Spirit Mediums vs Magicians in 19th century America (part 2)

Ann O’Delia Diss Debar

There are few 19th-century mediums who utilized spiritual trends as skillfully as Madame Ann O’Delia Diss Debar (probably born Editha Salomen, 1849 – 1909 or later).

Diss Debar as Swami Horos

Not only did she manage to run a short-lived but successful spirit painting racket during the 1880s, she also established a school for occult sciences that granted worthless degrees to would-be “swamis,” and conned MacGregor Mathers, the head of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, out of the order’s sacred rituals by claiming to be  Anna Sprengel, the Golden Dawn’s patron adept. Diss Debar (calling herself Madame Horos) used the stolen rituals to establish her own esoteric society. She also procured “brides” for her lecherous husband (possibly not her legal husband), used the rituals as part of an unorthodox wedding ceremony–eventually embarrassing Mathers when the scam hit the headlines–and made off with a pile of jewels from one unwitting victim.

Ann O’Delia Diss Debar’s origins are somewhat obscure since neither the transcendent Madame nor her horrified kin really wished to claim their family ties. That said, the medium was likely born in  Harrodsburg, Kentucky in 1849, to Eliza Salomon and her husband “Professor” John Salomon.   While little is known about her early years, Houdini claims that she made her way to Baltimore, cheating the gullible and the wealthy–for Editha, a lucrative combination–out of $250,000. As if to further illustrate her general depravity, Houdini writes that Editha “gave herself up to luxury and extravagance […] smoking cigarettes impregnated with opium” and was eventually committed to Bellevue Hospital (69).

She herself claimed to have been born in Italy in 1854, the daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his notorious mistress, the dancer Lola Montez, and that she was raised by foster parents from a young age.

She apparently became involved with Victoria Claflin Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, popular exponents of spiritualism, in the 1860s and 1870s, and was a disciple of Madame Blavatsky.

According to E. J. Dingwall, Editha was indeed institutionalized, but it wasn’t because of a growing addiction to opium. Editha told Woodhull that she was without money and hope and planned either to commit suicide or prostitute herself if she could find no relief. Woodhull responded by giving the distraught young woman $5 and some encouragement, Editha confided that she wished to become a lecturer like Woodhull (Dingwall Some Human Oddities 130).

Woodhull’s charity was poorly repaid. In June 1870, Editha filed a complaint against Woodhull and her sister claiming that she had given the women two diamond-encrusted gold rings, valued at $4000, and $2000 in United States Treasury notes for safekeeping. Editha further claimed that the sisters refused to either surrender her property or reimburse her for her loss. Editha’s gamble was a brash one. It didn’t pay off.

The courtroom was so full of curious spectators that Judge Joseph Dowling (the same justice who convicted and then freed William Mumler, the fraudulent spirit photographer) moved the proceedings to a larger room. Once settled, the court heard its first witness, Miss Editha Gilbert Montez. Editha provided a rather convoluted account of the transaction and seemed more interested in showing the court how central she was to Woodhull and Clafin’s affairs. According to Editha, the sisters were so convinced of her potential as a lecturer and clairvoyant, they immediately employed her. She ended her testimony by voicing dismay at Woodhull’s deception: “I thought her honest, and so trusted her” . Editha’s tongue did not cluck for long.

The defense soon introduced a parade of witnesses who presented a different view of the complainant. Editha had registered as Blanche Solomon at the Belvidere House, telling the proprietor that a man named John Hecker would pay her rent. The beleaguered Hecker could only pay for the first week of Editha’s four week stay and was also stuck with her dressmaker’s bill. Editha then changed identities and introduced herself as Claudia D’Arvie, a poor girl who had been evicted by her own mother and kicked out of a Bavarian convent. For the suffragist Sarah F. Norton, Editha became Lola Montez’s abandoned daughter who “hadn’t a dollar in the world” but whose station compelled her to stay at the Astor House for $19 a night. Eventually, Woodhull herself took the stand and claimed no knowledge of Editha’s missing cash and trinkets. She told the court that Editha “asked for bread and had been assisted.” Needless to say, the complaint was dismissed and the complainant sent to the “Commissioners of Public Charities for medical examination as to her sanity”.  According to Dingwall, Editha was taken to a Blackwell Island asylum.

