Phenomena of Materialisation : Investigating The Naked Psychic Eva Carrière

“Miss Eva prepared the heads before every séance, and endeavoured to make them unrecognizable. A clean-shaven face was decorated with a beard. Grey hairs became black curls, a broad forehead was made into a narrow one. But, in spite of all her endeavours, she could not obliterate certain characteristic lines”

– A newspaper article explains how French medium Eva Carrière duped her clients

 

German physician and psychic researcher Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing shined a flashlight on the séances performed by French medium Eva Carrière, aka Eva C (1886 – 1943), from 1909 til 1913. The turning of spirit into psychical matter was a favourite phenomenon of the Spiritualists, not least because it gave empirical weight to the claims of the continued existence of the departed spirits.

A series of tests he devised convinced von Schrenck-Notzing that Eva C was the real deal and in 1913 he published his Phenomena of Materialisation detailing the sessions and the reasons for his belief.

To others, the photographs in von Schrenck-Notzing’s book suggest the polar opposite, that Eva C was a con artist who made spirits out of cardboard and pictures cut from magazines. She also distracted the men who came to be parlour by taking her clothes off.

 

Eva Carrière and Juliette Bisson

Having been outed as a fraud in 1905, Marthe Béraud changed her name to Eva Carrière in 1909 and began anew. The writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed she was genuine. Escapologist Harry Houdini was unsure. To settle the argument Albert von Schrenck-Notzing devised a series of tests.

Many tests began with von Schrenck-Notzing inserting his finger into the vaginas of Carrière and her assistant (and lover) Juliette Bisson to ensure no “ectoplasm” had been secreted there. He’d also perform a thorough gynaecological examination before and after a test.

The scene was augmented by Carrière moving around naked during a séance and engaging in sexual activities with her audience. And so it was that the mostly older male “investigators” became amazed that Carrière really could raise the dead.

 

Harry Price Investigates

Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. Price thought von Schrenk-Notzing’s photographs proved Eva C’s powers of fakery.

In 1920 Carrière was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research in London, of which Price was a leading member. The ectoplasm she spewed from every orifice was found to have been made from chewed paper. The ghostly faces that hovered around her had been cut from French magazine Le Miroir, including images of Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and French president Raymond Poincaré.

Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing addressed these points at length, and found the spirits’ likenesses to famous people merely coincidental and no proof that Eva C ever bought or saw the magazine. As for the ectoplasm, well, it was moist, often left a grey residue and vanished. “There was evidently great nervousness in exposing the ectoplastic product to the light, and to our gaze, for any length of time,” he writes, adding:

“The medium, still in the trance condition, held her hands straight in front of our eyes, showed us transparent threads of substance emerging from her finger-tips, and connecting them, and drew them out, like a spinner draws a woollen thread, by increasing and diminishing the distance between her hands. We could touch this material, and it gave the impression of a moist, cool and somewhat resistant substance No doubt the materialised products are made of this elementary stuff.”

 

 

 

Sitting of the 29th December 1910.
Present. — M. ,M., Professor B., Mme. Bisson, and the author.

When the medium put on the knitted hose garment, before the sitting, Mme Bisson, in my presence, introduced her finger into the medium’s vagina. She was also explored by Professor B. and the author through the garment, but with negative result.

Assuming that a female medium wished to use the vagina as a hiding-place for closely rolled packets, e.g., chiffon gauze, she would have to attach some kind of cord or ribbon to the packet beforehand, in order to be able to withdraw it. This cord would be detected during the exploration at the mouth of the vagina, and any finger introduced into the vagina would feel the foreign body. In the case of persons with a very wide vaginal entrance, it might be possible to withdraw the packet by means of the fingers, deeply inserted. But such a manipulation supposes that the genitals are not separated from the hand by any partition, even a knitted one, and that the person is in a standing or reclining position. She might have touched the external genitals through the garment, but could not have penetrated to any depth.

The hiding of objects in the anal aperture, and their withdrawal from it, is even less possible, on account of its closure by a firm ring muscle, which hinders the introduction of a finger. Hidden packets can only be withdrawn by means of a cord of suitable strength, the external end of which would have been immediately discovered during the corporeal examination ; but never with the sole help of the person’s own finger.

The restoration of the material to its hiding-place would be even more difficult. It presupposes a careful folding-up and packing in the darkness of the cabinet. An introduction of the packet into the anal opening would be almost unthinkable without the use of vaseline. But all such manipulations are doubly difficult in the dark.

