Lore - Episode 105: Layers

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

We love to simplify things. Easy is better than complex, after all, and simple things are easy to understand. Sadly, though, the people around us are far from simple; they are complex and layered, with deep, hidden stories just waiting to be discovered. * * * The Lore book series: www.theworldoflore.com/books The Lore TV show: www.Amazon.com/Lore Latest Lore news: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

William sat in the center of the dimly lit room, watching the stranger reclined on a small bed. He was waiting for a sign, some kind of message or display that would answer his questions, and his heart was beating rapidly with the anticipation. The man on the bed was young, not even out of his teenage years, but he was already a star. His name was Frank Hearn, and his reputation as a powerful medium had already spread far and wide across England, and to William, who had lost his beloved brother Philip just a year before, Hearn represented hope. Hearn exhaled a long low breath, and then the shadows in the room seemed to darken, as if the light from the single lamp were being pushed back.

And then, as William watched, a pale face appeared over Hearn's body. Not just any face though. No, this was the face he recognized all too well. It was Philip. For the next few moments, William and Philip had a conversation. He would later claim that the face's tone of voice and choice of words instantly convinced him they originated from his dead brother's spirit. It was everything he had dreamed of for the previous year, and it moved him to tears. But it also filled him with curiosity. William was a scientist after all, and that curiosity was part of his core essence. So when the seance was complete and Hearn had left, he sat down and began to plan.

If Frank Hearn could open a connection between this world and the one beyond, William wanted to know how. It was a mission that would consume the rest of his life. He would go on to study Hearn, but also a whole assortment of other prominent mediums. Kate Fox, Daniel Holm, Charles Williams, and Mary Marshall all became subjects of his experiments as he looked for answers that satisfied his curiosity. None of them, however, left him in awe. They were impressive, for sure, but he felt as if there had to be something more. He was a cautious scientist and was very unbiased in his conclusions.

After years of study, all he would admit publicly was that these mediums warranted further study. They might be frauds, or the centerpiece in a widespread delusion, or completely and utterly authentic. He just couldn't say for sure. But that caution disappeared in 1874 when William met his match. Much like Frank Hearn, she too had been a young star, far more talented than her age might have suggested. She could levitate objects like Daniel Holm, communicate with the dead like Kate Fox, and even materialize faces like Frank Hearn. But unlike them, she could do more. If the stories are true, and trust me, there are a lot of well-documented stories about her,

she could even summon a complete spirit, fully visible from head to toe, and present it to the people who attended her seances. And William Crooks was about to discover how. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Lore Florence was born in East London in 1856, one of four daughters raised in a working-class home in Hackney. Her father worked in printing and managed to earn enough to elevate his family to that frustrating level right between the lower and middle class. They had a servant in the house

and a good reputation, but they were far from wealthy or part of the elite. In 1870, when Florence was just 14 years old, she began to suffer from symptoms that left her family worried and helpless. She would frequently slip into a deep sleep, often without warning. And when she was awake, she claimed that she went through life in a sort of days, feeling heavy and sleepy. Doctors were no help in solving the issues though, so her family began to explore less traditional options. One of those options was a local medium. We don't know the details of that visit, but we do know that they connected with Florence enough that she came home and began

to experiment on her own, sometimes with family and other times with friends from school. According to those around her, she showed a natural gift for the world of spiritualism, a gift that they encouraged and nurtured. In one of her home seances, Florence apparently channeled a spirit who dictated the name and address of an individual in London who could help her. When the family looked into the information, they discovered the person to be the secretary of a nearby organization known as the Dalston Spiritualists Association, so they set up an appointment and took Florence in to meet some of the members. After a few initial visits that impressed the members there, Florence was welcomed

in and made part of the group. Soon enough, she was making public appearances, where her skills were put on display for eager supporters of the spiritualist movement. And as she pushed deeper into this free expression of her natural abilities, those ailments that had begun at all slowly began to disappear. Instead of feeling trapped, she now felt relief. And not just relief though, Florence had to be feeling a good amount of pride as well. Compared to other mediums of her day, she seemed to be an exceptional talent, someone with abilities that far outstripped her peers. By 1871, at the young age of just 15,

she was demonstrating skills and abilities that matched mediums who were twice her age. We know about spirit wrappings, from stories about folks like the Fox Sisters, spirits who communicated with the living by creating knocking sounds that the mediums would interpret, and Florence could do that. Others show the ability to levitate objects or even themselves during group seances, and again, Florence showed the same abilities. But some mediums of the day had achieved more. There were some who could produce a gauzy spiritual substance known as ectoplasm, while others like Frank Hearn could actually manifest the face of the spirit who was communicating and then display that face for others to see. And Florence could already do

