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Y M a T T H E W L T O M P K I As spiritualism captured the Victorian imagination, go on to assert not only that spiritualism was a legitimate topic stage magicians coolly debunked it - and gained for scientific investigation, but also that the reality of spiritualist intriguing insights into the workings of the mind on phenomena was undeniable, given the number of reports from what he the way. A new book and exhibition show how their considered to be credible observers. He served as an expert witness discoveries continue to fascinate today's psychologists in courtroom trials, speaking in defence of mediums accused of fraud. This brought him into conflict with sceptics, including . the celebrated magician John Nevil Maskelyne, who had made a career fired Russel Wallace is one of the out of debunking bogus mediums, heroes of Victorian science. and his own friend Darwin, who was He rose to prominence in the z85os adamantly opposed to spiritualism. as the co-discoverer, along with One of our prevailing cultural Charles Darwin, of the principle of narratives is that scientific natural selection. During the fierce understanding of the world has debates that ensued, he vigorously been steadily marching forward defended evolution in the face of in a neat, linear fashion. But, as more conservative scientists. Wallace's case shows, belief in the Yet in z876, Wallace sparked a supernatural is persistent. And if furore when he invited the physicist you look closely, you might notice ~;~,~ William Fletcher Barrett to read that debunked concepts have a a paper on the topic of"thought tendency to recur over and over ..... reading" before the British again with slight variations. At one time, paranormal ~::~::~ L Association for the Advancement of ~,~ ~;~ Science. Wallace would eventually practitioners claimed to receive K 'rm Y MATTHEW L TOMPKINS I | _ + + . <+.. ;.,t .,+ 4' : ' t ; :.: ;.+L-7-.- -.~++_<-~'+:-~ ++, ...... .++ .:I++:.M:-7. ~-~. ~."-'<+': .~ + '++t..~.+++ .~ ~ . ~ i,.illt .... - ..... P.+, . <..+++ ,m l~ -, 7- m..e+., ,<~.+.--+'++:+.d,~.~+," ..... ~ +. ,.., +~.,~ .~<,- ............ +~P~t~;-.~'.' :,",?::~.+, P+';';-~;+~; ~ '-'4'; i. t' i,i ]ii<iiii ti Preceding page: German magician Jacoby-Harms in an messages from spirits; later, f it seems odd to present-day 1866 photograph using double they claimed that these messages readers that scientists were once exposure. Above: a sdance held by Italian medium Eusapia were received through telepathy; fascinated with spiritualism, Palladino in 19o6; the table and later still, they attributed it is useful to consider the appears to be levitating. their powers to extra-sensory tumultuous state of science and Below: Eleanor Sidgwick, perception. Such phenomena technology at the turn of the co-founder of the Society have been reported under 2oth century. Again and again, , for Psychical Research "test conditions" witnessed by researchers were uncovering scientists. But while scientists invisible physical forces that had axe trained in gathering evidence once been almost unimaginable. based on empirical observations, The scientific community they are not necessarily trained embraced developments in Most of us recognise that in deception. radiation and electromagnetism; we cannot always trust Enter the professional was it so much of a leap, some our eyes, but a deeper, magician. Like psychics and wondered, to consider mediums as more uncomfortable truth mediums, magicians present a new sort of"spiritual telegraph~? is that we cannot always themselves as exceptional The physicist Sir Oliver individuals who can facilitate Lodge, for example, conducted trust our minds impossible phenomena. revolutionary research that had a But unlike spiritualists, major impact onthe development magicians are artists who make of wireless telegraphy and radio; it dear that they achieve these he was also a devoted spiritualist. effects through trickery and He was convinced that, through illusion - through misdirection - mediums, he had repeatedly and who often take professional enjoyed direct communications satisfaction in exposing with his dead son Raymond. psychic chicanery. Lodge's autobiography, Magicians have long known, published in z93z, provides a and scientists are becoming fasdnating insight into his views increasingly aware, that on what he considered to be misdirection can encompass parallel scientLfic and mystical much more than simply developments that he witnessed influencing where a spectator throughout his lifetime. looks. It can also affect how we He reminisced that he had reason and remember. Most "walked through the back streets of of us recognise that we cannot London... with a sense of unreality always trust our eyes, but in everything around, an opening a deeper, more uncomfortable of deep things in the universe, truth is that we cannot always which