Cartheuser, William (ca. 1930)
American direct voice medium. His father was a photo engraver
who had lived near Vienna, and his mother was of Hungarian
origin. Cartheuser was taken to Europe as a child and
lived in Besztercze, Transylvania, until age 16, when the family
returned to the United States. During the 1930s, Cartheuser
resided at the famous Lily Dale Spiritualist Center in New York
State.
Malcolm Bird reported in Psychic Research (1927, p. 166) on
two series of séances that Cartheuser gave in October 1926 to
the American Society for Psychical Research. He found that
one of the voice communicators was actually a living person.
Cartheusers voice mediumship was also investigated by noted
researcher Dr. Nandor Fodor in 1927 at the house of medium
Arthur Ford in New York. Fodor noted that although Cartheuser
had a harelip, there was no impediment in the voices
manifesting during a trumpet séance. Finally, Cartheuser was
investigated by Hereward Carrington, who concluded that a
high percentage of fraud enters into the production of Cartheusers
physical phenomena.
In 1933 nine gramophone recordings of Cartheusers mediumship
were made at the studios of the World Broadcasting
Company in New York. The spirit voices were so loud that
engineers had to ask for them to be lowered. Some voices were
recorded by a microphone at ceiling level.
Sources
Carrington, Hereward. The Invisible World. New York The
Beechhurst Press; B. Ackerman Inc., 1946.
Pincock, Mrs. J. OHara. The Traits of Truth. N.p., 1930.
