As an illusionist, I believe every trick has an explanation. His experience in show business taught him that most mediums, especially those with props, were nothing but charlatans. However, he suddenly thought that there might be invisible mysterious forces in the world.
After his father died in 1892, he accompanied his mother to see a psychic. Although she fervently wished they could contact her late husband, they never did. Houdini was disappointed and not impressed by any of them.
In 1913, when his mother died, he experienced the most severe pain in his life. He later wrote: “I would gladly give up most of my earthly possessions in exchange for the comfort of a word from my late beloved.” Unfortunately, she never found the breath she was looking for, and spent the rest of her life in mourning. .
Soon after the magician fell into grief, the world fell into war. By the end of World War I in 1918, millions of people had turned to spiritualism (a religion that believed in the accessibility of spirits) as an antidote to mass loss.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Houdini’s friend and author of “Sherlock Holmes,” was one of them. His son Kingsley died a few weeks before the end of the war and was comforted by spiritualism.
Despite his fascination with spiritualism, the magician did not share his friend’s beliefs. Still, Doyle convinced him to sit in front of a psychic, but these sessions only further convinced the magician: They have no extraordinary talents.
So Houdini Found a new direction of work: exposing fraudulent media. After all, he knows every trick in the book. As a professional magician, he is able to detect tricks that others cannot.