GHOSTS and FAKERS

Radio Record, 31 July 1936, Page 12

GHOSTS and FAKERS

Will Fool You if You | DON’T WATCH OUT!

Harry. Price, Psychic. "Pioneer" Can Put ’Em in Their Place

was done? Not by stage conjurers and magicians -you pay for that and expect only tricks. Nor by confidence tricksters-for which you pay all the same. Hundreds of people are gulling the public in. private every day with what they claim to be psychic powers of clairvoyance, mediumship, spirit photography and the like. They do it intentionally, and there is so much chaff among the "psychic" wheat that it is only the expert investigator who can detect the grain. And the expert in vestigator will probably tell you that he can count the instances he has encountered of genuine super-normal phenomena on the fingers of one hand-ghosts, mediums and all. At any rate, that is the experience of Mr. Harry Price, head of the Psychical Research Department of the University of London, and he has spent practically his lifetime in the investigation of claims of supernormal powers or happenings. Since "psychical research" and "spiritualism" emerged as distinct and contrasting forms of the scientifie and emotional attitude respectively toward supernormal phenomena which have wor- : 7 H AVE you ever been fooled without knowing that it

ried the world for centuries, the progress ot investigation has been slow. It has been retarded by personal jealous ies and by the reluctance of established scientific fields to admit into their circle of fact and matter an order of less tangible experimentation. At least, the investigation of allegedly psychic experience and power was decidedly intangible until Harry Price set out about 80 years ago to lay the ghosts of supernorma: happening: or to prove claims partially or fully justified by painstaking and often arduous tests. He has carried out his self-imposed task. to such effect that he eventually brought his accumulated evidence and methods to official recognition by the University

of London. The second of Harry Price’s books, "Confessions of a Ghost Hunter," has just been published by Putnam’s London House, giving the public readable and accurate reports: of the most important and interesting pieces of investigation he has undertaken since the beginning of this century. An absorbing variety of material is dealt with hereHaunted houses, a poltergeist, "ordinary" ghosts, claims of many mediums, telepathy, hyperaesthesia, clairvoyance, hypnotism, the Indian Rope Trick, fire-walking, ingenious spirit photography and an assortment of vaudeville tricks which the public is freely gulled into accepting as psychic. Df the hundreds of cases and claims investigated by Harry Price and related in "Confessions of a Ghost Hunter," only four are considered to be beyond the likelihood of human cause. One is an, English haunted manor, another is the poltergeist phenomenon of recent discovery in a London sufurb. The two people whom Mr. Price admit: as probably possessed of pronounced supernormal powers are Kuda Bus, fire-walker. and-Mlle,' Laplace, a Frenchwomar

With clairvoyant ability. Incidentally, the test to which the

Frenchwoman was subjected was to tell Mr. Price, by handling a letter, particulars of Dr, R. J. Tillyard, well known in New Zealand for his work as director of the entomological section of the Cawthron Institute, in Nelson. Dr. Tillyard had written the letter to. Mr. Price, whom he knows personally, The analysis of statements made about Dr, Tillyard by Mule. Laplace are set out in detail, with a corresponding check as to accuracy. Her response was the . most favourable of all those who had made similar claims to supernoirmal capacity. Two other New Zealanders are mentioned in the. book. One is Claude McLauchlan, formerly of Auckland, and better known as Claude Dolores. He had a large following of people-in the northern city who believed in his "psychic" powers. He had the temerity to submit himself to Harry Price for.a test sitting shortly after arriving in England a few years ago, only to be told that dozens of good books have

been written on slate-writ-ing. Both his tests were entirely negative as far as mediumship or other psychic powers were concerned, und Dolores was shown a couple of tricks by Harry Price "which are doubtless puzaling him to this day." The other New Zealander is Mr, Aldrich, from Takapau, who first encountered the’ researcher in a London street. Mr, .Price records the keen interest he attached to this brief acquaintanceship, and trusts that Mr. Aldrich will recall the

Some of the most interesting pages are those dealing with "spirit photography," a department of endeavour which has been exploited by -charlatans, fakers and even plain crooks, thousands of times. In every single instance investigated by the anthor he is frantclwv creantieal Nilay fa ¢hot anv

EO es i te ore ON SREY EE Se wonder ‘when one reads the recipes for faking which come under his notice-methods so cunning that only the most expert could be certain that they are not deceived, He exposes. almost every known method from the most ele- . mentary to the incredibly ingenius, leaving one with the impression that next time one sees a "spirit". photograph one will just say, "Tut, tut!" and wonder just how that one was arranged, This and other methods of. fooling some of. the publi¢ some of the time-or all of the time-are well illustrated. Perhaps the most amazing photograph is one of the famous or notorious Indian Rope Trick, a ‘photograph taken when it was performed in England before Harry Trice and a committee. This trick was.cinematographed at the time, and ig carefully described in the book, although one is not told _just how it was-done! — After thirty years of patient and open-minded ‘investiga‘tion from a scientific viewpoint, Mr. Price lacks the solution of the eternal problem as to what happens after death. Some of the. phenomena (Continued on next. page.)

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produced by spiritualists at seances he admits, but not their explanation of it. There is, briefly, no scientific prvof-of . survival after death, or the existence’ of spirits.. -But. Mr. Price. does:--not ° scoff at the existence of spiritualism . as a religion. The devices and subterfuges used ‘by dozens of people who claimed powers ; such as "materialisation," when "described: dispassionately, leave one’ with the. conviction that even if one could not detect the methods of any..such persons, there would nevertheless: be a very great reluctance to accept ‘their "phenomeéna" as supernormal. ; Detailed descriptions are given the testing of claimants to psychic ability in some way and for establishing the genuineness or otherwise of spirit photographs. The elaborate eare’ with which such tests must be made, however, may b+ disheartening to the single enthusiast. But for ~ everybody at all interested in these: things, Price’s book will be found valuable and entertaining,