Eusapia Palladino Italy.
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Eusapia Palladino Italy.
Eusapia Palladino (alternate
spelling: Paladino; January 21, 1854 – 1918) was a Spiritualist Medium from
Naples, Italy.
In Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Russia, Palladino seemed to display
extraordinary powers in the dark: levitating and elongating herself, "apporting"
flowers, materializing the dead, producing Spirit hands and faces in wet clay,
levitating tables, playing musical instruments under the table without contact,
directly communicating with the dead through her spirit guide John King, etc. It
was expensive to watch one of her performances.
Many Europeans regarded Palladino as a genuine Spiritualist Medium, claiming
that she did not employ the standard deceptions used by fraudulent Mediums. As
late as 1926, eight years after her death, Arthur Conan Doyle in his History of
Spiritualism praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materializations that she
had produced. In the United States, she was described as a medium who resorted
to trickery when her alleged talents failed her.
Early life
Palladino was born into a peasant family in Minervino Murge, Bari Province,
Italy. She received little, if any, formal education. Orphaned as a child, she
was taken in as a nursemaid by a family in Naples. In her early life, she was
married to a traveling conjuror.
Milan
Cesare LombrosoIn 1892, 17 seances held in Milan with Eusapia gave evidence of
paranormal events. In his book After Death — What? Researches in Hypnotic and
Spiritualistic Phenomena (1909; Aquarian Press edition 1988),
turn-of-the-century scientist Cesare Lombroso recounts the experiments that led
him from a strictly materialist worldview to a belief in spirits and life after
death. The most extraordinary was a phenomenon that Lombroso titles "The
Levitation of the Medium to the Top of the Table."
Among the most important and significant of the occurrences we put this
levitation. It took place twice, – that is to say, on the 28th of September and
the 3rd of October. The Medium, who was seated near one end of the table, was
lifted up in her chair bodily, amid groans and lamentations on her part, and
placed (still seated) on the table, then returned to the same position as
before, with her hands continually held, her movements being accompanied by the
persons next her.
Charles Richet On the evening of
the 28th of September, while
her hands were held by MM. Richet and Lombroso, she complained of hands which
were grasping her under the arms; then, while in trance, with the changed voice
characteristic of this state, she said, "Now I lift my Medium up on the table."
After two or three seconds the chair with Eusapia in it was not violently
dashed, but lifted without hitting anything, on to the top of the table, and M.
Richet and I are sure that we did not even assist the levitation by our own
force. After some talk in the trance state the medium announced her descent, and
(M. Finzi having been substituted for me) was deposited on the floor with the
same security and precision, while MM. Richet and Finzi followed the movements
of her hands and body without at all assisting them, and kept asking each other
questions about the positions of the hands.
Moreover, during the descent both gentlemen repeatedly felt a hand touch them on
the head.
On the evening of October 3
the thing was repeated in quite similar circumstances, MM. Du Prel and Finzi
being one on each side of Eusapia.
The details that are given strongly imply that the levitations were not actually
seen. There are no references to "we saw." It was totally dark. The sound of
Palladino's chair landing on the table ("it was not violently dashed, lifted
without hitting anything") and references to her hands ("[they] kept asking each
other questions about the position of the hands" and "repeatedly felt a hand
touch them on the head") are important to the interpretation of action and
movement. There is confusion.
Warsaw
Julian Ochorowicz.Palladino visited Warsaw, Poland, on two occasions. The first
and longer was when she came at the importunities of the psychologist, Dr.
Julian Ochorowicz, who hosted her from November 1893 to January 1894.
Regarding the phenomena demonstrated at Palladino's seances, he concluded
against the spirit hypothesis and for a hypothesis that the phenomena were
caused by a "fluidic action" and were performed at the expense of the medium's
own powers and those of the other participants in the séances.
Bolesław PrusOchorowicz introduced Palladino to the journalist and novelist
Bolesław Prus, who attended a number of her séances, wrote about them in the
press, and incorporated several Spiritualist-inspired scenes into his historical
novel Pharaoh.
On January 1, 1894,
Palladino called on Prus at his apartment. As described by Ochorowicz,
In the evening she visited Prus, whom she always worshipped. Though their
conversation was original, because the one did not know Polish and the other
Italian, when il Prusso entered she went mad with joy and they somehow managed
to communicate with one another. So she saw it as her obligation to pay him a
New Year's visit.
During Palladino's subsequent visit to Warsaw in the second half of May 1898 on
her way from St. Petersburg to Vienna and Munich, Prus attended at least two of
the three séances that she conducted (the two séances were held in the apartment
of Ludwik Krzywicki).
Paris
Pierre CurieIn 1905 Eusapia Palladino came to Paris, where 1903 Nobel-laureate
physicists Pierre Curie and Marie Curie and, again, future Nobel laureate
Charles Richet were among those who investigated her.
Other members of the Curies' circle of scientist friends—including William
Crookes; future Nobel laureate Jean Perrin and his wife Henriette; Louis Georges
Gouy; and Paul Langevin—were also exploring spiritualism, as was Pierre Curie's
brother Jacques, a fervent believer.
The Curies regarded mediumistic seances as "scientific experiments" and took
detailed notes. According to historian Anna Hurwic, they thought it possible to
discover in spiritualism the source of an unknown energy that would reveal the
secret of radioactivity.
On July 24, 1905,
Pierre Curie reported to his friend Gouy: "We have had a series of seances with
Eusapia Palladino at the [Society for Psychical Research]."
