Mrs. Piper Mediumship Discussion

[Mike D.]

My question did not really focus on Mrs Piper herself, but on the claims of the skeptical investigators. The 'skeptics' seem to be associated with the same 'Psychical Research' institution. Dr Hodgson is presented as a skeptic of the first order, but he finally accepted that since he could not explain the trances, he accepts that there is survival after death. Now maybe I'm being harsh here, but that sounds like a believer to me.

Since he was a believer, he might also be sympathetic enough to work with one or more of the others in promoting a hoax. It has been stated on several of the medium sites that he was responsible for exposing several fakes. I would be extremely interested in reading any actual accounts, or copies of articles he wrote while in England for the Psychical newsletter. It is hard to nail down what kind of person he actually is.

Consider by the timeline, that he might be one member of a hoax involving at least two people not Mrs Piper. One of the medium's contacts being a close friend of his who recently died is extremely curious.

Kopji,

I would characterize Richard Hodgson as a skeptic who gradually over a long period which included exposing fake mediums ultimately came to believe in survival of death due to his experiences with Mrs. Piper. I know of no evidence that he was involved in any hoaxes, and to suggest that he could have been seems purely speculative to me in the absense of evidence.

As for reading articles and papers by Hodgson, you can find a large volume of material by him published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.

The Society for Psychical Research (which has a website) was organized in the 1880s by a group of scientists and scholars interested in subjecting the claims of the paranormal to scientific study.

Mike

 

[Mike D.]

We are different, more skeptical people than existed then.

This seems to me to be quite a generalization. I think it would be hard to demonstrate one way or another, but personally I think that there were plenty of skeptical people in the nineteenth century.

 

[Mike D.]

T'ai Chi,

Hope you enjoyed the article on the super-psi hypothesis I provided the link for in response to your post. I want to add here that if you can get hold of a copy of Alan Gauld's book, Mediumship and Survival: A Century of Investigations, check out Chapter 10, entitled, "'Overshadowing' and the Super-ESP [Super-Psi] Hypothesis -- the Data."

Mike

 

[Kopji]

Mike
Thanks for the good replys.

The 1911 article indicates that at that publishing, the Piper data had not been published yet. This was many years after the events in question. Till now, the implication has been that there was some public review or discussion of the events. That had not occurred by 1911?

A less broad and sweeping generalization:
Hodgson had a close and personal relationship with a person who died, and would later become a 'control'. After Hodgson's untimely death, it was discovered in his possession detailed personal information about 'sitters' at the séances (is that the right term?) This information contained personal things the sitters did not feel free to tell anyone else. He was someone they felt they could trust.

The presence of this previously unknown dataset raises the questions of how it was used.

Modern researchers would question his credibility as a valid investigator because of this. That the Psychical Institute did not, is a specific example of how they were less skeptical than we are today.

 

[CFLarsen]

Obviously, an unconscious person is unable to communicate their state while unconscious. But they can report upon regaining consciousness and being told of what transpired while they were "out," that they remember nothing of it and seem to have "lost time."

But we would have to trust the medium entirely, wouldn't we? We would only have the word of the medium that the medium was really unconscious.

Premise:
Medium can give spiritual messages. Since medium is unconscious when this happens, it is taken as evidence that she really is getting spiritual messages.

Scenario:
Medium is unconscious.
Medium gives spiritual messages.
Medium is conscious again.
Medium is asked if she remembers anything that went on while unconscious.
Medium says "No".
Medium is therefore judged to have been unconscious.
Medium's messages are therefore taken as real spiritual messages.

Sorry, I ain't buyin'.

In 1892, Dr. Phinuit was gradually replaced by a new control, “G. P.” (George Pellew). Ulike Dr. Phinuit and Mrs. Piper’s earlier controls, GP’s former earthly existence was easily verified, as he had been an acquaintance of Richard Hodgson, one of the investigators of Mrs. Piper. And GP gave striking evidence that was highly suggestive of his actually being who he said he was. However, this evidence was not totally conclusive, because in his earthly life, GP was highly knowledgeable in the fields of literature and philosophy, but during séances was unable to speak in-depth about these fields if the knowledge required went beyond Mrs. Piper’s own knowledge of these subjects.

This caught my eye.

