One of the most celebrated of physical mediums, in fact, was a clergyman of the Church of England, the Reverend W. Stainton Moses, a gentleman respected and warmly esteemed by all who knew him.[27] [27] An excellent study of the mediumship of Stainton Moses is contained in Frank Podmore's "Modern Spiritualism," vol. ii, pp. 276-288. As a further argument in behalf of the authenticity of certain of the phenomena, attention is also called to the interesting circumstance that, long before spiritism and spiritistic mediums were heard of, similar marvels--including seemingly spontaneous movements of furniture, and the occurrence of mysterious raps, knockings, and other noises--were frequently reported by thoroughly reputable witnesses. To mention only a few cases,[28] as long ago as 1661 there was an outbreak of this kind at the home of a wealthy Englishman named Mompesson, an invisible ghost for months disturbing the peace of the Mompesson family by beating on a drum, banging at doors, tugging at bedclothes, and hurling household articles about in a most destructive manner. The affair made so much stir that a royal commission was sent to inquire into it, but signally failed to lay the ghost. For nearly a year, in 1716-1717, the Reverend Samuel Wesley, father of the founder of Methodism, was tormented in like fashion at his rectory in Lincolnshire. In 1753 a Russian monastery was invaded by an equally malicious and equally invisible "spirit," which for months amused itself by ringing the monastery bells at unseemly hours. Nine years later all London was thrilled by the celebrated Cock Lane ghost, which produced spirit rappings with as much éclat as the most up-to-date, medium-invoked visitant from "the other side." In none of these instances did contemporary investigators find a wholly satisfactory explanation for the singular phenomena involved. [28] Studied in detail in my book, "Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters." Nevertheless, it may confidently be affirmed that, instead of strengthening the case for the physical phenomena of spiritism, the doings of the poltergeists--as these tricky ghosts are called by psychical researchers--considerably weaken it. For during recent years a number of poltergeist hauntings have been looked into by members of the Society for Psychical Research, and whenever the conditions have been such as to permit a thorough investigation, it has been found that, so far from being spiritual entities, poltergeists are invariably compounded of deceit, credulity, and delusion. Even more important, from the standpoint of getting at the true inwardness of physical mediumship, the discovery has been made that fraud has frequently been practised in poltergeist cases without any apparent motive.