Beyond belief

Right now I'm reading a book by Tom Harrison called Life After Death - Living Proof. The book recounts numerous seances held in the 1940s and '50s by Tom's mother, a British trance medium named Minnie Harrison, who purportedly had the ability not only to communicate with the deceased but to materialize them in physical form.

Sounds crazy, I admit. It's one thing to claim that the spirits of the dead can speak through a human channeler, but another thing to say that these spirits can actually materialize and walk around the seance room, shaking hands with the sitters or hugging them, signing their names, and giving small gifts.

Although I think many paranomal phenomena are genuine, I have been skeptical of materialization mediums. Many of these mediums have been exposed as frauds. And typically they operate under conditions that do not inspire confidence - in darkened rooms, or hidden behind curtains out of sight of the sitters. The rare photos taken of "materialized" entities often look fake, a fact that only encourages more skepticism. All of this has led me to be very wary of this area of psychic exploration. In fact, I wrote two online essays (here and here) criticizing a particular materialization medium who used the name "Eva C."

So when I started Tom Harrison's book, I was in a rather critical frame of mind. Not that I was skeptical of Mr. Harrison himself; he comes across as entirely sincere, deeply devoted to his mother, and convinced of the reality of what he and his fellow sitters observed. But people can be sincere and still be mistaken. 

My first thought was that maybe the alleged phenomena were hallucinations. Did the group of sitters want to believe in Spiritualism so badly that they convinced themselves they were seeing something that wasn't there? But this hypothesis was immediately dashed by the infrared photos and tape recordings taken of the seances. These visual and audio records at least establish that something was going on in that room. You can't take a photo or make a tape recording of a hallucination.

Next, I considered the possibility that Minnie Harrison was faking the phenomena by impersonating the "spirits." Other materialization mediums have been caught doing this. Once the medium is ensconced in her "cabinet" (usually a corner of the room veiled by a curtain), she can change into a disguise and then emerge in the role of someone's late sister, aunt, etc.

But I was wrong again. It turns out that a cabinet was used only for the later seances. In the earlier ones, Minnie Harrison was seated with the other sitters in a circle. The room was illuminated by red light - dim light, but adequate to see Minnie even as the materialized spirit moved about the room. In other words, Minnie could not have been playacting as a ghost, because she and the ghost were visible simultaneously.

Could one of the sitters have served as Minnie's accomplice, leaving the circle and impersonating a spirit? No. The same red light that showed Minnie in her seat showed all the other sitters, too. Besides, the room was very small, and when eight or more sitters were present, no one could have left the circle without being noticed.

All right. Then Minnie must have had an accomplice who was not part of the circle. Some other person, unknown to the group, entered the room after the seance had begun.

Again, this explanation fails. The room had only a single door, and it was locked from the inside. Further, the door could not be opened until the person sitting closest to it had moved his chair away (as I said, the room was small). There was a window, but it was sealed with blackout material. And the red light would have revealed anyone trying to enter.

But maybe the secret accomplice entered the room before the seance, and was hidden there the whole time? It seems impossible. The room in question did not belong to the Harrisons, but to friends of theirs, the Shipmans. It was, in fact, just a tiny room at the back of a store. The accomplice would not have had access to the room unless the Shipmans were in on the plot. Moreover, the room does not appear to have offered any place to hide. There was no closet, no bathroom.

Sometimes the apparitions were said to have "built up" from the floor and then melted away into the floor when they departed. This naturally raises the possibility of a trapdoor, opening perhaps on a basement or crawlspace. But again, the hypothesis fails. The floor was carpeted, making it highly unlikely that a trapdoor could have been concealed. And unless the Shipmans were in on it, how could Minnie and her hypothetical accomplice have cut a trapdoor into the floor?

Other observations made by Tom Harrison and the other sitters make all "normal" explanations even more untenable. At one point, a materialized entity told Tom that, to save energy, she had not bothered to materialize her legs. Tom took a look and, he says, saw that the entity indeed had no visible legs.  Some of the entities supplied information unknown to anyone in the circle, which was later verified. "Apports" (objects transported as if by magic from place to place) would show up in the sitters' homes after the entities told them where to look.

Guest sitters frequently joined the circle. Many dozens of people witnessed these phenomena in weekly sittings that extended over more than a decade. If fraud were the answer, surely someone would have spotted it.

