One hundred cases for survival after death

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ONE HUNDRED

CASES FOR SURVIVAL

AFTER DEATH

Edited by
A. T. BAIRD

NEW YORK

BERNARD ACKERMAN

INCORPORATED

-OPYRIGHT, 1944, BY BERNARD ACKERMAN, INC.

,-.

Printed in the United States of America
By Ruttle, Shaw & Wetherill, Inc., Philadelphia 7, Penna.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Foreword 7

CHAPTER

1. Dreams 9

2. Haunted Houses 31

3. Apparitions 50

4. Death-Bed Visions 80

5. Automatic Writing 92

6. Trance Phenomena 109

7. Cross-Correspondence 129

8. Book-Tests 153

9. Proxy Sittings 167

10. Direct- Voice Phenomena 177

11. Materialization 199
Index of Cases 221
Bibliography 223

/ am absolutely convinced of the fact that those who once lived on earth
can and do communicate with us. It is hardly possible to convey to the
inexperienced an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the
evidence. — Sir William F. Barrett, F.R.S.

/ am ashamed and grieved at having opposed the psychic facts. Genuine
psychical phenomena are produced by intelligences totally independent of
the parties present. — Professor C. Lombroso, University of Turin.

When I remember that I branded as a fool that fearless investigator,
Croo\es, because he had the courage to assert the reality of psychic phe-
nomena, I am ashamed both of myself and others, and I cry from the very
bottom of my heart, "Father, forgive! I have sinned against the light." —
Professor Ochorowickz, University of Warsaw.

/ am constrained to believe by the invincible logic of facts. — Professor
Raoul Pictet, University of Genoa.

The facts revealed necessitate the complete overthrow of the materialistic
physiology and conception of the universe. — Dr. Gustave Geley, Meta-
physic Institute, Paris.

I tell you we do persist. Communication is possible. 1 have proved that
the people who communicate are who and what they say they are. The con-
clusion is that survival is scientifically proved by scientific investigation. —
Sir Oliver Lodge.

FOREWORD

I have only compiled this book and it could not have been published
without the cooperation of many individuals, authors and publishing firms
— all total strangers to me — who, when I approached them for the cases
cited, granted permission freely and generously.

The general public, either too busy or too lazy to delve into the litera-
ture of psychical research, is unaware of the strength of the case for sur-
vival of human personality after bodily death, and it was the desire to try
and dissipate that ignorance that urged me to compress some of the work
of countless investigators into this small volume.

The cases have been collected from many sources, ranging from eighty
years back right up to the present day.

Many shrewd and skeptical investigators — working alone or in societies
for psychical research — have contributed them, and these people were
specialists in this line, ever on the alert to detect and expose fraud. To the
person accustomed to accepting information on the subject from the
sensational Sunday press, the cases of evidence cited may seem surprising,
and he may well wonder if they have been correctly quoted — too good to
be true!

On that point the reader is asked to use his own judgment, but he is
also asked to bear in mind that the investigators whose cases are pre-
sented in this book spent much time, money, and patience in the process,
and they did not embark on their self-imposed task "for the fun of the
thing." They were in deadly earnest in trying to solve this great human
problem, and whether they succeeded or failed, the reader must form his
own opinion, but he should remember that the problem of human sur-
vival can be solved in only one way, and that way is to prove that human
personality does survive death. It is all a matter of scientific fact, proof,
and evidence, while morality, theology, and philosophy have no bearing
whatsoever on the problem.

The reader must not for one moment imagine that the case for survival
rests solely on the hundred examples quoted in this book; a thousand
equally good cases could be produced as easily; in fact, at times I was

7

8 FOREWORD

embarrassed with the wealth of material at my disposal and I may men-
tion that my difficulty was in rejecting! Perhaps later, someone more
energetic and enthusiastic, with more time and patience than I have, may
publish Five Thousand Cases for Survival, and even then there will be
plenty in reserve. Even though the Oliver Twist-like critic should still
demand more, his wish could easily be granted.

I think that all the writing in the world will not convince anyone so
thoroughly as evidence found for oneself, but that is no reason why the
investigations of others should not be collected and placed on record in
a convenient form. Hence this book.

Chapter 1

DREAMS

Ordinary, normal dreams do not enter into the scope of this chapter; it
is only the veridical dream of the supernormal variety which comes within
the province of psychical research that we are concerned with.

Such numbers have been recorded that skeptics find it difficult either to
deny or explain them by normal or Freudian psychology, and these dreams
are in a class by themselves, impossible to account for by any mechanistic
scheme or chance-coincidence.

A fairly large number are concerned with deceased persons, usually
containing communications from such, and the prima facie explanation
is that they are due to the action of the discarnate. The cases which follow
possess a very definite bearing on that point.

The cases in this chapter were easy to collect; though more than a
dozen have been quoted and I am not certain that I have included the
best available, another compiler would probably select different instances,
equally good or better. The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Re-
search contain hundreds of instances; in fact, several books on the subject
of dreams of this variety could be published, and there are still many in
the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the
Annates des Sciences Psychiques!

case no. 1
The Perth Case1
This case is taken from an extract of a letter sent by the Rev. Charles
McKay, a Catholic priest, to the Countess of Shrewsbury:

"In July, 1838, I left Edinburgh to take charge of the Perthshire mis-
sions. On my arrival at Perth, I was called upon by a Presbyterian woman,
Anne Simpson, who for more than a week had been in the utmost anxiety
to see a priest. (This woman stated that a woman lately dead [date not

i Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 33.

