Brian Inglis - Science and Parascience - A History of The Paranormal, 1914-1939 (1984)
Brian Inglis - Science and Parascience - A History of The Paranormal, 1914-1939 (1984)
Copyright © 1984 by Brian Inglis. First printed 1984. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
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Contents
Introduction 11
1 The Forerunners 17
2 The First World War 46
3 Post-War Britain 67
4 The Continental Mediums 1918-24 95
5 The USA 141
6 The SPR in Decline 197
7 Mind over Matter 237
8 Extra-sensory Perception 260
9 Backlash 290
10 Balance Sheet 302
Postscript 338
Acknowledgments 343
Sources 345
Source References 356
Index 371
7
Illustrations
page
`Eva' during seances 30
'Eva's' parody portraits 31
Stanislawa Tomczyk 35
Raymond 51
Kathleen Goligher 79
`Freddy Jackson' 86
The Cottingley `magnetic bath' 91
`Eva' 105
Kluski hands 122
Ossowiecki's drawing 137
`Margery' in the Houdini cage 167
`Margery' extruding an ectoplasmic hand 186
Mirabelli 224
A Mirabelli materialisation 225
The compote glass 262
`Some sort of grinning monster' 269
The `Zener Cards' 272
The Ossowiecki experiments 286
Eleanor Sidgwick 303
Gladys Osborne Leonard 303
Sir Oliver Lodge 303
Sir William Barrett 303
Camille Flammarion 303
Dr W. J. Crawford 303
9
Introduction
Until the eighteenth century it had been taken for granted by the
great majority of philosophers and scientists that there were
phenomena which could only be explained in terms of the exist-
ence of a spirit world. The motive force behind them might be
neutral, like magnetism; but it could be wielded for good by God
and his angels, and for evil by the devil and his demons. A few
individuals, too, could wield it: witches, sorcerers, alchemists. It
enabled some people to report what was happening at a distance —
clairvoyance; to read people's minds — thought-transference; to
see into the past and the future; to move objects without using
physical force; to heal the sick; to put a hex on healthy men and
women. When exploited by a saintly individual, the use of the force
was deemed miraculous; otherwise it was usually regarded as
diabolic, except where it occurred too frequently and too casually,
as in glimpses of the future in dreams.
The force itself had been taken to be natural: `miracles' occurred
when God was using it, or when he granted the power to his chosen
few to exploit it. But after the Renaissance the term `supernatural'
came in, along with the idea that the force operated outside
nature's laws according to the will, or the whim, of God. And with
the development of mechanist theories, belief in the existence of
the force came to be regarded as an occultist illusion, and the
phenomena as superstitions. There were no miracles, David Hume
argued. Miracles were contrary to the uniform experience of
mankind, `and as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is
here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the
existence of any miracle.'
In ordinary circumstances, the fallacy should have been obvious.
Miraculous happenings might not have been common, but they
had happened often enough, and been sufficiently well-attested, to
show that experience had not been uniform. But by this time
scientists were longing for mechanist certainties; miracles did not
fit into the new pattern of science. The assumption grew that there
were natural laws, which could not be broken. They were supposed
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Science and Parascience The Forerunners
to be derived from mathematical calculations, and up to a point the result of unconscious muscular pressure. The experiment was
they were; but the interpretations often were not. Thus the law of bogus, in that it only showed how unconscious muscular pressure
gravity became Newton's monument; but the fact that it revealed could move loose table tops — not the tables themselves; but it
that matter could act on matter at a distance was not taken into served its purpose, and gradually the table-turning craze died
consideration when dismissing as supernatural, and consequently away.
as spurious, the unaccountable movements of material objects so Connected with table-turning, however, were other phenomena
often reported in, say, accounts of hauntings. Clairvoyance, which appeared to suggest that the evidence for the belief in spirits
thought-transference, prevision, spiritual healing and many more had not been invalidated, after all, by the march of science.
were also bundled unceremoniously into superstition's lumber Spiritualist mediums began to make their reputations by producing
room. a variety of manifestations, some of which were very similar to
How unwise this was ought to have become obvious from a those which the Church for centuries had claimed as miracles. And
humiliation which the new orthodoxy suffered for rejecting the career of one of the mediums in the Victorian era, Daniel
meteorites as a superstition lingering on from the time when Jove Dunglas Home, was so well documented by contemporaries that it
was thought to punish erring mortals by hurling his thunderbolts. still remains the most difficult to explain away of all the evidence
But when the evidence for their reality had eventually to be for what, in this period, came to be called psychical phenomena.
conceded, early in the nineteenth century, scientists did not learn
humility: they simply congratulated themselves upon having cor-
rected the errors of their predecessors. And from this time on the
great majority of them declined to accept even the possibility that Daniel Dunglas Home
those phenomena which had been classified as superstitions ought For twenty years, with only occasional gaps when his powers
to be regarded as natural, but as yet unexplained. deserted him, Home gave seances to friends and acquaintances,
In the course of the century, however, the new orthodoxy was two or three times a week. The effects varied, and sometimes
subjected to a series of shocks. Disciples of Mesmer, exploring the nothing happened; but usually rapping noises could be heard from
trance state, found that some mesmerised subjects were capable of around the room, and in due course the seance table could be felt
producing what came to be known as the `higher phenomena', the by the sitters to shudder, before starting to move around, rear up
commonest of which was a form of second sight: `travelling clair- on two legs, and rise in the air while the sitters' fingertips were on
voyance'. Asked what was happening somewhere at a distance, top, touching it lightly (or not at all). Musical instruments, brought
they would `visit' the place and give a description whose accuracy by visitors and left in a corner of the room, would begin to play,
could be subsequently verified. Some of the most distinguished often soulfully. Disembodied hands appeared and circled round
scientists of the era, confronted with the evidence, found them- the table; sitters could inspect them, touch them, shake them (they
selves reluctantly compelled to accept it as genuine, and in 1831 a felt like real hands, but if anybody tried to cling on to them they
commission of enquiry set up by the French Academy of the melted away). If pen and paper were on an adjacent table, the pen
Sciences confirmed that clairvoyance had been satisfactorily dem- might write messages, purporting to come from deceased persons,
onstrated. But by this time scepticism on the Hume model was and apparently in their handwriting. On a few occasions, Home
established; its report was set aside. himself levitated, floating over the sitters' heads; or he would
The second of the shocks was felt in the 1850s, with the craze for literally play with fire, stirring up the hot coals with his hands,
table-turning. All over America and Europe families and groups of carrying them around, even bathing his face in them.
friends sat around tables in darkness or near-darkness, waiting for It was not simply these effects, many of which were the common-
raps, tilts, and unaccountable movements. Even the most diehard place of seances, that were striking; so, also, were the circum-
of sceptics could not seriously claim that the movements did not stances in which they were produced. There could be no question
happen, or were faked; but Faraday saved their faces by reporting of conjuring tricks; not merely were the seances often held in
an experiment which, he claimed, revealed that the effects were houses Home had never been to before, in rooms he had never
18 19
Science and Parascience The Forerunners
entered until the seance began; they were held in daylight, or gas- appearances living human beings; and other mediums followed.
light, or by the light of a fire — good enough light, almost always, Naturally sceptics assumed that these `materialisations' were the
for the eight or nine people present to watch Home, and satisfy mediums themselves, or accomplices smuggled into the seance;
themselves that he was not using hands or feet or gadgetry of any and sometimes trickery was exposed. What was needed, some of
kind. And he had no assistant to play the tricks while he himself the more responsible spiritualists (as they had come to call them-
was being watched. selves: with a capital `S' where they looked upon their belief as a
Neither were the sitters credulous believers. Many of them religion) realised, was a more systematic investigation of the
admitted they had been sceptical, even derisive; and they repre- phenomena.
sented a fair cross section of the ruling classes, including royalty — This happened also to be the view of a young scientist, William
the Tsar Alexander II, the Emperor Napoleon III, and Queen Barrett, Professor of Physics in the Royal College of Science in
Sophie of the Netherlands; members of the aristocracies of several Dublin, who had been impressed by demonstrations of the `higher
European countries; literary lions, among them Elizabeth Barrett phenomena' of mesmerism. In 1876 he read a paper on thought-
Browning, Thomas Augustus Trollope, Thackeray, Lytton, Rus- transference at the annual meeting of the British Association for
kin; eminent scientists, Alfred Russel Wallace, William Crookes, the Advancement of Science — to the fury of some of its members,
and Francis Galton — along with many other men and women one of whom wrote to The Times to say its proceedings had been
whose names were familiar, even household words, in their own `degraded'; and six years later Barrett took up a suggestion made
time. Famous conjurors, too, came to his seances hoping to be able to him by a leading spiritualist, Dawson Rogers, and convened the
to catch him out; but they all went away disappointed. And as he meeting which gave birth to the Society for Psychical Research
refused to take any payment for his seances, those who hoped to (SPR), with the Cambridge philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, one of
accuse him of cupidity could point only to a venial willingness to the most respected figures in the British academic world at the
accept the hospitality of the rich and famous. Home's private life, time, as President, and his friends Frederic Myers and Edmund
too, was by all accounts impeccable. It could hardly have been Gurney as Joint Honorary Secretaries.
otherwise without detection, as he was just about the best-known They shared a conviction that, as Myers put it, `The deep
international figure, bar a few crowned heads and famous states- questions thus at issue must be fought out in a way more thorough
men, of his era. than the champions either of religion or of materialism had yet
When, towards the end of his career, Home was asked to suggested'; they must be resolved by experiment and observation,
demonstrate his powers in laboratory trials, he willingly con- `by the app li cation to phenomena within us and around us of
sented. In tests by Alexander von Boutlerow in Russia, and precisely the same methods of deliberate, dispassionate exact
William Crookes in England, Home showed that he was able to enquiry which have built up our actual knowledge of the world
produce telekinetic effects at a distance which could be re- which we can touch and see.' Five investigating committees were
corded and measured on weighing machines. And when illness set up: one to deal with `the extent of any influence which may be
terminated his career as a medium in 1874, although he had often exerted by one mind upon another', other than through the normal
been denounced as a trickster, nobody had ever detected him in sensory channels; one with `hypnotism and the forms of so-called
any attempt at trickery during a seance. mesmeric trance, with its alleged immunity to pain'; one with
'sensitives' to find whether they `possess any power of perception
beyond a highly exalted sensibility of the recognised sensory
The Society for Psychical Research organs'; one with apparitions and `disturbances in houses reputed
to be haunted'; and one with `the various physical phenomena
Fortunately for the peace of mind of sceptics, however, commonly called Spiritualistic, with an attempt to discover their
mediumship had by this time taken a course which brought it into causes and general laws'.
disrepute. One of the other mediums whom Crookes tested, For a time, all went well. It was not easy for sceptics to dismiss
Florence Cook, produced `full form' materialisations — to all out of hand the work of an organisation whose members included
20 21
Science and Parascience The Forerunners
scientists of the calibre of Crookes, Wallace, Lord Rayleigh, not possibly have known, but which when he checked them proved
Oliver Lodge, Balfour Stewart and J. J. Thomson, along with to be correct.
eminences in other fields: Arthur Balfour, and his brother Gerald;
Gladstone, Tennyson, Ruskin, and Lewis Carroll. On a visit to
Boston, too, Barrett brought together a group of distinguished Eusapia Palladino
academic figures to form an American Society; among them
William James, who was shortly to be appointed Professor of One of the implications ought to have been obvious: that deception
Philosophy at Harvard. practised by an entranced medium should not be taken as evidence
James had been impressed by what he had heard in England of conscious fraud. But on this issue, Sidgwick was confused. He
from the Cambridge trio, Myers in particular; and when the had already laid down that the results obtained with mediums or
opportunity came to investigate a medium who was making a `psychics' would be retrospectively set aside if they were later
reputation for herself in Boston, Mrs Leonora Piper, he decided to caught cheating, and that they would not again be investigated on
take it, sceptical though he was about her powers. The outcome the society's behalf. The rule had originally been applied when two
was significant. James was gradually forced to the conclusion that sisters who had demonstrated telepathic abilities were caught
she was genuine; she could not have collected the information signalling to each other, though in earlier trials they had not been
which she gave him and others, even by an elaborate intelligence in a position to cheat, which was harsh enough; but the conse-
network. Yet the mechanics of the process by which it was trans- quences of enforcing the rule were to be even more unfortunate
mitted were distinctly dubious, in that the purported source of the when, in the 1890s, a medium emerged whose capacity to produce
information, her spirit `control', was not what he claimed to be. what were commonly described as the physical phenomena of
Most mediums received and relayed their information while in a spiritualism was second only to that of D. D. Home: Eusapia
trance state through `communicators', assumed to be the spirits of Palladino.
the dead: and usually there was a `control', a spirit who, as it were, Of peasant stock, Eusapia had none of Home's savoir faire, but
lined up and introduced the appropriate `communicators' to indi- she had almost as extensive a repertoire. Her powers were display-
vidual sitters who wanted to reassure themselves that their loved ed in what by this time were becoming familiar ways. The seance-
ones lived on in the spirit. These `controls' were often American room table would shift around, rising up on one leg and often
Indians, or improbable-sounding small children, which was not leaving the floor altogether, though her feet and hands were being
calculated to inspire confidence in doubters (one of the most often held; objects at a distance from the sitters would move, and fly
encountered in Europe, `John King', actually claimed to have been around over their heads; musical instruments would sound (though
a pirate in his lifetime). Mrs Piper's control, `Dr Phinuit', was to they did not play as well as they had for Home). And there was one
show that doubts were justified; his account of his life as a doctor in element which had only rarely been a feature of Home's seances:
France was checked and found to be false, and he faded out, to be mischief. The sitters would feel themselves being prodded or
replaced by other `controls'. But these, too, could also easily be pinched; their spectacles were taken off their noses; their cravats
taken in by sitters pretending to have a dead relative, who would and their shoelaces were untied.
promptly be paraded as a `communicator'. In the matter of illumination, Eusapia's seances were less im-
To James, this made Mrs Piper's mediumship of even greater pressive than Home's. Her `control' — the ubiquitous `John
psychological interest and concern. The processes by which she King' — dictated how much light would be permitted. But this was
received her information might be hopelessly confused; yet he felt not quite the problem that it might have been because, by a
`as absolutely certain as of any personal fact in the world that she fortunate dispensation, the more confident the entranced Eusapia
knows things in her trances which she cannot possibly have heard felt in her powers, the more light `John King' was prepared to
in her waking state'; a verdict which Oliver Lodge, in Britain, also allow, as if he liked to bask in reflected credit. And in one respect,
reached after testing her. Lodge even found that she knew things Eusapia's career was to be even more impressive than Home's.
relating to his family which he did not know, and which she could Her mediumship was carefully investigated by several of the most
22 23
Science and Parascience The Forerunners
eminent scientists in Europe, in Italy, Poland, Germany and it. `Tables, we knew, or thought we knew, do not go into the air by
France. Most of them were reluctantly forced to the conclusion themselves; curtains do not bulge out without some mechanical
that it was genuine; and even those who refused to accept the agency; and although we saw them do so, we still refused to believe
possibility of telekinetic phenomena were unable to account for that they did.' They had preferred to assume at the start that she
the effects which she produced. must be deceiving, or hallucinating, them. Painfully, they had been
In her trance states, however, her investigators had soon found forced to realise that they were being guided not by their obser-
that Eusapia was not to be trusted: she would stealthily free a hand vation but by their emotions — the very guide which, in their
or a foot from control, if she were permitted to, and use it, say, to arrogance, they had assumed they would be able to set aside in the
assist the movement of the table. She did not deny this; she was not course of carrying out their appointed task.
accountable for her behaviour, she claimed, when entranced, and At this point, telekinesis was nearer to acceptance than it has
it was up to her investigators to take suitable precautions, which ever been, before or since; but scientists in the United States
usually they did. But when in 1895 she was invited to Cambridge to remained to be converted, and Carrington arranged for her to
demonstrate her powers, although in some seances she did so very cross the Atlantic in 1910. Unluckily he did not have the backing of
effectively (impressing, among others, Lord Rayleigh and J. J. the American SPR, run at the time by James Hervey Hyslop, who
Thomson), Sidgwick's protégé Richard Hodgson let her cheat in a had been Professor of Logic at Columbia University until he had
test. When she did, he claimed to have exposed her; a claim which given up his Chair in order to devote the remainder of his life to
Sidgwick upheld, ruling that as fraud must have been used `from psychical research, at his own expense. He was a man of manifest
first to last', she could not be tested further on the SP R's behalf. integrity, and he succeeded in reanimating the American SPR; but
The result was that the society was cut off from participation in he was not in sympathy with Carrington, and found the physical
trials of the most promising subject to have appeared since Home's phenomena of mediumship repulsive. His assumption was that
retirement. Over the next years Eusapia was subjected to a series Eusapia must be fraudulent; but he regarded her as a hysteric
of tests by European scientists, in which strict precautions were (hysterics, as Charcot had demonstrated, were capable of super-
taken to ensure she could not supplement her psychic powers with human feats, such as bending their bodies backwards into the
physical force; and she came through them all successfully, includ- shape of a rainbow; and this, Hyslop realised, could be confused
ing a protracted series from 1905 to 1908 conducted by Professor with supernormal feats). She ought to be investigated as a victim
Jules Courtier of the Sorbonne, with such colleagues as Henri of a mental disorder, he argued, rather than as a medium; and
Bergson, Jean-Baptiste Perrin, Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval and he refused to have anything to do with her.
the Curies. Only then did Eleanor Sidgwick, who after her hus- Carrington, however, hoped he could enlist William James as a
band's death had become effectively the director of the SPR, supporter. James had earlier expressed his distaste for what he had
sanction a further investigation on its behalf to be undertaken by described as `this particularly crass and low type of supernatural
three deeply sceptical men, all with experience of sleight-of-hand phenomenon', and like the Sidgwicks had resisted accepting it. But
and of exposing bogus mediums: Hereward Carrington, an Amer- at a seance in 1908 he had himself observed the movement of
ican who had written a book largely devoted to descriptions of the objects in good light, `the phenomena being slow enough, and
tricks mediums played; Wortley Baggally, an accomplished con- often enough repeated, to leave my own mind in no doubt at the
juror whose boast it was that he had investigated most of the time as to what was witnessed'; and although he remained uncer-
best-known mediums in Britain without finding one who was tain whether to accept the evidence of his own eyes, he noted in an
genuine; and the Hon. Everard Feilding, assistant Hon. Secretary article in The American Magazine the following year that Eusapia
of the SPR and, by his own admission, a sceptic about physical was still making converts of some of the most eminent scientists in
mediumship. Europe, `and of our own psychical researcher, Carrington, whose
Their report, written by Feilding, remains a classic exposition of book on The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism (against them,
the pains of conversion. The ordinary reaction to a bizarre fact rather!) makes his conquest strategically important'. But this
from a balanced mind, he observed in his summing up, is to reject turned out to be the last report James was ever to make on
24 25
Science and Parascience The Forerunners
psychical research. He managed to attend one seance with Eusapia thumb and fingers'. It was consequently necessary, Krebs argued,
(noting `queer twisting of my chair'), but news of his brother to reject Muensterberg's explanation, and find a better one. Years
Henry's serious illness caused him to leave for England, so that he later Hyslop, too, was to admit that at the time, he had received
was not available to exercise his authority when the crisis broke. some telling evidence in Eusapia's favour, which he had not
And when he returned that summer he was mortally ill, barely reported because of his conviction that she ought to be given
surviving the journey; he died a few days after he had reached treatment for her hysteria, rather than exploited for psychical
home. research. One of the sitters who had been involved in the exposure
In the meantime, there had been a repetition of the Cambridge had told him that some of the phenomena witnessed earlier had
fiasco fifteen years before. The two most vocal opponents of been inexplicable; another sitter, a distinguished scientist (Hyslop
psychical research in the United States at the time were Hugo did not disclose his identity) `had stated privately his personal
Muensterberg, James's successor at Harvard, and Joseph Jastrow, conviction that some of the phenomena were genuine'; and
Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin. Muenster- another, who at the time had put his name to Muensterberg's
berg had asserted that what were claimed to be psychic facts `do not report, had later claimed that he had done so only under protest.
exist, and never will exist'; Jastrow thought they `could only be But these revelations were not published until 1919; and by then,
attributed to fraud, hallucination and mental disorder'. They Eusapia was dead. She had continued on occasions to produce
followed the course set by Hodgson. In a trial, when Eusapia was in phenomena; but the reports from her investigators were no longer
her trance she was allowed to extricate a foot from control; it was taken seriously. It was generally assumed that her exposure had
caught by a conjuror who had been smuggled in for that purpose; been devastating and final.
and, as Muensterberg described the episode in the Metropolitan
Magazine, `she responded with the wild scream which indicated
that she knew at last that she was trapped, and her glory was
shattered'. `Eva C.'
Eusapia had warned her investigators in advance that in her How, then, were the finger-and-thumb pinches administered
trance state, she would free a foot or a hand if she was allowed to; which Muensterberg — and many earlier investigators — de-
and afterwards she protested that her cry when her foot was seized livered? In the course of the Cambridge tests Mrs Myers, who had
was the natural reaction to her trance being broken, not an been brought in to keep control of Eusapia's feet, had been able
admission of guilt. Yet the best testimonial that her powers were from her position on the floor to see in the dim light the medium's
genuine came, paradoxically, from Muensterberg himself. So back outlined against the ceiling; and in her notes she had de-
gratified was he by the success of his coup that in his report he scribed seeing what looked to her like `prolongations', each `like
wrote that her achievement before she had actually been caught the neck of a swan' emerging from Eusapia's body. Her sister-in-
had been `splendid'; she had managed while her hands were law Mrs Stanley, wife of the explorer, also saw what looked like a
securely held to insert her loosened foot under her chair and up human hand growing out of Eusapia's back. Visible or invisible,
behind the curtain at their backs, `without changing in the least the these additional limbs were so commonly encountered at seances
position of her body', to enable her to `play thumb and fingers' with that they had acquired the name of `pseudopods'; and it was in the
his hip, arm and neck. `I felt perfectly the hand and the fingers, years leading up to the First World War that for the first time they
which was far from agreeable.' could be systematically investigated, owing to the availability of
Ironically it was another sceptic, Stanley L. Krebs, who pointed a young medium who could produce them and other manifes-
out that for Muensterberg's recollection to be a correct descrip- tations, and who was prepared to give her full time to working
tion, `it would be necessary for Eusapia's leg to be articulated at the with psychical researchers.
knee, upon a motionless hip, making a rotation of about 135°, as As a young girl, growing up in Algiers, Marthe Béraud had been
well as an elongation of almost double its length', and `a trans- found to be a powerful physical medium; and hearing of her feats,
formation of a foot into a hand which grasped him between the Charles Richet had gone to Algiers in 1905 to investigate. Richet
26 27
Science and Parascience The Forerunners
had made his name both as a physiologist and as a psychologist — he had not been present at the seances, how could he, and the other
specialisation had not then erected its barriers; he had been one of performers of Marthe's varied materialised roles, have gained
the researchers who helped to legitimise hypnosis, in the course of access? A lawyer who was a friend of the family eventually came up
which he had encountered the `higher phenomena'; and after with an explanation. He, too, had not been at the seances, but he
protracted tests of Eusapia he had reluctantly come to the conclu- claimed that when he had taxed Marthe with cheating she had
sion that the physical phenomena were genuine, too. Marthe's broken down and confessed that there had been a trapdoor in the
effects were even harder to accept: she could produce `full form' angle of the room curtained off as the `cabinet' through which,
materialisations. Most mediums who had produced them before `when the room had been darkened, a young girl was introduced'.
had been able to do so only when hidden in a `cabinet' — normally a Marthe's part had been secondary, as she only had to pretend to be
curtained-off recess, or corner of a room; Richet to his astonish- asleep while the other girl played the `materialisations'. `She was
ment saw the whole process. very repentant at having set her hand to trickery', the lawyer
`A kind of liquid jelly' — for which he coined the term 'ecto- complacently recalled; but she put forward, `as her constant ex-
plasm' — emerged from her, Richet reported, organising itself into cuse, the compulsory role of medium which she had been obliged
`the shape of a face or a limb'. Sometimes the forms were imper- to play and the existence of the trapdoor'.
fect; sometimes two-dimensional, `so that in spite of oneself, one is Richet's reply was characteristically blunt: `Well! Nothing is
inclined to imagine some fraud' . But even if the medium had been easier than to ascertain the existence of a trapdoor.' There was no
able to secrete muslin, or some such substance, on or in her person, trapdoor. The lawyer lamely excused himself by saying that he had
how — he asked himself — could she make it gradually take on a not himself been responsible for the trapdoor hypothesis — he had
succession of different shapes, whether two-dimensional or com- heard about it from Marthe. Either his story of the confession was
plete? And once, Richet saw a `full form' materialisation of the an invention, or, more probably, Marthe had been pulling his
kind Crookes had reported with `Katie King'; but whereas `Katie' leg — understandably, as he had told her he knew she must be a
had emerged from behind curtains, Richet watched the ectoplasm cheat.
gradually take shape, and then disappear, from start to finish. Still, stories of such confessions tend to come into common
Richet was able to observe Marthe in unusually satisfactory currency and stay there, after the denials are forgotten. Marthe
conditions. `The light was ample for perfect visibility; the proxim- had decided, or was persuaded, that her talents as a physical
ity very close indeed; the time often very long, enabling me to medium ought to be more systematically investigated, under con-
observe closely every detail.' Even if she had had an accomplice in ditions which would rule out any possibility of trickery. In 1910 she
the house, he insisted that it would have been impossible to had put herself into the hands of a well-off and shrewd Parisian
generate, under his eyes, `those clouds which developed into woman of the world, Juliette Bisson, with whom she took up
bony and mobile masses just in front of me'. From his observa- residence. Mme Bisson enlisted the help first of Richet, and later of
tion, he felt he could describe the stages in the formation of Baron Schrenck-Notzing, one of the most dedicated and experi-
ectoplasm. Initially `a whitish steam, perhaps luminous, taking the enced of the investigators of physical mediums; and Marthe was
shape of gauze or muslin, in which there develops a hand or an arm subjected to a series of carefully controlled trials.
that gradually gains consistency', it would then begin to make what The results were published in two works, Mme Bisson's in
he described as personal movements; `it creeps, rises from the French and Schrenck's in German, in the winter of 1913-14. Taken
ground, and puts forth tentacles like an amoeba'. It was not at their face value, they constituted easily the most striking evi-
necessarily connected with the medium, but it usually was; and it dence for the reality of the physical phenomena of mediumship
emanated from her. which had so far appeared in book form. Not merely did the
Inevitably there had been accusations of trickery. A coachman investigators reproduce the actual notes taken at the sessions; they
who had been with the family, but had been sacked, put it about provided scores of photographs illustrating what they, along with
that it was he who had `materialised'; but as there had been `full other investigators, scientists, academics and doctors, had seen.
form' materialisations into which he could not have fitted, and as Striking evidence, however, is not necessarily convincing evi-
28 29
Eva' produced a string of parody portraits
derived from what she had seen in periodic-
als, ranging from President Wilson to Paris
models. This trio, with the originals, were
among those which Schrenk included in his
Phenomena of Materialisation: the King of
Bulgaria (left), Monna Dilze (below right)
and President Poincaré (below left).
Sarajevo
Before the First World War broke out, there had been countless
portents of a coming Armageddon from mediums in trances, in
automatic writing, in dreams and in visions — as in Jung's `terrible
visions of tides of blood'. Most were in similarly vague general
terms; but a few contained more specific prophetic glimpses.
Before the international situation became really serious, a member
of the SPR referred in her automatic writing to 'Lusitania' with the
cryptic comment, `Foam and fire — mest [sic] the funnel'. And
most striking of all was the nightmare which Richet was to recount
in his Thirty Years of Psychical Research, from the story which had
appeared in Psychische Studien in 1918. The facts, it was claimed,
had been checked.
44 45
The First World War
gence, the writer leaving his or her hand at liberty to write
whatever comes, without attempting to control it, and without
necessarily attending at the time to what is being written'. The
mentality involved was usually a dream-like state, and the content
2 The First World War often of no more value than a dream — as it also was with the ouija
board and planchette as an aid. But sometimes the message could
appear to show that `this subliminal portion of the person is in
touch, either telepathically or in some other way, with intelligences
Ordinarily the war might have been expected to push psychical not ordinarily accessible — with living people at a distance perhaps,
research into the background, at least in the countries involved. or more often with the apparently more accessible people who
But throughout its duration the main adversaries, Germany on the have passed on'.
one hand and France and Britain on the other, faced each other The handwriting might be very different from the medium's
from trenches; and as to gain ground through them proved im- normal hand, a characteristic which was usually attributed to the
mensely costly in lives, at all times there were thousands of parents `control' or `communicator' having taken over. But with few
with a son who had just been reported killed or missing. Many exceptions — Stainton Moses' Spirit Teachings was one — the
would hear of some medium who might be able to obtain informa- material, though often couched in flowing (and high-flown) prose,
tion about him — perhaps even bring him back as a 'communi- had been of little interest to psychical researchers. A few members
cator'. of the SPR, however, indulged in automatic writing when the
Had the war broken out a few years earlier, the Cambridge fancy took them — or, as some believed, literally when the spirit
nucleus would have been horrified at this development; but their moved them; and a few began to receive messages purporting to
attitude had been profoundly modified by the discovery of what come from Gurney, Sidgwick and Myers. Often these messages
appeared to be a systematic attempt on the part of the deceased to were of a kind which people who had known the three men agreed
communicate with the living world, through members of the were in character: the style, the references, the tone were often
society who were practising automatists. reminiscent of the living individuals. But this, it was realised, could
not be regarded as proof that they were communicating from the
spirit world; it might simply be that the automatist was uncon-
sciously imposing her own image of them.
The `Cross correspondences'
-
Nevertheless the automatists were asked to send the scripts to
In their research into the trance state the mesmerists had discov- the society's offices, where they could be studied and filed; and
ered that entranced subjects, though not fully aware of what they eventually Alice Johnson realised that there were sometimes links
were doing, could seem as if they were — like sleepwalkers. between the scripts of automatists who were not, and could not
And with the emergence of spiritualism, mediums began to exploit have beep, in communication with each other. Mrs Verrall was in
this `automatism' as a way to communicate with the spirits. At first, Cambridge; Mrs Piper in Boston; Mrs Fleming (Rudyard Kipling's
seance-room tables supplied the answers, responding to sitters' sister) in India. Taken separately, the scripts read like the ram-
questions by tilting — one for `yes', two for `no' — or by raps. Then blings of classical scholars; put alongside each other, they some-
the ouija board was invented, with the letters of the alphabet and times inter-related, much as the pieces of a jigsaw, when fitted
numbers round its perimeter; by putting their fingers on an up- together, produce a picture. It was as if the three men had evolved
turned glass, or on a planchette — a pencil mounted on casters — an ingenious way of demonstrating their survival; and these `cross-
sitters could obtain messages at speed, glass or planchette darting correspondences' were to become the society's chief preoccupa-
from letter to letter. But the commonest and simplest method of tion.
establishing this form of communication, as Lodge described it, A typical example of a cross-correspondence was given by
was `writing performed through the agency of subconscious intelli- Eleanor Sidgwick in the course of a lecture in Cambridge. On 6
46 47
Science and Parascience The First World War
January 1909 one of the automatists — Mrs Verrall — had produced Only among scientists did Lodge have his detractors. This was
some verses apparently relating to the experiences of St Paul on the not because his research in the field of, among other things,
road to Damascus, along with a note signed `F.W.H.M.' — wireless telegraphy was considered inadequate; on the contrary,
Frederic Myers' initials — saying that there should also have been the feeling was that his achievements in this field made it all the
an allusion to the Chemin de Damas: `Remember what Renan more disgraceful that he should have let the side down not merely
wrote about it.' Two days later another of the automatists, `Mrs by dabbling in the occult, but by claiming that such lunacies as the
Willett' — a pseudonym for Mrs Winifred Coombe-Tennant — was physical phenomena of mediumship were genuine — a betrayal
told by `Myers' in her script to write to Mrs Verrall and say the which led Sir James Dewar, to whom posterity is grateful as the
words, `Eikon Renam. Eikon Renam.' The cross-correspondence, inventor of the vacuum flask, to denounce Lodge as `that arrant
in this case, appeared to be 'Renan' (slips were common in humbug who is doing so much harm to English science'.
automatic writing). Mrs Verrall accordingly looked up Renan's The materialists had fresh cause for wrath when Lodge's The
book on the apostles, which neither she nor Mrs Coombe-Tennant Survival of Man was published in 1909, revealing that his experi-
had read; and she found that Renan had described St Paul as ence with mediums had led him to accept the evidence for life after
having seen Jesus, the Eikon (or icon), on the road to Damascus, death. Not that, to most materialists, survival in the accepted
though no such encounter is described in the Acts version. decorous tradition of the Church of England posed any serious
As an example, this cross-correspondence was typical not mere- threat. Most regarded it as a superstition, but a relatively harmless
ly because it suggested a single intelligence was putting the same one. A scientist could be a Christian — could even, as in Faraday's
idea to both automatists, but also because it was an idea of the kind case, be a member of an extreme Presbyterian sect — so long as he
which might have been expected to appeal to `Myers', if he did not ask fellow scientists to believe that his God interfered with
retained his worldly interests. The cross-correspondences seemed life on earth. But spiritualism — even if, as in Lodge's case, it was
to represent the most significant evidence for survival after bodily not a religion — was a different matter; for Lodge to have
death that had yet been discovered, ruling out the possibility of embraced it struck them as intolerable. His reputation as a sage
simple thought-transference between medium and sitters. If there only made matters worse; it gave him unique opportunities to
was telepathic communication — sometimes between India, the undermine the campaign launched by Tyndall to replace other
United States and Britain — it must be on a different level from forms of religion with the new materialist faith.
any which had been found before. Lodge insisted that a distinction must be made between accept-
ance of the evidence, and religious belief based on it. He was
`convinced of human survival and the persistence of personality',
he told J. Arthur Hill, his unofficial assistant in psychic matters, in
Raymond 1912; but `without accepting all the tenets of the people who call
One of the first of the leading members of the society openly to themselves Spiritualists'. This was not a distinction calculated to
avow that the evidence for survival had convinced him had been impress sceptics, and he was under no illusions about the adverse
Oliver Lodge. He had been appointed Principal of the new Uni- effects his identification with psychical research had on many of his
versity of Birmingham in 1900, and knighted two years later. colleagues: `That my occasional psychic utterances do harm to my
Although still in his fifties, he had already won the reputation of a scientific reputation — even so far as causing some of them to think
sage: the friend and adviser of a remarkable range of men and me more or less cracked — is manifest.'
women, particularly those of a radical, inquiring cast of mind, So convinced had he become of the reality of the phenomena he
whatever their political affiliations: among them Balfour, Bryce, had investigated, however, that he felt in honour bound not to
Joseph Chamberlain, Keir Hardie and the Webbs. Bernard Shaw allow fears for his reputation to prevent him from continuing to
brought the draft of Major Barbara to him, to get his opinion on explore mediumship, with particular reference to the evidence for
how to improve the last act; and he was the confidant of many other survival after death which the cross-correspondences were provid-
literary figures. ing. In 1914 Eleanor Sidgwick and her brother Gerald Balfour also
48 49
Science and Parascience The First World War
`burnt their boats', according to Lodge, at a meeting of the had not been introduced when she came with her friend. In any
society — its meetings were private — `by expressing themselves as case, if the Lodges had any doubts — and by this time Lodge was
completely satisfied that telepathic communication with the dead experienced in the wiles, conscious and unconscious, of mediums —
was possible' — though, with characteristic caution, accepting the they were soon dispelled. Other mediums were continuing to
reality of the `communicators' but not of the spirit `controls'. As provide messages from `Raymond' and one of them (a man, which
they had been a long time doubtful, and had been very critical, was unusual: Vout Peters) told Lady Lodge that some photographs
their conversion, he felt, was all the more valuable. had been taken of him, in one of which he was in a group, holding a
Lodge was now to be the recipient of information from a walking stick. The Lodges, who had no knowledge of it, were
different type of cross-correspondence: obtained originally from naturally anxious to see it, but inquiries elicited no information.
one of the automatists, but then supplemented by mediums. On 8 Then, two months later, the mother of a fellow-officer wrote to say
August 1915 Mrs Piper, who was still contributing her share from she had been sent a group photograph which included Raymond;
Boston, reported that she had received a message for him through would they like a copy?
automatic writing: Before it arrived, Lodge had a sitting with Mrs Leonard, and he
asked `Raymond', through `Feda', whether he recollected the
`Myers says, you take the part of the poet and he will act as faunus.
— adding `ask Verrall'. occasion. `Raymond' did, describing how he had been sitting down
while the photograph was taken, with others sitting and standing
On receiving the message Lodge wrote to Mrs Verrall; she behind him. Somebody, he remembered, had wanted to lean on
explained that the reference was to a passage in the Carmen him. The photograph had been taken out of doors; and according
Saeculare, in which Horace thanked Faunus for protecting him from to `Feda' it would show what appeared to be a black background
serious injury when he was felled by a tree which had been struck with vertical lines. Four days later, when the copy arrived, the
by lightning. Lodge took this to be a warning that some blow was description proved reasonably accurate — in one respect, strikingly
going to fall on him, but that he could count on help from `Myers'. so, as the arm of another officer was indeed leaning on Raymond's
On 14 September Lodge's youngest son, Raymond, to whom he shoulder; Raymond, as his father noted, appearing `rather
was very close, was killed in the course of the Ypres campaign. By annoyed'.
this time there were a number of mediums with whom Lodge and
his wife were acquainted, and some of them claimed that
`Raymond' had become a `communicator', and was passing mess-
ages through them to his parents; but as they were of the `tell them
not to worry' type, all too familiarly vague, the Lodges were not
impressed, until one came from an unexpected source.
On 25 September a Frenchwoman living in London, who had
lost sons in the trenches, asked Lady Lodge to come with her to a
professional medium, Mrs Osborne Leonard, whom the Lodges
did not know. Suddenly the medium broke off from passing
messages in French to say that she had one from `Raymond'. `Tell
father I have met some friends of his.' When asked if he could
name any of the friends, `Raymond' replied `Yes. Myers.' And
when Lodge went himself to sit with Mrs Leonard, `Raymond'
again communicated through her `control', `Feda'.
Although Lodge had not disclosed his identity, it was none the
less possible that Mrs Leonard had recognised him; but it seemed The group photograph. Raymond, leaned upon, is second from the
inconceivable that she should have recognised Lady Lodge, who right in the front row.
50 51
Science and Parascience The First World War
This was not the only evidence which Lodge provided in his book that the best plan with a man of this kind is not to take him too
Raymond; he emphasised this example because it contained a seriously.'
simple cross-correspondence , the information coming through two But Raymond also made Lodge unpopular with another Estab-
mediums. The hypothesis of telepathy on Mrs Leonard's part was lishment; the Church of England. The Church felt threatened by
consequently hard to sustain, as he had not seen the photograph spiritualism — as well it might, for it had trimmed to the material-
before she described it; and this, he thought, made it `a first-class ists, rather than do battle with them; possibly because Huxley's
case'. But he reiterated that the proofs were cumulative, `and demolition of Bishop `Soapy Sam' Wilberforce in the `apes or
though it is legitimate to emphasise anything like a crucial instance, angels' contest was too painful a memory. The Church accepted
it always needs supplementing by many others, lest there may have angels — but only in their place, in heaven. Spirits were frowned
been some oversight'. As time went on, he and his wife and other upon, and mediumship denounced as potentially destructive of
members of his family found the accumulation of proof became Christian values. In addition there was a feeling shared by many
overwhelming; it was as if `Raymond' was with them, enjoying the people who were neither materialists nor, in any active sense,
conversation. Christians: that mediumship was basically fraudulent, its prac-
They became more concerned with the enjoyment, in fact, than titioners trading upon the gullible. The fact that the gullible, in this
with testing the mediums; but on occasion `Raymond' passed tests case, were so often the bereaved made it all the more shocking.
they themselves devised. Once some of the family who were
staying in their family home near Birmingham, knowing that
others were having a sitting with Mrs Leonard, held one them- Mrs Osborne Leonard
selves, their aim being to try to get `Feda' to say the word
`Honolulu'. `Feda', in London, duly passed on a message from In 1917 Eleanor Sidgwick formally acknowledged her acceptance
`Raymond' including the word, and reported that he was `rolling of survival in one of her characteristic cool, lucid surveys for the
with laughter' — a good test, Lodge thought, excluding as it did society's Proceedings. The cross-correspondences, she pointed
anything in the nature of conscious or unconscious collusion. It did out, were the equivalent of the pieces of a mosaic, which could
not, he admitted, rule out the possibility of telepathy. But tele- when rearranged indicate a purposefulness, an intelligent design.
pathy, he pointed out, was itself not a `normal' explanation; `and I We have to seek the designer. It cannot be the supraliminal
venture to say that there is no normal explanation, since in my intelligence of either automatist, since ex hypothesi, neither of them
-
judgment chance is out of the question'. And as between telepathy is aware of the design until it is completed. Nor, for a similar reason,
and survival, for him `the hypothesis of surviving intelligence and can it be attributed to some other living person since, so far as can be
personality — not only surviving but anxious and able with diffi- ascertained, no other living person had any knowledge of what was
culty to communicate — is the simplest and most straightforward, going on. It is extremely difficult to suppose that the design is an
and the only one which fits all the facts'. elaborate plot of the subliminal intelligence of either or both auto-
If Lodge had been unpopular with the predominantly materialist matist acting independently and without any knowledge on the part
science establishment before, he was now execrated. One of his of the supraliminal consciousness; and the only remaining hypothesis
critics, Charles A. Mercier, even devoted an entire book to seems to be that the designer is an external intelligence, not in the
body.
denouncing him. Significantly, Mercier was a psychiatrist; by this
time psychiatry had sustained the fissure — now being laboriously In addition, there was the way in which the scripts showed
bridged — between the analysts and the behaviourists, and the literary knowledge, or propounded literary puzzles beyond the
behaviourists were trying to establish themselves as respectable automatists' knowledge; `I must admit,' she concluded, `that the
scientists in the strictest mechanist tradition. This was the stand- general effect of the evidence on my own mind is that there is
point from which Mercier attacked Lodge; characteristically, co-operation with us by friends and former fellow-workers no
Lodge refused to be roused. Mercier seemed to be `a well-known, longer in the body.'
energetic and amusingly able man', Lodge wrote to Hill. `I think In her commentary, Eleanor Sidgwick warned that just as
52 53
Science and Parascience The First World War
nobody should let his reason abdicate in favour of the untrust- ly get on each other's nerves, as they were not in direct communica-
worthy and ill-regulated mental stratum that the subliminal, left to tion. `Feda' emerged only when Mrs Leonard was in a trance.
itself, is liable to be', nobody should `treat his own automatic `Feda' sounded like a young and unsophisticated girl; but she
writing, and still less communications through other mediums, was tough. By leaving messages for Mrs Leonard, she gave what
whether private or professional, as oracles'. Even if contact really amounted to a course of apprenticeship, until she considered Mrs
was made with a `communicator', this could not guarantee that his Leonard sufficiently competent to give professional public sittings,
message came through correctly: `Our evidence, indeed, goes to as for a while she did. But with the outbreak of war, the crowds of
show that it is often, if not always, adulterated by the automatist's distraught relations of men killed or missing in the trenches
own mind.' became too much for her — or, rather, for `Feda'; `Feda' gave
This was a salutary warning, as the tendency had been for instructions that henceforth Mrs Leonard must give sittings only to
spiritualists to assume, once they had convinced themselves that individuals, and in private. She obeyed, and she might have
the `communicator' really was the deceased individual he pur- continued to give them in obscurity, as scores of mediums were
ported to be, that his `communications' were automatically trust- doing, had it not been for that chance encounter with the Lodges
worthy; and sceptics, just as irrationally, had cited errors as evi- and the blaze of publicity which followed the publication of
dence that the `communicator' could not be genuine. The medium- Raymond.
ship of Mrs Piper had shown that in a fl ow of material which As Eleanor Sidgwick had warned, the material was not always
the sitter could testify was `veridical' — the term which psychical re- reliable. `Feda' occasionally slipped up on details; as when, at a
searchers had adopted to describe information provided by me- sitting in 1917, she gave Helen Verrall a broadly accurate picture of
diums, or by people in dreams or in trance states, which turned her recently deceased mother, but claimed, incorrectly, that she
out to be correct — there were often elementary mistakes of a wore `widow's bands' around her wrists. The inference, Helen
kind which the presumed `communicator' would certainly not thought, was that `a certain amount of veridical information about
have made. And they occasionally crept in during sittings with my mother was woven by `Feda' into an imaginary picture of an
Mrs Osborne Leonard, who now established herself as the fore- elderly widow based on preconceived ideas of the appearance that
most medium in Britain. a widow was likely to have'. The most likely explanation, Helen
Mrs Leonard was in her early thirties. As a child, she was to came to think, was that `Feda', when she described somebody, was
recall in her autobiography, she had had visions, but she had not not really `seeing' anything; she was `receiving a series of mental
dared to confide in her well-to-do parents, as soon as she realised impressions which she translated into visual terms'.
how disapproving they were, such visions being then, as sometimes `Feda's' errors and inconsistencies, however, appeared trivial
they still are, widely regarded as indicating incipient insanity. when set against the mass of veridical material in the detailed
During her adolescence the family fortunes collapsed; she transcripts of sittings with Mrs Leonard — for by this time, it had
earned her living for a while by acting and singing, and married an become common practice for sitters to bring along a note-taker.
actor, Frederick Leonard. Whiling away some off-stage time with And any lingering suspicion that she might be using her wits to
some friends and a ouija board, she received a message from a extract and play back information dissolved in the repeated exam-
`communicator' with an unpronounceable name, beginning with ples of the way in which `Feda' provided information which the
`F'; to simplify matters, she asked if she might use the name `Feda'; sitter could not have given her — even, in some cases, telepathi-
and `Feda', agreeing, announced that she was henceforth to take cally.
over as Mrs Leonard's spirit `control'. A typical example was furnished by Mrs Hugh Talbot, who had a
In her conscious state, Mrs Leonard had no desire to be 'control- sitting with Mrs Leonard in 1917. She had never been to a medium
led'; and a curious relationship developed between the two, not before, and had not given either her name or her address; yet not
unlike a marriage where the partners, though fond of each other, merely did `Feda' give a good description of her dead husband,
are also a little ashamed, and inclined to speak disparagingly of, relating incidents which Mrs Talbot was certain could be known
one another. Unlike a marriage, however, they could not constant- only to him and to herself, she also described personal effects of his
54 55
Science and Parascience The First World War
which his widow had kept, including some leatherbound books, in sittings during which `Feda' produced a mass of detailed informa-
one of which `he' — the `communicator' who had presented himself tion about `A.V.B.', her looks and her quirks, the great bulk of it
to `Feda' as the former Hugh Talbot — thought she would find being correct.
something to interest her, on page twelve, or thirteen. Although So veridical was it, in fact, that Radclyffe Hall and Lady Trou-
Mrs Talbot vaguely recalled some scrapbooks of her husband's, bridge began to suspect that Mrs Leonard might have checked up
she was not sure whether they were still in her possession; but after on 'A.V.B.' Initially they had been careful to try to preserve their
she had returned home, a search revealed them lying at the back of anonymity; but 'A.V.B.' had actually given her own name at one
the top shelf of a book-case. On page thirteen of the one to which of the sessions. They realised, however, that in order to obtain the
the `communicator' had drawn her attention was an unnervingly details which `Feda' had provided, it would not have helped Mrs
apposite account of a man supposedly describing what had hap- Leonard (or an agent) merely to have visited the remote country
pened when he was dying. `From certain glances of curiosity or village, and looked around: she (or the agent) would have had to
commiseration which it was supposed I was unable to see' he had ask people living there many probing questions. Radclyffe Hall
found out that he was dying; and when he encountered members of had some inquiries made on her own behalf; and these satisfied her
his family and friends who had pre-deceased him, who did not that neither Mrs Leonard nor an agent had been down to collect
smile with any compassion, or speak to him `yet communicated to the information `Feda' had provided. In any case, Radclyffe Hall
me their unaltered and unalterable affection', he had realised that insisted, `Feda' provided many details of a kind which no inquiry
he must be dead. would have elicited, as they concerned events far from the cottage,
It was obvious that a medium had at last been found who might and known only to herself and Lady Troubridge.
be of inestimable value to the society for research purposes, Sometimes, too, `A.V.B.' began to come through in different
particularly as she was very willing to co-operate. To prevent her and even more affecting ways. Radclyffe Hall described how she
from becoming spoiled by adulation, or corrupted by the payments had complained she could not make Mrs Leonard laugh, while in
which rich bereaved parents might be expected to offer to obtain her trance.
her services, the society. — in a variant of the traditional `if you can't
One day, however, she suddenly succeeded in doing so, and what
lick 'em, join 'em' notion — decided that Mrs Leonard should be ensued was extraordinarily reminiscent of `A.V.B.'s own laugh, and
put on the payroll, initially for a trial period, with a weekly salary this laugh has, since then, often occurred. On several occasions the
paid to her on condition that she would give sittings only to people timbre of Mrs Leonard's voice has changed, and has become very
nominated by the society, and with a note-taker present on the like `A.V.B.'s voice; startlingly so, once or twice. `A.V.B.' has
society's behalf. herself remarked upon this, which appears only to be possible during
From the start, it proved a fruitful venture. Of the scores of the earlier part of the personal controls. On one occasion `A.V.B.'
reports which flowed from it, one in particular was impressively said discontentedly `Oh! now the power is going, can't you hear my
documented: from Radclyffe Hall, who was to achieve instant voice getting "Mrs Leonards" again?', which statement was correct.
notoriety, and later, posterity's apologies, as the author of The
Well of Loneliness.
A `Traveller' in Dublin
Ha ll had no interest in psychical research; but when a dear friend
of hers, `A.V.B.', died, she let herself be persuaded to go to a In Ireland, too — still a part of the United Kingdom — wartime
sitting with Mrs Leonard. She did not disclose her identity; but demand grew for the services of mediums; at least from the
`Feda' provided a description of `A.V.B.', `brief but unmistakable; `Protestant Ascendancy', the Anglo-Irish; Catholics were warned
except my friend, whom it fitted exactly, I had lost no one to whom off by their priests.
it corresponded in the very least'. At a second sitting `A.V.B.' The Irish, like the Scots, had a long tradition of belief in the
reminded her of a place which they had visited together, Watergate occult. `Fairies' — in the sense of entities which had psychic powers
Bay — the last outing they had made before her death. Subsequent- to help or to harm, and sometimes manifested themselves in
ly Hall and her friend, Una, Lady Troubridge, had a succession of human shape as `the little people' — were a living part of folklore,
56 57
Science and Parascience The First World War
so much so that it was rare for a farmer to dare to cut down a thorn Any hope that the sessions would provide direct access to
bush, thorn bushes being under their protection. To Yeats, to `communicators' was quickly dashed. From the start, a number of
`A.E.', and to James Stephens (The Crock of Gold was published rival `controls' competed for mastery, and to make matters worse,
in 1912) fairy lore was far from being either a silly relic of old the victor was `Peter Rooney', a self-confessed Irish-American
superstition or an excuse for Peter-Pan-style sentiment. They layabout and jailbird who informed them that he had committed
knew there were Powers; sometimes of Darkness. suicide by throwing himself under a tram. Had his story been
Yeats occasionally straddled the crevasse which increasingly confirmed, it would at least have provided some evidence for the
separated `Golden Dawn' occultists and mystics such as A.E. from spiritist hypothesis; but when Barrett checked on it, he found that
psychical researchers of the SPR type. And one of Yeats's pro- there was indeed a Peter Rooney in Boston, but he did not have a
tégés, Lennox Robinson, made a contribution to experiments of a police record; although he had been involved in an accident, it had
kind which the society could approve — though research conducted been a scalp wound resulting from a fall from the elevated railway,
in Ireland was unlikely to meet with any warm response from which he had survived; and he was still alive.
Eleanor Sidgwick, even when it was vouched for by William Taxed with the deception, `Peter Rooney' remained unabashed.
Barrett, by this time Sir William, F.R.S. His real identity, he informed the sitters through the `traveller',
Like his fellow-physicists, Crookes and Lodge, Barrett's initial was no concern of theirs. All he wanted to do was help them in their
scepticism about mediumship and spiritualism had gradually been investigation; and, disconcertingly, he showed himself to be ex-
eroded until he had come to accept survival after death. To obtain tremely helpful, in spite of being `a rather primitive creature',
further proof, he had come to the conclusion that the simplest way according to Mrs Travers Smith, with `very strong likes and
was with the help of an ouija board and a `traveller' (as the dislikes'. But the fact that he was `very vain, and fond of a display
planchette had come to be called). This entailed finding by trial and of his powers' admirably suited the group's purpose. It was actually
error individuals, singly or in small groups, for whom the `traveller' `Peter' who urged the group to demonstrate to doubters that they
would provide information from `communicators' direct, as it were not using physical force to push the `traveller', consciously or
were, without the need for a professional medium. unconsciously, towards specific letters, and suggested how they
Barrett was under no illusion that the evidence produced in this could do it. Sometimes Robinson and Mrs Smith wore blindfolds;
way would be trustworthy. He assumed that it would be `scrappy, sometimes an opaque screen was placed between them and the
disjointed and confused', not to be wholly relied upon even when ouija board. Yet even in these conditions, `Peter' continued to pass
some of the material turned out to be veridical. Nevertheless he messages; the `traveller' darting so quickly from letter to letter
hoped that the messages might provide some clues about their round the perimeter of the board that Savell Hicks was thankful he
source. In particular, he was looking for indications which might had learned shorthand — particularly as, whenever he had to ask
determine whether the source was telepathy between the sitters, or for a pause for clarification, `Peter' would be exasperated, and
whether it could only be accounted for by postulating the existence begin his reply with `FOOL ...'
of discarnate entities — spirits. He was not himself psychic, but he Among the many visitors who attended sessions was the young
had two friends with mediumistic gifts: Lennox Robinson, who in Eric Dodds, later to succeed Gilbert Murray as Regius Professor of
his early twenties had been appointed by Yeats to be a director and Greek at Oxford, and to be President of the SPR. Dodds was
manager of the Abbey Theatre; and the level-headed Mrs Travers sceptical, but his suspicion that the sitters, even when blindfolded,
Smith, daughter of Edward Dowden — Professor of English Lit- might come to know how the letters were distributed round the
erature at Trinity College, Dublin, one of the most respected board was removed when he found that the letters were period-
critics of the late Victorian era — and wife of a fashionable Dublin ically shuffled. Yet he could not bring himself to accept the spiritist
doctor. And as note-taker there was the Rev. E. Savell Hicks, who hypothesis: `The least unlikely explanation,' he decided after
for many years was to be Dublin's leading Presbyterian minister, attending on several occasions, `appeared to be some sort of
admired and trusted by his Catholic counterparts even in those gradual telepathic leakage from the watching sitters to the blinded
pre-ecumenical times. sensitives.'
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Science and Parascience The First World War
`Telepathic leakage' certainly provided the obvious explanation piano for a long time and made me play things I hadn't looked at
for some of the information. Once, when a friend of Mrs Travers for years'. Nevertheless as a `communicator' he had not been able
Smith's had come to watch and listen to the proceedings, the to tell her things she did not know, like the number of his Lusitania
`traveller' embarked on a rambling tale about a romantic haunted cabin. More impressive, to her mind, were those occasions when
castle belonging to the visitor. Knowing he had no castles, and the `communicator' was somebody whom no one present at the
becoming bored with the story, Mrs Travers Smith asked whether session had ever heard of, and when the information passed was
he was interested: `very much', he replied — the `traveller' was not of a kind that would have been published, so that one of them
describing the plot of a play which he had just begun to write. On might have read it and forgotten; and when a London woman came
another occasion a message came through from a friend of hers, through to say she had just died, and gave some trivial details about
indicating he was sitting half-asleep in his drawing room, and herself which Barrett, when he checked, found were correct.
describing what had happened to him over Christmas — correctly, The case which most impressed the group came when, in 1915,
as he was to verify when they met. the `traveller' answered the sitters' question `who is there?' by
Still, there were many occasions when telepathic leakage did not giving the name of a young officer killed in France, the cousin of
provide a plausible explanation of the `traveller's' tales — as `Peter' one of the members of the group; he asked her to tell his mother to
sometimes took pleasure in pointing out. Asked to find something give his pearl tie-pin to the girl he was going to marry, and gave the
to `read', and to spell it out, for example, `Peter' said he would read girl's name and address. The cousin, though aware the officer had
a passage from a calendar; it was quite a long passage, but when the been killed, said she did not know he had been engaged; and she
sitters found the calendar and looked it up, he had got it right. had never heard of the fiancée. Nor, Barrett found, had the
The most striking rebuttal of the telepathic leakage theory came officer's parents; and when a letter sent to the girl at the address the
one evening when a `communicator' came through claiming to be `communicator' had given was returned by the Post Office, he
Sir Hugh Lane — a close friend of both Mrs Travers Smith and assumed it must be just another case of the message being mislead-
Robinson — to say that he had been on board the Lusitania, which ing. However,
had just been reported sunk off the Irish coast, and that he had
been drowned. They had known that Lane was in the United Six months later it was discovered that the officer had been
States; but he was not expected back for several weeks. Hardly had engaged, shortly before he left for the front, to the very lady whose
name was given; he had, however, told no one. Neither his cousin
the message been passed when they heard a newspaper boy out in nor any of his own family in Ireland were aware of the fact, and had
the street shouting `Stop Press'. Robinson went out to buy a copy; never seen the lady nor heard her name, until the War Office sent
and there was Lane's name in the passenger list. over the deceased officer's effects. Then they found that he had put
So little knowledge had Robinson and Mrs Travers Smith had of this lady's name in his will as his next of kin, both Christian and
the message the `traveller' was spelling out, Savell Hicks wrote to surname being precisely the same as given through the automatist;
tell Barrett, that they had been laughing and talking while the and what is equally remarkable, a pearl tie-pin was found in his
`traveller' spelled out the message; as soon as he read it to them, effects.
both broke down and wept — `such a piece of heartless play-acting,
as one must assume if they were cognisant of what was coming Here, Barrett pointed out, there could be no question of ex-
through, is, as no doubt you will agree, knowing them both, quite plaining the fact by subliminal memory, or telepathy between the
unthinkable'. living, or collusion; it had the appearance of being `an unexpected
But did `Lane's' communication constitute positive evidence in psychical invasion of the sitters by some personality of whom they
favour of the spiritist case? Mrs Travers Smith remained doubt- were not thinking'.
ful — in spite of the fact that `Lane' had added some veridical Messages like these, in Mrs Travers Smith's view, could be
material; as if anxious to impress her, he had reminded her of the explained in only one way: `an ardent desire on the part of some
effect her piano-playing had made on him not long before, and she external influence to communicate with this world'. It was irra-
recalled that Lane had indeed, on that occasion, `kept me at the tional, she felt, to think that they could have come from any
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other source: `Something more improbable may be suggested by seances as a Spiritualist observance, comparable to family prayers;
way of explanation. I am inclined to believe what is obvious.' as they had been held in private, there had been no incentive to
By the standards later demanded of — and by — parapsycho- deceive others, and he could think of no reason why they should
logists the work Barrett's group did could be described as amateur- have perpetuated a fraudulent rigmarole merely for their own
ish; yet in a sense this lends it an authority which more elaborately benefit. The seances, too, were held in light good enough to
organised trials rarely carry. They were exploring, rather than see that none of the circle was using hands or feet to make the
trying to prove something. `I would not make any effort to speak to sounds, or move the objects in the centre of the circle. They would
the beloved dead through automatic writing or the ouija board,' even hold their linked hands above their heads while Crawford
Mrs Travers Smith insisted. `The evidence they offer of their moved into the circle, to examine the seance table and the objects
identity is too ephemeral and unsatisfactory.' Ephemeral and on or around it, while the seance was in progress.
unsatisfactory though it may have been, she none the less felt In an attempt to trace the source of the rappings, Crawford used
bound to accept that on occasion it inclined her to believe that the a phonograph. Years before, though he was unlikely to have
person who communicated was the person she had known — not an known, a similar method had been adopted by the Russian anthro-
impersonation, though it was only after `Lane' had on several pologist, Waldemar Bogoraz, investigating a Siberian shaman who
occasions been a `communicator' that she became `almost con- had produced voices from various parts of his hut. Suspecting that
vinced it was he who spoke to us'. Her descriptions of the sessions he might be creating the illusion by ventriloquism, Bogoraz had
do not sound like the work of somebody with a package to sell. tested him with a phonograph and found that the voices apparently
Nor, for that matter, do Barrett's; and as the messages were all came from independent sources (as the term `ventriloquism' had
recorded at the time, and often attested by a range of witnesses, originally implied, before being taken over, like conjuring and
there was little room for the kind of exaggeration that the passage magic, to describe a trick).
of time is apt to encourage. Tentative though Barrett's project was, Crawford found that although the phonograph was placed sev-
the reports provided a useful addition to the growing store of eral feet away from the medium — Kathleen, one of the Goligher
knowledge about the uses of automatism in psychical research. daughters — the spirit control `sang' into the horn in a way which
caused `blasting' of the kind which would ordinarily have indicated
that the voice must have been very close to, if not actually in, the
instrument's horn.
The Goligher Circle Crawford's most elaborate set of experiments were along similar
Barrett was also involved, though only briefly, with a series of lines to those which had been held with Eusapia at the Sorbonne,
experiments which were being conducted during the war in Bel- but with refinements which he introduced in the course of the
fast. They represented the first attempt systematically to study the series. The medium's chair was placed on a weighing machine, and
physical phenomena of mediumship with the help of engineering an instrument designed to measure the elasticity of gases was used
techniques and apparatus; the investigator being W. J. Crawford, to detect the directions taken by the telekinetic forces unleashed by
a young lecturer in mechanical engineering in Queens University. her during the seances. They showed that when the table in front of
It is not known how Crawford's interest in the subject was aroused, her levitated, the force involved appeared to be operating on the
but it seems likely that he was the Crawford (unidentified by any cantilever principle, fixed at one end — the medium, supported to
initial) who had attended one of the seances with `Eva C' in 1914. some extent by the combined psychic assistance of her family; firm,
Finding a Belfast family, the Golighers, who held seances, he yet flexible, at the other end, so that the force was deflected
won their confidence and was allowed to join the circle; and upwards off the floor to lever up the table. The raps, too, appeared
eventually they let him introduce a variety of gadgets to see if he to be caused by psychic `rods' emanating from her to different parts
could cast any light on the nature of the forces involved in the of the room. A Belfast woman, with the reputation of herself being
rappings and telekinetic phenomena. psychic, who was brought to one of the seances, claimed she could
He soon ruled out deception. The Golighers had held their see the `rods', which looked to her like thin ribbons; and some-
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Science and Parascience The First World War
times they appeared in photographs which Crawford took. They spite of all our endeavours it eluded us, darting in and out and
tended, however, not to show up in good light — which also seemed changing its position as we tried to seize it'.
to disrupt the linkage, so that the medium could not use the `rod'.
When it was operating, he could put his hand in the way of the `rod' Then the table began to rise from the floor, until it reached a height
without feeling anything, or stopping it from working; and it could of some twelve or eighteen inches, and remained thus suspended and
discharge an electroscope. The `rod' would also obey his instruc- quite level. We were allowed, first myself and then Dr W., to go
tions. beneath the clasped hands of the sitters into the circle and try to force
As Barrett lived in Ireland, he was the obvious man to investi- the table down. This both of us found it impossible to do; though we
gate Crawford's work with the Golighers on the SP R's behalf. He laid hold of the sides of the .table it resisted our strongest efforts to
push it down. I then sat on the table when it was about a foot off the
had cautiously committed himself to acceptance of telekinesis floor, and it swayed me about, finally tipping me off.
nearly thirty years before: `So far as the evidence is trustworthy,'
he had written, `I, for one, believe it points to the conclusion that, Later the table turned upside down, and floated with its legs in
under conditions which are so restricted that we are not put to the air; yet when they went back into the circle to try to lift it, they
intellectual confusion by frequent interruptions of the regular found it immovable.
course of material laws, mind, occasionally and unconsciously, can Impressed, they came back the following evening to watch some
exert a direct influence upon lifeless matter.' But the physical trials with Crawford's weighing machine. The knocks, however,
phenomena of mediumship still repelled him. He had grudgingly informed them that there would be no demonstrations, because of
admitted that Eusapia appeared to have supernormal powers, some material cause which, they were led to infer, related to the
but described her as `a medium of an unreliable type, who has medium. When the doctor examined her, he confirmed that she
been convicted of imposture both in England and America, was suffering from what Barrett discreetly referred to as `a femi-
and with whom therefore I should not care to have any sittings'. nine disorder'; and they had had to return to Dublin before she
Certainly he was not predisposed in the Golighers' favour could resume the seances.
when, during the Christmas holidays in 1915, he went to Barrett described what he had seen in a paper read at a meeting
Belfast at Crawford's invitation to attend a seance; and he of the SPR in January 1916; and later in the year, Crawford gave an
took the precaution of bringing with him a sceptical friend, a account of his researches in The Reality of Psychic Phenomena. It
doctor. was a remarkable work, not just for its demonstration of how the
At the start of the proceedings they sat outside the family circle; physical phenomena of mediumship could be tested with the help
Barrett was agreeably surprised to find that the light was good of engineering techniques and equipment, but for its revelation of
enough for them to see what was happening. The initial manifesta- the importance of incorporating the subjective, or human, element
tions, as usual, were raps, or knocks, sometimes sounding as if into the procedure. Here was an account by a man who was not
from the table in the middle of the circle, sometimes as if from primarily concerned to prove or disprove the reality of the physical
outside the circle. The knocks answered questions (three for yes, phenomena of mediumship; having accepted their reality, he had
two for doubtful, one for no); when the doctor asked for a louder concentrated upon finding out how they worked. As the seances
knock `a tremendous bang' came, `which shook the room', and were family affairs, he had taken care to behave, so far as was
which Barrett realised could not have been produced by the practicable, as one of the family; he had not, as had so often been
slipper-shod feet of the family. Next, there were sounds as if the policy of investigators, even asked Kathleen to submit to being
somebody was using a saw, and of a ball bouncing. When a trumpet treated by him as if she were an object of suspicion, on the ground
which had been placed below the table (musical instruments had that this would be essential if other psychical researchers were to
originally been included at seances by mediums who hoped to be convinced. Crawford had been content to win the family's
emulate Home; they also served as objects which could be made to confidence, assuming that he would later be able to bring in
move at a distance from the medium) began to float around, witnesses without disrupting the seances; and Barrett's visit had
Barrett and his friend were encouraged to try to catch it; `but in shown that this policy had worked.
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Science and Parascience
From the point of view of psychical research in Britain, Craw-
ford's findings were obviously of extreme importance. Here was
the opportunity to catch up with the researchers on the Continent,
in the field where the SPR had so conspicuously lagged behind.
