Apports, Mediums and Poltergeists

Living or Inanimate Physical Objects Teleported by Telekinesis (TK)

Apr 28, 2009

Flowers Can Be Apported from Gardens , http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/550995

TK is the ability of mediums and poltergeists to materialize and dematerialize living things and items from distances. This was a hallmark of 19th century séances.

Modern parapsychologists scientifically study psychokinesis (PK) and telekinesis (TK) in laboratories and in the field.

Telekinesis reached its height in popularity in the late 1800s, the principal era of physical mediumship. Materialized objects fell onto séance tables and sitters’ laps and flew through the air, then hit participants.

Mediums and Apports

Materialized objects were produced by mediums during séances. These objects ranged from inanimate objects to plants to live animals. Apports were the hallmark of these sittings. Mediums also produced ectoplasm. This term was coined by Charles Richet to describe the substance created from the bodies of some physical mediums.

During scientific testing of séances, numerous frauds have been unveiled even when precautions were taken. Usually, fake mediums hid the “apports” in the room or on their bodies.

There have been cases where no trickery was detected. Animals, plants and objects varied in size and seemed to have suffered no negative effects from their teleportation.

Where did these apports come from? The question is legitimate when there’s no deceptive manipulation involved. Flower apports have been traced to nearby gardens.

Henry Olcott was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Part of its missions was to investigate inexplicable physical laws and powers dormant in humans. Olcott was at a séance performed by Helen Blavatsky when an apport of a rare plant’s leaf appeared. It was one he had marked. There was no evidence of chicanery.

Apport Cases of Two Poltergeists and a Fraud

Eleanore Zugun was a human agent poltergeist. She apported rocks from a creek and nuns’ habits from one cell to another. Psychical researcher Harry Price took the girl to his lab to study her. He discovered that one of her apports was an enameled letter like those used on the building's bulletin board. The letter was inside of a box in a cupboard that was four stories below them. Price put the box with the letters in a place known only to him and locked it up. The letter, "C," vanished while secured in its container. Dr. R. J. Tillyard, one of Price’s colleagues, visited. After he left, when he was on the train, he found the missing letter in his pocket.
The Texas poltergeist was an entity agent poltergeist that plagued the Woodson family. It threw teleported stones with letters printed on them down a ladder from a second floor bedroom to the downstairs kitchen. Mrs. Woodson had spells of indigestion and chewing tobacco helped her. One night, she had a session. A plug of tobacco dropped onto her lap.
Psychoanalyst and psychical researcher Nandor Fodor was the pioneer in researching the interrelationship between the psychic and the psychological. Among his areas of specialty were poltergeists and mediumship. Mrs. Forbes, one of his clients, was the mistress of England’s Thornton Heath manor. The first time Fodor consulted with her and subjected to her alleged psychic phenomena, he felt the activity wasn’t genuine. He and colleagues studied her in his laboratory. Objects from Thornton Heath were apported to the facility. Fodor was convinced that she was producing the phenomena by trickery. They x-rayed her and he was correct.

More scientific research done in labortatories is needed concerning TK and apports. The human and entity agent poltergeist cases cited are genuine TK that happened in the field. The Thornton Heath poltergeist fraud was exposed in the laboratory, an example of the importance of using strict controls. Little or nothing is written about physical mediumship today. Is it possible that people who gave these sittings have been replaced by stage magicians?

Sources:

Between Two Worlds, Nandor Fodor, (Paperback Library Inc., 1967).
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, (Facts on File, Inc., 1992).
New Psychic Frontiers, Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, (Colin Smythe Limited and New Frontiers, 1980).
Psychic Exploration, Edgar D., Mitchell & John White, ed., (Paragon Books, 1974).

The copyright of the article Apports, Mediums and Poltergeists in Psychic Abilities is owned by Jill Stefko . Permission to republish Apports, Mediums and Poltergeists in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.