It was very interesting, and really the phenomena that we saw appeared
inexplicable as trickery—tables raised from all four legs, movement of objects
from a distance, hands that pinch or caress you, luminous apparitions. All in a
[setting] prepared by us with a small number of spectators all known to us and
without a possible accomplice. The only trick possible is that which could
result from an extraordinary facility of the Medium as a magician. But how do
you explain the phenomena when one is holding her hands and feet and when the
light is sufficient so that one can see everything that happens?
Pierre was eager to enlist Gouy. Palladino, he informed him, would return in
November, and "I hope that we will be able to convince you of the reality of the
phenomena or at least some of them. Pierre was planning to undertake
experiments in a methodical fashion.
Marie Curie also attended Palladino's seances, but does not seem to
have been as intrigued by them as Pierre.
On April 14, 1906,
just five days before his accidental death, Pierre Curie wrote Gouy about his
last seance with Palladino: "There is here, in my opinion, a whole domain of
entirely new facts and physical states in space of which we have no conception."
Charles Richet, who would later win the 1913 Nobel Prize in physiology and who
carried out decades of research into psychic phenomena, participated in the
Curies' investigations of Eusapia Palladino and left an account of a séance:
It took place at the Psychological Institute at Paris. There were present only
Mme. Curie, Mme. X., a Polish friend of hers, and P. Courtier, the secretary of
the Institute. Mme. Curie was on Eusapia’s left, myself on her right, Mme. X, a
little farther off, taking notes, and M. Courtier still farther, at the end of
the table. Courtier had arranged a double curtain behind Eusapia; the light was
weak but sufficient. On the table Mme. Curie’s hand holding Eusapia’s could be
distinctly seen, likewise mine also holding the right hand. . . We saw the
curtain swell out as if pushed by some large object. . . I asked to touch it . .
. I felt the resistance and seized a real hand which I took in mine. Even
through the curtain I could feel the fingers … I held it firmly and counted
twenty-nine seconds, during all which time I had leisure to observe both of
Eusapia’s hands on the table, to ask Mme. Curie if she was sure of her control .
. . After the twenty-nine seconds I said, 'I want something more, I want uno
anello (a ring).' At once the hand made me feel a ring . . . It seems hard to
imagine a more convincing experiment . . . In this case there was not only the
materialization of a hand, but also of a ring.
Naples
Mandolin (striped instrument, top, right) levitates during Palladino's seance in
Munich, Germany, March 13, 1903.In 1908, the Society for Psychical Research
appointed a committee of three to examine Eusapia Palladino in Naples. The
committee comprised Mr. Hereward Carrington, investigator for the American
Society for Psychical Research and an amateur conjurer; Mr. W. W. Baggally, also
an investigator and amateur conjurer of much experience; and the Hon. Everard
Fielding, who had had an extensive training as investigator and "a fairly
complete education at the hands of fraudulent mediums." They were convinced that
Palladino possessed unusual powers.[18] Note: In August 1906 Everard Fielding
and his brother Basil were boating. The boat capsized and Basil drowned. It was
at this period Everard became noted in the affairs of The Society for Psychical
Research.
In 1910 psychic investigator Everard Fielding returned to Naples, without
Hereward Carrington and W.W. Baggaly. Instead, he was accompanied by his friend,
William S. Marriott, a conjuror of some distinction who had exposed
psychic fraud in Pearson's Magazine. His plan was to repeat the famous earlier
1908 Naple sittings with Palladino. Other members of the Society for
Psychical Research had called attention to the failings of Fielding's 1908
notes. Unlike the 1908 sittings which had baffled the investigators, this time
Fielding and Marriott detected her cheating, just as she had done in the USA.
Her deceptions were obvious. Marriott stated, "When one knows how a feat can be
accomplished and what to look for, only the most skillful performer can maintain
the illusion in the face of such informed scrutiny." Fielding saw the second
visit as totally worthless.
Carrington, who became Palladino's manager, contends that far from having been
exposed in America, as the public imagined, Eusapia presented a large number of
striking phenomena which have never been explained and that only a certain
number of her classical and customary tricks were detected, which every
investigator of this medium's phenomena had known to exist and had warned other
investigators against for the past 20 years. No new form of trickery was
discovered and Carrington warned the sitters against the old and well-known
methods in a circular letter in advance. This is why the American exposure did
not influence the European investigators in the least.
Howard Thurston (poster) Indeed, Eusapia did not depart from America without
making one interesting convert. Howard Thurston (1869–1936), world-famous
magician and investigator of spiritualism, declared:
I witnessed in person the table levitations of Madame Eusapia Palladino ... and
am thoroughly convinced that the phenomena I saw were not due to fraud and were
not performed by the aid of her feet, knees or hands.
On another occasion, Thurston offered this more detailed endorsement of
Palladino's supernatural ability:
I do not believe that ever before in the history of the world had a magician and
a sceptic been privileged to behold what I then looked upon. I saw Eusapia
replace her hands on that table I had examined so carefully. I saw it lift up
and float, unsupported in the air; and while it remained there I got down on my
knees and crawled around it, seeking in vain for some natural explanation. There
was none. No wires, no body supports, no iron shoes, nothing—but some occult
power I could not fathom. ... I demanded more proof, and with bewildering
willingness the strange old lady agreed. Mrs. [Grace] Thurston held her feet, I
held her arms. And even then, thus guarded and a prisoner, the table rose again!
