"THE HOUDINI SÉANCE" > Page 1, 2
Houdini vs. The Mediums
Early in his career, however, Houdini wasn't above staging some phony séances of his own. According to Houdini: A Magician Among the Spirits, "Houdini hosted special Sunday night performances for the California Concert Company, a Midwestern medicine show, in 1898. During séances, Houdini floated tables and played musical instruments while tied to a chair. After the company disbanded, he and his wife Bess continued to give séances for local union halls and dime museums until they signed with the Welsh Brothers Circus later that same year. In 1899, Houdini's career skyrocketed and he left the medium business behind."
In the 1920s, Houdini became an active crusader against the spirit mediums he felt were exploiting gullible people who grieved for lost loved ones. As he traveled the country performing his act, he would seek out the local mediums and expose their deceptions. Because he was so well known, Houdini often attended these séances in disguise. In 1922, Scientific American magazine asked him to join a "psychic committee" to help investigate the claims of mediums. The magazine offered a cash prize of $2,500 to any medium who could produce a supernatural manifestation to the satisfaction of the committee. No one ever won the prize.
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Houdini's Ghost Does Houdini haunt Hollywood? Some visitors to the spot where Harry Houdini's home once stood say the area might be haunted by the famed magician. Even though his mansion on Laurel Canyon was destroyed by fire in 1959, some people claim to have seen Houdini's apparition in a grotto or on the charred remains of the staircase. |
One of the most famous mediums to take on the challenge was a beautiful young woman named Mina Crandon, who gained renown as "Margery, the Boston Medium." But she too failed under the sharp eye of Houdini, who caught her levitating the table with her head and ringing a bell with her foot. Houdini later offered Crandon $5,000 if she could demonstrate any supernatural phenomena on stage in her home town of Boston. She declined the invitation.
Naturally, Houdini was not popular among mediums around the country, as he was a threat to their livelihood. His crusading also made him an adversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, esteemed author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, who was a staunch believer and advocate of spiritualism, and a defender of Mina Crandon. After Houdini and the Scientific American committee denounced Crandon, Doyle wrote an article for the Boston Herald criticizing the committee. Houdini, in turn, threatened to sue Doyle for his "harsh remarks."
Annual Séance
Since the Halloween night when Bess Houdini turned off the light at her husband's portrait, the séances to contact the dead magician have continued in many parts of the country, both officially and unofficially. It may be impossible to tell whether or not Houdini is really being channeled at any of these annual séances because the secret coded message Houdini devised with his wife has since been revealed - by Bess herself.
"The message was based on both sentimentality and an old vaudeville mind-reading routine," according to Houdini - magictricks.com. "The message was, 'Rosabelle- answer- tell- pray, answer- look- tell- answer, answer- tell.' Bess's wedding band bore the inscription 'Rosabelle,' the name of the song she sang in her act when they first met. The other words correspond to a secret spelling code used to pass information between a magician and his assistant during a mentalism act. Each word or word pair equals a letter. The word 'answer' stood for the letter 'B,' for example. 'Answer, answer' stood for the letter 'V.' Thus, the Houdinis' secret phrase spelled out the word 'believe'."
In 1929, a young medium named Arthur Ford claimed he had successfully received the secret message from Harry Houdini. Upon investigation, however, it was discovered that Ford's claim was a hoax. Bess, it seems, had inadvertently revealed the message to reporters more than a year earlier.
Even though Bess gave up the séances herself, she asked magician Walter B. Gibson to carry on the October 31 tradition. For many years, Gibson, along with several other magicians, held the séances at the Magic Towne House in New York City. Countless other "unofficial" Houdini séances have been held by local psychics across the country throughout the years - all in good fun, but with no definitive proof of so much as a "hello" from Harry Houdini.
Today, the official Houdini Séance is held at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And true to the times, they have been conducting séances on the Internet. 
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