“It is very absurd, if a truth can be absurd.” So stated renowned French scientist Charles Richet, referring to the results of some experiments that he and Dr. Gustave Geley, the director of the International Metaphysical Institute (Institut Metapsychique International) in Paris, had carried out with Franek Kluski, a Polish medium, during November and December 1920.
The two scientists succeeded in having “entities”—a more acceptable word to scientists than “spirits”—dip their hands and feet, and even part of the face of one, into some paraffin so that molds could be made of their body parts. The “Paraffin Hands Case” has gone down in the annals of psychical research as one of the most, if not the most, convincing case offering objective evidence of spirit life.
Richet was certainly not a pseudoscientist, as debunkers like to claim when some researcher finds evidence for the paranormal. Winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in medicine for his research on anaphylaxis, the sensitivity of the body to alien protein, Richet was a physiologist, chemist, bacteriologist, pathologist, psychologist, aviation pioneer, poet, novelist, editor, author, and psychical researcher. He held doctorates in both medicine and science, serving as professor of physiology at the medical school of the University of Paris for 38 years.
Nor could Geley be called a pseudoscientist. A Laureate of the French Academy of Medicine, he had gained some fame for his research in anesthesia and for new methods of treating smallpox, erysipelas, and scarlatina when, in 1918, he accepted the directorship of the Institute, of which Richet was president. The primary objective of the Institute was to investigate paranormal phenomena, especially mediumship, under strict scientific controls and conditions.
Kluski was a 50-year-old writer and poet who had discovered his mediumistic ability just 18 months earlier. In Paris, there were 14 separate experiments with Kluski, all but one in Geley’s laboratory. Other scientists, including Camille Flammarion, a world-renowned astronomer, sat in on one or more of the experiments.
The general protocol called for the medium to be thoroughly searched before being admitted to the laboratory and for the doors of the laboratory to be locked from the inside at all times. With some mediums, Geley went so far as to require gynecological and rectal examinations to rule out hidden objects. Because the ectoplasm produced by mediums and later reabsorbed by them is sensitive to white light, red lights were used, permitting some visibility, although it was inadequate for photography; and there was concern that flash photography would negatively affect the ectoplasm and thereby injure the medium.
It was Richet, who some years earlier, gave the name “ectoplasm” to the mysterious protoplasmic substance that streams from an orifice of the medium—from the mouth, ears, nose, pores, and even from the vagina of some mediums. It had earlier been referred to by scientists as teleplasm, psychoplasm, psychic force, and odic force. When Sir William Crookes, an esteemed British chemist, first reported on it in connection with the mediumship of Florence Cook during the early 1870s, Richet was among the many scientists who scoffed and thought that perhaps Crookes, the discoverer of the element thallium and a pioneer in x-ray technology, had “lost it.” But after his own investigation of mediums began during the 1880s, Richet changed his position. “I avow with shame that I was among the willfully blind,” he wrote in dedicating his 1923 book, Thirty Years of Psychical Research, to Crookes, commending him for his courage and insight.
Richet, Geley, and other researchers came to realize that ectoplasm takes on different forms. Sometimes it is thick and milky looking and at other times vaporous and invisible. Kluski’s was of the latter type. “This ectoplasmic formation at the expense of the physiological organism of the medium is now beyond all dispute,” Richet proclaimed. “It is prodigiously strange, prodigiously unusual, and it would seem so unlikely as to be incredible; but we must give in to the facts.”
While there were a few mediums in the world strong enough or developed enough to produce ectoplasm which would result in full body materializations, Kluski apparently was not one of them. Faces, arms, and hands were usually observed with him. According to Geley, the experiments would begin with a strong odor of ozone. “Then, in weak light, slightly phosphorescent vapor floats around the medium, especially above his head, like light smoke, and in it there are gleams like foci of condensation,” he explained. “These lights were usually many, tenuous, and ephemeral, but sometimes they were larger and more lasting, and then gave the impression of being luminous parts of organs otherwise invisible, especially finger ends or parts of faces. When materialization was complete, fully formed hands and faces could be seen.”