The bodily, and especially the gynaecological, examination, the sewing-up of the tights to the dress, of the dress at the neck and wrists, dispose of these objections, since the medium cannot touch her own skin except at the head. Besides, the manner of appearance and disappearance, and the automatism of the materials and forms produced, tell against the possibility of fraud.

As soon as Professor B. had convinced himself that Eva had no material or apparatus concealed about her person, the sitting commenced in the usual way. The examination of the cabinet, illumination, hypnotisation, as usual.

 

 

Sitting of the 4th January 1911.

Present. — Mme. Bisson, her sister, and the author.

Conditions as before. Complete, including gynaecological, examination. Commencement, 10.30. The first phenomena appeared at 11.30.

Eva meanwhile breathed deeply and audibly, showing light tremors, and had cold and moist hands. She gave an impression of suffering. Several times Mme. Bisson, who sat on a low wicker chair in front of the curtain, had to hold her hands. Under these conditions we saw at a level of 17 inches above Eva’s visible hands, which were held by those present, some well-developed structures, resembling limbs emerging from the curtain on the left, at a distance of 20 to 23 inches from her head. These objects appeared eight times in succession. The medium requested me to bring my head near the aperture of the curtain. In order to entice the apparition further outside, I brought my forehead closer, but not sufficiently so. Twice this hand-shaped structure attempted by very rapid motion to reach my forehead, but without success. When I further reduced the distance, I twice felt a strong and distinct touch on my forehead, while the medium appeared to make a great muscular effort. The touch resembled that of a broad, strongly-developed finger of a large male hand (or a big toe ?). I distinctly felt the pressure as from a soft finger-tip, together with the feeling of cool and moist human skin. Just as a gymnast contracts the muscles of his body with an extreme effort of will in order to bring about a single extraordinary muscular feat, so Eva, with many gasps and groans, endeavoured to bring about a contact by means of this structure, which was obviously amenable to psychic direction. The course of this phenomenon was characteristic, and was observed by me in the same manner in the case of Eusapia Paladino, although the two mediums had never seen each other in their lives.

The duration of contact might have been one or two seconds, but the structures stretched forward remained visible hardly one second, so that one can only state the fact without saying anything about the detailed building-up of the limbs. And, generally, the appearances are the more fugitive the less close the connection with the body of the medium, while the phenomena taking place at the body itself show a greater durability under light and observation.

Again, we saw at the same part of the left curtain a white form about 8 inches long and 4 inches wide. The medium called out “prenez-le.” I pressed the electric button. The light flared up, and convinced that I had this time obtained a specially interesting photograph, I took charge of the closed slides.

It should be mentioned that during the last phenomena Eva’s hands held both sides of the curtain, and were, therefore, distinctly visible. This time, also, the sudden interruption of the phenomena by the light meant the end of the sitting. But before I had asked for Eva’s awakening she requested Mme. Bisson to unpick the seam between tights and dress. When this was done, she asked me to examine her. In the course of the gynaecological examination I introduced the middle finger of my right hand pretty deep into the vagina, without, however, finding anything beyond a softening of the epithelium. It is, therefore, certain that the genital passage was not used as a hiding-place. Eva was awakened, and passed a restless, sleepless night.

 

 

 

Observations in December 1911 (Paris).

The physical need towards materialisation often occurred spontaneously with Eva at odd times, and appears to depend upon her physical condition.

As already mentioned, Mme. Bisson was in the habit of hypnotising Eva every evening in the cabinet (but in her day dress), in order to maintain the suggestive rapport and to influence her psychic condition favourably towards the sittings.

In a letter of 9th December 1911, she reports as follows : —

“Yesterday I hypnotised Eva as usual, and she unexpectedly began to produce phenomena. As soon as they began, Eva allowed me to undress her completely. I then saw a thick thread emerge from the
vagina. It changed its place, left the genitals, and disappeared in the navel depression.

“More material emerged from the vagina, and with a sinuous serpentine motion of its own it crept up the girl’s body, giving the impression as if it were about to rise into the air. Finally it ascended to her head,
entered Eva’s mouth, and disappeared.

“Eva then stood up, and again a mass of material appeared at the genitals, spread out, and hung suspended between her legs. A strip of it rose, took a direction towards me, receded, and disappeared. All this happened while Eva stood up. She then sat down on the floor, supported her head on her joined hands, and her elbows on my knees…”

The above report is supplemented by a letter of 13th December, which contains answers to questions put by the author. It appears that the material vanished after its first appearance as if it had been dissolved, also at the end of the sitting. During the whole process the curtains were open, and the red lights were burning as during the sittings. Mme. Bisson was in front of the cabinet and Eva inside. During the upward motion of the strip, from the genital passage to the mouth, the material showed slowly undulating movements.