HOW GHOSTS ARE MADE
The most thrilling expectation of every Spiritualist is to witness a
materialization. The wild ghost, the ghost in a state of nature, the
ghost which beckoned our grandmothers from their beds and waylaid our
grandfathers when they passed the graveyard on dark nights, has become a
mere legend. Hardly fifty years ago authentic ghost stories were as
common as blackberries. But the growth of education and the
establishment of exact inquiry into such matters have relegated all
these stories to the realm of imagination. According to the
Spiritualist, however, we have merely replaced the wild ghost by the
tame ghost, the domesticated ghost of the séance room. The clever
spirits of the other world, who could not when they were alive on earth
detach a single particle from a living body (except with a knife), are
now able to take a vast amount of material out of the medium's body and
build it up in the space of quarter or half an hour into a hand, a face,
or even a complete human body. This is the great feat of
materialization.
Let me truthfully record that many of the better educated Spiritualists
fight shy of belief in this class of phenomena. They know that in the
history of the movement every single "materializing medium" has sooner
or later been convicted of fraud. They have, on reflection, seen that
the formation, in the course of half an hour, of even a human
hand--which is a marvellously compacted structure of millions of
cells--would be a feat of stupendous power and intelligence. They feel
that, if all the scientific men in the world cannot make a single living
cell, it is rather absurd to think that these spirit workers, whose
messages do not reflect a very high degree of intelligence, can make a
human face out of the slime or raw material of the medium's body in half
an hour, and put all the atoms back in their places in the medium's body
in another half hour.
The faith of the great majority of Spiritualists is, of course, heroic
enough to overlook all these difficulties. Indeed, it is amazing to find
even students of science among them indifferent to the enormous
intrinsic improbability of a materialization. During the debate at the
Queen's Hall Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had on the table before him a work
which contained a hundred and fifty photographs of materializations.
Several of these represented full-sized human busts (sometimes with the
superfluous decoration of beards, spectacles, starched collars, ties,
and tie-pins). One of them represented a full-sized human form, dressed
in a bath robe. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a trained medical man,
assured the audience that he believed that these were real forms,
moulded out of the "ectoplasm" of the medium's body, in the space of
less than half an hour, by spiritual powers! Sir William Crookes
believed in materializations of a still more wonderful nature, as we
shall see. Dr. Russel Wallace believed implicitly in materializations.
Sir W. Barrett and Sir O. Lodge believe in materializations, since they
believe in the honesty of D. D. Home, who professed to materialize
hands.
So we must not blame the ordinary Spiritualist if he knows nothing about
the tremendous internal difficulties of this class of phenomena, and
the consistent and appalling career of fraud of mediums in this respect.
Materialization is the crowning triumph of the medium, the most
convincing evidence of the new religion. It goes on to-day in darkened
rooms in London--done by men who have already been convicted in London
police-courts--and all parts of the world. Fraud follows fraud, yet the
believer hopes (and pays) on. _Some_ of the phenomena are genuine, he
says; that is to say, some of the tricks were not proved to be
fraudulent. Let us see how these things are done.
The incomparable Daniel was the first, apparently, to open up this great
field of Spiritualist evidence. In the early fifties he began to exhibit
hands which the Spiritualists present were sure were not _his_ hands.
But we shall see how, even in our own day, Spiritualists easily take a
stuffed glove, a foot, or even a bit of muslin to be a hand, in the
weird light of the dark room; and we will not linger over this.
The real creator of this important department of the movement was Mrs.
Underhill, the eldest of the three Fox sisters who founded Spiritualism.
I will tell the marvellous story of the three Foxes later, and will
anticipate here only to the extent of saying that Leah, the eldest
sister (Mrs. Fish, later Mrs. Underhill), was the organizing genius of
the movement. She was an expert in fraud and a woman of business. Until
her own sisters gave her away, forty years after the beginning of the
movement, she was never exposed; and even an exposure by her sister in
the public Press and on the public stage in New York made no difference
to her career. She was the Mme. Blavatsky, the Mrs. Eddy, of
Spiritualism.
Leah began in 1869, every other branch of Spiritualist conjuring having
now been fully explored, to produce a ghost at her sittings. In the dark
a veiled and luminous female figure walked solemnly about the room, and
profoundly impressed the sitters. The mere fact of _walking_--ghosts
have to _glide_ nowadays--would tell a modern audience that the ghost
was the very solid medium; and the luminosity would have an aroma of
phosphorus to a modern nostril. But the Americans of 1869 were not very
critical. A few months later a wealthy New York banker, Livermore, lost
his wife, and the "hyenas"--as Sir A. C. Doyle calls mediums who prey on
the affections of the bereaved--hastened to relieve his grief and his
purse. For four hundred sittings, spread over a space of six years,
Katie Fox impersonated his dead wife. As Katie Fox confessed in 1888
that Spiritualism was "all humbuggery--every bit of it," we need not
enter into a learned analysis of these sittings.
