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	==Psychic Investigatons==		==Psychic Investigatons==

	Geley has been described as a very keen, objective investigator who insisted on conducting his investigations under fraud-proof conditions ~~that included both himself and a medium being chained and handcuffed during ]s~~.<ref name=Guiley/> Geley held that investigations must be treated as "collective experiments, for the phenomena are the results of subconscious psycho-physiological collaboration between the medium and the experimenters."<ref name=GG/>{{rp\|3-4}}		Geley has been described as a very keen, objective investigator who insisted on conducting his investigations under fraud-proof conditions.<ref name=Guiley/> Geley held that investigations must be treated as "collective experiments, for the phenomena are the results of subconscious psycho-physiological collaboration between the medium and the experimenters."<ref name=GG/>{{rp\|3-4}}

	===Jan Guzyk===		===Jan Guzyk===

Revision as of 10:38, 30 November 2014

Dr. Gustav Geley was a French physician, psychical researcher and director of the Institute Metapsychique International from 1919 to 1924.

Career

Geley was born in 1868 at Montceau-les-Mines, France. He studied medicine at the Salpêtrière Hospital with the great French anatomist Jean-Martin Charcot, who also mentored Sigmund Freud. His first book: "l'Etre Subconscient," published in 1899 in Paris, predicated a theory of dynamo-psychism, a sort of internal "soul energy,". He was a critic of naturalistic theories of evolution and his second book, "From the Unconscious to the Conscious," developed this into a more comprehensive theory in which he argued that the phenomenon of trance mediumship was a "direct route" to this "soul energy" - engaging in numerous psychic investigations in order to validate his hypothesis.

Psychic Investigatons

Geley has been described as a very keen, objective investigator who insisted on conducting his investigations under fraud-proof conditions. Geley held that investigations must be treated as "collective experiments, for the phenomena are the results of subconscious psycho-physiological collaboration between the medium and the experimenters."

Jan Guzyk

Geley claimed the mediumship of Jan Guzyk to be genuine, though Guzyk was caught in fraud by other investigators. In 1923 Guzyk was exposed as a fraud in a series of séances in Sorbonne in Paris. Guzyk used his elbows and legs to move objects around the room and touch the sitters. He was caught cheating by the psychical researcher Harry Price. According to Price the "man was clever, especially with his feet, which were almost as useful to him as his hands in producing phenomena." Max Dessoir wrote the trick of Guzyk was to use his "foot for psychic touches and sounds". At a séance in Cracow in December 1924 a photograph showed Guzyk moving a curtain with his hand. Walter Franklin Prince who attended séances with Guzyk came to the conclusion that he had no paranormal ability. Harry Price wrote that Geley was deceived by Guzyk. However, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing argued that the frauds of Guzyk were well known for years and they did not detract from his genuine faculties. Fodor explained the facts of the Geley experiments:

Alexander Aksakof took him to St. Petersburg where he achieved great success. But he did not impress Julien Ochorowicz well. A critical and systematic study of his mediumship did not take place until Dr. Gustave Geley had a series of fifty sittings in Warsaw in September, 1921. All Guzyk cared for was a comfortable living. Geley became convinced of the reality of the phenomena. He witnessed the perfect materialisation of a human face, alive and speaking, and the displacement of heavy objects. He brought him to Paris for further experiments at the Institut Metapsychique. As Guzyk's phenomena only took place in complete darkness the measures to bar fraud were very strict. He was disrobed and medically examined before the séance, put into a pyjama suit without pockets and his wrists were joined to those of the controllers by sealed ribbons. After a series of séances during 1922-23 a very cautious report was issued. Among its 34 signatories we find the names of Geley, Eugene Osty, Roux, Moutier, Charles Richet, Santoliquido, Camille Flammarion, Rene Sudre and Sir Oliver Lodge. Only those facts are mentioned that were positively observed by all present and it ends:
"We simply affirm our conviction that the phenomena obtained with Jan Guzyk are not explicable by individual, or collective illusion or hallucination, nor by trickery."
Altogether more than eighty highly placed persons attended the séances and, with the exception of three or four, declared themselves convinced of the genuine nature of the occurrences. Footsteps were heard passing round the circle when everyone's position was accounted for and no confederate could have entered the room. Psychic lights were seen near the sitters, they formed couples and became two eyes, with expressive and mobile pupils which regarded the sitter fixedly. A mass of cloudy matter formed around the eyes and finally took a human shape. The best manifestations occurred towards the end of the séances, at the moment when Guzik awoke from trance.
"At such a moment (writes Rene Sudre in Psychic Research, 1928, p. 605) as he mumbled some unintelligible words, Guzyk brought my hand into contact with a hairy creature, just as somebody turned on the red light. Between the medium and myself I saw a sort of dark nebulous mass, which disappeared rapidly like a melting fog."
The apparition was what Geley termed the Pithecanthropus, an ape man with a hairy, tough skin who often licked the hands of the sitters. At other times sounds were heard as if of a materialised dog.
"These phenomena of animal materialisation," writes Rene Sudre, "may appear incredible to those who have not experienced the proof of them, but in all honesty of conscience and in all scientific equanimity it is impossible for me to make any reservation whatever against their actuality."
Sudre was once embraced by a human figure of which he hardly saw anything more than the eyes and lips. The lips were quite cold. His wife, similarly embraced, perceived an odour of alcohol. Guzyk always drank brandy before the séances. But it was impossible for him to produce the phenomenon under the conditions of control.

