Naples, 1908: Three Sceptics and a Report They Did Not Want to Write

The Society for Psychical Research sent Everard Feilding, W. W. Baggally and Hereward Carrington to Naples in 1908 with an unusual qualification between them: all three were practised in conjuring, Baggally particularly so, and all three had gone into the investigation of mediums expecting fraud and had found it many times before. They held eleven sittings in a hotel room they controlled, took shorthand records as events occurred rather than writing up afterwards, and physically held Palladino's hands and feet throughout. Their report, published in the society's Proceedings in 1909, states that they observed a table rise clear of the floor, objects move at a distance, and touches from what felt like hands, under conditions they could not see how to fake, and it reads throughout like a document written by men who would much rather have reached the other conclusion.

Sceptical responses have argued that even three trained observers in a dim room can be misdirected by a performer who has spent thirty years perfecting one act, that the shorthand record captures what the sitters believed they perceived rather than what occurred, and that Palladino's exposure in America the following year settles the matter. The Feilding report has never been shown to contain a specific error, and it is cited by both sides.