[5][6][7] The famous inventor Thomas Edison was duped by the billet reading tricks of Reese and stated he was "neither a medium nor a fake".

[4][8] Psychical researcher Eric Dingwall who observed Reese in New York City claimed to have discovered his cheating methods.

[4] In 1920, in a letter to Arthur Conan Doyle, magician Harry Houdini wrote that during a séance he had observed Reese's tricks.

[13] Houdini noted that Reese had managed to deceive Edison, Judge Rosalsky and many others who were inexperienced in magic trickery.

[15] Science writer Martin Gardner wrote that Reese was an expert mentalist no different from stage magicians of the period such as Joseph Dunninger but managed to fool a number of people into believing he was a genuine psychic.