The psychical researcher Zofia Weaver wrote favorably of the view that the conditions in the sittings of Guzyk hosted by Geley precluded fraud - that "it is difficult to see how some of the phenomena could have been produced under the prevailing conditions ..."

Franek Kluski

Spiritist sources consider Geley's paraffin casts of Polish medium Franek Kluski to be compelling proof of the paranormal. Kluski's original name was real name Teofil Modrzejewski, and according to Geley, Kluski's psychic powers manifested themselves during childhood and after undergoing a psychological change he became Franek Kluski. Kluski's powers during séances were said to include physical manifestation of human limbs and various animals. Harry Price noted that Polish SPR members validated these claims, but wrote regarding these claims surrounding Kluski "His mediumship is unsatisfactory from the point of view that no scientific body has investigated the alleged miracles. On each of my two visits to Warsaw I attempted to obtain sittings with Kluski, without results."

The main experiments with Kluski were however conducted by scientists associated with the Institute Metapsychique International (IMI). Between 8 November and 31 December 1920 Geley attended fourteen séances with Kluski in Paris. A bowl of hot paraffin was placed in the room and according to Kluski spirits dipped their limbs into the paraffin and then into a bath of water to materialize. Three other series of séances were held in Warsaw in Kluski's own apartment, these took place over a period of three years. Kluski was not searched in any of the séances - Geley claimed that searching would "not have been admissible under the circumstances", but that he satisfied himself that there was "absence of anything suspicious." Photographs of the molds were obtained during the four series of experiments and were published by Geley in 1924. Human skin hairs were found on the Kluski moulds, leading to a vigorous debate among psychical researchers as to interpretation.

Some researchers have speculated that Kluski introduced items into the séance room by fraud. Outside of the sittings with Geley, allegations of fraud were brought against Kluski. A psychical researcher sent a letter to Hereward Carrington claiming Kluski had been detected in fraud. The critic Paul Heuzé wrote of an incident in which "Kluski dropped... his pants and placed his buttocks in the paraffin." Geley himself recorded an incident with Kluski that he argued was unconscious fraud, but argued that it was necessary to have full information about the sittings at hand in order to distinguish between conscious and unconscious fraud:

The question of unconscious fraud is more complicated, because its study involves psychological factors. All students of metapsychics know what is meant by unconscious fraud, but I must enter into some explanations for the benefit of novices in investigation and those readers who know nothing of these matters.
To begin with, it may be said that unconscious fraud is not "fraud" at all. It results from the automatism, which is the first phase and essential condition of mediumship.
I will now give some short and elementary instances of unconscious fraud (the term must be used for want of a better), which will elucidate the matter more than any theoretical explanations.
At one of Kluski's séances in Warsaw the following little occurrence took place: We had in use a red electric lamp, and usually the first, phenomenon was the extinguishing of this lamp by telekinetic action on the switch. That evening the action was delayed. One of the sitters, being impatient, addressed the power in play, saying: "Put out the lamp." it still remained lighted. He repeated three times: "Put out the lamp." At once the entranced medium got up, taking his two controllers with him, who were surprised and interested. He went straight to the lamp, turned the switch, and returned to his place with the satisfaction of a duty done.
This is typical of unconscious "fraud," for which no sensible person would blame the medium; he was simply obeying the suggestion. The phenomenon not coming to pass by abnormal means, he produced it normally. If, under analogous conditions, the medium had displaced some object or raised a table with his feet, he would have been equally morally innocent.

The parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo wrote that there is no natural way of producing the Kluski moulds and suggested whatever formed them dissolved within the mould. However, magicians have produced "materialization" moulds by natural methods. The magician Carlos María de Heredia revealed how fake materialization hands could be made by using a rubber glove, paraffin and a jar of cold water. According to Massimo Polidoro, Arthur Conan Doyle and Gustav Geley objected, noting that the medium did not use a rubber glove. In response, Harry Houdini claimed that a glove was not even needed as he created moulds by using his hands and a bowl of hot paraffin.