It was there that Editha met a French journalist named Paul Noel Messant.  After a brief courtship, they married on February 5, 1871. Editha, maintaining her fictional ancestry, listed her parents as Lola Montez and Ludwig, King of Bavaria. Poor Mr. Messant only made it through one year of marriage to Editha and died in 1872. Houdini believed (perhaps rightly) that Editha murdered him.

Editha started her full fledged mediumship. She claimed to be the wife of West Virginia statesman Joseph H. Diss Debar, and produced “spirit paintings” by Old Masters. She was prosecuted several times for fraud. She was convicted of fraud after persuading elderly lawyer Luther Marsh to give her his townhouse on New York’s Madison Avenue, and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in June 1888.

Carl Hertz, Magician and debunker of medium and spiritualism

The magician Carl Hertz appeared at the prosecution for the Swami Laura Horos (also known as Mme. Diss Debar) trial in New York. Hertz helped send Mme. Diss Debar to jail by duplicating in court the tricks she had used in her séances.

Hertz was a debunker of mediums and Spiritualism. 

Hertz corresponded with the magician Harry Houdini about the tricks of spiritualist mediums. In 1923, Hertz had sent Houdini a letter revealing a trick he used to fool the jury at the court trial for Mme. Diss Debar. In his book A Magician Among the Spirits (1924), Houdini included a copy of this letter.

Mme. Diss Debar was imprisoned for two years in Illinois for another fraud, under the name Vera P. Ava; and as Editha Loleta Jackson, she was expelled from New Orleans in May 1899 as a swindler. She was imprisoned for 30 days later that month.

She married Frank Dutton Jackson in Louisiana in 1899, calling herself Princess Editha Lolita. The couple went to England in the 1890s, calling themselves “Swami Laura Horos” and “Theodore Horos”. They set up a “Purity League” at the Theocratic Unity Temple, near Regent’s Park in London, and worked as fortune tellers and diviners, advertising their services in newspapers, such as The People and the Western Morning Advertiser.

They were arrested in Birkenhead in September 1901, and charged with obtaining property by false pretenses, rape and buggery. The later charges seems to have arisen from louche sexual practices at their temple in London. The Swami was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, and her husband to 15 years.

She spent some time in South Africa, calling herself Helena Horos of the College of Occult Sciences, and ran a fruitarian colony in Florida. She was in Cincinnati in 1909, under the name Vera Ava, but her later whereabouts are unknown.

Madame Diss Debar was an interesting character and a damned prolific criminal. Houdini blamed the Spiritualist movement for “mothering this immoral woman.” The New York Times called her a “wonderful crook who without personal charm or attraction has set nations agog with her crimes since her girlhood.

 

References:

• Harry Houdini. (1924). A Magician Among the Spirits
•  Milbourne Christopher. (1969). Houdini: The Untold Story. Crowell
• Eric John Dingwall. Some human oddities;: Studies in the queer, the uncanny. University Books (1962)
• John Mulholland (1938). Beware Familiar Spirits. Scribner.

Spirit Mediums vs Magicians in 19th century America (part 1)

Spiritualism and Spirit Medium

Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the belief that the spirits of the dead exist and have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living.

Spiritualists believe that spirit mediums are gifted to carry on such communication. Anyone may become a medium through study and practice.

The Fox sisters

 

The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism: Leah (1831–1890), Margaret (also called Maggie) (1833–1893) and Kate (also called Catherine) Fox (1837–1892). The two younger sisters convinced their older sister and others that they were communicating with spirits. Their older sister then took charge of them and managed their careers for some time. They all enjoyed success as mediums for many years.

Hydesville events

Hydesville, New York, 1848. At the home of a blacksmith named John Fox, strange rapping noises began to occur in the bedroom of Fox’s young daughters, Margaret (“Maggie”) and Katharine (“Katie”). The girls claimed the noises were communications from the departed spirit of a murdered peddler. After a time, on the night of March 31 (All Fool’s Eve!), the girls’ mother witnessed a remarkable demonstration that she later described in a signed report.

Loudly, Katie addressed “Mr. Splitfoot,” saying “do as I do,” and clapping her hands. At once, there came the same number of mysterious raps. Next Maggie exclaimed, “Now do just as I do; count one, two, three, four,” clapping her hands accordingly. Four raps came in response (Mulholland 1938, 30–33).

