Charles Bailey (1870–1947) was an Australian apport medium who was exposed as a fraud.Irwin, Harvey J; Watt, Caroline. (2007). ''An Introduction to Parapsychology, 5th ed''. McFarland. pp. 24-26.

Career

Bailey was born in Melbourne. He worked as a bootmaker and became a famous apport medium. He claimed with the help of his spirit guide "Abdul" that he could apport live items such as fish, crabs, turtles, coins, stones and antiques in the séance room. In 1910, Bailey was exposed as a fraud in Grenoble, France. He produced two live birds but was unaware that the dealer who he had bought the birds from was present in the séance. According to Joseph McCabe before the séance he had hidden the birds in the "unpleasant end of his

alimentary canal The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans ...

". McCabe, Joseph. (1920). ''Is Spiritualism Based On Fraud? The Evidence Given By Sir A. C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined''. London Watts & Co. p. 90 Bailey was endorsed by Thomas Welton Stanford a wealthy spiritualist who had help fund the psychical research programme at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

.Asprem, Egil. (2014). ''The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939''. Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 355-360. He was also supported by the spiritualist

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

. However, most psychical researchers dismissed Bailey as fraudulent. The psychologist

John Edgar Coover John Edgar Coover (March 16, 1872 – February 19, 1938), also known as J. E. Coover was an American psychologist and parapsychologist known for his experiments into extrasensory perception. Career Coover carried out a psychical resea ...

held strong doubts about Bailey and noted he been exposed as a fraud several times, most notably by the Society for Psychical Research. He was notable for producing apports of ancient tablets and other antiquities during his séances. Some of these were examined by the British Museum who concluded they were forgeries. Bailey was further exposed at a séance in 1914 in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

when a sitter pulled the drapery off a

materialized Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Accordi ...

"spirit".

References

External links

Spiritualism and Fraud Bailey, the Bird-bringer, Bumped
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bailey (medium), Charles 1870 births 1947 deaths People from Melbourne Spiritual mediums

Career

References

Further reading

External links