There is also the question of motive. If Minnie were defrauding her friends on a weekly basis, what was she getting out of it? She charged no money for her work and accepted no gifts or contributions. She was ill with cancer and suffered through several operations, so she often would not have had the strength to carry out elaborate deceptions. She sought no publicity and received none.

And yet ... the mind boggles at the notion that the spirits of the deceased were actually assuming physical form in the back room of the Shipmans' store. The very idea seems beyond belief.

Still...

At the end of his book, Tom Harrison cites Sherlock Holmes' famous observation that, when all other explanations have been eliminated, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. If the Baker Street detective was right, then I'm left with the conclusion that my earlier skepticism about materializations was unwarranted.

Or as the physicist J.B.S. Haldane once quipped in a very different context - the universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine.

(This post was slightly edited after its initial publication.)

Comments

[Henry James]

So, what about cams, good old experiment planning, etc? One could broadcast the stuff on Internet ;-)

[Shannon]

MP, I'm much the same as you when it comes to this sort of thing. I'm not a disbeliever in supernatural phenomena however I am skeptic of certain practices, especially mediums. I will definitely have to pick up Life After Death-Living Proof and see what Harrison has to offer. I do wonder where you got all the information on the room where these "sittings" supposedly took place and what was in the room at the time, etc. Are these bits of information from the book, directly from Mr. Harrison himself, or from another source?

I also noticed that in the link for the photos that you provided there are a few of Minnie Harrison herself with an example of "ectoplasm" coming out of her mouth (to me, it simply looks as if she were swallowing a set of window sheers). I'll reserve my judgement however until I have finished the book and possibly done a bit of internet searching on Minnie Harrison.

Thanks for bringing to my attention yet another promising read...my husband's most likely going to ban me from your and Jake's blogs if I keep picking up new books to read!

[Henry James]

That's 1948 stuff - hardly makes much sense with digital equipment. In fact, blogging on ectoplasm looks like contradiction in terms ;-)

[Michael Prescott]

>I do wonder where you got all the information on the room where these "sittings" supposedly took place and what was in the room at the time, etc. Are these bits of information from the book, directly from Mr. Harrison himself, or from another source?

From the book, i.e., from Tom Harrison. It's true that he could simply be lying about the whole thing - although the audio recordings and photos show that something, at least, was going on. I can only say that he seems perfectly sincere and genuine to me. I realize that many people will simply assume that he's a fake and that I'm hopelessly naive, but so be it.

In the book he does quote a skeptical sitter who was encouraged to search the room for hidden trapdoors in the floor or ceiling, and to ensure that the window was locked and sealed with blackout material, and that the door was locked. The sitter did all this, and the phenomena took place as usual, leaving him much less skeptical.

I agree that the photos of these and other materializations often look fake, which is one reason I have been doubtful of them in the past.

Finally, I should have noted that Harrison's descriptions of the seances do not rely on fifty-year-old memories but are taken from detailed notes he wrote at the time. Or so he says. As always, it comes down to one's assessment of the writer's basic honesty. I think Harrison is honest; others may take a different view.

[Shannon]

Very interesting. I just ordered the book from Amazon this morning along with Jake's two books and a couple of others I've been meaning to order. I'll get to it sometime in the next two weeks and share my take on it once I've read it.

[Thomas Jones]

Readers of this blog may be interested in the webpage below on Tom Harrison's book "Living Proof - Life After Death", which contains a brief write-up, purchasing details and links to other webpages on Minnie and Tom Harrison:

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/harrison/

Thanks for the link. Survivalafterdeath.org is an outstanding Internet resource, one that I have bookmarked and have used many times.

[Sylvia]

I personally have met Tom Harrison, Minnie harrisons son. I know that people who do not understand physical mediumship always put doubt on it calling it fake. I have been to proper full seances and I have seen materialized spirit. Tom Harrison is not a fake. He is explaining to people the truth about when people die they do continue living on in the spirit world. I do know every ones entitled to an oppinion and belief yet all I can say is why don't you go to a proper seance such as Stewart Alexanders or David thompsons and witness the genuine materialisation of spirit.
The one thing that can be annoying is people who say they do not believe in spirit. Have you ever sat down and thought about who you really are in this world and why you are here. We all are spirit. when we die we shed the physical body and move on into a new life form.
when you doubt the exsistence of creation you doubt your own.
Life never ends it continues on forever. Everything in the world has feelings no matter what you are.
I suggest to skeptics never judge a book by it's cover.
If you want the truth about spirit exsistence get out there look for it and witness it with your own two eyes maybe it will wake you up a bit.