10 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

given] named Maloy, slightly known to Anne Simpson, had 'appeared to
her during the night for several nights' urging her to go to the priest,
who would pay a sum of money, three and tenpence, which the deceased
owed to a person not specified.)

"I made inquiry, and found that a woman of that name had died, who
had acted as washer-woman and followed the regiment. Following up the
inquiry I found a grocer with whom she had dealt, and on asking him if
a female named Maloy owed him anything, he turned up his books, and
told me that she did owe him three and tenpence. I paid the sum. Subse-
quently the Presbyterian woman came to me, saying that she was no
more troubled."

case no. 2

The Sarawa\ Case1

My wife, since deceased, had a brother residing at Sarawak, and at the

time to which I refer he was staying with the Rajah, Sir James Brooke.

The following is an extract from the second volume of The Rajah of

Sarawa\, by Gertrude L. Jacob, page 238:

"Mr. Wellington (my wife's brother) was killed in a brave attempt to
defend Mrs. Middleton and her children. The Chinese, it appears, taking
Mr. Wellington for the Rajah's son, struck off his head."

And now for the dream. I was awakened one night by my wife, who
started from her sleep, terrified by the following dream. She saw her
headless brother standing at the foot of the bed, with his head lying on
a coffin by his side. I did my best to console my wife, who continued to be
much distressed for some considerable time. At length, she fell asleep
again to be wakened by a similar dream. In the morning and for
several days after, she constantly referred to her dream, and anticipated
sad news of her brother.

And now comes the strangest part of the story. When the news reached
England, I computed approximately the time and found it coincided
with the memorable night to which I have referred.

1 Myers, F. W. M., Phantasms of the Living, I, 365.

DREAMS 11

The Brixham Case1
The facts of this case were vouched for by the Rev. R. B. F. Elrington,
Vicar of Lower Brixham, Devonshire, and he certified to the good char-
acter of the witnesses concerned:

"In the early spring of 1881, Mrs. Barnes of Brixham, whose husband
was at sea, dreamt that his fishing-boat was run into by a steamer. Their
boy was with him and she called out in her dream, 'Save the boy!' At
this moment another son sleeping in the next room to hers, rushed in,
crying out, 'Where's Father?' She asked what he meant, when he said
he had distinctly heard his father come upstairs, and kick with his heavy
boots against the door, as he was in the habit of doing when he returned
from sea. The boy's statement and her own dream so alarmed the woman
that early next morning she told Mrs. Strong and other neighbors of her
fears.

"News afterwards came that her husband's vessel had been run into by
a steamer, and that he and the boy were drowned."

case no. 4
The Wingfield Case2
The following is a letter written by Mr. Frederick Wingfield, Belle-
Isle-en-Terre, C6tes-du-Nord, December 20, 1883:

"On the night of Thursday, March 25, 1880, I retired to bed after
reading till late, as is my habit. I dreamed that I was lying on my sofa
reading, when on looking up, I saw distinctly the figure of my brother,
Richard Wingfield-Baker, sitting on the chair before me. I dreamed that
I spoke to him, but that he simply bent his head in reply, rose and left
the room. When I awoke I found myself standing with one foot on the
ground by my bedside, and the other on the bed, trying to speak and to
pronounce my brother's name.

"So strong was the impression as to the reality of his presence and so
vivid the whole scene as dreamt, that I left my bedroom to search for my
brother in the sitting-room. I examined the chair where I had seen him

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., I, 141.

2 Myers, F. W. H., Phantasms of the Living, I, 199-201.

12 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

seated, I returned to the bed, tried to fall asleep in the hope of a repetition
of the appearance, but my mind was too excited, too painfully disturbed,
as I recalled what I had dreamed. I must, however, have fallen asleep
towards the morning, but when I awoke, the impression of my dream
was as vivid as ever — and, I may add, is to this hour equally strong and
clear. My sense of impending evil was so strong that I at once made a
note in my memorandum book of this 'appearance,' and added the
words, 'God forbid.'

"Three days afterwards I received the news that my brother, Richard
Wingfield-Baker, had died on Thursday evening, March 25, 1880, at
8:30 p.m., from the effects of terrible injuries received in a fall, while
hunting with the Blackmore Vale hounds.

"I will only add that I have been living in this town some twelve
months; that I had not any recent communication with my brother; that
I knew him to be in good health, and that he was a perfect horseman. I
did not at once communicate this dream to any intimate friend — there was
unluckily none here at that very moment — but I did relate the story after
the receipt of the news of my brother's death, and showed the entry in my
memorandum book. As evidence, of course, this is worthless; but I give
you my word of honor that the circumstances I have related are the posi-
tive truth."

In a subsequent letter Mr. Wingfield wrote: "I have never had any
other startling dream of the same nature, nor any dream from which I
woke with the same sense of reality and distress, and of which the effect
continued long after I was well awake. Nor have I upon any other occa-
sion had a hallucination of the senses."

