What are Spirit Wax Moulds?
If a hand or foot is dipped into melted paraffin-wax and withdrawn, a thin layer of wax adheres to the appendage and creates a thin glove-like waxen mould. The thickness of the mould is increased by repeated alternating paraffin-wax and cold water immersions. It was generally claimed by Spiritualists that a human hand or foot cannot be withdrawn from the waxen mould without distorting and rupturing it, especially if fingers are crossed or interwoven. Spiritualist mediums have demonstrated that a full or partially formed materialised spirit could produce such a mould by using their ectoplasmic limbs. Once the mould was complete, the appendage could simply be removed by de materialising it; thus leaving a fragile, but detailed mould of their hand or foot.
All the moulds are extremely thin, their walls, measured by
callipers, were not more than 1 millimetre thick on the dorsal and
lateral regions. On the palms the thickness was 2 or 3 millimetres,
and there were crumbs of paraffin, showing that these had
accumulated under the hand by their own weight. In some
places the walls were even thinner, so thin as to split in hardening,
leaving small cracks from which a little plaster escaped in.