English mediums were put on their mettle, and after a little practice in
private they announced that they had the same powers of materialization,
and it was unnecessary to bring over the Americans. Mrs. Guppy, the
pride of London Spiritualism, opened this new and rich vein. The story
of Mrs. Guppy need not be told here. It is enough that, while she was
still Miss Nichol, she was the chief medium to convert Dr. Russel
Wallace to Spiritualism; and that, on the other hand, she was the lady
who professed that she was aerially transported by spirits from Highbury
to Lamb's Conduit Street, and through several solid walls, in the space
of three minutes. Mrs. Guppy was above suspicion: first because she was
unpaid, and secondly because she exposed several fraudulent mediums. So
Mrs. Guppy set up her little peep-show in the first month of 1872, and
drew fashionable London. But the performance was rather tame. While Mrs.
Guppy sat in the cabinet, a little white face appeared, in the dim
moonlight, at an opening near the top of the cabinet. It did not speak,
as the New York ghosts did. Dolls do not speak.
A few months later Herne and Williams, the professional friends of Mrs.
Guppy whose spirit-controls had wafted that very voluminous lady as
rapidly as a zeppelin across London, set up a more robust performance.
As they sat in the cabinet (unseen), spirit-forms emerged--dim,
luminous, but unmistakably alive--and moved about the room. It was the
first appearance in England of those famous spirits, John King, the
converted pirate, and Katie King, his daughter, who had been a great
attraction in America for several years. John's beard looked rather
theatrical, and his lamp smelt of phosphorus. But what would you?
Spirits have to use earthly chemicals; and they would find plenty of
phosphorus in the brain of Charlie Williams, not to speak of his
pockets, which were never searched. Again we may save ourselves the
trouble of a learned analysis of the phenomena by recalling that
Williams presently dissolved partnership with Herne, and entered into an
alliance with Rita; and that in 1878 the precious pair were seized
during a performance, and searched, at Amsterdam. Rita had a false
beard, six handkerchiefs, and a bottle of phosphorized oil. Williams had
the familiar false black beard and dirty drapery of "John King," and
bottles of phosphorized oil and scent.
The Spiritualist reader here impatiently observes that I am merely
picking out a few little irregularities in the early days of the
movement. Far from it. I am scientifically studying the preparatory
stages of one of the classic manifestations of the movement: the
materializations of Florence Cook, which are vouched for by Sir W.
Crookes, Sir A. C. Doyle, and, apparently, all the leaders of the
movement. If the Spiritualist wishes, like other people, honestly to
understand "Katie King," he or she must read this part of the story
which I am giving, and which is generally omitted (though it may be read
in any history of the movement).
Florence Cook was a pretty little Hackney girl of sixteen when Herne and
Williams began. She attended séances at their house in Lamb's Conduit
Street, and she was so impressed that she became a pupil of Herne. She
and her father seem to have understood each other very well, and she
very shortly began to give, to paying guests, materialization-séances in
their house at Hackney. Florence went one better than Mrs. Guppy and
Herne. There was a lamp in the room--at the far side of the room--and
you saw faces plainly at the opening in the cabinet. As her "power"
developed, the ghost began to leave the cabinet and walk about the room
and talk to the sitters. Florence remained bound with rope in the
cabinet while "Katie King" stalked abroad. You did not see her, it is
true, but you had her word for it. She was not bound by the
spectators--nor by herself, of course. She was bound by the spirits. A
rope was put on her lap, the curtains were drawn, and presently you
discovered Florrie, "securely" bound and in a trance, in the cabinet.
The curtains were drawn again when the ghost, in flowing white drapery,
walked the room.
Meantime, and at a very early date, a Manchester Spiritualist named
Blackburn privately engaged to give Florrie an annual fee if she would
not take money at the door; so she became an "unpaid" and highly
respectable medium. Jewellery is, of course, not money, and Florrie
exacted jewellery (as the Spiritualist Volckmann found and said in the
London Press at the time, when he wanted to attend) from would-be
sitters through her father. It is said that she looked, in features,
remarkably like a Jewess.
Her fame reached the ears of a brilliant young scientist, Professor W.
