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MEDIUMS WHO produce such objective effects as raps, movements of objects without
contact, and materializations are known as 'physical' mediums. They are few and
more notorious than important. Their more lively phenomena provide good fun for
the onlookers, but they rarely agree to be seriously investigated, and of those
who have done so hardly one has not been detected at least once in fraud. Even
those who refuse to come near investigators are not safe from exposure. It only
needs an over-bold visitor to switch on a light to reveal the materialized
spirit as the medium dressed up in false beard and cheese-cloth drapery. Before
the development of infra-red photography, physical mediums could effect the most
brazen frauds. Now that the infra-red image converter enables one to see in the
dark, the mediums no longer have it all their own way. Despite the offer by some
SPR members of a reward of £250 for a physical phenomenon that can be watched
through the infrared telescope, no medium has submitted to serious
investigation. The common-sense view is that they have all been frightened off
by fear of detection.
The average séance for physical phenomena is an uninspired performance. I was
taken to one recently by someone who, after his wife's death, had become a
fervent Spiritualist. He hoped to convert me and get my support for his
favourite medium. I was told to be sure not to say who I was as the medium and
his friends were suspicious of investigators. The medium had been in practice
many years, and I knew his reputation. The séance was held in pitch darkness in
the back parlour of a small private house. The sitters were placed in a circle
round the room, the medium among them. Those seated close to the medium were his
trusted friends, the 'strong sitters', who were supposed to lend power for the
phenomena. No search of the medium or of the room was invited. There was
continuous singing during the séance led by a loud-voiced lady who gave us a
mixture of popular songs and rousing hymns like Onward, Christian Soldiers.
The din was horrible, but she kept us at it without a pause. There was nothing
to stop the medium doing anything he wanted under cover of the noise and
darkness.
The materializations would have been invisible but for two small plaques,
faintly luminous on one side. Most of the time these plaques were face down in
the centre of the floor.' When a spirit wanted to show itself, it bent down and
picked up the plaques, wafting them up and down so as to cast a dim glimmer on
its face and body. All that could be seen was an unrecognizable human shape
draped in some white fabric. The shape would go up to one or other of the
sitters who would claim to see in it a dead relative. There would be a lull in
the singing and the sitter would have a brief conversation with the supposed
spirit, usually terminating with a parting kiss. I was not granted such a
visitation, but the person with me told me afterwards that the spirit's breath
smelt of stale tobacco. One of the spirits was supposed to be a child, and
greeted the company in a masculine lisp that was meant for childish prattle but
sounded more like something heard on a street corner late at night. The whole
performance was so crude that it was amazing that anyone could have been taken
in by it. I knew that nothing would be gained by interfering. An exposure makes
no impression on confirmed believers, for they always find an explanation for
the most incriminating evidence, and the medium carries on the following week
with an air of victimization. In the case of this particular medium some
Spiritualists had themselves claimed to have exposed him. They had flashed
torches in the middle of a séance and had seen him, choking with anger, stuffing
a large length of muslin inside his jacket. There was a free-for-all over the
possession of the muslin, but on this occasion the strong sitters did not live
up to their name, and the trophy was lost to the unbelievers.
Years ago, when I had more zeal than experience, I once tried to expose such a
medium. I got into the circle by making friends with some Spiritualists. Among
the regular manifestations were spirit hands which travelled round the circle of
sitters in the dark, patting knees and shaking hands. I came prepared with some
red ink which I smeared over my own hand before the spirit touched me. Sure
enough, when the light went on, the medium's hand was smeared. There was an
uproar, and I was expelled from the house in disgrace. The sitters' faith in the
medium was unshaken, but they suspected that a bad spirit had got into me. They
explained that it was the ectoplasm withdrawing into the medium's body that had
left behind the stain on her skin.
This dismal picture of blatant fraud and extreme gullibility is not just the
invention of unsympathetic outsiders. In December 1961 Light, a largely
Spiritualist quarterly periodical, published a last article by its resigning
editor, F. Clive Ross, in which he stated categorically that after many years
experience of the Spiritualists movement he had never witnessed any physical
phenomena that he would not regard as produced by normal means. He thought that
Spiritualists let fake mediums get away with any excuse for evading the controls
that would put an end to fraud, for keeping the sceptical at arm's length, and
for pursuing their lucrative activities on their own terms.
