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Hello there!
We’re back to scientific séances! Specifically how British scientist William Crookes used a galvanometer to “test” Anna Eva Fay’s “powers” as a medium in 1875.
My previous post got into the details of one of Fay’s four séances at Crookes’s house. That night while by herself in the library, she made a violin float, unlocked a desk, and tossed books through the curtain separating the library from the room where the men were watching the galvanometer. (Fay and the men couldn’t be in the same room, you see, because the spirits were shy.)
Crookes believed that the galvanometer, a device that measures electric current, would reveal if Fay removed her hands from the two handles next to her seat. When she held those handles, her body completed an electric circuit, resulting in a specific reading on the galvanometer in the adjoining room. If she let go of those handles, that reading went to zero.
During most of her séance tests, the galvanometer’s readings were relatively steady, which Crookes said proved that Fay had kept her hands on the two nailed-down handles while violins floated and books were thrown.
Anna Eva Fay circa 1909
Credit: Baker Art Gallery, University of Washington archives
Beating the machine
Fay obviously found a way to beat the system. And while she was coy about how exactly she did it for the rest of her life, she did reportedly tell Houdini over 45 years later (as reported in the 1996 book, Houdini!!!) that she did so by holding one of the handles underneath her knee, which gave her a free hand to wiggle and “attract attention,” as a witness described.
But while this is indeed a way to beat the galvanometer, it can’t be the method — or at least the only method — Fay used. Several items she moved were out of arm’s reach of the chair she sat in; she had to be able to get up and move around freely, or someone else had to have been in the room working with her.
Barry H. Wiley in his book on Anna Eva Fay, The Indescribable Phenomenon, lays out a plausible method. Since this involves some secrets, this explanation will only be available to newsletter subscribers so the magic police don’t come after me.