The Medium Who Baffled Houdini: Margery Crandon

by Elaine Kuzmeskus

"Houdini the Magician Stumped," proclaimed the Boston Herald in 1924. Who was this medium who baffled Houdini? None other than Margery Crandon, the wife of a prominent Boston surgeon. "Margery the Medium" made headlines throughout the 1920s. She captivated not only Harvard professors, but the editors of Scientific American with her amazing physical mediumship. Margery was very much a woman of her time – the Roaring Twenties. By the time the Twenties were in full swing, Margery and her second husband Dr. Le Roi Crandon became interested in psychic phenomena. In May of 1923, Dr. Crandon invited two couples to join them in a table-tilting séance. During the evening, he discovered that his wife had a genuine gift for communicating with the spirits. Within months, Margery produced psychic music, direct voice, trumpet séance, and even apports. She not only fascinated her husband, but the scientific community in the United States and England. While Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle championed Margery's mediumship, Harry Houdini denounced her as a fraud. Was Margery Crandon too good to be true or was she the last of the great physical mediums?

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A Review of The Medium Who Baffled Houdini: Margery Crandon

5.0 out of 5 stars on Amazon

Explore Margery Crandon's mediumship in The Medium Who Baffled Houdini

September 3, 2017

Format: Paperback

The Medium Who Baffled Houdini is a far more comprehensive work than The Witch of Lime Street. The author has an extensive background with work as a physical and trance medium, and she brings this background into play in her book. The book does Margery Crandon justice---because the woman had so many detractors who looked to denigrate both her name and her work. Kuzmeskus looks at the many aspects of Crandon's work---and the author shows how Crandon's mediumship developed over time---first with table tipping and then later on with other more advanced signs of physical mediumship. The book is definitely not fiction, for Kuzmeskus provides a comprehensive listing of sources for her research. So many authors have written about Margery Crandon---with some even going as far as to call her a "witch." However, Kuzmeskus approaches the life of Crandon and Crandon's mediumship with sensitivity and a wealth of insight, insight that comes from the author's own years of work as a medium.

To know the field one is writing about is essential today, and Kuzmeskus provides just the right touch to explore the mysteries behind Crandon's life and the story of Crandon's road to mediumship. Kuzmeskus's book Séance 101 has been billed one of the Top 3 books today on physical mediumship, and in order for any author to explore the paranormal field there has to be a sense of credibility present. With Kuzmeskus's extensive professional background as a physical and trance medium, she gives Margery Crandon a sense of dignity that Crandon truly deserves.