all of those things expertly. But she took it all one step further. She could call entire spirits into existence and stand them before her audience. Full-bodied materializations of the dead as if their bodies were back in the land of the living, and Florence called upon one spirit in particular, a ghost of a dead woman she referred to as Katie King. It would be a partnership that would change Florence's life. I think we also need to step aside for a moment and talk about the practical elements of these meetings. All of the mediums who performed these amazing feats tended to use a similar environment. They relied on something they referred to as a spirit cabinet, which was often an actual cabinet or wooden booth that the mediums would step inside. Others, though,

used entire rooms as their cabinet. They would hold their seances in the homes of wealthy families and take over two adjoining rooms. In one, they would place the chairs for the audience and then hang a curtain in the doorway that led into the next room. And that was where mediums like Florence would sit on a chair or lay on a sofa while they entered trance and controlled their spiritual displays. Florence, though, was different. I won't say she was unique because at least one other medium in London at the time claimed to be able to do the same thing, but she was the youngest who could and a very fast learner, and people were lining up to see those powers with their own eyes. Most of the time, what they got was an incredible and unbelievable

performance that left them in awe. A glimpse at an actual spirit pulled through the veil between this world and the next by a talented medium at the beginning of a storied career. And most of those audience members were content to watch and soak it all in. All of them, except for one. And when he crossed the line, everyone got more than they bargained for. Before we get to the incident, we need to back up just a bit. It was 1872 and Florence had gone through much in the two years since she knocked on the door of the Dalston Spiritualist Association. She was 16 years old now and had left behind the darkness of those frustrating and troublesome symptoms. But there was more. In the fall of 1871, she took a teaching position at a local school

run by a woman named Eliza Cliff. But all the while, her reputation as a medium was growing. Florence found herself on the front page of prominent spiritualist newspapers, alongside other star mediums like Agnes Guppy and Charles Williams. But while that sort of reputation was a good thing inside the spiritualist community, it didn't sit well with the parents of the children she taught at school. By January of 1872, she'd been fired. And that put a sense of urgency into her mind. I think Florence was sitting at that very same crossroads many of us have been at before. Her passion didn't pay the bills, but working to earn a living took time away from the things she truly loved. Thankfully, there was another option

available to her. Patronage. You see, there were a number of wealthy individuals across England who were so enamored with the powers of mediums like Florence that they paid them regular support. It allowed the mediums to do their thing without the hindrance of a day job, and it gave these prominent backers something to brag about. So after being kicked out of her teaching position, Florence set her sights on Charles Blackburn, a wealthy man from Manchester who also happened to provide financial support for Frank Hearn, but he would need to be impressed. Up to that point, all she had managed to do was summon the image of Katie King in front of the audience, usually visible just inside the slight opening

in the curtains that separated the sitting room from wherever she was. To earn Blackburn's patronage, she knew she would have to do more. She would have to summon a spirit that walked and talked. If she could do that, she could make a star of herself and attract someone wealthy to support her work. And she did it. Not too long after losing her teaching job, Florence performed another seance, this time producing something England had never seen before. She sat in a chair in the dark, tied and bound to prevent movement, while the audience waited in the next room. A figure that witnesses described as a tall woman dressed in white, stepped out from the curtain and into full view.

Her efforts paid off. Quite literally, actually. Charles Blackburn offered his patronage, and Florence toured through the homes of various wealthy individuals, performing all sorts of spiritualist road shows across England. She had gone from the very bottom of the middle class to sitting at the table with nobles and politicians. But with all of that attention, came something else. Suspicion. The higher Florence rose in prominence, the more questions there were about her authenticity. And you really can't blame people. The girl was claiming to manifest walking, talking spirits, after all. To most people, it was pure nonsense, as well as fraud just waiting to be exposed. So all of her seances

were conducted in very controlled conditions. Guests were vetted before being invited, and tickets were never sold. Gentlemen like Charles Blackburn, who had money invested in the success of mediums like Florence, became extremely guarded, opening up their performances to only the most trusted audience members. In December of 1873, those strict boundaries were tested. Florence held a seance that was attended by Blackburn and the Earl of Caithness, along with a few other respected spiritualists, including William Volkman and a ship's officer named LG Corner. Florence was tied to her chair as usual, and then hot wax was poured over the knots to seal them. As a finishing touch, the Earl himself pressed his signet ring into the hot wax.

