Craddock, Frederick G. Foster (ca. 1920)
British materialization medium with a colorful career, several
times exposed in imposture. As early as 1879, in Manchester,
the materialized spirit Rosetta was grabbed and the light
revealed the medium in his shirt and one stocking. Craddock
recovered from this incident and went on to practice his mediumship
for many years. In 1904 he came back into the public
limelight when Henry Llewellyn and Gambier Bolton related
their experiences in Boltons book Psychic Force (1904).
In 1906 Craddock was dragged into court by the Daily Express
newspaper for obtaining money under false pretenses. Lt.
Col. Mark Mayhew, writing in Light, March 24, 1906, described
how the spirit Abdullah was seized and found to be the medium.
Those present at the session also saw Craddock remove a
false moustache and put it in his pocket.
Admiral Usborne Moore, also present at the sitting, then
had the doors locked, took the key, and commanded a search.
Craddock placed himself in a fighting position and his wife attacked
the admiral with a fire shovel. The search was conducted
anyway. In a drawer a small electric torch was found, the instrument
of spirit lights. Craddock would not allow the search of
his person. For this reason Moore, in Glimpses of the Next Slate
(1911), could not excuse him.
Moore concluded, however, that Craddock was apparently
in trance at the moment he was seized for when he scrambled
up into his chair he chattered in the voice of Graem, his principal
control. Moore believed that Graem was an undesirable
spirit. Admiral Moore concluded that Craddock was a sensitive
who had prostituted his gift. Even if the voices of Graem and
Red Crow, a Native American control, could be assumed, he
argued that it would be impossible to reproduce constantly and
faithfully the voices and special modes of speech of Adler,
Sister Aimee, Joey Grimaldi and the French girl Cerise.
Moores opinion now seems somewhat naive, considering
the varied performances of stage ventriloquists who can reproduce
a number of different voices at high speed. As for the impersonated
spirit Abdullah, Moore recorded that he saw him
twice in Toledo, through the mediumship of Mr. and Mrs. J.
B. Jonson.
As a consequence of the exposure by Mayhew, Craddock was
fined in the Edgware Police Court 10 pounds or one months
imprisonment. A week after Mayhews article, William McDougall,
of Oxford, told the story in Light, March 31, 1906, of a similar
experience with Craddock six years before. Abdullah, the
spirit, was found to be identical to Craddock. The story was
originally related in the spiritualist magazine, The Two Worlds,
but the editor withheld the name of the medium.
As a result of the scandal surrounding his 1906 exposures,
Craddock withdrew from the limelight, but he did not give up
professional mediumship. H. Dennis Bradley in The Wisdom of
the Gods (1925) describes a direct voice sitting with him on December
5, 1924. Seemingly oblivious to the mechanisms of materialization
and unaware of his former exposure, Bradley asserts,
Throughout I could not help feeling a suggestion of supernormal
impersonation. On the whole I am inclined to think
that Craddock has considerable powers but I should imagine
that these powers vary. His guides appeared to me to be very
evasive in their replies to questions verging on any evidential
point. I am inclined to think his mediumship is more upon the
physical than the mental plane.
A few years later, in his The Tragedy of the Heavens (1930),
Walter Gibbons described Craddock as one of the greatest direct
voice mediums, as
The possessor of a power that is unique in strength and
quality, and should he choose to utilize his exceptional gifts for
gain, he could, by reason of so doing, be an exceedingly
wealthy man. However, this could never be, so he lives the life
of a recluse in a small country cottage in very humble circumstances,
mainly supported by one or two friends.
Reading all the evidence, however, one would have to be excessively
charitable to believe that Craddock was other than a
persistent fraud.
Sources
Bradley, H. Dennis. The Wisdom of the Gods. London T. Werner
Lavrie Ltd., 1925.
Exposures of Mr. Craddock. Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research 12.
Gibbons, Walter. The Tragedy of the Heavens. N.p., 1930
