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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Houdini (Re: Spiritual Energy?
Message-ID: <2606@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 27-Jul-86 23:20:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.2606
Posted: Sun Jul 27 23:20:50 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Jul-86 05:34:19 EDT
References: <877@hoptoad.uucp> <191@cci632.UUCP> <2162@brl-smoke.ARPA> <234@cci632.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

I just finished some research to refresh my memory of the circumstances
of Houdini's attempt to communicate with his wife Bess after his death.

The first thing I found is that every biographer of Houdini gives a
slightly different account.

Putting the pieces together, I gather that the reported "success"
was obtained while Bess was quite ill (including "nervous exhaustion")
and that after she recovered, Bess retracted her endorsement of the
"success".  To show you how ill Bess was, she forgot that she had
divulged the simple word code that she and Houdini used to a biographer
who had published it before the medium, Ford, who had been previously
exposed by the Houdinis as a fraud, exploited it for the "success".

Rex Ballard gave some other details in a previous posting.

The bottom line is, the situation was ideal for a good test of this
psychic phenomenon, but sloppy procedures ruined it, too, alas.