Prince Lucinge Faucigny, Mr. Wingfield's friend, confirmed the fore-
going in every detail.

The Times obituary for March 30, 1880, recorded the death of Mr. R. B.
Wingfield-Baker, of Orsett Hall, Essex, as having taken place on the 25th.
The Essex Independent gave the same date, adding that Mr. Baker
breathed his last about nine o'clock.

DREAMS 13

CASE NO. 5

The MacKenzie Case1

"I am the owner of a very old mechanical business in Glasgow, with
for twenty years past a branch in London, where I have resided for that
period, and in both of which places my professional reputation is of the
highest order.

"Some thirty-five years ago I took into my employment a tender, deli-
cate-looking boy, Robert MacKenzie, who, after some three or four years'
service, suddenly left — as I found out afterwards — through the selfish
advice of some older hands who practiced this frightening away system-
atically to keep wages from being lowered — a common device, I believe,
among workmen in limited trades. Passing the gate of the great work-
house (Scottish poorhouse) in the Parliamentary Road a few years after-
wards, my eye was caught by a youth eighteen years of age ravenously
devouring a piece of dry bread on the public street, and bearing the
appearance of being in a chronic state of starvation.

"Fancying I knew his features, I asked him if his name were not
MacKenzie. He at once became much excited, addressed me by name,
and informed me that he had no employment ; that his father and mother,
who formerly supported him, were now both inmates of the 'poorhouse' —
to which he himself had no claim for admission, being young and without
any bodily disqualification for work — and that he was literally homeless
and starving. The matron, he informed me, gave him daily a piece of
dry bread, but dared not, under the rules, give him regular maintenance.
In agony of grief he deplored his ever leaving me under evil advice, and
on my unexpectedly offering to take him back he burst into a transport of
thanks such as I cannot describe.

"Suffice it to say that he resumed his work, and that, under the circum-
stances, I did everything in my power to facilitate his progress. All this
was mere matter of course; but the distinction between it and the com-
mon relations of master and servant was this: on every occasion of my
entering the workshop he never, as far as possible, stopped following my
movements. Let me look towards him at any moment, there was the pale,
sympathetic face with large, wistful eyes literally yearning towards me

l Proceedings, S.P.R., III, 95.

14 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

as Smike's did towards Nicholas Nickleby. I seemed to be 'the polar star
of his existence,' and this intensity of gratitude never appeared to lessen
in degree through lapse of time. Beyond this he never ventured to express
his feelings. His manhood, as it were, his individuality and self-assertion,
seemed to have been crushed out of him by privations. I was apparendy
his sole thought and consideration, save the more common concerns of
daily life.

"In 1862 I settled in London and have never been in Glasgow since.
Robert MacKenzie, and my workmen generally, gradually lost their
individuality in my recollection. About ten to twelve years ago my
employees held their annual soiree and ball. This was always held, year
after year, on a Friday evening. MacKenzie, ever shy and distant, as
usual, refused to mingle in the festivities, and begged of my foreman to be
permitted to serve at the buffet. All went off well, and Saturday was
held as a succeeding day of festival. All this, however, I only learned
after what I am now about to relate.

"On the Tuesday morning following, immediately before 8 a.m., in my
house on Campden Hill, I had the following manifestation; I cannot call
it a dream, but let me use the common phraseology. I dreamt, but with no
vagueness in common dreams, no blurring of outline or rapid passages
from one thing disconnectedly to another, that I was seated at my desk,
engaged in business conversation with an unknown gentleman who
stood on my right hand. Towards me, in front, advanced Robert MacKen-
zie, and feeling annoyed, I addressed him with some asperity, asking him
if he did not see that I was engaged. He retired a short distance with
exceeding reluctance, turned again to approach me, as if more desirous of
an immediate conversation, when I spoke to him still more sharply as to
his want of manners. On this, the person with whom I was conversing
took his leave, and MacKenzie once more came forward.

" 'What is all this, Robert?' I said somewhat angrily. 'Did you not see
I was engaged ? '
" 'Yes, sir,' he replied, 'but I must speak with you at once.'
" 'What about?' I said. 'What is it that can be so important?'
" 'I wish to tell you, sir,' he answered, 'that I am accused of doing
a thing I did not do, and that I want you to know it, and to tell you so,

DREAMS 15

and that you are to forgive me for what I am blamed, because I am
innocent.'

"I said, 'What?' getting the same answer.

"I then naturally asked, 'But how can I forgive you if you do not tell
me what you are accused of?'

"I can never forget the emphatic manner of his answer in the Scottish
dialect, 'Ye'U sune ken.' (You'll soon know.)

"This question and the answer were repeated at least twice — I am
certain the answer was repeated thrice — in the most fervid tone. On that
I awoke, and was in that state of surprise and bewilderment which such
a remarkable dream, qua mere dream, might induce, and was wondering
what it all meant when my wife burst into my bedroom, much excited,
and holding an open letter in her hand, exclaimed, 'Oh, James, here's a
terrible end to the workmen's ball! Robert MacKenzie has committed
suicide.'

"With now a full conviction of the meaning of the vision, I at once
quietly and firmly said, 'No, he has not committed suicide.'