The public would naturally like to know whether, amongst all these frauds,
anything genuine occurs. The parapsychologist has an additional interest in
séances. They provide an excellent means of investigating the limitations of
human observation and memory. Sitters who have all been present at the same
séance will give radically different descriptions of what happened. Each
person's description is coloured by his own wishes and bias. Experience of this
kind shows that there are some circumstances in which testimony that would
ordinarily be accepted as conclusive is in fact utterly misleading. In assessing
the evidence for any psychic phenomenon, mental or physical, these findings
about the limitations of testimony have to be taken into consideration.
The effect of bias in the formation of attitudes and opinions on controversial
subjects is well recognized. It is a less well-known fact that bias can also
enter into the actual process of perception, especially when observation is
hampered, as by poor light and noisy distractions. Perception is not a passive
registration of sensations; it is an active interpretative process. Glancing out
of the window now I do not 'see' a regular-shaped dark patch moving steadily
across a complex background, although that is what passes before my eyes. I see
instead a motor-car driving along the road. Recognition and interpretation of
the meaning of sensations is an essential part of perception. If I had never
before seen a motor car, I would perceive the scene in front of me very
differently.
The interpretative element in perception can be grossly deranged by the
emotions. On a dark and lonely path a bush can be seen as a menacing figure. The
parched man, lost in the desert, can see a patch of sand glistening in the sun
as an oasis. At a dark séance a dimly phosphorescent mask can be seen as the
face of some dead friend. These are gross examples, but misinterpretations on a
smaller scale go on all the time. Events perceived at a séance are further
modified when recounted later. Small points of no significance to the observer
are suppressed and soon forgotten. These may be the very points that to another
person would be clues to the tricks used. Matters of interest to the observer
are over-emphasized in his description, often to the extent of falsifying the
total picture.
How lapse of memory and mal-observation can produce spurious séance-room marvels
was first demonstrated by the experiments of S. J. Davey(1). Using quite simple
trickery, which he planned in advance, he reproduced some of the effects popular
among the mediums of his day. His audiences were asked to write down accounts of
what they had witnessed, and their observations were then compared with what
actually happened. At one séance for materialization there were six sitters,
three of whom submitted written reports. Mrs Johnson and Miss Wilson called on
Mr Davey unexpectedly and were invited to join in a séance that was just
starting. In her version Mrs Johnson wrote that on entering the dining-room
where the séance was held every article of furniture was searched and Mr Davey
turned out his pockets. The door was locked and sealed, the gas turned out, and
they all sat round the table holding hands, including Mr Davey. A musical box on
the table played and floated about. Knockings were heard and bright lights seen.
The head of a woman appeared, came close, and dematerialized. A half-figure of a
man was seen a few seconds later. He bowed and then disappeared through the
ceiling with a scraping noise. Mrs Johnson found the séance remarkable and
startling. She could in no way explain the phenomena.
(1) Hodgson, R. and Davey, S. L, 'The Possibilities
of Mal-observation and Lapse of Memory', Proc. SPR, iv, 1887, pp. 381-495; viii,
1892, pp. 253-310.
Miss Wilson was in some ways even more definite in her version. She too
described the searching of the room, the scaling of the door, and the
disposition of the medium and sitters round the table. She stated that 'a female
head appeared in a strong light' and afterwards a bearded man reading a book,
who disappeared through the ceiling. All the while Mr Davey's hands were held
tightly by the sitters on either side. When the gas was relit, the door was
still locked and the seal unbroken.
Mr John Rait's account was the most sensational. He remarked that 'nothing was
prepared beforehand, the séance was quite casual'. He described the locking and
sealing of the door. When the phenomena started he was touched by a cold, clammy
hand and heard various raps. Then he saw a bluish-white light, which hovered
over the heads of the sitters, and gradually developed into an apparition that
was 'frightful in its ugliness, but so distinct that everyone could see it ...