Before it all began, the rules were laid out as they always were. No touching was allowed. When Florence summoned the spirit of Katie King and produced a full materialization of her body for all to see, no one was allowed to touch without permission. The reason, they claimed, was that touching the spirit could inflict horrible pain and suffering on the medium. It made sense to those in the room, and they all agreed. All except one. William Volkman sat in his chair and, watched as the pale, beautiful form of Katie King stepped into the aisle down the center of the audience. As she approached, various people around him whispered in awe and murmured their disbelief. But Volkman had a different reaction.

He jumped out of his chair, rushed toward her, and tried to tackle her. LG Corner and another member of the audience rushed to the spirit's aid, wrestling Volkman off of her and dragging him away. As they did, screams erupted from the other room behind the curtain, where Florence sat bound and sealed in her chair. A moment later, Katie King disappeared, and the scuffle was over. LG and the others held on to Volkman long enough to make sure Florence was all right, and then asked him why he did it. He responded that he was a friend of Agnes Guppy, an older medium who was extremely jealous of Florence's rise to fame, and he had wanted to disprove her.

And he wasn't alone in that sentiment. There were more and more people convinced that Florence was a fraud, and people wanted answers. Was she as real as she claimed to be? Blackburn and the others knew the doubts would be bad for business and for spiritualism as a whole, so they decided to put Florence through a series of rigorous tests. These tests, however, would be carried out by a man of science and unbiased observation, someone who had already studied a number of other prominent mediums and performed his job admirably. It was time to bring in William Crooks. William Crooks had a bit of an unfortunate name. He had made it his work to study and

test various individuals who had claimed to possess unexplainable powers. The general public suspected each and every one of them as a fraud, a crook even, and he had made it his work to see if that was true. William Crooks, a man of science and reason, was looking for crooks. Years earlier, he had aligned himself with the Dalston Spiritualist Association there in London and had helped them experiment with a number of other prominent mediums. Charles Williams, Frank Hearn, and Daniel Holm are three that many might recognize, so when the invitation was extended to come and examine the abilities of Florence Cook, he took it. Florence had spent many days in physical distress after the encounter with Vulkman.

Those who saw her said she appeared nervous and sick, but when asked if she would be willing to hold one more séance for William Crooks and a few others, she agreed. This time, though, things would be handled differently. William and his wife Ellen worked hard to make sure no fraudulent activity could take place. Florence was tied to her chair again, and the ropes were sealed with wax. Then Crooks secured all of the doors in and out of the room with wire through the keyholes, which he then sealed as well, and Ellen even examined Florence privately to look for tools or devices that might aid in her performance. When the séance began, Crooks was given his first opportunity to see Katie King in person.

He would later describe how the spirit's face resembled that of Florence Cook, enough to make him wonder if it wasn't just the medium in a costume, but he could still hear her sobbing quietly through the curtain. It was enough to interest Crooks in further study. Over the next five months, from January to May of 1874, Florence paid the Crooks multiple visits, oftentimes staying with them in their home and submitting herself to a number of scientific tests. Crooks took detailed notes and kept a record of his findings, much of which was eventually published in a book entitled, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism. He used all manner of tools to test Florence's abilities. He would extinguish the gas lights

in the house and only use a phosphorous lamp. He would leave his wife Ellen inside the cabinet room with Florence, while he watched Katie King walk around in front of the audience. He even swapped out the ropes for electrical wire, using Florence's own body to complete a circuit that would register movement and attempts to escape. And Florence passed all of the tests. Throughout all of this, Katie continued to appear during the séances. And not only that, but she was becoming more interactive. On one occasion, Katie even broke her own touching rule when she took Crooks by the arm and walked across the room with him. According to him, there was nothing spirit-like about Katie's form. She felt like any other lady.

Florence stayed just as busy during this time. She even got married that spring. Her husband? He was LG Corner, the man who had helped capture and remove Volkman from that dramatic séance months earlier. Many of Florence's fellow Dalston associates attended the wedding, and one of them overheard LG claim that at times it felt as if he were married to two women, not one. And that was honestly what was on everyone's mind. Were Florence and Katie separate individuals, or were they one and the same? To some observers, both women, the spirits and the medium, seemed to have the same face. But there was a lot of evidence to suggest that was incorrect. For example, Katie had pierced ears while Florence did not.

