Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there (24 page)

Bishop didn’t excel at college and, perhaps helped by his mother’s connections with Spiritualism, ended up working as the manager for a well-known stage medium of the day named Annie Eva Fay. At the start of her act Fay would place a chair and various musical instruments in a large open-fronted cabinet. Next, she would invite several audience members onto the stage, and ask them to tie her to the chair. A curtain would be drawn across the front of the cabinet and Fay would allegedly summon the spirits. After a few moments the spirits would apparently make their presence known by playing the instruments and then throwing them out of the cabinet. Various rumours circulated about how Fay was producing these seemingly miraculous phenomena, with some going as far as to suggest that she smuggled her young son into the cabinet by secreting him under her dress. The truth was far more straightforward. Fay was a skilled escapologist who was able to free herself from the chair, play the instruments, throw them out of the cabinet, and then wriggle back into her bonds.
 

After a few months Bishop fell out with Fay over a financial matter, and decided to make his own music hall debut by presenting a public exposure of her entire act. Although all went well initially, audiences soon began to tire of hearing about Fay’s secrets, and Bishop decided to expand his repertoire by exposing the tricks of the trade being employed by other well-known mediums. For reasons that are still not entirely apparent, Bishop thought that the best way of collecting this new material was to attend séances dressed as a woman. Unfortunately, his subsequent accounts of his transvestite exposés failed to capture the public interest, and he was forced to explore alternative ways of attracting an audience. After much trial and error, he eventually developed a skill that would guarantee him international fame and fortune.

He underwent a complete rebranding. Instead of presenting himself as a music hall entertainer, he adopted the far more sombre style of a scientific lecturer. Out went the sensationalist ‘once again I put on a dress and discovered the truth’ stories, and in came a pair of pince-nez glasses and academic mutton chop sideburns. Perhaps most importantly of all, instead of focusing on exposing the claims of others, Bishop declared that he himself had developed the most uncanny of abilities. Promoting himself as the ‘world’s first mind-reader’, Bishop proudly announced that he was able to demonstrate telepathy on demand.

He started his performances by playing the mystery card, clearly stating that although his newfound ability was not due to psychic powers or the work of the spirits, he did not have an explanation for what he was about to demonstrate. He would then attempt a series of mind-reading stunts. In a typical performance he handed a pin to a spectator and explained that in a few moments the spectator was to hide the pin anywhere in the auditorium. Another member of the audience was asked to ensure that Bishop didn’t see where the pin was being concealed. Bishop and his chaperone then walked offstage and the pin was hidden. When he returned, he grasped the first spectator’s wrist and led him manically around the auditorium. Eventually, Bishop narrowed down his search to one small area and finally located the hidden pin.
 

There were many variants on the procedure. Sometimes, for example, he brought a large directory onstage and asked a spectator to secretly choose a name from it. Bishop then used his alleged telepathic skills to identify the chosen name. In perhaps his most famous stunt, he invited a group of five or six people onstage, explained that he would leave the auditorium, and asked them to mime a murder scene in his absence. One person in the group played the role of the murderer and another the victim. After the audience had witnessed the ‘murder’, Bishop returned and was blindfolded. He then held the wrist of an audience member and asked them to concentrate on the person who had been ‘murdered’. After working his way around the group, he correctly worked out who had been playing the role of the victim. Seconds later Bishop successfully identified the ‘murderer’.

His amazing demonstrations proved highly successful, and his reputation quickly spread across Europe and America. Bishop’s fame encouraged a handful of imitators, with perhaps the best known being one of his former employees, Stuart Cumberland. The level of success enjoyed by the likes of Bishop and Cumberland was reflected in their high society audiences (Cumberland was invited to the House of Commons to read the mind of William Gladstone, later describing the Prime Minister’s ‘remarkable magnetic influence’ in his book
People I Have Read
), as well as their being satirized in well-known comic songs of the period, such as the ever-popular ‘Thought-reading on the Brain’:

"Oh, Mr Cumberland and Irving Bishop too

With the pins you find I’d like to run you through

For you have marr’d my happiness and it is very plain

That all the family now have got thought-reading on the brain."

Unfortunately, Bishop’s success was short-lived. In 1889, the world-famous mind-reader found himself performing at the Lambs Club in New York City. After successfully completing his ‘identify the murderer’ and ‘find the name in the directory’ stunts, he fell to the ground exhausted. He regained consciousness a few moments later and was taken to a bed in the club. Ever the professional, Bishop insisted on performing another feat. The club ledger was duly brought into the bedroom and a name chosen at random. Clearly struggling, he eventually managed to locate the correct name. Immediately after performing what was to be his final stunt, he collapsed back into his bed.

Two doctors were summoned and kept a watchful eye over him throughout the night. In the middle of the following day Bishop, aged just 33, was pronounced dead. The news was quickly conveyed to Bishop’s wife in Philadelphia, who promptly made her way to New York City and tracked down her husband’s body in a funeral parlour. She was horrified to discover that at some point in the afternoon, and less than 24 hours after his death, her husband had been subjected to an unauthorized autopsy.
 

Throughout his life Bishop had been prone to cataleptic fits. During these episodes his entire body would become rigid, his breathing very shallow and his heartbeat so slow as to be imperceptible. Because of this, he always carried a card explaining that he may lapse into a cataleptic state, and that no autopsy should be performed until at least 48 hours after his alleged death. At one point he had told a friend that when he was in a cataleptic state he was fully aware of everything that was happening around him, raising the terrifying notion that he was conscious throughout his autopsy.

