I’ve been sadly derelict in following David Thompson’s shenanigans of late, but one noteworthy incident recently came to my attention.
Apparently, some time ago, the sitters at a Thompson seance were promised that Harry Houdini, a frequent ectoplasmic visitor, would apport (i.e., materialize) an object he had owned in his lifetime. In a later seance, a coin was produced, said to have belonged to the great Houdini himself. This exciting development was trumpeted as mind-boggling, earthshaking, paradigm-shifting proof that Thompson is for real.
Ah, but the course of true love never did run smooth, and neither does Thompson’s star-crossed mediumship. Ere long, embarrassing questions were raised.
But why should I tell the story when a participant in a Spiritualist Chat Room thread has done the heavy lifting for me? (To read the thread, go here, register for the site, then navigate to the Spiritualist Experiences topic, and choose the thread titled "Victor Zammit." This particular post appears on p. 10 of the increasingly long – and very interesting – discussion.)
JimW, a senior member of the forum, reports on the controversial coin as follows:
Let us consider the strange case of Harry Houdini and his personal possession….
HH comes to a COSC circle [i.e., the Circle of the Silver Cord, Thompson’s "investigators" – MP] and promises that something personally belonging to him will be apported in the UK to be taken to the Magic Circle (which strangely he confuses as being in New York not in London).
The next stage comes at the COSC first seance in the UK where some special USA guests are attending. HH apparently materialises and a hand appears on the luminous planchette producing a coin.
Attendees keep quiet so that Victor and COSC can pronounce this major event and it is publicly trumpeted about the coin appearing, a commemorative coin of HH. This then appears on the COSC site.
It seems even at the earliest stage, when it should have been obvious that no commemorative coin was struck in HH’s lifetime, no one questioned that this was not the long awaited truth.
Then shock and horror – the coin was minted well after the date of HH’s death and was probably a copy anyway of an original. So clearly not a personal possession of HH.
As an empiricist what would be my conclusions to this? Why on earth would HH "apport" something like this in a seance?
It is probably one of the singly most troubling events in the whole chain of concerns.
As for me, your humble correspondent, I’m long past being troubled in any way by David Thompson. I only wonder what he’s going to apport next.
May I suggest a DVD of the Tony Curtis biopic Houdini, an item which – like the commemorative coin itself – was surely owned by Houdini in his lifetime?