TRICKERY OF MEDIUMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 June 1932, Page 9

TRICKERY OF MEDIUMS

SENSATIONAL CONFESSION. In a recent court case in England, Mr Justice McCardie, in summing up said he was not unduly sceptical about /psychic phenomena, although such’ things might be outside the range of direct testimony in a court of law, or a laboratory of psychical research. But it must be remembered that the history of mediumship was marked by many deceptions and erroneous opinions.

Of late there has been a. number of revelations of fraud in connection with mediums and their seances, but these disclosures do nothing to weaken the faith of firm believers in spiritualism. They admit that there have always been dishonest mediums, who have resorted to fraud ip order to produce manifestations, and deceive their clients, and they also assert that even mediums who are capable of producing actual manifestations are not favourable. But the frequncy of the exposures of fraud in connection with spiritualism, or spiritism as .believers in spirits prefer, to call it, is one of the chief rea,ons why the majority of peopje refuse to regard the claims of believers seriously. Sir Oliver Lodge, a scientist and spiritist, has repeatedly reproached scientists as a whole for their antagonistic attitude to spiritism, and their refusal to investigate their claims. But while believers in spiritism continue to display astounding credulity and to maintain such tolerant attitude towards fraud, spiritism is not likely to make much headway with scientists or with practicalminded people. Undoubtedly some of the strange personal experiences of earnest men and women who believe in spiritism are not’explicable by our existing knowledge of the -world around us, and indicate the operation of supernatural forces. But it may be that there exist subtle forms of energy, both mental and physical, which up to the present have not been explored, and that when these things yield up their secrets the strange experiencs which lie outside our controlling consciousness will be explicable on a basis which rules out the supernatural. TRICKS OF THE TRADE. Frederick T. Mannings, who achieved fame in England as a medium, recently explained in a series of magazine articles how he reproduced his “supernatural manifestations” by means of trickery. The late Sir Conan Doyle, who was a most credulous believer in spiritism, had been deeply impressed lay the manifestations produced by Mannings, and had vouched for his honesty. But before Sir Conan Doyle died, Mannings had publicly confessed that he had never seen a spirit, but had produced many bogus spirit messages at his seances, and’ had faked a large number of photographs of spirits. **

In an article in a recent number of the American Weekly on fraudulent mediumship, the writer states: “Mr Harry Price, Director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research in London, exhibits an interesting museum of ingenious devices for'-fooling the credulous, which he will gladly demonstrate to any spiritists who care to call. For instance, what could be more convincing than to strap a medium, hand and foot, to a stool or chair by means of surgical tape. Houdini used to wriggle out of handcuffs and ropes, no matter how fast he was bound, but this tape is another matter. Criminals use it to tie up their victims, and they stay tied until someone releases them. Nevertheless, mediums of both sexes thus strapped, have somehow caused bells to ring, musical instruments to be played, articles to fly around in the air, ghostly figures to stride around in the dark, and all of the other manifestations of busy visitors from the next world.

“When the lights were turned up and the curtains of the cabinet were drawn aside there was the medium still helplessly bound, hand and foot, in the unbreakable grip of the tape. Sir Conoan Doyle, after one of these demonstrations, used to ask reproachfully how any one could witness such unquestionable evidence and still doubt the great truths of spiritualMr Price could not answer that question satisfactorily until he got hold of one of the stools and had examined it carefully for a long time. Then he was able to do all the medium did without any spiritual help and in a bright light. I “By pressing a little hidden spring, the piece of the stool to which the hands were taped comes loose entirely. To be completely free all the medium had to do’ was to reach down and unscrew the sections of the legs to which his ankles were taped. Then, except for the slight inconvenience of four small pieces of wood attached to his extremities, he was set free to step forth from the cabinet and put on his show. When this was over he simply stepped back into the cabinet and replaced the four pieces of the stool and was once more a helpless captive.

“Whenever a medium confesses, he invariably mentions how much the sit. ters at a seance hel pto fool themselves, and even suggests some of the medium’s best tricks. Mannings had never thought of producing the socalled ‘spirit lights’ until he did. it by accident. One day, in the midst of a seance, he pulled out his watch with an ordinary luminous dial, o see how much more entertainment he ought to give them. He forgot to shield it with his hand, and two people cried out that they saw spirit lights. After that Mannings exhibited his watch boldly as a regular part of his performance.

ANOTHER CONFESSION. “Nino Pecoraro, born in Naples, Italy, but for eleven years one of America’s star mediums, whom Sir Conan Doyle called one of the greatest in the world, has just confessed that he ‘got tired of the medium racket.’ Mannings did so from a troubled conscience, but most of the others like Nino, quite from disgust. He says: ‘The spirits get all the credit, the managers get all the money, and I do a.ll the work. After he had explained the mechanics of wriggling out of his bonds, playing instruments, writing on the inside of sealed slates, and the other stoc ktricks, somebody wanted to know how he materialised his ghosts that the sitters saw. “ ‘I never produced any ghosts, and I never saw any either,’ he said. ‘Yet they would see them, and speak about them to each other, and I used to look around and feel for them, because I would dearly love to see a ghost; but I never did in all my life.” “It was the same story of the sitI ters fooling themselves. After a circle

