Mrs. Piper Mediumship Discussion
- Thread starter TLN
- Start date
-
- Tags
- leonora piper mediums
TLN,
Here is an article about Mrs. Piper:
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/heywood/piper.htm
Mike
Here is an article about Mrs. Piper:
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/heywood/piper.htm
Mike
TLN,
Mrs. Piper was studied for years, often under very strict conditions. The article I linked to is a very brief summary. The individuals who studied her produced voluminous papers on their tests and there exist voluminous transcripts of her seances. To really see how impressive her best transcripts are, one has to read the full transcripts in the original sources. I don't even know that Clancie has read the paper I linked to, so I don't think it's fair of you to imply that she is citing examples given there as special hits.
Mike
Mrs. Piper was studied for years, often under very strict conditions. The article I linked to is a very brief summary. The individuals who studied her produced voluminous papers on their tests and there exist voluminous transcripts of her seances. To really see how impressive her best transcripts are, one has to read the full transcripts in the original sources. I don't even know that Clancie has read the paper I linked to, so I don't think it's fair of you to imply that she is citing examples given there as special hits.
Mike
TLN said:
TLN,
The first scientist to investigate Mrs. Piper was psychologist William James, who famously referred to Piper as his "white crow." But his studies of her are not generally considered as significant as are those conducted by Richard Hodgson and other later investigators. Hodgson was known in his time as an extreme skeptic with a reputation for exposing fraudulent mediums, and he and other investigators instituted certain controls to guard against fraud on Mrs. Piper's part. Here are some of them: she was trailed by private detectives, her mail was opened and read, sitters were brought to her on the spur of the moment and introduced to her under false names, proxy sittings were held, where people were brought to her seances not only with false names but with the intent of sitting on behalf of others who weren't present at the seances. Mrs. Piper was not informed of the identities of the individuals that the proxies were sitting on behalf of. And some investigators, in order to test the genuineness of her trance, engaged in some rather cruel practices such as cutting, burning, and blistering her while she was in trance to see if she would react.
Mrs. Piper was eventually taken to England where she'd never been and presumably knew no one, and several investigators continued to test her and take the above mentioned precautions against fraud.
Many of the tests of Hodgson and others were written up in great detail in the publications of the Society for Psychical Research. These are now available online and you can go to the Society's website for instructions on how to access them.
If you want to read a contemporary overview of Mrs. Piper's mediumship, I recommend Chapter 3 of Stephen Braude's 2003 book, Immortal Remains. Braude is chairman of the Philosophy Department of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He quotes excerpts from a few Piper transcripts, the longest excerpt being from the "Sutton transcript."
Mrs. Piper's transcripts are not of equal quality, as she seems to have had her off days, as well as days when she produced high quality information. So to really get a feel for what her mediumship was like, both on good days and bad days, one needs to read fair number of transcripts.
Speaking of the "Sutton transcript," my feeling is, if the Sutton case has been reported accurately, that either hot reading or some kind of anomalous cognition are the only two choices for accounting for the quality of the transcript. I think cold reading can be effectively ruled out. If Mrs. Piper hot read the Suttons (who were brought into the seance room and introduced to her using fake names), then she would have somehow had to have had prior knowledge of intimate facts concerning the family life of the Suttons, and also somehow have gained the knowledge to imitate mannerisms and language patterns of the Sutton's deceased daughter.
The entire Sutton transcript can be found in this paper by Hodgson: Richard Hodgson (1898) "A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 13: 284-582. The fact that this one paper by one of the investigators of Mrs. Piper is close to 300 pages long is a hint of how voluminous the original source material on her is.
Mrs. Piper is sometimes referred to in the literature as perhaps the most outstanding medium who has been extensively studied to date. So perhaps anyone who wants to critically examine mediumship would be advised to spend a lot of time on her.
