Ethel Post-Parrish

The spirit guide Silver Belle was made from cardboard. Both Parrish and the lady standing outside the curtain were in on the hoax.

Ethel Post-Parrish (died 1960) was an American Spiritualist medium.

Biography

In 1932 Parrish founded Camp Silver Belle, a Spiritualist summer camp at Mountain Springs Hotel in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.[1] In her séances Parrish claimed to materialize her spirit guide, an Indian girl known as Silver Belle.[2]

In a séance at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in 1953, Parrish materialized Silver Belle whilst sitting in a curtained cabinet. The pictures, claimed to be taken at 50 second intervals in infra-red light by photographer Jack Edwards, show Silver Belle growing from a cloud of "ectoplasm".[3]

Fraud

A related spiritualist camp known as Camp Chesterfield in Anderson, Indiana was managed by Mabel Riffle, a cousin of Parrish. The camp was exposed in 1960: infra red film had revealed that the materialized figures were all human and had entered the séance room through a side door.[4][5]

Camp Silver Belle was also practicing fraudulent mediumship, and had been exposed in various newspapers. Before exposures the camp took in up to a million dollars a year.[6]

The photographs taken by Jack Edwards of Silver Belle materializing were discovered to be a hoax. A photograph was taken of smoke and by a double exposure a cardboard figure was superimposed onto it. The woman standing outside the cabinet curtain was also an accomplice involved in the deception.[7]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Roy Stemman. (1976). The Supernatural. Danbury Press. p. 82
  2. ↑ Victoria Barnes. (1948). Centennial Book of Modern Spiritualism in America. National Spiritualist Association. p. 218
  3. ↑ John Fairley, Simon Welfare. (1984). Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers. Putnam. p. 192. ISBN 978-0002166799
  4. ↑ Joe Nickell. 2002. Undercover Among the Spirits. Skeptical Inquirer. 26:2 (March/April). pp. 22-25
  5. ↑ Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 53. ISBN 978-1573929790
  6. ↑ Raymond Buckland. (1993). Doors to Other Worlds: A Practical Guide to Communicating With Spirits. Llewellyn. p. 227. ISBN 978-0875420615
  7. ↑ M. Lamar Keene. (1997). The Psychic Mafia. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1573921619
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