Harry Houdini
Archimedes said, ‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.’ A man still has to have the muscles to move the lever and the right fulcrum to leverage it. But this idea of the Illuminated, enlightened human beings who move through history and influence it at key moments, is a common one throughout occult history. Not only do they know more than the common run of man, they know how to use that knowledge. They possess the muscle and the lever.
The Hungarian-born American magician, escape artist, and debunker, originally named Erik Weisz, later known as Ehrich Weiss, and then by the stage name Harry Houdini. Arrogant, but undeniably brilliant, Houdini was casually affiliated with several of Project SANDMAN's predecessor organizations, including the Duncorne Foundation.
Houdini’s greatest trick was only revealed in 1973, when Marshall and Mitch discovered that he had orchestrated an elaborate ritual that dispersed his consciousness to various points across the globe at the time of his death on Halloween, 1926. He existed in this purgatorial state until he tricked Marshall and Mitch into releasing him during a séance. In so doing, he found himself trapped on a cassette tape smuggled into the séance by D. Scott Rogo.
Through a bit of bureaucratic sleight-of-hand on Marshall's part, the “Houdini tape” remained in URIEL’s possession after the events in Colorado. Mitch and Marshall presented the tape to Charley; she was able to transfer the contents – that is, Houdini’s consciousness – to the computer chip lodged in her brain. Before Mitch destroyed that chip using his pyrokinesis, Charley transferred Houdini to a sophisticated data storage unit that she and Archie had found at the Ransom family’s home in San Francisco. Charley later dispatched Houdini, on that device, to Granite Peak, there to infiltrate the Project’s databanks in hopes of learning things that may prove useful to URIEL. They have not heard back from him since.