Lodge would have been the obvious person to review the book for 3 Post-War Britain
the Journal, but he could have been expected to give it a favourable
notice. Eleanor Sidgwick therefore decided to review it herself; and
she dismissed Crawford's evidence with a contemptuous `the more
rationalistic hypothesis is that the cantilever in question is the leg The SPR could not look back over the war years with any sense of
and foot of the medium'. achievement: the value of the discovery of Mrs Osborne Leonard,
Her antipathy to the physical phenomena may not have been her important though it was for the purpose of serious investigation of
only reason for this verdict. Crawford had committed the heinous mediumship, had been offset by the adverse effect which the
sin of submitting reports of his work to the editor of Light, a publication of Raymond had on scientists, making the orthodox
journal which leaned too far to spiritualism, and paid too little feel even more certain that they had been right to shun psychical
attention to scientific method, for her taste. And perhaps it was no research. None the less the society had one useful trump card in
coincidence that shortly after Mrs Sidgwick's review appeared in reserve, to remind the orthodox how wrong they and their prede-
the SPR Journal, a letter from Lodge was published in Light cessors had often been in the past: Lord Rayleigh, brother-in-law
warmly congratulating Crawford on his investigation and putting a of Eleanor Sidgwick. He had been a member of the society from
number of questions to him, which Crawford was naturally de- the start, and he took on the Presidency in 1919.
lighted to answer. The editor of Light, David Gow, thereafter had In his Presidential Address Rayleigh recalled that while he had
the benefit of Crawford's interim reports; and also had the satisfac- been at Cambridge in the 1860s he had witnessed an exhibition of
tion of citing any praise for what Crawford was doing from other hypnosis, at that time `dismissed as impossible and absurd'; after
sources — the Westminster Gazette, for one, still influential. `If ever the experience he had realised that `what was, or at any rate had
Dr Crawford's theory of the rods can be maintained,' its reviewer recently been, orthodox opinion might be quite wrong' and this
observed, `surely the mechanists will be discredited for ever.' had led him to become interested in the research Crookes was
doing with Home and other mediums. Although he had not himself
seen any spectacular manifestations, what he had seen was enough
to convince him that mediumship could not be accounted for by
fraud. He therefore begged his fellow scientists to recognise the
importance of research into phenomena which lay just outside that
pale — globe lightning, for one (in which he had a particular
interest), and telepathy.
Before the year was out, however, Rayleigh had died. He had
been `one of the great physical experimenters of all time', Philip
Callahan has recently recalled in his Tuning in to Nature. `He
contributed considerably to our knowledge of both sound and light
waves, and is the father of the mathematics of resonance as applied
to the physics of sound and light. His work on the resolving power
of the optical lens is classical.' And although Rayleigh had not been
directly involved in psychical research since the foundation of the
society, the continued support of a man who had been successively
Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge, President of the
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Science and Parascience Post-War Britain
British Association and of the Royal Society, and Chancellor of It was difficult then, and it has been difficult since, for sceptics to
Cambridge University, as well as being the recipient of an O.M. reconcile Crookes's contributions to conventional science with his
and a Nobel Prize, was an asset the society could ill afford to lose. interest in psychical research. Some have settled this to their own
Sir William Crookes, too, died in 1919. Like Rayleigh, he was a satisfaction by the time-dishonoured technique of suggesting that
former President of both the British Association and the Royal he seduced, or was seduced by, the medium Florence Cook, and
Society, and an O.M. His contribution to psychical research had collaborated with her in fraud. The grotesque implausibility of this
been all-important: it had been his decision to investigate smear has recently provoked a writer in the New Scientist to offer
mediums, and his reports had encouraged the Cambridge nucleus an alternative proposition: that Crookes's mind was temporarily
to investigate on their own account in the 1870s. And although unhinged by thallium poisoning.
Crookes's experiences with mediums, and still more with their The poison must have been remarkably selective. Crookes's
backers, had frightened him off formal psychical research, he had work with vacuum tubes arose out of, and in the course of, his
made it clear in his Presidential Address to the British Association investigation of mediums, to find what they could do telekinetic-
in 1898 that he stood by what he had reported. ally. As Francis Galton described in a letter to his cousin, Charles
Because Crookes had ceased to identify himself publicly with Darwin, in 1872, Crookes was experimenting to find whether
psychical research, the rumour periodically resurfaced that he had mediums could influence needles suspended in a vacuum, and he
at last realised he had been duped; and in 1916 he wrote restating found that `different people had different power over the needles,
his position to the editor of Light, repeating what he had told the and that the same person might have different power at a different
British Association eighteen years before: `I adhere to my pub- time'. Crookes, Galton commented, `believes he has hold of quite
lished statements and have nothing to retract.' He added that a grand discovery'. He had, indeed; though it was to take a very
although he had not committed himself to any generalisations from different course from what he had originally envisaged.
the facts, this must not be held to invalidate his testimony about the Of the Old Guard, Barrett was still active, but chiefly in Ireland;
facts themselves: `In my opinion they substantiate the claims which and Lodge, though he remained a contributor to the Society's
have been made for them by several of my colleagues and friends in publications, was mainly concerned with the Survival issue. No
the Society for Psychical Research, viz, that they point to the scientists of comparable stature had come into the SPR from the
existence of another order of human life continuous with this, and succeeding generations; and orthodoxy's hostility remained un-
demonstrate the possibility in certain circumstances of com- abated. The sceptics were now backed by the formidable talents of
munication between this world and the next.' Bertrand Russell.
The implication was that Crookes had not personally obtained
evidence which had convinced him of the reality of an after-life. He That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the
end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and
was to get it a few months later. In Survival, published in New York fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental
in 1924, Miss F. R. Scatcherd described a seance she had attended collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of
with Crookes in 1917, where his deceased wife had 'communi- thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave;
cated', telling her husband that although he could not see her, `I am that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all
here beside you, Willie dear' and demonstrating her presence by the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction
causing a musical-box to float around the room. The light had just in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of
been good enough, Miss Scatcherd claimed, for her to see ecto- man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
plasm forming itself `into a rough gripping apparatus' which universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are
groped for the musical-box; and also to see it as it was whirled yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope
`round and round Sir William's head'. More impressively, to stand.
although the box had been so constructed that it could not be Churchmen, too, far from being heartened by the evidence
stopped or started by any of the assembled company, it was which psychical research was providing for Survival, were for the
stopped or started at their request by `the unseen intelligence'. most part hostile. A few individuals were involved with the so-
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Science and Parascience Post-War Britain
ciety — William Boyd-Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, had been self', pointing out that she did not share `Feda's' childish weak-
President in 1912; but the view of the majority was probably nesses (which included giving away Mrs Leonard's wedding ring
best expressed by W. R. Inge, the Dean of St Pauls, who through- to casual sitters and, on one occasion, throwing it in the fire, `from
out the years between the wars was to be the most widely read which a distressed sitter rescued it').
and quoted of churchmen (unable, as some Fleet Street wit put it, In one sense, Mrs Leonard had the last word: she could prevent
to decide whether he wished to be a pillar of the Church or two `Feda' from taking over. In another, `Feda' was mistress: she could
columns in the Evening Standard) . In one of his columns in 1922 he refuse to co-operate, and thereby cut off Mrs Leonard's source of
denounced Spiritualism as `an outburst of puerile superstition income. As a result, Mrs Leonard had to put up with what Lady
which carries us back to the mentality of barbarians'. As Edwyn Troubridge described as `Feda's' `infantilism and obstinacy'.
Bevan was to observe in his Seers and Sybils, by the 1920s liberal `Feda' also appeared conscientiously to wish to prove the reality
Protestants — Protestants, that is, of the type who made up the of survival; she had come up with some ingenious ways of demon-
bulk of the Established Church's congregations — in general strating to sitters, and to still unconvinced members of the SPR,
accepted life in the spirit after death but refused to accept that that she really was obtaining her information from the 'communi-
there could be `any interference with the sequence of material cators' , and not from telepathic or other links with the sitter. In the
mechanical processes in the world except from conscious beings in SPR Journal for May 1921 the Rev. C. Drayton Thomas gave
the flesh', and certainly not from discarnate human spirits. Mrs details of sittings — there had been fifty-three in all — he had had
Stobart was to make a valiant effort in her books to remind her with Mrs Leonard; the `communicator' claimed to be Thomas's
co-religionists that the Bible, upon which they based their faith, father and, in addition to other information, told him about items
was packed with psychical phenomena and spirit interventions; but which he would find in the newspapers the following day. For
to no purpose. example, on 10 October 1919 his `father' told him: `In The Times
for tomorrow, 2nd column of front page, half way down or nearly
so, will be your name and your father's, your own coming first.'
About a quarter down the column, the next day, Thomas found
`Feda' the name `Charles John Workman'. Thomas's name was Charles:
The only field of research in which the SPR could claim success in his father's, John. Or on 27 February 1920, his `father' said there
this period was with Mrs Osborne Leonard. `Feda' had not would be a reference in the first column of the paper the next day to
matured, but she had developed, becoming a character in her a place his mother had been very fond of in her childhood, and
own right. `Feda', Lady Troubridge explained, `quite close is a name suggesting music'. In the first column Thomas
found `I. of W.' — his mother had grown up in the Isle of Wight —
has not a high opinion of Mrs Leonard. And although she will and just below, the name `Harper'.
conscientiously, if rather obviously against the grain, do her any
kindness in her power, she never, in my experience conveys any The references, Thomas pointed out, contained information not
impression that she likes her. She frequently indeed, expresses open merely about what was going to appear in the next day's papers,
scorn of Mrs Leonard's opinions, likes or dislikes and speaks of her but also about members of his family, some revealing intimate
as a not very satisfactory and distinctly inferior instrument, who must acquaintanceship. Nor could they be explained away by chance.
be protected and humoured merely because, such as she is, there is He had compared some of the information given with other issues
none better to hand. Her instinctive antagonism to Mrs Leonard is of The Times; there were a few coincidences, but nothing like the
repressed, tempered by a certain recognition of Mrs Leonard's good number of correct forecasts. As a check, Barrett wrote to the
qualities which her honesty will not let her deny; but the antagonism manager of The Times on behalf of the SPR to find out whether the
is unmistakably there. Births, Deaths and Marriages columns would have been set up in
Mrs Leonard, for her part, bestowed upon `Feda' only `a rather type at the times of the sittings. From his reply it was clear that
patronising liking, often obscured by distinct irritation'. She re- some of them would have been; but their position on the page
sented the suggestion sometimes made that `Feda' was her `higher would ordinarily not have been established until later.
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Science and Parascience Post-War Britain
The method which `Feda' most often adopted came to be known was that a similar success rate could be obtained by chance. This
as `book tests' — devised, `Feda' claimed, by the `communicators' was tested in 1923 by nearly two thousand trials which followed the
themselves to establish themselves in their own right, by proving same lines as `Feda's' but in which the place, the book and the page
that the information could not possibly come from the li ving. In his were selected at random. The outcome was a success rate of less
Some New Evidence for Human Survival Drayton Thomas de- than one in twenty.
scribed how he and a `communicator' had discussed the possibility `On the whole,' Eleanor Sidgwick cautiously commented, `I
of direct communication in his home, by the established spiritualist think that the evidence before us does constitute a reasonable
method of `raps'. For a time he obtained no convincing evidence, prima facie case for belief' — not, indeed, for belief in Survival,
but eventually one night he three times distinctly heard a loud though she would not have ruled that out, but for belief in
double knock. Three days later `Feda' greeted him when he came clairvoyance, as distinct from telepathy; the ability of the human
for a sitting with the claim `that she had succeeded in coming to our mind to tune in, or to be tuned in, to objects, rather than to
house and giving raps there'; and to prove it, she gave a book test. thoughts. It had taken forty years for her to break the habit of
In the fifth book from the left on the second shelf behind his study thinking in terms only of communication between minds; the book
door, `near the top of page 17 you will see words which will serve to tests had finally accomplished it.
indicate what "Feda" was attempting to do when knocking in your
room'. The book, Thomas found on his return, was a collection of
Shakespeare's plays, beginning with King Henry VI. The third line `Phantasms' revisited
of the page `Feda' had indicated read `I will not answer thee with
words, but blows'. In 1922 Eleanor Sidgwick — Mrs Henry Sidgwick, as she some-
Pamela Glenconner provided an even more striking example times still continued to sign herself — performed a further useful
of a book test in The Earthen Vessel. 'Bim' — Edward Wyndham service in the role she had taken up of sorter-out and assessor of the
Tennant, who had been killed on the Somme in 1916 — was the mass of material which came in to the society's office: a survey of
`communicator'; his father, Lord Glenconner, and his brother, the cases of telepathy between living persons which had come in
David, the sitters. The message, `Feda' said, was particularly for since the publication of Phantasms of the Living, the initial survey,
`Bim's' father. The book was the ninth `on the third shelf, counting in 1886. Cases which had already appeared in the Proceedings were
from left to right in the bookcase on the right of the door in the not included; this, she admitted, somewhat reduced the collec-
drawing room' ; he was to note the title, and read page thirty-seven. tion's value. She did, however, include some which had been in the
Glenconner's major interest was forestry; the book's title was Journal, as it was then, unlike the Proceedings, published for
Trees. Glenconner's worry had been that young trees were so often private circulation to members only.
ruined by `the beetle', so that 'Bim' had been known to whisper to Thirty of the cases were in the category of experiments; 170 were
his mother at the start of family walks `see if we can get through the of spontaneous experiences, a third of them relating to dreams.
wood without hearing about the beetle'. The sentence at the They ranged from apparitions `to purely ideational and emotional
bottom of page thirty-six, leading on into page thirty-seven, ran: impressions and motor impulses'. Many of them were of a relative-
`Sometimes you will see curious marks in the wood; these are ly trivial kind, interesting chiefly because they illustrated how
caused by a tunnelling beetle, very injurious to the trees.' telepathic communication operated on different everyday levels.
`Feda' was far from consistently successful in her book tests. One such was contributed by Lowes Dickinson, long a member
Combing through the reports put in to the SP R Eleanor Sidgwick of the society. Hearing the doorbell ring in her London home, one
calculated in 1921 that in the course of 532 tests, 92 were successful day in 1917, his sister Janet had suddenly had the impression that it
and 100 approximately successful (for example, the appropriate was her cousin Harry, `come to tell me his mother was ill', as he had
term or idea was found on the page opposite to the one with the once done a year before. It turned out to be a telegram, on another
number which `Feda' had given). Only in one third of the tests, matter; but she mentioned what she had thought it was to her maid.
therefore, could she claim some success; and a possible objection Later that morning she went out; when she returned the maid told
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-
her that her cousin had come round, in her absence, to ask her to go boy' I remarked `Hello! back already?' He replied, `Yes. Got them
to see his mother. `I had not been thinking of my aunt,' Janet all right, had a good trip.' I am not positively sure of the exact words
wrote in her account of the episode, five days later, `nor do I often he used, but he said `Had a good trip' or `Had a fine trip' or words to
see her.' The maid confirmed the account; and cousin Harry that effect. I was looking at him the whole time he was speaking. He
recalled in a letter to Janet that at the time she thought that he was said `Well, cheerio!' closed the door noisily and went out.
at the door, he had been `in great anxiety of mind', because he had The time must have been between a quarter and half past three,
some work to finish but felt he could not go out and leave his Larkin knew; another officer had come in a few minutes later, at a
mother, and he was `considering calling round and asking you to sit quarter to four, to say he hoped David would be back in good time,
with her.' as they had planned to go into Lincoln that evening. Larkin had
A few cases were more dramatic. One, contributed by Lodge, replied that David was back, as he had been in the room a few
concerned the proprietor of a large slate quarry. On his way home minutes before. When, that evening in Lincoln, he heard that
from the quarry he had what he described as `a sort of message' in David had crashed and was dead, he at first assumed that he must
which he `seemed to see a certain portion of the quarry', and the have returned, but then taken off again, and been killed on the
men working there, in great danger. So strong was the feeling that second flight. Later that evening, he learned the truth:
he wired the manager to tell him to take the men off work. `It was
very fortunate that you did wire,' the manager wrote to him the As you can understand, Mr McConnel, I was at a loss to solve the
problem. There was no disputing that he had been killed whilst flying
next day, `because about an hour later the whole of the place where to Tadcaster, presumably at 3.25, as we ascertained that his watch
they were working upon went down.' Nothing could have saved the had stopped at that time. I tried to persuade myself that I had not
men, had they been working at the time. seen him or spoken to him in this room, but I could not make myself
As in many cases of this kind, it was possible to present a believe otherwise, as I was undeniably awake and his appearance,
`natural' explanation, in terms of intuition; an experienced quarry voice, manner had all been so natural. I am of such a sceptical nature
proprietor might have unconsciously noted some fault. Yet this regarding things of this kind that even now I wish to think otherwise,
would not explain why the feeling that something was amiss came that I did not see him, but I am unable to do so.
on him later, in the way it did. And in a few of the dramatic cases, To emphasise the point about his sceptical nature, Larkin added
no such explanation could be offered. that although he had heard of similar happenings, he had always
The one which attracted most interest had been brought to totally disbelieved in them, imagining that the persons to whom
Lodge's attention by the father of David McConnel, a pilot in the they happened were nervous and highly strung: he had always been
Royal Flying Corps, who was killed shortly after the end of the among the incredulous ones, `only too ready to pooh-pooh the
First World War when his aircraft crashed in fog on a routine flight. idea'. And he was sure he had been wide awake at the time. Nor,
McConnel had been detailed to take an aeroplane to Tadcaster; he insisted, could it have been a case of mistaken identity; to an
and before he left, he had looked in on a fellow officer, James inquiry from Eleanor Sidgwick, when she came to compile an
Larkin, to say he expected to be back in time for tea. Larkin spent account of the episode for the society's Proceedings, he replied that
that afternoon in his room writing letters and reading until — as he the light in his room had been good, and the only other two officers
described the episode in a letter to David's father — who, like David, wore naval caps, bore no resemblance to him.
I heard someone walking up the passage; the door opened with the
usual noise and clatter which David always made; I heard his `Hello
boy', and I turned half round in my chair and saw him standing in the The Goligher Circle revisited
doorway, half in and half out of the room, holding the door knob in
his hand. He was dressed in his full flying clothes but wearing his In one area of psychical research, however, the SPR was out of
naval cap, there being nothing unusual in his appearance. His cap touch; and in this period it happened to be the main area. In
was pushed back on his head and he was smiling, as he always was Belfast, Crawford was continuing his work with the Golighers; but
when he came into the rooms and greeted us. In reply to his `Hello his periodic reports were published in Light. As if to show his
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contempt for Eleanor Sidgwick's review of The Reality of Psychic gator, however, had subsequently attended a seance; a newcomer
Phenomena, Crawford ignored it in his next book, Experiments in to psychical research who was destined to play an important role in
Psychical Science, published in 1919, and primarily designed to the years ahead.
answer questions such as those which Lodge had posed, which he At Eton and at Cambridge, Whately Smith had aspired to
had not fully answered before. For example: if his `cantilever' become an orthodox scientist. The war had intervened; he had
theory were correct, would not adding weights to the table, and joined the Royal Flying Corps and flown as a pilot until a forced
therefore necessitating the use of more psychic power by the landing grounded him, and severely damaged his health. Hearing
medium, `at length reach such magnitude that, the medium would about Mrs Leonard's mediumship, he had had some sittings with
topple over in her chair?' And what were the medium's sensations, her; and he had attended a seance with Crawford and the Goligher
during sessions? circle.
When the table was being levitated, Crawford had found, almost Describing what he had witnessed in the SP R's Proceedings,
all of its weight was added to the weight of the medium. `For all Whately Smith feared that as the history of the investigation of the
practical purposes of calculation, the effect is the same as though physical phenomena formed `an almost unbroken record of fraud
the table was resting upon her head, or as though she was holding it and malobservation, of initial plausibility and subsequent expo-
up with her hands.' In his early experiments, the medium's muscles sure', it was asking for trouble to express an opinion in favour of
had reacted, as she sat in her chair, as if she were applying physical them; but his scrutiny of Crawford's work had compelled him to
force — as it might be to her chair, holding herself down. But accept that in the case of the Belfast circle, they were genuine. In
gradually this muscular effort had diminished; she told him that light sufficient to see every object in the seance room, he had
`she experiences now no sensation whatever during the occurrence watched the movements of the table, heard the raps, and so on;
of phenomena' — though the phenomena themselves had not and he had himself been allowed to make tests — for example, to
changed. try to discover the force involved in moving the large metal
The explanation, Crawford thought, was that Kathleen trumpet which featured in the seances.
Goligher supplied the cantilever material — the ectoplasm; but The trumpet had begun by moving from outside the circle into
that energy was also coming from outside her. It was supplied, he the circle, and under the table, where it `separated into its two
surmised, by the members of her family, but channeled through component parts'. The two parts then rose into the air and came
the medium's body which was `either directly or indirectly the towards where he was sitting, outside the circle. He took hold of
focus of all the mechanical actions which result in phenomena', so them, and found he could move them to and fro; what he could not
that raps, say, outside the circle were sometimes accompanied by do was twist either of them. `So great was the resistance to torque
spasmodic body movements. This was important, Crawford that I can only describe it by saying that it felt as if the lower ends of
argued, in connection with allegations of fr aud, so often made in the two parts were embedded in a large mass of solid concrete,
the past about mediums, because `not only is it the focus, but it also freely suspended so as to allow of transverse and longitudinal
seems to supply a kind of duplicate of portions of her body which movement, but so heavy as to preclude twisting.'
can be temporarily detached and projected into the space in front Eventually the two parts of the trumpet fell to the floor, and the
of her'. As a result things happened in seances `which, from the table began to move, first rotating and then, after some tilts, rising
very nature of the case, sometimes bear a superficial appearance of clear from the floor to the height of about twelve inches. Invited to
fraud'; and it was this, he feared, which had led to many mediums enter the circle, and test the table for himself, Whately Smith
being wrongfully accused. grasped it with both hands and tried to stop it from moving. `By
The Golighers' seances, he reiterated, were `above sus- dint of great exertion I could prevent it from moving in any one
picion'; but the elements in the SPR that rejected the physical direction and could keep it steady for a second or so, but it instantly
phenomena were unlikely to take Crawford's word for it — or moved in some other direction, the force changing with great
even Barrett's, as Eleanor Sidgwick's review, which had rapidity.' When he tried to lift the table off the floor he could not
blandly ignored his evidence, has shown. Another investi- move it; when he relaxed his grip, it levitated beside him, and then,
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although it would move sideways when he pushed or pulled it, he
could not force it back down on to the floor.
Could he have been the victim of an illusion? A professional
magician, Whately Smith admitted, could easily make observers
think they had seen something they expected to see, or by distract-
ing them, stop them seeing what he did not wish them to see; but
this would not account for his experiences while wrestling with the
table; still less for the times when its movements were being
`recorded by mechanical apparatus'. Fraud, then? What would be
the purpose? These were private seances. They could bring neither
fame nor financial reward to the Golighers; in fact the family
refused to admit visitors, except those who were helping Crawford
investigate the phenomena, and he had found the family 'eminent-
ly upright, honourable and likeable people of the best type — quite
incapable of practising a mean and objectless trickery'.
In any case, Whately Smith concluded, those who attributed the
phenomena to fraud would have a job explaining how the fraud
was perpetrated. Like other previous witnesses he had seen the
phenomena in good light; like them, he had been allowed to
inspect what was happening inside as well as outside the circle; like
them, he had wrestled with table and trumpet, feeling them
twisting and turning. How could such effects be achieved by a
family sitting around in a circle, holding hands?
Still, he admitted that psychical researchers had a problem.
Some orthodox scientists might be convinced, as he had been, by
what they had seen. But others, who had not witnessed the
phenomena, would dismiss them because the medium could not
always produce them to order; and because if they were real, `there
can be no doubt, in this case at least, that they are directed by an
intelligence of some kind or other'.
By the time Whately Smith's commentary, along with Barrett's
earlier paper, was published in the Proceedings in 1919, Crawford
was turning his attention to a different aspect of the phenomena:
the processes by which the ectoplasm, emerging from Kathleen's
body, formed itself into the psychic `rods' which levitated the table.
The `rods', he found, could flatten out at the end farthest from her
so that they could either push or pull — the pulling power being
provided by `a difference of air pressure' — suction, in other words,
At the end of his Psychic Structures Crawford had photographs which
as if they resembled the tentacles of an octopus. They were he had been able to take when the ectoplasm from Kathleen
adjustable: sometimes hard, sometimes soft. And when they left Goligher's body — commonly from her navel or her vagina — became
impressions in a bowl of clay (as Eusapia's pseudopods had often visible, showing how it looked like a scarf, drooping floorwards, but
done), `the working end of the psychic structure is often covered then lifted to provide the cantilever effect.
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with marks which are very similar to the fabric of the medium's robe would be likely to assume fraud if they happened to see on it a
stockings' ; at the end of seances, `various marks are left by the clay laundry mark.
on the medium's stockings and shoes'. Crawford's new findings, if he had been able to have them
In other words, the `rods' were behaving as if they were the confirmed, as his earlier studies had been, by members of the SPR,
medium's feet. The discovery of fabric impressions on clay, and would have compelled a radical revision of ideas about, and
still more of clay on the medium's person, would have been attitudes to, physical mediumship in the society. But Crawford,
regarded, even by many of those who accepted materialisations, as trying to catch up with his university commitments, had a nervous
proof of fraud. But fraud, Crawford insisted, was out of the breakdown; and in the summer of 1920 he committed suicide. In a
question. Kathleen's feet were sometimes tied to her chair, some- letter to Gow, the editor of Light, he explained that his collapse
times actually enclosed in a box: it made no difference. He could was due to overwork, and had nothing to do with the Goligher
see that they were not responsible for the impressions in the clay: circle. `My psychic work was all done before the collapse, and is the
he could even walk between her and the clay without interrupting most perfect work I have done in my life,' he claimed; everything
the `rods' at their work. In any case, the impressions in the clay to do with it would bear every scrutiny, as it was done when his
were often of a kind that could not have been made by a human brain was working perfectly, `and it could not be responsible for
foot. What was happening, he assumed, was that as the ectoplasm what has occurred.'
emerged from her it occasionally took on the appearance of Crawford left his description of the research into the ectoplasmic
whatever fabric she was wearing, and then carried bits of it, along processes to Gow, to prepare for posthumous publication; and The
with fluff. to the clay; and brought back traces of the clay to the Psychic Structures of the Goligher Circle came out in 1921. Inevi-
point at which the ectoplasm re-entered her body. tably, the fact that Crawford had committed suicide fuelled sus-
To sceptics — and this would have included Eleanor Sidgwick picion, in spite of his disclaimers, that he realised he had been the
and those of like mind in the SPR — Crawford's findings would Golighers' dupe. And since his later research had not been vetted,
have been simply another indication of the capacity of mediums for it was possible for sceptical SPR members to ignore it; in a review,
deception, and of investigators for self-deception. But to anybody Dingwall dismissed Crawford's methods as not calculated to
who accepted the possibility of ectoplasmic materialisations these appeal `to many of the more critical students of psychical phenom-
findings were of great significance. One of the problems which had ena'. In 1921 the SPR despatched an investigator to Belfast; but
bedevilled research into physical mediums had been the discovery he proved an unfortunate choice. Although Fournier d'Albe had
that when they moved objects at a distance the force involved was been an admirer of Crookes, and was engaged on his biography, he
not just an abstraction, telekinesis, which could be regarded as an was unsympathetic to much of Crookes's work in the psychic field
indication of the medium's power to influence matter at a distance. (and seriously misleading about it, as Lodge was to complain in his
That the movements were performed by pseudopods, arms and review); and he had either not read Crawford's books carefully, or
hands or legs and feet sprouting from the medium's body, was had singularly failed to take note of the advice Crawford had given.
harder to swallow. Even harder to take was the possibility that From the start Crawford had emphasised the absolute necessity,
these ectoplasmic limbs could so successfully mimic or counterfeit if the phenomena were to be studied, of the investigator winning
the human form that they looked real, felt real and smelled real. the Goligher family's confidence. After it was won, controls could
Hardest of all was acceptance of the fact that the descriptions of be introduced with Kathleen's willing consent, but it was no use
materialisations were to be relied upon: the ectoplasm could not regarding the seances simply as laboratory-fodder. This was what
merely create hands which, when shaken, seemed to be human Fournier proceeded to do. He observed and reported levitations,
hands: it could create clothes which to sight and touch appeared to and admitted that the table resisted his attempts to shift it; but his
be real clothes. And, understandably but ironically, the more ambition was to devise experiments whose results would be 'inde-
closely they resembled real clothes the greater the risk the medium pendent of anyone's testimony' — understandably, as he must have
would run of being accused of fraud. Witnesses who would have known that his testimony, even if supported by witnesses, would be
been ready to accept a `full-form' materialisation appearing in a rejected if it were favourable. And when he found he could make
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no progress to this objective, he became disgruntled. Although he Belfast; evidently he never felt at ease with the Golighers, nor
could not account for some of the effects he witnessed, he wrote to they with him — Fournier wanted to abandon the inquiry, and
tell Kathleen Goligher that as he had been unable to obtain used the allegations of cheating as his excuse, knowing they would
conclusive evidence of their psychic origin they were of `no scien- be likely to satisfy the SPR Council, as it was then composed, the
tific value,' and he had decided to terminate the investigation. more so in that Crawford had given his allegiance to Gow, and
He did not disclose to her that he had begun to suspect that she Light. Whatever the reasons, his decision effectively blocked the
was cheating. He kept that for his report to the SPR. Photographs chance of a systematic follow-up of Crawford's work on the
he had taken of her ectoplasm, he explained, showed that it bore a society's behalf ; and in any case, Kathleen was about to marry, and
resemblance to chiffon; and when a footstool was `levitating' terminate her career as a medium.
against the dark background he thought he had seen what might Neither Fournier nor anybody else had seriously suggested that
have been Kathleen's foot supplying the motive force. Yet he must if there were cheating, Crawford was involved. But this makes it
have known that the `chiffon' element had been observed and very hard indeed to show how he could have been duped by the
photographed by Schrenck, with whom he corresponded, with Golighers. He could see what was happening; and even if he were
`Eva'. He must also have known about pseudopods; yet he had periodically busy with, say, camera angles and gadgets of various
neither bothered to prevent Kathleen from using her feet, nor had kinds, his descriptions are of what he saw when the gadgetry was
satisfied himself that it really was a foot, and not a pseudopod, set up, and they do not admit of the possibility that he could have
which he saw. And ironically, when he published his findings in been deceived day after day, month after month. Besides, if the
pamphlet form, an appendix contributed by Gow in his capacity as Golighers were cheats — contrary to the view not just of Crawford,
Crawford's literary executor not only went some way to demolish- but of Barrett and Whately Smith — why would they have cheated
ing Fournier's case, but showed that the evidence Crawford had to such little purpose, refusing to give public seances? The idea of
provided had been better attested by outside witnesses than had the entire family giving seances night after night just to fool the
been realised. unfortunate Crawford and the occasional witness he brought in,
Crawford, the appendix revealed, had watched and photo- makes no sense. They might have played tricks for a week or two,
graphed Kathleen's ectoplasm developing, noting how it appeared as a family game; but that they should have played it for five years is
`just as though it had been manufactured like cloth'. He had also surely inconceivable.
been careful to ensure that in her trances, Kathleen could not use So long as physical mediumship remained an unfashionable area
her feet. And he had obtained statements from a number of men of psychical research, the full value of Crawford's work was
and women who had attended seances, presumably intending to unlikely to be appreciated. But now that psychokinesis is coming
use them when he came to sum up the results of his investigation. back into fashion, there are signs that it is being taken seriously
One of them was the President of the Glasgow Society of Con- again, as the record of research of a kind which had never before
jurors; like Barrett, he had been chiefly impressed by the invitation been undertaken, by a man with unusual qualifications, and with
to wrestle with the levitated table, inside the circle: `I could not pull the integrity that must have been required to persuade the
it down for the life of me.' Another witness, noting that Fournier Golighers to accept so protracted, and doubtless frequently bor-
had complained of the poor light in which the seances were ing, a series of trials.
conducted, replied that he had been `exceedingly surprised' at the
seance he attended `to find so much happening in so bright a light'.
It had been good enough for him to read by; yet in these conditions Psychic Photography
he had seen the table levitate: `I can solemnly assure you that not
only did it leave the floor without contact, but remained in space, In 1919 a fresh effort was made to study one of the more conten-
well over the heads of the sitters,' floating there for a couple of tious of the phenomena associated with spiritualism, with the
minutes, and resisting attempts to pull it down. setting up of a Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures.
Perhaps for personal reasons — he may have been bored in They were contentious because most of the photographs had
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been of deceased persons, their faces apparently floating in the air duced, so long as the reproduction could be construed as further
above the sitters, who would often identify them as loved ones. evidence of the spirit's survival after death; and sceptics continued
The ability of the photographers to produce them by psychic to assume that the `spirits' could only be imposed on plates by
means, either through being psychic themselves or by employing a fraud.
medium to attend sessions, had endlessly been challenged; charges That fraud should have been common was not surprising, in view
of fraud had been common, occasionally leading to prosecutions of the profit which could be made from providing such photo-
and prison sentences. And if it were accepted that such photo- graphs; but there were some indications, apart from Traill Taylor's
graphs could be genuine, the mechanics of the process by which the evidence, that mind or spirit could impinge on photographic
faces appeared remained baffling. plates. In the welter of dubious evidence about psychic photo-
An interesting attempt had been made to solve it in the early graphy, there were a few case histories where effective precautions
1890s by J. Traill Taylor, one of the leading photographers of the appeared to have been taken to prevent fraud; and others where
time. Taylor had come to the conclusion that it was no use the characters of the witnesses made it improbable that they were
continuing to refuse to investigate spirit photography on the engaged in deception.
ground that it was demonstrably fraudulent; as it had survived Hyslop, for example, was sufficiently impressed by the evidence
years of such criticism, and continued to flourish, it would be wise he received from the Rev. Charles Hall Cook, who had had to
to subject it to formal tests. The method he devised was to use his retire from the ministry through ill-health, to give it space in the
own camera, and plates fresh from the makers, which the medium Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).
would not be allowed to touch; the sessions would be conducted in For Cook, psychic photography had become a hobby; and he
the presence of two witnesses (to ensure that neither the medium combined his own experiments with the investigation of other
nor he himself cheated); and — an innovation — `I would set a photographers. Some of them, he decided, could not seriously be
watch upon my own camera: in other words, I would use a suspected of fraud: among them Mrs Margarite du Pont Lee, a
binocular stereoscopic camera.' By this means Taylor hoped to wealthy woman who ran a charity. Her Kodak, she had found, kept
discover whether the faces, if they appeared, really were looming on taking pictures of objects which were not in shot, or were in
over the sitters, as they seemed to be on prints; and whether they another room. Of course the same result could be obtained by a
were two- or three-dimensional. The faces appeared; they were double exposure; but Cook could not think of any reason why Mrs
`absolutely flat', he found. But even more remarkable, to him, was Lee would want to cheat — `her humanitarian work as well as
that the spirit faces were not captured, as the sitters themselves intelligence make it difficult to impeach her veracity or honesty'.
were, by the camera's lenses. The psychic component was impress- There were cases, too, where the psychic element could not be
ed directly upon the plates — as a thumbprint might be. The attributed to the guile of the photographers. In his Flight Towards
psychic image, in other words, might be produced without a Reality Air Vice-Marshal Sir Victor Goddard has described one
camera. example, in connection with a photograph which, at the time he
`But still the question obtrudes,' Traill Taylor observed, was writing —1915 — was still on his desk: an official picture, taken
by Bassano's shortly after the end of the First World War, of
How came these figures there? I again assert that the plates were not Goddard's squadron. After the group photograph was pinned up,
tampered with by either myself or anyone present. Are they crystal- while the members of the squadron were identifying friends `they
lisations of thought? Have lens and light really nothing to do with
their formation? The whole subject was mysterious enough on the saw — or they were prompted then to see, the face of Freddy
hypothesis of an invisible spirit, whether a thought projection or an Jackson, air mechanic, in the topmost row' — his expression seem-
actual spirit, being really in the vicinity of the sitter; but it is now a ing to indicate that he had only just arrived in time:
thousand times more so. Well, there he was, and no mistake, although a little fainter than the
rest. Indeed he looked as though he was not altogether there; not
Taylor's question had remained unanswered. Few believers really with that group, for he alone was capless, smiling; all the rest
worried about how the features of a loved one came to be repro- were serious and set, and wearing service caps. Most had not long
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manipulation and developing myself'; and he was glad to have
what he regarded as `this definite proof of survival'. Lodge, whom
he might have expected also to be pleased, was uneasy: `I confess I
have been extremely sceptical about that man Hope,' he wrote
back: `I am impressed by your evidence, of course, but cannot say I
am convinced.' Crookes replied that he had been an acknowledged
expert on photography, in his youth, editing the Journal of the
London Photographic Society, and writing many papers on the
subject. He was `acquainted with all the dodges, and had taken
care to see that Hope had no access to the plate, except to put it into
and take it out of the camera'.
Although Crookes had marked the plates to prevent substitu-
tion, Hope might have been up to some new dodge to dupe
him — or so, at least, sceptics could claim. The founders of the
Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures were determined to
introduce tests which would confound scepticism; and the most
determined of them, as his great reputation would be at stake, was
their Vice President, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
`When I had finished my medical education in 1882 I found
`There he was, and no mistake!' `Freddy Jackson' can just be seen
peeking out behind the fourth man from the left in the top row: more myself, like many young medical men, a convinced materialist as
clearly in the blown-up version. regards our personal destiny,' Doyle recalled in his The New
Revelation, published in 1918. He had accepted that there was a
creator — or, rather `an intelligent force behind all the operations
of Nature'. But `when it came to a question of our little person-
returned from Church Parade and marching in a military funeral. For alities surviving death, it seemed to me that the whole analogy of
Freddy Jackson had, upon that very spot — the Squadron tarmac — Nature was against it. When the candle burns out, the light
three days before, walked heedlessly into the whirling propeller of an disappears ... When the body dissolves, there is an end of the
aeroplane. He had been killed stone dead instantly. He, evidently, matter.' As for spiritualism, `I had always regarded the subject as
was quite unaware of it. the greatest nonsense upon earth, and I had read of the conviction
Inevitably, however, the believers in the possibility of psychic of fraudulent mediums and wondered how any sane man could
intervention of this kind and the sceptics who took for granted it believe such things.' Even when table-turning sessions with friends
was all fraudulent both tended to concentrate their attention on the produced coherent messages, he assumed that somebody was
professional spirit photographers, of whom the best known in cheating.
Britain was William Hope. Nevertheless Doyle had been struck by the quality of some of the
A mass of evidence accumulated to vouch for Hope's ability to men who had accepted the evidence as genuine: Judge Edmonds in
produce likenesses of the deceased on portraits of the living, some the United States, William Crookes and Alfred Russel Wallace in
of it from individuals who knew what tricks to watch out for. Britain; Camille Flammarion in France; and in 1891 he had joined
Crookes had a seance with Hope in 1916, obtaining a spirit the SP R. Reading Myers's Human Personality, with its examples
photograph of his `dear departed'. In a letter to Lodge, he claimed of telepathy, finally banished his materialist doubts. `I had said that
it was very like what she had been ten years before, but it was not the flame could not exist when the candle was gone. But here was
taken from any portrait of her. `There could not possibly be any the flame, a long way off the candle.'
trickery as the plate never left my possession and I did all the Doyle claimed no psychic gifts himself; he would have remained
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Science and Parascience Post-War Britain
a dilettante investigator, he admitted, had it not been for the Great Hearing of the photographs, Conan Doyle asked to see them,
War. and it was agreed to ask for a second opinion from the Kodak
In the presence of an agonised world, hearing every day of the deaths company. It confirmed the first expert's view, but speculated about
of the flower of our race in the first promise of their unfulfilled youth, the possibility they might have been faked by some clever opera-
seeing around one the wives and mothers who had no clear concep- tion: `After all,' as one of the men who had examined them put it,
tion whither their loved one had gone, I seemed suddenly to see that `as fairies couldn't be true, the photographs must have been faked
this subject, with which I had so long dallied, was not merely a study somehow.' If they were faked, however, it would have had to be
of a force outside the rules of science, but that it was really something cleverly done, which would have taken time.
tremendous, a breaking down of the walls between two worlds, a Gardner decided to pursue the investigation himself, and set off
direct undeniable message from beyond, a call of hope and of
guidance to the human race at the time of its deepest affliction. for Cottingley, where the woman — Mrs Wright — who had sent
him the prints lived. Three years before, she explained, a young
cousin from South Africa, Frances Griffiths, had come to stay. She
The Cottingley Fairies was ten years old, and used to go with Mrs Wright's thirteen-year-
old daughter Elsie to play in the nearby glen where, they claimed,
As things turned out, however, the case which was to launch Doyle they were joined by fairies. Their parents had paid little attention,
as the protagonist of psychic photography, at least for the general and merely chaffed the children; but when their father bought a
public, was not of a spirit photograph; not, at least, of the kind small camera, they begged to be allowed to photograph the fairies,
which had been most commonly encountered. Interest had been and to humour them he gave way. Developing the print for them
aroused a few years earlier by Andrew Lang and others in folklore, `in the scullery cupboard', he found to his astonishment that they
promoting speculation over whether fairies, elves, gnomes and had indeed taken a picture of fairies; and another, of a gnome-like
other members of the species might conceivably have a real creature, was taken a month later.
existence, remaining invisible to most people but visible to any- Gardner was impressed by the Wrights. Frances had returned to
body with the appropriate psychic faculties. And a couple of South Africa, but Elsie showed him the glen and answered his
photographs of fairies taken in a woodland beck, or glen, precipi- questions sensibly. Her father's testimony also carried conviction.
tated controversy which has not been settled to this day. He and his wife had thought the children must be fooling them, and
Doyle presented the pictures and gave an account of them in the had searched the glen and their bedroom for possible evidence,
Strand magazine; but the real work on the case had been done by without finding anything suspicious; having decided to give them
Edward L. Gardner, one of the leading Theosophists of the time, the benefit of the doubt, he had put the camera and the prints away.
and his son Leslie. In Fairies, Gardner was to recall that in May There could be no question, Gardner decided, of the family
1920 a friend sent him a couple of prints, asking him for his being involved in the deception; and he did not see how the
opinion; one of a group of fairy-like figures dancing in front of a children could have contrived it on their own. To make sure they
girl, the other of `a winged gnome-like creature near a girl's were not substituting their own film, when Frances came back to
beckoning hand'. A woman had given his friend the prints after England for a holiday he arranged for the two girls to have
hearing him lecture; what he had said about fairies had caused her cameras, with marked plates; they took three more fairy pictures,
to wonder, she told him, whether they `might be true after all'. and the makers assured him that the plates had not been tampered
Gardner took the pictures to be fakes, but asked to see the with.
negatives, and passed them to an expert. To the surprise of both This left three questions. Had the girls found some way to rig up
men the expert, following a careful examination, said that they and photograph the `fairies', ingenious enough to defy detection?
were certainly not double exposures; that the fairies were not made If not, were the figures which appeared on the photographs the
out of paper or any fabric; that they were not painted on a fairies which the children claimed to see regularly in the glen; or
photographed background; and — what most astonished him — were they thought-forms? And if they were real, what were they; in
they appeared to have moved during exposure. other words, what do fairies consist of?
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Needless to say, in the ensuing controversy (periodically revived
since in articles and television programmes) these issues became
confused, with all concerned tending to take sides, assuming that
the photographs must either be wholly genuine, or faked. Lodge,
however, was an exception. To explain the photographs rationally,
he suggested, `without accusation of fraud, the simplest hypothesis
would seem to be that an imaginative child, playing the game of
make-believe, might sometimes innocently assist the imagination
of her playmates by figures designed by herself, if she had the skill,
and that these figures might subsequently get photographed'. His
mind was not closed on the issue, he concluded; but that was his
impression.
If a recent article `Cottingley: at last the truth' is indeed the
truth, Lodge had come close to the mark. Frances Way and Elsie
Hill, as they had become by marriage, had always maintained that
The Cottingley 'magne-
the photographs were genuine: now, they admitted to Joe Cooper tic bath'.
in an interview that four of them had been faked. But they had
been faked because the children, and Frances in particular, had
become accustomed to seeing fairies, down the glen. Irritated by
the grown-ups jeering at the notion, they had made cut-outs, Whatever the truth about the photographs, Doyle was left in no
taking as models some illustrations in Princess Mary's Gift Book; doubt that there were many people of standing who believed in
and once launched into the deception, they had felt bound to keep fairies, and who claimed often to have seen them. There was
it up. general agreement, however, that they could not be real in quite
It is always risky to rely upon testimonies half a century after the the same sense as a blackbird was real: some individuals could see
event; especially when, as in this case, they do not entirely co- them, while their friends could see nothing. To Doyle, the evi-
incide. Still, the new version goes some way to solving the mystery dence pointed to the existence of a population `which may be as
of the Cottingley Fairies — up to a point. Frances continues to numerous as the human race, which pursues its own strange life in
insist that they did see fairies: `They were real fairies,' she re- its own strange way, and which is only separated from ourselves by
iterated in the interview, `sometimes they came up, only inches some difference of vibrations'. One possibility was `that there is a
away.' And in one of the photographs, she maintains (Elsie dividing line, like the water edge, this line depending upon what we
disagrees), the fairy was genuine: one showing a sheath, or cocoon, vaguely call a higher rate of vibrations', he suggested. `Taking the
in the grass, and a figure beside it. When Gardner questioned vibration theory as a working hypothesis, one could conceive that
them, the girls had no idea what the cocoon was; they had never by raising or lowering the rate the creatures could move from one
seen one before. Folklore experts, however, recognised it as an side to the other of this line of material visibility, as the reptile
esoteric feature known as a `magnetic bath', which fairies were scuttles back to the surf.' This was, he admitted, supposition; but
thought to take for restorative purposes. This was not something `intelligent supposition based on the available evidence is in the
which the girls were likely to have known from their Gift Book pioneer of science, and it may be that the actual solution will be
range of reading; and Frances still insists that they came upon it found in this direction'.
unawares: `It was a wet Saturday afternoon and we were just Gardner, who had made a study of fairy lore, surmised that
mooching about with our cameras and Elsie had nothing pre- fairies of whatever species did not have bodies, human or other-
pared,' she recalls. `I saw these fairies building up in the grasses wise; they had nuclei which might take different forms, and as such
and just aimed the camera and took a photograph.' they could not be defined in terms of form, `any more than one can
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Science and Parascience Post-War Britain
so describe a tongue of flame'. When they took human form it authenticity of spirit photography, Feilding pointed out; but the
might be grotesque or graceful, dense or ethereal. experiment at least revealed the helplessness of an ordinary ob-
Elsie had her own hypothesis, which she put tentatively to Lodge server in the hands of a skilled operator; and consequently also
when he wrote to her to ask for more information. She described of the valuelessness of most reports of successes in `what appear to
them as shimmering `like a butterfly's wing', and said they were be test conditions'.
always associated in her mind with music: `I am very ignorant,' she Supporters of Hope promptly themselves challenged the
wrote, `but could they possibly be "musical vibrations" which I see findings: Douglas, they claimed, had bungled the arrangements (as
and which my mind gives form to? I really do not know what I am indeed he had had to admit); and Marriott had not explained how
talking about when I suggest this, but I am sure there is something he had done the trick. Marriott thereupon explained how he had
there with movement, colour and sound, which gives happiness.' done it, adding a list of other ways in which he might have done it,
Elsie added that she had also had quite a few other psychic and offering to produce a set of fool-proof conditions under which,
experiences, such as `seeing' her playmate arrive at her house with if any `extras' appeared, he would admit that the case needed
a new coat on, and hearing the latch click on the gate, some time further investigation.
before Frances actually did arrive — wearing the new coat, which The test had been carried out at the new British College of
Elsie had not seen before. Psychic Science, founded in 1920 by a shrewd and successful
businessman, Hewat McKenzie, who had become interested in
mediumship, and felt that the SPR was not doing enough in this
field; he was more concerned to encourage mediums to develop
The Advent of Harry Price their talents than to test them in order to make sure they were not
However fascinating the subject of the composition of fairies might cheating. Hope had naturally gravitated into the college's orbit;
be to believers, the Cottingley photographs only served to confirm but in 1921 he agreed to have a formal test by a new member of the
sceptics in the assumption that they were just another proof that SPR, who was destined to become the most celebrated, or no-
psychic photography, in any of its forms, was fraudulent. The torious, psychical researcher in Britain, Harry Price. Price was a
leading members of the SPR, Lodge and Barrett excepted, tended smooth operator; he had great energy; as a skilled conjuror, he
to share this view; and before the Cottingley echoes had died away would be quick to detect trickery; and he had collected a fine
they were given the chance to show that members of the society library of works on conjuring and psychical research which he had
must not be identified with the gullible Conan Doyle. offered to leave to the SPR on permanent loan. Who better could
It had been all too easy for photographers to take advantage of be found to expose Hope? And he did.
the demand for spirit pictures of sitters' loved ones, as Edward Or so it was assumed. In the light of Price's subsequent career,
Bush showed in 1920 in his Spirit Photography Exposed, with its the exposure cannot be relied upon; but in any case, his report to
revealing descriptions of how `extras', as the spirit portraits had the SPR was a slimy affair. Relations between the society and the
come to be described, could be faked. But Hope had not yet been college were not good; his report traded on this, boasting how he
trapped in any deception; and in 1921 he managed to introduce an had fooled members of the college when he arrived with his fellow
`extra' into a photograph of James Douglas, the truculent colum- investigator. He had `ingratiated himself with them in every way',
nist of the Sunday Express. Douglas issued a challenge to any pho- and when Hope arrived `I made myself extremely affable to
tographer to duplicate the process without using psychic powers. him' — the tone making it clear that he was concerned less with
It was accepted by William Marriott; and the experiment was putting the members of the college and Hope at their ease than
carried with Conan Doyle and Everard Feilding, among others, in with putting them off their guard. Price's account of Hope's
attendance. Marriott experienced no difficulty in producing an substitution of the plates is unconvincing — knowing Price was so
`extra' — one photograph had a young woman with upcast eyes experienced in the ways of conjurors, Hope would have been
between Douglas and Doyle; `another, of Doyle alone, showed unlikely to play so obvious a trick; and when members of the
fairies dancing round him'. Nothing could be inferred about the college who examined the sealed plates after the experiment found
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Science and Parascience
that they had been tampered with, the possibility was that Price,
rather than Hope, had been responsible.
In any case, as Barrett pointed out, Hope should not have been
condemned on the strength of this exposure; by this time the
society had appointed a research officer, Eric Dingwall, who 4 The Continental Mediums 1918-24
should have run the investigation, rather than leave it to Price. A
fresh investigation, Barrett urged, should be mounted. But the
Sidgwick-dominated SPR Council was in no mood to open up the
case again; nor, in all probability, would Hope have consented to a Despite the wartime divisions of Europe, psychical research was
further trial. remarkably quick to recover after the Armistice, thanks largely to
the generosity of a rich French industrialist, Jean Meyer. In 1919
he founded and funded the Institut Métapsychique International,
with Richet as President and Gustave Geley as Director; and it was
Geley who was to dominate the psychical research scene for the
next few years. Meyer's support enabled him to investigate
mediums all over Europe; and the Institute's journal, the Revue
Métapsychique, began publishing a mass of varied and well-
attested reports of investigations of a kind that had become rare in
the publications of the SPR.
Born in 1868, Geley had had a brilliant career as a medical
student, and started to practise as a doctor at Annecy; but he had
become involved in the struggle to liberate science, and in particu-
lar biology, from neo-Darwinism, and in 1899 had written a book,
Les Preuves du Transformisme, presenting a new version of Vital-
ism, akin in some respects to Bergson's and McDougall's. Like
them, he realised that psychic phenomena fitted in well enough
with Vitalist theory; but unlike McDougall, he was particularly
attracted by the physical phenomena of mediumship, because it
struck him as strikingly illustrating the psyche's ability to influence
matter. Ectoplasmic materialisations, he believed, were analogous
to the process by which a chrysalis, after dematerialising, remater-
ialised into a butterfly.
Towards the end of the war Geley had arranged with Mme
Bisson to attend seances with Martha Béraud — `Eva C.'. Initially
they had been held at Mme Bisson's home, twice weekly for a year
and a half; then, for a further three months, he and some col-
leagues had held them in his own laboratory. He presented his
findings at a meeting in the Collège de France in 1918 in a paper
entitled `Supernormal Physiology', and two years later his From
the Unconscious to the Conscious summarised them and showed
how they could be incorporated into his Vitalist theory.
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`Eva': Geley's investigations there descends to her knees a cord of white substance of the thickness
of two fingers. This ribbon takes under our eyes varying forms; that
Physical mediumship was sufficiently well known by 1920 for Geley of a large perforated membrane with swellings and vacant spaces; it
to be able to claim `no one nowadays is ignorant of what is meant by gathers itself together, retracts, swells and narrows again. Here and
so-called supernormal physiology', manifested through mediums there from the mass appear temporary protrusions, and these for a
in the form of `dynamic and material effects inexplicable by the few seconds assume the form of fingers, the outline of hands, and
regular play of their organs and transcending the field of organic then re-enter the mass. Finally the cord retracts on itself, lengthens
action'; and he went on to describe the transcending process, as to the knees; its end rises, detaches itself from the medium, and
moves towards me. I can see then the extremity thicken like a
best he could, from his personal experience, chiefly with `Eva'. swelling, and this terminal swelling expands into a perfectly mod-
As a precaution Geley had permitted nobody else to have access elled hand. I touch it; it gives a normal sensation. I feel the bones,
to the seance room before a sitting. When Marthe arrived with and the fingers with their nails. Then the hand contracts, diminishes
Mme Bisson she was undressed in his presence, and that of any and disappears in the end of the cord. The cord makes a few
other doctor who was attending — convention permitting members movements, retracts, and returns to the medium's mouth.
of the medical profession to see her unclothed; and then, `dressed
in a tight garment, sewn up at the back and at the wrists', after The materialisations did not always remain in visible contact
Mme Bisson had put her in a hypnotic trance `Eva' would be taken with the medium; sometimes heads would appear at a distance
to the curtained-off recess — the curtains being there chiefly to from her. And whereas in the earlier tests with Schrenck, they had
shield her from the effects of sudden light. The rest of the seance so often been two-dimensional, in those which Geley had con-
room was kept light enough for all present to see what was ducted in his laboratory — witnessed by, among many others, the
happening; during seances `Eva' would part the curtains so that she bacteriologist Albert Calmette and Jules Courtier of the Sor-
and the materialisations would both be visible. bonne — they were usually three-dimensional (though not necess-
Usually they were not long in coming. `A substance at first arily life-size: some were miniatures).
amorphous or polymorphous', as Geley described it, exuded from These three-dimensional forms, Geley pointed out, could be
`the natural orifices'; sometimes from the top of her head, from her simulacra: simulacra `of fingers, having the general form but
nipples or from the tips of her fingers, but most often from her without warmth, flexibility or joints; simulacra of faces, like
mouth. The colour varied: it might be black, white or grey. To the masks, or as if cut out of paper'; and he cited M. de Fontenay's
touch, the substance was `soft, and somewhat elastic, while spread- remark, `one would think that some kind of malicious sprite was
ing; hard, knotty or fibrous when it forms cords'. And it was mocking the observers'. For Geley, however, this could be ex-
mobile: sometimes evolving slowly, moving over the medium with plained readily enough on his Vitalist theory. `They are the prod-
`a crawling reptilian movement'; sometimes appearing and dis- ucts of a force whose metapsychic output is weak and whose means
appearing in a flash. of execution is weaker still. It does what it can. It rarely succeeds,
Crookes and Richet, Geley recalled, had witnessed `full-form' precisely because its activity, directed outside normal lines, has no
materialisations; he himself had not been so fortunate, but he had longer the certainty which the normal biologic impulse gives to
frequently seen complete fingers and hands, and `a living head, physiological activity.' And he cited, as a parallel, nature's failure
whose bones I could feel under a thick mass of hair'. But the point always to produce perfect specimens at birth, resulting in the
which he was most concerned to emphasise was that there could be occasional monstrosity.
no question of the medium or anybody else smuggling complete So confident was Geley that he had accumulated not merely the
heads or hands into the seance room, because the investigators evidence required to convince scientists of the reality of materi-
could watch them evolve — as extracts from his notes described. alisations, but also a credible explanation for them, that he round-
He included one of them, in which he had recorded the evolution- ed on the sceptics. `I do not say "There was no trickery,"' he
ary process as it was happening. From 'Eva's' mouth claimed; `I say "There was no possibility of trickery,"' a boast
which was lent support by the publication the same year of a
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
revised and updated version of Schrenck's Phenomena of Materi- The two substantial surveys of the pre-war research of `Eva' by
alisation, describing his work with `Eva' and Stanislawa Tomczyk, Mme Bisson and Schrenck, for example, had been given for review
and with other young mediums who had come to his attention to the young Helen Verrall, whose father and mother had been in
while Germany had been cut off during the war. It contained scores the Cambridge nucleus, and who was herself cast in the Sidgwick
of photographs designed to show materialisations in various mould (as was her husband-to-be, another Trinity graduate, W. H.
stages, from the initial dribble of ectoplasm to full forms; and Salter). She did not allow the fact that she had had no experience of
although a book could not show it, Schrenck pointed out that when investigating physical mediumship to deter her from making clear
a series of photographs taken simultaneously were analysed under her presumption that it was faked. When Hyslop argued that a
a stereoscope, they showed a `flowing transition from the flat to the distinction ought to be preserved between conscious fraud — as
plastic', refuting the rumination/regurgitation hypothesis. when a medium swallowed objects before a seance, intending to
In addition, the investigators had been able to grasp the materi- regurgitate them — and the kind of cheating which Eusapia admit-
alised hands, and to hold them. Clutching them could hurt the ted to, when she was in her trance, Helen Verrall magisterially
medium; but the materialisations would then simply dissolve in rebuked him, arguing that if a solicitor misappropriated funds he
their grasp, as if by evaporation, sometimes leaving faint traces could not successfully plead that he was in a state of dissociation of
behind, but never solid material of the kind which could have been consciousness at the time. In this she was in fact in error; a solicitor
swallowed and extruded — and which of course would also have could then have made such a plea successfully, if his counsel had
been retained in an investigator's grasp. been able to convince a jury that he had not been in his right mind
Sometimes `Eva' used her hands — though her wrists would as at the time. But in any case the analogy was silly. Solicitors were
usual be held by sitters, one on each side of her — as if to mould the not expected to go into trances in the course of their work;
ectoplasm; and this, along with his experience of the ectoplasmic mediums were, and the consequences of possible alterations in
`threads' which Stanislawa used in levitating objects, suggested to their personality structure needed to be allowed for, and if nec-
Schrenck that `the lively wish of lifting an object from a distance essary prevented.
leads to the associated idea of a thread, with which the experiment Helen Verrall's review of the books by Bisson and Schrenck,
might be performed: thereupon the objective phantom of a thread along with sundry articles on `Eva', some dating from the Algerian
is brought into being by a hallucination that realises itself in sittings, was in the Podmore tradition, concentrating upon the
matter'. accusations of fraud. She devoted no fewer than five pages to the
`grave suspicion' arising from the lawyer's claim that he knew how
Marthe Béraud had faked the manifestations, in spite of Richet's
`Eva': The SPR Trials demonstration that the claim was false, as the alleged trapdoor did
not exist. The speculations of Mathilde von Kemnitz and Dr von
Although Geley's research findings had been ridiculed by sceptics, Gulat-Wellenburg, attributing the materialisations to 'Eva's' abil-
they had not been able to find any flaw, not even those of the kind ity to swallow and regurgitate objects, and the 'MIRO' accusation,
which had been alleged in connection with the earlier work of also received more attention in the review than the weight of
Richet and Schrenck; and an impressive list was accumulating of evidence in 'Eva's' favour.
scientists and savants who had attended seances and been con- The extent of the continuing prejudice within the SPR against
vinced that the phenomena were genuine. There still remained, physical mediums was further revealed in Schiller's review of the
however, a formidable obstacle to their acceptance: the hostility of English translation of Schrenck's Phenomena of Materialisa-
the Society for Psychical Research. Although it continued to tion. Ordinarily Schiller was one of the more open-minded of the
maintain that it held no corporate views, so rigidly was it still society's influential members, and he had to admit that if the facts
controlled by Eleanor Sidgwick — as, in effect, general manager — really were as Schrenck and others claimed they had witnessed,
that its publications tended to express her opinions and prejudices; science would have to accept that there must be some explanation
and her antipathy to physical mediumship had remained unabated. for them, however absurd they seemed. But he could not help
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
ridiculing Geley's concept of `ideoplasty'. `We are literally re- number of occasions what appeared to be saliva oozed from her
quired to believe that "wishes become horses", and mediums can mouth, solidifying into ectoplasm and taking curious shapes. A
ride them,' he remarked. `But what, pray, is an "objective phan- photograph showed what looked like a bony hand placed on her
tom"? And how can a hallucination convert itself into reality, even shoulder; another revealed what looked like a locket under her
for an instant?' Such notions suggested a confusion of thought and chin, on which there was a portrait. And although compared with
reality `worthy of the maddest idealism'. what Richet, Schrenck and Geley had witnessed, this was unim-
The SPR committee appointed to investigate `Eva' consisted of pressive, it sufficed to convince Baggally, whom the committee had
Feilding, Whately Smith, Helen Verrall (by this time Mrs W. H. invited to attend in his capacity as a conjuror.
Salter) and V. J. Woolley, who was later for a time to become the Baggally had taken for granted, he explained in his own report,
society's research officer, and who in that role was to show a that `Eva' was employing rumination and regurgitation. But
distinct reluctance to investigate physical mediumship. Still, Feild- watching her from close range during the seances, he realised this
ing and Whately Smith did not share the Cambridge nucleus's was impossible, because some of the objects which he saw could
prejudice, and even Mrs Salter and Woolley had to admit that not have been concealed in her gullet. Besides, if they had been
`Eva' was helpful and co-operative in submitting to their precau- they would have been wet to the touch, whereas when he felt them
tions — which in fact were no more stringent than those to which they were dry (`like a crumpled up, stiff veil').
she had been submitted on the Continent. Her conduct through- During one seance, too, when she had asked for her hands to be
out, the committee's report was to emphasise, had been `worthy of freed, though her wrists were still held, Baggally — sitting beside
the highest approbation; patient under every control, she her — saw her pull a grey substance of irregular shape from her
appeared to do all in her power to assist the observers in an mouth which under his eyes began to stretch out in various
investigation which at times, owing to the frequency of the sittings directions, until it `suddenly vanished while I was intently watching
and the extreme heat which prevailed, could not fail to be weari- it'. The manner in which objects suddenly disappeared in this way
some both to the sitters and to her'. at seances, Baggally thought, was most perplexing; but he was
How wearisome they must have been emerged clearly from the certain that it could not be accounted for by the use of her hands,
report. On arrival for a seance, Marthe was stripped and examined because the control `by Mr Dingwall and myself was most rigid'.
for possible concealed objects by a doctor, who `examined the oral Dingwall was the second conjuror present. A Cambridge gradu-
cavity, ears, and hair' (a gynaecological examination was consi- ate, he had recently joined the SPR; and he was co-opted on to the
dered, but thought unnecessary because of the impossibility of the investigating ,committee after the ninth session. In his report he
medium being able to extrude objects hidden in her rectum or her struck a new note. He was present not as a psychical researcher,
vagina, fitted as she was into a stockinette costume and then sewn but `simply from the point of view of a practical "magician" or
into it, so that nothing could emerge without being found in, or illusionist', whose task would be to `show exactly how far these
breaking through, the material). Sometimes she also had to wear a effects might be produced through normal agency'. In other words,
veil, so if she regurgitated anything she had swallowed it would he saw himself as the society's devil's advocate. His function would
immediately be detected. During the seances, investigators sat on not be to decide whether phenomena were genuinely psychic, but
either side of her, each holding a wrist — a task which presented no merely to provide the evidence which would help investigators to
difficulty because unlike Eusapia, `Eva' made no attempt to with- make up their minds whether they were genuine or not, by showing
draw her hands from control, though she might move them around them all the possible ways in which they could have been faked.
while her wrists were still held. The seances were conducted in a Much as Podmore would have done, Dingwall began by indicat-
faint electric light, but with two flash-light cameras prepared for ing where the earlier investigators had been lax; but the measure of
action at any moment, and a torch which could be used whenever his difficulty in finding serious laxity was revealed in his criticism of
there were signs of a materialisation. Schrenck for not noticing, until a sceptic had discovered them,
If `Eva' had had no previous reputation to live up to, the some pin-holes in the curtains which provided 'Eva's' cabinet. The
manifestations would have been considered quite striking. On a implication — that the medium might have used the curtains to pin
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
up her two-dimensional forms and figures — was typical of the kind like a stalactite'; and he added that `Mr Dingwell [sic], the amateur
of speculation to which sceptics, confronted with Schrenck's and conjuror of the committee, assures me that the phenomena could
Mme Bisson's photographic evidence, had been reduced. Ding- not have been produced by trickery'. But this was for private
wall could find no fault in Geley's tests; but he was able to set them consumption. Publicly Dingwall in his report adhered to his devil's
aside on the ground that Geley had yet to make a full report. From advocate role. To explain the `very remarkable phenomenon of a
the available evidence, and from his observation during the Lon- pointed waxy object' for example, which had been observed first
don seance, Dingwall felt that one thing was clear. He could inside, and then outside, the veil which covered the medium's face,
confidently state that if there had been fraud, it could only be he suggested that some substance might have been used which
accounted for if `(a) the medium possesses the power of regurgita- could be pushed through the veil in its liquid state, but would then
tion or rumination' and `(b) she secretes a particularly thick, white harden. Supposing, he surmised, that the medium
saliva'. Clearly (a) and (b) alone would not account for the
phenomena witnessed; Dingwall was merely claiming that they had a piece of wax which would easily melt if held in the mouth but
were the essential prerequisites. But this, in effect, was acquitting would soon solidify if brought into contact with the air, it seems
possible that such a phenomenon might be produced. The wax might
the medium of fraud, because the precautions had ensured that her be contained in some insoluble receptacle and then swallowed. If it
saliva, if regurgitated, could not have been white — as another were brought up by regurgitation and the veil were drawn into the
magician bore witness, the most famous of them all: Harry Hou- mouth, the container might be broken, the wax melted and thus got
dini. through the meshes of the veil. By drawing quick respirations
Houdini had arrived in Europe on a tour in 1920, and in the through the mouth the wax would be cooled and then forced slowly
course of it had fulfilled a long-standing ambition to meet Conan through the lips, assuming the pointed shape that was observed.