Gustave Geley summarized the factors precluding fraud in the Kluski sittings - arguing that magic trick attempts could not replicate the phenomena:

We will sum up, for the convenience of reference, the proofs of genuineness of these moulds of materialized members made both at Paris and at Warsaw. We have shown that, even apart from the control of the medium by holding both hands, any fraud was impossible. In fact-
1. The hypothesis of fraud by an india-rubber glove is absurd. Such procedure gives rough results, the origin or which is obvious at first sight.
2. It is not possible to make gloves like ours by using a rigid model. Trials show this at once.
3. The use of fusible and soluble substance dissolved in cold water is incompatible with the conditions of experiment. There was no cold water tank.
4. The hypothesis that a living hand (of the medium or one of those present) was used is inadmissible. The trick could not have been employed, for the following reasons: a) It requires very thick moulds, whereas ours are extremely thin and frail. b) The position (intentional) of the fingers in many of our moulds is such as to make the withdrawal of a living hand impossible, whatever the thickness of the moulds or whatever artifice were used. c) The dimensions of our moulds are mostly such as have no relation to the hands of the medium or experimenters. Both in Paris and in Warsaw we have obtained moulds the size of children's hands when no child was present. d) Anthropometric examination proves the hands were not those of the medium.
5. The hypothesis that moulds were previously fabricated is disproved by the coloration and cholestrin tests.
6. The report of the professional moulders is categorical and decisive. It has been objected that these phenomena cannot be reproduced at will. This is not accurate; with a medium like Franek Kluski the phenomena can be obtained almost with certainty. During experiment a form of a specified size and position can be asked for, and the experiment can be repeated. Several of our casts represent the hand of the same entity. To pretend that one cannot get the same metapsychic result twice running is an error.

In 1997, Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli produced wax-moulds directly from the hand which they argued replicated exactly the copies Geley obtained from Kluski, which are kept at the Institute Metapsychique International. The psychologist and psychical researcher David Fontana argued in response that the demonstrations that moulds of hands similar to those obtained during the Kluski séances can be faked do not amount to a total refutation of paranormality in Kluski's mediumship as a whole, because the moulds obtained by Geley in Kluski sittings were significantly thinner and more fragile than those created in the magic trick attempts; many of the Kluski moulds were of feet rather than hands, while the wax bowl was on a raised table and Kluski's feet were controlled; many of the moulds were of children's hands, although no children were present at the sittings; Kluski's hands were controlled during the sittings; and moulds were obtained by Geley working with Kluski in his own laboratory, where no confederate could have been present.

Eva Carrière

Gustav Geley also conducted experiments with the medium Eva Carrière in which he claimed to have witnessed permutations of materialized ectoplasmic structures which grew under his own eyes from the beginning to the end of the phenomena. Outside of her work with Geley, Eva C. (aka. Marthe Béraud) was the subject of many attacks and accusations of fraud, though all of them were controverted by her supporters.

Regarding Geley's experiments, Fodor wrote,

Another important series of experiments took place in 1917-18 in Dr. Gustave Geley's laboratories with Mme. Bisson's collaboration. About 150 representative men, including many scientists, witnessed the phenomena.
"It is needless to say" writes Geley in From the Unconscious to the Conscious "that the usual precautions were rigorously observed during the séances in my laboratory. On coming into the room where the séances were held and to which I alone had previous access, the medium was completely undressed in my presence and dressed in a tight garment, sewn up the back and at the wrists; the hair, and the cavity of the mouth were examined by me and my collaborators before and after the séances. Eva was walked backwards to the wicker chair in the dark cabinet; her hands were always held in full sight outside the curtains and the room was always quite well lit during the whole time. I do not merely say: There was no trickery; I say there was no possibility of trickery. Further, and I cannot repeat it too often, nearly always the materialisations took place under my own eyes, and I have observed their genesis and their whole development."
He adds in a footnote:
"I am, moreover, glad to testify that Eva has always shown, in my presence, absolute experimental honesty. The intelligent and self-sacrificing resignation with which she submitted to all control and the truly painful tests of her mediumship, deserve the real and sincere gratitude of all men of science worthy of that name."
The results of these experiments were the subject of a conference at the College of France, published under the title: "La Physiologie dite Supranormale". (Bulletin de l'Institut Physiologique, Jan-June, 1918).

MH Coleman argued that there were errors in reporting in Geley's records of his experiments with Eva C.:

"In the same year as Geley's book appeared, Dingwall (1924) drew attention to this problem . In his account of his experiments with 'Eva C.' (i.e. Marthe Beraud) Geley states (p. 183):-
Eva . . . had both her hands firmly held during the whole time by Mme. Bisson and myself; or, in some cases, I held both her hands.
But when the five photographs (his Figures 22,23,27,34 and 38) in which both hands are visible are examined, in none are both hands held, and in only two (the first and the last) is even one hand held. Again, Geley says that Fig. 38 was taken "a moment later" than Fig. 37; but in Fig. 37 she has no rings on her right hand, while in Fig. 38 she has rings on both the middle and little fingers of this hand. Now there are several possible explanations of these observations, but none is calculated to inspire much confidence in the reliability of Geley's reporting."

