Re: Houdini stuff

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

> For the U.S. gang, I watched the A&E cable network's "Biography" show on
> Houdini this past week, and now I'm troubled ...

> About ten years ago, I read a book called "The New Apocrypha" (spl?) about
> debunking various psychic phenomeon and the one it couldn't disprove, but
> tried to, was the "Rosabel Believe" thing. So I'd always assumed Kate was
> right on the money  with her version of events in "Houdini."

    No, Kate was mistaken. She apparently read very little about the
life of Houdini. True to form, the song is closer in the details to
the Hollywood film starring Tony Curtis than to the real events of
Houdini's life and art. This is in no way intended to disparage Kate's
song, which concentrates on the *emotional*, rather than the
biographical aspects of Eric and Bess's relationship. 

> The "Biography" program, however, said it never happened. It spoke about
> the last seance and that a clap of thunder happened but no "Rosabel
> Believe." So were Kate AND "The New Apocrypha" both wrong? 

   Yes. At one point Bess was given the code by a "psychic," but she
later found out that he obtained it from a former servant of 
Houdini's (it *was* simply their favorite song, rather than some
involved code.) So, it's easy to see how the confusion has happened.
Bess *once* stated that a "psychic" had given her the code, then
she retracted that statement. As usually happens, the people who
want to believe in "psychic phenomena" accept want they want and
disregard the rest. So the first claim of contact is more widely
reported than the true (but less romantic) story.


                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)