It was Dr. Crandon who introduced his wife to the paranormal. In the spring of 1923 he had become intrigued by an account of ‘table tipping,’ a rudimentary form of mediumship not unlike a Ouija board. Crandon ordered a table constructed to the exact dimensions specified in the book he had been reading. Toward the end of May, Crandon and his wife invited four of their friends to join them in an attempt to recreate the table-tipping experiment. Following Crandon’s terse instructions, the sitters took their places at the table, joined hands, and waited for some sign of a spirit presence.

Nothing happened. Mina began to feel silly. ‘They were all so solemn about it that I couldn’t help laughing,’ she recalled. ‘They reproved me severely, and my husband informed me gravely that ‘This is a serious matter.”

Then, abruptly, the table began to move–only slightly at first, but then more violently, tilting up on two legs before crashing loudly to the floor. Crandon demanded to know which of his guests possessed the mediumistic talent necessary to cause this manifestation. One by one, the physician instructed his friends to remove their hands from the séance table. The table stopped its rocking only when the last of the sitters lifted her hands. Dr. Crandon had his answer. The medium was his own wife.

At first, the very idea of being a medium seemed a great lark to Mina. All through the summer of 1923 the Crandons conducted one séance after another. In each case, Mina appeared to exhibit some strange new power. Indeed, it seemed that Dr. Crandon had only to read of some new psychic manifestation before Mina could duplicate it.

Within a month of the first séance, Dr. Crandon announced a plan to place his wife under hypnosis, in the hope of making contact with a ‘psychic control’ who would serve as her guide to the spirit world. At first Mina resisted this suggestion, claiming that she didn’t want to miss any of the ‘fun’ while under hypnosis. Eventually, however, she gave in to her husband’s wishes, and before long an unfamiliar male voice made itself known to the Crandon circle. ‘I said I could put this through,’ it announced.

The voice, it was thought, belonged to Walter Stinson, Mina’s older brother, who had been crushed to death in a railroad accident a dozen years earlier. From this point forward, Walter’s spirit was a regular presence in the séance room at Lime Street.

Walter proved to have a forceful personality. He had a quick and ready wit and was much given to rough language. Many visitors to the Crandons’ séance room became convinced of the truth of what they heard simply because they could not imagine that such coarse and irreverent language would issue from the lips of the demure doctor’s wife. ‘Hell is now completely up to date,’ Walter once quipped to a roomful of clergymen. ‘We burn oil!’

Several observers noted that Walter’s voice did not appear to come from Mina at all. The sound seemed to originate in a different part of the room, and would continue unabated even while Mina snored her way through a hypnotic trance, or held her mouth full of water. The effect proved so remarkable that one skeptic, searching for some plausible explanation, wondered aloud if perhaps the lady could speak through her ears.

Believing his wife to be a ‘remarkable psychic instrument,’ Dr. Crandon took her abroad to build up a consensus of favorable opinion from European experts. One of these was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who declared her to be ‘a very powerful medium’ and that the validity of her gifts was ‘beyond all question.’

J. Malcolm Bird, an associate editor of Scientific American magazine, shared Conan Doyle’s opinion and wrote a series of articles extolling Mrs. Crandon’s gifts. It was Bird who gave her the name ‘Margery,’ in an effort to protect the Crandons’ privacy. Under this name, her renown steadily grew.

By bringing Mrs. Crandon to the attention of Scientific American, Conan Doyle had inadvertently placed her at the center of a growing controversy. In December 1922 the magazine had launched an investigation into the paranormal, with a cash prize of ‘$2,500 to the first person who produces a psychic photograph under its test conditions’ and ‘$2,500 to the first person who produces a visible psychic manifestation of other character . . . to the full satisfaction of these judges.’ A special investigating committee would examine all mediums who applied for the prize, with Bird acting as its secretary. Conan Doyle regretted that Bird, a Margery supporter, would have no investigative role, as the author harbored reservations about the rest of the committee, which included several skeptics. When Houdini was asked to lend his talents, Conan Doyle expressed outrage at the ‘capital error’ of placing an enemy of spiritualism on such a body. ‘The Commission is, in my opinion, a farce,’ he wrote.

The Crandons, for their part, seemed to welcome the opportunity to test Margery’s mettle against the notorious Houdini. Though Scientific American’s money meant little to the wealthy couple, the opportunity to win the approval of such a prestigious body–at Houdini’s expense–proved too great a temptation to resist. Dr. Crandon wrote to Conan Doyle of his willingness to ‘crucify’ any investigators who doubted his wife. Even the discarnate voice of Walter, speaking from the spirit plane, appeared to relish the challenge.

As it happened, Houdini was not notified when the Scientific American committee began its investigations, and he didn’t learn until three months later that the proceedings were under way at all. By this time, rumor had it that the committee was on the point of declaring Margery genuine and awarding her the prize. Bird, in particular, seemed eager to give the magazine’s endorsement and allowed word of the favorable findings to find its way to the press. ‘Boston Medium Baffles Experts,’ announced one headline. ‘Houdini the Magician Stumped,’ declared another.

Houdini, who had not even been present at the investigation, much less stumped, was not pleased. He told Scientific American that he would forfeit $1,000 of his own money if he failed to expose Margery as a fraud. Traveling to Boston, he reviewed the findings of his peers. To his way of thinking, the investigation had been mishandled from the start. Most of the committee members had availed themselves of the Crandons’ generous hospitality during the proceedings–staying in their home, eating their food, and enjoying their company. This, Houdini believed, had badly compromised their objectivity. Later it was revealed that accepting room and board had been the least of the transgressions. One investigator had actually borrowed money from Dr. Crandon, while another hoped to win his backing for a research foundation. Worse yet, the distinguished panel was not unaware of Mrs. Crandon’s attractions. At least one committee member drew comfort in his old age from the recollection of amorous encounters with the celebrated medium.

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