John Jackson © UK-Skeptics

Ectoplasm:

• Claim:
  
  Ectoplasm is a product of ethereal energy which usually forms as a fog like mist, solid white mass, or as a vortex. It emanates from various orifices of the medium, most commonly the mouth, nose and ears. Ectoplasm can form into rods which can be used to move objects and even levitate people in their chairs.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Ectoplasm is the fabric chiffon. Chiffon is highly compressible and can be hidden easily about the medium’s body or introduced to her by her assistant. Mediums can cover themselves with the fabric and hide/reveal themselves from behind a black curtain to make themselves look like a materialisation. Chiffon can also be wrapped around rods and other pieces of equipment which are then used to move things around. The chair levitation is achieved by assistants holding one chair leg each and lifting the chair up.

Voice trumpets:

• Claim.
  
  The spirits do not speak loudly so some form of amplification is required. This is usually in the form of a trumpet which is placed on a table. During the séance the trumpet is often seen to levitate and move around whilst the spirit voice comes through it.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  The trumpet is often marked with a luminous paint so that the levitation can be seen in the dark. The trumpet simply has a hidden extendable handle which the medium (or assistant) uses to pick it up and wave it around in a way that looks too fast to be produced by someone holding it. The voices are produced by the medium who uses a second smaller trumpet to speak through.
  
  For an account of a medium being caught red-handed see: Tony Youens’ article.

Apportation:

• Claim.
  
  The spirits can make items materialise during the séance ranging from semi-precious stones to peoples’ personal belongings that they may have lost at some other time.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Simple apports are just placed there by the medium in the dark. The items are usually worthless and are given as souvenirs to the sitters. Where missing personal items are apported back to their owners, it is a case of the mediums, or their helpers, actually stealing or pick-pocketing these items from their owners and miraculously returning them to their owners via the spirits. This occurrence is more likely to happen where people attend the same places regularly.

Table tipping and levitation.

• Claim.
  
  Sitters at the table all place their hands on top of the table. The spirits then levitate the table during the séance with everyone’s hands remaining on the top of the table.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  There are several methods of levitating tables, many of which are still used by magicians today so we will not reveal the more sophisticated methods. Simple table manipulations have been performed for a long time. Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918) was a medium who developed a simple method. She used a special lightweight table which was designed so that her foot could be hooked beneath one of the legs. Pressing down with her hands and up with her foot gave her control of the table.
  
  With more advanced trickery large, heavy tables can be made to levitate even with a person sitting on it.

Raps and taps.

• Claim.
  
  The spirits often make noises from small taps to loud bangs.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  The medium and the assistants make the noises. It can be as simple as using a children’s peashooter.

Spirit lights.

• Claim.
  
  Flashes of lights appear near or around the medium, often as the spirits are coming through.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Wire wool brushed across the terminals of a high-voltage battery will make some strange and spooky looking flashes and sparks.

But the medium was tied to the chair…

• Claim.
  
  At the start of the séance, the medium is often tied to a chair with ropes. This rules out trickery.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  There are also tricks employed here. The chair may have detachable arms. The ropes may have been tied by an accomplice who leaves enough room for the medium to slip out of and back into the apparent restraint.
  
  Where rooms are set up for the sole purpose of séances, there is often a secret door through which accomplices enter after the lights go out. Many effects can be created by accomplices who do the tricks of black art; often seen as a stage act where people dressed in black in front of a black background go unseen and the effects they create look miraculous.
  
  It is surprising just how quickly magicians can free themselves from ropes that are genuinely tied by other people.

There are other tricks and techniques used in physical mediumship, many of which have been around for a century or more. The tricks are quite mundane when seen in daylight, yet the effect that they produce in darkness can be quite profound.

Although physical mediumship is on the decline today, it is remarkable that many people still believe that spirits are coming through when the mediums are using the same tricks that were exposed by magicians like Houdini over eighty years ago.

THE MURDER DETECTIVES AND THE MEDIUM: A TRUE STORY.

