S.S BALDWIN: EXPLODER OF SPIRIUTUALSIM

Emma-Louise Rhodes

Samuel Spencer Baldwin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1848. Changing his name to Samri S. Baldwin early in his stage career, he enlisted in the U.S Army at the age of thirteen and fought in the Civil War, before becoming ‘ … a journalist, a printer, a capitalist and labourer, lecturer and showman.’ 1.

Making a life-long profession out of the later, Baldwin was most famous for his Question-and-Answer act and Spirit Cabinet tricks, both which exposed the spiritualist culture and brought him world-wide acclaim.

EARLY DAYS

As a young man, Baldwin became fascinated with magic after witnessing the Davenport Brothers performing their cabinet routine. In the preface of Baldwin’s book, The Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained, Doctor Frank Baldwin (the magician’s manager) wrote:

‘He followed the Davenport Brothers from
town to town and place to place, but soon
became convinced that all their work was but
very dextrous and delicate deception. He then
took up the subject of Spiritualism and occult
phenomena in general, and all his evenings
were occupied in attending spiritual séances.’

After several years investing the spiritual cause and mediums who were supposed to posses psychic powers, Baldwin became sceptical to ‘anything spiritual’ and certain that most of what was classed as Spiritualism was not in any way supernatural, but rather produced by conscious (or sometimes unconscious) deception.

Frank Baldwin continues to inform the reader that Samri:

‘ … for a long time offered a reward of
five hundred dollars for any manifestation
which he could not show was produced by
human agency …’

Indeed, S.S Baldwin spent a good deal of his career replicating the ‘tricks’ of psychics and was often commended for his endeavours. A Pennsylvanian newspapers commented, after witnessing one of his shows, that ‘He is doing much good in exploding this greatest of modern humbugs.’ Furthermore, Baldwin also won acclaim in religious circles for his exposure of the psychic world. Reverend John Moran of St John’s, Camden wrote in a letter to the showman in 1889 ‘I think your expose of spirit shams is very useful and I wish you success’.

In short, thirty years after the advent of Spiritualism, Baldwin was holding the religion to question and exposing the trickery of fake mediums who had silently penetrated society and were extorting money from the bereaved and naïve.

THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER ACT

Baldwin’s act differed slightly throughout his career, but always incorporated the Question-and-Answer segment, and it was this that brought him huge acclaim as a debunker of Spiritualism and is still relevant to this day. Performed by three different female assistants during his long career (Clara Baldwin, Katie Russell/Baldwin and ‘Shadow’,) the act consisted of members of the audience being invited to write questions on pads placed on large millboards, take the paper that they had written on, fold it and put it into their pocket. Baldwin’s partner was then put into an apparent hypnotic trance by him, before being asked, not only the answers to the questions, but (more importantly) what the questions actually were.

A ‘committee’ was usually selected before the show to observe the proceedings from a close proximity and act as adjudicators to what was taking place. These were always men of a high ranking in the local community, such as doctors, clergymen, lawyers or policemen. All confirmed afterwards that they had witnessed no tampering of the boards of behaviour that in any way, shape or form might be seen as suspicious from Baldwin or his assistant regarding the boards or pieces of paper folded in the pockets of the audience.

In his book S.S Baldwin and the Press, (the only comprehensive work, to date, on Baldwin), Thomas A. Sawyer states that:

‘Baldwin often protested that he had no
supernatural or occult powers. However, on
many occasions he indicated that the
explanations of his feats lay in some other
powers – supposedly entwining natural ones
(however) … All of the effects Baldwin
achieved were purely the result of ingenuity
and showmanship.’

Baldwin’s methods, although hugely debated, were never actually revealed by him, but that did not stop others publishing how they felt the Question-and-Answer act was performed. In the 1897 Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions Including Trick Photography, Henry Ridgely Evans wrote:

‘The secret lies in the pads of millboard,
some of which contain carbon sheets under two
layers of brown paper. The writing of the
spectators is thereby transferred by means of
the carbon paper to sheets of writing paper
placed under the carbon sheets. The genuine
millboard pads, which are distributed among the
audience, are laid on the stage, while the
prepared pads are carried off behind the scenes to
Mrs Baldwin, who has ample time to post herself
with the desired information before coming onto
stage.’

Another insight into Baldwin’s act appeared in Hereward Carrington’s The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, published in 1907.

‘Amongst the audience are placed four or five
confederates who take slips of paper, but instead
of writing questions, they take copies of the
questions that are written by those around them,
giving the row and number of the seat; and, if
they cannot make out the name, they give a
description of the writer’s dress. The slips are
then passed to the attendants when the collect
the pencils and are taken to Mrs Baldwin, and
a list is made of them with such answers as they
see fit.’

THE SPIRIT CABINET

In his 1924 Book A Magician Among the Spirits, Harry Houdini devotes a chapter to the Davenport Brothers (Ira and William) and tells of how Ira explained, late in his life, the exact method they had employed in their mystical Spirit Cabinet act. However, S.S Baldwin had long before emulated the trick and performed it as an integral part of his show.

Baldwin and his assistant would have their hands and feet bound together in the same style used by the Davenport Brothers, all the while being watched closely by a member of the previously selected ‘committee’. They would then be shut in the cabinet. Within a very short space of time ‘manifestations’ would be heard coming from the cabinet, in the form of the ringing of bells, jangling of tambourines and blowing of horns (all which were seen on the floor of the cabinet beforehand). As soon as the doors were again opened, both Baldwin and his assistant were seen seated and bound as before.

