(age 30) in a séance with dolls (1928) From its earliest beginnings to contemporary times, mediumship practices have had many instances of fraud and trickery.
Séances take place in darkness so the poor lighting conditions can become an easy opportunity for fraud. Physical mediumship that has been investigated by scientists has been discovered to be the result of
deception and trickery. Ectoplasm, a supposed paranormal substance, was revealed to have been made from cheesecloth, butter, muslin, and cloth. Mediums would also stick cut-out faces from magazines and newspapers onto cloth or on other props and use plastic dolls in their séances to pretend to their audiences spirits were contacting them.
Lewis Spence in his book
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1960) wrote: A very large part is played by fraud in spiritualistic practices, both in the physical and psychical, or automatic, phenomena, but especially in the former. The frequency with which mediums have been convicted of fraud has, indeed, induced many people to abandon the study of psychical research, judging the whole bulk of the phenomena to be fraudulently produced. In Britain, the
Society for Psychical Research has investigated mediumship phenomena. Critical SPR investigations into purported mediums and the exposure of fake mediums has led to a number of resignations by Spiritualist members. On the subject of fraud in mediumship
Paul Kurtz wrote: No doubt a great importance in the paranormal field is the problem of fraud. The field of psychic research and spiritualism has been so notoriously full of charlatans, such as the
Fox sisters and
Eusapia Palladino–individuals who claim to have special power and gifts but who are actually conjurers who have hoodwinked scientists and the public as well–that we have to be especially cautious about claims made on their behalf. Magicians have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. Early debunkers included
Chung Ling Soo,
Henry Evans and
Julien Proskauer. Later magicians to reveal fraud were
Joseph Dunninger,
Harry Houdini and
Joseph Rinn.
Rose Mackenberg, a private investigator who worked with Houdini during the 1920s, was among the most prominent debunkers of psychic fraud during the mid-20th century.
1800s Many 19th century mediums were discovered to be engaged in
fraud. While advocates of mediumship claim that their experiences are genuine, the
Encyclopædia Britannica article on spiritualism notes in reference to a case in the 19th century that "...one by one, the
Spiritualist mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States." At a
séance in the house of the solicitor John Snaith Rymer in
Ealing in July 1855, a sitter Frederick Merrifield observed that a "spirit-hand" was a false limb attached on the end of the medium
Daniel Dunglas Home's arm. Merrifield also claimed to have observed Home use his foot in the séance room. The poet
Robert Browning and his wife
Elizabeth attended a séance on July 23, 1855, in Ealing with the Rymers. During the séance a spirit face materialized which Home claimed was the son of Browning who had died in infancy. Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be the bare foot of Home. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy. Browning's son
Robert in a letter to
The Times, December 5, 1902, referred to the incident "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud." The researchers
Joseph McCabe and
Trevor H. Hall exposed the "
levitation" of Home as nothing more than his moving across a connecting ledge between two iron balconies. The psychologist and psychical researcher
Stanley LeFevre Krebs had exposed the
Bangs Sisters as frauds. During a séance he employed a hidden mirror and caught them tampering with a letter in an envelope and writing a reply in it under the table which they would pretend a spirit had written. The British materialization medium Rosina Mary Showers was caught in many fraudulent séances throughout her career. In 1874 during a séance with
Edward William Cox a sitter looked into the cabinet and seized the spirit, the
headdress fell off and was revealed to be Showers. In a series of experiments in
London at the house of
William Crookes in February 1875, the medium
Anna Eva Fay managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine
psychic powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed the tricks she had used. Frank Herne a British medium who formed a partnership with the medium Charles Williams was repeatedly exposed in fraudulent materialization séances. In 1875, he was caught pretending to be a spirit during a séance in Liverpool and was found "clothed in about two yards of stiffened muslin, wound round his head and hanging down as far as his thigh."