Emma-Louise Rhodes © 2008. (See: www.emmalouiserhodes.com)

Although police forces across Britain generally deny using psychic mediums, this incident illustrates the motivation behind such rare involvement (from a police point of view), as well as with the obvious outcome.

Every Possible Avenue Of Inquiry

On March 13, 1980, at around 8:50 pm, Detective Constable Norman Robertson, along with an unnamed Detective Sergeant, had attended a séance in a darkened room with a trance medium in an attempt to shed some light on the murder.

Whilst giving evidence regarding the case, now retired Norman Robertson claimed that:

(consulting the medium) showed Tayside Police’s desire to spread into every possible avenue of inquiry. It was not one which I thought when I went to it I was particularly hopeful of a conclusion (sic), but it was something I was involved in.

When asked whose idea it had been to consult the medium, Robertson answered that he could not remember whether it was the officer in charge of the investigation or someone else. He described the séance by stating that that they had held hands around a table and the medium had gone into a trance. Prompted further by Mark Stewart QC, the retired detective added:

She then gave us information which I doubted seriously from the outset. It did not go very well… It was never a serious line of inquiry. It would not be thought of as leading Tayside Police to a suspect or the accused in this case …. I am confident, and I am confident my colleague thought this was not a worthwhile line of inquiry.

Robertson stated that the medium had given details regarding the location of a vehicle, but that none of the information passed on at the séance from the medium’s ‘spirit guide’ had been of any use to police. He stated that one of the reasons they had visited the medium was because witnesses might find ways such as that to give information to the police, and so for that reason it had to be tested.

However, Robertson dismissed the efforts as a ‘charade’ which did not last long. The medium, he stated, was unable to continue and the police left the séance having gained no valuable information at all.

A Shining Example

The defense council had, earlier in the trial, accused Tayside police of ‘extremely sloppy methods’ and the declaration, almost out of the blue, that they had consulted a medium in the hope of leading them to Elizabeth McCabe’s murderer was a very obvious tool in demonstrating this conviction.

Although many British psychics claim to have helped the police in their investigations, there is very little evidence to back this up. Medium Sharon Neill states that the police generally deny any psychic contribution that may help them in their inquiries, asserting:

Unfortunately, the police forces in the UK won’t admit that they use psychics to help them solve crimes.

In their paper Rhetoric in ‘Psychic Detection’ Ciaron O’Keefe and Laurence Alison are slightly more objective in their study of the subject, stating that:

In high profile murder and rape cases there is a pressure on the police to follow up any leads, however seemingly obscure. Any information volunteered to the police has to be recorded …. Of the devices examined, many are associated with methods employed in cold reading—a related set of techniques known to convey convincingness about advice/opinions, though there is no substantive evidence within the account. Whether these processes relate to self or other deception is uncertain, though clarification of their existence and structure may go some way to exploring the distortions that they may present to an enquiry.

Interestingly, Tayside Police were among those who did not reply to Eddie Silence’s letter and subsequent study in 2006, inquiring whether their police force had ever, or would ever consider, using a psychic medium to aid them in their investigations.(1.) However, the fact that the force did, twenty-six years previously, use a trance medium to assist them in a murder inquiry, demonstrates an interesting insight into the desperate need to find evidence when dealing with such serious and horrendous crimes.

Unfortunately for the likes of mediums such as Sharon Neill who are keen to praise the unsung ‘psychic detectives’ who have allegedly helped police solve numerous investigations, the case of Elizabeth McCabe provides a shining example of what happens when detectives decide to consult a psychic medium. The very fact that retired Detective Constable Robertson referred to the episode as a ‘charade’ exemplifies the nature of the ‘medium as detective’ along with the waste of police time spent on following up such leads.

The police and psychics

BBC News, ‘Woods Murder Police ‘Held Séance’’

Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Alison L. and O’Keefe, C., ‘Rhetoric in ‘Psychic Detection’’, Vol. 64, 1, No. 858.

Neill, Sharon, Second Sight, Orion, 2007.

The Scotsman, ‘Murder Police ‘Held Séance’ With Medium’, John Robertson (8 November, 2007).