Washington Irving Bishop, also known as Wellington (4 March 1855 – 13 May 1889) was an American stage

mentalist Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...

. He started his career as an assistant under the muscle reader J. Randall Brown, but was most well known for his performance of the blindfold drive.

Career

Bishop was born in 1855. In the early 1870s, Bishop was the manager of

Anna Eva Fay Anna Eva Fay Pingree (March 31, 1851 – May 12, 1927) was a famous medium and stage mentalist of the twentieth century. Biography Fay was born Ann Eliza Heathman in Southington, Ohio. She married Henry Melville Cummings, a medium, who went by ...

's spiritualist acts, but in 1876, he exposed her trick methods to the media. He became an anti-

spiritualist Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

performer and wrote a book exposing the trick methods used by some

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

s. Bishop had exposed the tricks of Fay in an article for the ''Daily Graphic''. His article accused the physicist and spiritualist

William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...

of being duped by Fay. Crookes defended Fay in a letter that was printed in the article. Bishop began performing the Fay act to the public with an explanation for all her tricks. Lamont, Peter. (2013). ''Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 173-178. Bishop later became interested in thought-reading after he attended a show by J. Randall Brown. Brown later hired him as an assistant. In 1880, he published a one shilling book called ''Second Sight Explained''. During his shows similar to Brown, Bishop would ask a member of his audience for an object to be hidden in a secret location, he would then hold the hand or wrist of the person and ask them to think of its location. Bishop would then search to find the object. Bishop performed such famous "thought reading" demonstrations all over the world. He claimed no

supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

powers and ascribed his powers to muscular sensitivity (reading thoughts from unconscious bodily cues, or ideomotor phenomena). He arrived in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

in 1881 where he was tested by William Benjamin Carpenter who commented that his talent may be great use to the study of

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

George Romanes George John Romanes FRS (20 May 1848 – 23 May 1894) was a Canadian-Scots evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanism ...

noted that Bishop was "guided by the indications unconsciously given through the muscles of his subjects."

Death

On May 12, 1889, Bishop became unconscious for the second time in one of his demonstrations while performing at the

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 ...

theatrical society known as The Lambs Club."The Strange Life & Death of Washington Irving Bishop"
Retrieved 12 June 2016. He was taken upstairs to a bedroom, where he was reported to have been in a coma and died at noon the next day. However, Bishop was alleged to have suffered from cataleptic fits, remaining in a trance state for many hours, he even carried a card on him that explained no autopsy should be performed on him until at least after 48 hours. The card was never found on his body. On May 13, the physicians John A. Irwin, Frank Ferguson and Irwin H. Hance who had examined Bishop, performed an unauthorized

autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...

on him at a funeral home. John A. Irwin was reported to have wanted to study Bishop's brain with an autopsy for years. Bishop's death certificate gave the cause of death as hysterocatalepsy. Bishop's mother Eleanor and his wife both claimed that he was not dead, but in a trance state whilst the physicians examined his body. They claimed that he was murdered by

surgical instrument A surgical instrument is a tool or device for performing specific actions or carrying out desired effects during a surgery or operation, such as modifying biological tissue, or to provide access for viewing it. Over time, many different kinds of ...

s during the autopsy. They alleged that he had suffered from cataleptic attacks and could remain in trance up to 52 hours. These claims were denied by physicians who had examined the body.Anonymous. (1886). ''A Widow's Strange Story''. ''

The Milwaukee Journal The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently ...

''. May 15. p. 1 Eleanor brought charges against the physicians but the case ended in a

hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. T ...

and nobody was charged.

Burial

Bishop is buried in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Green-Wood Cemetery Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/ Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blo ...

. As a tribute to the son she believed was murdered, Eleanor Fletcher Bishop had the inscription "The Martyr" carved above his name on his headstone.

Publications

* * * * *''Thought Reading, Second Sight & Spiritual Manifestations Explained: Showing How the Supposed Phenomena are Produced by Natural Means'' (1907)

References

External links