Die Phanomene des Mediums Rudi Schneider.

von Dr Med. A. Freiherrn von Schrenck-Notzing aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von Gabriele Freifrau von Schrenck-Notzing mit einer Einleitung von Professor Dr Eugen Bleuler.
Berlin und Leipzig: Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co.. 1933.

Rudi Schneider's own copy inscribed to him by the author's wife.

First edition. Front free endpaper is inscribed, "Dem lieben Rudi, zu Weihnachten 1932. Gabriele Freifrau von Schrenck-Notzing". 8vo. 232x152mm. pp. viii, 170. With a frontispiece and five plates of black and white photographs, illustrations in the text. Black cloth, upper cover and spine lettered in gilt. Rubbing to extremities and some marking to boards. Internally there is some foxing, especially to the title page. Overall a very good copy. Albert von Schrenck-Notzing died in 1929 and this study of Rudi Schneider was brought to press posthumously Gabriele von Schrenck-Notzing who shared her husband's interest in spiritualism, conducting sittings and experiments with him. The record of the sittings investigated and recorded by Schrenck-Notzing have pencil annotations alongside them. The front pastedown has the book label of Alan Gauld, the parapsychologist and historian of hypnotism and mediumship.
Rudi Schneider (1908-1957) was an Austrian spiritualist and medium, closely associated with many of the leading figures in paranormal research. He held his first seance at the age of eleven although his work was soon investigated by physicists and found to be based on trickery. Schrenck-Notzing then spent five years looking into Schneider's work and recorded dozens of sittings which form the basis of this book. Among those attending Schneider's sittings were Thomas and Katia Mann (on 2nd November 1924) and C.G.Jung (on 21st June 1925). Schrenck-Notzing was sympathetic to Schneider but several other psychic investigators were more sceptical, regarding him as a fraud. Among them were Harry Price, the nemesis of William Hope and Conan Doyle and Alan Gauld, the previous owner of this copy and, generally, a committed medium-sceptic. Schneider, no doubt tiring of the constant speculation, retired from mediumship to become a car mechanic and driving instructor. As to Schrenck-Notzing, he seems to have been more than usually as virtually all the mediums and spiritualist he investigated with positive results were later found to be frauds.

Ref. 5395