "Margery"Crandon. In fact, he had been the only member of the Scientific American Committee, of which Houdini was also a member, who declared from the very start the genuineness of Margery's mediumship, and he had worked as a sort of impresario in America for such mediums as Eusapia Palladino and Nino Pecoraro.

Carrington's new "attraction" was a self-styled Egyptian fakir, twenty-six-year old "Rahman Bey," who professed to a supernormal power whereby he could suspend animation in his own body. He had opened at Selwyn Theater, in New York, performing various physical feats: he stopped his pulse, forced hatpins through his cheeks, had a block of sandstone placed on his chest and pounded with a sledge hammer, and did various other tests. All the while, Carrington lectured the audience as a perfect master of ceremonies on yogis' and Hindus' powers of meditation and supreme control over their body functions. In his most astonishing test, Bey permitted himself to be shut in an air-tight coffin for ten minutes or more, after which he would emerge alive and bowing. This, he explained, was possible thanks to his self-imposed "cataleptic trance".

Houdini, who went to the show and easily recognized many side-show tricks which he had already explained in his book "Miracle Mongers and Their Methods", thought that Bey's scientific-sounding explanations were just a "lot of bunk." Furthermore, having noticed Houdini in the audience, Carrington had swiftly changed the tone of the presentation, claiming that Bey did not operate through supernatural, but only natural means. "That alone", noted Houdini afterward, "spiked my guns."

In July, Bey presented a new version of his coffin stunt: he announced that he would stay submerged in the Hudson river, sealed in a bronze casket, for an hour. As soon as the coffin touched the water, however, the emergency bell inside the casket started to ring. It took the workmen about fifteen minutes to open the lid, but Bey claimed he did not remember having activated the bell, since he was in a trance. Nonetheless, he could boast that he had survived for about twenty minutes in the sealed coffin.

At once Houdini determined that he had to expose Bey for what he really was: a trickster. He issued his challenge and, through the Evening World, announced: "I guarantee to remain in any coffin that the fakir does, for the same length of time he does, without going into any cataleptic trance." A few days later, as if to raise the stakes, Bey tried his stunt again: this time, however, he was submerged in the water of the Dalton swimming pool where, unbelievably, he stayed for an hour.

Houdini now had to keep his promise and duplicate the fakir's stunt. He had a galvanized-steel casket made and made arrangements with the Hotel Shelton, in New York, to use its swimming pool for the test. The challenge seemed lost from the start: Bey was twenty-six years old, Houdini was twice as old (he had recently celebrated his fifty-second birthday) he was much heavier and less hearty than a few years before, when he had been able to stay underwater holding his breath even in icy waters. In any case, if there were someone in the world that could have a chance of staying inside a casket for more than an hour and then come out alive, that certainly was the greatest escape artist that ever lived.

The casket could hold 26,428 cubic inches of air (15 cubic feet) — less the space displaced by the magician's body and by a telephone and batteries that Houdini had installed. Before the official test, and to avoid surprises, Houdini decided to secretly try the stunt at home, and see what happened. For the trial tests he used a glass top rather than the metal one, so that he could be observed by his doctor.

The first attempt took place July 31, 1926, with Houdini's assistants and the doctor attending. Once the top had been shut, Houdini remained motionless. After forty-five minutes he started to perspire. He heard the doctor say, "I would not do that for $500." (A lot of money, in that day!) As time passed, breathing became harder, each time he gasped for air he had to "pump with all my might." This convinced him that panic shortened the lives of those who were trapped for long periods in mine shafts or vaults. "With my years of training," he noted afterwards, "I can remain apparently motionless without an effort. I kept my eyes open for fear I would go to sleep." When he could not take it any longer he signaled for the lid to be opened: an hour and ten minutes had passed. He was dripping wet from head to toe, but he had not felt too uncomfortable. This made him suspect that some air must have seeped inside.

For the next secret test, on August 4th at about noon, he had the lid made airtight. This time the casket was submerged in a large container filled with water. He felt the coffin moist and cold, the water seemed to chill the box; however, he felt more comfortable than at the first test. After fifty minutes he began taking longer breaths and started feeling very irritable: "I was annoyed by movements, annoyed by one of my assistants swaying over my head, even by the twisting of the key." Despite his nerves, he managed to stay sealed for an hour and ten minutes, as he had on the previous try. Now he felt ready for the real challenge.

The date chosen for the test was August 5, 1926. Houdini invited journalists from all over the United States and many of his friends, like Walter Lippmann and Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New York Times; Joe Rinn acted as timekeeper, Joe Dunninger, the up-and-coming greatest mentalist, was there, as well as Carrington. The invitation read: "HOUDINI's experiment of attempting to remain submerged one hour in an airtight metal coffin."

Houdini had prepared himself by eating very lightly. "I had a fruit salad and a half a cup of coffee." He felt somewhat nervous, "but that I attribute to the excitement of the test, not through any fear." In the three weeks of his training, he "reduced about twelve pounds." Finally, stripped to brown trunks and a white shirt, Houdini made his entrance in the pool area. He noticed worriedly that the overcrowded pool area felt overly warm and thought that the air was rarified. Before entering the new galvanized iron box (a better looking — and larger — model than the one used during his trials), Houdini was tested by physicians, who found him normal. However, they stated that a human being could survive inside a sealed box of that kind for only three to four minutes: soon, in fact, all the oxygen would be consumed and the casket would be filled with carbon dioxide. "If I die", remarked Houdini before the lid was sealed,"it will be the will of God and my own foolishness. I am going to prove that the copybook maxims are wrong when they say that a man can live but three minutes without air — and I shall not pretend to be in a cataleptic state either."