The features were distinct ... a kind of hood covered the head, and the whole
resembled the head of a mummy.' After this phantom had gradually vanished an
even more wonderful spirit appeared. It began with a streak of light and
developed by degrees into a bearded man of Oriental appearance. His eyes were
stony and fixed, with a vacant listless expression. At the end of the séance the
door was still locked and the seal was intact.
In reality the séance was not a casual affair but had been carefully rehearsed
beforehand. At the beginning Mr Davey went through the motion of apparently
locking the door, but he turned the key back again so that the door was actually
left unlocked. The 'props' for the materializations were stowed away in a
cupboard underneath a bookshelf. This was not looked into by the sitters who
searched the room because, just as they were about to do so, Mr Davey diverted
their attention by emptying his pockets to show he had nothing hidden on his
person. The phenomena were produced by a confederate, Mr Munro, who came in by
the unlocked door after the lights had been turned out, and while the musical
box was playing loudly to drown the noise of his entry. The 'apparition of
frightful ugliness' was a mask draped in muslin with a cardboard collar coated
with luminous paint. The second spirit was the confederate himself, standing on
the back of Mr Davey's chair, his face faintly illuminated by phosphorescent
light from the pages of the book he was holding. The noise made when the spirit
seemed to disappear through the ceiling was caused accidentally, but the sitters
interpreted it according to their conception of what was happening. When the
light was turned on, the gummed paper that had been used to seal the door had
fallen off. Mr Davey quickly pressed it back into position and then called Mr
Rait's attention to the fact that it was 'still intact'. So convincing were Mr
Davey's performances that some leading Spiritualists, including the biologist
Alfred Russel Wallace, FRS, refused
to believe him when he said that he had no mediumistic powers and did it an by
trickery. In effect the conjurer was challenged to prove that he was not a
medium!
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A séance for the 'direct voice'.
Spirits are supposed to speak through a trumpet which, outlined by
bands of luminous paint, appears to float through the air. This
photo was taken in the dark by means of infra-red lighting. The
medium is caught in the act of holding the trumpet and speaking
through it herself. The investigator with arm raised is operating
the camera by remote control. |
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Showing more clearly how the trumpet
is held. |
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Mr Davey's facility as a pseudo-medium rested not so
much on the simple mechanical basis of his tricks as upon his manipulation of
the minds of his sitters, his persuasiveness in making them think they had seen
things which never really happened, and his ability to divert their attention
whenever necessary. Most of his sittings were given up to slate-writing tricks.
At one time the appearance of 'spirit writing' on the inner surfaces of a pair
of slates held together by the sitter himself was a prominent item in the
mediumistic repertoire. Most of these tricks were done by adroit substitution of
the slates for others with writing already prepared. The skilful part of the
trick was in distracting the sitter's attention at the moment of the switch. Mr
Davey excelled at this. Usually the slates were held under the corner of the
table, the medium's hand under one edge, and the sitter's under the other. The
sitter would afterwards report, with complete confidence, that he held the
slates uninterruptedly until scratching was heard, when the slates were opened
and the spirit writing was found inside. He would forget that the slates had
been opened up several times before the writing finally appeared, and that
during these openings he let go his end of the slates, thus making the switch
possible. In time slate writing went out of fashion and 'spirit photography'
took its place. The medium would take a photograph of his sitter which, when
developed, would show the face of a 'spirit extra' peering over the sitter's
shoulder. The procedure was much the same as in the slate-writing tricks,
depending upon the substitution of the blank photographic plate for one on which
an 'extra' had already been impressed(2). Slate writing and spirit photography
have both been thoroughly discredited and have almost died out. The phenomena of
materialization and the direct voice - that is, speaking through a megaphone in
the dark - need no particular conjuring ability and have remained in fashion.
(2) Rose, W. Rampling, et al., 'Spirit Photography"
Proc. SPR, xli, 1933, pp. 121-38.
Theodore Besterman, one-time
Investigation Officer to the Society for Psychical Research, conducted an
experiment to test the value of testimony under séance-room conditions(3). He
held six identical mock séances, with about seven volunteer sitters present at
each one. The sitters were told that the aim was to test their powers of
observation, and that the lady sitting in the medium's chair was not a real
medium. The acting medium sat behind a small table containing various objects -
drumsticks, tambourine, zither - painted in luminous paint. Mr Besterman
manipulated the room lighting and played the gramophone. The séance was
interrupted by a knock at the door. Mr Besterman opened the door wide, went out,
and returned putting a white card in his pocket. Nineteen minutes after the
start, following a warning by Mr Besterman, which included an injunction to
watch carefully, there was a flashlight exposure. After the séance the sitters
were given a list of questions to answer such as, 'Early in the sitting-room
there was a disturbance. Describe what happened.'
