The Mystery of the Black Beard Solved

No doubt there was some fraud involved with physical mediumship when it was popular 100-175 years ago, but I suspect Dr. William J. Crawford, a prominent researcher of the early 1900s, knew what he was talking about when he wrote that there was not as much fraud as historians suggest. Much of the phenomena was “hokey,” unnatural and beyond scientific understanding, and therefore the only explanation was that it was fraudulent, the work of tricksters. Nevertheless, much of it was genuine.  

Consider, for example, the beard of the materialized spirit appearing on the cover of Professor Jan Vandersande’s 2008 book, Life After Death: Some of the Best Evidence (upper left photo).  The photo was taken by Jack Allen, a professor of anatomy at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, at a materialization séance during the late 1960s. So black is the beard, that it certainly looks fake and makes one wonder why a charlatan would think he could get away with such a ridiculous disguise. 

 “Firstly, I want to point out that the materialization is a very impressive materialization,” Vandersande, who taught physics at the same university, said when I interviewed him in 2007. “It is not someone dressed up in a white sheet. Just look at all the detail, folds, etc. of the ectoplasm covering the spirit entity. Also, there is a large amount of ectoplasm at the feet of the entity and of a sitter standing next to the entity. Any one dressed up to ‘impersonate’ an ectoplasmic entity would never pull along a large amount of white cloth!!  Secondly, Tom Harrison in his book shows a photograph of his materialized grandfather also with a black beard. That to me is not a coincidence. A possible explanation is that those parts of the body covered by skin are made from ectoplasm and that hair is not. I have no explanation what it is made from and why it is black. The fact that it is black does not take away from the genuineness of the materialization.”

Now consider the words of William T. Stead, a renowned author and social activist who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and began communicating through mediums shortly thereafter. At one sitting, he explained that another soul helped him find mediums and showed him how to make his presence known.  He was told to visualize himself among the people in the flesh and imagine that he was standing here in the flesh with a strong light thrown upon himself.  “Hold the visualization very deliberately and in detail, and keep it fixed upon my mind, that at that moment I was there and they were conscious of it,” Stead explained the process. 

Stead added that the people at one sitting were able to see only his face because he had seen himself as only a face. “I imagined the part they would recognize me by.” It was in the same way he was able to get a message through.  He stood by the medium, concentrated  his mind on a short sentence, and repeated it with much emphasis and deliberation until he could hear part of it spoken through the medium.

Professor Charles Richet, the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, reported that a spirit told him he was unable to materialize because he could not remember what he looked like when in the flesh.  In her 1892 book, There is no Death, Florence Marryat, a popular writer of that era, tells of a sitting she had with Rosalie Showers in which an old family friend, John Powles, communicated but initially declined to materialize. Peter, Showers’ spirit control, explained that “he doesn’t want to show himself  because he’s not a bit like what he used to be.” However, when Marryat persuaded him to show himself, she saw only a face that didn’t resemble her old friend in the slightest.  She wrote that it was “hard, stiff, and unlifelike.” Powles then told her to sit with Showers again on another day and he would attempt to do better.

Phosphoric Hair  

For the next sitting, Marryat brought along a necktie that had belonged to Powles, keeping it in her pocket and telling no one about it.  Soon after the séance began, Peter told her to put the necktie on Powles’ neck. “The face of John Powles appeared, very different from the time before, as he had his own features and complexion, but his hair and beard, which were both auburn in life, appeared phosphoric, as though made of living fire,” Marryat wrote, adding that she then mounted a chair, put the tie around his neck and asked if she could kiss him.  Powles shook his head, but Peter then told her to give him her hand. “I did so, and as he kissed it his moustaches burned me,” Marryat further recorded. “I cannot account for it. I can only relate the fact. After which he disappeared with the necktie, which I have never seen since, though we searched the little room for it thoroughly.” 

Back to Richet, he also reported on a materialization called Bien Boa (upper right photo), which does not appear to have any legs.  The same omission is noted in a photo of the spirit called Rector, when it materialized.  Although I don’t recall the reference, I do remember one researcher commenting that the feet were usually the last to materialize and sometimes didn’t because the power was lacking for a full materialization.  

From all that we might infer that the spirit must be able to visualize what he or she looked like when in the flesh, and project that image into the ectoplasm generated by the medium. Indications are that most of us have a somewhat distorted image of ourselves and so we might project an image not fully resembling what our friends and relatives recall.   Often our self-image is based on photographs of ourselves when we are looking our best, both younger and slimmer. What’s more, we don’t always visualize ourselves from head to foot.    

The bottom two photos are infra-red shots in the dark showing the materialization of a spirit known as Silver Belle, an Indian girl who claimed to be the spirit guide of medium Ethel Post Parrish. The photo on left shows the materialization in process, while the second photo shows the completed materialization, which appears more artistic than realistic.  Here again, it looks like a fake.  However, we might theorize that Silver Belle lived before photography, or even good mirrors, and did not have a fixed image of herself.  She thus imagined herself in a more idealistic way, as she may have seen herself in a reflection in a pond of clear water.  

