Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (403 page)

dramatist Alexander Bisson (1848-1912). Several people participated, including doctors, as they did later in Munich and London. Eva C's clothing, as well as the lighting, door locks, composition of the walls etc., were constantly checked. Before they began Eva C showed herself in the nude. Madame Bisson gave her a gynaecological examination; her perineum and anus were explored. 'Before each séance the author examined the hair, nostrils (air was blown through them), the external ear channels, the oral orifices, teeth, armpits, feet, the state of hands and fingernails ... the objection that the medium could have small rolled up pellets somewhere on her person seems to be unfounded.'

After these extremely detailed searches the wretched Eva C was sewn into the dark robe that she had never touched before. 'If one takes into account the fact that the medium had nothing white on her body (neither blouse nor handkerchief) the grey and white materializations against the black background are convincing.'

Schrenck-Notzing made use of a technical innovation of the time: flash photographs with pulverized magnesium. These sometimes nauseating photographs are shown as proof in his book Materializations-Phanonemene [6].

What actually happened at these mediumistic séances?

Some examples from the records:

17th May, 1910 ... To the accompaniment of deep respirations and convulsive muscular efforts a large, streaked, flocculent substance formed directly before my eyes and seemed to flow from her mouth, getting bigger and thicker. The substance may have been five to eight centimeters wide and forty to fifty centimeters long. I moved my head about fifteen to twenty centimeters nearer to observe more clearly and saw this sluggish moving mass, like a heap of the finest striped grey veils, slowly sink down. It followed every movement that the medium made with her head and yet-seemed to separate itself from it .... To our astonishment we could no longer make out any facial features, for the whole head was enveloped in a big veil-like cloud from which light-coloured tatters and strips hung down over her breasts and down to the knee. This image vanished before our eyes, as when a cloud dissolves, and her face was clearly visible again .... 1st June, 1910 ... During the next apparition the light coloured materialization first came out of her lap and right hip .... Her mouth had no connection with the substance; I convinced myself of this by putting my finger in her mouth ....

2nd September, 1910 ... Madame Bisson held a seance during which Eva C wore nothing but a nightdress .... Madame Bisson got the hypnotized medium to undo it and I had my first opportunity to observe teleplasma emanation from a naked body ... it mainly flowed from the bodily orifices, mouth, nipples and genitals ... the emanation had a smoke-like character and formed clouds from which veil-like material substances and all kinds of shapes resembling human limbs arose ....

Professor Charles Richet (1850-1935) was present at the séance of 5th November, 1910. This French doctor recognized the protective action of the blood in infected experimental animals and discovered anaphylaxy. (*) He won the Nobel Prize for this in 1913.

Today the stance began at once with the phenomena .... In the place where the mass of grey matter had