Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal

32. Communicating with the Dead?

~ Chapter 32 Co~~u__~icati~g ~.T::t·th thp Dpad? "'1 _.l.. _ ....... "-' ..... '--' . ~. Thanks to modern mass media, old-fashioned spiritualism is undergoing something ofa revival. Witness James Van Praagh's best-selling Talking to Heaven (1997) and the talk-show popularity of Van Praagh and other mediums like Rosemary Altea, George Anderson, and John Edward . Like Van Praagh before him, Edward was featured on the June 19, 1998, Larry King Live television show. King promoted Edward's forthcoming video and book, both titled One Last Time-"meaning," King explained, "saying good-bye to someone who is gone." Although purported communication with spirits of the dead is ancient (for example, the biblical Witch of Endor conjured up the ghost of Samuel at the request of King Saul [1 Sam. 28:7-20]), modern spiritualism began in 1848 at Hydesville, New York (as mentioned in Chapter 3). Two young girls, Maggie and Katie Fox, pretended to communicate with the ghost of a murdered peddler. Although four decades later they confessed how their"spirit rappings" had been faked, in the meantime spiritualism had spread like wildfire across the United States and beyond. The great magician and escape artist Harry Houdini (1874-1926) spent the last years ofhis life crusading against phony spirit mediums and exposing their bogus"materializations"and other physical phenomena such as spirit photography. A case I investigated in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1985 illustrates the dangers fake mediums risk in producing such phenomena. Laboratory analyses of certain "spirit precipitations" (figure 32.1) revealed the presence of solvent stains, and a recipe for such "precipitations" from the book The Psychic Mafia (Keene 1976)-utilizing a solvent to transfer images from printed photos-enabled me to create similar spirit pic- Communicating vvith the Dead? Figure 32.1. Alleged "spirit precipitations" on cloth, produced at a 1985 seance. ttl res (figure 32.2). With this evidence, as well as affidavits from a few seance victims, I was able to obtain police warrants against the medium, who operated from the notorious Indiana spiritualist center, Camp Chesterfield (Nickell with Fischer 1988). Today's mediums- whether charlatans, fantasy~prone personalities, or a bit of both-tend to eschew such physical phenomena. On my visits to New York's spiritualist community, Lily Dale, I have been told that all such productions are now effectively prohibited there due to fakery in the past. Anyone claiming to produce authentic physical phenomcnalike trumpet voices, slate writing, or apports (objects allegedly transported by spirits)-must pass the scrutiny of a committee. As a consequence, the dark~ room seance is becoming a thing of the past. Like the mediums at Lily Dale (figure 32.3 ), Van Praagh, Edward, and most others now limit themselves to the other major category of spiritualist offerings: "mental phenomena," the purported usc of "psy~ 195 'V 196 "'I'" Real-Life X-Files Figure 32.2. Images produced experimentally by author. chic ability" such as clairvoyance (inner sight), clairaudience {perceived voiccs},and c1airscnticncc (extrasensory feel ings) to obtain messages from the spirit realm. Because such mediums avoid the tricks of producing physical phenomena, it is mOTC difficult to expose spiritualist charlatansthaI is, to distinguish between mediums who practice intentional deception and those who may be self-deceived (believing they really communicate with the dead). What can be done, however, is to focus not on the medium's motives but on his or her ability, such as by setting up suitable scientific tests (e.g. to measure supposed clairvoyance) or by analyzing a medium's readings. When [ appeared on radio programs to debate James Van Praagh (on "The Stacy Taylor Show," San Diego, May 19, 1998) and Dorothy Altea (on "The Gil Gross Show," New York, June 15, 1998), 1 began by inviting each of the two to contact a deceased relative whom I named. Both declined my very open~mi n ded invitation, saying they had nothing to prove to skeptics. (At one point I remarked to Van Praagh that I believed Icould contact spirits as well as he- meaning not at all. He missed Communicating \Nith the Dead? Figure 32.3. A medium giving readings at an outdoor service at Lily Dale, the western New York spiritualist colony. my point and challenged me to do a reading for him! I responded that I visualized the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, who was telling me that Van Praagh had never contacted anyone"over there."Van...