5. Houdini’s will specified that a séance be held on the anniversary of his death
Harry Houdini is well remembered as possibly the greatest escape artist of all time, a man who thrilled audiences in the early 1900s with his daring escapes and feats which cheated death. What is less well known was Houdini’s fascination with life after death. Houdini used his experience as a magician – the ability to deceive an audience into believing they had seen something other than what really happened – to debunk spiritualists and mediums who claimed to have connections with the afterlife. At the same time, Houdini sought legitimate contact with the dead, spurred on by the loss of his own mother. His efforts to debunk spiritualists became, as he was, internationally famous, and the subject of debate between spiritualists and non-believers.
Houdini promised his wife that should there be a means for the dead to contact the living he would find it after his own death and provided her with a coded message to validate that it was in fact him making contact through a medium. The message was “Rosabelle believe”. Houdini also specified in his will that on the anniversary of his death a séance be held to attempt to contact him. He died, somewhat appropriately, on Halloween night in 1926. His widow, Bess, held a séance for the magician annually on Halloween night for a decade, and though in 1929 the code was revealed, Bess later claimed that it had been arrived at through a hoax. Harry apparently never contacted her, and after 1936 she discontinued the attempts. She later said that “ten years is long enough to wait for any man”.
