An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium

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Willis Dutcher. (1922). On the Other Side of the Footlights: An Expose of Routines, Apparatus and Deceptions Resorted to by Mediums, Clairvoyants, Fortune Tellers and Crystal Gazers in Deluding the Public. Berlin, WI: Heaney Magic. The Austrian medium Rudi Schneider was investigated in 1924 by the physicists Stefan Meyer and Karl Przibram. They caught Rudi freeing his arm in a series of séances. [140] Rudi claimed he could levitate objects but according to Harry Price a photograph taken on April 28, 1932, showed that Rudi had managed to free his arm to move a handkerchief from the table. [141] According to Warren Jay Vinton, Schneider was an expert at freeing himself from control in the séance room. [142] Oliver Gatty and Theodore Besterman who tested Schneider concluded that in their tests there was "no good evidence that Rudi Schneider possesses supernormal powers." [143] Find sources: "Mediumship"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( April 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Another channeler in the early 1900s was Edgar Cayce, who claimed to channel his higher self while in a trance-like state.

Clairsentience or "clear sensing", is the ability to have an impression of what a spirit wants to communicate, or to feel sensations instilled by a spirit. In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Mediums claim that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing. a b c Sofie Lachapelle. (2011). Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853–1931. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 144–45. ISBN 978-1-4214-0013-6 Richard Wiseman. (1997). Deception & Self-Deception: Investigating Psychics. Prometheus Books. p. 23 Changes to the appearance of the trance medium may also occur; facial features can be seen to change as the facial muscles are altered by the communicator. Physical changes such as posture and hand movements can also be seen.Massimo Polidoro. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. Prometheus Books. pp. 71–73. ISBN 978-1-57392-896-0 Samri Baldwin. (1895). The Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained Brooklyn, N.Y., Press of T. J. Dyson & Son. In a light trance, the medium is partially conscious and able to recall the words of their guide. Historically, many references are to deep trance. Deep trance is where the medium has completely stepped aside and is unconscious, unaware of what is going on. They will have no recall of events. A conduit, in esoterism, and spiritual discourse, is a specific object, person, location, or process (such as engaging in a séance or entering a trance, or using psychedelic medicines) which allows a person to connect or communicate with a spiritual realm, metaphysical energy, or spiritual entity, or vice versa. The use of such a conduit may be entirely metaphoric or symbolic, or it may be earnestly believed to be functional. In the 1920s the British medium Charles Albert Beare duped the Spiritualist organization the Temple of Light into believing he had genuine mediumship powers. In 1931 Beare published a confession in the newspaper Daily Express. In the confession he stated "I have deceived hundreds of people…. I have been guilty of fraud and deception in spiritualistic practices by pretending that I was controlled by a spirit guide…. I am frankly and whole-heartedly sorry that I have allowed myself to deceive people." [124] Due to the exposure of William Hope and other fraudulent spiritualists, Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1920s led a mass resignation of eighty-four members of the Society for Psychical Research, as they believed the Society was opposed to spiritualism. [125]

Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-87975-300-9 "Florence Cook was caught cheating not only before her séances with Crookes but also afterward. Furthermore, she learned her trade from the mediums Frank Herne and Charles Williams, who were notorious for their cheating." Also see M. Lamar Keene. (1997). The Psychic Mafia. Prometheus Books. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-57392-161-9 "The most famous of materialization mediums, Florence Cook – though she managed to convince a scientist, Sir William Crookes, that she was genuine – was repeatedly exposed in fraud. Florence had been trained in the arts of the séance by Frank Herne, a well-known physical medium whose materializations were grabbed on more than one occasion and found to be the medium himself." Nandor Fodor. (1960). The Haunted Mind: A Psychoanalyst Looks at the Supernatural. Helix Press. p. 100-22 Preliminary report of the Commission appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to investigate modern spiritualism, in accordance with the request of the late Henry Seybert (1887).Harry Price, Fifty Years of Psychical Research, chapter XI: The Mechanics of Spiritualism, F&W Media International, Ltd, 2012. Musgrave, Jane (2013-09-27). "Psychic convicted on all fraud counts". The Palm Beach Post. Vol.105, no.171 (Firsted.). p.1. Joseph McCabe. (1920). Spiritualism: A Popular History from 1847. Dodd, Mead and Company. pp. 110–12. A Mr. Merrifield was present at one of the sittings. Home's usual phenomena were messages, the moving of objects (presumably at a distance), and the playing of an accordion which he held with one hand under the shadow of the table. But from an early date in America he had been accustomed occasionally to "materialise" hands (as it was afterwards called). The sitters would, in the darkness, faintly see a ghostly hand and arm, or they might feel the touch of an icy limb. Mr. Merrifield and the other sitters saw a "spirit-hand" stretch across the faintly lit space of the window. But Mr. Merrifield says that Home sat, or crouched, low in a low chair, and that the "spirit-hand" was a false limb on the end of Home's arm. At other times, he says, he saw that Home was using his foot." Brian Righi. (2008). Ghosts, Apparitions and Poltergeists: An Exploration of the Supernatural through History. Llewellyn Publications. Llewellyn Publications. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-7387-1363-2 "One medium of the 1920s, Mina Crandon, became famous for producing ectoplasm during her sittings. At the height of the séance, she was even able to produce a tiny ectoplasmic hand from her navel, which waved about in the darkness. Her career ended when Harvard biologists were able to examine the tiny hand and found it to be nothing more than a carved piece of animal liver." Pulliam, June Michele; Fonseca (26 September 2016). Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781440834912 . Retrieved 5 December 2022.