Florence Cook had been "trained in the arts of the séance" by Herne and was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium. The medium
Henry Slade was caught in fraud many times throughout his career. In a séance in 1876 in London
Ray Lankester and Bryan Donkin snatched his
slate before the "spirit" message was supposed to be written, and found the writing already there. Slade also played an
accordion with one hand under the table and claimed spirits would play it. The magician
Chung Ling Soo revealed how Slade had performed the trick. with cardboard cut out figure
King Ferdinand of Bulgaria The British medium
Francis Ward Monck was investigated by psychical researchers and discovered to be a fraud. On November 3, 1876, during the séance a sitter demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage. After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison. In 1876,
William Eglinton was exposed as a fraud when the
psychical researcher Thomas Colley seized a "spirit" materialization in his séance and cut off a portion of its cloak. It was discovered that the cut piece matched a
cloth found in Eglinton's
suitcase. Colley also pulled the beard off the materialization and it was revealed to be a fake, the same as another one found in the suitcase of Eglinton. In 1880 in a
séance a spirit named "Yohlande" materialized, a sitter grabbed it and was revealed to be the medium
Mme. d'Esperance herself. In September 1878 the British medium Charles Williams and his fellow-medium at the time, A. Rita, were detected in trickery at Amsterdam. During the séance a materialized spirit was seized and found to be Rita and a bottle of phosphorus oil,
muslin and a false beard were found amongst the two mediums. In 1880 the American stage mentalist
Washington Irving Bishop published a book revealing how mediums would use secret codes as the trick for their
clairvoyant readings. The
Seybert Commission was a group of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania who in 1884–1887 exposed fraudulent mediums such as
Pierre L. O. A. Keeler and
Henry Slade. The
Fox sisters confessed to fraud in 1888. Margaret Fox revealed that she and her sister had produced the "spirit" rappings by cracking their toe joints. In 1882 C. E. Wood was exposed at a séance in
Peterborough. While manifesting her Indian spirit control "Pocha" she was seized by a guest and revealed to be wrapped in muslin cloth. Wood never escaped the stigma and died two years later while touring Australia. In 1891 at a public séance with twenty sitters the medium
Cecil Husk was caught leaning over a table pretending to be a spirit by covering his face with phosphor material. The magician
Will Goldston also exposed the fraud mediumship of Husk. In a séance Goldston attended a pale face materialization appeared in the room. Goldston wrote "I saw at once that it was a gauze mask, and that the moustache attached to it was loose at one side through lack of gum. I pulled at the mask. It came away, revealing the face of Husk." The British materialization medium
Annie Fairlamb Mellon was exposed as a fraud on October 12, 1894. During the séance a sitter seized the materialized spirit, and found it to be the Mellon on her knees with white
muslin on her head and shoulders. The magician
Samri Baldwin exposed the tricks of the
Davenport brothers in his book
The Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained (1895). The medium
Swami Laura Horos was convicted of fraud several times and was tried for
rape and fraud in London in 1901. She was described by the magician
Harry Houdini as "one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known". In the late 19th century, the fraudulent methods of
spirit photographers such as
David Duguid and
Edward Wyllie were revealed by psychical researchers.
