Quick Facts
Biography
Stanisława Tomczyk was a Polish Spiritualist medium in the early 20th century.
Career
Tomczyk was the subject of experiments in 1908-09 at Wisła, in southern Poland, by the psychologist Julian Ochorowicz. Reportedly Tomczyk was regularly hypnotized by him for therapeutic purposes and she claimed to be controlled by an entity, "Little Stasia" ("Stasia" being a diminutive of Tomczyk's given name, "Stanisława"), who said she was not the spirit of any dead person. Tomczyk claimed she could levitate objects without contact, stop the movement of a clock in a glass case, and influence the turn of a roulette wheel.
She was tested during eleven sittings by the Society for Psychical Research in Great Britain between June 2 and July 13, 1914 in informal experiments admittedly not subject to rigid control with "inconclusive results", the most striking demonstration being the momentary levitation of a celluloid ball about 9 inches above a table with her hands about a quarter of an inch away.
Scientists suspected that the telekinesis Tomczyk was performing involved the use of a fine thread or hair, running between her hands to lift and suspend the objects in the air. This was confirmed when psychical researchers who tested Tomczyk occasionally observed the thread.
On one occasion, psychologist Julian Ochorowicz saw a black thread between her hands and in numerous photographs taken by Ochorowicz and later investigators a thread was sometimes visible.
Tomczyk's levitation of a glass beaker was exposed and replicated in 1910 by the magician William S. Marriott by means of a hidden thread.
In 1919, Tomczyk married the psychical researcher Everard Feilding, who was the Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research.