Gustav Geley (13 April 1868 – 15 July 1924) was a French

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

psychical researcher Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

and director of the Institute Metapsychique International from 1919 to 1924."Gustav Geley"
Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology.

Career

Geley was born in 1868 at Montceau-les-Mines,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. He studied medicine in Annecy. In 1919, he gave up his practice as a physician and become the director of the Institut Mètapsychique International. He was a spiritist and a believer in

reincarnation Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is ...

."Gustav Geley (1868-1924)"
Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 30 November 2014. In the early 20th century Joaquin María Argamasilla known as the "Spaniard with X-ray Eyes" claimed to be able to read handwriting or numbers on

dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing ...

through closed metal boxes. Argamasilla managed to fool Geley and Charles Richet into believing he had genuine

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...

powers. In 1924 he was exposed by

Harry Houdini Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician ...

as a fraud. Argamasilla peeked through his simple blindfold and lifted up the edge of the box so he could look inside it without others noticing. Geley investigated the physical mediumship of Eva Carrière and Franek Kluski. It was reported in the ''Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology'' that his "belief system seems to have made him a target for tricks by the mediums he studied and, in the end, capable of suppressing negative evidence." In 1954, the SPR member Rudolf Lambert published a report revealing details about a case of fraud that was covered up by many early members of the Institute Metapsychique International (IMI).Sofie Lachapelle. (2011). ''Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931''. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 144–145. Lambert who had studied Geley's files on Eva Carrière discovered photographs depicting fraudulent ectoplasm taken by her companion Juliette Bisson. Various "materializations" were artificially attached to Eva's hair by wires. The discovery was never published by Geley. Eugene Osty (the director of the institute) and members Jean Meyer, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and Charles Richet all knew about the fraudulent photographs but were firm believers in mediumship phenomena so demanded the scandal be kept secret. His book ''Unconscious to the Conscious'' has been described as "almost a bible of reincarnationism." J. Gordon Melton, Jerome Clark, Aidan A. Kelly. (1991). ''New Age Almanac''. Visible Ink. Geley died in an airplane accident on 15 July 1924. He was 56.

Publications

''From the Unconscious to the Conscious''
(1921)

Career

Publications

References

Further reading