by Joe Nickell
The claim that an effigy is in some way animated (from anima, “breath”) crosses a theological line from veneration (reverence toward an image) to idolatry (or image worship) in which the image itself is regarded as the “tenement or vehicle of the god and fraught with divine influence” (Encyclopedia Britannica 1960). Nevertheless, reports of weeping, bleeding, and otherwise animated figures continue. In one modern case, in Sardinia, in which a small statue wept blood, samples were analyzed; the DNA proved to be that of the statue’s owner. Yet her attorney reasoned, “Well, the Virgin Mary had to get that blood from somewhere” (Nickelll997).
“Salty tears” were said to flow from another image in Pavia, Italy, in 1980. No one witnessed the initial weeping, only the flows in progress, and the owner seemed to be alone with the figure (a small plaster bas-relief) whenever it wept. Soon, suspicious persons, peeking through the windows and a hidden hole in an adjacent apartment, saw the owner apply water to the bas-relief with a water pistol (Nickell 1997)!
In 1996, in Toronto, pilgrims were charged $2.50 at a Greek Orthodox church to view an icon that “wept” oil. As it happened, the priest had once presided over another “weeping” icon in New York, and had even been defrocked for working in a brothel in Athens. I was involved in the case twice, the second time at the request of the parent church. With a fraud-squad detective standing by, I took samples of the oily “tears” for the Center of Forensic Sciences. The substance proved to be a nondrying oil, as expected; its use is an effective trick, since one application remains fresh-looking indefinitely. Because no one could prove who perpetrated the deception the case fizzled, but the church’s North American head pronounced it a hoax (Nickell 1997, Hendry 1997).
One interesting feature of the exuding icons is the variety of substances involved (blood, salt water, oil, etc.), as well as the different effects (e.g., weeping tears, sweating blood, exuding oil). When the cases are collected and compared, some trends become apparent. In Catholicism, the images tended to yield blood or watery tears until relatively recently, when—more in line with the Greek Orthodox tradition (possibly due to a number of oil-weeping or -exuding icons at such churches that received media attention)—there has been a shift to oil (see, e.g., Nickell 1999).
For instance, among the reputed miracles that attended a comatose girl at a Catholic family’s home in Massachusetts in the 1990s were oil-dripping statues and images. Analysis of one sample of oil found that it was 80 percent vegetable oil and 20 percent chicken fat, according to The Washington Post, which ordered the test. Such a concoction would have been readily available in a home kitchen (Nickell 1999).
Interestingly, icons in the Russian Orthodox tradition seem, rather uniquely, to exude myrrh—or rather, apparently, myrrh-scented oil. Myrrh is a fragrant gum resin used in making incense, perfume, and herbal medicines, and in ancient times it was also employed in embalming. (For instance, it was one of the spices used in Jesus’ burial, interspersed with his linen wrappings [John 19:39-40].) Indeed, in St. Petersburg in 1998, when an unidentified mummy began to exude a myrrh-like substance, it was regarded as a miracle that helped identify the remains as the lost relics of a sixteenth-century saint, Alexander of Svira. His relics had disappeared in 1919 when Bolsheviks seized them during repressive actions against the church. “According to Orthodox tradition,” explains one source, “the appearance of fragrant liquids on relics is a miracle and means they belong to a saint” (Laguado 1998). Although forensic experts cautioned against a rush to judgment, priests were satisfied that droplets of the substance between the mummified toes were myrrh and therefore evidence of a miracle. They seem to have ignored the possibility that myrrh could simply have been used in the embalming.
Given this cultural backdrop, it is not surprising to find that Russian Orthodox icons—when they are in a reputedly miraculous mode— tend to yield myrrh as the substance of choice. This is true even of icons at Russian Orthodox monasteries in the United States. In 1985, an icon in Blanco, Texas, was discovered “weeping Myrrh.” The Christ of the Hills Monastery subsequently produced a brochure advertising itself as a “Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” claiming “She weeps tears for all mankind.” Anointment with the tears from this icon had produced “great miracles,” including “cures of cancer, leukemia, blindness, mental illness” and so on (“Shrine” n.d.).