(3) Besterman, Th., 'The Psychology of Testimony',
Proc., SPR, xl, 1932, pp. 365-87.
It was found that in spite of having been put on their guard the sitters were
most inaccurate in their observations. Some were much worse than others. A
quarter of the forty-two sitters failed to give any account of the interruption
to the séance, three-quarters of them failed to report that Mr Besterman went
out of the room, and only four noted that he put something in his pocket when he
came back. This shows how witnesses tend to ignore or to forget points which
seem to them irrelevant. The sitters were asked how long after the start was the
flash. The answer was nineteen minutes, but the estimates given varied from five
to forty minutes. At the moment of the flash the medium had a white cloth over
her head, she held a trumpet in her right hand, and one of the drumsticks was
missing from the table but could be seen sticking out from behind some curtains
above the medium's head. Only one sitter noted the disappearance of the
drumstick, and no one saw where it was, although it formed a bright circle
nearly an inch wide. The sitters were almost entirely unable to report correctly
the scene revealed by the flash. Thirteen sitters experienced either illusions
or hallucinations during the séance, and described things that were not there or
had never happened. Impressions of movements were the most frequent. Several
sitters said they saw the table move or shake. One sitter had a hallucination of
a small light that seemed to hang vertically in the air. Several sitters mistook
one or other article on the table for something else. That so much illusion and
faulty reporting should be produced by this brief mock séance, which lacked
altogether the tense atmosphere of the real thing, shows once more with what
great reserve we must treat testimony relating to happenings at séances.
There have never been more than one or two internationally famous physical
mediums active at any one time; at present there is none*. The mediums of the
past about whom most has been written - D. D.
Home, Eusapia Palladino, 'Eva
C.', Margery Crandon, and the
Schneider brothers - became well known
because men of note took an interest in their phenomena and gave them wide
publicity. We need not go into all the details of the interminable controversies
that raged round each of these mediums. One or two examples are enough.
* ISS note: This article was written in 1954.
'Eva C.' was a medium whose tricks would
scarcely have got her far had she not been befriended by investigators who were
determined to make the most of her phenomena. She began her mediumistic career
under her real name of Marthe Béraud, and gave séances at the Villa Carmen in
Algiers, the home of General and Mine Noel. She was a friend of the family, and
had been engaged to the son of the house before he was killed. Mme Noel was an
extremely enthusiastic Spiritualist, and Marthe's position in the household put
her above suspicion. The séances were held in darkness, and a figure draped in
white, wearing a helmet and calling itself Bien Boa, frequently materialized,
chatted with those present, and even drank lemonade. Marthe herself is reported
to have said that the whole thing started as a joke which was played with the
aid of accomplices. It might have got no further than that but for the arrival
at the Villa Carmen of a distinguished visitor who took a great interest in the
materializations. This was Professor
Charles Richet, a physiologist of great scientific standing, but credulous
as regards physical phenomena(4). His observations, published soon after, served
to launch Marthe Béraud on her career as a world-famous medium.
(4) Richet, Charles, "Thirty Years of Psychical
Research" (transl.), London, 1923.
Marthe Beraud went to Paris and was there befriended by Mme Bisson, who took the
medium into her own home, and became a constant companion and patron.
Baron Dr von Schrenck Notzing, a
medical man of considerable social standing, and a well-known investigator of
physical mediums, then came upon the scene and joined with Mme Bisson in the
investigation of her protégée. In due course Schrenck Notzing brought out a
weighty tome filled with photographs of materializations(5). It was almost
entirely devoted to a medium 'Eva C.', whose real identity was concealed by a
pseudonym and a false age. Later, Schrenck Notzing was forced to admit that 'Eva
C.' was actually Marthe Béraud(6).
(5) Schrenck Notzing, A. von., "Phenomena of
Materialization" (transl.), London, 1920.