" 'How can you possibly know that ? '

" 'Because he has just been here to tell me.'

"I have purposely not mentioned in its proper place so as not to break
the narrative, that on looking at MacKenzie I was struck by the peculiar
appearance of his countenance. It was an indescribable pale bluish color,
and on his forehead appeared spots which seemed like blots of sweat.
For this I could not account, but by the following post my manager
informed me that he was wrong in writing of suicide.

"On Saturday night, MacKenzie, on going home, had lifted a small
black bottle containing aqua fortis (which he used for staining the wood
of bird cages, made for amusement), believing this to be whiskey, and
pouring out a wine glassful, had drunk it at a gulp, dying on Sunday
in great agony. Here, then; was the solution of his being innocent of what
he was accused of — suicide — since he had inadvertendy drunk aqua fortis,
a deadly poison.

"Still pondering upon the peculiar color of his countenance, it struck
me to consult some authorities on the symptoms of poisoning by aqua
fortis, and in Mr. J. H. Walsh's Domestic Medicine and Surgery, page

16 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

172, 1 found these words under symptoms of poisoning by sulphuric acid :
'Aqua jortis produces the same effect as sulphuric, the only difference
being that the external stains, if any, are yellow instead of brown.' This
refers to indication of sulphuric acid, 'generally outside of the mouth, in
the shape of brown spots.' Having no desire to accommodate my facts to
this scientific description, I give the quotations freely, only — at the same
time — stating that before reading the passage in Mr. Walsh's book, I had
not the slightest knowledge of these symptoms, and I consider that they
agree fairly and sufficiently with what I saw, viz., a livid face covered with
a remarkable sweat, and having spots (particularly on the forehead),
which, in my dream, I thought great blots of perspiration. It seemed not
a little striking that I had no previous knowledge of these symptoms and
yet should take note of them.

"I have little remark to make beyond this, that, in speaking of this
matter, I have been quite disgusted by skeptics treating it as a hallucina-
tion, in so far as my dream must have been on the Wednesday morning
after the receipt of my manager's letter informing me of the supposed
suicide. This explanation is too absurd to require a serious answer.

"My manager first heard of the death on Monday — wrote me on that
day as above — and (the apparition occurred) on Tuesday morning, imme-
diately before the 8 a.m. post delivery, hence the thrice emphatic, 'Ye'U
sune ken.'

"I attribute the whole to MacKenzie's yearning gratitude for being
rescued from a deplorable state of starvation, and his desire to stand well
in my opinion. I have colored nothing, and leave my readers to draw their
own conclusions."

The wife of the narrator, in a letter to the S.P.R., confirmed that her
husband informed her of MacKenzie's appearance and his statement
that he had not committed suicide, as soon as she entered the bedroom
on Tuesday morning, before he had read his manager's letter.

case no. 6

The von Goertz Case1

"During our years in Bessarabia the Countess von Goertz, my paternal

grandmother, died. ... I never saw her and knew very little about her,

1 De Castellane, Count Bohdan K., One Crowded Hour (London: George Allen and
Unwin, Ltd.), 48-49.

DREAMS

17

but I always heard that she had a very great affection for my father. This
deep feeling between them was evidenced in an interesting and curious
manner. One morning, just before receiving the news of her death, my
father said to me:

"'Your grandmother has died.' In response to my question as to
whether he had had a letter, he answered: 'No, I have had no letter; but
I know that she is dead, because last night I had a dream in which she
came to me and brought my coffee, saying: "This is the last time that
I shall bring you coffee, son, for today I die." '

"Of course I tried to comfort my father, and although I was then
only a little boy, I advised him not to believe in dreams. He remained,
however, convinced that she was dead and asked me to watch for the
post. This arrived every morning by special messenger, who brought it
from the station eighty miles away. There were three messengers in con-
stant service who had relays of horses along the route, and were thus able
to make the journey in twelve hours. The next morning brought no
news. Only on the third day did I discover in the mail-bag a telegram
from the estate in German Poland, where my grandmother had been
living. I took out the telegram and carried it to my father. It was an
announcement of grandmother's death at exacdy the hour she had
appeared to him in his dream."

case no. 7
The Rubinstein Case1
Lillian Nichia, a pupil of Rubinstein, the great pianist and composer
(1829-1894), tells this story of a death compact:

"One wild, blustery night I found myself at dinner with Rubinstein,
the weather being terrific even for St. Petersburg (now Leningrad). The
winds were howling 'round the house, and Rubinstein, who liked to ask
questions, inquired of me what they represented to my mind. I replied,
'The moaning of lost souls.' From this a theological discussion followed.

" 'There may be a future,' he said.

" 'There is a future,' I cried, 'a great and beautiful future ; if I die

first, I shall come to you and prove this.'

1 Harper's Magazine (December, 1912). Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses jot
Psychic Occurrences (Boston).

18 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"He turned to me with great solemnity. 'Good, Liloscha, that is a bar-
gain; and I will come to you.'

"Six years later in Paris I woke one night with a cry of agony and
despair ringing in my ears, such as I hope may never be duplicated in my
lifetime. Rubinstein's face was close to mine, a countenance distorted by
every phase of fear, despair, agony, remorse and anger. I started up,
turned on all the lights, and stood for a moment shaking in every limb,
till I put fear from me and decided it was merely a dream. I had for the
moment completely forgotten our compact.