When it finally crashed back to the floor again before my very eyes I was a
defeated sceptic. Palladino had convinced me! There was no fake in what she had
showed me. ... If after reading what I have said of this adventure into the
realm where my magic cannot penetrate, the reader doubts, not my word, but my
observation, let me say this: My career has been devoted consistently to magic
and illusions. I believe I understand the principles governing every known
trick. ... In all my seance examinations I train all my faculties against the
Medium, watching for the slightest evidence of trickery. I am willing to stake my
reputation as a magician that what this Medium showed me was genuine. I do
insist that woman showed genuine levitation, not by trickery but by some
baffling, intangible, invisible force that radiated through her body and over
which she exercised a temporary and thoroughly exhausting control.
Tricks, Or were they?
Table levitates during Palladino's seance at home of astronomer Camille
Flammarion, France, November 25, 1898.Palladino dictated the lighting and
"controls" that were to be used in her mediumistic seances. The fingertips of
her right hand rested upon the back of the hand of one "controller." Her left
hand was grasped at the wrist by a second controller seated on her other side.
Her feet rested on top of the feet of her controllers, sometimes beneath them. A
controller's foot was in contact with only the toe of her shoe. Occasionally her
ankles were tied to the legs of her chair, but they were given a play of four
inches. During the sitting in semi-darkness, her ankles would become free.
Generally she was unbound. In one instance, a controller cut her free so that
phenomena might occur.
Frank Podmore. Palladino normally refused to allow someone beneath the table to
hold her feet with his hands. She refused to levitate the table from a standing
position. The table being rectangular, she must sit only at a short side. No
wall of any kind could stand between Palladino and the table. The weight of the
table was seventeen pounds. The table levitated to a height of 3 to 10 inches
for a maximum of 2-3 seconds. When the table levitated, there was also movement
from Palladino's skirt. (Frank Podmore, 1910.)
In France, the United Kingdom and the USA, she had allegedly been caught
using tricks. Palladino was expert at freeing a hand or foot to produce
phenomena. She chose to sit at the short side of the table so that her
controllers on each side must sit closer together, making it easier to deceive
them. Her shoes were gimmicked and unbuttoned in such a way that she could
remove her feet without disturbing a "control." Her levitation of a table began
by freeing one foot, rocking the table, and then slipping her toe under one leg.
Since she sat at the narrow end of the table, this was made possible. She lifted
the table by rocking back on the heel of this foot. A total levitation was
produced by now switching the support of the table to her knees. She made light
spirit rappings by pressing the tips of her fingers on the table top and moving
them. Louder raps were made by striking a leg of the table with a free foot. She
could do these tricks in full light and not be caught. All the sitters at the
table viewed her from different angles. Where one might catch her trick, another
could not. This confusion greatly aided her. (W.S. Davis, 1910.)
Hugo Münsterberg, A photograph, taken in the dark, of a small stool behind her,
that moved and levitated, revealed the stool to be sitting on Palladino's head.
After she saw this photo, the stool remained, immobile, on the floor. A plaster
impression taken of a spirit hand matched Palladino's hand. She was caught using
a hair to perform "controlled" scientific experiments. In the dim light, her
fist, wrapped in a handkerchief, became a materialized spirit.
Hugo Münsterberg, who succeeded Professor William James at Harvard University,
attended some sittings later on and explained the blowing out of the cabinet
curtains when all the windows were closed and doors were locked was accomplished
by a rubber bulb Palladino had in her hand.
As time passed, Palladino's amazing powers began to diminish. Her supporters
claimed that it was because she was growing older, not because of the tighter
controls demanded by conjurors (magicians) and the scientific community, or the
many times she was eventually caught cheating.
A worthwhile read of an article from the New York Times. September 28 1909. just click below to follow link
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=950CE7D91539E632A25755C2A96F9C946897D6CF
Notes
^ Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction: A Study of Beliefs and
Attitudes, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918.
^ William Kalush and Larry Sloman, 'The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of
America's First Superhero, Atria Books, 2006, ISBN 0743272072.
^ Mysteries of the Unexplained. Readers Digest Association. 1990. p. 300. ISBN
0-89577-146-2. "It was said that she would resort to trickery when her gift
faltered, but Carrington was convinced that she could indeed perform
supernatural acts."
^ Polidoro, Massimo (June 2009). "Eusapia Palladino, the Queen of the Cabinet".
Skeptical Inquirer 33 (3): 30.
^ Radcliffe, 1952, page 321.
^ Cesare Lombroso, William Sloane Kennedy (1909). After Death--what?. Small,
Maynard & Company. http://books.google.com/books?id=TIDJVcMpfh8C&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=%22after+death+what%22+lombroso&source=web&ots=shqVPyEZxI&sig=Ezi7TCQ6DW0n0WP_k_pbghLhU88#PPP1,M1.
^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, pp. 440, 443, 445–53.
^ See External links: "Julien Ochorowitz, 1850–1918."
^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, p. 448.
^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, p. 521.
^ Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, p. 138.
^ Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius, p. 138.
^ Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, p. 208.
^ Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, p. 208.
^ Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, p. 208.
^ Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, p. 226.
^ Charles Richet: Thirty Years of Psychical Research. New York: Macmillan, 1923,
pp. 496-97; cited in Michael Schmicker: Best Evidence. iUniverse, 2002, ISBN
0595219063, p. 92
^ a b Everard Fielding, Sittings with Eusapia Palladino & Other Studies,
University Books, 1963. Proceedings: Society for Psychical Research, XXV, 1911,
pp. 57-69.
^ * Christopher, Milbourne (1970). ESP, Seer & Psychics: What the Occult Really
Is. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.. pp. 268. ISBN 978-0-690-26815-7. OCLC
97063.
^ Polidoro, Massimo; Rinaldi, Gian Marco (December 12, 2000). "Eusapia
Palladino's Sapient Foot". CICAP. http://www.cicap.org/en_artic/at101008.htm.
