Cash for Spirits

For years cash prizes have awaited the spiritualist medium who could produce any single phenomenon--spirit-writing on slates, voices from the beyond, table tippings, wax casts of ectoplasmic hands, etc., etc.--which could not be duplicated and explained by science or sleight of hand. Last week, to the standing offer of $10,000 made by the Universal Council for Psychic Research, the Scientific American added $5,000. Purpose: a renewed drive to expose a growing trade in ghostly fakery. As the world crisis gets worse, more & more fretful folk have fled to seance rooms, as they have also to astrologers' parlors (TIME, Jan. 27).

Umpire of claims for the prize will be Joseph M. Dunninger, longtime investigator of alleged supernatural phenomena. Dunninger can tip tables, conjure up voices and ghosts, make casts of invisible hands, as well as the slickest mediums. But he claims no supernatural powers, relies only on his 25 years of practice in prestidigitation and his knowledge of science. It was to Magician Dunninger that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison and Harry Houdini left secret messages before their deaths to test the possibility of communication with a world of spirits. One medium's version of Edison's message: "My niece, Betty. Where are you? Boop. Boop. Boop."

Significant clause in the present $15,000 offer: "Since experiments by Dunninger and others have proved telepathy to an acceptable degree, demonstrations of this nature are not eligible for the award."

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