Webber, Jack (1907-1940)

Jack Webber was a prominent physical medium who in his few years greatly impressed his fellow Spiritualists with his abilities. Webber lacked formal education and had been a miner in Wales who was brought to Spiritualism by his wife. He attended a home circle and discovered his own mediumistic abilities. He acquired several spirit controls, the most famous being an Irish spirit named Paddy. He began with table tipping and soon afterwards experienced the levitation of objects, including the famous trumpets which spirits reportedly used as a megaphone-like device. He also became a healer. As he developed, those attending his seances reported hearing spirit voices, both coming through the trumpets and independent of them. They also saw objects move and levitate.

Through the 1930s Webber traveled at an increasing pace and during the last two years of the decade was widely heralded in the Spiritualist press for the phenomena he produced. While not formally investigated, he was the object of attention of several skeptical journalists who reported favorably on what they had witnessed. He worked in a darkened room, but without a cabinet. He was frequently tied to his chair with wire. Among his more spectacular feats was the production of ectoplasm in the form of light rods that were used to levitate objects and the movement of objects from distant places ostensibly through solid walls. At one point a recording was made of Paddy and of a second spirit guide singing a duet.

While Webber was touted in the Spiritualist press and many leading Spiritualists from Maurice Barbanell to Harry Edwards voiced their support of his work, skeptics accused him of fraud, and today most, even in the larger psychic community, would deny that the abilities Webber reportedly demonstrated exist. Though never exposed as a fraud, his career has to be seen in the light of the many mediums caught in fraud doing exactly the same acts attributed to Webber.

Webber died in 1940 at the age of 33. Within weeks, various mediums, including Bertha Harris and Harold Evans, reported that they had heard from him from the spirit world. Harry Edwards penned his biography.

Sources:

Barbanell, Maurice. This Is Spiritualism. London: Spiritualist Press, 1959.

Edwards, Harry. The Mediumship of Jack Webber. London: Rider & Co., 1940.