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Houdini's Efforts at Debunking
Elsewhere in multiple error posts we had a brief account designed to debunk John Edward by also bringing up the story of the famed Magician Harry Houdini and a singular account of a session with the medium Doris Stokes. The following is a definitive account of Houdini's involvement with debunking mediums and post mortem survival (in this case the ultimate: his own).Not that this is proof of anything save for a fact we already know: many mediums are frauds and fakers, others deluded believers in their own "powers" and some who genuinely receive messages or visions inside their heads (telepathy) that are veridical.
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Not long after Houdini's death, the famous "Houdini Séances" began and not surprisingly, continue today, although the official sanction of the Houdini estate ended years ago. While Bess planned to honor her husband's requests about attempting contact with him after death, this may not have been what prompted her to seek the secret code that he promised to send her from beyond the grave - if possible. Like her husband had been at the death of his mother, Bess was at a loss as to what to do with her life with Houdini gone. They had been together since Bess had been a young woman and she had been living inside of his closed world and filling the role as his wife. She had been his partner in a very real sense and he always stated that Bess was his "beloved wife... and the only one who had ever helped me in my work." Although there life had not been perfect, it had never been dull and as huge as Houdini's ego had been, he never made it a secret that he depended on her totally. With him gone, Bess seemed to be drifting and empty. It's no surprise that she wanted desperately to speak with him again.
Bess Houdini at one of the many séances that followed her husband's death
But her life moved shakily on. While she was not rich, Houdini had left a trust fund for her and substantial amounts of life SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM had been carried on him. She had to pay heavy inheritance taxes but she had more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of her life. She sold their house on West 113th Street and moved to Payson Avenue in another part of the city and became lost in alcohol and misery. She tried opening a tea room and thought of taking a vaudeville act on the road, but none of these projects really got off the ground. She soon began to spend her time attempting to contact her husband. Every Sunday at the hour of his death, she would shut herself in a room with his photograph and wait for a sign. She spread the word that she was waiting for a secret message from her husband and word spread far and wide that Bess had offered $10,000 to any medium who could deliver a true message from Houdini.
Almost weekly, a new medium came forward claiming to have broken the code, but none of them did until 1928, when famed medium Arthur Ford announced that he had a message for Bess. He told her that the message had come from Houdini's mother and consisted of a single word, which was "forgive". With this, Bess had a startling announcement to make... claiming that Ford's message was the first that she had received which "had any appearance of the truth."
In November, another message came to Ford, this time from Houdini himself. In a trance, the medium relayed an entire coded message - "Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell."
After this information was relayed to Bess, she invited Ford to her home and he asked her if the words were correct. She said they were and Ford asked her to remove her wedding ring and tell everyone present what "Rosabelle" meant. This was the word that made the message authentic, a secret known only to Bess and Harry themselves. It was the title of a song that had been popular at Coney Island when they first met. The rest of the message was a series of code words which spelled out the word "believe" - the final clue that Houdini had promised to relay from the next world. But did Houdini actually communicate from the other side?
Not surprisingly, there were soon accusations of fraud leveled against Arthur Ford. Even though Bess claimed the message was correct, many claimed that Ford had gotten the code from a book about Houdini published in 1927. The press, the skeptics and Houdini's friends refused to accept that Ford had broken the code and Bess, on their advice, withdrew her reward offer.
So, did he really break the "impossible" code? Arthur Ford certainly maintained that he had, going to his grave in 1974 with the firm belief that he had actually received a message from Houdini. In 1928, Ford had been the pastor of the First Spiritualist Church of Manhattan and was a respected member of the psychic community. He had also recently distinguished himself by challenging the magician Howard Thurston to a debate at Carnegie Hall, which Ford won. Thurston, who had been carrying on Houdini's tradition of exposing fraudulent mediums, was stymied by being unable to explain some of the effects that Ford produced. After he came forward with the code, jealous colleagues turned on Ford and newspaper reporters and debunkers began to charge him with perpetrating a hoax, along with Bess, despite both of their claims of innocence. Shortly afterwards, Arthur Ford was expelled from the United Spiritualist League of New York but was later reinstated "on the grounds of insufficient evidence."
But was he a fraud? Many people believe so and state that he actually found the "secret" code on page 105 of a book that was published the year before. Incidentally, the code was not one that was specially prepared by Houdini and Bess. It was very old and had been used in their mind-reading act for years. Despite all of this however, it should be noted that while Ford could have easily found the code somewhere - there has never been an adequate explanation (outside of fraud, which was denied by both parties) as to where he got the message that he gave to Bess!
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Note:
Curiously all skeptical accounts (csicop, skepdic, etc) call Mrs. Houdini (real name Mrs Sophie Weiss) "Beatrice" rather than Bess. Bess' maiden name was Sophie Rosenblatt and she was a nurse.
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