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SEANCE HOUDINI 26:26

What Is A Houdini Seance? - The Houdini Seance is Magics way of honoring Houdini for his crusade against fraudulent spiritualists and mediums.

After the loss of his mother, 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.

Did Houdini Succeed Against The Mediums? - Not as much as you would think. 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. Houdini's crusade against fraudulent mediums was beginning to impact Spiritualism, but many people stayed loyal to their mediums and criticized Houdini for his expose. Battle lines were drawn so it's no wonder that when Houdini died in 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.

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.

Did Any Spiritualist Claim The Reward? - NO! 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. 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.

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 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. Houdini was a no show at all these official controlled seances.

It is believed that due to the frustration caused by mediums trying to fool Mrs Houini the reward was revoked around 1928 and the code was revealed in an authorized Houdini biography by Harold Kellock 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 that the code had already been revealed in a book and that the whole affair with Ford was a ruse.

On the ten year anniversary of his death (1936), a huge seance 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!

How Did That Last World Wide Seance End? - 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 these events. Houdini's crusade in his lifetime paled to the damaged being caused 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.

Why Would Anyone Do A Seance After That? - 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, and also 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 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 1-2 pm on Oct 31 each year and are incredibly successful publicity stunts for magicians, businesses, libraries, magic shops, etc. The actual seance only lasts a few minutes as a group of magicians create a "psychic circle" just as the mediums in the past did. After about 5 minutes they end and a celebration begins because each time Houdini "no shows", it reminds people to treasure life with your family and your friends and to never fall prey to fraudulent mediums again.

The second is the "show or entertainment" seance where magicians use magic tricks to entertain the audience. These were very popular at the midnight spook shows for decades in theaters, until theaters replaced their stage with movie screens. They are essentially a magic show with ghosts for the entertainment of all.

What became of the mediums of the past? While there are many believers still in Spiritualism, it would never achieve the levels it did at the turn of the previous century. Spiritualism still exists today but it survives mostly on being a form of entertainment (although they are still recognized as a religion and hold services). Readings today are given at weekend parties and festivals by mediums who work real jobs during the week. They have joined the magicians, ventriloquist, and mentalist more as entertainers than the mediums who could actually commune with the dead. In fact, mediums today even do "virtual seances", a leftover from the covid 19 quarantine.

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 return after death.

What is on this site? This site is hosted by Abbott's Magic and contains a wealth of historical information categorized into categories with most categories having 5 sub categories. The categories are as follows:

Houdini (with 5 different sub articles, changing them periodically)

Spiritualism (with 5 different sub articles, changing them periodically)

Abbott's (with 5 different stunts, changing them periodically)

"Real" Seance (serious contact attempts, with 5 different seances as sub articles)

Prop Seance (seances with magic props, with 5 different sections of seance props available)

In The News (over 200 actual newspaper articles - 1874 thru present - divided into 5 sub sections)

Schedule (we will list scheduled Houdini events throughout the country/world).