Talk:Leonora Piper/Archive 1

Leonora Piper's method
"Taking everything that I know of  Mrs. Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her trances which [she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state], and that the definite philosophy of her trances is yet to be found." I suggest this statement by William James is a very good clue to Piper's method of gaining information. What really happened in those sittings? Why the selection of words: she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state? Why isn't it what she possibly could not know in her waking state? I hope to return to Mrs. Piper at a later date. Kazuba (talk) 04:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC) Quote was puffed and misquoted. Kazuba (talk) 03:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

My reply: William James gave many accounts of things that Piper could not possibly have know.

The aunt who purported to “take control” directly was a much better personation, having a good deal of the cheery strenuousness of speech of the original. She spoke, by the way, on this occasion, of the condition of health of two members of the family in New York, of which we knew nothing at the time, and which was afterwards corroborated by letter. We have repeatedly heard from Mrs. Piper in trance things of which we were not at the moment aware. If the supernormal element in the phenomenon be thought-transference it is certainly not that of the sitter’s conscious thought. It is rather the reservoir of his potential knowledge which is tapped ; and not always that, but the knowledge of some distant living person, as in the incident last quoted. It has sometimes even seemed to me that too much intentness on the sitter’s part to have Phinuit say a certain thing acts as a hindrance.

''Mrs. Blodgett, of Holyoke, Mass., and her sister, devised, before the latter died, what would have been a good test of actual spirit-return. The sister, Miss H. W., wrote upon her deathbed a letter, sealed it, and gave it to Mrs. B. After her death no one living knew what words it contained. Mrs. B. not then knowing Mrs. Piper, entrusted to me the sealed letter, and asked me to give Mrs. Piper some articles of the deceased sister’s personal apparel, to help her to get at its contents. This commission I performed. Mrs. P. gave correctly the full name (which even I did not know) of the writer, and finally, after a delay and ceremony which occupied several weeks on Phinuit’s part, dictated what purported to be a copy of the letter. This I compared with the original (of which Mrs. B. permitted me to break the seal); but the two letters had nothing in common, nor were any of the numerous domestic facts alluded to in the medium’s letter acknowledged by Mrs. Blodgett to be correct. Mrs. Piper was equally unsuccessful in two later attempts which she made to reproduce the contents of this document, although both times the revelation purported to come direct from its deceased writer. It would be hard to devise a better test than this would have been, had it immediately succeeded, for the exclusion of thought-transference from living minds.'' ''My mother-in-law, on her return from Europe, spent a morning vainly seeking for her bank-book. Mrs. Piper, on being shortly afterwards asked where this book was, described the place so exactly that it was instantly found. I was told by her that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the companion of my lost infant. The F.’s were cousins of my wife living in a distant city. On my return home I mentioned the incident to my wife, saying, “ Your cousin did lose a baby, didn’t she? but Mrs. Piper was wrong about its sex, name, and age.” I then learned that Mrs. Piper had been quite right in all those particulars, and that mine was the wrong impression. But, obviously, for the source of revelations such as these, one need not go behind the sitter’s own storehouse of forgotten or unnoticed experiences. Miss X.’s experiments in crystal-gazing prove how strangely these survive. If thought-transference be the clue to be followed in interpreting Mrs. Piper’s trance-utterances (and that, as far as my experience goes, is what, far more than any supramundane instillations, the phenomena seem on their face to be) we must admit that the “ transference “ need not be of the conscious or even the unconscious thought of the sitter, but must often be of the thought of some far away. Thus, on my mother-in-law’s second visit to the medium she was told that one of her daughters was suffering from a severe pain in her back on that day. This altogether unusual occurrence, unknown to the sitter, proved to be true. The announcement to my wife and brother of my aunt’s death in New York before we had received the telegram (Mr. Hodgson has, I believe, sent you an account of this) may, on the other hand, have been occasioned by the sitters’ conscious apprehension of the event. This particular incident is a “ test” of the sort which one readily quotes ; but to my mind it was far less convincing than the innumerable small domestic matters of which Mrs. Piper incessantly talked in her sittings with members of my family. With the affairs of my wife’s maternal kinsfolk in particular her acquaintance in trance was most intimate. Some of them were dead, some in California, some in the State of Maine. '''She characterised them all, living as well as deceased, spoke of their relations to each other, of their likes and dislikes, of their as yet unpublished practical plans, and hardly ever made a mistake, though, as usual, there was very little system or continuity in anything that came out. A normal person, unacquainted with the family, could not possibly have said as much; one acquainted with it could hardly have avoided saying more.' ''The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things cannot well be published. Of the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater number, but the following, rarce nantes, may serve as samples of their class: She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a waistcoat. [She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was afterwards found in the house.] '''She told of my killing a grey-and-white cat, with ether, and described how it had “ spun round and round” before dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman’s character. [Of course no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in question.]''' She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain “tantrums” of our second child, “little Billy-boy,” as. she called him, reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, &c, &c. Insignificant as these things sound when read, the accumulation of a large number of them has an irresistible effect. And I repeat again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs. P. into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The limitations of her trance-information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although they end by rousing one’s moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the discovery of these is always the beginning of explanation.''

P.S.P.R, 06, pgs. 656 - 659. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ROMOVI (talk • contribs) 01:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Historical materials that would improve Piper entry
I am of the historical school that firmly believes in the footnote. Source materials should be named and if possible page numbers specified, so others may backtrack and verify. This does not make the footnoted materials authoritive or true but it does show the author tried to leave their tracks.

See: Primary sources: Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum. William James letters to Richard Hodgson girl friend after Hodgson's death. Wasn't Hodgson told she was dead by Mrs. Piper and he accepted it? Piper consulted with Hodgson about his life? SPR pays Piper $200 a year for exclusive sittings? What cost $200 in 1910 would cost $4566.03 in 2008.

Contribution to the Study of the Psychology of Mrs Piper's Trance Phenomena Author: Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick; Society for Psychical Research (Great Britain) Publisher: Glasgow : Printed for the Society by Robert Maclehose & Co., 1915. Series: Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, v. 28. Edition/Format: Book : English Publication: Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, v. 28 (1915) The S.P.R. considered this the final word on Mrs. Piper

Science and a Future Life by James Hyslop       Chapter 8 personal experiments and results. Page 213 Wearing full face mask but has had sitting Piper 6 years earlier.1892 now 1898 Now has beard, sits behind Piper, Mask is removed while in trance? Piper fishing: Names: Mary, Elizabeth. popular names of the time.

The Life of Richard Hodgson by Alex Baird

Willam James on Psychical Research by Murphy and Ballou James disappointed in Phinuit and Hodgson controls. Notes similarities. James took no on the spot transcripts or notes got too rapped up in readings, until Hodgson control. James cannot recognize fishing. Ignorant of conjuring methods. SPR did or did not hire stenographers. Money problem. Though James has set up experiments that use deception for exposing physical mediums, he does nothing here with a trance medium. James believes in Mrs. Piper there is a subliminal self. The subliminal self does not recognize the memories and actions of the outer Mrs. Piper. The subliminal self is immortal and able to contact other immortal subliminal selfs.

Sealed letter tests that failed. Characteristic readings, a slender, dark woman, etc. without names.

See direct transcripts of ALL Hall and Tanner 6 sittings, notes, etc in Studies in Spiritism by Amy Tanner 1910. Examine Hyslop's very emotional 98 page review of Studies in Spiritism. What is and not valid? Journal of the ASPR vol. 5, January 1911.

See: Secondary source: Search for the Soul by Milbourne Chistopher Chapter 15, Souls and Mrs. Piper, much material. Fishing, Correct and incorrect answers.

See: Christopher's and Tanner's primary sources: Proceedings of SPR volume 6 436-659,   13?,16 pt?41, 23? Essential

See: Primary Source: The Evidence for the Supernatural by Ivor Lloyd Tuckett 1911

See Primary Source: The Life and Work of Mrs. Piper by Alta Piper 1929 (daughter) Alta gives different version of tests performed on her mother by G. Stanley Clark? This version and not Amy Tanner's was accepted by Deborah blum. Odd.

See Primary Source: Past and Present with Mrs. Piper by Ann Mannings Robbins 1922

See Secondary Source: The Night is Large by Martin Gardner, Chapter 20 Williams James and Mrs Piper, St. Martin's Press, 1996, Essential data, Primary sources?

See Primary Source: Find Materials written by William James about spiritism and Mrs Piper, Proceedings of SPR, letters, lectures, essays, etc. Find change of view from positive to negative. Negative includes Piper?

See: Primary sources Proceedings of ASPR ? volumes. Course of action contact ASPR and SPR. Copies of Proccedings

See Primary source VI., 1890; ^ A Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 1889-1890, 6, 436-659.Frederic W. H. Myers, Oliver J. Lodge, Walter Leaf and William James. ... Miss X, SPR 6

In 1888-89, Hyslop joined the investigation. On the first two or three occasions he took the extraordinary precaution of putting on a mask before he got out of the cab, removing it only after Piper was entranced, and resuming it before she awoke. Twelve sittings were sufficient to convince him of the untenability of the secondary personality hypothesis. He declared, without hesitation, that "I prefer to believe that I have been talking to my dead relatives in person; it is simpler." His first report was published in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 16, pt. 41) and concluded: "I give my adhesion to the theory that there is a future life and persistence of personal identity." Something WRONG here with Vol 16 pt 41 and 1888-1989?

See: Secondary source: The Night is Large by Martin Gardner, 1996, Chapter 20, William James and Mrs. Piper. Find Martin's ALL of primary source: New York Herald, Sunday, 20 Oct 1901, Piper's article in newspaper, 2 1/2 pages, Piper personally calling it quits with ASPR tired of being "automaton." Usually find only very short edited version that is given to Piper's positive fans. The Night is Large by Martin Gardner, Chapter 20, Williams James and Mrs Piper, St. Martin's Press, 1996, page 234 Five days later in the Boston Daily Advertiser. Piper complained some of her words, Spirits of the dead speaking through her etc, were misunderstood. Found. See below.

What are Piper's right and left hand? doing during sittings? Unclear. Automatic writing when? When do spirits? speak through Piper? Unclear. First time sitting materials. Many controls and speaking voices at beginning. When-dates? Kazuba (talk) 17:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Helpfull additional materials:   Page 79 " Complete record of whole investigation has not yet been published" page 13 Michael Sage 1904 Michael Sage 1904 biography Life of Richard Hodgson seeking the goodess of the cosmos. Page 424, "Mrs Piper's Plain Statement" by Leonora E. Piper written in "first person" in the New York Herald 20 Oct 1901 is not short. It is very revealing of Piper's private thoughts on Spiritism. She says she is quiting being an automaton. This letter contains priceless info. She was a very intelligent lady. page 470 Boston Advertiser 25 Oct 1901. Now Piper not leaving. "Pay no attention to what she (Piper) says?" [I suspect Richard Hodgson offered Piper more money. But I do not know if this is true.] Kazuba (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

To User:ROMOVI
Thank you for contributing to Leonora Piper. It's nice to see someone take an interest in her other than myself. It is great to get conflicting data. It makes things more interesting. I work as slow as a snail on the Wikipedia. Mediums have always intriqued me. From what I have so far seen on the work already on the Wikipedia the data on Piper is basically copied from one web site to another. Rarely are the original primary sources of the material cited. Let's see if you and I can remedey this. Your material on Miss X DOES SAY this is a FIRST sitting. Please accept my error. It seems odd to me that all Piper's readings are always done in the light never in the dark and there is no mention of covering her eyes, Piper having her back to the sitter..(maybe with masked Hyslop), or the placing a partition or a curtain with an arm sleeve between Piper and her sitters, that I have come across so far. Have you seen any of these? Do you actually have these old SPR and ASPR journals in your possession? Please reply here. Let's see if I can do this right for a change. Kazuba (talk) 02:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's nice to see someone take an interest in her other than myself. - Сheeky, seeing as it was me who's actually created this page and written a good deal of it, too :) -- Evermore2 (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

My reply: Yes, I actually have the SPR journal in my possession, but not the ASPR journal. The following is extracted from Hyslop' report (PSPR, 1901):

As this report will probably be read by some who are not familiar with either the whole record of the case or the difference between Mrs. Piper's mediumship and the modus operandi of other alleged "mediums," I shall briefly characterise the conditions under which the results are obtained, so that there shall be absolutely no excuse for the reader to study the present account with any erroneous preconceptions of what is meant by Mrs. Piper's mediumistic performances. The first important step in the study of her case is a definite conception of the exact way the facts are secured, and a recognition of points of important difference between this case and those which have determined the popular idea of mediumship.