The spirit had avert hair while the medium's hair was black, and some even observed both women in the same room at the same time. Crooks took his scientific curiosity further by bringing in camera equipment to take pictures of the medium and spirit at work. Five cameras were set up around the audience, and during the séance, Crooks took 44 photos. He was unhappy with the results though, claiming that Katie King was a lot more beautiful and charming in person than she appeared in the images. Today, a handful of those images still exist. But they're very confusing. It's never clear which woman the camera had been pointed at, leaving us to make guesses as to which ones were Florence

and which ones were of Katie. To some, that doesn't help the case in believing the medium truly had the power to manifest an actual spirit in the room. For others though, just having the images is proof enough. For Crooks and the Dalston Spiritualist Association, those five months of experiments and tests had proven their case. They could step back out into the world with confidence, knowing that Florence had undergone a strict assessment and passed with flying colors. Charles Blackburn could breathe easy, knowing his investment into the young medium had been worth it. Even Florence herself felt vindicated. In a letter she later wrote to Blackburn,

she mentioned Agnes Guppy, the older medium who Volkman tried to support through his attack on her. Mrs. Guppy will be surprised when she sees the papers, she wrote. It will stop her nonsense. But all of this evidence and confidence would prove to be nothing more than a tower built of ice. The longer Florence was out there, performing seances and entertaining guests, the more attention and time in the spotlight she was subjected to. And everything was about to melt. Crooks wasn't the only person to write up their eyewitness accounts of Florence Cook in action. Another follower of spiritualism, a woman named Florence Marriott, recorded her own observations, publishing them two decades later in 1892, under the title, There Is,

No Death. In the book, she revealed some interesting details that add more confusion to the debate. On one hand, Florence, the medium, not the writer, seems to have only allowed a single lamp inside the rooms where her seances took place. Critics are quick to point out that any performance that must be conducted in the shadows is a very important part of Florence's work. In the book, she revealed some interesting details that add more confusion to the debate. But at the same time, Marriott also reported an encounter that called these ideas into question. At one seance she attended, Katie King stepped out through the curtain between the cabinet room and the audience, and moved among those gathered there. Someone in the crowd called out for more

light. And amazingly, the spirit of the audience was so strong that it was impossible for her to moved among those gathered there. Someone in the crowd called out for more light. And amazingly, the spirit agreed to the test. According to Marriott, the spirit stood against one of the walls, and then all of the gas lamps in the room were re-lit and turned up as bright as they could go. For a heartbeat, everyone in the room saw Katie more clearly. But seconds later, her form began to melt away, dissolving into the wall like soft wax. When she was gone, only a pile of white cloth was left on the drawing room floor. Maybe it was that final experiment, or perhaps it was just time for it all to come to an end.

Whatever the reason, in May of 1874, after five months of tests and seances, Katie King told Florence and the others that it was time for her to depart and never return. A final seance was planned for May 21st, and a crowd gathered to see the medium's final performance. Florence arrived with a large basket of flowers, which she placed at her feet before slipping into her trance to summon Katie for the last time. When the spirit appeared, she gathered some of those flowers and crafted bouquets, which she handed out to a few of the guests. After speaking briefly with a few of the audience members, Katie slipped back through the curtain into the cabinet, but allowed Crooks to follow.

He later wrote about what he witnessed in that room, of how Katie woke Florence up and helped her to stand, how once she saw the spirit, Florence collapsed in tears, and how when she and Crooks looked up moments later, Katie was gone. And that would have been the end of the road for Florence. Without a spirit partner to help her with her seances, she was a car without an engine. But she didn't stop. Months later, she reemerged with a new spirit, another woman, this one called Lila. Florence performed a few more seances with Lila as her showpiece, but it was a partnership that wouldn't last long.

In early 1875, Florence revealed a third spirit helper, this time named Marie. While the first two spirits had been mostly quiet and calm, Marie was apparently a bit of a show often dancing and singing for the gathered audience, which was odd because Florence could apparently do neither of those things. Florence was becoming more and more bold, but it was also a bit too tempting for people who wanted to prove that she had been a fraud all along. And at a seance in front of the members of the National British Association of Spiritualists, those pieces all fell into place, with tragic results. There was another attack. This time, instead of William Valkman, the man who rushed toward

the manifested spirit was a young Oxford student named George Sitwell. This time, though, there were no heroes in the audience. No one was willing to jump up and defend Marie against the attack. No one dragged Sitwell away and interrogated him. Instead, he dragged the pale figure of Marie over to the curtain separating the audience from Florence's location and then tore them open. The lights were turned up and the secret was laid bare for all to see. The cabinet was empty. Marie had been Florence in disguise all along. Florence spent the rest of her life wrestling with the stigma that came with that discovery. She and LG retreated to Wales and she gave up work as a medium entirely.

