Mrs. Piper Mediumship Discussion

[The Mighty Thor]

malcolm,

To be perfectly frank, I find your attitude on this a bit annoying--actually, quite condescending.

You're not my teacher and I'm not your student. The discussion thread is about Mrs. Piper's mediumship. It's not for you to pose as someone with superior intellect who is trying to test (or help me develop) my critical faculties.

If you have a point to make about Piper, you should make it and let it be discussed...critically. If you have nothing to contribute on the topic, that's fine, too.

I have not 'posed as someone with superior intellect' at all.

If you don't want to look for alternative explanations that would explain the phenomena as described by Lodge, that's fine.

If you have looked, and found no indications of a hoax, that's fine too.

I'll see what others here think before I post my theory.

Meanwhile, perhaps you could answer one question without attacking me.

Is there anything about the case as presented by Lodge that you find suspicious or indicative of a hoax?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I have not 'posed as someone with superior intellect' at all.

If you don't want to look for alternative explanations that would explain the phenomena as described by Lodge, that's fine.

If you have looked, and found no indications of a hoax, that's fine too.

I'll see what others here think before I post my theory.

Meanwhile, perhaps you could answer one question without attacking me.

Is there anything about the case as presented by Lodge that you find suspicious or indicative of a hoax?

As far as I understand it no-one has ever found such. Certainly from nothing I've ever read although I don't claim to have read a great deal.

 

[CFLarsen]

You've completely ignored Clancies questions. Why don't you answer them?? No wonder she is annoyed with you.

Actually, Clancie is the one who ignores malcolmdl's points - or rather, she doesn't want to address them, because Clancie thinks he is rude.

Which is a very convenient way of never addressing anything uncomfortable again.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Actually, Clancie is the one who ignores malcolmdl's points - or rather, she doesn't want to address them, because Clancie thinks he is rude.

Which is a very convenient way of never addressing anything uncomfortable again.

Claus,

What evidence does he have that Piper was a fraud?

 

[Interesting Ian]

This is a very interesting thread.

I'd like to know if Clancie has changed her mind about Mrs Piper being a convincing case.

It is notable that Hodgson, as he became a believer, seems to have lessened any controls rather than strengthening them.

What are your sources?

He comes to view Mrs Piper and her daughters as intimate friends.

Not according to Irwin's "An introduction to psychology". At least it claimed that Hodgson and Piper were never close despite working together for 18 years.

(I wonder if the mother and girls were pretty?)

Nah, not the mother at least.

Not a good idea for the researcher to become intimately involved with the subjects, surely?

Intimate? What evidence do you have to make this assertion??

Can Clancie (or anyone) think of any reasons why Hodgson might have become part of this fraud?

What fraud??

Can she think of any ways Mrs Piper might be getting the information on sitters other than paranormally?

More pertinently can you? Can anyone?

 

[NoZed Avenger]

The burden of proof is usually described as the combination of two things:

(1) the burden of production; and
(2) the burden of persuasion.

The second element simply states that the status quo will be accepted unless and until the proponent of any change/policy/idea shows that sufficient evidence supports it. This is the classical "he who asserts must prove" element.

But the first part of the burden also requires a proponent to produce evidence. The proponent of a new or original idea/policy is the one charged with coming forward with evidence.

In this case, "prove someone committed fraud 100 years ago" is not only a pretty unreasonable request from the start, but is also a reversal of this burden.

The problem with Ms. Piper is similar to that encountered by Tony Youens and Stumpy when dealing with the "Jacqui Poole" case, and that one was only 18 years old, as opposed to almost a century. The biggest problems are that the witnesses are dead and there is no way to set up a controlled test anymore.

Gardner wrote about Piper some time ago and gave some information that he considered indicative of fraud -- primarily (IIRC) "fishing" inquiries from the transcripts. He also pointed out some possible avenues of receiving information on the part of Ms. Piper, both through her husband and servants. Likewise, the fact that "unkown" sitters were brought was considerably less impressive when a number of them were prominent in the community and could have easily been recognized (and a thick file could have presumably been collected on such persons from public sources quite easily). Without the source documents, though, I have no way of knowing how sound these criticisms are.