Crookes, and he invited her to materialize at his house. She soon laid
aside all dread of the scientific man. In three niggardly little
letters, which he never republished, Crookes described in 1874 the
wonderful things done at his house. While Florrie lay in an improvised
cabinet, or behind a curtain, the beautiful and romantic and quite
different maiden, Katie King, walked about his room. She played with
Crookes's children, and told them stories about her earthly life in
India long ago. She talked affably to his guests, and took his arm as
she walked. There was not the least doubt about her solidity. The wicked
sceptic who suggests that Katie King was a muslin doll or a streak of
light has certainly not read Crookes's letters. He felt her pulse, he
sounded her heart and lungs, he cut off a tress of her lovely auburn
hair, he took her in his arms, and he--well, he breaks off here and
simply asks us what any man would do in the circumstances? We assume
that he found that she had lips and warm breath like any other maiden.
Florence Cook's opinion of scientific men would to-day be priceless. I
will say, on behalf of Sir W. Crookes, that he never obtruded this
sacred experience on the public. He "accidentally" destroyed all the
negatives and photographs he had taken of Katie King. He forbade
friends, to whom he had given copies, ever to publish them. The three
short letters he wrote to the _Spiritualist_ (February 6, April 3, and
June 5, 1874--I have, of course, read them) are now rare. He wrote them
out of chivalry, because a rival Spiritualist, Volckmann (who married
Mrs. Guppy), got admission to the Hackney sanctuary (by a present of
jewellery) and exposed Florence (December 9, 1873). He saw at once that
she was impersonating the spirit, and he seized it. Other Spiritualists
present, supporters of Florrie, tore him off, and turned out the lamp;
and five minutes later Florence was found, bound and peacefully
entranced, in her cabinet. In the hubbub that followed Professor Crookes
gave his modest testimonial to Florrie's virtue. Spiritualists generally
accepted her version, and she continued to make ghosts until 1880, when
Sir George Sitwell and Baron von Buch exposed her in precisely the same
way.
No Spiritualist can quarrel with me for dwelling on this famous
materialization. It is supposed to be the mostly firmly authenticated in
the whole movement. Sir W. Crookes said, quite late in life, that he had
"nothing to retract"; and every Spiritualist who quotes his high
authority endorses the materialization of Katie King. The majority of
the public to-day will merely conclude that some scientific men are
worse witnesses on such matters than dockers, and that the disgust of
scientific men like Sir E. Ray Lankester and Sir Bryan Donkin has a
very solid foundation. Even at the time there were leading Spiritualists
like Sergeant Cox who regarded the affair with bewilderment and
suspected that all materializations were fraud.
What can be said for Sir W. Crookes? He alleges that the medium and the
ghost were unmistakably different persons. Katie King was taller than
Florrie. But Florence Cook, like her contemporary, Miss Showers, was
seen to walk on tip-toe, and alter her stature, when she was the ghost.
Sir W. Crookes nowhere says that he took the elementary precaution of
measuring ghost and medium _with their dresses drawn up to their knees_.
He says that the lock of hair which Katie gave him as a memento was
auburn, and Florrie's hair was very dark brown. But we do not doubt that
on the _last occasion_ the ghost was _not_ Florence Cook. Other
differences he finds, in a dim light, are negligible. If the modern
Spiritualist really believes Sir W. Crookes, as he professes to do, he
must come to this ultra-miraculous conclusion: The spiritual powers in
this case did not merely take _some_ matter out of Florence Cook's body,
but they took more than the whole substance of it, because Crookes says
that Katie was taller and broader than Florrie! And, to cap this supreme
miracle, he on one occasion saw ghost and medium together, and
apparently Florrie was as solid as ever! The spirits had in this case
multiplied nine stone into eighteen or nineteen.
After twenty years of religious controversy I am a patient man, but I
decline to argue with any one who doubts that Florrie Cook (four times
caught in fraud, and a pupil of Herne) impersonated the ghost.
Mr. F. Podmore saw the photographs which Professor Crookes took. He
says that ghost and medium are the same person. Crookes himself was
nervous, in spite of Florrie's charms, and he begged to be allowed to
see ghost and medium plainly together. The artful Florence could not
manage that in his house. Once she let him look at her, lying on the
ground, but he saw no face or hands; and a bundle of clothes and a pair
of boots are not quite clearly a living person. He pressed again.
Florence--he tells us this very naively--borrowed his lamp (a bottle of
phosphorized oil) and tested its penetrating power, and then told him he
should see both ghost and medium in _her_ house. He went, and we are not
surprised that he saw them.