Next, the peddler’s spirit began to answer questions by rapping, once for no, twice for yes. He claimed he had been murdered and his body buried in the cellar, but digging there produced only a few bones attributed to animals (Weisberg 2004, 57).

Before long, people discovered that the girls could conjure up not only the ghostly peddler but other obliging spirits as well. The demonstrations received such attention that the girl’s older sister, Leah Fish, originated a “spiritualistic” society. “Spiritualism” began to take on the trappings of religion, with hymns being sung at the opening and close of a session (which they called a “séance”). Following a successful visit to New York, Leah took the girls on tour to towns and cities across the nation. Everywhere people were anxious to communicate with the souls of their departed loved ones.

Kate and Margaret became well-known mediums, giving séances for hundreds of people. Many of these early séances were entirely frivolous, where sitters sought insight into “the state of railway stocks or the issue of love affairs.”

Confession

After four decades,  sisters Margaret Fox Kane and Katherine Fox Jencken confessed it had all been a trick. On Sunday, October 21, 1888, the sisters appeared at the Academy of Music in New York City. With Katherine sitting in a box and repeatedly nodding in agreement while a number of spiritualists expressed their disapproval with groans and hisses, Margaret revealed all from the music hall stage. She explained how she had produced the rapping noises by slipping her foot from her shoe and snapping her toes. Placing her stockinged foot on a thin plank, she demonstrated the effect for the audience.

Margaret went on to state:

“I think that it is about time that the truth of this miserable subject “Spiritualism” should be brought out. It is now widespread all over the world, and unless it is put down it will do great evil. I was the first in the field and I have the right to expose it.

My sister Katie and myself were very young children when this horrible deception began. I was eight and just a year and a half older than she. We were very mischievous children and we wanted to terrify our dear mother, who was a very good woman and very easily frightened. At night when we were in bed, we used to tie an apple to a string and move it up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Mother listened to this for a time. She could not understand it and did not suspect us of being capable of a trick because we were so young.

At last she could stand it no longer and she called the neighbors in and told them about it. It was this that set us to discover the means of making the raps.”

Margaret explained:

““My sister Katie was the first one to discover that by swishing her fingers she could produce a certain noise with the knuckles and joints, and that the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding we could make raps with our feet—first with one foot and then with both—we practiced until we could do this easily when the room was dark.”              (qtd. in Mulholland 1938, 41–42)

Margaret also stated that Leah knew the spirit rappings were fake, and that when she traveled with the girls (on their first nationwide tour) it was she who signaled the answers to various questions. (She probably chatted with sitters before the séance to obtain information; when that did not produce the requisite facts, the “spirits” no doubt spoke in vague generalizations that are the mainstay of spiritualistic charlatans.)

Rejection of Spiritualism

Margaret and Katie made very strong statements against Spiritualism:

“That I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too-confiding public, most of you doubtless know. The greatest sorrow in my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God! . . I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.”

– Margaretta Fox Kane, quoted in A. B. Davenport, The Deathblow to Spiritualism, p. 76. (Also see New York World, for October 21, 1888 and New York Herald and New York Daily Tribune, for October 22, 1888.)

“I regard Spiritualism as one of the greatest curses that the world has ever known.” – Katie Fox Jencken, New York Herald, October 9, 1888.

Margaret repeated her exposé in other cities close to New York. However, explains John Mulholland (1938, 43), “It was expected that this would give her sufficient income to live but she shortly discovered that while many people will pay to be humbugged few will pay to be educated.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, Margaret returned to mediumship when she needed money again. After her death on March 8, 1895, thousands of spiritualist mourners attended her funeral.

Today, spiritualists characterize Margaret’s exposé as bogus, attributing it to her need for money or the desire for revenge against her rivals or both. However, not only were her admissions fully corroborated by her sister, but she demonstrated to the audience that she could produce the mysterious raps just as she said (Christopher 1970, 181).

Sources

• Barbara Weisberg, Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rose of Spiritualism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004;
• Nancy Rubin Stuart, The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox. Orlando, Fl: Harcourt, 2005
• Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers and Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
• Mulholland, John. 1938. Beware Familiar Spirits. Reprinted New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979.
• Davenport, Reuben Briggs. (1888). The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the true story of the Fox sisters, as revealed by authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken. New York: G. W. Dillingham.