The Academy of Magical Arts’s most important week of the year. The Academy is headquartered in the Magic Castle in Hollywood. It’s a private club for the elite practioners of the magical arts, so you’ll need an invitation from a member or be accompanied by a member to gain admittance. The annual premier Hollywood event is, as it has been for decades, the Houdini Séance.
Houdini was not only the greatest escape artist who ever lived, but he led a passionate personal crusade to unmask and debunk fake mediums who preyed upon vulnerable grief-stricken people seeking word from their lost loved ones on the “other side.” As he lay dying, Houdini instructed his wife to hold a séance each anniversary of his passing—and he would communicate with her if such a thing were really truly possible. He died on October 31, 1926. Beatrice observed the séance ritual every Halloween night for decades. She never received any word from Harry.
The Magic Castle now conducts the Houdini Séance each Halloween as “an evening that recreates the elegance and mystery of a classic Victorian séance,” or, in the parlance of playbills of the time, an “Extraordinary Mindbending Turn You Into a Believer Other Worldly Experience.”
For more information, contact “the séance manager” at (323) 851-3313 or magiccastle.com.