Similarly, in 1991, an icon that now reposes in a Russian Orthodox monastery in Resaca, Georgia, commenced to “exude myrrh.” It welled in the eyes of the Virgin Mary and was held to be “the external tears of the Mother of God, revealed in the Weeping Ikon”—according to an advertising brochure circulated by the monastery (“All-Holy” n.d.).
In 1998, in Moscow, an icon portraying the last czar, Nicholas II, reportedly produced myrrh almost daily after a parishioner brought it to the church on 7 November, the date of the Russian revolution in 1917. Nicholas—along with the czarina, their children, servants, and a personal physician—was assassinated on the night of 16 June 1918. (Eventually their remains were discovered, identified through DNA, and given a funeral in 1998.) (“Church” 1999).
When I learned I was going to Moscow, I resolved to try to track down the lachrymose icon of Czar Nicholas. Subsequently, friend and colleague Valerii Kuvakin and I made our way by bus and Moscow’s excellent subway system to one of the oldest districts in the city, where we soon found the onion-domed church called the Church of Nikola in Pyzhakh. There, as we looked around the interior, we observed the usual proliferation of icons, displayed on the iconastasis (a high screen that separates the sanctuary from the nave) and elsewhere. At least one depicted a weeping female saint, and I wondered if such depictions might have sparked the idea of “actual” weeping icons. On making inquiry about taking photographs, we learned that they were prohibited, although a few rubles later we had permission to take a single picture. We also obtained a devotional card featuring the icon of the czar (FIGURE 39-1).
We were surprised to learn, according to the text on the reverse of the card, that the miraculous icon was only a color photocopy. The original was painted by an American artist commissioned to glorify “the suffering czar.” In 1987 a monk brought it to Russia, where photocopies were made, and one of those photocopies was received in Moscow in 1998. After prayers were made on the czar’s behalf, the picture became fragrant on 6 September and began weeping on 7 November. Actually, the word used translates as “myrrhing”—that is, “yielding myrrh.” The picture went on tour in Russia, Belorussia, and Serbia, and more than a dozen “healing miracles” were attributed to “the myrrhing image of our last czar,” and thousands of believers who prayed to him supposedly received help and support.
FIGURE 39-1. Previously myrrh-exuding icon of the last czar, Nicholas II, shown on a devotional card.
Unfortunately, when we visited the church the icon was no longer weeping. Nevertheless, people were coming into the sanctuary every few minutes to view the icon: typically they kissed the glass that covered it and prayed, though a few even prostrated themselves before it. When I was able to get a look at the icon myself, I could see that, indeed, it was merely a cheap facsimile. I sought to learn more about the circumstances of the previous “myrrhing,” but Valerif s questions to the church staff were met with obvious suspicion (because, Valerii concluded, we were not showing devotion). We therefore learned little apart from press reports and the text of the devotional card.
The staffs reaction made me suspicious in turn, as 1 have more than once found a wary attitude masking pious fraud. Further suspicions are raised by the fact that, as we have seen, other “weeping” icons have been proven or suspected to be fakes; that Russian Orthodox icons exhibit a culturally distinct form of the “miracle” (“myrrhing”); and that the phenomenon occurred at a time when there was a campaign to bestow sainthood on Czar Nicholas II and his family. The patriarch of the church, Alexy 11, opposed the canonization, stating that the imperial family were undeserving because of their poor leadership of both chu
rch and state (“Church” 1999). The “miracle” seems an attempt to counter that view by faking a semblance of divine approval.
REFERENCES
“The All-Holy Theotokos.” N.d. Brochure of the [Russian] Orthodox Monastery of the Glorious Ascension, Resaca, Georgia.
Church to test Moscow icon. 1999. AOL News (AP), 30 January.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1960. s.v. “Idolatry.”
Hendry, Luke. 1997. “Weeping” icon called a fake. Toronto Star, 28 August.
Laguado, Alice. 1998. Orthodox Church sanctifies mummy. Arizona Republic, 22 August.
Nickelljoe. 1997. Those tearful icons. Free Inquiry 17, no. 2 (Spring): 5, 7, 61.
———. 1999. Miracles or deception? The pathetic case of Audrey Santo. Skeptical Inquirer 23, no. 5 (September/October): 16-18.