(1) Mrs. Piper goes into the trance in the following manner. She seats herself in a chair in front of a table, upon which are placed two pillows for a head-rest when the trance comes on. She mayor may not engage in conversation while the trance approaches. In my case she generally talked to Dr. Hodgson about various domestic matters, the weather, etc. The approach of the trance is characterised by various indications as described in my notes at the beginning of each sitting. Finally when the head falls upon the pillows, it is arranged by Dr. Hodgson, or other sitter, so that the right side of the head lies on the palm of the left hand and looking off and away from the table upon which the writing is done. This second table is at the right hand, and upon it is placed the writing pad. In a few minutes after the trance occurs, the right hand shows signs of animation and slowly moves toward this table for the writing, when a pencil is placed between the two fore-fingers and the writing begins.

(2) Mrs. Piper's normal consciousness, as the past evidence goes to show, knows nothing of what she has done or communicated in the trance. She also remains ignorant of the communicacations until they are published in some form, except, of course, when a sitter chooses to tell her something, which I need hardly say in my case was nothing. Hence we do not have to reckon with any views of Mrs. Piper's in estimating the nature and value of the results, so that the facts have to be studied from the standpoint of the sitter or investigator.

(3) There is no mechanical apparatus whatsoever in the experiments, except the writing-pad and pencil which you furnish yourself. Hence there is no excuse for comparing the case to slate-writing and cabinet performances generally. Absolutely nothing of this sort is connected with the sittings and experiments. They are conducted in open daylight, in a room without any special arrangements for them, except the tables as indicated, and this room, in so far as living persons are concerned, might be any one that the sceptical inquirer might wish to choose in any locality whatsoever, and not confined to Mrs. Piper's home.

{4) In all cases of so-called independent slate-writing, that I ever witnessed (which were clearly fraudulent), I was either in the darkness or the phenomena were produced out of my sight ; the slate-writing was done nominally by a spirit directly and not by the hand of the "medium," and I was not an eye-witness of the writing. But in Mrs. Piper's case, in addition to the daylight and absence of mechanical apparatus like slates or cabinets, the writing is done visibly with her own hand, and on paper and with a pencil of your own furnishing. That is to say, we can actually see as much of the modus operandi of the "communications" as we can see of any normal human act. Nothing is concealed from our view, except the physiological processes that are equally concealed from us in our own writing as well as all other human affairs.

(5) The whole scientific and evidential importance of the results thus gets its credentials and value solely from the content of the " communications," and not in any special way from the manner of obtaining them, except as detective frauds are excluded from the matter.

(6) I should also indicate briefly the manner of making the record. Dr. Hodgson sat near the table on my right where he could see the writing as it proceeded. This he copied, reading it in a low voice as an indication to the trance personality that it was intelligible, or sometimes with a tone of interrogation and doubt which would be followed either by the word " Y e s" sometimes written out, or assent by the hand, or by the repetition of a word or phrase not rightly read at first.[1] He was unable to copy the whole of the automatic writing at the time, as it was necessary for him to record his own or my questions and statements made at the time and to describe certain mechanical features of the process not expressed in the writing, leaving room for the insertion of the omitted portions of the writing afterward. When a question was to be asked or a statement made to the " communicator," Mrs. Piper's hand was spontaneously raised toward the mouth of the sitter who addressed the hand, and it then immediately proceeded either to present the message to the " communicator," often extending itself out toward some " invisible presence," or to write out a reply. After the sitting was over, usually in the afternoon of the same day, Dr. Hodgson and myself went over the record together, completing the copy of the automatic writing. From this record type-written copies were made and sent to the printer. The printed proofs have been compared first with Dr. Hodgson's copy, and then once more with the original automatic writing, so as to secure the utmost possible accuracy.HODGSON COPIES PIPER NO STENOGRAPHER COULD NOT COPY ALL.

[1]After I became more familiar with the writing I often made attempts to read a,loud portions of it instead of Dr. Hodgson. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ROMOVI (talk • contribs) 15:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

First sitting? to ROMOVI
What is the source of this line? "Mrs. Piper was able to identify "mystery sitters" in their first sitting. One example of this was the sitting of December 7th, 1889." is this also from quoted source? Or have you added it? Please reply Kazuba (talk) 02:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

My reply: The line "Mrs. Piper was able to identify "mystery sitters" in their first sitting. One example of this was the sitting of December 7th, 1889." is mine. The report of the sitting is extracted from the original report.

''24. Miss X. December 7th.

Miss X. was introduced, veiled, to the medium in the trance state, immediately after her arrival at Mr. Myers’ house. She was at once recognised, and named. “You are a medium; you write when you don’t want to. You have got Mr. E.’s influence about you. This is Miss X. that I told you about.” She was subsequently addressed by her Christian name, one of similar sound being first used but corrected immediately.

A large part of the statements made at this and the following sittings were quite correct, but in nearly all cases of so private and personal a nature that it is impossible to publish them. Only fragments, therefore, can be given, with the proper names omitted. But these sittings were perhaps the most successful and convincing of the whole series.

"You know that military-looking gentleman with the big coat on and the funny buttons on the pads here, on the collar. It is someone very near you in the spirit." This is a correct description, so far as it goes, of a near relation.

"Howells speaks; he tells me he knows the Martins, your friends; they know one of my books." These names were not recognised.

"You see flowers sometimes? (Asked, “ What is my favourite flower? There is a spirit who would know.”) “Pansies. No, delicate pink roses. You have them about you, spiritually as well as physically.” Miss X. has on a certain day in every month a present of delicate pink roses. She frequently has hallucinatory visions of flowers.

"There is an old lady in the spirit wearing a cap who is fond of you— your grandmother. She is the mother of the clergyman’s wife’s mother. (Not correct.) She wears a lace collar and a big brooch, bluish-grey eyes, dark hair" turned greyish, with a black ribbon running through it ; rather prominent nose, and peaked chin ; named Anne,” This is a correct description of a friend of Miss X., whom she was in the habit of calling Granny.

On two occasions Dr. Phinuit desired that witnesses should leave the room, a request which as it happens was quite justified by the very personal and private nature of the facts which he quite correctly com¬municated. Intermixed with these were the following, which Miss X. supplies from her own notes, made on each occasion within two or three hours. Dr. Phinuit described an entertainment at which Miss X. had been present, her position in the room, the appearance of her companion, including a marked personal peculiarity, and its cause, giving the Christian name of the same friend and the subject of their conversation, and the circumstances of Miss X.’s return home—all with absolute correctness, except as to time, which was said to have been “last evening,” whereas it was the evening before.'' —Preceding unsigned comment added by ROMOVI (talk • contribs) 16:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

David P. Abbott
Special study of medium in the neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska, USA similar to Piper. The Spiritualists by Ruth Brandon, pages 210 & 211, Primary source Open Court magazine March 1907

Alice James, sister of William James
Statements about the dreadful Mrs. Piper. The Spiritualists by Ruth Brandon, page 208, Primary source The Will to Believe by William James, introduction, page 37

Miss X
The introduction of Miss X is mistakenly proceeded by the methods of Richard Hodgson. This connection should be severed. They have nothing to do with each other. Miss X is not in America with Hodgson. Kazuba (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC) phenomena.)

DISSOCIATION AND STATE-SPECIFIC PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
by Carlos S. Alvarado, M .S. Some of the cases, like that reported by Despine (1838),were observed in patients that showed one of more personalities when hypnotized. For example, Lucie, a patient of Pierre Janet (1887), suffered from a variety of somatic problems, including absence of tactile and kinesthetic sensations. During hypnosis a personality named Adrienne communicated with Janet through automatic writing. When Janet pinched Lucie, Adrienne reported feeling sensations that Lucie did not feel. Similarly, under these conditions Adrienne was able to recognize objects by touch, a task Lucie was unable to accomplish. Janet measured the tactile sensibilityof his patient with an esthesiometer and found that while Adrienne 's sensation was normal, Lucie's was not.

The case of Blanche Witt, studied by Jules Janet (1888),showed similar phenomena. In her "primary" state Witt showed several sensory and motor deficiencies such as total anesthesia, lack of muscular sense, deafness in her left ear,color blindness in the left eye, restricted visual field, low visual acuity, and hysterogenic and erogenic points. Under hypnosis, however, Witt's secondary personality did not exhibit these problems. Finally, Bruce (1895) reported another case in which systematic tests were conducted. His patient, a 47 year old Welsh sailor showed two different states : one in which he spoke Welsh (was left handed, and had weak circulation and constipation), and another in which he spoke English (was right handed, and his circulation and bowel movements were normal). According to Bruce : "Occasionally when changing from the Welsh to the English stage, or the reverse, this patient passes through an intermediate condition, in which he is ambidextrous, speaks a mixture of Welsh and English and understand both languages" (p . 62). Additionally, the patient's pulse had a higher rate in the English state than in the Welsh state. The interpretation of these phenomena was problematic, Kazuba (talk) 04:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

More Data
In trance she rose from her chair, walked to a table in the centre of the room, picked up a pencil and paper, wrote rapidly for a few minutes, and handing the written paper to a member of the circle she returned to her seat. The particular member was Judge Frost, of Cambridge, a noted jurist; the message, the most remarkable he ever received, came from his dead son. The report of Judge Frost's experience spread and Mrs. Piper was soon besieged for sittings. Have yet to find primary source or repetitons of this data else where. Kazuba (talk) 23:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Directed by the SPR to the essay: Mrs. Piper and Geoge Pelham, A Centennial Reassessment by James Munves, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, October 1997 Volume 62, pages 138-154, No. 849 Mrs. Henry Sidgwick took over the Piper case after Richard Hodgson's death and collected his materials. She wrote Hodgson's work was sloppy. He had lost objectivity. Hodgson became obsessed with Leonora Piper, and talking to his deceased lover. He shut himself off and talked to the dead in his room. Too bad. Persons who deeply desire and believe they can contact their deceased loved ones in order to "prove" immortality to themselves and others are not objective. They make poor psychical investigators. Complex secondary personality preferred over simple deception. Only magicians and their brother con artists enjoy being "fooled." Kazuba (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This is the final "clean-up" of Piper case. "For her Study is a very fine piece of work, and by reason of its thoroughness, candour, calm and open-mindedness a model for all inquirers into these perplexing phenomena." 
 * Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, A contribution to the study of the psychology of Mrs. Piper’s trance  Proceedings S.P.R. Part 71 Vol 28, Pages 1-657, December 1915

Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol.22, part 57, October 1908., 1908. 398 pages + 23 pages of Sidgwick's Incident in Mrs Piper's Trance  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.145.5 (talk) 14:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Sidgwick, Eleanor. "Discussion of the Trance Phenomena of Mrs. Piper." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (1899).

