Before I dismiss Eleonore Zugun from these pages, I must relate an incident so startling and dramatic that it deserves a chapter to itself.
In my account of ‘Poltergeist Mediums’ I have told how a metallic and magnetic letter ‘L’ disappeared from a closed and fastened box on the ground floor of our laboratory premises, traversed four flights of stairs and, apparently, fell from the ceiling of the top floor on to Eleonore’s head as she was playing with a fire-spitting mechanical cat. This was on October 1, 1926.
On October 11, I requested the staff responsible for looking after these letters to check their stock again, report to me and then lock the remainder up. This was done, after it had been discovered that the letters ‘C and ‘W were missing. A search was made for them, without success. The ‘W’ has never been seen since, but the ‘C returned in an amazing manner. These magnetic letters played a major rôle during Eleonore’s visit.
The evidence for this story was supplied solely by Dr. R. J. Tillyard, though some of the minor details could be confirmed by Dr. Julian Huxley. Dr. Tillyard, now dead,1 was a distinguished scientist. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and chief entomologist to the Australian Government.
Eleonore and the Countess were returning home on Sunday, October 24, 1926, according to our agreement. I said goodbye to them on the Thursday, October 21, and did not see them again. I was not in London on the Friday, October 22. But what happened on that day was related to me by Dr. Tillyard, whom I saw during the following week. He, too, was due to leave England in a few days. Here, then, is an account of the doctor’s adventures as he told them to me.
On Friday morning, October 22, Dr. Tillyard searched his coat pocket, where he always kept his penknife, which was contained in a leather case with a snap fastener. In the afternoon he again brought out his knife, still in its case. About 8.45 p.m. on the same day he once more brought out his knife to cut the pages of a book and to his amazement found the metallic magnetic letter ‘C tightly threaded on the metal rim of his knife-case and firmly sealing it! Dr. Tillyard fully recorded this extraordinary incident and drew a sketch (reproduced) of the metal letter and knife-case exactly as he found it.
Dr. Tillyard visited the Laboratory on the Friday for a few minutes only. He saw Eleonore and the Countess for a minute or so, and said goodbye to them. Neither came nearer to him than arm’s length; yet to get the ‘C’ on or off the case was a somewhat difficult and fiddling job. No one else was in the Laboratory except my secretary, and Dr. Tillyard informed me that he saw no one and spoke to no one in the building. I am not going to attempt to offer any hypothesis as to how the letter became firmly attached to his knife. As a student of deceptive methods I can see no way in which Dr. Tillyard could have been tricked.
I asked Dr. Tillyard to write out a complete report of the ‘C’ incident, and I will reproduce it in his own words:
OCCURRENCES OF FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1926
Having a very busy day, I had no intention of going to the Laboratory at all. Mr. Price was away, and I had not heard of any arrangements for a séance, though I understood that Professors Thirring and Rankine had arranged for a private séance. Eleonore’s engagement was due to end the following day.
While going to the Underground train in the morning, I felt in my left overcoat pocket for some coppers for my fare. I pulled out what I thought was sixpence, and was just going to present it to the booking office when I noticed that it was a bronze 50-centime French piece. Thinking Eleonore might have put it there somehow, I decided to examine it carefully. Having found some other coppers and got my fare, I settled down in the train and examined the coin, which I discovered was not one of my thirteen marked ones. I therefore placed it carefully away in the left pocket of my coat where I always keep my knife and scissors, and I distinctly remember feeling carefully in the pocket to see if there were any other coins in it and extracting an odd halfpenny, which I transferred to my greatcoat pocket for use on the railway. I also quite clearly felt my knife and scissors, and if anything else had been in the pocket, I am sure I should have noticed it.
I had arranged to lunch with Professor Julian Huxley. We met at King’s College at 1 p.m. and went to the Common Room for luncheon. After lunch we returned to his rooms, where we met Dr. Church, and had a long talk. This man left later, and talk turned to psychic matters. Huxley asked me to demonstrate to him the method of tying thumbs by which I had secured Harold Evans, the physical medium, in a séance held in June last. I consented, and Huxley went to look for some white cotton for which I had asked him. He returned and stated that he could not find any cotton, and asked whether a piece of thin string would do. I said it would, but that it was too long and must be cut (it was too strong to break). I then felt in my left-hand coat pocket for my knife and scissors. These I produced in my left hand, the scissors in a cloth case, the knife in a leather case. While I momentarily debated as to whether I should cut the string with knife or scissors, Huxley had got his own knife out, and we agreed to cut the string together with his knife. I replaced my knife and scissors both in my left hand pocket, and held the string while he cut it in the place indicated by me. I then showed him how I tied the thumb-knots and left special lengths hanging on each side, so as to catch Evans, and he thanked me. At 2.45 p.m. I took my leave, but, just before I went, Huxley presented me with an autographed copy of his book, Essays of a Biologist, for which I thanked him and then walked down the stairs.
