In Munich in 1922 and early 1923, the medium Willi Schneider sat through experiments in which witnesses reported moving handkerchiefs, ringing bells, an operating music box and objects lifted in dim red light. Albert von Schrenck-Notzing assembled the records in Experimente der Fernbewegung, published in 1924. The volume includes detailed accounts by the writer Thomas Mann. Its importance lies in the opportunity to compare what individual sitters said they saw with the arrangements on which their confidence depended.
These are reports of claimed physical mediumship, not a demonstrated record of spirits moving objects. The distinction matters even where an observer expresses complete conviction. A signed account can establish the observer’s stated experience and reasoning without establishing the mechanism behind it. Schneider’s Munich sittings also need to be kept separate from investigations involving his brother Rudi: a shared surname does not make their experimental records interchangeable.
The Munich series and its publication
Schrenck-Notzing’s preface places fifteen sittings at the university’s psychological institute between 5 September and 28 October 1922, within a larger programme of observations. Subsequent sessions continued in his own laboratory. The institutional venue is part of the historical setting; it should not be treated as an official university certification of paranormal effects. The book was compiled by the investigator who advocated the reality of the phenomena and chose to publish the supporting records.
That editorial position is visible throughout. Schrenck-Notzing describes repeated observations and the participation of scientifically trained guests as grounds for confidence. His argument is more extensive than a single startling anecdote. Nevertheless, multiple contributions within one investigator’s collection are not automatically independent replications. They concern related arrangements, a shared medium and an experimental environment overseen by the same organiser.
The title page dates the volume to 1924. Mann’s three reports concern sittings on 20 December 1922, 6 January 1923 and 24 January 1923. Those distinctions keep the dates of the experiences separate from publication. The later book is a source for what its contributors recorded, rather than an event occurring in 1924.
What the controls were intended to prevent
The arrangements described in the volume included a change into a black suit fastening at the back, additional clothing, luminous markers and people assigned to hold the medium’s limbs. Red lamps provided restricted illumination. Small objects were placed near a curtained area, and luminous strips helped sitters track selected objects and body positions. Participants could also be joined in a chain.
Holding hands, wrists, knees or feet was intended to exclude ordinary manipulation. The evidential question is whether those arrangements continuously excluded every relevant movement during each reported effect. A description of a control procedure is useful evidence about an experiment, but it is not the same as an independently checkable record that the procedure remained effective throughout.
Schrenck-Notzing did discuss ordinary alternatives. In the section on possible deception and observational error, he considers whether a freed foot or the medium’s head could have produced movements. He argues that the positions and reach required would not account for the reported basket, typewriter and music-box effects. He also records suspicions about head movement and the music box at an October sitting, followed by the controlling observer’s rejection of that interpretation. The book therefore contains objections, but presents them through an advocate’s examination and rebuttal.
Mann’s first sitting: a long wait and uncertain forms
Mann’s first report is particularly valuable because it distinguishes his role from that of the people physically controlling Schneider. He inspected the setting and watched the arrangements, but was not the medium’s controller during the effects he describes. There was a prolonged period without results, an interval and further waiting. The conspicuous effects came late, as the organiser was preparing to end the sitting.
Mann described a handkerchief rising for brief periods, with shapes beneath it that suggested a supporting hand. He then reported an unclear, light-coloured formation, a ringing bell, movement of a luminous ring and mist-like appearances. His confidence in an unusual cause rested heavily on his belief that Schneider’s ordinary limbs were securely held. Yet the account also preserves uncertainty: he could not clearly reconstruct the exact appearance of one fleeting form afterwards.
He did not simply claim every sensation mentioned in the room. He noted that some experiences reported by others, including particular smells or a cold breath, had not been his own. That separation improves the usefulness of the testimony. It allows readers to distinguish a personal observation from something heard from another sitter, while leaving the interpretation of either open to examination.
The January sittings changed his role
On 6 January Mann initially took a controlling position, assisted by a woman familiar with the medium. No successful effects accompanied that part of his account. After waiting and a break, two men accustomed to the role replaced them. The subsequent sequence included a raised handkerchief, a bell, the music box starting and stopping in response to requests, a lifted basket and movement of luminous rings. A typewriter produced a string of letters.
This change of controllers is a material detail. It would be misleading to compress the evening into a statement that Mann personally restrained Schneider while all these effects occurred. He did find the sequence compelling, particularly an audible contact with a table by something he could not see. The sound and its inferred agent remain different propositions: hearing a contact did not itself reveal what made it.
The third report, concerning 24 January, addresses the distinction directly. Mann held both Schneider’s wrists while Professor Zimmer controlled the legs and knees. After a lengthy wait, Mann reported the handkerchief rising under those conditions. He also described basket and bell effects, a tambourine and the lifting and dropping of a small table. This is the strongest of the three reports for his claim to have combined personal physical control with observation of an effect.
Even here Mann differentiated his evidence. He referred to a formed hand being seen or felt by other people; that was not his own direct experience. He also recognised the importance of restraint, suggesting that an unrestrained medium might reach towards objects without necessarily acting with ordinary conscious intent. Such speculation illustrates his attempt to interpret the sittings, rather than a diagnosis or an established explanation.
Visibility and the limits of the surviving evidence
The volume’s discussion acknowledges that dim lighting restricted visual observation and that some movements were known partly through sound. Different witnesses could therefore have different views of the same event. An object’s luminous marker might be visible when its surroundings or the means of support were not. An apparent form seen for seconds is also a different evidential object from a retained specimen or a clear photograph.
Schrenck-Notzing’s discussion calls for photographic recording but reports that the attempted approach did not provide photographs of the claimed formations in these experiments. The selected accounts consequently depend on written descriptions, remembered positions and confidence in physical restraint. This does not demonstrate a particular trick. Equally, the organiser’s assertion that trickery had been excluded cannot substitute for a record that enables an independent test of that conclusion.
UKPX assesses this case as insufficient evidence. The original reports support a substantial historical account of what Schneider’s sitters claimed and how they justified their belief. They do not independently establish paranormal causation or a specific ordinary mechanism for the whole series. The unresolved issue is the cause of the reported effects, not whether the contributors wrote enthusiastically about them.
Location and the document image
The map uses an approximate Munich city reference at 48.138, 11.575, rounded from the city coordinates recorded by Wikimedia Commons. It represents the broad locality of the institute and laboratory sittings, not the position of a private home, an identified séance room or a place offered for public access.
The lead image reproduces the actual 1924 title page, identifying the work and its publisher. It is documentary context, not a photograph of a moving object or a materialised form. The source review covers the original preface and selected methodological and witness sections, including all three Mann reports; it does not claim a complete audit of every contribution in the volume.
Sources and further reading
Deutsche Biographie: Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862–1929), author identity and dates