put all ordinary objects of trust our minds. sense into the shade, so that the 22 FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 16/17 2019 square and its railings, the houses, the carts, and the people, seemed shadoWY unrealities, phantasmal appearances, partly screening, but Below: the magician nartly permeated by, the mental John Nevil Maskelyna ~d spiritual reality behind." with his automaton In 1894, at the Royal Institution 'Zoe" sketching a in London, Lodge revealed a likeness of him on stage new method for proving the st the Egyptian Hall, existence of electromagnetic London, in 1885 waves. Before a crowd of scientists, he demonstrated that he could wirelessly transmit an electrical signal across a lecture theatre, with a spark at the front of the room causing a gunshot-like crack at the back. For Lodge, the wireless trick was merely a convenient demonstration of the scientific principle of invisible "Hertzian waves"; while he went on to investigate spiritualist phenomena, such as the medium Eusapia Palladino's ectoplasmic manifestations, it was left to the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi to eapitalise on the enormous commercial potential of Lodge's apparatus as a mechanism for wireless telegraphy. Just over a decade earlier, Lodge's fellow physicist William Fletcher Barrett - whose championing by Wallace had stirred such controversy - had co-founded a new scientific organisation for the investigation of paranormal phenomena: the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). The SPR and its subsequent transatlantic counterpart, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), boasted many prominent scientists and intellectual figures, including the mathematician and writer Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain and many prominent early American psychologists such as JosephJastrow and G Stanley Hall. In the US, the philosopher William James, today revered as the founding father of American psychology, became one of the leading proponents of paranormal research. James's book The ,"r;ndples of PsTchology (z89o) ~-: credited with helping to establish ;:<hology as a respected scientific d~3cipline. But many contemporary psychologists do not realise that James was also steadfastly sympathetic to psychical research. In addition to establishing the psychology department at Harvard University, he also served as the president of the ASPR, and even declared that he had personally I~ I:T-COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 16/17 2019 to give his opinion, as an expert discovered at least one genuine in conjuring, on the possibility spiritual medium, a Bostonian of fraud in reports of s~ances. In woman named Leonora Piper. particular, she was interested in In a speech delivered to the ASPR those points when witnesses "might in 1896, James argued that it would be defective or misdirected". take only one genuine medium to Lewis responded that there was legitimise the scientific possibility little value in any attempt to assess of the survival of the human soul written reports for evidence of after death. He noted that "if you fraud. He argued that, when fraud wish to upset the law that all crows was a possibility, then witnesses' are black, you mustn't seek to show descriptions must inevitably that no crows are; it is enough if you "be taken to represent (as do all prove one single crow to be white" descriptions of conjuring effects by and declared that Piper represented uninitiated persons) not what the his "white crow" witnesses actually see, but what Piper claimed she could enter they believe they saw, which is into a special trance state in which a very different matter~" she received psychic messages from Recognising that post-s~ance particular "spirit guides" including reports were a poor way to assess a French physician named the reliability of testimony, two "Phinuit". Her advocates came other SPR members - Hodgson to believe that in some instances, when Piper entered her trance, the (who would go on to study the spirit guides would take control of Piper case) and Samuel John Davey - took it upon themselves Above: a demonstration of her voice, and at other times they slate-writing techniques, to develop a more formal which were tricks used to would take control of her hand so that they could write messages. investigation. Instead of using a produce the phenomenon self-professed "genuine" medium, of 'spirit writing'. When in a trance, she would refer they choreographed their own Below: a poster advertising to herself as "the Machine" and fake s6ances. Their study was magicians Maskelyne and sitters who wished to communicate Cooke, who were resident with the spirits that she channelled published in 1887 under the at 'England's Home of were instructed to hold her hand title "The Possibilities of Mystery',
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