If any Spiritualist of our time really doubts that on this occasion
there were _two_ girls, I invite him to read carefully Sir W. Crookes's
account of the famous farewell scene. Katie proclaimed that her mission
was over (she had converted a scientific man), and this was to be her
last appearance. Florrie (who was in a trance, of course) wept, vainly
implored her to visit this earth again, and sank, broken-hearted, to the
floor. Katie directed Crookes--who stood, mute, with his phosphorus lamp
in the middle of this pretty comedy--to see to Florrie, and, when he
turned round again, Katie King had vanished for ever. That is to say,
she had not been re-absorbed in the medium's body, as Spiritualist
theory demands, but had _gone in the opposite direction while his back
was turned_!
Now there you have the most wonderful, classic, historic materialization
in the whole Spiritualist history. It is attested by a distinguished man
of science. It is endorsed by all the Spiritualist leaders of our time.
And it is piffle from beginning to end. The evidence would not justify a
man in drowning a mouse. The control was ridiculously inadequate. The
imposture was palpable. If Sir W. Crookes had taken the scientific
precaution of spreading a few tacks on the carpet, or waxing a bent pin
in the ghost's chair, he would have heard the Hackney dialect at its
richest. It was reserved for two Oxford undergraduates to show Sir W.
Crookes how to investigate ghosts. They seized "Marie," Florrie's next
spirit, in 1880; and they found they had in their arms the charming
Florence, in her _lingerie_. Crookes had never searched the ample black
velvet dress she used to wear.
It is hardly worth while running over all the ghostly frauds since then,
but a word about Florrie's friend and contemporary, Miss Showers, will
be found instructive. Miss Showers was a really unpaid medium; though
she received a good deal in the way of jewellery and other presents from
admirers of her fair and aristocratic ghost, "Lenore Fitzwarren." She
was a general's daughter, and above suspicion. No one dreamed of
searching her. On one occasion she allowed Florence Cook to peep into
her cabinet; and Florence--hawks do not pick out hawks' eyes--assured
the public that she plainly saw Miss Showers and "Lenore," and even a
second ghost, simultaneously. But, alas for the fair Lenore! Sergeant
Cox, who was very sceptical, had Miss Showers at his country-house in
1874; and Miss Cox, a born daughter of Eve, tried to draw the curtain
and peep into the cabinet. Miss Showers fought for her curtain, and the
ghostly headdress fell off, and the game was up.
This was only four months after the exposure of Florence Cook. The two
most certainly genuine and respectable mediums in England were unmasked
within four months. R. D. Owen's "Katie King" had been exposed in
America in the previous year, the last sad year of the old man's life.
One by one the others followed. In spite of darkness, in spite of solemn
promises extracted from sitters not to break the circle or seize the
ghost, the materializers were all exposed. One man shot a ghost with
ink, and the ink was found on the medium. Stuart Cumberland squirted
cochineal on a ghost, and the medium could not wash it away. One
American with a gun had a shot at a ghost. At another place tin-tacks
were strewn on the floor, and the spirit's language was painful to hear.
In 1876 Eglinton was exposed by Mr. Colley; he had in his trunk the
beard and draperies of his ghost "Abdullah." In 1877 Miss Wood was
caught at Blackburn, and Dr. Monck was caught and sent to jail. In 1878
Rita and Williams were caught, with all their tawdry ghost-properties,
at Amsterdam. Spiritualists were getting a little nervous, though as a
rule they accepted every excuse. The medium had acted "unconsciously,"
or under the influence of evil spirits. Sir A. C. Doyle boasts that it
is Spiritualists who weed out frauds. On the contrary, they have shown a
very grave willingness to accept the flimsiest excuses and reinstate the
medium. Miss Wood was exposed, for instance, in 1877. They at once
admitted her defence, that she had been quite unconscious in
impersonating the ghost, and she went on. In 1882 a sceptical sitter
seized the "pretty little Indian girl" who came out of the cabinet while
Miss Wood was entranced in it; and the Indian girl-ghost was Miss Wood
walking on her knees, swathed in muslin.
Ah, but this is ancient history, your Spiritualist friend says. Listen!
