Paranormal deception

Paranormal deception is as old as the road to Rome. Despite the fact that after the confession of the Fox sisters as one 'medium' after another fell through as being tricksters, and scientists increasingly attended seances where they conducted research (and discovered that the spiritists leading the group were using tricks), interest in spiritism remained alive among people.

The desire and, above all, the hope to be able to contact deceased loved ones was greater than the realisation that this idea had once been created by three wanton sisters who had managed to turn the whole country upside down with their jokes and antics.

Cheating

Ouija boards were in short supply and séances were frequently held both in spiritist churches and in people's homes (even in circles of nobility).

Despite the widespread interest in spiritualism, the fact remains that communicating with spirits was once born of deception, remained based on deception and has remained fuelled by deception ever since - to this day. No matter how good a particular medium appears to be, the hits are usually mostly based on intuition, general assertions, dumb luck or dumb luck.

Even the modern (TV) mediums of our time have all fallen through during their performances. Besides, no one has ever passed the one million dollar test that scientist James Randi ever created, which does make one think...

Shows

Although during the rise of spiritualism, contact with spirits did not go much beyond some knocking and banging noises on the wall or making tables dance, mediums in the late 1800s and early 1900s made it a lot more exciting and séances went far beyond producing some knocking and tapping.

Entire shows were made of it where mediums - in complete darkness, of course - summoned spirits who could then make musical instruments play, ring an invisible bell, firmly grasp attendees for a few seconds, make furniture and crockery move and much more.

Not infrequently, a white nightshirt flew across the room or those present were unpleasantly surprised by a child -or adult 'spirit' suddenly appearing out of nowhere next to them. When they touched this spirit and felt a human body, this was called 'materialisation' by the medium.

Materialisation in spiritualism means that a milky substance , called 'ectoplasm', flows out of a medium's body, in which a soul can temporarily manifest so that one can actually see, hear and even feel the spirit!

Heartbeat

Materialised spirits can speak by forming an artificial larynx from the ectoplasm, according to spiritualist teachings. Utter nonsense when you consider that some attendees of such séances were allowed to touch the spirit, with the medium's permission, and even observed a heartbeat in the process! Although I am open to many things, it seems to me rather unlikely that the spirit - besides a physical appearance - had even managed to form a beating heart from the ectoplasm!

Special effects were achieved by means of, among other things: hidden microphones, megaphones, trumpets, mirrors, plaster moulds of hands and feet, cats, dogs or squirrels running around in the dark, fluttering birds, music boxes and ventriloquism. Seances were laced with show, mysticism, drama and were more spectacular than ever at the time.

When communicating with the dead became really popular, as is the case today, there were pros and cons; believers and sceptics. Naturally, the sceptics conducted many investigations during the séances held there, with many a psychic and medium being scrutinised more closely and...then failing miserably.

On closer examination, the ectoplasm was found to consist of a white strip of fabric or a white cloth that lit up in the dark and was propelled by thin threads. Later, ectoplasm was made of smoke or mist blown out by the medium in a certain way.

Handlers

It was usually found that mediums used accomplices hiding behind curtains or that the mediums themselves were guilty of secretly pulling on ropes attached to bells or other sounding props. They also tricked the clot by tapping the strings of a guitar under the table, with their toes.

Although these mediums were closely watched, they still often outsmarted the sceptics in the dark. When a sceptic under the table would hold the medium's foot to make sure she did not use it to kick something, the medium would then wriggle her foot out of the shoe, so that the sceptic thought he was holding her foot, but in reality, therefore, only had the shoe...

Read more in the book 'Glass turning is not (un)dangerous.

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