SPR has no record of Mrs. Piper's ears ever being stopped or covered in any test or observation. The claim that Mrs. Piper heard through her hand was never tested.


 * Piper has house servant. Same house servant as William James.

Eleanor Sidgwick http://books.google.com/books?id=FRArAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA39&dq=mrs.+piper&lr=&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q=mrs.%20piper&f=false page 16 Sidgwick, Eleanor. "Discussion of the Trance Phenomena of Mrs. Piper." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (1899). page 16 Andrew Lang thought Phinuit was a dishonest secondary personality. "She saw ink blot on my fingers and stated I was a writer"

Hyslop uses stenographer for Hodgson spirit 3 Feeb 1907 NY times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0DE2D7153EE033A25750C0A9649C946697D6CF

Mrs. Piper runs down her sitters by calling them "niggers." Science and Psychical Phenomena & Apparitions by G. N. M. Tyrrell, University books, Inc, 1962, page ? forgot to note, orginally published in 1953 by S. P. R

ARTICLE OF INTEREST; Sidgwick, H. (1894). Disinterested deception. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 6, 274-278.

In first sitting with Henry Hyslop Mrs. Piper reels of 17 names.  pages 11-12

Thankyou For Hyslop report
Notice Hodgson is copying automatic writing. LOOKS LIKE long hand. No stenographer. Still low funds Hodgson arrived in Boston with an assistant and a typist. No stenographer? Are Piper's ears ever covered and stopped up? In USA? In England? Mrs. Sidgwick never doubted Piper could hear. Book review of Studies in Spiritism in SPR Proceeding 25.Kazuba (talk) 01:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

POV
"According to psychologist G. Stanley Hall...Leonora Piper is the most famous trance medium in the history of Spiritualism." It appears to me that Hall's actual opinion  is being intentionally misrepresented in the lead. If this is any indication of the level of accuracy in this article, we need to excise huge swaths of it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree. The lead is also contradictory and full of flowery, misleadin, language at the moment. I was going to remove all except the lead, but even that needs a significant rewrite. Verbal chat  17:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

NO POV
LuckyLouie and Verbal since this data is cited I believe it is against the rules of wikipedia to remove it. Edit it without removing the cited sources. The lead is not misleading it is a historical fact. Verbal and I have been through this before. Have you taken the time to examine these primary sources? Or have you acted without examining them? Kazuba (talk) 23:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC) There is no such thing as a copyright violation when one is quoting for the sake of historical research.Kazuba (talk) 23:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

LuckyLouie Read the data, G. Stanley Hall's actual words before you conclude it is misleading from a brief book review. Studies in Spiritism by Amy Tanner, first introduction by G. Stanley Hall, page XViii, Prometheus Press, 1994, orginally published by D. Appleton, 1910. Here is a link to Studies in Spirtism. Kazuba (talk) 00:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC) "She (Mrs Piper) is without a doubt the most eminent American medium in this field." 2nd paragraph. Sentence 2 Kazuba (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Verbal You deleted EVERY word supposedly spoken by Mrs. Piper which were recorded by William James in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (A Scholarly Journal) Wow! Now that is censorship. Isn't that going a little too far? Kazuba (talk) 00:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC) This same material (and a lot more) is copied in William James on Psychical Research compiled and edited by Gardner Murphy, M.D. and Robert O. Ballou, Viking Press, 1960. If Murphy and Ballou can copy it from the S.P.R. Proceedings I would think there is nothing wrong in reproducing part of it again in the Wikipedia. It would be nice to see some of those tags eliminated.Kazuba (talk) 01:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I know you're aware of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, so please try to follow them. The tags will be removed when the issues are addressed. The minimum changes that need to be made to the lead are the fixing of the contradiction, the removal of unreliable sources, the removal of peacock terms, and the removal of opinion and original research. The writing style is also very poor. And that is just the lead. Verbal chat  07:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kazuba. Sorry, I can't remove the tag because there are problems with this article. For example, Hall's quote in the lead. It cherry-picks a statement that enhances Piper's status and ignores his other, critical opinions of her. I'll try to identify the other problems with the article for you, time permitting. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Why pick Piper?
LuckyLouie The reason G. Stanley Hall wanted to investigate Mrs. Piper was because of her fame and reputation. Otherwise he probably would have ignored her. Hall ignored a lot of other mediums that he visited and never specifically wrote about. If you read the Piper entry you will see that Hall attempted to have sittings with Mrs. Piper when Richard Hodgson was still alive, but Hall was refused. I do not know the correct answer to this, because I never followed up on it; you can not do original research, but it is possible Clark University put up the money for Hall's investigation of Leonora Piper. Other universities investigated mediums, Cambridge University investigated Palladino. Leonora Piper was big time. She was the favorite of William James and widely accepted as being genuine, even today. Piper is the only medium to receive a pension from the Society of Psychical Research. And that is a fact. Kazuba (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying she isn't notable. Or that a certain subculture of people did view, and still view her as highly significant. But the article does not appear to include much perspective outside the small group that finds her amazing, baffling, enigmatic, etc. Right now it is a less a biography and more of a WP:COATRACK for promoting the views of psychical researchers and paranormal enthusiasts of that era. And there's still the problem of choosing to lead with a laudatory statement by Hall rather than his criticism of her. If you are still unclear about this issue, I'll try to explain more later, as time permits. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Only Famous
LuckyLouie  The text says Leonora Piper was the most FAMOUS medium... There is nothing here about amazing, baffling, enigmatic, etc ONLY FAMOUS. You are adding adjectives that are not there. Bruce Willis is a FAMOUS actor. Donald Duck is a FAMOUS cartoon character. David Cooperfield is a FAMOUS magician. kazuba on the wikipedia is not FAMOUS. Kazuba (talk) 03:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * My comments were directed at the article as a whole, not just the lead. She was famous in her time among a small fringe of "psychical" researchers. That I concede. Yet, I find it astounding that Martin Gardner apparently wrote an entire essay entitled "How Mrs. Piper Bamboozled William James", yet we're using Gardner in this article only to establish Piper's fame. (Oh wait, he's allowed one brief 'speculation' in later text, and it is immediately refuted.)  Whew. This article has POV problems, my friend. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. No contemporary perspective. Excessive number of quotes lifted from text. etc. etc.
 * It's clear to me that you do not (or are not willing to) understand WP policies and how they relate to the problems in this article as they have been explained to you. I'll see if I can help fix the article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Me: She was amazing, blaffing etc. She was the only medium to appear in Encyclopedia Britannica and in Science:

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Medium ''The genuineness of trance mediumship can no longer be called in question. The problem for solution is the source of the information. The best observed case is that of Mrs Piper of Boston; at the outset of her career, in 1884, she did not differ from the ordinary American trance medium. In 1885 the attention of Professor William James of Harvard was attracted to her; and for twenty years she remained under the supervision of the Society for Psychical Research. During that period three phases may be distinguished: (I) 1884-1891, trance utterances of a "control" calling himself Dr Phinuit, a French physician, of whose existence in the body no trace can be found; (2) 1892-1896, automatic writing by a "control" known as "George Pelham," the pseudonym of a young American author; (3) 1896 onwards, supervision by "controls" purporting to be identical with those associated with Stainton Moses. There is no evidence for regarding Mrs Piper as anything but absolutely honest. Much of the Piper material remains unpublished, partly on account of its intimate character. Many of those to whom the communications were made have been convinced that the "controls" are none other than discarnate spirits. Probably no absolute proof of identity can be given, though the reading of sealed letters would come near it; these have been left by more than one prominent psychical researcher, but so far the "controls" who claim to be the writers of them have failed to give their contents, even approximately.'' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.100.98 (talk • contribs)


 * The source given was published in 1911 and doesn't represent current thought on the subject. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

ME: So, LuckyLouie, do you want the current thought on the subject? Ok. Let's see what the article "Mrs. Piper Revisited" by PHILIP COLE says:

ABSTRACT: This paper looks at the pioneers of psychical research, with special reference to Leonora Piper of Boston, who seems undeniably to have had some sort of paranormal faculty.

Source: Australian Journal of Parapsychology 2001, Volume 1, Number 1, pp. 9-29

2001 is good enough for you, LuckyLouie? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.117.38 (talk) 01:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If you can come up with a 2001 copy of an Encyclopedia Britannica that says Piper "had an undeniable paranormal faculty" then you have a deal. A paper in a parapsychology journal won't do. Needless to say, parapsychologists do not reflect mainstream scientific thought or unbiased opinion on ESP, psychics, mediums, the paranormal, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: I don't have access to the new editions of Encyclopedia Britannica, but the academic book "Irreducible Mind" (2007) - reviewed by many scientific journals - explicit says:

In Myers's lifetime, Mrs. Piper, a trance automatist studied extensively by William James and Richard Hodgson, and Mrs. Thompson, an automatist identified and studied extensively by Myers himself (1902),45 provided the most important examples of supernormal functioning in the trance state—so important that Myers was ultimately convinced by sittings that he had with them that he had obtained evidence of personal survival after death

Me: This is what is said in some scientific journals about the book "irreducible Mind":

"a comprehensive review of empirical evidence that questions the assumption that "properties of minds will ultimately be fully explained by those of brains"...Kelly et al. deserve to be praised for their courage and scholarship in dealing with such a controversial topic."—Alexander Moreira-Almeida & Harold Koenig, Duke University, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"a monumental work...Only a very resistant observer will remain unpersuaded that a proportion, as least, of all this carefully evaluated data presents a significant challenge to conventional views"—Paul Marshall, Journal of Consciousness Studies

"The authors have not only plausibly argued that the empirical and conceptual horizon of science, particularly the science of the human mind, is both capable and in dire need of expansion, but—and I use this strong term deliberately—they have proven it."—Andreas Sommer, University College, London, Journal of Mind and Behavior

Me: Now we have a deal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 11:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * 'Irreducible Mind' doesn't represent the scientific mainstream opinion, but it's a good example of WP:FRINGE fringe thought. Kelly opens the book by writing, "Current mainstream scientific opinion holds that all aspects of human mind and consciousness are generated by physical processes occurring in brains. The present volume demonstrates empirically that this reductive materialism is not only incomplete but false." No matter how many fringe academics support him with dust-jacket blurbs, his beliefs are clearly in opposition to the mainstream. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: The mainstream don't deny Piper's paranormal powers. The mainstream only ignores it. See, the mainstream don't have an opinion about Piper because the mainstream don't knows Piper! But the scientists who knows Piper's history can only think in two explanations of her powers; telepathy or survival after death. Gardner was an exception because he was a catholic and so needs to deny mediumship at all cost. But many authors knows how flawed are his books and articles about the subject. The fact is: Gardner is NOT a reliable source. WHY do you trust in him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 14:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge my mentor, Martin Gardner, was not a Catholic. He came from a Protestant back ground and his wife, Charlotte, came from a Jewish background.Kazuba (talk) 06:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Me: Gardner and Religion ''Many people are surprised to learn that Gardner is not an atheist. He believes in God and in prayer as can be seen in his The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener. But because so many have been amazed when I told them this, I suspect that some of them thought that I misinterpreted Gardner or somehow took him out of context. So I wrote to him, and he confirmed his belief in “a personal god, prayer, and life after death” (letter to author, 16 Nov 96). The religious crisis of his youth led him to reject his Protestant fundamentalism, but he did not reject God.''