Retrieved July 29, 2009. (On Eusapia's use of foot during séances)
^ Report on Further Series of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino at Naples by
Everard Fielding and W. Marriott, Proceedings Society for Psychical Research,
Volume 15, Pages 20-32, Dec 5, 1910
^ [1]
^ Muldoon, Sylvan (1947). Psychic Experiences of Famous People. Chicago: Aries
Press. pp. 55–56. Text of entire book also available at google.books.com
^ William Seabrook, Doctor Wood, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1941, chapter 17: Wood
as a Debunker of Scientific Cranks and Frauds — and His War with the Mediums."
[edit] References
D.H. Radcliffe, Occult and Supernatural Phenomena, chapter 21: "Eusapia
Palladino," Dover Publications reprint of Psychology of the Occult, Derricke
Ridgway Publishing Co., 1952.
Frank Podmore, Mediums of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, book 4, chapter 1:
"Some Foreign Investigations," University Books, 1963 (reprint of 1902 edition).
Frank Podmore, The Newer Spiritism, book one, chaps. 3 ("Eusapia Palladino") and
4 ("Eusapia Palladino and the S.P.R"), Arno Press, 1975 (reprint of 1910
edition).
W.S. Davis, "The New York Exposure of Eusapia Palladino," Journal of the
American Society of Psychical Research, vol. 4, no. 8 (August 1910), pp. 401-24,
gives detailed information from conjurors who were prepared for her skills and
watched her closely. At one point, at the total levitation of the table in full
light, everyone applauded. This seemed "to go over her head."
Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: Kalendarz
życia i twórczości (Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: a Calendar of [His] Life and
Work), edited by Zygmunt Szweykowski, Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy,
1969.
Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, New York,
W.W. Norton, 2005, ISBN 0-393-05137-4.
Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1995, ISBN
0-671-67542-7.
Harry Price and Eric J. Dingwall, Revelations of a Spirit Medium, Arno Press,
1975 (reprint of the 1891 edition by Charles F. Pidgeon). This extremely rare,
forgotten book gives an "insider's knowledge" of 19th-century deceptions.
Joseph Jastrow, Wish and Wisdom: Episodes in the Vagaries of Belief, D.
Appleton-Century Co., 1935. Chapter 12, "Paladino's Table," contains a photo of
a mysterious spirit face in clay, compared to Palladino's face. The similarity
is striking.
Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction: A Study of Beliefs and Attitudes,
chapter 4: "The Case of Paladino," Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918.
Nandor Fodor, An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science, 1934.
Hereward Carrington, Eusapia Palladino and her Phenomena, B.W. Dodge & Company,
1909. Carrington's detailed descriptions and analysis of experiments conducted
in European cities between 1891 and 1908.
Massimo Polidoro, Secrets of the Psychics, Prometheus Books, 2003.
Massimo Polidoro, "Eusapia Palladino, the Queen of the Cabinet". (June 2009),
Skeptical Inquirer 33 (3): 30.
Source from wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino
Signora Raphael Delgaiz by marriage,
the first Physical Medium who stood in the crossfire of collective scientific
investigation for more than twenty years all over Europe and in America. It is
in large measure due to this strange woman that the reality of physical
phenomena and the psychological complex of fraud was, at the close of the last
and in the first decade of the 20th century, vividly brought home to an array of
brilliant minds.
She was born at Minervo-Murge, near Bari, Italy, on January 21, 1854. Her birth
cost her mother's life. Her father was assassinated by brigands in 1866. As a
little girl she heard raps on the furniture against which she was leaning, she
saw eyes glaring at her in the darkness and was frequently frightened in the
night when invisible hands stripped off her bedclothes. When she became orphaned
a family of the upper bourgeoisie received her in Naples as a nursemaid. They
soon detected that she was not an ordinary girl, but her real discovery and
mediumistic education is due to Signor Damiani, a noted Italian psychic
investigator. His wife, a British lady, went to a séance in London. John King
manifested and spoke about a powerful medium in Naples who was his reincarnated
daughter. He gave her address, street and number. Damiani went to the house and
found Eusapia Palladino of whom he had never heard before. This was in 1872. The
development of Eusapia Palladino's powers progressed at a rapid rate. In the
first five or six years she devoted herself mainly to phenomena of movements
without contact. Then came the famous spectral appearances, the phantom limbs so
often noticed to issue from her body and materialisations of full but incomplete
figures.
Her control, John King, communicated through raps and in trance spoke in Italian
alone. Eusapia Palladino was always impressed what phenomenon was going to take
place and could warn the sitters. She suffered extremely during the process and
exhibited a very remarkable synchronism between her gestures and the movement
without contact. If she glared defiantly at a table it began to move towards
her, if she warned it off it backed away. A forcible motion of her head was
accompanied by raps and upward movements of her hand would cause the table to
lift in the air.
Another peculiarity of her séances was that any particular phenomenon had to be
wished for and incessantly asked. Strong desire on the part of the sitters
present always brought about the occurrence.
The first scientist who boldly proclaimed the verity of her extraordinary
phenomena was Dr. Ercole Chiaia. His opportunity to invite public attention to
Eusapia Palladino came when Cesare Lombroso published an article on The
Influence of Civilisation upon Genius and concluded it:
"Twenty or thirty years are enough to make the whole world admire a discovery
which was treated as madness at the moment when it was made. Even at the present
day academic bodies laugh at hypnotism and homoeopathy. Who knows whether my
friends and I, who laugh at Spiritualism, are not in error, just as hypnotised
persons are?"
