FIGHTING SPIRITUALISM.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16155, 21 July 1924, Page 3

FIGHTING SPIRITUALISM.

man who stopped the rain. STRIKING INCIDENTS RECOUNTED Australians and New Zealanders are better acquainted with the music-haft exploits of Harry Houdini, the worldfamous “Handcuff King.” than they are with the reputation of Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, but the latter, in the role of a leading figure in the ranks of the American Society for Physical Research, has just claimed attention of Americans in a somewhat stirring bout in the ancient New York Episcopal Church of St. Mark’s-in-tlie-Bouwerie. Moses commanded the sun to stand still, but Harry Houdini. on one glorious night of his career, claims he did something equally wonderful. The magician stood on the chancel steps of St. Mark’s Church and told a congregation how one time he commanded it to rain —and it rained. 1 Houdini’s revelation came in a debate with Dr. Prince, and at the outset the magician said spiritualism was hokum, and Dr. Prince declared it was legitimate and the argument eventually settled down to an exchange of personal experiences. j)r. Prince told how a medium once gave him the contents of a letter she bad never seen, and which she held between her palms in broad daylight. She made exactly thirty-four true statements. and Dr. Prince, and a distinguished mathematician had calculated that the chance of her being able to do that by plain coincidence was one in 500.000,000,000.000. Nothing daunted, Houdini took the platform the same Sunday evening an I said, “How about that chap in Davenport. lowa, who was riding his bicycle across a railway track when a train came along and cut off one of his legs? ,I list one year later, on the very same day, the very same engine at the very same Lime and place ran over the very same man. and cut off his other leg. ; How many chances are there for that to happen?" Bristling slightly, Dr. Prince fired his second volley. Once there was a medium who sat down with a girl she had never seen before, and told all about her. making forty-eight statements, out of which were forty-seven true. And the chance of her doing that said Dr. Prince, without help from 1 some spirit, as calculated by the same j distinguished mathematician, was just one in a great many trillions. Houdini was plainly groggy tjiis time. 1 >ut doggedly he forced the fighting. “Why,” he said, “one night I was visiting some people in Boston, and their lttle boy ’was sitting with me. ‘Say, Mr Houdini, I wish you’d make ii stop raining,’ he said. ‘Sure,’ I answered: and r stepped out on the porch and made a low bow and declaimed, “O, great magician of tbe skies, hold hack the waters!’ So help me Clod, it stopped raining that very minute. Blit > that isn’t all. I went back in, and tbe | j kid was very much impressed at first and looked me all over thoughtfully. ‘Hump,’ he said in a little while, ‘it would have stopped raining anyways.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you think so, do you? Well, just watch.’ So I went back outdoors and T said. ‘Great magician of the skies, give us water for the trees and (lowers to drink.. And, snap, it began to rain almost before the words

were out of my mouth.’ “Now, how many chances do you think there would be of that ever happening?” It was with a disappointed afterthought that the magician closed. “Why,” he declared, “for twentyeight years now I’ve been making engagements with dying people, telling them where I’d meet them after they died, and agreeing on a code of raps and knocks. Do you think one ghost ever kept his appointment? Nary a one.” The above illustrates the manner in which the American churches have degenerated into conditions typifying theatres or even a common circus, principally to attract worshippers (?) rather than on account of the religious character of the services.