Final Séance: The Strange Friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle

By Stefan Isaksson

Final Séance: The Strange Friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle
Massimo Polidoro
Prometheus Books
264 pages
ISBN: 1573928968

Final Séance is a strange book about two strange individuals who strangely enough became involved in a strange friendship:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, internationally known author and believer in Spiritualism, who chose to believe in more or less any medium he encountered, as long as the messages received confirmed his preconceived ideas.

Harry Houdini – The world’s greatest escapologist, acclaimed magician and illusionist who never said his performances had anything but natural explanations, and over the years one of the foremost debunkers of many alleged occult matters.

Or in other words, the skeptic vs. the believer. Could these two gentlemen really be friends? Absolutely, and good ones, too. Massimo Polidoro of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of the Paranormal has written a book where he tells the stories of how they met, why they met, how their friendship evolved over the years yet ultimately came to a tragic end.

Their friendship was quite unorthodox: Doyle the believer in everything and Houdini the believer in nothing (though he said himself if was willing to believe were solid evidence ever to be shown to him). Fine, but is it interesting to read a book about a friendship, unusual as it may have been, and furthermore, a book that is mostly based on surviving letters between the two? For sure, because Final Séance is more than just a book about their friendship. It’s actually a whole lot more.

First of all, it offers a good description of how Spiritualism evolved in Great Britain and North America at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. People everywhere became convinced that communication with the dead was indeed possible, and in dark rooms on both sides of the Atlantic different mediums claimed to be able to make contact with the ones who had passed on. The fact that mediums on a regularly basis were exposed as frauds never dampened the spirit (no pun intended), and that alone is an interesting cultural phenomenon well worth investigating.

Secondly, one cannot avoid being fascinated about the fact that two so very different people were able to ever be friends, when one of them believed wholeheartedly in what the other one rejected passionately. Humbleness and tolerance were the key ingredients, and the elegant use of the English language they both used in their letters truly is a joy to experience.

Furthermore, many of the ideas that evolved during these years are still with us today, and thus the book is useful to anyone interested in the historical background to what today is known as New Age.

However, the main focus is on the friendship, and because of this the book is merely complementary to the history of the New Age and the growth of Spiritualism. But if you’re interested in reading about two fascinating human beings and at the same time have a reminder that different beliefs don’t necessary equal discord, then Final Séance is well worth looking into.