On August 9, 1888 Chiaia addressed an open letter to Lombroso and challenged him
to observe a special case, saying:
"The case I allude to is that of an invalid woman who belongs to the humblest
class of society. She is nearly thirty years old and very ignorant; her
appearance is neither fascinating nor endowed with the power which modern
criminologists call irresistible; but when she wishes, be it by day or by night,
she can divert a curious group for an hour or so with the most surprising
phenomena. Either bound to a seat, or firmly held by the hands of the curious,
she attracts to her the articles of furniture which surround her, lifts them up,
holds them suspended in the air like Mahomet's coffin, and makes them come down
again with undulatory movements, as if they were obeying her will. She increases
their height or lessens it according to her pleasure. She raps or taps upon the
walls, the ceiling, the floor, with fine rhythm and cadence. In response to the
requests of the spectators something like flashes of electricity shoot forth
from her body, and envelop her or enwrap the spectators of these marvellous
scenes. She draws upon cards that you hold out, everything that you want -
figures, signatures, numbers, sentences - by just stretching out her hand
towards the indicated place.
"If you place in the corner of the room a vessel containing a layer of soft
clay, you find after some moments the imprint in it of a small or a large hand,
the image of a face (front view or profile) from which a plaster cast can be
taken. In this way portraits of a face at different angles have been preserved,
and those who desire so to do can thus make serious and important studies.
"This woman rises in the air, no matter what bands tie her down. She seems to
lie upon the empty air, as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of gravity; she
plays on musical instruments - organs, bells, tambourines - as if they had been
touched by her hands or moved by the breath of invisible gnomes. This woman at
times can increase her stature by more than four inches.
"She is like an India rubber doll, like an automaton of a new kind; she takes
strange forms. How many legs and arms has she? We do not know. While her limbs
are being held by incredulous spectators, we see other limbs coming into view,
without her knowing where they come from. Her shoes are too small to fit these
witch-feet of hers, and this particular circumstance gives rise to the suspicion
of the intervention of mysterious power."
It was not until two years later that Lombroso found time enough to visit Naples
for a sitting. His first report states:
"Eusapia's feet and hands were held by Professor Tamburini and by Lombroso. A
handbell placed on a small table more than a yard distant from Eusapia sounded
in the air above the heads of the sitters and then descended on the table,
thence going two yards to a bed. While the bell was ringing we struck a match
and saw the bell up in the air."
A detailed account of his observations and reflections appeared in the Annales
des Sciences Psychiques in 1892. He admitted the reality of the phenomena and,
on the basis of the analogy of the transposition of the senses observed in
hypnotic cases, suggested a transformation of the powers of the Medium as an
explanation. He continued his researches for many years and ended in the
acceptance of the spirit theory.
In After Death - What? he gives the following character sketch of his Medium:
"Low-cultured, frequently fails in good sense and common sense but has subtlety
and intuition of the intellect which make her, in spite of her lack of
cultivation, just, and appreciate at their true worth the men of genius whom she
meets, without being influenced by prestige or the false stamp of wealth and
authority. She is ingenuous to the extent of allowing herself to be imposed on,
but sometimes exhibits a slyness that goes as far as deception. Possesses a most
keen visual memory to the extent of remembering five to ten mental texts
presented to her during three seconds. She is almost illiterate and spells a
printed page with difficulty. She has the ability to recall vividly, especially
with eyes shut, the outlines of persons precisely. But she is not without morbid
characteristics which sometimes extend to streaks of insanity. She passes
rapidly from joy to grief, has strange phobias (for example the fear of staining
her hands), is extremely impressionable and subject to dreams, in spite of her
mature age. Not rarely she has hallucinations, frequently sees her own ghost. As
a child she believed two eyes glared at her behind trees and hedges. When she is
in anger, especially when her reputation as a medium is insulted, she is so
violent and impulsive as actually to fly at her adversaries and beat them. These
tendencies are offset by a singular kindness of heart which leads her to lavish
her gains upon the poor and protect animals that are being maltreated."
It is interesting to add here the description of M. Arthur Levy in his report on
a séance held in Camille Flammarion's house in 1898:
"Two things arrest the attention when you look at her. First, her large eyes,
filled with strange fire, sparkle in their orbits, or, again, seem filled with
swift gleams of phosphorescent fire, sometimes bluish, sometimes golden. If I
did not fear that the metaphor was too easy when it concerns a Neapolitan woman,
I should say that her eyes appear like the glowing lava fires of Vesuvius, seen
from a distance in a dark night. The other peculiarity is a mouth with strange
contours. We do not know whether it expresses amusement, suffering or scorn."
Lombroso made a thorough psychologic study of Eusapia. He wrote:
"Many are the crafty tricks she plays, both in the state of trance
(unconsciously) and out of it - for example, freeing one of her two hands, held
by the controllers, for the sake of moving objects near her; making touches;
slowly lifting the legs of the table by means of one of her knees and one of her
feet, and feigning to adjust her hair and then slyly pulling out one hair and
putting it over the little balance tray of a letter-weigher in order to lower
it. She was seen by Faifofer, before her séances, furtively gathering flowers in
a garden, that she might feign them to be 'apports' by availing herself of the
shrouding dark of the room."
Similar observations were made by Prof. Enrico Morselli and later investigators.
Her penchant to cheat caused Eusapia no end of trouble in her later years.
The sittings in Naples which started Lombroso on his career as a psychical
researcher were followed by an investigation in Milan in 1892. Prof.
Schiaparelli, Director of the Observatory of Milan, Prof. Gerosa, Dr. G. B.
