The statement of Mrs. Beatrice Houdini, widow of Harry Houdini, that the magician had on Tuesday sent a “spirit message” to her through a medium evoked skeptical replies yesterday from friends of the magician. One man offered a prize of $25,000 for further communications from Houdini.

The “message” was delivered to Mrs. Houdini by Arthur Ford, minister of the First Spiritualist Church, who went into a trance in Mrs. Houdini’s home at 67 Payson Avenue. The message consisted of ten code words which, when deciphered, spelled “believe.” Before his death in 1926 the magician had arranged to send this word to his wife if possible.

Mrs. Houdini declared yesterday that she was prepared to believe that the word had come to her through genuine spiritualistic channels. She has been delirious at times since Jan. 1, when she slipped and fell to the floor, injuring her head and spine.

Freethinker Offers Prize

Joseph Lewis, president of the Freethinkers’ Society of New York and a friend of the late magician, announced he was so little impressed by Mr. Ford’s feat that he was offering him a prize of $25,000 if he could obtain from the spirit of Houdini the substance of a conversation which Mr. Lewis had had with the magician in a dressing room of the Hippodrome Theatre here in 1926.

“It is my opinion,” Mr. Lewis said, “that Mrs. Houdini has been unduly influenced because of her illness.”

Mrs. Houdini declared yesterday that Mr. Ford would not receive the prize of $10,000 which she had offered two years ago to the medium who obtained the secret message from her husband. She declared that she had withdrawn the prize several weeks ago, because spiritualists had suggested that the offering of a reward hindered attempted communication with Houdini.

Joseph Dunninger, chairman of the psychical research committee of the magazine Science and Invention, said at its offices, 230 Fifth Avenue, that Mr. Ford’s achievement would not gain the prize of $21,000 which the magazine had offered for genuine demonstrations of spiritualism.

Say Code was Published

“I saw Mrs. Houdini this morning,” Dunninger said. “She admitted that the code used in Ford’s spirit message had been published a year ago in the book ‘Houdini and His Life Story.’ She also said that a nurse who attended Houdini in his last illness might have heard them mention the code word, ‘Believe.’

“I am a magician myself, and I have found that most mediums use the methods of poor magicians. I am prepared to give as good a performance as Mr. Ford did.”

Mrs. Houdini denied later that the nurse who attended Houdini had learned the code word.

“I was so impressed by Mr. Ford’s séance,” she declared, “that I went to sleep in a dark room and tried to see his ghost. All I got were some queer flashes, which might have come from the pain in my head.”

Another who was impressed by Mr. Ford’s exhibition was John W. Stafford, associate editor of the Scientific American, who was present at the séance.

“Accepting the good faith of all parties concerned,” Mr. Stafford said, “there is no question that communication was established between a living person and one dead.”

Special to The New York Times.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., Jan. 9–Doubt of the authenticity of a message to Mrs. Harry Houdini in New York, purporting to come from her husband in the spirit world, was expressed today by Remigius Weiss of 954 North Fifth Street, with whom the magician left a secret code different from the one he gave his wife to recognize any message he might send after death. Mr. Weiss spent much time with Houdini for many years in investigating spiritualists.

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