Who here is surprised to see the name Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the word ectoplasm on the same page? Probably no one, as everyone seems to know that Doyle had an interest in all things otherworldly, especially with the delicious fun television show Houdini & Doyle
Spirit Ectoplasm Photos Sir Conan Doyle Talks About
Ectoplasm Which Exudes From Bodies Of Mediums In Spirit Trances
By Marguerite Mooers Marshall
You know that ectoplasm stuff, about which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been telling us in his talks on spiritualism? He said, you remember, that it is a thick, sticky whitish substance exuding from the medium in trance, and strong enough to lift tables, perform spirit rappings and other weird stunts.
Here is a page of flashlight pictures of ectoplasm in action, taken from a remarkable new book, “The Psychic Structures at the Goligher Circle,” by the late Dr. W.J. Crawford, a trained psychic investigator and writer of Belfast. The book is published by E.P. Dutton & Co., through whose courtesy the pictures are produced.
The ectoplasm, or “plasma,” as Dr. Crawford usually calls it, came from Miss Kathleen Goligher, Dr. Crawford’s medium, in seance. In the pictures, you see it exuding from the legs and body of the medium and lifting a table by a cantilever of the substance, fixed at one end to the medium’s body and with the free, or working, end gripping the under-surface of the table.
Dr. Crawford explains: “The plasma is part of the medium’s body exteriorized in space. The muscles of the medium;s feet and ankles are, during the occurrence of phenomena, in a state of much stress. There is no bodily movement of the foot, but there is a whirlpool of internal muscular movement. The evolution of the plasma must be accompanied by much friction between stocking and leather of shoe or boot. At nearly all seances the noise accompanying the birth pangs of the plasma is distinctly audible. With thin silk stockings the friction of plasma on the threads as it disengages itself is unmistakable.
“There is strong evidence of decrease in volume of the fleshy parts of the medium’s body, especially from the waist downward, while the plasma is extruded. Once extruded, the operators can mould it into the various shapes and forms required to produce the phenomena.
Dr. Crawford worked for a year before he succeeded in taking these pictures. The chief difficulty was in preventing injury to the medium through shock.
The Evening World. Newspaper. NYC, New York. April 28, 1922.
