Francis Ward Monck
Francis Ward Monck (born 1842) was a British clergyman and spiritualist medium.[1]
Biography
Monck was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He claimed to have psychic experiences as a child. He was a clergyman who began his career as a minister of the Baptist Chapel in Earls Barton, he was interested in spiritualism and became a medium.[2] On 3 November 1876 in Huddersfield a sitter H. B. Lodge stopped the séance and demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage.[3] After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison.[4]
William Barrett also caught Monck in fraud with "a piece of white muslin on a wire frame with a black thread attached, being used by the medium to simulate a partially materialised spirit."[5] In his séances Monck placed a musical clock on a table, covered it with a cigar- box, and claimed spirits caused it to play. It was exposed as a trick as Monck had hidden a small music box that he would play in his trousers.[6]
References
- ^ Antonio Melechi. (2008). Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the Victorian Mind. Random House. p. 229
- ^ Raymond Buckland. (2005). The Spirit Book: The Encyclopedia of Clairvoyance, Channeling, and Spirit Communication. Visible Ink Press. p. 264
- ^ Lewis Spence. (1991). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Gale Research Company. p. 1106
- ^ Adin Ballou. (2001). The Rise of Victorian Spiritualism. Routledge. p. 16
- ^ Arthur Conan Doyle. (1975). The History of Spiritualism. Arno Press. p. 305
- ^ Walter Mann. (1919). The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism. London: Watts & Co. pp. 40-41
Further reading
- Hereward Carrington. (1907). The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. Herbert B. Turner & Co. pp. 246-247 reveals the materialized "spirit hand" trick that Monck used in his séances.