Frank Decker was a 20th-century American spiritualist

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

who was discovered to be a fraud.

Career

Decker was born to a family of Syrian origin. He lived in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In January, 1930 Decker took a challenge to win $21,000 if he could prove his supposed mediumship powers. Decker would not win the prize if the magician

Joseph Dunninger Joseph Dunninger (April 28, 1892 – March 9, 1975), known as "The Amazing Dunninger", was one of the most famous and proficient mentalists of all time. He was one of the pioneer performers of magic on radio and television. A debunker of fraudulen ...

could duplicate the same physical phenomena. In the

séance A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spe ...

Decker claimed spirits had moved trumpets around the room and spoken in them. After the séance was finished, Joseph Dunninger replicated by natural means the same trumpet phenomena as Decker. Decker did not win the prize. In 1932, Decker was exposed as a fraud. A magician and séance sitter who called himself M. Taylor presented a

mail bag A mail bag or mailbag is a generic term for a type of bag used for collecting, carrying, categorizing, and classifying different types of postal material, depending on its priority, destination, and method of transport. It is oftentimes used ...

and Decker agreed to lock himself inside it. During the séance objects were moved around the room and it was claimed spirits had released Decker from the bag. It was later discovered to have been a trick as Martin Sunshine, a magic dealer admitted that he sold Decker a trick mail bag, such as stage escapologists use, and had acted as the medium's confederate by pretending to be M. Taylor, a magician. Edwin F. Bowers had defended Decker. In his book ''Spiritualism's Challenge'', Bowers had made incorrect statements about the magician and was threatened with a lawsuit from the

Society of American Magicians The Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and t ...

. He later removed the incorrect statements from his book. In 1933, Decker was investigated by the psychical researcher

Harry Price Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for ...

at the

National Laboratory of Psychical Research The National Laboratory of Psychical Research was established in 1926 by Harry Price, at 16 Queensberry Place, London. Its aim was "to investigate in a dispassionate manner and by purely scientific means every phase of psychic or alleged psychic ...

. Under strict scientific controls that Price contrived, Decker failed to produce any phenomena at all. Holroyd, Stuart. (1976). ''Minds Without Boundaries''. Aldus Books. p. 49.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Decker, Frank American spiritual mediums People from Greenwich Village