lof people have sat in darkness and ) nervous expectancy for some time, .and finally the medium has started a jfew uncanny noises and moves to ■ prove the spirits are hovering around, ithe sitters’ imaginations begin to •make them see things. Sir Conan 'Doyle was among testified that they had felt a cold psychic breeze at both Mannings’ and Nino’s sittings. Mannings deliberately produced it by whisking a trumpet or other object past their faces and making a rhshing sound like wind by whirling his -belt strap over his head. Nino never bothered to do this; but they felt it just the same. He thinks it was a feeling that goes with gooseflesh and cold chills that gullible people get at such times. . At one of the seances Sir Conan Doyle and two other men were sitting on a heavy sofa, and when one of them said it was rising into the air by ‘levitation’ the others said they felt it, too.

“Nino is a slim little man, with tiny wrists of rubber-like bones which give him anr advantage in wriggling out of ropes with ridiculous ease, like Houdini, but he has little strength. Asked how he. managed to levitate the sofa, Nino laughed, and said he could not have raised it even if nobody had been sitting on it. I was surprised when I heard those three men saying that the sofa was going up with them,’ he said, ‘and I almost ,believed them. They were honest men, their feet were on the flbor—how could they be' mistaken? They had me so puzzled that I went over and felt the thing. It was right on the floor all the time, but they still, thoug’ht they were sailing around in the air.”

“During a seance at Nino’s, the spirit of Doyle’s son, who was killed in the war, came and shook hands with his father. The great novelist had no doubt, that it was his beloved boy’s materialised form greeting him from beyond the grave, and he was much comforted at this ‘evidence’ that they would meet again. He was sure because he had seen Nino’s hands Sewed into mittens and his wrists tied tightly with rope, and when the lights were turned on again he made' sure that they were in the same condition. Even if the famous novelist had lived to read Nino’s confession that it was his live mortal hand that he was shaking it would hardly have upset his faith.” MAGICIANS AND MEDIUMS. In London there is an organisation called the magic circle which includes among its members all the principal professional conjurers in the country, as well as some amateurs. Owing to the great interest in spiritism, which began to develop in England during the war when the relatives of many of the soldiers killed in action sought in spiritism a means of getting into ommunication with their dear ones, the magic circle appointed from its members an occult committee to investigate the claims of mediums. Naturally professional conjurers, who live by mystifying the public by their tricks, are better qualified than untrained inquirers to investigate the claims of mediums to produce super : natural manifestations. But the investigations of this occult committee were not welcomed by the mediums who were practising in England during the war and in the years that followed. In fact, there has always been hostility between the ‘professional magicians’ and the professional mediums, and this hostility has been strengthened by the claims of the magicians to be able to reproduce by trickery all of the spirit manifestations of the mediums. '

The late J. N. Maskelyne, of the famous firm of Maskelyne and Devant which for more than a generation provided London with a conjuring entertainment every night exept Sunday, took an active part in exposing fraudulent mediums, and regarded all mediums as frauds. The late Harry Houdini, famous for his exhibitions of releasing himself when bound with chains or ropes, or locked in safes or boxes, was also a relentless opponent of mediums, and their spirit manifestations. Both these professional magicians wrote books and magazine articles explaining how fraudulent manifestations were performed, and how mediums released themselves after being tied to a chair in the cabinet from which they operated. In a new edition published in 1922 of “Revelations of a Spirit Medium,” the editors, Messrs Harry Price and Eric J. Dingwall, gave a list of hundreds of books and magazine articles as “a real esentative election which throws some light upon the fraudulent aspect of psychic phenomena.”

PERMEATED WITH FRAUD. The object of issuing a new edition of this book, which had been out of print, was to warn those people who were seeking in spiritism a means of communicating with relatives killed in the war that spiritism had always been permeated with fraud. As an exposure of the methods of fraudulent mediums, the editors of this new edition of the anonymous “Revelations of a Spirit Medium,” which was first published at the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, in 1891, stated: “Many alleged exposures of mediumistic tricks have been published, but none with the inside .knowledge contained in this remarkable book, which has the ring of truth in every line.” The author was a fraudulent medium who travelled throughout the United States for some years, and claimed to have mastered all the tricks of his business, but he did not disclose his name. He explained how a medium tied by his hands, legs and body to a chair in the cabinet in which he produces the spirit manifestations is able to release himself within a few seconds of the curtain of ■ the cabinet being drawn and the lights extinguished. He explained how spirits are materialised and dematerialised, how spirit photographs are prepared, how spirit messages in reply to questions by the sitter are written on the inside of two slates that have been locked together, and how thought reading is carried out. Sometimes the medium is not tied up, but goes into a trance in order to get into communication with the spirit world. This simplifies the task of materialising spirits which move about the room; but the author of “Revelations of a Spirit Medium” explained how spirits can be materialised and moved about by the medium tied in the cabinet with only his right hand released from the ropes. But, as a showman, he expressed his I preference- for a well-staged seance by a medium who has put money into his business, and takes pride in giving a high-class performance, materialising with the aid of confederates, eight or nine spirits, all of whom will be claimed as relatives by some of those attending the‘seance.