"News is always late in Paris, and it was Le Petit Journal, published
in the afternoon, that had the first account of his sudden death.

"Four years later, Teresa Carreno, who had just come from Russia,
and was touring America — I had met her in St. Petersburg frequently at
Rubinstein's dinner-table — told me that Rubinstein died with a cry of
agony impossible of description. I knew then that even in death Rubin-
stein had kept, as he always did, his word."

CASE NO. b

The C Case

The facts of this case were given to me by a lady whose integrity and
good faith I have not the slightest reason to doubt. It occurred within her
own household and the young engineer who was lost at sea was her
brother. Here is the story in her own words:

"In the spring of 1914, my brother D , age twenty-one years,

decided to sail as an engineer to Canada to gain further experience and
see a little bit of the world before settling down to a most promising
career for which he had fitted himself by study and hard work.

"Through my father's influence he obtained an appointment as engineer
in a lightship commissioned to Halifax, Canada. This ship, Halifax Light-
ship No. 19, sailed from Greenock, Scotland, on Friday, April 24, and
word was received by us on May 22, from the company, that the ship
had safely reached St. John's, Newfoundland, so that no apprehension was
felt regarding D .

"On Friday, May 22, my mother had a very restless night, during which
she heard D repeatedly calling to her, 'Ma, Ma,' — his usual manner

DREAMS 19

of addressing her. My mother was certain that something had happened

to D and next morning related her experience to my sister, who was

home at that time. My sister put her off by saying that D must be all

right as the ship had reached St. John's on May 17. Nevertheless, despite

my sister's arguments, my mother maintained that D had called to

her and she feared the worst.

"Later, we were informed from Canada that the ship had reached
St. John's as stated, but had left that port on May 19 to complete her
voyage to Halifax. On May 22, at 10 p.m., the ship went on rocks during
a storm and foundered with all hands, some bodies never being recovered;
my brother's was one of these. This happened one mile from the shore,
but the villagers who saw the distress signals were unable to do anything
owing to the storm.

"Any anxiety that was in our minds vanished when we heard that
D 's ship had arrived at St. John's; surely he must be safe now.

"Later in the year my mother had another experience. War broke out
in August, 1914, and my other brother who had only turned nineteen was
called up at once, as he was a member of the R.N.V.R. The night he went
away my mother was naturally very upset — her one son missing, pre-
sumed drowned, and her other boy now called away — no one knew
where.

"Mother says she was not dreaming when D appeared at the foot

of the bed (for various reasons Mother was sleeping in the boy's bed-
room that night). He looked at her and said, 'Don't worry, Ma, I'll look

after B .' This comforted her very much and it may be argued that it is

only chance-coincidence, but the fact remains that my brother B

came through the whole war and returned without a scratch.

"He was an engineer officer in the salvage section of the Royal Navy —
an extremely dangerous and hazardous branch. Two ships that had been
salved and on which he was, were torpedoed, but he escaped on both
occasions, despite the fact that he could not swim a stroke."

case no. 9
The Chaffin Will Case1
We are indebted for the following case to one of our Canadian mem-
l Proceedings, S.P.R., XXXVI, 517.

20 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

bers, who, having had his attention drawn to it by a newspaper report,
instructed a lawyer resident in the state (North Carolina) where the
events occurred, to investigate the facts on his behalf. The facts had
already been put in evidence in a contested law suit, so that they have on
two occasions undergone the scrutiny of persons professionally trained to
sift and weigh evidence. The lawyer instructed by our Canadian member,
Mr. J. McN. Johnson, Attorney-at-Law, of Aberdeen, North Carolina,
has forwarded to the Society a very full report, including (1) the original
newspaper article, (2) official records of the proceedings in the Superior
Court in Davie County, N.C., and (3) a sworn statement by Mr. Johnson
as to interviews he had with some of the principal persons in the case,
together with sworn statements by two of the persons themselves. What
follows is partly an abstract of these documents, and partly quotations
from them. The full case can be studied by those who desire to do so at
the Society's rooms.1

James L. Chaffin, the testator, was a farmer in Davie County, N.C. He
was married and had four sons, in order of age, John A. Chaffin, James
Pinkney Chaffin, Marshall A. Chaffin, and Abner Columbus Chaffin.

On November 16, 1905, the testator made a will, duly attested by two
witnesses, whereby he gave his farm to his third son, Marshall, whom he
appointed sole executor. The widow and three other sons were left un-
provided for.

Some years later he appears to have been dissatisfied with this disposi-
tion of his property, and on January 16, 1919, he made a new will as
follows :

"After reading the 27th chapter of Genesis, I, James L. Chaffin, do
make my last will and testament, and here it is. I want, after giving my
body a decent burial, my little property to be equally divided between my
four children, if they are living at my death, both personal and real estate
divided equal; if not living give share to their children. And if she
is living, you must all take care of your mammy. Now this is my last
will and testament. Witness my hand and seal.

"James L. Chaffin.
This January 16, 1919."

1 31 Tavistock Square, London, W.C.2.

