Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 12

0 A il ITteooooed finish tlJIJJJ, (I il "17 5 Meets an Exposed by Houdini, the "Modern Cagliostro iy Obscure Fate Abroad, Like His Pupil Rasputin, After Reaping a Golden Harvest Through Uncanny Mind-Reading. MODERN CAGLIOSTRO. Dr. Bert Reese (Berthold Poland, Who -i Convinced Many 4 Eminent Scientists I V. if ww- i I I XUf self and Harry Houdini in a Double-llsposure -spirit i I lie Made to Throw -k "Spirit Photo," Which Jle Made to Throw 4 ight On Mediums Who Resort to This Sort of Trickery.

y- IK II -A fi I 'U' WONDER MAN of the XVIII Century Was Count Allesandro Cagliostro, To Whom, Says Houdini, Reese Was Superior as a Sleight-of-Uand Expert, similar destiny awaited him at Houdini's hands, or rather, eyes. When those razor-sharp eyes detected the catch in Reese's work, "The Man Who Fooled the Whole World" left these hospitable and golden shores and went to Germany, where the plucking was "softer." There he died. Reese's "prasmatic cryptethesia," which some uncanny coincidence "Shis "be lievers" call it Fate), Berthold Keiss, of Posen, Poland, the weird sooth 3. i is the magicians' fancy way of referring to thought-reading, was, on the surface, abso i MAD MONK. 1 Caricature of JT j1" 1 Rasputin, Mystical Adviser of the Russian Czarina and, Who, When Up Against It for Clairvoyant '-As Revelations, Consulted V7 ing written on.

When re- ing written on. When recalled, he seats himself at the picks up a pellet unobserved opposite side of the table, S4v opposite side of the table, sayer who literally "fooled the whole world," has just died precisely two years to the day since he was exposed as a stupendous faker. Eeis3, who began mind-reading as a mere child, succumbed at the ajje of eighty-five, his magical" faculties unimpaired. But beneath the calmly masterful veneer of the second-sight artist there lurked, unpercefved by the eyes of his dupes, a haunting resentment and a lurking fear. After having bamboozled the civilized universe, Reiss, better known as "Professor Bert Reese," was abruptly "turned over" by the two men who disbelieved in his 'necromantic" prowess.

One of them was Dr. Walter F. Prince, scientist and investigator of "psychic phenomena." The other was Harry Houdini, greatest of sleight-of-hand entertainers. So-ctlled clairvoyance' has reached a pitch of incredible expertness in other men, but with Reese it assumed aspects of terrifying super-naturalism. So adroit was his trickery that he was able to thrill even Thomas A.

Edison with hi "intuition," and ribbon-wise over the globe stretched the names of famous folk who took stock in Reese's stunts. Rasputin, the mad monk of Russia, "believed implicitly in Reese's divinatory powers and used to consult him for "tips" on how to handle the Romanoffs, who were beginning to get a bit refractory and balk at Rasputin's prophetic warnings. Benito Mussolini. Dictator of Italy, had been "converted" to the Reese system of mind-reading or so Reese, in one of his boasting moods, would assert. Professor Charles Richet, of the University of Paris; Charcot, his distinguished countryman, certain 'financiers' of Germany, France and the United States (whose names were afterward suppressed), many influential private citizens all fell gasping into the net of Reese's fantastic skill.

And Reese, in turn, laid claim to expose abili ties. "Why, I even showed up Eusapio Pala- dino," he would laugh, little dreaming that a SIMPLY marvelous:" lutely His routine was as follows: He would tell his consultants to write several names, several phrases, as long or short as they wished on separate slips of paper. The latter were then hidden on the person of the visitor or concealed in crannies or niches. Professor Reese, so his astounded consultants would later declare, "without having so much as changed his position," would then proceed to reel off, letter-perfect, the secret writings. It didn't make the least difference how technical or abstruse they were.

"Simply marvelous!" ejaculated Edison, who gave Reese a "trick-proof" test in his own laboratory at Orange, N. J. But Houdini, who knows a whole carload of tricks himself, has a different account to give of the wonder man of mind-reading. But then Houdini has the advantage of knowing human nature as well as "witchcraft," and he realizes what many sensitive artists, ordinarily shrewd men of science and even trained investigators do not: that when a completely honest man tells you what he thinks happened before his very ayes, he may not be telling the precise truth. Mr.

Edison's description of Professor Reese's manifestations before him," said Houdini, "is obviously sincere and just as obviously self-deceiving. When, for example, he says that Reese's hands never touched the paper slips, he is merely saying that the hands of a subtle 'conjuror are swifter than the eyes of an electrical wizard. The pellet-reading trick is an old one. It has befuddled and convinced some of the world's greatest minds. Reese was its master practitioner.