Mary Rose Barrington replied:

"It would be surprising if it were not possible to mount some form of attack on the competence and reliability of any researcher in any discipline, since the human condition is one of imperfection. Let us therefore measure the incidents mentioned under "The Unreliability of Geley's Reporting" against Geley's considerable oeuvre to see if any higher degree of discount should be applied to his work than to that of others in the field.
Before imputing bad faith or gross error, it behoves us to consider explanations in terms of mere imprecision. Apart from legislative draughtsmen (who have to put out translations of their efforts into language that can be understood), people do not say exactly what they mean; they just try to convey the meaning of what they say. When Geley asserts that Eva had her hands held "during the whole time" I suggest that what he meant was that her hands were held the whole time while she was out of sight behind a curtain, i.e. when she was ostensibly trying to produce materializations to be put on view when the curtains were drawn back. Once she, together with her hands and her product, were on show, there was no need for her hands to be held, and the sitters could sit back so as not to obscure the photographer's sightlines. Geley also leaves us to understand that her hands were not held when (for instance) she was dressed in her séance garment, or we should have a further paranormal effect to explain.
As to Figures 37 and 38, there is many a slip between submitting a large quantity of illustrations to a publisher and getting the selected plates published in the right order and with the right numbers attached to them. As there is apparently nothing to be gained by claiming that one photograph followed the other immediately when obviously it did not, it is extremely plausible to suppose that this is a very minor error. If that sort of slip is good reason for having researchers dismissed as unreliable, then who shall be saved? Geley was a busy man, with pressing demands on his time, such as editing the Revue Métapsychique, writing books and devising new experiments for Ossowiecki. He may well have been a careless proof-reader."

In 1954, the psychical researcher Rudolf Lambert published a report alleging a case of fraud involving Geley that he claimed was covered up by many early members of the Institute Metapsychique International (IMI). Lambert related a communication from Eugene Osty (the director of the institute), who had studied Gustav Geley's files on the medium Eva Carrière, and discovered photographs depicting fraudulent ectoplasm taken by her companion Juliette Bisson. According to Lambert, the pictures showed that various "materializations" were artificially attached to Eva's hair, partly by means of Eva's hair, and partly by means of threads or wires. Lambert wrote that Eva's adherents might claim that also to be materialization, but given that the negatives photographs were stereoscopic (as opposed to the regularly published photographs of Eva by researchers), the artificial fastening of the threads and wires could be clearly distinguished. Lambert claimed that the discovery was never published by Geley. However, previous researchers like Schrenck-Notzing also used stereoscopic technique, and Schrenck-Notzing pointed out that when a series of photographs of Eva C.'s phenomena taken simultaneously were analyzed stereoscopically, they showed a "flowing transition from the flat to the plastic" - thus suggesting embellishment on Lambert's part. Barrington wrote,

"With regard to the photographs—or rather to the 'stereoscopic' negatives of photographs already published (Lambert, 1955) —if a researcher publishes the print of a photograph and preserves the negatives in a file this is not my idea of suppression, and talk of dishonesty is entirely unjustified. If Geley had wished to lose the negatives or allow them to deteriorate he could doubtless have done so; they were 'discovered' because he preserved them. People do not usually feel obliged to publish negatives as well as prints, and if the reproduction of the print was unclear so might have been that of the negatives.
In Geley's own view the 'threads and wires' shown so clearly on the negatives would have been part of the materialization, and he would not have accorded these images the high degree of significance attributed to them by those who immediately concluded that the attachments must have been made to the medium's hair by Geley's colleague, Juliette Bisson. We have no reason to suppose that Geley believed the negatives to be more supportive of 'threads and wires' than of opportunistic behaviour by materializations. (Both interpretations strain credulity in their different ways.)
If Geley had thought that attention ought to be drawn to the negatives, he would certainly have owed it to Mme Bisson (first in line for accusations of complicity) to defer fomenting adverse comment until he was ready to deal with it. This would have required a good deal of research and preparation. He would have had to refer inter alia to Stanislawa Tomczyk, who was photographed lifting small objects by means of 'threads' that were said to materialize from her fingertips and stretch between her hands (obvious fraud?). Geley might then have had to cope with attacks on the competence and honesty of Ochorowicz, Richet, Flournoy and Schrenck-Notzing, who were all favourably impressed by this medium (Fodor, 1933, p. 386). It is very conceivable that he always had more interesting things to do."

As regards Tomczyk's phenomena - the magician William S. Marriott claimed to have exposed and replicated Tomczyk's levitation of a glass beaker in 1910 by by means of a hidden thread. However, Harry Price, who knew Marriott, wrote of Tomczyk's phenomena: "Another medium (non professional) who produced telekinetic phenomena of unquestionalble genuineness was Stanislawa Tomczyk, a young Polish girl." Eric Dingwall also wrote positively of the work with Tomczyk.

The descriptions of the Tomczyk experiments by psychical researchers reveal conditions precluding Marriott's attempted replication by means of trickery. Charles Richet wrote of the experiments with Tomczyk:

