Fancher, Mollie (1848-1910)

A Brooklyn girl who, because of two serious accidents, became blind and bedridden at age 17, yet lived another 44 years exhibiting remarkable phenomena of clairvoyance and multiple personality. Fancher became known as "the Brooklyn Enigma." She took no food for nine years and lay on her right side in a paralyzed state with twisted limbs; all the natural functions of her body ceased, at times no pulse was felt, and, except for the region of the heart, her body became entirely cold. In this state she was possessed by a different personality that executed delicate fancywork with her crippled hands, wrote beautifully, read books under her pillow clairvoyantly, saw colors in the dark, discovered lost articles, and exhibited astounding traveling clairvoyance. Henry M. Parkhurst, the eminent American astronomer, testified to her reading a torn-up letter that was fished out of a wastepaper basket and enclosed in a sealed envelope.

Fancher's original personality returned after nine years; the bodily rigidity relaxed and she became prey to frightful fits of convulsions. Between such fits, Fancher was possessed by various new invading personalities, called "Sunbeam," "Idol," "Rosebud," "Ruby," and "Pearl." Her personality changed five times in one night, the invaders keeping up a constant quarrel among themselves.

The story of her strange life was narrated by Judge Abram H. Dailey in Mollie Fancher, published in Brooklyn in 1894. The case was also reviewed by Walter Franklin Prince in Bulletin XI of the Boston Society for Psychic Research.