Laurence Rees Esq.
Head of History Programmes Unit BBC
Room 5433
201 Wood Lane
London W12 7TS

24th June 2000

Dear Mr. Rees,

Many thanks for your personal letter dated 22nd June. You have always been number one in my book for honesty, ever since the Thomas Paine documentary in 1982. You can imagine how shocked and hurt I was to see James Randi on a history programme that carried your name. In order not to swamp I will in future correspond direct with your versioning producer, Carol Sennett.

There is a good reason why Mrs. Houdini renounced her sworn declaration in 1929 that said she had made contact with her "dead" husband. A reason that James Randi would be very careful not to bring to your attention.

My colleague John Samson of the Society for Psychical Research tells me that Mrs. Houdini was a Roman Catholic. The Catholic priests had literally put the fear of Christ up her. They would have persuaded her that she was doing the devil's work in dealing with a medium, and that she would never get to heaven if she did not change her statement. All priests are terrified of mediums solely because whenever we make contact with people in the invisible part of the universe, the message is always the same,

"There is no place here reserved for Christians or anybody else, we all survive death."

This makes the priests redundant!

Thankfully, the producers of the Hollywood film on Houdini realised Mrs. Houdini had been got at. They told the truth and ended the film with her making contact with her "dead" husband via the American medium Arthur Ford.

Yours sincerely

Michael Roll

The witnessed statement by Beatrice Houdini (January 9, 1929), confirming that her deceased husband, Harry Houdini, had established contact with her through the medium Arthur Ford.

Houdini - Letter from Laurence Rees to Michael Roll (June 22, 2000)

James Randi - His Amazing Role in the Great Psi Media Circus - an article by Sam Nicholls (1991)