Halloween And Houdini: The Strange Synchronicity

Nearly nine decades after his untimely death, Houdini is still remembered as a magician extraordinaire and original escapologist. Perhaps not as well remembered was his crusade in his final years to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists. And that provides the basis for what I consider the synchronicity between Houdini and Halloween - that time of year traditionally thought to be when the veil between this life and the next is at its thinnest.

It wasn't so much that Houdini disbelieved in the spirit world or those who had crossed over being able to reach out to those still on this side of the veil,  but after having been disappointed time and again in his efforts to contact his beloved mother after her death, he grew angry over those who would prey on the grief of others.

For years he investigated, challenged, lectured against and exposed mediums, and towards the end of his career/life made demonstrations of fraudulent mediumship a part of his magic show. The battle he waged was so fierce that spiritualists began to curse him and predict his demise. Evidently Houdini began to suspect the spiritualists were seriously out to get him.

Many years after Houdini's death his friend and associate wrote a newspaper column which tells of a premonition Houdini was having concerning this. In his article How Did Houdini Know? Fulton Oursler revealed:

One Saturday in early autumn, Houdini called me on the telephone. He was very excited.

"Listen," he began, I'm leaving on a tour in a little while. Probably I'm talking to you for the last time. They are going to kill me."

"Who?"

"Fraudulent spirit mediums. Don't laugh. Every night they are holding seances and praying for my death. "

Oursler goes on to relate how a few weeks after that phone call he received a visit from a lady he called Mrs. Hartley, who claimed to have a message she received in a trance. It was allegedly from Professor James H. Hyslop, founders of  the American Society for Physic Research, and read:

"The waters are dark for Houdini. He thinks he has only broken his ankle, but his days of attacking spiritualism are over."  

The waters were indeed dark for Houdini. Shortly after Oursler received this message Houdini developed a case of appendicitis that he ignored. It soon progressed into a full blown peritonitis. This was fairly a death sentence in those pre-antibiotic days of the 1920s.

Struggling for days and surviving two surgeries, Houdini finally gave up the ghost on Halloween, 1926.

His widow, Bess, tried for a decade to make contact with him through seances, finally giving up and turning off the light for good at her personal shrine to her husband. She became convinced that communication with dead was not possible.

But that did not keep his admirers from continuing the Halloween seance tradition. I remember well as a teenager the hoopla in 1976 - the fiftieth anniversary of his death - when once again Houdini disappointed his fans. And you can bet that somewhere there will be those trying again to reach him this Halloween. The two forever seem to be connected.

When William Jennings Bryan Lay Down And Died

William Jennings is certainly one the United States most colorful historical figures. He was a politician, serving as Secretary of State in the Woodrow Wilson administration. A position his convictions forced him to resign from. But perhaps most amazing of all concerning his political career are his three failed attempts to become president. He ran and was defeated in 1896, 1900 and lastly in 1908. But Bryan was also an outspoken Christian fundamentalist who waged war against "Darwinism" during the latter part of his life, the last battle being his assistance in the defense of John T. Scopes at Dayton, Tennessee's infamous "Monkey Trial."

Strange and perhaps fitting as it seems, Bryan died at Dayton shortly after the trial ended. Stranger still is the premonition Bryan had of his exact manner of death.

In reporting his death, the July 29, 1925 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle had this bit of reportage:

Bryan Last Summer Had a Premonition He Would Die in Sleep

Macon, Mo., July 29 (AP)--William Jennings Bryan had a premonition he would die in sleep.

Last summer he said to Dr. A. C. Hildreth of Macon: "My heart has not been treating me just right. Some time after a big meeting, or an occasion where I have been engaged in some sharp contest, I will lie down to rest and sleep a sleep that will be eternal." 

Nailed it exactly, I would say. Perhaps Bryan having a premonition of dying was not so strange.  After all, he was 65 and tired, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble.