That afternoon I went to the Natural History Museum and later attended a meeting of the Association of Economic Biologists at the Botany School of the Imperial College of Science. Having lost my way, I arrived late, but stayed for afternoon tea and a talk with Dr. Pethebridge and Dr. Imms of Rothamsted.
Leaving shortly after five, I took farewell of my Rothamsted friends and began to think what I should do next. I had arranged to go down to my wife’s people at Rochester for the week-end, but had told them I should catch the 8.20 train from Victoria Station. As I had about three hours still to fill in, it suddenly occurred to me that I had not said goodbye to the Countess and Eleonore, so I decided to walk to the Laboratory to do so. Arriving somewhat warm after a brisk walk, I went to the men’s room on the third floor and took my greatcoat off and washed my hands. I then walked upstairs into the Laboratory, where I saw Countess Wassilko sitting at the table writing in a small book of accounts. I stood and talked to her for about two minutes, passing compliments on the success of her visit and finally saying goodbye and shaking hands. I then asked where Eleonore was, and was told that she was probably in the next room, As I thought I heard her playing in the baffle-chamber,2 I went to the door of it, but she disappeared quickly and ran round to the outside of the door of the Laboratory, where she stood smiling at me with a diabolo set in one hand and holding out the other to me. I took her hand and said goodbye, then went out and downstairs, put on my overcoat and walked to the Underground Station at South Kensington. From there I travelled to Charing Cross, picked up my baggage at the cloak-room, returned by the Underground to Victoria, walked up to the restaurant there, and sat down to a quiet dinner at a table all by myself. About 8 p.m. I got up and paid my bill, took a ticket for Rochester and found a seat in the train. Before it started (8.20 p.m.) one other man came in and sat, immersed in his newspaper, opposite me. I had an evening paper, which occupied me about as far as Bromley. Then I took out Huxley’s book from my greatcoat pocket and began to read it. By the time we reached Swanley, I had read eight pages and was then interested enough to be considerably annoyed when I found that the next few pages had not been cut. So I opened my greatcoat, put my hand down into the left pocket of my coat, and felt for my knife to cut the pages with. Then a curious feeling came over me. The knife did not feel like my knife at all. I drew it out and found firmly attached to the metal half-ring of the leather case enclosing it a white metallic ‘C which effectively closed the case. I realised at once that it was the ‘C which had been lost eleven days before from the notice board of the ground floor of 16, Queensberry Place, and the loss of which had been generally attributed to ‘Dracu’.
(Signed) R. J. TILLYARD.
So Eleonore left London with a great flourish of trumpets, psychically speaking, and with the two great mysteries unsolved. We never discovered the secret of either her Poltergeist or stigmatic phenomena. She was surprisingly successful during her visit, considering she was in a strange country surrounded by people speaking a strange language. If her benefactress had not accompanied her, it is doubtful if we should have had any success with her. It often happens that when these young people are separated from friends and relatives, a psychological change comes over them, and phenomena cease.
Eleonore left the Press a legacy in the shape of the word ‘Poltergeist’. Until her visit I never saw the term used in a British newspaper. After her visit the word became common. During her stay with us, all the dailies were full of the ‘Poltergeist Girl’ and her doings. Our experiments familiarised the public with the name, now common enough in newspapers and other lay journals.
I have still to record the strangest phenomenon connected with Eleonore. A few months after she left my laboratory, the menses appeared and, almost overnight, the girl became perfectly normal. No more stigmata, or falling coins, or flying stilettos were witnessed. She also ‘grew up’ mentally very rapidly, and in addition there was a marked physical development.
It has been my experience with many young mediums that the subtle change that takes place at puberty is closely linked with their ‘powers’—a psycho-physiological connection that is beginning to be recognised by those medical men who take an interest in these things.3 In a girl medium the catamenial period seems to be the dividing line between ‘phenomena’ and ‘no phenomena’. The psychic powers of Miss Stella C. did not manifest themselves until she had first menstruated; and it is probably correct to state (although I have no precise information on the subject) that with ‘Teddie’ Fowler, the girl upon whom the ‘Mill on the Eden’ phenomena centred, the advent of menstruation coincided with the cessation of the manifestations. The Schneider boys’ phenomena were not really apparent until after they reached the age of puberty. And I could give further examples of the fact that the development of the sexual functions appears in some way either to stop mediumship, or to reveal what latent psychic powers the subject possesses. Most of the famous mediums, male and female, did not become prominent until adolescence was fairly well advanced.
I am sure that the reader will like to know what became of Eleonore, who is now a young woman of thirty. Well, during the years that she spent with the Countess Wassilko, she was apprenticed by her benefactress to a Vienna firm of ladies’ hairdressers. Here she did well and gained a diploma. A few years before the present war, Eleonore sent me her trade card, and from it I learnt that she had a flourishing business of her own in Czernowitz, Rumania (her native land). From her advertisement I gathered that she was happily and lucratively engaged in catering in every way, from ondulaire to cosmetica, for ‘woman’s crowning glory’—and ‘Dracu’ was no more!