Leonora Piper (née Symonds, 1857–1950) was a famous trance medium in the area of Spiritualism.[1][2][3] Piper was the subject of intense interest and investigation by American and British psychic research associations during the early 20th century, most notably William James and the Society for Psychical Research.[4] She claimed to have no memory regarding her sittings.[5] Science writer and mathematician Martin Gardner published two exposés about Piper, both detailing mundane techniques she may have used to misrepresent her abilities.[6][7][8]
Piper grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire where, according to her parents, she first displayed psychic abilities as a child. At the age of 22 she married shopkeeper William Piper of Boston and settled in the city's Beacon Hill area. After the birth of her first child, Alta, she sought relief from recurring pain caused by a childhood accident. Upon visiting an elderly blind man who claimed he could contact spirits that could aid in healing, she said she heard voices that resulted in her ability to deliver a message by automatic writing to a local judge who claimed the words came from his recently deceased son.[9]
Agreeing to do readings for other visitors in her home, she soon gained attention from members of the American Society for Psychical Research and later its British associate, the Society for Psychical Research. Among these were Minot Savage, Richard Hodgson, and George B. Dorr. Later psychic investigators included Oliver Lodge, Frederic William Henry Myers, James H. Hyslop, and G. Stanley Hall and his assistant Amy Tanner.[10] In 1885 soon after the death of his son, psychologist, philosopher, and SPR member William James had his first sitting with Piper at the suggestion of his mother-in-law.[9] James was soon convinced that Piper knew things she could only have discovered by supernatural means.[6] James expressed his belief that Piper's mediumistic abilities were genuine, saying, "If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper."[11] Later when Piper's readings were claimed to come from Richard Hodgson, the aforementioned psi researcher who died of heart failure that had earlier taken over the Piper case from James, James was no longer impressed and wrote, "I remain uncertain and await more facts, facts which may not point clearly to a conclusion for fifty or a hundred years."[12]
As with other mediums of the era, Piper claimed the use of spirit guides or "controls". Among hers was a personality referred to as G.P., who was eventually revealed to be George Pellew, a writer who had died in New York City and a friend of Richard Hodgson.[13] Another was called 'Phinuit' who was purportedly a French doctor. Phinuit's French was limited to salutations like "bonjour" and "au revoir" and had little apparent knowledge both of the French language and medicine. According to some accounts, medical people were surprised Phinuit did not know the French or Latin names for the many remedies Piper advised for her sitters, and Phinuit's historical existence could not be verified by SPR investigations.[14] Among other spirit guides she claimed were assuming control of her were a young Indian girl named Chlorine, Martin Luther, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Longfellow, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.[13]
Martin Gardner writes in his essays “How Mrs. Piper Bamboozled William James” and "William James and Mrs. Piper" that records of Piper's seances clearly suggest she may have feigned being unconscious and used the techniques of cold reading and "fishing", where vague statements were followed by more precise information based on how sitters reacted. Gardner reports that when Phinuit made a mistake he would claim deafness and leave, and that Piper was unable to discern between real and fictitious information given to her.[13] Skeptic Robert Todd Carroll writes that although James accepted that "spirits might be communicating" to Piper's unconscious mind, most scientists rejected the work of the Society for Psychical Research and its American counterpart.[15]
Piper made three visits to England at the request of the SPR. In subsequent years, Piper claimed her abilities would alternately cease and return, sometimes with a decade or more intervening. American psychic investigator Gardner Murphy wrote, "I had three years of sittings with Mrs. Piper in 1922 to 1925, near the end of her career. For the most part, my sittings were uneventful and lacking in the types of phenomena which characterized the zenith of her career."[16] Piper retired for good in 1927 and died on July 3, 1950.[9]