"J. Ochorowicz has studied telekinesis with great care through the powerful mediumship of a young Polish girl, Stanislawa Tomczyk. I have myself been present at several experiments with her that seemed quite conclusive. The illustrations (Figs. 11-13) show some of the photographs taken.Small objects-a ball, a handbell, a needle-are drawn towards the medium and maintained in the air long enough for a photograph to be taken even in a moderate light.
It cannot be supposed that these objects are held up by a thread, for a ball cannot be balanced on a thread, which would, moreover, appear in the photograph. Stanislawa turns up her sleeves to the elbow, washes her hands in soap and warm water, after which her hands remain always in full view. A commission at Warsaw composed of physicians, physiologists, and engineers carefully verified these facts and despite the furious opposition of Professor Cybulskii, who denied the facts while declining to examine them, certified to their entire authenticity.
In telekinesis with small objects even in full light, fraud is always possible if the observers are not fully vigilant; for such small objects may be displaced by a thread. Ochorowicz has worked out this question in his experiments with Miss Tomczyk. There are cases in which the object is moved without any thread, and others in which a thread does appear; but this thread is not the hair or fine wire of a conjuring trick, it is a fluidic thread. "I have felt," says Ochorowicz, "this thread on my hand, on my face, on my hair. When the medium separates her hands, the thread gets thinner and disappears; it gives the same sensation as a spider's web. If it is cut with scissors its continuity is immediately restored (p. 262). It seems to be formed of points; it can be photographed and is then seen to be much thinner than an ordinary thread. It starts from the fingers. Needless to remark that the hands of the medium were very carefully examined before every experiment" (A.S.P., 1910, xx, 208).
Ochorowicz cites a curious observation made by the Chevalier Peretti with Eusapia at Genoa. A glass having been raised by Eusapia without contact, she cried out, "The thread, look at the thread." Peretti took the thread and pulled it; it broke and suddenly disappeared.
This "fluidic thread" should be compared with the fluidic emanations from Marthe Béraud. The minute details given by Ochorowicz should be carefully studied.
Instead of quoting the experiments by Ochorowicz, I will cite those by the Warsaw Committee (A.S.P., 1910, xx, 37)
A celluloid ball, 6 cm. in diameter, was placed in full light on a dynamometer. S. placed her hands two or three centimetres from it and the ball began to roll off the dynamometer on to the table. S. ordered it to return, which it did. There was then another movement. In a second experiment the ball was screened by a large celluloid funnel, but the movement was still produced.
The committee state that the facts are certain, but incomprehensible. Incomprehensible? So be it!"

Hereward Carrington wrote of the experiments with Tomczyk:

In the Annals of Psychic Science, April, July, and October 1909, Dr. J. Ochorowicz published the results of his careful experiments with this remarkable young Polish medium——many of them being subsequently confirmed by a committee of scientists. The medium displayed remarkable telekinetic power, being enabled to move objects by placing her hands over or near them. 'Psychic threads' seemed to run from her finger-tips, by means of which the objects in question were moved or levitated. The question naturally arose as to whether these threads might not be material. This Ochorowicz seemingly disproved (1) by passing rods between the object and the fingertips, and (2) by photographing the levitation in situ, and throwing an enlargement of this photograph upon a screen, when it was found that no 'threads' were visible in the enlargement, whereas real threads, however fine in character, became visible. He obtained impressions of hands upon photographic plates and upon films——the latter rolled up and sealed in a glass bottle! These hands were quite different in size and general characteristics from those of the medium. He also succeeded in obtaining a curious photograph of 'Little Stasia,' the medium's control, when neither he nor the medium were in the room. Numerous other photographs were observed, recorded, and photographed. I have given a summary of these experiments in my Problems of Psychical Research, pp. 36-50, so we need not unduly expand upon them here. I need only add that Dr. Ochorowicz is the author of that remarkable book Mental Suggestion, and was referred to by Prof. Charles Richet as 'an exceptionally careful and cautious investigator.' His results have never been explained, and are profoundly interesting laboratory experiments.

As regards the alleged discovery of fraud with Eva C. - according to Lambert, Osty had wished to publish details of this discovery, but Jean Meyer, an ardent Spiritualist who financed the IMI, demanded that the scandal be concealed. According to Lambert, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and Charles Richet were complicit in the concealment. However, Schrenck-Notzing discussed the incident in a publicly available letter that he printed from Richet in 1928, where Richet admitted that his 'friend Osty' told him that he had found negatives of photographs (taken by Geley and Mme Bisson) that seemed to indicate fraud. Richet adds that as these photographs had already been published by Schrenck and Mme Bisson (and Geley), publication of these findings by Osty would bring nothing new and would therefore be useless, and that looking at photographs without the context provided in the texts would lead to confusion. He furthermore added that he had nothing to retract, that he felt the experiments were valid, and he denied the charge that Mme Bisson was excluded from the Sorbonne Congress, which Lambert later repeated. French researchers challenged the validity of other charges from Lambert.

Hereward Carrington considered Eva C. to be one of the few genuine materializing mediums. He wrote:

"... I personally am quite convinced of the reality of materialization. In saying this, however, it must not be understood that I accept the majority of phenomena which have been adduced it its favor; far from it. With few exceptions, every materializing medium I have ever seen has turned out, upon investigation, to be an arrant fraud. Nevertheless, such phenomena exist, and I believe that, in the presence of Eusapia Palladino, I have seen materializations of an unquestionably genuine character. I have seen, touched, and felt hands and portions of a living body which have occasionally melted in my grasp. It is my belief that similar manifestations have been seen by others, in the presence of such mediums as Home, Eva C., Willi and Rudi Schneider, etc. Genuine phenomena of the sort may be rare, but they are, in my estimation, undoubted."

