An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural Read online

  In July 1929, when the fourth resident rector moved in, he reported that in addition to the usual ghosts encountered on stairways and in hallways, spirit writing had appeared on the walls and pebbles were raining down on the house. He managed to bear all this for six years, then moved out. He had children.

  Borley Rectory lay empty for more than a year, until the celebrated ghost hunter Harry Price took up residence in 1937 and arranged for colleagues to live there in shifts. The phenomena began increasing dramatically in scope and magnitude, dishes being smashed, sleepers being thrown out of bed, and strange artifacts such as a ring and an old coat “materializing” in unused rooms.

  In February 1939, an upset oil lamp ignited the old home (a poltergeist event, perhaps?) and it was reduced to ashes. Price's investigations and reports continued, even over the ruins of the building, for several years afterward.

  In 1955, the London Society for Psychical Research (SPR) issued a 180-page report following an extensive investigation of the Borley phenomena and concluded that there were no related events that could not have had rational explanations. More importantly, the report concluded that the most impressive phenomena had been produced by Harry Price himself.

  One event, the light seen periodically in the upper window, was explained by the fact that it coincided with the approach of a regularly scheduled train nearby. The locomotive headlight was reflected, for a few seconds, in that window.

  Still a favorite haunted house story in England, the site is visited regularly by curiosity seekers, and current phenomena are still reported to be connected with the nearby Borley Abbey.

  See also poltergeist.

  British National Association of Spiritualists

  See Society for Psychical Research.

  Brown, Rosemary

  This U.K. mystic claims to compose and play music under the direct spiritual contact of the ghosts of Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, and other major composers. This has been referred to as composing after decomposing.

  Though it has been claimed that Ms. Brown is musically “naive,” she worked as a teacher of piano for years before the shades of the greats of music began to guide her fingers. Judging from the results she has demonstrated, it appears that these departed persons have, not unexpectedly, lost most of their musical skills as a result of death.

  Broxa

  A witch/demon of medieval times that could change shape and read the future. It flew at night and drank human blood like a vampire.

  Bunyip

  In Australian aboriginal lore, a roaring, hairy monster known for jumping out of water holes to terrify passers-by. Also known as the yaa-loo and the wowee-wowee, names possibly derived from the reactions of a person encountering one at a quiet water-hole. It must be remembered that Australians tend to invent things (such things as the quite impossible duck-billed platypus) just to amuse themselves at the expense of gullible tourists.

  Burt, Sir Cyril

  (1883-1971) A British psychologist who was interested in heredity and, eventually, in parapsychology. He was at one time an assistant to parapsychologist Samuel G. Soal.

  It was discovered, after Burt's death, that the work on heredity for which he had been knighted was spurious, many of his sources and references having been invented to satisfy the needs of his conclusions, and it was found that he had also appropriated the work of other researchers as his own.

  Burt was very supportive of parapsychological claims, and it is interesting to note that the man he first worked for, Soal, was also revealed as a cheat after his death.

  Bux, Kuda

  (1905-1981) A Kashmiri mentalist with dark, deep-set eyes and heavy eyebrows, Kuda Bux was known as “The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.” He earned this title by means of his blindfold act. While such an act is and was commonly done by many others, Bux had a version which involved large wads of cotton placed over bread dough that filled his eye sockets and the whole thing was then bound in place with multiple layers of bandages until his head appeared to be a huge ball of cloth. He would then drive a car, duplicate handwriting or drawings, and even fire a rifle at targets indicated by a volunteer. Once, he bicycled on New York's Broadway while blindfolded, a dangerous feat even when fully sighted.

  Kuda Bux first attracted international attention in 1935 by performing one of the most famous “fakir” stunts, walking on burning embers. He did a carefully observed fire walk in England and subsequently duplicated the performance in the United States outside Radio City Music Hall. It was a stunt that he was familiar with from his early days in India and Pakistan, since it was frequently executed as part of religious ceremonies in that continent.

  Ironically enough, in the last years of his life Kuda Bux suffered a gradual loss of his eyesight due to glaucoma. Though his performance methods were and are well understood in the trade, he has been made into one of the Unexplained Mysteries so needed by the paranormalists to bolster their beliefs.

  C

  Cabala

  See kabala.

  Cagliostro, Conte Alessandro

  (1743?-1795) Cagliostro, referred to by historian Thomas Carlyle as the “Prince of Quacks,” was one of the most infamous characters of the French Revolution. Said to have been born in 1743 at Palermo, Sicily, as Joseph (Giuseppe) Balsamo (a claim that has been seriously questioned, since there is only one source for it, and that a dubious one), he liked to claim that he was a Gypsy, which he might well have been. Since so much of his career was described by himself, it is well to treat it all with some caution. However, some aspects have been well established.

  Cagliostro professed to be a count, a magician of the Hermetic school and an alchemist. He claimed to be accompanied by an invisible “master” named Althotas, only one of the many imaginary items invented by the count.