But no, he had a premonition of dying peacefully in his sleep. Exactly the way his premonition had it, after a "sharp contest," which is an accurate description of his toe-to-toe exchanges with prosecuting attorney Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial.

It is a strange world....

Miracle Bill

I suppose I should start with my usual disclaimer that by miracle I mean an extremely outstanding and unusual event and not necessarily something against the known laws of nature. Whether one thinks of events such as the one that is the subject of this as post touching the divine or not depends on one's worldview.

Anyway, this story was widely written about and covered in the media a few months back. Just Google Peter Bilello and you can find out all about it.

 Peter and Grace Bilello had been married for fifty years. Peter was by Grace's side through her fourteen-year-long battle with cancer, which, sadly, she lost last year.

Back in 2009 Peter came up with the idea of he and Grace signing dollar bills. He kept Grace's signed bill in his wallet, but was distressed to find out one day that he had inadvertently spent it somewhere along the way. Disappointed, he assumed he would never see that bill again.

Time went on and his beloved wife died. He had regular "visits" with her at the cemetery, but of course he missed her terribly. Then one day in June of this year - five years after he lost the special dollar - he had taken his granddaughter  to a local Subway restaurant where she had received that very dollar in change.

The family now feels that this was Grace coming back to them. And Peter has put the dollar in a special place so he doesn't lose it again.

Peter considers this a miracle. I think that to say the least it is a very meaningful coincidence or example of synchronicity. I love these kinds of stories. I've experienced many of these meaningful events in my life. To me they are little indicators that maybe - just maybe - things are not just a mishmash.

Fireworks Display Predicts Ascent Of A President

The study of coincidence, I believe, is fascinating in itself. But when you plumb the possibility of meaningful coincidences - Synchronicity, as it is known - you go beyond the fascinating into the uncanny.

Below is an old newspaper clipping I found. While the story it tells is easy enough to dismiss as mere coincidence, it yet proved to be an eerie prediction of the future.

At that same Pan-American Exposition in 1901 President William McKinley was cut down by assassin Leon Czolgosz. fulfilling the fireworks prediction; for when that tragic event occurred, the presidency fell to Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt.

Interestingly enough, just as the fireworks display gradually dissolved from Our Vice-President into Our President, President McKinley did not die at once after being shot but lingered on for a week. At that point Theodore Roosevelt was "Our President."

A Dream Speaks

The purely material worldview leaves me cold, I must say. As a metaphysical idealist I think there is much more going on behind the scenes than reductionist materialism can adequately account for. I feel this way because of my own experiences (which is the best "proof"), but also because - when you take the time to look around - others report these uncanny happenings. A case in point is a story I caught quite by accident because my television was still on after the news (which is hardly ever the case) on the show Inside Edition.

Seems that 20-year-old nursing student Emily Clark, from my home state of Georgia, was killed in a tragic car accident in April of this year. Four other nursing students also perished in the crash. The crash was fiery and devastating and a story about it can be found at this link.

The strange part of the story is Emily's younger sister Haily, who became convinced Emily's iphone was intact and somewhere near the crash site. Her parent's could not conceive such a thing and insisted the phone had been destroyed in the crash - not an unreasonable assumption at all, if you clicked the link above and read the details.

But Hailey insisted otherwise. In fact, Hailey went to the crash site and looked for the phone. She had a dream; a dream she felt was Emily attempting to guide her to the phone. "I could see the phone and it was at the crash," Hailey stated.

Then, as Inside Edition reported:

Like a bolt from the blue, six months after Emily's death came a call from police investigators. A cellphone had been found at the crash site, exactly where Emily had told Hailey where it was in her dream.

The phone not only was intact but just dirty. And with the iphone came a cache of photos Emily had taken - a priceless treasure for her family. It was as if a piece of her was still alive.

Some folks deny that dreams can convey knowledge of things or foretell the future, that the departed can communicate with us through them. I understand. The skeptic's worldview will not allow such things. But for those of us who have experienced meaningful dreams, no amount of naysaying will dissuade us.