A Nobel Prize Winner's Report of a Phantom Appearing from an Orb

This blog's posts (stretching back for four years) contain a photographic record of most astonishing paranormal events. Many others in history have reported equally astonishing events, and some have documented their experiences as carefully as I have.  I am currently reading the book "Phenomena of Materialization" by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, a physician who made lengthy scientific studies of the medium Marthe Beraud (referred to in the book as Eva C.).  Schrenck-Notzing spent four years investigating Beraud under controlled conditions, and produced an extremely detailed book describing a vast assortment of inexplicable phenomena he observed in her presence. The book includes more than 50 clear photos of the paranormal.  Schrenck-Notzing makes frequent reports of things such as "spirit hands" appearing and disappearing, "materialized heads" appearing out of parts of Beraud's body, and equally astonishing things.  Schrenck-Notzing took careful precautions to prevent fraud, such as placing the medium in a small "cabinet" (actually just a small corner of a room with a curtain in front of it) that had been carefully checked, and even often arranging for a full body examination before the phenomena were produced.  Under conditions that should have prevented all possibility of fraud, the most inexplicable phenomena were produced on many different days. 

You can read the whole book (with its astonishing photographs) here, although you will have to be quite patient to let the very large .pdf file load (it's a book with hundreds of pages and 200+ photos and illustrations). 

Previously a Nobel Prize winner reported seeing similar phenomena produced in the presence of the same medium, Marthe Beraud. Page 6 of Schrenck-Notzing's book contains a quote from a work by  Professor Charles Richet, who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1913.  The quote is below:

"I see something like a white luminous ball of undetermined outline suspended above the floor. Then suddenly there appears, emerging from this white orb of light as from a trap-door, the phantom 'Bien Boa.' It is of moderate height. He is draped in a flowing garment with a belt around his waist.  One cannot say whether he walks or glides...Without opening the curtain he suddenly collapses and vanishes on the floor. At the same time one hears the noise of a body falling on the floor. Three or four minutes afterwards the same white orb appears in the opening of the curtains above the floor, then a body is seen quickly rising straight up and attaining the height of an adult, and then it again collapses on the floor." 

This was observed in a place that had no trap-door. A similar account by Richet can can be found here.  Richet's very interesting book "Thirty Years of Psychical Research" can be read online here.

Postscript: Given its 12-megabyte size, it was hard for me to read Schrenck-Notzing's book online, but I found it much easier to read it when I downloaded the .pdf file and then brought up that file in Adobe Reader.  You will be very impressed by the book's photos when you understand the conditions under which they were produced. The medium Marthe Baraud was placed in a small corner of a room, with a small curtain in front of her. Both the area behind the curtain and the medium herself were always checked to exclude the possibility of magical apparatus being sneaked in.  Observers sat a few feet from her. The photos often show "materializations" the size of heads or half a human body, and in the text Schrenck-Notzing says such things were often seen to slowly appear or disappear.  The photos typically show the curtain opened, with the medium's hands clutching the curtain (or observers) while the mysterious "materializations" are above her hands. The photos show many such "materializations" behind the medium or above the medium's head.  Given such observations, skeptic explanations (such as something hidden in the medium's vagina) don't work, as the photographed "materialization" is often way too big to be something that could be hidden in a vagina.  There is always the possibility of a gigantic fraud conspiracy involving multiple persons, but such a thing would have had to have been one of the most elaborate frauds in history, given the huge book with so many details and seemingly paranormal photos (all produced long before Photoshop existed).  Schrenck-Notzing stated that in four years of such experiments he never saw any sign of trickery from the medium Marthe Baraud.

On page 270 of the book Schrenck-Notzing summarizes why his observations cannot be explained as a fraud by the medium, referring to body checks of the medium, and to a body tight she was put in to hinder any chance of extracting something from her body:

The counter proof to these considerations is given by the mode of

production of the photographs (simultaneous exposures on five to seven

cameras, within and without the cabinet), by the rigorous initial and

final examinations, by the dress of the medium, by the sittings with

the nude medium, by the occurrence of curious forms and fragments

which cannot easily be produced by commercially obtainable figures, by

the numerous plastic products, by the artistic character of certain

portraits, which cannot be imitated in this way, by the repeated photography

of features of deceased persons recognised by their families, by

the growth and recession of the teleplastic phenomena, by their movements,

proved evidentially through the sense organs {e.g., materialised

hands which make touches or grasp objects, etc.), by the lightning-like

appearance and disappearance of the phenomena, while the medium's

body is visible and motionless, and, finally, by a class of phenomena

which cannot at all be imitated artificially, as, for instance, the creation

of an amorphous, living and moving substance, leaving a residue of

decomposition products of organised matter, and the penetration of

the substance produced through textile fabrics and veils {see Figs. 152

and 153). To this we must add the progressive development, advancing

from simple to complex performances, the elementary character of the

forms and phenomena, and the consideration that a fraud, which would

require at least a laboratory for producing the most varied assortment

of pictures and utensils, and would presuppose the use of considerable

sums of money for procuring them, could hardly have been practised

for four years, in spite of the constantly varying and continuously

intensified precautions and photographic methods, and could not have

been carried out without the slightest failure, in the face of the acumen

of numerous learned observers.

On page 275 Schrenck-Notzing states the following:

Not one of the observers, during these four years, has ever found on 

the medium's body, or in the seance costume, anything which could

have been used for the fraudulent production of the phenomena. The

importance of this negative result can hardly be emphasised too strongly.

The author was a witness to the thorough performance of this task on

no less than 180 occasions. The honesty of the medium is therefore not

a 'probability, but a certainty placed beyond all question. She has never

introduced any objects into the cabinet with which she could have

fraudulently represented the teleplastic products. The various seance rooms, in different houses, had no secret passages or trap-doors, and were regularly examined, both before and after every sitting, by the savants who took part in the sittings...In some sittings the curtains were not closed at all, and the phenomena were often observed from beginning to end, while the medium's body was motionless and visible.

Corroborating testimony is given both in Richet's book, and in the book "From the Unconscious to the Conscious" by physician Gustave Geley, which can be read online here (it's another case of a large book that is best downloaded as a PDF file and then read in Adobe Acrobat).  On page 56-57 Geley states the following, referring to Marthe Beraud by the same "Eva" pseudonym used by Schrenck-Notzing :

I had the honour and privilege of studying

Eva with her for a year and a half, at bi-weekly seances,

held at first in her house, and afterwards, for three

consecutive months, exclusively in my own laboratory.,,,

I have been able to see, to touch, and to photograph

the materialisations of which I am about to write.

I have frequently followed the event from its

beginning to its end; for it was formed, developed,

and disappeared under my own eyes. However unexpected,

strange or impossible such a manifestation may appear, I have no right to put forward the slightest doubt as to its reality....In the more complete cases the materialised organ has all the appearance and biologic functions of a living organ. I have seen admirably modelled fingers, with their nails; I have seen complete hands with bones and

joints; I have seen a living head, whose bones I could

feel under a thick mass of hair. I have seen wellformed

living and human faces! On many occasions these representations have been formed from beginning to end under my own eyes. I have, for instance, seen the substance issue from the

hands of the medium and link them together ; then,

the medium separating her hands, the substance has

lengthened, forming thick cords, has spread, and formed

fringes like epiploic fringes. Lastly, in the midst of

these fringes, there has appeared by progressive representation,

perfectly organised fingers, a hand, or a face.

In other cases I have witnessed an analogous organisation

in substance issuing from the mouth.