Doyle, whose work he greatly admired. The two men had taken an
instant liking to each other, and Houdini had allowed himself to be Far-fetched? Grotesque? Dingwall readily admitted as much.
persuaded that physical mediums were at least worth investigating, But he indignantly repudiated the other, simpler explanation
to see for himself whether they could do anything he could not do. which, he knew, would be advanced by sceptics; that he and
On 22 June he attended one of the seances with `Eva', and sent an Feilding had both been hallucinated. Both of them had seen the
account of it to Conan Doyle the next morning. `Eva' had been object, outside and free from the veil, `and its bare point scraped
made to drink coffee and eat cake, to make regurgitation of over the back of my hand'. Such theories, he argued, `are con-
concealed materials impossible, and had been sewn into tights, ducive neither to the cause of honesty nor to that of truth, and the
with a net over her face. Yet she had manifested `a froth-like sooner they are discarded the better'. But he went on to recom-
substance, some five inches long'; then, `a white, plaster-looking mend that trials should be made to test the wax hypothesis, and in
affair over her right eye'; and then, something that looked `like a retrospect it is not hard to see why. To accept the reality, even the
small face, say four inches in circumference'. Later she produced possibility, of hallucination would in effect have been to disqualify
`what appeared to be a rubberish substance, which she disengaged, him from maintaining that he was a reliable detector of conjuring
showed us plainly, we held the electric torch, all saw it plainly, tricks; if he could be hallucinated he would be no more trustworthy
when, Presto! it vanished. It was a surprise effect indeed!' than anybody else. The `wax' hypothesis gave him the let-out he
Dingwall could offer nothing which would account for such would need if it were subsequently to be discovered that the
effects. Fournier d'Albe, who along with a few other members of medium had successfully tricked the investigators. Admittedly he
the society had been invited to attend some sittings, wrote to might not have guessed precisely how she had done it, but at least
Schrenck to describe them, giving an account of what he consid- he would be able to say he sensed there must have been some trick.
ered the best of the sittings, towards the end of June. For the first It was almost as if Dingwall hypnotised the committee with his
time the investigators had felt the cold breeze which had previously surmise, far-fetched though it certainly was. Even when the
been a characteristic of sittings with `Eva' (as with many other medium produced her materialisations after tea and cake, Four-
mediums), as well as seeing `a mass which hung from the mouth nier told Schrenck, thereby effectively disposing of the regurgita-
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
tion hypothesis, its members still could not bring themselves to been taken of the mask-like human face held like a locket under
accept that they were genuine. They were worried, too, by the `Eva's' chin had come out.
quite frequent blank sittings. At two of them, Fournier observed, What had surprised the sitters was that the face on the locket was
Feilding's wife Stanislawa was present: `she seems to hinder the better-defined than the one they recalled seeing; and it was this
phenomena by her too critical attitude'. Perhaps she was jealous; which had attracted attention. But examining the pictures stereo-
whatever the reason, Stanislawa had reacted against medium- scopically later, H. Dennis Taylor, a member of the society,
ship, as her husband was to admit years later in a letter to realised that there was another curious feature which had been
W. B. Yeats — `she hates spiritualism'. Feilding himself was dis- missed. Close inspection revealed that the mask was not being
appointed. The results had been very interesting, he wrote to tell `nipped' under her chin: it was semi-transparent, `so that her
Schrenck, but `unhappily not as impressive as previous reports had chin could be seen through it'. And this, Taylor thought, raised the
led us to hope for', and `inasmuch as the regurgitation theory is the possibility `that the mask was not really there at the time, and
only theory that can hold the field in opposition to that of super- that the two images were impressed directly upon the plates as
normal ideoplasm, it is a pity that we never got phenomena big psychic photographs, the intelligence responsible having very
enough to warrant us in declaring, as a matter of scientific cer- crude conceptions of the appropriate relative perspectives of the
tainty, that this theory is insufficient, however great its improb- two views that would be required' — a curious echo of the com-
ability may be'. ments of his namesake, Traill Taylor, thirty years before.
On these grounds, the committee declined to pronounce in
'Eva's' favour; a decision which not unnaturally irritated her
continental investigators. The committee had conceded that the
only way the phenomena might have been faked was by regurgita-
tion, and however feeble the manifestations had been by 'Eva's'
previous standards, they had effectively ruled out regurgitation, as
it was impossible to take Dingwall's hypothesis seriously. Besides,
tests had shown that professional regurgitators displayed `several
marked peculiarities of stomach and gullet' , whereas two Paris
specialists had pronounced 'Eva's' organs normal. Even if they had
not been normal, Richet reiterated, no physiologist — and as one
of the most eminent of the species, he could speak with authority —
would accept that a regurgitator would have the power to do what
`Eva' did. And even if she had the power, how could she have
passed the regurgitated matter through the veil, when her hands
were held? Every experimenter had a right to be very exacting as to `Eva': the face on the
locket.
proof; `but it is impossible not to be astonished at the glaring
contradiction between the reports of these seances and the infer-
ences drawn from them'.
There was to be a postscript to the London trials of `Eva' which, Willy Schneider
though it attracted no attention, served to tie it in with the parallel
investigations of psychic photography. During her tests two cam- Disappointing though the SPR tests with `Eva' were, the fact that a
eras had been positioned to take photographs stereoscopically. medium's powers might wane with advancing age was so well
With the perversity which was to become so notorious a feature of established that it caused no surprise; and by this time Schrenck
attempts to record the phenomena objectively, many of the pic- had found another medium whose phenomena, even if less strik-
tures had been spoiled; but it happened that the two which had ing, were better suited to scientific investigation: Willy Schneider.
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
Schrenck was understandably annoyed by Dingwall's insinua- light' in which the seances were held was `rather poor', it was good
tion that he had been lax in his precautions with `Eva'; he disposed enough to ensure that the sitters would instantly detect any suc-
of the mysterious `pin-holes' in a letter to the SPR with a note from cessful attempt on Willy's part to escape from control.
the photographer who had been responsible for setting up the The sitters, usually eight or ten of them, sat in a shallow
cameras before seances began, explaining that he had pinned up semi-circle outside and facing the `cabinet' — a curtain; Willy
bits of paper on the curtains, the better to line up the cameras. sitting at one end, with the two controllers (who were periodically
Schrenck realised, however, that it would be better to have so changed); Schrenck at the other. Between the sitters and the
knowledgeable a young man as an ally than as a foe: and he invited curtain was a cage made of gauze mounted on a wooden frame, a
Dingwall to come to Munich to watch tests with Schneider. Ding- yard away from the medium, into which the objects to be moved
wall accepted the invitation, arriving in May 1922, along with were put through a hinged flap. As the opening in the gauze was at
Harry Price. the side away from the sitters and sideways-on both to Schrenck
A few weeks before, Price had offered what the SPR Journal and the medium, objects inside the cage could not be moved by
was to describe as his `magnificent collection of books on magic and physical force unless somebody got up, walked round and opened
witchcraft' to the society on permanent loan, `and so through his the flap; and the light was good enough to ensure that any such
generosity Mr Price has given the officers of the Society the benefit move would be detected.
of being able to consult what is generally considered to be the most The first object put in the cage was a small four-legged oblong
complete library of magical literature in Great Britain, if not in oaken table, weighing approximately thirty-three pounds and with
Europe'. Events were soon to show that `generosity' was not the a luminous triangle of paper attached at the end nearest the sitters,
appropriate term; he was using his library, and his photographic to enable them to observe its movements more easily. The first
equipment, which he also handed over, to establish himself as a sitting was a blank; but during the second, `some raps were heard
force to be reckoned with in the society. For the moment, how- on the table and it began to creak and move slightly, finally rising
ever, he was content to stay in the background, leaving Dingwall once or twice on what were presumably the two back legs, and then
in charge. coming down with a loud thud on the carpet'. Schrenck then put a
Willy was an eighteen-year-old Austrian, Dingwall wrote in his wound-up musical box into the cage (Dingwall had examined it,
report to the SPR; `One of a large family, he was born in a small and found it to be `of ordinary construction and apparently quite
frontier town near Simbach and is of humble origin' (his father was unprepared') /and invited his guests to start it and stop it; `several of
in fact a compositor; and his home village, Braunau, was soon to the sitters, including ourselves, tried the experiment,' the result
outstrip Simbach in fame, as the birthplace of Adolf Hitler). being that `the box in every case obeyed'.
Hearing of his mediumistic powers Schrenck had invited him to After an interval for `general conversation', the gauze cage was
Munich and there, during the winter of 1921, while working as a removed and a table set with a heavily-shaded lamp on it, strong
dental apprentice, he had given two seances a week in Schrenck's enough to illuminate any intrusive human hand stretching to move
laboratory. a bracelet which had been placed underneath the lamp. The
Some of the elaborate precautions required with `Eva', Dingwall medium was four feet away, but
found, were for various reasons unnecessary. Willy did not need to
sit in the `cabinet' — the usual curtained-off corner of the seance the table soon began to tilt and was then completely levitated to the
room — or even with his back to it; he was out in the room. And as height of about a foot, finally falling to the floor. This being again
his speciality was the movement of objects at a distance, rather placed in position, the bracelet was suddenly twisted to the ground
and then rose in the air and floated about, at the height of anything
than the production of materialisations, regurgitation was not a from one to three feet.
risk. He was undressed, searched and dressed in a gown with
luminous facings, so that he could be watched; and two controllers During these levitations, Dingwall noted, `a part or parts of the
were appointed from among the sitters to ensure that he could not bracelet was obscured' as if something had hold of it; and when a
stretch out arms or feet. And though Dingwall found that the `red handkerchief was placed on the floor, it rose up as if supported by
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
two fingers, remaining suspended for a few seconds, directly Not one of these ninety persons hitherto invited has put forward the
behind the lamp and clearly visible. In other words, the telekinetic supposition that the medium is in any way normally responsible for
effects appeared to be the work of an invisible hand — at one point, the phenomena.
Dingwall actually saw `an arm-like shape with a tapering point',
and some sitters thought they saw fingers. But when the seance was Dingwall might find it difficult to entertain the hypothesis with
over, they agreed `that the medium could not possibly have patience; and anybody who knew him would have smiled at the
produced normally the effects we had observed'. If they were notion that he might be in collusion with a medium. Nevertheless
fraudulent, Dingwall realised, `a confederate must be assumed to he was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, which to
be responsible'. some sceptics would have been sufficient ground for suspicion. As
Could there be a false wall? Or a trapdoor? The next morning it happened, though, there was supporting testimony, from a very
Dingwall asked if he could make a thorough search, and Schrenck different source. Six months after their visit to Munich, Thomas
`immediately gave permission, though with some amusement'. Mann attended the seance which he was to describe in an essay,
There was no way, Dingwall found, in which a confederate could and in a letter to Schrenck which was not published for over half a
have been introduced, except through the door, and for the second century, when it appeared in Encounter. Mann was already an
seance he arranged that the door would be not merely locked, but internationally established author, after Buddenbrooks, Tonio
sealed. Kröger and Death in Venice; at the time he was writing The Magic
The phenomena at the second seance were much the same as Mountain, which was to win him a Nobel Prize. The account he
those at the first, and Dingwall took the opportunity to engage in sent to Schrenck was a model of detachment, simply relating what
some trials of strength. He tried, unsuccessfully, to hold down the he had witnessed; in the essay, he vividly described his preconcep-
table when it began to levitate. And with another sitter, he held up tions and his reactions. Together they constitute one of the most
a board to await developments: `Within a few seconds I felt sharp engaging of all accounts of `an experience in the occult', as the
thumps and blows against the surface nearest the medium. It was as essay was entitled.
if a small hand within a boxing glove were delivering the blows, the Full though the world was of weighty problems, the treatment of
board being almost knocked out of our hands.' As the seals on the which would redound to a writer's credit, the essay began, `I here
door remained unbroken, any idea that Willy had been able to venture tcapproach you with a theme which even myself cannot do
smuggle in a confederate had to be ruled out. otherwise 1han regard as preposterous and, indeed, suspect. Sur-
The phenomena were indeed caused by unexplained supernor- prise and ontempt, I know, will be my portion.' For himself,
mal agencies, Dingwall concluded; and `however monstrous these Mann felt embarrassed to have been led astray from his lawful
phenomena may appear to those persons who are not acquainted concerns, like a man tempted from good wine by the heady fumes
with the mass of evidence now adduced in support of their reality, of wood alcohol. Nevertheless he felt bound to admit that in areas
to ignore them is impossible for the scientific man'. If `the scientific such as the study of mediumship, the pursuit of truth involved
man' continued to insist that there must be fraud, it could only be dealing with `a great deal of filth and foolishness', because here
fraud of a kind which would involve all those present at the `nature takes the field, and nature is an equivocal element: impure,
seances. Could it seriously be suggested that all those who had obscene, spiteful, demonic'.
attended — at a third seance, two nights later, there were three Mann owed his invitation to the seance to chance: a conversation
professors, two doctors and a general — were parties to a gigantic with a cartoonist who had come to draw him, and who told him
hoax? This was a hypothesis, Dingwall claimed, `that we can about Willy Schneider's manifestations. Curious, Mann went with
scarcely entertain with patience'. In all, there had been the cartoonist one evening to the baron's `palatial residence',
where he was introduced to his host and the other sitters, including
twenty-seven German university professors, eighteen doctors and two professors of zoology, and two doctors (one with a gadget to
sixteen other savants. Some of these savants have attended sixteen to measure the medium's blood pressure).
thirty sittings, and in sixty seances only three have been negative. The account Mann sent to Schrenck, written the following day,
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
described how he had then exchanged a few words with Willy, marked by two knuckle-shaped protuberances'. Naturally the
`partly to show him that I was not an enemy or malicious snooper, onlookers' excitement was intense: `We leaned forward, cried out,
partly to form an impression of his personality'. Willy, Mann had and called each other's attention to what was happening.' And it
found, was clearly of `rather humble origin', friendly but not happened once more; the third levitation being the most remark-
effusive; and Mann had watched while the medium changed, able `because at three different times the surface of the handker-
satisfying himself `that the black tights Wi ll y put on, and the black chief clearly disclosed the working of an apparently claw-like organ
silk-quilted dressing gown with luminous stripes that he put over considerably smaller than a human hand'.
the tights, contained no device that might have served to delude Further phenomena then followed in quick succession. The
the onlookers'. As an additional precaution, Willy's mouth was medium asked for the handkerchief to be removed. When this had
examined. been done, an indefinable something, which had not been among the
In the seance room, Willy was controlled by two of the witnes- objects on the floor, arose from the same place as the handkerchief.
ses, taking turns: one holding the medium's feet, the other, the More or less shapeless, it seemed to be some twenty inches long and
medium's thumbs — though this was hardly necessary, Mann felt, might have been taken for part of a forearm with the prehensile
as a dim red light and the luminous dressing gown enabled him to organ belonging to it (the suggestion of a closed hand).
observe Willy throughout the seance. The sitters formed a three- Later, a bell which had been standing on the floor `began to ring
quarter circle, linking hands when the seance began — again, not as violently and was flung under the chair of one of the participants';
a precaution to prevent anybody from assisting the manifestations, and `a luminous ring with a luminous cord attached rose up to the
but because Schrenck thought that the linkage might, as with the table, moved back and forth along the edge of the table with a
Golighers, help to increase the medium's power. scratching sound, and was then laid down on the table top'. After
Soon, Willy went into a trance and two of his `controls', `Erwin' that there were fewer effects, apart from luminosities appearing
and `Mina', contested for supremacy while Willy was in convul- around the room, until Willy came out of his trance — by this time,
sions, `thrusting, jerking, whispering, panting and moaning', resembling a deep sleep.
rather like somebody in orgasm: `the sexual was so unmistakable Thanking Schrenck for the opportunity to attend the seance,
that I was not surprised to hear later on that the young man's Mann concluded:
activity is often accompanied by erections and ejaculations, some-
times actively induced'. But there had been no manifestations Any tliought of a swindle in the sense of a conjuring trick is absurd.
before Willy came out of his trance, nor were there any when the There as simply no one there who could have rung the bell. Willy
seance was resumed after an interval; and at around 11.30 p.m. could no't have done it, because his extremities were being held, and
besides, he was five feet away, sunk in magnetic sleep. Who, or what,
Schrenck decided to bring the seance to an end. However, lifted the handkerchief and squeezed it from inside? I don't know,
this last attempt to stimulate the medium proved effective. Before but like all the others I saw it with my un-prejudiced eyes, which were
the eyes of all those present, a handkerchief which had been lying on quite prepared to see nothing if there was nothing to be seen.
the floor beside the little table was lifted, rose with a quick sure What, then, was the explanation? In his essay, which described
movement into the relatively bright beam of the lamp-light, re- the phenomena in considerably more detail, he admitted that `all
mained there for two or three seconds, during which time it changed reasoned thinking and talking in this highly speculative field of
shape as though being squeezed and shaken, and fell back on the
floor.
facts is today premature, and can only seem to clarify without
doing so'; but he presented the hypothesis then currently favoured
The levitation, Mann remarked, was not `spontaneous', in the by those psychical researchers who, like Schrenck, rejected spirit-
sense that it did not rise empty and fluttering, of its own accord, ism. They assumed the existence of a teleplastic process — calling
hut was lifted by a support inside it. It hung down in folds from the into existence shapes
support and was violently manipulated from within.' And in a
second levitation, soon after the first, `the support was clearly
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
which possess all the properties and functions of normal, physiolog- done with `Eva' and his investigation of Willy. `Eva' had produced
ical, biologically-living organs. These teleplastic end-organs move materialisations — teleplasm; Willy had moved objects at a dis-
apparently freely in space, but so far as can be observed have a close tance, and enclosed in a gauze cage — telekinesis. Teleplasmic
physiological and psychological relation with the medium, in such a effects, Dingwall insisted, might be faked; Willy's telekinetic
way that any impression received through the teleplasm has its effect effects could not be faked. A teleplastic medium could conceivably
upon the medial organism, and vice versa ... A fluid, in varying find some way to smuggle in the means to make her materialisa-
degrees of density, leaves the body of the medium as an amorphous,
unorganised mass: takes form in various teleplastic organs, hands, tions: `but the important point is not what the mediums can bring
feet, heads and so on; and after a brief existence in this form — during in, but what use they can make of what they do bring in. Willy no
which, however, it displays all the attributes of living substance — doubt can bring in a teleplastic rod, but of what use is it to him?
dissolves and is reabsorbed into the medial organism. And this fluid, None whatever.'
this substance, this substratum of the various organic formations, is The distinction was far from being as clear-cut as Dingwall
uniform, undifferentiated; there is not such a thing as a bone sought to make it. The chief difference between Willy's
substance, different from a muscular or visceral or nervous one; mediumship and 'Eva's' was that his pseudopods for the most part
there is only the one substance, the basis and substratum of organic did what they were required to do, moving objects in the cage,
life. rather than making forms and faces; but the same process was at
work — as might have been found if `Eva' had been able to produce
To illustrate this thesis, Mann offered `one single but striking her forms and faces in a cage; she did, after all, often produce them
example'. While Willy was under his usual careful control, what through a veil.
appeared to be a forearm and a hand would sometimes materialise Nevertheless from the point of view of a researcher who wanted
to carry out a task which Eusapia had often been set, and accom- to convince witnesses, Willy's telekinetic feats were certainly
plished; her pseudopods had implanted the impression of a palm or better designed to carry conviction; Dingwall rated Schrenck's
fingertips on some clay in a bowl. Impressions were duly found, findings `by far the most important work on telekinesis since the
after a test sitting; but on Willy's fingers `there were traces of clay. SPR Report on Palladino or Dr Ochorowicz's observations on
Now I ask of nature and spirit, I inquire of reason and of logic on Mlle. T.' — Stanislawa Tomczyk. And Dingwall's irritation with
her throne; how, when and from where came the clay on Willy's sceptics, inside the SP as well as outside, prompted him to lament
fingers?' their failure to recognise just how important Schrenck's work had
The phenomena, Mann concluded in his account to Schrenck, been.
might be aesthetically repellent, but their unquestionable reality The scientific mind is, unfortunately, only too often divided into
`must needs arouse the passionate curiosity of the scientist'. With watertight compartments, and presents the strange spectacle of the
Willy, Schrenck did in fact come closer to arousing scientists' true and the false, the sublime and the ridiculous, all flourishing
curiosity, and convincing them of the reality of telekinetic forces, under the same mask of a united personality. In the ordinary sciences
than any psychical researcher had previously managed to do. of today, religion has but little influence. The biologist does not fear
Although as always there was speculation about trickery, none of that by presenting his work he is encroaching upon the domain of the
the scientists, academics, members of the professions and writers Almighty, neither does the geologist regret that his results do not
who attended seances detected Willy in any attempt at deception; appear to tally with the statements in the Book. Facts concerning
no fewer than ninety-four of them signed declarations affirming natural phenomena are now only condemned for these reasons in
that they had been convinced of his telekinetic powers. such places as Kentucky or the Kingsway Hall, whilst serious minded
Such attempts as were made to cast doubt on the genuineness of people smile quietly and pass on. But in psychical research the
scientist joins the priest, and the philosopher the journalist, in
Willy's mediumship were laughable, as Dingwall was able to show deriding phenomena just as real and objective as the meteor or the
in 1924 in a review of Schrenck's research, demolishing the hypo- eclipse.
theses presented by some of Schrenck's critics and stressing the
importance of the distinction between the research Schrenck had
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
teriorisation of vital forces in a person suffering from a severe
The 1921 Congress illness; which forces, as a result of a peculiar and temporary psychic
Scientific man was perfectly capable, then as in other eras, of condition, broke out in unruly fashion'. Commenting in the SPR
ignoring evidence which he could not rebut. Yet in this period it Journal on the abstract of his paper, an editorial note remarked
was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the kind of evidence that the case was unusual in that ordinarily poltergeist hauntings
which was presented at the first International Congress for Psychi- were hard to pin down — `the phenomena may occur in a number of
cal Research, held in Copenhagen in 1921. Among those who read different places, so that the observer does not know where to
papers were Geley and Mme Bisson from France, Schrenck from watch'; but in this case they occurred only in the room where Frau
Germany, Mrs Salter and Drayton Thomas from Britain, Carring- Sauerbrey lay, and had been seen and heard by observers without
ton and Walter Prince from the United States; and the subjects difficulty. `Under these circumstances it seems to be extremely
ranged from `Feda' to the `higher phenomena' of hypnosis, from a improbable that a considerable number of witnesses, some of
controlled trial of a telepathic subject to a report of a poltergeist whom had very good opportunities for observation, extending
haunting. over a period of more than two weeks, should in no case have
The poltergeist case history was contributed by Schrenck, con- detected Frau Sauerbrey's actions, had she been producing the
cerning the experience of the Sauerbrey family who lived near phenomena by normal means.'
Weimar. Ernst Sauerbrey, a clockmaker, had been widowed and
had married again. In 1919 his son by his first marriage, who had Telepathy
come on a visit, gave a demonstration of hypnotism with his
stepmother as the subject. The experience shattered her. After he Perhaps because of the realisation that Coover's experiments at
left, she became virtually paralysed, and for a year she lay helpless Stanford could be re-interpreted as giving positive results, there
on a couch in the kitchen. Yet though she could not move, it was as had been a number of experiments on the Continent designed to
if her trauma was causing movement all around her: cups, chairs, put the evidence for telepathy on a more scientific basis. In Paris,
the kitchen table shifted about, the rappings were heard, night Geley had persuaded `Mme B.', a well-known medium, to co-
after night, around the kitchen. The kitchen clock refused to go, operate in trials to meet the challenge so often thrown down by
though Sauerbrey insisted there was nothing the matter with it; `a sceptics, that mediums made their reputations because sitters
dog, which at other times was unusually bold, was unusually remembered their lucky (or contrived) `hits', and forgot the far
oppressed by the onset of the phenomena'. greater number of `misses'.
The case was unusually well-documented because the stepson Geley invited twenty-four leading scientists and doctors to have
had been charged with practising hypnotism, which was illegal. a sitting with her, and to register the number of `hits' and `misses'.
Sauerbrey, members of the family and a neighbour gave evidence, Remarkably, only two failed to keep their appointments; three
and their testimony received support from the police, who had replacements brought the total up to twenty-five. All possible
been called in; no fewer than ten policemen had, at different times, precautions were taken to ensure that `Mme B.' could not find out
witnessed the manifestations `either through the open kitchen the identity of the sitters. One of them, Stanley de Brath — he was
door, or through the key-hole'. One of them described how he had to be Geley's translator — went to see her the day after he arrived
seen a jug of water, placed near the door, move towards Frau in Paris, without revealing his identity; she gave him information
Sauerbrey as she lay in bed. At times the kitchen table had shaken which he was sure she could not have obtained from any other
so violently that anybody who wished to write on it had to grip the source except himself. Seventeen of the sitters reported favour-
table leg between his knees. The manifestations continued for ably; the most striking result of the inquiry, de Brath was to recall,
night after night until a nerve specialist was called in who managed was not just the large number of `hits' which `Mme B.' obtained,
to employ counter-suggestion successfully, freeing Frau Sauerbrey `averaging two out of three', but also the precision of some of the
from her obsession. Shortly after, she died. details she provided, more than sufficient `to eliminate the hypoth-
In Schrenck's view, the case pointed to `an unregularised ex- esis of mere coincidence'.
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
In Germany a young doctor, Rudolf Tischner, who worked with brought in professors from the university as witnesses; and some of
Schrenck in Munich, had been experimenting on different lines; the trials were conducted under the supervision of a committee of
and his Telepathy and Clairvoyance, published in 1920, broke fresh fellow-members of a medical society.
ground, describing tests for extra-sensory perception — the term Unable though he was to `present an official certificate proving
he coined — with a view to separating out transmission of thoughts the scientific integrity of each of the members of the commission',
from pure clairvoyance. Tischner felt justified in assuring readers that the society was
The search for suitable subjects with whom to undertake tests, unlikely to have nominated people of doubtful capacity as observ-
Tischner explained, had provided him with `plenty of opportunity ers; and his work impressed Dingwall, who made the point in his
of sorting the chaff from the grain' in order to eliminate the cheats introduction to the translation of Telepathy and Clairvoyance that
and the illusionists. Scientists were too ready to think that only it should not be considered in isolation; `similar occurrences have
they could detect deception; `it might be as well here, too, to credit been, and are still being, reported from all parts of the world.
the experienced worker with a little judgment on the subject, and Although the value of these reports must necessarily vary, the
not to think, as is often the case, that the investigator in occult general tenor of the content is invariably the same' — that `under
matters is possessed of less intelligence and a weaker critical suitable conditions, certain persons display faculties described by
faculty than the average man'. And as it happened, the precautions Dr Tischner'. But the sceptics in Germany reacted no differently
he had had to take were bound up with those which he needed to from scientists elsewhere. Even to contemplate the possibility of
distinguish telepathy from clairvoyance. the existence of an exception to, or contradiction of, the laws of
In the past, telepathy had often been explained away as hyper- nature was unthinkable, Robert Meyer argued. `We cannot afford
acuity of hearing, or `Cumberlandism', called after the music-hall to drop this principle, and the man who does not accept it is guilty
performer whose speciality was mind-reading by picking up tiny of being illogical, or of believing in a superstition, or both.' It was
clues from the actions and behaviour of whoever was `sending' the Meyer who was being illogical, Tischner replied: `The attraction of
information. To investigate clairvoyance, Tischner realised, he a piece of iron by a magnet, if regarded as an isolated fact, is a
must eliminate not only these possibilities, but also that of genuine contradiction of the law of gravity, but if we presuppose a new kind
telepathic communication; so neither he nor anybody else involved of energy we can explain it easily.' Doubtless some similar source
in the trials could be permitted to know what the subject was going of as yet undiscovered energy would be found, and the laws of
to try to guess. For this purpose he used slips of paper, or nature revised to meet them, as had been the case with X-rays and
postcards, with names, pictures or numbers on them, wrapped in radium.`
black paper and sealed in envelopes. The medium they were At the Copenhagen conference, however, the report of a tele-
testing, `Miss von B.', was then left alone with the envelopes in a pathy experiment which excited most interest, as both original in
room, in which she could be watched by her investigators without its concept and, in terms of results, gratifyingly successful, had
her being able to see them. She was frequently able to draw the been set up by H. I. Brugmans and some colleagues in the psycho-
rough outline of the picture on the cards, and to write down some logical laboratory at Groningen in Holland, with a physics student,
of the words scattered through what had been written on them, A. van Dam, as the chief subject. He was blindfolded, and put in a
including on one occasion the signature of the writer, Lina Lüder, cubicle with a screen between him and a table, in front of him, on
correct except for the omission of the umlaut. which was a checker-board, its horizontal bottom row lettered
The experiment as described did not wholly rule out the possibil- from A to H, its vertical rows numbered from 2 to 6. In turn, three
ity of telepathic communication between the medium and whoever agents tried to influence him telepathically to select with his hand a
put the card into the envelope; but what it certainly did was to certain square — as it might be `A3' or `C5'. Sometimes the agents
demonstrate extra-sensory perception on her part, as neither were in the room with him; sometimes in a different room,
hyperacuity of hearing nor Cumberlandism would apply. Aware watching him through a glass screen. One of the agents, who was
that he and his colleagues might be dismissed as her dupes, short-sighted, had poorer results when he was not in the same
however, or accused of being in collusion with her, Tischner had room; otherwise there was no difference between them — and the
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
results were remarkable: 60 `hits' out of a total of 187 attempts, Her forecasts were notable not just for their general accuracy —
where chance expectation would have given only 4. All the sessions on 10 June 1920, at a time when the Bolsheviks appeared to be
were successful, those undertaken after the subject had been given routed, after the fall of Kiev, she forecast disasters, and the
thirty grams of alcohol particularly so: he had then scored three Bolshevik offensive at the end of the month took the Russian
hits out of each four attempts. `If we have not committed some armies to Warsaw — she also gave some precise dates. On 12 July,
error,' Brugmans told his audience, begging them to tell him if they for example, when the Poles were in full retreat, she named 15
detected any flaws, `the existence of telepathy is established ...' August as the day on which victory would again go to them — as it
And the consensus among later commentators — those, that is, did. And on 21 July she gave details:
who accept the possibility of telepathic communication — has been A visitant from Paris brings you an unexpected change. Your
that its results rank among the most impressive ever to be obtained patriotism and heroism make a great impression on him.
using laboratory methods. Great changes in August. Your strength is in the victories of
It was of even more importance in re-establishing those Kowel and Kovno. Discord between the Bolshevist leaders and a
methods, as J. B. Rhine was to testify: a double step forward, he great and unexpected change.
recalled in his Extrasensory Perception, not merely striking in its You will re-take lost ground more quickly than you lost it, and
value as proof, but also pointing to the need to `go beyond the first many guns and prisoners. A great victory towards Vilna and Lida.
problem of proof and to try to find facts of natural relationships in Events followed the course she had predicted. The `visitant from
the direction mainly of physiological measurements correlated Paris' was General Weygand; the victories were at the places she
with success in telepathy'. But no single experiment could establish had named.
telepathy's existence. Even if there were no detectable flaws, Mme Przybylska's predictions, attested by the signatures of
sceptics could always fall back, as they did, on possible alternative twelve members of the Polish Psychical Research Society, were
explanations, ranging from Van Dam having hyperacuity of hear- published in the Revue Métapsychique. Eugène Osty, who was
ing, to collusion between him and one or more of the investigators. working with Geley and was to succeed him as Director of the
Institute, was to assert that he knew of no other precognitive series
comparable to hers in the precision with which she had named
Madame Przybylska people, places and dates; the reader would, in fact, be entitled to
be utte ly sceptical, but for the fact that the record had been
The most striking fact to emerge from the Copenhagen confer- attested so many honourable witnesses.
ence, was that Poland was proving to be the most prolific breeding
ground for mediums. Stanislawa Tomczyck was in wedded retire-
ment, and Ochorowicz had died; but they had started something. Franek Kluski
The first intimation of psychic influences at work in Poland had
been during the summer of 1920, when the Polish Government had At the Copenhagen conference Geley reported his research with
rashly decided to liberate their compatriots in the Ukraine from another Pole, Franek Kluski; a `universal medium', as Geley was
the Bolsheviks. Madame Przybylska was not a professional later to describe him, `a king among contemporaries'. A fifty-year-
medium, but she gave sittings to friends and, like Mrs Osborne old writer who lived in Warsaw, Kluski needed darkness, but did
Leonard, allowed them to take down the messages which she picked not need a `cabinet'; like Willy Schneider he could sit in the open
up by clairaudience; and in the summer of 1920 she had begun to with Geley and other investigators, Richet and Flammarion among
provide them with forecasts of what was going to happen next in them, controlling his hands and feet. While in his trance he would
the war. These forecasts had been passed to the Polish Psychical produce ectoplasm of a kind which Geley described as phosphor-
Society at the time they were given, so that it had been possible to escent vapour. Sometimes it congealed into faces, or hands which
keep a record of what the medium had predicted, and compare it appeared to move away from the medium and could make raps,
with the course which the campaign actually took. and touch or stroke the sitters present. The phosphorescence made
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
it possible for sitters to see what was happening, and to realise that While this was going on, the investigators were on either side of
it could not have been produced by sleight of hand, even had lax Kluski, holding his hands and periodically calling out that they
control permitted: `The distance of the lights, the multiplicity of retained their hold. They could actually hear the splashing in the
the phenomena, the variations of luminosity, the forms and faces,' bowls at a distance from them; and when the experiment was over,
Geley claimed, `could never have been imitated by a single liber- there were the `gloves'. Although Kluski's hands were held by
ated hand.' Geley on one side, and Richet on the other, `a first mould was
In his Treatise on Parapsychology René Sudre, who combined obtained of a child's hand, then a second of both hands, right and
encyclopedic knowledge of the development of psychical research left; a third time of a child's foot' — creases in the skin and veins
with a critical cast of mind, accepted that Kluski had been detected being visible on the plaster casts taken afterwards from the moulds.
in what he described as `venial tricks'; meaning that while in his The child's hand was so small that it could not have been obtained
trance he had sometimes, like Eusapia, managed to liberate a from a living adult's hand, `for the whole hand would have to be
hand. But even when this was detected his accusers had had to withdrawn through the narrow opening at the wrist'; the mould
accept the genuineness of his psychic faculties; as at the seances at could not have been made, they decided on inspecting it, except by
the Paris Institute, carried out under particularly strict conditions materialisation followed by dematerialisation, because only if the
for the benefit of French and foreign observers — thirty-five in all. object dematerialised could it have been withdrawn from the neck
Kluski and the sitters were actually chained together; yet they still of the paraffin wax `glove' without ripping it open.
witnessed materialisations. Some of the moulds obtained in this way were defective but, as
Sudre had himself had twenty-five seances with Kluski. In one in Geley reiterated, `to build up in a few seconds an organ or an
Warsaw, a pair of lights hovering around the room `stopped in organism biologically complete — to create life — is a metapsychic
front of me and became two eyes. Around the eyes the luminous fact which can but rarely produce a perfect result'. He also found,
shape of a face began to form and soon the head was clearly and realised that it tied in with what Crawford had reported, that
visible.' In the same seance, `I saw a small light settle on a locked there were traces of wax on Kluski's hands and clothes — though he
piano and at my request, three or four notes were struck.' At the could not have left his chair — as if he had been dabbling in the wax.
Paris seances, the sitters were several times `kissed by luminous There were also splashes of it around the tank, as could be
and rather cold lips'. expected-if the ectoplasm was stretching out from the medium in
One of Kluski's phenomena could not have been imitated, in the the form of a pseudopod, to perform the moulding feat.
way he produced them, by any number of liberated hands. Geley Not long afterwards Houdini, who was beginning to demon-
and Richet knew that several mediums in the past seventy years strate that he could do by his magic everything which mediums
had managed to make impressions on flour, plaster or paraffin wax claimed to be able to do by psychic means, began to demonstrate
at a distance, the explanation being that a pseudopod had impress- how Kluski produced the moulds. According to Houdini's friend
ed itself, leaving its shape on the mould when it dematerialised. and fellow-magician, Joseph Rinn, Houdini had been baffled until
They were not wholly convinced, however, by the evidence — good Rinn showed him how simple it was to do the trick with the help of a
though it had been in Eusapia's case; and they took the opportu- glove in which some soluble substance could be put, which could be
nity in 1921 to test Kluski at the Institut Métapsychique, using withdrawn when the mould had set. Fingerprints and other such
paraffin wax. The `materialised' entity, Geley explained, was corroborative details could be added afterwards.
asked to plunge a hand, a foot or even part of a face into the paraffin Geley and Richet, therefore, could have been fooled, unless
several times. A closely-fitting envelope is thus formed, which sets at they had taken precautions to prevent Kluski from substituting
once in air or by being dipped into another bowl of cold water. The hands made in this way. But they had taken the precautions.
envelope or `glove' is then freed by dematerialisation of the member. Unknown to Kluski or to anybody else, they had put a small
Plaster can be poured at leisure into the glove, thus giving a perfect amount of a soluble substance in the melted wax, invisible while in
cast of the hand. the wax, but detectable after the seance. They had consequently
been able to satisfy themselves that the wax in which the hands
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
childhood had been the centre of poltergeist-type disturbances,
until he found that he could direct the forces himself, causing
objects to move at a distance; but in the process, his clairvoyance
disappeared. His father, worried at the way he was using telekine-
sis, had begged him to stop, and eventually he had allowed himself
to be persuaded; thereupon his clairvoyant faculty was restored.
He refused payment for his services, even when they were being
requested for financial purposes, such as the discovery of lost
property; and he was willing to submit to formal tests, the results of
which, Richet thought, were `the most positive in the whole history
of mental metapsychics'.
The method commonly used was to pass sealed opaque en-
velopes to Ossowiecki, with written messages or drawings inside.
He would take them one by one, hold them in his hand and usually
after five to fifteen minutes, describe what the envelopes con-
tained. Complete failures were rare. Occasionally he made minor
mistakes with words; but as a rule he was right — sometimes even
when he did not touch the envelope.
After the war Ossowiecki's gifts led to his becoming a social lion
in the Polish capital, sought after by fashionable hostesses much as
Two Kluski `hands'.
D. D Home had been half a century earlier. The list of those who
tested his clairvoyant powers read like pages from Who's Who,
including members of the Government, Marshal Josef Pilsudski,
the President, among them. Pilsudski's contribution was a message
appeared was the wax they had brought with them, so they knew in an opaque envelope, sealed with the seal of the Minister of War
there could not have been any substitution of previously prepared who, accompanied by the Marshal's ADC, brought it to Osso-
moulds. Even if Kluski could have escaped unnoticed from his wiecki. Perhaps due to the presence of several intrigued witnesses,
controllers, too, he could not have done the trick Rinn's way: as Ossowiecki took longer than usual — twenty-five minutes — before
many as nine moulds were obtained in a single sitting, and they he could describe the contents: a chess formula, `C2-4: C5-7'.
were all different. An expert moulder working in Paris gave it as his Pilsudski confirmed by telephone that his solution was correct. To
opinion that the moulds could only have been made from living be on the safe side, the ADC brought the unopened envelope back
hands: the details were too delicate to have been imposed later in to enable Pilsudski to reassure himself that the seals had not been
the way the conjurors were doing. The expert could not conceive tampered with; satisfied, he gave Geley permission to publish the
how the moulds could have been obtained, in view of the fact that tale.
living hands could not have been withdrawn through the smaller Geley and Richet arrived in Warsaw to investigate Ossowiecki in
wrist apertures: `It is completely mysterious.' the spring of 1921. `Very energetic, he conducts much business
with marked success,' Geley noted; `Much loved by his friends,
and always ready to serve and help them, he is a man of charming
Stefan Ossowiecki and unforgettable personality.' At a series of experiments, fol-
The best-known of the Polish psychics in this period, however, was lowed by a further series that autumn, he was able to produce
Stefan Ossowiecki, a clairvoyant. Born in 1877 of a family of whom evidence which left no doubt in their minds of his clairvoyant
several were regarded as psychic, Ossowiecki for a time during his powers.
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
Ossowiecki did not merely `see' what was in the opaque en- that psychic `touch' was commonly, though not always, involved,
velopes which they handed to him: he could provide information as he would gently knead the envelopes in his fingers. Ossowiecki
about the writers. Typical was an occasion that autumn when himself thought that in certain states of mind he was tuning in to
Geley gave him a missive from René Sudre in France. All that `the spiritual unity of all humanity' which enabled him to perceive
Geley knew was that the message referred to some unpublished not only the contents of envelopes but the histories of some of the
experiment. Ossowiecki said he was unable to read the contents, writers, because `I see and hear outside time and space'.
because they were in print; but he could tell it was from someone Of all the psychics of this period, Ossowiecki provided the most
who wanted to make his acquaintance, and that it had been convincing evidence for clairvoyance. His record had a consistency
prepared at six or seven in the evening by a man with a woman unmatched in the history of psychical research, and he was never
beside him in a room on a second floor: detected in anything which could arouse suspicion. Doubtless he
enjoyed the fame his gift brought him; but he steadfastly refused to
He is clean-shaven except for a small moustache. He is a man of
thirty-eight to forty, slender, very acute. He is not bald, has a parting accept any money from sitters. The `extraordinary faculty of this
in his hair. She is stout but not tall; not blonde. She suggested this great clairvoyant who was in private life an engineer and an
test. They have two children, a son and a daughter. I say this is all accomplished gentleman' — Sudre's phrase — has remained one of
true but only one child is born; the lady appears stout because she is the very few historical examples which parapsychologists cite
close on her confinement ... it is a boy, I'm certain, you can write so freely, confident that nobody has yet found any evidence to show
to them. that the faculty was other than genuine.
A son was born to Mme Sudre three days later: the only error
which Geley picked up subsequently was that she had not sug- Flammarion and Richet
gested the test.
On another occasion, Ossowiecki was consulted by the wife of In addition to the reports of the research of Geley and others, in
one of the judges in the Polish Supreme Court about a lost brooch. the early 1920s, there were also two massive contributions from the
He described the brooch, and also the man who, he told her, had elder statesmen of psychical research in France: Flammarion and
picked it up in the street. The following day he happened to see, Richet.
and recognise, the man he had described, taxed him with picking it More than anybody else, Flammarion had been responsible for
up, and got it back — as the grateful recipient confirmed in a the popularisation of astronomy in France, and ultimately
written account. throughout Europe. With twelve others he had founded the
In general Ossowiecki was so consistently successful that Geley, Société Astronomique in 1887; that by the 1920s its membership
after listing the precautions which were taken to ensure that his was numbered in thousands was largely his achievement, as he had
investigators could not know the contents of the envelopes in made technicalities readable in countless articles and books, open-
advance, felt justified in claiming not merely that `the reality of the ing up the subject to the general reader. But he had also always
clairvoyance is absolutely certain' but also that as the experiments been fascinated by the supernormal. In 1861, at the age of sixteen,
were repeatable at will and almost always successful, `the inept he had become what he lightly described as a card-carrying mem-
objection continually repeated that metapsychic experiments are ber of Alain Kardec's spiritist society; and in 1866 he had written
not scientific because they are not repeatable at will does not apply Des Forces Naturelles Inconnues — forces for which he had coined
to Ossowiecki's gift'. the term `psychic', soon to be in general use.
How did Ossowiecki pick up the messages? He appeared actu- Impressed by the way in which Gurney had collected the mater-
ally to `see' what was written, or drawn, in his mind's eye; so that if ial for his Phantasms, Flammarion had made a similar appeal to
a message was written in English, which he did not understand, he the French public in 1899, receiving over four thousand rep li es,
could give the appearance of the words in a sentence. Geley which he sorted out and published with an analysis the following
thought he was using a kind of psychometry; and Richet agreed year. And in 1922 (as Mrs Sidgwick was also doing) he went back
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
over the same ground, examining the case histories which had almost everyone else was doing.' But he had gone to investigate
accumulated, and presenting them with commentaries in the three Eusapia; and eventually he had been compelled to accept that the
volumes, Death and its Mystery. phenomena he had mocked were genuine, though he continued to
As evidence for supernormal phenomena, Flammarion's cases reject the spiritualist interpretation. Like Crookes he had con-
could not match Gurney's; he had made few attempts to follow tinued to conduct orthodox research while attending seances with
them up, to check if they were genuine, part genuine or spurious. mediums, until he confounded his critics, who thought he must
He also included a handful of cases derived from hearsay, at least have gone soft in the head to accept that the likes of Eusapia and
one of which was later shown to be a myth: the once-familiar tale of `Eva' could be genuine, by coming up with the discoveries about
Lord Dufferin's premonitory vision which had saved him from anaphylaxis that had won him his Nobel Prize.
death when a lift which he had been going to take in a Paris hotel Thirty Years of Psychical Research — dedicated to Crookes and
crashed to the ground. Unluckily for the story, there was no record Myers `who, equally distinguished by their courage and by their
of any such crash. Nevertheless most of the cases Flammarion insight, were the first to trace the outlines of this science', gave the
included had been sent to him by men and women of standing — evidence for what Richet thought were the three fundamentals,
magistrates, academics, doctors — with their names and addresses, `crypthesthesia' (telepathy and clairvoyance), telekinesis, and
some with attestations. They were very similar, in general, to those materialisations. It presented case histories, and considered their
which Gurney and Mrs Sidgwick had received, providing a mass of implications from his rationalist standpoint. Metapsychics, he
testimony for supernormal experiences, ranging from apparitions insisted, was a branch of mechanist science. The facts
to clocks stopping at or near the time of a death. do not contradict any accepted scientific truths. They are new; they
It was not Flammarion's last contribution to psychical research; are unusual; they are difficult to classify; but they do not demolish
he was to provide an address for the SPR when, in recognition of anything of what has been so laboriously built up in our classic
his long services — longer than anybody else's, even Barrett's — he edifice. If people dispute them a priori, it is because they have not
was elected President of the SPR in 1923. `He was regarded with sufficiently reflected on the profound difference which separates the
real affection by immense numbers of readers both in France and unusual from the contradictory.
in England,' The Times obituary noted when he died two years
later. `He was indeed aptly named "the poet of the heavens".' The Telekinesis, Richet felt certain, would be found to be related to
writer clearly had his popular works on astronomy in mind, but the `unrecognised latent powers in the human organism'. He even
designation was not inappropriate for what had been his other rejected the dualism of Bergson and McDougall. `Everything
ambition: to marshal the evidence which pointed to the survival of seems to prove that intelligence is a function of the brain,' he
the human spirit after death. insisted; he could not conceive of `the persistence of the function
Richet's Traité de Métapsychique — the English translation (mind) without the organ (brain)'.
appeared the following year as Thirty Years of Psychical Re- Poltergeists presented Richet with a problem. It would have
search — covered a wider range of phenomena than Flammarion's; been easy for him to rationalise them out of the psychic category
and it had the advantage of a pre-publication puff from the author, into simple mischief and trickery, as Podmore had done; but
on 13 February 1922, at the Academy of the Sciences, Richet's Richet was too intellectually honest. The testimonies, he felt, were
standing in orthodox circles being sufficient to break the long- too precise and detailed `for it to be possible to deny everything';
established barrier to the subject being aired there. had there been only one such case, hallucination could have been
Unlike Flammarion, throughout his career Richet had remained invoked `but that is a childish explanation. People say "hallucina-
a convinced materialist, in spite of periodic shocks. `In my servile tion" to dismiss a disquieting fact by a convenient word; this is
respect for the classical tradition I mocked what was called spirit- much too simple.'
ism,' he had told the SPR at a meeting in 1899; reading of Richet's explanation was that hauntings were not the work of
Crookes's materialised spirit forms `I allowed myself — here do I spirits, but were dependent upon somebody `who, perhaps without
publicly beg his pardon for it — to laugh at them as heartily as knowing it, plays the part of medium'. Just as a medium at a seance
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
could cause displacements of objects, so mediums who did not ing irrefutable proof, rather than an abundance of cases, none of
know themselves to be such could cause stones to fall and blows to which in isolation could be held to be free from some possible
be struck on walls. It was understandable that such hauntings weakness.
should often be thought to be linked to some former tragedy. `This, Richet's challenge was also taken up by some scientists at the
however, is probably a narrowly anthropomorphic notion; and Sorbonne, who offered to give `Eva' a further series of tests. She
rather than suppose the problematical survival of a human con- had already, during the London trials, intimated that she did not
sciousness and vague symbolism of human intentions, I prefer to want to continue her career as a medium; but she consented to one
say without false shame that I do not understand.' last attempt to convince the sceptics — her investigators having
Most cases of haunting, in Richet's opinion, were cases of made no secret of their assumption that her phenomena had been
spontaneous telekinesis. `Telekinesis is really one of the most faked. She was able to produce them in only two out of fifteen
important facts in metapsychic science,' he asserted. `It is not to be seances; and they were feeble even compared to what had been
despised because it is elementary, any more than a chemist should witnessed in London.
despise the law of combination of oxygen with hydrogen because it In his report Paul Henze, who had set up the committee, did not
is an elementary phenomenon.' Similarly, the evidence for ecto- conceal his mocking delight; and another member of the commit-
plasm and materialisations was far too strong, Richet argued, to tee had the gall to put his name to the report though he had
reject out of hand. The stock objection, that they could be pro- attended only one sitting, and stayed only a quarter of an hour.
duced by conjuring tricks, simply did not fit the known facts. In his `Can it really be supposed,' Dingwall resignedly asked, `that the
experience, many of the most famous mediums had initially 'ex- meaning of mediumship, which had eluded tireless investigators
perienced some strange phenomena and, almost in spite of them- for forty years, will be elucidated by a physiologist in fifteen
selves, followed the path opening before them' , without having minutes?' Nothing which `Eva' had done had been regarded by the
had any opportunity to learn legerdemain. `Only in order to committee as in any way suspicious; but the story of her discom-
discredit the facts has extraordinary skill been attributed to them — fiture was taken up in the newspapers and presented as if the
a skill greater than that of expert conjurors', as no conjuror had precautions — which had been if anything less stringent than she
been able to perform some of their feats in the same conditions as had had to submit to before — had been too well designed for her to
the mediums had performed them. The reality of these materialisa- elude them: in short, that she had been exposed.
tions, he claimed, `must be conceded'.
Needless to say, it was not conceded. Sceptics could hardly
ignore the book, as Richet had been able to bring it to their Jean Guzik
attention under the auspices of the Academy; but they could
dismiss it on the ground that it did not provide scientific proof of Geley refused to be discouraged by the Sorbonne verdict; another
supernormal phenomena. `How can we call a collection a scientific Polish medium, Jean Guzik, had been showing for years that he
treatise,' the psychologist Henri Pieron asked, `in which not one was capable of producing a range of psychic phenomena, and in the
actually demonstrated fact appears?' — a measure of the distance winter of 1922 he came to Paris for a series of test seances. In one
which psychology had moved from accepting eye-witness accounts respect they were unsatisfactory: Guzik needed darkness. The
of events as `facts'. Pierre Janet might have been expected to be manifestations in general followed the familiar pattern, with ob-
more sympathetic, as he had witnessed and reported striking jects moving, including heavy furniture, at a distance from the
examples of the `higher phenomena' of hypnotism forty years medium, luminosities, and materialisations. Sitters frequently felt
earlier; but he had never been able to bring himself to accept that touches, and kisses. The only unusual feature was the frequency
they were supernormal, and although he claimed to have read the with which sitters said that they were being touched or nudged by
book with sympathy, it had left him, `without quite knowing why', what they took to be an animal: a dog, or perhaps a monkey.
rather more sceptical than he had been before. But his review in Materialised animal forms, Geley realised, were not likely to
fact clearly showed why. Janet had wanted hard evidence, provid- impress the kind of people he wanted to impress, if the animals
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
could only be felt, not seen. With Guzik, he contented himself with the National Laboratory of Sanitary Research; and three veterans
the limited objective of persuading sitters that the movements of of psychical research, Lodge, Richet and Flammarion. Neverthe-
objects and the touches were supernormal. The medium's wrists less their testimony went for nothing, because Guzik was unwise
were taped to the wrists of his controllers; and during seances, enough to submit to further investigation by another Sorbonne
when the witnesses' hands formed a chain, they were in addition team, one of whom had been involved in the `Eva' tests.
actually chained together, so that no individual could move from The report of the investigators had curious echoes of its equiv-
his seat, or even stretch, without involving the sitters on either side alent about Eusapia in the United States. There were ten seances,
of him. at some of which the customary phenomena were reported; when
Eighty `highly placed persons' as Geley described them, the lights were turned on at the third seance, for example, after
attended seances; all except three or four who happened to attend one of the sitters had felt a blow, it was found that a chair which
blank seances expressed themselves convinced; and thirty-four of had been out of the medium's reach had moved by over a metre and
them signed an agreed statement covering the phenomena they a half. On the investigators' own reckoning, Geley was to point
had witnessed. It described the precautions, and the way the out, for the medium to have moved it by physical force he would
medium was controlled by hands as well as wrist-tapes; Guzik, they have had to extricate himself from his controllers, get up, walk
agreed, always remained passive, though occasionally he would round behind one of the controllers' chairs, push it, and then re-
raise a hand (and the controlling hand along with it) over his head turn to his seat, and to control, undetected.
to enable the controller to feel something behind him. At the A comparable feat would have been required in the sixth seance,
seances — held in different rooms, each inspected for trapdoors where a basket placed out of his reach had moved. But when the
and such, and then locked and sealed — they witnessed a variety of investigators found they could not detect how he was moving the
phenomena, two classes of which they all vouched for: objects, they decided to settle for the allegation that on some
1. Displacements, sometimes very considerable, of diverse ob- occasions he had been observed acting as if he were trying to free a
jects without contact of the medium and, moreover, out of his reach leg; and they brought the trials to a close. `The phenomena of
(as far as 1' metres). In order to be certain of no mal-observation, or touches, displacements and projections of objects,' they asserted
error of memory, the position of these objects was minutely meas- in their report, `are always produced within reach of the medium' —
ured, and they were very often affixed to the floor or the table by a claim which their own records showed was untrue. `Their convic-
gummed paper. tion is complete and without reserve' they concluded; adding that
2. Contacts and touches were very frequent and very diverse as to the phenomena presented to them involved no mystery. `The
the sensations produced, perceived on the arms, the backs or the medium produces them — by using his elbow to produce certain
heads of the controllers. touches on the shoulders; by liberating one of his legs from control,
When the medium raised an arm, the controller whose hand he makes displacements, contacts and projection of objects by this
went with it `perceived material contacts several times'. The liberated limb.'
signatories concluded that although they could not be more specific It was an extraordinary document for them to put their names to,
they would affirm their conviction `that the phenomena are not demonstrating as it did only that, by their own admission, they had
explicable by individual or collective illusion or hallucination, nor been totally incompetent. Obviously if the reality of the pheno-
by any trickery' . mena were to be proved or disproved, the first task should have
The thirty-four signatories were indeed `highly placed'. They been to ensure that the medium was controlled in such a way as to
included twelve doctors of medicine: Professor Santoliquido of the make it impossible for him to use elbows or legs or any kind of
Red Cross and the League of Nations; the editor of the Petit physical force. Yet this was precisely what the controllers had
Parisien; the chief of the Identification Service at the Préfecture of failed to do — as the notes taken during the seances confirmed.
Police; Count de Gramont and Professor Leclainche of the Institut After the second seance, which had produced manifestations, one
de France; Marcel Prévost, author of Cousin Laura, playwright, of the controllers had admitted he was unable to recall whether at
novelist and member of the Academy; Professor Valée, Director of any time he had lost contact with the leg he was supposed to be
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
controlling; and he could not even be sure, when he was in contact, So accurate had Mme Morel's description been that when the
whether it was Guzik's right leg or left leg he was supposed to be local magistrate heard the story, and had the housemaid arrested,
controlling. This, Geley protested, he assumed that Mme Morel must have been an accomplice, and
threatened her with punishment too. `In the middle ages,' Osty
is really inconceivable. What! The controller, even before the begin- remarked, `she would have been put to the torture and perhaps
ning of the experiment, does not know if he is in control of the right
or the left leg, and does not verify this? What a witness! In fine, sent to the stake.' But when the housemaid confessed, the magis-
whether the controllers `have the impression' or `have not the trate `declared himself convinced of the existence of transcen-
impression' they are sure of nothing. Unaccustomed to metapsychic dental faculties'.
experimentation, they avow their uncertainty, and rightly so. But Osty was aware that Mme Morel might be picking up stray clues
what a contrast between these uncertainties and their conclusion: from her clients, and their emissaries; in the case of `Mme R.',
`The undersigned declare that their conviction is complete and from the friend who had brought along her coat. But this could not
unreserved.' account for what had happened on an occasion in 1914 when he had
been asked by an estate agent whether he could help in tracing a
missing man. Osty placed a neckerchief from the missing man's
Eugène Osty possessions in the hands of Mme Morel, while she was under
Frustrating though such setbacks might be, so much was happening hypnosis. She described the man as `very old and wrinkled', with a
at the time that Geley could still hope gradually to wean the savants long nose, white-haired, with one finger which had been hurt.
and scientists from their scepticism; and in this he had an ally in I see a country house ... he leaves that ... he walks ... he is ill,
Eugène Osty, one of the thirty-four signatories, who had earlier his breathing is difficult ... and his brain is confused ... he leaves
been chiefly concerned with the investigation of clairvoyance and the path ... goes into a thicket, a wood ... he sees much water near
psychometry. Osty's Supernormal Faculties in Man, an expanded by ... he falls on the damp ground ... then after a little while, he
and updated version of a work which had appeared before the war, breathes no more.
was published in 1923, and it gave a detailed account of experi-
ments he had undertaken with sensitives, designed less to demon- The man was lying, she claimed, not far from the house `on his
strate the reality of their faculties than to explore the ways in which right sida, one leg bent under him' ; and she gave a direction for the
the information surfaced. path to be followed from the house to find his body, which would
Some of his most impressive results had been obtained with be by some blocks of stone, tall trees, and water.
Mme Morel, who, when in a hypnotic trance and given an object to All that Osty himself knew about the missing man was that he
hold, could provide a mass of information for the object's owner. was over eighty and walked with a stoop, so the information could
In 1920, for example, a `Mme R.' had found that a platinum brooch not have come from him, telepathically. So detailed was it, he
which belonged to her was missing. Her lady's maid accused the assumed that if it were correct the body would quickly be found;
housemaid; the housemaid counter-accused the lady's maid. A but it was not found. Hypnotised afresh, Mme Morel repeated her
friend took a coat belonging to `Mme R.' to Mme Morel, and asked story but in greater detail, with a reference to a woodman's hut
her what she could say about the missing jewel. It had been stolen, containing tools. After a further search, the body was at last
Mme Morel told her, but it was still in the house; `a woman has discovered just as she had described it, lying by a pool near large
taken it; she is not very tall, young, chestnut hair' and she was `the trees. Her only inaccuracy was that there were no `blocks of
youngest woman in the house, not the other'. But the thief was stone' — yet even this was, in a sense, correct. One of the men on
worried: `I see her wrapping the jewel in an old newspaper and the search party, following the route she had prescribed, had called
throwing it under a table in a long room like a hall.' If nothing were out, `There is the stone she saw', just before he came upon the
said, the jewel would be brought to `Mme R.' in a few hours. It body. When the `stone' was examined it turned out to be a large
was; another servant came to her to say, `Madame, here is your stump from a fallen tree, so covered with moss that it had been easy
brooch. I have just found it in the hall in an old newspaper.' to mistake for a rock.
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
Occasionally the visions would turn out to relate to the future: `The visual images have always seemed to be reconstructions of
Osty cited a case which he had used in his earlier work, `very ideas, of notions, and of cognitions.' It was consequently desirable,
representative of similar incidents'. Another medium, Mme Osty concluded, to help sensitives along, rather than to think in
Fraya, had a dream in which she was exercising her faculty, and terms of catching them out, which it was only too easy to do; and he
told one of her clients, whom she did not know, that her worry was gave, as an example, an occasion when he had brought back a piece
over her son, who was being treated in an asylum, but all would be of string which had been in a cupboard from which money had been
well because although he had been pronounced incurable, he stolen, his idea being that this might assist the sensitive to identify
would soon be returned to her entirely cured. In one respect the the thief through psychometry. What she picked up was a strang-
dream was unusual, in that it was broken into in the middle — Mme ling; and if Osty had not known what he was looking for, he might
Fraya's maid had woken her to sign a registered letter being have let her develop the theme. Instead, he told her of the
delivered by the postman — but had been resumed at the point it circumstances of the theft, asking her to `see' it, which she then did,
was broken off, so vividly that when she woke up again, she felt she describing two men concerned in it so accurately that the police
could repeat what she had said word for word. About a week later, were able to identify them; and at their trial it became clear that her
a new client appeared who turned out to be the lady in her dream. account of the theft was correct. `Here, then, is a seance which
Without the need to go into a trance to exercise her mediumistic began with imaginary matter,' Osty concluded, `and ended with
faculty, Mme Fraya repeated from memory what she had said in exact cognizance of the event, because I was able to give a slight
the dream, to the stupefaction of the woman. indication enabling the subject to perceive the facts.'
With these and similar cases, Osty claimed, he could have filled As Schiller was to point out in his review of Osty's book for the
several volumes; but he had been mainly concerned to explore the SPR, and as Alan Gauld has recently echoed in his Mediumship
many different methods which sensitives adopted to obtain their and Survival, Osty's case histories from one point of view were
information. Some needed to be hypnotised; others could perform unsatisfactory: he selected them and edited them in a way which
in (apparently) a waking state. Some needed the client's presence; made it impossible to tell what proportion of `hits' there were to
some, an object belonging to the client; for some, `it is enough that misinformation. Nevertheless `It would take an immense mass of
the experimenter should be thinking of the person'. Others used a erroneous material to outweigh Osty's more remarkable cases,'
variety of devices: `playing cards, a crystal ball, a glass of water, a Gauld feels, `and a great deal of misrecording and misverification
candle-flame, coffee-grounds spilt on a plate, a heap -of pins thrown to undermine them.'
on the carpet, etc etc.'
Osty was under no i llusion about the reliability of this informa-
tion. In the case of the missing man, when the neckerchief was put The Death of Geley
into Mme Morel's hands she had first described `a person whom I
recognised as myself'; then, another man whom he took to be the The second international psychical research congress was held in
estate agent; then, a woman who, Osty thought, might have been Warsaw in the summer of 1923; and although it lacked the sparkle
the dead man's daughter-in-law — all these before she eventually of the first, it appeared to consolidate past gains. There were
got round to describing the man himself. But though she could papers from Barrett and Mrs Sidgwick; from Mme Bisson, Geley
make such mistakes, she never muddled up the characters of the and Sudre; from Brugmans; and from Schrenck — along with one
different people; `every feeling, act, scene and event were ascribed from a new recruit, Traugott Oesterreich, Professor of Philosophy
to the individual to whom they pertained'. at Tübingen and author of Occultism and Modern Science, a critical
The mental images, Osty had decided, did not reflect reality; but sympathetic survey of contemporary research.
they were `representations building up a fanciful interior language Dingwall too presented a paper; and he took the opportunity of
intended to bring the supernormal cognition into consciousness by the visit to test Ossowiecki on the SPR's behalf, bringing with him
all kinds of imaginative means'. In all his research he had never a piece of paper with the message `Les Vignobles du Rhin, de la
come across exact representations of what was actually happening: Moselle et de la Bourgogne donnent un vin excellent', and below it,
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
a rough sketch of a bottle. The paper was dated, folded, and
enclosed in an opaque red envelope, which was itself placed in an
opaque black envelope, which was in turn placed in an opaque
brown envelope. On his arrival in Warsaw Dingwall handed the
brown envelope to Schrenck, as it had been agreed that it would be
unwise for Dingwall himself to be present during the guessing, in
case he should inadvertently give something away; and later that
6
day, Schrenck handed Ossowiecki the packet. Geley, who was
present, wrote down what he said:
It is not you, Schrenck-Notzing, who have written. It is another c . rj 2-3 3
man that I might be able to describe ... The letter that I am holding
has several envelopes ... It is a letter and yet it is not a letter .. . Drawing by Dr Dingwall.
After switching to discuss other envelopes which Schrenck had
given him, Ossowiecki came back to Dingwall's:
There is a drawing by a man who is not an artist ... something red
with this bottle ... There is without doubt a second red envelope
... There is a square drawn at the corner of the paper. The bottle is
very badly drawn. I see it! I see it.
He then drew what he `saw', adding that there was also some-
thing written. After a pause, when Schrenck asked what language
it was written in, Ossowiecki replied `In French'; and went on:
The bottle is a little inclined to one side. It has no cork. It is made up
of several fine lines. There is first a brown envelope outside; then a
greenish envelope, and then a red envelope. Inside a piece of white
paper folded in two with the drawing inside. It is written on a single Drawing by Monsieur Ossowiecki.
sheet.
The following day the packet was returned to Dingwall, who had put upon the experiment. The supernormal character of the inci-
taken the additional precaution of punching minute pinholes dent seems to me quite clear and decisive.'
through the envelopes, so that he would be able to detect if there With so many mediums available for research in and around
had been any attempt to open them up to get at the contents. When Warsaw, Geley was tempted to concentrate his research effort
he had satisfied himself that they had not been tampered with, and there, in the coming months; but before he could complete his next
opened them up himself in the presence of the others, Ossowiecki series of trials the aircraft which was to bring him back to Paris
`received an ovation, and fell on the necks of the observers with from Warsaw crashed on take-off, and he was killed.
tears in his eyes' — not so surprising as it might sound, in view of It was a shattering blow for psychical research, as Geley had
Dingwall's already formidable reputation as a critical investigator. emerged as the outstanding figure of the post-war period. `This
Coincidence, Dingwall pointed out in his report to the SPR, great idealist,' Sudre — a man not given to superlatives — described
could be excluded; and as there was no way in which Ossowiecki him, `this vigorous thinker, is the glorious pioneer of a science
could have obtained prior knowledge of what was in the packet, which will hold his memory immortal.' To Lodge, Geley was `a
this `leaves us but little choice as to the proper interpretation to be philosophic thinker of no small magnitude'; and Lodge endorsed
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Science and Parascience The Continental Mediums
another tribute which had emphasised, as well as Geley's dedica- men and women in the professions who had come to the seances
tion and conscientiousness, `his exemplary simplicity, his rare should have lent themselves to the deceit was becoming, on the
faculty of reconciling the enthusiasm of the investigator with the evidence, increasingly implausible.
reflective wisdom of the savant' ; above all, his charity `which Geley recognised, however, that it might take time before his
extended itself unmeasured to his most sceptical adversaries'. evidence was accepted. Many scientists he knew had refused even
Scientists in Britain had been accused `of a kind of insanity, to examine it; for a reason which Auguste Lumière, the great
over-credulity, mal-observation and the like', Lodge recalled; but innovator in photography (who had himself had trouble with
in France, where hostility to psychical research was even more sceptics) had recently advanced. The chief cause of their hatred of
rampant, Geley had been accused, `not so much of those things, or new ideas which were incompatible with their preconceptions,
not only of those, but of downright fraud and deceitful co- Lumière had written, lay in their failure to realise that science was
operation; in other words, he was accused of being an accomplice in a state of continuous evolution'. And there was another,
and a liar'. Yet so convinced had he been that he could convert his `perhaps even more important' , cause:
critics simply by submitting to their demands for additional con-
trols, to their specifications, that not merely had he allowed his Learned men only reach positions of authority in advanced age; they
have therefore lived for many years under the dominion of ideas
premises to be examined for secret doors, but had submitted to from which it is extremely difficult for them to free themselves. How
being chained up with the medium and the other investigators. hard to have to abandon principles that have been in lifelong use to
Innumerable demonstrations for scientists, doctors and journalists buttress learned works. The inevitable result of these facts is the
had proved that however exacting the precautions, the phenomena prevalence of routine thought. Very often the effort required from a
ordinarily occurred; and in none had any of the witnesses found man who ought to be able to escape from the old rut is beyond his
any reason to suspect fraud. As a result, Geley had felt confident powers; and, moreover, human nature is so constituted that it always
that eventually, `the barriers would yield, one by one, to persuas- tends to accept the solutions that demand least effort.
ive pressure before the evidence of facts, without any necessity for Geley went on to cite Paul Broca, the nineteenth-century
using violence' — in spite of the violence employed against him `by surgeon and anthropologist; a tag which has often since been cited
adversaries who doubtless felt that their ground was beginning to and paraphrased, but not always attributed to Broca:
shake under them'.
