Talk:Franek Kluski/Archive 1

Death
in my reading i can not find any information surrounding Kluski's death, being in poland in 1943 i suspect it was somehow related to ww2 but i can not substantiate that, if any of you have information regarding the death of this magnificent man, please post it and please contact me about it on my talk page, thank you.--Tophatdan (talk) 07:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Tone of article
I'm not sure where this bio is being sourced from, but the tone is inappropriate. § FreeRangeFrog 04:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:RS
There are no independent objective sources for this article aside from various (cited in Polish) European occultist authors and psychical societies, so I summarized and trimmed to reflect the relative obscurity of the subject. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tone of article
occultists from 3 countries (england, poland and germany) cant be seen as independant sources? in any case i will be willing to provide a list of books concerning mr. Kluski's life and times if any of you wish to read in to the subject as far as i have, i believe the article should be restored in some length to its original text, and i propose that the 'tone' reflects the works research done by the 'occultists' from atleast 3 nations who studied him in his time.--Tophatdan (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Geley Fraud
There's an article in the SPR journal claiming that the psychical researcher Gustav Geley acted as Kluski's accomplice and helped him make the "materialization" molds. According to the article the paraffin molds were secretly prepared by Geley before the séance sittings. Its in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. (1994). Volumes 59-60. I don't have access to the paper. SPR journals are not reliable references so are not usually used on Wikipedia unless they can be clarified by other reliable references.

As for Geley, he was caught in fraud with the medium Eva Carrière. Geley had hidden photographs that revealed wires seen running from Carrière's head supporting fake ectoplasm. It's possible that Geley was involved in fraud with Kluski. Either way there was fraud involved and Kluski was not searched before his séances. The "materialization" hand molds are easily to duplicate by natural methods as magicians have revealed. Fodor Fan (talk) 20:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Lewis Spence in his book Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology writes "The charge that the gloves may have been- made previous to the seance could not be sustained as Geley secretly mixed cholesterin, a coloring substance, into the paraffin. The gloves, under chemical tests, show traces of this substance." But the SPR report seems to show doubt about Geley, and claims he may have been behind the hoax, so the claim about the chloresterin would be irrelevant. Geley had been caught lying about other things, so perhaps he was in on it. The reliable references however seem to indicate that it was Kluski doing the fraud and I can't find any other references claiming Geley was in on the fraud as well. Fodor Fan (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the SPR reference that mentions the fraud is actually two papers:


 * Coleman, M. H. (1994) Wax moulds of 'spirit' limbs. JSPR 59, 340 - 346.
 * Coleman, M. H. (1994) The Kluski moulds: a reply. JSPR 60, 98 - 103.

It's clear Coleman believed fraud was involved, but I have read the abstracts and samples not the entire papers as they are not publicly online. I am not sure his conclusion about Geley. I did read a sample from the paper where he suggested Geley could have been behind the fraud with Kluski. Fodor Fan (talk) 22:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Bowl of cold water
Some spiritualist websites seem to be claiming there was no bowl of water in the Kluski experiments. This is contradicted by references on the subject, for example Ivor Grattan-Guinness. (1982). Psychical Research: A Guide to Its History, Principles and Practices: In Celebration of 100 Years of the Society for Psychical Research. Aquarian Press. p. 65 writes "he sat in a darkened (but not dark) room at a table on which there was a bowl of molten paraffin wax and a bowl of water." Also D. Scott Rogo (a supporter of Kluski) in his book Mind and Motion: The Riddle of Psychokinesis. pp. 245-246 writes of a "bowl of hot paraffin" and "a bath of water."

In the book Clément Chéroux The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult it describes a bucket containing "melted paraffin floating on hot water" and mentions plaster was poured into the molds and then they were plunged into "boiling water" to remove the paraffin. It's clear then there were two buckets or bowls, one with paraffin and the other with water, but there seems to be contradictory statements if the bowl was filled with boiling or cold water.

Harry Price in his book Fifty Years of Psychical Research writes "a pail of hot parrifin wax and another filled with cold water are in readiness at his sittings, and the splashings in the pails can be distinctly heard." And he also writes "when these delicate moulds are filled with plaster-of-Paris (which is allowed to set), the wax is dissolved with boiling water and the resultant casts can be examined freely."