  He began his fabulous career in Palermo in a minor way by forging a few theater tickets and a falsified will, then he robbed his uncle and was accused of a murder. At this point he decided upon a much safer way of earning money by pretending that he was able to locate gold and buried treasure for paying clients. The man who was to become Cagliostro would show gullible customers sites where he said he sensed concealed assets.

  Marrying very well in Naples, Cagliostro next went into the eternal-youth business in 1780 at Strasbourg. He and his wife, Lorenza Feliciani, traveled Europe selling age-regression potions to wealthy clients, illustrating their point by claiming that Lorenza, then twenty, was actually sixty years old. They offered for sale his “spagiric food” (from the Latin spagiricus, meaning “chemical”) as an “elixir of immortal youth.” About this time Cagliostro assumed the title of Grand Copt and said that he had lived for centuries. He claimed that he had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, but that he appeared much younger than he was as a result of regularly using his magical elixir.

  Cagliostro, the shady figure who haunted pre-revolutionary France.

  Paris went wild over him, with Cardinal de Rohan, not noted for his discernment, becoming a prominent fan and supporter of the Sicilian faker. Cagliostro related fanciful stories about his conversations with angels, lurid accounts of his childhood discoveries of his powers, and descriptions of gigantic cities in remote parts of the earth. There were available, of course, the usual number of people who always seem ready to listen to such charlatans and to believe them. For these he made his usual promise to locate gold and jewels, taking a fee, then moving on to other locations before having to make good on his promises.

  The fake count lived in high luxury, with estates all through Europe filled with treasures of every sort. He created a very fashionable secret society called the Egyptian Lodge and was consulted by statesmen and philosophers, many of whom declared him to be genuine and possessed of real magical powers. Very much in the manner adopted a century later by H. P. Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, Cagliostro demonstrated physical marvels such as writing that appeared on slips of paper which seemed to materialize from thin air and were said to have been penned by spirits or beings
from other planets.

  In Paris, in 1785, Cagliostro became involved in the famous Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a scandalous event that is thought by some historians to have been an important element in precipitating the French Revolution. Cagliostro was brought to trial along with his dupe, Cardinal de Rohan. Though he defended himself cleverly and effectively against those charges, he was imprisoned in the Bastille for other reasons. Eventually released after nine months, he was ordered to leave France.

  He went to England, where it seems he was no longer as welcome as before, and he was locked up in Fleet Street Prison. Fleeing through Europe and once more back in Rome, he was denounced by his wife to the Holy Inquisition, charged with heresy, and condemned to death, but old friends intervened. The sentence of the Inquisition was commuted by the pope and Cagliostro was imprisoned at the San Leo Prison in Urbino until his death in 1795.

  Alexander Dumas' Memoirs of a Physician and Goethe's Grand Cophta [sic] are based on events in Cagliostro's incredible life.

  Cagliostro obviously employed various optical and chemical methods, along with some basic sleight of hand, to produce small tricks as convincing evidence of his powers. His name was even evoked by the famous French conjuror Robert-Houdin to add luster to one of that master's more spectacular feats, and modern conjurors often name certain of their tricks after the Sicilian charlatan who so effectively fleeced his world for so many years.

  When Cagliostro died, so effectively died a belief in genuine sorcery, though it peeps from out of its grave occasionally even today. The era of the admitted trickster dawned, in which audiences were no longer asked to believe that those who performed mysterious demonstrations did so with divine or demonic assistance. The real, honest conjuror stepped to the front of the stage and took a bow for skill, originality, and dedication.

  Cambion

  The offspring of a succubus and an incubus. Obviously, a bad seed.

  Cambridge Investigation

  In 1857, the editor of the Boston Courier newspaper offered a prize of $500 for the production of spiritualistic phenomena in the presence of three Harvard professors, Benjamin Pierce, Louis S. Agassiz, and E.N. Horsford. On June 25, 26, and 27, séances took place with Leah and Katherine Fox (of the famous Fox sisters), a “writing medium” named Mansfield, “rapping medium” Mrs. Kendrick, a George Redman, and the Davenport brothers. Despite this impressive array of top talent, the tests at what became known as the Cambridge investigation were total failures for the spook artists and victories for the skeptics. The spiritualist movement ascribed it all to “ignorance of the laws of mental and magnetic science” on the part of the Harvard professors.

  Cardan, Giordano

  (circa 1501-1576) An Italian mystic, astrologer, physician, and talented philosopher who believed that particularly virtuous persons could see the future and could be aware of any event in any time or place. He also believed that he was supremely virtuous.

  According to legend, Cardan almost failed in his most celebrated prediction, that of his own death. He locked himself up in his home at age seventy-five, depriving himself of food in order to die at that predicted age. This demonstrates a rare dedication to one's art.

