The immigrant born as Ehrich Weiss became more than a star.  Throughout his career, Harry Houdini continuously upended public perceptions of magic and reality with daring escapes, feats of mentalism and, toward the end of his life, debunking the claims of spiritualists.  As committed as he was to furthering magic, he was equally devoted to the pursuit of truth and spent much of his last years exposing fraudulent mediums, spirit photographers and others who claimed to communicate with the dead.  Spiritualism began as a religious awakening movement in 1848, when two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, stated that they had been able to contact the spirit of a deceased peddler, “Mr. Splitfoot”, and began to hold séances in their home … Continued