Geley himself did not doubt that his adversaries were indeed A new truth contrary to the prejudices of our teachers has no
shaken. `The heroic stage of metapsychics would seem to be means wherewith to overcome their hostility, for they are open
nearing its end,' he wrote shortly before his death; the reality of neither to facts nor to reasoning; it is necessary to wait for their
mediumistic phenomena might not yet be accepted, but it was no death. Innovators must resign themselves patiently to wait for their
death, as the Russians of 1812 awaited `General February'.
longer so systematically denied. And in his Clairvoyance and
Materialisation, published in 1924, he explained why he thought Geley also had one important piece of advice as a legacy for his
victory was almost won. colleagues. From his own experience, he had realised that psychi-
It was really two books, the first dealing with the mental, the cal researchers would have to abandon the hope, dear to those who
second with the physical phenomena, going into much greater wanted to satisfy the demands of orthodox scientists, that the
detail about his work with `Eva' than its predecessor, which had subject to be investigated — the medium — should be testable by
been criticised for its lack of full descriptions of the seances. These anybody — believer, agnostic or sceptic. Investigations must be
he now provided — in such detail that, like Schrenck's book on treated as `collective experiments', Geley emphasised, `for the
physical mediumship, Geley's made it very clear that if there had phenomena are the results of subconscious psycho-physiological
been fraud it could not conceivably have been the unaided work of collaboration between the medium and the experimenters'. It was
the mediums. Geley himself and many others must have been `absurd and useless to expect any result from competitions, chal-
involved in collaborating with `Eva', Kluski, Guzik and the rest. lenges or offers of prizes to mediums', because it was not only the
And that so many well-known respected scientists, academics and mediums' but also the experimenters' latent powers which would
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Science and Parascience
have to be called upon. In such circumstances the hostility of an
experimenter would be prejudicial — but so also would be an
experimenter's strong desire for success.
5 The USA
The early years of the First World War, when the United States
was still neutral, were an unproductive period for psychical re-
search. Coover was thought to have killed off telepathy; Jastrow
and Muensterberg to have discredited the physical phenomena of
mediumship. But one practitioner of what might have been de-
scribed as the psychophysiological phenomena of mediumship did
succeed in making a reputation for herself : Mrs Pearl Curran,
though her `control', `Patience Worth'.
`Patience Worth'
Mrs Curran had had only a perfunctory education, and had never
been outside the Middle West when, at the age of thirty-one, she
was invited to a ouija session. She was not a spiritualist — both she
and her husband were hostile to spiritualism; but occasionally she
joined in-the pastime, without enthusiasm, largely because a friend
of hers was interested. For some months nothing of particular
importance was registered; then a `communicator' emerged: 'Pati-
ence Worth', who claimed to be a British girl who had lived in the
seventeenth century, and had emigrated to America, where she
had been killed by Indians.
`Patience' proved unusual in that not only was she a forceful
personality, taking over as `control'; she also displayed remarkable
literary talents. Her prose and her poetry could, and can, be
praised or derided according to taste; but what could not, and
cannot, seriously be disputed is that they revealed capabilities of a
kind far beyond those of Mrs Curran. In certain respects, in fact,
they are unique in the history of literature. In a matter of seconds,
`Patience' could turn out long, passable passages of verse on any
subject given to her.
Unlike Mrs Leonard, Mrs Curran did not go into a trance;
simply into a state of mild abstraction. Conversation took place
between her and `Patience' through the planchette, `Patience'
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Science and Parascience The USA
being a little contemptuous of her other self. When Mrs Curran The obvious choice as investigator was Morton Prince, whose
tried to put in a word for herself, as deserving some credit for what study of `Sally Beauchamp' had led to the acceptance by psycho-
`Patience' wrote, `Patience's' reply was `so doth the piggie who logists of multiple personality; and arrangements were made for the
scratcheth upon an oak deem his fleas the falling acorn's cause' — Currans to visit him in Boston. The outcome was farcical. Morton
typical of her earthy sense of humour. Even the most captious Prince adopted the role of an inquisitor: `Patience' refused to be
critics have had to concede that she had an engaging ability to bullied:
throw off apposite aphorisms in this way. Schiller, for one, was
inclined to think her work had been overpraised; `but no writer Prince: What year were you born in, and where?
`Patience': 'Tis apry you be. I be atrothed unto the Puller.
need be ashamed of bits of proverbial philosophy like "beat the Prince: Answer my question! You said you would co-operate.
hound and lose the hare", "it taketh a wise man to be a good fool", 'Patience': Yea, thou wouldst to shed o' the blood o' me and then
"a basting but toughens an old goose", "wisdom patches the seat of hand unto the wraith o' me the blood blade to wipe.
learning" and "give me not wisdom enough to understand the Prince: That's dodging!
universe but folly enough to tolerate it".' 'Patience': 'Tis a merry put thou settest o' a wraith at, sirrah, that
`Patience' was investigated in 1914 by Casper Yost, editor of the she doth do duck o' thy throw.
Sunday St Louis Globe-Democrat, and one of the most respected Prince: Oh, go away!
of American journalists; the founder of the Society of Newspaper
Editors, he was to be its President for four years in the 1920s. and so on. Eventually Prince, exasperated, declined to carry on
Convinced that `Patience' was genuine, and that she had real unless Mrs Curran consented to be hypnotised. She refused —
literary ability, Yost wrote about her in his paper, and overnight fearing it might lose `Patience'; and the investigation ended.
she became a celebrity. James Hyslop offered a better prospect than Morton Prince, as
That summer, `Patience' wrote a book: 60,000 words long, Telka not only had he collaborated with Walter Frank li n Prince in the
was about a girl living in the country in Anglo-Saxon Britain; and presentation of the Doris Fischer case, and consequently was
although the style (`soft-footed strideth Telka, bare toes a-sunk in knowledgeable about multiple personality; unlike Morton Prince
soft earth, and bits o' green a-cling, bedamped, unto her snowy he accepted clairvoyance, and had been convinced by the evidence
limbs. Smocked brown and aproned blue, she seemeth a bit o' for survival after bodily death. Unluckily, Hyslop allowed himself
earth and sky alight amid the field') is to a later generation all too to be swayed by Morton Prince's verdict that there was `nothing of
painfully reminiscent of Cold Comfort Farm, it came over at the scientific importance or interest in the case'; and when the Currans
time as unusual and fresh. More significant, however, was the fact declined to "come east again for another investigation, Hyslop felt
that over 90 per cent of the words used were Anglo-Saxon, a his suspicions had been justified. When, in 1916, Casper Yost's
staggering proportion considering that as early as the fifteenth Patience Worth: a psychic mystery was published, Hyslop took a
century, Anglo-Saxon accounted for only half the words in written hatchet to it in the ASPR Journal, conceding that it was readable,
English. To maintain the 90 per cent would have required a and that some of it might be genuine, but refusing to allow that it
specialist's knowledge of the language, coupled with the consider- had any significance for psychical research.
able labour of fusing the words into sentences. Yet Telka emerged `We are asked to swallow without hesitation the superficial
from the planchette in about thirty-six hours' writing time, inter- statements and beliefs of a newspaper editor who boasts his
spersed with snatches of conversation on various subjects. ignorance of psychic research, and of a publisher who desires to sell
Here, then, was a notable opportunity for psychical researchers his wares,' Hyslop complained. There was no evidence whatever
to carry on their study of multiple personality, particularly as `that a scientific man would regard as conclusive, regarding the
`Patience' occasionally displayed clairvoyant abilities. Asked what origin of the material'. From the point of view of a psychical
Christmas present was on its way to one of the sitters, `Patience' researcher, this was not unreasonable; but Hyslop went on to cast
replied `fifteen pieces and one cracked'; when the set of jars arrived doubt on the trustworthiness of the Currans, alleging that Curran
the next morning, one was cracked. had cast around to secure the endorsement of academic figures
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Science and Parascience The USA
until `some of them discovered that he was only seeking their the ouij a board during part of the evenings of the last two years'. In
interest and endorsement for the purpose of advertisement'; that general the reviews were favourable, the New York Globe's mak-
Curran was familiar with the works of Chaucer, and had briefed his ing the point that the mysterious nature of the authorship was soon
wife accordingly; that Mrs Curran knew the Ozark dialect, which forgotten; `there is nothing queer or spooky about the story itself',
would have helped her, as it contained archaic words; and that and its dramatic construction was `excellent'. Less than a year later
these damaging facts had been deliberately suppressed by Yost. it was followed by Hope Trueblood, a 90,000-word story of life in
These accusations were vigorously rebutted by Yost, and others England in Victorian times; `a masterpiece', the Los Angeles
who had been convinced by `Patience'; and in 1926 Walter Frank- Times reviewer thought. It was well received even in England;
lin Prince, re-examining the evidence, was compelled to admit that attention was not drawn to the ouija board's role in its conception,
Hyslop had been grossly unfair. Curran had not been familiar with and it was treated by most reviewers as just another novel — `of
Chaucer — nor would it have affected the issue even if he had, as decided promise', the Athenaeum's critic thought; `definite and
there was no resemblance between `Patience's' writings and clear cut characterisation, good dialogue, quaint and arresting
Chaucer's. Nor, for that matter, was there any resemblance be- turns of expression, and deep but restrained feeling'. `Patience' in
tween hers and the Ozark dialect. Far from seeking academic other words, was capable of producing books which were market-
endorsement for the purpose of advertisement, the Currans had able in their own right, and which were close enough in their
had to be persuaded to submit to investigation, and had regretted evocation of the periods with which they dealt to qualify as
it. Contemptuous of any unscientific or evasive handling of historical novels, though Mrs Curran had no familiarity with the
psychical research, Prince explained, Hyslop sometimes `gave background.
utterance to expressions not so carefully verified as were his `Patience' was still in action when Walter Prince wrote his book,
conclusions on the basis of experimentation'; and sometimes `a though her output was no longer saleable; as if in embarrassment,
little too readily listened to the unverified assertions of other the literary world which had praised her had been quick to forget
inimical persons'. Hyslop, Prince nevertheless insisted, had main- her. Prince was left in no doubt, however, that she was genuine.
tained that he had never condemned the phenomena of `Patience And this has since left a puzzling problem — several, in fact. They
Worth', and `never declared them spurious'. have been sensibly discussed in Irving Litvag's Singer in the Shad-
If Hyslop had made such a claim, he was himself being evasive. ows, published in 1972; chief among them, whether `Patience' can
In his review of Yost's book he had denounced the case as `a fraud be fitted into the psychological, secondary-personality category
and delusion'; in a passing reference to it a year later he had which the two Princes established. Walter Prince himself argued
remarked that it might have been useful, `but deception of the that shcould not: `I know of no proof that a secondary personal-
public will make more money than the truth'; and in 1918 he had ity, subliminal or alternating, can show ability so tremendously in
referred to Patience's' `lying literary productions'. Hyslop could advance of the primary or normal consciousness.' And his conclu-
have argued that he had never denied the existence of `Patience'; sion was that `either our concept of what we call the subconscious
that he was simply criticising the way in which the Currans had must be radically altered, so as to include potencies of which we
exploited her. But the intemperate language which he used, and hitherto have had no knowledge, or else some cause operating
the readiness with which he accepted unsubstantiated gossip about through, but not originating in, the subconsciousness of Mrs
the Currans, came oddly from a man professing to be concerned Curran must be acknowledged'.
for the maintenance of strict scientific standards. On the other hand, the idea that `Patience' was the returning
The outcome was that `Patience' was not investigated by spirit of a deceased girl of that name presented an even more
psychical researchers in the years when she had most to offer. Her formidable problem: how, in that case, could she have written so
second, and most successful, book — The Sorry Tale, woven perceptively about life in the time of Jesus, let alone about life in
around the story of Jesus — the New York Times reviewer thought, Victorian times? Various explanations have been presented, from
`increased the marvel of the first' simply as a feat of literary cryptomnesia to an ability to tune into the collective unconscious;
composition: well over 300,000 words, and `all spelled out through but no agreement has been reached. After immersing himself in
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the case for two years, Litvag had to admit that if asked, who was card, he concluded that `no trace of an objective thought-
Patience Worth? `I readily confess: I do not have an answer'. But transference is found as a capacity enjoyed in perceptible measure
he points out that `Patience' herself did not want the question to be by any of the individual normal reagents'.
answered; and he ended with one of her farewell poems explaining Schiller, however, had earlier conducted some experiments with
why. It includes the lines an automatist who, in a trance state, had been able to score
significantly above chance on `pure guesses' ; picking up the right
Farewell is a jest card by, presumably, clairvoyance. The results of Coover's
A wasted word. method of controlling his trials, in other words, could be inter-
Yesterday is now, preted as showing the absence of telepathic communication be-
Today is now, tween agents and subjects; but it could also be used as evidence for
And tomorrow too the reality of clairvoyance. By this time, however, the Stanford
Is now
authorities had accepted Coover's demonstration as confirming
that there was no further need to apply the legacy for the purposes
— a curious foretaste of what some physicists were just beginning to which the testator had designated; it was henceforth used in other
present as a tentative explanation of the mystery of Time. projects.
Harvard had also been the recipient of a legacy designed to
promote psychical research, the Hodgson Memorial Fund; but no
The Sceptics use had been made of the money — not surprisingly, with
Muensterberg in the Chair of Psychology — until another benefac-
With the members of the ASPR doing their work for them, tor offered a further sum, sufficient to lead to the appointment of
sceptics had little need to worry about `Patience Worth'; and Leonard Thompson Troland as an investigator. He introduced a
Coover, in this period, had been carrying on at Stanford with few innovations in the course of trials conducted in 1916 and 1917:
telepathy trials along similar lines to those he had conducted subjects had to guess which side of a box was illuminated by lights
earlier. To his satisfaction, they were producing similarly negative switched on in a randomised order; and the method by which
results. He published his findings in Experiments in Psychical the subject made his guesses, pressing a switch, enabled them to
Research in 1917, with the clear aim of impressing his academic be automatically recorded for comparison with the auto-
colleagues that psychologists need no longer be tarred with the matically-recorded light sequence. But though this looked as if it
psychic brush: reviewing it in the SPR's Proceedings, F. C. S. were arkimpressive new way of testing for psychic powers, this was
Schiller remarked that it weighed three pounds and was `hardly not Troland's real objective. He was a monist, who assumed that if
meant to be read, at all events by the general public, to judge by the there was a psychic faculty, it must also be physical, a form of
lengthiness and diffuseness of its style, and the academic jargon in energy transfer; and although he did not expect results, he had the
which it is written'. Unluckily for Coover, however, his new consolation that if he did get them, he could then go on to show
account of how he had conducted the trials exposed a crucial flaw in they were not psychic. Like Coover, he did not attempt to differ-
the design. His method of testing had been to have 100 subjects entiate between individuals; and when, after only 600 trials, he
trying to guess what card the agent was looking at; each subject did found that the proportion of correct guesses was slightly below
100 trials, in half of which the agent had in fact looked at a card, but chance, he decided there was no further need to continue the
in the other, control, half he had not turned the card face upwards, experiment.
so that he did not know what he was `sending'. Some subjects had This came as no surprise to Hyslop; in his Contact with the Other
scored significantly better than would have been expected by World, published in 1919, he quoted a Harvard student who, asked
chance when the sender could see the card; but as they also scored if he would undertake psychical research, replied `not on your life':
significantly better when what Coover assumed must be `pure it would ruin his academic prospects. The `will to disbelieve' was
guesswork' was involved, because the sender had not seen the quite as prevalent as the `will to believe', Hyslop lamented, and `no
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Science and Parascience The USA
more creditable'. For scepticism based on intellectual obstinacy November he dreamt that a young woman had come to him with an
and pride, he felt, there could be no excuse. order for her execution, telling him she was willing to die if he
A few months after the book's publication, Hyslop died. He had would only hold her hand.
rescued the American SPR after Hodgson's death, and kept it
alive for fifteen years largely single-handed; but in 1917 he had Then the light went out and it was dark. I could not tell how she was
put to death, but soon I felt her hand grip mine (my hand), and knew
taken on the assistant who was now to succeed him: Walter that the deed was being done. Then I felt one hand (of mine) on the
Franklin Prince. hair of the head, which was loose and severed from the body and felt
the moisture of blood. Then the fingers of my other hand were caught
in her teeth, and the mouth opened and shut several times as the
Walter Franklin Prince teeth refastened on my hand and I was filled with the horror of the
thought of a severed but living head. Here the dream faded out.
Prince had been led into psychical research by a curious combina-
tion of interests and events. Born in 1863, he had graduated from Prince recounted the dream to the Secretary of the society,
Yale and had studied abnormal psychology; he had then decided to Gertrude Tubby, the following morning, as well as to his wife. On
become an Episcopalian clergyman, and might have remained one 29 November the Evening Telegraph described how — twenty-four
but for two episodes, the first being a nightmare he had in 1902. In hours after his dream — a woman had placed her head in front of
it, he was looking at a train , part of which was in a railway tunnel. the wheels of a train near a Long Island station and had been
`Suddenly, to my horror, another train dashed into it. I saw cars decapitated. Her name accounted for Prince's use of the italics: she
crumple and pile up, and out of the mass of wreckage arose the was Mrs Sarah A. Hand.
cries, sharp and agonised, of the wounded persons.' Then, smoke The story had even more curious twists than simply the coinci-
or steam burst forth, followed by still more agonised cries. At this dence of the name, and what happened. Mrs Hand, it turned out,
point his wife, disturbed by his distressed noises, woke him up; and had been for some time deranged; and a letter she had written, `to
he told her his dream. whom it may concern', explained that she had a theory her head
That morning, shortly after his dream, the rear coaches of an was alive, apart from her body, so she was going to cut it off to
express which was standing partly in the New York Park Avenue prove her case. In his dream, Prince had had a vague notion that
tunnel (about seventy-five miles away from where he was staying) the eecution was connected with the French revolution; and Mrs
were run into by a local train which crushed them, killing and Tubby confirmed in her corroborative statement, written the day
injuring many people. And a newspaper account noted how, some after the crash, how in describing the dream he had recalled an
time after the crash, `to add to the horror of it all, the steam hissed execution `where the eyes had opened and closed several times
out from the shattered engine upon the pinned-down unfortu- after the head was severed'.
nates'. When he later came to relate his dreams, Prince was to make the
The second episode was an encounter with `Doris Fischer' a case point that it was not just the way his dreams were so closely
of multiple personality. Walter Prince and his wife took `Doris' paralleled in reality that made an impression on him; they also had
into their home, eventually adopting her as their daughter and `qualities of emotionality and vividness of imagery to a superlative
restoring her to health; in the process making a close study of the degree'. And although the dream of the `execution', he thought,
different personalities involved, and discovering, among other might be accounted for by telepathy, as the woman who died had
things, that one of them was telepathic. His account of the case, in been worrying about her head's separate life from her body and
which Hyslop collaborated, appeared during the war in the so- had evidently been planning to behead herself to prove her point, it
ciety's publications; and it was then that Hyslop had taken him could hardly be supposed `that the events of the railroad collision
on as assistant. were consciously or latently in the mind of any living person,
In 1917 Prince had another experience of the kind he had had several hours before the occurrence'.
fifteen years before, even more disturbing. On the night of 27-28
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`Senora de Z' pricked. When the object is moistened with alcohol, I have the taste
of alcohol in my mouth, and when a match is brought near the object,
Prince, then, had good reason to be anxious to take the earliest I feel my fingers burnt.
available opportunity to investigate clairvoyance, telepathy and Sometimes her accounts of the `associated object's' past history
precognition more systematically; and shortly after he took over and ownership appeared to indicate straightforward clairvoyance,
from Hyslop one came his way, as if providentially, in the form of a but sometimes they were mixed with telepathy. Thus Pagenstecher
report of an investigation of a medium in Mexico by Gustav gave her a piece of paper on which there was a design for a
Pagenstecher, a German physician who had settled in Mexico City. medallion which he and his wife had planned to have made for a
One of his patients was `Senora de Z.' — Senora Maria Reyes de friend, until they found that the friend was not to be trusted.
Zierold — who had come to him to be treated for insomnia; finding Senora de Z. accurately described the friend, and what she was
that drugs did her no good, Pagenstecher had tried hypnosis, and in doing at the time; but she then described the medallion that the
the course of the treatment she began to tell him of things which friend was wearing, and the description was of the medallion that
she could not have known about through her ordinary senses. Pagenstecher had had designed, but which had not in fact been
Previously sceptical about the `higher phenomena' , he decided to made.
experiment to see whether she could produce them to order; and To Prince's obvious relief, Pagenstecher impressed him on his
he found that she could. She could tell him what he was doing, out arrival in Mexico as `a man of sincerity, an able thinker and patient
of her vision; what he was looking at; what he was tasting. As she investigator of a strong scientific bent'; and Senora de Z. as a
put it, it seemed to her that while in a deep trance her own senses woman of good sense who took a matter-of-fact attitude to her
were not merely blocked, `but transferred to the hypnotist, to such psychometric powers. Soon, Prince felt compelled to accept that
an extent that I feel the pricking of his ears, I taste the sugar or salt ordinary thought-transference between her and her investigators
put on his tongue, and I hear the watch put in the vicinity of his had to be ruled out. He could give her objects in sealed covers,
ears; I also feel the burning sensation whenever a match is brought shuffled so that he did not himself know which was which, and she
near to his fingers'. could describe them; and on occasions when he did know, or
Such `exteriorization of sensibility' , as it had been described, thought he knew, about the object, he would invariably find if she
under hypnosis had been extensively demonstrated in Europe in disagreed with him that she was right. When he handed her what he
trials before the First World War; but with orthodox psychologists took to be a `sea-bean', a seaweed pod which he had picked up on a
taking the same course as Pierre Janet and Morton Prince, and beach, nd she described its source as `tall tropical trees growing in
having nothing to do with the `higher phenomena', the study had a forest near some water', Prince said she had got it wrong;
been neglected. Pagenstecher, however, had determined to carry Pagenstecher replied that from past experience `I bet on her horse,
on his research by seeing what else `Senora de Z.' could do; and he rather than yours'. Pagenstecher won his bet; a botanist informed
began trying her out with psychometry — giving her an object to them that the object was not, as Prince had assumed, a seaweed
hold, and noting her reactions. pod, but a nut from a tree of the species she had described — a nut,
Spiritualist mediums often asked for, say, a ring or a hand- too, of a kind that often fell into a river to be washed down to the
kerchief belonging to the `communicator' with whom contact was seandvtulycpoabeh.
desired, as if they helped to tune in the `control'. Senora de Z. was Again and again, Senora de Z. was on target in her psychometry.
able to describe the process. In her trance, she explained, her On one occasion, given a carefully wrapped object, she said it was a
senses would be taken over by the hypnotist, farewell message from a man on a sinking ship to his wife and
but as soon as the psychometric vision is completely `focussed', i.e. children, and gave a description of the man. The object was in fact
when catalepsy is complete and the vision clear cut, then a most a piece of paper with the message, which had been found in a bottle
interesting phenomenon has always been observed: all my senses washed up in the Azores; and the widow, when contacted, con-
seem to be concentrated on the `associated object' only. I feel the firmed that the description of her husband was accurate, in particu-
pricking of the object with a needle, as if my fingers were being lar the fact he was badly scarred above his right eyebrow. Even if
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Senora de Z. had been able to read the paper, it would have given McDougall argued, was a mistake: `If we are to discuss these
her no clue to the man's appearance; yet she had got it right. strange cases with profit, we must give rein to speculation.' There
The same applied in one of Prince's tests, where he gave her a were no established facts in this area: there might be many psychic
letter which she `read' placed between her hands. He had taken it entities within each organism, but `it may be that, as Mr. H. G.
from an old file, knowing only that a clergyman had written it; she Wells has suggested in one of his weird stories, disembodied souls
not merely read the letter, and described the clergyman, but also are crowding thickly about us, each striving to occupy some
made a number of statements about him, his church, his travels, nervous system and so become restored to a full life of sense and
and so on, to which the letter gave no clue. Checking on the motion and human fellowship'.
thirty-eight statements , Prince found that three of them could not In Body and Mind, published in 1911, McDougall had preached
be verified, but the rest were all literally correct. A mathematician, a return to Animism — the theory that, as he defined it, `those
asked to work out the odds against her guessing them by chance, manifestations of life and mind which distinguish the living man
reckoned they were around 5,000,000,000,000,000 to one. from the corpse and from inorganic bodies are due to the operation
Prince would have been justified in claiming that Senora De Z. within him of something which is of a nature different from that of
had provided the best and most consistent evidence for mental the body, an animating principle generally, but not necessarily or
psychic phenomena that had been acquired since serious research always, conceived as an immaterial and individual being or soul'.
into them had begun. Manifestly she could not have cheated; nor In other words he was in the Vitalist tradition, which during the
could she and Pagenstecher have been in collusion, as his own tests past century had come to be rejected in favour of materialism,
had independently confirmed Pagenstecher's findings. All that except by a few fellow Animists — chief among them William
sceptics could have argued was that he too had been in collusion James and Bergson. And like them, he looked with favour on the
with Pagenstecher and Senora de Z.; as doubtless they would have evidence for telepathy as adding support to his Animist theory.
done, if pressed. But what happened in Mexico did not need to be The penultimate chapter of Body and Mind had been devoted to
taken too seriously. Pagenstecher was not a well-known figure in `the bearing of the results of "psychical research" on the psycho-
the world of science; and Prince was only starting on his career in physical problem'. Although a great deal of evidence had accumu-
psychical research. It was easier simply to ignore the findings. lated pointing to the survival of the human personality after the
death, of the body, McDougall felt that it was not yet strong enough
to convince an open-minded doubter, and consequently did not
qualify as a verification of Animism. Still, psychical research had,
William McDougall to his mind, furnished one very important positive result by
Psychical research in America now welcomed a recruit whom it establishing the occurrence of `phenomena that are incompatible
would not be easy to ignore: Wi ll iam McDougall. with the mechanist assumption' ; such as telepathy. Although he
Like W. H. R. Rivers, with whom he had many affinities, could not present all the evidence for telepathy in his book, `it must
McDougall had trained both as a doctor and as an anthropologist suffice to say that it is of such a nature as to compel the assent of any
before taking up psychology and making it his career; and as early competent person who studies it impartially'.
as 1907, reviewing Morton Prince's work on `Sally Beauchamp' in In particular McDougall was impressed by the evidence pro-
the SPR Proceedings, he had drawn attention to what he regarded vided in the cross-correspondences. It was possible to argue the
as a flaw in Prince's interpretation of the evidence: `To assert, as Dr case that the messages came not from the surviving personalities of
Prince does, that Sally is a split-off fragment of Miss B. is to the deceased, but through some immensely complex interaction
maintain that the part may be greater than the whole.' Prince, he between people thousands of miles apart; `unless, though, we are
thought, appeared to have `set out with the conviction that every prepared to adopt the supposition of a senseless and motiveless
case of multiple personality is to be regarded as resulting from conspiracy of fraud among a number of persons who have shown
dissociation of a normal personality, and to have allowed this themselves to be perfectly upright and earnest in every other
prejudice to limit the range of his search for hypotheses'. This, relation [and his personal knowledge of some of them rendered the
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Science and Parascience The USA
supposition ridiculous], we must recognise that we stand before the Troland's poor use of the Hodgson Memorial Fund, Schiller
dilemma — survival, or telepathy of this far-reaching kind'; and expressed the hope that McDougall would see that it was put to
either was `fatal to the mechanistic scheme of things'. some more effective purpose; and as soon as he arrived,
During the war, McDougall had served in the Royal Army McDougall linked up with Prince, taking over the Presidency of
Medical Corps; and after his return to academic life he received an the American society but leaving Prince to run it and to edit the
invitation to take up the Presidency of the SPR, left vacant by the Journal and Proceedings. Immediately they set about shifting the
death of Lord Rayleigh. In his Presidential Address, McDougall emphasis away from the search for evidence for survival, which
felt bound to defend his sceptical academic colleagues, insisting had been Hyslop's main concern, to more mundane issues. Accor-
that one of the reasons why most of them held aloof from psychical dingly Prince went to Europe to attend the first International
research was `by no means discreditable': they felt a sense of Congress for Psychical Research at Copenhagen in 1921, there to
responsibility to the pub li c. see what could be done to improve international co-operation; and
Men of science are afraid lest, if they give an inch in this matter, the McDougall set up an Advisory Scientific Council in Boston with a
public will take an ell and more. They are afraid that the least display solid academic composition.
of interest or acquiescence on their part may promote a great Psychologists, McDougall had realised, felt their responsibility
outburst of superstition on the part of the pub li c, a relapse into belief to the public even more acutely than other scientists. That was why
in witchcraft, necromancy, and the black arts generally, with all the so few of them had joined the SPR. They might be willing to work
moral evils which must accompany the prevalence of such beliefs. with the society's `right wing' — by which he had in mind those
For they know that it is only through the faithful work of the men of psychologists who, like Janet, Morton Prince and Bramwell, might
science during very recent centuries that these debasing beliefs have still be members, but who had in effect moved themselves out of
been in large measure banished from a small part of the world; they psychical research when their own field of research came to be
know that, throughout the rest of the world, these superstitions granted a measure of academic legitimacy; perhaps also the Cam-
continue to flourish, ready at any moment to invade and overwhelm
those small areas of enlightment.
bridge nucleus, with whom McDougall was well acquainted, and
who could be trusted not to cause embarrassment by allowing
McDougall nevertheless insisted that psychical research of the themselves to be deluded by dubious mediums, as the `left wing'
kind the society had been doing was necessary. It did not increase werd prone to do. Significantly, in his chapter on psychical research
the risk of a relapse into superstition, in Body and Mind McDougall had not even mentioned telekinesis,
rather it is our best defence against it. For Pandora's box has been let alone the physical phenomena of mediumship. What the left
opened, the lid has been slightly lifted, and we are bound to go on wing wére doing might be necessary, he conceded; but it must not
and to explore its remotest corner and cranny. It is not only or chiefly be allowed to frighten away academic psychologists.
the work of this Society that has raised the lid a little and exposed us In setting up the council McDougall clearly aimed to implement
to this danger. The culture of Europe has for a brief period rested these views. It would bring sceptical psychologists together with
upon the twin supports of dogmatic affirmation and dogmatic denial, the right wing of the American society, together with a few of the
of orthodox religion and scientific materialism. But both of these more reasonable members from the left, such as Dr Elwood
supports are crumbling, both alike sapped by the tide of free enquiry. Worcester, who was academically respectable but had spiritualist
And it is the supreme need of our time that these two pillars of affinities. Doubtless McDougall hoped that the rest of the left
dogmatism shall be replaced by a single solid column of knowledge would be gratified, and with luck overawed, by the council's
on which our culture may securely rest. It is the policy of sitting on composition. Far from it: senior members who had shared Hys-
the lid of the box that is risky; a danger and threat to our civilisation.
lop's views (and since he had been the dominant force in the society
McDougall had not been President long before he received an for so many years, many of them did) were aghast when they saw
invitation to take over the Chair of Philosophy at Harvard — the list of psychologists on McDougall's council: among them
ironically, from Muensterberg, who for two decades had been the Coover of Stanford, Troland of Harvard and Jastrow of Wisconsin.
chief scourge of the psychical researchers in America. Reviewing Jastrow, in particular, had long made it clear that his interest in
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Science and Parascience The USA
psychical research was purely destructive: he had described tele- the investigation because `Margery' and her brother `Walter'
pathy as `a complex conglomerate, in which imperfectly recognised quickly became the talk of Boston.
modes of sensation, hyperesthesia and hysteria, fraud, conscious `Margery' was the name by which Mina Crandon was to become
and unconscious, chance, collusion, similarity of mental processes, known to the public in articles, before her identity was disclosed;
an expectant interest in presentiments and a belief in their signi- and as it was to stick, for convenience it can be used to refer to her
ficance, nervousness and ill-health, illusions of memory, hallucina- in her trance condition, during seances. Born in 1888, Mina had
tions, suggestion, contagion and other elements enter into the grown up in Canada, her closest family tie being with her elder
composition'. brother Walter until, in 1911, he was killed in an accident. By that
If a Lutheran community had been told that Torquemada was to time she had moved to Boston, and married; and in 1918 she
become one of their bishops, they could hardly have been more obtained a divorce to marry LeRoi Goddard Crandon, a surgeon
appalled than the society's trustees. The fact that its headquarters with an academic post at Harvard and a lucrative Boston practice.
were in New York enabled them to get together in 1923 to elect a Although intolerant of religions, Crandon was impressed by a talk
new President, the Rev. Frederick Edwards, without consulting he heard Oliver Lodge give on spiritualism, and read the books
McDougall, though he was himself a member of the board; and Lodge recommended to him; among them Crawford's. He also
Edwards promptly ousted Walter Prince from the editorship of the began to listen more sympathetically to the spiritualist case, put by
society's publications, taking the opportunity to write in praise of his friend Dr Mark Richardson; and on 27 May 1923 he invited a
Conan Doyle, then on a tour of the United States promoting small group of friends to his Boston home to try a little table-
spiritualism and the physical phenomena of mediumship. turning. So striking were the table's movements that one of the
McDougall resigned from the board; effectively the Boston group company, it was realised, must surely have psychic powers. By a
of which he was the leader, and of which Prince was to become the process of elimination — the sitters leaving the room one by one —
most active member, split off from the main New-York-based the psychic was found to be Mina.
section of the society, though the formal breach was delayed for a Soon, she was producing some of the phenomena Crandon had
couple of years. read about in Crawford's descriptions of his work with the
Goligher circle — along with some that were even more startling.
On one occasion the seance-room table harassed a visiting doctor,
actually pursuing him out into the corridor and through to a
`Margery' bedroom, where it pushed him on to the bed: `then, on request for
What McDougall most needed was a project which would provide more, the table started downstairs after him, when we stopped it to
him with the chance to convince the doubters — and perhaps even save the wall plaster'. The phenomena appeared to follow the
some of the sceptics — on the council that psychical research instructions of `Margery's' `controls', one of whom was soon to
needed to be taken seriously. By one of those quirks of Fate with dominate the proceedings — her brother `Walter'.
which the history of parapsychology has been littered, an oppor- `Walter' was a character, in the spirit as in life: rumbustious,
tunity straightway presented itself in Boston, but of precisely the argumentative, even foul-mouthed. He instructed the sitters in
kind which he least cared about: a medium — a medium, too, not what they must do and what they must not do; described what was
on the model of Mrs Piper or Mrs Osborne Leonard, but an exuder going to happen next; and provided an acerbic running commen-
of ectoplasm which was alleged to form itself, as Eusapia's had tary on the proceedings. Initially they were informal, but gradually
done, into `pseudopods', capable of playing silly tricks. Perhaps the procedure was tightened up, to satisfy sceptical acquaintances
worse still, from McDougall's viewpoint, was that the medium's and investigators; and for a decade, `Margery' became the central
control, unlike `Phinuit' or `Feda', not merely had a recognisable issue of psychical research in the United States.
identity as the medium's deceased brother; his voice and manner The `Margery' case could fill several volumes — and indeed has;
proclaimed him to be, if not the original, an uncommonly exact but a biography written half a century later by Thomas R. Tietze
copy. Nevertheless McDougall had little choice but to undertake provides a useful short introduction. Of the three possibilities —
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Science and Parascience The USA
that `Margery' was entirely genuine, that she was entirely fraudu- her appearance. Her `cabinet' was rather more like a cabinet than
lent; and that the genuine and the fraudulent were mixed — he mediums usually settled for, as it looked like a squat sentry box;
rules out the first, leaving it up to the reader to decide between the but as it was open at the front, and large enough for an investigator
other two. At first sight this is puzzling, as the tone of the book is who wanted to check on her to sit beside her, it was not too
sceptical. Yet it was a wise decision, because should the physical daunting. And although the seances were normally held in dark-
phenomena of mediumship ever be demonstrated in ways suf- ness, apart from an occasional flash of `red light', the outline of
ficient to secure their acceptance even as a possibility, the Mina's body was picked out by luminous pins stuck into her
`Margery' case will have to be reopened and reassessed. kimono, and luminous bands round her wrists and ankles. Or,
The chief interest of the `Margery' story lies less in what it has to sometimes, her wrists and ankles were attached to the cabinet with
tell us about the physical phenomena of mediumship, than in its picture wire. Control — confusingly, the term continued in use to
demonstration of the inability of researchers to investigate them describe the precautions, as well as spirit guides — was also main-
satisfactorily. Partly this was because of the elusive nature of the tained by investigators holding her hands or feet. What they
phenomena; partly because few of the researchers had any experi- observed and reported during the seances was recorded by a
ence in this field (and fewer still took the trouble even to acquaint note-taker, and on a dictaphone; and the transcript was signed by
themselves with the work of, say, Richet, let alone of Crawford). all present, though sitters could make individual additions or
Those who were experienced, too, tended to bring their precon- qualifications if they wished.
ceptions and prejudices along with them, which left them incap- There were certain features of the sittings, however, which
able of detachment. Rival factions consequently developed, lead- militated against belief even by sympathetic witnesses that they
ing to internecine feuds. To an outside observer, Stewart Griscom were genuinely productive of psychic phenomena. One was that
of the Boston Herald was to comment, the `Margery' saga was Crandon was usually (though not invariably) in control of
`profoundly and sardonically humorous, with almost a Molière 'Margery's' right hand and foot. In view of Crawford's findings of
touch. It has mystery, veiled motivations, true tragedy, howling the way that Kate Goligher appeared to gather strength from her
farce, and a pervading aura straight from Alice in Wonderland. family circle, this was not so suspicious as it seemed; and Crandon
Almost everybody involved shoots off at tangents; respected was himself controlled on his right side, so that at the worst, all he
clergymen and savants suddenly become voluble liars; there are could do was to let go of 'Margery's' hand or foot — a move which
meaningless statements apropos of nothing; logic and normality ought to have been immediately visible to other members of the
take extended holidays.' For those involved there were more circle, so long as the luminous bands were secured round her wrists
saddening elements. In particular, the American Society for and ankles. In any case, the fact that Crandon was sitting beside
Psychical Research was split apart, a wound which was not to be her, and was himself controlled on the other side, meant that he
healed until the Second World War. could not be held responsible for the distant raps, the music, the
On two issues there was no serious conflict of evidence. The luminosities and the movements and levitations of objects ren-
phenomena were striking, even if unoriginal: raps from all parts of dered visible with luminous paint, which continually featured —
the seance rooms; `Walter's' voice; levitations; movements of unless the Crandons were using some gadget such as a telescopic
objects; `pseudopods', which touched and nudged sitters with `arm', with a `hand' and `fingers', and no such elaborate contrap-
ghostly fingers; ectoplasm, which was periodically captured on tion was ever found.
film, when `red light' was permitted. And the Crandons were not A more serious disadvantage, from the point of view of the
the kind of people whom it was easy to suspect of trickery. Sceptics investigators, was the darkness. Members of the circle might be
and believers alike found Mina attractive and engaging, and her able to satisfy themselves, thanks to the luminous paint and the
husband a rock of good sense. They allowed precautions to be occasional flashes of `red light', that the Crandons could not have
taken: investigators were encouraged to search the rooms in which moved from their seats; but only rarely was the light permitted
the seances took place. Mina also allowed herself to be searched, good enough for witnesses to see clearly what was happening. It
before she put on a kimono, silk stockings and slippers, and made had been the suspicion aroused, often rightly, at dark seances
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Science and Parascience The USA
which had prompted Home to express regret, after his retirement, tricks were perpetrated, in spite of the increasing rigour of the
about the occasions when he had given them. He knew that the precautions taken to ensure that neither `Margery' nor the Cran-
psychic force seemed more powerful, the less the light; but the dons nor anybody else could be physically responsible for what was
doubts raised in sitters' minds had meant that this was offset by a happening. But eventually, following a seance in which a piano
more than equivalent loss in credibility. stool `danced' to music, moving several feet in the process, Helson
The most disturbing feature of 'Margery's' seances, however, found an eight-inch piece of string on the floor. McDougall sum-
was that part played in them by `Walter'. It was he who dictated moned Mina to his office, and told her they had caught her out at
whether the `red light' could flash, or whether one of the sitters last: the movement of objects in the seances, they now knew, had
would be permitted to feel the `teleplasm' emanating from the been contrived by attaching string to them, which an accomplice
medium to move the distant objects. Here, sceptics and spiritual- could tug at through the ventilator in the wall. By her own account
ists alike could feel justified in being suspicious: the spiritualists Mina left him in a fit of the giggles. Even if so obvious a device had
because `Walter's' behaviour and language were embarrassingly not been detected in careful searches which the investigators had
unspiritual; the sceptics because, hard though it would have been invariably made of the room, she knew that the ventilator had been
for them to accept the reality of telekinetic forces, they found the blocked up years before.
notion that such forces could be exploited by any spirit, particular-
ly so earthy a character, as grotesque. Home had been spared this
objection, as his `controls', if he had them, did not obtrude The Scientific American Investigation
themselves; and although Eusapia had her `John King' he kept for
the most part in the background. But `Walter' was autocratic, full That same day, the Crandons were visited by James Malcolm Bird,
associate editor of the Scientific American. Bird had had a scientific
of himself and his powers; and inevitably this nurtured suspicion training — he had in fact taught at Columbia University; and
that his instructions were a device which the Crandons could
exploit whenever they needed to extricate themselves from dif- becoming interested in the problems posed by psychical research,
he had persuaded his publisher, Orson Munn, to put up a sub-
ficulties. stantial prize — $5000 — to go to anybody who could produce
conclusive evidence of psychic phenomena: half for the first per-
son who produced a psychic photograph under controlled con-
The First Harvard Investigation ditions, half for the first who produced visible psychic mani-
However obnoxious the physical phenomena of mediumship were festations (telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition did not
to McDougall, `Margery' offered him an unusually satisfactory qualify). A number of hopefuls presented themselves for test-
opportunity to test them, in that LeRoi and Mina Crandon were ing, but though some phenomena were observed, none was con-
agreeable and hospitable, and unlike most mediums lived in a good sidered satisfactory enough to merit granting the award. But
house in a good neighbourhood. He was assisted by two of his among those who had suggested the names of possible psychics
students, Harry Helson and Gardner Murphy. The Crandons were to Bird was Conan Doyle; and one of his suggestions had been
co-operative; but `Walter', as if amused by McDougall's clear Mina Crandon.
assumption that trickery must be involved, took a perverse pleas- Like almost everybody who met her, Bird found her most
ure in laying on not only the usual effects, but others of a kind attractive, intelligent and amusing. Still chortling over
which would demonstrate to him that cheating by the medium was McDougall's allegation, she showed him the long-blocked-up
out of the question. Thus when McDougall elected to sit in the ventilator and jestingly invented various other ludicrous devices by
cabinet with the entranced `Margery', the better to watch her, the which she proposed to deceive him and the Scientific American
cabinet was quietly dismantled around them, the screws being investigating team. `My dominant impression of her,' he wrote,
removed and put in a heap outside the circle. `was of mental alertness; and she has a sense of humor quite as
The autumn of 1923 went by without any indication of how the wicked as my own.' To show that she bore McDougall no grudge,
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Science and Parascience The USA
too, she raised no objection to his being one of the Scientific telegraph-type key was pressed down, the key being out of the
American's team. Crandons' reach — sometimes when sitters were actually holding
To outward appearances, the team was well balanced: the box in their hands. And when Bird decided to satisfy himself
McDougall; Hereward Carrington; Walter Prince; Dr Daniel that `Margery' could not be responsible for the effects, by sitting in
Comstock, a physicist from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- the `cabinet' alongside her, `Walter' laid on an impressive demon-
nology; and Harry Houdini. Houdini's commitments prevented stration for his benefit by ripping off the whole wing of the cabinet
him from attending the early sittings; but in view of the scepticism on the side where Bird was sitting, and then dragging the remains
of both McDougall and Prince, there was no risk that the commit- around the room, carrying the two of them in it.
tee would be easily swayed in the medium's favour. Eventually `Margery' began producing a pseudopod which felt
The members of the committee, however, were unlikely to reach like an extended arm, with a hand and fingers capable of touching
an agreed verdict. By this time it was widely assumed that if an and gripping objects. Although it was allergic to light, which
investigator had accepted that a physical medium was genuine, as inevitably aroused suspicion, the investigators could feel it, and
Carrington had with Eusapia, he ceased to be impartial: he became observe that it appeared solid when it passed between them and
a `believer'. Carrington, too, was looked down upon in academic objects lit by luminous paint. And they could satisfy themselves
circles; he had a degree, but it had been purchased, in his youth, that it was neither Mina's real arm nor a telescopic extension, as it
from one of the many colleges which traded in this commodity. It emerged while her hands were controlled — and could be seen to
made no difference that his knowledge of mediums' trickery was be controlled, from the luminous bands round her wrists. Carring-
encylopedic; and the fact that he was a prolific writer of books on ton expressed himself satisfied; and Bird was sufficiently impressed
psychical research for the popular market was a further strike to write a favourable interim report in the Scientific American. The
against him. His opinion would count for little, unless it was story was picked up in the newspapers, one of them claiming that
critical. McDougall and Prince, though both sincerely believed even Houdini had been baffled. As he had not been able to attend,
they brought open minds to the investigation, were both so deeply Houdini was understandably indignant; and he arrived in Boston
suspicious of physical mediums that they would not find it easy to to take charge of the proceedings.
judge what they witnessed dispassionately. P ri nce attended few At this point the investigation began to fall apart. From every
sittings; in any case, he should not have accepted the role of referee point of view except one, Houdini was admirably suited to be one
because he was very deaf, and as the seances would be largely in of the investigators. He knew all, or nearly all, the tricks of his
darkness, he would be deprived of the use of two senses. As for trade; he had considerable experience of unmasking spurious
Comstock, his role was chiefly to find whether there was a physical mediums; and he had observed physical phenomena with `Eva C.'
force — electro-magnetic, say — which could be detected. Unex- But by 1924 he had ceased even to pretend to himself that he could
pectedly, the decisive voice in the committee was Bird's. As he was conduct a dispassionate investigation. His sole interest was in the
present at almost all the sessions, whereas the others attended only exposure of what he took to be a wicked conspiracy to defraud the
sporadically, he soon became the most active participant. bereaved.
The phenomena were even more abundant for this team than for
its predecessor. The sitters witnessed phosphorescent lights and
movements of objects at a distance from the medium, as well as
feeling touches from invisible hands while both Crandon and Houdini
`Margery' were under their control. In addition, `Walter' made Houdini was fifty, at the height of his fame. His Hungarian parents,
good his boast that he could manipulate a pair of scales which Samuel and Cecilia Weiss, had christened him Erich; but when, in
Comstock had brought along as a contribution to the tests, in light his teens, he read the memoirs of the most celebrated conjuror of
just good enough to show that nobody was touching them. Scores the previous era, Robert-Houdin, he took the name Houdini, and
of times, too, `Walter' managed to ring an electric bell in a box resolved to become even greater. He was subsequently to regret
designed by the investigators, so that it sounded only when a that he had unwittingly lowered himself in his own and others'
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Science and Parascience The USA
estimation by identifying himself with Houdin , whom he dispar- For a while Houdini's respect for Doyle made him investigate
aged — revealing in the process that he could be unscrupulous in physical mediumship seriously — or so he claimed in his corre-
twisting evidence, the better to distance himself from the man he spondence. His real attitude, though, was probably better revealed
had so greatly admired. in an episode described by Milbourne Christopher in Houdini: the
Professional magicians had waged war with spiritualist mediums Untold Story. Visiting the grave of his old friend the magician
for years; partly because psychic powers, if they could be ex- Lafayette, who had been buried, along with a dog which Houdini
ploited, would put the straight conjuror out of business; partly had given him, in an Edinburgh cemetery, Houdini brought
because duplicating the mental and physical phenomena of flowers in two pots, and said, `Lafayette: give us a sign you are
mediumship on stage was both easy and lucrative; partly because here'.
exposing mediums was a good way to attract publicity. Houdini's
attitude, however, was rather more ambivalent than most. He Both pots overturned, as if a spirit hand had swept them to the
wanted to be regarded as the greatest stage magician of all time, ground; Houdini set them upright. Again they crashed to the
which entailed repudiating any form of psychic assistance. But he ground. `This time they fell with such force that the pots broke. A
spiritualist would have concluded that the ghost of the great illusion-
did not reject psychic forces out of hand. ist had made its presence known. Houdini had a more rational
One of his tricks, in fact, was based on his use of what at the time explanation. `It was all very strange, yet I do not attribute what
was regarded as an occult power. Indian yogis could train them- happened to anything other than the high wind which was blowing at
selves to go into a state of what appeared to be suspended the time.'
animation: Houdini, using breathing exercises, followed their
example so that he could remain alive in a sealed casket, dunked in Houdini was never at a loss for a rationalist explanation of this
a river, for far longer than seemed humanly possible. He must have kind; but at least in this period he had been prepared to accept that
some concealed source of air, his fellow magicians insisted. He some of the phenomena he witnessed were inexplicable in ordinary
could not persuade them that what he was doing was not a conjuring terms. Feeble though the phenomena which `Eva C.'
conjuring trick — merely an exploitation of a technique which had had been able to produce in her London trials in 1920, Houdini had
been used in India for centuries. been impressed, as he showed in his correspondence not just with
A psychic asset, according to Doyle, which Houdini possessed Doyle, but also with Crawford, whom he had hoped to visit in
and exploited, though he did not care to admit to it in public, was Belfast: `It is certainly a wonderful affair, and there is no telling
an `inner voice' which told him what to do. Very possibly Houdini how far all this may lead.' Unluckily he did not witness a seance
did not regard it as psychic, either; he may have assumed it was the with the Golighers, contenting himself with asking Crawford for
equivalent of the voice of conscience. He could take the risks he photographs, as he was going back to America. And following his
did — risks which no other magician has cared to take — because he return there, he was to become more aggressively sceptical as time
was confident that his voice would assure him of his safety, so long passed, incorporating material into his stage acts to show how
as he obeyed it. The tricks, in other words, were tricks; but without fraudulent mediums did their tricks.
the `guidance', he would not have dared to play them. Although Houdini still insisted that he was not attacking spiri-
Houdini was also interested in spiritualism for a personal reason. tualism as such, and that he still wanted to believe in it, his book, A
`If God in his infinite wisdom ever sent an angel upon earth in Magician among the Spirits, published in 1924, dredged up every
human form,' he wrote in the introduction to his A Magician scrap of evidence he could find to show that mediums were `human
Among the Spirits, `it was my mother.' After she died in 1913, he vultures'. Much of the evidence, however, was dubious, and some
longed to continue to communicate with her. But although period- of it false. Even Walter Prince, greatly though he admired
ically he was offered communications from her, including one Houdini — `I knew him well, and the world seemed poorer
through Lady Doyle, they never satisfied him; and the obvious when his big heart and eager brain were stilled' — had to
spuriousness of some of the messages helped to turn him against admit that the book was `strewn with blunders', a string of which
spiritualism. he listed in The Enchanted Boundary. There were others which
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Science and Parascience The USA
Prince did not list; and his excuse for Houdini — `bias is less signed. It looked like an old-fashioned steam bath, with a hole for
reprehensible in a book which professes from the beginning to the her neck and two for her arms.
end to be an assault, than it would be in what professes to be a The box had been constructed, Houdini explained, to make it
history' — itself effectively disposed of any claim the book had to impossible for `Margery' to get out; and as Walter Prince would be
be taken seriously. holding one of her hands and Houdini himself the other, she would
Houdini was by this time incapable of separating fact from be powerless to play her usual tricks. Hardly had the seance begun,
invention. When George Valiantine, one of the best known however, when the lid burst open; and Houdini's explanation, that
mediums in America, offered to demonstrate his powers to the `Margery' must have used her shoulders to heave it up, invited the
Scientific American committee, and it was found that during the question how she could have used such force without Houdini and
manifestations he was not in his chair, Houdini not merely released Prince noticing any change in the tension of her hands. Then, when
the story to the press, in spite of the agreement that all accounts of the lid was closed again, `Walter' came through and denounced
trials were to be published first in the Scientific American; he Houdini in unprintable terms for interfering with the bell-box.
actually boasted that he had exposed Valiantine, though he had Examining it, Comstock found that a small rubber eraser had been
not been responsible for the device which revealed that Valiantine wedged into it to make it harder to ring. Houdini disclaimed
was not sitting where he was supposed to be. responsibility; but as he had been responsible for checking it,
By the time Houdini arrived to investigate `Margery' he had by `Margery' had clearly won the first round.
his own admission already compromised himself, as he had told the For the second, Houdini and Collins reinforced the lid of the
publisher of the Scientific American: `I will forfeit a thousand `cabinet' and `Margery' was locked in. Again. `Walter' came
dollars if I do not detect her if she resorts to trickery.' Theoretically
this left it open to him to admit that she did not resort to trickery.
But in practice he had burned his boats; he had been on a lecture
tour of the United States as advance publicity for his book, and on
it he had vehemently denounced spiritualism as the cause of
distress, madness and suicide. He could not, at this stage, have
backed down; a mutual friend in fact showed Doyle a letter in
which Houdini made it clear that his simple intention was to expose
the Crandons. --
He did not find it easy. In the first two sessions, although
Houdini claimed he had proved `Margery' had rung the bell in the
bell-box by using her foot and moved the table in front of her by
getting her head underneath it, his argument took no account of
the possibility that the motive force might be supplied by pseudo-
pods. He wanted to boast of his exposure; but the other members
of the committee, who were not convinced, reminded him of his
duty to the Scientific American, and it was agreed to hold further
trials a month later.
This time, Houdini determined to run things his way. Bird, he
insisted, must be excluded, as he had already committed himself to
the `Margery' camp (as had Carrington, who felt there was no
further need to attend). Crandon must not be allowed to control
either of 'Margery's' hands; and `Margery' must be encased in a
cabinet which Houdini and his assistant, James Collins, had de- `Margery' in the Houdini cage.
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Science and Parascience The USA
through with a volley of oaths: `Houdini, you ... blackguard! You expressed their reservations about 'Margery's' ability to produce
have put a rule in the cabinet. You ... ! Remember, Houdini, you effects when totally enclosed. The other investigators, too, were
won't live for ever. Some day, you have got to die!' The cabinet was irritated with Houdini, whom they had hoped would settle the
opened, and there was a rule which, if her hands had been issue; instead, he had botched it. One further seance was held. It
released, `Margery' might in theory have been able to convey to happened to be a blank — not an unusual occurrence with
her mouth and use to ring the bell in the box, and perhaps play `Margery', as with other mediums; but it provided the excuse to
other tricks. Again, Houdini denied that either he or Collins was terminate the investigation for the time being. As things turned
responsible; but as only they had had access to the cabinet, he was out, it was not to be resumed.
reduced to blaming the woman he had employed to search Mina
before the seance.
According to one of Houdini's biographers, Lindsay Gresham,
Collins was later to admit: `I chucked it in the box myself. The boss Dingwall's Investigation
told me to do it. 'E wanted to fix her good'; and when reminded While the Scientific American committee was in suspended anima-
that Houdini had given his `sacred word of honour' that the first he tion, Dingwall arrived in Boston to investigate `Margery' on behalf
knew of the rule in the box was when `Walter' had informed him, of the SPR. He had been present at a sitting in London, when the
Collins replied `There's one thing you got to remember about Crandons were on a visit the previous winter; and in good light he
Mister 'Oudini in his last years. For 'im the truth was bloody well had witnessed a table levitation which, as he was to recall in his
what 'e wanted it to be.' Milbourne Christopher, himself a magi- report of his Boston enquiry in the society's Proceedings, was an
cian — and a sceptic — has since dismissed the story as `sheer indication — assuming that it was supernormal — of `remarkable
fiction' on the ground that it had been reported by somebody who incipient mediumship'. In Boston his objective was to conduct tests
felt he had been disparaged by Houdini. Yet Christopher himself through which he could satisfy himself whether it was supernormal
has provided a hitherto unpublished story revealing Houdini's or not. For him the case was `perhaps the most important of its kind
attitude, provided by his old friend Willard B. Greene. Houdini hitherto presented for the consideration of psychical researchers';
had given Greene a roll of film taken during one of the sessions at if genuine it would, he thought, be `the most remarkable hitherto
the Crandons', with the injunction not to let it out of his sight until recorded'.
it had been developed, and then to send it on by registered mail. The Crandons impressed Dingwall. Mina was a `highly intelli-
Examining the prints when they were developed, Greene found gent and charming young woman, exceedingly good-natured and
they were uninteresting shots of the medium and her investigators, possessed of a fund of humour and courage which make her an
except for one, when there was a strange blur, `almost a halo', ideal subject for investigation' ; her husband `a hard-working and
above the medium's head. When Houdini's pamphlet claiming to skilful surgeon, of wide reading, and possessing extensive knowl-
have exposed `Margery' appeared, it contained one of the photo- edge of many social questions and problems'. If the phenomena
graphs — but not the one with the halo. Believers might think it was were fraudulent — and there was `little, if any, direct evidence in
ectoplasm, Houdini explained. `You know as well as I do, Willard, support of such a supposition' — the two must, Dingwall felt, be in
that she is a fake. Why should I help build up her following?' collusion, and the only reason he could think of for this was that a
Nevertheless Houdini would have been rash to entrust the rule hoax designed to discredit spiritualism might appeal to Crandon's
to his assistant. The more probable explanation of its appearance `fervent rationalism'.
in the box was that he himself, certain that she was `a fake' but Dingwall conscientiously supervised the arrangements for the
impressed by her skill, had put the rule into the `cabinet' as a form sittings. There were some problems: the fact that Crandon usually
of insurance, so that even if she did succeed in impressing Prince controlled his wife's right hand meant, in effect, that it could not be
and Comstock during the seance, he would have a let-out. regarded as properly controlled. Yet initially this did not greatly
If, at this point, the Crandons had declined to continue with the worry Dingwall, as he hoped that the phenomena might prove to
tests, they would have had a good case. From the start they had be of a kind which carry conviction whether or not her right hand
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Science and Parascience The USA
was controlled. As he was to explain, having arrived with two mass. And sure enough, the next red flash showed a fairly well-
possible hypotheses in mind — that the phenomena were genuine, formed hand lying on top of Mr Dingwall's hand, while at previous
or that they were spurious — his aim was to start his investigation sight only the unformed teleplasm was seen.
on the assumption that the first hypothesis was correct, and to In the photographs the `hand' was unimpressive, like a badly
concentrate upon witnessing and cataloguing the phenomena. stuffed gardening glove; but on later occasions the substance,
They were abundant — `raps' from various parts of the room, taking various shapes, came and went while 'Margery's' own hands
luminescences, scents, musical sounds as if instruments were were securely held, as Dingwall ascertained for himself. In none of
playing, automatic writing, table levitations, movements of objects the transcripts of the twenty-nine sittings which were held was
at a distance, and touches of sitters as if by a human hand or finger. there any suggestion that this or the other effects could have been
`Walter' came through continually, sometimes to discuss plans obtained by conjuring tricks; and in February, when the series
with Dingwall for improving the quality of the performance. The came to a close, Dingwall presented a copy of Revelations of a
chief problem was the absence of good light, most of the time, as Spirit Medium, a work originally written in 1891 but reprinted
`Walter' still found it inhibiting. Still, luminous paint was exten- thirty years later, edited by Dingwall and Harry Price. The inscrip-
sively used, so that it was possible for all the sitters to observe the tion ran
movements of everybody in the circle, and to watch objects being
displaced, as if by the ectoplasmic arm; and at one sitting on 5 To `Margery', whose undaunted courage
January 1925, at which Crandon was not present, Dingwall, his and unfailing good humour are only
fellow-investigators Dr Elwood Worcester (the respected founder two of the many features of her
of the Emmanuel movement, an attempt to counter the growing remarkable mediumship
influence of Christian Science by reviving Jesus's healing ministry E. J. Dingwall
Boston, Mass.
in Protestant churches) and McDougall were given an exhibition Dec. 1924—Feb. 1925
which, in view of Crandon's absence, was particularly impressive.
Dingwall had brought a sheet of cardboard which he had treated
with luminous paint. It was placed out of 'Margery's' reach; her Dingwall also wrote enthusiastically to Schrenck:
hands and feet were controlled by Dr Worcester and himself; yet It is the most beautiful case of teleplasmic telekinesis with which I
the cardboard sheet bent over towards Dingwall at intervals am acquainted. We can freely touch the teleplasm. The materialised
throughout the seance. hands are joined by cords to the medium's body: they seize objects
Eventually Dingwall secured `Walter's' trust to the point where and move them. The teleplasmic masses are visible and tangible
he and other sitters were allowed to feel the ectoplasmic materi- upon the table in excellent red light. I held the medium's hands: I saw
alisation issuing from `Margery' and even, sporadically, to see it. figures and felt them in good light. The `control' is irreproachable.
On 19 January, when there were four cameras, one stereoscopic, in The Crandons had every reason to feel gratified, as well as
the seance room, transcript notes ran: satisfied. Dingwall's report would surely place `Margery' on a par
with Eusapia and `Eva C.', and in one respect ahead of them, as
Deep trance came on at once, and with fairly good rapidity, although there had been suspicion, as yet no serious accusation of
accompanied by comments and directions from Walter; we were cheating had been made against her. The report, when it appeared,
shown the actual production of the teleplasm from the abdomen of
the psychic. From time to time the red flash light was allowed. A was a shock. Dingwall had back-tracked after his return to Eng-
mass formed on the abdomen, which shortly differentiated itself into land.
a fairly well-formed hand, fingers downward, attached from the wrist He gave the transcripts of the sittings; and read in isolation,
to the umbilicus by a cord apparently 3/4' in diameter, all white. there was nothing in them to suggest that the phenomena were
Later, Mr Dingwall put out the palm of his hand. A mass was other than genuine. But Dingwall had attached his own retrospec-
thrown on it, and although the mass apparently did not move, Mr tive commentaries; and according to them, he had changed his
Dingwall could feel apparently another hand above it moulding the mind half way through the series. Although there was no hint of it
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in the transcripts, Dingwall now claimed — he was writing his Trance came on quietly in two or three minutes. Within ten
report six months later — that in the course of the thirteenth minutes Mr Dingwall heard oozing sound near Psyche's lap and then
session, on 19 January, (ironically, the very session at which he had movements of her legs. Mr Dingwall felt usual cold mass on left thigh
been provided with what had seemed adequate visual and tactile small; then Walter said, `Turn red light on two seconds', and we saw
evidence of 'Margery's' ectoplasm) he had been given reason to mass-like elongated tuberosities in Psyche's left groin. Then left leg
went up on table, and then Psyche put her left hand down and threw
switch to the second working hypothesis: that `Margery' cheated. mass on table.
His doubts had surfaced at the sitting two days earlier, when to
prepare for the forthcoming demonstration of the ectoplasmic The red flash had revealed, and the photographs had confirmed,
process, `Walter' had directed that a flat piece of wood should be that a `heaped knobby mass' had been extruded, two to three
placed projecting a foot out in front of the medium's chair in case inches wide, four to five inches long and three quarters of an inch
the ectoplasmic substance, emerging like a baby, might fall to the thick. According to McDougall, it felt like `a soft resilient mass,
floor, `the cord be broken, and a catastrophe result'. This, in like a membrane filled with some semi-fluid substance'; and to
Dingwall's considered view, was in flat contradiction to past ex- Worcester, this was by far the most impressive contact with the
perience with teleplasm with `Eva' and Kate Goligher: `I need substance that he had had. But Dingwall, though he had been
hardly remind those who read this paper (and presumably are controlling `Psyche's' (`Margery's) hand, and had been left in no
acquainted with the literature) that there are many instances in doubt of the reality both of the extrusion and the re-entry of the
which the substance has actually fallen to the ground without any substance, had again — or so he claimed — been made suspicious
such catastrophic results.' And although Dingwall still conceded by its behaviour; or, rather, lack of behaviour.
that the session two days later had been `very important' , because Now, then was the opportunity for it to display its qualities of
of the unique opportunities it had provided for observation, he self-mobility and climb upon the table. But nothing of the sort
now considered it had suffered from a fatal flaw: the fact that it occurred. Psyche put her left hand down, with D's still controlling it,
was `Walter' who dictated when the `red flash' came and went and threw the mass upon the table. Is it not exactly what we should
and, as a result, they had never seen the entire process: only expect on the second hypothesis? The mass may have been con-
stages in it. cealed in the vagina and thence expelled; thus the only course open
would have been for the medium to throw it upon the table and then
What was wanted was not the finished or partly finished product, devise means of manipulating it there without the use of the hands.
but the making of the production itself. These `hands' are supposed
to grow, to expand, to approach perfection. But we want to see these And in a footnote, Dingwall explained that he had shown
steps in operation; to see the growth progressing; to see the actual photographs to an eminent gynaecologist who had agreed it would
extrusion and reabsorption. be possible to pack `a considerable portion' of such a substance into
the vagina from which it could then be expelled by muscular
So although the sitting had provided unique opportunities for contraction.
observation, and might have provided indisputable proof both that In his summing up, Dingwall referred back to this sitting as
the ectoplasm was real and that its extrusion and reabsorption crucial, because of the evidence it supplied of the lack of ectoplas-
could not have been engineered normally, `it did none of these mic self-mobility. The only fact which was clearly in favour of the
things. Although all that occurred could have been interpreted in first hypothesis was `undoubtedly the personality and position of
two ways, yet I was forced to admit to myself that the evidence in "Margery" and her husband, and the improbability of their engag-
favour of the second hypothesis was stronger than that for the first.' ing in persistent trickery'. Because of his respect for them, he could
The next session had clinched matters. By this time `Walter' had not commit himself to the second hypothesis. He eased himself out
become so confident that Crandon had relinquished control of of his dilemma by reiterating that 'Margery's' mediumship re-
'Margery's' right hand to Dr Worcester. According to the tran- mained `one of the most remarkable in the history of psychical
script notes: research', worthy to be ranked with those of Home and Palladino
as showing `the extreme difficulty of reaching finality of conclu-
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sions, notwithstanding the time and attention directed to the it would have had to be smuggled into the seances in spite of
investigation of them'. Dingwall's precautions. If his suspicions were aroused, all he
Had Dingwall written his commentary while the investigation would have needed to do was clutch it: and although `Walter's'
was in progress, rather than six months later, it would carry more instructions were that it was only to be touched when he gave his
conviction; but as it stands, it is riddled with inconsistencies — in permission the Crandons, if they were cheating, could not have
particular, the reason he gave for switching from `Hypothesis One' been confident that those instructions would be obeyed.
to `Hypothesis Two'. It was true that the ectoplasm which had What, then, made Dingwall turn to Hypothesis Two? In his
poured out of Kate Goligher descended to the floor without commentary on the sitting of 17 January he admitted that up to that
catastrophic results; but it was not true that at this stage in its point his provisional impression had been that the mediumship was
extrusion, ectoplasm necessarily showed `self-mobility'. On the genuine, and he had partly given his opinion to that effect to his
contrary, it was precisely because it looked like lifeless regurgi- colleagues and others: `I now (July 1925) no longer hold this view,
tated matter that the photographs taken of it had commonly given and admit my change of mind' — though he would modify it if fresh
more comfort to sceptics than to researchers — as had the apparent facts required him to do so. But it seems likely that his change of
lack of vitality in some of the developed forms which `Eva C.' had mind, or the beginnings of it, took place four days later, when he
produced for Mme Bisson, Schrenck and Geley. received a letter from McDougall, warning him that he could not
That `Walter' controlled the `red flashes' was indeed a serious expect McDougall's backing if he came out with a favourable
defect in the procedure; but if it played so decisive a part in report on the investigation:
Dingwall's decision to reject Hypothesis One, he could presum- My testimony to it would, I venture to think, carry considerable
ably without giving offence have made this clear at the time. He weight, even in the scientific world; whereas a favourable report by
claimed in his report that he persistently urged that `everything you, if not supported or confirmed by me, might fail to do so. It is
depended upon the growth and reabsorption being carried out in highly probable, or even inevitable, that when you report the
red light', but this persistence does not feature in the transcripts. ectoplasmic phenomena to be genuine you will be accused by the
His attempt at an explanation of how `Margery' might have scientists of being an accomplice, of being in collusion with
cheated, too, was feeble, particularly considering that he had been `Margery'. Your best defence against this would be my concordant
controlling her at the time; for as the gynaecologist he consulted testimony and support. Further, I shall, no doubt, be expected to
pointed out, if she had extruded some hidden rubbery substance of render some report to the English SPR: and it will be very unsatisfac-
the type Worcester and McDougall described, the muscular con- tory from every point of view, if your report and mine on the same
series of sittings are in serious disagreement.
tractions involved would have been expected to be obvious to the
sitters (he might have added that the substance, whatever it had That Dingwall should have expressed his satisfaction with the
been, could not have been expected to be cold, as the sitters reality of the ectoplasm, McDougall concluded, was all right so far
reported). As for the subsequent disappearance of the substance, as it went, but he did not think it went very far; `it seems to me, you
all that Dingwall could surmise was that it must have been hidden are bound to carry me along with you'.
and then carried away by `Margery' or Crandon. As he was To have pronounced 'Margery's' phenomena genuine without
controlling her, this could hardly have been accomplished without McDougall's imprimatur would indeed have been unsatisfactory.
either total incompetence on his part, or his collusion. By reason of his academic standing, McDougall was psychical
In any case, the exhibitions of ectoplasmic hands represented research's White Hope in the English-speaking world. But in any
only one manifestation, and on the evidence of the photographs a case, Dingwall had good reason not to commit himself. Neither
poor one. Dingwall hardly attempted to explain how `Margery' then nor later did he regard himself as a psychical researcher, so
could have produced all the other effects, even with the assistance much as a devil's advocate for scepticism, employed to make sure
of her husband, unless they were taking crazy risks. The ectoplas- that the research was `clean', the procedures arranged so that
mic arm and hand, for example, which nudged sitters and moved or there would be the minimum risk of fraud. He had realised that
levitated objects at a distance: if it were not a genuine pseudopod, he would be acceptable in that role so long as he avoided
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endorsing the physical phenomena of mediumship without quali- the Scientific American award. Carrington and Bird accepted that
fication. Always he must suggest some kind of `natural' explana- `Margery' had been shown to be a genuine physical medium; but
tion of the way a medium might have been able to cheat. Carrington's verdict carried little weight, and Bird was not a voting
An embarrassment remained for him; he had not been able to member of the committee. Houdini claimed that the phenomena
bring himself to tell the Crandons of his intentions until he sent were faked: in a pamphlet, he boasted that he had exposed
them the proofs of his article for the SPR Proceedings, innocently `Margery' — a verdict which his colleagues on the committee re-
remarking about them that the people who had read them `have all pudiated. In a letter to the New York Times, McDougall explained
come to different opinions as to the real views of the author'. that he did not say that `Margery' produced no supernormal
Crandon administered a crushing rebuke. If the purpose of the phenomena, merely that what she had been able to do was
SPR was to remain always straddling, `in order always to be right', insufficient to carry complete conviction. Prince took the same
it had been fulfilled, he replied in a note to the society; but `what an line. Comstock held to his view that although the phenomena were
unworthy contrast do we here behold to the courage of Richet, real enough, he could not accept them without a scientific explana-
Geley and Schrenck-Notzing!' Dingwall, Crandon felt, must have tion for them. `The psychic award,' Munn decided, `will not be
reasoned that if he pronounced the phenomena genuine, and they granted to "Margery" ' — courteously adding that from the start
were later admitted by the scientific world to be genuine, then he she had made it clear that she would not accept the money which
would be in clover; but if he pronounced them genuine and they the Scientific American had offered, even if she won.
were found to have been produced naturally, he would be `laughed At this point the Crandons made what was to turn out to be, for
out of the psychic arena as a credulous yokel'. Therefore he must them, a disastrous decision. Among those who had attended some
poise himself between the two so that in whichever direction the sittings were two Harvard graduates, Hudson Hoagland and S.
psychic cat jumped, he would be there. Crandon went through the Foster Damon; and when they proposed a second Harvard inves-
list of the phenomena Dingwall had observed and been unable to tigation, the Crandons agreed without bothering about the creden-
account for; having failed to realise, Crandon sarcastically sug- tials of their team. They were in fact amateurs, with no previous
gested, that they could easily have been accounted for by `an experience of psychical research. Had they satisfied themselves
accomplice, small in stature, clothed and hooded all in black, with that 'Margery's' powers were genuine, their report could have
felt slippers on', wheeling in a tea-wagon with well-oiled rubber carried no weight. The best the Crandons could hope to do was to
wheels carrying all the necessary apparatus and impedimenta. `I provide them with such impressive evidence that more eminent
am tempted,' Crandon concluded, academics would be drawn in, out of curiosity; and for a while, this
looked to be a possibility.
using the words in a purely Pickwickian sense, to lay down two At the first sitting on 19 May 1925 — held, at the investigators'
hypotheses to explain Mr Dingwall's treatment of the subject as far request, not at the Crandons' but in Emerson Hall in Harvard —
as hypothetical explanation goes.