Allow me to draw a parallel: John Edward and the "Dateline" incident. "Dateline" wanted to look at JE, even from a critical POV. Host John Hockenberry says:

John Hockenberry: Still, something else happened that night in the group readings. A departed family member does seem to come through loud and clear.
...
John Hockenberry: For, of all people, "Dateline" cameramen Tony Pagano, one of two cameramen shooting our story.
Source

Both mediums are under scrutiny. Their earlier attempts of mediumship have turned out to be not very convincing to the investigators. Then, something spiritual happens to those who investigates them.

What could be more convincing than to have real, verifiable information coming through to those who doubt the skeptic? Call me crazy, but I do see a very strong parallel here.

That Piper - as GP - is not able to give in-depth information about GP's real life fields very strongly speaks in favor of this happening: It is possible to dig up a few personal pieces of information about just about any person, but to be challenged about what they have learned throughout the years in detail? Very hard.

"The chief investigators in the Piper case were well aware of the dangers in question, and made every effort to avert them by anonymously bringing to her a substantial sprinkling of sitters from as far afield as possible, and by taking her on several extended trips to England."

Ever read 18th and 19th Century books? You always hear about people (mostly women) who write to their acquaintances in other towns for information about certain people (usually possible suitors to love-struck women). Letter writing was a very important part of everyday life among at least the upper part of society to keep informed about what happened in the social circles. With no phones, letters were a means to gather information.

I would characterize Richard Hodgson as a skeptic who gradually over a long period which included exposing fake mediums ultimately came to believe in survival of death due to his experiences with Mrs. Piper. I know of no evidence that he was involved in any hoaxes, and to suggest that he could have been seems purely speculative to me in the absense of evidence.

Clancie has hinted at this too: No sign of fraud is taken as evidence that the medium is real. Yeah, but it doesn't hold water.

 

[T'ai Chi]

T'ai Chi,

Hope you enjoyed the article on the super-psi hypothesis I provided the link for in response to your post. I want to add here that if you can get hold of a copy of Alan Gauld's book, Mediumship and Survival: A Century of Investigations, check out Chapter 10, entitled, "'Overshadowing' and the Super-ESP [Super-Psi] Hypothesis -- the Data."

Mike

Thanks Mike. Yeah, I found it pretty interesting!

I'll see if I can find Gauld's book in local libraries or for sale online.

Thanks again.

 

[Mike D.]

The 1911 article indicates that at that publishing, the Piper data had not been published yet. This was many years after the events in question. Till now, the implication has been that there was some public review or discussion of the events. That had not occurred by 1911?

A less broad and sweeping generalization:
Hodgson had a close and personal relationship with a person who died, and would later become a 'control'. After Hodgson's untimely death, it was discovered in his possession detailed personal information about 'sitters' at the séances (is that the right term?) This information contained personal things the sitters did not feel free to tell anyone else. He was someone they felt they could trust.

Kopji,

As I read the 1911 article, it says that much of the Piper remained unpublished at that date. The fact is that a large quantity had been published by that time, and the fact that the article says that much remained unpublished would indicate to me even more just how much material on her had accumulated.

Could you give us your souce for "detailed personal information found in his possession?" Thanks.

In everything I've read about the GP control so far, I see no evidence that would suggest Hodgson was involved in fraud.

Mike

 

[Mike D.]

But we would have to trust the medium entirely, wouldn't we? We would only have the word of the medium that the medium was really unconscious.

Premise:
Medium can give spiritual messages. Since medium is unconscious when this happens, it is taken as evidence that she really is getting spiritual messages.

Scenario:
Medium is unconscious.
Medium gives spiritual messages.
Medium is conscious again.
Medium is asked if she remembers anything that went on while unconscious.
Medium says "No".
Medium is therefore judged to have been unconscious.
Medium's messages are therefore taken as real spiritual messages.

Sorry, I ain't buyin'.

Claus,

I don't know of any serious investigator who has proclaimed a medium as "real," based merely on a belief that the medium is unconscious. The strategy appears to be, first to apply controls to rule out the medium getting information through normal sensory channels, and then evaluating the information provided as to its uniqueness and specificity. The issue of unconsciousness is a secondary issue.

Mike

 

[Mike D.]

Both mediums are under scrutiny. Their earlier attempts of mediumship have turned out to be not very convincing to the investigators. Then, something spiritual happens to those who investigates them.

What could be more convincing than to have real, verifiable information coming through to those who doubt the skeptic? Call me crazy, but I do see a very strong parallel here.

