Arthur Ford, the medium, dies
The medium Arthur Ford died in Miami on 4 January 1971. His claimed contact with Houdini and Bishop Pike's son was later challenged.
Arthur Ford was born on 8 January 1896 and died of cardiac arrest in Miami on 4 January 1971. He had spent his last three years in Miami. His ashes went into the Atlantic. He founded the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship around 1955.
Ford claimed that in 1928 he contacted the spirit of Houdini's mother, and that in 1929 he contacted Harry Houdini himself. The message reported was "Rosabelle, believe." Bess Houdini asked for a private sitting, and on 7 January 1929, in her apartment, the message was repeated. According to a later account she put her signature to a statement confirming it.
In September 1967 Ford took part in a televised seance with Bishop James Pike, who wished to contact his dead son. Pike described it in his book The Other Side.
After Ford's death, his biographers William Rauscher and Allen Spraggett said they found his notes for the Houdini session among his papers, which they read as showing he faked it.
"Arthur Ford (January 8, 1896 – January 4, 1971) was an American psychic, spiritualist medium, clairaudient, and founder of the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (c. 1955). He gained national attention when he claimed to have contacted the dead son of Bishop James Pike in 1967 on network TV. In 1928 Ford claimed to have contacted the deceased spirits of Houdini's mother and later, in 1929, Harry Houdini himself."
- Ford, Arthur Augustus, Occult World
- Ford, Arthur A(ugustus) (1896-1971), Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (via Encyclopedia.com)
- The Other Side (Pike book), Wikipedia
- Greetings from Far Away, The New York Review of Books