Hypothesis 1. The author is a nut. the sitters felt touches; objects were moved at a distance by what
Hypothesis 2. The author is a nut. was described, in the notes which were being taken, as a psychic
hand; a luminous `doughnut' — a paper cut-out, doughnut-
The society printed the letter in its Proceedings, adding a shaped — moved around the table, and levitated first to two feet,
footnote explaining, for the benefit of British readers, that `nut' then to three feet. `Walter' was in his element, telling sitters where
was `an American word meaning an amiable individual whose they would find the objects which had moved, whistling, joking (he
ratiocination is erratic'. pulled Hoagland's hair `vigorously'). Throughout the perform-
ance, which lasted over an hour, the dictaphone registered con-
firmation from the sitters holding Crandon and `Margery' that
The Second Harvard Investigation control was `perfect'; yet periodically the bell in the box rang, even
By the time Dingwall had finished his series of trials, in February when pushed well out of the Crandons' reach. As the Crandons
1925, it had become clear that `Margery' was not going to receive stripped to be searched before and after sittings, and as the sittings
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Science and Parascience The USA
were not in their home, the investigating group was unable to fault Only in the fifth sitting did the members of the group observe
them either then or in subsequent sittings; and at one of these on 3 anything which aroused suspicion. The medium wore luminous
June they were joined by a more senior academic figure, Dr Edwin ankle-bands, so that even if she did succeed in freeing one of her
G. Boring, Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard. feet from control, any sitter who was watching could immediately
Boring took charge of the proceedings, and compiled the report have pointed it out; and during the sitting one of the bands fell off.
following the seance; adding a note of his own to the effect that Although Mina herself complained that it was loose before the
although in a session with eight people, no single individual could sitting began, this gave one of the sitters, Grant H. Code, his
vouch for everything that was reported, to the best of his know- opportunity.
ledge and belief the record was correct. The effects, in his view, Of all the group Code, who was older than the others, had
could all be put down to the operation of a `teleplasmic arm', which entered into the closest relationship with Mina, to whom he had
`seemed to cause all the other phenomena by the same natural begun to confide his personal problems. But he was an amateur
means that any arm could cause them, unless it should be added conjuror; and now he took Hoagland and another of the group
that I had the impression that the "teleplasmic arm" occasionally along to show them that he could play the same tricks as `Margery'.
found objects in the dark more readily than one would expect a He managed to free a foot from their control, unobserved; rang the
human arm to do under normal conscious control'. bell in the box; levitated an object; and imitated the touches and
That there was an arm, Boring felt, there could be no reasonable hair-pulling. Damon and Hoagland agreed that he had successfully
doubt. It could be seen, when it came between the viewer and produced many of `Walter's' phenomena and by showing them
illuminated objects; and it looked solid, to him much like a human how he had done it, he also showed how `Walter' could be
arm: `In handling the bell-box and other objects on the table, and rendered helpless the next day. All that was needed was that Mina
in manipulating and pulling my hair, I was convinced that the should be asked to wear bands of adhesive plaster instead of the old
"hand" was actuated approximately as would a normal arm ex- illuminated bands of elastic tape for the next evening's sitting.
tended from the medium'. It could push, or grip and pull: the force As if to lend confirmation to Code's thesis, Hoagland's dog
with which Boring's hair was pulled was hard enough to be painful. appeared the next morning with one of the slippers which Mina had
Boring's was the most forthright tribute that `Margery' had yet worn at the seance the night before; and on it were traces of a kind
received; but he was careful to leave an escape hatch. `I have no which showed that her foot had been dabbling in the clay. Or so it
beliefs at all,' he wrote, `in respect of the manner in which this hand seemed to the investigators. Had they read Crawford or Thomas
was produced or caused to move' — though he was sure that it Mann on the subject they would have realised that they must take
emanated from the medium. Assuming his diagnosis was correct, it into account the possibility of pseudopods, acting as an extension
followed that all the group needed to ascertain was whether the of human extremities; Kathleen Goligher's feet and Willy Schneid-
arm was artificial; and in view of the problems confronting er's fingers had shown similar traces after similar experiments,
`Margery' if she were smuggling in any kind of telescopic gadget, when physical contact was not possible. But the investigators had
this ought not to have been difficult. Yet in the later sessions, not studied the evidence from the other side of the Atlantic. They
although `Walter' continued to tell the members of the circle in simply assumed that they now had `Margery' safely in their net.
advance what he proposed to do, moving or levitating objects, or They were in for a rude surprise. When the sixth sitting began
ringing the bell in the box, the sitters were still unable to detect any that evening, a confident `Walter' intimated that he was aware of
deception on the part of either of the Crandons. And when one of their plot; he even repeated some of what had been said. And in
America's leading astronomers, Professor Shapley, attended a spite of the controls, the phenomena were more spectacular than
session, and felt his hair being pulled, he admitted he had been ever. While the Crandons were visibly under control, the luminous
impressed `by the distinctness of the phenomena' as well as by the tapes acquitting them of any guilt, the `doughnut' danced, the bell
Crandons' sincerity and frankness. `No evidence of trickery of any rang in the box, and the sitters, including two senior academics, felt
kind was observed,' he concluded, `and no suspicious actions on `Walter' tweaking them. According to the transcript, signed by
the part of any one in the circle.' Code, Damon and Hoagland,
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Science and Parascience The USA
(At 10.16) At Walter's request Dr Shapley put doughnut on table. Hoagland and the rest of his committee needed some excuse, any
There is a silhouetting of the fingers all over the doughnut. At excuse, to escape from what had become an acutely embarrassing
Walter's request, Dr Ousterhout leaned forward and took the predicament. They did not want to accuse the Crandons, whom
doughnut in his hand. He felt the fingers holding the doughnut. Dr they had come to like and trust, of fraud; yet neither could they
Ousterhout said it felt like a cold, slimy and rather clammy finger,
which felt as though it had bones in it, but too flexible for an ordinary accept that the phenomena were genuine, if Code were going to
finger . . . continue to insist that they were produced by trickery. It would
(At 10.25) There are now two hands on the table. One hand is well have been unwise enough for a group of young graduates aspiring
formed. The other is a long extension, shaped like a cat's tail. to further their careers to give a unanimous verdict in 'Margery's'
Hoagland feels both the psychic's feet in slippers. Code verifies favour; a split vote would have made them look ridiculous, the
this . . . more so as Code was a conjuror, whose word would carry the most
weight. Hoagland agreed to prepare a report along Code's sug-
And so it went on. Code was now in a dilemma. He had shown gested lines, damning `Margery' but exonerating the Crandons.
what `Margery' might do by conjuring, but he had also claimed to Before it was ready, however, on 23 October, the New York Times
be able to set her a task she could not do; she had done it, and broke the story, giving it a slightly different slant, indicated in one
more. Worse: his plot had been unmasked. Either he would have of the headlines: `Harvard scientists now say hypnosis theory was
to accept that the phenomena were genuine, or he would have to advanced to spare the Crandons'; and this gave Hoagland the
think up some story which would account for them, and also excuse he needed to publish his report, which he did in Atlantic
explain how `Walter' had come to know about the plan. Monthly in November.
Calling the investigators together, Code confessed that after he Implausible though Code's version had been, in print Hoag-
had demonstrated how he could play `Walter's' tricks, he had gone land's sounded even more preposterous. He was asking readers to
to see Mina to warn her the committee now possessed clear accept that the phenomena which `Margery' had been able to
evidence of 'Margery's' trickery. Knowing her as he now did, he produce in seance after seance had all been accomplished by a
was sure that she was not conscious of deception; that she was a woman who, in a self-induced trance, performed conjuring tricks
victim of auto-hypnosis, induced initially through her husband's so skilfully that even so experienced an investigator as Dingwall
fascination with psychic matters. But he had felt it his duty to tell had been unable to catch her out during seances, and had been
her that, at the seance that evening, `Margery' would be exposed, reduced to speculating retrospectively how she might have done
and this would be disastrous not only for herself, but for her them. Even more absurd, the interpretation required that Cran-
husband, who, of course, was also unaware of what was happen- don, sitting beside her at most seances and holding her hand,
ing. `All my observations of Dr Crandon had pointed to his belief should have remained wholly unaware of what she was doing.
in the phenomena,' Code told his colleagues. `I therefore feared Hoagland had a further problem, Code had duplicated some of
that a sudden exposure on the part of a group of observers in which the phenomena: but even by fudging the transcripts of the seances,
he had placed so much trust would give him a shock that might be there was no way of accounting for others, short of the existence of
dangerous.' a conspiracy among the committee members themselves. How, for
Mina's reaction, Code went on, had naturally been to deny that example, could `Margery' have concealed the `teleplasmic arm'?
she had ever `done any of these things'. To convince her he had Hoagland's solution was to attribute phenomena for which
asked her to hold a private sitting with him, in which he discussed `Margery' could not herself have been responsible to the sitters'
the position with `Walter'; and `Walter' had begged him to allow unconscious collaboration. It had been proved, he claimed, that a
`Margery' to cheat (`Dont fail me, Code. Dont fail me'), so that the heavy table `could be moved rapidly about a room by a group of
innocent Crandons would not be publicly humiliated. Accordingly people all sincerely believing that their fingers no more than rested
Code had neglected to control `Margery', allowing her to produce on its surface, though by physical methods it can actually be
the phenomena unhindered. demonstrated that they have exerted considerable force'.
It is difficult to think of a more ludicrously implausible story; but He was basing his argument on Faraday's `exposure' of table-
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Science and Parascience The USA
turning; but Faraday had demonstrated only that a loose table top found fresh evidence to show that it had been Code who was lying.
could be moved by fingertip pressure, without conscious design. In an attempt to convince Bird of the truth of his version, Code had
Neither he nor anybody was ever shown that tables could be moved been unwise enough to try to repeat the demonstration he had
in the same way. It was, in fact, the realisation that tables and other given to the committee of the way `Margery' played her tricks; and
objects moved in ways which unconscious fingertip pressure could although conceding that Code played some of them skilfully, Bird
not account for, which had impressed Wallace, Crookes and other found that he was unable to reproduce others — a failure `made the
early psychical researchers. worse by his complete lack of appreciation that he had fallen
short'. Even more damning, Bird had discovered how Code had
been able to reproduce one part of 'Margery's' repertoire: the
ringing of the bell in the box. Code had abstracted a box used by
Margery Harvard Veritas the committee to test her, and had `incorporated in it a trick wiring
The Crandons' supporters rallied to them, their ranks now re- which enabled him to ring the bell by touching externally two
inforced by Bird, who had left the Scientific American to take up particular screws which, in appearance, were merely part of the
the post of Research Officer in the ASP R. Prince resigned in con- structure of the box'. Foolishly, Code had not troubled to dis-
sequence; Bird, he complained, was a master `of the employ- mantle the wiring later. In his absence, and unaware of the trick,
ment of language that squints'. Bird was a little more charitable Hoagland had sent the box, along with other bits of apparatus
about Prince, whom he described as `one of those people in whom which had been used in the sittings, back to the Crandons. Taxed
rugged intellectual honesty sticks out all over, like spines on a with the deception, Code could only lamely reply that he had
cactus' , so wedded to strict scientific procedure `that he ignores meant to tell the Crandons what he had done, and had telephoned
all observation and all results other than his own'. them; but they had been out when he rang.
In Margery Harvard Veritas Bird, Crandon and some friends Code, in other words, had confessed to cheating his colleagues.
took Hoagland's report to pieces. All they needed to do was to To show them how `Margery' cheated, he had used a trick that she
print the transcripts of the seances, with the descriptions which could not have used. And on the other point — Code's inability, as
Hoagland, Code and the others had made during them, to show a conjuror, to reproduce the phenomena — Bird had support from
just how inadequate the sleight-of-foot explanation was. The an unexpected quarter: another Atlantic article, this one by Edwin
writers of Veritas also could not resist poking fun at the earlier Boring.
investigators: McDougall had wavered between admitting that In `The paradox of psychical research' Boring made an unusually
`Margery' had produced `a very considerable quantity of evidence detached contribution to the subject, emphasising the problems
of supernormal phenomena', and saying that she had `failed to which psychical researchers faced; in particular their need to
convince us of the supernormal character of any of her phenom- decide whether the phenomena were genuine or fraudulent, an
ena' ; and Prince was so deaf that he could not hear the bell in the issue which scientists were not ordinarily required to worry about.
box ringing even when it was ringing in his lap. But the chief venom In the course of the article, however, Boring described how he had
was reserved for Code. Mina had insisted that his story of his chat been detailed to control Code's left hand in the seance when he was
with `Walter', on which the Harvard committee's conclusions were showing how he could perform 'Margery's' tricks. Boring's instruc-
largely based, was a fabrication. Code had come to see her, Mina tions had been that if he realised how Code was getting his effects,
explained; he had told her of the committee's view that while she he must say so at the time. He had realised; and in retrospect, he
and her husband were innocent, `Margery' was cheating; and he admitted he ought to have reported it, `but it never occurred to me
had offered, in order to spare her blushes, to let go of her hand so to do so. It was only after I had gone home and thought it over that I
that `Margery' could continue to cheat. But she had angrily re- realised that the desire to have Code succeed had won out over the
jected his offer; there had been no visit to the seance room, and no desire to control him rigidly.' The moral, Boring suggested, was
private conversation between him and `Walter'. that people `who have the "will to believe" in the supernatural do
On this issue, it was Mina's word against Code's; but Bird had not make good investigators of psychic phenomena'. It evidently
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Science and Parascience The USA
had not occurred to him that people who had the will to disbelieve justification for his criticism of Veritas. And this helped to distract
might make even worse investigators — as he himself had so effec- attention from the fact that Hoagland no longer accepted the
tively demonstrated. premise upon which he had originally based his report. His former
Comparing Hoagland's report with Margery Harvard Veritas, eulogies of Crandon, and his acceptance in his Atlantic report of
Everard Feilding was shrewd enough to realise that the report, Code's proposition that Mina was unconscious of her trickery,
`somewhat magniloquently described by the Atlantic Monthly as were forgotten; he now described the Crandons as `masters of the
"the Climax to a Famous Investigation"', was `not a climax at psychology of deception'.
all' ; and in the SPR Proceedings the following summer he argued In theory this ought to have irrevocably discredited Code, whose
that before the report's validity could be accepted, certain ques- credibility should have been finally punctured if the Crandons were
tions needed to be answered. Had Code told the truth? If so, taken to be cheats. In Boston this mattered little, as the anti-
Code's belief that Mrs Crandon could have been innocent of any Crandon element had never really bothered with the notion of
deception in a case of this kind, where obviously `long, elaborate unconscious cheating: the assumption had been that the Crandons
and skilful preparation' was indispensable, struck Feilding as must be frauds. But Feilding was a different proposition. He had
arguing `an unsophistication of intellect, to put it mildly, which I clearly smelled a sewer rat. Code had to wriggle out of the charge
can scarcely believe possible in a Harvard graduate'. Apart from that he had betrayed the Crandons by permitting the publication of
this, Code's conduct struck him as `little less than pathologically the report; this was not his doing, he claimed, but Hoagland's, to
peculiar' . To save `Margery' from an exposure `he leads her — it whom he had protested. And to vindicate his side of the story, he
must be assumed under a pledge of secrecy — into further fraud, produced the notes of the private seance with `Walter'.
and then immediately, that very night, splits on her. Further, by For once, Feilding allowed himself to be conned. In view of
way of assisting his friends in their investigation, he stages an Code's explanation, he wrote in a letter published in the Proceed-
elaborate deceit in which he himself takes part, without a word ings the following January, though he questioned the wisdom of
of warning beforehand.' the course Code had pursued, `I, personally, without expressing
In any case, Feilding noted, if Mrs Crandon was as alertly any view on the major issue of whether there are still grounds for a
intelligent as had been generally remarked upon, that she should belief in the "Margery" mediumship, find it impossible any longer
have walked into Code's trap was at least as unbelievable as Code's to doubt the good faith of Mr Code.'
theory of her `sweet natural guilelessness' if the phenomena were Even if there had been no other reason to doubt Code's good
fraudulent. Besides, had Code really proved them to be fraudu- faith, his `notes' of the private seance ought to have confirmed
lent? According to Bird in Margery Harvard Veritas, Code had not Feilding in his suspicions. Code claimed he had written them down
been able to duplicate all of them satisfactorily. These were from memory within twenty-four hours; but he presented them as
questions which, Feilding admitted, he himself was not in a pos- if they were a transcript taken from a dictaphone. They were far
ition to answer; but he felt that they ought to be answered, if too detailed, and too pat, for comfort; with `Walter' begging him to
necessary by a fresh series of trials. allow `Margery' to cheat during the evening's seance:
It was a typically shrewd assessment; and Feilding's standing was
such that even on the other side of the Atlantic, the Harvard Walter — Don't let it be a blank, Code
investigators realised they would have to reply. Hoagland and Code — No, Walter
Code both sent in rebuttals: Hoagland's chiefly concerned with Walter (Pause) — And let her hand move a
omissions and distortions in Margery Harvard Veritas; Code's with little
providing proof that his private conversation with `Walter' really Code — All right, Walter
had taken place. That the compilers of Veritas had made it into a
polemic was undeniable; not merely did this weaken their own and so on. In any case, Feilding apparently had not noticed Code's
case, it gave Hoagland the opportunity to shift the argument away back-tracking, or had not appreciated its significance. Code now
from his team's incompetence in the investigation of `Margery' to claimed he had never contended that the entire mediumship was to
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Science and Parascience The USA
be explained by innocent subconscious fraud: `Dr Crandon has that it was a put-up job, stage-managed by Code, who successfully
frequently stated in my presence that he considers it justifiable to deceived both his colleagues and the Crandons. As a contribution
help out when normal means fail.' If Crandon had in fact stated to eliciting the truth about `Margery', it was farcical. Yet it was
this, why had Code never mentioned it before? Yet, in his letter decisive — more so than its predecessors. It marked the turning
Code maintained his faith in the innocence — or as he more point in the `Margery' case, Tietze has noted. The public was now
cautiously now described it, the `disingenuousness' — of the Cran- `confident that the Harvard report had put an end to this very
dons. For Feilding's consumption, at least, Code had to distance disturbing question'; henceforward `Margery' was to be of concern
himself from Hoagland. What Feilding did not know was that this, only to psychical researchers, `playing their harmless game'.
too, was simply a pretence. In the course of research into `Margery'
Tietze, years later, found letters Code had written to Walter
Prince; and months before the letter to Feilding, Code had not
merely made it clear that he took for granted that the Crandons The McComas Enquiry
had been in collusion; he had described to Prince the way in which They were to go on playing it for some years. Even before the final
they had been able to produce the materialisations which had so flurry of the correspondence with Feilding (as soon as he had
puzzled the investigators. Crandon, Code claimed, had made backed down, the editor of the Journal thankfully closed the
surgical alterations to his wife's `most convenient storage ware- correspondence; it was reopened only briefly to publish Mina's
house', because `a slight surgical enlargement of the mouth of the statement on oath before a notary public that there had been no
uterus would make it a more convenient receptacle'. private seance with Code), Bird had suggested that Henry Clay
The only plausible verdict on the second Harvard investigation is McComas, a psychologist at Princeton, should join the American
SPR's staff, and conduct tests; and in 1925 McComas set up a
committee consisting of himself and two men from Johns Hopkins,
Professor Knight Dunlap, a psychologist, and a physicist, Dr
R. W. Wood.
As usual there was no lack of manifestations; but a crisis arose
when Wood, feeling a `teleplasmic rod', squeezed it — which
according to Crandon, made `Margery' ill for some days. The fact
that Wood appeared drunk at some sittings gave Crandon the
excuse to ban him; and Dunlap's fitness to serve on it was put in
doubt when it was revealed that a few months before, he had stated
his belief that the physical phenomena of mediumship could be
accounted for only by fraud. The investigation was terminated, the
committee eventually reporting that the `Margery' mediumship,
though `a clever and entertaining performance', was unworthy of
the society's serious consideration; Crandon's whole attitude to
the committee and its enquiry being `sufficient indication that no
investigation by competent investigators employing the methods
and checks required in all scientific research is likely to be permit-
ted'.
It sounded damning; but McComas was prevaricating. He had
been so baffled by some of the phenomena that he had felt
`Margery' extruding an ectoplasmic hand from what Code described compelled to try to enlist Houdini's assistance. Remarkably, con-
as her `most convenient storage warehouse'. sidering that Houdini had been boasting all round the country that
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Science and Parascience The USA
he had exposed `Margery' (and had published a pamphlet to show tested. Crandon sardonically agreed to Houdini's request for
how he had done it, in spite of his Scientific American committee delay — `the only value which could possibly be attached to your
colleagues' refusal to back him), the Crandons agreed. So did presence at Lime Street would be because it would afford amuse-
Houdini, presumably in the hope that this time, he really would ment to watch your attempts to duplicate these phenomena' — but
catch them out as he was sure he could. But he had learned caution. insisted that he must work in with McComas; and McComas,
If he could not catch them out during a seance, he told McComas, deciding that enough was enough, had decided to give up his
he would need to find a way to duplicate the tricks; so it would be as ASPR post and return to academic life.
well to know in advance what particular tricks were being used, as Less than a month later Houdini broke a bone in his ankle during
`the lady is subtle and changes her methods like any dexterous a stage performance. Under the stress of having to continue to
sleight of hand performer or any medium I have examined' . He perform while in great pain, he allowed a student to strike him in
must then, he insisted, have time to make the necessary arrange- the stomach — one of the acts he had developed to show his
ments. stomach-muscles' strength — before he had prepared himself for
When McComas came back the next day, to report to him what the blow; and his appendix ruptured. With characteristic deter-
`Margery' had done at the seance, Houdini was taken aback. She mination he went on with his performances until it was too late; an
had been wired into a glass-sided `cabinet' with only her hands operation removed the appendix, but by that time peritonitis had
outside; and they had also been wired, so that although they could taken hold and on 31 October he died, at the age of fifty-two.
be withdrawn into the `cabinet', they could not be used to move It had been singularly unfortunate that, at this crucial stage in
objects at a distance from her. Yet objects had moved: the psychical research in the United States, so justly famed a magician
luminous paper `doughnut' had levitated, as had a luminous bas- should have devoted his talents not to exploring, but simply to
ket, which had floated around the room. discrediting mediumship; worse, that he had become so paranoid
According to Milbourne Christopher, Houdini realised that he on the issue that he felt no holds need be barred. He had even gone
was up against a new trick, and he would need new equipment to behind McDougall's back to President Lowell of Harvard, warning
duplicate it. `If someone had slipped a collapsible reaching rod into him that the reputation of the university would be jeopardised if
Margery's right hand, wired at the wrist though it was, she could any of its staff were connected with the `Margery' investigation. `I
have used it to lift the basket'; then, once the basket was in the air, do not question the sincerity of his motives and intentions,'
it would slide down to her hand. But what about the lifting of the McDougall wrote of him; `but it must be admitted that he has by his
`doughnut' and the basket, together? This might indicate the use of actions and utterances clearly shown his conviction that super-
two rods; or could one, perhaps, be designed which would do the normal phenomena do not and cannot occur, and that the sole
job? Anyway, preparing the gadgetry would take time — and, function of the psychic researchers is to discover the fraudulent
Houdini realised, he would need a confederate among the sitters: means used to produce alleged psychical phenomena.'
`If Dr McComas's account were correct, certainly someone had Nevertheless the myth that Houdini exposed `Margery' has
secretly aided Margery — by giving a reaching device to her, then lingered; and with it, a widespread impression that when a con-
taking it away later.' juror shows that he can duplicate seance-room phenomena with
If McComas's account were correct, it represented a clear vic- the help of tricks, the phenomena cannot be genuine. The absurd-
tory for `Margery', as so many of her seances had been conducted ity of this assumption ought immediately to be apparent, for it
in circumstances where she had no confederate — for, contrary to carries the implication that mediums must be skilled conjurors — in
Houdini's assumption, these were not new tricks, nor had she 'Margery's' case, extremely skilled. How had she learned her craft,
changed her methods. The manifestations varied from seance to without ever giving away a hint of her ability to her friends?
seance, and occasionally there were new ones; but the levitations
had been familiar from early on in her career. But whether
Houdini would have been able to duplicate them successfully with
a confederate, if he had managed to bring one in, was not to be
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Science and Parascience The USA
The Clark University Symposium hedging about `Margery', launched into a remarkable plea for the
introduction of psychical research into the curriculum at university
Had he lived, Houdini was to have spoken at a conference in level. He praised Clark for being the first university ever to open its
November at Clark University. The idea had been jokily mooted doors to the subject, an action for which it would certainly be
two years earlier at a lunch he had had with McDougall and Carl severely criticised; in his view, psychical research would provide a
Murchison , Professor of Psychology at Clark , and doubtless would far more valuable training than many established courses, because
have come to nothing, had not Murchison known of a bequest as an intellectual and moral discipline it ranked `very high, perhaps
which had been made to the university in 1908, for use in psychical the highest of all possible subjects of university study' . Among the
research: the Smith-Battles Fund, which had not been used for intellectual disciplines it imposed was that of `attacking problems
psychical research, or indeed for anything else. It occurred to patiently and resolutely, in spite of uncertainty that any solution
Murchison that if two or three thousand dollars were expended on may be attainable'; of `observing exactly and recording faithfully
a symposium, a book could be made out of the lectures which phenomena presented to our senses' — a higher form of observa-
would bring in a considerable profit; and as he explained to the tion, he pointed out, than was required in chemical experiments;
president of the university, the money could then be transferred and of `the reasoning processes by which conclusions were drawn
from the Smith-Battles Fund `where it is of little value' to other from the phenomena observed' — which again imposed much more
purposes, such as the Stanley Hall Fund — which would have been severe intellectual demands than the other sciences. And if `by
maliciously appropriate, as Hall had been a thoroughgoing sceptic. reason of the complexity and delicacy of its problems', McDougall
Murchison, in short, was advocating the cynical policy adopted went on,
at Philadelphia and Stanford. But if the project were to raise
money through the sale of the book, he needed big names from the psychical research rivals all other branches of science, it far surpasses
psychical research field, believers as well as sceptics; and in this he them all in respect of the character discipline which it affords. It
succeeded. The team included Coover, Crandon, Doyle, Hans requires a perfectly controlled temper, and a large and understand-
Driesch, Jastrow, Lodge, McDougall, Gardner Murphy, Walter ing tolerance of human weaknesses of every kind, intellectual and
moral alike; and infinite patience in face of renewed disappoint-
Prince and Schiller. And the outcome was a book which gave, and ments; a moral courage which faces not merely the risk and even the
still gives, a fascinating survey of the condition of psychical re- probability of failure, but also the risk of loss of reputation for
search at the time. judgment, balance and sanity itself. And, the most insidious of all
For once, the believers could not complain of bias against them. dangers, the danger of emotional bias in favour of one or other
Murchison divided the speakers into four categories. Six were solution of the problem in hand, is apt to be infinitely greater for the
`Convinced of the multiplicity of psychical phenomena' (they psychical researcher than for the worker in any other field of science;
accepted most, though not necessarily all), including Lodge, Doyle for not only is he swayed by strong sentiments within his own breast,
and Crandon. Four were `Convinced of the rarity of genuine but he also knows that both the scientific world and the general
psychical phenomena': McDougall, Driesch, Prince and Schiller. public will react with strong emotional bias to any conclusion he may
Two were `Unconvinced as yet': Coover and Murphy. And two announce.
were `Antagonistic to the claims that such phenomena occur': Conan Doyle was unable to attend, and sent only a short paper
Jastrow and Houdini. Coover, admittedly, was stretching credibil- chiefly concerned to justify his belief in ectoplasm; and Lodge,
ity when he claimed to be unconvinced `as yet'; but so was Murphy, though he attended, also spoke only briefly. But the quartet in the
in the opposite direction, as he showed that he had in fact been `Convinced of the rarity' category all made worthwhile contribu-
convinced. Houdini's death meant that he had to be represented by tions.
extracts from A Magician among the Spirits — more of an embar- Schiller, who was shortly to leave Oxford to become Professor of
rassment than a comfort to sceptics in academic surroundings; so Philosophy in the University of California (Los Angeles), was
scepticism was heavily out-gunned. chiefly concerned to show the fallacy in what was becoming the
McDougall, too, as if anxious to compensate for his protracted sceptics' stock defence of their position: that no matter how much
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Science and Parascience The USA
evidence accumulated for, say, telepathy, they were not prepared side which is well established', which was why he had thought it
to accept it. All they required, they claimed, was one single necessary to include psychical research. There were problems, he
cast-iron case which would provide them with absolute proof. admitted; among them the foreseeing of the future, which for him
This, Schiller pointed out, was not merely contrary to estab- was `the greatest enigma of parapsychology'. He had long hesi-
lished scientific practice, which banked on cumulative evidence; it tated before accepting its reality but had become convinced partly
was also `logical foolishness to expect it', because, as experience by what he had read, partly by two extraordinary cases which
had already demonstrated, `assumptions of incompetence or fraud `careful and critical scientists' had related to him. He felt it was
can always cast a slur upon the most impressive evidence, and useless, though, to say anything more about a problem `which we
render it inconclusive'. Too many psychical researchers, too, had are sure we cannot understand in our present form of mentality'.
decided to reject cumulative evidence, Schiller had come to sus- Grateful for the backing of so well-established and well-armed a
pect, because it enabled them to discard whatever phenomena they campaigner, the SPR had made Driesch its President in 1926, and
did not want to accept. it was in this capacity that he was invited to contribute to the Clark
Trained as a biologist, Hans Driesch had become convinced by symposium. Although he was not at his best in the English lan-
his experiments that the mechanists were wrong, and that the guage, his paper was interesting in that it offered the germ of an
Vitalists had been right. There were forces yet to be discovered; in explanation for materialised forms. One of the problems confront-
particular `a unifying non-material mind-like something' which ing any researcher who tried to persuade sceptics (or for that
provided `an ordering principle' — a theme which Rupert Shel- matter the general public) of materialisations was the common
drake was to take up and develop over half a century later into his conviction that matter did not, in ordinary circumstances, mater-
theory of morphogenetic fields. Driesch's concept of entelechy, ialise `out of thin air'. But was this correct? Driesch cited Emile
derived from Aristotle, won more respect than Vitalism ordinarily Coué, then at the height of his international reputation with his
achieved among biologists; as the great historian of medicine `Every day, in every way, I get better and better' on hundreds of
Henry Sigerist pointed out, it had developed from laboratory thousands of lips the world over. Coué's belief was that the
observation, `and is no more and no less speculative than the imagination, if roused, could promote physiochemical changes (it
assumption that in far off times we may succeed in a bio-chemical was not until half a century later, with the discovery of the
explanation of life'. And it was particularly welcome to psychical endorphins, that he was eventually proved right — they were the
researchers, because Driesch, like Bergson and McDougall, found mechanism by which pain was relieved. But by then it had been
room in his brand of Vitalism for paranormal phenomena. forgotten that he was the prophet.) In the same way, Driesch
Driesch had been appointed Professor of Philosophy at Cologne suggested, there appeared to be `mind-like agents' which could
University in 1919 — specialism had not yet hardened sufficiently affect matter:
to preclude such a switch. He had joined the SPR earlier; in the
1920s he began to attend psychical research conferences, and to They are not only able to affect physiological processes, to direct
and regulate the genesis of the normal form, they may also provoke
relate his theories to the phenomena; and in The Crisis in Psycho- abnormal structures under the guidance of imagination. This is what
logy in 1925 he criticised people who had made up their minds may be called an enlarged Couéism.
that the phenomena `never are and never will be', whom he Let us keep well in mind that the action of what I have called
likened to those `who were with God when he created the world, entelechy in biology does not `create' matter, but is only ordering
and who know what he was able to do and what not', a species pre-existing matter. And it is only this action of ordering, of direct-
which `never die out'. ing, which we have to assume also in parapsychology, matter being
Most textbooks or essays on psychology did not deal with everywhere. Mere assimilation, then, would be the most simple
parapsychology; `nor, for that matter, even with "abnormal" instance of a long series of events of which so-called materialisation
normal psychology, such as hypnotism, if a paradoxical expression would be the end.
may be allowed'. But in every science, Driesch argued, `the
problematic side is more important for its advancement than the
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Science and Parascience The USA
Compared with these contributions, Coover's was shoddy: religious cult as a hard-hearted skeptic; formerly thoroughly skepti-
largely a rehash of Podmore , ignoring the strongest evidence for cal all along this li ne; always occupied, during a curiously varied
psychic phenomena, or traducing it with evasions and half-truths. career, from the boyhood days when no mechanical or other puzzle
Jastrow , however , was unusually thoughtful , arguingthe case against was ever given up unsolved, in the analysis and resolution of one kind
psychic phenomena on metaphysical, or psychophysiological, or another, in history, sociology, abnormal psychology etc. , up to
psychical research; one to whom accuracy is a religion, and minute
grounds. Science, he claimed, had been progressing steadily analysis is an obsession, so that it is an agony to terminate the testing
from occultism `to the discovery of material cause and effect in the process and write a report; intolerably detailed in reporting and in
naturalistic scheme as we moderns know it'. The story of the presenting the subject in hand at every possible angle; alive by
development of thought was `the story of the long struggle and slow experience and study to the various pitfalls of illusion, delusion and
emergence of the single-threaded scientific view of things as they deception — all this has made me a kind of scrutinising, analysing and
present themselves to an objective observation, detached from a rationalising monster, quite unpleasant to the tender-minded.
personalised interpretation of the meaning of events and forces' . It For years in this capacity, Prince pointed out, he had been asking
sounded plausible; but the timing was unlucky. Only a few months people to examine his reports, to point out any precautions which
later, Heisenberg was to state his principle of uncertainty, showing he ought to have taken, any flaws in his methods, any weaknesses
that `objective observation, detached from a personalised inter- in his reasoning; yet few had accepted the challenge, and `none has
pretation', was impracticable at the sub-atomic level — and there- more than entered mere formal a priori objections, or uttered a
by subverting the `single-threaded' view of things. few oracular and evasive generalities'.
When Jastrow descended to details, too, he gave himself away. The longest and most detailed contribution to the symposium
As one of the `exposers' of Palladino, he felt secure in criticising came from Crandon. It was in no way an apologia; on the contrary,
Richet's acceptance of her in his Thirty Years of Psychical Re- it exuded confidence that the mass of evidence which had been
search. `Must one assume,' he asked, `that Richet does not know accumulated through the `Margery' investigations, which he
that Palladino was repeatedly caught in the act of lifting the table summarised, could withstand any attempt to explain it away.
telekinetically by the aid of her left leg and the broad flange of her Henceforth it would be a question of exploring the phenomena
flexible shoes?' Nobody knew better than Richet what Eusapia did scientifically. People might ask, for what purpose? Certainly not a
when she was allowed to use her feet, as he had seen her do; religious purpose; psychic research, Crandon insisted, `has about
nobody had attended more trials of her mediumship than he had; as much to do with religion as golf' — though it would affect some
nobody had been harder to convince, until the series of tests he put religious concepts and beliefs. The researchers were not propagan-
her through in 1894 with Lodge, Myers and Ochorowicz in France dists for a `new revelation', he insisted; all they wanted of scientists
had finally convinced him. was `a simple effort of good will — yes, let us say it, of honesty; for it
Where the sparks flew, in the book Murchison edited after the is not honest to deny without trying to examine fairly'. The truly
meeting, was not the result of sceptics and believers beating vainly scientific mind, Claude Bernard had said, `ought to make us
on each other's armour, but in the resumed battle between Cran- moderate and tolerant' ; but too often the critics had been `the same
don and Walter Prince. In his contribution at the conference itself old gang who tortured and burnt the free-thinker; they are the
Prince had kept off the subject. Instead, he had made a spirited members of the Sanhedrin who cried, Crucify! Crucify! and they
justification of his connection with psychical research. Because of have carried it out, physically, if they could, but otherwise men-
his association with the ASPR, he was assumed to be a believer; tally, professionally and socially'.
but he begged the Clark audience not to accept so superficial a It was not, however, the `same old gang' whom Crandon was
judgment; rather, to examine his attitude as they might examine a having to contend with at this time: it was Prince, who persuaded
biological specimen. Murchison to include in the book, published under the title The
Put me under the microscope as the bug some people think I am. Case for and against Psychical Belief, the scathing review Prince
Reputed to be excessively cautious, and regarded by the Spiritualist had written for the American Journal of Psychology of Margery
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Science and Parascience
Harvard Veritas, and Bird's Margery the Medium. It was un-
ashamedly a counter-polemic, designed to destroy the good repu-
tation of the Crandons. Yet the review exposed Prince's own
limitations. Unable to explain how the phenomena at the second
Harvard investigation seances could be accounted for, he was 6 The SPR in Decline
reduced to generalisations — `darkness may be required by a
"psychic law", but it is also convenient' — and objections to `Feda'
`Walter's' autocratic ways.
The reluctance of the Cambridge nucleus to become involved in
the investigation of physical mediums, and the negative nature of
the report on `Eva's' London series, again took the SPR out of the
mainstream of psychical research in the 1920s. Significantly, the
two contributions made by members at the 1923 Copenhagen
international conference both dealt with the mental mediumship of
Mrs Osborne Leonard. Work with her was continuing to produce
positive results — about the only success which the society could
claim.
Mrs Leonard's reputation had remained unblemished, and
`Feda's' ability to provide `communicators' undiminished. She
even won over Robert Blatchford, editor of the Clarion, long a
leading campaigner for Socialism. `Throughout my thinking life I
have been a convinced materialist; even a militant materialist,' he
wrote in his More Things in Heaven and Earth. `I believed that the
personality was bound up in the structure of the brain. As I have
expressed it more than once, "the brain is the man".' As a letter he
had written shortly before he went to Mrs Leonard showed, he
went sceptically. What he heard converted him: his dead wife came
through, and spoke to him as she had when she was living.
Blatchford also noted what other sitters had sometimes re-
marked upon: `some curious acoustic facts', as he described them.
`Feda's' voice did not reach him as if Mrs Leonard was her
mouthpiece. It sounded initially as if `Feda' was speaking from
above and behind Mrs Leonard. Later, it was as if she had moved
in front, slightly to Mrs Leonard's left; so that when he was
speaking to `Feda', he was turning away from Mrs Leonard: `When
my wife spoke to me with the direct voice, she seemed to speak
from a point between the medium and the control.'
Although `Feda' expressed a preference for getting to know
sitters, claiming that this helped her to obtain better results, from
the society's point of view her most impressive feats were with first-
time sitters whom she could not know about in advance; as in a case
history provided by Mrs Dawson-Smith, the mother of a young
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
officer, Lieutenant Frank Dawson-Smith, who had survived the Geoff were close friends, both of whom had been killed in the war.
war, including Passchendaele, only to be murdered in Somalia in Frank had been learning Swahili, before leaving for Africa, with
1920 by supporters of the `Mad Mullah'. That autumn his mother the help of a dictionary; and he had started to learn Somali just
went anonymously for a sitting, taking notes of what `Feda' relayed before he was killed. A white marble tablet was erected in his
from the `communicator' — `Frank'. Mrs Dawson-Smith passed memory in his home church, and although at the time of the sitting
the notes on to lodge, and Mrs Salter later published extracts from she did not know it, a memorial tablet was also to be put up in a
them in the SPR Proceedings. At the first of Mrs Dawson-Smith's church in Nairobi.
sittings, her notes ran: There were to be further sittings in 1921, and the `preview'
element became even more marked. On 10 January `Frank' said
FEDA: The communicator says: `Have you got the snapshots?' there was another snapshot of him: `He is trying his best to get it to
Mrs D-S: I have those you sent me before you passed over. you,' `Feda' told Mrs Dawson-Smith. `He is going to try and
FEDA: He says: 'Ah, but there are more to come. Will you
remember what I say? You will laugh over it and I impress the person who has it to send it to you. It may take some
want you to laugh. Don't forget it. I feel strongly you time.' The snapshot, the last to be taken of him, had been picked
will get it and you will see what I mean. I am taken in up by a brother officer, who had written to a man in Ireland to tell
such a funny position .. .'
him about it; the man in Ireland told Mrs Dawson-Smith; and in
He calls you by such a funny name (more whispering, July, when the brother officer returned to England, he met her to
`No, no, not that'). He must mean Mum. Not — well, hand it over.
but the other is nothing. (Pause). He says he calls you Another communication in that January sitting, was even more
MOTH — that spells `moth' (pronouncing as written), remarkable. According to `Feda', `Frank' wanted his mother to
but he says `No, no, ask her, she knows, don't you, look for `an old purse with a receipt in it, a tiny paper'. He
Moth?' described it as a counterfoil: `Try and unearth it.' He knew his
Mrs D-S: It is short for mother. mother still had it, he told `Feda'. Close to it was a long narrow
FEDA: Just a piece of a word. He says, `Yes, just a piece of
mother', and he laughs . . . strap, which he had noticed `accidentally'; and he reiterated that it
He keeps calling `Eric, Geoff!' (Feda shouted the two was important for her to find it.
names) and `Eric!' He says, `All right, put that down In her box-room, Mrs Dawson-Smith found a trunk over which a
and I'll explain afterward' . . . long strap was hanging. It contained, among other things, an old
He says you have some books of his with funny lan- leather purse, `and in it a worn old counterfoil of a money order',
guage. He was studying them. He says `I started to which she took out and put in her desk, `thinking the importance
learn the two languages. I have dabbled with many, might be found later'. It was — but not until nearly four years later.
but these two were different. I could speak one fairly On 23 November 1924 she wrote to tell Lodge what had happened:
well — but I know little or nothing of the other' .. .
He is pleased about the memorial. You know what he I had a letter from the `Enemy Debt Clearing Office' demanding a
means? His name and a date — and he likes what you sum of money said to be owing to a Hamburg firm, which was
have put on it. He says, `Something else is being done incurred in July 1914 — before the war. I knew my boy had paid it, as
which you will know soon, not a private one but a I remembered how anxious he was to send the money before war was
public one.' declared, as he owed it and wanted to pay as a debt of honour. So I
wrote to the Controller and explained that the account had been paid
Two months after this sitting, a brother officer brought two ten years ago. Then the Hamburg people said they had not received
packages to Mrs Dawson-Smith, in one of which were some prints. it, and if I had no proof other than my memory, it would be pressed
`I laughed when I saw the one he evidently meant me to notice,' she (the claim). Then I remembered my boy's message at Mrs Leonard's
commented in her letter to Lodge; it had turned out to be a picture and I hastened to look at the counterfoil and found it, the identical
taken of him surf-bathing, at an awkward moment. Frank had paper needed to prove the account had been paid. Needless to say I
always called her `Moth', pronouncing it as in `mother'. Eric and sent a complete account of the transaction to the Controller, and he
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
of course verified it in every particular, and wrote to apologise for It must have irked Mrs Sidgwick that she could not keep
having caused me so much worry and trouble, and to say no further Barrett's reports out of the society's publications, as she would
action would be taken in the matter. often have preferred. Dowsing, for example, was regarded with
With the meticulousness which had become second nature to disfavour by those members who were determined at all costs to
preserve the society's image as a strictly scientific organisation. To
her, Mrs Sidgwick asked for the evidence to be sent; and after them, the mind's-eye picture of a country bumpkin walking over
inspecting the counterfoil and the correspondence, she formally fields holding a forked hazel twig savoured of superstition. Barrett
confirmed that they bore out Mrs Dawson-Smith's account. had carried out careful, thorough research, the results of which had
This evidence `certainly suggests that the communicator's mem- been published in the Proceedings in two long articles; they
ory was the source of the knowledge shown', Mrs Salter com- represented the first serious attempt to investigate the subject from
mented. But could it be classified as foreknowledge? The caution a scientific standpoint, but they brought him no credit in the
psychical researchers had learned to display showed itself in her nucleus.
appraisal. `The emphasis laid upon the importance of the counter- His report on a poltergeist haunting at Derrygonyelly, though
foil, though interesting in view of the sequel, does not seem to eminently sensible, was also unwelcome; the Sidgwicks shared
imply any more exact knowledge of the future than would be Podmore's view that poltergeists could and should be explained
within the scope of any person who had the circumstances of the away in terms of some member of the family making mischief. For
case clearly in his mind,' she remarked. `Obviously it might be of Barrett even to have investigated Crawford, let alone to have
importance to be able to prove payment of such a debt, and insisted that the Goligher circle were not fakers, was calculated to
documentary proof was therefore worth preserving.' To such an irritate Mrs Sidgwick still further. And even worse must have been
extent had the Cambridge clan been conditioned to look gift horses his claim, in his swan song, to have had `indubitable' evidence that
in the mouth. psychic photographs could be genuine.
Although Barrett was a simple-minded man, in many respects a
journeyman physicist rather than an academic, he was much
The Death of Barrett shrewder in his speculations about the phenomena he was re-
There were few gift horses around, however; largely for a reason searching into than the nucleus gave him credit for. Even before
which Barrett's death, in the summer of 1925, underlined. The last the society had been founded, in his early exploration of the
survivor of the founders of the society, he had been the most `higher phenomena' of mesmerism, he had realised that straight
open-minded, striving to broaden the base of its research. `thought transference' was a misleading concept, because it
Barrett had been the first to confront the British Association in seemed to suggest `a transmission of ideas between two persons
the paper which he read at its 1876 meeting. In a paper 'Reminisc- across material space', whereas `space', he thought, `does not
ences of fifty years' in 1924 he recalled with some pride that among seem to enter into the question at all'. He had suggested 'trans-
the few scientists who had supported him in the subsequent furore, fusion of thought', which comes closer to current opinion.
four — Crookes, Rayleigh, Wallace and Wil li am Huggins — were One last service which Barrett rendered to psychical research
to receive the Order of Merit. It was Barrett who, six years later, has only recently been recognised as anything but a geriatric
had brought together the men who were to found the SPR; and two aberration. In his uncompleted Death-bed Visions, published post-
years after that had performed the same service in Boston, setting humously, he provided a collection of cases of people who shortly
up the American society. `One of the first of those distinguished before death had appeared to meet old friends and relatives
physicists who have contributed so much down the years to its work coming, as it were, to help them across to the spirit world. Even
and to its intellectual standing,' Renée Haynes has said of him in Richet pronounced his evidence `disturbing' — disturbing, that is,
her history of the society. `He combined great vitality with great to anybody who shared Richet's materialism. Interest in this
intellectual gifts, and an insatiable — and wide-ranging — scientific phenomenon has revived following the publication of Raymond
curiosity with stubborn perseverance.' Moody's Life after Life; and its implications have since been
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
examined by several writers — among them Robert Kastenbaum, The kind of scenes or incidents which his daughter or other `agents'
who in his survey of the evidence for and against survival has thought up for Murray to guess virtually ruled out Cumberlandism
commented that `more than half-a-century later, Barrett's little as an explanation. After a time the family had begun to record
book remains a classic for its demonstration of astute scientific them, and Murray's guesses: and at the first session for which the
reasoning applied to a phenomena that some would regard as record had been preserved, held on 17 April 1910, his daughter
beyond empirical investigation'. (Rosalind, later to be Mrs Arnold Toynbee), who was acting as
`agent', had suggested:
Dad's little German hairdresser cutting Dennis's hair.
Gilbert Murray Murray: A funny little man walking down a street knocking on
Although the SP R's record of investigations in the mid 1920s was doors — he looks foreign — he's just like my little German hair-
poor, apart from Dingwall's efforts and the continuing work with dresser.
Mrs Leonard, there were two unusual investigations in which the Following Murray's Presidential Address the records, which had
society was involved at second hand, both of which produced been kept since 1910, were examined by Mrs Verrall. Out of five
interesting results. The first was a report by Mrs Sidgwick in 1924 hundred guesses, broken down into three categories, 33 per cent
on the `guessing game' which had been played over the years by had been `hits', 28 per cent `near-misses', and 39 per cent `misses'.
Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, in his family In one respect this underestimated Murray's achievement: some of
circle. the near-misses were very close to being hits.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a party pastime had Agent: Alister and Malcolm MacDonald running along the plat-
become popular which involved sending a subject out of the form at Liverpool Street, and trying to catch the train just going out.
drawing room; selecting an object in the room; bringing the subject Murray: Something to do with a railway station. I should say it was
back and inviting him, or her, to guess what or where the object rather a crowd at a big railway station, and two little boys running
was. There were many variations: sometimes those playing the along in the crowd. I should guess Basil.
game silently `willed' the subject to find the object; sometimes the
subject was blindfolded and led around the room by a `guide'. How did Murray `guess'? How did the information come into
Groups playing the `willing game' were often astonished at the his mind? He did his best to explain: it came `not through
speed with which subjects found the object — as, indeed, were the any particular sense, but through what I may call a sort of indeter-
subjects themselves; and arguments would arise over whether minate sense of quality, or atmosphere. For instance I almost al-
telepathy was responsible, or Cumberlandism — named after the ways, if I am going right, get first a feeling of the country in which
explanation provided by Stuart Cumberland for his own success at the scene or incident is set. I say, "This is Russian," "This is
the game, which he exploited professionally: he claimed the ability Italian," "This seems tropical" or the like.' Murray could also
to pick up tiny clues by observation, or by his `feel' of the muscular usually sense whether the subject came from life, or from a
reactions of the `guide'. book — the `taste' from a book being particularly strong, so
Murray had often played the game with his family and friends; much so that he might pick it up even when he had not read the
but theirs was the sophisticated version he had described in his book. Sometimes there would be mind's-eye pictures, or
Presidential Address to the SPR in 1915: mind's-ear sounds, or even mind's-nose smells: when the sub-
ject had been Savonarola's Florence, with the people burning
I go out of the room, and of course out of earshot. Someone in the their possessions, he had at first felt `This is Italy', then `Not
room, generally my eldest daughter, thinks of a scene or an incident modern', and then he had smelt burning oil or paint `and so got the
or anything she likes, and says it aloud. It is written down and I am whole scene'.
called. I come in, usually take my daughter's hand, and then, if I have A possible explanation, Murray thought, was `hyperesthesia';
luck, describe in detail what she thought of. hyperacuity of the senses — of hearing, in his case, as when in a
crowd of people, `if your name is mentioned in another part of the
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
room, you do not consciously hear the name but you turn and give Arabia, or desert', for which the most likely explanation was that
attention'. Mrs Verrall found some examples in the transcripts he had heard `Doughty' but that it had brought the author of
which lent support to this idea. Once, when the subject which his Travels in Arabia into his mind. Again, however, there were
daughter had chosen was `a walk round by Mansfield', he had occasions when he appeared to have picked up the agent's thoughts
received `a faint impression of Manefield'. Significantly, too, on even when the agent had left them unspoken.
occasions when the subject had been written down, but left un- Murray's description of the game in his Presidential Address,
spoken, Murray had been unable to guess it. Nevertheless the and Mrs Verrall's study of the records, had been published in
hyperacuity of hearing notion did not fit all the evidence. Some- wartime, and only for members of the SPR; they had attracted
times Murray picked up what was in the agent's mind even when it little attention. In 1924, however, the fact that the Earl of Balfour
had been left unspoken. was in the audience when Mrs Sidgwick read her paper, and
expressed the view that it effectively disposed of the hyperesthesia
Agent. Dr M. in a white coat in his X-ray room examining a theory, led to its being reported in The Times; most of the account,
Russian with a red beard. under the headline `Lord Balfour on Telepathy', was devoted to
Murray. I wonder if this is right. I get a picture of someone with a his contribution. And three days later the physiologist J. S. Hal-
cough being examined by a doctor — I think your doctor in Geneva
or somewhere, in a white coat, and the patient who is consulting him dane weighed in with a letter to the editor of The Times presenting
is rather like Tolstoy, but isn't. Ought I to know the person? his explanation. Murray was picking up ordinary sound waves;
hyperesthesia was indicated, partly by his inability to guess what
Tolstoy had not been mentioned; but it was Tolstoy whom the subject was unless it was spoken; partly by the fact that the
Rosalind had had in mind. Whatever the explanation, Murray mistakes `are very evidently such as arise from imperfect hearing'.
observed, he was sure that what he was picking up was not He even claimed that this was Murray's own view.
information, but rather a feeling, which then unleashed the in- Had Haldane attended the meeting and heard Mrs Sidgwick's
formation. It was noteworthy, he thought, that he had no success paper, Lodge mildly protested, he would have realised that
with, say, playing cards, or with any subject that `was not in some hyperesthesia did not fit the facts; and a controversy started up in
way interesting or amusing'. The Times correspondence columns, Barrett and Donkin again
Eleanor Sidgwick's 1924 paper reported the results of further entering the lists, as they had done half a century before following
experiments. The outcome of her analysis was strikingly similar to Barrett's paper to the British Association. But in Psyche, a journal
Mrs Verrall's; Murray had registered a slightly higher proportion devoted to the propagation of Behaviourist ideas, 'A.M.' —
of hits and of misses, and a slightly lower proportion of partial Adelyne More — gave the dispute a new twist by rejecting both
successes. The `feelings' were still reaching his consciousness in telepathy and hyperesthesia.
various ways: `smell' had guided him on two occasions. When the As originally presented in the 1840s, the hyperacuity of the
subject was a lion trying to grab a piece of meat outside its cage, he senses theory had been an attempt to account for the way in which
got `a sort of smell of wild animals — carnivorous animals'; and a certain individuals, when hypnotised, would react to signals made
fantasy offered by his daughter about an opium den off Piccadilly behind their backs. They must be feeling the tiny currents of air
Circus Underground, with red sofas, dancing and a man in a skull made by a beckoning or pointing finger, James Braid had argued,
cap had prompted him on his return to the drawing room to say it and moving in response to it. The advantage of the theory was that
was odd, but he had picked up the smell of `some incensy stuff — I it required no additional sensory channel; all of us, the assumption
should think it was opium, or hashish'. The subject was `like a sort had been, are capable of sensing such minute currents, but we are
of opium den' with red settees; it was in London; and people were not ordinarily aware of them, any more than we are aware of our
going `down into it'. clothes touching our bodies. Hypnosis, Braid believed, enabled
Again, there were occasions when it was as if Murray had heard subjects to register sensory information which was available but
the subject: for `Sir Francis Drake drinking the health of Doughty not as a rule noticed. W. B. Carpenter had appropriated Braid's
before he was led out to be hanged', Murray got `a faint feeling of idea and fashioned it into a general theory of hyperesthesia; and
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
Faraday had gratefully adopted and adapted it to account for could hardly apply in Murray's case. He had admitted in his
table-turning, by suggesting that it accounted for the way in which Presidential Address to the SPR that `the least disturbance of
people were causing the tables to move without being aware that ordinary method, change of time or place, presence of strangers,
they were exercising muscular force. controversy and especially noise , is apt to make things go wrong'.
As Lord Rayleigh was to point out in 1942, no scientific evidence It would therefore have been legitimate for sceptics to make the
had ever been offered for hyperesthesia. Undoubtedly some point that Murray's faculty, whatever it might be, could not be
people had particularly acute hearing; but as nobody had ever scientifically tested, for much the same reason as the condition of
demonstrated the existence of the kind of hyperacuity which being in love could not be scientifically tested. But as telepathy was
Murray would have required for success in his game, Rayleigh a threat, they preferred to continue to insist that it would only be
dismissed the idea as a myth; it was simply a convenience for those accepted if it could be demonstrated by some method acceptable to
who, like Haldane, wanted to dispose of telepathy, but found it scientists. And in the meantime, they could have it either way:
hard to dismiss the evidence for Murray's faculty out of hyperesthesia, or cheating.
hand — understandably, as Murray by 1924 was a respected figure, Murray's own belief was that his faculty was telepathic. There
and not just in academic circles; he was President of the League of were so many occasions when he picked up what was in the agents'
Nations Union (a post carrying considerably more prestige than its minds, rather than what they actually said, that he had been
equivalent, which he was also to hold in the United Nations compelled to reject the hyperacuity hypothesis. But for some
Organisation, when it was set up after World War Two). reason, he did not express this point of view at the time, keeping it
Adelyne More, however, a disciple of the behaviourist J. B. to himself until his Presidential Address during his second term of
Watson, was not prepared to accept the existence of any process office in 1953. As a result, hyperesthesia continued to be advanced
whereby information could be filtered through the unconscious as the explanation.
into awareness. The results Murray obtained, she felt, could be Adelyne More's viewpoint also attracted some support. By the
accounted for by `the hypothesis of conscious hearing plus success- mid 1920s Houdini was devoting much of his time and effort to
ful guessing plus similar associations in the minds of the medium proving that mediumship, in all its guises, was faked; and Murray's
and his family' . `The medium' could only be intended as an insult, performances goaded him into demonstrating how the trick was
as mediumship to a behaviourist was necessarily spurious. Murray, done, in a performance specially laid on in his New York home for
she was alleging, was using his ears in the normal way, when he Ralph Pulitzer, Bernard Baruch, Walter Lippman and others.
could, and eking out what he heard with the help of a kind of While the subjects he was to guess were being decided, one of the
Cumberlandism. And although she did not accuse Murray outright guests escorted Houdini to a room two floors above, and stood
of deliberately deceiving his family and friends, and later the SPR, guard over the door. Houdini failed with the first subject, but when
by pretending that he was picking up a `feeling', whether by Baruch suggested `Don't give up the ship', Houdini got `water and
telepathy or hyperesthesia, when in fact he was consciously hear- shipwrecks' ; and when the subject was `the statue of Buffalo Bill in
ing what was said in the drawing room, she obviously knew that this Wyoming', Houdini got `oxen stampeding', and then switched to
would be inferred, as she went on to echo a point which Donkin `buffaloes' — much as Murray used to do.
had made in his controversy with the founders of the SPR: that in Conan Doyle was to use this tale as one of his illustrations of
all scientific enquiries, the good faith of those concerned `should Houdini's psychic powers, so sure was he that Houdini was only
form no part of the data on which the conclusion is to rest'. The pretending that he had accomplished it by `scientific trickery', as he
evidence in cases of this kind should not be allowed to rest upon claimed to do. But the more common interpretation was that
social or personal distinction, she argued. `Rather, it must rest Houdini had found how Murray did the trick; and this might still be
upon the solid foundation of controlled and rigid conditions under the accepted view had not the secret been given away, years later,
which the experiments are conducted.' by Houdini's brother, who had been with the guests downstairs.
This attitude, logical enough in those branches of scientific When a subject was chosen, he had repeated it out loud, as if to
research where all the subjective elements could be eliminated, help them to concentrate on it. Unknown to the others, the room
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
was `bugged' so that Houdini could listen in. `Bugging' was then in electrical experiments, to see whether the — presumed — electro-
its infancy; nobody would have suspected that there could be a magnetic component could be exploited to provide an objective
concealed microphone. diagnosis of disease in the absence of the patient, simply by
including a piece of the patient's tissue, or a drop of the patient's
blood, in the circuit; and when Abrams found the method worked,
he began to manufacture and market his invention in the form of
The Black Box the gadget which came to be known as the `Black Box'.
Convincing through Murray's evidence was for anybody who If the `box' had actually incorporated and used an electric
accepted the possibility of telepathic communication, a family current, it might have been taken more seriously; but the fact that
game hardly helped the SPR to advance its claim to be recognised the `current' which it measured by means of resistances was
as a body engaged in serious scientific investigations. The trials of a biological — on the analogy of animal magnetism, rather than of
diagnostic gadget undertaken in 1924 were a different matter: they straight magnetism — led to its being damned by the medical
were as scientific as, at that time, their investigators could make profession in the United States. The profession in Britain would
them. ordinarily have ignored its introduction; but this chance to expose
The leaders of the medical profession were still smarting from a quackery was too good to miss. Not merely did the `box' look
calculated snub which it had received two years earlier, when the spurious, because it appeared to be an electrical device, yet did not
celebrated bonesetter, Herbert Barker, had received a knight- use electricity; better still, there would be no need to test it on
hood. Because he practised without medical qualifications, he had patients (which would have contravened the GMC's regulations),
been subjected for years to sour attacks in the medical journals, because Abrams had claimed that any biological or chemical
and harassment in the courts; and the General Medical Council substance could be diagnosed with its assistance.
had struck a doctor, Frederick Axham, off the Medical Register In 1924 a committee was formed under Sir Thomas Horder —
for assisting him by giving anaesthetics to his patients. Following later, as Lord Horder, physician to King George V — to carry out
Barker's knighthood the GMC had incurred further odium by tests of the `Box'. It was a fairly high-powered group, though
refusing to reinstate Axham; and the profession's monopolistic Whately Smith, by this time working at the Air Ministry, was the
powers had come under attack in the press. If the profession were only member who had had any experience of investigating unex-
to hold its privileged position, some of its members felt, the public plained phenomena; there was his colleague, Major H. Lefroy,
needed reminding that the GMC's powers were for the good of the head of wireless research at the Air Ministry; Dr C. B. Heald,
community, as a protection against quackery; and the arrival in medical adviser to the Director of Civil Aviation; and M. D. Hart
Britain of the diagnostic instrument invented by an American, from the War Office. Together they prepared a simple but care-
Albert Abrams, appeared to offer an ideal opportunity. fully thought-out test procedure requiring that the operator of the
Practising in California, Abrams had established his reputation `Box' should identify the contents of packages containing a variety
as a physician and neurologist, and in the course of his practice he of substances. They would be passed to him immediately before he
made what struck him as an intriguing discovery: that when he used was asked to make his diagnosis, so that he would have no
percussion, tapping a patient's body with a delicate hammer, the opportunity to play any tricks, such as substituting his own.
sound varied according to the direction in which patients were The tests were carried out not on an Abrams' `Box', but on a
facing, and the disorders from which they were suffering. A variant working on the same principle, which was being used by a
possible explanation, he realised, was that in some unexplained homeopathic physician practising in Glasgow — W. E. Boyd. Re-
way, the body reacted to the earth's magnetic field. Experimenting lating what had happened to an audience at the Royal Society of
further, Abrams made the curious finding that if a healthy person Medicine on 16 January 1925, Horder described Boyd's technique.
held a piece of diseased tissue, it was possible to detect its presence It involved `a human subject standing at right angles to the
by using percussion. From this he moved on to experiment by horizontal component of the local magnetic field'. A receiving
setting up a circuit, of the kind that would ordinarily be used for plate was connected to the subject through `a variable condenser in
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
series' by an electrode strapped to his forehead; the specimen to be contented himself with saying that the same level of success had
diagnosed was handed in through the hatch on a holder, of which been maintained.
one side was earthed, and put on the receiving plate. Boyd then The effect on the audience can be imagined. After Horder sat
percussed the subject, making his diagnosis with the help of tuning down, the chairman asked whether it was the audience's wish to
`by varying the value of the inductance'. discuss the report there and then, or whether it would prefer to
Repellent though quackery of any kind was to orthodox doctors, leave discussion until a later date. The meeting, as the Lancet
quackery masquerading as science was particularly resented; and succinctly reported, `decided against each alternative'.
as Horder's audience must have been largely composed of men `in What, then, was the explanation? Boyd himself soon found that
whose nostrils', as he put it, `the subject has an odour which is quite the emanometer did not provide consistently accurate diagnostic
unsavoury', they presumably had settled down to enjoy themselves information; and although mistakes could be attributed to a failure
at Boyd's expense — especially as they heard that when Boyd had of screening, this was of little benefit because, as he found, there
come to London to give a demonstration, it had been a failure. was no way to make his screening system reliable. Yet chance
Boyd's excuse had been that the London laboratory had not been could surely be ruled out; as could fraud, given the precautions.
screened to exclude extraneous magnetic impulses; so it had been Interestingly, too, both Horder and Heald had been able to hear
agreed that Whately Smith should go to Glasgow, to conduct tests the changes in the percussion `note', whenever a different sub-
in a screened lab there. stance was passed through the hatch. More than that: when they
The condition in which the tests were held, Whately Smith had took the place of Boyd's assistant, and were themselves percussed,
found, were satisfactory. In the first test, Boyd and his emano- they could `definitely feel an alteration in the abdominal muscles',
meter were required to distinguish between two substances placed even when a specimen was being withdrawn , and another one put
in their packets on the plate. In a run of twenty-five trials, the through the hatch, without their knowledge. If Boyd had somehow
results were 100 per cent correct: the odds against this happening managed to substitute his own specimens for those which the
by chance, Horder noting, being 33,554,432 to one. In other tests, investigators had brought with them, in other words, this could not
Boyd had to identify which specific substance, among a num- have accounted for the way in which their stomachs reacted
ber, was on the plate. Again, he was right every time. Only in one differently to the different specimens, providing a different `note'
of five tests did he slip up, being wrong in two out of twenty when percussed. It was this, in fact, which had been chiefly
trials; but in these, Whately Smith had to admit, there was a responsible for their verdict that `no more convincing exposition of
possibility that the mistake might have been his, rather than the reality of the phenomena could reasonably be desired'.
