'I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. Posters were plastered all over town in the cities he performed.

Lovecraft to write stories under the Houdini name. He also hired ghostwriters to spin tales of his magic feats. Houdini wined and dined reporters, probably bribing a few along the way. When he arrived in a new city, he wandered through old book stores adding to what has been called the largest magic library in the world. Houdini worked long hours and spent his spare money on two things: magic books and paraphernalia. He said it was like they were bonded by a piece of thread. And it wasn’t just Houdini’s love of magic driving his escapes, it was his love for the audience. The door to belief is ready to open and is locked only in the minds of those who choose to believe it is.Straightjackets, shackles, ropes, leg irons, jail cells, and locked crates, Houdini was open to it all. It is not the result of years of education, pilgrimages, or flashy supernatural experiences. The only place the door was locked was in his mind.įaith is not a complex process. Houdini worked himself to near exhaustion trying to achieve what could be accomplished by simply pushing the door open. The problem? The cell had never been locked. Two hours later he gave up in frustration. For two hours he applied skill and experience to the lock but failed time and time again. No matter how hard Houdini worked, he couldn't unlock the lock. Once alone, he pulled a thin but strong piece of metal from his belt and began working the lock. He entered the cell, wearing his street clothes, and the jail cell door shut. He accepted another invitation to demonstrate his skill. Time and again, he would be locked in a cell only to reappear minutes later. He boasted that no jail cell could hold him. In his book 40 Days, Alton Gansky relates this story: 'Harry Houdini made a name for himself by escaping from every imaginable confinement - from straightjackets to multiple pairs of handcuffs clamped to his arms.

Harry houdini escape