Harry Houdini: He Was Called "The King Of Castles" - Alternative View

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Harry Houdini: He Was Called "The King Of Castles" - Alternative View
Harry Houdini: He Was Called "The King Of Castles" - Alternative View

Video: Harry Houdini: He Was Called "The King Of Castles" - Alternative View

Video: Harry Houdini: He Was Called "The King Of Castles" - Alternative View
Video: The Life And Magic Of The Real Harry Houdini | The Magic Of Houdini | Timeline 2024, March
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His name has become a household name. Until now, a person capable of getting out of their unsolvable situations is called "houdini". The "king of castles" more than once challenged death and became the winner. He had no room for error.

Major liberation

In Houdini's life, distinguishing truth from fiction is not easy. He deliberately mystified by creating a biography for himself. Thus, the "shackle conqueror" claimed that he was born in America on April 6, 1874, although in fact the Weiss family (Houdini's real name is Eric Weiss) moved to the United States when the boy was already four years old.

He was born in Budapest, in a poor Jewish family, his father was a rabbi. And not on April 6, but on March 24.

Houdini claimed that at the age of 11, he ran away from home, wandered with circus troupes, was an apprentice with blacksmiths and locksmiths. In fact, it is only known for certain that he really did not graduate from school, but earned his living at a tie factory. This was not his whim, but rather a necessity. The Weiss family was large (6 children), and the rabbi's father was distinguished by a difficult character and did not work out with the "American dream".

Having already become famous, Houdini visited his first place of work and delivered a speech to union members. After the speech, his former colleague approached him. "Eric," he said, "the greatest liberation in your life has been freeing yourself from making ties."

Houdini's colleague was right about something. If you look at Houdini's biography, it was all "liberation." From the custody of parents who did not want their son to get up on the dubious path of a circus artist. From the poverty in which Houdini grew up. From the emigrant complex. Finally, from the fear of death.

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Hem of gold

Despite the poverty in which little Eric had to grow up, he retained love for his father's house and family for life. He was pushed forward not only by the strongest ambition, but also by the desire to bring the family out of poverty. In 1892, Eric's father, Meir Weiss, died. On his deathbed, he asked his son to take care of his mother. Houdini followed the parental order - he always sent most of his royalties to his mother.

When she (at the very beginning of Houdini's career) found her son trying to get out of the straitjacket over and over again, she asked in disbelief: "Are you going to make a living with this?" "Yes," Houdini replied, "and one day I'll bring you a full hem of gold."

Eric's tricks were inspired by a book by the illusionist Robert-Houdin. The boy read it in one sitting and was so inspired that he began to devote all his free time to working out card tricks. Showing them on the streets of New York, Eric began to earn his first, albeit tiny, but royalties.

It was around this time that Eric purchased a "magic box" from an old illusionist. His factory colleague Jack Hayman became an assistant. He also advised Eric to change his pseudonym from "Eric the Great" to Harry Houdini. The surname is a variation on the theme of Robin Hoodin, the name Eric took from the fakir Harry Kellar, famous at that time. By the way, at the performance of the last Houdini I saw for the first time a trick with untiing hands. So Houdini decided on his path.

Fighting Spiritualism

One day Eric, along with Jack Hayman, got into a seance. In those days, spiritualism was on the rise. Millions believed in him, and the sessions drew crowds of gullible people. The entrance cost only a dollar, but taking into account the attendance, the organization of "communication with spirits" was a real "gold mine". Eric understood this immediately, but he also realized that the audience was simply being deceived. At least the unobtrusive creak of the floorboards under the feet of the "spirit" spoke about this.

Nevertheless, when Houdini's mother died, he himself turned to a medium who promised to meet with the spirit of the departed. This medium was the wife of Houdini's comrade Conan Doyle. Houdini had an uneasy friendship with the writer. The problematic place of their relationship was just Doyle's blind faith in seances.

Everything went well, but when the medium wrote a Christian symbol, allegedly by the hand of Houdini's mother, the “conqueror of shackles” once again realized that he was being led by the nose and explained that his mother was Jewish and would definitely not draw Christian symbols. With Conan Doyle, after this incident, they finally quarreled.

Houdini devoted most of his life to exposing charlatans. To prove his innocence, he personally took "photographs of spirits" and sculpted artificial hands, similar to those with which messages "from the other world" were tapped out at sessions of mediums. He loved to attend séances and loudly declare: "I am Harry Houdini, and you are swindlers!"

Sleight of hand and more

Houdini himself called the main tools of all his tricks the ability not to panic in stressful situations. The specificity of his tricks was such that a moment's confusion could lead not only to exposure, but also to death. However, in the case of the "king of illusionists", one should not exclude a more material factor of his unprecedented success, namely, Houdini's knowledge in the field of locks, keys, bolts, large machinery for performing tricks and … a huge number of all kinds of ingenious master keys. Today they are kept in the Sydney collection Radney.

Houdini has been interested in the construction of locks since childhood. According to him, he, still a boy, managed to open the locks of kitchen cabinets, eat candy, and then leave everything "as it was." During his life, Harry studied thousands of types of locks and could open almost any of them with a simple wire.

These skills were acquired by him while studying in a locksmith's workshop, while studying the Scottland Yard archives, which he got acquainted with when visiting London. Wherever he went, Houdini studied locks and made miniature lockpicks with his own hand. He hid them in the most unexpected places, dummy people could give them to him when shaking hands, he could tie the capsule with them to the tooth and lower it into the esophagus. When Houdini was released from the prison carriage during a visit to Russia, his wife Bessie gave him the master key during a kiss.

Houdini also perfectly controlled his body, exercised fanatically, stretched the tendons, strengthened the muscle corset. One of the "secrets" to his miraculous release was that Harry tensed his muscles and "swelled" as the assistants put the shackles on him. Then he relaxed, the vacant space provided a relative freedom of maneuver.

But still, as Houdini argued, his main weapons were powerful will, good discipline and absolute dedication. Despite his early death, he lived a full life: he acted in films and was one of the first aeronauts. A large number of "tricks" of the great Houdini are repeated until no one dares.

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