I think Piper's case is complex, and what I know of it so far has not led me to conclude that there is survival of death or that Piper was communicating with the dead. At the moment I entertain a modest belief that she may well have exhibited at times some sort of anomalous cognition that has not been adequately explained. But, of course, that belief could change as I learn more about her. And given the quantity of original source information that is available about her, I certainly have more to learn.
Mike
TLN,
We have never seen Mrs. Piper in action. There are no film clips, no audio clips, and personally, I haven't even seen a single transcript, if one such exists. If they do, we have no way of checking whether they are real or not. All we have are the assurances that Mrs. Piper is real, from people who believe in mediumship. None of the people studying her are alive today. We can't even talk to any of the people who were read by her.
We can't check on Mrs. Piper.
On the other hand, we have seen tons of footage of John Edward in action. Tons of film clips, tons of audio clips, and tons of transcripts, analyzed over and over again. We even have a (supposedly) scientific study of John Edward. We can easily talk to people who have been read by him.
We can check on John Edward.
And yet, Mrs. Piper is chosen as the best example of mediumship.
We know that when accounts of "hits" are examined, they dwindle to nothing. We know that when believers in mediumship give accounts of readings, these accounts do not hold up to scrutiny. We know that readings are embellished, pruned and sometimes even fabricated. We know that paranormal research is marred by fraud.
Old tales of past glory should be taken with a few pinches of salt. Especially when it comes to the supernatural.
We have never seen Mrs. Piper in action. There are no film clips, no audio clips, and personally, I haven't even seen a single transcript, if one such exists. If they do, we have no way of checking whether they are real or not. All we have are the assurances that Mrs. Piper is real, from people who believe in mediumship. None of the people studying her are alive today. We can't even talk to any of the people who were read by her.
We can't check on Mrs. Piper.
On the other hand, we have seen tons of footage of John Edward in action. Tons of film clips, tons of audio clips, and tons of transcripts, analyzed over and over again. We even have a (supposedly) scientific study of John Edward. We can easily talk to people who have been read by him.
We can check on John Edward.
And yet, Mrs. Piper is chosen as the best example of mediumship.
We know that when accounts of "hits" are examined, they dwindle to nothing. We know that when believers in mediumship give accounts of readings, these accounts do not hold up to scrutiny. We know that readings are embellished, pruned and sometimes even fabricated. We know that paranormal research is marred by fraud.
Old tales of past glory should be taken with a few pinches of salt. Especially when it comes to the supernatural.
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 11,286
Wasn't Ms. Piper the trance medium who originally had a french doctor as a "control" -- a french doctor who, when questioned, neither spoke convincing french nor knew about medicine or anatomy?
That Ms. Piper?
N/A
That Ms. Piper?
N/A
CFLarsen said:
I do think however that Mrs Piper does warrant looking at, even if only for the very reason she is held up as one of the "stars" by believers in “mediumship”.
I read a lot about her many, many years ago (pre-internet) but never saw any full length transcripts and from what I did read she did not impress me anymore then say JE does today. If transcripts and more stuff are now available I will make some time and go and have a read and look. Who knows may see something incredible.
What I would like to see is anyone who has already researched her on the "pro" mediumship side, say like Clancie, point to the "highlights" as a starting point.
NoZed Avenger said:
NoZed Avenger,
Yes, one of Mrs. Piper's controls was Dr. Phinuit, who claimed to have been a French doctor. However, the scientists and investigators of Mrs. Piper did not view Phinuit as a real spirit of a deceased person, in part for the reasons you mention. While Mrs. Piper later had a couple of controls who were much more convincing, there were problems with them as well. In general, serious "secular" investigators seem to have viewed the controls of trance mediums as more likely to be secondary personalities of the medium himself or herself (of course, they first attempted to rule out the possibility that such mediums were engaging in conscious fraud). And the trance medium Eileen Garrett even herself believed that her controls were likely secondary personalities.
