Harry Price's Investigations

In conjunction with the London Spiritualist Alliance, Price conducted a number of séances on Cranshaw which provided some interesting results. Harry Price concluded that Cranshaw was serving as a medium for a spirit known as Palma. The spirit communicated through rapping noises, previously described by Cranshaw, and it even moved heavy objects around the room. As a final test Price installed a number of thermometers in the séance room and these recorded sharp drops in temperature. Price held these séances on a number of occasions and he decided to study them from a more scientific angle using his own equipment. One such piece of equipment designed by Harry Price specifically for these séances was his telekinetiscope.

This object worked by encasing a telegraph key inside a glass dome and if this key was pressed then a red light came on. The glass dome prevented any physical touching of the key and this meant only a spirit with psychic powers would be able to press it. Price recorded that on a few occasions the red light did actually switch on during the séance. Another experiment created by Price was the idea of placing some musical instruments inside a wired cage; the idea was similar to the telekinetescope because the only way these objects could be moved was by psychic power. Price once recorded that a rattle was somehow thrown out of the cage.

To clarify the events that were happening during the séances, Price always let witnesses sit in so his record wasn't the only one. During one séance the witnesses concurred that the spirit using Cranshaw as a medium actually managed to lift the table at which the witnesses were sitting. After a total of 11 séances Cranshaw declared she was exhausted and that the testing had to come to a stop.

Harry Price on the other hand had made some fascinating recording but he was criticized from a number of angles by his peers and this was to become a common occurrence throughout his career. The Society for Psychical Research criticized him for his links to the London Spiritualist Alliance and he also received criticism for his scientific research which a number of members had problems with because Harry Price had never had any formal scientific education. On the other side of the fence he was receiving criticism from fellow magicians who believed he was taking the condition of Stella Cranshaw far too seriously.

Harry Price and the Society for Physical Research

Throughout the 1920s Harry Price would find himself consistently at loggerheads with the Society for Physical Research and after his studies in Stella Cranshaw he was determined to delve deeper into the notion of a medium and pay less attention to exposing spiritual frauds. The Society for Physical Research was none too happy about this. Combined with the fact he had a lack of formal scientific education and came from a working-class background left Price a pretty unpopular figure. When Price created the National Laboratory for Psychical Research in 1923, this effectively sealed the end of his relationship with the Society for Psychical Research and as his own organization was taking off as the SPR rescinded his membership of their organization.

Despite this, Harry Price continued his research into mediums and after Stella Cranshaw, his next study was a Romanian girl named Eleonora Zugan. Zugan was inside a mental institute when one of Price's acquaintances told him about her and immediately he was interested. Zugan claimed to be experiencing a violent spirit medium which was throwing objects and harming her in a number of ways. Harry Price took the young girls to London to hold tests only they were deemed inconclusive and further doubt was added to the case when it was revealed Zugan had been abused as a child.

The next major case for Harry Price proved to be another frustrating one. His new subject was Rudi Schneider who claimed to have psychic powers channeled through him by a spirit. Initially, Harry Price conducted a test in which, during a séance, Schneider was physically restrained or connected to an electrical current which would break when he moved. During these early séances Price recorded some amazing events including sounds of rapping and table levitation. However in the early 1930s when more séances were conducted with Schneider the results were far less impressive although still a mystery.

Confounded by the case of Schneider, Price announced in 1933 that the man was a fraud and his evidence for this was based upon a set of photographs which claim to show Schneider reaching for objects during a séance. The photographs are very ambiguous and not accepted by all although Harry Price declared them strong enough evidence to denounce Schneider. Price's announcement drew a lot of attention and criticism and it was left to wonder why Schneider hadn't been caught before but defrauding was Price's area of expertise.