Margery and the Bell Box

In 1924 Scientific American magazine offered a cash prize to any medium who could prove real psychic powers to its committee. A Boston medium known as "Margery," the wife of a surgeon, came close to winning, until committee member Houdini tested her with a wooden box he had built and a bell she was supposed to ring by spirit power.

The story as it is told

She was the most glamorous medium in Boston, and she had the scientists fooled. In the dark, bells rang, voices spoke and objects moved. Then Houdini walked into the room.

Sitting beside her in the dark, the story goes, he caught her cheating and exposed her as a fraud. Her spirit guide, some versions add, answered with a curse: Houdini would be dead within a year.

What we can confirm

The popular version has Houdini simply unmasking a fake. The record is closer to a draw that he won on points. The curse story is popular lore and is not verified in sources opened here.

In 1924 Scientific American put together a committee to test spirit mediums for a cash prize. PBS's American Experience lists the members: Harvard psychologist William McDougall, Daniel F. Comstock, Walter Franklin Prince, Hereward Carrington and Houdini, with the magazine's J. Malcolm Bird as secretary.

The strongest candidate was Mina Crandon, 36, the wife of a Boston surgeon, who sat as "Margery." In the dark, her séances produced bells, voices and moving objects, and some of the committee were impressed. Houdini first sat with her on July 23, 1924, with the magazine's publisher, O.D. Munn.

His pamphlet, quoted by PBS, explains the trick he used on her trick. The bell sat in a closed box that rang under pressure from the top. Houdini pressed his foot against her ankle, and "all that day I had worn a silk rubber bandage around that leg just below the knee," so the swollen skin would feel "the slightest sliding" of her foot. He later said she had placed a megaphone on her own head in the dark. He then built a wooden cabinet that closed around her with only her head and arms out. LoC's photo collection holds an image captioned "[Houdini in the 'Margie Box']".

In November 1924 Houdini self-published a pamphlet exposing her methods, and in January 1925 he repeated the exposé onstage at Boston's Symphony Hall. The committee denied her the prize in February 1925. The Library of Congress's 1997 bulletin puts it carefully: he was "never able to expose her as an outright fraud, but he did block her progress."

Two years later, a Boston medium was still his subject. McGill's archive says that was the topic of his talk there on October 20, 1926, days before the punch.

The facts

• Crandon 36, Boston surgeon's wife; committee McDougall, Comstock, Prince, Carrington, Houdini; Bird secretary; Houdini's first sitting July 23, 1924 with O.D. Munn; bell-box method; megaphone claim; Nov 1924 self-published pamphlet; Jan 1925 Symphony Hall; prize denied Feb 1925. PBS American Experience, "The Margery Pamphlet," pbs.org
• "never able to expose her as an outright fraud, but he did block her progress." LoC Information Bulletin, Feb 24, 1997, loc.gov
• Photo: "[The Medium Margery, Mina Crandon, posed with Harry Houdini, J. Malcom Bird, and O.D. Munn...]", ca. 1926, "No known restrictions on publication." loc.gov
• Pamphlet scan, Houdini Exposes the Tricks Used by the Boston Medium "Margery" (1924). Internet Archive, archive.org
• McGill talk on his debunking of a Boston medium, Oct 20, 1926. McGill University Archives (see The punch and the medical record)

Related: What enters the public domain in 2027

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