Fay, Annie Eva (ca. 1855-1927)

Famous American medium who demonstrated on the theatrical stage, where she produced phenomena quite similar to that of the Davenport brothers. Born as Anna Eva Heathman in Southington, Ohio, she was driven from home by her stepmother. She gave her first exhibition in an old schoolhouse in Ohio. Her first husband, Henry Cummings Melville Fay, had been denounced as a fraud by Spiritualists, and his appearance on the stage with Annie Fay immediately threw doubt on the authenticity of Annie's performance, billed as "The Indescribable Phenomenon."

Her public performances in London in 1874 at the Crystal Palace aroused the interest of researcher Sir William Crookes, who was then finishing a series of tests on the mediumship of Florence Cook. The phenomena involved the movement of objects and playing of musical instruments in the dark. Annie Fay was tested by Crookes at his house in London in February 1875. Crookes had Fay hold two electrodes in an electrical circuit connected with a galvanometer in an adjoining room, which indicated any variation in the medium's grip. Under these circumstances, a heavy musical box was moved across the room, opened, wound up, started, and stopped again. A handbell was rung, and a hand holding it was thrust through a curtained doorway into the laboratory, where the bell dropped in full view. Crookes's locked bureau was opened, odd things were placed on it, and all the drawers were opened. Crookes was convinced that his electrical control was not broken. An account of the experiment was published in the Medium (March 12, 1875).

An exposure of the Fay stage séances was published in the New York Daily Graphic (April 12, 1876), based on material supplied by Washington Irving Bishop, who had been a member of the Fay troupe and was later dismissed. Bishop demonstrated the methods by which Fay worked her marvelous feats, which required some difficult but very natural physical exertions. Later both Fay and Bishop were satirized under the names "Evalina Gray" and "W. S. Bischoff" in the 1877 novel The Spiritualists and the Detectives by private detective Allan Pinkerton. The exposures did little to slow Fay, who continued to travel as a performer working on the border between stage magic and Spiritualism.

Annie Fay's son John Truesdale Fay (born in Ohio in 1877) traveled with his mother's show and was suspected of assisting with "manifestations" while hidden under Annie's dress. In 1881 Annie married David H. Pingree, who promoted her performances, which included a stage clairvoyant act called "Somnolency," now known to have been an ingenious trick.

Some confusion has been caused by the fact that Annie's son John married Anna Norman in 1898 and taught his wife the same stage clairvoyance act, which they performed together as "The Fays." Earlier, another American stage performer using the name "Annie Fay" had copied the "Indescribable Phenomenon" act.

In her later years, Annie Fay made money answering letters by mail, in addition to continuing her stage appearances. In 1913 she was honored by the famous conjurer's association The Magic Circle in London, which elected her first honorary lady associate. She continued to draw large crowds for her stage shows until an accident in 1924 in Milwaukee, after which she retired.

The great Houdini claimed that she told him how she had tricked Crookes during his experiments in London by holding a handle with one hand and gripping the other with the bare flesh under her knee, thus enabling her to produce raps and play musical instruments. Fay died May 20, 1927.

Sources:

Christoper, Milbourne. Mediums, Mystics and the Occult. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975.