Given the fact that serious investigators raised problems with taking the controls of trance mediums at face value, they looked at the issue of whether or not any information appearing while the medium was in trance was derived paranormally. If Dr. Phinuit, for example, claimed to be relaying information from a spirit, how accurate was the information, and, if highly unique and accurate, how likely was it that Mrs. Piper could have acquired the information normally. The issue for the investigators was more complex than simply a question of either/or -- either a given medium being fraudulent, -or-, literally communicating with the dead.
Mike
Mike D.,
So, how do we distinguish between a medium having "secondary personalities" (not cheating), and a medium inventing spirits (cheating)?
Clancie,
You ignore the fact that, for a cold-reading to work, the audience has to accept that the cold-reader can actually talk to dead people.
You also ignore the very real ethical aspects of cheating people going through a grief process.
You are perfectly aware of these, but you ignore them. Is that honest?
Edited to add: Clancie, could you please stop removing posts?? It is very destructive to the debate.
So, how do we distinguish between a medium having "secondary personalities" (not cheating), and a medium inventing spirits (cheating)?
Clancie,
You ignore the fact that, for a cold-reading to work, the audience has to accept that the cold-reader can actually talk to dead people.
You also ignore the very real ethical aspects of cheating people going through a grief process.
You are perfectly aware of these, but you ignore them. Is that honest?
Edited to add: Clancie, could you please stop removing posts?? It is very destructive to the debate.
Clancie said:
No just some help narrowing down of where to start from to find some of those "special hits" and "good demos".
When I saw from Mike that "The individuals who studied her produced voluminous papers on their tests and there exist voluminous transcripts of her seances." I was hoping someone like you who knew her work etc. could quickly point to the examples you thought compelling for the “pro” case.
CFLarsen said:
Claus,
I really don't know, but I would guess is that probably somewhere in the vast quantity of material produced by investigators of trance mediumship is a discussion of this issue, but I'm unable at present to point you to it, if it exists. But here is a discussion of the whole issue of the nature of "trance personalities" that you might find interesting to peruse:
http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/tyrrell/personalities.htm
Of course, investigators did take pains to put in place safeguards against Mrs. Piper fraudulently acquiring the unique and specific information that often was communicated during her seances, as well as trying to determine if she was really unconscious during her trances. But I'm not sure how this specifically relates to the question of whether or not the controls were actual secondary personalities of the medium.
Mike
Mike D.,
So, we don't know the difference between a medium having "secondary personalities" (not cheating), and a medium inventing spirits (cheating).
You mention the Mrs. Piper was under surveillance etc. during her testing period, and no evidence of her cheating was found. I don't think that anyone would argue that "medium not found cheating" is the same as "medium is real", but it does leave us with very little to work with.
Thanks for your link. I found a very interesting paragraph:
In the biography of Piper, we find this:
Since Mrs. Piper had a fictitious person coming through in 1902, ten years after the French doctor Phinuit showed "himself" to be of, shall we say, lesser spiritual substance, can we surmise that the spiritual abilities of Mrs. Piper is somewhat exaggerated? We are not merely talking about Phinuit being a "secondary personality", but also the "spirits" following him.
This raises very serious doubt about the validity of Mrs. Piper.
So, we don't know the difference between a medium having "secondary personalities" (not cheating), and a medium inventing spirits (cheating).
You mention the Mrs. Piper was under surveillance etc. during her testing period, and no evidence of her cheating was found. I don't think that anyone would argue that "medium not found cheating" is the same as "medium is real", but it does leave us with very little to work with.
Thanks for your link. I found a very interesting paragraph:
In the biography of Piper, we find this:
Since Mrs. Piper had a fictitious person coming through in 1902, ten years after the French doctor Phinuit showed "himself" to be of, shall we say, lesser spiritual substance, can we surmise that the spiritual abilities of Mrs. Piper is somewhat exaggerated? We are not merely talking about Phinuit being a "secondary personality", but also the "spirits" following him.
This raises very serious doubt about the validity of Mrs. Piper.