The coffin was finally sealed and lowered into the pool. It took about 700 pounds of iron and eight swimmers standing on top of the casket in order to keep it level and beneath the water. Houdini felt disturbed by the strong heat he felt inside the box, and became more irritable than he had been during the tests. The man standing on the coffin seemed to be shaking it, and one even lost his balance and fell. The casket shot up above the surface and was quickly pushed down. "What's the big idea?" Houdini shouted through the phone to his assistant Jim Collins. "What struck me?" He had visualized the box breaking in two and thought he was going to drown before he could be taken out of it. The effort of talking, however, left him gasping for air.

When the hour was reached, Collins phoned him with the news. Houdini, though breathing heavily now, wanted to try to stay a bit more. He reached for his handkerchief, which was wet, and pressed it to his lips, and feeling better he kept it there to lessen his strain.

"When Collins, my assistant, phoned me that I had been in the coffin for one hour and twelve minutes," he noted later, "I was going to stay three more minutes, but watching my lungs rise and fall, thought I could stand the strain for another fifteen minutes."

He felt water trickling inside the box, and realized that the casket was leaking slightly.

"After one hour and twenty-eight minutes," he continued in his notes written after the experience, "I commenced to see yellow lights and carefully watched myself not to go to sleep. I kept my eyes wide open; I moved on the broad of my back, so as to take all the weight off my lungs, my left arm being across my chest. I lay on my right side, my left buttock against the coffin, so that I could keep the telephone receiver to my ear without holding it, and told Collins to get me up at an hour and a half, thinking if I did go to sleep, he would get me up within that time."

When finally the casket was taken out of water, Houdini felt a physical elation and a curious irritation. When the air vent caps were unscrewed, he thrust up an arm. A doctor took his pulse: it had been eighty-four at the time of entry; now it was one hundred forty-two. The lid was ripped open enough to let Houdini climb out. He was again dripping wet and, according to Carrington, looked "deathly white."

Once at home, he recorded all the details of his experiment and later sent them to Dr. W. J. McConnell, a physiologist with the U.S. Bureau of Mines, feeling that his tests might be helpful to miners trapped in collapsed shafts. "When I was dictating this, I still had that metallic taste in my stomach and mouth; felt rather weak in the knees; had no headache, but just seemed listless." But he had beaten the fakir at his own game!

"There is no doubt in my mind," he added, "that had this test been where fresh air could have gotten into the galvanized iron coffin as I was put in same," and not in the hotel where the air was warm and foul, "I could have readily stayed fifteen or thirty minutes longer."

"Am having a coffin made with a glass top," he concluded his notes for Dr. McConnell, "and as soon as it is ready will let you know. I know you are doing a worthwhile work and as my body and brain are trained for this particular line, I am at your service. Don't be afraid to ask any question, I will be glad to let you know."

Some magicians, and even Joseph Rinn, thought that Houdini must have used some hidden supply of oxygen. Houdini was annoyed at these suspicions: "There is a rumor going around", he wrote to a friend, "that there is a gimmick to the thing. I pledge my word of honor there isn't a thing to it excepting to lie down and keep quiet. I trained for three weeks in water to get my lungs accustomed to battle without air, and after one hour, did have to struggle and believe only due to the training was I able to stay so long. Rest assured there is no gimmick, no trick at all — simply lying on your back and breathing shallow breaths is all you do. Did it twice in a coffin with a glass top to test myself. There is no doubt in my mind that anyone can do it."

Carrington wrote a few years later: "Houdini remained submerged in a metal coffin for about an hour and a half; but when he emerged he was deathly white, running with perspiration and with a pulse of 142. I was present at this experimental burial, as at many others, and know whereof I speak. It is my opinion that Houdini appreciably shortened his life by this endurance burial."

Notes:

1) More details on the Margery's case can be found also in: Polidoro, M1997 Houdini vs The Blond Witch of Lime Street, Skeptic, Vol 5, n3.

2) Houdini's "Miracle Mongers and their Methods" was reprinted in 1982 by Prometheus Books and contains a foreword by James Randi.

3) The only person who did attempt the stunt, twenty years later in 1955, was James Randi. He had a box built around the same size as that of Houdini and was submerged in a pool in London, for the TV show Today: he was able to stay submerged for one hour and three minutes. Three years later, in 1958, he repeated the test in the same Shelton pool used by Houdini for his experiment. To commemorate the episode, Randi was even able to find two of the assistants who, in 1925, had helped Houdini in his demonstration. This time, Randi stayed under water for an hour and 44 minutes, beating thus Houdini's record by 13 minutes.

As for Carrington's opinion that "Houdini appreciably shortened his life by this endurance burial," and since it's been 44 years now since I emerged from my stunt, I can confidently state that my own life, if anything, appears to have been lengthened by the experience.....! And, please recall, I was half Houdini's age when I performed the feat. Hardly a fair comparison.....


Yes, I promised that I'd discuss with you here the testing of the little girl who came by for the preliminary test for the million-dollar prize. The present status is this: her lawyer aborted the preliminary test, and we are re-scheduling it for a time not far into the new year, in New York City. Until that test has been conducted, I should make no further comment. Anon.....


To all: I trust that 2002 and will be a better year for us all. We've suffered in so many ways from intolerance, bigotry, hatred, and ignorance, in the year we're leaving. We've another chance, most of us. Let's do it right, this time. My best wishes and thoughts go out to everyone as we launch another year. When Earth again reaches this spot in its orbit (relative to our Sun and the "fixed" stars) we'll look back, I hope, on a happier year.....