So he was not more Protestant. But you are right when you says he was not catholic.

''Gardner’s virulent attacks on the paranormal are not based solely on its frequent association with deceit. Nor is his antagonism founded only on the unpleasant ramifications of psi. Gardner’s antipathy has deeper roots. His essay “Prayer: Why I Do Not Think It Foolish” is revealing; for in it he says: “It is possible that paranormal forces not yet established may allow prayers to influence the material world, and I certainly am not saying this possibility should be ruled out a priori. . . As for empirical tests of the power of God to answer prayer, I am among those theists who, in the spirit of Jesus’ remark that only the faithless look for signs, consider such tests both futile and blasphemous. . . Let us not tempt God.”''

''Nor is the above quote an isolated example. He also objects to interpreting miracles in terms of parapsychological concepts. He goes on to say that “If I were an orthodox Jew or Christian, I would find such attempts to explain biblical miracles to be both preposterous and an insult to God.” Obviously he feels that attempts to explain the workings of God in scientific parapsychological terms diminish the concept of divinity. God is to be exalted, not tested.'' These statements cannot be ignored if one wishes to understand his views of parapsychology.Source: The Trickster and the Paranormal (Chapter 20, “Reflexivity and the Trickster”) by George P. Hansen (Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2001).

In any case, Gardner clearly can't be trusted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.110.47 (talk) 01:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Restart
I've started to revise the article as a biography using a few of the better sources. It still needs additional material and contemporary perspective to round things out. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Me: Better sources? Do you REALLY think that Martin Gardner is a BETTER source? Prescott showed many mistakes of his article. Your source is simply HORRIBLE. And wikipedia should be impartial, so the criticisms to Gardner's article should remain in the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.100.98 (talk • contribs)
 * See WP:UNDUE for why we don't "show all the various viewpoints" and specifically why we don't give minority views as much weight as "the most popular or scientific views". - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: But I have showed with the original articles that Gardner is wrong, like 2 + 2 = 5. It's not a viewpoint, it's a fact that his informations are wrong, he is giving false informations about what really happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.117.38 (talk) 01:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia we like our 'informations' to come from reliable sources as defined by our WP:RS policy rather than an editor doing their own original research and coming to their own original conclusions. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:33, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: The academic book "Irreducible Mind" (2007) is a realiable source. It is an academic book and it has many good reviews in scientific journals. The book explicity says:

In the course of her mediumship, and particularly in the "G. P." period, Mrs'. Piper routinely produced motor automatisms containing abundant veridical information that could not have been obtained by ordinary means. But it was not only the information that impressed observers; Mrs. Piper also reproduced with striking accuracy the mannerisms, verbal expressions, attitudes, and humor of deceased persons who were ostensibly communicating through her'''—especially, but by no means exclusively, in the case of her "G. P." control. All of her main contemporary investigators were convinced that some supernormal process gave rise to these manifestations (see Gauld, 1982, pp. 32-44).''

Me: This is the current opinion about Piper: she definitly had paranormal powers. Gardner is just one author who is clearly wrong, he is not a reliable source. "Irreducible Mind" is the work of many scientists, and has many good reviews in many scientific journals. "Irreducible Mind" is clearly a reliable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 11:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding the openly fringe agenda of 'Irreducible Mind', see the previous section. Your problems are with Wikipedia policy, not me. Wikipedia does not support the WP:FRINGE fringe view that paranormal powers are "definitely" real and certain people "definitely" are proven to have had them. Bring your complaining to the NPOV Noticeboard. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: Do this for me, please. I don't know how to do this. Here are the facts:

a) Gardner is wrong. You can't deny this. His article was not even peer-reviewed. You are putting wrong information in Wikipedia.

b)Greg Taylor wrote an article showing all Gardner's mistakes. His essay was published in a book and internet. Anyone can check the information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.96.172 (talk)


 * "Darklore", a journal promoting itself as "Forteana, hidden history, the paranormal" etc. is not a reliable or objective source of facts. It's the same problem with the previously submitted "Irreducible Mind". There's no shortage of fringe authors who believe in paranormal powers. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I would like to know why you believe Darklore is an unreliable or objective source of facts, and why you believe that Gardner is any better. Please cite the relevant guidelines in detail. Your previous arguments do not do this. John Ohno (talk) 14:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Me: In this case, Gardner isn't a reliable source for facts either and should be removed. His article about Piper was not peer-reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.96.172 (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking back over two sections of this Talk page, you can see I've tried to explain to you on multiple occasions why Gardner's opinion sourced to the New York Times is given some weight in the article, and opinions sourced to fringe authors and publications are not. It's time for you to take your argument to a larger forum such as WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN. Maybe they can help explain why Wikipedia does not give "equal validity" to both fringe and mainstream views regarding psychic powers. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:30, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Me: Could you tell me why the reader can't know that Gardner's essay was not peer-reviewed? Don't you think this is a very important information that can't be ommited? I don't know about you, but my consciousness would not make sleep well with this lack of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.96.111 (talk) 02:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "Peer review" is not a magical power that guarantees truth or even accuracy. Gardner's opinion was never anything other than an essay. The New York Times article does not try to represent it as a scientific paper, and we follow suit here. Inserting accusations like "not peer reviewed" before anything you don't like in the article is misguided and not helpful. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Me: If "Peer review" is not a magical power that guarantees truth or even accuracy, much worst is when the essay did not pass throught peer-review. You have absolutly no guarantee that the information are accurated. In fact, look these mistakes in Gardner's article: He says that Richard Hodgson died in 1909, when he passed away in 1905. (see http://www.answers.com/topic/richard-hodgson) Similarly, Gardner claims that the writer George Pellew died in 1881, when he died in 1892. And the New York Times did not notice these BASIC mistakes! How much more basic mistakes exist in Gardner's essay? I know, but the New York Times clearly don't know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.96.92 (talk) 10:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Article disruption by rotating IP
Continual addition of this and similar material isn't helpful. The views of the psychical researchers are presently represented in the article, e.g. William James et al believed Piper could contact spirits. Including long polemics against critic Gardner puts undue weight on the minority viewpoint. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Me: Are you saying that Gardner can write all the lies he wants and Wikipedia can't do anything about that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 12:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * As a mainstream encyclopedia, Wikipedia's threshold for inclusion is verifiability not truth. It's not the place for righting great wrongs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Me: So it's ok to Wikipedia to repeat a lie over and over again? Gardner does not express the opinion of the mainstream either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think then, your beef is with the New York Times. They cited Gardner's opinions of Piper. We just summarize what they reported. Wikipedia can only include what is published in reliable sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: And what makes you think that the NYT is a reliable source in this case? Do they have peer-review like in scientific journals? Even parapsychology journals have peer-review. You accept the review of the NYT about Deborah Blum's book, but you did not accept the reviews published in scientific journals of the mainstream of Irreducible Mind. My sources are clearly more reliable than yours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.67.99.228 (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, Wikipedia works not only by policies like WP:RS but also by gathering consensus on which sources are reliable and which are not, so you might take your issue with the NYT to a noticeboard such as WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN and let the community give you feedback and advice on how to solve your problem. Involving a wide range of experienced editors might be best at this point, rather than continuing to try to 'edit war' your opinions into the article. LuckyLouie (talk) 18:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

William James
There is some misunderstanding. Now William James NEVER CONCLUDED Leonora Piper could contact spirits. To James, Mrs Piper was ever an enigma, a unanswered mystery. This is how James was, as Martin puts it, bamboozled. James expected the correct answer to Mrs. Piper's readings and skills would be delivered sometime in the future, at a time when the science of psychology had progressed; at a time when Leonora Piper's amazing skill of hearing (only) through her hand during trance may be in dispute. Kazuba (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Need an impartial, WP:RS reliable source for your above opinion. The NY Times article goes against it, referring to James opinion of Piper's skills arising from "supernatural means".. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If that is what the NY Times article states that then it is incorrect. James's opinions on Mrs. Piper went back and forth, but James CONCLUDED Piper was only a (in his day) enigma. It is in print in older books. I KNOW it it is there in orginal sources. But then you discount older original scources because they are not always readily available. If Martin uses and quotes an orginal source you believe him. But if I bring one up (unless it states what you want it to state) IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER. For sake of brevity I am no longer into Mrs. Piper anymore. Kazuba (talk) 22:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This could easily be solved by adding a phrase such as, "Later in life, James recanted his belief in Piper's mediumistic abilities, calling her an "unsolved enigma""...provided it could be cited to a high quality independent WP:RS source (such as the two NY Times articles we have cited presently). Wikipedia discourages using primary/original sources, especially dealing with extraordinary claims such as psychic powers, contact with the dead, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Me: But Gardner is wrong about the research, so you need to use the original sources because we are dealing with historical facts. Gardner says that "fishery" can explain Piper's ability, but it can't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.122.117.38 (talk) 02:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Appreciate your opinion but Wikipedia has a very clear policy of avoiding WP:PRIMARY sources and instead using secondary sources that are at least one step removed from an event, or tertiary sources that "sum up" multiple secondary sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

"I remain uncertain and await more facts, facts which may not point clearly to a conclusion for fifty or a hundred years." William James on Psychical Research compiled and edited by Gardner Murphy, M.D. and Robert O. Ballou, Viking Press 1960. See: Chapter Four: William James and Mrs. Piper, page 209. There is little doubt that Mrs. Piper was a hot and cold reader but these skills were outside of James' experience. He never recanted. There was nothing to recant. Remember James dropped his Piper inquiry and left it to others. Later James was not impressed by the so-called spirit of Richard Hodgson. For a while James thought Eusapia Palladino would open the door to the spirit world. But he was wrong. Kazuba (talk) 02:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks but this article is about Piper, not about elaborating James various certain and uncertain moods. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Gee. I quess you win again. "The views of the psychical researchers are presently represented in the article, e.g. William James et al believed Piper could contact spirits." Quote User:LuckyLouie 23 Jun 2010 Kazuba (talk) 04:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Having an interest in primary sources (who knows how rumours get started?) I have a problem
I have a problem with this phrase from the New York Times. Perhaps I am mistaken but James never mentioned Piper knew things by a "supernatural" means. Text now reads "James was soon convinced that Piper knew things she could only have discovered by supernatural means."