About fifteen years ago, when I was already making that inquiry into
Spiritualism which Spiritualists say I have never made, I was told by a
group of London Spiritualists, all cultivated men and women, that it was
useless to go the round of the mediums who advertised in _Light_, since
they were "all frauds." I was told that the one genuine medium in London
was a certain F. G. F. Craddock, who performed in a studio at the back
of Mr. Gambier Bolton's house. The minor phenomena I saw did not impress
me, and I asked to be allowed to see these wonderful materializations of
Mr. Craddock. Three ghosts--a nun, a clown, and a Pathan--walked the
room (successively) while Craddock sat (unseen) in a trance. I saw
pictures of these materialized forms, and was told that they were
accurate. But before I could get admission Craddock left, and he began
to hold sittings for his own profit at Pinner. And on March 18, 1906,
the "ghost" was seized, in the usual way, and found to be Craddock. On
June 20 (see the _Times_ of June 21) Craddock was fined ten pounds, and
five guineas cost, at Edgware Police Court, on the charge "that he,
being a rogue and a vagabond, did unlawfully use certain subtle craft,
means, or device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive the said Mark
Mayhew and others." He had been controlled as carelessly as F. Cook was
in 1874. He had smuggled in masks and drapery, and impersonated his
ghosts.
After all, Sir A. C. Doyle may say, in his blunt way, this was 1906. I
do not know if he knows it--he seems to have an exceedingly limited
knowledge of his own movement--but _Craddock is giving
materialization-séances in or near London to-day_; and prominent
Spiritualists know it, and condone it, on the ground that _some_ of his
phenomena are genuine.
The imposture has continued to flourish in all parts of the Spiritualist
world since 1906. In 1907 it was the turn of Marthe Beraud, of whom I
will say more presently. In 1908 exposure fell upon Miller, the most
famous of the American materializing mediums. Such was his repute that
the French Spiritualists invited him to Paris, and were delighted with
him. The figures which appeared while he sat _before_ the cabinet were
suspiciously like dolls, but there was no mistake about the "beautiful
girl" (in dull, red light) who came out, and offered her hand, when
Miller was (presumably) inside the cabinet. But when the spirits
announced that it was improper to strip and search him, and when they
said that, though he was an "unpaid" medium, they must make him a nice
little present before he went back to San Francisco, there was a chill
in the Spiritualist world. And when he produced the ghosts of Luther's
wife and Melanchthon, when they found bits of tulle and a perfumed cloth
in the cabinet after a séance, they sent Miller back to America without
his present.
This fiasco, which agitated the Spiritualist world in the beginning of
1909, had not yet been forgotten when, in October of the same year, Frau
Anna Abend and her husband were arrested by the police at Berlin. Frau
Abend was the leading German medium. Strings of motor-cars stretched
before her door of an afternoon. For several years she and her husband
had duped and fascinated Berlin by their accurate knowledge of the dead
you wished to see. You heard on every side, what you hear on every side
in London to-day: "I was _quite_ unknown to the medium," and "She could
not _possibly_ know by natural means what the spirits told me." The
police thought otherwise. They found in her cabinet tulle enough to
drape six ghosts; and they found in her house quite a detective-bureau
of information about dead folk and possible sitters, and a secret
address to which she had the flowers sent which her spirits would
produce as "apports." The whole machinery of her information and
trickery was laid bare. Was she ruined? Not a bit of it. She and her
husband got off on technical grounds, and the Spiritualists showered
congratulations on them and set them up again.[6]
In 1910 our Spiritualist journal, _Light_, which is so zealous to root
out fraud, announced that a really genuine materializing medium had
appeared in Costa Rica. It seemed a safe distance away, but Professor
Reichel, of France, had actually been to Costa Rica and found it a
flagrant imposture at the very time when _Light_ was confirming the
faith of English Spiritualists with the glorious news.
Ofelia Corralès, the medium in question, was the daughter of a high
civic functionary of San José; an _unpaid_ medium, you notice. As soon
as Reichel arrived he found that the wonderful manifestation which the
Spiritualist journals of the world had announced was well known locally
to be a hoax. The ghost was a servant-girl, who was recognized by
everybody, smuggled in at the back door. Ofelia, under pressure,
admitted this. Her "spirit-control," she explained, could not
"materialize," so directed her to bring in this girl, who resembled her
"in the last incarnation but one." Sometimes her mother took the part,
and she was one night embraced by an ardent Costa Rican sitter. Reichel
assisted at some of her performances, but the girl declined to
materialize a ghost. What she did get was a chorus of ghostly voices in
the dark. It says something for the robustness of Professor Reichel's
psychic faith that, though the music was "rotten," though the whole
family was suspect and all the members of it were present, though he
caught the girl cheating and her "ghost" was an acknowledged imposture,
he believed that this music was a "genuine" phenomenon! He was not going
to make a journey to Costa Rica for nothing.
To English Spiritualists this case ought to be particularly interesting,
because among the gentle Ofelia's admirers in San José was an
Englishman, Mr. Lindo, and it was he who sent the outrageous account to
_Light_. According to him--and he was present--they all saw Ofelia
floating in the air. Now, Reichel had taken with him some phosphorized
paper, and by the light of this he saw that Ofelia was standing on a
stool. In fact, she fell off the stool, and was ignominiously exposed.