He was actually, in this stunt, greater than Cagliostro I "The pellet, or ballot, test has for years proved a gold mine to spirit mediums. I have met hundreds of professional and amateur 'sharks' in this line; Reese beat them all at their own game. Aside from having mastered the mechanics of the effect I'll tell you exactly what they are he mystified people with adroit manipu- lations. The presentation was bold and unfaltering; the mis- direction and maneuvering sensitively timed and schemed. "But what actually takes palms it during a brisk flow of conversational patter or solemn mystical bosh, according to the type of 'patient' he has on hand, and memorizes it.

"In the meantime, he has substituted for it a blank ballot of almost precisely the same shape and size which, all along, he has had cleverly concealed in his hand. He manages to place the blank on the table (or wherever the original was) just before the visitor becomes aware of the genuine pellet's absence, and while tha medium is reading the latter, which eventually, is returned to its first position, the false slip is i i 5 i i 1 1 plainly on view. "All this may sound too easy to be possible, but if you take into consideration the medium's remarkable finger-facility and the inability of th average consultant to keep his eyes on more than one spot at a time, you can see TOE i.wk. Close-Up of Houdini's Expose of how it would work out. There was nothing supernormal or telepathic about Reese'a methods he was merely a r- Spirit Communication.

Arrow Points to "Mitten Sock," Which Permits Medium to Ring a Bell Unobserved. dinanly skillful, "Just as Exclaimed Thomas A. Edison, Electrical Wizard, After Prof. Reese's Demonstration of Pellet "Mind- 1 Reading" in lv Edison's Laboratory. place in such 'readings is this: The slips, usually of cigarette-paper size, are written upon and distributed.

Sometimes they are collected in a hat sometimes thrown on the table. In any event, the medium makes a point of leaving the room or standing in a cor- Marie 'Antoinette used to surround herself with soothsayers and astrologers, great women of modern times are addicted to similar practices. Just as the Russian Imperial Family sought solace from fears ner while tr are ue- of assassination in the reassurances of 'sages, 5 so our modern business and scientific men fall back on mediumistic mystics. But "When I exposed Reese, he bested me not to tell on him. He had made large sums of money out of his supposed pragmatic cryptethesia.

He promised never to practise his art thereafter except as an entertainer. Then he disappeared in the direction of Europe. I never heard of him again until t.hf rahlerl news of hi3 death." demain. And another odd link in the circumstantial chain that wound itself about Reese waa the way in which the mad monk got his job of official astrologer and soothsayer to the Romanoff Court. It was in 1003.

Things were, in a precarious way. The Royal House wanted advice regularly from a skilled "mage," or wise man. Houdini was offered the job. But he offended certain members of the imperial bodyguard who had been Eent to him with the proffer of the position by refusing to drink wine with them. Their pride hurt, they took Rasputin as second choice.

So instead of the American Houdini a certain all-powerful clique in the court circle chose as the man who was to influence the minds of the Royal Familj', a semi-mad man and a wholehearted cheat. Scrubby and unkempt, with broken, discolored fingernails, waving hair and beard, the Mad Monk Rasputin waa introduced behind the scenes of the proudest court of the world to use his ill-fated influence on the Czarina, herself. And not alone over the bf-aati-ful wife of the Czar was Rasputin's evil influence wielded, but over the wives and dauzhters of some of the proudest nobles of all Russia. What that choice resulted in, in gold and bloodshed, everyone today knows. The superstitious might even see in the death of Professor Reese, some sort of fateful stroke against a "man who reaped a rich fortune from the credulity of those who didn't know that, alwaj-3, "the land is quicker than the eye." J4 Houdini offered, he says, to wrap five 51,000 bills around five pellet-messages if Reese would "come through" with a ccrrect reading of the paper-slips.

This Reese refused to do. In view, of Houdini's explanation of the rudimentary rules of pellet-reading, as outlined above, it is easy to understand how a treasury note would make the trick impossible. But there were many others more gulhole. Even the canny Rasputm "fell for" Reese's leger- A. HOW DOES HE DO 11 Houdini.

Handcuffed, with a 24-Pound Shot Chained to His Feet, Dirin Into a Los Angeles ol, from Which He Rose Unshackled. Kewsrrr Fetur Serrie. 1J2. ft BE 1 a irVrv rsszA II, III 1 1H WIU U. 1 0i Wirt lif.

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