Salon de Magie: The Klosterman Collection Part I

Germain, Karl (Charles Mattmuller). Germain’s Self-Decapitation Head. Circa 1905. Lifelike imitation bald head crafted from papier-mâché with glass eyes, modeled on Germain’s own likeness and used in his one-man spirit séance routine. Height 11 ?". Owned and used by Karl Germain. See Germain the Wizard by Stuart Cramer, page 457. Crafted by Germain’s father, this head was used in a darkened séance performance as a stand-in for Germain himself, allowing him to play not only the part of the medium through whom the spirits apparently contacted the living, but also as his own secret assistant who physically performed the ghostly “manifestations.” Germain had other methods whereby he could perform the routine without assistance (as was so frequently required by fraudulent mediums and those presenting Spirit Cabinet routines theatrically), but this method was developed so that, in Germain’s own words, the likeness could be “viewed from any angle without arousing the slightest suspicion.”