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.
