Halloween is a good time to conduct a seance. The spirits seem eager to mingle with us mere mortals on our designated spooky fall day. With the death of Harry Houdini on Halloween,1926, the legendary magician became the most popular spirit for seance mediums to try and contact in order to reach the other world. It began with Bess, Houdini’s wife, who for years after his death, famously tried contacting her beloved husband every Halloween in the vain hope of speaking to him one more time. Despite her repeated failures to do so, Houdini remains the popular spirit of choice for Halloween seances to this day.
I’ve never tried contacting Houdini on Halloween - he seems like he’d be pretty busy that day. Plus, I have no personal connection to him. A familial descendant of Houdini seems like they should have priority of his ethereal time over the scores of wannabe spiritualistic hucksters looking to use the great magician’s name to make a quick buck or impress a potential suitor.
No, Houdini on Halloween is not for me. I have my own personal spirit to contact on All Hallows Eve, although I haven’t yet tried. You see, two years ago, my father died on Halloween, forever hence altering this formerly fun day of innocent spookiness and tasty candy to one of mourning and regret. Not long after the initial shock wore off, however, I kept having gnawing thoughts about the particular timing of dad’s demise. Surely, as a magician and appreciator of spiritualism memorabilia, the timing of the death (Halloween, for Pete’s sake!) was telling me something - that I should try to conduct my own seance to reach the other world and communicate with my very own personal spirit contact.
I’ve never tried contacting Houdini on Halloween - he seems like he’d be pretty busy that day. Plus, I have no personal connection to him. A familial descendant of Houdini seems like they should have priority of his ethereal time over the scores of wannabe spiritualistic hucksters looking to use the great magician’s name to make a quick buck or impress a potential suitor.
No, Houdini on Halloween is not for me. I have my own personal spirit to contact on All Hallows Eve, although I haven’t yet tried. You see, two years ago, my father died on Halloween, forever hence altering this formerly fun day of innocent spookiness and tasty candy to one of mourning and regret. Not long after the initial shock wore off, however, I kept having gnawing thoughts about the particular timing of dad’s demise. Surely, as a magician and appreciator of spiritualism memorabilia, the timing of the death (Halloween, for Pete’s sake!) was telling me something - that I should try to conduct my own seance to reach the other world and communicate with my very own personal spirit contact.
I’m still waiting to do so, and really, I don’t know if I’ll ever try. But if I do, I want it to be entertaining for my audience. I have various ‘tests’ planned, all suited to fit my spirit contact’s unique personae. For instance, throughout most of his life, Dad was a lover of the marijuana herb, so I will place one of his personal smoking pipes next to a framed picture of him and cover both with a decorative cloth. As some of his favorite music is played (Moody Blues), my audience and I will watch as inexplicably, smoke will start to emanate from underneath the cloth - smoke that carries the unmistakable scent of weed. And when I withdraw the cloth, the picture in the frame will have vanished and the pipe will show no trace of being recently used.
This previous test will allow us to proceed to the matter of asking my spirit father some specific questions (yes or no, of course), using two of his childhood school chalk-writing slates. “Is it going to rain later today?” might be an inquiry, for example. Or, “Do you realize what a number you’ve done on your children, Dad?” However he responds, it will be in the unmistakable hand of a confident and bright eight-year-old lad from Roxbury, Massachusetts.
This dramatic and informative written session might well lead into an audio encounter using an old sports bullhorn from dad’s high school track days. Are those sounds of running feet we hear?
At some point, we might even receive an unexpected visit from Nana, whose ectoplasmic-type stiff hand that I remove from a keepsake box suddenly moves, then crumples into a ball.
This previous test will allow us to proceed to the matter of asking my spirit father some specific questions (yes or no, of course), using two of his childhood school chalk-writing slates. “Is it going to rain later today?” might be an inquiry, for example. Or, “Do you realize what a number you’ve done on your children, Dad?” However he responds, it will be in the unmistakable hand of a confident and bright eight-year-old lad from Roxbury, Massachusetts.
This dramatic and informative written session might well lead into an audio encounter using an old sports bullhorn from dad’s high school track days. Are those sounds of running feet we hear?
At some point, we might even receive an unexpected visit from Nana, whose ectoplasmic-type stiff hand that I remove from a keepsake box suddenly moves, then crumples into a ball.
These are just some examples of what this Halloween dad seance might look like. I am certainly not prepared practically or emotionally to try to ‘reach out’ this Halloween (only one day away), so perhaps next year, dad. I am hearing there are those who would like to talk to you again, not to mention people who would like a slightly different kind of spirit guide to the other world. What’s that? “Sounds like a business plan,” you say? Of course you’d say that, lifelong entrepreneur that you were. But why am I hearing voices now? Save it for the seance, pop!