Hereward Carrington documented various methods (with diagrams) how the medium would manipulate the
plates before, during, and after the séance to produce spirit forms. The ectoplasm materializations of the French medium
Eva Carrière were exposed as fraudulent. The fake ectoplasm of Carrière was made of cut-out paper faces from newspapers and magazines on which fold marks could sometimes be seen from the photographs. Cut out faces that she used included
Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, French president
Raymond Poincaré and the actress Mona Delza. The séance trick of the
Eddy Brothers was revealed by the magician
Chung Ling Soo in 1898. The brothers utilized a fake hand made of lead, and with their hands free from control would play musical instruments and move objects in the séance room. The physiologist
Ivor Lloyd Tuckett examined a case of
spirit photography that
W. T. Stead had claimed was genuine. Stead visited a photographer who had produced a photograph of him with deceased soldier known as "Piet Botha". Stead claimed that the photographer could not have come across any information about Piet Botha, however, Tuckett discovered that an article in 1899 had been published on Pietrus Botha in a weekly magazine with a portrait and personal details. The trance medium
Leonora Piper was investigated by psychical researchers and
psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century. In an experiment to test if Piper's "spirit" controls were purely fictitious the psychologist
G. Stanley Hall invented a niece called Bessie Beals and asked Piper's 'control' to get in touch with it. Bessie appeared, answered questions and accepted Hall as her uncle. The psychologist
Joseph Jastrow wrote that Piper pretended to be controlled by spirits and fell into simple and logical traps from her comments. Science writer
Martin Gardner concluded Piper was a
cold reader that would "fish" for information from her séance sitters. The physiologist
Ivor Lloyd Tuckett who examined Piper's mediumship in detail wrote it could be explained by "muscle-reading, fishing, guessing, hints obtained in the sitting, knowledge surreptitiously obtained, knowledge acquired in the interval between sittings and lastly, facts already within Mrs. Piper's knowledge."
1900s In March 1902 in
Berlin, police officers interrupted a séance of the German apport medium Frau Anna Rothe. Her hands were grabbed and she was wrestled to the ground. A female police assistant physically examined Rothe and discovered 157
flowers as well as
oranges and lemons hidden in her petticoat. She was arrested and charged with fraud. Another apport medium Hilda Lewis known as the "flower medium" confessed to fraud. The psychical researchers
W. W. Baggally and
Everard Feilding exposed the British materialization medium Christopher Chambers as a fraud in 1905. A false moustache was discovered in the séance room which he used to fabricate the spirit materializations. The British medium Charles Eldred was exposed as a fraud in 1906. Eldred would sit in a chair in a curtained off area in the room known as a "séance cabinet". Various spirit figures would emerge from the cabinet and move around the séance room, however, it was discovered that the chair had a secret compartment that contained beards, cloths,
masks, and wigs that Eldred would dress up in to pretend to be spirits. The spirit photographer
William Hope tricked
William Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife in 1906.
Oliver Lodge revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure, the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph, however, Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for
spirit photography. In 1907,
Hereward Carrington exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums such as those used in slate-writing,
table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading and
spirit photography. between 1908 and 1914 the Italian medium Francesco Carancini was investigated by psychical researchers and they discovered that he used
phosphorus matches to produce "spirit lights" and with a freed hand would move objects in the séance room. In 1908 at a hotel in
Naples, the psychical researchers
W. W. Baggally, Hereward Carrington and
Everard Feilding attended a series of séances with
Eusapia Palladino. In a report they claimed that genuine supernatural activity had occurred in the séances, this report became known as the Feilding report. In 1910, Feilding returned to Naples, but this time accompanied with the magician
William S. Marriott. Unlike the 1908 sittings, Feilding and Marriott detected her cheating, just as she had done in America. Her deceptions were obvious. Palladino evaded control and was caught moving objects with her foot, shaking the curtain with her hands, moving the cabinet table with her elbow and touching the séance sitters.