James actually wrote," If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you must not to seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow is white. My own white crow is Mrs. Piper. In trances with this medium I cannot resist the conviction that knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes and ears and wits. What the source of this knowledge may be I know not, and have not the glimmer of an explanation to make".....     [ref-William James on Psychical Research compiled and edited by Gardner Murphy, M.D. and Robert O. Ballou, Viking Press, 1960. Page 41]

There was much disagreement among Piper's many contemporary investigators of WHERE her knowledge came from. Telepathy between Piper and her sitters? Piper had many disassociated personalities? This was unconscious knowledge that came from Piper's person herself? She was a fraud? The consciousness of others who survived death were communicating, demons, and etc. Who do we believe about James' conclusions? His own words? Or the words of a New York Times reporter a hundred years away from the event who is doing a book review on Deborah Blum's secondary "Ghost Hunters"? (and is being selective. If he looked at the original text- which remains unknown. Ah! The problems of critical history. I love em') Kazuba (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you disagree with what a reliable secondary source says, I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe find an encyclopedia that lets you write your own personal analysis of a subject using original primary sources? An explanation of why we don't build articles from primary sources (and instead report what reliable secondary sources - such as a NY Times article - say) is covered here at WP:PSTS. One could conceivably pick primary-sourced quotes from James to support whatever personal point one wants to make, which is one reason WP policy prohibits that sort of thing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * One could conceivably pick secondary-sources "quotes from James?" to support whatever personal point one wants to make. I love conflicting stories. On Wikipedia it is a question of verifiability not truth. Right? If James used the term supernatural shouldn't it be verified from his contemporary time? I don't remember seeing it. I am just not satisfied. But I'm too lazy to go any farther through every scrap of James' data. But I have a suspicion James is gettting a bad rap. Just thought I'd let you know. Like I said no more Mrs. Piper for me. From what I have observed in the writings of contemporaries Martin and I are the only ones who were and are truly interested in the puzzle. Nobody seems to really care "that much" who is just curious. 02:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." [I'm not giving an interpretation of a primary source. I using a direct quote from a secondary source  William James on Psychical Research compiled and edited by Gardner Murphy, M.D. and Robert O. Ballou, Viking Press, 1960. Page 41 This book is used as a source a few times before.] A primary source may only be used to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources. Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material.

Thinking critically about it for a while, the book review noted in the New York Times of Deborah Blum's "Ghost Hunters" is a tertiary source, at best, from the author Anthony Gottlieb not a secondary source. Like I said nobody cares. I hate getting into this Piper stuff again. It's like an uncomfortable drug. I do not like to let it own me. But it did again. But maybe now I can sleep.Kazuba (talk) 08:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Blum and Gottleib were accurate in using the term "supernatural" (above or beyond what is natural) to describe James opinion that Piper had knowledge gained by means other than her four senses. I'm sorry you disagree. Maybe start a discussion about what sources you think should be used for this article at reliable sources noticeboard. Who knows? Maybe you'll get a consensus to have the article reflect your views of William James opinions. At the very least you'll find lots more people to interact with. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The question asked by William James was: What are the boundaries of natural human abilities? Only four senses? The question will always be pursued. Let's just drop this and friendly disagree. I am not sorry we disagree. Kazuba (talk) 21:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Leonora Piper and Lucky Louie
Please replace my data. If you had looked carefully you would have seen it is taken from a published work. So it is not primary it is secondary. Richard Hodgson by A.T. Baird was published by Psychic Press Limited, London. 1949. They have changed the title and author's name it is now known as: The Life of Richard Hodgson by Alex Baird. Using a first edition I was unaware of that.  How hard did you look for my published source before you deleted my data? Are you gonna tell me now this publisher is invalid because you don't like it? Or no one has heard of it? It is not a major or American publisher? It was published in London so it doesn't count? or a no longer existing publisher? I am sure you will come up with something. It may be unkind and personal but I have to ask the question: How much research do you normally do for the things you write or for the things you believe to be true? Kazuba (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In a nutshell, we opt for the highest quality, most current, and most reliable sources available. A book published by "Psychic Press" in 1949 isn't the most reliable source for broad statements of fact about Piper, except perhaps for what this particular author thought in 1949. Also, personal observations such as, "They had no hestitation in proclaiming this in their reports; they stated it in very plain language." are not relevant or encyclopedic. Regardless of what you think about me, Wikipedia's goal is not to pile up as many KB of random info as possible from any source possible and let the reader sort it all out. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Biography
Thankyou God. The first (possibly only) biography written about the life of Richard Hodgson, the skeptical individual sent to the U.S. (taking over where Willaim James left off) by the British Society for the Study of Psychical Research and who investigated Mrs. Piper more thoughly than any other living person and what he learned from her sitters' reports is of course without value. What was I thinking? Everything you deleted came from Baird who is copying and commenting on the sitter's reports, not from me. Kazuba (talk) 04:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the burden of the editor who adds material to gain consensus for that material. That's just the way Wikipedia works. Don't take things so personally. Anything published by the Society for the Study of Psychical Research or "Psychic Press" cannot be assumed to be an accurate or independent view in whole or in part. I'd avoid sourcing statements of fact to them. You may feel the perspective from biographers of Richard Hodgson and others who believe/believed psychic powers were real needs to be documented by the article. If it's directly relevant to Piper (the subject of the article) and if the material you wish to add has wider sources than just one SPR/PP book, maybe the best idea is to sandbox it first. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Bonehead policies
I do not know how the sandbox works and I guess I don't really care in this instance. When this famous "skeptical" paper on sceances: Hodgson, Richard, and S. J. Davey. "The Possibilities of Malobservation and Lapse of Memory from a Practical Point of View." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 4 (1887) and William James' historical paper "Report of the Committee on Mediumistic Phenomena" Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol 1, 1886-1889, pp 102 can be thrown into the trash heap because of the journals they appeared in, without the necessity of reading them to make a judgement, something is definitely wrong with the policies of the wikipedia. I ran into this strange policy elsewhere: If James Randi says something on his website it has validity. If James Randi says something, possibily the same thing or something different on Skeptiko it has no validity. These are bonehead policies. I do not think much of the Daily Grail, his Leonora Piper entry like any other historical paper is based on the sources you have at hand. The author was just selective and missed a few things. I am not sure this was done on purpose or unconsciously because your own beliefs block out things. Martin's story centered in the USA on William James and Amy Tanner. And you have do to stop somewhere. But I believe people should be allowed to disagree and share data. Not silenced. And if there are weaknesses in the data they should be pointed out. This is complete intolerance. I hope you took the time to read the A.T. Baird's data that you removed and observe it supported Martin's cold reading argument on Leonora Piper with written statements from her sitters. Not the easiest thing to find. What a waste of time! Well, baby warned me.. I'm outta here. Through! If it makes you happy to have the last word take your best shot. Adios amigo. I have no spell checker. I do the best I can. Kazuba (talk) 16:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

3 Edits, each footnoted, added to balance the article
Irreducible Mind, an academic and unbiased look into the nature of consciousness, uses a scientific approach and has much to say about earlier and current investigations into the limits of awareness. I used it to update paragraphs in this article that are clearly one-sided. The firsthand reports given in this book are from credible observers and other fact-checked sources. Twice my edits to this article have been removed on the grounds that such data is "fringe."

A more reasonable case for a "fringe" point of view is believing that a man, with nothing but a report in front of him, transcends every in-person account and can deduce beyond all doubt what actually happened a century ago.

The foundation of science is the repetition of experiment. Pseudo-science is the certainty of knowing an experiment's result before it is performed and attributing all unexpected answers to sloppiness or deceit. Since the data from this woman's life makes a reasonable case for both sides, the article should reflect this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apollion888 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Your sources do not seem to be peer reviewed. Per WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE and WP:RS we will need peer reviewed sources I think.  Preferably secondary, review articles.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Are the two Martin Gardner articles referenced peer reviewed? Apollion888 (talk) 03:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Gardner is a recognized expert in such things, and, he is not making the extraordinary claim. Please check out the policies I posted above.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Nowhere in my additions did I make any claim whatsoever, I was reporting the observations of others. Observation is science. Mr. Gardner can hardly be recognized as an expert on something that he does not believe exists. He is making the remarkable claim that having never met Mrs. Piper, he therefore knows exactly what happened. Apollion888 (talk) 04:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Apollion888 I think you misunderstand WP policies. We're under no obligation to provide "balancing" material that advocates a fringe point of view (e.g. psychic powers exist) per WP:VALID. Also, WP:RS explains why Gardner's opinion sourced to the New York Times is given some weight in the article, and opinions sourced to fringe authors and publications are not. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Leaving messages on my user page saying you'll "push the issue to mediation" isn't the best idea - especially since you've only been editing Wikipedia for a few days and don't seem to fully understand our policies. The article Talk page (here) is intended for editors to discuss improvements to the article and I suggest you first try discussion. How about specifying exactly what material you'd like to add to the article so we can evaluate it? Thanks. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would also encourage our new editor to check out WP:CONSENSUS. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Hodgson Addition
Regarding the statement about Richard Hodgson, he was well known as an investigator who successfully exposed the fraud of numerous mediums. He has stated “nearly all the professional mediums are a gang of vulgar tricksters who are more or less in league with one another.” But after 18 years of work with Mrs. Piper, including hiring private investigators to look for any trace of deceit, he found no evidence of fraud whatsoever. This is universally recognized as a true statement from all sources, there is no contradiction of it in the literature, not even from Mr. Gardner. This addition does not make any overreaching claim that she never committed fraud, just that he could not find any. Surely this is relevant to any discussion of the woman, but a statement of this fact was recently labeled “fringe” and removed from the article. I have restored it.

If this update is again deleted, I don't know what else to do except begin the mediation process to determine if the “fringe” label remains relevant under these circumstances. It is irrational to suppose this man's commitment to exposing fraud stopped when he met Mrs. Piper.

An additional point. In my opinion, the fundamentalist materialist mindset proceeds from the false assumption that the only things which are real are those which can be repeated on demand. In spite of the fact that hundreds of Psi experiments show results that are impossible to attribute to chance, such people choose to demonize these results, for example by labeling them “fringe,” because they do not conform to their world view. This is exactly what the Catholic Church did with Galileo, and I remain eternally optimistic that the new fundamentalists will wake up to the similarities in their behavior, stop suppressing verified facts, and let people decide for themselves. Apollion888 (talk) 20:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Nothing wrong with adding a line about Hodgson's conclusions into the article. He is already mentioned in the article as one of the SPR people that gave Ms. Piper attention in the late 1800s. Adding the detail that he could not discover any fraud with Piper (and subsequently became a staunch believer in contact with the dead and psychic powers, by the way) isn't a problem. The problem is the sourcing for such a statement. Our policies require reliable objective sources which are independent of the subject. "Irreducible Mind" does not qualify as objective. It has been ignored and/or marginalized in academia; labeled as a "manifesto" that sets itself against current mainstream opinion in psychology. As a book in which the authors reject 'materialism' and orthodox thought, it clearly falls within WP:FRINGE and doesn't qualify as a reliable source for facts or independent opinion regarding Hodgson's activities or Ms. Piper's alleged powers. About all "Irreducible Mind" could be used for on Wikipedia is to state "what spiritism/parapsychology/survival advocates believe" (i.e. they believe psychic powers exist, etc), which would not add anything of value to the article I'm afraid. In any case I think we could find much better and more independent sources for the Hodgson detail; perhaps the Ruth Brandon or Deborah Blum book. PS: you might want to refrain from posting your personal opinions railing against the "fundamentalist materialist mindset", accusing people of suppressing facts, citing Galileo, etc. That's called soapboxing here and is frowned upon, especially on Talk pages. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I read the soapboxing article, you're right. Is the policy for me to remove the paragraph or leave it there? Of course Hodgson became a believer after he met Piper, a scientist follows the data, not his prejudices. I disagree that Gardner is in any way objective, he was certain before examining the data that fraud had been committed and mined it to justify that claim. Here's an article that discusses his many errors of fact, http://darklore.dailygrail.com/samples/DL5-GT.pdf. For example, Gardner asserts incorrectly that Mrs. Piper's trances never occurred spontaneously. In order to correct this, I would need to refer to authors you say I cannot refer to. How is this catch-22 resolved?

Mainstream opinion in psychology 50 years ago was that homosexuality was a mental disorder. A book written at that time asserting its essential health would also have been labeled a "manifesto". The Blum book is on my list to read soon, if I can find a statement there that supports the Hodgson assertion, I will attempt to add an appropriately worded version again. Thank you very much for the detailed response. Apollion888 (talk) 23:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * WP is essentially a non-innovative reference work. If Wikipedia had been available around the fourth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification. And it would have reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the earth's circumference in 240BC) either as controversial, or a fringe view.