At one sitting, Geley observed a hand at the end of an arm form under his eyes, cross the circle in front of Kluski and touch Mme. Geley, who was facing him. “It was a masculine hand, very well formed,” Geley wrote. “The wrist was slender, the forearm and upper arm were enveloped in white tissue with regular longitudinal folds. Immediately after the contact felt by Mme. Geley the hand disappeared.”
Geley further noted that the lights represent the first stages of materialization. They would sometimes disappear at once and sometimes proceed to characteristic human forms. As Geley, Richet, and other researchers came to understand it, the fact that many of the materialized forms were incomplete or fragmentary, sometimes just two-dimensional, occasionally grotesque in appearance, did not suggest fraud, as many skeptics assumed. Rather, they were simply indications that the medium was not developed enough for the entities to produce complete forms. In fact, the incomplete manifestations seemed to run contrary to any fraud explanation, as it was deemed highly unlikely that a charlatan would have expected anyone to believe that such strange manifestations were real in the first place.
The researchers also came to understand that the entity must project an image of himself or herself into the ectoplasm for a form to materialize. With another medium, Richet noted that the deceased husband of one of the sitters was present but said he could not show himself because he had forgotten what he looked like when alive. He later showed himself without a face.
Another researcher reported that the communicating entity said that he had to visit his old home to view a portrait of himself on the mantel before he could show himself, as he also could not recall what he looked like. When still another researcher asked why only a face was seen, the entity said that he had visualized only his face. Indications were that people who lived before photography was invented had a more difficult time showing themselves, as they never had a good image of themselves even when alive in the flesh. In effect, the ability of entities to use the ectoplasm and produce a good likeness seemed to vary as much as artistic ability varies with humans.
Geley and Richet had heard of similar experiments involving paraffin molds taking place in the United States and England, but those experiments were said to be inconclusive due to questionable controls; so they decided to replicate the earlier experiments under more controlled conditions to see for themselves. “The procedure is to set a bowl containing paraffin wax, kept at a melting point by being floated on warm water, near the medium,” Geley explained. “The materialized ‘entity’ is asked to plunge a hand, foot, or even part of a face into the paraffin several times. A closely fitting envelope is thus formed which sets at once in air or by being dipped into another bowl of cold water. This envelope or ‘glove’ is then freed by demateriazation of the member. Plaster can be poured at leisure into the glove, thus giving a perfect cast of the hand.”
There was no question in Geley’s mind that there was some kind of unseen intelligence cooperating with them in their experiments. Communication coming from the entities was carried out by loud raps, e.g., one rap for no, three for yes, and so many for each letter of the alphabet. At one sitting, the entities asked those in the room to sing, apparently because more harmony was needed, and as they sang, Geley and the others heard hand clapping, as if coming from several entities.
However, Geley noted that the “invisible collaborators” did not seem to possess a high order of intelligence. “They seem to me to have the mentality and capacity of artisans, no more,” he wrote. He further observed that they cooperated by doing as requested. When Geley asked for a foot mold, it was given. Moreover, the entities seemed to be as interested in the results of the paraffin molds as the scientists on this side were. Geley observed “one of these beings take hold of a luminous screen, throw its light on the gloves, and look at them long and curiously, with keen curiosity.” But the dim red light limited the researchers’ observations of the particular phenomenon. They could hear a splashing when the hands were dipped and for the most part could observe only a trail of white and slightly luminous vapor, the form of which was constantly changing. Hot paraffin was sometimes spilled on the scientists and on Kluski.
When debunkers are unable to discredit scientists, they suggest that even the best scientist can be duped by a skillful magician. To completely rule out any sleight of hand by Kluski—although Geley, Richet, and the other researchers were certain he was not a trickster—Richet held one of Kluski’s hands while Geley held the other during the experiment. In their experiment of November 15, the hand of a child was produced in the paraffin. In a later experiment, on December 27, Geley and Richet added some bluish coloring matter to the paraffin. “This was done secretly, to be an absolute proof that the molds were made on the spot and not brought ready-made into the laboratory by Franek or any other person and passed off on us by legerdemain,” Geley explained. Two very good hand molds were obtained, one a left and one a right hand, both the size of children five to seven years old.” He further noted that both had a blue tinge to them.
