Eusapia Palladino

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Contents 1 Life and work 2 Palladino in Milan 3 Palladino in Poland 4 Palladino in France 5 Naples investigations 6 Controls and trickery 7 Notes 8 References 9 See also 10 External links

Eusapia Palladino (alternate spelling: Eusapia Paladino; 1854-1918) was a famous Spiritualist medium born in Minervino Murge, Italy.

[edit] Life and work

In her early life, Eusapia Palladino was married to a traveling conjuror.^[1]

In Italy, France, Germany, Warsaw, Poland, and St. Petersburg, Russia, Palladino was noted to allegedly display extraordinary powers in the dark: levitating and elongating herself, bringing forth flowers, physically 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 very costly to watch one of her performances.^[2] 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 The History of Spiritualism praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materializations that she produced.^[3] In the United States, she was described as a medium who resorted to trickery when her alleged talents failed her.^[4]

[edit] Palladino in Milan

In 1892, seventeen séances 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), ^[5] 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.

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. [pp. 49-50]

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.

[edit] Palladino in Poland

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.^[6] Regarding the phenomena demonstrated at Palladino's séances, 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.^[7]

Ochorowicz 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.^[8]

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).^[9]

[edit] Palladino in France

In 1905, she came to Paris, where Pierre and Marie Curie were among those who investigated her.

Pierre Curie, letter to Georges Gouy, July 24, 1905:

We had at the Psychology Society a few séances with the medium Eusapia Palladino. It was very interesting, and truly those phenomena that we have witnessed seemed to us to not be some magical tricks --a table lifted four feet above the floor, movements of objects, feelings of hands that pinched you or carressed you, apparitions of light. All this in a room arranged by us, with a small number of spectators all well known and without the presence of a possible accomplice. The only possible cheating would be an extraordinary ability of the medium as a magician. But how to explain the different phenomena when we are holding her hands and legs, and the lighting of the room is sufficient to see everything going on?

In another letter to Gouy (April 14, 1906), Curie wrote:

We had a few new séances with Eusapia … those phenomena exist for real, and I can’t doubt it any more. It is unbelievable but it is thus, and it is impossible to negate it after the séances that we had in conditions of perfect monitoring.

Charles Richet, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1913, carried out decades of research into psychical phenomena. He participated with the Curies in the investigations of Eusapia Palladino. Here is one of his accounts 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Naples investigations

In 1908, the Society for Psychical Research appointed a committee of three to examine Eusapia Palladino in Naples. This committee consisted of 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.^[10] 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. ^{[11] [12]}

In 1910 psychic investigator Everard Fielding returned to Naples, without Hereward Carrington and W.W. Baggaly. Instead, he was accompanied by his friend, William 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 Reaseach 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. 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 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.

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 supernatual ability:^[13]

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. 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 slighest evidence of trickery. I am willing to stake my reputation as a magician that what this Medium showed me was geniune. 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.

[edit] Controls and trickery

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.

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. (Podmore, 1910.)

In France, the United Kingdom and the USA, she had 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.)

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. (Podmore 1910) Munsterberg, who succeeded Professor William James at Harvard, 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.^[14]

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.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Radcliffe, 1952, page 321.
2. ^ Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction: A Study of Beliefs and Attitudes, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918.
3. ^ William Kalush and Larry Sloman, 'The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, Atria Books, 2006, ISBN 0743272072.
4. ^ (1990) Mysteries of the Unexplained. Readers Digest Association, 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.” 
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, pp. 440, 443, 445–53.
7. ^ See External links: "Julien Ochorowitz, 1850–1918."
8. ^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, p. 448.
9. ^ Krystyna Tokarzówna and Stanisław Fita, Bolesław Prus, p. 521.
10. ^ Everard Fielding, Sittings with Eusapia Palladino & Other Studies, University Books, 1963. Proceedings: Society for Psychical Research, XXV, 1911, pp. 57-69.
11. ^ Everard Fielding, Sittings with Eusapia Palladino & Other Studies, University Books, 1963. Proceedings: Society for Psychical Research, XXV, 1911, pp. 57-69.
12. ^ Milbourne Christopher, ESP, Seers & Psychics: What the Occult Really Is, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1970.
13. ^ Muldoon, Sylvan (1947). Psychic Experiences of Famous People. Chicago: Aries Press, pp.55-56.  Text of entire book also available at google.books.com
14. ^ 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 and 4, "Eusapia Palladino, 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, upon the total levitation of the table in full light, everyone even 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.
• 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. Hereward Carrington's detailed descriptions and analysis of the experiments conducted in various cities in Europe between 1891 and 1908.

[edit] See also

• Arthur Conan Doyle

[edit] External links

• "Eusapia Palladino, 1854-1918"
• "Eusapia Palladino's Sapient Foot"
• "Julien Ochorowitz, 1850-1918"
• [1] Photograph of Palladino levitating table