After a few months Bishop fell out with Fay over a financial matter, and decided to make his own music hall debut by presenting a public exposure of her entire act. Although all went well initially, audiences soon began to tire of hearing about Fay’s secrets, and Bishop decided to expand his repertoire by exposing the tricks of the trade being employed by other well-known mediums. For reasons that are still not entirely apparent, Bishop thought that the best way of collecting this new material was to attend séances dressed as a woman. Unfortunately, his subsequent accounts of his transvestite exposés failed to capture the public interest, and he was forced to explore alternative ways of attracting an audience. After much trial and error, he eventually developed a skill that would guarantee him international fame and fortune.
He underwent a complete rebranding. Instead of presenting himself as a music hall entertainer, he adopted the far more sombre style of a scientific lecturer. Out went the sensationalist ‘once again I put on a dress and discovered the truth’ stories, and in came a pair of pince-nez glasses and academic mutton chop sideburns. Perhaps most importantly of all, instead of focusing on exposing the claims of others, Bishop declared that he himself had developed the most uncanny of abilities. Promoting himself as the ‘world’s first mind-reader’, Bishop proudly announced that he was able to demonstrate telepathy on demand.
He started his performances by playing the mystery card, clearly stating that although his newfound ability was not due to psychic powers or the work of the spirits, he did not have an explanation for what he was about to demonstrate. He would then attempt a series of mind-reading stunts. In a typical performance he handed a pin to a spectator and explained that in a few moments the spectator was to hide the pin anywhere in the auditorium. Another member of the audience was asked to ensure that Bishop didn’t see where the pin was being concealed. Bishop and his chaperone then walked offstage and the pin was hidden. When he returned, he grasped the first spectator’s wrist and led him manically around the auditorium. Eventually, Bishop narrowed down his search to one small area and finally located the hidden pin.
There were many variants on the procedure. Sometimes, for example, he brought a large directory onstage and asked a spectator to secretly choose a name from it. Bishop then used his alleged telepathic skills to identify the chosen name. In perhaps his most famous stunt, he invited a group of five or six people onstage, explained that he would leave the auditorium, and asked them to mime a murder scene in his absence. One person in the group played the role of the murderer and another the victim. After the audience had witnessed the ‘murder’, Bishop returned and was blindfolded. He then held the wrist of an audience member and asked them to concentrate on the person who had been ‘murdered’. After working his way around the group, he correctly worked out who had been playing the role of the victim. Seconds later Bishop successfully identified the ‘murderer’.
His amazing demonstrations proved highly successful, and his reputation quickly spread across Europe and America. Bishop’s fame encouraged a handful of imitators, with perhaps the best known being one of his former employees, Stuart Cumberland. The level of success enjoyed by the likes of Bishop and Cumberland was reflected in their high society audiences (Cumberland was invited to the House of Commons to read the mind of William Gladstone, later describing the Prime Minister’s ‘remarkable magnetic influence’ in his book People I Have Read), as well as their being satirized in well-known comic songs of the period, such as the ever-popular ‘Thought-reading on the Brain’:
Oh, Mr Cumberland and Irving Bishop too
With the pins you find I’d like to run you through
For you have marr’d my happiness and it is very plain
That all the family now have got thought-reading on the brain
Unfortunately, Bishop’s success was short-lived. In 1889, the world-famous mind-reader found himself performing at the Lambs Club in New York City. After successfully completing his ‘identify the murderer’ and ‘find the name in the directory’ stunts, he fell to the ground exhausted. He regained consciousness a few moments later and was taken to a bed in the club. Ever the professional, Bishop insisted on performing another feat. The club ledger was duly brought into the bedroom and a name chosen at random. Clearly struggling, he eventually managed to locate the correct name. Immediately after performing what was to be his final stunt, he collapsed back into his bed.
Two doctors were summoned and kept a watchful eye over him throughout the night. In the middle of the following day Bishop, aged just 33, was pronounced dead. The news was quickly conveyed to Bishop’s wife in Philadelphia, who promptly made her way to New York City and tracked down her husband’s body in a funeral parlour. She was horrified to discover that at some point in the afternoon, and less than 24 hours after his death, her husband had been subjected to an unauthorized autopsy.
Throughout his life Bishop had been prone to cataleptic fits. During these episodes his entire body would become rigid, his breathing very shallow and his heartbeat so slow as to be imperceptible. Because of this, he always carried a card explaining that he might lapse into a cataleptic state, and that no autopsy should be performed until at least 48 hours after his alleged death. At one point he had told a friend that when he was in a cataleptic state he was fully aware of everything that was happening around him, raising the terrifying notion that he was conscious throughout his autopsy.
Why was the autopsy performed so quickly? Throughout his career Bishop boasted of having an exceptional brain. Many historians now believe that this claim may have contributed to his demise, encouraging physicians to carry out a quick autopsy in order to be the first to examine it. Whatever the truth, the autopsy proved a wasted effort. Bishop’s brain weighed only slightly more than average and didn’t appear at all exceptional.
