Harry Houdini’s real name was Ehrich Weiss. Son of a Hungarian rabbi named Samuel and a beautiful woman, Cecilia Steiner, the history of the family is hidden behind the legend that Houdini created and the Weiss family maintained. According to her, her father had to flee Budapest after killing Prince Erik in a duel. After landing in London, he went to the United States and ended up settling with his family in Appleton, Wisconsin, in the American Midwest. A beautiful story, more striking than the mere fact of emigration forced by the anti-Semitism that permeated the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Houdini was born in Budapest on March 24, 1874 and has gone down in history as the best and most famous escape artist of all time: ropes, handcuffs, chains… nothing was able to keep him tied. However, very few know about another of his hobbies: unmasking those who said they were talking to mediums.
It all started on July 16, 1916, the day that marked a before and after in Houdini’s life. That day his mother died and it was the worst and most bitter drink of his entire life . For the first time, this compulsive worker felt apathy about work. Then he began to frequent the houses of mediums, those people who claim to speak with the dead, looking for a message from his mother; but found only fraud. Disenchanted, he devoted the rest of his life to unmasking them .
Houdini and Doyle
At that time he met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. They soon became friends, as the writer was also fascinated by spiritualism. Of course, Doyle’s mission was different: to proclaim the truth of communication with the dead. It was an unnatural friendship, especially considering that Doyle believed that Houdini had a supernatural gift: he was convinced that Houdini could dematerialize his body at will .
In June 1922 Doyle and his wife were in Atlantic City and invited the Houdini couple to spend the weekend with them. Doyle offered Houdini a seance led by his wife, who was also a medium: apparently his mother wanted to talk to him .
Jane Doyle asked the spirit that had possessed her, “Do you believe in God?” His hand hit the table three consecutive times; it was a yes. “Then I will make the sign of the cross,” and he drew it on a piece of paper. Interestingly, Houdini’s mother, the wife of a rabbi and a devout Jew, did not protest the Christian symbol. Jane’s hand began to write. The result was the classic sentimental chatter of the spirits.
For Houdini the contact was never made. His mother had never spoken to him in English , because in fact he spoke it little and badly, and he did not know how to write it: he always did it in Yiddish. A decisive detail was the date on which the session was held: June 17, the birthday of Houdini’s mother. And his spirit did not even mention it! It is not surprising that after the session the friendship between the two suffered : according to the magician, the Doyles had played with his feelings.
Houdini’s death
Four years later, on October 22, 1926, Houdini was performing his magic show in Montreal. The magician had received three students in his dressing room. One of them, Gordon Whitehead, who was an amateur boxer, asked him, “Is it true that you can take blows to your abdomen without feeling any pain?” Houdini, absently looking at his mail, nodded. Without warning, Whitehead unloaded several punches into the magician’s stomach . The proud Houdini continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
A few days later he began to feel sharp pain in his abdomen. Even in extreme pain, he refused any kind of medical treatment. In the end came the fatal outcome. While backstage at a Detroit theater, he passed out. Urgently taken to the hospital, the doctors could not do anything. An acute peritonitis took the greatest illusionist of all time from this world . It was October 31, 1926, Halloween.
His death caused a great shock throughout the world, but the great wizard was not going to leave this world without one last challenge. With his mother he had agreed on a secret word that would have to appear in his message if the dead could really communicate with the living. Similarly, Houdini had also arranged a message with his wife , Bess. Now his widow, custodian of both, offered a $10,000 prize. Thousands of mediums tried without success, but one who succeeded.
Messages from beyond the grave?
His name was Arthur Ford. On February 8, 1928, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, he received a message from Houdini’s mother: Excuse me . That was the word Houdini waited for all his life. And it would have been quite a test if really only Houdini, his mother and his wife had known her. But it had been published on March 13, 1927 in the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, in an interview with Houdini’s wife.
Arthur Ford was not daunted and continued his contacts with the Houdini family. Now it was the magician’s turn, who sent her the following message: “Rosabelle, answer, say, pray, answer, look, look, say, answer, answer, say.” Bessie recognized the message as part of the secret code she had agreed to with her husband.
The sensational story appeared in every newspaper in the United States. The secret code was that each word, except Rosabelle, represented a number, and that number the position of a letter in the alphabet. The message sent by Houdini was: “Rosabelle, believe.” Had the final test arrived? No. Again the secret code was not so secret . Anyone who had read page 105 of Harold Kellock Houdini’s book, His Life-Story , also knew him. And Arthur Ford had read it.
Since his death, Houdini has failed to emerge triumphant from this latest act of escapism. Perhaps because, as he once said, “anyone can talk to the dead, but they don’t answer.”
Reference:
Brandon, R. (2003) The life and many deaths of Harry Houdini, Random House
