A robotics computer scientist in a darkened séance room — it sounds like a contradiction, yet it is the hallmark of Prof. Dr. Eckhard Kruse. He is one of the few university lecturers in the German-speaking world to devote himself to perhaps the most contested of all mediumistic disciplines: physical mediumship. His contribution is less a claim than a method — he brings the engineer's toolkit to a place where, for over a hundred years, work has mostly been done in the dark.
From the Robotics Lab to the Séance
Kruse studied computer science with applied physics and earned his doctorate in robotics and image processing. After eight years in industrial research — as a project and group leader — he has been Professor of Applied Computer Science at the Dual University of Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) since 2008. His path to mediumship led, as he describes it, "from the classical scientific worldview" through personal experiences and encounters toward the question of whether reality is larger than the standard model allows. It is precisely this twofold origin — sober sensor engineer and open seeker — that shapes his work.
What "Physical Mediumship" Means
Unlike mental mediumship (clairvoyance, trance, messages), physical mediumship concerns immediately physically observable phenomena: moving or levitating objects, raps, flashes of light, "spirit hands", alleged materialisations and the notorious ectoplasm — a substance-like manifestation that played a central role in historical spiritualism. This tradition reaches back over a hundred years, to William Crookes and Charles Richet (who coined the term ectoplasm) — researchers who did not merely study these phenomena but became convinced of their reality. There have been cases of fraud in this field; that is precisely why careful control belonged to serious research from the start — not as an argument against it, but as its craft.
His Real Contribution: the Method
Here Kruse's engineering background comes into play. Instead of relying on the mere experience in the dark, he tries to make the sessions measurable:
- Infrared and night-vision cameras. They record what happens in the room that is dark to the eye — an attempt to close off "darkness" as a gateway for deception.
- Motion sensors on the medium. From his robotics work Kruse knows sensor technology: sensors attached to the medium's arms or body provide objective movement data throughout the session — a sensitive, continuous control in addition to classical restraint.
- Systematic documentation. Recording, repeatable protocols, publication of experimental setups and video documentation.
The aim is not to "prove" a miracle but to rule out conventional explanations as far as possible: hidden movements, free hands, prepared objects. What remains is, at best, a cleanly documented puzzle — and that, in the spirit of this site, is already a great deal.
Whom He Works With
Kruse has investigated several physical mediums, including the Briton Gary Mannion and the German medium Kai Mügge, with whom monitored sessions took place over an extended period in Hanau. At sessions with the British direct-voice medium Warren Caylor, Kruse recorded the "spirit voices" and tried to locate their origin through audio signal processing (several microphones, time-of-arrival triangulation). He acts as scientific adviser and speaker for the Basel Psi Association (BPV), working closely with his wife, the psychologist Dr. Heike Bauder. His book "Der Geist in der Materie – die Begegnung von Wissenschaft und Spiritualität" (Crotona Verlag) sets out his view; under the title "Seven Reasons to Research Physical Mediumship" he has also publicly argued for taking the subject seriously.
A Fair Assessment
Two things stay honest. First: physical mediumship is still not part of established science, and the darkened room is a real methodological challenge — no reason to look away, but precisely why Kruse puts so much effort into cameras and sensors. But second, it is worth looking at the history of the field, which in public perception is often reduced to a few cases of fraud — and thereby misses what matters.
For the study of such phenomena was by no means always a fringe pursuit. On the contrary: it was openly conducted by some of the most respected scientists of their time — from the chemist and Royal Society fellow William Crookes (the discoverer of thallium), through the Nobel laureate in medicine Charles Richet and the Nobel laureates in physics Pierre and Marie Curie (who investigated the medium Eusapia Palladino), to the psychologist William James and to J. B. Rhine, who established parapsychology as an academic field at Duke University. For them, engaging with it was no career risk but legitimate science — and many were deeply convinced. Pierre Curie, who followed the Palladino sessions together with Marie Curie, wrote a few days before his death in 1906 that here lay "a whole domain of entirely new facts and physical states of space of which we have no conception". Crookes defended his observations to the end of his life and never recanted.
Today this is different — and the difference lies less in the data than in the social climate. Anyone who openly takes up the subject risks their reputation; not because an experiment has refuted it, but because engaging with it is simply not wanted. Kruse puts it bluntly in the mystica.tv interview: today's science, on such topics, no longer works open-endedly. With a finding that contradicts the ruling dogma it comes down, in effect, to "I observed such and such, may I publish it? No, because the wrong result came out" — it is not the fact that counts but the dogma. He can research freely today, he says, mainly because he no longer pursues an academic career. This very pattern — the rejection of a topic rather than of its findings — is described in the articles on herd behaviour, on the psychology of skeptical defence and on majority versus experts. This is why this site deliberately gathers the researchers who look anyway — from Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel, through Patrizio Tressoldi, to the Freiburg school around Hans Bender and Walter von Lucadou.
What distinguishes Kruse in this lineage is the combination of rigour and openness: with camera and sensors he brings in the strictest control — and precisely through it arrives at a positive assessment. His control is not doubt for its own sake but the foundation on which he can take the observed seriously. He shifts the question from "may one believe this" to "how does one make it testable", cleanly separating phenomenon and interpretation. That is exactly what makes his affirmative voice credible: it comes not from credulity but after examination.
Precisely here lies a stroke of luck: unlike the historical sittings, which are over and can never be re-checked, Kruse documents his investigations openly — as videos and sensor data on his research page, down to the formation of the "ectoplasm" in infrared. This lets anyone form their own picture today, instead of adopting an old verdict unchecked. And it shows, in a living example, how such phenomena — and equally the accusations against them — actually come about: a charge of fraud often sticks immediately and is passed along without anyone checking it again. Whoever wants to know more precisely can attend a sitting, and researchers can carry out their own investigations — with the historical cases, known only from reports, none of this is possible any more. A yardstick in the present against which the old cases, too, can be read more cautiously.
To the utilitarian question "what is it good for?" Kruse responds calmly in the interview: first, a fascinating evening in exchange with the spirit world needs no justification — no more than a concert or a games night. And more fundamentally: if such phenomena are real, then much is possible that the materialist worldview rules out — for instance spiritual healing, which with physical mediums is often part of the sitting itself. It is exactly here that physical mediumship contradicts the purely materialist picture most sharply. The most convincing route, in his view, is not argument but direct experience: half in jest he says he would simply like to take sceptics along to a sitting and let them see for themselves what happens there — a consciousness-expanding experience rather than a debate.
Sources
- Biographical details: speaker/person pages (Basel Psi Association bpv.ch; esoschuwi.de) — computer science, doctorate in robotics/image processing, professorship at DHBW since 2008.
- Kruse, E.: Der Geist in der Materie – die Begegnung von Wissenschaft und Spiritualität. Crotona Verlag.
- Kruse, E.: Seven Reasons to Research Physical Mediumship (talk/article).
- Reports and video documentation of séance experiments with Kai Mügge and Gary Mannion (incl. grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de, mystica.tv, bpv.ch).
- mystica.tv: interview with Eckhard Kruse, youtube.com/watch?v=GHSn5J5Ir4s (incl. on the lack of open-endedness and publication practice).
- Background: Kai Mügge, William Crookes, Charles Richet.