Houdini - No Show at Seance
31st October 2006 - The 8oth anniversary of Houdini’s death
As regular ‘blog readers’ will know earlier this month in a fit of madness I decided to celebrate the 8oth anniversay of this master magicians death by recreating one of his escapology stunts… hopefully we will be able to share a video of this event in the near future…
HOWEVER, last night - Halloween - we held a seance in the hope that Houdini could escape from the bonds that keep in locked in the spiritual realms.
This seance is part of a tradition which stems back to 1926.
Houdini spent the later part of his life seeking out and exposing fradulent mediums. Despite is apparent cynicism with regards Spiritualism, he nonetheless agreed a ‘code’ with his wife Bess which would be used to valiadate any messages that would come ‘from the beyond’ on the event of one or the others death.
For ten years after the magicians death Bess held a public seance in the hope that this coded message would be recieved.
The final seance was held on the rooftop of the Kinickerboker Hotel in Hollywood, Halloween 1936. No message was recieved…
Since that time magicians and mystics across the world have met to recreate the hsitoric seance and hope that they might receive the message Bess did not…. perhaps spirit clocks run far more slowly than material clocks and the message has simply been delayed!
SO, last night, in a darkened upstairs room of a magic shop in Cornwall (Kernow Magic), Kenny Roberts (magician); myself (Rational Mystic) and a small group of witnesses, including media students who are making a documentary about Cornish Magic and Magicians, set about summoning Houdini’s spirit…. unfortunately this was one engagement that the master magician of yesteryer chose not to attend.
There is an odd postcript however….
As entertainers there was a desire to give the audience a taste of something mystical beyond the limits of the seance itself… a number of peripheral magic effects were planned…
Despite these being carefully rehearsed a series of strange errors crept into the proceedings…
A powerpoint presentation containing audio extracts from the original 1936 seance skipped slides and sequences during the ‘performance’ DESPITE HAVING WORKED PERFECTLY several times prior and CONSISTENTLY afterwards!
More interestingly, a card, which had been signed by those present which was (by magical means) destined to transform form the King of Hearts (a romantic symbol to represent Houdini in his King of Cards incarnation prior to the King of Handcuffs) into a picture of Houdini actually turned into a JOKER!
Now despite the ‘mechanics’ of this effect being well rehearsed and fully prepared, the appearance of the Joker rather than the prepared picture of Houdini was a shock to both Kenny and myself… maybe that’s the message Houdini really wanted to get across - he may well have had the last laugh!
Alan
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