By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Sometimes you take a book off the library shelf because you envision reading it will lead to an enjoyable conversation with a friend.  Knowing the fascination with which Dr. Joel Moskowitz writes about both magic and claims of supernatural occurrences, I checked out the novel The Man From Beyond.

Author Gabriel Brownstein builds on the historic debate over whether it is really possible to contact the dead. The argument pitted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed it was, against Harry Houdini, who felt that most mediums, spiritualists and fortune tellers were scam artists.  Into this mix Brownstein throws a fictional young Jewish reporter, Molly Goodman, who managed through determination and good fortune to become the reporter to whom both men confide.

There is a scene in which the wife of Doyle conducts a séance attended by Houdini, who would like very much to contact his dead mother if such a thing were possible.  Supposedly, under just the right circumstances, Houdini's mother would communicate with him by guiding Mrs. Doyle's pen to write messages to him.  

Accordingly, Houdini in this fictional account watched with fascination as Lady Doyle drew a cross and then started writing messages supposedly from Houdini's mother about how much she misses and loves him.  However, the great magician departed the séance unimpressed, later explaining that the cross seemed incredibly out of place for his mother, who was an observant Jew up to the time she died.  Also out of place was the English language in which Lady Doyle supposedly transcribed his mother's remarks—given the fact that Houdini's mother spoke Yiddish and perhaps some Hungarian, but almost no English.  Houdini was the stage name of Erich Weiss.

Defending his wife's credibility, Doyle argued that the cross was not a sectarian symbol but a holy one; and as for the English transcription "language was for the living: the communication of the dead could fill any idiom as water any vase."

Until recently I would have thought that such reasoning as Doyle's patently absurd, but given the recent votes of the House of Representatives and the Senate and the vow by President George W. Bush to sign a bill nationalizing the Mount Soledad cross in San Diego as a "war memorial," I understand that even when logic is turned on its ear, it can be persuasive.

Supporters of the Mount Soledad cross say it is not a religious symbol, it is a "war memorial."  The fact that it was dedicated on an Easter Sunday and was used for Easter Sunday services long before any memorial plaques were put up on the site is waved aside as unimportant.  Like Lady Doyle's cross, no matter what anyone else may think, the Mount Soledad cross isn't a "religious" symbol, it is a holy symbol representing sacrifice.  Whose sacrifice?  Why that of Jesus, of course.  And who are the main people demanding that the cross be retained as a war memorial?  Why, the Thomas More Law Center, dedicated to preserving Christian rights.  But of course, it's not a religious symbol.

So, of course, Mrs. Weiss could be summoned from the beyond to the séance by the cross—notwithstanding the fact that it symbolized a religion that still actively blamed Jews for the death of Jesus and often persecuted them for it.  And of course Jews, Hindus, Muslims, atheists and other non-Christians all look up to the Mount Soledad Cross and think in unison "why, what a beautiful and fitting symbol of the sacrifice that members of my my family who joined the Armed Forces made for America."

But to get back to the novel, Doyle befriended a medium named Margery, whom he believed possessed spiritual powers  far greater than his wife's.  He invited Houdini to a séance with her, knowing that his friend was skeptical but hoping he could be persuaded that communication with the spirit world is possible.  However, reporter Molly learns some things about Margery that the others don't know—leading to the book's conclusion.

Doyle, author of the beloved Sherlock Holmes detective stories, earnestly believed there was a realm beyond ours where spirits resided.  As a result, and this is a shame given the great deductive ability of his character Holmes, Doyle could be persuaded to endorse the claims of  people who upon greater examination were frauds. 

While Houdini liked to fool people with his feats of magic and death-defying escapes,  he made it clear that he was performing "tricks" without any supernatural intervention.  He had only scorn for people who tried to mislead the public into believing in the supernatural.

While weaving his tale, author Brownstein gives many credible explanations about how various magic trips and spiritualist effects were accomplished.   While aficionados like Joel Moskowitz might describe the story in Holmesian terms, as being "elementary, my dear Harrison," those of us uninitiated to the worlds of magic and deception will find it quite instructive..