Reviewed by Joel A. Moskowitz, M D, FAPA, FAAP (retired)

Psychics will, of course, not need to read (don't they know all?) and likely not want to read) Final Séance, The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. We other earthlings should.

The validity of Spiritualism, which includes being able to communicate with the dead, was the focus of debate between celebrated Conan Doyle (originator of the great ratiocinator Sherlock Holmes) and Harry Houdini (master of escape/defier of death/debunker of fraudulent mediums).   The curious blend of admiration and criticism reflected the psycho-mystery of the interaction of these celebrities. Both were passionate about their opinions but equally deprecating of the other's opposing views.

Conan Doyle's fixation that in the séance a medium (today a 'channeler') could communicate with the dearly departed, possibly arose from a psychological need following the death of his brother in the 'Great War,' World War I.   While his creation, Sherlock Holmes, possessed amazing
capacity to reason, Conan Doyle resisted logic.  If the ability to reach his brother was unconsciously motivating his endorsement, one might think that failing to accomplish this brotherly connection, he might have abandoned the effort as unproven.  He didn't.  

Could Doyle's initial affection for Houdini have emanated from an emotional desire to know a man who seemingly was able to dematerialize which would and penetrate walls of brick?  Would such an aptitude enable Houdini to traverse the veil between life and death?

Houdini's ardent skepticism about  mediums also seems to have been coincident with a loss, that of his much loved mother, Cecelia.  The Orthodox Jewish viewpoint, in which Houdini was raised, does not stress an afterlife.

In his preface to his book, Miracle Mongers and Their Methods, A Complete Expose,  Houdini wrote, "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."   Quoting Samuel Johnson, Houdini (or perhaps his "ghost" writer?)  penned, "All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance."

To convince Houdini, Doyle asked his second wife, artful in the methods of the medium, to receive messages from Houdini's mother.  Politeness persuaded Houdini not to denounce the deception on the spot.  Later, he asserted that he knew it was fraudulent because while the messages were in Queen's English, his mother spoke Yiddish, little English and would, as an
Orthodox Jewess, not readily relate to a medium who began her presentation by first making the sign of the Cross!

As a young man, Doyle was skeptical of mediums and decried their extracting money from the gullible. Later "convinced" that there was a force beyond the rules of science, he threw all his psychic and financial energy into persuading the public of the validity of the Spirit practitioners.  With extreme naïveté he defended young 'psychic' girls asserting that young girls never lie! When Houdini challenged and unmasked a famous psychic, Margery, the battle between the two world opponents reached supernatural intensity.  

Doyle, in 1925, wrote in the Boston Herald that Houdini was guilty of self-advertisement and defamatin in ignorantly authoring a pamphlet "full of errors."  Houdini responded:"My opinion
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is that he is a menace to mankind, because the public thinks that he is just as great a man in the spiritualistic field as he is writing stories.. He has not enough mentally left to use good judgment."

It is interesting to note that the word séance is from the French, derived from the Latin verb sedere ("to sit") and meaning "a sitting." The seven or eight participants and a medium hold hands in the dark. The scene must be dark for "communication" to occur. What clear thinking consumer would buy anything in an atmosphere designed to diminish observation, where what one is told is hearsay, and where confirmation as to validity is impossible?   Clearly a séance is not science.  

Massimo Polidoro's scholarly book sheds light on the contest, which continues to befuddle us today. It is one  between those who would have us believe in what can not be proven, and those who remain skeptical optimists.