George Valiantine (1874–1947) was an American direct voice

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 ...

that was exposed as a fraud.

Biography

Valiantine was born in

Williamsport, Pennsylvania Williamsport is a city in, and the county seat of, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. It recorded a population of 27,754 at the 2020 Census. It is the principal city of the Williamsport Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a popula ...

. He worked as a manufacturer before he discovered mediumship. He gave séances in America and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Valiantine predicted in the 1920s that aliens would visit earth. He also claimed contact with

spirit guide A spirit guide, in Western spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a discarnate spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnation, incarnated human being. Description In traditional African belief systems, well before the spre ...

s known as Hawk Chief and Kokum.

Fraud

British spiritualist author Herbert Dennis Bradley defended Valiantine as a genuine medium and wrote two books about his

mediumship Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or ghost, spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship o ...

. Researcher

Melvin Harris Melvin is a masculine given name and surname, likely a variant of Melville and a descendant of the French surname de Maleuin and the later Melwin. It may alternatively be spelled as Melvyn or, in Welsh, Melfyn and the name Melivinia or Melva may b ...

has written that Bradley was naïve and easily duped. However, Bradley later admitted he caught Valiantine cheating. In 1931, Bradley wrote a book that exposed Valiantine as a fraud. Voices were heard in the séances of Valiantine and he always used a trumpet but denied that he had spoken through it. Psychical researcher Ernest Palmer had investigated the trumpet after a séance and discovered "a good deal of moisture" inside the mouth piece, which indicated that it been spoken into by an ordinary human and not a spirit. Valiantine entered for the ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' prize of $2,500, to be awarded to any medium producing spiritualist phenomenon under test conditions. In the test Valiantine produced movement of a

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

in the dark séance room, however, an electrical connection had been rigged to his chair which was connected to a light in an adjoining room which revealed that all the trumpet activity coincided with when he left his chair. Valiantine had not known his chair was wired. 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 ...

described the test séance:

At the final sitting, in complete darkness, on May 26, 1923, special apparatus was installed. This was an electrical circuit which included the chair on which the medium sat. When the medium rose from his seat, a light went out in an adjoining room. Dictaphone notes were taken of all that occurred. It was found that Valiantine left his chair fifteen times (when he should have been in it), sometimes for as long as eighteen seconds, and that these periods corresponded with those when the sitters were touched by the 'spirits'.

Valiantine did not collect the award as he had cheated and was pronounced a fraud by the Scientific American committee. In 1925,

investigated the "direct voice" mediumship of Valiantine in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. In the séance Valiantine claimed to have contacted the "spirit" of the composer

Luigi Arditi Luigi Arditi (16 July 1822 – 1 May 1903) was an Italian violinist, composer and conductor. Life Arditi was born in Crescentino, Piemonte (Italy). He began his musical career as a violinist, and studied music at the Milan Conservatory under ...

who spoke Italian. Price wrote down every word that was attributed to Arditi and they were found to be word-for-word matches in an Italian phrase-book. Price also discovered that Valiantine had studied the

telephone directory A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization tha ...

to obtain information. In 1931, Valiantine was exposed as a fraud in the séance room as he produced fraudulent "spirit" fingerprints in wax. The "spirit" thumbprint that Valiantine claimed belonged to

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

was revealed to be the print of his big toe on his right foot. It was also revealed that Valiantine made some of the prints with his elbow.Franklyn, Julian. (2003). ''A Survey of the Occult''. pp. 263-395. Kessinger Publishing.

Biography

Fraud

References

Further reading