Homer has never failed in public performances, but his private performances have been found to be faked many times. It is said that Homer presides over seances and never takes money. 1878, Homer wrote the book "Light and Shadow of Spiritualism", criticizing some psychics for counterfeiting, and he himself was willing to accept strict scientific inspection. Jeffrey Mishlove, Ph.D. in parapsychology, said that Homer showed religious dignity for special functions and knowledge, and he had scientific curiosity all his life and sought a reasonable explanation. However, Homer accepted a gift from his wealthy patron, just as Zhang Baosheng of China accepted a gift from a luxury car. However, Baosheng is not as famous as Homer. Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte helped Homer's only sister, Russian czar Alexander, sponsor Homer's wedding. He presided over the seances of the kings of Bavaria, Vardenburg, Germany, William I and other princes and nobles in Europe. Intellectuals and celebrities often turn to him for help. 1868, Homer and Cromwell Wali, chief engineer of Atlantic Cable Company, made an experiment. They held 50 seances, and the research report was published in 187 1, claiming to prove many strange phenomena driven by the mind. It was this report that prompted crookes to personally inspect Homer. Crookes submitted two experimental papers to the Royal Society, trying to encourage a larger-scale investigation and study of this phenomenon, which he believed was caused by a psychological force. However, the secretary of the Royal Society refused to publish papers and witness his experiments. Many research reports by Lv Zuyin, Li Shengping and Yan Xin. There is a similar situation. Although highly recommended by great scientists such as Qian Xuesen and Bei He, they were only published in the China and Shanghai editions of Nature. For a time, Nature became a super science magazine, and its reputation was ruined.
Crookes's second super-scientific research was completed in cooperation with the psychic Florence Cook. From 1873 to 65438+February, they had a seance for five months. The process of seance is usually like this: Miss Cook walks into a small room and enters a state of being possessed by her soul. After a while, a woman named Katie King appeared in the small room, wearing a long white dress and a headscarf. Crookes saw this scene and took more than 40 photos. Crookes observed Miss Cook for three years and studied it carefully in the laboratory at home for several months. Some skeptics say Katie King looks like Miss Cook. Crookes also admitted that they were similar, but insisted that they had important differences: "In my family, I saw Katie was 6 inches taller than Cook. Last night, he was barefoot and didn't have to stand on tiptoe. He was four and a half inches taller than Miss Cook. Katie's neck was exposed last night, and her skin was very smooth in appearance and touch, while Miss Cook had a big scar on her neck, which was clearly visible and rough to the touch. Katie's earlobe is not perforated, and Miss Cook likes to wear earrings. " (According to Hyman and Mishraf) In fact, all these descriptions are vague and have no scientific significance, but crookes fully believes that Miss Cook will not cheat. Psychics have an unusual relationship with crookes. She "enthusiastically talked with Mr. crookes about' some painful experiences in her past life', let him hug her, so as to believe in her solid materiality, let him check her pulse rate and breathing rate per minute, and finally let himself and Mr. crookes take pictures side by side." (Engels, page 40) Trevor Hall collected a lot of evidence. "Some of them were recently revealed, indicating that crookes had an affair with Miss Cook, saying that he came forward to guarantee the authenticity of Miss Cook's epiphany performance in order to keep an affair with her." (Hyman, page 120) According to the newly discovered materials, crookes knew the fake behavior of the goddess Mary Shoals, but "he has promised not to expose Mary's cheating behavior, even to her mother, because once such a brazen scam is made public, the image of truth will definitely be greatly damaged." (Hyman, page121) At the end of the 20th century, the magic circle in China kept forging, and believers were not unaware of it, but unwilling to expose it, because it might damage the "image of truth". But even then, some people did not believe that there would be so many miracles, including some necromancers. Mrs Guppy's later husband, Fokerman, wondered whether Katie was Cook himself. At a seance, Fokerman suddenly put his arms around it (Katie) to see if it was Cook. At this time, the scene was in chaos and the gas lamp went out. After a while, it was quiet again, and the fairy was gone. Miss Cook is still tied up and lying unconscious in the original corner. Folkerman insisted that he had taken Miss Cook and no one else. In fact, as long as the audience trusts Cook as politely as crookes, magic is easy to understand, and these tricks can be performed with a little magic skill. A performance similar to Cook was also staged in the United States, and "Katie" also appeared, but at a seance in Philadelphia, the heroine resigned because she was not paid enough. The doubters searched for her trail. "She was found in the apartment. She is a young woman with flesh and blood, and she has all the gifts given by God. " (Engles, page 4 1) Mishrav, a doctor of parapsychology, commented: "Critics assume that crookes himself has been fooled, but it is hard to insist that a heavyweight scientific figure like crookes will be deceived by cheap tricks. They claimed that crookes was involved in a romantic story with Miss Cook, and he testified for her to protect her reputation and hide his emotional entanglements with her. However, even if this is true, there are other things that have not been solved. If crookes had an affair with Miss Cook, she was only 15 years old at that time, and this assumption can't explain what he reported about Margaret and Kate Fox. This cannot explain the research done by many other outstanding scientists on the same phenomenon. However, the fact that the experimenter was accused of forgery continues to plague the spiritual research. As long as people's expectations of fraud are strengthened through regular public exposure of the plot, these troubles will continue. " (Mishrav, 1992) The question is, should the public relax their vigilance or strengthen their vigilance against counterfeiters? For example, for a thief who is used to stealing, you have been stolen by him several times. What attitude should I take when I see him next time? It is true that he may stop stealing, but he may still continue. More importantly, we are talking about scientific things, not general business practices. Scientific fraud means that all credits will be cancelled. After all, science is also maintained by trust and honesty. Scientific "police" is fair to everyone, at least when they meet for the first time, they will not "forcibly search", and "presumption of innocence" applies here. But once something is wrong, once scientists leave a "criminal record", things are completely different. At this time, suspicion and "guilty inference" are inevitable. People don't know if there is a fairer way. Perhaps this is an extensive and unreasonable treatment, but all credit systems in the world operate in this way. Credit bureaus may make mistakes, but they are usually right. In addition, the Fox Sisters publicly admitted their deception and signed a confession in 1888 after they started their miracle performance in 1848. But this story is rarely mentioned by psychiatrists and their followers, and they don't want to believe such a thing. 19 13 after crookes became the president of the royal society, he didn't want to talk openly about spiritualism in order to avoid opposition from academic circles.