Eusapia Palladino
Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was a prominent Italian medium known for her dramatic séances and the spectral manifestations she produced, which garnered her significant fame in the late 19th century. Born into a tragic circumstance, with her mother dying during childbirth and her father allegedly murdered, Palladino's early life was marked by hardship. Her psychic abilities were reportedly discovered in 1872, leading her to a career that attracted both enthusiastic supporters and skeptical investigators. Throughout her career, Palladino demonstrated a capacity for producing physical phenomena, such as moving objects, often while her hands appeared to be bound, which contributed to her mystique.
Despite numerous investigations revealing instances of fraud, many of her proponents maintained that genuine spiritual experiences occurred during her séances. Notable figures, including the proto-psychologist Cesare Lombroso and astronomers like Giovanni Schiaparelli, were drawn into her world, with some expressing belief in her abilities even after observing inconsistencies. Palladino's legacy is complex; she is considered one of the most significant mediums of her time, embodying the deep fascination with spiritualism and the ongoing debate between belief and skepticism surrounding psychic phenomena. Her life and work reflect the cultural intrigue and controversies of the spiritualist movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Subject Terms
Eusapia Palladino
Italian medium
- Born: January 21, 1854
- Birthplace: Minerva-Murge, near Bari (now in Italy)
- Died: May 16, 1918
- Place of death: Naples, Italy
Cause of notoriety: Palladino was a well-known spiritualist whose admirers continued to believe in her powers even after she was caught faking paranormal phenomena at numerous séances.
Active: 1872-1918
Locale: Italy, England, France, and the United States
Early Life
When Eusapia Palladino (YEW-say-pee-uh pahl-ah-DEE-noh) was born, her mother died in childbirth. Palladino’s father, who placed her in the care of friends, was allegedly murdered while she was still young. After working at various jobs, she obtained a position as nursemaid with a family in Naples. Her supposed talents as a medium were identified in 1872 by an Italian psychic investigator named Damiani, who was allegedly guided to her by directions that his English wife had received from the spirit of one John King during a London séance. Palladino made slow but significant progress in her new trade, contriving the spectral manifestations that made her famous in the late 1870’s. John King—whose reincarnated daughter she was supposed to be—remained her spirit “control,” communicating by means of raps and trance-induced speech (but never in his supposedly native English—a language that the illiterate Palladino never mastered).
Spiritualist Career
Palladino was an exceptionally histrionic medium. As she manipulated nearby objects, and especially when moving furniture, her hands bound, she put on considerable shows of suffering. She was also obliging, usually managing to produce the phenomena urgently demanded by her clients. She was recruited by the credulous investigator Ercole Chiaia in 1891 to assist him in convincing the famous proto-psychologistCesare Lombroso of the reality of spiritualism. Lombroso was suitably impressed—although he subsequently observed her faking on numerous occasions—and Palladino became famous. She reportedly married one Raphael Delgaiz, but he remained a near-invisible presence in her public life.
As a result of Lombroso’s interests, Palladino was investigated by a panel of scientists in Milan, including the astronomers Giovanni Schiaparelli and Carl du Prel. After convincing this company of her ability to touch them with a living hand while her own were apparently bound, she began exhibiting her skills more widely. The English investigators Oliver Lodge and F. W. H. Myers observed her in 1894 and returned a favorable report to the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Criticism by Richard Hodgson and others, on the basis that all the phenomena could be explained if she could free one hand from her bonds, was turned aside.
Hodgson and the stage magician J. N. Maskelyne were both invited to séances held at Myers’s house in Cambridge, where they observed “much conscious and deliberate fraud, of a kind which must have needed long practice to bring it to its present level of skill.” Palladino’s supporters immediately leapt to her defense and began to arrange further examinations by more sympathetic investigators, some of whom alleged that she released her hand only reflexively, to touch her aching head. In 1898 a series of séances was arranged in Paris for the specific purpose of redeeming her reputation, including some held at the home of the French astronomer Camille Flammarion, the most prestigious popularizer of spiritualism in that era. Palladino was investigated in Genoa in 1901 and again in Paris in 1905-1907, with Marie and Pierre Curie among the observers. Fraud was repeatedly detected, but this did not deter many of the observers from reporting that genuine phenomena also occurred. By 1908 the SPR skeptics had recanted. Palladino was invited to the United States in 1909; she was caught cheating at several séances held there, but her champions remained adamant in her defense.
Impact
Eusapia Palladino was the most important of all the mediums of the late nineteenth century. No other was subjected to such intense scrutiny by investigators, and the results of that scrutiny proved very revealing as to the intensity of her fans’ desire to believe in her abilities, no matter how often she was caught cheating. Many convinced spiritualists believed then—and many still believe—that Palladino provided the best evidence available for the reality of psychic phenomena. Skeptics concurred but disagreed sharply in their opinion of the import of the evidence.
Bibliography
Carrington, Hereward. Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena. New York: B. W. Dodge, 1909. A significant popularization of Palladino’s career, written from a credulous viewpoint, which adopts a polemical tone in proclaiming Palladino to be a fine advertisement for spiritualism.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. “The Career of Eusapia Palladino.” Chapter 1 In The History of Spiritualism. Vol. 2. 1926. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Doyle is as credulous as Carrington but strikes a rather different pose, pretending greater objectivity and paying more attention to the supposed significance of the tests to which Palladino was subject.
Feilding, Everard. Sittings with Eusapia Palladino, and Other Studies. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963. Extracts from the Proceedings of the Society for Pyschical Research 23 (1909), which offer a detailed account of the SPR’s investigation of Palladino, along with other similar inquiries.
Flammarion, Camille. Mysterious Psychic Forces. Boston: Small Maynard, 1907. One of Flammarion’s many popularizations of spiritualism, including an elaborate account of his own observations of Palladino and the endorsements offered by his fellow astronomers.