Melzer, Heinrich
Melzer, Heinrich (b. 1873)
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)Heinrich Melzer was born in Dresden. He became known as an apport medium, the first reports of his mediumship appearing in Die Uebersinnliche Welt (The Transcendent World) in November, 1905. He would go into trance at the start of his séances. He was fastened inside a sack to prevent fraud, and still large quantities of stones and flowers would be apported into the séance room.
Melzer’s spirit guides were Curadiasamy, a Hindu, Lissipan, an Indian Buddhist, and Amakai, a Chinese spirit. On occasion two others would make themselves known, Quirinus, a Roman Christian of the time of Diocletian, and Abraham Hirschkron, a Jewish merchant from Mahren.
In 1923, and again in 1926, Melzer visited the British College of Psychic Science. Originally he had to sit in complete darkness, but for the College he had developed sufficiently that he was able to operate in red light or even sometimes in full white light. According to Nandor Fodor, “Sometimes the medium seized upon the (apported) flowers and ate them voraciously, with stalks and soil, often wounding his mouth by thorns on rose stalks.”
When his powers seemed to be waning, Melzer resorted to cheating. At one séance in 1926, the doctor in charge discovered small stones of the type Melzer would “apport” taped behind the medium’s ears with flesh-colored tape. Melzer claimed that one of his guides had suggested he do it. But as James Hewart McKenzie pointed out, in a report in Psychic Science (April, 1926), “there is a difference between stones of a quarter to half an inch in size, and flowers of eighteen inches stalk length, with leaves and thorns. Twenty-five anemones, or a dozen roots of lilies of the valley, with soil attached, pure bells and delicate leaves, or violets appearing fresh and fragrant, after two and a half hours sitting have all been received, when the medium’s hands have been seen empty a second before, when no friends of his were in the sittings, and when no opportunity could have presented itself to conceal them that would not have resulted in broken stems and blossoms.”
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