Also, while several investigators are called "skeptical," most people identified as skeptics were only skeptical of the mediumship claims -- their preferred theory was some sort of telepathy. This is not quite the same type of skepticism as most readers might expect.

Given the difficulties in (or impossibility of) making anything resembling a thorough investigation; given the lack of source materials (in my home city, at least); given the time and expense necessary in trying to locate and review such materials; and given the very likely scenario that few would pay attention to -- much less be convinced by -- an analysis done a century (plus) after the fact, I just don't feel too enthused about being given a homework assignment of "proving" fraud that may have occurred 120 years ago.

It is not the burden of anyone to prove Ms. Piper a fraud. If something outside the normal realm of accepted physical laws occurred -- whether PSI or mediumistic -- it is the proponent's burden of proof.

Unless someone makes such a study worth my while -- say paying for a leave of absence so I can travel and spend 6 weeks on the original source documents, I decline.

N/A


PS: Garrette had some crticisms of the Gault book that were referenced here (there is a link to his original post, I think):

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30101&highlight=piper

 

[Interesting Ian]

NoZed Avenger

You and others are not required to prove Mrs Piper was a fraud. You just have to give some plausible means whereby Mrs Piper could have obtained the information. My understanding is that cold reading is extremely implausible. So how could Mrs Piper have gotten this information? Do you understand you have to supply some sort of answer here??

 

[CFLarsen]

Randi's "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural" describes Piper this way:

Piper, Leonora
A Boston housewife who said she discovered her power as a spirit medium at age 27, Mrs. Piper told of an Indian spirit guide with the unlikely name of Chlorine who was aided by another guide named Dr. Phinuit, which she pronounced "finny.'' This French doctor knew only a little French and less about medicine.

The mediumship of Mrs. Piper, which involved dramatic teeth-gnashing, moaning and thrashing about, was enthusiastically supported by the famous psychologist/philosopher William James. The fact that she regularly spoke with Longfellow and Bach (the latter spoke no German in Summerland) provided James with excellent methods for testing the medium, but such tests were not done.

Mrs. Piper began featuring automatic writing, and then in 1911 abandoned her séances altogether and concentrated solely on the automatic writing.

She was investigated by Richard Hodgson, a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, for eighteen years. He became convinced of her legitimacy, and he was very pleased when she told him that he would have a long life, would soon marry and would have two children. Hodgson died a few months later, unmarried and childless.
Source

Summerland:
The expression used by spirit medium "The Poughkeepsie Seer'' Andrew Jackson Davis to denote the place where one "goes'' at death. The term was free of religious requirements, thus satisfying those who wished to embrace spiritualism without those entanglements.
Source

So, not only is Dr. Phinuit not very good at French and anatomy, Bach doesn't even speak German.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Randi's "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural" describes Piper this way:



So, not only is Dr. Phinuit not very good at French and anatomy, Bach doesn't even speak German.

Claus, what relevancy has this got?? No-one is claiming that Dr. Phinuit was a real person. You've seemed to have forgotten the 2 theories Mike D mentioned. Let's stay focused shall we? Here is what Mike D said before:

There seem to be two ways that have been proposed to deal with this situation (once again, assuming for the moment that fraud has been ruled out, and assuming that sufficient specific and accurate information about a deceased person has appeared during a seance). One involves the notion of "super psi," which obviously postulates that some sort of psi faculty can exist, but does not necessarily postulate survival of death or the existence of real spirits. In this case, the whole drama of the medium's control relaying information from a spirit is seen as an ultimately artificial dramatization of information about the deceased that the medium has picked up telepathically from perhaps the minds of the sitters, and then dramatized in such a way during the seance to more or less convincingly seem as though the actual spirit of the deceased is communicating, when in fact, no such thing is happening at all, and the deceased may no longer even exist.