(6) Salter, Mrs W. H., 'The History of Marthe Béraud', Proc. SPR, xxvii, 1915,
pp. 333-69.
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The medium 'Eva C.' and the back view
of a 'materialised face' showing the title of the French magazine
from which it was taken. |
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During her séances with Schrenck Notzing and Mine
Bisson, Marthe Béraud sat behind curtains in a corner of the room. Outside this
'cabinet' the room was lit by red light. At the later séances they began by
searching Marthe's body and then sewing her up in a thin black costume. Once in
the 'cabinet' she was allowed to open and close the curtains as she pleased.
Under these conditions there was nothing like Bien Boa, but she was still able
to produce white stuff, called ectoplasm, which was usually seen hanging from
her mouth. She also produced faces, which draped themselves round her head or
shoulder. Schrenck Notzing and Mine Bisson claimed that these appearances must
be supernormal, since there was no way in which Marthe could smuggle in material
with which to simulate faces or ectoplasm. Their own photographs are enough to
shake anyone's confidence in this opinion. The so-called faces are clearly
cut-out paper photographs on which fold marks can sometimes be seen. On a
photograph taken on one famous occasion when the camera was inside the cabinet
to show the back of the materialized face, the title of the paper, Le Miroir,
from which the face had been cut, is there for all to read! Folded paper faces
are very easily hidden, and even supposing that the search of the medium's body
prevented her secreting them about her person, there are other places to hide
things such as the lining of the chair, or the investigators' own pockets.
The outbreak of war in 1914 interrupted Schrenck
Notzing's investigations, but his place was taken by Dr
Gustave Geley, a French physician. He
too wrote a book about 'Eva C', and he was even more uncritically enthusiastic.
Moreover, he lacked Schrenck Notzing's gift for hiding his personal bias under a
pretence of scientific precision and impartiality. After Geley's sudden death
there was a flutter over the discovery amongst his papers of photographs of
Marthe Beraud showing materializations tied and fastened to her hair in a most
suspicious way. This was nothing new, for von Schrenck Notzing's own photographs
showed the same thing, and he had even recorded finding 'inexplicable' pin holes
in the lining of the cabinet. Nevertheless, the Geley photographs, being
stereoscopic, were more damning. The authorities at the Institut Metapsychique
in Paris, of which Geley had been Director, refused to publish the facts, and
but for the temerity of two independent critics, Rudolf Lambert and Theodore
Besterman, these incriminating photographs would have remained unknown(7). It is
odd that once across the enchanted boundary and into the realm of miraculous
phenomena even a seemingly critical investigator loses his dispassionate logic
and allows his words and actions to be dictated by emotional bias. Once some
prominent person has staked his faith and reputation on the genuineness of a
particular medium, there is great resistance to admitting error. Marthe's career
could not have continued but for this shortcoming in her investigators.
(7) Besterman, Th., "Some Modern Mediums", London,
1930.
Marthe Beraud was also investigated at the London SPR, but the séances there
were inconclusive. She was made to wear a veil covering her mouth. Particles of
white stuff were found sticking to the veil after one of the séances which, when
analysed, proved to be chewed paper(8). Lastly, Marthe was investigated by a
scientific committee from the Sorbonne. They saw ectoplasm coming from her mouth
but noted that this only occurred after prolonged efforts to make herself vomit.
They reported that they found no evidence for anything paranormal. Marthe's
mediumship came to a natural close when she married and became independent of
Mme Bisson.
(8) SPR Committee, 'Report on a Series of Sittings
with Eva C., Proc. SPR, xxxii, 1922, pp. 269-343.
Perhaps the most remarkable of all physical mediums, and certainly the most
intriguing, was Daniel Dunglas Home. He
flourished in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and was probably the
only well-known medium never to be detected in trickery. Although he came from a
quite humble Scottish home, he possessed definite social qualities. Soulful,
sensitive, and consumptive, he had just the right air about him to provide a
graceful mystery in the fashionable salons. He never accepted a direct fee, but
spent a large part of his life staying in other people's houses, the apotheosis
of the man who came to dinner. In return for entertaining séances, hospitality
and gifts were showered upon him. His hosts became more and more distinguished
until, at the height of his fame, he could justly claim to be on intimate terms
with several European monarchs. Through the good offices of the Czar himself,
Home married a Russian lady of noble birth, and Alexandre Dumas was his best
man.
