Eusapia Palladino

Eusapia Palladino (alternate spelling: Paladino; 21 January 1854 – 16 May 1918) was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed to possess extraordinary powers such as levitating tables and communicating with the dead through her spirit guide John King, and other related supernatural phenomena. She convinced many of her powers, but was caught in deceptive trickery throughout her career.

Magicians and skeptics who evaluated her claims concluded that none of her phenomena was genuine and she was a clever trickster.

Her Warsaw séances at the turn of 1893–94 inspired several colorful scenes in the historical novel Pharaoh, which Bolesław Prus began writing in 1894.

Palladino was born into a peasant family in Minervino Murge, Bari Province, Italy. She received little, if any, formal education. Orphaned as a child, she was taken in as a nursemaid by a family in Naples. In her early life, she was married to a travelling conjuror and theatrical artist Raphael Delgaiz whose store she helped to manage. Palladino later married a wine merchant, Francesco Niola.

Palladino visited Warsaw, Poland, on two occasions. Her first and longer visit was when she came at the importunities of the psychologist, Dr. Julian Ochorowicz, who hosted her from November 1893 to January 1894.

Regarding the phenomena demonstrated at Palladino's séances, Ochorowicz concluded against the spirit hypothesis and for a hypothesis that the phenomena were caused by a "fluidic action" and were performed at the expense of the medium's own powers and those of the other participants in the séances.

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