His mother Eleanor demanded a coroner’s inquest, and the doctors who had conducted the autopsy were arrested. However, a jury found in favour of the doctors and the charges against them were dropped. Eleanor remained unconvinced, and made her feelings known by having her son’s gravestone read, ‘Born May 4th, 1856 – Murdered May 13th, 1889’ and publishing a small book describing ‘the butchery of the late Sir Washington Irving Bishop’. Eleanor’s behaviour became increasingly erratic, and when she passed away in 1918, the famous magician Harry Houdini discovered that she had left him an imaginary estate totalling 30 million dollars.
So how did Bishop achieve his mind reading feats? Did he really possess genuine telepathic powers?
In the early 1880s, Bishop was investigated by a team of well-respected scientists that included the Queen’s personal physician, the editor of the British Medical Journal, and the famous eugenicist Francis Galton. During the first part of the investigation Bishop successfully performed several stunts, including correctly identifying a selected spot on a table and finding an object that had been hidden on a chandelier. As usual, throughout all of the demonstrations he asked to be in physical contact with an individual who knew the correct answer. Bishop would hold the helper’s wrist, or the helper would grasp one end of a walking stick while he held the other. The scientists speculated that Bishop had trained himself to detect the tiny ‘ideomotor’ movements that had originally been uncovered by Michael Faraday during his investigation into table-tipping. When performing his stunts, Bishop would push and pull his helper in various directions, and the scientists believed that he used tiny changes in resistance to figure out the location of a hidden object, or which member of a group had taken on the role of ‘murderer’. The team carried out a second set of trials to discover if they were right. This time, Bishop was asked to try to find a hidden object when his helper was blindfolded and had lost his bearings. He failed. In another trial the walking stick was replaced with a slack watch chain thatprevented any unconscious signals being transferred to Bishop. Once again, he failed. Galton and his fellow scientists concluded that Bishop did possess a remarkable skill, but was not a genuine telepath.
&n
bsp; A few years later another amazing mind-reader hit the headlines. However, this time the claim was even more startling because it appeared to provide incontrovertible evidence of animal to human communication.
HOW TO READ MINDS
It is time to get in touch with your inner Bishop. Muscle-reading isn't easy, but there are several simple exercises that will help you develop this remarkable skill.
1. Ask someone to hold out their hand palm up in front of them with their fingers spread apart, and then ask them to concentrate on one of their fingers. Next, lightly push down on each of their fingers with your forefinger. The finger on which they are concentrating will be the one offering the greatest resistance.
2. Arrange four objects in a row on a table, allowing about four inches between each object. Ask someone to stand on your right-hand side and think of one of the objects. Next, take hold of their left wrist with your right hand, placing your fingers on the top of their wrist and your thumb on the bottom of their wrist. Explain that you are going to move their left hand over each of the objects. Ask your guinea pig not to consciously move their left hand but instead to relax their arm and simply 'will' their left hand to move in the correct direction. If you are over the wrong object they should think of the phrase 'move on', whereas if you are over the correct object then they should think of the word 'stop'. Now move their left hand over each of the objects and try to discover the chosen object by feeling when you encounter most resistance to movement.
3. Time for a full test of muscle-reading. Ask your volunteer to go into a room and hide a small object. Next, hold their wrist as instructed above. Take the weight of their right arm and keep them close by your side. Ask them not to focus on the location of the object, but rather on the direction that you have to proceed in order to move towards it. Stand in the centre of the room and take a step forward. If there is a feeling of resistance then go back to the centre of the room and head in another direction. Keep on doing this until you feel the least resistance. When you think that you are near to the object, have your helper imagine a straight line between their hand and the object. When you feel the hand move in that direction, follow along the line and you should be able to find the object.
As muscle reading is tricky to master, some mind-readers perform the following trick to develop their skills without worrying about the risk of failure.
Before performing the demonstration, find a deck of cards, separate the red and black cards, and place the stack of red cards on top of the stack of black ones.
Next, find a willing spectator, fan out the top section of the deck (containing only red cards) face down between your hands, and ask your guinea pig to remove a card. Ask them to look at the card but keep its identity secret. While this is happening, close up the deck, and then spread out the bottom section of the deck face down between your hands. Now the spread contains only black cards, whereas previously the participant was choosing from only red cards.
Ask the spectator to replace their card face down into the spread, and close up the deck. Their card will now be the only red card in the black section. Explain that you will try to guess the identity of their card. As you say this, turn the deck towards you, and quickly spread the pack between your hands. You will easily see your spectator's chosen card because it will be the only red card in the black section.
Now shuffle the deck and spread it face up on the table. Hold onto your spectator's wrist as before and lead them along the cards. See if you can pick up subtle cues from their hand. Slowly home in on the section of the deck with their card in it and then, with a dramatic flourish, announce the name of the card.
