Fraud
Ectoplasm on many occasions has been proven to be based on fraud. Many mediums had used methods of swallowing and regurgitating textile products smoothed with potato starch and in other cases the ectoplasm was made of paper, cloth and egg white or butter muslin.
John Ryan Haule wrote:
Because ectoplasm was believed susceptible to destruction by light, the possibility that ectoplasm might appear became a reason for making sure that Victorian séances took place in near darkness. Poor lighting conditions also became an opportunity for fraud, particularly as faux ectoplasm was easy to make with a mixture of soap, gelatin and egg white, or perhaps merely well-placed muslin.
Psychical researcher Harry Price exposed medium Helen Duncan's fraudulent techniques by proving, through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was cheesecloth that she had swallowed and regurgitated. Mediums would also cut pictures from magazines and stick them to the cheesecloth to pretend they were spirits of the dead. Another researcher, C. D. Broad, wrote that ectoplasm in many cases has proven to be composed of home material such as butter-muslin and that there is no solid evidence for its claimed existence.
Read more about this topic: Ectoplasm (paranormal)
Famous quotes containing the word fraud:
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)