Lajos Pap (1883–1941) was a Hungarian

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...

and spiritualist medium.Gyimesi, Júlia. (2014). ''Between Religion and Science: Spiritualism, Science and Early Psychology in Hungary''. International Psychology, Practice and Research 5: 1–20.

Career

Lajos Pap was originally investigated by the

psychical researcher Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

Chengery Pap in the 1920s in a series of experimental séances. He was alleged to have produced apport and psychokinetic phenomena. Various dead and living animals were discovered after his séances such as frogs,

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and snakes. Chengery Pap stored many of these specimens in a museum. However, it was destroyed during World War II and only photographs remain. The scientific reception to the experiments was not favourable. In 1928, Theodore Besterman from the Society for Psychical Research attended séances and concluded the phenomena were fraudulent. In 1935, Lajos Pap was investigated by the International Institute for Psychical Research in London by the psychoanalyst

Nandor Fodor Nandor Fodor (May 13, 1895 in Beregszász, Hungary – May 17, 1964 in New York City, New York) was a British and American parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, author and journalist of Hungarian origin. Biography Fodor was born in Beregszász, Hun ...

. He reported that the phenomena were fraudulent and not evidence for the paranormal. During the séance a dead snake appeared. Pap was searched and was found to be wearing a device under his robe, where he had hidden the snake. Other psychical researchers such as Harry Price also considered Pap to be a fraud and his mediumship discredited. Price, Harry. (1939). ''Mechanics of Spiritualism''. In ''Fifty Years of Psychical Research''. Longmans, Green & Company.

Career

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