That Piper - as GP - is not able to give in-depth information about GP's real life fields very strongly speaks in favor of this happening: It is possible to dig up a few personal pieces of information about just about any person, but to be challenged about what they have learned throughout the years in detail? Very hard.

Claus,

Piper actually from the very beginning of her career produced results that people found to be highly evidential. What was not convincing at that time was the nature of her controls. From what I've read, the GP control was intensely convincing to people who had actually known GP in real life. I would agree that the fact that the GP control could not speak in depth about literature and philosophy raise serious questions as to whether he was a real spirit who had survived death. But it could also fit with the super-psi hypothesis -- Piper's psychic abilities allow her to pick up enough information about GP for her subconscious mind to construct a convincing impersonation of GP, but not enough for the impersonation to be complete.

Mike

 

[Mike D.]

Ever read 18th and 19th Century books? You always hear about people (mostly women) who write to their acquaintances in other towns for information about certain people (usually possible suitors to love-struck women). Letter writing was a very important part of everyday life among at least the upper part of society to keep informed about what happened in the social circles. With no phones, letters were a means to gather information.

Investigators had Mrs. Piper's private letters opened and read. And I think that the safegaurds against fraud that were employed in England make it highly unlikely that Piper was using letter writing to get information about sitters. Once again, some of the safeguards included sitters being chosen at random at the last minute from far afield, anonymous sitters, and proxy sittings with the medium blinded to the identities of the people the proxies were sitting on behalf of. It doesn't seem likely to me that Mrs. Piper in America somehow was corresponding with numerous people in England from all walks of life who later just happened to have been chosen randomly to be sitters at her seances.

 

[Mike D.]

Clancie has hinted at this too: No sign of fraud is taken as evidence that the medium is real. Yeah, but it doesn't hold water.

I have never claimed that a medium is "real" because no sign of fraud was detected. If fraud is detected, it certainly raises serious questions about the "reality" of the medium. But in the absence of any detected fraud, I maintain once again that we have to look at the quality of the scientific controls employed by the investigators and the quality of the infomation the medium provides as our primary way of evaluating the medium.

 

[CFLarsen]

I don't know of any serious investigator who has proclaimed a medium as "real," based merely on a belief that the medium is unconscious. The strategy appears to be, first to apply controls to rule out the medium getting information through normal sensory channels, and then evaluating the information provided as to its uniqueness and specificity. The issue of unconsciousness is a secondary issue.

But we cannot possibly rule out the possibility of e.g. hot reading. Add to that, there is no audio/videotapes of the readings, we don't even have complete ad verbatim transcripts. The material is extremely weak.

Piper actually from the very beginning of her career produced results that people found to be highly evidential. What was not convincing at that time was the nature of her controls. From what I've read, the GP control was intensely convincing to people who had actually known GP in real life. I would agree that the fact that the GP control could not speak in depth about literature and philosophy raise serious questions as to whether he was a real spirit who had survived death. But it could also fit with the super-psi hypothesis -- Piper's psychic abilities allow her to pick up enough information about GP for her subconscious mind to construct a convincing impersonation of GP, but not enough for the impersonation to be complete.

There you go again: Inventing an even more complex explanation - "super-psi", instead of simply going with the more natural explanation.

Investigators had Mrs. Piper's private letters opened and read. And I think that the safegaurds against fraud that were employed in England make it highly unlikely that Piper was using letter writing to get information about sitters. Once again, some of the safeguards included sitters being chosen at random at the last minute from far afield, anonymous sitters, and proxy sittings with the medium blinded to the identities of the people the proxies were sitting on behalf of. It doesn't seem likely to me that Mrs. Piper in America somehow was corresponding with numerous people in England from all walks of life who later just happened to have been chosen randomly to be sitters at her seances.

Does it have to be Piper herself who writes the letters?

I have never claimed that a medium is "real" because no sign of fraud was detected. If fraud is detected, it certainly raises serious questions about the "reality" of the medium. But in the absence of any detected fraud, I maintain once again that we have to look at the quality of the scientific controls employed by the investigators and the quality of the infomation the medium provides as our primary way of evaluating the medium.

Even though we have a string of facts that decidedly point towards Piper being a fraud? Pardon me, while I whip out another parallel: Uri Geller. He has also been caught many times, yet his fans (Lucianarchy is one of them) still maintain that he is real, despite of that - simply because he is not caught at all times.