DREAMS 21

This second will, though unattested, would, according to the law of
North Carolina, be valid as being written throughout by the testator's
own hand, on sufficient evidence being adduced that it was in fact his own
handwriting.

The testator, having written out his will, placed it between two pages
of an old family Bible, formerly belonging to his father, the Rev. Nathan
S. Chaffin, folding the pages over so as to make a sort of pocket. The
pages so folded were those containing the 27th chapter of Genesis, which
tells how the younger brother Jacob supplanted the elder brother Esau,
and won his birthright and his father's blessing. The sole beneficiary
under the first will was, it will be remembered, a younger brother.

The testator never before his death, so far as can be ascertained, men-
tioned the existence of this second will to anyone, but in the inside pocket
of an overcoat belonging to him he stitched up a roll of paper on which
he had written the words, "Read the 27th chapter of Genesis in my daddy's
old Bible."

On September 7, 1921, the testator died as the result of a fall. His third
son, Marshall, obtained probate of the first will on September 24 of that
year. The mother and the other three brothers did not contest this will,
as they knew of no valid reason for doing so.

From this point it will be convenient to follow the words of the sworn
statements obtained by Mr. Johnson on his visit to the locality on April 21,
1927.

Extract from Statement of James Pinkney Chaffin,
Testator's Second Son
"In all my life I never heard my father mention having made a will
later than the one dated in 1905. I think it was in June of 1925 that I
began to have very vivid dreams that my father appeared to me at my
bedside but made no verbal communication. Some time later, I think it
was the latter part of June, 1925, he appeared at my bedside again, dressed
as I had often seen him dressed in life, wearing a black overcoat, which
I knew to be his own coat. This time my father's spirit spoke to me; he
took hold of his overcoat this way and pulled it back and said, 'You will
find my will in my overcoat pocket,' and then disappeared. The next
morning I arose fully convinced that my father's spirit had visited me for

22 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

the purpose of explaining some mistake. I went to my mother's, and
sought for the overcoat, but found that it was gone. Mother stated that
she had given the overcoat to my brother John, who lives in Yadkin
County, about twenty miles northwest of my home. I think it was on
July 6, which was on the Monday following the events stated in the last
paragraph, I went to my brother's home in Yadkin County and found
the coat. On examination of the inside pocket I found the lining had been
sewn together. I immediately cut the stitches, and found a little roll of
paper tied with a string, which was in my father's handwriting, and
contained only the following words : 'Read the 27th chapter of Genesis in
my daddy's old Bible.'

"At this point I was so convinced that the mystery was to be cleared
up, I was unwilling to go to my mother's home to examine the Bible
without the presence of a witness, and I induced a neighbor, Mr. Thomas
Blackwelder, to accompany me, also my daughter and Mr. Blackwelder's
daughter were present. Arriving at mother's home we had a considerable
search before we found the old Bible. At last we did find it in the top
bureau drawer in an upstairs room. The book was so dilapidated that
when we took it out it fell into three pieces. Mr. Blackwelder picked up
the portion containing the Book of Genesis, and turned the leaves until
he came to the 27th chapter of Genesis, and there we found two leaves
folded together, the left-hand page folded to the right, and the right-
hand page folded to the left, forming a pocket, and in this pocket Mr.
Blackwelder found the will which has been probated [i.e., was probated in
December, 1925].

"During the month of December, 1925, my father again appeared to
me about a week before the trial of the case of Chaffin v. Chaffin, and
said, 'Where is my old will?' and showed considerable temper. I believed
from this that I would win the law suit, as I did. I told my lawyer about
this visitation the next morning.

"Many of my friends do not believe it is possible for the living to
hold communication with the dead, but I am convinced that my father
actually appeared to me on these several occasions, and I shall believe it
to the day of my death."

DREAMS 23

Statement of the said Thomas A. Blackwelder
"My name is Thomas A. Blackwelder. I am thirty-eight years old,
and the son of H. H. Blackwelder. My house is on a farm in Callihan
township, about one mile from the place where James L. Chaffin died in
1921. I think it was on July 6, 1925, that Mr. J. P. Chaffin, the son of
James L. Chaffin, and a neighbor of mine, came to my house, and asked
me to go with him to his mother's home, and at the same time stated
that his father had appeared to him in a dream and instructed him how he
could find his will. Mr. Chaffin told me at the same time that his father
had been dead about four years, and had appeared to him in a dream,
and made known to him that he should look in the breast-pocket of his
old overcoat, and there he would find something of importance. Mr.
Chaffin further stated that he had gone to this overcoat and found a strip
of paper in his father's handwriting, and he wanted me to go with him to
his mother's and examine the Bible, and after some time we found it
in a bureau drawer in the second story of the house. We took out the
Bible, which was quite old, and was in three different pieces. I took
one of the three pieces of the book, and Mr. Chaffin took the other two
pieces, but it happened that the piece that I had contained the Book of
Genesis. I turned the leaves until I came to the 27th chapter, and there
we found two leaves folded inward, and there was a paper writing
folded in these two leaves which purported to be the last will of James L.
Chaffin."

