People often wonder how organization’s come up with
titles for their publications. So to ease all questions and any
curiosity that people may have of how MRIPA came up with the title of
“The White Crow,” we will elaborate on that in this article. First of
all most credit for the title will be given to Jacqueline Perdue who is
part of MRIPA’s extended family. However, to give more insight for why
we chose “The White Crow,” we have provided the article written by The
Haunted Museum, titled “Leonora Piper: Spiritualism’s Mysterious One
White Crow.”
Leonora Piper: Spiritualism’s Mysterious “One White Crow”
written by The Haunted Museum
www.prairieghosts.com/piper.html
Professor William James of Harvard was one of America’s greatest
psychologists and philosophers. He also was one of the founders of
Pragmatic School of Thought—that only principles that can be
demonstrated not only theoretically, by deduction, but practically, by
use, deserve intelligent consideration. And yet this unbending
pragmatist was converted to a belief in psychic phenomena to such a
degree that he became one of the founding members of the American
Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). The medium who accomplished this
seemingly impossible conversion was a woman named Leonora Piper, who was
the reason that Professor James coined the adage about “the one white
crow that proves that not all crows are black.” She became to him the
one honest Spiritualist medium whose mere existence refuted the charge
that all mediums are fakes. Leonora Simonds Piper was born in Nashua,
New Hampshire in June 1859 and had her first psychic experience when she
was eight years old. She felt a sharp pain in her right ear and then a
whispered voice that said, “Aunt Sara, not dead, but with you still.”
She soon found out from her mother that her Aunt Sara had died at that
very moment.
Years passed and Leonora married William Piper of Boston with whom she
had two daughters. Alta and Minerva. According to Alta, Leonora’s
mediumship began in 1884 after Piper’s father-in-law took her for a
medical consultation with J. R. Cook, a blind clairvoyant who was making
a reputation for psychic cures. Piper lost consciousness at Cook’s touch
and entered into a trance of her own. Later, she attended a home circle
sitting with him and again entered a trance. This time, she produced a
message for one of the other persons present—who considered it to be the
most accurate message he had ever received during his 30 year interest
in Spiritualism. Piper soon began to giver private séances in her home
and this is how she became acquainted with Professor James. Their
initial meeting came about quite casually. James’ mother-in-law, Mrs.
Gibbens, heard about Leonora through friends and since she had never met
with a medium before, decided to schedule an appointment our of
curiosity. After her meeting with Leonora, she returned to her home very
excited and told Professor James that while in a trance, Piper had told
her facts about relatives, alive and dead, that she could not have
possibly known about in any way. Professor James laughed at her
credibility and called her a “victim” of a medium’s trickery. He gave
her an explanation as to how mediums accomplished their fraud but Mrs.
Gibbens refused to consider this and returned for another séance the
following week. This time, she convinced Professor James’ sister-n-law
to go with her. Both women were quite impressed with Leonora’s
capabilities and once again told Professor James of the experience.
Professor James still convinced that Leonora was a fraud he decided to
visit Leonora himself. When he arrived at Leonora’s home he was
surprised to see the complete absence of Spiritualist props—no cabinet,
no red lights, circles of chairs, trumpets or bells.
The sitters, of which there were only two of three others present,
merely sat wherever they liked in the living room. Leonora also
surprised Professor James by her quietness and lack of flamboyancy in
which most mediums possessed. She politely warned her guests that there
would be nothing sensational about the séance and that she did not
manifest spirits or cause things to fly about. She would simply go into
a trance and one of her “spirit guides” would then take over. There
might be or might not be messages given—she had no control over that.
Professor James was impressed with his experience. Leonora was able to
summon up the names of his wife’s father and even that of a child that
he and his wife had lost the previous year. He gave Leonora no
information to work with and in fact, was purposely quiet throughout the
séance. Professor James later wrote: “My impression after this first
visit was that Leonora Piper was either possessed of supernatural powers
or knew the members of my wife’s family by sight and had by some lucky
coincidence became acquainted with such a multitude of their domestic
circumstances as to produce the startling impression which she did. My
later knowledge of her sittings and personal acquaintance with her has
led me to absolutely reject the latter explanation, and to believe that
she has supernatural powers.”
Leonora’s capabilities was considered to be so extraordinary that she
was taken to England for 83 sittings men considered to be the premier
physical researchers of that time, including Henry Sidgwick, Sir Oliver
Lodge, Sir William Barrett, F.W.H. Meyers, and Dr. Walter Leaf. Leonora
did extremely well and continued to amaze even the most hardened of
investigators. Hodgson published a report of his work with Leonora in
1892, but in 1898, Hodgson revised his publication by completely
accepting Leonora as being genuine.
In 1901, Leonora returned to the United States. The New York Herald
published a story about her that was headlined, “Mrs. Piper’s Plain
Statement.” Some people claimed that she confessed to fraud in this
statement but she did not. In fact, she wrote only that she could not be
sure that she was being controlled by spirits but that she thought
perhaps her information came from extrasensory perception (ESP) instead.
Leonora returned to England in 1906 and took part in the complex network
of medium communications known as Cross Correspondences. Her
contributions were again outstanding but unfortunately after Leonora
returned to the United States in 1908, her sittings were badly managed.
The psychologists, G. Stanley Hall and Amy Tanner were allowed to
experiment with her until 1909, and while Tanner later wrote a book
about the research called Studies in Spiritualism (1910), the sittings
were unorganized and often questionable. Sittings were largely devoted
to personal matters, sitters were left unsupervised and records were
occasionally taken. Leonora was also subjected to very harsh treatment,
evidently in order to test the depths of her trance. This was a period
in psychic studies when mediums were often mistreated, including
intimate searches and near-torture experiences to see if they were
actually unconscious. Leonora’s daughter, Alta, later stated that she
suffered from a “badly blistered and swollen tongue which caused her
mother considerable pain and inconvenience for several days.”
Because of the mistreatment that she received, Leonora temporarily
suspended her practice until about 1911. When she resumed her seances,
she did her readings in the form of automatic writing rather than
receiving messages in a trance like state. When Leonora returned to the
United States again in 1912, she stopped working for almost 10 years.
She worked with a few other investigators for a short time and then
retired completely in 1927.
Leonora Piper died on July 3, 1950 and has since come to be regarded as
a medium of the first rank. She gave much of her life in the service of
science and as a result, many who had previously doubted the possibility
of life after death became convinced of that possibility after
experiencing Leonora’s capabilities. One of those, of course Professor
James, whose words about Leonora Piper have long survived his own
passage from this world.
“To upset the conclusion that all crows are black, there is no need to
seek demonstration that no crows are black; it is sufficient to produce
one white crow; a single one is sufficient.”