20 Facts About Rudi Schneider

Rudi Schneider, son of Josef Schneider and brother of Willi Schneider, was an Austrian Spiritualist and physical medium.

Rudi Schneider held his first solo seance in 1919 and is said to have been able to summon the ghostly image of a human hand, as well as a number of other manifestations that are traditionally associated with seances.

Rudi Schneider began giving demonstrations to the Vienna Institut fur Radiumforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften in 1923.

In 1926, American journalist Warren Vinton attended seances with Rudi Schneider and came to the conclusion that the movement of objects were fraudulently produced by other members of the Rudi Schneider family concealed in the room.

Rudi Schneider had an orgasm during some of his mediumship practices.

Rawcliffe wrote that Rudi Schneider "had been repeatedly and comprehensively exposed" as a fraudulent trickster.

Price conducted a series of experiments in which Rudi Schneider was connected to a series of pressure switches that would alert observers if he moved his hands, feet or limbs in any significant way.

Rudi Schneider claimed he could levitate objects but according to Price a photograph taken on April 28,1932, showed that Rudi Schneider had managed to free his arm to move a handkerchief from the table.

In opposition, SPR members who were highly critical of Price, supported Rudi Schneider's mediumship and promoted a conspiracy theory that the Price photograph was a hoax.

SPR member John L Randall who reviewed the Price and Schneider case came to the conclusion the photograph was genuine.

However, Randall disagreed with Harrison that Rudi Schneider's movement was accidental and wrote the photograph was evidence for Price's claim that Rudi Schneider had freed his hand with fraudulent intent.

Rudi Schneider noted they were liable to go wrong such as a broken wire and that they were not fraud proof like Price had claimed.

In 1930, Rudi Schneider began working with French paranormal investigator Eugene Osty at the Institut Metapsychique.

Osty placed an object in the room with Rudi Schneider and targeted it with a camera that had an infrared trigger designed to take a picture if it detected movement around the object.

The alarm was triggered several times though the photographs showed no evidence of Rudi Schneider having interfered with it.

Rudi Schneider wrote that the substance registered on sound recording equipment when it moved, and that it could pass through objects put in place to impede it.

Price made a prolonged investigation of Rudi Schneider and proved conclusively that the medium resorted to trickery when he believed himself to be unobserved.

Zoologist Solly Zuckerman attended some seance sittings and wrote that the mediumship of Rudi Schneider had not passed any scientific tests.

Between October 1933 and March 1934 Rudi Schneider was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research in fifty-five sittings and not a single paranormal phenomenon was observed.

Every chance was given to Rudi Schneider to prove his alleged paranormal abilities but nothing paranormal occurred.