Ermacora, Alexander Aksakof, Dr. Charles du Prel and Prof. Charles Richet were
among the members of the Milan Commission. Part of the report, based on a series
of 17 sittings, said.
"It is impossible to count the number of times that a hand appeared and was
touched by one of us. Suffice it to say that doubt was no longer possible. It
was indeed a living human hand which we saw and touched, while at the same time
the bust and the arms of the medium remained visible, and her hands were held by
those on either side of her."
At the end of the report the conviction was expressed 1. That in the
circumstances given, none of the phenomena obtained in more or less intense
light could have been produced by the aid of any artifice whatever. 2. That the
same opinion may be affirmed in a large measure with regard to the phenomena
obtained in complete darkness. For some of them we can well admit, strictly
speaking, the possibility of imitating them by means of some adroit artifice on
the part of the medium; nevertheless, according to what we have said, it is
evident that this hypothesis would be not only improbable, but even useless in
the present case, since, even admitting it, the assembly of facts clearly proved
would not be invalidated by it."
In the following year a series of séances took place in Naples under direction
of Prof. Wagner of the University of St. Petersburg, next in Rome in 1893-94
under the direction of M. de Semiradski, interrupted by a visit to Warsaw where
Dr. Julien Ochorowitz made many important experiments. He worked out the
hypothesis of a "fluidic double" which, under certain conditions, detaches
itself and acts independently of the body of the medium. In 1894 at the house of
Prof. Richet on the Be Roubaud, Sir Oliver Lodge and F. W. H. Myers had their
first opportunity to witness genuine physical phenomena of an unusual order.
Lodge reported to the SPR that as regards the fact of movement without contact
there is no further room in his mind for doubt.
Dr. Richard Hodgson, who was then resident in Boston, criticised the report and
pointed out that the precautions described did not exclude trickery. He
suggested explanations for various phenomena on the theory that Eusapia could
get a hand or foot free. Lodge, Myers and Richet each replied. Richet pointed
out that he attended fifteen séances with Eusapia in Milan and Rome and held
forty at Carquieranne and in the Ile Roubaud over a period of three months under
his own supervision. He finished by saying:
"It appears to me that after three months' practice and meditation one can
arrive at the certainty of holding well a human hand."
As an outcome of the critical reception of this report Eusapia was invited to
Britain. In August and September, 1895, at the house of Myers in Cambridge,
twenty sittings were held. Dr. Hodgson came from Boston to be present and J. N.
Maskelyne, the conjurer, was also invited. The sitters' attitude was not so much
to prevent fraud as to detect it. Dr. Hodgson intentionally left Eusapia's hand
free. She was given every opportunity to cheat and she availed herself of this
generosity. In communicating the findings of the Cambridge investigation to the
SPR, Myers, who on the Isle of Roubaud was convinced of having witnessed
supernormal phenomena, stated:
"I cannot doubt that we observed much conscious and deliberate fraud, of a kind
which must have needed long practice to bring it to its present level of skill.
Nor can I find any excuse for her fraud (assuming that such excuse would be
valid) in the attitude of mind of the persons, several of them distinguished in
the world of science, who assisted in this inquiry. Their attitude was a fair
and open one; in all cases they showed patience, and in several cases the
impression first made on their minds was distinctly favourable. With growing
experience, however, and careful observation of the precise conditions permitted
or refused to us, the existence of some fraud became clear; and fraud was
attempted when the tests were as good as we were allowed to make them, quite as
indisputably as on the few occasions when our holding was intentionally left
inadequate in order to trace more exactly the modus operandi. Moreover, the
fraud occurred both in the medium's waking state and during her real or alleged
trance. I do not think there is adequate reason to suppose that any of the
phenomena at Cambridge were genuine."
In the very month of the exposure a new series of experiments was made at
I'Agnelas, in the residence of Col. Rochas, president of the Polytechnic School,
Dr. Dariex, editor of the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, Count de Gramont, Dr.
Joseph Maxwell, Prof. Sabatier and Baron de Watteville participated. They all
attested that the phenomena produced were genuine. On the result of the
observations Col de Rochas built up his theory of "Externalisation of motricity."
The Cambridge report was not well received by psychical researchers.
Sir Oliver Lodge only attended two of the sittings and declared that he failed
to see any resemblance between the phenomena there produced and those witnessed
on the Ile Roubaud. He stated that his belief in what he there observed remained
unshaken.
Dr. Ochorowitz remarked that Eusapia frequently released her hand for no other
reason than to touch her head which was in pain at the moment of the
manifestations. It was a natural reflex movement and a fixed habit. Immediately
before the mediumistic doubling of her personality her hand was affected with
hyperaesthesia and, consequently, the pressure of the hand of another made her
ill, especially in the dorsal quarter. The medium acted by auto-suggestion and
the order to go as far as an indicated point was given by her brain
simultaneously to the dynamic hand and the corporeal hand, since in the normal
state they form only one. It sometimes happened that the dynamic hand remained
in place, while her own hand went in the indicated direction. Dr. Ochorowitz
concludes that:
"not only was conscious fraud not proved on Eusapia at Cambridge, but not the
slightest effort was made to do so. Unconscious fraud was proved in much larger
proportion than in all the preceding experiments. This negative result is
vindicated by a blundering method little in accordance with the nature of the
phenomena."
"I cannot help thinking," writes Maxwell in his Metapsychical Phenomena, "that
the Cambridge experimenters were either ill-guided, or ill-favoured, for I have
obtained raps with Eusapia Palladino in full light, I have obtained them with
many other mediums, and it is a minimum phenomenon which they could have and
ought to have obtained, had they experimented in a proper manner."