Straight From the Horse’s Mouth
Wilhelm von Osten was the most curious of men.2 Born in 1834, this unassuming German mathematics teacher had a passion for odd ideas. A strong advocate for the then relatively new theory of evolution, von Osten believed that animals were just as bright as humans, and that the world would be a better place if people could communicate with other species and appreciate their amazing intellect. In 1888, von Osten retired from teaching, moved to Berlin and spent the remainder of his life pursuing his dream.
His initial attempts at uncovering the hidden genius of the animal kingdom involved trying to teach the fundamentals of mathematics to a cat, a bear and a horse. Each day, von Osten would draw numbers on a blackboard and encourage his class to count by moving their paws or hooves an appropriate number of times. In what must be one of the most bizarre school reports ever written, he later described how the cat quickly lost interest in the enterprise and the bear was downright hostile. The horse, however, proved an attentive student and quickly learned how to stamp out any number written on the blackboard. Flushed by this initial success, von Osten expelled the cat and bear from his classroom, and focused solely on equine pupils.
Von Osten acquired a Russian trotting horse called Hans, and together the two of them embarked on another four years of daily training in the fundamentals of mathematics.
In 1904, the duo felt ready for their first public demonstration. A small crowd of spectators were invited into von Osten’s courtyard and asked to form a semi-circle around ‘Clever’ Hans. Von Osten, sporting a long white beard, loose-fitting smock, and floppy black hat, stood to the side of the animal while members of the audience called out mathematical problems. Each time, Clever Hans indicated his answer by stamping his hoof against the cobbles. It was an impressive performance, with Hans correctly answering simple addition and subtraction problems, as well as more complex sums with fractions and square roots. Encouraged by this initial success, von Osten worked with Hans to increase his repertoire. Over time he taught the horse to tell the time, choose which musical tones would improve a harmony, and even answer questions by nodding or shaking his head.
In 1904, psychologist Oskar Pfungst decided to investigate Clever Hans, unaware that the work would guarantee him a place in almost every psychology textbook for the next hundred years. During Pfungst’s carefully controlled studies members of the public were then asked to present Hans with pre-planned questions. To ensure a well-motivated participant, Pfungst rewarded Clever Hans with a small piece of bread, carrot or sugar each time he responded (interestingly, this same procedure still works well with most undergraduate students today). It was not all easy going. Both von Osten and Clever Hans were prone to rage, and Pfungst received several bites during the investigation, the majority of which came from the horse. Regardless, the young German researcher methodically worked his way through a series of groundbreaking tests.
In one study, a series of number cards were first oriented in such a way as to ensure that Clever Hans, von Osten and a questioner could all see the front of the cards. A question was then asked, and Clever Hans stamped his hoof to indicate which card contained the answer. Under these circumstances, Clever Hans demonstrated an impressive 98 per cent success rate. However, when Pfungst altered the orientation of the cards to ensure that only Clever Hans could see the faces of the cards his hit rate dropped to an unimpressive 6 per cent. In another test, von Osten whispered two numbers into Hans’s ear and asked him to add them up. Time and again, Hans stamped out the right response. However, when von Osten whispered one number and Pfungst another, with neither man knowing the other’s number, Hans failed to produce the correct answer.
Pfungst obtained the same pattern in test after test. Whenever von Osten or a questioner knew how Clever Hans should respond, the horse did well. When no one knew the correct response, Hans failed. Pfungst concluded that Clever Hans was not thinking for himself but rather responding to involuntary signals in the facial expressions and body language of those around him. For years von Osten had not been talking to the animals, but instead chatting to himself.
Researchers across the world quickly realized that the general principle uncovered by Pfungst, namely that experimenters may be unknowingly persuading participants to act in a desired way, could have major implications for their work.
Scientists
went in search of the phenomenon – dubbed the ‘Clever Hans effect’ – and found it in several different settings. In one classic experiment rats were randomly divided into two groups, and then given to students who were told that the groups had been selectively bred for good and poor performance in navigating mazes.3 In fact, there was no special breeding at all. The students then ran the rats through mazes and reported results in line with their expectations, with the allegedly ‘bright’ rats making 51 per cent more correct responses than the allegedly ‘dull’ rats.
Similarly, in research called the ‘Pygmalion experiment’, Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal administered a test to an entire year-group of children, telling their teachers that it represented a new technique for predicting intellectual ‘blooming’.4 Teachers were then led to believe that they had been given the names of the children in their class who had obtained the highest scores. In reality, Rosenthal’s test was an ordinary measure of intelligence, and the names of the alleged ‘bloomers’ were chosen at random. At the end of the school year, the children were given the same intelligence test, and the children randomly identified as intellectual ‘bloomers’ scored an average of 15 points more than the other children.
According to Gary Wells, of Iowa State University, this theory could even lead to police officers unwittingly biasing witnesses to choose certain suspects from line-ups, by using exactly the same type of unconscious nonverbal signal that influenced Clever Hans over a hundred years ago.5
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