Even more remarkable than his meteoric social progress were the phenomena that
Home produced. Whatever their explanation, they were radically different from
the usual easily recognizable frauds, and there has been nothing like them
before or since. In Home's presence, heavy Victorian furniture rocked and
floated in the air, hands materialized and travelled round the circle of
sitters, an accordion wafted along playing of its own accord without anyone
touching it, and red glowing coals were handled without hurt. These things
sometimes happened in a fair light and were witnessed by a roomful of sitters.
Take, for example, the testimony of the 25th Earl of Crawford, published in
1953(9). In a long letter to a relative, he describes in detail a séance with
Home that took place in Florence during 1856. He gives an account of the
personalities who were present, and it is in the last degree improbable that
anyone among them was the medium's accomplice. During the séance the room was
lit by a bright oil-lamp. The sitters and the medium were ranged round a heavy
table, all except the writer, who remained outside the circle so as not to be
influenced by suggestion. The table, the chairs, the floor, and even the china
at the far end of the room, all vibrated. He looked under the table, but saw
nothing suspicious. Immediately after this the table rose into the air to a
height of about four feet and remained so whilst he had another look underneath.
On another occasion, after a séance in the same house, when the Earl of
Crawford's brother-in-law, Robert Lindsay, was present, a levitation occurred
under circumstances which make it astounding. The company, including the medium,
were sitting round the fire having tea when a table at the far end of the room
rose up three feet and plunged about. Despite the violent movement, the loose
slab of marble that formed the table top, and a pencil and paper that lay upon
it, remained undisturbed. So strong was the levitating force that, when Robert
Lindsay approached the table and tried to push it back to the ground, he had to
exert his utmost strength before he could succeed.
(9) Dingwall, E. L, 'Psychological Problems arising
from a Report of Telekinesis', Brit. Journ. Psychology (General Section), xliv,
1953, pp. 61-6.
One might think the Earl of Crawford was just telling a tall story were it not
that scores of other authoritative witnesses have left written testimony to
similar phenomena at séances with D. D. Home. Such spontaneous testimony is
stronger and more plentiful in Home's case than in any other. There is, for
example, the fantastic record of Lord
Adare, a young sporting Irishman, who was for two years (1867-9) D. D.
Home's constant companion, and witnessed phenomena 'at all times and seasons,
under all sorts of conditions - in broad daylight, in artificial light, in
semidarkness, at regular séances, unpremeditatedly without any séance at all,
indoors, out of doors, in private houses, in hotels...'(10).
(10) Dunraven, The Earl of, 'Experiences in
Spiritualism with D. D. Home', Proc. SPR, xxxv, 1926, pp. 1-288.
Unfortunately for us, Home lived in days before psychical phenomena became a
subject for laboratory investigation. No one would have been so impolite as to
suggest searching or tying up Mr Home, and photographic recording had not been
developed. Nevertheless, some attempt at scientific tests was made by the famous
chemist William Crookes(11). In one
of these experiments, a wooden board, three feet long, was rested at one end on
a firm support, while the other end was suspended from a spring balance.
Movements of the balance indicator were mechanically recorded on the smoked
surface of a revolving cylinder. Crookes reported that inexplicable movements of
the balance took place even when Home was three feet away from the apparatus
with his hands and feet tightly held. The room was lit by gaslight all the time.
(11) Crookes, W., "Researches
in the Phenomena of Spiritualism", London, 1874.
Crookes failed to convince his scientific colleagues, although none of them was
able to say just where his experiments went wrong. The idea of putting the
matter to the test for themselves never occurred to them. Their scepticism was
of the arm-chair type, based on prejudice, and in its own way every bit as
irrational as the enthusiasm of the most credulous followers of bogus mediums.