Boyd's. The other possibility was that Boyd was picking up the informa-
Either Boyd's technique worked, and worked spectacularly tion psychically. Ever since, variants on the original `Black Box'
well, or he must have found some way of duping Whately Smith; have been used, often for a time with such striking success that the
that he should have secured Whately Smith's co ll usion in trickery, practitioners of Radionics, as it has come to be called, have been
Horder hastened to say, was unthinkable. It might be unthinkable led to think that they have found a way to get objective diagnostic
to Horder and those who 'knew Whately Smith, but as those who information consistently. Always, however, these hopes have been
did not know him would inevitably suspect that he must be either dashed; it is as if the `Box' requires a psychic link to work
dupe or rogue, Horder and Heald themselves went to Edinburgh, satisfactorily.
to repeat the tests, this time bringing with them Dingwall — already Radionics was not a field of research in which Horder would
the acknowledged expert in planning fraud-repellent investiga- have cared to involve himself. He had a let-out; it would be unsafe
tions — so that he could recommend any additional precautions he to use the gadget, he argued, until it was known how it worked.
might think necessary. Dingwall was broadly satisfied with the Years later, Beverley Nichols, encountering Horder — by this time
earlier arrangements; he suggested a few minor modifications, and a peer — at a dinner, asked him why the 1924 investigation had
the tests began again. Horder did not go into detail about them in never been followed up. `I have rather a guilty conscience about it,'
his report to the audience at the Royal Society of Medicine; he Horder replied. He must have known that for him or any other
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
ambitious young member of the medical profession to have hand page folded to the right and the right-hand page folded to the
accepted even the possibility of a psychic component in diagnosis, left forming a pocket, and in this pocket Mr Blackwelder found the
let alone argue that it should be investigated, would have put a will.
blight on a promising career.
— a version which Blackwelder corroborated. The newly-found
will read:
The Chaffin Will
After reading the 27th chapter of Genesis, I, James L. Chaffin, do
The SPR continued to perform one useful function: its Journal and make my last will and testament, and here it is. I want, after giving
Proceedings included a flow of case histories of telepathic or other my body a decent burial, my little property to be equally divided
experiences. By this time the accumulation of such anecdotal between my four children, if they are living at my death, both
material had reached the stage where, from the point of view of personal and real estate, divided equal; if not living, give share to
converting sceptics, it was a waste of time to add any more; a few, their children. And if she is living you all must take care of your
however, were of unusual interest, such as the Chaffin Will case, mammy. Now this is my last will and testament. Witness my hand
the details of which, though it was American in origin, appeared in and seal.
the Proceedings. James L. Chaffin
This January 16, 1919
The story, as unfolded in documents sent by a North Carolina
lawyer, J. M. Johnson, to the SPR, concerned a will made by a The second will, in other words, had been written fourteen years
farmer in that state, James L. Chaffin. Chaffin had four sons; and after the first, and two years before his death; and Genesis 27 gave
for some reason which the documents did not go into, in a will he a clue to the reason for the change of mind, as it deals with Jacob's
made and had attested by two witnesses in 1905, he left the farm to filching of his brother Esau's birthright. Why the testator had not
his third son, Marshall, whom he also made sole executor, leaving told his family was not clear; but the fact that he died suddenly as
out the rest of the family, including his wife. the result of an accident suggested the possibility that he had
When James died in 1921, Marshall duly came into the inherit- preferred not to disclose his intentions until on his deathbed.
ance. Four years later, however, the second of the four brothers, The beneficiary of the first will, Marshall, was no longer alive;
James Chaffin Jr, began to have vivid dreams about his father; but on the new will being tendered for probate, his widow prepared
culminating in one where his father, wearing a black overcoat, told to contest it on behalf of her son, a minor. On being shown the will,
him he would find his will in the overcoat pocket. The overcoat was however, and in the knowledge that a number of witnesses were
in the possession of the eldest brother; examining it, James found prepared to testify that it was in James L. Chaffin's handwriting,
that the lining of the inside pocket had been `sewd together'. she withdrew her opposition — the fact of its being in the testator's
Cutting the stitches, he found — not the will, but a message in his writing, even if not attested, making it valid under the state's laws.
father's writing on a roll of paper tied with a string: `Read the 27th The lawyer, Johnson, who sent the documents to the SPR,
chapter of Genesis in my daddy's old bible.' explained that he had tried to find out whether the discovery of the
At this point James was sufficiently impressed, or shaken, by the will could be accounted for by, say, some subconscious knowledge
corroboration of his dream to take the precaution of getting a of its existence; but the members of the family were unanimous
neighbour to come with him to his mother's house. There (he that it had never been mentioned in the testator's lifetime. The
wrote in his formal statement), writer of the unsigned commentary in the Proceedings of the SPR
we had a considerable search before we found the old Bible. At last drew attention to the fact that it was not the actual will which was in
we did find it in the top bureau drawer in an upstairs room. The book the overcoat pocket, as the second son had been told in his dream;
was so dilapidated that when we took it out it fell into three pieces. but this could hardly be held to cast doubt on the son's veracity.
Mr Blackwelder picked up the portion containing the Book of And as Johnson emphasised, he himself had no suspicions; he had
Genesis, and there we found two leaves folded together; the left- been `much impressed with the evident sincerity of these people,
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
who had the appearance of honest, honourable country people, in among other things that somebody in the society's offices had
well-to-do circumstances'. unexpectedly received some red flowers. Asked whether this was
The case aroused interest not simply because of the satisfactory correct, the SPR's secretary replied that on the day of the sitting,
outcome — dreams from which financial benefit accrued to the `Mr Dingwall brought me a plant of red azaleas in full bloom. The
rightful owner, though rare, had been reported before — but for gift was entirely unexpected. Mr Dingwall has never given me a
the scope it gave for controversy over whether it could best be plant before.' What Dingwall thought of this unexpected exposure
accounted for by the return of the father's spirit, penetrating his of him in the role of a gallant is not recorded.
son's mind in dreams; or by delayed telepathy; or by cryptom- The evidence which Mrs Leonard was continuing to provide,
nesia — the son's memory of something his father had said or done however valuable it was for those who were interested in debating
being jogged in his dreams. The commentary in the Proceedings the issue whether telepathy or survival after death could be held
recalled an episode from Myers' Human Personality in which a responsible for `Feda's' capabilities, was hardly enough to justify
woman, coming out of a swoon after hearing of the death of her the SPR's existence as a research organisation; and this was
father, said that he had appeared to her while she was in it, and told beginning to foment discontent, as J. G. Piddington — a long-
her that there was some money sewn inside the shirt he was standing member of the Cambridge nucleus, a close associate of
wearing at the time, which turned out to be correct; but this could Mrs Sidgwick's, and the society's Treasurer — realised. In his
be attributed to a telepathic impression conveyed to her before his Presidential Address in 1924 he remarked on the existence within
death. `In the present case, nearly four years intervened between the society of two schools of thought: the `High-and-Dry', who
the death and the apparition, so that the hypothesis of delayed wanted to maintain the most rigorous of scientific standards, and
telepathy is hardly applicable.' the `Not High-and-Dry', who took the line that `so much has been
established beyond cavil that we can now safely relax to some
extent the stringent precautions' and `generally adopt a less sus-
picious and more genial attitude to mediums, automatists, dream-
The Easing out of Dingwall
-
ers of dreams, seers of apparitions, corroborating witnesses and
By the mid 1920s, though its journal continued to provide records so forth'.
of such cases, the Society for Psychical Research was providing The issue was not in fact so simple. The chief threat to the
very little evidence of activity on the part of its members — apart survival of the SPR was that the Cambridge nucleus's determina-
from reports of the continuing ability of `Feda' to impress investi- tion, which Piddington whole-heartedly shared, to keep it High-
gators: among them the Rev. W. S. Irving, `a model sitter' — in the and-Dry, had left it bankrupt of new ideas for research, and
view of the exacting Mrs Salter, who had charge of the Journal, in increasingly uneasy about involving itself in what had become the
her introduction to his account of a series of trials with Mrs major preoccupation of researchers on the Continent, physical
Leonard in 1925 — `in respect of the trouble he takes to verify and mediumship; and here, chance came to the nucleus's aid with the
check every statement made, so far as he possibly can'. death of Geley and the decline in the powers of the best known
`Feda' was still concerned to show that she was not reading her mediums, first `Eva' and then Willy Schneider.
sitters' minds. Much of the information which, she claimed, was In the winter of 1924 Dingwall had held another series of seances
coming from Irving's wife, who had died in 1918, continued to be with Willy Schneider, in London; and they had been disappoint-
trivial; but it was often of a kind likely to impress him that it really ing. `It can hardly be denied that the phenomena occurring in the
was his deceased wife who was communicating. And frequently presence of Mr Schneider have been diminishing, both in quantity
there could be no question of `Feda' mind-reading; not, at least, and quality, in recent years,' he reported. `There is nothing like the
reading his mind. From time to time her `communicators' would range and power which were noticeable in 1922 and even later. The
describe what was happening at the SPR — as well they might, in phenomena are weaker and negative sittings more common.' Even
view of the society's interest in her. On 29 January 1924 she told so, had Willy been a new and untried medium his performances
Irving that his `wife', who had `visited' the SPR, had reported would have been considered quite striking.
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
As before, Willy had two controllers, one on either side; ordi- drawn and again concealed in the mouth. We frankly do not believe
narily there were four or five witnesses, and a note-taker to record such a device exists, and therefore are driven to the conclusion that
their comments. Except in the occasional blank sitting, the familiar the only reasonable hypothesis which covers the facts is that some
manifestations were repeated: cool breezes wafted past; the table supernormal agency produced the results.
moved about; sitters felt themselves being touched. Sometimes the Even so, caution prevailed: `We are fully prepared to abandon
cardboard strips reared up on end; a handkerchief, placed on the this hypothesis,' Dingwall concluded, `if contrary evidence is
table, took on different shapes; the tambourine trembled so that offered.'
the attached cymbals tinkled. At one sitting the tambourine rose Dingwall was manifestly a High-and-Dry: considerably higher
up, and then fell. Later, a cardboard strip `rose completely from and drier than some members of the Cambridge nucleus. For all his
the table several inches and oscillated up and down in the air experience with mediums whom he had accepted as genuine, such
several times, while remaining horizontal'. And following another as Ossowiecki, his cast of mind was becoming increasingly scepti-
session, a well-known magician, Douglas Dexter, who had been cal, as his reviews in the society's publications in this period
asked to represent the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle , had revealed. He dismissed The Facts of Psychic Science, by Campbell
to admit he could think of no way by which either the medium or Holms, as unworthy of serious attention, on the ground that the
any of the sitters could have used physical force to achieve the author did not adopt a sufficiently rigorous attitude to the source
results without instant detection. material; though what was interesting about the book was precisely
As usual, Dingwall conceived it to be his duty to advance some the fact that the author, a Not-High-and-Dry, was less concerned
hypothesis which might conceivably account for the phenomena, with whether the phenomena he surveyed had, or had not, been
even if his fellow-conjuror admitted himself baffled. In the case of genuine, than with showing just how wide a range they covered —
Willy, however, Dingwall's surmise was so preposterous that he and, by implication, how narrow the SPR's concept of the range of
can only have presented it as a matter of form; almost as a tease. `respectable' research had become. Yet Dingwall could take
`The movements of the table,' he suggested, `may conceivably seriously writers such as von Gulat-Wellenburg, still the leading
have been effected by the medium's head.' The medium's head, in sceptic on the Continent, in spite of the fact that — as Dingwall
his trances, was usually flopped on the hands of the controllers who himself showed — their prejudices were leading them to gross
were holding his hands: how he could have used it to move the distortions and falsifications. After pointing out just how feeble
table without their noticing was not explained. `No doubt it is Gulat-Wellenburg's efforts to discredit certain mediums were,
possible,' Dingwall went on, `that skilfully directed air currents, Dingwall could still recommend his book as `one of the most
after the manner of the production of smoke rings, or even actual important critical surveys of physical mediumship which has
blowing, may have caused the tinkling of the cymbals on the hitherto appeared' — the most important `since that made by Mr
tambourine.' Willy, in other words, would have had to lift his head, Podmore'.
turn it at right angles, and blow sufficiently hard through the gauze When Schrenck, Oesterreich and Tischner published their reply
not just to make the cymbals sound, but sometimes actually to to the sceptics, too, Dingwall's reception of their case, in spite of
move the tambourine; all this without anybody noticing. In any the fact that he had to endorse some of it, was unsympathetic. The
case, the levitations of the luminous rings and strips could not be so value of their book, he concluded, was that it had revealed the
easily accounted for, as Dingwall admitted: `unanswerable character' of one of the main contentions of the
In order to raise an object two to three feet distant from him, the sceptics, which had been that up to that time, `no adequate
medium must have had concealed in his mouth an extensible evidence had been adduced which would lead a critical mind to
apparatus workable by the mouth alone and by this means have accept the existence of physical phenomena from a mere acquaint-
supported a flat object lying on the table and raised it into the air ance with the literature alone'.
from below. This feat must have been accomplished without any This was tantamount to conceding victory to the sceptics, as `the
obvious interference, with his breathing or speech; and when com- literature' presumably included Dingwall's own reports. He was in
pleted, the rod must have been in some inexplicable manner with- effect granting the demand which sceptics so often made, that they
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
would accept the phenomena only if they could see them; if this were the storm-centre of a poltergeist outbreak, and the investi-
were accepted, it would be pointless to continue to test mediums in gators were able to observe 'apports' materialising (one materialised
the way that Richet, Schrenck, Geley and Dingwall himself had in Tillyard's pocket, on his way home after a seance). That
tested them. And in fact it was at this time that Dingwall's Tillyard, a scientist of sufficient eminence for the editor of Nature
continental excursions on the society's behalf came to an end. to solicit his contributions, should be devoting time to work with
Harry Price had bounced in to try to fill the vacuum the Cam- the National Laboratory, rather than with the SPR, was the
bridge nucleus had created. He had not succeeded in his aim of measure of Harry Price's achievement in this period.
making himself a force within the SPR; and in 1925 he set up the By contrast the SPR had embarked on only one fresh initiative,
National Laboratory for Psychical Research, the better to pursue and that arose from an idea which had been proposed earlier by
investigations on his own account. Dingwall would have been a Harry Price and by Dingwall, following a radio experiment in
natural ally; but though Dingwall admired Price's energy, and Chicago. In 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation allowed
recognised that he had an `exceptionally keen and ingenious mind', itself to be persuaded to help the SPR with an experiment to find
his acquaintanceship with Price had shown him that Price was a out if listeners, or some of them, had telepathic abilities; Lodge
Not-High-and-Dry, who would find it easier to work with the was to be in charge.
College of Psychic Science, where Conan Doyle and others had The aim of the programme was `to discover whether any evi-
found the atmosphere less repressive than the SPR. dence could be obtained of the telepathic transmission of ideas' to
For a while, however, Price appeared to be conducting research people who would know nothing more than that a small group of
with an energy and an ability that promised to make his National `agents' would be seeking to transmit information at stated times.
Laboratory the leading psychical research organisation in Britain. Five objects — a playing card, a Japanese print, a bunch of lilacs,
In particular, he had discovered a physical medium, Stella Cran- another playing card, and a picture of a man wearing a mask —
shaw, who could produce phenomena reasonably consistently, were exhibited to the `agents' at the society's premises, at five-
even in the presence of sceptical witnesses; some of them striking, minute intervals between 11 p.m. and midnight; while Lodge, at
such as a fall in temperature in the seance room of over 20°F — the BBC's Savoy Hill headquarters, told listeners to record their
significant not only because although `cold breezes' had been the impressions, have them witnessed where possible, and post them
commonplace of seance rooms, they had not as a rule registered on to the society — the `agents' being kept in the society's premises all
thermometers, but also because, as Lodge observed, `it is easy for night and until after the first postal co ll ection in the morning.
hocus-pocus to send a thermometer up; but it is by no means easy Nearly twenty-five thousand rep li es were received; but the only
to send it down'. clear outcome of the test was the realisation that such experiments
`Stella C.', as she was described in reports, could move objects at needed more careful thought if they were to provide reliable
a distance from her, and sometimes break them into pieces; and evidence for, or indeed against, telepathy. The guesses showed a
her mediumship so impressed Dr E. J. Tillyard, the Australian strong tendency among listeners to choose an ace, for example,
entomologist, that in 1926 he dealt with it in Nature in a review of particularly the ace of spades; and to prefer odd-numbered to
Conan Doyle's History of Spiritualism. Critical though Tillyard even-numbered cards. The chances of a correct guess in any such
was of the book, he urged that the case for psychical phenomena trial, in other words, would vary according to what card was
was strong enough to merit more investigation: a courageous chosen, or turned up when the pack was cut. It was also impossible
attitude, in view of the predictably hostile response from Sir to decide, in the case of a picture, what should count as a `hit'.
Horatio Donkin and other sceptics in Nature's correspondence Should `flowers' serve, in the case of the bunch of lilac? Or `feeling
columns. of amusement', which no fewer than 499 viewers had in connection
Tillyard was also a witness of Price's investigation of another with the jokey picture? Dr V. J. Woolley's cautious conclusion in
medium, the Roumanian Eleanore Zugun. `Stella C.' reported his report to the society was that the records showed `the great
that objects near her sometimes moved, as if of their own accord; difficulty of reaching any definite statistical result in tests of this
Eleanore Zugun was actually plagued by such movements, as if she kind'.
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
A positive result would have given a considerable fillip to the biased work of a society which has for a whole generation produced
SPR; the lack of it left the society where it was before, living on its no constructive work of any kind, but has confined its energies to
past. Soon there were signs of dissatisfaction, and not just among the misrepresentation and hindrance of those who have really
the Not-High-and-Dry school. The appointment of Woolley to be worked at the most important problems ever presented to man-
Honorary Research Officer (Dingwall had been paid a salary) had kind.'
itself shown which way the tide was flowing; Woolley hardly A few months later, Doyle died. `A simple-hearted bluff man,'
bothered to conceal his impatience with physical mediumship. Lodge was to describe him, `who having begun by a training in
However High-and-Dry Dingwall might be, his past preoccupation medicine and as an agnostic, ultimately became an almost undis-
with physical mediums rendered him suspect with the Cambridge criminating enthusiast for what he believed to be spiritual truth.'
nucleus; and in 1927, he was informed that the SPR council had Yet Doyle could display a robust common sense which members
decided to dispense with his services. of the society too often lacked. The fact that `Eva C.'s' material-
The council also decided to return Harry Price's library of books isations looked so spurious, he pointed out, far from being an
on magic, left to the SPR on permanent loan, giving as its reason indication that she or anybody else had smuggled them in, was
shortage of space; the more likely reason was the growing mistrust a strong argument in favour of their being genuine; for nobody
of Price, coupled with the fact that a new librarian had been who was going to cheat would choose to cheat in the very way
appointed, who had decided upon a complete reorganisation of the that would make her appear to be cheating.
society's own co ll ection. Theodore Besterman was something of a
prodigy. In 1924, at the age of twenty, he had brought out a
bibliography of the works of Annie Besant — he was later to make Carlos Mirabelli
an international reputation as a bibliographer — and a history of
crystal-gazing which, though dry in its presentation, showed an It was arguable, as the Cambridge nucleus believed, that the
enviable knowledge of the sources. He had then collaborated with credulous Conan Doyle had been a liability to psychical research.
Barrett in The Divining Rod, a survey of the evidence for dowsing. It would have been difficult for them, however, to rebut his
Besterman identified himself with the High-and-Dry element in criticism of the SPR for its failure to undertake `constructive work'
the society, and he made no attempt to conceal his impatience with and its `misrepresentation and hindrance' of some of those who
those who did not share his views. With his appointment in 1929 to were doing constructive work, through the investigation of physical
succeed Helen Salter as editor of the society's publications, he had mediums. And the unwillingness to accept physical mediumship
the chance to air them without restraint — so long as they would be was now to have a particularly unfortunate consequence. A re-
shared by the Cambridge nucleus. And in a review of Gwendolyn markable medium had emerged in Brazil; but there was no enthu-
Hack's Modern Psychic Mysteries, dealing with the work of, siasm for any project to investigate him.
among others, the leading Italian psychical researcher, Ernesto Carlos Mirabelli had been born in Brazil in 1889, of Italian
Bozzano, Besterman claimed that to take it seriously would be `to parents (his father, curiously, was an Italian Lutheran clergyman).
bring our subject into contempt and disrepute'. Undistinguished at school, Carlos had become an assistant in a
shoe shop; and in this capacity, he began to be the centre of
poltergeist-type disturbances. The shoe boxes took to leaving their
shelves and flying around the shop, sometimes even accompanying
Conan Doyle him out into the street. Before long, he was locked up in the local
In a letter, a copy of which he sent to every member of the society, lunatic asylum.
Conan Doyle complained that the review was full of misrep- The psychiatrists in charge appear to have been unusually
resentations and innuendos: `My only resource is, after thirty-six broad-minded. Instead of putting him into a strait-jacket, they
years of patience, to resign my own membership, and to make gave him tests, which showed that he could move objects at a
some sort of public protest against the essentially unscientific and distance. He was not normal, one of them reported; but neither
220 221
Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
was he crazy. What happened in his vicinity appeared to be `the articles by Dingwall in the Journal of the American SPR under the
result of the radiation of nervous forces that we all have, but that heading `An Amazing Case' — a case `in which the most extra-
Mr Mirabelli has in extraordinary excess'. After a few days, he was ordinary occurrences are recorded', Dingwall observed; `so extra-
discharged. ordinary indeed that there is nothing like them in the whole
The discovery that he could himself control the psychic forces range of psychical literature'. His information was taken from the
made all the difference to Mirabelli. Although he was not averse to original documents in Portuguese, in which the occurrences were
accepting money for demonstrations of his powers, he preferred to described in considerable detail, and vouched for by numerous
earn his living in property-dealing, for which he showed consider- witnesses of good standing.
able talent; but he enjoyed his fame as a physical medium, which Naturally sceptics had poured ridicule on the stories which had
soon spread, the more so in that he could put his telekinetic powers spread about Mirabelli, particularly when it was claimed that on
to entertaining use. At a banquet he was attending he enlivened one occasion, while waiting at a railway station, he had suddenly
the proceedings by causing an invisible hand to play a military vanished, to reappear almost instantaneously ninety kilometres
march on a row of bottles and glasses; and when he played away. But so striking had the stories been, vouched for by so many
billiards, he did not need actually to make contact with his cue to citizens in good standing, that eventually a committee of twenty
send the billiard balls scuttering round the table. had been set up, consisting of men in established positions in the
During the 1920s a succession of reports of his phenomena were community, to decide what, if anything, should be done about
published in Brazil; Helen Salter predictably characterised them as Mirabelli. Having heard the witnesses, they had accepted the
`preposterous' in the SPR Journal, of which she was still editor in evidence as genuine, on the ground that it was vouched for by so
1927. In the following issue, however, Count Perovsky felt com- many people whose word could not easily be doubted, and because
pelled to modify his, by this time, profound scepticism, after read- what was described could not be accounted for by any form of
ing a report on Mirabelli which had appeared in Schrenck's Zeit- trickery, as it took place often in the open air, in public places, and
schrift. Startling though the phenomena recorded might be, usually in broad daylight. The committee recommended that
Perovsky noted, they were attested by 300 observers — politicians, Mirabelli should be more fully investigated, by people better
professors, doctors, and business men. Fearing the possibility qualified to find out more about the phenomena.
that the report was a hoax, Schrenck had taken the precaution of The investigation was carried out in Santos by the newly founded
showing the list to the Brazilian consul in Munich: seventeen of the Academia de Estudos Psychicos. Mirabelli was subjected to con-
signatories, the consul had said, were personally known to him, trols of the kind to which mediums in Europe had become accus-
including a former President of the Republic, a Secretary of tomed. The investigators divided themselves up into three groups:
State, and a Professor at the university of Sao Paulo. `Such one dealing with spoken mediumship, which had 189 positive
evidence as this cannot be ignored,' Perovsky felt. `This amazing sittings; one with automatic writing, which had 85 positive and 8
personality ought to be tested on European soil.' negative sittings; and one with physical phenomena, which had 63
Unluckily the European soil at the time was not receptive. The positive and 47 negative sittings. The reports on the spoken and
psychical research societie's lacked the funds for costly enterprises. written evidence showed that `the medium spoke 26 languages,
Schrenck was fully occupied with his own work; Osty, at the including 7 dialects; and wrote in 28 languages, among them 3 dead
Institut Métapsychique, was wary; and the Cambridge nucleus languages, namely Latin, Chaldaic and Hieroglyphic'. This was
were unlikely to take up Perovsky's idea with any enthusiasm. The remarkable enough, as Mirabelli had had so little formal educa-
obvious step would ordinarily have been for American psychical tion; but the physical manifestations surpassed any that had ever
researchers to undertake an investigation; but they were split by been reported, anywhere.
the `Margery' affair, and had no funds for such an enterprise. Of the sixty-three positive sittings, forty were held in daylight
Nothing was done. and twenty-three in bright artificial light, with the medium clearly
What psychical researchers missed, by their inability to conduct visible to all witnesses, sitting tied up in his chair in rooms which
research into Mirabelli's mediumship, was revealed in 1930 in two were searched before and after. Yet in these conditions, a variety
222 223
Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
230 231
Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
not, as too many of them seemed to assume, to test mediums to dard,' she claimed, there was `a singular beauty and originality in
destruction and then delight in their exposure, but instead to many of her sayings and some of her poetry; and in all her work,
follow Myers's course, and begin to prospect for gold ore among diffuse and obscure as much of it is, occur flashes of insight and
the dross of the sub li minal mind. `Superconscious' was a term she passages of beauty, making her a good example of a medium who,
had thought up for the ore-bearing seam herself; but after she had had she possessed a better-organised normal brain, would have
finished the first draft, she found that it had in fact been used earlier been acclaimed as a genius.'
by one of `Feda's' `communicators', Drayton Thomas's father: Edith Lyttelton gave other examples of trance poetry, including
one by a writer who was not a professional medium, but who
All your mind is not in or acting upon your brain at once. You have occasionally went into `a sort of dreamlike state', in which he
your conscious and subconscious mind ... I think that a better term spoke, and composed prose and verse, while hardly remembering
for subconscious would be superconscious, for `sub' suggests that
which is under, a subservient mind, which it is not. It is the more afterwards what he had said or written. His belief was that a
powerful of the two. I would rather speak of it as the over-mind and discarnate personality was responsible, trying to explain why
not the under-mind. communication from the other side was so difficult:
Edith Lyttelton's thesis, briefly stated, was that `the unconscious To all who wait, blindfolded by the flesh
mind has a wider range of knowledge than the conscious mind' and Upon the stammered promise that we give
Tangling ourselves in the material mesh
that certain manifestations seemed to her `to reveal the existence A moment while we te ll you that we live,
of a superconsciousness as well as a subconsciousness' (such divi- Greeting and reassurance; never doubt
sions, she agreed, might be arbitrary, but they were convenient). That the slow tidings of our joyful state,
Clairvoyant or precognitive dreams, hallucinations of sight or So hardly given, so haltingly made out,
hearing, automatic writing and mediumship might sometimes be Are but the creaking hinges of the gate . . .
evidence of forgotten memory — cryptomnesia; but they could also Beyond, the garden lies; and as we turn
be the mechanism `by which the message or the knowledge of the Wond'ring how much you hear, how much you guess
superconscious mind is conveyed to the conscious mind'; and her Once more the roses of glad service burn
book was designed primarily to give examples of the supercon- With hues of loving thought and thankfulness;
scious at work, providing information — usually trivial, but some- Once more we move among them, strong and free,
times valuable — of a kind which could not have been obtained Marvelling yet in our felicity
through the normal senses, `such as knowledge of what is passing,
or has passed, at a distance in time or space; what is about to The value of the superconscious mind was not limited to its
happen; and the kind of vision which is either called prophecy or artistic productions, Edith Lyttelton insisted. It could act as a
inspiration'. protector — much as Socrates' daimon, or the guardian angels of
She had herself been given an example, she recalled, by Mrs the Christian tradition, had been reputed to do. Twenty years
Rogers — formerly Mrs Curran, whose automatism was still re- before a friend of hers, a countess, had suddenly had an over-
laying the utterances of `Patience Worth'. A few hours after whelming fee li ng that she must stop a man she knew from going on
arriving in St Louis, Edith Lyttelton had been confronted with `a a projected sea trip. Pushing the idea aside, she had gone for a walk
remarkable instance of superconscious knowledge, expressed from her London hotel; and `almost without being aware of what
without hesitation in verse — knowledge relating to myself which she was doing, she found herself in a post office, and this time she
could not possibly have been in Mrs Rogers's normal conscious- yielded to her impulse and telegraphed her friend. The ship he
ness'. It was of too intimate a nature to repeat; Edith Lyttelton felt, would have been on sank, with only one survivor.'
in fact, that `Patience Worth' — or Mrs Rogers's superconscious — Edith Lyttelton knew enough about the SPR to realise that a tale
knew too much about her for comfort. Still, she could testify that of that kind would be dismissed with a shrug unless backed by
the material was of a high literary quality. `Judged by any stan- attestations; and she had asked the countess whether it would be
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Science and Parascience The SPR in Decline
possible to obtain confirmation from the friend whose life had in all finding himself alone in the middle of the crossing of Cannon Street
probability been saved. It was: he replied to her letter recalling and Queen Victoria Street, he noticed that they were empty of
how he had actually paid for his ticket, and was about to join the traffic and pedestrians, and recalled his dream. `Suddenly a car
ship when he received her telegram. Although he could not rushed in on my left, and turned towards me, and it was almost
remember what she had said, it had persuaded him to give up the upon me before I realised I must get out of its way.' It was not the
idea; `You may imagine what I felt when I read in the papers that fact he was nearly run over that impressed the narrator — that
the ship had been lost, only one man saved.' From the company's might easily happen to anybody walking in the city: it was that
records, Edith Lyttelton confirmed that the story of the wreck was `such an isolation in the middle of a busy thoroughfare is very rare'.
accurate. In L'Avenir et la Prémonition, also published in 1931, Richet
Whence came this superconscious information, these supercon- took a similar line, providing about one hundred and fifty case
scious abilities? From the spirit world? Or from some source within histories of precognition, which he defined as `knowledge of the
us? Edith Lyttelton preferred the inner source hypothesis. `Once future by means other than the ordinary sensory channels'. Lodge,
the idea is firmly grasped that part of our being is in possession of in his Presidential Address the following year, sought to redress
knowledge of which another part is not conscious,' she argued, the balance in favour of spirit communication of the future, by
`and that occasionally fragments of that knowledge reach our citing an experience of his own when a medium had given him an
consciousness in various and undependable ways, much of the uncannily accurate picture of what the future held for him:
confusion and some of the contradictory results of psychical hap-
penings are accounted for.' Among them, she suggested, was A church door and some other details were mentioned as belong-
`dramatisation' by a secondary personality, such as `Feda'. The ing to a house in which it was said I was going to live, and in which I
mixture of truth and fiction that such personalities purveyed had am now living. The prediction was made at a time when I knew
nothing of the existence of the house and when, as afterwards
commonly been attributed in the past to the struggle between good transpired, no door was there. A church door was independently,
and evil spirits, or to delusion, or to the fact that the communicat- and so to speak accidentally, added by the landlord, who was not the
ing spirit's message was garbled in transit. If she had to make a landlord at the time of the prediction, and who knew nothing about
choice, she would prefer the last interpretation; `but if we concen- it. Nor did I know anything about the house or enter into its
trate on the idea that a part of our own mind is the transmitter, and occupancy until a period of some seven years had elapsed.
for some reason cannot be understood by the conscious mind in a
normal way, but has to resort to all sorts of devices, some clumsy, Such incidents, he remarked, could hardly be explained as
some obscure, some clear enough, like dramatisation, but all prediction based on inference; `They may possibly be contem-
essentially unreliable, we begin to have an idea of the complexity plated in terms of planning, but it would need to be a supernormal
of the process'. She was not, she insisted, rejecting the possibility planning on the part of intelligences in a spiritual world.'
that disembodied intelligences might also be at work; the super- For the High-and-Dry element in the SPR, however, dreams of
conscious portion of the mind might be in touch with them, and the kind Dunne described were not evidence of a kind which they
transmit their communications. But the trivial nature of so many of cared to accept. Doubtless, too they were irritated that in his
the communications pointed `not to messages from the discarnate, introduction he should have been dismissive of psychical research.
but to communications from a part of our own mind'. S. G. Soal gave An Experiment with Time a sniffy review, lament-
To Edith Lyttelton, precognition was just another demonstra- ing that the author had failed to take the elementary (by SPR
tion of the psychic power of the superconscious mind; and in her standards) precaution of getting his written accounts of his dreams
book, she reported the case of a man she knew who had eight attested before the events which they foreshadowed had come to
precognitive dreams `of little individual value, but when taken pass. All that Soal would concede was that the method Dunne
together confirmed the evidence collected by Mr Dunne'. The best advocated for dream recall could be useful if proper attention was
had been a dream of being alone in the middle of an empty street paid to corroboration and evaluation; and Besterman set up a trial,
when a car suddenly swept by, just missing him. A month later, in which SPR members were invited to emulate Dunne, using the
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Science and Parascience
proper precautions. Out of forty-five possibles sent in, Besterman
reported, eighteen dreams might be held to provide some prima
facie evidence for precognition; but of these only two provided
good evidence, and his personal opinion was that the results were
inconclusive. Dunne, perhaps relieved that the SPR was not going 7 Mind over matter
to muscle in on his territory, contented himself with complaining
that Besterman had not given members the correct instructions.
Neither the critical attitude of the SPR nor Dunne's determina-
tion to keep precognitive dreams out of the psychic category made Aware that the SPR was in difficulties, Harry Price thought to take
any difference to the public's reaction. Precognition continued to advantage of the situation by offering to merge his National
be regarded as psychic; Dunne's account of his dreams continued Laboratory with the society. When the offer was rejected by the
to carry conviction, in spite of his failure to have them attested. SPR Council, he moved over to the attack, seeking to have its
Perhaps even more influential than An Experiment with Time itself ruling overturned at its next meeting. And although this move also
were the plays which Priestley wrote around the Time theme in the failed he had had a stroke of luck, which he was now able to
1930s: Dangerous Corner, I Have Been Here Before, and in par- exploit. `Stella C.', who had been his most successful subject, had
ticular Time and the Conways, a West End hit in 1937. married and ceased to give seances; he badly needed a replace-
Having lunch with his sister and discussing old friends — Priest- ment. In 1929, Schrenck died; and Price seized the opportunity to
ley was to recall in Rain upon Godshill `suddenly I saw that there
—
take on his star subject, Willy Schneider's brother Rudi.
was a play in the relation between a fairly typical middle-class This was made easier by the fact that Schrenck's method had
family and the theory of Time, the theory chiefly associated with J. been virtually to adopt the brothers. He had dominated psychical
W. Dunne, over which I had been brooding for the past two years'. research in Germany for many years, thanks largely to the wealth
The play almost wrote itself; `it seemed to cost me no more thought which marriage had brought him; he had subsidised and edited the
and trouble than if I were dashing off a letter to an old friend', and Zeitschrift; and although there were able young researchers, not-
the complex second act, in particular, written in a couple of days, ably Tischner and Oesterreich, in Germany, he had continued to
was to be produced as he had written it with scarcely a correction. conduct his own research in his own way, concentrating on testing
In that act the action moved forward to 1937; the Time warp was individual mediums.
that in the third act, it moved back to the year where the play had The waning of Willy's powers had caused Schrenck and his
started in the first, in 1919. Although Priestley did not try to associates little concern, because Rudi had shown similar psychic
explain Dunne's serialism through his characters, the basic notion capabilities, and was as willing as his brother had been to have
was put across, and very effectively; Time and the Conways has them tested. The phenomena were much the same: movements of
remained a repertory standby ever since, as well as enjoying a West objects at a distance; draughts of cold air; the touching or nudging
End revival and a TV showing, thrusting precognition into the of sitters. In addition, in the early stages of his career Rudi almost
minds of great numbers of people who would never have read invariably levitated; and his phenomena in general were even more
Dunne's book. striking than Willy's. `Bells and a cardboard figure named "Au-
gust" would sail through the air,' the original records of the
seances, later transcribed by Anita Gregory, showed. `A broken-
down musical box would play, a typewriter would type by itself,
invisible hands would trim a bonnet, a boot would be torn off a foot
with some violence, windows would be shattered, and a "hand",
visible or otherwise, might be described as playing tug-of-war with
an object such as a wastepaper basket, or a handkerchief, which
might be torn in half by the struggle.' Rudi had been tested by
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
Schrenck and a number of other investigators, most of whom Magicians' Club, publicly admitted his conviction that `no group of
found no reason to suspect that he might be using sleight of hand; my fellow magicians could have produced those effects under those
and examining the allegations which a few witnesses made, Mrs conditions'. Over a hundred people in all, including some well-
Gregory found that none of them could be taken seriously. known scientists, attended the two series, and although Rudi's
The one which had attracted most attention was a claim by two effects were not so striking as they had been five years earlier, the
professors at the University of Vienna that they had `exposed' movements of objects at a distance were well defined, and none of
Rudi. All they had in fact done was provide a simulation of the the sitters publicly expressed any doubts. `If Rudi were "exposed"
phenomena; and they had been able to provide it only by dispens- a hundred times in the future,' Price felt able to claim, `it would not
ing with the controls that were always employed by Schrenck. invalidate or affect to the slightest degree our considered judgment
Taxed with this deception, they had to admit it. More damaging, at that the boy has produced genuine abnormal phenomena.'
first sight, was that Walter Prince, on a visit to Europe, came to the The press publicity, and Price's biography Rudi Schneider, gave
conclusion after attending tests that sleight of hand was being Price a lead over the SPR in the public estimation. `There is not a
employed. But he did not actually detect Rudi in any trickery; and man, woman or child in Great Britain,' he boasted, `who has not
in view of his long-standing prejudice against physical mediumship read about Rudi, his phenomena, and the conditions controlling
it seems reasonable to suppose that his mind was still closed. To the experiments.' At the same time, he was able to deliver a
have accepted that Rudi was genuine simply because he could back-hander to the SPR — `the British public has learnt more
think of no way in which the medium could be cheating, after all, about scientific psychical research in the last few months than it did
could have been interpreted as an admission that he might have in the previous fifty years' — while distancing himself from `the
been wrong about `Margery'; he had never been able to catch her mire of charlatanry'; the public was at last beginning `to realise the
out, either. And although it was surprising that Malcolm Bird, too, difference between modern organised scientific psychical research
should have been sceptical about Rudi, Bird attended only one and "spiritualism"'.
sitting, and his explanation of the way in which he thought the
manifestations might have been faked — that a confederate had
been admitted in the seance room — merely indicated incom- The Besterman Rumpus
petence on his part, as he was supposed to have made sure that the
door was locked and sealed. At this point, the new year of 1930, Price had good reason to hope
For years, Rudi had continued to produce physical phenomena that what was emerging as his main ambition — to set up a psychical
at seances; but in Britain, thanks largely to the Cambridge nuc- research organisation in which all others would merge — might be
leus's hostility, his reputation was little known. Price, however, fulfilled, as the SPR appeared to be falling apart. At the Annual
had attended seances with him, and had been impressed; and General Meeting on 26 February, with Lodge in the Chair, Ding-
hearing of Schrenck's death he went immediately to Germany to wall moved a resolution `that this meeting views with grave con-
offer to take Schrenck's place — even, up to a point, to take on his cern the decline in the prestige of the Society both at home and
guardianship: Rudi was to call him 'Onkel'. abroad, and is of the opinion that a change in the administration is
No medium had ever had the publicity which Rudi, thanks to desirable'; and although the proposal was rejected on a show of
Price's contacts with the press, enjoyed on his first visit to Britain in hands `by an overwhelming majority', it was becoming increasingly
the spring of 1929, when he gave six seances. The reports in unlikely that the society could survive under its established leader-
popular newspapers, usually so ready to find an excuse to jeer at ship. And at this critical stage, `that young swine Besterman', as
(or denounce) mediums, were friendly; and Price was adept at Price described him, provoked another crisis by rushing into print
finding ways to obtain additional publicity, such as issuing a £1000 with Some Modern Mediums, a brash and superficial survey of
challenge to conjurors to perform the same feats, under the same physical mediumship based on a short tour of the Continent he had
controlled conditions. There were no takers; but when the second made the year before, which also disparaged the research which
series was held later in the year Will Goldston, President of the Richet, Schrenck, Geley and others had carried on earlier.
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
Besterman's treatment of `Eva C.' was typical. He had simply `Eva C.' cheated was unjustified. Many of the photographs which
dredged up the allegations which had been made against her by Mme Bisson and Schrenck had used in their books, after all, had
Gulat-Wellenburg and others, ignoring the rebuttals. `I do not say given the strong impression of faking; Schrenck himself had noted
that "Eva C." did the things I have suggested she may have done,' and commented upon that fact — with, as Lambert admitted,
he oleaginously claimed. `All I maintain is that the things I have `surprising frankness'. And judging by the photographs Osty had
described could easily have been done.' Her mediumship, he shown him, Lambert had to concede that in the main, `no stronger
concluded, `if not conceived in deliberate fraud, was certainly suspicions attached to Mme Bisson after Osty's discovery than at
continued in fraud, lived its life in fraud, and ended in fraud'. the time of Schrenck's publications'. In other words, though this
Besterman provided no evidence to sustain this very damaging had clearly not occurred to Lambert, no more suspicion should
allegation — the reasons he made it did not become known for have attached itself to Madame Bisson and `Eva C.' after Osty's
many years; but the full story, when it eventually emerged, pro- discovery of the photographs than it had before.
vided a telling illustration of the self-destructive tendency which Osty's mistake, assuming Lambert's recollection was reliable,
the Podmore attitude engendered among psychical researchers, had been to consider the photographs without reference to any
leading to a willingness to believe, and almost to expect, the worst accompanying text. This was all the more unwise in that Richet had
of other psychical researchers, however distinguished, on flimsy specifically warned against it, from his own long experience.
grounds. In this case, suspicion had been aroused retrospectively Photographs could provide useful testimony, he had observed; but
about `Eva C.' when Osty, who had not been involved in testing those taken of psychic phenomena often looked spurious, and in
her, took over the Institut Métapsychique after Geley's death and any case they could be `so skilfully counterfeited that I should
found some photographs which appeared to show that some of the make no conclusions at all on any such shown to me, unless the
materialisations had been faked — attached to her by threads, or circumstances under which they were produced were given with
wires. He showed them to some psychical researchers, but did not such precise detail as to make all trickery impossible'.
publish them; on the advice, he claimed, of Schrenck and Richet. Lambert, too, was being misleading when he claimed to have
Thirty years later Rudolf Lambert, a German who had been a kept quiet about the photographs: it was he who had told Bester-
psychical researcher in the 1920s, explained what had happened in man about them, giving Besterman the excuse to denounce `Eva
a letter to the society. According to Lambert, Osty had shown him C.' and by implication denigrate those who had investigated her;
the photographs but pledged him to secrecy about them on the and as R. H. Thouless pointed out when Lambert's account
ground that it would be disastrous if the story reached the ears of appeared in the SPR Journal, he had waited until all those who
the `dangerous negativist', Count Perovsky, whose prejudice could have challenged his version were dead. But even if that
against physical phenomena was notorious. `Eva C.' by this time version were substantially correct, there were other possible ex-
had left mediumship, to marry; but so certain was Osty that Mme planations for Geley's decision not to publish the photographs; the
Bisson had been involved with her in fraud that he had excluded most plausible being simply that Geley had already filled his books
her from the third international conference, held in Paris in 1927. with such pictures, some of them just as suspicious-looking.
Inevitably the rumour had spread that she and `Eva C.' had been The outcome, however, was that `Eva C.' was effectively discre-
exposed, leading Perovsky to demand unsuccessfully to be told dited in psychical research circles, along with her investigators. Yet
what was going on. Perovsky's death in 1954, Lambert claimed, again, as with `Margery' and others: if `Eva C.' were so supremely
released him from his pledge. skilful a conjuror, able to deceive scores of investigators week after
Lambert's letter appeared to settle the issue. The photographs week for twenty years without ever being detected in trickery, why
Osty had found must surely have shown that the phenomena had did she put up with all the humiliations imposed upon her in the
been faked. All the research carried out with Marthe Béraud in her form of controls, for no financial benefit except the bed and board
role as `Eva C.', it was assumed, must be set aside as discredited. provided by Mme Bisson, unless she hoped to establish the
Yet as Lambert himself unwittingly disclosed, the assumption that genuineness of the phenomena?
Geley had suppressed the photographs because they showed that In a letter to Schrenck, written in the course of the London
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
series, she told him that she had grown weary of the investigations. own business: the SPR did not hold corporate opinions, and its
As three out of the first five seances had produced some positive members were free to express their own views on such matters. But
results, she was still hopeful; but her chief hope was that this series as he was in charge of the society's publications, Besterman was in
would finally settle the issue. She had done her best, she felt, for an invidious position. `The utterances of the editor of the SPR,'
science: there was nothing more she could humanly do. It had Stanley de Brath observed, `inevitably react on the Society which
often required courage, because her investigators were not always has appointed him, and whose matured opinion he is naturally held
considerate and the controls imposed on her were painful, `for I am to represent.'
really a bit of a savage, and all these exhibitions of my person are Besterman's work was far from mature; his essays, de Brath
really hateful'. She had accepted all the conditions, as she realised complained in a letter to H. Dennis Bradley, were the `hasty
they were necessary; but `after this, I believe I shall have done my impressions of a young man who presents his suspicions as univer-
duty'. She had, indeed. All her investigators, even the contemp- sal fact'. Bradley himself had good reason to be indignant. Some-
tuous Sorbonne group, had paid tribute to her co-operativeness. thing of a loner, he had put in a great deal of work over the previous
But now, her labours had brought psychical research no advan- decade investigating mediums, and had little positive to show for
tage. On the contrary, she appeared to have added yet another it. Now, here was this whippersnapper presenting himself as an
black mark against it. expert after spending a mere four months investigating them.
Osty at least realised that Eva C.' could not have produced her In a broadside , An indictment of the present administration of the
phenomena unaided; but all that this meant was that Mme Bisson's Society for Psychical Research, Bradley had no difficulty in show-
years of research were taken to testify only to their collusion in ing that the book was a travesty. Besterman dealt at length only
fraud. Again: to what purpose? Mme Bisson had obtained even with five mediums, and of these he had himself actually investi-
less credit than Eva C.', and an equal share of suspicion and gated only two. His account not merely revealed his inexperience,
derision. The most plausible explanation why she persevered after but showed he had been `utterly incompetent', his approach being
1914 is that, with Eva C.', she felt that she must demonstrate that that of a representative of an amateur detective agency `obviously
the phenomena were genuine. If they were not, the two of them predisposed to regard all forms of phenomena as doubtful or
could have made a fortune, and been far more widely acclaimed, as fraudulent'. The book, however, was for Bradley chiefly an excuse
magicians. to enable him to belabour the society — one of the obstacles, he
In any case, what Osty had not realised — he had not himself complained, in the way of scientific research.
been involved in the trials — was that the phenomena had been
witnessed and photographed at times when Mme Bisson, there to It possesses a seance room which is never used. Never does it hold
hypnotise Marthe, had not been present at the seances. Or perhaps sittings; never does it conduct investigations. All published accounts
Osty did realise this, but also realised that to admit it would be of phenomena it treats with contempt, and never does it attempt
analysis or constructive criticism. In its bovine incredulity this
tantamount to admitting that Geley, too, must have been involved, pseudo-scientific Society appears to me to be equally as stupid as are
along with Richet, Schrenck and others, which he could not accept. the great bulk of spiritualists in their credulity.
Yet ironically, he did just'as much damage by fostering suspicions
of Eva C.' and Mme Bisson. Geley could henceforth be con- Here, then, was Price's opportunity. Although the council of the
demned both as a dupe, for allowing them to fool him for so long, SPR had denied that Doyle's defection had led to any serious
and as a rogue, for suppressing the photographic evidence of falling-away of support, membership was declining: in 1930 it had
their dishonesty. little more than half its 1920 total, and this latest row might drive
more members over to the National Laboratory. Yet it was at this
The SPR Indicted critical stage that Price began to lose the initiative he had won.
Rudi Schneider had been invited by Osty for trials at the Institut
Besterman's contemptuous dismissal of the researches of Richet, Métapsychique; and he was succeeding under conditions more
Schrenck and Geley would ordinarily have been regarded as his calculated to impress scientists than those under which Price had
242 243
Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
tested him. Doubtful as Osty had been about physical medium- apparatus involved who attended a seance to doubt the validity of
ship, he had perfected a gadget which, he had decided, could settle the phenomena, if they occurred. And paradoxically, the man to
the issue one way or the other; and so far as he was concerned, it whom this discovery was least welcome was not a sceptic, but
had. Harry Price, who felt that his earlier work with Rudi was corres-
In his Frederic Myers Lecture to the SPR in 1933, Osty was to pondingly devalued.
describe how with the help of his son, Marcel, a physicist and In furtherance of his design to have a monolithic psychical
technician, he had been able to install apparatus `capable of research organisation, Price in 1929 had offered to merge his
registering photographically, automatically and at great speed', National Laboratory with the Institut Métapsychique , an offering
any telekinetic phenomena produced by mediums in total dark- which Osty had politely turned down; and their relations, pre-
ness. Two types of rays were employed: infra-red, `to guard the viously cordial, had soured. It did not improve matters when Osty
object it was hoped to have displaced'; and ultra-violet for the ignored Price's signals, in his letters, intimating his wish to be
photography. An infra-red projector directed an invisible beam, present at the seances with Rudi. And what made things worse was
reflected by mirrors placed in different positions, at a photo- that Besterman, who had been critical of Price's trials with Rudi,
electric cell; the cell controlled the opening of a shutter to flood the had finally been won over by Osty's. `Although as you know I have
laboratory with ultra-violet for a tenth of a second, simultaneously not hesitated to express myself in very critical terms of paraphysi-
causing a photograph to be taken. The photographs would give cal phenomena as such, I must acknowledge myself convinced,' he
away a medium (or any sitter) who used physical force; and if wrote to tell Osty. `On the basis of your report I am fully persuaded
objects were moved at a distance, the infra-red apparatus might of the genuineness of the phenomena.'
give some clue to the identity of the force which was moving them.
The 1931 trials with Rudi pointed to the existence of a telekinetic
force emanating from him. He `exteriorises, in the direction of the
object to be displaced, an energy which is not photographable by The 1932 Trials
white light and which is not visible', Osty explained; but it 'be- Price had been upstaged, and he did not like it. Nor did he care for
haved like an invisible substance which arrests a varying propor- Rudi's growing independence. Rudi had acquired a fiancée, Fräu-
tion of certain infra-red radiations'. It had been `very moving', lein Mitzi Mängl; and when Price proposed a third series of trials in
during the early sittings, when an electric bell inserted into the London, Rudi refused to come unless she came too. Price jibbed,
relay circuit gave warning that the invisible telekinetic substance on the ground of expense; but he must subsequently have reflected
was entering into the infra-red, while at the same time the medium that this would be handing Rudi over to Osty, and perhaps also to
could be heard describing what he was doing and feeling; and to the SPR. Early in 1932 he gave way, and Rudi and Mitzi arrived
check afterwards from the photographs that he was in his place, again in London.
and that there was no visible source of interference with the For this third series Price had installed an automatic camera,
infra-red rays. There was no way by which the medium could have designed to take pictures whenever objects moved; and on 22
cheated, even if he had known the disposition and direction of the March, Dr C. C. L. Gregory, Head of the Department of Astron-
rays, which were varied for each session; the camera would have omy at London University, and a research student, C. V. C.
betrayed him. In any case the telekinetic interruption of the Herbert — later Earl of Powis — brought along an infra-red in-
infra-red took a different form from physical interruptions. The stallation, to see whether Rudi could repeat his Paris success. He
only persons who could be suspected of fraud, Osty had been able did. Blank sessions were becoming increasingly frequent, but
confidently to claim, were the investigators themselves — `that is, occasionally Rudi succeeded in moving objects at a distance, tying
my son and I'. a handkerchief in a knot, and producing faint materialisations,
On past experience, they would certainly be suspected; but the while photographs revealed him slumped in a trance in his chair;
combination of photography and infra-red would at least make it and a telekinetic force was registered on the apparatus.
virtually impossible for anybody with sufficient knowledge of the In the course of the series, however, a row broke out in Price's
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
organisation which was to wreck his prospects for restoring his an angry meeting of the Council of Price's National Laboratory,
reputation as Rudi's impresario. It arose out of Price's growing Hope resigned.
hunger to have his name and his work constantly in the public eye, The loss of Hope's support, however, was quickly counter-
which had led him to embark on two projects that were to bring balanced by the gain of an important new recruit: Dr William
him more publicity even than he had obtained over Rudi: the Brown, Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at Oxford, a consult-
investigation of the haunted Borley rectory; and an ascent of the ant of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, and the author of a number
Brocken mountain, to test an old Walpurgisnacht legend attached of works on psychology and psychotherapy. Brown was in the
to it. And for the Borley research, he had brought along Lord Vitalist tradition of Myers and McCullough; in 1927, when he
Charles Hope. was President of the Psychology section of the British Association,
Hope had been content to stay in the background; the full extent he had not hesitated to discuss psychic phenomena in his paper at
of his involvement in psychical research was not made apparent, in that year's meeting on `mental unity and mental dissociation'.
fact, until Anita Gregory's `Anatomy of a Fraud' was published in The following year he had returned to the subject in lectures
Annals of Science nearly half a century later. `Few people,' she given at Yale , later published as Science and Personality; it had two
wrote, `were, or are , aware of the years of effort and patience , and chapters on `Personality and Psychical Research' in which Brown
of the large sums of money, that he devoted to psychical research'; described some of his own experiences, notably some sittings with
his correspondence in this period `bears eloquent testimony to his Mrs Leonard which had greatly impressed him. Although he was
industry, his accuracy, his tact, his caution and his scrupulous sure she could not have known who he was, `Feda' clearly did, as
fairness'. He was initially drawn to Price because Price was at least the four `communicators' she produced were `just the four people I
active, while the SPR appeared moribund. But on his first visit to would be interested in hearing fr om. There are very few people on
Borley with Price, something aroused his suspicion that Price was the other side that would interest me, but these four certainly
not above assisting the production of psychic phenomena with the would.' As usual, there was some material that was wrong, and
help of physical force. some that could not be checked, but a sizeable proportion was so
How far psychical researchers had already come to realise that convincing that Brown had been compelled to rate it `far beyond
Price was not to be trusted as an investigator is hard to judge, as the possibility of chance'. On whether the communication was
suspicions could not be published, and might be unwise to express telepathic, or spiritist, or a mixture of both, he was not prepared to
even in correspondence. Conan Doyle had smelled him out, be dogmatic. Still,
Gagool-fashion, two years before, telling Osty about a seance
during which he had decided that Price must have been cheating; as regards the telepathy part of it, what one feels is that there is so
and in a letter to W. H. Salter following the publication of Price's much that might be expected to come through telepathy — emotional
experiences that you are only too anxious to hear of again, just the
Rudi Schneider in 1930 Mrs Sidgwick, too, surmised that Price sort of things that would move you most — and these are just the
might have had a confederate to help fake the manifestations at the things that you do not get. All through, you have the feeling that the
London sessions — though in view of her attitude to physical person on the other side is trying to find something that isn't obvious
mediums, she might have made the same charge against anybody to your own mind.
who had presented the same evidence as Price did.
Fearing that further trials with Price might compromise both Brown's book had struck Lodge as `extraordinarily well-
Rudi and himself, Hope decided that to be on the safe side he informed'; seldom, he had noted, `do we find a writer apparently
would set up a series with Rudi independently. Taking advantage almost equally at home in psychology, mathematical physics and
of Rudi's presence in London, he arranged to hold it with Lord psychical research'. For Price to have persuaded Brown to come to
Rayleigh — the physicist, who was following with such distinction a session with Rudi was itself encouraging, as psychologists who
in his father's footsteps — that autumn. Hearing about the arrange- would risk identifying themselves with far-out psychical research
ment, Price denounced Hope for conspiring against him; `it is like were rare. But he came, and was so greatly impressed that Price
the host at a dinner party having his throat cut by his guests'; and at managed to persuade him to write to The Times, describing what
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
he had witnessed: curtains billowing about, a cold bréeze, and `a all of which was calculated to enrage Price, who wrote him a
loud bang from a far corner of the room' — when the lights were furious letter.
turned up, they found that the detachable top of a table there `had Price, however, could not now avoid his Walpurgisnacht.
been hurled over our heads'. Brown had found no evidence of Accompanied by C. E. M. Joad — head of the Department of
trickery, but rather a strong sensation of `a power for which I could Philosophy at Birkbeck College, and later to be one of the pundits
imagine no mechanical or pneumatic contrivance was a cause'; of the BBC's `Brains Trust' — along with over a hundred assorted
undoubtedly the phenomena were `worthy of the closest scientific reporters, feature writers and photographers, the virgin, and the
investigation'. goat, the farcical Brocken ceremony went off, to the accompani-
To Price's huge delight, not merely did Brown's letter appear in ment of a fanfare of internationally hilarious publicity. Nothing
The Times on 7 May, it was followed up by another from a witness happened.
who had also attended seances; Dr D. Fraser-Harris, a former
Professor of Physiology and a well-known authority on the work-
ing of the body's senses. Fraser-Harris described how what might The Hope/Rayleigh Series
have been invisible hands had tugged a basket out of his grasp, and
placed a cigarette in his fingers. He wanted to make it clear that he Had Price not succumbed to the heady attraction of being con-
was `not a "Spiritualist" ', but he had seen enough to convince him stantly in the news, his National Laboratory would by this time
that there was a need for more research; not the least convincing have been well placed to win over many SPR dissidents. But he
part, to him, being that two out of every three seances in the series now had to make the decision whether to play along with Osty in
had been blank, `not at all what one would expect from a fraudu- Paris, and Hope and Rayleigh in London, with the aim of restoring
lent person'. their confidence, or to fight them; and he chose to fight. He began
Price had never before seen his work featuring in so prestigious a to put it about that the results Osty had obtained with Rudi could
medium. It constituted, he boasted, `the commencement of a new not be relied upon, because he had allowed Rudi to bring his
epoch in psychical research'. His delight was to be short-lived. The fiancée, Mitzi, with him to seances. This was correct; but as Osty
time had come for the most spectacular of his publicity stunts to pointed out, she had attended only a few, and `before, during and
take place, based on the legend that if a goat and a virgin were after the brief interlude of his fiancée, Rudi produced identical
brought together on the Brocken at midnight, with the appropriate phenomena' — whereas in London Price himself had let her assist
mumbo-jumbo, the goat would change into a handsome young at every seance'.
man. That Price was claiming that he wanted to prove the legend to Price could do nothing to prevent the SPR from capturing Rudi,
be a superstition can have fooled nobody, but the venture was that autumn; Hope and Rayleigh held their series under its aus-
ridiculous enough to attract coverage in the popular press, thereby pices. And although `on the whole, the phenomena noted were
wrecking Price's chances of establishing his National Laboratory as weaker and less frequent than those reported as having taken place
a scientific institution, and leaving the scientists who had been with the same medium elsewhere', Hope claimed `the results
working with him in the lurch. obtained go far to support the claims put forward by Dr Osty'. As
`Dr Brown has since been having rather a time of it at Oxford,' an additional precaution, Rudi had been enclosed in a specially
Hope wrote to tell Gregory on 13 May, `being laughed at by constructed cage of wood and muslin, so that he was isolated both
Lindemann and even Einstein, among others. Of course they will from the sitters — except for his controllers — and from the in-
not ever hear of such phenomena being genuine.' Brown, abashed, fra-red ray apparatus and the galvanometer. And Gregory and
wrote a further letter to The Times in which although he reiterated Fraser-Harris expressed themselves well satisfied with the new
his point about Rudi's manifestations being worthy of the closest precautionary measures.
scientific study, he added the qualification `whether genuine or There were a few striking manifestations. While Rudi was being
spurious'; urged the necessity for `much more stringent scientific controlled by Fraser-Harris, Gregory heard a loud bump, and
investigation'; and suggested it might be carried out at the SPR — immediately the room was illuminated by the lamp which was the
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
source of the infra-red beam. What had happened, it was then It was not, as `exposures' of mediums go, particularly damning.
ascertained, was that the table which stood in front of the `cabinet' `Supposing that at that particular seance Rudi pushed the handker-
had been turned upside down; this had caused the filter attachment chief off the table by very normal means, either deliberately, since
to fall off. The outcome interested Hope, because with Rudi, as his powers were undoubtedly waning, or possibly because his
with other mediums, the `control' — in this case `Olga' — had secondary personality induced him to do it,' Anita Gregory has
warned against lights being put on as dangerous to the medium; commented, `this still left a large number of occasions to be
and when the light came on, Rudi slumped to the floor. But when explained when he did not free an arm, and phenomena were
he recovered he did not know what had happened, and felt no recorded.' Scores of the phenomena recorded in the long series of
ill-effects. `Olga-Rudi', Hope thought, seemed disposed `to blame trials, in fact, could not have been accomplished even if he had
"herself" more than us for the accident'. been able to free an arm at will. But this was only the beginning of
For the most part, however, Fraser-Harris had the impression the mystery. The man who was supposed to be controlling Rudi's
that his fellow-investigators were little concerned `with spectacular arm was — Price. Why, unless he were a confederate, had he not
experiences'. Their primary interest was in the effects registered reported the loss of control? Still more mysterious: if he had
on the instruments in use. The physicist Professor A. F. C. Pol- immediately, as he claimed, realised that the photographs proved
lard, who attended eight of the twenty-seven sittings, reported that Rudi to have cheated, why had he waited almost a year before the
on nearly every occasion there were movements of a galvanometer exposure?
which, confirming as they did Osty's discovery, were `very remark- During that time he had given no hint that anything was amiss.
able, and of greater scientific value than the telekinetic phenom- He had even sought financial support for a fresh series of sittings
ena'. In addition `the bell in series with a selenium cell rang on with Rudi, and he had failed to tell even the members of his own
two or three occasions, indicating an absorption of at least 50 per council. `Not that Mr Price was silent,' Hope sarcastically com-
cent of the infra-red radiation'. There could be no question of plained,
room tremors being responsible, `since the tracings caused by as to the results of these sittings. In several newspaper articles
interference due to the medium are unilateral, and can be picked written by him between the close of these sittings and the publication
out from such tremors or irregularities imposed on the zero line of of his report he wrote in eulogistic terms of Rudi and his phenomena.
the records by fluctuations of the voltage on the mains'. Similarly In the Empire News for 8th May 1932 he says `For three years he has
the variations of the current in the galvanometer circuit could not been under laboratory tests in England and France and has emerged
be due to any disturbance other than the absorption of the infra- unscathed from his very strenuous ordeals'; and again in Light of 20
red radiation; `in view of the distance of the medium from the May 1932 he writes `This is the third time he (Rudi) has been in
apparatus and the fact that he was always under vigilant control England, and on each occasion he has added to his laurels. For three
[Pollard had himself acted a number of times as the controller] it years Rudi has been subject to the most stringent laboratory tests in
would appear that this absorption is due to some agency, at present England and France and has passed every one with flying colours.'
unknown, emanating from Rudi himself'. Other similar statements by Price, Hope claimed in his report of
Hope was preparing the records and commentaries for publica- his own series with Rayleigh, could be quoted, some of them even
tion in the SPR's Proceedings when, on 5 March 1933, the Sunday more recent; and he went on to make a point about the timing of
Dispatch published an article by Harry Price, denouncing Rudi as a the `exposure'. Not only was the Hope/Rayleigh report about to
cheat. It was clearly designed to publicise the issue of the Bulletin appear; Rudi was again in Paris for a joint investigation by the
of his National Laboratory, which came out the next day. Giving Institut Métapsychique and the SPR, to which Price had not been
records of the seances of a year before, along with photographs, invited. `Mr Price cannot complain,' Hope remarked, `if in the
Price claimed that two of them, taken immediately before the circumstances stated above this belated "exposure" is received
seance, showed that Rudi had managed to free one of his arms with reserve.'
from control, at the same time as the handkerchief which he was What, then, was Price's motive? In `Anatomy of a Fraud' Anita
trying to move telekinetically was displaced. Gregory — she became the wife of C. C. L. Gregory — has pro-
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
vided a detailed reconstruction of the episode which leaves no ena,' Mrs Gregory argues. `His case, stated baldly, now was
doubt at all that Price delayed publication of the photographs the that Rudi's powers had since 1929 waned to such an extent that he
better to be avenged on Hope and Osty. He had told his secretary, had ever since resorted to fraud, and that consequently the Osty
Ethel Beenham, and Mrs K. M. Goldney, joint Hon. Treasurer of and the Hope-Rayleigh investigations, both of which claimed
the National Laboratory, about the photographs, pledging them to positive results, were worthless.' But Price, master though he was
secrecy. Mrs Goldney was subsequently to explain that she was of press relations, had failed to realise that the press and the
shocked, but felt she could not break her promise to keep it reading public would take very much the same line as Sidgwick had
quiet — though she later regretted that decision: she resigned, imposed on the SPR: `Once a cheat, always a cheat.' `It may well
along with Fraser Harris and other members of Price's National be the case,' Mrs Gregory considers, `that psychical research has
Laboratory Council, following the Sunday Dispatch `exposure'. never had a more serious set-back than the Price-Schneider scan-
Miss Beenham, who had also been worried, was in no doubt about dal.' Rudi could stage no come-back; his powers were almost
Price's motive: `He was terribly spiteful against Lord Charles,' she gone. Effectively the `exposure' killed off serious research into
told Mrs Goldney after Price's death. `He was waiting for a chance physical mediumship for over forty years.
to hit back at him, and used this report for that purpose.' On the evidence, however, of the Osty and the Hope/Rayleigh
From Price's correspondence, Mrs Gregory was easily able to trials, it is hard to see how anybody who is prepared to accept at
show how in trying to justify his decision, he merely enmeshed least the possibility of telekinesis can doubt that Rudi displayed it.
himself in a web of lies. So much so, in fact, that it aroused her And Osty, who had himself been so dismissive of the physical
suspicions about the photographs themselves. Fraser-Harris had phenomena, now felt compelled to answer those who, while
pointed out at the time that it might have been the flash of light for accepting that Rudi could influence infra-red rays, felt that this was
the photograph that had caused Rudi to jerk his arm back; and in unimportant compared to what had been learned from telepathy
1967 C. V. C. Herbert — by this time the Earl of Powis — recalled and precognition. Rudi, `a motor mechanic by trade and of little
that a photographic expert had told him that the photograph of education, incapable of understanding any problem of physics, or
Rudi with his hand free from control was probably the second of chemistry or biology', would certainly not be able to understand
the two — not, as Price had claimed, the first. Price, in other words, what was being said by any group of scientists. Yet when asked to
might simply have taken advantage of the opportunity to transpose move an object at a distance, without contact:
the pictures. It is enough for him momentarily to suspend his conscious activity
But there was a further possibility, which Osty, understandably to put himself into a special physiological state, called a trance, which
angry with Price, hinted at: that Price had actually faked the endows him with exceptional powers over matter. Then this ignorant
photographs. And examining the negatives in detail, Mrs Gregory being behaves as if he knew the intimate and primordial resources of
realised there were good grounds for this suspicion. They were to life and processes of creation ... like the paranormal knowledge of
be confirmed by Colin Brookes-Smith, a photographic expert, reality in time and in space, the paranormal knowledge of the
whose opinion was that in the photograph which Price used to organising process of life reveals that behind the uses of the mind in
damn Rudi, Price had superimposed the extended arm with the fee li ng, in thinking and in acting on matter there is another intelli-
help of a double exposure. This interpretation was to be challenged gent plane of being, usually not manifest, which very probably
in the correspondence in the SPR Journal following the publica- represents the fundamental reality of ourselves, and forms part of a
tion of `Anatomy of a Fraud', and the issue may never be finally plane of life quite different from that in which we exercise our
ordinary intelligence.
settled; but nobody, reading the evidence, could now doubt that
Price used the photographs to mislead the public into believing that In that case, it also became more difficult to dismiss the other
Rudi had cheated. phenomena which continued occasionally to erupt, even in the
It cannot have been Price's intention utterly to destroy Rudi's closing stages of Rudi's career. In a paper William Brown read to
credibility. To have done so would have been to destroy his own. the SPR, he described how, among the blank sittings, there had
`Price never had any intention of dismissing all Rudi's phenom- been one occasion when he had not merely seen the top of a small
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
table move, on the other side of the room from the medium, but any other medium capable of producing physical phenomena. The
had seen an apport: flowers had appeared, and then disappeared. determination of scientists to disbelieve had been strengthened by
His account of his experience, he admitted, could not be expected the Walpurgisnacht affair; and although for the public in general,
to carry conviction; 'All one can say is that the phenomena Price remained their mind's-eye picture of the dedicated psychical
occurred, and one is boggled.' researcher, he had destroyed his chance of achieving his life's
Even if a number of scientists of established reputation were to ambition.
test a physical medium, and obtain results, `they alone would
believe such results', Brown feared; `other scientists would refuse
to believe them'. Lodge, who was in the Chair, agreed; the other The SPR's Jubilee
scientists would remain convinced that physical action at a distance Whatever prospect Price might have had of absorbing the SPR had
was impossible. `So am I,' Lodge remarked: also vanished. 1932 was its jubilee year, which restored some of its
self-esteem. Lodge was elected President for the year, with
But I do not regard telekinesis as physical action at a distance. If a
thing moves, it is always because something is in contact with it and Eleanor Sidgwick, now in her eighties, as `President of Honour';
making it move. The point is to ascertain what that something is. It and an address she wrote in that capacity was read for her by Lord
may be an ectoplasmic emanation from the medium, or from the Balfour — Gerald, who had succeeded to the title on his brother's
sitter; but the effect is not going to be contrary to the laws of physics. death two years before.