What is worse, Reichel says (_Psychische Studien_, April, 1911, p. 224)
that he had expressly warned Lindo, who used his name, that he "would
not be mixed up with such a burlesque," and that the minutes of the
sittings were grossly exaggerated by Ofelia's father. So much for
first-hand Spiritualist testimony in _Light_. The French _Annales des
Sciences Psychiques_ gave an equally false account. The German
_Psychische Studien_ alone called it "a conglomerate of stupidity and
lies." It certainly was; but when the whole truth was known _Light_
mildly described it as "a girlish prank." It was calculated and
shameless fraud.
A few months later it was the turn of Lucia Sordi, a famous Italian
medium, a young married woman of the peasant class, assisted by her two
girls. Her marvels put Eusapia Palladino in the shade. The guests were
not merely touched, but bitten! A man's hat was brought from the hall
and put on his head. The cat was brought in through the solid walls. The
table was not merely lifted up, but carried into the hall. Professor
Tanfani and other scientific men were taken in. Four "materialized
spirits" seemed to be in the room at once, while Lucia was bound to her
chair. They fastened her in a crate, and it made little difference. In
1911 Baron von Schrenck-Notzing went to Rome and exposed her. She could
get out of any bandages. But when the War broke out she was still
occupying the leisure hours of certain Italian professors.
Meantime, Dr. Imoda, of Turin, university teacher of science, was
investigating the marvels of Linda Gazerra. Linda was not exactly an
unpaid medium, but she was the cultivated daughter of a professional
man. Being a lady and a good Catholic, she could not, of course, be
stripped and searched. So she did wonderful things, which Imoda gravely
watched and described and photographed for three years. Her "control"
was "Vincenzo," a young officer who had been killed in a duel; and a
terrible chap he was to choose so respectable and pious a medium. Things
simply flew about when he was at work. At other times she "apported"
birds and flowers, and the ghosts that materialized beside her--you
could plainly see both her and the ghost--were very pretty, though
remarkably flat-faced, and fond of muslin. As Linda's hands were
controlled by the sitters, it did not matter that she insisted on
absolute darkness until she pleased to say "Foco" ("Light") and let you
take a photograph. She had a three years' run. Then Schrenck-Notzing
studied her at Paris in the spring of 1911. She treated him to a
"witches' Sabbath," he says. But he soon found that her feet were not
where a lady ought to keep her feet. He felt a spirit-touch, grasped the
touching limb, and found that he had the virtuous Linda's foot. Then he
sewed her in a sack, and the spirits were powerless. Her
materializations and tricks were simple. She brought her birds and
flowers and muslin and masks (or pictures) in her hair (which was
largely false, and never examined) and her underclothing, and she, by a
common trick, released her hands and feet from control to manipulate
them.
This Baron Schrenck, you think, was a terrible fellow at exposures.
Unhappily, our last instance must be the exposure of his own medium, Eva
C. This will fitly crown the chapter for two reasons. First, because Sir
A. C. Doyle recommends her to us as a genuine materializing medium of
our own times. He says in the Debate that, while Spiritualists have been
much "derided" for claiming that spirits build up temporary forms out of
the medium's body, "recent scientific investigation shows that their
assertion was absolutely true. (Cheers.)" I quote the printed Debate (p.
32), and it will be recognized that here at least I am not shirking my
opponent's strongest evidence, for Sir A. C. Doyle at once explains
that he means the case of Eva C. He gave his own (quite inaccurate)
version of the facts, and, to the delight of his supporters, he went
on:--
Don't you think it is simply the insanity of incredulity to waive
that aside? Imagine discussing what happened in 1866 ... when you
have scientific facts of this sort remaining unanswered.
So, you see, I was very heavily punished in that contest, and I have to
try to redeem my "insanity"; but perhaps the reader will remember what
Sir A. C. Doyle forgot, that he had stipulated that I should open the
debate and _deal with his books_. No doubt I was quite free to take
other evidence also, but I had an idea that, since this evidence was
published in 1914 and Sir Arthur's books were published in 1918 and
1919, he had not mentioned it because he disdained it.
