Pap, Lajos (1883-?)

Hungarian carpenter and nonprofessional medium for apports and telekinesis. A resident of Budapest, his powers first manifested in 1922 in a casual sitting for table movement and were developed by Major Cornelius Seefehlner, Dr. John Toronyi, and later by Dr. Elmer Chengery Pap (not a relative), a retired chief chemist to the government and president of the Budapest Metapsychical Society. For some years Lajos Pap gave joint sittings with Tibor Molnar, another Hungarian medium. "Rabbi Isaac," his control, first communicated through table rapping, then through trance speaking.

Chengery Pap gradually developed scientific control, not only searching the medium and dressing him in a special séance robe but also providing special garments for his immediate controls and searching every sitter. The medium wore luminous stripes; the sitters tied luminous straps on their ankles and wrists. Instead of red light, a 100 watt green lamp was used; Pap permitted it to be switched on during the proceedings for repeated examination.

Under such conditions telekinetic movements of luminous baskets, strange white and colored lights, and the arrival of hundreds of living and inanimate objects were observed. The majority of the apports were small animals and insects, including living beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, frogs, lizards, birds, mice, fish, and squirrels, as well as liquids, perfumes, flowers, and other objects.

In an article in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 38), Theodore Besterman described a sitting with Lajos Pap at John Toronyi's flat on November 18, 1928. He witnessed telekinetic phenomena and the apport of three stones. However, Besterman's verdict was fraud, and his general attitude was the subject of a strongly worded protest addressed by Pap's advocates to the Society for Psychical Research.

For an amusing account of the phenomena of Lajos Pap and probable explanation of the rationale of fraud, see the chapter "Apports of a Carpenter" in Nandor Fodor's The Haunted Mind (1959). Fodor also indulged some shrewd speculations about the psychology of fraud.

Sources:

Fodor, Nandor. The Haunted Mind. New York: Helix Press, 1959.