Houdini and Doyle


Mesmerizing

https://youtu.be/KQyAnKjD6W4

How did the scientific community test Franz Mesmer's claims?

Removed crowd and music
Removed other factors
Isolated features
Purpose of the glass harmonica?
Fake water, placebo, blind trials

The Fox Sisters

Margaret Fox heard footsteps on the stairs when everyone was asleep. At one point, she walked in on her daughters talking to a ghost. She couldn't explain it. It could only be ghosts.

https://youtu.be/u_AF1Jc3FNQ

Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer. He's best known for writing the Sherlock Holmes books. He was a big guy, tall and broad.

Watch and read sherlock holmes

Inductive reasoning
Doyle's Fallacy

Doyle had lost his 26 year old son, Kingsley in the 1918 Spanish flu. This weighed heavily on Doyle and his wife. During the late 19th century, spiritualism was very popular. Mediums held popular dinner parties with the rich and famous. Conan Doyle regularly communicated with his dead son.

https://youtu.be/nLZ8irB5Oyk
Doyle and the fairies

https://youtu.be/XzGmwlXirC4
Belief in Elves in Iceland

Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini was a renowned magician and escape artist born in Budapest, Hungary. He moved to the US at age 4.

https://youtu.be/Bj6ulLJGPB8 - start to 18:41
Buzzfeed Unsolved- part 1

https://youtu.be/_gpj-oqm36U -
How Houdini Escaped

https://youtu.be/4P3qBiB5LKU -
Houdini vs Doyle- Today I Found Out

Houdini sought to scientifically test the claims of these mediums. To prove anything correct scientifically, you first have to try and prove it wrong. Pharmaceutical companies perform studies where half of the people are given the real drug and half are given a fake drug AKA placebo. This way they can tell how effective the drug really is.

So Houdini hired people to act as someone they weren't and attend the shows of psychics. The actors are provided false information about themselves and the psychic would use their powers, never realizing that the person was an actor. Afterward, Houdini would reveal them and the deceit of the psychic. One of these actors even used the name Mr F Raud.

Houdini did all this because firstly, he saw them as taking advantage of people and taking their money by dishonest means. Desperate and grieving people, such as himself when his mother died, wanted to believe it. However, Houdini saw the same tricks he used in magic, only he told everyone it wasn't real magic and he didn't play on people's personal loss.

He was also concerned about the number of politicans and even presidents that took part in his day. Harding and Coolidge both consulted psychics and then ran the country. Even in the 1980's Ronald Reagan and his wife consulted an astrologer. Today seances seem demonic but many Christians were onboard during the Victorian era. Astrology is also outlawed in the bible but it's normalized nowadays. People still turn to horoscopes and star signs for decision making.

https://youtu.be/Yb-58C-aQos - or https://youtu.be/pBwrFtm1Jxs -
How to Fake a Seance
(Pause halfway - There's no other explanation. You can't explain that. What else could possibly explain it?)

https://youtu.be/DVreuOWBoI0 -
How Photos were Faked

https://youtu.be/ZGV2UhrAitw -
Cold Reading vs Hot Reading

Read horoscopes
Remember almost drowning
Give off a strong exterior but inside you can be insecure.

https://youtu.be/Bj6ulLJGPB8 - 18:41 to end - Buzzfeed Unsolved, part 2

https://youtu.be/n9tA7Wb12F0 - Doyle vs Houdini TV Movie

https://youtu.be/WhMGcp9xIhY - John Oliver explains modern day psychics 

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