SEANCE HOUDINI

The Houdini seance is Magics way of honoring Houdini for his crusade against fraudulent spiritualists and mediums. A Houdini seance is considered socially acceptable and there is a good reason why, but to answer that we must take a little trip through time - more than a hundred years - to America in 1911. Many historians consider this tale from the past "Magic's finest hour", and it continues to this day as its celebrated the last week in October through National Magic Week.

After the loss of his mother in 1911, Houdini attempted to contact her through various mediums of the era, only to find they were using some of the same methods to fool people that he was using in his act. Disgusted that mediums would take advantage of people in their hour of grief, he began a crusade to expose these fake mediums, and thus made many enemies with the spiritualist world of his era.

Making an enemy of the Spiritualists of Houdini's time was not something to take lightly. Spiritualism was the fastest growing religion in the United States from the 1840's to the 1920's with its membership peaking at 8 million.

While Houdini's crusade against fraudulent mediums was beginning to impact Spiritualism, many people remained loyal to their mediums and criticized Houdini for his exposure of them. Battle lines were drawn so it's no wonder that when Houdini died Oct 31st, 1926, mediums and spiritualist's were not shedding many tears. In fact, several medium's credited his death to his crusade against Spiritualism and that the spirits weren't happy with him.

However, Houdini had one last card to play against the fraudulent mediums and spiritualists of his day.

Before he died, Houdini and his wife Bess made a pact that whoever died first would try to contact the survivor from beyond the grave. However due to the many fake mediums they encountered they set up a phrase that only the two of them knew. This phrase would be delivered via a secret code (the 1920's version of encryption) so if someone were to guess the phrase, they would not know the code to deliver the phrase. A $10,000 award was offered to any medium, spiritualist, or person who could deliver the proper phrase via the code.

The reward was offered and not one medium or spiritualist could prove they contacted Houdini. There were plenty of Spiritualists trying but none could provide the code to Houdini's wife Bess during the period that the reward was offered. At the time the $10,000 reward would be equivalent to nearly $200,000 today.

This had many people who once supported spiritualism and mediums questioning their belief. These same mediums had no problem taking their money, why didn't they contact Houdini and collect the reward? It sounded simple enough, after all, these mediums had no problem contacting their deceased Uncle Joe.

During the ten year period after Houdini's death, 17 official seances (and countless others by mediums who claimed contact but could not reveal the code) were held with magicians or a council supervising them. Houdini's wife was in attendance for most of these supervised seances and most would take place on the anniversary of Houdini's death, Oct 31st

It is believed that due to the frustration caused by mediums trying to fool Mrs. Houdini that the reward was revoked around 1928 and the code was revealed in an authorized Houdini biography by Harold Kellock later that same year. One year later in 1929, spiritualist Arthur Ford revealed the code to Mrs. Houdini who was surprised at first, until reminded by Dunninger (a famous magician/mentalist of his time) that the code had already been revealed in a book and that the whole affair with Ford was a ruse.

Abbott's opened (1934) during this ten year period after Houdini's death when serious efforts were taken place to contact him in the afterlife. Houdini was a no show at all these officially controlled seances.

On the ten year anniversary of his death (1936), a huge seance in Hollywood California was held that was done via radio and coordinated several different seances at locations across the globe. Audiences from around the world tuned in to see if the great Houdini could make history one more time by escaping death while live on the radio. The listening audience was massive!

Houdini was a no show and Mrs. Houdini, from a live broadcast from Hollywood California, made the following statement:

"Yes. Houdini did not come through; my last hope is gone. I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me or to anyone. After faithfully following through the ten year Houdini compact, using every type medium and seance, it is now my personal and positive belief that spirit communication in any form is impossible. I do not believe that ghosts or spirts exist. The Houdini shrine has burned for ten years; I now reverently turn out the light. It is finished, good night Harry."

Headlines the next day spoke of the failed seances - all of them - in newspapers and radio broadcasts across the world. Spiritualism was not happy with this as people were beginning to take a much harder stance against Spiritualism as a religion. Houdini's crusade against fraudulent mediums in his lifetime paled to the damaged being caused across the world by these legit Houdini seances.

To make matters worse for the spiritualist, magicians were now doing seances and telling their audience that everything they see is a trick. These magic seances were promoted on the radio, in the paper, and seemingly at every theatre for a midnight viewing. The religion of Spiritualism, which was the fastest growing religion in the country just a few decades past, was now regressing and with good reason. Now everyone saw them for what they were and the world has Magicians to thank for that even to this day.

While the seances during that 10 year period failed to contact Houdini, they were a promotional success in every other way. The Houdini seance was becoming a major social event not only in Hollywood, but across the globe in other nations. Many people realized - especially magicians - that a Houdini seance was an event that did not have to succeed to be successful. They were publicity stunts that the press could not resist. The Houdini seance was an excuse for groups of people and friends to get together, and under the premise of spending twenty or thirty minutes trying to contact Houdini, would spend the rest of the day celebrating their failure. Each October magicians continue to do seances in honor of Houdini and also in honor of the magicians of that era for putting a stop to the fraudulent mediums of that day. The seances magicians do in October fall into two categories.

The first is the "real or traditional" seance. These are usually done between 1-3 pm (remember daylight savings time) on Oct 31 each year and are incredibly successful publicity stunts for magicians, businesses, libraries, magic shops, etc.

The second is the "show or entertainment" seance where magicians use magic tricks to entertain the audience and these are done throughout October.

People often wonder about the irony of Houdini being the subject of so many seances while during his life he did his best to disprove seances. The true irony is that Houdini in death did more to damage to fraudulent mediums than he ever did during his life, a fitting tribute to a master showman. In this sense it could be said that Houdini really did escape death.

So if you happen to see a magic show at Abbott's in October and a seance breaks out, don't worry, its simply Magics way of honoring Houdini for his crusade against fraudulent spiritualists and mediums that began over a hundred years ago.