Houdini Visited Cincinnati To Investigate A Local Spirit Medium. He Left Unimpressed.

From Cincinnati Post 10 April 1925, Image extracted from microfilm by Greg Hand

H arry Houdini came to Cincinnati in 1925 carrying a check for $5,000. He was searching for an authentic spirit medium, someone who could uncontrovertibly demonstrate true communication with the spirit of a person who had died.

Houdini’s intended target was Laura Pruden of Price Hill, who transcribed messages from beyond onto blank slates without appearing to personally intervene in any way. Mrs. Pruden had so entranced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, that he financed her voyage to London, where she manifested her talents to the English spiritualist community. Alas, Mrs. Pruden declined Houdini’s invitation, claiming to be overwhelmed with spring cleaning, and so Houdini’s check went uncashed.

But then a saucy note to Houdini arrived at the offices of the Cincinnati Post, essentially daring the great magician to a showdown at an apartment house on McMicken Avenue. The note was sent by Lois and George McGehean, but it was composed and dictated by Lois McGehean’s departed mother. The brazen missive read, in part:

“I challenge you, Houdini, to come out to 445½ W. McMicken-av and interview the unseen spirit. It is not for the $5000 we challenge you to an interview, but to prove to the world that you or any mortal author cannot get what I, a spirit, can by dictating thru the alphabet to my son and daughter, George and Lois McGehean, namely, stories from 1000 to 1700 words a day. Our work is done in the light.”

The cheeky dare supposedly originated from a heavenly inhabitant named Jemell Williams (other documents give her name as Junelle or Zanelle Williams). Mrs. Williams, who called herself “Mother” had shuffled off this mortal coil some 25 years previously, but had been appearing to her daughter, Lois Williams Gourley McGehean, since very shortly after her demise. Mrs. McGehean had apparently made no public comment about her mother’s apparitions until after her marriage in 1919 to George McGehean, a cigar vendor.

The Cincinnati Post was quite familiar with the McGeheans and their otherworldly visitor because Alfred Segal, the Post’s longtime columnist, had visited the couple the year previous. Segal remained non-committal after he attended a brief séance at the McGehean’s, but he published [Post, 2 June 1924] some of “Mother’s” descriptions of heaven:

“ . . . a beautiful place, with magnificent homes, whose green lawns and gardens of lovely flowers, I would add, never fade, wither or die. The massive shade trees, with their foliage of leaves, which hold their color of spring-like tinting through the whole
year long, can be seen everywhere. The sunrise in the land of eternity is beautiful, even far more glorious than anything we ever saw on this earth. The seas instead of being blue are of a silvery glow and the shores are of gold.”

Houdini rose to the challenge and stopped by the McGehean apartment in the company of columnist Segal, artist Manuel Rosenberg, and insurance agent John Soetje (to ensure proper conditions for awarding the check were met).

“True Spirit Return” published 1922 by Spiritualistic Publishing Co., Cincinnati Ohio, Digitized by Internet Archive

As “Mother” claimed, the table-tapping exercise was conducted in a sunlit room. There was no attempt to darken the space by pulling curtains or waiting until sunset. Houdini watched carefully as George McGehean rattled off the alphabet and the little table bounced beneath Lois McGehean’s hands.

After a few minutes of recitation and table-thumping, George McGehean handed Houdini a letter dictated by Mother expressing hope that Houdini would spread the good word about Spiritualism, even though he was too often guided by evil spirits.

The great magician then asked if he might give the little table or planchette a try, with Alfred Segal reciting the alphabet. The McGeheans offered no objection, so Houdini and Segal set to work and produced a short and diplomatic note:

“Lady is sincere but there is nothing evidential. (signed) Lincoln”

Houdini confessed that Abraham Lincoln had nothing to do with that note; it was all Houdini. To the dismay of the McGeheans, the $5,000 check walked out the door.

Alfred Segal had many virtues as a reporter, but he was too kind and generous to do any serious investigating. Had he poked around a bit, maybe sent a few telegrams, Segal might have discovered that George McGehean had a very interesting past.

For example, Lois was McGehean’s fourth wife. His third wife was a “prominent gown maker” of Anderson, Indiana. When she filed for divorce after less than a year of marriage, Elinor Brumbaugh told the court a most intriguing tale, according to the Marion, Indiana, Chronicle Tribune [1 November 1912]:

“McGehean had sold a restaurant and promised to buy another, but he told his wife he was too smart to work, and began practicing clairvoyancy. A woman afflicted with tuberculosis in the last stages, hired him to cure her in three weeks. After getting $32 of her money, Mrs. McGehean said her husband began burning incense in the room of the patient, and before she died, he asked her to pay another $32 to receive the permanent cure.”

Four years later,  George McGehean was arrested and spent a week in jail on the complaint of another client, one May Smith of Indianapolis. Mrs. Smith engaged McGehean to cure her husband of his habitual drunkenness and was dismayed that the occult cure had no effect. The Indianapolis New [2 May 1916] reported that Mrs. Smith gave McGehean two dollars and wrote her wishes on a slip of paper that McGehean said he would burn, thereby wafting her wishes into the spirit realm.

“One of her wishes on the paper was a prayer that her husband would stop drinking. When Mrs. Smith returned home she found her husband drinking more than ever, and when this condition continued, she lost all belief in McGehean, who had promised to make conditions at home all right. She appealed to the police, and they arrested McGehean.”

Because he could not make bail, McGehean sat in jail for a week until his case was heard in court. Police Court Judge James E. Deery freed McGehean on grounds of human credulity.

“If people are foolish enough to go to fortune tellers they deserve to be swindled. I think that such people and all fortune tellers ought to be put into a bag and dumped into the ocean. I don’t know which is worse, the fortune tellers or the dupes.”

You can still find copies of the book “Mother” dictated to Lois McGehean. It’s called “True Spirit Return” and is digitized online. The clairvoyancy dodge didn’t make enough money, so the McGeheans relocated to Hamilton, Ohio, George’s hometown. George died in 1936 and is buried next to his first wife. Lois returned to Cincinnati, an indigent widow, and spent her remaining years a ward of the Little Sisters of the Poor. There is no evidence that Lois ever again tried to contact anyone from the realm beyond.

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