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woman) is the focal point of a
seance and acts as the organ of
communi cation wi th "departed
spirits."
Seances became the rage in fash–
ionable society throughout Europe
and America in the last century. In
brief, a seance is conducted as fol–
lows:
A small group of people sit in a
ci rcle around a table, usually hold–
ing or at least touching hands. The
room is q ui et and dark . The
medium then goes into a trance or
semi t rance, a state resembling deep
hypnosis.
While in the trance, the medium
purports to convey messages from
the spirit world to those around the
table. The messages often come by
way of a "control," a departed spir–
it that associates itself with the
medium and passes on messages
from other spirits.
Sometimes the medium simply
repeats to the participants around
the table what she is told by her
"control"-or describes what she
sees in the spiri t world. At other
times, the control spirit or another
spirit speaks directly through the
medium.
On occasion, the parttctpan ts
themselves hear spirit voices com–
ing from outside the medium, often
from somewhere overhead. In rare
ins tances, a spirit creates a vague
visible form for itself and part ially
materializes-creating a ghostl y
appar it ion for all to see!
Many have come away from
seances convinced of the authentic–
ity of the phenomena. Others havc
sus pected fraud. Wh a t is th e
truth?
l s
communication between the
"two worlds" possible?
The famous stage magician Har–
ry Houdini ( 1874-1926) sought an
answer to this question. He threw
out challenges to mediums to prove
to his satisfact ion the authent icity
of their activities. He claimed he
could duplicate by purely physical
means any effect they produced in
the course of a seance.
During the course of 30 years of
wit nessi ng a lleged examples of
communications with the "next
world," Houdini declared he had
not "found one incident t ha t
savored of the genuine."
What Houdini often did uncover
16
were extremely clever frauds and
skill ful illusions perpetrated by
charlatans and unscrupulous me–
d iums on t rusting victims.
Darkened rooms provided the
perfect setting for fraud . Concealed
microphones, wires, mirrors, pro–
jectors, ventriloquism, sleight of
hand and other ingenious tech–
niques combined to produce a vari–
ety of spectacular ctfects convinc–
ing to the gullible. Houdini caught
scores of embarrassed mediums
red-handed in such frauds.
Based on bis investigations, Hou–
dini concluded that spiritism was
riddled with trickery, deceit and
fraud. Other investi gators have
agreed that the percentage of fraud
is high.
But are
al/
mediums fakes?
By
no means!
There are many serious mediums
who have stood up under the most
rigorous
scrutiny of inves tigators.
Despite meticulous testing, they
have given no evidence of any type
of fraud.
Are tbese mediums, then, really
in contact-as they believe- with
the dead?
Spirit Photographs
The art of photography- in its
infancy when modern spiritism was
born- soon carne to the aid of spir–
itists in convincing the public of
life beyond the grave.
Hundreds of photographs have
been taken over the decades pur–
porting to show vaguely material–
ized spirits actually caught by the
camera! . Many spiritists consider
such photos to be the outstanding
proof of their beliefs.
A large percentage of these pho–
tos, however, have been shown to
be bogus- the resul ts o f " doc–
tored" or retouc hed negatives, dou–
ble exposures, tr ick lighting effects
or other deceptions.
But others have stood up to the
tests of investigators.
1
have person–
ally examined scores of these pho–
tographs and am satisfi ed as to
their overall genuineness.
Bu t again- are t hese photos
proof
of li fe after death ?
Electronic Communlcation
And now- a spectacular further
development in the world of spiri–
tism.
As mentioned at the beginning
of tbis article, experimentation has
reportedly produced an electronic
device enabling the operator to
engage in two-way, telephone-l ike
conversations with the dead- a
type of Ouija board witb a voice!
It
was the great inventor Thomas
Edison who first conceived the pos–
sibility of inst rumental communi–
cation with the dead. But experi–
menters had to admit failure in
establishing an elect ronic link with
the spirit world-u ntil the la te
1950s.
In 1959, the Swedish fi lmmaker
and painter Friedricb Jurgenson
played back tapes of bird calls he
had recorded in a Swedish forest.
To bis astonishment , he heard what
he believed to be bis dead mother's
voice on the tape! T his began a
series of experiments to record
spirit voices. Hundreds of voices
have appeared on bis tapes.
Other researchers have claimed
to have recorded the spirit voices of
Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Tolstoy
and many other famous men and
women of history.
Many years of such research and
experimentation have now pro–
duced the two-way machine pre–
viously mentioned . The dev ice
tunes in on certain radio frequen–
cies that provide a channel over
which " those in the higher
planes"- the reputed dead-can
convey their messages.
There is no apparent reason to
doubt the sincerity or the integrity
of those who have worked on this
project o r of other researchers in
the fie ld of EVP (electronic voice
phenomena).
It
is unlikely that the
voices have been faked in any way.
There are no indications of fraud or
boax . It is apparent t ha t t he
researchers are in actual voice con–
tact with spirit ent ities.
By what means does the device
work ?
" lt
does work," remarks one
of its inventors, "but we don' t fully
know those underlying laws yet."
He also admits that mediumship is
involved to sorne degree. " lt [the
device] requires an operator with a
very special type of psychic ener–
gy."
Are
these the voices of the
dead?
Sorne investigators have sug–
gested that t hese reputed "mes–
The PLAIN TRUTH