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A Magician Among the Spirits Available

Margaret Fox Kane - The Reason for Our Late NightsThis has become a passion and a time-suck all in one.

We started by reading The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox.  That lead to Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism , another take on the .

We went back to read ’s A Magician Among the Spirits and finally understood some of the passion we previously misinterpreted to be a strident, arrogant tone.

Read in context with the movement, Houdni’s A Magician Among the Spirits is the perfect, logical balance to the incredible claims of spiritualists.

All of this led to our reading Maggie Fox’s The Death Blow to Spiritualism.

While she later recanted her recantation, it is a sombering experience to hear the side of the woman (along with her younger sister, Katie, and older sister, Leah) started Spiritualism and all that it produced.

Now, we find ourselves with an irrational crush on Maggie Fox and an even greater sense of awe of Harry Houdini.

More about this investigation later but for now, check out the downloadable PDF of A Magician Among the Spirits, by Houdini.

Continue reading A Magician Among the Spirits Available

July 13th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Magic Book Review | Leave a comment

Are Margery and the Fox Sisters Still Living Large?


houdini-and-radio-model(Reprinted from April 12, 2003).


We know that the Jonathan Edward-esque medium has a tepid following.  We thought he was an aberration.

We just assumed there was not a wide-spread support for such bunk.

We were wrong and it is kind of scary how the revisionist pen can keep alive long ago solved mysteries.

The we read of a new literary exhibition: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Sherlock Holmes, opens this weekend at Chicago’s prestigious Newberry Library.

Sir Arthur’s magazines, artworks, photographs and artifacts have been collected for presentation through July 12.

Continue reading Are Margery and the Fox Sisters Still Living Large?

July 13th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Magic News | Leave a comment

Thorsten Strotmann Live this Week

Thorsten-StrotmannWe received email word that German Magician Thorsten will be live on SWR television this Tuesday from 7:25 to 7:45 pm (European Time).

Curiously, Mr. Strotmann writes that viewers of the show should “pay attention to the onion!”

We think we translated that correctly.

Mr. Strotmann is well-known for his work as well as his Strotmann Magic Lounge in Baden-Württemberg (Southern Germany, near Stuttgart).

Check out Mr. Strotmann’s web site to learn more about this close-up magic showcase and his upcoming run of shows scheduled for October, 2009.

You can get a taste of his excellent work by checking out a couple of the videos posted on his site here.

You may recall Mr. Strotmann received great coverage for his blindfold drive along a precarious mountain road in Austria.

We reported in advance of the stunt.  The fact that he is going to be on television this week tells us that he was successful.

You can check out Thorsten’s very cool website. It has also been put into the Inside Magic Links of Fame.


July 13th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Latest Magic News, Magic of Germany | Leave a comment