 * The Gardner material comes from the New York Times story; it's the NYT that meets our standards as an objective and reliable source. As for darklore.dailygrail.com I'm afraid you run into the same FRINGE problem. If their opinions were highly notable or accepted and quoted by mainstream that would be a different story. Wikipedia's WP:RS, WP:OR and other policies can be daunting for a newcomer. In a nutshell, the encyclopedia can only parrot what reliable sources say about any given subject. Editors are forbidden to do their own research and synthesize or editorialize conclusions. No worries about the soapboxing here, just clueing you in. Cheers. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In the footnotes of Piper's article, a New York Times review of Blum's Ghost Hunters book mentions Gardner's "Bamboozled" essay, is this the reference to which you are referring? It says only that the essay exists, not that it is credible. For example, when Gardner is used as a source to say that Piper's control would invariably profess deafness and leave her when caught in an error, that is manifestly untrue. Read the transcripts and you'll see that sometimes that happened, yes, but invariably means "always." This statement seems designed to imply deceit. Are you saying there is no way to correct it? [addendum: my search for the word "Gardner" didn't find it in the other NYT article because it was on the second page. It's there he is given, deserved or not, credibility. But my question still stands regarding whether we are stuck with his error and the bias it implies.]

Also, the quarterly Journal of the Society for Psychical Research is peer reviewed, does this meet WP's peer review criterion? Thank you again, your help is appreciated by this beginner Apollion888 (talk) 02:06, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The Gardner material is not in a footnote, it's in the text; page two of the NYT source. Not sure what transcripts you refer to, but if you mean to say you've done your own research into primary sources and have drawn your own conclusions, the encyclopedia's WP:OR policy doesn't allow that. As for peer-review, "a claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals." More about this specific WP policy at WP:RELIABLE. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

We updated this at the exact same time, I applaud WP for keeping track of both changes. The transcripts I refer to are the Proceedings published by Hodgson. But again, Gardner's "invariably" comment is false and misleading. Does WP have no means to remove it? In order to claim it, Gardner would have to review every single sitting Piper made, which no one believes he has done. Can it not be changed to "often" or "fequently", or since we don't now how many sittings were reviewed, "sometimes"? Apollion888 (talk) 02:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What does the source say? Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a fair question to ask, and the two essays Gardner wrote are not on the web or at my library (as far as I have found so far), so I cannot answer directly. However, it is impossible that Gardner reviewed every sitting as there are decades worth of data, all of which would have to be scanned for each wrong answer. Such a review is necessary for his "invariably" claim, so such an assertion is unsupported and demonstrably false. Isn't something logically impossible a candidate for modification? Apollion888 (talk) 04:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I have found the essay. This text in the WP article 'Gardner reports that when caught in an error, Piper's "control" would invariably profess deafness and "leave" her' is a biased rephrasing. Here is the original text: 'Caught in an error, he [Dr. Phinuit] would profess deafness and leave.' Note there are no quotes around "leave", the word "invariably" does not appear and the statement is restricted to one control. I will update the article text tomorrow to reflect this. Additionally, the footnote does not supply a page number, I will add one. --Apollion888 (talk) 10:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Frank Podmore Addition
The Frank Podmore book has already been footnoted in this article, currently footnote 2. If Irreducible Mind is not worthy as a source of footnotes because of its pro-supernormal bias, I am optimistic that a text by a documented Spiritualism critic who's been already footnoted is. --Apollion888 (talk) 05:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The Podmore book was originally used in the article only to verify a non-extraordinary claim; that Piper was a famous personality of the time. It was added to the article when there was some doubt about her notability. Her notability issue resolved, we no longer need it and it could even be removed. Again, I have no objections to the article saying that certain Spiritualist authors of the time believed Piper was genuine, had powers, etc. provided we have a reliable secondary source for that. Detailed data of their investigations or dramatic testimonial quotes are appropriate if such details or testimonials remain highly notable in contemporary sources (such as the James "white crow" quote). WP:WEIGHT advises that we use material in proportion to its notability in reliable sources. (PS: Have you read WP:UNDUE? I'm getting the impression that you are still on a quest to "balance" the article by adding pro-fringe view material.) - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It is clear that Wikipedia policy prevents a balanced article, so my goal now is to remove the bias from the existing one. The "invariably" issue detailed in the above section provides a sample of such bias. Anyone reading the article would get the impression that Mrs. Piper was proved to be a fake and nothing could be further from the truth, regardless of what sources are allowed in the article. Please note I have updated her biography with data whose sole source is the "Bamboozled" essay. Since some existing footnotes for it don't specify page numbers I have not either, but will change that if numbers are preferred. As an example of a change, the phrase "suddenly deceased Richard Hodgson" implies unusual circumstances, and heart failure when playing handball is hardly unusual, so I have updated it. Gardner describes him as a "psi researcher", so I have used that. I also tried to clean up the language by removing redundancies, fixing punctuation, etc.

A personal note that I hope doesn't cross into soapboxing but explains my motivation. I was a strict rationalist until my 30's when I started having prophetic dreams. The first one I ascribed to chance, the subsequent ones caused me to adopt a belief system that could explain them. Spiritualism is almost all lies, it's the 19th century version of what TV evangelism is today. But the evidence in the Piper case is unusual, detailed, and despite the fervent investigations of her contemporaries, absent of fraud. Mistakes? There are many. Fishing? It's obvious. Detailed knowledge of information she could not possibly know? Frequent. These are simply the facts.

It is the American habit to refer to a male solely by his last name but to a female using the prefix "Mrs." Is the British habit different, which is why she is often just called "Piper?" Or has the style changed since I learned it? --Apollion888 (talk) 22:34, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that we go by the sources, not by any other notion of balance, our POVs are inconsequential. Personally I would prefer if the 'Mrs.' thing was not in there at all, I am not sure what the MOS says.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The convention on WP is introductory mention with first and last name (John Smith) and then all subsequent mentions are last name only (Smith), however I can't locate the WP:MOS policy note that addresses it at the moment. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything under MOS or the "Mrs" WP page, however the Susan B Anthony page just calls her "Anthony." Thanks for the feedback. As I make more edits, I'll take out all the Mrs. I'm waiting for the Ghost Hunters book to become available at the library.

I agree our POVs are supposed to be inconsequential, but the negative slant demonstrated by the "invariably" case shows that some people let their agenda influence their objectivity. --Apollion888 (talk) 23:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Before you start making edits I advise you to read Wikpedia is not the place to right great wrongs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I hope the example below demonstrates I intend to make edits consistent with WP policy, such article evolution is the whole point of the database. --Apollion888 (talk) 04:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Additional Edits
First, thank you for your help in understanding the procedures here.

In the Piper article, the lead section seems to violate the opening paragraph specificity suggestion from the MOS. It states: The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific.

By mentioning the titles of Gardner's essays, it not only appears overly specific, and not only are these titles mentioned again in the article body, but no other titles are mentioned anywhere at all, except the footnotes. Unless there is a case to leave them in the lead, I will remove the titles but leave the overall comment. --Apollion888 (talk) 00:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In this case I thin the title is ok in the lead, she is famous for something, something that Gardner debunked, that is pretty clear by the title.  I would like to see what others think. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Apollion888 on this one. There doesn't appear to be a need to mention the specific titles in the lead. It's enough to say she was the subject of two essays describing ways she could fool the witnesses. BUT that must be followed by a consensus on how to phrase the replacement lead. I suggest the following:
 * Science writer and mathematician Martin Gardner published two exposés about Piper both detailing mundane techniques she may have used to gather her information.
 * Of course the paragraph detailing the exposés should be expanded to include any information lost due to these edits. Padillah (talk) 13:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No big deal to move the essay titles to the body as long as the lead, per MOS, accurately summarizes critique covered in the article. Bear in mind there is no requirement to soften or obscure criticism, especially if it serves to clarify the majority/mainstream view of the subject. "Science writer and mathematician Martin Gardner published two exposés about Piper both detailing mundane techniques she may have used to fool witnesses" might work better considering what the NYT and other objective sources say. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I like LuckyLouie's version, although I would like to change "fool" to "mislead", the latter is a more neutral term, and while the guidelines don't require balance they do encourage neutrality. What about saying "witnesses and investigators" because both would need to be misled and there was no lack of either. Additionally, the NYT article only mentions the "Bamboozled" essay, is the other allowed to be included because it's by the same author on the same topic? I am learning to admire how this system works and appreciate the opportunity for these dialogues. --Apollion888 (talk) 22:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not sure, I like shorter words. I like to keep the pixel to information ratio big, but, I think they convey the same meaning.  Thoughts others?  Dbrodbeck (talk) 01:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You may be right, I could be overly sensitive regarding "fool." To me it implies something slightly more nefarious on her part and slightly more gullible on theirs, but if no one else thinks so, "fool" it shall be.  --Apollion888 (talk) 06:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, "deceive"? "dupe"? "misdirect"? "misrepresent"? "outwit"? "scam"? "trick"? "manipulate"? (Thank you Thesaurus.com) I like "misrepresent her abilities". This is the most neutral (if you can call accusations like this neutral). There is no getting away from what the expose is about - how she "fooled" people. The sentence needs to be evaluated in this light. It's not declaring that she fooled anyone, it's declaring what the expose is about. Maybe a quote from the expose regarding the authors purpose would be appropriate? That would leave the reader with the understanding that this outlook comes from the expose, not the article. Anyone have anything appropriate? Padillah (talk) 19:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no requirement to 'neutralize' criticism but we do strive to summarize it with encyclopedic tone, e.g. "baldfaced liar" becomes "untruthful", "shifty" becomes "deceptive", "bamboozle" becomes "fool" etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Misrepresent her abilities" sounds good to me. I don't think the "overview" nature of the lead makes it the place for quotes, for the same reason it's not the place for titles, but that level of specificity is certainly appropriate for the article body. I'm not looking to exclude the second essay that's not mentioned by the NYT, I'm just trying to understand the rationale for its being included, thanks. --Apollion888 (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I think I found the relevant text under this heading: What counts as a reliable source.
 * The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times). All three can affect reliability. Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
 * Regardless of whether his reputation is deserved, Gardner has such, and since the NYT opened the door, other articles can walk through (sorry for the ugly metaphor). I'll update the lead with the "misrepresent her abilities" text tonight unless there's a fervent objection --Apollion888 (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I have updated the lead sentence accordingly and left the footnotes, as they still seemed appropriate. I changed "subject of intense interest" to "intense interest and investigation," as all sources agree she was investigated, even Gardner mentions the private investigators hired, they only disagree on the competence of the investigations.  "Psychical" is a Victorian era adjective no longer in common use In America (is it the current term in Britain?), so while I left the organizational name alone I changed its other instance to the more modern "psychic." I also moved the "feigned being unconscious" idea to the paragraph in the body that discusses the two Gardner essays and took the quotes off "unconscious mind," I don't see a reason for them. --Apollion888 (talk) 05:41, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

New Lead
I would like to change the lead so that it better conforms to WP guidelines. For example, the sentence regarding Piper's memory claims is another case of specificity that belongs in the body. What belongs in the lead is a more general statement regarding her career as a medium. Also, per the neutrality policy:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.