In all, they obtained nine molds, of which seven were of hands, one of a foot, and one of a mouth and chin. But the entities did not identify themselves or give any indication who they might have been when alive. Geley observed that there was a negative correlation between communication and materialization. That is, when they tried to communicate, there was no power to carry out the materialization, or when they materialized there was no power for communication.
“In completing our investigations, we have verified that the lines of the hands have nothing in common with those of the medium” Geley wrote, mentioning that even though the hands were all smaller than Kluski’s he still had them examined by M. Bayle, a criminologist at the Paris police department, to confirm they had nothing in common. “The answer can scarcely leave room for doubt,” Geley concluded. “They present all the characters of human members—perfect form, lines of the hand, nails, crinkles of the skin, marks of bony protuberances, tendons, and sometimes even the small veins on the back of the hands. Nothing is wanting. We have shown these casts to artists, painters, sculptors, and molders, and to many medical men. The verdict of all has been unanimous—they are molds of human hands.” Geley also noted that traces of muscular contraction indicate that the hands were “alive.”
During September 1921, Geley traveled to Warsaw and replicated the hand molds, although the controls were not as strict as in Paris. He again returned to Warsaw during April and May 1922; and with the assistance of some respected Polish researchers, once more replicated the earlier results. During the 1922 experiments, Geley and the other scientists were able to better view the process. “We had the great pleasure of seeing the hands dipping into the paraffin,” he reported. “They were luminous, bearing points of light at the fingertips. They passed slowly before our eyes, dipped into the wax, moved in it for a few seconds, came out, still luminous, and deposited the glove against the hand of one of us. The whole operation took only two minutes at most.”
So, if not fraud or deception on the part of Kluski, what exactly were those “entities” or “invisible collaborators”? The debunkers can find some solace in the fact that Richet could not bring himself to declare a belief in spirits as he felt it was unscientific, even though he had witnessed a full materialization with another medium and thoroughly examined the materialized form before it disappeared. Moreover, in his 1923 book, he repeatedly spoke of the entitites as if they were spirits of the dead. “To ask a physician, a physicist, or a chemist to admit that a form that has a circulation of blood, warmth, and muscles, that exhales carbonic acid, has weight, speaks, and thinks, can issue from a human body is to ask of him an intellectual effort that is really painful,” he expressed his frustration.
Richet advanced a theory that the entities were secondary personalities in the subconscious of Kluski and other mediums; and that secondary personality interacted with the subconscious of the sitters in producing the molds, even though he realized that such a theory, or hypothesis, seemed more far-fetched than the spirit explanation. “I find myself unable to adopt [the spirit hypothesis],” he further stated. “Nevertheless, I oppose it half-heartedly, for I am quite unable to bring forward any wholly satisfactory counter-theory.”
Geley also was reluctant to admit to a belief in spirits, and struggled to even use the word “spirits,” but he found the secondary personality/ subconscious hypothesis unsatisfactory to explain all of the phenomena. “…they declare themselves foreign to the Self; they claim to be distinct entities,” he wrote of the “secondary personalities” so crucial to the subconscious hypothesis. “Usually, at least in our day and in the West, they claim to be the ‘spirits’ of the dead and say that they only borrow from the medium the vital dynamism and organic elements which they need in order to act upon the material plane.” Like other more open-minded researchers, Geley wondered why this “secondary personality” was so intent on deceiving the primary personality of the medium, not only with Kluski but with all other mediums. Why should a secondary personality pretend to be a spirit?
Before he was killed in a plane crash on his way back to Paris from Warsaw during 1924, Geley declared his belief in spirits and the survival of consciousness in a scientific way. “It should be beyond doubt that the Self both pre-exists, and that it survives the grouping which it directs during one earth-life,” he wrote, “that it more particularly survives its lower objectification during this life. This may at least be admitted, if not as a mathematical certainty, at least as a high probability.”
Renowned British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, who observed some of Geley’s experiments although not with the paraffin molds, referred to the paraffin molds as “a standing demonstration of some thing inexplicable by normal science…a permanent material record which can be examined at leisure, and which…are, as it were, a standing miracle.”
Richet repeated, in slightly different words, his earlier statement. “Yes, it is absurd; but no matter—it is true.”
