SKEPTICS CALL HOUDINI SEANCE HOOEY

SKEPTICS CALL HOUDINI SEANCE HOOEY

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (Wireless Flash) -- A magician hopes to scare up new interest in seances with a little help from Harry Houdini. Las Vegas-based magician Dixie Dooley says he will hold a seance on Halloween night in an attempt to contact the spirit of Houdini, who died on October 31, 1926. Several Houdini seances are held each year -- some under strict scientific conditions -- but Dooley believes Houdini will come back from the dead at his seance because, in his words, "Houdini was such a showman that he would materialize on-stage, not in a lab." The magician admits Houdini's ghost hasn't appeared at any of his previous seances in the last 14 years -- a fact which leads Joe Nickell of "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine doubtful Houdini will show up this time -- or any other time.