An evening with a physical medium

CHRIS.Q said:
What does this show, the article is too long
Click to expand...

Read it. It will surprise you. It shows an observer's account of spirits being invoked by a medium while strapped to a chair in a dark room. Interesting point about ectoplasm: it can only extrude from the medium's body in complete darkness because light destroys it. The spirits use the ectoplasm to form voice boxes and other physical body parts during the seance.
 
There are always a new set of dupes who will fall for the oldest and most blatant frauds.

Because ectoplasm was believed susceptible to destruction by light, the possibility that ectoplasm might appear became a reason for making sure that Victorian séances took place in near darkness. Poor lighting conditions also became an opportunity for fraud, particularly as faux ectoplasm was easy to make with a mixture of soap, gelatin and egg white, or perhaps merely well-placed muslin.[24]
Psychical researcher Harry Price exposed medium Helen Duncan's fraudulent techniques by proving, through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was cheesecloth that she had swallowed and regurgitated.[25] Duncan had also used dolls' heads and masks as ectoplasm.[26] Mediums would also cut pictures from magazines and stick them to the cheesecloth to pretend they were spirits of the dead.[27] Another researcher, C. D. Broad, wrote that ectoplasm in many cases has proven to be composed of home material such as butter-muslin and that there is no solid evidence that it has anything to do with spirits.[28]
The ectoplasm of Eva Carrière was made of cut-out paper faces from newspapers and magazines on which fold marks could sometimes be seen from the photographs.[29] Mina Crandon was a famous medium in the 1920s known for producing ectoplasm during her séance sittings. She produced a small ectoplasmic hand from her stomach which waved about in the darkness. Her career ended however when biologists examined the hand and found it to be made of a piece of carved animal liver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectoplasm_(paranormal)#Fraud
 
Cardboard_cut_out_with_Eva_C.png

Celebrated mystic, Eva Carriere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Carrière
 
This book, though over a hundred years old, is a brilliant expose on how it was all done, codes, techniques, speach syntax, props and all.

Best one I've seen on the subject. Free PDF here ..

https://archive.org/details/secondsightexpla00wick

Note, the first few pages appear to be badly scanned jibberish. The actual book starts at page 7.

Well worth a download.
 
I doubt that the mediums would have ever allowed photographs to be taken had they realised
how clearly it would reveal their fakery.
In the dim light, these constructions must have appeared real to the human eye.
In the picture I show below the head of the "apparition" is a laughable daub on a board.

The willingness of eminent and intelligent Victorian men to be duped in this way
says something about human nature. I'm not sure what.

On the subject of apparitions, this picture is on today's Daily Mirror

Jesus-and-Mary-2651412.jpg

Jesus and Mary appear on Google Earth.

I think it looks more like Rasputin and Queen Victoria.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/jesus-mary-appear-google-earth-2651418
 
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What I took from the article is that David Thompson wrote it. If I wrote an article stating Kwhilborns farts smelled like aftershave would you buy a bottle of it?

You must always look to see if the writer is biased.
 
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