"The Italian medium, Eusapia Palladino," writes Miss Goodrich Freer in Essays in
Psychical Research (1899), "may have been a fraud of the deepest dye for
anything I know to the contrary, but she never had a fair chance in England.
Even her cheating seems to have been badly done. The atmosphere was inimical;
the poor thing was paralysed."
It appears plainly from the Journal of the SPR that the dynamic hands of which
Ochorowitz speaks created a strong presumption against Eusapia. The paper said:
"It is hardly necessary to remark that the continuity of the spirit limbs with
the body of the medium is, prima facie, a circumstance strongly suggestive of
fraud."
The reality of these phantom limbs was later sufficiently proved. Also the fact
that Eusapia would resort to fraud whenever allowed to had gained a wider
recognition. Flammarion threw an interesting light on the problem in saying:
"She is frequently ill on the following day, sometimes even on the second day
following, and is incapable of taking any nourishment without immediately
vomiting. One can readily conceive, then, that when she is able to perform
certain wonders without any expenditure of force and merely by a more or less
skilful piece of deception, she prefers the second procedure to the first. It
does not exhaust her at all, and may even amuse her. Let me remark, in the next
place, that, during these experiments, she is generally in a half-awake
condition which is somewhat similar to the hypnotic or somnambulistic sleep. Her
fixed idea is to produce phenomena; and she produces them, no matter how."
On December 1, 1898, a séance was arranged in Prof. Richet's library in Paris
for the purpose of assisting Eusapia to regain her reputation. The séance took
place in good light, her wrists and ankles were held by the sitters and before
each experience she warned the sitters what she was going to do in order that
they might establish the phenomenon to the best of their faculties and
observation. She did not cease to admonish Myers to pay the closest attention
and to remember exactly afterwards what had happened.
"Under these conditions," writes Prof. Theodore Flournoy, "I saw phenomena which
I then believed, and still believe, to be certainly inexplicable by any known
laws of physics and physiology."
When Myers was solemnly adjured by Prof. Richet to state his view he avowed his
renewed belief in the supernormal character of Eusapia's mediumship. Many other
distinguished converts were made as the years rolled by Prof. Lombroso finally
adopted the spirit hypothesis and Flammarion became firmly convinced of the
reality of Eusapia's phenomena. In 1901 Genoa was the scene of important
experiments in the presence of Enrico Morselli, Professor of Psychology at the
University of Genoa and the astronomer Porro, director of the observatories of
Genoa, Turin and later La Plata in the Argentine. Much instrumental
investigation was carried on by Doctors Herdlitzka, Charles Fob and Aggazotti,
assistants of Professor Mosso, the distinguished physiologist, in Turin and by
Professor Philippe Bottazzi, Director of the Physiological Institute at the
University of Naples, with the assistance of six other professors.
The Institut General Psychologique of Paris carried on extensive experiments in
43 sittings from 1905-07. M. and Mme. Curie were among the investigators. Fraud
and genuine phenomena were observed in a strange mixture. The report drawn up by
Courtier admits that movements seem to be produced by simple contact with the
medium's hands, or even without contact, that such movements were registered by
automatic recording instruments which rules out the hypothesis of collective
hallucination and that molecular vibrations in external objects at a distance
can be positively asserted. They explained the fraud by suggesting that Eusapia
was growing old and that she was strongly tempted not to disappoint her clients
when genuine power failed. On the whole the phenomena were much less striking
and abundant as the years passed. They theorised that Eusapia influenced the
ether in some way. On one or two occasions she succeeded in discharging an
electroscope without anybody being able to find out how it was done.
In consequence of this report and under the effect of a growing number of
testimonies to the genuine powers of Eusapia the Council of the SPR reconsidered
its attitude and delegated in 1908 a committee of three very capable and
sceptical investigators; Mr. W. W. Baggally, a practical conjurer, Dr. Hereward
Carrington, an amateur conjurer whose book, The Physical Phenomena of
Spiritualism, is the standard authority on fraudulent performances and the Hon.
Everard Feilding, who also brought many a fraudulent medium to grief. They held
eleven sittings in November and December in a room of a member of the committee
at the Hotel Victoria in Naples. At the end they admitted that the phenomena
were genuine and inexplicable by fraud. Their report was published as Part LIX.
of the Proceedings, SPR, and even Frank Podmore, the most hardened sceptic feels
compelled to say:
"Here, for the first time perhaps in the history of modern spiritualism, we seem
to find the issue put fairly and squarely before us. It is difficult for any man
who reads the Committee's report to dismiss the whole business as mere vulgar
cheating."
Nevertheless, Podmore tries his best. It is sufficient, however, against any
outside criticism to quote the opinion of the Hon. Everard Feilding as expressed
after the sixth séance:
"For the first time I have absolute conviction that our observation is not
mistaken. I realise as an appreciable fact in life that, from an empty curtain,
I have seen hands and heads come forth, and that behind the empty curtain I have
been seized by living fingers, the existence and position of the nails of which
were perceptible. I have seen this extraordinary woman, sitting outside the
curtain, held hand and foot, visible to myself, by my colleagues, immobile,
except for the occasional straining of a limb while some entity within the
curtain has over and over again pressed my hand in a position clearly beyond her
reach. I refuse to entertain the possibility of a doubt that it could be
anything else, and, remembering my own belief of a very short time ago, I shall
not be able to complain, though I shall unquestionably be annoyed when I find
that to be the case."
