Magician’s Widow Impressed by Key Word, but It Is Found She Had Revealed It

A message containing the word “forgive,” received at a spiritualist séance last Wednesday evening at the home of Arthur Ford, 315 West Ninety-seventh Street, which those present assert came from the mother of the late Harry Houdini, magician, impressed the widow of the magician last night, because she said that no one but her husband and herself had known the key word “forgive” agreed upon before his mother’s death in 1913. Investigation last night showed, however, that Mrs. Houdini had revealed in detail the arrangement between the magician and his mother in an interview published in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on March 13, 1927, which explained that any genuine message was to contain the word “forgive.”

Mrs. Houdini declared last night that her husband had been at heart in sympathy with spiritualism, and before his mother’s death had asked her to try to communicate with him after she died. Houdini died in October, 1926, without receiving a message from his mother. He, in turn, had previously arranged with his wife to try to communicate with her. Hundreds of messages purporting to come from both Houdini and his mother have been received by mediums throughout the world and forwarded to Mrs. Houdini, she said last night, but none had contained the key word “forgive” before.

Ford asserted last night that he know nothing of a previous arrangement between Houdini and his mother.

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