That is, IMO, a very weak position to argue from.

 

[Mike D.]

I here state some of my positions:

1. I do not believe in survival of death or in spirit communication, although I remain open to the possibility if evidence should ever come along that would change my mind.

2. My personal experiences with mediums have all been negative, and none of them that I've seen have in my opinion given any evidence of psychic ability, let alone spirit communication.

3. What I've read about certain mediums of the past has led me to a modest and lightly held belief that some of them (e.g. Piper, Leonard, and Garrett) may have exhibited some sort of anomalous cognitive abilties that are as yet unexplained. I do not claim that there is hard scientific evidence of this, and my belief could change as I learn more about these mediums.

5. I do not personally claim that Mrs. Piper is one of the best examples of mediumship. But I do say that some people who have read widely in the field have made this claim.

6. I enjoy playing with ideas. I did not invent things like the super-psi hypothesis and the overshadowing hypothesis, but I enjoy describing them, as well as other ideas and theories, and I enjoy thinking about how alleged evidence might be explained in terms of them. That does not mean that I personally advocate those hypotheses as reality.

7. My original motive in posting a link for TLN was to give him some background information on Piper, when he and Clancie began talking about her. And this morning I've realized that this thread is taking too much of my time and I feel I need to bow out. I think that I and others have posted enough refercences to material on Mrs. Piper that anyone interested can read and learn more for themselves. I think it is inevitable that people will have differing opinions on her and I repsect those opinions.

8. If the Boston Public Library comes through for me this week with the volume of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research that I requested, I will PM Darat with the information there about the Sutton transcript and he can use it as he wishes.

 

[Clancie]

Mike,

I think you've stated the issues around Piper very well and I don't really know how much farther discussion could go anyway. Also, I think if skeptics do look into her -body of work- (not only one reading) and -do- find patterns of information that can't be explained as cheating or cold reading....and yet "cheating" is going to still basically be the default position for them (and I don't just mean what Darat posted...I think that is a -commonly shared- viewpoint here).... then discussion possibilities at that point pretty much draw to a close anyway.

I didn't plan to debate Piper either. (As I recall my question was about cold readers...and so far, ersby's right...According to that thread....he's it!) But if TLN or anyone wants to see an extensively studied medium whose readings were well-documented for many years under strict controls against cheating...Mrs. Piper is a good example and there is a wealth of information about her.

Anyway, thank you for your contributions to the discussion of Piper, Mike. I think it was great to split the thread as Darat suggested because, standing alone, with the resources you've provided and issues you've raised, I think its become one of the more informative threads here on this subject, for anyone who is interested.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Kopji

After Hodgson's untimely death, it was discovered in his possession detailed personal information about 'sitters' at the séances (is that the right term?) This information contained personal things the sitters did not feel free to tell anyone else. He was someone they felt they could trust.

Kopji,

Could you provide a source for this? I've never read anything remotely like it regarding Hodgson. The only person I know of with something similar found was Arthur Ford. Any source for the Hodgson claim (or did I miss it)?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I can tell you that when I once had an operation under genereal anesthesia I was unconscious during that time and remember nothing of the operation. Are you highly suspicious that my statement is unreliable? Is my statement "worthless" as a description of my state at that time?

Nah, because that's normal. Now if you had claimed to have had an "outer body experience", now that's different. Then your statement would have been worthless

 

[CFLarsen]

But if TLN or anyone wants to see an extensively studied medium whose readings were well-documented for many years under strict controls against cheating...Mrs. Piper is a good example and there is a wealth of information about her.

But that's not what TLN asked for. He asked for:

some good demos of so-called mediumship

to which you replied:

Here's one. Mrs. Piper.

Your turn.

So, where are those good demos of so-called mediumship by Mrs. Piper, Clancie?

Your turn.

 

[Kopji]

Hi,
Here is the link for the comment on the records with details of the sitters:

A third report which Dr. Hodgson intended to publish was cut short by his unexpected death in 1905. Mr. J. G. Piddington came over from England and a committee was formed to dispose of the material on hand. The reports were filled with intimate and personal data concerning the sitters. They trusted Dr. Hodgson but would not trust anybody else. Finally, over the valiant fight of Prof. Hyslop all these reports were returned to the original sitters and the valuable material was lost. Mrs. Piper remained under the jurisdiction of the S.P.R. and the sittings were continued under the charge of Prof. Hyslop.
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/3.htm

I am not sure the primary source for this.

