I first learned about mentalist Washington Irving Bishop (1855-1889) many decades ago from Ricky Jay’s indispensable Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women.
Born in New York City (plainly to fans of a certain famous writer), Bishop first came to public notice when still a teenager as the manager the famous mentalist Anna Eva Fay. In 1876, he spilled the beans about her secrets to a reporter for the New York Daily Graphic, no doubt for a handsome compensation. Later he penned the book Second Sight Explained: A Complete Exposition of Clairvoyance or Second Sight in 1880.
In spite of having exposed the fakery of of stage mentalism, inevitably Bishop hung out a shingle for himself in the same line. He worked as an assistant to J. Randall Brown (why did Brown trust him?) and then worked up his own act, adapting Brown’s techniques. Bishop became adept at the art of finding objects while blindfolded, all while in physical contact with someone who knew where the items were hidden. This is less a psychic ability than a skill at reading people. Professional mind-readers can gain a lot of information just by watching your face and body language. The same is true of touch-reading. The reader can sense your pulse-quicken, for example, or a small movement, if you get near the hidden object. This of course is not actually being able to see a person’s thoughts, though in time, Bishop yielded to the temptation of implying that he actually did possess “thought transference” or Second Sight.
Bishop’s other famous stunt, more impressive, is that he would publicly drive a horse and wagon while blindfolded. No doubt there was an element of memorizing the terrain around where the exhibition was to take place, but one can also gain a lot of information by listening for relevant sounds, and perhaps even a crude form of bat-like echolocation was at play. Or maybe he just peeked.
Appropriately, Bishop’s life ended in a spooky and mysterious fashion. He was giving a demonstration at New York’s Lambs Club (hello, Lambs!) when he lapsed into unconsciousness. (Bishop was said to be cataleptic, prone to fits where he fell into a trance state, sometimes lasting many hours). Eventually he woke from his trance, tried to go back into his act again, and then went back into a coma-like state. This time, a doctor pronounced him dead.
The story goes that the following day, an unauthorized autopsy was performed, a fact discovered by his mother when she went to comb her child’s hair for the wake and discovered the entire skull cap had been sawed off. A big to-do resulted, including law suits and lots of bad publicity. In the end, the doctors were absolved of the accusation, and yet lingering questions inevitably remain. Bishop had been known to remain in a trance for as long as 52 hours. And who just dies, for no apparent reason? He was only 34 years old! Did they actually kill a living man on the operating table. The whole thing smacks of Poe’s “The Premature Burial”.
Who knows what happened? But whatever it was, it was creepy. Today, you can absolutely go visit Bishop. He is buried at Brooklyn’s Green-wood Cemetery. You can even talk to him if you like. Maybe he’s still alive down there!
For more on show business history consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.