William S. Marriott's Gambols with the Ghosts - Notes on a Strange World

However, in 1909 and 1910, Eusapia had been caught cheating in the United States. This is how Marriott tells the story: "On this occasion, Mr. Hugo Munsterberg, an American investigator, introduced a man secretly into the cabinet behind Eusapia's chair. From this cabinet various objects are brought forth at her seances without any apparent intervention on her part, this being the 'evidence'--remarkable evidence, indeed--of the truth of Spiritualism, which the medium affords. When the seance had commenced, this man found Eusapia stretching one of her legs out backwards past the side of her chair into the cabinet, and groping with her toes for the guitar lying there ready to be produced by 'spirit' agency. He naturally seized bold of her foot, Eusapia screamed wildly, and the seance broke up in confusion."

Feilding, convinced that in 1908 he had witnessed real phenomena, believed that Eusapia resorted to fraud only to supplement her genuine powers, and so decided to return to Naples to verify his beliefs. He wanted to be sure, however, and that's why he insisted in having Marriott as his partner in this investigation.

The attempt was a failure; Eusapia systematically cheated as she had done in the United States, and as Feuding himself expressed it, "Everything this time was different." The verdict on the five sittings (Marriott was present at the three last) was that they were, "in the opinion of all those present unquestionably mainly, and in the opinion of Mr Marriott wholly, fraudulent" (Feilding 1911).

Conan Doyle Admits Defeat

Marriott, along with psychic researcher Harry Price and Houdini, was also involved in the Crewe Circle drama (Polidoro 2001). In 1921 a journalist, James Douglas, had a photo of himself taten by medium William Hope, of the Crewe Circle mediumistic group, that, when developed, showed the presence of a spirit extra. Douglas was so impressed by the phenomenon that he issued a public challenge to anyone who could duplicate the feat without using psychic powers. Marriott accepted the challenge and performed not only in front of Douglas but of Conan Doyle and Everard Feilding as well. He produced a picture of Douglas and Doyle with a young woman and a picture of Doyle with little fairies dancing in front of him. He then explained in detail how he had tricked them and Doyle felt compelled to write a public statement: "Mr. Marriott has clearly proved one point, which is that a trained conjurer can, under the close inspection of three pairs of critical eyes, put a false image upon a plate. We must unreservedly admit i t."

Marriott had not demonstrated that Hope was a fake but had shown that what had been termed by believers "impossible" to reproduce by normal means could actually be done by a clever magician. Contrary to Houdini, who offered money to anyone who could perform a psychic feat that he could not duplicate, Marriott simply showed that alternative explanations to apparent miracles existed and then invited the open-minded observers to decide for themselves which explanation was the more probable.