Essential Perspectives on Mediums and Materialization

Fig. 98 from Clairvoyance and Materialisation "Warsaw Experiments, September 3, 1919"

In the introduction of his 1911 book Glimpses of the Next State, W. Usborne Moore offered some descriptions of occurrences glimpsed at 1904 seances with medium Cecil Husk (along with seances of other 'materialisation mediums').   Moore noted that except for the medium's "principal control or familiar spirit" 'John King,' the materialized "faces and busts were about two-thirds of life size."  During one of these seances he glimpsed the first materialization of 'Iola,' whom he would soon understand to be his own "spirit companion and guide."  He recalled that the face on this occasion was "swathed round the mouth by a white bandage."

This substance likened to a "bandage" would eventually be known as 'ectoplasm' in the annals of seance phenomena yet Moore's journals of witnessed seance events indicate that the 'bandage' was not always an observable aspect of materializations.  Moore contemplated the the phenomena of materialization at seances and commented, ". . . the simulacrum is seldom perfect.  I have seen really good materialisations of my guide twice in England and once in America.  On a great number of occasions in England I have seen her, and she has identified herself, but I cannot say the faces were good copies of the original."

It seems evident that these 'spirit guides' made known through seance room phenomena are analogous to the 'guardian angels' of religious traditions throughout the world.

Dr. Gustave Geley's book Clairvoyance and Materialisation (1927) is subtitled "A Record of Experiments."  In the section concerning "Experiments in Materialisation with M. Franek Kluski," Geley explained about "The Primary Substance and Luminous Phenomena" based upon his own scientific investigation.

 

This primary substance may be solid, liquid, or vaporous.  With Eva the solid type predominates, with most other mediums the vaporous.  This is the case with Franek; the ectoplasm appears as gaseous, and only exceptionally as solid. 

 

Geley had noticed an odor that he equated with ozone at the beginning phase of the manifestations.
 

Then, in weak light, slightly phosphorescent vapour floats round the medium, especially above his head, like light smoke, and in it there are gleams like foci of condensation.  These lights were usually many, tenuous, and ephemeral, but sometimes they were larger and more lasting, and then gave the impression of being luminous parts of organs otherwise invisible, especially finger-ends or parts of faces.  When materialisation was complete, fully formed hands and faces could be seen.

These hands and faces were often self-luminous; likewise the materialised tissues.  The lights represent the first stages of materialisation—foci of condensation in the "human nebula."

 

In his "Introduction to the Practical Study of Mediumship," Geley considered "the strange aspect of the ectoplasmic substance."  He was aware that "It may assume the likeness of more or less visible filaments, giving the unaccustomed observer the impression of threads intended to move an object fraudulently.  At other times it assumes the appearance of light woven stuff like muslin, and photography shows the web.  This has often been thought a proof of fraud in cases of quite genuine metapsychic phenomena."

 

Detail of Fig. 147/148 from Phenomena of Materialisation (1920). Baron Von Schrenck Notzing described the materialization seen in this photograph as "a long cord-like structure . . . looped round an anatomically well-developed finger . . ."

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