Photos of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Lodge, the son of Sir Oliver Lodge, were produced by a medium in experiments by Canadian physician T. Glen Hamilton.  The spirit photos looked much like photos taken of them while they were in the physical world and were therefore deemed fake by some.  However, I also recall another reference in which the spirit was asked to show himself but said he would have to make a quick trip to his old home to view a portrait of himself on the mantel there to refresh his memory of his appearance.  He then materialized a photo in which he appeared as he had in the old portrait still at his home.  If 50 years from now, I am asked to project an image of my old self to someone in the material world, I will likely visualize a photo of myself from about age 30 rather than one of myself as seen in the mirror while shaving today.  

When I summon up an image of my brother, who died in 1970, I visualize him as he appeared in his high school graduation photo, not at some moment in time that was not recorded anywhere other than in my memory.  I can bring up the latter if I stop to search my memory for a time when I was with my brother, but it is much easier to just bring up the graduation photo with a more idealized smile and pose.  

Thinking One’s Image

In his 1942 book, Life Now and Forever, Arthur J. Wills, Ph.D., president of the U.S. College of Psychic Science and Research, tells of an experiment carried out by Mary C. Viasek  and Mrs. Z. J. Allyn, a materialization medium.   Mrs. Viasek, who had learned to travel out of body, told Mrs. Allyn that she would attempt to visit her circle on September 28 while she was traveling by train from California to Toledo, Ohio.   At the time of the séance in Los Angeles, the train was in Utah.   After leaving her body, Viasek willed herself to Allyn’s circle in Los Angeles.  The circle was already in progress and Viasek entered the materialization cabinet, where she found Allyn entranced in a chair and a number of spirits waiting to materialize.  The “cabinet guide” told her that she was welcome to observe but because she was mortal she could not participate. 

Viasek then observed three “spirit chemists” collecting something.  Looking closer, she saw a band of light, of bluish-grey vibrations, resembling heat waves, passing around the circle and into the cabinet. “The stream of vibrations started from the medium’s husband, Mr. Allyn, who sat by the right side of the cabinet, and gradually increased in size as the various members of the circle contributed their vibrations to it,” Wills quoted the report, going on to explain that the stream was about two inches in width and six inches in depth and increased in size as it passed around the circle and then into the cabinet, at which time it was about a foot in width and 18 inches in depth.   It was further noted that not all of the sitters contributed to the stream, as it appeared to go around a couple of them.

Once the stream reached the cabinet, a spirit chemist took it and appeared to pour it into the back of the head and neck of the medium.  At the same time that the light appeared, bluish-grey vibrations were being poured into the medium, a white substance (not named, but apparently ectoplasm), began to emanate from the medium’s chin, throat, and chest. This emanation was then taken by another spirit chemist and put over the spirit to be clothed.   As he was pouring the substance over the spirit, he said in a firm positive voice:  “Think your features!  Think your face!  Think your eyes! Think your form!  Think positively!  Think your form as you were on earth!  Think your arms!”  As the spirit thought these things a form gradually built up over him.  

All the while the circle members were singing in order to establish and maintain harmonious vibrations.  When they finished one hymn and before starting another hymn, the materialization failed as “the substance fell from the spirit.”  The spirit chemist then began attempting to clothe another spirit and it also failed when the hymn was abruptly changed. Viasek noted that the vibrations changed when the singing changed and interfered with the manifestations. 

During these failures, Viasek was in the cabinet but could not get her feet on the floor. When the group members started singing Shall we gather at the river, her feet touched and she found herself standing in front of one of the chemists.  He said, “You are mortal.  You cannot go,” but she appealed to him and he then consented.   The chemist then turned her around with her back toward him and began pouring the substance drawn from the medium over her, while saying: “Think your features positively, just as you are!  Think your hair! Your eyes!  Think your form!  Think your arms!  Think your hands!  Think your feet!”  Then the chemist placed some substance over her to form her dress, a garment of white lace. “This was a creation of the chemist, not of her thought.” 

When Viasek stepped through the curtain into the circle, she felt that she was blind for several seconds, but her sight then came to her.  However, she found she could not speak.   As one of the sitters approached her, she received “strengthening vibrations” and was able to speak.  As she began to talk to the group, something happened to upset the vibrations of the circle and Viasek felt as if her breath had been knocked out of her by a blow to the solar plexus.  She stepped backwards toward the cabinet and seemed to lose consciousness before regaining it again and observing other materialization successes and failures. She could not discern exactly when the forms began to materialize, but she noted that they began to dissolve outside the cabinet.   What little of the substance was left when the materialization dissolved flowed toward the incoming stream of light in bluish-gray vibrations. 

Members of the circle confirmed Viasek’s materialization and it was noted that her “breathing” problems began when Dr. H. H. Turner, one of the circle members, increased the light in the room so that he could make a note of the time and record Viasek’s words.

The projected-thought image might explain the very black beard mentioned above and further help us understand why materialized spirits are seen wearing clothes.  Should they show themselves naked?  The fact that many materialized spirits appear in muslin robes may be because such robes are easier to remember and visualize than particular clothes. Perhaps some spirits simply can’t visualize the clothes they were attired in. Without looking at the old photo of myself at age 30, I don’t recall now what my attire was. I might have to show myself in a robe.    

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die,Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife,Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death: New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.

Next blog: September 8