Mediums and Spirit Guides
Sharing Knowledge and Information
Annie Eva Fay - Physical Medium
Annie Eva Fay (1855-1927)
<!--[if !vml]-->
<!--[endif]--> Annie Fay was born Anna Eva Heathman in the town of Southington, Ohio. It is believed that Annie was driven out of her home by her over jealous stepmother. After she had left home she became interested in theosophy and mysticism. It is also believed that she became a pupil of Madam Blavatsky living with her and helping her in her work. When she left Blavatsky, Annie was given a shawl as a gift by Madam Blavatsky, but now had to make her own way in life. Annie had been told in her childhood, that she was a medium and so decided to make a life for herself on stage as a mind reader and psychic entertainer and gave her first public performance in a school house in New Portage, Ohio.
It was during this time that she met and married Henry Cummings Melville Fay, a self proclaimed medium. They decided to work on stage as a couple and were billed as ‘The Indescribable Phenomenon’ presenting an awe inspiring performance. Henry Fay had been denounced by Spiritualists, and this threw some doubt on the authenticity of their performance.
However they managed to pack in the audiences where ever they performed. Annie taking her place on stage, she sat on a stool in an open fronted cabinet. Supervised by Henry, members of the audience were invited to tie her to the stool. One volunteer would tie her left wrist with a long piece of material, this tie would be made in the centre of the material and a number of knots would be put one on top of the other. A second volunteer would do the same again with her right wrist. Her arms would then be placed behind her back and the loose ends of the materials from both wrists would be tied together and again heavily knotted and tied to a harness ring that was embedded into an upright post at the rear of the cabinet. Another piece of material was tied at the back of Annie’s neck and again, passed through a harness ring which was attached to the same upright post. One end of a long rope was then tied around her ankles while the other end was held by a spectator throughout their performance.
Annie would then deem to off into a trance like state. Henry Fay would then place a hoop in his wife’s lap and proceed to close the curtains over the front of the cabinet. A second later he would throw open the curtains again and the hoop by now had moved to being around Annie’s neck. He would then remove the hoop and place on her lap a guitar; on the drawing of the curtains the sound of the guitar being strummed could be heard by the audience quite clearly, when Henry re-opened the curtains a few seconds later, the strumming would stop and the guitar would fall to the floor. This continued with a number of other instruments and the same thing would happen. Annie’s bindings still appearing to remain intact. Other phenomenon occurred; nails being driven into blocks of wood and paper dolls snipped out of paper. The great climax of the act was Henry placing a knife on the lap of his wife, and although the curtain had only been closed a second or two, the spirits seemingly had time to slice through her bonds and she would stand up and take many bows. The fays never actually billed themselves or claimed spirit intervention, even though she was bold enough to feature tricks in her main act such as; a “Spirit Dancing Handkerchief”, a “Rapping Hand, and a Levitation”.
The Fays arrived in London in June 1874 and the advertisements billing their performances mentioned “entertainments with light and dark séances every day and mysterious manifestations, with a series of bewildering effects”. There was however, no suggestion from them that they had any relationship to spiritualism. This denial however made no difference to the British Public who hailed her as a physical medium.
This caused a great deal of interest and attention from some Britain’s most notorious physical researchers. FW Myers, for instance, who was later one of the founders of the Society for Physical Research, had expressed an interest in completing an extensive investigation of Mrs. Fay’s mediumship. William Crooks, who was just finishing a series of psychic tests on Florence Cook, medium to Katie King and later Marie., stated that he wanted to be first to examine her.
By far the most important of all the experiments carried out by Crooks on Annie, were the experiments of the electrical tests. These tests were held at Crooke’s home in 1875. One of these tests consisted of an electrical control circuit that had been provided by another fellow of the Royal Society, Cromwell F Varley, during the tests carried out on Florence Cook but slightly modified. To make sure that the medium who would be seated in her cabinet was unable to slip her bonds, Crooke’s had her clench both handles of a battery, constructed in such a way, that if she was to let go of either handle, the current would send the attached meter to zero. Annie managed to present her manifestations, such as, objects being moved, a bell being rung, Crookes’ locked bureau being opened and items being thrown about from it, even though the contact remained unbroken.
During another séance, some of the guests were more sceptical than their host, realising, before the session began, that if they stretched a damp handkerchief between the two handles, the circuit would remain open. Crooke being a man of science took a hammer and nails and nailed the handles so far apart that they could not be spanned by the handkerchief.
Crooks declared that she had passed all the tests and was definitely a physical medium. Annie went off and toured England as a medium, until arriving in Birmingham where her manager only billed them as an entertainment. At the end of her tour, her manager who was not happy that the scientists’ investigations hadn’t provided him with any income, tried to get Crooke’s experiments as being faked. Needless to say he failed and no-one was interested in taking up his grievance
Annie continued her act long after her husband died. But, due to an accidental injury she played her last engagement in Milwaukie in 1924. In July of the same year, she received a visit from the notorious spiritualist head hunter Harry Houdini.
She and Houdini got on extremely well, talking for hours. Houdini noted that she never once declared herself to believe in Spiritualism. She went on to tell him how she had tricked Crooke’s at the electrical test, she claims that she had simply gripped one handle of the battery behind her knee joint, thus keeping the circuit unbroken and leaving one hand free to do with as she wished.
Annie died on 12 May 1927, believed to be aged 72 years, but her exact age was unknown as she would never confirm it.
Credits: Nandor Fodor, Encyclopedia of Psychic Science