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    The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé
    The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé
    The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé
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    The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé

    By Harry Houdini

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    The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé by Harry Houdini

    libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience.
    Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!
    LanguageEnglish
    Publisherlibreka classics
    Release dateMar 1, 2019
    ISBN9783742903969
    Author

    Harry Houdini

    Harry Houdini (1874–1926) was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary. He was a magician, escapologist and performer of stunts, as well as a sceptic and investigator of spiritualists. He produced films, acted, and penned numerous books.

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      The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé - Harry Houdini

      Titel: The Miracle Mongers, an Exposé

      von Scott Hemphill, L. M. Montgomery, L. Frank Baum, John Milton, René Descartes, Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Unknown, Norman F. Joly, Norman Coombs, David Slowinski, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Stephen Crane, John Goodwin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Winn Schwartau, Odd De Presno, Sir Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, United States. Central Intelligence Agency, United States, Canada, Willa Sibert Cather, Anthony Hope, Edwin Abbott Abbott, Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, William Shakespeare, Bruce Sterling, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gene Stratton-Porter, Richard McGowan, Frances Hodgson Burnett, United States. Bureau of the Census, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anonymous, Jerry Bonnell, Robert Nemiroff, Andrew Lang, G. K. Chesterton, John Bunyan, Sunzi 6th cent. B.C., Harold Frederic, Mary Wollstonecraft, Victor Hugo, René Doumic, Upton Sinclair, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Plato, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ruth M. Sprague, William Dean Howells, Wilkie Collins, Jean Webster, H. G. Wells, Kate Chopin, Mark Eliot Laxer, Louisa May Alcott, Frank Norris, Edith Wharton, S. D. Humphrey, Henry Hunt Snelling, William Morris, Mrs. Susanna Rowson, Christopher Morley, Sax Rohmer, Oscar Wilde, Gaston Leroux, Henry James, Project Gutenberg, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Various, Robert W. Service, A. B. Paterson, Henry Lawson, Jack London, Laozi, D. H. Lawrence, Julius Caesar, Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, George MacDonald, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Virgil, Theodore Dreiser, Giuseppe Salza, Rudyard Kipling, ca. 50 BCE-16 BCE Sextus Propertius, Robert A. Harris, William Wells Brown, graf Leo Tolstoy, Omar Khayyám, Michael Hart, Library of Congress. Copyright Office, Coalition for Networked Information, Geoffrey Chaucer, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Hiram Corson, Robert Browning, Amy Lowell, Rupert Brooke, Joyce Kilmer, John Gower, Saki, Kenneth Grahame, Anna Sewell, Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, National Atomic Museum, Alexander William Kinglake, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, James Branch Cabell, Bayard Taylor, Horatio Alger, Booth Tarkington, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, Michael Husted, Émile Gaboriau, Jerome K. Jerome, Stephen Vincent Benét, Edwin Arlington Robinson, J. Frank Dobie, Joseph Rodman Drake, Eliot Gregory, John Fox, John Muir, Richard Harding Davis, Edgar A. Guest, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Thomas Nelson Page, Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh, Rebecca Harding Davis, Charles Alexander Eastman, Zitkala-Sa, Marie L. McLaughlin, J. M. Barrie, Bram Stoker, Hesiod, Edna Ferber, John McCrae, Anna Howard Shaw, Elizabeth Garver Jordan, Frances Jenkins Olcott, P.-J. Proudhon, Eleanor H. Porter, Mary Hunter Austin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Russell Herman Conwell, Daniel Defoe, Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Ambrose Bierce, Nettie Garmer Barker, Martí Joan de Galba, Joanot Martorell, Oliver Goldsmith, Zane Grey, Winston Churchill, Arthur Machen, L. Cranmer-Byng, Torquato Tasso, H. De Vere Stacpoole, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Frank Richard Stockton, Rutherford Hayes Platt, Sara Teasdale, Samuel Smiles, W. E. B. Du Bois, Phillis Wheatley, Elbert Hubbard, Richard Jefferies, George Henry Borrow, Sherwood Anderson, Vachel Lindsay, David Graham Phillips, Harry Houdini

      ISBN 978-3-7429-0396-9

      Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

      Es ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Erlaubnis nicht gestattet, dieses Werk im Ganzen oder in Teilen zu vervielfältigen oder zu veröffentlichen.

      MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS

      A COMPLETE EXPOSE' OF THE MODUS

      OPERANDI OF FIRE EATERS, HEAT

      RESISTERS, POISON EATERS, VENOMOUS

      REPTILE DEFIERS, SWORD SWALLOWERS,

      HUMAN OSTRICHES, STRONG MEN, ETC.

      BY

      HOUDINI

      AUTHOR OF THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT HOUDIN, ETC.

      AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

      TO MY LIFE'S HELPMATE,

      WHO STARVED AND STARRED WITH ME

      DURING THE YEARS WE SPENT

      AMONG MIRACLE MONGERS

      My Wife

      PREFACE

      All wonder, said Samuel Johnson, is the effect of novelty on ignorance. Yet we are so created that without something to wonder at we should find life scarcely worth living. That fact does not make ignorance bliss, or make it folly to be wise. For the wisest man never gets beyond the reach of novelty, nor can ever make it his boast that there is nothing he is ignorant of; on the contrary, the wiser he becomes the more clearly he sees how much there is of which he remains in ignorance. The more he knows, the more he will find to wonder at.

      My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business. But I have never been without some seeming marvel to pique my curiosity and challenge my investigation. In this book I have set down some of the stories of strange folk and unusual performers that I have gathered in many years of such research.

      Much has been written about the feats of miracle-mongers, and not a little in the way of explaining them. Chaucer was by no means the first to turn shrewd eyes upon wonder-workers and show the clay feet of these popular idols. And since his time innumerable marvels, held to be supernatural, have been exposed for the tricks they were. Yet to-day, if a mystifier lack the ingenuity to invent a new and startling stunt, he can safely fall back upon a trick that has been the favorite of pressagents the world over in all ages. He can imitate the Hindoo fakir who, having thrown a rope high into the air, has a boy climb it until he is lost to view. He can even have the feat photographed. The camera will click; nothing will appear on the developed film; and this, the performer will glibly explain, proves that the whole company of onlookers was hypnotized! And he can be certain of a very profitable following to defend and advertise him.

      So I do not feel that I need to apologize for adding another volume to the shelves of works dealing with the marvels of the miracle-mongers. My business has given me an intimate knowledge of stage illusions, together with many years of experience among show people of all types. My familiarity with the former, and what I have learned of the psychology of the latter, has placed me at a certain advantage in uncovering the natural explanation of feats that to the ignorant have seemed supernatural. And even if my readers are too well informed to be interested in my descriptions of the methods of the various performers who have seemed to me worthy of attention in these pages, I hope they will find some amusement in following the fortunes and misfortunes of all manner of strange folk who once bewildered the wise men of their day. If I have accomplished that much, I shall feel amply repaid for my labor.

      HOUDINI.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER

      I. Fire worship.—Fire eating and heat resistance.—The Middle Ages.—Among the Navajo Indians.—Fire-walkers of Japan.—The Fiery Ordeal of Fiji

      II. Watton's Ship-swabber from the Indies.-Richardson, 1667.—De Heiterkeit, 1713.—Robert Powell, 1718-1780.—Dufour, 1783.—Quackensalber, 1794

      III. The nineteenth century.—A Wonderful Phenomenon.—The Incombustible Spaniard, Senor Lionetto, 1803.—Josephine Girardelli, 1814.—John Brooks, 1817.—W. C. Houghton, 1832.—J. A. B. Chylinski, 1841.—Chamouni, the Russian Salamander, 1869.—Professor Rel Maeub, 1876. Rivelli (died 1900)

      IV. The Master—Chabert, 1792-1859

      V. Fire-eating magicians. Ching Ling Foo and Chung Ling Soo.—Fire-eaters employed by magicians: The Man-Salamander, 1816.-Mr. Carlton, Professor of Chemistry, 1818.—Miss Cassillis, aged nine, 1820. The African Wonder, 1843.—Ling Look and Yamadeva die in China during Kellar's world tour, 1877.—Ling Look's double, 1879.—Electrical effects, The Salambos.—Bueno Core.—Del Kano.—Barnello.—Edwin Forrest as a heat-resister—The Elder Sothern as a fire-eater.—The Twilight of the Art

      VI. The Arcana of the fire-eaters: The formula of Albertus Magnus.—Of Hocus Pocus.—Richardson's method.—Philopyraphagus Ashburniensis.—To breathe forth sparks, smoke and flames.—To spout natural gas.—Professor Sementini's discoveries.—To bite off red-hot iron.—To cook in a burning cage.—Chabert's oven.—To eat coals of fire.—To drink burning oil.—To chew molten lead.—To chew burning brimstone.—To wreathe the face in flames.—To ignite paper with the breath.—To drink boiling liquor and eat flaming wax