Milbourne Christopher wrote regarding the exposure "when one knows how a feat can be done and what to look for, only the most skillful performer can maintain the illusion in the face of such informed scrutiny." (left) and the magician William Marriott (right) who duplicated by natural means her
levitation trick of a glass beaker In 1910 at a séance in Grenoble, France the apport medium
Charles Bailey produced two live birds in the séance room. Bailey was unaware that the dealer he had bought the birds from was present in the séance and he was exposed as a fraud. The psychical researcher
Eric Dingwall observed the medium
Bert Reese in New York and claimed to have discovered his
billet reading tricks. The most detailed account at exposing his tricks (with diagrams) was by the magician
Theodore Annemann. The Polish medium
Stanisława Tomczyk's levitation of a glass beaker was exposed and replicated in 1910 by the magician
William S. Marriott by means of a hidden thread. The Italian medium Lucia Sordi was exposed in 1911, she was bound to a chair by psychical researchers but would free herself during her séances. The tricks of another Italian medium
Linda Gazzera were revealed in the same year, she would release her hands and feet from control in her séances and use them. Gazzera would not permit anyone to search her before a séance sitting, as she concealed
muslin and other objects in her hair. In 1917,
Edward Clodd analyzed the mediumship of the trance medium
Gladys Osborne Leonard and came to the conclusion that Leonard had known her séance sitters before she had held the séances, and could have easily obtained such information by natural means. The British psychiatrist
Charles Arthur Mercier wrote in his book
Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge (1917) that
Oliver Lodge had been duped into believing mediumship by trickery and his spiritualist views were based on assumptions and not scientific evidence. In 1918,
Joseph Jastrow wrote about the tricks of
Eusapia Palladino who was an expert at freeing her hands and feet from the control in the séance room. In the séance room Palladino would move curtains from a distance by releasing a jet of air from a rubber bulb that she had in her hand. According to the psychical researcher
Harry Price "Her tricks were usually childish: long hairs attached to small objects in order to produce 'telekinetic movements'; the gradual substitution of one hand for two when being controlled by sitters; the production of 'phenomena' with a foot which had been surreptitiously removed from its shoe and so on." 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." 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. Between November 8 and December 31, 1920,
Gustav Geley of the Institute Metapsychique International attended fourteen séances with the medium
Franek Kluski in Paris. A bowl of hot paraffin was placed in the room and according to Kluski spirits dipped their limbs into the
paraffin and then into a bath of water to materialize. Three other series of séances were held in Warsaw in Kluski's own apartment, these took place over a period of three years. Kluski was not searched in any of the séances. Photographs of the molds were obtained during the four series of experiments and were published by Geley in 1924.
Harry Houdini replicated the Kluski materialization moulds by using his hands and a bowl of hot paraffin. The British direct-voice medium
Frederick Tansley Munnings was exposed as a fraud when one of his séance sitters turned the lights on which revealed him to be holding a trumpet by means of a telescopic extension piece and using an angle piece to change the auditory effect of his voice.
Richard Hodgson held six sittings with the medium
Rosina Thompson and came to the conclusion she was a fraud as he discovered Thompson had access to documents and information about her séance sitters. On February 4, 1922,
Harry Price with James Seymour,
Eric Dingwall and
William S. Marriott had proven the spirit photographer
William Hope was a fraud during tests at the British College of Psychic Science. Price wrote in his SPR report "William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter... It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes." The medium
Kathleen Goligher was investigated by the physicist
Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe. On July 22, 1921, in a séance he observed Goligher holding the table up with her foot. He also discovered that her ectoplasm was made of muslin. During a séance d'Albe observed white muslin between Goligher's feet. The Danish medium
Einer Nielsen was investigated by a committee from the
Kristiania University in Norway, 1922 and discovered in a séance that his ectoplasm was fake. In 1923 the Polish medium
Jan Guzyk was exposed as a fraud in a series of séances in Sorbonne in
Paris. Guzyk would use his elbows and legs to move objects around the room and touch the sitters. According to
Max Dessoir the trick of Guzyk was to use his "foot for psychic touches and sounds". The psychical researchers
Eric Dingwall and
Harry Price re-published an anonymous work written by a former medium entitled
Revelations of a Spirit Medium (1922) which exposed the tricks of mediumship and the fraudulent methods of producing "spirit hands". Originally all the copies of the book were bought up by spiritualists and deliberately destroyed. In 1923, the magician
Carlos María de Heredia revealed how fake spirit hands could be made by using a rubber glove, paraffin and a jar of cold water. The Hungarian medium
Ladislas Lasslo confessed that all of his spirit materializations were fraudulent in 1924. A séance sitter was also found to be working as a confederate for Lasslo. with her "spirit hand" which was discovered to be made from a piece of carved
animal liver with ectoplasm 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. 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. According to Warren Jay Vinton, Schneider was an expert at freeing himself from control in the séance room.
