Salt Lake Telegram | 1929-01-20 | Page 13 | "Messages" from the Dead

j K gi p Messages From the Dead ead r rIT I IIii Ip IT Iii would be very odd if Harry Houdini who L spent a good share of his rest restless ess life fighting the fhe theory that the dead could return and speak to the living should n W be trying to send word from beyond the grave t to his widow Mrs believes that a New York ni m has las given her an m s- s from the greal magician And while oJ ome close friends friends of Houdini Houdini are still openly about It scenting a fake Mrs Houdini Hou- Hou dini seems to be persuaded that the message genuine t- t During his lifetime Ho Houdini dini demonstrated beyond a doubt that a great geat many mediums I tare Jare fakes We Ve J long ng to communicate te with those ose whom have lost but the hocus hocus- we but thimble rigging of darkened parlors on cheap streets tinkling bells ignorant mediums and nonsensical controls disgust us We feel that if sour loved ones wanted to speaR speak t tO us they not be bound by any such cheap clap clap- no Yet et too facile skepticism is as bad as over over- I cr r d Just as in Hamlets Hamlet's day there are nie moie things in and earth than our philosophy dreams of To ridicule Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for be- be they received messages from the dead l b G cuse use of the odor of fraud which clings rt about the average medium is one thing to d bt them because of a cocksure assumption thata that a world of radios airplanes and nd organic I tche 1 sr has has no place in it for disembodied t spirits IS' IS qUite another 4 It is this second attitude which too many manyoL oL of us adopt Perhaps for that reason it 1 would he be a good thing for us if it could be bei i as proved proved-as it can It in the nature of oft t the Mrs Houdini I things that message re I came from froni Harry Houdini It might 4 j jar lar us ou out of our complacent se self f I In spit ot at J put d rn cl Qc n nJ J f I 11 1 1 J i spite of our healthy preoccupation with thugs things that can be seen and handled and built up or torn down at will will-we still are re gripped by bythe bythe the necessity of finding a satiSfactory answer to he old question that was pu put in Judea twenty centuries ago If a mm man die shan shall lie he live again It is still true that this is one Kind of universe if the answer to that question ques- ques Lion tion tie lie yes and another kind if the answer be no We shall always hunger after that answer and we shall always feel in the bottom of our hearts that we re lost and helpless if that answer is is' not what we hope