Title: Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research
Abstract: THIS volume is a detailed account of certain alleged supernormal phenomena which occur in the presence of the medium ‘Margery’ (Mrs. L. R. G. Crandon, of Boston, Mass.). They consist mainly in the impressions of thumbs in dental wax, and an account by Dr. R. J. Tillyard of the conditions under which they are produced was printed in NATURE for August 18, 1928, pp. 243 ff., where Fig. 6 is a photograph of one of these impressions. In the leading article of the same date it was pointed out how, assuming the accuracy of Dr. Tillyard's observations, we had little reason to deny the medium's power of producing the thumb-prints of anyone either living or dead. Since then the claim has been made that such prints of living persons (for example, Sir Oliver Lodge) have been produced, but the most interesting development is the alleged discovery that the very large number of prints said to have Teen made by ‘Walter’ (the deceased brother of the medium and her ‘spirit control’) are in reality identical with those of a person living in Boston, who formerly attended a number of sittings and first suggested to ‘Margery’ the use of dental wax as a convenient compound. In the case of the right thumb-print some forty points of similarity are admitted by both sides: in the case of the left, identity appears to be absolute, although the president of the American Society for Psychical Research now claims that the examples printed previously in the Society's publications were not authentic, being substitutions on the part of one of the leading investigators; through carelessness they were not noticed at the time.