Oliver Gatty and
Theodore Besterman who tested Schneider concluded that in their tests there was "no good evidence that Rudi Schneider possesses supernormal powers." The spiritualists Arthur Conan Doyle and
W. T. Stead were duped into believing
Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that the Zancigs performed
telepathy. In 1924 Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their
mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of
Our Secrets!! in a London Newspaper. In 1925,
Samuel Soal claimed to have taken part in a series of séances with the medium
Blanche Cooper who contacted the spirit of a soldier Gordon Davis and revealed the
house that he had lived in. Researchers later discovered fraud as the séances had taken place in 1922, not 1925. The magician and paranormal investigator Bob Couttie revealed that Davis was alive, Soal lived close to him and had altered the records of the sittings after checking out the house. Soal's co-workers knew that he had fiddled the results but were kept quiet with threats of libel suits.
Mina Crandon claimed to materialize a "spirit hand", but when examined by biologists the hand was discovered to be made from a piece of carved animal liver. The German apport medium
Heinrich Melzer was discovered to be a fraud in 1926. In a séance psychical researchers found that Melzer had small stones attached to the back of his ears by flesh coloured tape. Psychical researchers who investigated the mediumship of
Maria Silbert revealed that she used her feet and toes to move objects in the séance room. In 1930 the Polish medium
Stanisława P. was tested at the Institut Metapsychique in
Paris. French psychical researcher
Eugéne Osty suspected in the séance that Stanislawa had freed her hand from control. Secret flashlight photographs that were taken revealed that her hand was free and she had moved objects on the séance table. It was claimed by spiritualists that during a series of séances in 1930 the medium
Eileen J. Garrett channeled secret information from the spirit of the Lieutenant
Herbert Carmichael Irwin who had died in the
R101 crash a few days before the séance. Researcher Melvin Harris who studied the case wrote that the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobblede-gook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Price had proven through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was made of cheesecloth.
Helen Duncan would also use a doll made of a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet which she pretended to her sitters was a spirit. The photographs taken by
Thomas Glendenning Hamilton in the 1930s of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Ann Marshall depicts
tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the
hoax. Psychologists and researchers who studied Pearl Curran's
automatic writings in the 1930s came to the conclusion
Patience Worth was a fictitious creation of Curran. In 1931
George Valiantine was exposed as a fraud in the séance room as it was discovered that he produced fraudulent "spirit" fingerprints in wax. The "spirit" thumbprint that Valiantine claimed belonged to Arthur Conan Doyle was revealed to be the print of his big toe on his right foot. It was also revealed that Valiantine made some of the prints with his elbow. The medium
Frank Decker was exposed as a fraud in 1932. A magician and séance sitter who called himself M. Taylor presented a mail bag and Decker agreed to lock himself inside it. During the séance objects were moved around the room and it was claimed spirits had released Decker from the bag. It was later discovered to have been a trick as Martin Sunshine, a magic dealer admitted that he sold Decker a trick mail bag, such as stage
escapologists use, and had acted as the medium's confederate by pretending to be M. Taylor, a magician. The British medium
Estelle Roberts claimed to materialize an Indian
spirit guide called "Red Cloud". Researcher Melvin Harris who examined some photographs of Red Cloud wrote the face was the same as Roberts and she had dressed up in a feathered war-bonnet. A photograph taken at a séance in 1937 in London shows the medium
Colin Evans "levitating" in mid air. He claimed that spirits had lifted him. Evans was later discovered to be a fraud as a cord leading from a device in his hand has indicated that it was himself who triggered the flash-photograph and that all he had done was jump from his chair into the air and pretend he had levitated. According to the magician
John Booth the stage mentalist
David Devant managed to fool a number of people into believing he had genuine
psychic ability who did not realize that his feats were magic tricks. At
