Podmore, Frank
Podmore, Frank (1856–1910) As one of the first members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), postal official Frank Podmore became a major opponent of spiritualism. In fact, in many of the SPR’s early investigations, Podmore was the person who took it upon himself to dissuade other members from declaring a medium genuine without a careful scientific examination of that medium’s claims. Podmore’s skepticism was based on the fact that, prior to joining the SPR, he himself had been tricked by a prominent medium. At that time, Podmore believed that spirit communication was possible—until he was disillusioned by American medium Henry Slade. Slade would conduct séances (for a fee, usually of one pound) during which a variety of physical effects were evident—for example, tables would levitate, musical instruments would be played by unseen hands, and séance participants would feel pinches and shoves—but he was most famous for the fact that at these sessions, spirit messages would appear on writing slates that had been apparently sealed so that no one could tamper with them. Podmore was one of many people who witnessed these phenomena, and afterward he announced that Slade had erased all of his doubts about whether people could communicate with the dead. Then, in 1876, a prominent skeptic, Professor Lankester, managed to grab and look at one of Slade’s slates before a spirit had supposedly written on it, and he found writing already there. Later Slade insisted that Lankester had grabbed the slate just as Slade heard a spirit begin writing on it, but few people believed this, and on October 1, 1876, Slade was put on trial for fraud, found guilty, and sentenced to three months of hard labor. Faced with such credible evidence that the medium he had believed in was a fake, Podmore changed his view on spirit communication completely. In his later years Podmore wrote extensively on mediumship and other aspects of spiritualism. His works include Apparitions and Thought-Transference (1892), Studies in Psychical Research (1897), Modern Spiritualism (1902), Telepathic Hallucination: The New View of Ghosts (1909), and The Newer Spiritualism (1910). Modern Spiritualism is considered one of the most thorough works on Victorian era spiritualism. SEE ALSO: Physical and Mental Mediums Society for Psychical Research
SOURCE:
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
