MESSAGE FROM HOUDINI

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 February 1937, Page 16

MESSAGE FROM HOUDINI

CLAIM BY SPIRITUALIST. [PEB PBESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, February 27. A man who in 1929 claimed to have “received” and transmitted to Mrs Beatrice Houdini, the widow of the famous magician, a code message of her husband, passed through Auckland this morning. He is the Rev. Arthur Ford, a clergyman of the American Episcopal Church, a lecturer and a medium, and he is regarded as one of the leaders of the spiritualist movement. This morning Mi* Ford described how he had received the message and showed a facsimile of an acknowledgement by Mrs Houdini that she had received it and that it was correct.

Ha told how for years Houdini had expressed his disbelief in psychic phenomena, and how before his death he had given to Mrs Houdini a code message which he had declared he would try to transmit, to her after his death. She was the only one who had the code. Mr Ford said that later, while he was giving a private seance to the editor of the “Scientific American,” Mr John Stafford, he had heard strange words. They had been repeated to him again and again for a week. “At that time Mrs Houdini was being inundated with messages of one sort and another and. was disclaiming them all,” said Mr Ford. “Frankly, 1 doubted whether I had the correct message and I did not wish to be drawn into the matter. However, I let the message go to Mrs Houdini and she admitted it was correct.” Later, lie said, Mrs Houdini had tried to get the message herself. She had gone to the top of a very high building in the United States and in the presence of about 200 ? people, including newsreel photographers and reporters, and without the aid of a medium had tried to get into touch with her husband. . z “She violated all the rules of the seance,” ho said, “and I don’t know why she did it. What she claims now is that she herself has not had the message from Houdini.”