Boston Mass, 1932 - During the summer of 1932 a man that called himself "Tantos" set up shop in a wealthy section of Boston and proceeded to bill himself as a clairvoyant, medium and "enlightened being." He quickly found patrons among Boston's elite society and, some said, make a nice living for himself through donations to his cause. But in August Tantos met a tragic end. Was this just a case of a con man fleecing the gullible public or something darker?

So who was Tantos? Records are vague since Tantos himself refused to divulge his past. Officer Glenn Mackey with the Boston police department investigated the man in late June and filed a report.

"Tantos is well dressed and pays weekly rent for his studio with cash," wrote Officer Mackey. "When I inquired of his past history he spoke of residing in Paris France recently and before that in San Francisco. I asked his real name but he deferred saying that the name he was born with was not his true name and that "Tantos" is the one that he was "meant to be." Since he has committed no crimes I can find I did not push him for his birth name but instead spoke with representatives of the San Francisco police department. They have no record of a "Tantos" working in their city nor did they recognize him when described. I interviewed several of his customers, (or patrons as he calls them) but none of them had anything but praise when they spoke of him. Still the fellow is peculiar and bears a closer watch."

Tantos set up shop in an apartment and by July his paranormal business was brisk. Through a series of adverts he announced his services (which he called, "an illumination into the furthering of the human spirit") and was demonstrating his ability several times a week. One woman who went to Tantos several times was the wealthy widow Adelia Samperson. Her diary recorded her first "illumination".

"..Tantos waited until we were absolutely quiet (something that that dreadful Mrs. Qualton who came along with me had some problem in doing)," writes Samperson. Only several candles scattered around the corners of the room lighted the dingy apartment and, with the shades drawn, the heat quickly became almost unbearable. Tantos stood in the front of the room, looking at no one and seemingly in a trance. Finally, when the chatterboxes had hushed, Tantos begin to sing a low pitched note and gesture wildly with his hands. After a minute of this I was ready to leave but then I noticed these gold colored motes dancing in the air before me. At first I thought it was candlelight refracting upon dust but as I watched them they seem to float in a pattern of almost unearthly beauty. Finally these motes gathered themselves together in a ball of soft light and floated toward Tantos, moving faster until they hit him square in the temple. I know I wasn't dreaming an apparition since several people murmured in surprise when they touched his face. The light drained from the air and seemed to be drawn into Tantos. At that point he began to speak and show us wonders that I dare not repeat here."

A newspaper reporter named William Walders who wrote a society column for the Boston paper became interested in the proceedings and tried to gain entrance to one of the events but was turned away as a non-believer. He later managed to rent the apartment below Tantos and listen in to the meetings through the use of a gramophone speaker placed against his ear and the ceiling. He wrote of what he heard in a society column in the Boston newspaper on August 5th, 1932.

"Perched precariously on the clothes cabinet I had dragged into the center of the room and stretching to make my ear fit against the base of the speaker I could just make out Tantos as he spoke," describes Walders. "After some nonsensical mumbling, Tantos began to talk. He seemed to be almost in a religious trance since his speaking voice was lower than the one he had used on me when I applied for a visa to his sacred domain. He spoke of "sending your thoughts out into the vastness of the beyond. Look inward for the peace you seek and need. Know that the dead are not away on some mystical plane but float within our grasp. This religion that so many of you have grasped as an infant would clutch at his mothers bosom is no more than a sham aimed at keeping mortals away from the truth that they seek. If you will but allow me to awaken the innermost parts of your brain you will be able to see more than those around you can ever hope to partake of with their blind eyes. If you do not believe me just look into my own eyes and stare at the power I have, Power that is beyond your God!"

Photo of Tantos in action taken with a hidden camera by Reverend Albert Sternens

Walders reported that at the end of that "blasphemous utterance" he was so shocked he fell off his perch and hit his head on a bedpost. Bleeding, he rushed to the hospital and missed the rest of the "Satanic sermon" as he called it. Naturally this report in the paper raised the ire of the cities Catholic and Lutheran preachers who condemned Tantos from their pulpits the following Sunday. Tantos retaliated by issuing a public invitation to these "Fools of God" to come listen to him speak. Most refused but 2 Presbyterian Ministers named Foley and Sternens accepted the proposal and went to the apartment. One of them was armed by the reporter Walders with a hidden camera and took the only known picture of Tantos.

Shamed by their peers and the church, attendees at the Tantos speeches were dwindling off by late August. Still Tantos refused to leave town as Walders suggested in another column published in the paper. This flaunting of himself in the face of public opposition may have lead to his early demise and on August 25th the landlord of the apartment called the police saying that Tantos had been murdered. Police found Tantos laying dead in his bed, pierced through the eyes by two very long knives. The police report stated that the weapons had been used with such force that they fractured the skull, went through the mattress and embedded themselves into the wooden floor underneath the bed. Perhaps because of Tantos's unpopularity, the crime was never solved and the murderer never brought to justice.

No family or friends ever came forth to claim the body of Tantos and the few belongings of the man contained no hidden wealth or money. The police report did state that the knives possessed "peculiar symbols and are made of a metal or alloy unknown." Any clues the knives could have provided were lost when a fire consumed the South Boston evidence room in the winter of 1932.

Tantos was buried by the city in their pauper's graveyard on the outskirts of the city with a simple wooden gravestone. Vandals quickly destroyed the marker and the gravesite location has since become unknown.

sources

"Boston Society in the early 20th Century", New England Magazine of Literature and Sciences Vol. 23, December, 1999

Boston Police Reports, 1932 Volumes 2, 3, and 6

Various columns by reporter William Walders, The Boston Star Newspaper, July and August, 1932

Photo Credit: public domain, first seen in the Boston Star