Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 285

From the Greek words ektos and plasma and meaning ‘exteriorized substance’, ectoplasm a whitish substance that allegedly extrudes from the mouth, nose, ears or other orifices of the medium during a séance.

The phrase was coined in the late nineteenth century by French psychologist Charles Richet, who recorded the phenomenon in his own research with the ectoplasm-producing medium Madame d’Esperance. It is said to smell like ozone (a sweet, clover-like smell), to be either warm or cold to the touch and to appear either light and airy or sticky and jelly-like, with a structure that varies from amorphous clouds to a net-like membrane that can transform into limbs, faces or bodies of ghosts or spirits. If exposed to light the ectoplasm is said to snap back into the medium’s body, sometimes causing discomfort, pain and injury Many believe this substance to be the matter that composes one’s astral body and is the basis of all psychic phenomena.

In experiments in the early 1900s, medium Marthe Béraud was said to produce masses of white or grey material during a sitting. She was thoroughly examined beforehand by a German doctor, Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, to confirm that she wasn’t hiding anything. The Baron described Béraud’s ectoplasm as sticky icicles that ran down her face and onto the front of her body where they assumed faces or shapes.

Perhaps the most well-known ectoplasm-producing medium was Mina Cran-don. Famous photographs from the 1920s show Mina with long strings of ectoplasm streaming out of her mouth, ears, nose and even from between her legs.

Research into ectoplasm was conducted well into the twentieth century and analyses of small pieces of ectoplasm did in some cases, although not all, reveal fraud, with the use of substances such as muslin, toothpaste, soap, gelatine and egg white. Magician Harry Houdini once said that he couldn’t believe superior beings would allow the production of such disgusting substances from the human body. Interest in ectoplasm has declined but some modern mediums are still said to produce the phenomenon.