Page 5 - 200704 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - April 2007

From the Pen of Brad Steiger 5 5 From the Pen of Brad Steiger Can spirit mediums when she suddenly felt a stinging blow on her through the normal sensory channels. "Science, Can spirit mediums like life, feeds itself on its own ruins," James said. communicate with the communicate with the right ear and heard a kind of hissing sound that "New facts break old rules." gradually became a voice repeating the letter "S." Sir Oliver Lodge, after a series of dead? Once this had been resolved, Leonora clearly experiments with Mrs. Piper, told how the dead? heard the same voice tell her that her Aunt Sara had died, but her spirit remained near. Leonora's medium from Boston had completely convinced mother made note of the day and the hour in him "...not only of human survival but also of the Leonora Piper: William which she had received the spirit communication, faculty possessed by disembodied spirits to Leonora Piper: William James' "One White Raven" and a few days later the family learned that Sara communicate with people on earth." James' "One White Raven" Hereward Carrington related that Mrs. had died at the very hour on the very day that Leonora received the message. Piper's procedure during a seance was to make Although this event signaled the advent of herself comfortable on a pile of cushions, then Leonora's mediumship, her mother wisely gradually pass into the trance state. Once insisted on the young girl enjoying a normal entranced, the medium was impervious to pain childhood and the dramatic impact of any and oblivious to everything that happened around subsequent paranormal phenomena was her. After a few moments of trance, her right hand underplayed. When Leonora was 22, she married would reach out and accept the pencil that a sitter William Piper of Boston, and shortly thereafter would place in her hand. At this point, automatic developed a friendship with a blind clairvoyant writing was produced and spirit communications named Dr. J.R. Cocke, who had been attracting a were relayed to the members of the seance circle. substantial following as a result of his accurate Professor James H. Hyslop wished to medical diagnoses and cures. observe this remarkable woman for himself and At her very first meeting with Dr. Cocke, contacted Dr. Richard Hodgson, who at that time Mrs. Piper fell into a trance, walked in such a state was conducting extensive tests with Mrs. Piper, to across the room, where she sat at a table, picked make arrangements for his attendance at a seance. up pencil and paper, and began to write messages Professor Hyslop was a stickler for taking from spirit entities. Since there were often some extreme precautions. He drove up to the medium's very prominent Bostonians seated in the seance house in a closed carriage, wearing a black mask circle at Dr. Cocke's home, the remarkable which completely covered his face. After Mrs. accuracy of Mrs. Piper's trance communications Piper had entered into the trance state, Dr. soon spread throughout the city, and she was soon Hodgson motioned for Professor Hyslop to take By Brad Steiger being pursued by men and women who wished to his place in a chair behind the medium. By Brad Steiger sit with her in her own seances. From the time he entered the seance room Ghost Hunters: William James and the At the beginning of her mediumship, Mrs. until the moment the sitting was completed and he Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death Piper's spirit control claimed to be a young Native was out the door and back in his closed carriage, (Penguin Press, 2006) by Pulitzer Prize winning American girl, but within a very short time, Dr. Hyslop did not utter a word. Even if the medium author Deborah Blum details the efforts of a small Cocke's guide, Phinuit, a French doctor, had had not been in a trance state, she would not have group of scientists to validate the survival switched his allegiance to Leonora. Phinuit been able to determine the identity of the silent hypothesis and many of the other areas of the remained the medium's principal spirit control man who sat behind her with his face completely unknown that Rob Mc Connell and his guests from 1884 to 1892, but there were other entities covered. But in spite of these extreme explore every night on the X-Zone. Among the who spoke or wrote through her, notably the spirit precautions, Mrs. Piper had mentioned Professor mediums that the great scientist-philosopher of George Pelham, a friend of the well-known James H. Hyslop's name several times during the William James, author of The Varieties of psychical researcher, Dr. Richard Hodgson. course of the seance and had given the names of Religious Experience, investigated was Lenora Pelham communicated through automatic writing so many of his family members that it took him Piper (1857-1950), a direct-voice medium, who until sometime in 1897 when both he and Phinuit more than six months of correspondence with his while entranced, would allow her body to be essentially retreated back into the spirit world kin back in the small Ohio town where he was taken over by spirits who would use her voice to upon the arrival of a powerful control known born to verify all the information told him during speak and, on occasion, to write messages to simply as the Imperator. the sitting. those persons assembled for her séances. Harvard University psychologist William Mrs. Piper died on July 3, 1950, at the age In a well-known passage from his works, James was brought to Leonora Piper's seance of 91. The majority of researchers who sat with James writes that the phenomena that he room by some rather astonishing reports which he Leonora Piper were more than willing to agree witnessed through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper had heard from his mother-in-law and his sister- with William James when he said of her: "I wish had weakened his orthodox beliefs. "To use the in-law. The elder woman had heard the medium to certify here and now the presence of a language of logic," he states, "I will say that a give the names, both first and last, of distant supernatural knowledge; a knowledge the origin universal supposition may become false because relatives. Later, James' sister-in-law had of which cannot be attributed to ordinary sources of one particular example. If you are taught that approached Mrs. Piper with a letter written in of information, that is, to our physical senses." all crows are black, and you wish to destroy this Italian that had been sent to her by a writer who belief, it is sufficient to you to present to your was known only to two people in the entire United ABOUT BRAD STEIGER: Brad teacher one white raven. My only white raven is States. The medium placed the letter to her Steiger is a prolific American writer and author Mrs. Piper." forehead and gave details of its contents and who has sold over 17 million books making him Since 1957, I have had the privilege of described the physical appearance of the writer. one of the best selling authors in history. sitting with many great physical and mental spirit As he entered Mrs. Piper's seance room, Professor Although primarily known as a paranormal mediums, but I would have loved to have been in James identified himself with a false name in researcher, Steiger has written biographies attendance in the séance parlor of Leonora Piper. order not to provide the medium with even the including a well-received biography of Rudolf Psychical researcher Hereward Carrington (in slightest clue on which to work. In spite of his Valentino, which was made into a feature film addition to James, another hero of mine) precautions, the psychologist came away from the by British film maker Ken Russell. considered Mrs. Piper to be the greatest psychical sitting completely baffled as to how Mrs. Piper Steiger began writing when he was a medium of her time. Mrs. Piper was a resident of had been able to give accurate information on all school teacher in his native Iowa when he had Boston, as was Margery Crandon (1888-1941)-- of the subjects about which he had queried. writings published in Fate Magazine and other another spirit medium who would have been James soon returned to Leonora Piper's popular publications. Throughout the 1960s exciting to research-- but Leonora's mediumship seance room. He was uninterested in the spirit Steiger emerged a successful author who co- had already won the endorsement of such hypothesis, but he was convinced that the woman wrote 22 books with other writers. By the 1970s luminaries as William James, Dr. Richard could only be obtaining her information through Steiger achieved what some would consider Hodgson, and Sir Oliver Lodge before Mrs. some paranormal means. It became the icon status as a regular guest on talk shows such Crandon had really begun her psychic career. psychologist's conviction that, while in the state as Mike Douglas and others. Eight-year-old Leonora (often spelled of trance, Mrs. Piper was able to reveal www.bradandsherry.com Leonore) had been playing in the family garden knowledge which she could not have acquired www.bradandsherry.com