[Glenn]

I am listening to the audio recordings of the sittings whilst reading this site. I will provide a link to the recordings at the end of my comments.

Although everything sounds quite friendly during the sittings, it also sounds very formal in a very British way, polite and proper. Listening to the spirits talk, some sound quite lucidly and clearly, others in a staccato, and abrupt monotone voice.
The commentary reminds me very much of a 50s documentary, quite formal and precise and matter-of-fact. These sittings have been taking place for quite some time, so the events and phenomena that occur are accepted with a normality bordering on the mundane.
I have never been to a spiritualist sitting, or seance, but have often wondered to myself what kind of feelings would I have witnessing such phenomena? Would I be frightend, awestruck, or perhaps some resentment towards thinking that I was being decieved in a non-detectable way? I just couldn't say right now, but listening to the audio of the sittings I feel a sense of bemused interest tinged with a little scepticism.
Afterall, if these audio recordings are factual accounts of genuine communication between family and friends and those of their relatives whom have died, then the recordings are nothing short of astonishing.
Have a listen, hear for yourself and decide.
Regards

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/media/

Scroll down to the 'Christmas Party' sitting. I used Real Player to listen.

[Michael Prescott]

Sylvia,

Thanks for your comments. I'm sure you'll understand that materialization phenomena are hard for some people to accept, especially given the many frauds who unfortunately have operated in this area. I haven't met Mr. Harrison, but as I said, my strong impression is that he is honest, and that the phenomena he describes are real.

Glenn,

I listened to that recording some time ago, but found the audio quality disappointingly poor. (Well, it was made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1954.) As for the bemused, almost blase reactions, I'm reminded of Michael Crichton's essay in his memoir Travels, in which he describes attending a "spoon-bending party." This was an event at which ordinary people were taught to bend spoons via psychokinesis. Though skeptical, Crichton learned to do it and became a believer. But he also reports feeling curiously bored after the initial surprise wore off. Once he had experienced the phenomenon for himself, he no longer found it mysterious or even particularly interesting. This seems to be a common psychological reaction - possibly a defense mechanism, or perhaps just a recognition that these phenomena are already "known" by us on some subconscious level.

For what it's worth, when I first read about near-death experiences (in Moody's book Life After Life), my reaction was one of, "Yes, of course, that IS what it's like!" Yet I had not previously believed in life after death, and did not intellectually accept the idea until I had read a great deal more. My emotional response, however, was immediate. Make of this what you will. :-)

[chris howarth physical medium !]

My dear friend,may i call you friend,i feel you must be a distant relative of Houdini,who went to incredible lengths to discredit the full materialisations of marjorie crandon in the usa last century,although claiming to rteplicate any thing she did,in fact he never ever turned up once to try & prove his theory.i feel that you are somewhat greatly deluded to think that we go around,sit in circle for yrs to develop & generally fool ourselves throughought our lives to what end i ask you,most of us lead normal lives and i would dread to think that my circle imagined me being lifted 10 ft in the air just over 1 month ago in my own physical circle!.death is a lie!!!,the spirit world really exists,it is their quest to bring survival evidence through to human kind in what ever way they can,this even means showing themselves often younger in full materialisation also.
I know and have met Tom Harrison,he is the most humble & gentle of people i have ever met in my life it brought tears to my & many others eyes listening to him talking about his gifted mothers mediumship,when he talks you are there almost in the presence of his mothers circle,you feel the emotion you experience the joy & you most certainly feel the warmth & love that eminates from this wonderful man.
i'm sorry friend but you are sadly misguided if you believe all of this to be faked,
i would ask you to think again before writing rubbish like this,its all been done before this is an old school,in the past mediums were subjectively investigated and written about,this is 2006 it is now time to accept,do you watch television can you see whats happening,every channel is now trying to air programs relating to psychic & mediumistick phenomena,where ortodox church services are deminishing,spiritual churches are starting to fill, & i'm glad to say young people,thats healthy !!!
don't judge before seeing it for yourself.
I'll pray for you! God bless Chris howarth

[Michael Prescott]

Chris,

I'm afraid you've misunderstood my post. I was endorsing Tom Harrison's book, not debunking it.