Rudi Schneider’s London sittings were intended to replace a simple circle of hand-holding witnesses with a more elaborate system of physical and electrical control. Harry Price’s published records describe contact circuits, indicator lamps, recording instruments and timed notes. They also preserve interruptions, changes in lighting and experiments which did not produce the hoped-for result.
The records deserve to be read in that detail. Instruments can improve a record, but their presence does not automatically establish the cause of an observed movement. A later photograph which Price presented as evidence of suspicious behaviour became a separate controversy. Neither that photograph nor the earlier positive reports should be treated as a shortcut to deciding every sitting.
Rudi, not his brother Willi
Rudi was a young Austrian medium brought to the National Laboratory of Psychical Research in London. His brother Willi had been investigated in Munich in an earlier series. The brothers’ names and some investigators overlap, but their records concern different people and sittings. The London experiments discussed here are not a relabelling of Willi’s Munich case.
Price distinguished an April 1929 demonstration visit from a longer return beginning in November. The original report reviewed here appeared in instalments in the 1930 journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. It includes London sessions in late 1929 and early 1930, rather than an experiment conducted simply because 1930 appears on the journal cover.
What the electrical control measured
The sitters wore conductive fabric and maintained contacts through hands and feet. Price described six circuits and six red lamps, intended to indicate a break in the required connections. The medium and principal controller had separately monitored limb contacts. The arrangement sought to restrain the investigators as well as the medium, addressing the possibility that a person controlling Rudi could otherwise assist him.
The apparatus monitored electrical continuity. Its interpretation depended on which contacts were connected, whether the wiring worked and what movement the arrangement physically allowed. Price’s description of it as proof against fraud is his claim about the system. It should not be turned into an independently established certification covering every moment of every sitting.
The room was also described in detail. It contained a curtained corner, a low table, luminous objects, a dictaphone and thermographs. A window was blocked, and entrances were locked or sealed for sessions. Such arrangements were intended to control access and record events, while the actual visibility of movements depended on the illumination used during the sitting.
The first return sitting: 14 November 1929
Lucie Kaye recorded the sitting on the dictaphone. Price controlled Rudi, Virginia Baggallay acted as a second controller and Lord Charles Hope was among the participants. Norman Jeans attended to the electrical installation. Other sitters included William Brown, Elizabeth Williamson, Mrs Mitcheson and Major Rudolf Kalifius, who had accompanied Rudi from Austria.
The timed record describes repeated requests to lower lights and change luminous objects before the more conspicuous effects. People broke contact to make adjustments and then rejoined. Reported effects included moving curtains, a bell, sounds from a zither and a wastepaper basket which Kaye said was taken from her hand. Hope described the basket being placed over his head and a touch near his mouth.
These are attributed observations in the record. They are not photographs of an unseen operator or a direct demonstration of a spirit. The order of adjustments and effects matters because a summary saying that everything happened under unchanged control would misrepresent the published sequence.
A small temperature change and a negative result
Price discussed a cabinet temperature fall of about a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit during the first sitting. He compared the record with instrument corrections and with other thermographs. He also excluded a later fall from consideration because a window had been opened. That exclusion is a useful limit in the original discussion, rather than a detail to omit when presenting an apparently anomalous chart.
An instrument calibration can establish how closely a thermometer records a comparison temperature. It does not establish why the air near that thermometer changed. Location, airflow and the sequence of room changes remain separate questions. The chart records a temperature history, not the identity of a paranormal agency.
After the sitting, Price, Kaye and Kalifius attempted a further session. Rudi did not enter the expected trance and nothing happened. The unsuccessful attempt belongs to the record alongside the claimed effects. It prevents the sitting being described as a performance which could simply be repeated on demand.
18 November: a broken wire and added tests
For the next sitting, Price introduced a dish with a smoothed flour surface and a contact-flap device linked to a bell and a smoked recording card. The aim was to obtain a physical trace or a recorded touch, rather than depend entirely on people describing movement.
The notes record difficulty maintaining the electrical contacts. A loose or broken wire associated with a sitter’s chair was found and repaired during a pause. Later, the record again describes moving curtains, a bell, table and basket. The reported statement that the flap had been touched was qualified by the fact that the intended bell had not sounded. The flour was said not to have been touched.
These details show why the account should not be reduced to either a perfect test or a failed apparatus. The investigators noticed and repaired a fault, but a repaired fault does not retrospectively establish continuity during the earlier period. A claimed touch without its expected signal also differs from a successfully registered contact.
Changing the controller
At the fifteenth sitting, dated 2 January 1930, Hope took the principal controlling position and Price sat at the far end attending to the electrical installation. The smaller group and different positions are explicitly described. Price reported continuing effects, including curtain and table movements.
Changing a controller is relevant to a concern about assistance by one particular person. It is not by itself an exclusion of every other method or an independent replication by an unrelated team. The variation is valuable because it defines what changed, allowing the claim to be assessed more precisely.
The later photograph and assessment
The Society for Psychical Research’s account of Price describes his later publication of a photograph from a 1932 sitting which he said showed suspicious movement. It also records a subsequent critical examination rejecting his interpretation. That disagreement concerns later photographic evidence; the image accompanying this article is an earlier 1929 newspaper photograph, not the disputed 1932 frame.
The classification is Disputed. The original positive reports, later allegation and challenge to its interpretation should remain distinct. This does not validate a paranormal cause or imply that one contested frame demonstrates a method for every earlier effect. A full independent re-examination of all original negatives and protocols is not claimed here.
Location and visiting
Price’s own history of the laboratory places the earlier premises in Queensberry Place, South Kensington, and the later move to Roland Gardens in 1931. The College of Psychic Studies’ official heritage account confirms that its top floor housed Price’s laboratory from 1926 to 1930.
The pin is an approximate Queensberry Place postcode-area reference for the early sittings, not a particular room or the location of the 1932 experiment. The College’s current official information welcomes visitors Tuesday to Sunday, 11am–4pm; courses and events have separate arrangements. This visitor designation does not promise access to former laboratory rooms or the original test apparatus.
Primary source trail
The original material reviewed is Price’s “Experimental Sittings with Rudi Schneider in London,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, volume 24 (1930), especially the early instalment’s room, control and November sitting records, and the account of 2 January 1930. The later dispute is attributed separately to the SPR summary, rather than presented as a fresh inspection of its original photographs. Sources checked 13 November 2026.
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Official visitor hours Tuesday to Sunday, 11am–4pm (checked 13 November 2026); courses and events have separate arrangements. No access to former laboratory rooms or original apparatus is promised.
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