Stefan Ossowiecki

Geley conducted clairvoyance experiments with Stefan Ossowiecki where Ossowiecki not only perceived the inner contents of opaque envelopes, but also was able to provide veridical information about the writers of those inner contents. Geley, after listing precautions which were taken to ensure that Ossowiecki's investigators could not know the contents of the envelopes in advance, and due to Ossowiecki's consistent successes, felt justified in claiming from the experiments not merely that "the reality of clairvoyance is absolutely certain", but also that as the experiments are repeatable at will and almost uniformly successful, "the inept objection continually repeated that metapsychic experiments are not scientific because not repeatable at will does not apply to Mr. Ossowiecki's gift."

E.F. O'Doherty dismissively wrote of the clairvoyance experiments with Stefan Ossowiecki, which Geley partially directed, "mpresive as these are, nevertheless they are not scientific experiments, and do not prove the existence of ESP." C. E. M. Hansel claimed that some of Ossowiecki's phenomena as manifest in experiments with Theodore Besterman were reminiscent of a simple conjuring trick - a view in conflict with that of Walter Franklin Prince, conservative commentators, and the original source.

In contrast to the negative view, Harry Price, psychical researcher and conjuring expert, argued that the phenomena of Ossowiecki were genuine and represented "really abnormal cognizance", and the skeptic Eric Dingwall, after ruling out any possibility of access to the contents of the envelope by normal means in an experiment with Ossowiecki, concluded, "The supernormal character of the incident seems to me quite clear and decisive."

Kenneth L. Feder wrote in opposition to the the view that Ossowiecki was psychic, claiming that the ethnologist Stanislaw Poniatowski tested Ossowiecki's psychic abilities between 1937 and 1941, giving him Paleolithic stone artifacts, and that when Ossowiecki tried to describe the stone tools' makers, his descriptions resembled descriptions of Neanderthals, though the tools had been made by anatomically modern humans. However, Barrington, Stevenson, and Weaver, in their biography of Ossowiecki, described the details of the Poniatowski series differently from Feder, and described them as successes, in opposition to the claims of Feder.

Ossowiecki had some notable failures - In May 1939 he predicted that there would be no war that year and that Poland would retain good relations with Italy—predictions that did not pan out: on September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, and World War II began. However, Ossowiecki's biographers listed a chronology of cases with Ossowiecki showing that his failures were exceptions when compared to his extensive record of successes. Ossowiecki partly predicted the details of his own death. He told friends that when he died, his body would not be found. His body was never found; his cenotaph is at Powązki Cemetery. Zofia Weaver, editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, wrote in opposition to the negative view, arguing that many of the experiments with Ossowiecki did provide evidence of supernormality and that one of them superseded all of the objections to clairvoyance experiments of the critic David Marks.

Death

Geley died in an airplane accident on July 15, 1924. He was 56.

