Does anyone know what a medium is?

I just thought I'd ask before I got into a whole schpiel about mediumship. Essentially, a medium is someone who claims they can talk to the dead, or spirits. Physical mediumship is when a person can physically manifest tangible phenomena, like ectoplasm (totally serious) or levitation. Usually mediums claim it is the spirits who are controlling the activity and that they (the medium) is simply, uh, the medium through which the spirits can operate.

My new favorite show right now is Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Confession: I've harbored a crush on Penn Jillette since I first saw their magical act on TV at a friend's house when I was eleven years old. But it's not cool to have a thing for a guy who's about 6'6", wears glasses, and plays the upright bass. (All which could describe my husband, no? Except he's more like 6'3".)

Anyway. Being a new fan of the show, I started reading through the Community Q&As and I found this quote by Teller intriguing, "Over the last thirty years I have been studying the history of "mediums" who have claimed to speak with the dead. The practice of mediumship as we know it is about a century and a half old. It was demonstrable bunk when it was started (by two prank-playing sisters) and it remains so today."

I took a course at college a couple years ago called The Philosophy of Parapsychology with the head of the philosophy department in which we learned about mediumship, random number generators, apparitions, tester influence, séances and psychology among lots of philosophical implications. It was a fascinating class, and I was pleased to see that in the Bullshit! episode on mediums, they stayed true to the truth: that these people nowadays, like John Edward, are performance artists (a great term coined by P&T) and the specialization is not psi functioning but psychology, simply telling people what they want to hear.

But what about the demonstrable, um, un-bunk? There have been some documented cases that are harder to explain. Cases whose subjects had no disclosure clauses, no contracts, nothing really to gain or lose. So, I was wondering what Penn and Teller's opinions are on mediums such as Daniel Dunglas Home (commonly known as D.D. Home, pronounced 'hume,' 1833-1886) or Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918)? I thought since Teller has been studying mediums, he might have heard of these cases, and so I was particularly interested to know his thoughts on these people. And when (if) I get a response to my inquiry from the infamous duo, I'll let post it.

But in the meantime, what do you think?

Because even though these two people were examined time and time again, they were never proven to be fraudulent--okay, so Eusapia tried to con the scientists a couple times, she was a poverty stricken fortune-teller trying to make a living, but they caught her, and when taken to a controlled testing environment, she still levitated tables and musical instruments--D.D. Home on the other hand, was never proven to be a fraud. His feats were even more fantastic than Eusapia. He not only could levitate an accordian, he could have it play music. There is a documented instance of him placing a live burning log on a woman's head, still aflame, and her hair did not catch fire--wasn't even warm the log was taken away.

The methods by which D.D. Home & Eusapia's cases were investigated are antiquated, sure--but I don't think they should be dismissed simply because the investigations took place over a hundred years ago. The investigators were scientists, and skeptics, and the case studies (mostly by The Society for Psychical Research) are interesting to read because these scientists are baffled: they restrained this woman (Eusapia), had her by the ankles and wrists, and were even sitting on her, and the chair still rose off the ground.

The problem is, well, the experiments did take place over a hundred years ago, and so now, those scientific reports are largely regarded as anecdotal evidence--which have been proven time and time again, isn't really evidence at all--but they were scientists of their time. So it seems like a vicious cycle of Hamlet-like confusion: do you believe, that is the question.

Is it easier not to believe because we haven’t had any demonstrable evidence of physical mediumship for over a hundred years? Is it easier to dismiss the cases as bunk because we have nothing in our modern world with which to compare the reports?

What if it’s not all bullshit?

If anyone wants more information on D.D. Home or Eusapia Palladino, or even the cases of ectoplasm, I'd be more than happy to share. But I figure, why bore you right off the bat....

( 1comments )

at April 10, 2005 9:55 PM  Gungy said...

You know I want more info!