If you don’t have plans on Halloween night, are able to get to New York City, have $2,500 to spend, and black-tie attire ready to wear, there’s an event just waiting for you. That evening, on the 100th anniversary of Houdini’s death, his residence in NYC (appropriately called Houdini’s House) will be holding 13-person séances hosted by professed medium Jodi-Lynn who states on her website that she “was Born with the ability to see and communicate with Spirit [sic.].”
At the time this column goes to print, the $1,000-seat evening séance was sold out. The $2,500 experience is still available, however, and begins at 1:26 p.m., Houdini’s purported time of death back on October 31, 1926. Both séances also include a guided tour of Houdini’s House, a talk from historian John Cox, a wine and cheese reception, a magic wand carved from wood from Houdini’s House, and a brick from the building. All proceeds, the website states, will go toward the restoration and preservation of Houdini’s House and “cancer research.”
The experience, Houdini House makes clear, is not a theme party but a “historical vigil,” and the annual event has indeed become an endearing tradition. In that vein, it’s nice to see there is also a séance just for magicians at 9:30 p.m. that night, where seats are granted by request at a set fee that one assumes (hopes) is less than the other two seatings. The magicians, sadly, will not receive one of Houdini House’s bricks, though the rest of the experience appears to be the same.
Images courtesy of The Magic Circle Collection