The laws of physics are all right. It is the laws of physiology that want It made depressing hearing, as Balfour had to admit: `Some of
explaining. We do not know everything that an organism can do, we you may have felt,' he remarked, `that the note of caution and
have got to find out, and it is no use shutting our minds to experi- reserve had been over-emphasised.' This was putting it politely.
ments which show that an organism can do this sort of thing, by Mrs Sidgwick laid weight upon the society's negative achieve-
saying that it is physically impossible. ments, such as its members' determination to expose fraudulence;
in particular, she was unable to resist disparaging physical
In his paper, Brown also drew attention to an aspect of Rudi's mediumship. The society's investigators, she claimed, had not
mediumship which had not had much attention: the fact that his encountered much trickery except among physical mediums,
breathing was at a rate ten times or more faster than the normal, `among whom it is unfortunately common'. Listing them, she cited
yet he could keep it up for a couple of hours at a time. This would Eusapia, making no reference to the point so often argued by
ordinarily be regarded as impossible: it presented a physiological Lodge and others that what Eusapia did in her trances, if she was
problem which, Brown argued, `needs and will repay investiga- allowed to, should not be regarded as cheating. The final sittings at
tion', not just on that account, but because the rapid breathing was Naples, Mrs Sidgwick claimed, were `apparently pure trickery' —
actually related to the interruptions to the infra-red rays. And this which even the sceptical Count Perovsky, who had attended them,
was a point which Rayleigh was to draw attention to in his had not claimed.
Presidential Address to the SPR in 1937. The graph on the Lodge had, in a sense, already made his contribution to the
photographic recording drum, he recalled, had revealed a link with jubilee in the form of his autobiography, published in 1931. It was
the medium's breathing which made it clear that interceptions of conventional, a little old-fashioned, but it brought out clearly his
the beam, though the photographic evidence showed there was tolerance and good sense, and showed how convinced he still was
nothing material in its path, was linked with Rudi's muscular that psychical phenomena represented an integral part of physics,
movements. Those graphs, Rayleigh thought, were `one of the as his colleagues must surely come to accept. `Whatever the
most valuable contributions ever made to our subject'. Yet scien- hostility now,' he asserted,
tists had ignored them.
Whether it would have made any difference had Price not I feel convinced that, in due time, science will take them under its
published his `exposure' is impossible to tell; the likelihood is that wing, will rec, their truth, and will bring them into more serious
it would not, in view of Rudi's waning powers, and the absence of consideration. So will it ultimately find that these facts contain the
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
germ of a vast development; they open a new department, a new She was even able to imprint thought-forms on photographic
province, of knowledge; one that will immensely enlarge our scope, plates, which did not need to be in a camera; they could be
and give us a clearer apprehension of the majesty of a universe of presented to her wrapped in opaque paper. But in the course of the
which as yet we know so little. Whatever the outcome, the study trials the medium died; and when reports began to circulate about
must surely prove of the utmost significance to the hopes and destiny
what he had been doing, Fukurai was denounced in the press and
of man.
forced to resign from his university chair. Undeterred, he had
In the jubilee year Lodge's old friend and fellow-worker, J. continued to experiment; in 1928 he had come to England to
Arthur Hill, brought out a volume of his letters. `He has been a conduct tests with William Hope; and he set out the evidence he
hard and unselfish worker,' Hill observed, 'and thinking of the had accumulated in his book.
whole of his activities I should be tempted to use the word In the universe, Fukurai argued, there must exist some psychic
"saintly", if it did not savour of smugness.' It was the quality of power, of which ordinary physical forces are only one part. Some
reverence in Lodge which had brought that term to Hill's mind, but mediums had the ability to tap the power and, among other things,
even that was not entirely suitable: `Sir Oliver is rather too human impose their thoughts on photographic negatives. He had found
for it.' He had been a true prophet and revealer; `future genera- that it was possible for a medium to put a thought-form on one out
tions will probably realise this even more vividly than we do'. of six plates, leaving the rest unaffected; or to put thought forms on
Looking back, it is clear that Lodge held the SPR together in two plates, so that they meshed like pieces of a jigsaw; or to put a
that critical period, binding up the festering wounds following the thought-form on one particular section of one of the rolls of film
faction fights. It had been typical of him that when Doyle died in which had come in to common use in box cameras in the 1920s,
1930, he took the opportunity in his obituary to emphasise the need without disturbing the rest of the roll.
for members of the SPR to co-operate with such men, who must That `thoughtographs' could be imposed on a negative without
have sacrificed something to enter upon so unpopular a line of the use of a camera was not a new idea. In Photographing the
enquiry. `He was doing his best according to his lights, and though Invisible James Coates had described them, distinguishing be-
he may seem to us deficient in judgment, he was abounding in tween them and spirit photographs, and claiming that they could
energy, and put some of us to shame. We need not accept the be `obtained independently of the lens and of the camera'; he could
results of such men or believe their doctrines. But I think we should not explain how, but he surmised that it must be through some
be careful not to alienate them, and turn them from criticising process like crystal-gazing. Later, Stanley de Brath had conducted
friends into implacable enemies.' some experiments in which photographs were obtained when the
medium had no access to the plates, and had come to the conclu-
sion that they were not obtained by any process analogous to
normal photography: `There is ample proof that the lens plays no
Thoughtography part in the production of the image.' De Brath, however, still
Lodge may have had in mind another example of negativism which favoured the spiritualist explanation. Either the image was ideo-
surfaced in the society's jubilee year. In 1930 a book had appeared plastic — a thought-form projected by the medium, or the sitter or
presenting the most convincing evidence which had yet been both; or it must be the work of a discarnate entity. He preferred the
provided for the ability of mediums to sensitise photographic discarnate entity hypothesis, on the ground that as, in some cases,
plates: T. Fukurai's Clairvoyance and Thoughtography. Twenty the image on the plate corresponded to nothing that the medium or
years before, Fukurai, a Professor of Psychology at the Tokyo the sitters were thinking about, `only very complicated hypotheses
Imperial University, had tested a clairvoyant, coming to the con- of thought-transference can be offered a solution'. The notion that
clusion that her powers were genuine. His curiosity aroused, he a discarnate agency might be `acting on some specially ideoplastic
began testing another medium, and in the course of trials discov- kind of ectoplasm' seemed to him more plausible.
ered that not merely could she guess what was on undeveloped The common assumption had been that if apparently psychic
film: in her effort to do so, she appeared to be affecting the film. matter appeared on film, either spirits must be responsible, or they
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Science and Parascience Mind over Matter
were faked. Fukurai's was the first work to appear dealing primar- about the way in which the `spirits' had so often resembled the
ily in thoughtography. So far as sceptics were concerned, however, deceased persons, not as they might have been expected to look —
the notion that not merely could the camera li e, but that film could that is, how they had looked around the time of their deaths — but
lie at the behest of somebody's thoughts, without even being inside often as they had looked when they were much younger, or in
a camera, could only be a joke. Psychical researchers for the most portraits. All that this demonstrated, Coates argued, was that the
part shared their scepticism, but were less amused. It was difficult `spirits' were simply thought-forms, which could be expected to be
to dismiss Fukurai as a charlatan: he had, after all, given up his based on actual recollections of the person or the portrait. To
career rather than renounce his opinions; and he had made no regard them as spirits, he asserted, was `as absurd as the vacuous
attempt to cash in on his discoveries — the book was presented as conclusion that they are fraudulently produced'.
a serious contribution to psychical research. But the common This second Hope `exposure' was the kind of thing that Lodge
impression was that Hope was a rogue, and consequently that was worried about. Though he himself had for a long time regarded
Fukurai must either have been deceived by him, or in collusion Hope with suspicion, he had gradually become disposed to accept
with him. that he was genuine; not from personal experience, but from the
Yet Hope had passed a number of tests made by investigators common-sense viewpoint that Hope could not, or would not, have
who knew their business, such as Carrington. The fact that he had gone on and on producing bogus spirit photographs, commonly
been `exposed' by Harry Price could hardly now, in the eyes of some without seeking remuneration, year after year. In a letter to J.
members of the SP R, be regarded as decisive; in any case Price's Arthur Hill in 1929 he remarked that to his mind, `the probability is
view, if it were worth anything, had been that Hope had genuine strongly in favour of simplicity and honesty now that he has been
psychic powers, but cheated occasionally in order to supplement going on for so long.' Surely, Lodge argued, the appeal of fraud
them. Fukurai was out of reach, but Hope could be exposed again; as a motive would long since have evaporated? But `The atmos-
and in 1932 he was denounced by Fred Barlow, who earlier had phere of suspicion naturally attaching to all physical demonstra-
been one of his chief supporters, and Major W. Rampling-Rose, tions,' he feared, `greatly hampers their rational investigation.'
who described himself as `a sort of detective' , employed in the
photographic industry, though normally his job was to track down
defects, rather than fraud. Between them, they provided evidence
in the SP Journalwhich appeared to confirm that Hope had been
cheating, and showed how he could have been doing it. As Barlow
put it, he was not arguing that no medium had ever produced a
genuine `extra'; but to carry conviction, the evidence would have
to be much more definite than any which he had been able to
obtain.
Again, however, concrete evidence that Hope had cheated was
missing; and some of their arguments indicated that they had not
appreciated the possibility of a thoughtographic component. Bar-
low had been a believer because he had assumed that the `extras',
the spirit forms which appeared, really were spirits; what had
disillusioned him had been the discovery that the `extra' had
sometimes been `an exact copy of some existing photograph or
painting'. But ten years earlier Coates, believing as he did that `all
these extraordinary super-mundane appearances of the living and
the dead have been observed only through the sudden functioning
of the psychic faculty' had urged that there was nothing surprising
258 259
Extra-sensory Perception
The Experimenters: Warcollier and
Gardner Murphy
A variety of experiments had been made after the war, using
8 Extra-Sensory Perception different techniques, such as the trials Brugman had reported at
the first international conference and the experiments of René
Warcollier. Before the war, Warcollier had become fascinated by
certain unsolved problems of animal life, such as mimicry — from
In 1934 a book was published which was to revolutionise both twig insects to the changing colours of the chameleon — and the
psychical research and pub li c attitudes to psychic phenomena: ability of certain species to reconstitute portions of their anatomy,
Joseph Banks Rhine's Extra-Sensory Perception. `It has become as lizards grow new tails; and some of the evidence for psychic
our contention,' Seymour H. Mauskopf and Michael R. McVaugh phenomena had suggested to him that the forces involved might be
have remarked in the introduction to The Elusive Science — in related. He had therefore embarked on a series of experiments
which they unravel the tangled history of the events leading up to with telepathy, designed not to demonstrate its existence but to try
the book's publication (and the sometimes even more confusing to discover its mechanics — he was an engineer by training — in the
repercussions which followed) with exemplary detachment — `that hope of finding ways to facilitate transmission and reception; and
during the quarter-century after 1915 psychical research was trans- his La Télépathie: Recherches Expérimentales, published in 1921,
formed from what had been a rather disorganised amateur activity, gave details of his findings and their implications.
mixing spiritualism with attempts at experimentation, into a more Telepathy, Warcollier claimed, represented transference of sub-
coherently structured professional and research enterprise and conscious thought and feeling. Conscious thought only got in the
began to gain, not general acceptance, but a degree of toleration way — which was why, in his view, the Coover tests had produced
from psychologists and other scientists.' And although some of the such largely negative results; the subjects had not been in suitably
research which helped to bring about this transformation was relaxed states of mind. Some degree of rapport between transmit-
conducted by others, they feel that `the activity of J. B. Rhine at ter and receiver, Warcollier believed, was also desirable, though
Duke was critical in bringing about this transformation' ; a verdict not essential; and boredom should be avoided.
with which it would be hard to disagree. In 1920 Warcollier had organised small groups to test his
Rhine himself was always careful to acknowledge the work of his theories. At set times one group would seek to transmit a word, or
predecessors in the field of laboratory-type exploration; even a drawing, while the others would see if they could pick up the
Coover's initial research at Stanford, though Coover had failed to `transmission'. In this way he was able to test whether groups were
realise the significance of the contribution he had made to the more likely to be successful than individuals, and also whether
subject. It had been Coover's critics who had observed that of the distance made any difference to the results. Groups did work
twelve highest scorers in his telepathy section and the ten highest slightly better; and disconcertingly — in view of the determination
scorers among his controls, five were the same, which had given the of orthodox scientists to sustain the inverse square law — distance
vital clue that this might indicate either that while acting as seemed rather to improve the results.
controls, they were guessing correctly through clairvoyance, or At the international conference in Warsaw in 1923 Warcollier
that while obtaining what could be interpreted as telepathic `hits', met Gardner Murphy, who was later to be, with Rhine, the
clairvoyance was in fact responsible. `While, then, Prof. Coover dominant influence in psychical research in the United States.
did not prove anything at all,' Rhine commented, `he unwittingly Murphy had grown up in a part of Boston where, as he was to recall
opened up some very interesting suggestions.' in an autobiographical sketch, `individualistic and heterodox opin-
ions were encouraged'. His grandfather had for a time been Mrs
Piper's attorney, and it was in his grandfather's library that, at the
age of sixteen, he read Barrett's Psychical Research; `From that
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
moment the quickened flame never abated.' It happened that in the memory of the earlier experiment, he tried to visualise a glass
Murphy's first graduate year at Harvard, Troland was the benefici- funnel which he had seen that morning. `At the same hour a
ary of the Richard Hodgson Fund, and asked him to help, which percipient in New York drew a sort of funnel with handles, which
prompted Murphy to do some extensive reading of reports of he called "a Visigoth helmet, upside down"; and another of the
earlier work on telepathy. He joined McDougall in the abortive New York percipients drew a large compote glass with handles,
first Harvard investigation of `Margery'; and, thanks to remaking that it was "like the horns of a stag".'
McDougall, he himself had the support of the Hodgson fund from These findings did not attract much attention at the time;
1922 to 1925 to do experiments in telepathy, including the first trial understandably, in view of the emphasis on the physical phe-
using the new medium, radio. On 2 March 1924 a test broadcast nomena of mediumship in the Geley-dominated era. But they were
from a Chicago station attracted 2500 guesses from listeners: of to be valuable to Murphy, intimating as they did that if the reality
these, however, only two were strikingly accurate, and the general of telepathy was ever to be demonstrated quantitatively, to try to
level was slightly below chance. meet the specifications laid down by orthodox science, the subjec-
Measured quantitatively, the trans-Atlantic trials with Warcol- tive element must be taken into account. Experiments might work
lier were also unimpressive; but there were intriguing demonstra- if senders and receivers were in rapport which would not work if
tions of the importance of the point which Warcollier had been they were unknown to one another. It might be necessary for both
emphasising: the need to regard telepathy as communicating not to be in a certain frame of mind, if communication was to be
what the transmitting agents wanted to communicate, or thought established. And the decision whether a result was a `hit' or a `miss'
they were communicating, but some component, of which they would have to be put on a rather different basis from that of the
might not be aware. Thus one of the `senders', who was herself one shooting range. Not merely might a receiver describe, or draw, an
of the more successful `receivers' whom Warcollier had dis- object which was not the same as the one the sender was holding,
covered, was handed an object in darkness, and asked to say what but was the same general size, shape and colour: there could also
it was. She thought it was `the horns of a little deer, or rather of a be displacements. In one experiment, in which a sender had knelt
roe', eventually deciding it was a stag's horn. In another room, one in an armchair and joined his hands to see whether the receiver
of the recipients drew three sketches, all on the same theme: a would pick up `prayer', the subject reported `a curtain of heavy
pitchfork's prongs, a claw, and antlers. The actual object was the material and dark colour, right along the wall, not drawn, but held
lower jawbone of a woman. The same evening — 14 March 1925 — back by a curtain-band'. This was, in fact, an exact description of
Warcollier himself was to try to send a message from France to an the background to the room in which the agent was sitting.
American group sitting in New York; and as he wanted to banish In 1925 Murphy caught influenza and, as so often in that era, its
after-effects were both disturbing and lingering; for a time he even
went blind. He already had a part-time teaching post at Columbia
University; and he decided that in view of his poor health he had
better accept Columbia's offer to make it full-time, even though
this meant giving up the Hodgson Fellowship. `In no way did I
slacken interest,' he insisted, `but life forced on me temporarily an
orthodox path.' There was, however, to be one divergence from
that path: his contribution to the Clark University symposium,
important both because he was the only representative of the
younger academic generation — he was thirty-two — and for its
content.
In `Telepathy as an experimental problem' he surveyed past
work and indicated, with remarkable prescience, the difficulties
The compote glass with `stag's horns'. which were likely to be encountered in the future, illustrating them
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
from his own work, and Warcollier's, with some striking examples. trials and, in the case of mediums, with advancing years, was
On one occasion a man who was acting as a sender in a long- already well established; but the natural tendency of sceptics had
distance trial had been sitting in a restaurant with green hangings been to claim it provided additional evidence for the spuriousness
where three men at the next table were talking loudly, eating roast of psychic phenomena. Estabrooks's results confirmed that this
capon with bread sauce, while a pianist strummed away in the line of reasoning was untenable. The fact that the success rate was
background. Suddenly waking up to the fact it was time to 'trans- higher when senders and receivers were separated only by a
mit' a diagram, he left the restaurant and, five minutes later, partition might have been attributed to the fact that the subjects
performed his task. The receiver, hundreds of miles away, re- had somehow overheard what the cards were, either directly or
corded at that time in automatic writing `Roast capon, bread sauce, through hyperesthesia; but this could not account for the way the
three men, much talk, green hangings, somebody strumming'. success rate had fallen in the initial trials, while they were in the
Among the trials to which Murphy referred in his paper were partitioned room. Had any of the receivers found a way to cheat,
those which had been conducted by his successor as beneficiary of too, their scores would have been more likely to improve, rather
the Hodgson Fund at Harvard, George Estabrooks. Estabrooks than fall off. And if Estabrooks himself had wanted to cheat either
had reverted to Coover's card-guessing system, separating the for or against telepathy, he would hardly have cheated in such a
senders from the receivers by a partition, the receivers being way as to produce the results which appeared in his report.
notified when to guess by a clockwork device; and their scores in Henceforth the decline effect ceased to disturb psychical re-
the first of the series were spectacular. Out of 1660 guesses, the searchers — though it continued to sadden them, because it meant
odds against chance being responsible for the number of correct that so many of the most promising receivers lost their receptivity.
guesses of the card's suit were 900 to one; of the card's colour, no It also remained an irritant, in that the more ignorant critics
less than 8,000,000 to one. The next in the series, however, continued to try to use it as it were as an argument in their favour.
produced much less impressive scoring, and in the third, where
senders and receivers were in two rooms at a distance from each
other, the subjects scored below chance. The Jephson Trials
Estabrooks had been more sympathetic to psychical research
than Coover, and more perceptive. `In the laboratory,' he had Decline effect was to be a feature of the next reported series of
noted `we cannot get the intense emotional state which seems so card-guessing trials, conducted by Ina Jephson in Britain. She
necessary for a really conclusive demonstration.' Consequently the dispensed with agents, allowing individuals to monitor their own
need was to search for a technique which would `take that very clairvoyance by the simple method of shuffling a pack, drawing a
weak tendency and magnify it until we can claim proof'. Trials of card from it, guessing what the card was, writing the guess down on
the kind he had conducted, he realised, created their own prob- a score sheet and then writing down beside it what the card had
lems in that the atmosphere might not be conducive, and boredom actually turned out to be. The advantage was that anybody could
or fatigue appeared to weaken that very weak tendency still volunteer and conduct the experiment in his or her own time; the
further. But this laboratory demonstration of the way in which obvious disadvantage, that any of the subjects, — about three
initially good scoring fell to chance, or even below, was important, hundred volunteered to participate — could easily cheat. But what
Murphy pointed out, because it was so `extraordinarily consistent': was impressive about the results was that not merely were there no
the best results had been obtained in the first five experiments, the indications of cheating, such as suspiciously high scores: the
next best in the next five, and around the fifteenth, `the results drop marked tendency was for subjects to score well at the start of their
to what we should expect from chance'. `runs', but for their guesses then to sink to chance level, and below.
Eleanor Sidgwick also realised the significance of these findings, Fatigue? Boredom? Some other cause? Ina Jephson did not know.
suggesting as they did `that some capacity was at work which But at least cheating, easy though it would have been, could be
rapidly deteriorated with use'. They were more suggestive than ruled out. Her subjects would hardly have consistently rigged their
that. The way in which psychic powers or faculties declined both in own guesses in such a way as to show a gradual decline; the decline
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
effect's consistency could consequently be regarded as unconven- The report of the seance which the Rhines attended appeared in
tional but interesting evidence for the existence of ESP, in the Morton Prince's Journal of Abnormal Psychology, and it shows
absence of any obvious alternative way of accounting for it. how Rhine's disgust had got the better of his judgment. Many of
Was there any point in experiments of this kind, in view of their the familiar phenomena occurred, and the Rhines had to admit
revelation that what Estabrooks had described as the `very weak they were impressive; but certain observations led us to discover
tendency' to guess correctly by psychic means became relentlessly that the whole game was a base and brazen trickery'. The Rhines
weaker as trials progressed? In the Journal of the American could not explain, however, how the trickery was carried out. They
society, René Sudre argued that there was not, claiming that the could only speculate; and their speculation showed that they were
performances of individuals with striking powers were more likely unfamiliar with the reports of some earlier investigators — for
to carry conviction. Ina Jephson's reply was that what scientists example, in relation to pseudopod manifestations; and they were
were demanding was replicability, and this might be achieved in unwise enough to cite Code's findings in support of their argument.
the mass in a way that it could not be, or at least had not been, with The Rhines' verdict might be unfair, but it was decisive in terms
individuals. Rhine was to settle for the statistical approach. It did of their future, partly by encouraging them to concentrate upon
not, after all, preclude research with gifted individuals; it could research into the mental, rather than the physical phenomena:
identify them. partly by leading them into the Prince/McDougall camp. It hap-
pened that the President of Duke University, Wil li am Preston
Few, who was looking out for a psychologist, had asked McDougall
J. B. Rhine for his ideas; and McDougall, who had never really settled down at
Harvard, offered himself. He made the move in 1927; and that
Joseph Banks Rhine had grown up in a remote mountain region of autumn the Rhines joined him at Duke, to assist him in his courses,
Pennsylvania where, according to his wife, he acquired and never and to pursue psychical research.
lost `the marked and definite independence of mind, a freedom It was some time, however, before Rhine settled down to the
from, and even an unawareness of, social pressures, especially in laboratory-type research with which he later came to be identified.
regard to the opinions of others'. His cast of mind was sceptical; in In the winter of 1927-8 he and Louisa investigated a `mind-reading
college, and later while serving with the Marine Corps, he acquired horse', Lady, who answered questions her owner put to her by
the mechanist outlook which he was never entirely to shed; and pointing to letters or numbers with her nose; and the fact that she
having graduated in botany, and married another botany student, sometimes correctly answered questions to which her owner did
Louisa Weckesser, he could easily have settled down to an not know the answer suggested that there must be more to it than
academic career. Reading Bergson's Creative Evolution, however, unconscious sensory signals, of the kind which had been held to
convinced them both that what science needed was extension account for the success of an earlier horse and owner combination.
beyond its — by this time — rigid materialist boundaries. They A year later, when the Rhines returned for a further investigation,
decided to do research `on the rim of the great problem of the Lady only responded to signals — theirs, or the owner's; so the
nature of life'; and Myers's Human Personality pointed them enquiry had to be abandoned. In this period, however, the Rhines
towards psychical research. read the available literature of psychical research intensively and
Their initial idea was to investigate mediums; and in the summer extensively, and began to work out projects and procedures; and in
of 1926 they went to a seance with `Margery'. They were ready to 1930 he began a series of experiments with students to test them for
give her the benefit of the doubt, Rhine insisted; but `when I found telepathic perception.
this poor bunch of tricks at the back of all these investigations and Rhine's reading initially pointed him in the direction Richet had
publications, it was a tremendous jolt', he complained in a letter to taken, to experiments in which suggestion under hypnosis was used
the ASP R; `I am disgusted, not only with the case but with the to try to put the students in a suitable frame of mind; in New
attitude our journal has taken on it, sponsoring it before the Frontiers of the Mind he was to recall that though the project which
scientific world.' he and his colleague, Professor Helge Lundholm, tried out was
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
relatively short lived, it was `extremely important in that it was the In their everyday trials Sinclair would take an object, or make a
foundation for later, more successful work'. And at this point, a drawing of anything which came into his head; Mrs Sinclair would
book appeared which gave him and McDougall much-needed be called in and lie down; the object, or the drawing, wrapped up,
encouragement, because it helped to counteract the prevailing would be placed on her solar plexus; and she would try to empty
impression that psychical research in the United States had been her mind of thoughts, to allow a picture of the target to come in.
dealt a mortal blow by the exposures — as they were taken to Frequently she got the answer exactly correct: but some of her
be — of `Margery': a remarkable and surprising study of some guesses were striking even when they were not quite correct. For
experiments in telepathic communication. example, when he drew a running fox, she drew two crossed guns
and a hunting horn.
There were also occasional displacements. Unbeknown to the
Sinclairs, a visitor to his office who had heard about the tests
Mental Radio decided to `give her some that will stump her', and drew two
The surprise lay in the authorship: it was the work of Upton pictures. They were slipped into a series she was working on: and
Sinclair, who had made his name before the war with his novel The when she picked up the first of them, she wrote:
Jungle, exposing the horrors of working for the Chicago meat- Some sort of a grinning monster — see only the face and a vague
packers, and whose later books had firmly established him as the idea of deformed neck and shoulders. It is a man, but it looks like a
most articulate of American Socialists. Socialists were generally cat's face, cat eyes and whiskers. Don't know just how I know it is a
regarded (and generally regarded themselves) as dedicated mate- man — it is a deformity. Not a cat. See colour of skin, which is deep,
rialists, hostile to occultist notions of any kind. Mental Radio, flat pink, as of a coloured picture. The face of the creature is broad
however, turned out to be a plea for the recognition of telepathy and weird. The flesh of neck or somewhere gives effect of rolls or
(Sinclair remained doubtful about clairvoyance) on the strength of creases.
a series of trials he and others had carried out with his wife.
Mary Craig Sinclair, Sinclair explained, had been a sensitive Opening the envelope, she found it was a drawing of a leg and
even as a child, in that when her mother told a servant to go and foot on a roller skate, which was marked as a `miss'. But later in the
find her, `the child would know her mother wanted her, and would series she was guessing, `some sort of a grinning monster' did
be on the way'; and sometimes she had shared dreams with her indeed appear. Not merely was her earlier guess a startlingly
mother. The faculty had continued: Sinclair recalled an occasion
when she had become very worried about Jack London, saying she
felt he was in great mental distress; they learned a couple of days
afterwards that he had committed suicide. Later, Sinclair and his
wife had experimented with `hand healing'; he could `take on' her
headaches, he found, and she `take on' his indigestion. But as he
was `busy trying to reform America', and she had `the most
intensely materialistic convictions', it was only gradually that her
psychic faculty was uncovered and developed.
Sinclair was under no illusions that his account of that faculty,
and the experiments with which they had tested it, would be easily
swallowed. His followers would be a little shocked: `You have
come, after thirty years, to the position where you accept me as one
kind of "crank", but you won't stand for two kinds.' Yet there was
nothing for it, he had decided, but to come straight to the point,
and describe the experiments. `Some sort of grinning monster.'
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
accurate description of the drawing; it turned out that the drawing Murray. Her state of `simultaneous concentration and relaxation',
was one of the two which had been done by the visitor in Sinclair's she found, could easily be disrupted by things which ordinarily did
office. In other words, she had got the `Happy Hooligan' (the not bother her at all, light and noise; and she was uneasy in case the
drawing was of a cartoon character of the period in a comic presence of strangers, `sceptical or possibly hostile', might also
supplement; when Sinclair looked it up, he found that the face was make a difference. The trials were not held.
indeed pink), but in the wrong envelope. She had accurately Nevertheless the results the Sinclairs had achieved, McDougall
picked up what had been drawn, but not where it had been put. felt, were `so remarkably successful as to rank among the very best
In a series of 290 drawings, her `hits' numbered 65 — nearly a hitherto reported'. They could be rejected as conclusive evidence
quarter, almost the same proportion as her total misses. Coinci- of `some mode of communication, not at present explicable in
dence? There was no way of estimating the precise odds against so accepted scientific terms', only by assuming `that Mr and Mrs
many `hits' occurring by chance, but to Sinclair, `a million years Sinclair either are grossly stupid, incompetent and careless per-
would not be enough for such a set'. Understandably, Sinclair sons, or have deliberately entered upon a conspiracy to deceive the
thought these results worth publishing; but as his wife was reluc- public in a most heartless and reprehensible fashion'. He was not,
tant to face the publicity, and feared it would damage his reputa- he admitted, intimately acquainted with them personally; but a
tion, he agreed to circulate his account of the trials to friends, knowledge of Sinclair's writings `suffices to convince me, as it
before committing himself. Some of them begged him not to should convince any impartial reader, that he is an able and sincere
publish; one of them unkindly anticipated publication in a syndi- man, with a strong sense of right and wrong, and of individual
cated article under the title `Sinclair Goes Spooky'. But responsibility', which should ensure that his book received a
McDougall's comments, which were to appear as a preface to the respectful hearing.
American edition, were encouraging; and Sinclair went ahead.
Mrs Sinclair's account of her condition while guessing struck The Zener Cards
McDougall as particularly interesting, falling in line as it did with
what so many other sensitives had described. It was a state, she In 1930, Rhine began to experiment with card-guessing, helped by
explained, of `simultaneous concentration and relaxation' — his colleague, Dr K. F. Zener. For a while the results were
though that might appear to be a contradiction: `Perhaps we each obstinately negative, until Rhine, doubtless mindful of the possi-
have several mental entities, or minds, and one of these can sleep bility that something more stimulating might be desirable as target
(be blankly unconscious) while another supervises the situation, material, asked Zener to design special cards for the tests; and he
maintaining the first one's state of unconsciousness for a desired came up with five: a plus (or cross), a circle, a rectangle, a star, and
period, and then presenting to it some thought or picture agreed on three wavy lines. Later the designs were to be slightly modified,
in advance, thus restoring it to consciousness.' Whatever the and the term `ESP cards' was introduced; but the term `Zener
explanation, `When I practise this art which I have learned, with cards' caught on. They were the same size and shape as ordinary
my mind concentrated on one simple thing, it is a relaxation as playing cards, with plain backs, and they were produced in packs of
restful, as seemingly "complete", as when I am in that state called twenty-five. The packs would be shuffled, and Rhine or one of his
normal sleep.' assistants, acting as agents, would work down through them, while
Knowing how sceptics, inside as well as outside the societies for the receivers, or subjects, tried to guess what each one was, the
psychical research, were likely to react, McDougall recommended agent noting down the guesses. At the end of the run, the guesses
that Mrs Sinclair should undertake some more formal trials by would be compared with the cards.
scientists. Sinclair was aware that, as he put it `much of the `This simple, monotonous procedure Rhine was to recall,
evidence which I am using rests upon the good faith of Mary Craig seemed `an almost childish way to investigate the possibility of the
Sinclair'; and as a sceptic might well have added that much of it also human mind's possessing powers not recognised by scientists or the
rested on his good faith, too, they were anxious to co-operate. But majority of laymen'. It lacked drama, and needed to be endlessly
the problem arose that had blocked formal trials with Gilbert repeated, day in, day out, over years. But it had the great advan-
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
any impression on sceptics, as the tests had not been carried out
with sufficiently rigorous precautions to rule out cheating. That
Linzmayer had not been cheating was, in fact, soon indicated by
the setting in of decline effect; when he returned later to Duke for
further trials, his results were far less spectacular. Nevertheless he
continued to score regularly at slightly above chance level, guess-
ing six or seven cards right, on average; and this in itself was
encouraging, because his consistency over so many trials — around
three thousand in all — was in a sense a more impressive demon-
stration that some factor other than chance must be involved than
the occasional high score. And in 1932 another subject turned up at
Duke who was able consistently to produce even higher scores: a
divinity student, Hubert Pearce.
Tested by Gaither Pratt, who had become one of Rhine's
assistants, Pearce in his first 5000 trials averaged the astonishing
number of ten `hits', twice as many as chance expectation. Once he
even `shot a possible', guessing all twenty-five cards in a run
correctly. But this was exceptional: his chief value, Rhine realised,
lay in his consistency. Pearce, too, was able to score below chance
when asked to do so, for purposes of demonstration. He would get
The `Zener Cards'. only one out of the twenty-five right, or none at all. And his scoring
was unaffected by precautionary checks. The then celebrated
magician Wallace Lee, invited to be an observer, conceded that
tage that it was simple. Chance expectation would be five `hits' in there was no way in which Pearce could have been picking up
each run; and though there might be considerable variations on sensory clues, whether consciously or unconsciously.
individual runs, they would be expected to even out over, say, a Pearce's consistency made it possible to conduct a wide range of
hundred runs, whereas anybody who had clairvoyant powers could experiments; for example, to find whether distance made any
be expected to show up by scoring frequently or consistently above difference. In one trial in 1933 Pratt in one building on the campus
chance. And this was what happened. In the spring of 1931 one of picked up cards from a shuffled pack, without looking at them, at
the students, A. J. Linzmayer — `our first really striking subject', intervals of a minute; while Pearce, in another building a hundred
as Rhine gratefully described him — got nine straight `hits', not yards away, made his guesses. Over 300 runs, Pearce averaged just
once but three times. He scored equally well when tested for `pure' under ten `hits' in each. When the distance was extended to 250
clairvoyance — that is, when the agent did not know what the card yards, his scoring remained high. Tests with different subjects at
was — as he did when tested for `undifferentiated extra-sensory even greater distances confirmed that scoring could be high even
perception' — the term Rhine adopted, from Tischner, for percep- with 250 miles between agent and subject.
tion which might be attributed either to telepathy or to clair-
voyance. On his last day at Duke, before he left for his summer
vacation, Linzmayer agreed to set aside the whole of the day for The Monograph
tests; and in one of them he ran up a score of fifteen consecutive
`hits', and a total of twenty-one `hits' out of the twenty-five-card In the autumn of 1933 Rhine put together a monograph providing a
run. general historical introduction to the subject, giving the results of
Gratifying though this performance was, it was unlikely to make the experiments with Linzmayer, Pearce and others, and discus-
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Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
sing their significance. He sent it to Walter Prince, who published it which by looking at the backs of the cards it could be possible in
in the spring of 1934, with an introduction by himself and a time to get to know what was on the front of them; but some
foreword from McDougall, on behalf of the Boston Society for subjects preferred to keep their minds and their eyes elsewhere:
Psychic Research. Only 900 copies of Extra-Sensory Perception Pearce, for one, rarely looked at the cards while guessing, and in
were printed; but, as Mauskopf and McVaugh have commented, some trials neither the cards nor the agent were in view. Fraud?
the contents were to revolutionise psychical research and to make Was it really likely that the people involved, as agents or subjects
its title `literally a household phrase'. or observers, were all in a conspiracy to produce the results? If
The term `extra-sensory perception' — or, more commonly, anybody had been cheating, the results would presumably have
simply `ESP' — was quick to catch on. Rhine felt the need to justify been better in unwitnessed tests; but `those subjects who have not
his decision to adopt it as preferable to `supernormal perception', been wholly witnessed throughout have in many cases shown
to Richet's `cryptesthesia', or to `metagnomy', which Osty and better results when witnessed than when unwitnessed'. Incom-
Sudre were seeking to popularise. It had gradually become clear, petence? If there had been poor observation or evaluation, the
Rhine argued, that telepathy and clairvoyance did not constitute a results would have been best when they had begun the trials, and
hitherto unrecognised sensory process; his interpretation was that were inexperienced; the reverse was the case, as the results with
ESP was `perception in a mode that is just not sensory' — rather some subjects had improved at the same time as they were finding
than not recognised. Sudre was to fight a rearguard action against ways to tighten up their investigative procedures, at least until
it: `perception', he argued, was misleading, because `the telepathic decline effect set in.
image does not have the characteristics of a perception: it emerges
like a memory from the subconscious mind', and because it ignored
the transmission element. Rosalind Heywood later added that Repercussions
`perception' might be a misnomer, `since the response to such
communication does not always appear to be a conscious one' (as Not the least remarkable outcome of the publication of Extra-
on the occasions when people have reported that they have been Sensory Perception was its reception in the American press. As
`taken over' — stopped, say, as if by an invisible hand from expos- psychical research had long been of interest to the editors of
ing themselves to what turned out to be some hidden danger, newspapers and magazines, it was not surprising that the work at
without their comprehending why). But as so often has happened Duke should have attracted their attention; but in addition, the
in the creation of the terminology of psychical research, the term Scientific American had not been frightened off by the `Margery'
which caught on was not the one which purists would have pre- experience, and in fact in 1933 had initiated a series of trials for
ferred. `ESP' has stayed the course. telepathy, with its readers' help, under Walter Prince's super-
The monograph, too, had an immediate impact, not just for the vision. The initial findings, he reported, were encouraging; and
evidence it provided for ESP, but because Rhine had been careful although the eventual outcome was disappointing, the editor
to reply to some of the more obvious lines of criticism in advance, suggested that this pointed to the need for trials `conducted
in a chapter of `Elimination of negative hypotheses'. The most under controlled laboratory conditions'. As this appeal was in the
obvious was that `we would be as likely to go below chance January 1934 issue it seems highly probable that he knew, from
average, if we ran 90,000 more trials, as we would be to go above'. Prince, that such t ri als had been conducted at Duke, and
Rhine had no difficulty in showing that even in that unlikely event, had been strikingly successful. Rhine could be sure of an ally,
the results already obtained would be enough to satisfy any there.
statistician that chance could not account for them. Less predictably, the New York Times `science correspondent,
Fraud, then? Incompetence? Unconscious sensory perception? Waldemar Kaempffert, described the Duke research at length,
Rational inference? The diverse circumstances under which the and respectfully, in his column `The Week in Science', treating it as
trials had been conducted made each and all of these implausible, he would have treated similar research in physics or chemistry. In
Rhine argued. For example, there might be a number of ways in the New York Herald Tribune, too, E. E. Free suggested that just
274 275
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
as Faraday's discoveries were remembered, a century later, as the spirit world. To this end she put her mediumship at the disposal of
outstanding achievement of his time , so in 2034 Rhine's might well serious researchers, gaining their trust and admiration.
be singled out for the accolade. Writers in other newspapers and Following the disappearance of Captain Walter Hinchliffe on his
magazines followed their example: and for the first time psychical attempted east-west Atlantic flight in 1928, `Uvani' had given a
researchers were widely treated as contributors to scientific know- detailed account of the way he had crashed; and although there was
ledge rather than dabblers in the occult. no way in which it could be confirmed, some of the incidental
The publicity which Rhine's research obtained in the press gave details given were impressive in their accuracy. Even more im-
him another boost, though a disconcerting one: a tidal wave of pressive were the details `Uvani' gave two years later at a seance
correspondence, `much of it helpful', as he acknowledged in his where the intention had been to obtain a communication from
New Frontiers of the Mind, `and some of it extraordinarily so'. Conan Doyle, who had just died, but where the `communicator'
Through it, a network of co-workers could be established through- introduced himself as Flight Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin,
out the country, in which experiments along the same lines, or captain of the airship R 101, which had crashed in France two days
variations on them, could be undertaken. Some of them were before.
conducted by men such as Dr C. R. Carpenter of Bard College `Irwin' presented a string of reasons why the airship had found-
who admitted that his hope was that he would find flaws in the ered, many of them highly technical. The transcript revealed that it
procedure, if the tests were put on a regular, objective basis, would have been difficult for Eileen Garrett to have collected the
without fussing over the subjective needs of the subjects. But one information even if she had been intimately involved in the pro-
of them survived the ordeal, for a while scoring almost as well, and ject — the construction of the R 101, the disputes, the difficulties —
as consistently, as Pearce, until his investigator was forced to admit from the start; and although not all the information was accurate,
that he could find no explanation except ESP. as John G. Fuller has shown in his reconstruction of the case, it was
Other trials were conducted by men and women who were strikingly close to the truth.
already interested in the subject, but who were triggered into In her trials at Duke, Eileen Garrett revealed that she could
activity by hearing or reading about the work at Duke. As Maus- score extremely well in tests both for clairvoyance and for tele-
kopf and McVaugh found, examining the correspondence, what pathy, the telepathy results being the better of the two: in 625 trials
was most noteworthy about them was their heterogeneity. They she guessed 336 cards correctly, an average of over 13.4 out of each
included engineers, schoolteachers, a manufacturer, a psychi- run of 25 Zener cards (tested in her trance state, when `Uvani' did
atrist, a pediatrician and a professor of philosophy; and their let- the guessing, the score was lower, but still well above the chance
ters revealed that some of them were `uncommonly perceptive level of 5 out of the 25). By this time, however, the arrival of yet
and purposeful' — they were far from being the kind of mystics another good scorer was of less importance to Rhine than the
and cranks whom the critics of psychical research claimed were its contact with Mrs Bolton. Mrs Bolton's interest was primarily in
chief adherents. securing evidence for survival after death; and Mrs Garrett, com-
Rhine's most pressing need was more funds; and here, too, bining as she did the ability to make contact with `communicators'
fortune favoured him. In 1934 a young Irish medium, Eileen and to do well in straight test conditions, was the ideal go-between.
Garrett, came to Duke to be tested, sponsored by a rich Cleveland Research of the kind being undertaken at Duke, Rhine suggested
woman, Mrs Frances Bolton. Mrs Garrett had been building up a to Mrs Bolton, was necessary to provide the groundwork for
reputation in Britain, where researchers had found her 'surprising- research into survival; and it could be much more effectively
ly different in appearance and manner from any other medium', as conducted if it had more adequate funding. McDougall's support
one investigator, E. Clephan Palmer, noted in 1927; `very modern, helped to persuade Mrs Bolton to promise a $10,000-a-year grant,
Eton-cropped and humorous'. She had a `control', the oriental- for a probationary period of three to five years, a sum which was to
sounding `Uvani', who spoke through her — but she had decided enable Rhine to attain an almost independent status within Duke,
that `Uvani' was a phenomenon to be investigated, with a view to and to found the Journal of Parapsychology.
understanding it, rather than accept that his was a voice from the For a time, the main criticism of Rhine's work came from other
276 277
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
psychical researchers. So far as the American SPR was concerned his book's cool reception; but he contented himself with correcting
he was a heretic. As he was out of the society's reach, he could not Thouless on a point of detail.
be excommunicated, but he could be ignored; Extra-Sensory
Perception was not accorded a review in the Journal, and two years
passed before its pages contained any reference to the research at S. G. Soal
Duke. And in Britain the book's reception was guarded. The SPR
gave the book to R. H. Thouless, Lecturer in Psychology at the Thouless was not the only member of the SPR to treat Rhine's
University of Glasgow, to review, presumably because he was a work with a measure of suspicion. S. G. Soal, Senior Lecturer in
High-and-Dry. He had not even fully committed himself to accept- Mathematics at Queen Mary College, London University, was
ance of supernormal phenomena — an asset, from the High-and- more outspokenly critical, writing to Prince to express his doubts,
Dry point of view, as his views would carry more weight in and preparing to undertake research in Britain which would dem-
academic circles, in which he had a growing reputation: he was to onstrate that the experiments at Duke had been slipshod, and the
be President of the British Association's Psychology Section in results untrustworthy.
1937. Thouless welcomed Rhine's innovations, such as the Zener Soal was a prickly academic, with a relish for demolishing the
cards and the tests designed to try to distinguish telepathy from work of others; and over the previous fifteen years he had emerged
clairvoyance. But he complained that it was `generally quite im- as one of the highest and driest of the society's active members. Yet
possible to discover in any particular experiment what the ex- he was regarded as a man of refreshing intellectual integrity,
perimental conditions were' ; and where it was possible, the experi- largely because of his role in one of the strangest cases reported in
ments were not free from objections. The best that could be said the society's pub li cations: the `Gordon Davis' affair.
for them was that they were simple, so that `those who are not In the early 1920s, soon after he had joined the SPR, Soal had
convinced may try the matter out for themselves'. investigated a clairaudient, Mrs Blanche Cooper, who practised at
That Thouless was unaware of the importance of Extra-Sensory the College of Psychic Science. One of the `communicators' was
Perception was also clear from the fact that the major part of his Soal's deceased brother, Frank; at the start of one seance, Soal was
review was devoted not to Rhine's experiments, but to Coover's. told that `Frank' had brought along somebody who knew him; and
This was because the work of R. A. Fisher, the leading statistician `a voice well articulated and extraordinarily clear and strong began
of the era, had begun to assume great importance in High-and-Dry to speak'. Soal had heard a number of different voices emanating
circles, as he had been willing to co-operate in analysing the results through the medium, but in none of them, not even that of `Frank',
of tests, and could be trusted, when sceptics claimed that the had he recognised any of them as the voice of somebody he had
researchers' statistics were unreliable, to give an impartial verdict. known. This one was different: he knew it was familiar, though he
It was largely thanks to Fisher that members of the society were could not immediately place it. Eventually `Gordon Davis' ident-
becoming proficient in this subject; and some of them, going over ified himself, and Soal realised he was hearing the voice of an old
the Coover ground as an exercise, were discovering that Coover's schoolfellow. `Can you really be Gordon Davis?' he asked. `I had
research, far from casting doubt on the reality of extra-sensory heard you were killed.' `The same — what's left of me,' `Gordon
perception, had produced even stronger evidence for it than Davis' replied, and he went on to remind Soal of the old School,
Schiller had realised at the time. If some of the participants in and of the last conversation they had had together.
Coover's tests had continued to score at the same rate as they had Soal had not known Davis well at school, and could not recollect
been scoring — in other words, provided decline effect had not set having spoken to him in the fifteen years after he had left it until
in — the 50,000-to-one odds would very soon have been reached, they had met by chance in 1916, waiting on a station platform for a
Thouless was able to show, and surpassed. Gratifying though this London train, in which they had had the conversation which
information was to Rhine, because it showed that his own results `Gordon Davis' had recalled. Afterwards he had heard Davis had
need not be attributed simply to his unguarded enthusiasm, in the been killed in the war. Curious, he asked Mrs Cooper's `control',
letter he wrote to the SPR he was understandably a little miffed at Nada', at the next sitting if she could get in touch with `Davis'
278 279
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
again, and he was rewarded by information about his `house' and firm assessment of their results if experimenters were allowed to
its contents — what it looked like from the outside , the pictures in claim partial success when there was some associative connection
the li ving room, and downstairs, `two funny brass candlesticks' and between the percipient's guess and the object to be guessed. `If, as
`a black dickie-bird on the piano'. M. Warcollier seems to believe, telepathy often works by very
At the time, Soal claimed, he dismissed the description of the obscure associations apparent only to the percipient himself,' Soal
house as `the purest fiction'. Four years later, however, he heard by complained, `then it is difficult to see how science is going to deal
chance that Davis was still alive, and working as an estate agent in with it objectively at all.' The words `apparent only to the percipient
Southend. Intrigued, Soal visited him there — and found himself himself' were a subtle distortion of Warcollier's argument:
going into the very house which `Nada' had described, even the there might indeed be occasions when only the percipient could
pictures on the walls; and the brass candlesticks downstairs. And point to an association — for example, if he had guessed an object
what was still more startling, at the time of the seance Davis had which for some subjective reason was intimately linked with the
not been living in the house. He had not even been inside it, though object which was being `sent'; but Warcollier had been chiefly
the possibility that he might buy it could have been in his mind. concerned to emphasise the possibility that a percipient might pick
The curious combination of a misplaced `spirit' — a li ving man up a mind's-eye picture of an object which had a clear objective
coming through as a `communicator' — an unprecedented type of resemblance — say, in its shape.
precognition, naturally attracted interest, the more so because Inevitably, Soal had been critical of Ina Jephson's experiment,
Soal, though himself an automatist, was so rigorous in his evalua- the more so as his own trials to find potential telepathic subjects
tion of mediums. Had Conan Doyle, say, told the `Gordon Davis' had been unproductive. With Besterman, he ran a second trial
story, it would have been unhesitatingly dismissed. As it was, along similar lines, but with the precaution that the cards were sent
doubts were cast upon it at the time by H. Dennis Bradley, who to the volunteer percipients enclosed in opaque envelopes; and this
thought Soal's evidence flimsy. Soal also got his dates muddled up time there were no positive scores and no decline effect. Soal's
(another brother signed a statement that he had read the 'com- conclusions, which he stated with ill-concealed relish, were that
munications' at Christmas time in 1921, though the seance was held people with telepathic faculty were extremely rare, and that evi-
later); and Alan Gauld has since uncovered further grounds for dence to the contrary was chiefly based on the experimenters'
suspicion. Soal's reputation in any case lies in ruins following the wishful thinking.
recent discovery that he fiddled the results of a card-guessing series Rhine's results consequently came as an irritating surprise. In his
in the 1940s. But at the time, the general good impression was letter to Prince on the subject Soal was sourly critical of the work at
confirmed by his later reports, which were in the High-and-Dry Duke because of the failure, as he thought it, to take adequate
tradition. precautions. He enclosed a list of specific criticisms, to be sent on
Not merely was Soal critical of investigators whose work did not anonymously to Duke; but by the time the letter reached the
come up to the most exacting standards; he had no hesitation in Boston society, Prince had died, and both the letter and the
casting aspersions on them as dupes, or even as rogues. Underlying enclosure were forwarded to Rhine. It was the measure of Rhine's
all Crawford's work with the Golighers, he claimed in a letter to the self-confidence, by this time, that he contented himself with a cool
Journal in 1931, was a fundamental assumption which Crawford reply, forcing Soal to excuse himself by claiming that unlike
had never adequately verified `and which grew more and more tacit Dingwall, who had reached a condition of not wishing to get any
as time went on'. The tacit assumption, of course, was that the positive evidence for psychical phenomena, he at least kept an
levitating agency was a supernormal force `and not a human open mind. So he did; but he would not have been sorry to
leg' — a statement which could only be read as implying that demonstrate that Rhine's results were unreliable, and he set up
Crawford, if he were not in collusion with the Golighers, had trials which, if they continued to produce the negative results he
deliberately ignored the possibility of fraud on their part. had been obtaining under properly controlled conditions, would
Soal had also been contemptuous of what he regarded as War- suffice to render Rhine's suspect.
collier's casual research methods, and the difficulty of making a In the summer of 1934, Soal circularised the people who had
280 281
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
already taken part in some of his experiments, some because they Psychical Phenomena, published in 1938, in which he described his
had had psychic experiences. Twenty-three of them took part in research.
experiments on the Rhine model. The results were negative. The In the early 1920s Tyrrell had found that his adopted daughter,
following year a further appeal for volunteers, reinforced by the Gertrude Johnson, `possessed the extra-sensory faculty in a
promise of money prizes, failed to lure anybody capable of scoring marked degree', as it constantly showed up in her everyday life;
significantly above chance. In 1936, spiritualist mediums who had and he began to test her with playing cards, which she was able to
been invited to show their capabilities fared no better. Finally he guess successfully. Rhine's work prompted him to try something
tested Mrs Garrett. Although before the results were made known different, in 1934, based on the knack she showed of finding lost
she expressed her satisfaction with the test conditions, in over objects. He set up a row of five small boxes, open on his side:
12,000 guesses she `did not show a glimmer of any paranormal choosing a box at random, he would insert a pointer, saying `IN'
faculty', whether Soal or anybody else was in charge. and Gertrude, on the other side of a screen, had to guess in which
box it was. In 30,000 trials Gertrude had over 9000 hits, as against
chance expectation of 6000 — odds of `billions to one' against
chance. And in trials with six other `senders' her results, though
G. N. M. Tyrrell less spectacular, were also `billions to one' greater than chance.
By 1937, however, Soal's negative results were of relatively little Heartened by these results, Tyrrell had begun to cast around for
concern to Rhine; he had so much else going for him. In his New ways in which to remove all possibility that sensory cues could
Frontiers of the Mind he had no difficulty in disposing of his English influence the results. The randomisation could be made mechan-
critics: including one who had claimed that he could accept the ical; the operator could be kept in ignorance of which box was
evidence for telepathy but, as he could not accept clairvoyance, felt being indicated (which would also mean that telepathy between
bound to dismiss the evidence for it as fallacious; and another who operator and subject could be ruled out; if the findings were
believed that the explanation for the good results at Duke was that positive, it would be through clairvoyance on the subject's part);
his assistants, subjects and colleagues had all been engaged in the guesses and `hits' could be recorded automatically, to eliminate
pulling his leg. In any case, only the High-and-Dry element had the possibility of human error; and `the whole operation
been hostile; some psychical researchers had been profoundly should be proof against possible fraud or misuse'.
impressed, and were seeking to follow Rhine's example. In each of the five boxes, Tyrrell installed a small electric light
One successful series of trials with card-guessing had already bulb, wired up so that any one of them could be lit by a gadget
been reported in England by C. W. 011iver, who described them in which switched them on in a mechanically randomised sequence;
The Extension of Consciousness: an introduction to the study of when the operator pressed the key, he would not know which box
metapsychology, published in 1932; but his work was disregarded would be lit. The results were automatically recorded on a strip of
by the SPR, not even obtaining a review in the Journal. The most paper, moved by clockwork every time a box was selected by the
interesting of the trials on the SP R's behalf, from the point of view percipient; a single mark was registered on the paper if the guess
of finding new ways to test and monitor ESP, was being under- were wrong, a double mark if it were right.
taken by G. M. N. Tyrrell, formerly a radio engineer with the By throwing a switch, too, Tyrrell could arrange that the light
Marconi company, who had retired early in order that he might would not be turned on until the percipient actually opened the lid,
concentrate on psychical research. He was one of the mellowing ensuring that the percipient could not be helped by any leakage of
influences within psychical research because, as Rosalind light or heat from the box. With these refinements installed,
Heywood was to recall in The Sixth Sense, he had a rare combina- Tyrrell tested Gertrude again. In 1700 trials, the odds against her
tion of qualities: `scientific training, the power to generalise from a obtaining her successes by chance was a thousand million to one
number of apparently unrelated particulars, and an encouraging when the light was already lit at the time she guessed, and a million
personality which never inhibited a timid percipient'. He was also to one when it was lit by delayed action.
an agreeably lucid writer, as he was to show in Science and Gertrude's ability to score above chance, in other words, was not
282 283
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
affected by the fact that Tyrrell did not know which box was the mind, on the fringe of normal consciousness'. But she showed
selected. She must be using clairvoyance. And this could not be by no sign of instability, he insisted. Her integrity was `quite unques-
`seeing' the light go on in the box, because she was still scoring far tionable, and her attitude towards psychical phenomena in general
above chance when the light did not go on, because of the one of robust commonsense tinged with healthy scepticism' — a
delayed-action switch. Could the explanation be that precognition, testimony that was to be echoed by Rosalind Heywood, herself a
rather than clairvoyance, was responsible? This was easy to check: shrewd judge of character. After their house was bombed in the
all that Tyrrell had to do was get Gertrude to select and open the blitz, the Tyrrells and Gertrude were to spend three years with the
box before he pressed the key which would select the (randomised) Heywoods; the family atmosphere had `extraordinary serenity',
number and light up the bulb. In 2255 trials Gertrude had 539 hits Rosalind Heywood found, and Gertrude was `no temperamental
as against a chance expectation of 451: the odds against this being "psychic", but a sensible, practical and equable woman'.
obtained by chance again being many millions to one.
Summing up the results of his experiments, Tyrrell took the
opportunity to rebut the contention of a `a certain class of critic' Research on the Continent
who wanted consistent 100 per cent successful results if they were Tyrrell's reports of his work left Rhine `reasonably confident' that
to accept that a medium was exercising extra-sensory powers. If it had `a sound basis and a brilliant future'. He was also delighted
the faculty existed, the critic would ask, why could it not be used at with the research of Hans Bender, a young psychologist working at
will? the University of Bonn: `Although this work was done indepen-
The answer has, I think, been sufficiently indicated. It is because dently of the experiments at Duke, and followed a quite different
normal perception tends to oust the supernormal and keep the field method, its confirmation of the American findings is clear at many
to itself. In order that the deep mental stratum which has the points in Bender's report.'
supernormal knowledge may use the normal motor mechanism to Bender used twenty-seven cards, on which were the letters of the
get this knowledge externalised, there must be some very delicate alphabet, and a full stop. The cards were put in opaque envelopes,
liaison work between the two types of consciousness involved , which and hidden from the percipient 'Fräulein D.' in, say, a box or
is hard to establish and easy to derange. pinned behind a curtain; and she would guess them in much the
On similar grounds, it was absurd to expect that positive results same way as Ossowiecki, sometimes hesitantly drawing the letter,
could be repeated at will. in a manner which suggested she was groping towards it. The
results were best — again like Ossowiecki's in Poland ten years
Try the same experiment with a humorist, that the above type of earlier — when she was allowed to handle the envelopes; and here,
critic wishes to try with the sensitive. Say to him: You said some very
witty things at dinner last night. Tonight I have got some people Bender used an additional check: he put the card in cellophane,
coming to hear you make some more jokes and take them down! and allowed her to handle it under a cloth. In these trials `Fräulein
Note the result. The very fact that an experiment is being tried tends D.' got 37 correct out of 134: chance expectation was five.
to inhibit a faculty which depends on spontaneity. Because the Ossowiecki was himself maintaining his record, unblemished.
subject-matter of physics is dependable and certain, this type of critic The SPR's Proceedings in 1933 contained an account of an experi-
insists that psychological phenomena ought to be the same. There is ment along the same lines as the one which Dingwall had con-
no reason for this, except a mental inertia, which refuses to change its ducted ten years before, though this time Besterman was in charge,
habits of thought; but the attitude is extremely common. and as Dingwall was out of favour, no mention was made of his
As Gertrude showed signs of nervous strain when guessing, results.
Tyrrell surmised that her faculty ran in uneasy double harness with Besterman had been introduced to Ossowiecki while on a visit to
her normal faculties — `the tendency is for the two to alternate Warsaw in the spring, and Ossowiecki had agreed to `read' the
rather than co-exist' — and there was always a difficulty in external- contents of a sealed envelope which would be sent to him from
ising the extra-sensory aspect, `which lies in some department of England. The first attempt failed because the Polish censors, their
284 285
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
suspicions aroused, opened the envelope. A second envelope It is a drawing made on a big piece of paper, this drawing is 5 x 6
cm.
reached its destination; and as Lord Charles Hope was going to There are three envelopes — one exterior, the next black, the third
Warsaw in the autumn, it was agreed that he should monitor the coloured — as it is neither yellow, nor blue, nor red, I think that it is
proceedings. rose, but I do not see very well.
The envelope contained a light-tight reddish-orange envelope in Beside the drawing there is something written.
a light-tight black envelope, enclosed in a manila envelope dou- It represents something like a goblet, closed with a cork, and there
bled in two and sealed with surgical tape; each of the envelopes was is something written, not only the goblet, but around it — I see a
sealed with private and invisible marks which would make it W — I see a capital I — I also see an S and something red and
impossible for anybody to open them and then seal them up again something blue. That makes me confuse it with the letters.
undetected. This package, enclosed in yet another envelope, had
been handed to Ossowiecki by the President of the Polish psychical It had been agreed that the envelope would be opened in the
research society, who had two sessions with him in August. In the presence of both Besterman and Ossowiecki: this being impracti-
first of them, Ossowiecki said that there were four envelopes; and cable , the decision was taken to open it on 29 September , with Hope
in the second that the enclosure was not, as he had thought at first, standing in for Besterman. Another `reading' was held, the en-
an illustration cut from a paper. velope remaining in Hope's pocket while Ossowiecki described the
circumstances in which Besterman had made the drawing and
prepared the package. It was a mixture, Besterman subsequently
explained, of accuracies and inaccuracies; but Ossowiecki then did
three drawings, each one coming closer to the original. Hope then
I n/
opened the envelopes, taking care not to destroy the sealing, and
S WA N J W displayed the original.
Like Dingwall before him, Besterman could detect no flaw in his
precautions. Inspection of the seals and the private marks con-
vinced him that the envelopes could not have been tampered with,
and they would have resisted any known form of penetration, such
Original Drawing by Theodore
Besterman.
as X-rays. A point to be noticed, he added in his report, was that
Ossowiecki's Second Attempt. the paper had been folded in such a way as to destroy the form of
the bottle, and the word `SWAN'; yet this had not affected the
reading, which was `almost an enlarged facsimile'. The experi-
99. ru ^i9 3 ment, Besterman had to admit, had been `almost completely
successful'.
The record of Pascal Forthuny — Georges Cochet, well-known
gg. rx. 3; in France as novelist and critic — was hardly less impressive than
Ossowiecki's. `A cultured writer and accomplished artist', as his
JwAti (nK friend Sudre described him, his psychic abilities had been de-
scribed in a book by Osty in 1926, and he had continued to give
private sittings, or to demonstrate at the Institut Métapsychique.
Like Ossowiecki, he made no attempt to profit from his faculty.
He had realised its existence while he was writing; his hand
began to doodle on its own, at first making random strokes, and
then producing words and sentences, indicating the influence of a
Ossowiecki's First Attempt. Ossowiecki's Third Attempt. `communicator' who turned out to be his son, who had been killed
286 287
Science and Parascience Extra-sensory Perception
in an air crash. For a while the information Pascal Forthuny from him — asking if he was all right, as his sister had a strong
received was commonly inaccurate, but when he found that he feeling that he had been involved in an accident. Later, experi-
could pick up information better through psychometry, he submit- ments with students convinced him that `the parapsychological
ted to experiments at the institute, with impressive results: Osty, phenomenon of `Gedankenübertragung' between one brain and
who ran them, calculated that a third of his guesses were correct another must be recognised as fact; as he suggested that the
and a third in part correct. This was much the same proportion as electrical manifestations related to perception represented the
Murray achieved; and it was obtained, according to Forthuny, in conversion of electrical into psychic energy, which could be trans-
much the same way as Murray's, through the senses — sometimes mitted through space, and act upon the recipient telekinetically.
the mind's eye, sometimes the mind's ear. The visual images were This was courageous of Berger, as his work on `brain waves' had
not defined enough to qualify as hallucinations, but the auditory yet to win orthodoxy's respect. It was a little easier for Alexis
sounds were: he could hear them clearly. Carrel, as he had won a Nobel Prize in physiology in 1912 — the
In his demonstrations at the institute Forthuny's method was year before Richet's. Carrel's Man the Unknown, published in
simple and effective, even if not calculated to impress a High-and- 1935, was an international best seller; and in it he disclosed that as a
Dry, let alone a sceptic. He walked among the audience, stopping medical student in the 1890s he had conducted his own psychical
when an idea struck him to say whatever came into his head to the research, and made his own deduction from it. Clairvoyance and
person sitting in front of him: the facts, revealed in fragments, were telepathy, he had decided, `are a primary datum of scientific
sometimes indiscreet, but he was always careful to present them observations'. As a faculty they developed only in a few people;
allusively, so that the individual alone would recognise them; and but they were widespread in a rudimentary state, demonstrating
Forthuny would know when to stop. He did not pretend to be able that `knowledge of the external world may come to man through
to perform in this way with anybody, and he knew that he was other channels than his sense organs', and that thoughts could be
sometimes led off along false trails; but his ability to provide a mass transmitted:
of information to, and about, complete strangers was unques- These facts, which belong to the new science of metapsychics,
tioned. must be accepted just as they are. They constitute a part of the
Forthuny's demonstrations were of interest to Sudre for another reality. They express a rare and almost unknown aspect of ourselves.
reason: they illustrated certain problems in connection with prov- They are possibly responsible for the uncanny mental acuteness
ing the reality of extra-sensory communication. Sometimes he observed in certain individuals. What extraordinary penetration
would feel drawn to a person, and begin to give him names and would result from the union of disciplined inte ll igence and of tele-
details which would turn out to be applicable not to him, but to the pathic aptitude!
man sitting next to him. Or the names would turn out to be puns: We know only one of the aspects of intelligence, Carrel con-
one young man who was told he was a `cardinal of the Curia' turned cluded, which is `but a small part of a marvellous activity consisting
out to be an assistant of Mme Curie's. In any controlled trial these of reason, judgment, voluntary attention, intuition, and perhaps
would have gone down as errors or coincidences; but they hap- clairvoyance'.
pened so often that displacement seemed a more likely explanation
for many of them.
