Exhibition Review

It is a rare occurrence, but there are times when magicians invite us to share in the secrets of their trickery. Often, though, whenever a magician reveals a secret, it invariably raises further questions. We might know there is a sleight-of-hand at work or a mirror placed beneath a trapdoor, but we continue to be fascinated, more so than by the trick itself, by how the magician manages to combine those tricks into a flawless deception. In this manner, if done correctly, a magician can add to his mystery by revealing some of the secret of his hocus pocus. So too does the Outagamie County Historical Society (OCHS) for Harry Houdini and the gang of mediums and fraudulent spiritualists debunked by Mr. Houdini late in his career. In their new exhibition "Houdini: A Magician among the Spirits," the OCHS brings us along with Mr. Houdini as he moved from being a successful fraudulent medium himself to being a fervent adversary of the very same charlatans. We see how Spiritualism developed in the United States and learn the tricks used to deceive those who believed in the religion. As Houdini's case against the con artists develops, we find ourselves asking more and more questions. We wonder how could it be that people really believed the mediums, and we wonder how they could pull off such deception. The exhibition, like a good magician revealing a secret, invites us behind the scenes, educates us in a detailed and systematic manner, and then allows us to find mystery in the countless questions that develop afterward. One leaves the exhibit as one might leave a séance: Houdini speaks to us through his deeds, words, and artifacts, but we leave with more questions than we had when we entered.	1
"Houdini: A Magician among the Spirits" resides on the second floor of the Outagamie County Historical Society as a temporary exhibition through June 2001. Located in an anteroom leading into a permanent Houdini exhibit space, this exhibition lies in stark contrast to the traditional and stoic permanent displays of the museum. The room for the exhibition is otherworldly in numerous shades of blue, a different hue for each section of the exhibit: Introduction, Spiritualism, Medium Debunking, and Legacy. Like many museum exhibitions, this one was assembled as a linear journey. Step by step, visitors are introduced to concepts or, more accurately, questions, as the secrets of Spiritualism and its more unsavory practitioners are revealed in a systematic manner. Visitors weave among kiosks, wall panels, and freestanding exhibit cases as well as two interactive séance tables in the quest for the secrets of the spirit world. Books of reproduced documents, informative flip cards, photomurals, and even a fortune-telling scale allow visitors to build their own experience, in a way choosing for themselves just how much of the trick they want revealed.	2
As séances and mediums are the types of subjects most people know of but know little about, the questions on the labels are kept at the most basic: "What is Spiritualism?," "What is a spirit cabinet?," etc. The explanatory text is detailed but accessible to the layperson, both adult and child. The answers to those basic questions, however, often serve as springboards for more questions as each step in the exhibit provides the tools and context for more sophisticated queries encountered later. As the visitor learns the more text-based, contextual history of Spiritualism's place in United States history and Houdini's place in the history of Spiritualism, they are rewarded with artifacts and interactive exhibits. Most worthy of mention are the color reproductions of the affidavits of Houdini's assistant Rose Mackenberg and the "Tricks of the Trade" tables that invite visitors to take the role of a medium and attempt some classic deceptions.	. . .