By this verdict the standing of Eusapia Palladino was enormously enhanced, and
not without reason. "There have perhaps never been," writes Prof. Richet, "so
many different, sceptical and scrupulous investigators into the work of any
medium or more minute investigations. During twenty years, from 1888 to 1908,
she submitted, at the hands of the most skilled European and American
experimentalists, to tests of the most rigorous and decisive kind, and during
all this time men of science, resolved not to be deceived, have verified that
even very large and massive objects were displaced without contact."
In discussing materialisations he adds:
"More than thirty very sceptical scientific men were convinced, after long
testing, that there proceeded from her body material forms having the
appearances of life."
The most extraordinary séance recorded with Eusapia is probably the one
described in full detail by Prof. Morselli in Psicologia e Spiritismo (Vol. II,
pp. 214-237). The séance was held in Genoa on March 1st, 1902. Besides Morselli,
Ernesto Bozzano, Dr. Venzano and six other persons were present. The cabinet was
examined by Morselli. He himself tied the medium to a camp bed in a manner
defying attempts at liberation. In fairly good light six phantoms presented
themselves in succession in front of the cabinet, the last one being a woman
with a baby in her arms. Each time, after the phantom retired, Morselli rushed
into the cabinet and found the medium tied as he left her. No doubt was left in
Morselli's mind of the genuineness of the phenomenon, yet his materialistic
attitude remained unshaken.
Still one final blow was in store for Eusapia. Owing to the success of the
Naples sittings, the story of which is ably told in Carrington's Eusapia
Palladino and her Phenomena, she was invited, in 1909, to visit America. She
landed in New York on November 10, 1909, and left on June 18, 1910. Her first
twenty séances were comparatively good ones. In the later sittings at Columbia
University and at the house of Prof. Lord she was caught in the use of her old
bag of tricks. The Press made a tremendous sensation of the exposure.
The authenticity of the published account, however, is questioned by Carrington.
It said that at a sitting held on December 18, a young man crept under the cover
of darkness into the cabinet and during the movement of a small table, while
Prof. Munsterberg was controlling the left foot of Eusapia, he grabbed a human
foot, unshod, by the instep. It proved to be Eusapia's foot pulled out of the
shoe. Later she was watched from a concealed window in the cabinet and from a
bureau provided with a secret peephole. She was seen to achieve the desired
effect by gradual substitution, making one foot do duty for two as regards the
control of her limbs, and acting freely with the liberated foot.
It has not been emphasised that Eusapia, at this stage, was so apprehensive of
her investigators that she did not allow herself to go into trance for fear that
an injury might be done to her. The psychological attitude of her sitters is
reflected by the following statement of Eusapia to a newspaper man:
"Some people are at the table who expect tricks - in fact they want them. I am
in a trance. Nothing happens. They get impatient. They think of the tricks -
nothing but tricks. They put their minds on the tricks and I automatically
respond. But it is not often. They merely will me to do them. That is all."
Carrington contends that far from having been exposed in America, as the public
imagined, Eusapia presented a large number of striking phenomena which have
never been explained and that only a certain number of her classical and
customary tricks were detected, which every investigator of this medium's
phenomena had known to exist and had warned other investigators against for the
past twenty years. No new form of trickery was discovered and against the old
and well-known methods Carrington warned the sitters in a circular letter in
advance. This is why the American exposure did not influence the European
investigators in the least.
When her power was strong the phenomena began almost at once. When it was weak,
long waiting was necessary. It was on such occasions that she was tempted to
cheat. She did this so often that, as Carrington states:
"practically every scientific committee detected her in attempted fraud, but
every one of these committees emerged from their investigations quite convinced
of the reality of these phenomena, except the Cambridge and American
investigation which ended in exposure."
Nevertheless, Eusapia did not depart from America without making one interesting
convert. Howard Thurston, the famous magician, declared:
"I witnessed in person the table levitations of Madame Eusapia Palladino ... and
am thoroughly convinced that the phenomena I saw were not due to fraud and were
not performed by the aid of her feet, knees, or hands."
He also offered to give a thousand dollars to a charitable institution if it
could be proved that Eusapia could not levitate a table without trickery.
Writing of the Naples and of the American investigation, Carrington sums up his
views in The Story of Psychic Science:
"To sum up the effects of these séances upon my own mind, I may say that, after
seeing nearly forty of her séances, there remains not a shadow of doubt in my
mind as to the reality of the vast majority of this phenomena occurring in
Eusapia Palladino's presence ... I can but record the fact that further study of
this medium has convinced me more than ever that our Naples experiments and
deductions were correct, that we were not deceived but that we did, in very
truth, see praeternormal manifestations of a remarkable character. I am as
assured of the reality of Eusapia Palladino's phenomena as I am of any other
fact in life; and they are, to my mind, just as well established."
Mme. Paole Carrara, the daughter of Prof. Lombroso, published a biography of
Eusapia in 1907.
A complete bibliography of Eusapia is to be found in Prof. Morselli's Psicologia
e spiritismo, Turin, 1908. To mention some important books and reports: Hereward
Carrington: Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena; Col. Albert de Rochas:
I'Exteriorisation de la Motricite; G. D. Fontenay: A Propos d'Eusapia Palladino,
Paris, 1898; Camille Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, 1907; Cesar
Lombroso: After Death - What? 1909; Report of the General Psychological
Institute Paris Journal SPR, Vol. VI and VII, Proceedings SPR, Vol. XXIII and
XXV; Bottazzi: Nelle Regioni inesplorate della Biologia Umana, 1904; Luigi
Barzini: Mondo dei Misteri, 1907.
Source (with minor modifications by Survival After Death):
An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor (1934).
A mandolin being levitated in the Home Circle by the Spirit World, while Eusapia Paladino, who is being used as a catalyst, is in a trance state.
