William Cartheuser (January 19, 1890 – February 25, 1966) was an American spiritualist medium.Anderson, Rodger. (2006). Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies. McFarland & Company. p. 26.
Career
Cartheuser originally worked as a mechanic.MacComas, Henry C. (1937). Ghosts I Have Talked With. Williams & Wilkins Company. p. 32 He became a direct-voice medium who had utilized trumpets in his séances. He was investigated by members of the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1927, he held a séance with Nandor Fodor in New York.Guiley, Rosemary. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. Guinness Publishing. pp. 124-125 Psychical researchers suspected Cartheuser was fraudulent.
In 1928, he conducted séances with the spiritualist Jenny O'Hara Pincock in Ontario, Canada.Dagg, Anne Innis. (2001). The Feminine Gaze: A Canadian Compendium of Non-Fiction Women Authors and Their Books, 1836-1945. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 239. McMullin, Stanley Edward. (2004). Anatomy of a Seance: A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 129-160. Pincock originally endorsed Cartheuser as a genuine medium but later broke connections, suggesting that he had turned his mediumship into a financial scheme.
Cartheuser was investigated by the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington. He concluded that "a high percentage of fraud enters into the production of Cartheuser's physical phenomena."Carrington, Hereward. (1946). Chapter Trumpet Mediums. In The Invisible World. New York: The Beechhurst Press.Shepard, Leslie. (1985). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Gale Research Company. p. 210
Psychologist Henry C. McComas who observed Cartheuser at many sittings, detected his trickery. Cartheuser would get up from his chair, move the trumpets and produce all the voices himself.MacComas, Henry C. (1937). Ghosts I Have Talked With. Williams & Wilkins Company. pp. 49-53
Death Cartheuser died February 25, 1966, in Los Angeles, California.
References