Anna Eva Fay

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anna Eva Fay Pingree (1851 – May 20, 1927) was a famous medium
and stage mentalist of the twentieth century. Anna Eva Fay

Contents
1 Biography
2 Crookes experiment
3 References
4 Further reading

Biography
Fay was born Ann Eliza Heathman in Southington, Ohio. She married
Henry Melville Cummings, a medium, who went by the name Henry
Melville Fay. She adopted the stage name of Annie Fay and began to
perform as a stage medium. She became famous for her stage
performances in the 1880s and 1890s.[1] Born 1851
Died May 20, 1927
Through her career, Fay was exposed as a fraudulent medium.[2] Fay
was known for employing assistants including several who would dig Occupation Stage mentalist, medium
up information about séance sitters in the towns that she visited.[3]

In the early 1870s the American stage mentalist Washington Irving Bishop was the manager of Fay's spiritualist
acts, but in 1876 exposed her trick methods to the media.[4] In 1883 the ex-medium John W. Truesdell revealed
her method of freeing her hands from cotton bandages.[5]

Her first husband died in 1908. Her second husband was stage manager David H. Pingree, who died in 1932.[6]
Her son John Fay also a magician, married to Anna Norman committed suicide in 1908.[7][8] Fay applied for a
membership to The Magic Circle and in 1913 during a tour in Britain, she was elected the first Honorary Lady
Associate of The Magic Circle in London.[9] Fay died on May 20, 1927. She is buried at Wyoming Cemetery in
Melrose Massachusetts.

In 1942, Harry Price of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research exposed the 'mechanical stool' trick of
Fay.[10][11]

Crookes experiment
In a series of experiments in London at the house of William Crookes in February 1875, Fay managed to fool
Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers.[12] Crookes had Fay hold two electrodes in an
electrical circuit connected with a galvanometer in an adjoining room. Movement of objects occurred in the
room and a music instrument was played. Crookes was convinced that the electrical control had not been
broken. Psychical researchers pointed out that Fay could have used other parts of her body or a resistance coil
to maintain the electric current intact whilst her hands could be free to produce the phenomena during the
experiment.[13] Frank Podmore described the experiment in detail.[14]
Fay used magic tricks to accomplish her mediumship feats. She confessed in 1913 to Eric Dingwall that she
had duped Crookes and other scientists.[15] She was investigated by the magician Harry Houdini, to whom after
her retirement in 1924 she confessed fraud and revealed the tricks that she had used.[16] Fay told Houdini the
trick she had used on the Crookes galvanometer test, she gripped one handle of the battery beneath her knee
joint, keeping the circuit unbroken, leaving one hand free.[17] Magic historian Barry Wiley suggested that Fay
had beaten the galvanometer tests by working with a secret accomplice Charles Henry Gimingham (1853–90),
an assistant of Crookes who had built the experimental apparatus.[18]

References

1. Will Rogers, Steven K. Gragert, M. Jane Johansson. (2005). The Papers of Will Rogers. University of
Oklahoma Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0806137049
2. Kerry Segrave. (2007). Women Swindlers in America, 1860-1920. McFarland & Company. p. 14.
ISBN 978-0786430390
3. Maurice Zolotow. (1952). It Takes All Kinds. Random House. p. 60
4. Simon During. (2004). Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic. Harvard
University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0674013711
5. John W. Truesdell. (1883). The Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism: Derived from
Careful Investigations Covering a Period of Twenty-Five Years. G. W. Carlton: New York. pp. 272-273
6. Anthony J. Pagano. (1998). Melrose. Arcadia Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 978-0738564487
7. Frank Cullen. (2006). Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performances in America.
Routledge. p. 369. ISBN 978-0415938532
8. Massimo Polidoro. (2003). Secrets of the Psychics: Investigating Paranormal Claims. Prometheus
Books. p. 103. ISBN 1-59102-086-7 "Her son, John T. Fay, married Anna Norman, one of the assistants
in Eva's show, then left home and set up on his own with his wife, calling themselves "The Fays." When
John died in 1908, his widow set up her own show and billed herself as "Mrs. Eva Fay, The High
Priestess of Mysticism." Obviously, Annie resented her using a stage name so similar to her own, but
never took legal action to stop her."
9. Milbourne Christopher. (1975). Mediums, Mystics & the Occult. Thomas Y. Crowell. p. 178. ISBN 978-
0690004762
10. Harry Price. (1942). Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research. Collins. p. 48
11. Paul Tabori. (1966). Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghosthunter. Living Books. p. 36. "He described
the simple yet ingenious mechanism of the Anna Eva Fay mechanical stool, which had an automatic
catch to release the right arm of the medium, enabling anyone to produce a large variety of phenomena—
provided the sitters were gullible enough."
12. Massimo Polidoro. (2000). Anna Eva Fay: The Mentalist Who Baffled Sir William Crookes. Skeptical
Inquirer 24: 36-38.
13. Sherrie Lynne Lyons. (2010). Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the
Victorian Age. State University of New York Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-1438427980
14. Frank Podmore. (1897). Studies in Psychical Research (https://archive.org/stream/studiesinpsychic00pod
m#page/62/mode/2up). G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 62. "In February, 1875, Mr. Crookes, assisted by Dr.
Huggins and others, held a séance with another medium, Mrs. Fay. The medium was seated in Mr.
Crookes library, and her hands grasped two wires attached to a battery, her body being this made to
complete an electric circuit. A galvanometer, which flashed light on to a graduated scale, was placed in
the adjoining room, in a position where the scale was clearly visible to the circle of experimenters. Under
these conditions, whilst the light remained steady on the scale, showing, that the resistance was
practically uniform, a bell was rung and a musical box was wound up in the library; a hand was shown at
the curtain which hung over the doorway; and a book and a library ladder were pushed through the
opening. Finally there was a slight noise, the circuit was broken, and the medium was discovered in a
fainting condition."
15. William Hodson Brock. (2008). William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science.
Ashgate. p. 199. ISBN 978-0754663225
16. Burton Gates Brown. (1972). Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century America. Boston University. p. 231
 17. Massimo Polidoro. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle.
Prometheus Books. p. 177. ISBN 978-1573928960 "She told him how she had tricked Crookes at the
electric test: she had simply gripped one handle of the battery beneath her knee joint, keeping the circuit
unbroken but leaving one hand free. Annie Eva Fay's revelation to Houdini of the way she had gulled
Crookes was confirmed years later when psychical researcher Colin Brookes-Smith found at the Science
Museum in London one of the galvanometers used by Crookes. The machine was repaired and brought to
working order. Brookes-Smith reports that "there was no difficulty at all in sliding one wrist and forearm
along over one handle and grasping the other handle, thereby keeping the circuit closed through the
forearm, and then releasing the other hand without producing any large movement of the galvanometer
spot."
18. Barry H. Wiley. (2012). The Thought Reader Craze: Victorian Science at the Enchanted Boundary.
McFarland. p. 190. ISBN 978-0786464708

Further reading
Hereward Carrington. (1907). The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. Herbert B. Turner & Co.
pp. 149–152 reveals the "Cotton Bandage Test" trick that Fay used.
Harry Houdini. (2011). A Magician Among the Spirits. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-
1108027489
William Henry James Shaw. (1896). The Annie Eva Fay Cotton Bandage Test. In Magic up to Date, or,
Shaw's Magical Instuctor. Chicago. pp. 65-70
Barry H. Wiley. (2005). The Indescribable Phenomenon: The Life and Mysteries of Anna Eva Fay.
Hermetic Press.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Eva_Fay&oldid=791314337"

This page was last edited on 19 July 2017, at 12:55.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.