Crookes's remark-able experimental results with D. D. Home would carry greater
weight with serious students of the subject but for the fact that Crookes also
lent his support to some very questionable mediums. He had sittings with
Kate Fox, the notorious Rochester
rapper, and he all but flirted with Katie King, a realistic feminine spirit
materialized by a medium called
Florence Cook, who was repeatedly exposed in fraud. The honesty of Crookes's
motivations in this affair have been seriously questioned recently(12), but
there is no direct evidence that his experiments with Home were other than
carefully conducted, although his published reports do not give as accurate and
detailed a picture of the circumstances of each individual test as is now
considered necessary in mediumistic investigations.
(12) See Hall, Trevor H., "The
Spiritualists", London, 1962.
One of Home's most publicized feats was levitation. On one famous occasion, at a
house near Victoria Station, London, Home is supposed to have floated in the
air, his body horizontal, right out of the window of an upper room, and in again
through the window of an adjoining room. There were three witnesses, Lord Adare,
the Master of Lindsay, and Captain Charles Wynne, all of whom testified to the
facts. Generations of aspiring illusionists have put forward theories as to how
Home could have produced this effect. The incident took place at a dark séance,
and all that the witnesses could really see was the shadow of Home's body
apparently entering through the window. If only such things would happen in
front of a camera!
For eye-witness accounts of levitation of the human body Home is outshone by St
Joseph of Copertino, a humble, unschooled Italian friar of the seventeenth
century, for whom it was an everyday matter to be 'seen' flying through the air
in broad daylight. The weighty testimony in support of this man has been
summarized by Dr E. J. Dingwall(13). Some of the wonders attributed to him are
incredible. He is said to have walked through a rainstorm and remained dry and
to have carried a lighted candle in a high wind without its going out or burning
down. Pious credulity would explain the promulgation of this type of fantastic
story - which is common enough in Roman Catholic tradition - but some of the
stories about St Joseph of Copertino are of a different order. There is, for
example, the testimony of the surgeon, Francesco Pierpaoh, who attended him
during his last illness. The doctor was cauterizing St Joseph's leg, he being
seated, with his leg outstretched across the doctor's knees. While the doctor
was doing this, the saint went into a trance and his body was raised almost a
palm above the chair. The doctor tried to lower the leg, but could not do so. He
and another doctor who was present both knelt down and looked to see that St
Joseph's body was indeed floating in the air clear of the ground.
(13) Dingwall, E. L, "Some Human Oddities", London,
1947.
What is one to make of such testimony? Are the witnesses plain liars, or were
they hallucinated? It is a fact that under the suggestive influence of some
powerful emotion a crowd of witnesses can experience similar hallucinations, as
in the visions at Fatima, but it is unlikely that collective hallucinations on
the grand scale occur often at séances for physical phenomena. Home's effects
were described in substantially similar terms by all who saw them. The effects
produced by more modern mediums, like 'Eva C.', came out on photographs and
could not have been hallucinations. Nevertheless, in some isolated circles,
where wonderful phenomena are repeatedly seen by the same group, collective
hallucination is a possible explanation. Dr Dingwall had mentioned the case of a
medium in Massachusetts with whom he had a séance(14). As far as he was
concerned, nothing happened, but the others heard exquisite spirit music,
fondled materialized dogs, and watched a phantom stand between the curtains of
the cabinet. Presumably it was all imagined by the sitters. They could, of
course, maintain, with logic if not with justification, that since Dr Dingwall
was in the minority it was he who was hallucinated, but in a negative sense!
(14) Dingwall, E. L, "Some Human Oddities", London,
1947.
That it has been necessary in this chapter to discuss miracles of a century ago,
and to consider the possibility that some of the supposed phenomena are
hallucinatory, shows how unsatisfactory investigation into the alleged phenomena
of the séance room has been. Repetition under laboratory conditions is what is
needed, but there are no mediums able or willing to give us that. Some
investigators say that physical phenomena have so often been proved fraudulent
that it is a waste of time to bother with them. Nevertheless, doubt must remain.
Can there be a kernel of truth? Was D. D. Home genuine? Recent laboratory
experiments indicate that sometimes the human will can influence the fall of
dice. If this is indeed established it looks as if physical phenomena of a sort
do occur. It is this which makes one hesitate to reject outright all séance-room
observations.
Note:
The above article was taken from Donald West's "Psychical Research Today"
(1954, Duckworth).
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