She later told a friend that if she had to do it all over again, she wouldn't. No amount of wealth or fame was worth the suffering she endured for the rest of her life. I can't help but see Florence as another Icarus. She crafted a story to give herself wings to make herself look more powerful than she really was. In the end, though, she flew a bit too close to the sun. I think it's safe to say that most of us like to feel confident about the world around us. We want to feel confident in our job security or our ability to rise to a challenge and succeed. Relationships are based on trust and confidence in our partners and friends, and when that confidence is shaken, we waver and falter.

For a long time, folks were confident in the powers of Florence Cook, and then it all fell apart. And I get that we're talking about a person who claimed to be able to manifest a full-body spirit in a room full of observers, so it's easy to hear about her later fraud and dump the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. But there was nothing to suggest that her earlier performances were anything but authentic. So it's not as simple as just calling her a fake and then moving on. William Crooks subjected her to all manner of scientific tests. Multiple witnesses claim to have seen both Florence and Katie King in the same room at the same time. It's enough to make some people wonder if perhaps it had all been real,

but the power to do those things left her when Katie said farewell. I'm not asking you to believe her. I'm merely suggesting that, according to the stories and records we have today, Florence was a layered individual. Yes, she faked the visions of the singing, dancing Marie, and yes, she had a strong competitive nature that might have driven her to one-up her peers, but the evidence suggests that there was more to her than just that. William Crooks' response to the evaporation of Florence's reputation was complete and utter silence. He moved on and worked with other mediums, testing their abilities and using science to try and understand how they managed to communicate with the world beyond the veil. To be honest,

it seems to have been a bit of an obsession. Perhaps that was because of the loss of his brother Philip years earlier. Maybe he was looking for a way to reach out and connect with those he lost. We know that was one of the biggest underlying reasons behind the entire spiritualist movement, but Crooks also had scientific reasons for doing so because he felt it offered new potential for communication technology. He would work at it for the rest of his life, but it would be hard to shake the stigma that came with publicly supporting a person who turned out to be a fraud. Others managed to move on as well. Remember William Volkman, the man who tried to tackle Florence's spirit helper Katie King? He would later go on to marry

Agnes Guppy, the very same medium he had been claiming to support. And there was one other wedding of importance that I need to mention. Florence's life was ruined by the exposure of her fraud, and she spent the rest of her life in poverty, dying in 1904 at the age of 48. But after her death, her husband picked up the pieces and tried to move on, eventually remarrying. I mention that because the woman he married was yet another spiritualist medium, one that had won the financial support of that wealthy patron, Charles Blackburn, and this new wife was Florence Cook's sister, a sister who looked just like her. A sister named Kate.

The story of Florence Cook's rise to fame and her eventual demise offer a fascinating glimpse into the world of Victorian England spiritualists. But she wasn't the only person in the story with layers of potential and influence. Stick around after this short sponsor break to learn something amazing about her investigator, William Crooks. William Crooks wasn't a slouch when it came to science. I know it's easy to hear a story about a guy performing tests on a spiritual medium and want to use massive air quotes around the word scientist, but most of us would have had a hard time keeping up with him if we were given the chance. Even in the middle of his tests on Florence Cook, he was working in other less supernatural fields,

albeit no less mysterious to the scientists of his day. In fact, on April 22nd of 1874, just a month before Florence's spirit guide Katie King vanished forever, Crooks made a presentation at the Royal Society. In it, he demonstrated that objects placed into a vacuum could still be influenced by radiation. He also created glass tubes that could produce heat and light. Over the years that followed, he added new achievements to his resume. He discovered and measured the atomic weight for the element thallium and helped identify the first sample of helium in 1895. So hey, the next time you buy a helium balloon for a birthday party, be sure to thank William Crooks for helping make that possible. When England was sure thankful

for his contributions, he was knighted in 1897 and in 1910 he received the order of merit for all of his contributions to the scientific community. Yes, he tested ectoplasm and full body apparitions, but he also moved humanity forward into a better understanding of the natural world. Just like Florence Cook, William Crooks was a person with many layers and I have to think it would be hard for us to say anything different about ourselves. People are complex and nothing is ever black and white. And all of this started because William Crooks wanted to communicate with the world beyond our own. His glass tubes, items he called crooks tubes but would one day be known as cathode ray tubes, would be seen as impressive but wouldn't truly find a use for

another few decades. Specifically, Crooks work put the pieces in place for a device that could display ghostly shapes and images, even voices from another place in time. It could evoke emotional responses and offer comfort and was best used in a dimly lit room with the curtains drawn. It would even be saddled with terms he would have recognized, like channels and the tube, that device, the television. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Marsette Crockett and Carl Nellis, and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime TV show

came out in October of 2018. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. TheWorldOfLore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on social media, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.