The other reason why the case of Eva C. is important is because it shows
us modern scientific men at work. In the earlier days of the movement
faking was easy. No one searched a medium, especially a lady medium. She
could have yards of butter-cloth or muslin and even dolls or masks under
her skirts. Even now the ordinary medium is not searched, as a rule. A
friend of mine went recently to a materializing medium near London--it
is all going on still--and was allowed to feel the medium over his
clothes. He could easily tell that the man had yards of muslin wrapped
round his body, but he said nothing, and he got his money's worth; a man
dressed in muslin, in a bad light, being recognized by Spiritualists as
a deceased relative. Most materializations are still the medium in a
mask or beard and muslin. In some cases, in very poor light, the ghost
is merely a white rag, a picture, or even a faint patch of light from a
lantern, or a phosphorized streak.
Now we come to the "scientific facts." Half the professors and other
scientific men quoted as adherents by modern Spiritualist writers and
speakers are not Spiritualists at all. Flammarion, Ochorowicz, Foa,
Bottazzi, Richet, de Vesme, Schrenck-Notzing, Morselli, Flournoy,
Maxwell, Ostwald, etc., are not, and never were, Spiritualists. Most of
them regard Spiritualism as childish and mischievous. But they believe
that mediums have remarkable psychic powers, and they admit levitations
and (in many cases) materializations. They think that a mysterious force
of the living medium, not spirits, does these things, and they talk of a
"new science." I agree with them that the idea of spirits strolling
along from the Elysian fields to play banjoes and lift tables and make
ghosts for us is rather peculiar, but I am not sure that _their_ idea is
much less peculiar. However, they promise us research under scientific
conditions, and they say that they have got materializations under such
conditions. "Eva C." is the grand example.
Who is this mysterious lady? I have already let the reader into the
secret. Sir A. C. Doyle may justly plead that he does not read German;
and the French version of her exploits is, he may be surprised to hear,
very different from Baron Schrenck's fuller version in German, and very
wrong and misleading. But does Sir Arthur never read the _Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research_?
As long ago as July, 1914, it contained a very good article on Marthe
Beraud, which tells most of the facts (except about her morals), and
quite openly disdains these wonderful photographs which have made such
an impression on Sir A. C. Doyle. From that article, which betrays, in
the official organ of the Society, almost the same "insanity of
incredulity" as I did, he would have learned things that might have
saved him from the worst "howler" of the Debate. It tells that "Eva C.,"
as was well known all over the continent in 1914, was Marthe Beraud, the
medium of the "Villa Carmen materializations" in Algiers in 1905. It
gives a lengthy report on the case by an Algiers lawyer, M. Marsault,
who knew the family at the Villa Carmen intimately, and often saw the
performances; and this report contains an explicit confession by Marthe
that she had no abnormal powers whatever. To excuse herself she said
that there was a trap-door in the room, and "ghosts" were introduced by
others. That was a lie, for there was no trap-door; and those who
obstinately wished to believe in the ghosts rejected the whole of
Marsault's weighty evidence on the ground that _he_ said there was a
trap-door!
I have before me photographs of the Algiers ghost and of Eva C.'s ghost.
They plainly show Marthe dressed up as a ghost, in the familiar old way,
while Professor Richet gravely photographs her, and Sir Oliver Lodge
recommends these things to our serious notice. However, Marthe found
Algiers unhealthy after this, and she returned to France and set up in
the materializing trade. Mme. Bisson found her and adopted her, and
changed her name; and Baron von Schrenck-Notzing settled down to a three
years' study of her marvellous performances. It was on the strength of
his book and photographs that Miss Verrall in 1914 (in the _Proceedings
S. P. R._) gave a verdict not much different from my own. She found
some evidence of abnormal power, and a great deal of fraud. I see no
evidence whatever of abnormal _psychic_ power if--it is not clear--this
is what Miss Verrall means. Yet Sir A. C. Doyle, who seems to know
nothing about the matter beyond Mme. Bisson's worthless work, puts the
facts before a London audience in the year 1920 in the language I have
quoted.
In the beginning Marthe plainly impersonated the ghost, as Baron
Schrenck admits. He believes that she did it unconsciously. The sooner
that excuse for fraudulent mediums is abandoned the better. She was
quite obviously _not_ in a trance, though she pretended to be,
throughout the whole three years. For smaller "ghosts" (white patches,
streaks, arms, etc.) she used muslin, gloves, rubber--all sorts of
things. As a rule, she knew when they were going to let off the
magnesium-flare and photograph her. She had had ample time behind the
curtain to arrange her effects. In one photograph, taken too suddenly,
she has a white rag on her knee, which would look like a hand in the red
light, and her real hand is holding the "ghost" over her head! After
that Baron Schrenck sadly admitted that she used her hands. Mme. Bisson
does not; so Sir Arthur does not know this. In another photograph she is
supposed to accept a cigarette in a materialized third hand. It is
obviously her bare foot, and, if you look closely, you see that her
"face" is a piece of white stuff pinned to the curtain. She is really
leaning back and stretching up her foot. The book reeks with cheating.
