APPORTS
Apports are objects that suddenly appear (materialize) in Spiritualist séances whose origin is attributed to the action of spirits. In some cases they are attributed to the spirits having materialized an object de novo and other times to their transporting the object from a remote location. In the later case, the object may actually belong to one of the sitters at the séance.
Through the early twentieth century, the appearance of apports was a popular feature of Spiritualist séances, and considerable energy was expended on theoretical speculations on the conditions that would support the reality of such objects. The theorizing became more complicated when living objects, flowers being among the most common, began to appear.
In the early twentieth century, as scrutiny of mediums by psychical researchers became common, many tried to understand the phenomenon of apports, but increasingly, as fraud rose to the top as the most likely explanation, observers tightened the conditions under which mediums operated. Initially, apport frauds were discovered inadvertently, as was the case with Australian Charles Bailey, who at Grenoble, France, in 1910, produced two live birds during a séance. He was unaware that the dealer from whom he obtained the birds would be among those present at the séance. Through the twentieth century, a number of Bailey's fellow mediums were found to be operating fraudulently, and the appearances of apports declined markedly.
Today it is assumed that the production of apports by mediums would break a variety of natural laws, and that none have demonstrated their manifestation under test conditions. The production of apports in a séance would thus be a direct evidence of trickery. Among the most recent exposés of mediumistic fraud relative to apports was made by former medium Lamar Keene in the 1970s. He discussed the manner in which he produced apports by stage magic, often taking small objects from the homes of prospective sitters, only to return the objects during a séance.
Text from The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena by J. Gordon Melton (Visible Ink Press, 2008)
