Fred P. Evans
Fred P. Evans (born 1862) was a British spiritualist medium.
He was born in Liverpool on June 9, 1862. His great grandfather was the Welsh social reformer Robert Owen. As a young man, Evans worked as a sailor and claimed to have experienced strange psychical events.[1] In 1884 he moved to San Francisco where he gave séances to the public. Evans was an early proponent of slate-writing mediumship.[2]
British biologist Alfred Russel Wallace who attended a séance with Evans in 1887 was convinced the slate-writing phenomena was genuine evidence for spirit communication and reported that there were five different coloured messages.[3]
Slate-writing was popular in the late-nineteenth century but was discredited as fraudulent after investigations from magicians and psychical researchers.[2] In 1898, the magician Chung Ling Soo revealed the fraudulent slate-writing methods that Evans, Henry Slade and others had utilized.[4]
References
- ^ Owen, J. J. (1893). Psychography: Marvelous Manifestations of Psychic Power Given Through the Mediumship of Fred P. Evans, Known as the "Independent Slate-Writer". San Francisco, Hicks-Judd Company.
- ^ a b Melton, J. Gordon. (2013). The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. Visible Ink Press. pp. 308-309. ISBN 978-1578592098
- ^ Wallace, Alfred Russel. (1908). My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions London: Chapman & Hall. pp. 352-354
- ^ Soo, Chung Ling. (1898). Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena. Munn & Company.
Further reading
- David P. Abbott. (1912). Behind the Scenes with the Mediums Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Reveals fraudulent methods of producing slate-writing.
- J. J. Owen. (1893). Psychography: Marvelous Manifestations of Psychic Power Given Through the Mediumship of Fred P. Evans, Known as the "Independent Slate-Writer". San Francisco, Hicks-Judd Company.