Sambor, S. F. (d. 1902)

A Russian telegraph operator who was discovered and promoted as a powerful materialization and telekinesis medium. A series of his sittings between 1896 and 1902 was recorded in the Russian Spiritualist journal Rebus. Phantoms materialized from luminous vapor before the sitters and were seen together with the medium. Telekinetic phenomena were produced in abundance. Many of the experiments were conducted by Count Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo. However, the count's belief in Sambor's phenomena was considerably shaken when he discovered that one of the sitters, an accomplice, intentionally released Sambor's hand when he was supposed to be holding it.

This discovery of fraud offered a convenient general explanation for the movement of objects although not for the action of a white mandolin (as reported by Mme. Youdenitch in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. 14, 1904, p. 193), which began to play in the adjoining room and, visible in the faint light, was seen to come in and settle on the table in the séance room.

Neither Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo nor Youdenitch (who were far from trained observers) could explain the phenomena of a white column rising from the floor and turning into a human form in good light. Some other phenomena, for instance, the threading of a chair on the medium's or on a sitter's arm while all hands were held in a chain, were also difficult to explain. Such events were observed on several occasions, in conditions which caused Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo to observe in the Annales des Sciences Psychique "… if they do not absolutely eliminate all possibility of error, render it improbable to a degree which almost amounts to absolute certainty." Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo also heard sounds from a piano after the lid had been locked with a key that remained on the table in the midst of the experimenters. Sambor died a few months after the séances in 1902.