References

Gustav Geley. L'être subconscient (Ancienne Librairie Germer Bailliere, 1899).
Gustav Geley. From the unconscious to the conscious (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1921).
^ Gustav Geley, Stanley de Brath. Clairvoyance and Materialization (Kessinger Publishing, 2003). ISBN 0-7661-6314-8.
^ Rosemary Ellen Guiley (2007). The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (Third ed.). Facts On File. ISBN 0-8160-6737-6.
Richard Cavendish. (1971). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural. Volume 6. Purnell. p. 2277
Harry Price. Search for truth: My Life for Psychical Research. (Collins, 1942). p. 206
Lewis Spence. (2003). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Kessinger publishing. p. 399. ISBN 978-0766128156
Arthur Berger. (1988). Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology: A Biographical History, 1850-1987. McFarland & Company. p. 95
^ Harry Price. Fifty Years of Psychical Research. (Kessinger Publishing, 2003). ISBN 978-0766142428
^ Nandor Fodor. Encyclopedia of Psychic Science. University Books: New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1966.
^ Zofia Weaver. Poland - Home of Mediums. European Journal of Parapsychology. Volume 17 (2002), pp. 54-71.
Clément Chéroux. (2005). The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult. Yale University Press. p. 268. ISBN 978-0300111361
^ D. Scott Rogo. (1978). Mind and Motion: The Riddle of Psychokinesis. Taplinger Publishing. pp. 245-246. ISBN 978-0800824556
Michael Coleman. Wax-Moulds of 'Spirit' Limbs. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 59 (1993-94), pp. 340-346.
Mary Rose Barrington. The Kluski Hands. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 59 (1993-94), pp. 347-351.
^ Michael Coleman. The Kluski moulds: a reply. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 60 (1994), pp. 98-103.
^ Mary Rose Barrington. Kluski and Geley: Further Case for the Defence. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 60 (1994), pp. 104-106.
Julian Franklyn. (2003). A Survey of the Occult. p. 381. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-0766130074
Hereward Carrington. (1988). Letters to Hereward Carrington from Famous Psychical Researchers. Society of Metaphysicians. p. 89. ISBN 978-1852287986
M. Brady Brower. (2010). Unruly Spirits: The Science of Psychic Phenomena in Modern France. University of Illinois Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0252077517
Andrew Lycett. (2007). The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Free Press. p. 433. ISBN 978-0743275231
Carlos María de Heredia. (1923). Spirit Hands, "ectoplasm," and Rubber Gloves. Popular Mechanics. pp. 14-15
Massimo Polidoro. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. Prometheus Books. pp. 71-73. ISBN 978-1573928960 "At the time Houdini didn't press the argument further, but later on, experimenting with paraffin, he found no artifice was needed to duplicate Kluski's molds. As a series of pictures for a newspaper of the time shows, he immersed his hand in the hot paraffin, let it dry, and then carefully removed the hand from it. When one experiments with this technique, one realizes that it is not the plaster cast that has to be removed from the thin wax mold, which would be impossible to do without breaking the mold. One almost forgets that what has to be removed is the living hand, possibly the best-suited object to slip out of a mold without damaging it. In fact, a real hand is even more effective than any other artifice dreamed up to substitute for it. First, the paraffin doesn't stick to skin, only to quite long hair. Nonetheless, if one moves the fingers very slowly, one will realize that every small bit one pulls out will gradually allow the rest of the hand to be removed; that's similar to what happens when one pulls off a tight glove."
Massimo Polidoro, Luigi Garlaschelli. Spirit Moulds: A Practical Experiment. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 62 (1997), pp. 58-63.
David Fontana. Spirit Moulds: On Kluski and his Critics. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 63 (1998-99), pp. 43-46.
Gustav Geley. Les expériences d'ectoplasmie de la 'Society for Psychical Research' de Londres avec Mlle Eva C.. Revue Métapsychique, No. 2 (1922). pp. 103-131
Eric Dingwall. The Hypothesis of Fraud. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 32 (1922), pp. 309-331: "...it may be thought that the case against the phenomena is so strong that the subject may be at once dismissed. Such a standpoint would in my opinion be entirely mistaken and would show clearly that its supporter had not the smallest appreciation of the difficulties..."
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Concerning The Possibility Of Deception In Sittings With Eva C. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 33 (1923), pp. 665-672.
Helen Verrall. The History Of Marthe Béraud. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 27 (1914-15), pp. 333-69.
^ Charles Richet. Thirty Years of Psychical Research. (Kessinger Publishing, 2003). ISBN 978-0766142190
Joseph Maxwell. Concerning the Criticisms of Professor Richet's Algerian Experiences. Annals of Psychical Science. Volume 3 (1906), pp. 283-335.
Ruth Brandon. The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. (Alfred E. Knopf, 1983). ISBN 978-0394527406
^ Brian Inglis. Science and Parascience: A History of the Paranormal, 1914-1939. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1984). ISBN 978-0340263259
Harry Houdini. A Magician Among the Spirits. (Harper & Brothers, 1924). Chapter X. "Why Ectoplasm?"
Carlos María de Heredia. Spiritism and common sense (P.J. Kenedy & sons, 1922) Appendix II. Eva C.
^ Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Phenomena of Materialization (London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber, & Co., 1923).
Edwin F. Bowers. Spiritualism's challenge; submitting to modern thinkers conclusive evidence of survival. (National library press, 1936) Chapter XXII. "In Which I Pat Professor Jastrow's Rosy Cheeks"
Arthur Conan Doyle. Spiritualism and rationalism; with a drastic examination of Mr. Joseph M'Cabe. (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1920). pp. 5-9
