Eusapia Palladino
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| − | On December 18, 1909 in New York, the Harvard [[psychologist]] Hugo Munsterberg investigated the mediumship of Eusapia and with the help of a hidden man lying underneath a table, caught Eusapia levitating the table with her foot.<ref>Frank Podmore ''Newer Spiritualism'' Kessinger Reprint Edition, 2003, p. 143</ref> The magician Joseph F. Rinn had also given a full account of fraudulent behavior in a test of Eusapia at Columbia University. | + | On December 18, 1909 in New York, the Harvard [[psychologist]] Hugo Munsterberg investigated the mediumship of Eusapia and with the help of a hidden man lying underneath a table, caught Eusapia levitating the table with her foot.<ref>Frank Podmore ''Newer Spiritualism'' Kessinger Reprint Edition, 2003, p. 143</ref> The magician Joseph F. Rinn had also given a full account of fraudulent behavior in a test of Eusapia at Columbia University. The psychologist Joseph Jastrow in his book ''The Psychology of Conviction'' (1918) included an entire chapter on the tricks of Eusapia.<ref>Joseph Jastrow ''The Psychology of Conviction'' Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918, pp. 101-127 [http://archive.org/stream/psychologyconvi00jastgoog#page/n124/mode/2up Online]</ref> |
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
Revision as of 21:08, 28 December 2012
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Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was an Italian spiritualist medium.
Contents |
Fraud
Spiritualists have written that Eusapia was a genuine medium, could communicate with spirits, levitate tables, materialize hands (ectoplasm) and move objects without touching them; however in reality she was a total fraudster who was caught cheating many times. Eusapia had a preference for dark rooms and refused to be investigated in light conditions, she was also an expert at freeing her hands and feet in the seance room.
In England, America, France and Germany, she had been caught using tricks. In 1910 Dr. Stanley LeFevre Krebs wrote an entire book debunking Eusapia and exposing the tricks she had used throughout her career titled Trick Methods of Eusapia Paladino. The book can be found free to read online here.
England
Eusapia was invited to England in July 1895 to Frederic William Henry Myers house in Cambridge for a series of investigations into her mediumship, according to reports by the investigators Myers and Oliver Lodge all the phenomena observed in the Cambridge sittings was the result of trickery. Her fraud was so clever (Myers said) that it "must have needed long practice to bring it to its present level of skill".[1]
When she was brought in 1895 to London for investigation by the SPR (Society for Psychical Research), the results proved disastrous for her mediumship. During the London experiments Eusapia was caught cheating in order to free herself from the physical controls of the experiments. Eusapia was found liberating her hands by placing the hand of the controller on her left on top of the hand of the controller on her right. Instead of maintaining any contact with Eusapia, the observers on either side were found to be holding each other's hands instead of Eusapia's, this made it possible for her to commit all kinds of trickery.
Because of the discovery of fraud, psychical researchers of the time came to doubt all of her earlier seances. British SPR investigators such as Henry Sidgwick and Frank Podmore considered Eusapia's mediumship to be permanently discredited. Because of her fraud she was banned from any further experiments with the SPR in Britain.
Germany
In a seance sitting in 1898 in Munich an investigator Theodor Lipps noticed that, instead of Eusapia's hand, he held the hand of the sitter controlling the left side of the medium. In this way Eusapia had freed both hands by a trick. Eusapia was also discovered using trickery in the seance room by other scientists in Germany. Dr. Max Dessoir and Dr. Albert Moll of Berlin detected the precise substitution-tricks that were used by Eusapia. Dessoir and Moll wrote: "The main point is cleverly to distract attention and to release one or both hands or one or both feet. This is Paladino's chief trick".[2]
Some investigators were originally baffled on how Eusapia could move curtains from a distance when all the doors and windows were closed in the seance room but was later discovered that she moved the curtains by releasing a jet of air from a rubbler bulb that she had in her hand.[3]
France
French scientists such as Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval also caught Eusapia cheating many times.[4] The professors Gustave Le Bon and Albert Dastre from Paris University examined Palladino in 1906 and came to the conclusion she was a cheat. They installed a secret lamp behind Palladino and in a séance saw her release her foot and use it.[5] According to (Lachapelle, 2011) in 1907 Eusapia was found using a strand of her hair to move an object toward herself and that the objects were not outside of her easy reach.[6]
America
On December 18, 1909 in New York, the Harvard psychologist Hugo Munsterberg investigated the mediumship of Eusapia and with the help of a hidden man lying underneath a table, caught Eusapia levitating the table with her foot.[7] The magician Joseph F. Rinn had also given a full account of fraudulent behavior in a test of Eusapia at Columbia University. The psychologist Joseph Jastrow in his book The Psychology of Conviction (1918) included an entire chapter on the tricks of Eusapia.[8]
See also
References
- Amy Lehman Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums, Spiritualists and Mesmerists in Performance McFarland, 2009 ISBN 0786434791
- Ann Braude Radical Spirits, Second Edition: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America Indiana University Press; Second Edition edition, 2001 ISBN 0253215021
- Antonio Melechi Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the Victorian Mind Random House UK; Reprint edition, 2009 ISBN 0099478862
- Alex Owen The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England University Of Chicago Press, 2004 ISBN 0226642054
Footnotes
- ↑ Joseph McCabe Is Spiritualism based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others London: Watts & CO., 1920, p. 14
- ↑ Albert Shaw The American Review of Reviews, Volume 42, 1910, p. 78
- ↑ Fakebusters II: Scientific Detection Of Fakery In Art And Philately
- ↑ Charles Edward Mark Hansel ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation Prometheus Books, 1980, p. 60
- ↑ Joseph McCabe Spiritualism: A Popular History From 1847 T. F. Unwin, ltd, 1920, p. 210
- ↑ Sofie Lachapelle Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931 Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, p. 82
- ↑ Frank Podmore Newer Spiritualism Kessinger Reprint Edition, 2003, p. 143
- ↑ Joseph Jastrow The Psychology of Conviction Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918, pp. 101-127 Online