After a time she began to stick or paste on the cabinet or the curtain
pictures cut out of the current illustrated papers, and daubed with
paint, provided with false noses, or adorned with beards and moustaches.
President Wilson has a heavy cavalry moustache and a black eye; but the
glasses, collar, tie, and tie-pin, and even the marks of the scissors,
are unmistakable. Baron Schrenck was forced to admit that dozens of
pinholes were found (not by him) on the cabinet-wall, and that the pins
must have been smuggled in, deceptively, in spite of a control which he
claimed to be perfect. In fact, poor Baron Schrenck was driven from
concession to concession until his case was very limp. Of all these
things Sir A. C. Doyle knew nothing; and, although he had the portrait
of President Wilson in his hands at the Queen's Hall, only disguised by
a moustache and a few daubs of paint, he assured the audience he
believed that it was the ectoplasm of the medium's body moulded by
spirit forces into a human form!
The point of interest to us is to find how the medium concealed her
trappings. No medium was ever more rigorously controlled, yet the fraud
is obvious. The answer shows that you can almost never be sure of your
medium. She was stripped naked before every sitting and _sewn_ into
black tights. Her mouth and hair were always examined. Occasionally her
sex-cavity was examined. South African detectives have told me how this
receptacle is used for smuggling diamonds, and, as Marthe was rarely
examined there by a competent and reliable witness, she probably often
used it. Dr. Schrenck admits that the outlet of her intestinal tube was
scarcely ever examined until very late in the inquiry, and an
independent doctor gave positive reason to suspect that she used this.
There is only one photograph in the book that shows a ghost which,
tightly wrapped up (and nearly all show plain marks of folding, as Baron
Schrenck admits), might be too large for such concealment; and the
careful reader will find that on these occasions there was no control at
all! They were impromptu sittings, suddenly decided upon by Marthe
herself.
There is strong reason to believe that usually she swallowed her
material and brought it up at will from her gullet or stomach. More than
a hundred cases of this power are known, and there is much positive
evidence that Marthe was a "ruminant." She sometimes bled copiously from
the mouth and gullet, and she used the mouth much to manipulate the
gauzy stuff. When I mentioned this well-known theory of Marthe Beraud
Sir Arthur laughed. He said that he doubted if I had read the book I
professed to have read, because Marthe had a net sewn round her head,
which "disproved" my theory. He summoned me to retract. He said I had
"slipped up pretty badly."
Well, the theory was not mine, but that of a doctor who had studied
Marthe, and who has little difficulty in dealing with the net. Had it
not been the end of the debate, however, our audience would have heard a
surprising reply. They would have learned that the net was used only in
_seven_ sittings out of hundreds, and that the medium then compelled
them to abandon it. They would have learned that the net, instead of
"not making the slightest difference to the experiments," as Sir A. C.
Doyle says, made _four_ out of these _seven_ sittings completely barren
of results! And they would have further learned that when the net was
on, and Marthe could not use her mouth, she stipulated that the back of
her clothing should be left open.
Just one further detail of this sordid imposture. I said that on one
occasion Marthe allowed the very title of the paper out of which she cut
her portraits, _Le Miroir_, to appear in the photograph, and gave it a
spiritual meaning. Now, that is Mme. Bisson's version. But Baron
Schrenck's version is in flagrant contradiction, and an examination of
the photographs proves that he is right. The words were caught,
_accidentally_, by a camera placed in the cabinet, and the excuse was
concocted the next day!
Enough of these miserable "materializations." They are always dishonest.
Every materializing medium has been found out. Almost since the birth of
the movement there have been, and are to-day, hundreds of these men and
women, paid and unpaid, who have masqueraded as ghosts, or duped their
sitters in a dull red light with muslin and butter-cloth and
phosphorized paper, with dolls and masks and stuffed gloves and
stockings and rubber arms. If Spiritualists would persuade us that they
are scrupulously honest, they must drive the last of these people out of
their fold, and they must expunge every reference to these
materializations from their literature. When we get such phenomena with
a medium who has been searched by competent and independent witnesses,
whose body-openings have been sealed and clothing changed, in a cabinet
set up by independent inquirers, with _each_ hand and foot controlled by
a separate man, or in a good light, we may begin to talk. Never yet has
the faintest suggestion of a phenomenon been secured under such
circumstances.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] I take this from the German psychic journal, _Psychische Studien_
Nov., 1909.