Why was the autopsy performed so quickly? Throughout his career Bishop boasted of having an exceptional brain. Many historians now believe that this claim may have contributed to his demise, encouraging physicians to carry out a quick autopsy in order to be the first to examine it. Whatever the truth, the autopsy proved a wasted effort. Bishop’s brain weighed only slightly more than average and didn’t appear at all exceptional.
 

His mother Eleanor demanded a coroner’s inquest, and the doctors who had conducted the autopsy were arrested. However, a jury found in favour of the doctors and the charges against them were dropped. Eleanor remained unconvinced, and made her feelings known by having her son’s gravestone read, ‘Born May 4th, 1856 – Murdered May 13th, 1889’ and publishing a small book describing ‘the butchery of the late Sir Washington Irving Bishop’. Eleanor’s behaviour became increasingly erratic, and when she passed away in 1918, the famous magician Harry Houdini discovered that she had left him an imaginary estate totalling 30 million dollars.

So how did Bishop achieve his mind reading feats? Did he really possess genuine telepathic powers?
 

In the early 1880s, Bishop was investigated by a team of well-respected scientists that included the Queen’s personal physician, the editor of the
British Medical Journal
, and the famous eugenicist Francis Galton. During the first part of the investigation Bishop successfully performed several stunts, including correctly identifying a selected spot on a table and finding an object that had been hidden on a chandelier. As usual, throughout all of the demonstrations he asked to be in physical contact with an individual who knew the correct answer. Bishop would hold the helper’s wrist, or the helper would grasp one end of a walking stick while he held the other. The scientists speculated that Bishop had trained himself to detect the tiny ‘ideomotor’ movements that had originally been uncovered by Michael Faraday during his investigation into table-tipping. When performing his stunts, Bishop would push and pull his helper in various directions, and the scientists believed that he used tiny changes in resistance to figure out the location of a hidden object, or which member of a group had taken on the role of ‘murderer’. The team carried out a second set of trials to discover if they were right. This time, Bishop was asked to try to find a hidden object when his helper was blindfolded and had lost his bearings. He failed. In another trial the walking stick was replaced with a slack watch chain that prevented any unconscious signals being transferred to Bishop. Once again, he failed. Galton and his fellow scientists concluded that Bishop did possess a remarkable skill, but was not a genuine telepath.
 

A few years later another amazing mind-reader hit the headlines. However, this time the claim was even more startling because it appeared to provide incontrovertible evidence of animal to human communication.

BOX

HOW TO READ MINDS

It is time to get in touch with your inner Bishop. Muscle-reading isn’t easy, but there are several simple exercises that will help you develop this remarkable skill.

1. Ask someone to hold out their hand palm up in front of them with their fingers spread apart, and then ask them to concentrate on one of their fingers. Next, lightly push down on each of their fingers with your forefinger. The finger on which they are concentrating will be the one offering the greatest resistance.
 

2. Arrange four objects in a row on a table, allowing about four inches between each object. Ask someone to stand on your right-hand side and think of one of the objects. Next, take hold of their left wrist with your right hand, placing your fingers on the top of their wrist and your thumb on the bottom of their wrist. Explain that you are going to move their left hand over each of the objects. Ask your guinea pig not to consciously move their left hand but instead to relax their arm and simply ‘will’ their left hand to move in the correct direction. If you are over the wrong object they should think of the phrase ‘move on’, whereas if you are over the correct object then they should think of the word ‘stop’. Now move their left hand over each of the objects and try to discover the chosen object by feeling when you encounter most resistance to movement.

3. Time for a full test of muscle-reading. Ask your volunteer to go into a room and hide a small object. Next, hold their wrist as instructed above. Take the weight of their right arm and keep them close by your side. Ask them not to focus on the location of the object, but rather on the direction that you have to proceed in order to move towards it. Stand in the centre of the room and take a step forward. If there is a feeling of resistance then go back to the centre of the room and head in another direction. Keep on doing this until you feel the least resistance. When you think that you are near to the object, have your helper imagine a straight line between their hand and the object. When you feel the hand move in that direction, follow along the line and you should be able to find the object.
 

As muscle reading is tricky to master, some mind-readers perform the following trick to develop their skills without worrying about the risk of failure.
 

 
      
Before performing the demonstration, find a deck of cards, separate the red
 
and black cards, and place the stack of red cards on top of the stack of black ones.

Next, find a willing spectator, fan out the top section of the deck (containing only red cards) face down between your hands, and ask your guinea pig to remove a card. Ask them to look at the card but keep its identity secret. While this is happening, close up the deck, and then spread out the bottom section of the deck face down between your hands. Now the spread contains only black cards, whereas previously the participant was choosing from only red cards.

Ask the spectator to replace their card face down into the spread, and close up the deck. Their card will now be the only red card in the black section. Explain that you will try to guess the identity of their card. As you say this, turn deck towards you, and quickly spread the pack between your hands. You will easily see your spectator’s chosen card because it will be the only red card in the black section.
 

Now shuffle the deck and spread it face up on the table. Hold onto your spectator’s wrist as before and lead them along the cards. See if you can pick up subtle cues from their hand. Slowly home in on the section of the deck with their card in it and then, with a dramatic flourish, announce the name of the card.
 

END BOX

Straight From the Horse’s Mouth

Wilhelm von Osten was the most curious of men
¹⁰¹
.
 
Born in 1834, this unassuming German mathematics teacher had a passion for odd ideas. A strong advocate for the then relatively new theory of evolution, von Osten believed that animals were just as bright as humans, and that the world would be a better place if people could communicate with other species and appreciate their amazing intellect. In 1888, von Osten retired from teaching, moved to Berlin and spent the remainder of his life pursuing his dream.