Since Blum's "Ghost Hunters" book is considered a reliable source, and “all significant views” are to be represented proportionately, I have modified Gardner's sentence to give it more weight and added an alternate view taken from Blum. Here is the result:

Leonora Evelina Piper (née Symonds, 1857–1950) was a famous American trance medium in the belief system called Spiritualism. Piper was the subject of intense interest and investigation by American and British psychic research associations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most notably William James and the Society for Psychical Research. Her career spanned five decades, during which she usually worked from her home and delivered messages both verbally and through automatic writing. Science writer and mathematician Martin Gardner expressed the majority opinion of scientists in two published exposés about Piper, both detailing mundane techniques she may have used to misrepresent her abilities. Science writer and professor Deborah Blum has written that an investigator contemporary to Piper named Richard Hodgson traveled to America with the intent of exposing her, but after almost two decades of exhaustive investigation, found no evidence of fraud.

Comments? --Apollion888 (talk) 09:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't like the 'and professor' as she is a journalism prof. What you have written makes it seem like she is a prof of some science.  That jumped out at me.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Fine, how about "Journalism professor and science writer Deborah Blum..."? And if I had a degree in journalism I think I'd take offense at the insinuation (however unintentional) that a journalism professor was not as up to snuff as a science professor. But I do see your point. It does look like the conjunction was combining "writer and professor" under "science" rather than combining "science writer" and "professor" under Blum. Padillah (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If you read Blum's book, you know that Hodgson was a Spiritualist and a believer in 'scientific evidence for the afterlife', as were the majority of SPR 'investigators' of the time. We don't need to specifically attribute that unremarkable information to Blum, it's enough to say (something like), "Spriritualist investigators of the time such as X, Y, and Z investigated Piper and declared/believed her powers to be genuine. Science writer Martin Gardner published two exposés about Piper, both detailing mundane techniques she may have used to misrepresent her abilities." - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree, Hodgson was special. He had already exposed Blavatsky, and would in the future debunk Palladino, is on record as saying being a medium and a thief are practically synonymous and arrived in Boston with the intent to destroy Piper and go back to England.  Under these circumstances, he merits special attention. "Journalism professor and science writer Deborah Blum..." works for me or we can drop it entirely, but she won a Pulitzer (for a different work) so may merit mentioning. Am I doing the indenting right? Should I be back at the left margin or go in like I did? --Apollion888 (talk) 20:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We don't just follow one specific source. If you take all our reliable sources in totality it's clear that the majority of investigators of the late 1800s-early1900s were keen to separate 'real' mediums from 'false' ones. Hodgson was by no means an objective investigator, especially after he started writing articles touting Pipers ability to contact spirits. It's also made very clear that conclusions made by the SPR at the time have been long since superseded and not taken seriously by present day academia. It's well to report what the SPR believed in 1902 but we don't give it weight over modern views of the subject. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm interested in what others say. If Gardner can be singled out for his work, Hodgson can be for his.  Hodgson was more than objective when he started his investigation, he was pessimistic.  He debunked everybody else.  Choosing to believe what the data implies is not necessarily a loss of objectivity, Niels Bohr would call it science.  People's careers have been ruined by choosing to investigate parapsychology, it's unclear how much of the modern view is the result of that.  Sorry if I'm soapboxing, I am trying to respond to your implication that just because he believed the data, he by definition lost his objectivity. (btw am travelling this weekend) --Apollion888 (talk) 20:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Apollion888, we single out two significant people - one that didn't believe in Piper's abilities and one that did. If we mention the most significant detractor to Pipers claims we should be justified including the most significant proponent. If there is modern evidence that Hodgson wrong in his support (or that Piper was better at concealing her tricks) then present it too. Just because we don't have sources proving the modern stance that Piper was a fraud doesn't mean we can't put in sources that say she wasn't. And indenting is generally done as a reply to the person above you. Generally indent one more than the person you are replying to. But there are no rules. Padillah (talk) 12:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback, I am on vacation and away from the books, so I cannot footnote anything and will update this when I get back. Since there's no evidence that Hodgson's investigation was lacking and three of four of us are okay with the original proposal with this change, "Journalism professor and science writer Deborah Blum...", I'll go with that next week. --Apollion888 (talk) 20:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Ruetenik
Ruetenik's paper relating William James fascination with Piper to popular views of pragmatism has little bearing on the subject of the article. In any case, picking a phrase out of context to add weight to the fringe view (that Piper was genuine and mediumistic abilities exist) violates WP:FRINGE and specifically WP:UNDUE. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * From what I have read James towards the end of his life had doubts about the mediumship of Piper, he certainly did not believe she had communicated with spirits, I have not read Ruetenik's paper. The only researcher who seemed convinced that Piper's mediumship was genuine was Richard Hodgson. Oliver Lodge also did but only becuase Piper claimed to channel his dead son, theres some interesting things here but from what I have read Piper was very clever, she was not openly exposed like most of the other early mediums using fraud so its easy to see why some users might want to try and push a fringe view. But the main view which most researchers and investigators have supported is the subconscious mind explanation, I find it odd that this has been left out and only covered by Gardner becuase Hall and Tanner for example claimed a natural explanation for the mediumship of Piper, alternate personality etc, atleast six others also supported this view, these were researchers who actually personally investigated her mediumship and some of which attended her seances. GreenUniverse (talk) 00:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If there is a summary of a main view that can be cited to objective and reliable sources, feel free to add it. For example this reports Tanners outlook on the matter, and how she differed from her contemporaries by placing psychology as the voice of science rather than psychic research.- LuckyLouie (talk) 13:41, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Leonora Piper's fees
George E. Dorr, Piper's manager, set up six sittings with Dr. G. Stanley Hall from Clark University. A sitting with Mrs. Piper about 1910 cost $20.00. This would be equivalent to $487.80 in 2013. Mrs. Piper made about $1000.00 per year from her sittings. This would be equivalent to $24390.00 in 2013. Kazuba (talk) 11:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick
The final word on Mrs. Leonora Piper by the Society for Psychical Research in 1915 was A Contribution to the Study of the Psychology of Mrs. Piper's Trance Phenomena by Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Volume 28, Pages 1-645, Robert Maclehose & Co., Glasgow, 1915. I think it is important to reveal the Society for Psychical Research's purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way." It does not however, since its inception in 1882, hold any corporate opinions: SPR members have a variety of beliefs or lack thereof about the reality and nature of the phenomena studied, and some sceptics have been active members of the Society. Kazuba (talk) 20:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Richard Hodgson
Richard Hodgson by A.T. Baird was published by Psychic Press Limited, London. 1949. is the only biography of Hodgson. The much expanded 2nd edition, extremely scarce in any form, Spiritualism and Oliver Lodge by Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier, Mental Culture Enterprise, 1917, first edition 1897, contains a letter by Hodgson which portrays him as over-zealous and a unreliable witness in the preface according to Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? by Joseph McCabe Watts & Co., London, 1920, page 101. Mrs. Leonora Piper is also discussed by McCabe in pages 101-103 Kazuba (talk) 02:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC) Dr. Richard Hodgson, during the latter days of his life, would allow no one to enter the privacy of his room in 15 Charles Street. During these years Hodgson believed that he constantly received direct communication with the regular band of spirits in charge of Mrs. Piper. He received these messages when alone in the evening. He allowed no one to enter his room. Hodgson was afraid they would disturb the "magnetic atmosphere". (I suspect Hodgson believed he was in with contact with Jessie D. his lover who died in 1879. He was most certainly under the spell of Mrs. Leonora Piper). He told very few people about this. Kazuba (talk) 12:01, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Rebuttals
I would like to protest the removal by Lucky Louie of part of my edit yesterday, with the comment "Prescott's blog is not a WP:RS. Wikipedia isn't "neutral" regarding WP:FRINGE claims. Discuss relevance of huge blockquote on Talk, thanks."

Two sections were deleted. The first was: Science writer and mathematician Martin Gardner dismissed Piper as a "clever charlatan" and wrote two essays detailing mundane techniques she may have used to misrepresent her abilities. However, others have been very critical of Gardner's explanations. I referenced Prescott's blog to prove that "others have been very critical of Gardner's explanations". It is certainly a "reliable source" for that fact.

The second section was this: ===Rebuttals=== The claim that Piper used tricks is hotly contested by others. Many of her sittings were done with proxies – people who did not know the facts of the case they were inquiring about. This would make "fishing" or "cold reading" useless. Even though Gardner says she feigned unconsciousness, he himself relates that, "During one trance she ignored a small cut James made on her wrist. She was undisturbed when a needle was forced into her hand and when a French investigator stuck a feather up her nose." He also states, "While in trance her right hand rapidly scribbled messages. Frequently she pressed so hard the pencil broke. For a while she spoke and wrote simultaneously. On several occasions three discarnates came through, one speaking, one writing with one hand, one writing with the other." The initially skeptical researcher Richard Hodgson took great pains to prevent any clues reaching Mrs Piper.

More information in favor of Mrs Piper is given in a report that William James wrote around 1890, of which here is an excerpt:

I made Mrs. Piper's acquaintance in the autumn of 1885. My wife's mother, Mrs. Gibbens, had been told of her by a friend, during the previous summer, and never having seen a medium before, had paid her a visit out of curiosity. She returned with the statement that Mrs. P. had given her a long string of names of members of the family, mostly Christian names, together with facts about the persons mentioned and their relations to each other, the knowledge of which on her part was incomprehensible without supernormal powers. My sister-in-law went the next day, with still better results, as she related them. Amongst other things, the medium had accurately described the circumstances of the writer of a letter which she held against her forehead, after Miss G. had given it to her. The letter was in Italian, and its writer was known to but two persons in this country. [I may add that on a later occasion my wife and I took another letter from this same person to Mrs. P., who went on to speak of him in a way which identified him unmistakably again. On a third occasion, two years later, my sister-in-law and I being again with Mrs. P., she reverted in her trance to these letters, and then gave us the writer's name, which she said she had not been able to get on the former occasion.] But to revert to the beginning. I remember playing the esprit fort on that occasion before my feminine relatives, and seeking to explain, by simple considerations the marvellous character of the facts which they brought back. This did not, however, prevent me from going myself a few days later, in company with my wife, to get a direct personal impression. The names of none of us up to this meeting had been announced to Mrs. P., and Mrs. J. and I were, of course, careful to make no reference to our relatives who had preceded. The medium, however, when entranced, repeated most of the names of "spirits" whom she had announced on the two former occasions and added others. The names came with difficulty, and were only gradually made perfect. My wife's father's name of Gibbens was announced first as Niblin, then as Giblin. A child Herman (whom we had lost the previous year) had his name spelt out as Herrin. I think that in no case were both Christian and surnames given on this visit. But the facts predicated of the persons named made it in many instances impossible not to recognise the particular individuals who were talked about. We took particular pains on this occasion to give the Phinuit control no help over his difficulties and to ask no leading questions. In the light of subsequent experience I believe this not to be the best policy. For it often happens, if you give this trance-personage a name or some small fact for the lack of which he is brought to a standstill, that he will then start off with a copious flow of additional talk, containing in itself an abundance of "tests." My impression after this first visit was, that Mrs. P. was either possessed of supernormal powers, or knew the members of my wife's family by sight and had by some lucky coincidence become acquainted with such a multitude of their domestic circumstances as to produce the startling impression which she did. My later knowledge of her sittings and personal acquaintance with her has led me absolutely to reject the latter explanation, and to believe that she has supernormal powers. Again, I refer to Prescott's blog as support for the fact that "The claim that Piper used tricks is hotly contested by others". I also used Prescott's blog as an aid in writing the short summary of criticisms of Gardner. It is a fact that these criticisms have been made, not just by Prescott but by others (see the comments in his blog). What I have written in my summary is not a question of "fringe science". It is simply criticisms of Gardner's chapter. I gave two quotes of Gardner himself. What exactly in what I wrote does LuckyLouie consider "fringe science"?