It appears from Mr. Johnson's own statement that, in addition to
Mr. J. P. Chaffin and Mr. Blackwelder, Mrs. J. P. Chaffin, their fifteen-
year-old daughter, and the testator's widow were present when the Bible
was found.

Soon after its discovery, the second will was tendered for probate.
The son, Marshall, who had proved the first will, had died within a year
of his father's death; he left a son, R. M. Chaffin, who was made a
defendant in the suit to prove the second will, and who, being a minor,
appeared by his mother as guardian ad litem and next friend.

The case came up for hearing in December, 1925. A jury was sworn,
and the court then adjourned for lunch. When the hearing was continued

24 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

one of the lawyers announced that during the interval an amicable ad-
justment of the issues had been arrived at, and that the new will would be
admitted to probate without opposition. The following is taken from an
official copy of the minutes of the presiding judge:

JUDGMENT BY CONSENT

In Re Will of J. L. Chaffin, Deed.
North Carolina, Davie County. In Superior Court.

December Term, 1925
Judgment, Decree:

This case coming on to be heard, and being heard, and the following
issues having been submitted to the Jury, "Is the paper writing dated
January 16, 1919, and every part thereof the last Will and Testament of
the deceased — Jas. L. Chaffin?"

Answer— -"Yes."

And the Jury having answered said issue Yes, It is now on motion
of E. H. Morris, A. H. Price, and J. E. Busby, attorneys for the Plaintiffs,
Ordered, Decreed, and Adjudged that the said last Will and Testament
of James L. Chaffin, deceased, be recorded in the office of the Clerk of the
Superior Court of Davie County in the Book of Wills, and that the will
dated November 16, 1905, and probated on September 24, 1921, Will
Book No. 2, Page 579, purporting to be the last will and testament of the
deceased James L. Chaffin is hereby cancelled, rescinded, annulled and
made void.

When the trial commenced, Marshall's widow and son had been pre-
pared to contest the second will. However, during the luncheon interval
they were shown the second will. Ten witnesses were prepared to give
evidence that the second will was in the testator's handwriting, and the
widow and the son themselves seem to have admitted this as soon as
they saw it. At any rate, they at once withdrew their opposition. The
public, which had crowded the court in the hopes of watching a bitter
family feud fought out, retired disappointed.

Mr. Johnson in his statement said : "I endeavored with all my skill and
ability by cross-examination and otherwise to induce some admission that
possibly there was a subconscious knowledge of the will in the old Bible,

DREAMS 25

or of the paper in the coat pocket, that was brought to the fore by the
dream: but I utterly failed to shake their faith. The answer was a quiet:
'No, such an explanation is impossible. We never heard of the existence
of the will till the visitation from my father's spirit.' Clearly, they none of
them had any conscious recollection, at the date of testator's death, of
any mention of a second will, or they would not have allowed the first
will to be proved without opposition. Nor was it a matter which, if
once mentioned, they were likely to forget, during the short period which
intervened between the making of the second will (January, 1919) and
the testator's death (September, 1921). ... I was much impressed with
the evident sincerity of these people, who had the appearance of honest,
honorable country people, in well-to-do circumstances."

case no. 10
The Beede Case1
Professor O. R. Libby, of North Dakota University, in forwarding an
account of this case to Dr. Walter F. Prince, testified to the character
of Judge Beede as follows:

"I have known Judge Beede for about twenty years, and he is a man
of unusual intellectual ability. . . . He for a long time served as a mis-
sionary among the Indians. . . . Judge Beede has made some remarkable
observations among the Indians, and has obtained, apparently, their com-
plete confidence. I believe ethnologists consider his records in many re-
spects unique and valuable."

This is Judge Beede 's account:

"February 4, 1926, about 7:15 a.m., my wife, whom I had not seen for
over ten years, except once, and then at a distance, appeared to me as
I lay asleep or partly asleep on a cot in my sleeping-room; and I said
(seemed to say), 'How did you get in with the door locked ?' She said,
'Oh, I got in, all right.' Then she said (seemed to say), 'I have been un-
happy here in this world, I have laid it to you. I am out of that error now

and am in gladness.' I said, 'That's good . It was in my mind to go

on telling her that I would build on to the house another room for her,

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Human Experiences (Boston), I, 145-46.

26 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

for at the moment I took the matter to mean that she would come and live
with me, as I had asked her to do. But just at that moment there was a
terrible banging on the door by a nearly deaf Sioux Indian Congregational
minister (I am Episcopalian), who had come to get aid from me on
account of the death of a child, and I fully awoke, and Mrs. Beede dis-
appeared. On attempting to rise from the couch I found myself so weak
that I could hardly get to the door (from what cause I do not know);
and at about 10 a.m., as I was still on the couch, a wire was brought which
read, 'Mama passed on at 7:15 this morning.' Due to variations of time,
it is impossible to say whether the 'apparition' was at the moment of
death, or shortly before, or shortly after. . . . The communications (talk)
seemed to be a sort of flash by which a whole idea was definitely com-
municated, not words actually spoken, requiring a negligible amount of
time. She was dressed as I last saw her ten years before, though she had
adopted a quite different mode of dress, as I later learned."

case no. 11
The By fleet Case1

"Like Mother, Mrs. Byfleet was psychic, and after I received her
motherly welcome, I found that she was very much disturbed. In a dream
that night she had seen Jack (her son), who had just left home, walk
into her bedroom, as was his custom on homecomings, remove his sailor's
cap and smile at her. She was sure from something in his manner that he
was dead.

