Palladino was born in the Neapolitan district of poor peasants who died when she was a mere child. Naturally bright, even shrewd, her perceptive instinct seems to have developed early in life and continued throughout her career though she had no education and to the end was scarcely able to read or write.
Her first contact with the mysterious arts appears to have been when she was a mere child of thirteen (1867) in the service of an acrobat or conjuror[46] from whom she must have acquired some degree of skill and knowledge of the uncanny which she may have coupled up with the marvellous success achieved by Home, and her quick wit may have opened visions of a change from poverty to that affluence which she saw was the reward of the professional phenomena producer, for she began her Spiritualistic work just following his successful operations in Italy which served to spread Spiritualism in spite of Papal opposition. Her part must have been learned well and her plans carefully laid before she made her debut as a full fledged medium because she succeeded from the start in baffling brainy men of science, and while as the wife of a small shop-keeper she was very poor, she became wealthy within twenty years after taking up mediumistic work.
She did not attract the attention of the public until about 1880 when Professor Chiaia, who had been giving her a lot of attention without detecting her methods, challenged Professor Lombroso, at that time the most distinguished scientific man in Italy, to investigate her. Professor Lombroso did, but failed to detect any fraudulent work though his decision was delayed for so long a time that when it was finally given it was claimed that his mentality had weakened considerably.[47]
In 1892 Palladino had begun to attract the attention of scientific men in different Italian cities and had also been brought to the notice of some of the English Spiritualists but it was not until 1894 that she went to France. This trip was brought about through the influence of Professor Richet, and Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Sidgwick, and Mr. Myers took part in the proceedings. On the return of Lodge and Myers to England they aroused interest in Palladino by reporting her phenomena to be genuine.
The first exposure of Palladino was made by Dr. Richard Hodgson in 1895. A committee from the English Society for Psychical Research, consisting of Hereward Carrington, Hon. Everard Feilding, and Wortly W. Baggally, which had held a series of test seances with Palladino in Italy, brought her to England for a fresh try-out and another series of sittings was held. Very early in the series suspicious movements on the part of the medium were observed. Later Dr. Hodgson joined the circle and was able to show conclusively that by clever manipulation—sheer trickery—she was getting one hand free and with it making the movements observed.
Her method[48] was to begin by allowing one hand to be firmly held by the sitter at her side (say on the left) and let the fingers of her other hand (right) rest on that of the sitter on her right. In the course of some rapid spasmodic movements she would bring the sitters’ hands so close together that one of her own could do duty for two, being held by one sitter while its fingers rested on the hand of the other sitter,[49] leaving her (Palladino’s) right hand free to produce the desired “phenomena” after which it was restored to its original position. Other devices equally dishonest were observed or inferred.
All of these men were experienced seance observers[50] but the report of their conclusions shows how easily such experts were deceived by the very tricks which were later proved fraudulent by the New York branch of The Society for Psychical Research. Mr. Feilding’s reports were the least positive of the three and show that when the best phenomena were observed the control was not complete and that the stenographic notes were deficient, and when read over the day following the sitting they seemed weak in comparison with a recollection of the manifestations. That the final reports were based largely on these recollections is indicated by Mr. Feilding’s statement that:
“We were forced from our proposed colorless attitude to one of almost proselyting affirmation.”
When Palladino came to America in 1908 she was beginning to be world famous and her reputation was established; she was a shrewd woman with a large experience in the art of misdirection, and with a convenient subterfuge of unaccommodating Spirit guides whenever her own resources were exhausted because of some over-zealous observer. For twenty years or more she had avoided detection because she had fixed the conditions under which tests were made and consequently as scientific investigations they were simply farces. But in New York conditions were introduced which she did not approve for the simple reason that she did not know that they existed. Another difference was that in New York a number of rehearsals were held and each investigator was assigned to a special part of the work, thus guarding against the old trick of drawing the attention away from the place where a manifestation suddenly developed. The result was Palladino’s downfall.
On her arrival in New York a group of Columbia professors became interested in Palladino and arranged for a series of ten test seances at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a sitting. Eight of the ten seances had been held and though a majority of the professors were satisfied that she was cheating they were unable to prove it. Although the seances were being conducted secretly by the scientists one of them, Professor Dickinson S. Miller, discussed Palladino’s best trick, table levitation, with a friend of mine, Mr. W. S. Davis, himself an ex-medium whose seances were always given under test conditions. Davis not only explained to the Professor the probable method used by Palladino but demonstrated it as well with the result that the Professor declared that a full exposure of Palladino should be made even if it cost ten thousand dollars and invited Davis to aid at the next seance candidly admitting that he and his associates were incapable of proper investigation.