Debunking: the only subject as old as magic.

There are few things more enjoyable than a good debunking, particulary when it's a debunking carried out long ago, and since forgotten.

There are many reports of apparently frail and slender women who can overcome the best efforts of strongly built men. Women who can move a large man in a chair, even when he is determined to keep it still, and when two other men are trying to hold the chair down. Women who hold a stick with their thumbs only, and nobody can take it from them. Actions that should be impossible, given the relative musculature of the slight woman and the large man, yet they are performed on stage for all to see.

It was with a certain delight that I noted the correspondences in Fortean Times under the title 'Human Magnets' (Issue 214, page 72-73) which gave this link.

The text is freely available, because it's out of copyright.

This particular piece of 'paranormal evidence' was effectively debunked by Nelson W. Perry.

In 1895.