St. George's Hall, London he performed a fake "clairvoyant" act where he would read a message sealed inside an envelope. The spiritualist
Oliver Lodge who was present in the audience was duped by the trick and claimed that Devant had used psychic powers. In 1936 Devant in his book
Secrets of My Magic revealed the trick method he had used. The physicist
Kristian Birkeland exposed the fraud of the direct voice medium
Etta Wriedt. Birkeland turned on the lights during a séance, snatched her trumpets and discovered that the "spirit" noises were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by
lycopodium powder. The British medium Isa Northage claimed to materialize the spirit of a
surgeon known as Dr. Reynolds. When photographs taken of Reynolds were analyzed by researchers they discovered that Northage looked like Reynolds with a glued stage beard. with fake ectoplasm made of muslin In 1954, the psychical researcher Rudolf Lambert published a report revealing details about a case of fraud that was covered up by many early members of the
Institute Metapsychique International (IMI). Lambert who had studied
Gustav Geley's files on the medium
Eva Carrière discovered photographs depicting fraudulent ectoplasm taken by her companion Juliette Bisson. The psychical researcher
Tony Cornell investigated the mediumship of
Alec Harris in 1955. During the séance "spirit" materializations emerged from a cabinet and walked around the room. Cornell wrote that a stomach rumble, nicotine smelling breath and a pulse gave it away that all the spirit figures were in fact Harris and that he had dressed up as each one behind the cabinet. The British medium
William Roy earned over £50,000 from his séance sitters. He confessed to fraud in 1958 revealing the microphone and trick-apparatus that he had used. The
automatic writings of the Irish medium
Geraldine Cummins were analyzed by psychical researchers in the 1960s and they revealed that she worked as a cataloguer at the
National Library of Ireland and took information from various books that would appear in her automatic writings about ancient history. In 1960, psychic investigator
Andrija Puharich and Tom O'Neill, publisher of the Spiritualist magazine
Psychic Observer, arranged to film two seances at
Camp Chesterfield, Indiana, using infrared film, intending to procure scientific proof of spirit materializations. The medium was shown the camera beforehand, and was aware that she was being filmed. However, the film revealed obvious fraud on the part of the medium and her cabinet assistant. The exposé was published in the July 10, 1960 issue of the
Psychic Observer. In 1966 the son of
Bishop Pike committed suicide. After his death, Pike contacted the British medium
Ena Twigg for a series of séances and she claimed to have communicated with his son. Although Twigg denied formerly knowing anything about Pike and his son, the magician John Booth discovered that Twigg had already known information about the Pike family before the séances. Twigg had belonged to the same denomination of Bishop Pike, he had preached at a
cathedral in Kent and she had known information about him and his deceased son from newspapers. In 1970 two psychical researchers investigated the direct-voice medium
Leslie Flint and found that all the "spirit" voices in his séance sounded exactly like himself and attributed his mediumship to "second-rate
ventriloquism". The medium
Arthur Ford died leaving specific instructions that all of his files should be burned. In 1971 after his death, psychical researchers discovered his files but instead of burning them they were examined and discovered to be filled with obituaries,
newspaper articles and other information, which enabled Ford to research his séance sitters backgrounds.
Ronald Pearsall in his book
Table-rappers: The Victorians and the Occult (1972) documented how every Victorian medium investigated had been exposed as using trickery, in the book he revealed how mediums would even use acrobatic techniques during séances to convince audiences of spirit presences. In 1976,
M. Lamar Keene, a medium in
Florida and at the
Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in
Indiana, confessed to defrauding the public in his book
The Psychic Mafia.
Keene detailed a multitude of common stage magic techniques utilized by mediums which are supposed to give an appearance of paranormal powers or supernatural involvement. After her death in the 1980s the medium
Doris Stokes was accused of fraud, by author and investigator
Ian Wilson. Wilson stated that Mrs Stokes planted specific people in her audience and did prior research into her sitters.