Because of these contradictions I have cited there that there were indeed two bowls (which all references agree with), but left out specific mention if the water was cold or hot. Fodor Fan (talk) 21:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that the magician Carlos María de Heredia replicated Kluski's "materialization" molds by using a rubber glove, a glass of hot paraffin and a glass of cold water. Kluski was not searched before his séances, he could have easily hidden these rubber gloves on him. The fraudulent Danish medium Einer Nielsen hid his ectoplasm in his rectum, I found one reference which suggested this about Kluski, and there is an odd incident in which a séance sitter observed "Kluski dropped... his pants and placed his buttocks in the paraffin" (M. Brady Brower. (2010). Unruly Spirits: The Science of Psychic Phenomena in Modern France). Fodor Fan (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

No bowl of cold water
According to this spiritualist article written by Mario Varvoglis there was no bowl of cold water in the Geley experiments with Kluski:

"Rather than using a second bowl for cooling, the IMI researchers preferred to allow the wax moulds to rigidify on their own, this being, as we shall see, a precaution against fraud. Following the sessions, the investigators would pour plaster into the fragile wax moulds, to obtain a more permanent object; once the plaster hardened, they would simply plunge the ensemble into boiling water and strip away the wax layer." 

This is in opposition to other references i.e. Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Harry Price, D. Scott Rogo and Lewis Spence who have claimed there was a bowl or bucket of cold water. Here's another reference which concludes there was a bowl of cold water:

Edward Albertson. (1968). Seances and Sensitives for the Millions. Sherbourne Press. p. 112

"Franek Kluski, a Polish banker, did so in his seances, which were held in the dark, by using two pails, one filled with hot paraffin and the other with cold water. Materialized hands were supposed to dip into the hot wax until they were coated and then plunge into the cold water to harden." Fodor Fan (talk) 23:56, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that Geley's original statements about the experiments are not online, his book Clairvoyance and Materialization: A Record of Experiments (1927) that mentions the Kluski experiments is not available online so his comments may of been quote-mined and details may of been missed. However, C. E. Bechhofer Roberts in his book The Truth of Spiritualism (1932) does quote Geley as saying:

"A bowl containing paraffin wax, kept at melting-point by being floated on warm water," was placed on a table two feet in front of him, and "the materialized 'entity' was then asked to plunge a hand, a foot, or even part of a face into the liquid paraffin several times. A closely fitting envelope was thus formed which immediately set in the air or by being dipped into another bowl of cold water. This envelope or 'glove' was then freed by dematerialization of the member. "Plaster would then be poured at leisure into the glove, thus giving a cast of the phantom hand."

I searched for this quote online, and other references mentioned it such as a psychic journal, confirming that Geley had said this. It's clear from the evidence then, that a cold bowl of water was used in the Kluski experiments. The spiritualists such as Mario Varvoglis are wrong. Fodor Fan (talk) 00:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

An interesting reference:

Massimo Polidoro, Luigi Garlaschelli. (1997). Spirit Moulds: A Practical Experiment. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 62: 58-63.

Both Polidoro and Garlaschelli have duplicated the Kluski moulds by natural means.

I have read Arthur Conan Doyle's book The History of Spiritualism and he quotes Geley and there was no mention of a bowl of cold water, so there are contradictory sources. The issue may be that there were different experiments with different apparatus. Geley did test Kluski over a period of four years at different locations. But either way bowl of cold of water or not, the moulds have been duplicated by natural means. Harry Houdini duplicated them:

Massimo Polidoro. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. pp. 71-73 writes "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."

It's clear from the evidence Kluski was a fraud and the moulds have nothing to do with spirits. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Kluski is also mentioned in Milbourne Christopher Mediums, Mystics & the Occult and Paul Kurtz A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Fodor Fan (talk) 03:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hairs found in the Kluski molds
Coleman, M. H. (1994) The Kluski moulds: a reply. JSPR 60, 98 - 103 reports the presence of skin-hairs in the wax of the Kluski hand-moulds. This is clear evidence of fraud. 

According to a description of the Coleman paper:

The author argues that the wax molds (WMs) are not the making of materialized spirits. "The case against the genuine character of the Kluski WMs is argued under the following headings: (1) the unreliability of G. Geley's reporting, (2) the normal production of WMs, (3) the use of wax markers, (4) the size of the WMs, and (5) the presence of skin hairs in WMs." Fodor Fan (talk) 22:22, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Hereward Carrington
Hereward Carrington exposed the tricks of how to make spirit molds in his book The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism on pages 224-229. Fodor Fan (talk) 23:25, 17 November 2013 (UTC)