The other way of dealing with the problem has been called the theory of "overshadowing." This theory is definitely a survivalist theory and says that, while the whole trance drama involving a "control," (and put on by the mediums's subconscious mind) is artificial, somewhere behind it all is the real spirit of the deceased, and that the medium is picking up some information and thoughts of the deceased from the actual spirit. In this case, the medium's subconscious mind would be somewhat like a the mind of a talented author who is writing a play about a famous person. The author might interview the person and pick up many facts about that person as well as subtle aspects of that individual's personality. The resulting play would be to a great extent the creative work of the author but perhaps still manage to incorporate actual lines spoken during the interview with the famous person as well as conveying a sense of the famous person's personality. But the play as well could also include lines and action that would not quite ring true to those who knew the famous person.

 

[CFLarsen]

Claus, what relevancy has this got?? No-one is claiming that Dr. Phinuit was a real person. You've seemed to have forgotten the 2 theories Mike D mentioned. Let's stay focused shall we?

Yeah, let's. You see, we are trying to find out whether Piper was a real medium or not, right?

What have we found out so far? Many things that point to the answer that she was not. Not necessarily a fraud, but certainly nothing that even indicates that she was a real medium.

The more we dig, the less evidence of mediumship we find. No wonder believers are not very keen on doing some real research...

 

[Interesting Ian]

Yeah, let's. You see, we are trying to find out whether Piper was a real medium or not, right?

What have we found out so far? Many things that point to the answer that she was not. Not necessarily a fraud, but certainly nothing that even indicates that she was a real medium.

The more we dig, the less evidence of mediumship we find. No wonder believers are not very keen on doing some real research...

So you favor the superpsi hypothesis?

 

[CFLarsen]

So you favor the superpsi hypothesis?

I first have to know what it is.

What does the definition of the superpsi hypothesis state?

How do we test the hypothesis?

Is it falsifiable?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I first have to know what it is.

What does the definition of the superpsi hypothesis state?

How do we test the hypothesis?

Is it falsifiable?

Claus,

Read this

 

[Darat]

Claus,

Read this

He strongly argues against your view of "psi" doesn't he?

(Edited because I really did really.)

 

[TLN]

If you have a point to make about Piper, you should make it and let it be discussed...critically. If you have nothing to contribute on the topic, that's fine, too.

There's nothing to contribute here because there's nothing here at all; no testing protocol to scrutinize and no science to be found.

Clancie, you can pile up all the Mrs. Piper materials until you reached the moon, it would still amount to nothing more than a lot of stories. Stories are not evidence.

 

[CFLarsen]

Read this

"Super-psi" means that psi "can occur at any level of magnitude or sophistication"? Is that correct?

He strongly argues against your view of "psi" doesn't he?

Not really. He argues that:

"probably the best evidence for psi of any kind is the evidence of physical mediumship"

We are talking ectoplasm and electronic voice boxes here? Pluhease....

 

[CFLarsen]

There's nothing to contribute here because there's nothing here at all; no testing protocol to scrutinize and no science to be found.

Clancie, you can pile up all the Mrs. Piper materials until you reached the moon, it would still amount to nothing more than a lot of stories. Stories are not evidence.

But where is the "strict" protocol described?? There has got to be one, because we hear about it.

Or, is that a story as well? Hmmm........

 

[magicflute]

This is SO typical!!! Belivers will throw old dead medium and psychics at you that you can not longer test, for which there is sketchy evidence at best if any, for which the methodology for the original tests can no longer be examined or verified and they challenge you to disprove it. A total waste of time!! Look, if this type of phenomena is supposed to exist, then we can postulate that it should exist now and that we should be able to find it and prove it on a person alive today. Someone we can put to a test under strict protocols agreed by a cohesive group of qualified investigators. This is what needs to be done, otherwise it's just all wheel spinning and a total waste of time!

 

[TLN]

But where is the "strict" protocol described?? There has got to be one, because we hear about it.

Or, is that a story as well? Hmmm........

Sorry, I can't get a straight answer to that question.

 

[CFLarsen]

Sorry, I can't get a straight answer to that question.

But that is the key argument that Piper was a real medium: She was tested under a "strict protocol".

But we can't see it. We simply have to take the word of the researchers, very sympathetic to mediumship.

Sorry, I ain't buying.