  Carrière, Eva

  (1886-?) Born Marthe Béraud, known in the research literature as “Eva C.,” and extensively examined by several prominent scientists, Carrière was famous for materializing spirit faces (starting in 1911) after having been searched before the séance. The faces that show up on the photographs — taken under conditions that she carefully controlled — are distorted and marred, hardly convincing to anyone even moderately skeptical.

  It appears that her “materializations” were crude drawings on crumpled paper, items not too difficult to conceal from the kind of examination that was usually employed by researchers. In 1914, it was found that Carrière's faces closely resembled pictures found in the French fashion magazine Le Miroir. Certain features had been accented or altered, but the resemblance was unmistakable. The scientist/baron Albert Von Schrenck-Notzing came up with the marvelous rationalization that the spirit faces, rather than being the results of trickery, were supernaturally generated by Carrière's memories of having once read the magazine. This, he said, made them “ideoplasts” rather than ectoplasm. (Similar reasoning was recently invoked by Dr. Jule Eisenbud to explain the performances of Ted Serios. See thoughtography.)

  In Algiers, Eva many times produced a full-figure materialization of a bearded spirit named Bien Boa, said to be an Indian who had been dead for three hundred years. A fired coachman of the medium, named Areski, was exposed as the actor performing the part of Bien Boa, and Eva's career came close to ending prematurely. However, since the believers were, as usual, willing to overlook such a small peccadillo, she went back into business, this time in Paris.

  The Society for Psychical Research investigated Eva C.'s work, obtained a sample of the ectoplasm she produced, and tested it. It turned out to be chewed-up

  Cat

  Long associated with supernatural powers, the cat was first domesticated in ancient Egypt, where is was deified as the “Speaker of Great Words.” In that culture, killing a cat was punishable by death, and an entire city, Bubastis, was built in Lower Egypt to honor cat worship. It is said that some seven hundred thousand pilgrims journeyed to Bubastis annually in May to enjoy a festival in honor of the animal and to have the privilege of feeding the feline population there. Cats were regularly mummified for burial. The cat goddess Ubasti (in Greek, “Aelurus”) is seen in Egyptian religious art as a cat-headed woman.

  The cat was also sacred in ancient India, and Freya was the cat goddess in Scandinavia. Cats are said to be the companions of witches, and they are supposed to bring bad luck if they are black.

  Cayce, Edgar

  (1877-1945) A photographer who as a child began to hear voices and see visions. When he was twenty-four he began offering spiritual cures. While he said he was in a trance, Cayce diagnosed illnesses of persons he had never met, performing this task after merely being given the name and location of a patient who had written to him, in a manner similar to that practiced today by the qi gong practitioners in China. He would declare on Atlantis, reincarnation, and other similar subjects while he gave his diagnoses, using what he believed to be clairvoyant powers.

  Cayce said he had been through a number of incarnations, which included a warrior of Troy, a disciple of Jesus Christ, an Egyptian priest, a Persian monarch, and a heavenly angel-like being that had been on Earth prior to Adam and Eve.

  Though he had the reputation of never directly charging for his mail-order diagnoses, Cayce received large amounts of money in the form of donations. He claimed divine connections by which he was able to “have the body” of the ill person during a “trance state,” a condition that was admittedly indistinguishable from sleep on occasion, sometimes even accompanied by snoring. The more than thirty thousand readings he did that are on file at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia, call for simple herbs, massage, fasting, and rather strange physical procedures that have doubtful value as remedies.

  In common with most of the divinely inspired mystics, Cayce also dabbled in prophecy. In 1934 he declared that Poseidia (which he said was a portion of Atlantis) would be the first part of that fabled continent to rise again from the Atlantic. “Expect it in 1968 or 1969,” he told his fans. Poseidia, his imaginary creation, did not rise, nor have any of his other prophecies been fulfilled.

  But there is always hope. In his 1934 predictions, he declared in an “update on earth changes”:

  The earth will be broken up in the western portion of America. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. The upper portion of Europe will be changed as in the twinkling of an eye. Land will appear off the east coast of America. There will be the upheavals in the Arctic and in the Antarctic that will make for the eruption of volcanoes in the Torrid areas, and there will be the shifting then of the poles — so that where there ha
ve been those of a frigid or semi-tropical [sic] will become the more tropical, and moss and fern will grow. And these will begin in those periods in '58 to '98.

  As of this date, those events have failed to occur. How could that be?

  Cazotte, Jacques

  (1719-1792) In 1788, just a year before the Reign of Terror took hold in France, a mystic named Cazotte was said to have made a prediction that he and his dinner companions would all die on the guillotine or perish by suicide, a grim prophecy that came true. Since Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738 -1814), said to be one of those dinner guests, had not yet invented the device that was to bring him historical recognition, and the “prediction” has been shown to be part of a fiction (Prophétie de Cazotte) written and published in 1806 by author Jean de Laharpe, this fabrication is not now taken seriously by even the most zealous believers.