Firman, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. (ca. 1876)
Firman, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. (ca. 1876)
British mediums who claimed to be controlled by "John King" and produced direct voice phenomena. Mrs. Firman produced wax molds (see plastics ) and materialization of spirit forms.
William Oxley, author of Modern Messiahs and Wonder Work-ers (1889), claimed to have observed a total dematerialization of the medium while the phantom was outside the cabinet. The phantoms either shrank through the floor or rose to the ceiling and slowly disappeared. Similarly, Emma Hardinge Britten wrote of the production of the mold of a spirit foot in her Nineteenth Century Miracles (1883). The Honorable J. L. O'Sullivan recorded in The Spiritualist an instance of May 4, 1877, when four spirits were present at once with the sleeping form of the medium plainly visible.
Unfortunately, when mediums claimed to do materializations, discovery of fraud usually followed, and the Firmans were no exception. There was a very serious disclosure in the Procès des Spirites by Mme. P. G. Leymarie (Paris, 1875), according to which Mr. Firman was detected in Paris masquerading as an Indian spirit and left his mantle in the hands of the woman who seized him.