I then gave a rather long quote from William James explaining why he believed that Mrs Piper had supernormal powers. This is entirely relevant to an article on Leonora Piper! The article as it was gave an entirely negative view (NOT at neutral point of view at all) of Mrs Piper. For instance it called her statement in 1901 a "confession", which it wasn't. (If anything, it shows how honest she was.) It gave absolutely no explanation of why great scientific minds like that of William James were so impressed by her. It proclaimed her as a clever charlatan, using nothing but tricks.

The case of Mrs Piper is very interesting. No one claims that her "controls" were real people. And yet her abilities astounded very intelligent people (who were actually there, unlike Gardner). I get the impression (I hope I'm wrong) that LuckyLouie is more interested in "protecting" the reader from getting the full picture than in protecting the reader from reading uninteresting or untrue things. I am therefore reverting his deletion.

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:RS. Dbrodbeck (talk) 10:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS, WP:GEVAL etc. Prescott is apparently a fiction writer whose hobby is parapsychology. His blog just isn't a reliable source. And the "Career" section of the article already summarizes William James's beliefs in Piper's powers so there is no need for an inflated section of text from a primary source to "rebut" anything. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:36, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have already addressed the concerns you raise. You haven't given a convincing rebuttal to my point that the article was not neutral. So I'm reverting your reversion. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 10:01, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus that you have 'addressed the concerns'. I will be reverting your edit.   Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This is facetious, he clearly addressed the concerns by rewriting the entire paragraph. Shii (tock) 15:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No I was not being facetious, there is no consensus for the addition. Dbrodbeck (talk) 13:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * What I see from is the removal of sourced content and the addition of an excessively large quote from a fringe source, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I see a rewriting of the lede that makes almost exactly the same statements (the sources can be restored) and the addition of a properly sized quote from William James. Shii (tock) 02:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You changed the meaning of the sentences quite drastically, so you did not rewrite "the lede that makes almost exactly the same statements", IRWolfie- (talk) 10:47, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * the edit summary "removed offending word" is an edit summary which is at least an understatement and, in my opinion, is actually in violation of WP:REVTALK. I recommend looking into disciplinary action for User:Shii.jps (talk) 18:53, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I did remove the offending word. I don't see why my edit is being reverted. The James quote is not POV pushinrg. You can see from the quote what kind of behavior he engaged in and make your own conclusion about whether it was scientifically rigorous. James is one of the most important intellectuals of the turn of the 20th century and reverting the quote demands an explanation. Shii (tock) 02:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Your revert was misleading because you did a lot more than removing a word. You have chosen a primary source and wish to quote it because you wish to create the impression of scientific rigour, that violates WP:NPOV/WP:FRINGE. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:50, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "you wish to create the impression of scientific rigour" Nice violation of WP:AGF. I had an unpleasant intuition that WP:FTN is a way to summon people to an article who will make assumptions about the belief systems of editors and revert the article accordingly, with total disregard to whether the article has been improved, and I have seen nothing to disprove that hunch. Am I trying to "create impressions"? No, and you have no right to assume that. I'm trying to present important information. Not all important information is written by amateur critics trying to posthumously make a case for trickery. How about you broaden your perspective just a little bit. You see the subject of this article as some minor fraud who was unveiled by Martin Gardner. I see the subject of the article as a notable late Victorian woman who attracted the interest of prominent men of her time, who willingly underwent many tests, and who did not have a reputation for trickery during her lifetime, regardless of the metaphysical question of whether psychic powers exist, which Wikipedia should not be supporting. How about you actually read the James quote I inserted. Does it sound to you like "the impression of scientific rigor"? Seriously? The quote helps us understand exactly what kind of communication was encouraged in the Spiritualist movement, and that James was familiar with this and went along with it. So what's your problem? Shii (tock) 12:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

" Nice violation of WP:AGF. I had an unpleasant intuition that ..." " So what's your problem?" etc, do you not see an element of hypocrisy there? The information which is important will be in secondary sources. We do not select the "important information" from primary sources ourselves, IRWolfie- (talk) 13:35, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that secondary sources must be used to express the degree of James' beliefs, which the article presently does. I have read the SPR-primary-sourced quote Shii wished to include, and even though cut down from Kvallen's version, it appears to me a rather wordy ramble about Piper's use of family names and interactions with spirit guides, and does not add anything significant that secondary sources haven't already been used to express. Is there some other important information about James and Piper you feel is missing from the article, Shii? - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC) 14:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It should go into more detail about her life in some way; right now it has too much posthumous speculation and not enough biographical detail. The means to accomplish this is not very important to me. I did not write the content myself, I just took stuff from the talk page that seemed relevant and would grow the article. If you want to write your own alternative go ahead. Shii (tock) 19:01, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * These are not "rebuttals", they are dodgy quote-mines that have been taken out of context. William James was no friend of the spiritualists, he rejected that view. As the article reads "James did not believe that Piper was in contact with spirits. After evaluating sixty-nine reports of Piper's mediumship he considered the hypothesis of telepathy as well as Piper obtaining information about her sitters by natural means such as her memory recalling information. According to James the "spirit-contol" hypothesis of her mediumship was incoherent, irrelevant and in cases demonstrably false." Else where James had written Piper's controls were "dream creations" and in other cases even admitted she would fish for information. I highly recommend checking out the books by Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, Walter Mann and Ivor Lloyd Tuckett as they have well and truly debunked the mediumship of Piper. She was not in contact with spirits or utilizing telepathy. She was a clever fraud. Unfortunately the spiritualists never choose to read the skeptical literature which is rather ignorant in this era, as most of these books are online free. Fodor Fan (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Another possible source for the statement other have criticized Garner's explanation: http://darklore.dailygrail.com/samples/DL5-GT.pdf Zach bender (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think the Daily Grail meets WP:RS. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:33, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Piper's maid
My friend David from Germany recently sent me this article (this is not all of it):

Herman H. Spitz, “Contemporary Challenges to William James's White Crow,” Skeptical Inquirer 28, no. 1 (2004): 53. 84.

"The White Crow

Any discussion of James's spiritualistic bent must begin with Mrs. Piper. James (1890) wrote that he first met her in the Autumn of 1885, and Mrs. Piper's description of how they met is particularly illuminating. "My maid of all work told a friend who was a servant in the household of Professor William James, of Harvard, that I went into 'queer sleeps,' in which I said many 'strange things.' Professor James recognized that I was what is called a psychic, and took steps to make my acquaintance" (Piper 1902, 143). If this was true there would have been an obvious conduit from the James household to Mrs. Piper, and her trance state revelations about the James family, which so impressed James, would have had a more mundane source than the spirit world. Mrs. Piper's daughter, Alta Piper, told a somewhat different story. Her grandparents had a maid whose sister worked in a Boston home frequently visited by James's mother-in-law, Mrs. Gibbens (Alta Piper spelled it Gibbins). Hearing, through this channel, marvelous tales about Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Gibbens requested and received a sitting that so impressed her that she arranged a sitting for her daughter, James's wife, "the results of which appeared equally, if not more, surprising than her own" (A. Piper 1929, 22).

James's (1890) version of how he met Mrs. Piper generally supports her daughter's description, although he made no mention of the role played by the housekeepers. When he was told of Mrs. Piper's powers he went with his wife, "to get a direct personal impression" (652). Whatever the specific connection between the servants, "It is thus possible that Mrs. Piper's knowledge of the James family was acquired from the gossip of servants and that the whole mystery rests on the failure of the people upstairs to realize that servants [downstairs] also have ears" (Burkhardt and Bowers 1986, 397)."

I have added a small section to the article about this, Massimo Polidoro also makes reference to it. Fodor Fan (talk) 16:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Dean Connor
My friend sent me this source, it mentions the case of Dean Connor:

"Leonore Piper lived in the United States around the turn of the century. Through her, a number of "spirits" related stories of persons and events concerning which Leonora Piper denied any knowledge. However, a number of incidents cast doubt on her ability to contact the dead. For example, she gained some degree of fame with a "spirit" revelation about the circumstances of the death of a man called Dean Connor. However, when the revelation was finally checked out, it turned out to be grossly unreliable. In another incident, the family of George Pellew-whose departed spirit supposedly conveyed much of the news of the "other world" to Leonore- was shown the information furnished by "Pellew" about himself; they judged it to be highly inaccurate. On another occasion, Leonore claimed to have contacted the spirit of Bessie Beals, who was a fictitious person invented on the spur of the moment by the psychologist G. Stanley Hall. Later in her life, Leonore Piper made the following statement: I cannot see but that it must have been an unconscious expression of my subliminal self... it seems to me that there is no evidence of sufficient scientific value to warrant acceptance of the spiritualist hypothesis." Andrew Neher. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. pp. 217-218

As you can see the Dean Connor case was a large embarrassment to Piper's mediumship and the spiritualists, all the details she gave were wrong. I have had a look for information on this, no spiritualist books mentions it, they like to ignore it. Only a handful of skeptical mention it. Milbourne Christopher in his book Search for the Soul mentions the case, but the most detailed is Joseph Rinn Sixty Years of Psychical Research. As far as I know the user has the Rinn book, perhaps he can help. Fodor Fan (talk) 17:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Edward Clodd in his book The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. pp. 208-209 mentions the Dean Connor case, I have added a section on it. Fodor Fan (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit was removed
My edit, which presented a simple fact regarding Martin Gardner was removed by pseudoskeptic Barney. This is not science, it is fundamentalism. 159.118.158.122 (talk) 17:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes it was. I am not being pseudosceptical - it simply wasn't a good edit. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Incorrect. I provided references and links.  Your removal is prejudicial and the only reason you can get away with it is because editorial control of this subject by Wikipedia has been handed over to the Skeptic's Society and pseudoskeptics like yourself Barney.  You believe you're practicing an objective viewpoint but nothing could be further from the truth.  Regards.  159.118.158.122 (talk) 17:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * it is difficult to talk effectively when one is accused of "pseudoscepticism" - which as rational wiki explains is a loaded term used by woo believers to label what is legitimate scientific scepticism which itself is an inherent part of the scientific process. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Barney - pseudoskepticism is a term popularized by one of your own CSICOP founding members Marcello Truzzi who left the Skeptic's Society after realizing many members were hiding their fundamentalist bias under the guise of skepticism, and in truth, were practicing very little what they espoused to adhere to - open-minded scientific inquiry. I have found this also true by the same members on Wikipedia (and the obvious editorial POV bias which remains unchecked) - who have doctored many of the articles regarding parapsychological research, and all other related interests - in a remarkably biased fashion that selectively ignores particular strong empirical evidence and testimony regarding psi phenomenon etc.  In addition, there has been a very consistent and near immediate character smear of anyone who posits a different viewpoint from that of the Skeptics.  This is what your founding member Marcello Truzzi was referring to when he coined the term pseudoskepticism.  It is truly unfortunate this fundamentalist brand of skepticism has performed a modern day witch hunt on the public pages of Wikipedia in a pseudo non-scientific fashion.  Your immediate excision of my one addition to this article on Piper is the modus operandi of your pseudo-skeptics witch hunt.  You (and the editorial control here) pretend you are for free and open non-POV additions to Wikipedia articles but again, nothing could be further from the truth.  159.118.158.122 (talk) 18:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)