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Confronting Ghosts, Mediums, and Fakirs

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Conjuring Science

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Abstract

In the early 1890s, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin began advertising Le Décapité récalcitrant (The Recalcitrant Decapitated Man) act as part of an evening of Bouffonnerie spirite (Spiritist Buffoonery). The act featured a pompous spiritist lecturing on his belief that the dead could communicate with the living at séances. The conjurer, annoyed by this arrogant “professor” who never ceased to talk, resorted to drastic measures in order to silence him. He proceeded to sever the spiritist’s head and place it in a box. Unfortunately, decapitation was not sufficient to deter the relentless professor. The bodiless head continued to talk while the headless body desperately searched around the stage for its missing part. At some point during the act, the body managed to grab its still talking head and escape offstage, followed by the conjurer running after the decapitated spiritist. Next, a skeleton showed up on stage holding the head, which obstinately continued to lecture to the audience. Both the headless body and the conjurer began to chase the skeleton around. By the end of the act, the body and its talking head had been reconnected. The exasperated conjurer, now determined to be done with this once and for all, would hang the spiritist from the ceiling, thus finally bringing an end to the ceaseless lecture. The curtains fell, and the audience cheered.1

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Notes

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Lachapelle, S. (2015). Confronting Ghosts, Mediums, and Fakirs. In: Conjuring Science. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137492975_4

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