Arthur Conan Doyle. The Edge of the Unknown. (J. Murray, 1930). pp. 60-61: " had, as already stated, a sitting with the medium Eva, and under the stringent and very deterrent conditions imposed by the London Psychical Research Society, which will be found described in their unsatisfactory and self-contradictory report, he did seem to have made acquaintance with ectoplasm in its very humblest form. He says in a letter to me written the next morning (June 22nd, 1920): "They made Eva drink a cup of coffee and eat some cake (I presume to fill her up with some food-stuff), and after she had been sewn into the tights, and a net over her face, she manifested. 1. "Some froth-like substance, inside of net, 'twas long, about five inches, she said it was elevated, but none of us four watchers saw it 'elevate.' 2. "A white plaster-looking affair over her right eye. 3. "Something that looked like a small face, say four inches in circumference. Was terra-cotta coloured, and Dingwall, who held her hands, had the best look at the 'object.' 4. "Some substance, froth-like, exuding from her nose, and Baggeley and Fielding say it protrudes from her nose, but Dingwall and I are positive that it was inside of net and was not extending from her nose, as I had the best view from two different places I deliberately took advantage to see just what it was. 5. "Medium asked permission to remove something in her mouth, show her hands empty, and took out what appeared to be a rubberish substance, which she disengaged, showed us plainly, we held the electric torch, all saw it plainly, when presto! it vanished. It was a surprise effect indeed! The séance started at 7.30 and lasted past midnight. "We went over the notes, and no doubt you will get a full report. I found it highly interesting." It will be found from these extracts that when faced with facts his attitude was very different from what his public utterances would lead one to expect."
Rudolf Lambert. Dr. Geley's Reports on the Medium Eva C. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 37 (1954), pp. 380-386.
^ Sofie Lachapelle. (2011). Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 144-145. ISBN 978-1421400136
Donald J. West. Psychical Research Today (Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1953). p. 49: "The outbreak of war in 1914 interrupted Schrenck Notzing's investigations, but his place was taken by Dr Gustave Geley, a French physician. He too wrote a book about 'Eva C', and he was even more uncritically enthusiastic. Moreover, he lacked Schrenck Notzing's gift for hiding his personal bias under a pretence of scientific precision and impartiality. After Geley's sudden death there was a flutter over the discovery amongst his papers of photographs of Marthe Beraud showing materializations tied and fastened to her hair in a most suspicious way. This was nothing new, for von Schrenck Notzing's own photographs showed the same thing, and he had even recorded finding 'inexplicable' pin holes in the lining of the cabinet. Nevertheless, the Geley photographs, being stereoscopic, were more damning. The authorities at the Institut Metapsychique in Paris, of which Geley had been Director, refused to publish the facts, and but for the temerity of two independent critics, Rudolf Lambert and Theodore Besterman, these incriminating photographs would have remained unknown."
Pearson's Magazine. June 1910. C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. p. 615
Eric Dingwall. Telekinetic And Teleplastic Mediumship. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 34 (1924), pp. 324-322: "Even if in England we have failed to realise the importance of Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing's contribution (I), in Germany the attacks made upon it reflect great credit upon its author. For the truth is that it is by far the most important work on telekinesis since the S.P.R. Report on Palladino or Dr. Ochorowicz's observations on Mile T."
^ Hereward Carrington. Laboratory Investigations into Psychic Phenomena. (Kessinger Publishing, 2007). ISBN 978-0548097182
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Zum Fall Klinkowström—Bisson. Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie. Volume 3 (1928), p. 299.
R. Warcollier. 'Opinion d'un témoin', Revue Métapsychique, 1 (1) (1955), pp. 55-57.
R. Perot. 'La critique ... des critiques', Revue Métapsychique, No. 13 (1969), pp. 11-18; No. 16 (1969-1970), pp. 33-41.
^ Mary Rose Barrington, Ian Stevenson and Zofia Weaver, A World in a Grain of Sand: The Clairvoyance of Stefan Ossowiecki, Jefferson, NC, and London, McFarland & Company, 2005. ISBN 0-7864-2112-6.
E.F. O'Doherty. (1959). "The Sixth Sense by Rosalind Heywood", Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 48, no. 192, pp. 493-95.
C. E. M. Hansel, "Beyond the Reach of Sense: An Inquiry into Extra-Sensory Perception by Rosalind Heywood", American Journal of Psychology, vol. 76, no. 1, 1963, pp. 170-71.
Walter Franklin Prince. Introduction. Extra-Sensory Perception. By J.B. Rhine. Boston, Mass., Boston Society for Psychic Research, 1934. p. x: "The results of a single experiment may have great evidential force. Such an experiment has been lately reported by Mr. Theodore Besterman, a very careful and conservative researcher. The subject was Ossowiecki, with whom Dr. E. J. Dingwall, an experienced investigator whose bent is toward skepticism, several years ago had a result almost equally amazing. Mr. Besterman employed precautions the avoidance of which baffles the mind to imagine. The odds against chance in his case cannot be mathematically evaluated, but it is safe to say, after considering all the factors involved, that they could not be less than a million to one."
Mauskopf, Seymour H., and M. R. McVaugh. The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980. p. 321: "Throughout the 1920s experimenters reported that Ossowiecki was able to describe words and pictures drawn on papers hidden from his sight, sealed into opaque envelopes or even leaden tubes. For some of Ossowiecki's early work, see Gustave Geley, Clairvoyance and Materialization, trans. Stanley de Brath (New York: Doran, 1927), pp. 30-93. A remarkable effort a decade later is described by Theodore Besterman in "An experiment in 'clairvoyance' with M. Stephan Ossowiecki". PSPR 41 (1932-33): 345-351."
Theodore Besterman. An experiment in 'clairvoyance' with M. Stephan Ossowiecki. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 41 Part 132 (1933), pp. 345-351.: "I minutely examined the envelopes and found that with the exception of considerable wear and tear on the outer envelope, they were all intact. The private marks which I had made and which would have been inevitably disturbed on any attempt to open the envelopes, were all in order. I have no hesitation in saying that none of the envelopes was opened. I am also satisfied that no effort was made to render the contents transparent by chemical means. The same is true of X-ray and similar methods."
Eric Dingwall. An experiment with the Polish medium Stephan Ossowiecki. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 21 (1924), pp. 259-263.
Kenneth L. Feder, Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum, Greenwood, 2010, p. 203, ISBN 978-0-313-37919-2.
Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa - Dziennik Poranny, May 11 1939, R. 5, Nr 108 at www.wbc.poznan.pl
Krzysztof Boruń and Katarzyna Boruń-Jagodzińska, Ossowiecki—zagadki jasnowidzenia (Ossowiecki—Mysteries of Clairvoyance), Epoka, 1990.

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