Rita Goold a physical medium during the 1980s was accused of fraud, by the psychical researcher
Tony Cornell. He claimed she would dress up as the spirits in her séances and would play music during them which provided cover for her to change clothes. and the lady standing outside of the curtain were in on the hoax. The British journalist
Ruth Brandon published the book
The Spiritualists (1983) which exposed the fraud of the Victorian mediums. The British apport medium Paul McElhoney was exposed as a fraud during a séance in Osset, Yorkshire in 1983. The
tape recorder that McElhoney took to his séances was investigated and a black tape was discovered bound around the battery compartment and inside
carnation flowers were found as well as a key-ring torch and other objects. In 1990 the researcher
Gordon Stein discovered that the
levitation photograph of the medium
Carmine Mirabelli was fraudulent. The photograph was a trick as there were signs of chemical retouching under Mirabelli's feet. The retouching showed that Mirabelli was not levitating but was standing on a ladder which was erased from the photograph. In 1991,
Wendy Grossman in the
New Scientist criticized the parapsychologist
Stephen E. Braude for ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. According to Grossman "[Braude] accuses sceptics of ignoring the evidence he believes is solid, but himself ignores evidence that does not suit him. If a medium was caught cheating on some occasions, he says, the rest of that medium's phenomena were still genuine." Grossman came to the conclusion that Braude did not do proper research on the subject and should study "the art of conjuring." In 1992,
Richard Wiseman analyzed the Feilding report of
Eusapia Palladino and argued that she employed a secret accomplice that could enter the room by a fake door panel positioned near the séance cabinet. Wiseman discovered this trick was already mentioned in a book from 1851, he also visited a carpenter and skilled magician who constructed a door within an hour with a false panel. The accomplice was suspected to be her second husband, who insisted on bringing Palladino to the hotel where the séances took place.
Massimo Polidoro and Gian Marco Rinaldi also analyzed the Feilding report but came to the conclusion no secret accomplice was needed as Palladino during the 1908 Naples séances could have produced the phenomena by using her foot.
Colin Fry was exposed in 1992 when during a séance the lights were unexpectedly turned on and he was seen holding a spirit trumpet in the air, which the audience had been led to believe was being levitated by spiritual energy. In 1997,
Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli produced wax-moulds directly from one's hand which were exactly the same copies as Gustav Geley obtained from
Franek Kluski, which are kept at the Institute Metapsychique International. A series of mediumistic séances known as the Scole Experiment took place between 1993 and 1998 in the presence of the researchers
David Fontana, Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. This has produced photographs, audio recordings and physical objects which appeared in the dark séance room (known as apports). A criticism of the experiment was that it was flawed because it did not rule out the possibility of fraud. The skeptical investigator
Brian Dunning wrote the Scole experiments fail in many ways. The séances were held in the basement of two of the mediums, only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away". The box containing the film was not examined and could easily have been accessible to fraud. And finally, even though many years have passed, there has been no follow-up, no further research by any credible agency or published accounts. Schwartz claimed his experiments were indicative of survival, but do not yet provide conclusive proof. The experiments described by Schwartz have received criticism from the scientific community for being inadequately designed and using poor controls.
Ray Hyman discovered many methodological errors with Schwartz's research including; "Inappropriate control comparisons", "Failure to use double-blind procedures", "Creating non-falsifiable outcomes by reinterpreting failures as successes" and "Failure to independently check on facts the sitters endorsed as true". Hyman wrote "Even if the research program were not compromised by these defects, the claims being made would require replication by independent investigators." Hyman criticizes Schwartz's decision to publish his results without gathering "evidence for their hypothesis that would meet generally accepted scientific criteria... they have lost credibility." In 2003, skeptic investigator
Massimo Polidoro in his book
Secrets of the Psychics documented the history of fraud in mediumship and spiritualistic practices as well as the psychology of psychic deception. An experiment conducted by the
British Psychological Society in 2005 suggests that under the controlled condition of the experiment, people who claimed to be professional mediums do not demonstrate the mediumistic ability. In the experiment, mediums were assigned to work the participants chosen to be "sitters." The mediums claimed to contact the deceased who were related to the sitters. The research gather the numbers of the statements made and have the sitters rate the accuracy of the statements. The readings that were considered to be somewhat accurate by the sitters were very generalized, and the ones that were considered inaccurate were the ones that were very specific. On Fox News on the
Geraldo at Large show, October 6, 2007,
Geraldo Rivera and other investigators accused Schwartz of being a fraud as he had overstepped his position as a university researcher by requesting over three million dollars from a bereaved father who had lost his son.
