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From: rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Houdini (Re: Spiritual Energy?
Message-ID: <285@cci632.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Aug-86 15:21:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cci632.285
Posted: Sat Aug  2 15:21:45 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Aug-86 06:06:45 EDT
References: <191@cci632.UUCP> <2162@brl-smoke.ARPA> <234@cci632.UUCP> <2606@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard)
Organization: CCI, Rochester Development, Rochester, NY
Lines: 38
Summary: How much was known?

In article <2606@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
>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".

As I understood it, she only disclosed that the code was used, but not the
code itself, or the message.  There is a good chance that the code and
message were "Revealed" to Ford prior to his "presentation", but it is unclear
as to how.  Is the word code itself contained in any autobiography or
biography?  Several "made up" examples of the code have been used in the
various biographies, but which one is the "real code"?

The allegation is that Ford observed Houdini's act in order to learn the
code.  Ford would have had to have been a Houdini fan before Houdini was
really famous, but he could have done so.  This leaves only the message.
This is also possibly discernable.  Rosabelle was the name of a song Bess
used to sing, before she hooked up as Houdinis assistant and wife.

It was never succesfully proven that Ford had "intellectually" learned this
information (through research, observation, or study), but it is quite possible
that he could have learned it "subconciously".

>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.

Agreed.