Richardson, Dan. 1998. Moscow: The Rough Guide. London: Rough Guides, Ltd.
“Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” N.d. Brochure of the Christ of the Hills Monastery, Blanco, Texas.
40
Spiritualist’s Grave
Among the sites that supposedly make Australia “a very haunted continent” is the Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney (International 2000). One of the graves there has a profound link to spiritualism and once attracted famed magician Harry Houdini. It is the burial place of William Davenport (1841-1877), one of the notorious Davenport Brothers and the subject of an interesting story.
Ira and William Davenport debuted as spiritualists in Buffalo, New York, in 1854, when they were yet schoolboys (aged 15 and 13 respectively). Soon they were touring the world giving demonstrations of alleged spirit phenomena. While the pair were securely tied in a special “spirit cabinet,” the “spirits” played musical instruments and performed other “manifestations” in darkened theaters.
On July 1, 1877, while they were on tour in Australia, the longailing younger brother William died and was buried at Rookwood. Decades later, in 1910, while Houdini was himself on tour there (and incidentally entered Australian history by becoming the country’s first successful aviator), the great magician/escape artist paid a visit to the grave, accompanied by magicians Allan Shaw and Charles J. Carter (Christopher 1976,60-83).
Houdini (1924, 17-37) found the grave “sadly neglected” and so, he wrote, “I had it put in order, fresh flowers planted on it and the stone work repaired.” Subsequently, when Houdini met the surviving Davenport brother, Ira was so moved by Houdini’s act of kindness that he confessed the brothers’ tricks, even teaching his fellow escapologist “the famous Davenport rope-tie, the secret of which,” Houdini noted, “had been so well kept that not even his sons knew it.”
My own interest in the Davenport brothers was renewed when I was able to help bring to light the contents of their personal scrapbook (Nickell 1999). I had continued my interest in the duo by locating and visiting Ira’s grave in Mayville, New York. Now, finding myself in Sydney, I determined to recreate Houdini’s visit to William’s grave. I was accompanied by Peter Rodgers and by another magician, Kent Black-more (both of whom had visited the site in 1983).
The Rookwood Cemetery is huge, and thus it took us some time to relocate the grave (in the Church of England Necropolis, section E, grave number 848). Armed with weed clippers and a bouquet of fresh flowers, we soon made the site presentable once again. The gravestone’s inscription reads: “Sacred to the dearly beloved memory of William Henry Harrison Davenport of the Davenport Brothers. Born at Buffalo U.S.A. Feb. 1st 1841 and who departed this life July 1st 1877 after a long and painful illness which he bore with great courage and gentleness. May he rest in peace. Erected by his loving wife.” On the reverse of the stone is inscribed: “To William, / from his brother Ira. / Dear brother I would learn from thee / And hasten to partake thy bliss. / To thy world, Oh welcome me / As first I welcomed thee to this.”
Like the trio who preceded us in 1910, we three magi posed for photographs to record the event (FIGURE 40-1). Alas, neither William Davenport’s nor any other spirit put in an appearance, as far as we could tell. Nevertheless, it was an occasion to recall those who lived in earlier times and to reflect on how things have since changed and yet remained much the same. For instance, although the physical manifestations of spiritualism’s earlier era have largely been supplanted by mental mediumship (as practiced by spiritualists like John Edward and James Van Praagh [see chapter 21]), the attraction to alleged spirit communication continues.
FIGURE 40-1. Trio of magicians—Joe Nickell, Peter Rodgers, and Kent Blackmore— recreating the 1910 gathering of Houdini and friends at the grave of spiritualist William Davenport.
So does the interest in other paranormal claims. Although during my time Down Under I pursued several mysteries that had a decidedly Australian flavor, they nevertheless represented many of the same themes—hauntings, monsters, etc.—that are found virtually everywhere. How familiar is the strange, we might say, and even, considering Australia’s distinctive offerings, how strange the familiar.
REFERENCES
Christopher, Milbourne. [1976] 1998. Houdini: A Pictorial Biography. Reprinted New York: Gramercy Books.
Houdini, Harry. [1924] 1972. A Magician Among the Spirits. Reprinted New York: Arno Press.