The method used by Baldwin is accepted to be an exact replica of that employed by the Davenport Brothers, the method of which was, as previously mentioned, described by Harry Houdini.

‘Their method of releasing themselves was
comparatively simple. While one extended
his feet the other drew his in, thus securing
slack enough in the wrist ropes to permit
working their hands out of the loops. The
second brother was released by reversing
the action. After the demonstrations were
completed the brothers slipped their hands
back into the loops from which they had
drawn them, placed their feet in the original
positions and were ready to be examined.’

Thus Baldwin emulated the famous cabinet trick exactly to the amazement of audiences and the committee of prominent men who had been carefully watching his every move throughout.

PSYCHIC DECEPTION?

An incredibly interesting fact about Baldwin, or rather about the women he worked with throughout his career, is that at certain points the apparent psychic ability of the assistants was exploited. Although always stating that his powers were ‘purely natural’, Baldwin’s second wife and fellow performer Katie Russell (sometimes credited as Kittie Baldwin) claimed to the press that she had ‘clairvoyant powers’; recalling, in an undated interview, that:

‘… as a little girl I used to walk in my sleep
and see things that no one else saw. My
mother was much alarmed and would say that
she must take me to the doctor, but she never
did. Before I was fifteen I went upon the
burlesque stage and was earning $50 a week
and my queerness went on.’

Although throughout her career with Baldwin, Katie maintained this, it was still written of the couple ‘of course, these are sceptics.’

Another peculiarity regarding S.S Baldwin is that it appears that late in his life (1920 – 21) he took to giving ‘Personal Interviews’ or ‘Advice Readings’, where he was paid a ‘voluntary gift’ to answer several questions from a sitter. His last assistant, Shadow (who was known as his daughter) dabbled with palmistry and stated, in a letter written to Frederick Eugene Powell, weeks after Baldwin’s death in 1926:

‘He (Baldwin) would say to me ‘I never thought
you had it in you had it in you to be such a good
‘humbug’. You do that so much better than I could.’

‘SPIRITUALSIM EXPOSED’

Regardless of the apparent mysticism surrounding Kittie Baldwin and the seeming ‘blip’ in his later years, S.S Baldwin was a firm opponent of Spiritualism and his early shows (with his first wife Clara Baldwin) were billed ‘Spiritualism Exposed’ and, in his later years, ‘A Night With The Spirits’. Along with this, the couple sought to recreate the Katie King Mystery (the apparent materialisation of the spirit Katie King in the 1870s, as witnessed by William Crookes – photographic ‘evidence’ of which exists), therefore launching a somewhat indirect personal attack on those involved.

A typical review of Baldwin’s show, such as this one written in Bombay, India in 1884, would read:

‘The professor (Baldwin) lays no claim to any
spiritual, superhuman, or occult power in any
portion of his unique entertainment, which he
says is a mere duplication of so-called
spiritualist manifestations in which he does
not employ any trickery.’

Baldwin also disclosed to the press how he would go in disguise and undetected to meetings with mediums in areas he was visiting during his tour and listen to them talking of new ideas that they would challenge him to duplicate. Hence Baldwin, to the astonishment and shock of those conspiring against him, would reproduce these perfectly on stage, again displaying the true nature of the fake spiritualists to the public.

In 1879 Baldwin published the book Spirit Mediums Exposed, putting into print his experiences of Spiritualism, along with reinforcing the fact that all of his exploits on the stage were produced in a natural way.

Baldwin’s popularity was immense and it is important to remember that his performances were always light-hearted as well as thrilling. Songs and dance routines were intertwined with the great feats of mind-reading and mesmerism and Baldwin (who was commonly known as The White Mahatma) was often called ‘King of Laughter Land’; reviews of his shows frequently telling of how the audience were in fits of hilarity during performances.

Baldwin’s popularity was immense and, in many cases, theatres were sold out, yet still audiences queued to catch a glimpse of him. In 1892, The Hull Daily Mail reported that:

‘Fully five or six thousand people were turned
away on both nights of the performance ... the
street itself was fully barricaded. The traffic was
impeded; trams and wagonettes could hardly
force their way through without serious risk to
life and limb.’

Baldwin died at the age of seventy-six in 1924. In his obituary in the San Francisco Post, it was noted that he was a ‘close friend of Harry Houdini’ and a ‘noted crusader against fake Spiritualism’.

Although Baldwin toured the world a number of times with his ingenious shows and astounded millions, he is little remembered. Undoubtedly overshadowed by Houdini and his campaign against fraudulent mediums, Baldwin remains known only by those who have a very particular interest in the field of late nineteenth/early twentieth century magic and/or the debunking of mediums.

Staging his exposures of the Spiritualist faith while Houdini was still growing up, Baldwin fearlessly challenged the enormously popular Davenport Brothers head on and brought sceptical enlightenment to the masses. For this, he should certainly be remembered as one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking showmen of his generation and a champion of the truth, however he chose to present it.

REFERENCES

1. The Catholic Witness, April 23, 1896
NB – The above and a great deal more can be found in Sawyer’s book, referenced below.

Carrington, Hereward, The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, 1907.
Hopkins, Albert A., Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions Including Trick Photography, 1896
Houdini, Harry, A Magician Among the Spirits, 1924
Sawyer, Thomas A., S.S Baldwin and the Press, Sawyer, Santa Anna, California, 1993

© Emma-Louise Rhodes, 2007