Vollhardt, Maria (Frau Rudloff) (ca. 1925)

A physical medium whom Dr. F. Schwab, author of Teleplasma und Telekinese (Berlin, 1923) made the subject of searching studies for two years. Vollhardt, the wife of an official in the Berlin Postal Ministry, produced telekinesis (movements of objects at a distance), levitations, apports, ectoplasm and stigmata phenomena of a baffling character.

In his book My Psychic Adventures (1924), psychical researcher J. Malcolm Bird wrote of having seen a quantity of irritated-looking puncture wounds, some actually bleeding, appear in a rough square pattern on the medium's hand. The only suggestion he could make for normal duplication was a battery of three or four forks or a section of nutmeg grater. The mystery of how such wounds were produced deepened when the sitters declared that they had seen on Vollhardt's hand a small object, the shape of a bird's beak, or claw. They put a pot full of farina on the table and asked for an imprint. They got it—in the shape of a chicken's foot.

Once the medium's hand was stigmatized across the hand of one of the sitters who was controlling her. At each puncture, the medium gave a sharp cry of pain. She stated that she felt as though an electric current had entered at the skin and passed through the body.

Schwab observed the phenomenon some fifty times outside the séance room in good light. When he made photographs with a stereoscopic camera he got a picture of a sort of claw of several branches, poised upon the perfectly controlled hand of the medium. He believed it was a materialized symbol of the medium's subconscious notion of oppression and torture.

In 1925, Vollhardt figured in court proceedings. At a séance given to a number of scientists and doctors, her arms, linked up in the orthodox manner, were found, on the lights being turned up, encircled by two massive rings. Albert Moll refused to believe in the penetration of matter passing through matter and later declared in a book that the medium must have had the rings concealed under her sleeves. The medium retorted with libel proceedings and offered to demonstrate her powers before the Bench. The offer came to nothing as Moll insisted that the demonstration should be done in daylight.

Degner testified on behalf of Vollhardt. The court found Moll guilty of calumny, but acquitted him as his statement was made "in defense of justified interests." The medium appealed against the acquittal and lost her case. Prof. Busch testified that the apports produced were fraudulently introduced by the medium while in a "semi-conscious condition."

Sources:

Bird, J. Malcolm. My Psychic Adventures. New York: Scientific American Publishing, 1924.