International Haunted Places. 2000. Retrieved 4 August 2000 from http://freehosting2.at.webjump.com/269be35db/ha/haunted-places/International. htm
Nickell, Joe. 1999. The Davenport Brothers. Skeptical Inquirer 23, no. 4 (July/ August): 14-17.
41
Incredible Stories
Charles Fort and His Followers
Mystery-mongering sells. Why else would Barnes and Noble issue a 1998 edition of The World’s Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Timesl Originally published in London (Sisman 1992), this collection of oddities, anomalies, and occult claims is (as its subtitle indicates) in the tradition of Charles Fort. Fort (1874-1932) loved to challenge “orthodox” scientists with things they supposedly could not explain, like rains of fish or frogs (Fort 1941).
In the introduction to Incredible Stories, Lyall Watson paints a typically fortean, typically disparaging view of science: an endeavor that “claims to be objective” but is “inherently conservative and resistant to change,” even a fundamentally “political process” that “depends on personal preference, upon the votes of a scientific jury—every member of which would be disqualified from any normal inquiry on the basis of blatant conflict of interest.”
FIGURE 41-1. Grave of Charles Fort (1874-1932). (Photo by Joe Nickell.)
To Watson, what is needed is “a truly impartial investigator—a sort of scientific ombudsman—to provide the voice of reason, to speak out for curious individuals against the vested interests of those in authority.” Fort fits the bill, says Watson, who seems to speak for forteans everywhere when he states, “I know that there is a vast field of unusual experience from all over the world, just waiting to be examined. The problem is that reports of it are, by their very nature, anecdotal, and therefore dismissed as unacceptable to science.”
In fact, however, Charles Fort did not actually investigate reported occurrences. Having come into an inheritance that permitted him to sit comfortably and indulge his hobby, he spent his last 26 years scouring old periodicals for reports of mysterious occurrences, giving the distinct impression that he believed whatever was asserted was true—or at least suitable for taunting members of the scientific “priestcraft.” Thus Fort is the poster boy for the limits of anecdotal evidence, and his armchair mystery-mongering attitude is continued by Adam Sisman, who selected and edited the 1992 collection of tales.
Some items in the collection are non-mysteries, like a runaway wallaby; and others are merely Ripleyesque: a six-legged lamb (Sisman 1992, 10), identical twins who gave birth on the same day (20), and a stationers’ shop named Reid & Wright (22). There is even some genuine skepticism, such as with the reports of “wolf children” who are acknowledged as probably being mentally and physically handicapped (102). A token handful of ho
axes and urban legends—that is, ones actually recognized as such—are also included (188-91).
Nevertheless, numerous mysteries touted in the book as allegedly paranormal are bogus. For example, the front cover portrays “Psychic Katie,” with copper foil apparently having materialized on her body. Yet this, along with one of Katie’s other feats—producing glass gems from her eye—was easily duplicated by CSICOP investigators for an October 1990 episode of the Unsolved Mysteries television program. Slow-motion study of the gem feat showed that the object was apparently hidden between her fingers (Nickell 1997).
Regarding Atlanta’s 1987 “House of Blood” mystery, the fortean book relates how the elderly residents had described blood springing from the floor “like a sprinkler” and claims that it had appeared “in narrow spaces virtually impossible for a person to reach” (Sisman 1992, 93). In fact, a Skeptical Inquirer article from the spring of 1989 quoted a police detective as suggesting that the affair was a hoax, and a subsequent investigation I conducted in 1994 provided corroborative evidence. Expert blood-pattern analysis of police photographs revealed that the blood had been squirted onto surfaces, rather than having spurted from them as the residents had asserted (Nickell 1995, 92-97).
In describing “The Aerial Fakir,” the Sisman book boasts that Subbayah Pullavar once levitated and “remained horizontal in the air for about four minutes.” An accompanying photograph documents the feat (166-67). Unfortunately, in stage magician’s parlance, the effect was not a levitation but only a suspension, since one hand rested on a rod wrapped in cloth. The secret of such suspensions, consistent with the details of Pullavar’s performance, is illustrated in conjuring texts (e.g., Gibson 1967, 81-83).
