The Great Prestidigitator

Harry Houdini (1874-1926) was a world-famous magician and escape artist.  He was a life member of St. Cecile Lodge No. 568, New York City.  Here are a few facts about the famous prestidigitator:


• He made many attempts to communicate with his mother after she died, but found no evidence of contact.

• Houdini despised fraudulent seers and mediums and worked tirelessly to expose their fraud.

• He believed once the fraud was removed from seances, what was left must be the truth.

• He made a pact with his wife Bessie that the first to die would attempt to contact the other through a coded message.

• No one knows what the full coded message was, but part of the pact was that Houdini would open a pair of silver handcuffs they owned.

• For the first year after his death, his wife sat alone in their parlor for an hour every Sunday, with his picture, waiting for a message.

• Appearing as herself in the 1938 film, Religious Racketeer, Bess Houdini created controversy among spiritualists when she said she did not believe communication with the dead was possible.

• Every year until it was torn down in the early 1980s, on Halloween (the anniversary of his death) Houdini devotees conducted a seance in Grace Hospital, Detroit, where he died. The news media frequently reported on it and the final year, Time Magazine ran a story about it.

• His wife never received any communication from Houdini after his death, but hundreds of psychics claimed they did.

• Houdini was an honorary police lieutenant in New York City.

• He testified before congress against spiritualism.

• He worked in secret with Thomas Edison on a "delicate psychic detecting instrument" and a process that would allow flash photographs without a flash being visible.

• He was an accomplished airplane pilot and one of the first 17 fliers in the world.  He was the first person ever to fly a plane in Australia, March 15, 1910.

• A prankster once trapped him in a phone booth in the Savoy Hotel in Kansas City and he was unable to escape.

• He had a secret bank lock box which has never been found. Known to be among its contents is a box of jewelry he always put there prior to traveling.

• He and Bess had a gala 25th wedding anniversary in Hollywood at which Harry invited all guests to their 50th anniversary party. Among them, Brother Will Rogers.

• Bess held a final seance for Harry on the 10th anniversary of his death, in which he failed to appear.  Bess declared the search over and said she believed he could not come back, "It is finished."

• October 26, 1926, Houdini received a painful blow to the stomach in a demonstration at McGill University in Montreal.  Contrary to popular opinion, most medical experts believe the blow was unrelated to the appendicitis which killed him; however, Houdini failed to get treatment thinking the pain in his stomach was due to the punch to his abdomen.