There were also a few indications that some of the more open-
minded scientists were ready to make public their acceptance of
ESP. In Germany Hans Berger, the discoverer of `brain waves',
which he recorded on an electro-encephalograph, announced that
he accepted telepathy; partly because of a personal experience. As
a young man, after he had fallen into the path of a mounted battery
and narrowly escaped being crushed to death, a telegram arrived
from his father — the first, and only, telegram Berger ever received
288 289
Backlash
statisticians, a new academic breed who resented being taught
their business by outsiders. `Dr Rhine's investigations have two
aspects, experimental and statistical,' the President of the Institute
of Mathematical Statistics explained in a formal press release.
9 Backlash About the experiments he had nothing to say; `On the statistical
side, however, recent mathematical work has established the fact
that, assuming that the experiments have been properly per-
formed, the statistical analysis is essentially valid. If the Rhine
The publication of Rhine's New Frontiers of the Mind in the investigation is to be fairly attacked, it must be on other than
autumn of 1937 marked parapsychology's highest point. In it, mathematical grounds.'
Rhine was able to deal effectively with his critics by elaborating on The publicity in connection with the controversy over his work
the precautions which had been taken at Duke to prevent error or had earlier been conducted chiefly within the academic fold. Once
fraud, and by showing that his results had been repeated in other it had spread outside it, his critics could feel justified in denounc-
trials, elsewhere. The Journal of Parapsychology, too, launched ing, and even smearing, him and his colleagues; and Rhine-baiting
earlier in the year, showed that new percipients were being found; was to become a minor industry.
including the most successful of them all, in this period, a young A foretaste of what was to become common was provided in
woman music teacher who was tested by Bernard Riess, a psychol- Science Service , an agency which had been set up with the aim of
ogist at Hunter College, New York. Riess, sceptical of Rhine's keeping the public informed about scientific developments with
claims, made sure that she did not see the cards or pick up any the help of its bulletin, Science News Letter, which was circulated to
sensory clues by having her conduct the trials in a house a quarter libraries, schools and private subscribers. Ordinarily it concen-
of a mile away; but in a series of runs of the Zener cards, conducted trated on providing information, eschewing controversy; but its
weekly over a period of months, she amassed the staggering total editor and its psychology editor, Marjorie van de Water, came to
of almost 1350 `hits' out of the 1850 guesses: 18 correct, on average, hear about a discovery made by the rising young behaviourist,
in each run, against the chance expectation of 5. B. F. Skinner, that some packs of Zener cards had been so
As New Frontiers was heavily promoted not only as the choice of imperfectly made that it was possible, in certain lights, to detect the
the Book-of-the-Month Club, but on Zenith Radio, which ran a pattern on the front through the back. Skinner had written to
series of programmes on ESP, along with tests, at a peak listening Rhine to tell him; although he had not published the information
hour, Rhine became a household name. At the same time, how- he had not kept it to himself, and it had found its way to Marjorie
ever, his research and his reputation became a threat to those van de Water, who published photographs of the cards with an
academic psychologists who had brushed aside or ignored ESP; article which, to the casual reader, carried the implication that here
and he now began to feel the backlash. was the explanation of the Duke results.
Predictably, Jastrow had been hostile. His complaint about Rhine had, as it happened, been well aware of the danger of
Extra-Sensory Perception had been that Rhine did not always subjects learning to detect the symbols on cards by examining their
specify the precise procedure adopted in trials; and other sceptics backs, though for a different reason. Half a century before,
had joined in, picking on different aspects of the research. Chester sceptics had accounted for success in card-guessing by claiming
E. Kellogg, a psychologist at McGill University, chose to de- that the percipients were learning to identify cards from their backs
nounce Rhine's statistical apparatus: as a result of it, he feared, by memorising, perhaps unconsciously, tiny indications on their
the public is being misled, the energies of young men and women backs. So quite apart from the fact that not all Zener cards were
in their most vital years of professional training are being diverted faulty, and that few of the tests with those which were faulty would
into a side-issue, and funds expended that might instead support have been carried out in light sufficient for the patterns to have
research into problems of real importance for human welfare'. been detected through the backs, precautions had in fact been
Unluckily for Kellogg, all he succeeded in doing was irritating the taken in formal trials to ensure that percipients could not see the
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Science and Parascience Backlash
backs. In any case, in many trials percipients were asked to guess when told, `that's as good as a whole ghost!' But the damage was
down through an undisturbed pack. Yet the fact that the defect in done — not so much to `Margery', as to Bird. If he had noticed
the cards had not been noticed could be made to sound damning; cheating, why had he not said so at the time? For propagating this
and although the editor of Science News Letter was reprimanded by heresy, Bird was sacked from his job as the ASP R's research
Science Service's trustees for so blatant a departure from objectiv- officer; and when he approached the Boston society in the hope of
ity, the damage had been done. The discovery of the faulty cards having his paper published, Walter Prince would have none of it.
was seized upon with relish by those psychical researchers who for Bird faded from the scene (Tietze, who tried to find out what had
one reason or another were unimpressed by Rhine's reports. `It is, happened to him subsequently, drew a blank).
I think, to be desired that our colleagues in America should try to Two years later, however, another member of the ASPR pro-
pay a little less attention to the statistical analysis of their results,' duced information which discredited the Crandons more effective-
Dingwall wrote sarcastically in the SPR Journal, which he could ly than any of their previous investigators had been able to do. One
still use as a medium for correspondence in spite of his estrange- of `Walter's' accomplishments was his ability at seances to put his
ment from the SPR Council, `and should try to take the trouble, thumbprint on wax in a bowl placed out of 'Margery's' reach. It was
however arduous it may be, to train themselves properly to con- assumed to be `Walter's', because a man who claimed to be a
duct and report the experiments on which they base analyses.' fingerprint expert had compared it with a print found on an old
razor belonging to Walter in his lifetime; and nobody had thought
to double-check until E. E. Dudley, aggrieved by the appointment
The Fatal Thumbprint over his head as `research consultant' of a man who had been his
assistant at the ASPR, decided to compare `Walter's' prints with
By this time the High-and-Dry element in psychical research had those of people who had attended seances from the start — 1923.
become so corroded by scepticism that it was often more sour even Among them was the dentist who had shown how `Walter' might
than outside critics, such as Jastrow; in America and in Britain, the make his prints on wax; and Dudley found that the prints which
SP Rs were tearing themselves apart. The year which launched had been attributed to Walter were, in fact, those of the dentist.
ESP, 1934, also saw what turned into the death throes of research Dudley was careful to state, in his report to the ASPR, that this
into physical mediumship, because of what appeared to be dam- was not in itself proof that the prints had been faked. `From a
ning reports from investigators. strictly scientific standpoint, identification has very little bearing
In Boston, `Margery' had continued to give seances, and the on the question of supernormal versus normal origin,' he wrote:
American SPR had continued to report them. This alliance had `Walter', perhaps, might be able to explain why they were not his
survived even the defection of Bird, who for some reason which own? But when his article was turned down for the ASPR Journal,
was never satisfactorily explained decided in 1930 to level an he passed it to the Boston society. Prince had mistrusted Bird, but
accusation against Mina not for what she was doing at the time, but he had nothing against Dudley, and the article appeared in the
for something which he claimed she had tried to do at the time of Boston society's Bulletin in the autumn of 1932. It looked damn-
the Houdini investigation. ing; and the immediate reaction of the President of the American
Mina, Bird claimed, had asked him to collaborate in a trick SPR only made matters worse. He accused Dudley of substituting
designed to baffle Houdini. `She sought a private interview with me the dentist's prints for Walter's. Unluckily for this line of defence,
and tried to get me to agree, in the event that phenomena did not the thumbprint feat had been performed while the Crandons were
occur, that I would ring the bell-box myself, or produce something on a visit to London. In 1934, investigation of the London prints
else that might pass as activity by "Walter".' At another seance in showed that Dudley's accusation had been well-founded; they
1924, he claimed he had seen displacements of the table `produced were the dentist's.
by the normal use of the psychic's feet'. Bird was not suggesting This discovery brought 'Margery's' career to an end, for inves-
that all the phenomena were faked: half of them, he thought, had tigative purposes. Yet as some High-and-Dry members of the SPR
been genuine. `If he admits half a ghost,' `Walter' commented, noted, with characteristic perversity, it did not in itself discredit her
292 293
Science and Parascience Backlash
mediumship. Even Mrs Sidgwick, commenting on Dudley's tract attention from the Crandons' final humiliation; and under-
charges, had been careful to point out that discoveries about the standably, psychical researchers have tended to regard the
identity of the thumbprint did nothing to explain how they had `Margery' affair as an embarrassing interlude, best forgotten.
been imprinted on the wax at a time when `Margery' was supposed There have been few takers for the point of view presented at the
to be firmly controlled. What still needed to be explained was why time by Gwendolyn Hack; that they should be numbered among
the supposedly strict controls had not worked. Besterman agreed; psychical research's long line of martyrs. `One occasionally finds
whoever's the thumbprints might be, `the phenomenon would be persons so imbued with the spirit of sacrifice in the cause of science
of extraordinary importance if it were really supernormally pro- that they will undergo any kind of humiliation inflicted on them,'
duced'. It was not easy to see how `Margery' could have escaped she observed in Modern Psychic Mysteries; and she praised the
from control time after time to produce them — including at the Crandons for having `submitted to all kinds of tests, and endured
strict London seances — without ever being detected. untold indignity in order to convince the men of science'.
Nevertheless the discovery effectively ruled out any prospect the There is one other possibility. Tietze, summing up, rejected the
Crandons might have had of restoring their credibility among Hack view, but did not rule out the `straddling the fence' prop-
psychical researchers. This was unlucky, as `Walter' had just found osition; conceivably, the mediumship was sometimes genuine. He
a new way of baffling his critics at seances by interlocking two left it to his readers to decide. That Tietze, for whom Walter
separate rings made of wood, leading the ASPR Journal to claim Prince `was (if anyone in this incredible affair was) the hero
that the passage of matter through matter had at last been ex- of the Margery case', should have been left with any doubts at
perimentally confirmed. It had been described by the German all might seem surprising. But anybody who reads the evidence
physicist, Johann Zöllner, in the 1870s, following demonstrations without a preconceived determination to find the Crandons guilty
by the medium, Henry Slade, that he could `ring' a table leg in such will find such uncertainty understandable.
a way that the ring could not slide on and off; but when, following What has tended to be forgotten is that during ten years of
the Seybert report, it had been wrongly assumed that Slade had seances, night after night, week after week, the Crandons were
been exposed, Zöllner's high reputation as a physicist had been never actually detected in fraud. On the few occasions when
gravely damaged. Now, `Walter' was able to produce several individuals claimed to have seen how the tricks were done, as
interlocked wooden rings. Houdini and Rhine did, they claimed only to have seen her foot do
A carpenter, it was pointed out, could fashion interlocked rings what other investigators, just as sceptical — Boring, for one — also
from a single piece of wood. Lodge, asked for his opinion, sug- saw, but realised might be done by a pseudopod, if such psychic
gested that the matter could be settled by seeing whether `Walter' limbs existed. In any case, the kind of trickery which Houdini and
could interlock two rings made of different kinds of wood; and he Rhine claimed they had witnessed could not begin to account for
had two made, one from pine and the other from teak, for the test. the staggering range of phenomena which `Margery' (or `Walter')
`Walter' triumphed: but when the rings were sent back to Lodge to produced; a range which can only be appreciated by a study of the
receive his benediction, by the time they arrived they were useless transcripts, each of them signed by the sitters present, showing that
as evidence, as one had broken. even those who could not bring themselves to accept the paranor-
This was not uncommon. Many witnesses — W. B. Yeats among mal component, such as McDougall, did not dispute that objects
them — saw the interlocked rings, and they were photographed; moved at a distance, tables turned somersaults, apports came and
but then, they would disintegrate, or disappear, or crack apart. In went, and `Walter's' voice boomed out from different directions —
1934 Hannen Swaffer — one of Fleet Street's leading columnists, in even when, as Comstock testified, he had his hands over the
spite of his evangelical Spiritualism — was shown the last surviving mouths of both Crandons.
ring in Boston, sealed in a glass case. When he returned two years If there were fraud, it would be hard to disagree with Prince's
later, and the case was taken out again for inspection, `the law of verdict, which he gave shortly before his death, that the `Margery'
frustration' had been at work; one of the rings had fractured. case must be regarded as `the most ingenious, persistent and
Rhine's Extra-Sensory Perception appeared just in time to dis- fantastic complex of fraud in the history of psychic research'. But
294 295
Science and Parascience Backlash
this presents another problem. Nobody now, reading the tran- ena were his blind spot — as they were McDougall's — at the very
scripts, could take the Code/Hoagland hypothesis of unconscious time when unprejudiced investigation was needed.
cheating seriously. Both Crandons must have been deeply in-
volved — and without assistants, as often they had only investi- Mirabelli revisited
gators to contend with. But reading the accounts of the early stages
of Mina's mediumship makes it very difficult to accept the idea In the winter of 1933 a member of the American society, on a visit
that the two of them had secretly perfected their conjuring act in to Brazil, was able to make contact with Mirabelli, who by this time
advance, before trying it out on their unsuspecting friends. And if was in Rio. Mary S. Walker attended three seances with him; and
they were prestidigitators, cunning enough to have won Houdini's she was impressed by the fact that he was still submitting to tests by
admiration, why should they have gone on giving private seances, scientists — and by the fact that the scientists were themselves
as they were to do even after they had ceased to be involved in impressed.
investigations? There was no money in them; and if fame was what By this time, the phenomena were no longer so spectacular as
they were after, they could have had it far more easily, and with no they had been in the 1920s; but they were better calculated to
back-biting, from conjurors, by performing as conjurors. That convince doubters. They consisted mainly of the movement of
they should have continued for so long to give seances for psychical objects at a distance from both Mirabelli and his investigators,
researchers, simply to gull them, would be hard enough to account including objects which she knew could not have been planted, as
for; what is surely inconceivable is that they should have continued they belonged to her: her camera, and her hat. A fan, placed on her
week after week, year after year, to give seances for their own palm, `began to wriggle about as if alive, before falling off'; and
circle of friends. What would have been the point? For Mina, in bottles of water on a table began to shake, until one of them fell.
particular, the seances frequently involved discomfort. Why per- There were also a number of apports , both inside and outside the
severe, unless they hoped eventually to prove that the phenomena house; and she watched while flowers in a window box were
were genuine? uprooted as if by an invisible hand. `Watched' was the operative
With hindsight, it is easy to see that because the seances were term; Mirabelli's telekinetic powers still worked in light.
conducted in near darkness, there was never any real prospect of Mary Walker could not stay long enough to test Mirabelli more
their providing conclusive evidence for the phenomena, in the systematically; nor, in view of the collapse of confidence in the
absence of gadgetry which would have satisfied investigators that American society, could her report in its Journal be expected to
the Crandons were physically incapable of playing tricks. But here, carry much weight. By 1934, however, the British SPR had
the responsibility for their failure must rest chiefly with the investi- managed to make sufficient funds available to despatch Besterman
gators themselves; Prince in particular. Far from being the hero of on a trans-Atlantic tour designed to take in Mirabelli, the Rhines
the case, he should never, in view of his deafness and his incurable and other researchers; and Besterman's High-and-Dry reputation
antipathy to the physical phenomena, have allowed himself to would Make it more difficult to reject favourable verdicts, should
become involved in the actual investigations. he give them.
Prince lived just long enough to witness the downfall of the He did not give them. His assumption that the phenomena must
Crandons, following the news from London that the thumbprints be fraudulent, he told a meeting of the society after his return, had
were not Walter's; and also to have the satisfaction of launching been confirmed in the few seances he had attended. Yet he could
Rhine's monograph, and savouring its welcome in the press. In a not account for some of the telekinetic phenomena he had seen;
biographical note in 1976 Tietze was to describe him as `a great and in his anxiety to account for others he was compelled to
man, perhaps the greatest man American psychical research has out-Dingwall Dingwall in his devil's advocate role. When bottles
ever had on its side'. Greater than Rhine? In his handling of the on a table began shaking and clinking together, with Mirabelli
evidence for the mental phenomena he was certainly outstanding; some yards distant, Besterman had to admit he could not say
and The Enchanted Boundary remains the most effective demo- definitely how the trick was done `but I strongly suspect a black
lition of scepticism of the era. But unluckily the physical phenom- thread'. Could a black thread have escaped the vigilance of the
296 297
Science and Parascience Backlash
investigators, examining the bottles before and after? Mirabelli, The Demise of Physical Mediumship
Besterman surmised, must have been able to throw the thread in
such a way that it looped around a bottle: `If this is done, it is only Once only was the evidence for physical mediumship presented by
necessary to let go one end of the thread, which can then be a scientist whose views it was not easy to deride, as he had gone
recovered and secreted.' How this feat could have been achieved some way towards achieving the high reputation of his father in
with thread so thin as to be invisible to witnesses, Besterman did orthodox circles. When Lord Rayleigh, the fourth baron in the
not attempt to explain. line, became President of the SPR in 1937, he chose as the subject
He also had to admit that he had not bothered to contact of his Presidential Address `The problem of physical phenomena in
Mirabelli's earlier investigators, his excuse being that their testi- connection with psychical research', and although he was careful to
mony would have been of relatively little value because `these say that he felt the society's turning away from them to concentrate
gentlemen have in most cases had no experience with mediums upon the mental phenomena was justified — `if I occupy your
other than Mirabelli, and they have no notion of the conditions attention with a somewhat unfashionable topic, it is only because I
under which psychical research should be conducted'. Ordinarily happen to be less ignorant about the other and more fruitful
the council of the society, as then constituted, would have been branches of the Society's work' — he insisted that
expected to greet this verdict with relief. But Besterman, pleading there seems to be an appreciable residue which has not been
ill-health, had cut short his stay in the Americas, failing to carry out successfully dissolved by the acid of destructive criticism which has
his promised visit to Duke and to other centres on his planned been poured over it. The evidence seems to stand, and if we
itinerary. Feeling that he had let the society down, the council dogmatically reject it we shall be open to the reproach of laying down
requested his resignation as Research Officer, and he had to what ought to be the order of nature, instead of observing what is . . .
comply. If it is difficult to reconcile with our other notions, that may only be
because these require to be revised or extended. Physical science has
That no serious investigation of Mirabelli was undertaken by had to make adjustments of that kind often enough in the last few
researchers with experience of the continental mediums was in- decades, and it would be rash to conclude that we have reached
deed a blow; and although Besterman's successor, C.V.C. Herbert, finality.
reported some positive findings he had obtained in the course of a
tour of them in the autumn of 1935, including some with Rudi Critically but sympathetically, Rayleigh used Crawford's re-
Schneider, physical mediumship was by this time under a cloud. search with the Goligher circle to illustrate his thesis. He had been
`Straight' telekinesis — or as Rhine and his followers began to call sufficiently impressed by Crawford's accounts of his experiments
it, psychokinesis, or `PK' — shared its obloquy. Rhine began to to pursue enquiries about him, finding that he had also favourably
investigate it in 1934, following a visit from a young gambler who impressed scientists who had known him. As Eleanor Sidgwick was
claimed to be able to influence the fall of the dice, and soon no longer alive, Rayleigh could bluntly reject her speculation,
obtained positive results; but it was some years before he cared to echoed by Fournier and Soal, that the `cantilever' which had
publish them because, according to Louisa Rhine in her Mind over levitated the table was not a pseudopod, but Kathleen Goligher's
Matter, the first priority was to win acceptance for ESP, and `if now foot. Crawford's account showed that he had been careful to
another revolutionary concept like PK were to be announced, exclude that possibility, and he could see no reason for doubting
coming as it would from the same laboratory, it might even tend to Crawford's accuracy and candour even Fournier, after all, had
-
slow up whatever measure of recognition of ESP might be coming not impugned them.
with the passing of time, and the accumulating of more ex- To Rayleigh, Fournier's explanation — that Crawford had re-
perimental data'. laxed his vigilance prematurely — simply did not fit the facts.
Crawford's accounts showed that he had continued to take all the
precautions which Fournier had accused him of omitting to take. If
Fournier had meant what he said when he wrote that he had `no
reason to doubt the conscientious and accurate character of Dr
298 299
Science and Parascience Backlash
Crawford's observations and records', why, then, had he accused into more detail on the ground that although they possessed an
Crawford of failing to take the very precautions which Crawford's undoubted interest, `the evidence is conflicting and the honesty of
records revealed that he had been taking? Crawford's books most of the mediums so far tested is at least doubtful'.
provided a complete answer to Fournier's general criticism, Soon, it was to be almost as if parapsychologists were treating
Rayleigh argued; and he was `unfavourably impressed by Four- the researchers into physical mediumship much as Stalinist his-
nier's failure to notice this'. torians treated those Bolsheviks who had been liquidated in the
Rayleigh, however, could not accept some of the evidence from purges, expunging them from the record — at least in connection
some other researchers who had tested physical mediums. He with their work in this area: Crookes, as a renowned physicist, and
assumed that full-form materialisations must have been fraudu- Richet, as a Nobel man, could not be omitted from lists of those
lent, `deliberately produced by impudent impostors'; he was dis- scientists who had accepted physical phenomena. In The Sixth
turbed by Fournier's photographs `showing the woven texture of Sense an important book, coming out as it did in 1959, when
—
what purports to be a psychic structure' , and he could not accept parapsychology was at its nadir in Britain — Rosalind Heywood
Crawford's hypothesis about ectoplasm's ability to be either fluid managed to avoid the embarrassing subject. Two years later
or — in its cantilever role — stiff. Still, at least Crawford had boldly Gardner Murphy, in his Challenge of Psychical Research also —
faced these problems. `The candid way in which specific questions influential, as he had established himself as one of America's
are faced produces a favourable impression, compared with the foremost psychologists — dismissed it in a sentence: `Investigations
mysticism of so many writers on these subjects,' Rayleigh con- of "physical mediums" from the 1870s to the 1930s were in general
cluded. `Dr Crawford's theory perhaps raises more difficulties than rather discouraging', before going on to deal with Rhine's research
it answers; nevertheless, if work of this kind is ever satisfactorily with dice. In her Mind over Matter in 1970 Louisa Rhine gave some
built into the scientific edifice I do not doubt that he will rank as a space to Fukurai and thoughtography, none to the physical
pioneer.' mediums. It was not until the advent of Uri Geller, and the
Rayleigh's Presidential Address turned out to be a graveside renewed interest in the subject by physicists, that the taboo was to
oration for physical mediumship. His predecessor in office had be gradually, and reluctantly, lifted.
been Charlie Dunbar Broad, yet another Trinity man, who had
been appointed Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at
Cambridge; and in a paper to the Aristotelian Society in 1937, in
which he put forward a plea for precognition to be taken seriously,
he dismissed the physical phenomena as unworthy of philosophers'
serious attention: `I do not doubt that at least 99 per cent of them
never happened as reported, or are capable of a normal explana-
tion which, in a great many cases, is simply that of deliberate
fraud.' Even Tyrrell, whose Science and Psychical Phenomena was
published the following year, devoted only one brief chapter to the
physical phenomena. He had to concede that the results obtained
by Osty and his infra-red apparatus suggested there must be `some
emanation of a quasi-physical kind, which issues from the organ-
isms of the mediums when in a trance, obeys their vo li tion and
absorbs certain kinds of radiation'; and it was also perhaps unlikely
`that identically the same kind of phenomena should have been
repeated over and over again in many different countries, unless
there had been a nucleus of supernormal fact for the accretion of
fraud to grow upon'; but he excused himself for not having gone
300 301
Balance Sheet
10 Balance Sheet
343
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* A typical example of the tactics which sceptics feel justified in employing occurs
in Professor C. E. M. Hansel's ESP and Parapsychology, in which he accuses me
of having `cast a blind eye at the report in Science, in which Eusapia was finally
exposed'. The report, published on 20 May 1910, described how a committee set
uptoesEaihdcmtoenlusihapomenwicshad
produced could be accounted for by trickery, though it had not actually caught
her. But as one of its members, Walter Pitkin, pointed out, the report was not to
be trusted, omitting as it did `all those details about methods and results which are
properly considered indispensable to any such statement made by scientists to
scientists'. Another member, R. W. Wood, who had stationed himself so that he
could observe what went on behind Eusapia's back, described how he had seen `a
black object' reaching out to move a table: `those who believe in Eusapia's
supernormal powers will say that this was the third arm' — in other words, a
pseudopod. Eusapia was not `exposed' by the committee: the committee itself
was exposed as incompetent to conduct the investigation.
345
Science and Parascience Sources
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The Chaffin Will
Margery Harvard Veritas 212-14 Proc.s SPR, 1925, xxxvi, 517-24; SPR Jnl., Sept. 1963, 157-69.
182 Richardson, 1925, passim; Bird 1925, 442-3; Tietze, 1973, 62.
183-4 Boring, Atlantic, Jan. 1926, 81-7. The Easing-out of Dingwall
184-5 Fellding, Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi, 159-70; Proc.s SPR, 214 (Mrs Leonard) Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxvi, 194-6.
1926-8, xxxvi, 414-32. 215 Piddington, Proc.s SPR, 1924, xxxiv, 145-6.
186-7 (Uterus) Tietze, 1972, 117. 215-7 Dingwall, Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi, 1-33.
217 (Schrenck) Dingwall, Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi, 387-92.
The McComas Enquiry 218 (Price) Dingwall; Hall, 1978, intro; Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 26.
187 (Mina's oath) Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi, 515-16. 218-19 Tillyard, Nature, 31 July, 1926, 147-9; Tabori, 1968, 103-19,
187-8 (McComas report) Tietze, 1973, 90-100. 164-84.
188-9 (Houdini) Christopher, 1969, 235-6. 219 (BBC) Proc.s SPR, 1928-9, xxxviii, 1-9.
190 McDougall, Psyche, 1926, 25. 220 (Woolley) SPR Jnl., May 1928, 257.
220 (Dingwall) SPR Jnl., Oct. 1927, 114; (Price) SPR Jnl., March 1928,
The Clark University symposium 214; (Hack) SPR Jnl. , Jan. 1930.
190 Hall, American Jnl of Psychology, 1888, i, 128-46. 220 (Conan Doyle) Price, 1939, 53.
192 Sigerist, 1932, 52. 221 Lodge, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 71-2.
192-3 Driesch, 1925, 229-42. 221 Conan Doyle (`Eva') 1930, 222-3.
Carlos Mirabelli
222 Salter, SPR Jnl., Oct. 1927, 127; Perovsky, SPR Jnl. Nov. 1927, 144.
CHAPTER 6: THE SPR IN DECLINE 223-6 Dingwall, JASPR, 1930, xxxiv, 296-306.
226 Driesch, JASPR, Nov. 1930, 486-7.
`Feda' 221-7 (General) Playfair, 1975, 78-110.
197 (Mrs Leonard) Blatchford, 1925, 69ff.
197-9 (Mrs Dawson-Smith) Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi 299-310.
,
An Experiment with Time
227 Podmore, 1897, 337-9.
The Death of Barrett 228 (Tarde) Sudre, 1960, 375.
200 (Reminiscences) Barrett, 1924, 284-5. 227-31 Dunne, 1934, passim; Priestley, 1964, 244-61.
200 Haynes, 1982, 166-7.
201 (Dowsing) Barrett, Proc.s SPR, 1911, xxv, 390-404. Dame Edith Lyttelton
201 (Psychic photographs) Barrett, 1924, 289. 231-5 Lyttelton, 1931, passim.
201 (`Thought transfusion') Barrett, 1924, 294. 232 (`Patience Worth') Lyttelton, 1931, 245-52.
202 Kastenbaum (unpublished typescript). 233 (verses) Lyttelton, 1931, 253.
235 Richet, 1931, passim.
Gilbert Murray 235 Lodge, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 73-4.
202-4 Proc.s SPR, 1918, xxix, 46-63; Verrall, 64-110. 235-6 Besterman, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 186-204.
204-5 Sidgwick, Proc.s SPR, 1924, xxxiv, 212ff; 336ff.
205 Times, 13 Dec. 1924.
362 363
Science and Parascience Source References
CHAPTER 7: MIND OVER MATTER Page
121-38; Sudre, 1960, 286; Copenhagen conference report,
Page 343-5.
237-59 Rudi Schneider (General): Price, 1930, passim; Gregory, 1977, 259 Coates, 1922, 16-23.
passim. 259 Hill, 1932, 231.
238 (Prince) Boston Socy Bulletin, Jan. 1928, vii, 5-70.
The Besterman Rumpus CHAPTER 8: EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTION
239-40 (Dingwall/de Brath) Proc.s SPR, 1926-8, xxxvi, 387-92; Geley,
1927, vi. Page
240-2 (`Eva') Lambert, SPR Jnl., Nov. 1954, 380-6; Perovsky, SPR 260 Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, intro.; (Coover) Rhine, 1934, 21-2.
Jnl., Oct. 1928, 344; Richet, 1923, 460-72; Besterman, 1930, 98;
(Schrenck) Oesterreich, 1923, 127. The Experimenters
The SPR indicted 261 Murphy, JASPR, Jan. 1980, 26-31.
243 (de Brath) Bradley, 1931, 206-7; (Besterman) Bradley, 1931, 9, 262 (Broadcast) Murchison, 1927, 273.
204-5; (SPR) Bradley, 1931, 198; (Membership) Price, 1939, 54. 261-3 (Experiments) Revue Métapsychique, July/Aug. 1926, vi, 272—
244-5 Osty, Proc.s SPR, 1931-2, xl, 428-36. 87; Warcollier, 1939, 26, 56-7; Murphy, 1961, 52- 5; Sudre, 1960,
139-48; Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 29-32.
The 1932 Trials 263-4 (Clark) Murchison, 1927, 266-77.
246 (Sidgwick) Gregory, 1977, 480-1. 264 Estabrooks, 1927, 24; Soal/Bateman, 1954, 18-19; Sidgwick, SPR
246-7 (Hope) Gergory, 1977, 501-2. Jnl., Oct. 1928, 329-31.
247 (British Association) SPR Jnl. Oct. 1927, 113-14; (Telepathy)
Brown, 1929, 217-18. The Jephson trials
248-9 (Price, Brown and Fraser-Harris) Gregory, 1977, 502-12. 265-6 Jephson, Proc.s SPR, 1928, xxxviii, 223-71; Tyrrell, 1946, 109;
Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 107.
The Hope/Rayleigh series
249 (Price/Osty) Gregory, 1977, 512-15; Nature, April—May 1933. J. B. Rhine
249-50 (Rudi: the Hope Rayleigh investigation) Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, 266-8 (Early career) Rhine, 1938, 18-20; Moore, 1977, 185-96; Maus-
xli, 255-330. kopf/McVaugh, 1980, 71-4.
250-1 (Price's `exposure') Gregory, 1977, 518-24. 266-7 (`Margery'), Jnl. Abnormal Psychology, 1927, xxi, 401-21.
251 Hope, Proc.s SPR, 1931-2, xli, 287-8. 267 (Duke) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 69-84.
252 (Goldney/Beenham) Gregory, 1977, 518; (Photography) Gregory, 267-8 (Lundholm) Rhine, 1937, 55-6.
1977,524-38.
253-4 Brown, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 84; Lodge, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, Mental Radio
xli, 86-7. 268-71 Sinclair, 1930, passim.
The SPR's Jubilee
255 Sidgwick, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 1-26. The Zener Cards
255-6 Lodge, 1931, 347-8. 271-3 Rhine, 1937, 57-112; Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 108ff.
256 Hill, 1932, 254.
256 (Conan Doyle) Lodge, Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 71-2. The Monograph
273-5 (Not sensory') Rhine, 1934, 2; (not perception) Sudre, 1960,
Thoughtography 123ff; Heywood, 1964, 27.
256-7 Fukurai, 1930, passim.
256 Coates, 1922, 16-23. Repercussions
257 de Brath, 1925, 114-18. 275-6 (The Media) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 151ff; Rhine, 1937,157-
257-9 (Hope) SPR Jnl. 1968, xliv, 362-9; Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 72.
364 365
Science and Parascience Source References
Page Page
276-7 (Garrett) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 137ff, Palmer, 1927, 116; Mirabelli revisited
Garrett, 1949, 155-8; (`Uvani') Fuller, 1979, passim. 297 Walker, JASPR, 1934, 74-8.
278-9 Thouless, Proc.s SPR, 1935, xliv, 24-37; Rhine (reply) Proc.s 297-8 Besterman, SPR Jnl., 1935-6, 25, 141-53.
SPR, 1935, xliii, 542-4. 298 Herbert, SPR Jnl., Nov. 1936, xxix, 286.
298 Rhine, 1970, 27.
S. G. Soal
279 (Mrs Cooper) Soal, 1926, 471-589; Bradley, SPR Jnl., March 1926, The Demise of Physical Mediumship
32-8; West, 1952, 102-7; Vyvyan, 1966, 73-89; Gauld, 1982, 137-8. 299-300 Rayleigh, Proc.s SPR, 1938-9, xlv, 1-18.
280 (Crawford) Soal, SPR Jnl., Oct. 1931, 130-5.
280-1 (Warcollier) Soal, SPR Jnl., Oct. 1931, 135-6.
281 (Jephson) Proc.s SPR, 1930-1, xxxix, 375-414. CHAPTER 10: BALANCE SHEET
281-2 (Rhine) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 121ff.
282 (Garrett) Soal/Bateman, 1954, 106-8. 302 (Richet) Lodge, Proc.s SPR, 1936-7, 1924, xxxiv, 99ff; 1936-7, xliv,
1-4; Hill, 1932, 181.
G. M. N. Tyrrell 302-3 (Feilding) Bennett, Proc.s SPR, 1936-7, xliv, 5-6.
282 Tyrrell, (first report) SPR Jnl., June 1922, 294-327. 304 (Sidgwick) Haynes, 1982, 191; Sidgwick, 1938, 178.
282-5 Heywood, 1959, 148-9; Tyrrell (second report) Proc.s SPR, 1937, 304 McDougall, Psyche, Oct. 1926, 18-31.
xliv, 99-168. 304-5 (Oesterreich), Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 15; Tabori, 1950, 173.
305 Ostrander/Schroeder, 1970, 412.
Research on the Continent
285 (Bender) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 175-7. Hypnosis and Multiple Personality
285-7 (Ossowiecki) Proc.s SPR, 1932-3, xli, 345-51. 306-7 Price, Proc.s SPR, 1900-1, xv, 466-83; Moore, 1977, 153-5.
287-8 (Forthuny) Osty, 1926, passim; SPR Jnl. March 1927, 47-8; 308 Bramwell, 1956, 141-3.
Richet, JASPR, Sept. 1935, 241-54; Sudre, 1960, 168-70. 308-9 Alrutz, Proc.s SPR, 1921, xxxii 151-78. Boirac, 1920, 168-71.
,
288-9 (Berger) Krippner, 1977, 1; Burt, 1975, 75. 309 Price, Proc.s 1938-9, xlv, 316-17.
289 Carrell, 1961,102-6.
Parapsychology
310 Flournoy, 1911, vii.
CHAPTER 9: BACKLASH 311 Jones, Freud, iii, 402-36.
311-12 Jung, 1975, 126, 178-9.
290 Journal of Parapsychology, 1937, i, 260-3; 1939, iii, 79-88. 312 (Jastrow) Tyrrell, 1938, 154.
291 (Statistics) Journal of Parapsychology, 1937, i, 305. 312-13 Lodge, 1933, 267-75.
291 (Science News Letter) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 262-4. 313 Troland, 1926, 2-4.
292 Dingwall, SPR Jnl., Dec. 1937, 141. 313 (Boring), Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 265-9.
314 (Lashley) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 268-71.
The Fatal Thumbprint 314 (Coover) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 273-4.
292 (`Margery') Tietze, 1973, 142-3. 314 (James) Flournoy, 1911, 21.
292-3 (Dudley) Tietze, 1973, 152-7; Bulletin, xviii, (October); Proc.s 314 Nature, 20 Nov. 1926, 721-3.
SPR, 1935, xliii, 15-23; Sidgwick, Proc.s SPR, 1931-2, xli, 115-19; 315 Gregory, 1977, 494.
Besterman, 1930, 154-5. 315 (Carington) Mauskopf/McVaugh, 1980, 120.
294 (Rings) Randall, 1982, 131-2; Yeats, Letters, ii 549.
,
372 373
Science and Parascience Index
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: and Evening Telegraph, 149 and `ideoplasty', 100; at Wood, 1st Earl of, 325
supernatural pictures, 87; and extra-sensory perception (ESP), 274, Copenhagen Congress, 114, 119; Hall, Radclyffe, 56-7
Cottingley fairies, 88-9, 91-2; and 310; see also parapsychology; and Madame B., 115; and Kluski, Hall, Stanley: Fund, 190
Houdini, 102, 164-6, 207; tours Rhine, J. B.; `super-ESP' 119-21; and Ossowiecki, 123-4, Hall, Trevor, 323
USA, 158; and Mina Crandon, 161, 136; and Guzik, 129-32; at Warsaw Hand, Sarah A., 149
166; and Clark University fairies, 88-92 Congress, 135; killed, 137-8, 215, Harcourt, Vernon, 308
symposium, 190-1; and College of Faraday, Michael, 18, 49,181-2, 206, 240; and testing, 139, 318; Crandon Hardie, Keir, 48
Psychic Science, 218; and SPR, 220, 276, 316 on, 176; Besterman disparages, 239, Harper's (magazine), 322
243; death and tributes, 221, 256; `Feda' (Mrs Leonard's control), 72-3, 242; integrity, 341; Clairvoyance Hart , M. D., 209
and Price, 246; attempted 114, 198-200, 234, 329; see also and Materialism, 138 Harvard University, 42, 147, 304, 314;
communication from, 277; and Leonard, Gladys Osborne Geller, Uri , 301 see also Crandon, Mina
Gordon Davis, 280; History of Feilding, Everard, 24, 35-6, 92-3, General Medical Council, 208-9 hauntings, 127-8
Spiritualism, 218 100, 103-4, 184-7, 302, 304 `Ghost Club', 322 Haynes, Renée, 43, 200, 304, 329
Doyle, Jean, Lady, 164 Feilding, Stanislawa see Tomczyk, Gifford Lecture, 1927, 316 Heald, C. B., 209-11
dreams, 227-31, 234-6, 337 Stanislawa Gladstone, William Ewart, 22 Heisenberg, Werner Carl, 194, 316-17
Driesch, Hans, 190,192-3, 227, 316 Few, William Preston, 267 Glenconner, Edward P. Tennant, 1st Helmholtz, Hermann L. F. von, 40
Dubois, Eugene, 340 `Fischer, Doris', 143, 148 Baron, 72 Helson, Harry, 160-1
Dudley, E. E., 293-4 Fisher, R. A., 278, 331 Glenconner, Pamela, Lady, 72 Henze, Paul, 129
Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Fisk, G. W., 319-20 Goddard, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Herbert, C. V. C. see Powis, C. V. C.
Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess Flammarion, Camille, 87,119,125-6, Victor: Flight Towards Reality , 85 Herbert, 6th Earl of
of, 126 131, 316; portrait of, 304 Golden Dawn, 58 Heywood, Rosalind: The Sixth Sense,
Duke University (USA), 267, 272-9, Fleming, Alice (née Kipling; Mrs Goldney, Mrs K. M., 252 274,282,285,301,330-1
282,290,304-5,313,319-21,340 Holland), 47 Goldston, Will, 238 Hicks, Rev. E. Savell, 58-60
Dunlap, Knight, 187 Flournoy, Theodor, 307, 310 Goligher, Kathleen and family, 62-6, `higher phenomena', 18, 21, 201, 308
Dunne, J. W.: An Experiment with Fontenay, Guillaume de, 97 75-83, 159, 165, 174, 179, 201, 280, Hill, Elsie (née Wright), 89-90, 92
Time, 227-31, 234-6, 321, 337 Forthuny, Pascal (Georges Cochet), 299 Hill, J. Arthur, 49, 52, 256, 259, 316
287-8 Gould, Stephen, 340 Hinchliffe, Capt. Walter, 277
ectoplasm: `Eva C' and, 28, 97-8, 174; Fournier d'Albe, E. E., 81-3, 102-4, Gow, David, 66, 81-3 Hitching, Francis, 340
Kathleen Goligher and, 78-80, 82, 299-300 Gramont, Count de, 130 Hitler, Adolf, 106, 304
174; Kluski and, 119-21; Richet on, France, Henri de, Vicomte, 326 gravity, 18 Hoagland, Hudson, 177, 179-86, 296
128; McDougall on, 156, 304; Fraser-Harris, D., 248-50 Greene, Willard P., 168 Hodgson, Richard, 24, 26,148
`Margery' and, 170-5; Doyle on, Fraya, Madame, 134 Gregory, Anita, 237-8, 251-3, 315; Hodgson Memorial Fund (Harvard
191; Rayleigh on, 300; see also Frazer, Sir James: The Golden Bough, `Anatomy of a Fraud', 246, 251-2 University), 147, 155, 262, 264, 304,
pseudopods; teleplasm 310 Gregory, C. C. L., 245, 248-9, 251 313-14
Eddington, Sir Arthur, 316-17 Frederick Myers Lectures, 244 Gresham, Lindsay, 168 Holms, Campbell: The Facts of
Edmonds, Judge J. W., 87 Free, E. E., 275 Griffin, Donald, 314 Psychic Science, 217
Edwards, Rev. Frederick, 156 Freud, Sigmund, 229, 307, 310-12 Griscom, Stewart, 158 Home, Daniel Dunglas, 19-20, 23,
Ehrenwald, Jan, 318 Fukurai, T.: Clairvoyance and Gulat-Wellenburg, Walter von, 33, 35, 67, 123, 160, 173, 312
Einstein, Albert, 248, 316-18 Thoughtography, 256-8, 301 99, 217, 240 Hope, Lord Charles, 246-53, 286-7
Elliott, Mrs Warren, 330 Fuller, John G., 277 Gurney, Edmund, 21, 43, 47, 125-6, Hope, William, 86-7, 92-4, 257-9
emanometer, 210-11 `full-form' materialisations, 20, 28, 80, 325 Horace: Carmen Saeculare, 50
Emmanuel (church) movement, 170 96, 300 Guzik, Jean, 129-32, 138 Horder, Thomas, 1st Baron, 209-11
Empire News (newspaper), 251 Houdini, Harry: and `Eva C', 102,
Encounter (magazine), 109 Galton, Francis, 20, 69 Hack, Gwendolyn: Modern Psychic 163, 165, 339; reproduces Kluski
endosmosis, 37-8 Gardner, Edward L., 88-91 Mysteries, 220, 295 phenomena, 121; and `Margery',
entelechy, 192-3 Gardner, Leslie, 88 Haeckel, Ernst, 340 162-4,166-9,177,187-9, 295; and
`Erwin' (Wi lly Schneider's control), Garrett, Eileen, 276-7, 282, 324 Haldane, J. B. S., 205-6 spiritualism, 164-6, 207; death,
110 Gauld, Alan, 135, 280, 336 Halifax, Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd 189; and Clark University
Estabrooks, George, 264-6 Geley, Gustave: and `Eva C', 95-8, Viscount, 325 symposium, 190; and Murray,
Eusapia see Palladino, Eusapia 100-2, 129, 138, 174, 240-2, 339; Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley 207-8
374 375
Science and Parascience Index
Huggins, William, 200 Kaempffert, Waldemar, 275 Tyndall, 40; on automatic writing, 177, 182, 189, 191, 262, 268, 295,
Hume, David, 17-18 Kardec, Alain, 125 46; and survival, 48-50, 58, 69; and 304; and Houdini, 189-90; at Clark
Huxley, T. H., 53 Kastenbaum, Robert, 202 `Raymond', 50-2; and Crawford, University, 190-1; and Murphy,
hyperacuity (hyperesthesia; Kellogg, Chester E., 290, 322 66; and experiences, 74; on 262; Rhine and, 267, 274, 277, 324;
`Cumberlandism'), 116, 118, 202-7 Kelvin, William Thomson, Baron, 316 Fournier d'Albe, 81; and Hope's and Sinclairs, 270-1; and physical
hyperesthesia see hyperacuity Kemnitz, Mathilde von (later pictures, 86-7; and Cottingley phenomena, 296, 304, 341; death,
hypnosis, 205, 306-10 Ludendorff), 33, 99 fairies, 90, 92; and Guzik, 131; 304
Hyslop, James Hervey, 25, 27, 85, `King, Katie', 28 tribute to Geley, 137-8; influence Mackenzie, Andrew: Hauntings and
143-4, 155; death, 148; Contact `King, John' (Eusapia's control), on Crandon, 157; at Clark Apparitions, 326
with the other World, 147 22-3, 160, 335 University, 190-1; and Eusapia McKenzie, James Hewat, 93, 323-4
`hysterical fugue', 307 Kluski, Franek, 119-22, 138 Palladino, 194, 305; and Mrs Maeterlinck, Maurice, 228, 339; The
Krebs, Stanley L., 26-7 Dawson-Smith, 198-9; on Haldane Unknown Guest, 38
`I-principle', 336 Kuhn, Thomas, 339 and Murray, 205; on temperature Magic Circle, 216
`identifying paramnesia', 230 changes, 218; and BBC telepathy Mängl, Mitzi, 245, 249
ideoplasty', 100 Lady (horse), 267 investigations, 219; on Doyle, 221, Mann, Thomas, 109-11, 179, 339
Inge, W. R., Dean of St Paul's, 70 Lafayette (magician), 165 256; on precognition, 235; on Marais, Eugene: Soul of the White
Institut Métapsychique International, Lambert, Rudolf, 240-1 Brown, 247; on scientific scepticism, Ant, 38
95, 120, 240, 243, 245, 251, 304 Lancet (journal), 211 254, 312, 341; autobiography, 255; `Margery' see Crandon, Mina
Interna tional Congress for Psychical Lane, Sir Hugh, 60, 62, 302 and Hope, 259; and `Walter's' Margery Harvard Veritas, 182-7, 196
Research: 1st, Copenhagen, 1921, Lang, Andrew, 88, 310 wooden rings, 294; on Richet, 302, Marriott, William, 92-3
114, 117, 155, 197; 2nd, Warsaw, Lankester, Ray, 41-2 328; portrait of, 303; death and Martinique, 229-30
1923, 135; 4th, Athens, 1930, 304; Lanyi, Joseph de, Bishop of tributes, 305; and new physics, 316; materialisation, 127-8, 193, 224-6;
5th, Oslo, 1935, 304 Grosswardin, 45, 337 and spontaneous phenomena, 324; see also `full-form' materialisations
Irving, Rev. W. S., 214 Laplace, 227 reputation, 340; My Philosophy, Matin, Le (newspaper), 32
Irwin, Flight-Lieut. H. Carmichael, Larkin, James, 74-5 312, 324; Raymond, 52-3, 55, 67; Mauskopf, Seymour H. and
277 Lashley, K. S., 314 The Survival of Man, 49 McVaugh, Michael R.: The Elusive
Lecky, W. E. H., 39 Lodge, Raymond, 50, 52 Science, 260, 274, 276
Jacks, L. P., 332 Leclainche, E., 130 Lombroso, Cesare, 328 Mayo, Herbert, 307-8
Jackson, Freddy, 85-6 Lee, Margarite du Pont, 85 London, Jack, 268 mediumship, 326, 327-31, 335-6; see
James, Henry (novelist), 26 Lee, Wallace, 273 London University: Council for also individual mediums and
James, Henry (son of William), 314 Lefroy, Major H., 209 Psychical Investigation, 321-3 controls
James, William, 22, 25-6, 40-1, 43, Leonard, Frederick, 54 Lowell, A. Lawrence, 189 Mercier, Charles A., 52
153, 310, 314 Leonard, Gladys Osborne: and Lüder, Lina, 116 Mermet, Abbé A., 326
Janet, Pierre, 128, 150, 155, 308 Lodges and Raymond, 50-2, 305; Lumière, Auguste, 139 Mesmer, Franz Anton, 18
Jastrow, Joseph, 26,141, 155, 190, mediumship, 54-7, 67, 118, 331-3; Lundholm, Helge, 267 `metagnomy', 274
194, 290, 312-14, 340 and Radclyffe Hall, 56-7; SPR and, Lusitania, SS, 60-1, 231, 302 meteorites, 18
`Java Man', 340 70-1, 202, 214-15, 326-7; and Lyttelton, Dame Edith, 231-4, 320 Metropolitan Magazine, 26
Jeans, Sir James, 317 Blatchford, 197; Brown and, 247; Lyttelton, Mary, 329 Meyer, Jean, 95
Jephson, Ina, 265-6, 281 portrait of, 303; see also `Feda' Lytton, Edward George Bulwer, 1st Meyer, Robert, 117
Joad, C. E. M., 249, 321-3 Lewis, Mrs Wilfred, 332-3 Baron, 20 `Mina' (Willy Schneider's control),
Jodl, Alfred, 40 Light (journal), 66, 68, 75, 83, 251 110
Johnson, Alice, 43, 47, 330 Lindemann, Frederick A. (later 1st Macaulay, F. W., 332 Mirabelli, Carlos, 221-7, 297-8
Johnson, Gertrude, 283-5, 319-20 Viscount Cherwell), 248 McComas, Henry Clay, 187-9 miracles, 17
Johnson, J. M., 212-13 Linzmayer, A. J., 272-3 McConnell, David, 74-5 Miroir, Le (journal), 32
Jolly, W. P., 305 Lippman, Walter, 207 McCullough, 247 Mont Pelée, Martinique, 229-30
Jones, Ernest, 311 Litvag, Irving: Singer in the Shadows, McDougall, William: vitalism, 95, Moody, Raymond: Life after Life, 201
Journal of Abnormal (and Social) 145-6 192; dualism, 127; career and More, Adelyne (`A.M.'), 205-7
Psychology, 267, 309 Lodge, Mary, Lady, 50-1 writings, 152-6; Presidential Morel, Madame, 132-4
Journal of Parapsychology, 277, 290 Lodge, Sir Oliver: and SPR, 22, Address to SPR, 154; and Morselli, Enrico, 328
Jung, Carl Gustav, 44, 311-12, 318 255-6; and Leonora Piper, 22; on `Margery', 156, 160-2, 170, 174-5, Moses, Stainton: Spirit Teachings, 47
376 377
Science and Parascience Index
Muensterberg, Hugo, 26-7, 141, 147, 300; and Price, 245-6, 249, 252-3; Powis, C. V. C. Herbert, 6th Earl of, psychokinesis (PK), 83, 298
154, 340 and `metagnomy', 274; on 245, 252, 298 psychology, 308-9
multiple personality, 152, 306-10 Forthuny, 287-8; death, 304; Pratt, Gaither, 273 psychometry, 150-2
Munn, Orson, 161 Supernormal Faculties in Man, 132, precognition (prevision), 227-31, Pulitzer, Ralph, 207
Murchison, Carl, 190, 194-5 135 234-6, 300, 320-1, 337
Murphy, Gardner, 160, 190, 228, Osty, Marcel, 244 Prévost, Marcel, 130 quantum physics, 318, 338-9
261-4,301,329,341 ouija board, 46-7 Price, Harry: investigates Hope,
Murray, Gilbert, 202-8, 270-1, 288, Ousterhout, Dr, 180 93-4, 252, 258; and Willy R., Madame, 132-3
322, 332 Schneider, 106; library, 106, 220, R 101 (airship), 277
Myers, Eveleen (née Tennant; Mrs Pagenstecher, Gustav, 150-2 321, 323; and SPR, 106, 218, 220, radionics, 211
Frederick Myers), 27 Palladino, Eusapia: mediumship and 237, 239, 243, 255, 321-2; sets up Rampling-Rose, Major W., 258
Myers, Frederick: and SPR, 21-2, 43, powers, 23-7, 35, 173; scientific National Laboratory for Psychical Ramsbury (Wiltshire), 325
232; and cross-correspondences, experiments on, 24, 26, 28, 63, 131; Research, 218-19, 245; and Rudi Rayleigh, John William Strutt, 3rd
47-8, 50, 330; Richet and, 127, 194; `cheating' in trance, 26, 99-100, Schneider, 237-9, 245-54, 315, 321 Baron, 22, 24, 67-8, 154, 200, 206
vitalism, 247; anti-materialism, 310; 120, 255; SPR report on, 24-5, 113; publicity, 246, 248-9, 253, 322; Rayleigh, Robert John Strutt, 4th
and spontaneous phenomena, 325; Richet and, 28,127, 194; Bergson suspicions over, 246-7, 340; and Baron, 246, 249, 251, 253-4,
Human Personality, 87, 214, 266; and, 36; Barrett and, 64; Brocken (Walpurgisnacht) legend, 299-300,305,332
see also Frederick Myers Lectures pseudopods, 78, 112; Jastrow and, 248-9, 255; and University of Renan, Ernest, 48
194; Lodge and, 305; death, 328 London, 321-3; and Soal, 322; and Revelations of a Spirit Medium, 171
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, Palmer, E. Clephan, 276 popular interest, 325; and dowsing, Revue Métapsychique, 95, 119
20 Palmstierna, E rik, Baron, 333-5 327 Rhine, Joseph Banks: career and
National Laboratory for Psychical `Palm-Sunday' case, 329 Price, Henry Habberley, 305, 307, methods, 266-7, 276-8, 290-1, 323;
Research, 218-19, 237, 243, 248-9, paraphysics, 315-19 309-10 and Zener cards, 271-4, 277,
252; Bulletin, 250 parapsychology, 310-15 Priestley, J. B., 230, 236 290-2; SPR and, 278-9, 319; Soal
Nature (journal), 218-19, 228, 314-15 Pauli, Wolfgang, 318 Prince, Morton, 143, 150, 152, 155, and, 281-2; and Tyrrell, 283, 285;
New Scientist (journal), 69 Pearce., Hubert, 273, 275-6 267,306-7,309 criticisms of, 290-1; and
Newton, Sir Isaac, 18 Pennsylvania, University of, 42 Prince, Walter Franklin: at psychokinesis, 298; Boring and,
New York Herald Tribune, 275 Perovsky, Count, 222, 240, 255 Copenhagen Congress, 114, 155; 313; and precognition, 321; Soal
New York Times, 177, 181, 275 Perrin, Jean-Baptiste, 24 and `Doris Fischer', 143, 148, 306; attacks, 322; integrity, 341;
Nichols, Beverley, 211 Peters, Vout, 51 and `Patience Worth', 144-5; and Extra-sensory Perception, 118, 260,
Phantasms of the Living, 73 ASPR, 148, 155-6, 194; career and 274-6, 278, 290, 294, 296, 315, 320,
`O., Mrs', 337 `Phinuit, Dr' (Mrs Piper's control), 22 experiences, 148-9; and Senora de 324; New Frontiers of the Mind, 290,
Ochorowicz, Julian, 34-6, 118, 194, photography: investigation of, 83-92; Zierold, 150-2; and McDougall, 321
341; Mental Suggestion, 36 Osty's apparatus, 244; affected by 155; and `Margery', 162, 167-8, Rhine, Louisa (née Weckesser),
Oesterreich, Traugott, 135, 217, 237, clairvoyants, 256-9 177, 186, 195-6; and Houdini, 266-7,298,301,321
304-5 physics see paraphysics 165-6, 168; resigns over Bird, 182; Richet, Charles: and `Eva C', 27-9,
`Olga' (Rudi Schneider's control), 250 Piddington, J. G., 43, 215, 325 at Clark University, 190, 194-5; 32-3, 98-9,101,104, 240-2, 339;
011iver, C. W., 282 Pieron, Henri, 128 and Crandons, 194-5, 238, 295-6; and Eusapia Palladino, 28, 127, 194;
Ossowiecki, Stefan, 122-5,135-6, Pilsudski, Marshal Josef, 123 and Mirabelli reports, 226; and and Sarajevo precognition, 44; and
217, 285-7; death, 305 Piltdown fraud, 340 Rudi Schneider, 238; and Rhine, Institut Métapsychique
Ostrander, Sheila and Schroeder, Piper, Leonora, 22, 38, 42, 47, 50, 54, 274, 281, 296, 315; and telepathy International, 95; and `full-form'
Lynn: Psi: Psychic Discoveries 261 tests, 275; death, 281, 296; and materialisation, 96; and Kluski,
behind the Iron Curtain, 305 planchette, 47-8 Bird's dismissal, 293; The 119-21; and Ossowiecki, 123-4;
Osty, Eugène: and Madame Podmore, Frank, 44, 101, 127, 194, Enchanted Boundary, 165, 296 career and writings, 126-9, 158; and
Przybylska, 119; career and 201, 217, 227, 341 Przybylska, Madame, 118-19 Guzik, 131; Crandon on, 176; and
methods, 132-3; and Madame poetry, trance, 233 pseudopods, 27, 78, 82, 112-13, 120, death-bed visions, 201; tests, 218,
Morel, 132-5; and Perovsky, 222; Poincaré, Henri, 316 163, 166, 174, 179, 295; see also 267; on precognition, 235;
and `Eva C' photographs, 240-2; Poland, 118-25 ectoplasm; teleplasm Besterman disparages, 239, 242;
and Rudi Schneider, 243-5, 252-3; Pollard, A. F. C., 250 Psyche (journal), 205 Nobel Prize, 289, 301, 302;
photographic apparatus, 244, 250, poltergeists, 35-6, 114-15,127, 201, 221 Psychische Studien, 44 reputation, 301, 340-1; death, 302;
378 379
Science and Parascience Index
Richet, Charles - cont. Schneider, 105-13; at Copenhagen Smith, Whately see Carington, `metagnomy', 274; and Forthuny,
materialism, 328, 339; and Congress, 114; at Warsaw Whately 287-8; on Osty, 304
Bozzano, 328-9; Thirty Years of Congress, 135-6; and `Margery', Smith-Battles Fund, 190 Sunday Dispatch (newspaper), 250,
Psychical Research, 328 171; Crandon on, 176; and sceptics, Soal, S. G., 235, 279-82, 299, 319, 252
Riess, Bernard, 290 217-18; and Mirabelli, 222; death, 321-2, 326, 340 superconscious mind, 231-4
Rinn, Joseph, 121-2 237, 304; and Rudi Schneider, Société Astronomique, 125 `super-ESP', 328, 332, 336
Rivers, W. H. R., 152, 305 237-8; Besterman disparages, 239, Society for Psychical Research: survival, 329-30, 331-7
Robinson, Lennox, 58-60 242; materialism, 328, 339; founded, 21-2, 200; Presidential Swaffer, Hannen, 294
Rogers, Edmund Dawson, 21 reputation, 340-1 Addresses, 37, 67, 154, 202-3, 207,
Rogers, Mrs Edmund Dawson see Schumann, Robert A., 334-5 215, 254, 299-300, 307, 309; table-turning (and moving), 18-19,
Curran, Mrs Pearl, 232 Science News Letter, 291-2 scepticism in, 42-4; scientist 65, 76-7, 82, 181-2, 206, 253-4
Romains, Jules, 318-19 Science Service, 291-2 members, 69; and William Hope Talbot, Mrs Hugh, 55-6
`Rooney, Peter' (Mrs Travers Smith's Scientific American (journal), 161, photographs, 93-4; and `Eva C', Tarde, Gabriel, 228
control), 59-60 163, 166, 169, 177, 182, 188, 275 98-105; and Harry Price, 106, 218, Taylor, H. Dennis, 105
Royal Society of Medicine, 210 Selborne, Willi am W. Palmer, 2nd 220, 237, 239, 243, 255, 321-2; and Taylor, J. Traill, 84-5, 105
Ruskin, John, 20, 22 Earl of, 325 Willy Schneider, 106; and telekinesis: Home practises, 20; as
Russell, Bertrand, 69 `serialism', 231, 236 Flammarion, 126; and Ossowiecki, natural phenomenon, 38; Podmore
Russell, George see A.E. Seybert report, 294 135-6; and `Margery', 175-6; and discredits, 44; Barrett accepts, 64;
Shapley, Harlow, 178, 180 `Feda', 197-8, 214, 331; Barrett and ectoplasm, 80; Richet on,
Salter, Helen (née Verrall): and `Eva Shaw, George Bernard, 48 and, 200-2; inter-war 127-8; Mirabelli and, 223, 297;
C', 99-100; at Copenhagen Sheldrake, Rupert, 192 investigations, 202-15, 324-7; Rudi Schneider and, 253-4
Congress, 114; and `Feda', 198, 214; `shell-shock', 307 dissensions in, 215, 226, 243, 249, `telepathic leakage', 59-60, 335
and Mrs Dawson-Smith, 200; and Sidgwick, Eleanor: and SPR, 24-5, 292; and BBC telepathy telepathy: scientific resistance to, 38,
Irving, 214; Besterman succeeds, 43, 98; on cross-correspondence, experiments, 219-20, 322; 40, 314;. and `Feda', 73; tests and
220; and Mirabelli, 222; and 47, 53-4; belief in survival, 49, Besterman and, 220, 243, 297; and experiments on, 115-18; and
Eleanor Sidgwick, 304 53-4; and Mrs Leonard, 55; and Dunne, 235-6; and Rudi Schneider, Murray's `hyperesthesia', 205-7;
Salter, W. H., 246, 322-3 Ireland, 58; criticises Crawford, 66, 249, 251; and trickery, 255; and BBC experiments on, 219, 322;
Saltmarsh, H. F., 320-1, 330 76, 80, 299; on results of tests, 72-3; Rhine, 278-9, 319; Jung and, 311; Warcollier on, 261-2, 281; Murphy
Santoliquido, Rocco, 130 and individual cases, 75; historical negativism, 319-20; and dowsing, and, 263; Estabrooks and, 264-5;
Sarajevo, 45, 337 analysis, 125-6; at Warsaw 326-7; Journal, 66, 71, 73, 115, 212, Scientific American tests, 275;
Sauerbrey, Ernst (and family), 114-15 Congress, 135; and Mrs 214, 222, 252, 258, 335, 337; Berger on, 288-9; see also Zener,
Scatcherd, F. R.: Survival, 68 Dawson-Smith, 200; and Barrett, Proceedings, 41, 53, 73, 75, 77-8, K. F.
Schiller, F. C. S.: and scientific 201; and Gilbert Murray, 204-5; 169, 176, 198, 201, 212-14, 250, teleplasm, 111-13, 170-2, 178,187
scepticism, 40; reviews Schrenck, and Price, 246; made SPR 285 Tenhaeff, W. H. C., 337
99; on Osty's case histories, 135; on `President of Honour', 255; and Society for the Study of Supernormal Tennant, Edward Wyndham (`Bim'),
`Patience' and Mrs Curran, 142; on telepathy experiments, 264; and Pictures, 83, 87 72
Coover, 146-7; on Hodgson `Walter' thumbprint, 294; on Sophie, Queen of the Netherlands, 20 Tennyson, Al fred, Lord, 22
Memorial Fund, 155, 278; at Clark Richet, 302; portrait of, 303; death spontaneous phenomena, 324-7, 339 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 20
University, 190-2; on spontaneous and tributes, 304 Spray, Arthur, 326 Thomas, Rev. C. Drayton, 71-2, 114,
phenomena, 324-5; death, 324 Sidgwick, Henry: and SPR, 21, 43-4; Stanford University, 42, 146-7 232,331-3
Schneider, Rudi, 237-9, 243-6, and fr aud, 23-5, 253, 315, 340; Stanley, Dorothy (née Tennant; wife Thomas, John F. , 324
248-54, 298, 315, 321; breathing death, 24, 43; reputation, 40, 42; of H. M. Stanley), 27 Thomson, Sir Joseph John, 22, 24,
speed, 254 automatic writing, 47 Stephens, James, 58 327; Recollections and Reflections,
Schneider, Willy, 105-13, 119, 179, Sinclair, Mary Craig, 268-71 Stewart, Balfour, 22 332
215-16, 237 Sinclair, Upton, 268-71, 317 Stobart, Mrs St Clair, 70 thought transference, 201
Schrenck-Notzing, Albert von, Baron: Skinner, B. F., 291, 314 Strand (magazine), 88 `thoughtography', 257-8, 301
and `Eva C', 29, 32-4, 97-9, 101-4, Slade, Henry, 41, 294 Sudre, René: on Kluski, 120; and Thouless, R. H., 241, 278-9, 320, 329
106, 113, 174, 240-2, 339; and Smith, Susy, 331 Ossowiecki, 124-5; at Warsaw Tietze, Thomas R., 157,186-7, 293,
Stanislawa Tomczyk, 35, 98; Smith, Mrs Travers (née Dowden), Congress, 135; on Geley, 137; on 295-6
Crawford and, 82; and Willy 58-62 Jephson trials, 266; and Tillyard, E. J., 218-19, 322-3
380 381
Science and Parascience
Times, The (newspaper), 71, 126, 205, `Walter' (Mina Crandon's control),
247-8 157, 160, 162-3, 167-73, 175,
Tischner, Rudolf, 116-17, 217, 237, 177-80, 182, 184-5, 196, 292-6
272, 304 Warcollier, René, 261-2, 264, 280-1
Tomczyk, Stanislawa later Feilding, Warsaw see International Congress for
34-6, 38, 98,104, 113, 118 Psychical Research, 2nd
Tovey, Sir Donald, 334 Watson, J. B., 207, 314
Toynbee, Rosalind (née Murray), Way, Frances (née Griffiths), 89-90,
203-4 92
Troland, Leonard Thompson, 147, Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 48
155, 262, 313 Wells, H. G., 153, 228
Trollope, Thomas Augustus, 20 Westminster Gazette, 66
Troubridge, Una, Lady, 56-7, 70-1 Weygand, General Max, 119
Tubby, Gertrude, 149 Whitehead, Alfred North, 316-17
Tyndall, John, 40-1, 49, 316, 338 Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of
Tyrrell, G. M. N., 282-3, 300, Oxford, 53
319-20,335-6 `Willett, Mrs' see Coombe-Tennant,
Winifred
Utrecht, University of, 337 Wood, R. W., 187
`Uvani' (Eileen Garrett's control), Woolley, V. J., 100, 219, 220
276-7 Worcester, Elwood, 155, 170, 172-4
`Worth, Patience' (Pearl Curran's
control), 141-4, 232
Valée, Professor, 130 Wright, Mrs, 89
Valentine, George, 166 Wundt, Wilhelm, 40
van de Water, Marjorie, 291
Verrall, Mrs A. W., 43, 47-8, 50, Yeats, W. B., 33-4, 58, 104, 294
203-5 Yost, Casper, 142-4
Verrall, Helen see Salter, Helen
Vesme, César de, 310 Zener, K. F.: cards, 271, 275, 277-8,
Viré, Armand, 326 290-2
Vitalism, 95, 97, 153,192 zenoglossy, 328
Zierold, Senora Maria Reyes de
W., Dr, 65 (`Senora de Z') 150-2
Walker, Mary S., 297
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 20, 22, 44, 87, Zöllner, Johann, 294
200 Zugun, Eleanore, 218, 322-3
382