Colin Evans (medium)


Colin Evans was an early 20th-century Welsh spiritualist medium who claimed to have the ability to levitate but was discovered to be a fraud.

Levitation

In a picture taken at a séance in Wortley Hall, Finsbury Park in 1937 Evans can be seen "levitating" in mid-air. He claimed that spirits had lifted him.
Next year Evans performed again, and we can read in Life Magazine: "This is a séance held early in June in London's Conway Hall. The bearded man in the air is Colin Evans, an amateur medium. To squelch skepties of his ability to be levitated by spirits of the dead, Mr. Evans permitted a London newspaper to set up its camera in the dark séance chamber. When the spirits had supposedly lifted him high out of his chair, Medium Evans pressed a button at the end of the wire in his hand, which turned on an infrared light which exposed the photograph you see here. Magicians point out that Evans' blurred feet indicate that he was simply jumped high into the air. His shoes are unlaced for relaxation. At this moment everybody is singing Tea For Two. Some feats of psychic levitation baffle scientists, but not this one."
In another séance held at North Gate Mansions, Regent's Park in 1938, Evans performed the same trick. The sitters were not happy and he had to return the money to those who had paid him.