On re-reading this I am not as clear if Dr Hyslop was an advocate for returning the reports, or making them public. Regardless, they were all returned. The manner they are spoken of makes them sound like individual data on each sitter, rather than contents of a book manuscript.

IMHO The Journal for Psychical Research website is first rate though. Might be worth $78 just to read the full stories. The abstracts are Very Cool, and free. Nice search engine, these are indexed pdf's so what is posted are copies of the actual papers and reports, not translations or ocr. The site I'm looking in is the UK one, there might be a second one for the US(?)
http://www.c-far.net/litbase/litbase.jsp

I get the impression that Mrs Piper was quite controversial in her own time. There were a few skeptics who do not tend to appear in the 'supportive' medium sites, but are documented in the Research Journal. I'll post those names.

Mike, I'd love to see some of the actual reports and look forward to it. Have not had time to read the Sutton documents yet. I'll try to remember to post reference links though.

edited to add database link

 

[Kopji]

The online database indexes the records and provides a short abstract of their contents. Three samples below, I am not sure if the abstracts are copyright or not these considered samples of a much larger set.

A simple search on the name 'Piper' provided excellent results.

Podmore, Frank. ON PROFESSOR HYSLOP'S REPORT ON HIS SITTINGS WITH MRS PIPER, Proceedings 17,1901-2, pp. 374-88. Analysis of evasions and inaccuracies in the communications described in Hyslop's report convinces Podmore that the spiritist interpretation is unjustified, and that telepathy or ordinary intuition suffice to explain apparently veridical information. Podmore also suggests that the possibility of common fraud by the medium has not been eliminated,

Hyslop, James. REPLY TO MR PODMORE'S CRITICISM, Proceedings 18,1903-4,
pp. 78-102. Hyslop refutes Podmore's individual points relating to Mrs Piper's mediumship and argues that fraud cannot be considered in isolation from a number of other factors arguing against it (90).

Munves, James. RICHARD HODGSON, MRS PIPER AND 'GEORGE PELHAM': A CENTENNIAL REASSESSMENT, Journal 62,1997-8, pp. 138-54. Offers biographical background to the 'GP' communications reported and analysed by Richard Hodgson, who held them to be evidence of survival. The author argues that Piper was able to acquire the information produced by the GP control through normal means <span style="background-color: #ffff99">and suggests that Hodgson, and also William James who first brought the medium to the SPR's attention, were misled by their personal feelings to be less critical than they ought to have been..</span> He also throws doubt on the circumstance's of GP's death and suggests that the communicator's confirmation of the false version weakens the case for survival…

Source: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research

Highlights mine...

“It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.)
On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones. If all ideas have the same validity then you are lost, because then, it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all.”
-Carl Sagan “The Burden of Skepticism” Pasadena Lecture, 1987
(Quoted in ‘Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer)

...Because I understand the need for openness too.

 

[Garrette]

I think, Clancie, that our reticence (meaning the reticence of those on this thread who don't believe Piper was legitimate) lies in the fact that despite all this extensive study and record-keeping, none of the easily available sources are impressive.

I'm considering signing up with the JSPR myself so that I can look at some of these things (though it won't be soon for me) because they do sound interesting.

However, I would think that the most impressive stuff would already be quoted or referenced somewhere.

I don't have the Braude book, but I do have Gauld's and Meyers'. Those three together are the ones that Steve Grenard recommends, yes?

The Gauld book has already been discussed here; the example of Piper's readings in his book is not impressive, nor does it show a pattern, which is what you emphasize.

The Meyer's book is a bit more extensive but demonstrates the same editing as in Gauld. If I get time, which is doubtful, I'll try to transcribe some of the Meyer's book stuff. I have to say, though, that it's no more impressive than Gauld.

In fact, both Meyer and Gauld talk about the strict controls and impossibility of fraud, but the examples given do not, imo, support that stance.

One wonders why such weak examples were chosen if stronger examples exist.


On a different but related issue, let me ask a question about your stance that the "pattern" of performance is really what demonstrates legitimate mediumship. Would you then say that Ian Rowland's performance (the 30 second edited bit and the calendar hit) might not be impressive in itself (to you) but if repeated many times would then indicate that Rowland is as accurate as John Edward because he would then have demonstrated a pattern?