The Housewife Who 

Confounded Two Countries 

Mrs. Lenora Piper

In the city of Boston in 1885, Mrs. Leonora E. Piper, wife of a Boston merchant, and possessed of but limited education, began what was to be a 40 year career as a spiritualistic medium, a career which was to be confounded the best minds in psychic research in both the United States and Europe with scientifically validated evidence which has never been refuted. Mrs. Piper became interested in spiritism after visiting a clairvoyant for the relief of severe pain after the birth of her first child. It was during sessions with and she lapsed into trances during which. She could answer with amazing accuracy questions concerning persons who had died.

For some 26 years she continued under the various spirits controls that possessed her during her trances as a medium and stopped only 1911 when the spirits suggested that her health would not bear the strain of their manifestation. In 1924 Mrs. Piper conducted a special series of séances and the records of these séances run more than 3000 pages in length with a fantastic score for accuracy.

Mrs. Piper gave some 88 sittings, for example, carefully observed at all times by members of the British Society for psychic research. Prof. Oliver Lodge, later Sir Oliver Lodge, one of England's most brilliant scientist and a careful psychic investigator, complied a checklist complied a checklist compiled a checklist of some 41 specific incidences were in Mrs. Piper stated facts and general information concerning those who attended her séances, facts which were unknown to those persons at the very time the séances were in session! This was carefully verified in his beyond reputation.

Mrs. Piper also had the amazing capacity to find lost objects and to relate incidents which were taking place menu hundreds of miles away from where she was in a trance. Prof. William James testified to this when Mrs. Piper informed him that his handsome living over 200 miles away in New York had died earlier that very morning. According to James: "On reaching home an hour later I found a telegram reading as follows: aunt Kate passed away a few minutes after midnight."

Dr. James, undaunted by Mrs. Piper's capabilities, went so far as to bring visiting professors from foreign universities with the Mrs. Piper was not acquainted only to have her give the correct names of the professors, some of their parents, from which they died. James once wrote of her:

I now believe her to be in possession of the power as yet unexplained.

The British Society for psychic research enlisted the aid of detectives and investigators who observed Mrs. Piper under all conditions while she was in England, and Dr. Richard Hodgson, during the course of three months of exhaustive investigation. During the course of that investigation she told them the exact movements of persons in distant cities, and at another time under the control of the Spirit who identified himself as George Pelleuw, Mrs. Piper informed Dr. Hodgson of events and facts which were subsequently verified by more than 30 of Pelleuw's friends. Pelleuw correctly rejected more than 100 persons claiming to have known him in life and showed only those whom he had known!

Under the control of Pelleuw, Mrs. Piper translated perfectly a Greek phrase composed on the spur of the moment by classical Greek scholar. Mrs. Piper knew no Greek whatever, but George Pelleuw did. She also reported under Pelleuw's control with complete accuracy what Pelleuw's father, who lived in another city, was doing at that moment.

Prof. James Hyslop of Columbia University was totally the world are by Mrs. Piper win with the cooperation of Dr. Hodgson, he interviewed Mrs. Piper in science 17 times, only to be told by her his correct name in perfect answers to the questions which he addressed to her though she could not possibly have an access to the answers. Dr. Hyslop ended up believing that through Mrs. Piper he had actually communicated with the spirit of his department father!
Mrs. Piper herself believed that the powers which he possessed were not supernatural. In fact, she stated:

"I never heard of anything being said by myself during the trance which might not have been latent in my own mind or in the mind of the sitters or in the mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the world. The theory of telepathy strongly appeals to me as the most plausible solution of the problem."

Despite this modest statement Mrs. Piper convinced Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William crooks, Dr. William James, Dr. Hodgson and Dr. Hyslop , after more than fit $150,000 was spent on the most prolonged investigation in the history of psychic research, that she was indeed possessed of supernatural capacities and as the American Mercury pointed out, "Mrs. Piper is the only famous medium against whom no charger fraud was ever brought."

Conclusion

Evidence such as this cannot be dismissed but must indeed be studied carefully and will, I believe, demonstrate beyond the question of the doubt not only the existence of a spiritual dimension of reality of which the Bible speaks consistently but other capacity of some to penetrate this dimension. In the terms of Scripture such penetration can only culminate in a liaison with the forces of darkness of whom, in the light of Scripture, Mrs. Piper was a vehicle of communication.