      VII. The spheroidal condition of liquids.—Why the hand may be dipped in molten metals.—Principles of heat resistance put to practical uses: Aldini, 1829.—In early fire-fighting.—Temperatures the body can endure

      VIII. Sword-swallowers: Cliquot, Delno Fritz, Deodota, a razor-swallower, an umbrella-swallower, William Dempster, John Cumming, Edith Clifford, Victorina

      IX. Stone-eaters: A Silesian in Prague, 1006; Francois Battalia, ca. 1641; Platerus' beggar boy; Father Paulian's lithophagus of Avignon, 1760; The Only One in the World, London, 1788; Spaniards in London, 1790; a secret for two and six; Japanese training.—Frog-swallowers: Norton; English Jack; Bosco; the snake-eater; Billington's prescription for hangmen; Captain Veitro.—Water spouters; Blaise Manfrede, ca. 1650; Floram Marchand, 1650

      X. Defiers of poisonous reptiles: Thardo; Mrs. Learn, dealer in rattle-snakes.—Sir Arthur Thurlow Cunynghame on antidotes for snake-bite.—Jack the Viper.—William Oliver, 1735.—The advice of Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa, (1480-1535).—An Australian snake story.—Antidotes for various poisons

      XI. Strongmen of the eighteenth century: Thomas Topham (died, 1749); Joyce, 1703; Van Eskeberg, 1718; Barsabas and his sister; The Italian Female Sampson, 1724; The little woman from Geneva, 1751; Belzoni, 1778-1823

      XII. Contemporary strong people: Charles Jefferson; Louis Cyr; John Grun Marx; William Le Roy.—The Nail King, The Human Claw-hammer; Alexander Weyer; Mexican Billy Wells; A foolhardy Italian; Wilson; Herman; Sampson; Sandow; Yucca; La Blanche; Lulu Hurst.—The Georgia Magnet, The Electric Girl, etc.; Annie Abbott; Mattie Lee Price.—The Twilight of the Freaks.—The dime museums

      CHAPTER ONE

      FIRE WORSHIP.—FIRE EATING AND HEAT RESISTANCE.—IN THE MIDDLE AGES.—AMONG THE NAVAJO INDIANS.—FIRE-WALKERS OF JAPAN.—THE FIERY ORDEAL OF FIJI.

      Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements. To the early tribes it must also have been the most mysterious; for, while earth and air and water were always in evidence, fire came and went in a manner which must have been quite unaccountable to them. Thus it naturally followed that the custom of deifying all things which the primitive mind was unable to grasp, led in direct line to the fire-worship of later days.

      That fire could be produced through friction finally came into the knowledge of man, but the early methods entailed much labor. Consequently our ease-loving forebears cast about for a method to keep the home fires burning and hit upon the plan of appointing a person in each community who should at all times carry a burning brand. This arrangement had many faults, however, and after a while it was superseded by the expedient of a fire kept continually burning in a building erected for the purpose.

      The Greeks worshiped at an altar of this kind which they called the Altar of Hestia and which the Romans called the Altar of Vesta. The sacred fire itself was known as Vesta, and its burning was considered a proof of the presence of the goddess. The Persians had such a building in each town and village; and the Egyptians, such a fire in every temple; while the Mexicans, Natches, Peruvians and Mayas kept their national fires burning upon great pyramids. Eventually the keeping of such fires became a sacred rite, and the Eternal Lamps kept burning in synagogues and in Byzantine and Catholic churches may be a survival of these customs.

      There is a theory that all architecture, public and private, sacred and profane, began with the erection of sheds to protect the sacred fire. This naturally led men to build for their own protection as well, and thus the family hearth had its genesis.

      Another theory holds that the keepers of the sacred fires were the first public servants, and that from this small beginning sprang the intricate public service of the present.

      The worship of the fire itself had been a legacy from the earliest tribes; but it remained for the Rosicrucians and the fire philosophers of the Sixteenth Century under the lead of Paracelsus to establish a concrete religious belief on that basis, finding in the Scriptures what seemed to them ample proof that fire was the symbol of the actual presence of God, as in all cases where He is said to have visited this earth.

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