Schwartz claimed to have contacted the spirit of a 25-year-old man in the bathroom of his parents house and it is alleged he attempted to charge the family 3.5 million dollars for his mediumship services. Schwartz responded saying that the allegations were set up to destroy his science credibility. In 2013
Rose Marks and members of her family were convicted of fraud for a series of crimes spanning 20 years entailing between $20 and $45 million. They told vulnerable clients that to solve their problems they had to give the purported psychics money and valuables. Marks and family promised to return the cash and goods after "cleansing" them. Prosecutors established they had no intent to return the property. The exposures of fraudulent activity led to a rapid decline in ectoplasm and materialization séances. Investigator
Joe Nickell has written that modern self-proclaimed mediums like
John Edward,
Sylvia Browne,
Rosemary Altea and
James Van Praagh are avoiding the Victorian tradition of dark rooms, spirit handwriting and flying tambourines as these methods risk exposure. They instead use "mental mediumship" tactics like
cold reading or gleaning information from sitters beforehand (
hot reading). Group readings also improve hits by making general statements with conviction, which will fit at least one person in the audience. Shows are carefully edited before airing to show only what appears to be hits and removing anything that does not reflect well on the medium.
Michael Shermer criticized mediums in
Scientific American, saying, "mediums are unethical and dangerous: they prey on the emotions of the grieving. As grief counselors know, death is best faced head-on as a part of life." Shermer wrote that the human urge to seek connections between events that may form patterns meaningful for survival is a function of natural evolution, and called the alleged ability of mediums to talk to the dead "a well-known illusion of a meaningful pattern." According to
James Randi, a skeptic who has debunked many claims of psychic ability and uncovered fraudulent practices, mediums who do
cold readings "fish, suggest possibilities, make educated guesses and give options." Randi offered
$1 million US dollars for anyone who could demonstrate psychic ability under controlled conditions. Most prominent psychics and mediums did not take up his offer. The key role in mediumship of this sort is played by "effect of subjective confirmation" (see
Barnum effect)—people are predisposed to consider reliable that information which though is casual coincidence or a guess, however it seems to them personally important and significant and answers their personal belief. The article about this phenomenon in
Encyclopædia Britannica places emphasis that "... one by one spiritual mediums were convicted of fraud, sometimes using the tricks borrowed from scenic "magicians" to convince their paranormal abilities". In the article it is also noted that "... the opening of the wide ranging fraud happening on spiritualistic sessions caused serious damage to reputation of the movement of a Spiritualism and in the USA pushed it on the public periphery". In March 2017, medium
Thomas John was targeted in a sting operation and caught doing a
hot reading. The sting was planned and implemented by
skeptical activist Susan Gerbic and
mentalist Mark Edward. The unmarried couple attended John's show using
aliases, and were "read" as a married couple Susanna and Mark Wilson by John. During the entire reading, John failed to determine the actual identities of Gerbic and Edward, or that they were being deceptive during his reading. All personal information he gave them matched what was on their falsified
Facebook accounts, rather than being about their actual lives, and John pretended he was getting this information from Gerbic and Edward's supposedly dead—but actually nonexistent—relatives. As Jack Hitt reported in
The New York Times: These details were from the falsified Facebook accounts for the pair which were prepared by a group of
skeptics in advance of the reading, and Gerbic and Edward were not aware of the specific information in these accounts. This blinding was done in order to avoid John later being able to claim he obtained the false information by reading Gerbic and Edward's minds. ==See also== •
Automatic writing •
Faith healing •
List of channelers •
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience •
Séance •
Spirit possession •
Spiritualism ==References==