Houdini's "Girl Detective": The Real-Life Ghost-Busting Adventures of Rose Mackenberg

Although, literarily, Tony Wolf is primarily known as a chronicler of stage combat and European martial arts, his recent work has revealed a delightful fondness for shadow history. Wolf’s biographies of Edith Garrud, Colonel Thomas Monstery, and E. W. Barton-Wright are a reminder that many of history’s most fascinating characters have been ignored or forgotten simply because they did not adhere to any recognizable orthodoxy.Rose Mackenberg is one of those characters.Mackenberg was a tenacious New York private investigator who specialized in exposing paranormal con-artists during the heyday of Spiritualism. As part of Harry Houdini’s legendary undercover "ghostbuster squad” Mackenberg traveled across the United States, infiltrating séances, using a wide array of disguises and false identities to test the validity of each medium. Along the way, Rose matched wits with all manner of spirit photographers, poltergeist children, haunted homeowners, ectoplasmic vomiters, amulet dealers, love potion chemists, and crystal gazers. None of their claims were able to withstand her rigorous, skeptical investigation.Rose’s detailed reports formed the back-bone of Houdini’s excellent A Magician Among the Spirits (ghost-written with C. M. Eddy, Jr.). In 1929, she authored a fascinating series of syndicated newspaper articles on the “ghost racket,” which Tony Wolf has edited and republished in HOUDINI’S “GIRL DETECTIVE.” These columns expose the clever tricks of psychic fraud - from the quaint relics of spiritualism (ectoplasm, spirit-tapping, table tipping, billet reading, and spirit trumpets) to phenomena that are recognizable to anyone whose cable package includes SyFy and The Discovery Channel. One chapter includes Rose's interesting analysis of clairvoyant Arthur Ford’s claim to have made contact with Houdini during a 1929 séance. Ford gained quite a bit of notoriety in paranormal circles by transmitting a coded message to the magician’s wife, which was confirmed as being legitimate. Mackenberg’s opinions on this matter carry weight, in that Rose was one of the chosen few who were actually given the “Rosabelle cypher” by Houdini himself. She later discovered, much to her bemusement, that the so-called “death code” had essentially been published in Harold Kellock’s popular 1928 biography of the magician.Every fan of modern paranormal debunking – from James Randi to Martin Gardner to Penn & Teller – owes a debt of gratitude to Rose Mackenberg.

A very poorly done compilation of Mackenberg's writings. Hardly edited at all. She deserves much better than this shoddy self-published contribution. Basically nothing more than bound photocopies of her articles.

FUN STUFF

Excellent insight into the mind and work of Houdini's assistant.

As a researcher in the field of spiritualism, mediumship, and the curtural phenomena of the 1920s and 30s , I found this book highly enjoyable. An aspect of the "Spook Crooks" research and Harry Houdini and his bunch Of agents provocateur .