Margery Crandon was a physical medium. She was tested extensively by the ‘New Scientist’ magazine in the 1920s. She very often sat in the dark and in a cabinet, causing the investigators to devise secure methods in an age when night vision equipment did not exist.

Should you decide to attend a physical mediumship séance ask under what conditions you will be sitting, i.e. will it be in the dark? Will the medium be in a cabinet? What safeguards are there to prevent fraud? Is the room secured and could someone be hiding somewhere? These are questions that also need to be answered.

When Margery was investigated, one of the researchers sat on either side of her and there was always some physical contact with her hands and feet, with each sitter checking upon their neighbours to eliminate the possibility of someone other than the medium being present.

There are people currently claiming to obtain ‘voice phenomena’, where only famous people manifest. These séances have to be highly suspicious, for if a voice claiming to be Winston Churchill can manifest, someone whom you have known could also speak. Which would be more convincing, Churchill or a relative of whom you have clear memories?