"As she finished telling me the dream, George Byfleet (her husband)
came in and told me that (my) dad had said if I wanted to ride home
I was to be in the village by 5 p.m. Hearing that, I suggested that there
was just time for a pint of beer, and took the old man to the village pub.
There he confided to me that he had seen the same vision that his wife
had, but that he hadn't mentioned it to her. He had seen Jack come into
his room, and was so sure that it was the boy that he had gotten out of
bed and followed him downstairs to have the usual glass of whiskey, which
was ritual between father and son on homecomings.

"Dad came along punctually and I knew, as soon as I saw him, that
he was very much upset. Hardly had old Jack, his horse, pulled up before

1 Alexander, Patrick, As the Sparks Fly Upward (London: Jonathan Cape), 269-70.

DREAMS

27

the pub when Dad burst out, 'This is a hell of a bloody start for the New
Year. The Formidable has been torpedoed.' Byfleet swallowed his beer
and, refusing another, asked us to go home with him. As soon as Mrs.
Byfleet heard the evil news, she declared that Jack had gone down with
that ship. Dad said, 'That's damned nonsense; Jack was told to report to
another ship, and you know it.' Nothing would convince her, though,
that Jack hadn't been killed, for in spite of the fact that he had gone to
join another ship, in her dream he had had the letters H.M.S. Formidable
on his cap. Her premonition proved true. At the last moment before sail-
ing, Jack Byfleet had volunteered to take the place of a sick comrade on
the Formidable, and within two hours the ship had been sunk by mine or
torpedo."

case no. 12
The Austrian Case1

This case, which was brought to the notice of the Society for Psychical

Research by an Austrian member of the Society, concerns Baroness X ,

an old friend of his. The Baroness had been ill for a long time and died
in agony at 11:20 p.m. (Austrian time) on April 29, 1930, in Vienna.

Mrs. F , then living in Scodand, and who had been on very intimate

terms with the Baroness, received a printed notification of the death
which merely stated "on the evening of April 29, 1930" — the hour was
not mentioned.

When Mrs. F received this news she immediately wrote to

Baron X on May 5, 1930:

"Now I must tell you a very strange thing happened on the night of
April 29. I already knew on that night that the Baroness had died —
because she came here and said good-bye to me. It was like this: On
Tuesday evening I went to bed feeling very tired about 9 p.m. and fell
sound asleep. About 11:15 p.m. I awoke with someone pressing a kiss
on my forehead and on looking up I saw the Baroness standing by the
side of my bed; she looked as though she desired to say something, or
was waiting for me to speak or answer, but I was so startled, not to say
afraid, I was speechless, so after gazing at one another for a minute or
two the Baroness vanished. Her expression was so sad and inquiring I

1 Salter, W. H., Ghosts and Apparitions (London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.).

28 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

cannot forget it. What I have just written you is not a hallucination

but real fact. I related it to Mr. F on Wednesday morning and he

said, 'You were dreaming.' . . . I really saw the Baroness as clearly as I
see the paper I am now writing on and I was wide awake."

On July 7, 1930, Mr. F wrote to the Society stating that on the

morning of April 30 Mrs. F had said she had seen the Baroness on

April 29, and that he had regarded the incident as only a dream, although
his wife thought otherwise.

Later, Mrs. F , when asked how she fixed the time of the vision,

replied that soon after the Baroness vanished the hall-clock struck the
half-hour and that when she regained her composure and looked at the
bedroom clock it showed "the hour to be eleven (i.e., that the hour hand
stood between eleven and twelve) : therefore the vision was somewhere be-
tween 11:15 and 11:30. I fixed it at 11:20."

It should be observed that at the time of the vision, Austrian and British

(summer) time were identical, and that 11:15 mentioned by Mrs. F

before she knew of the death was very close to the actual time of death in
Vienna. ,

case no. 13
The Michigan Boulevard Case1

This incident is not quoted in direct support of the survival theory,
although evidence on behalf of survival is often obtained by clairvoyance
of this type. Strictly speaking, the most that can be claimed in this case
is that it shows how a flash of clairvoyance functioned just once, unex-
pectedly, in the lifetime of Irene Kuhn, an American newspaperwoman
who had worked on behalf of American journalism in Europe and China.
In the latter country she had met and married a fellow American reporter,
Bert L. Kuhn, and when their baby girl was two weeks old, much against
her will and mainly to please her husband, she returned, taking the baby
with her, to the United States for a holiday, her husband remaining
behind in China.

She was walking one December afternoon on Michigan Boulevard,
Chicago, when "suddenly and without warning sky, boulevard, people,

1 Kuhn, Irene, Assigned to Adventure (London: George Harrap & Co.), 280-87.

DREAMS

29

lake, everything vanished, wiping from my vision as completely and
quickly as if I had been struck blind. Before me, as on a motion picture
screen in a dark theatre, unrolled a strip of green grass within a fence
of iron palings. Three young trees, in spring verdure, stood at one side;
beyond the trees and the fence, in the far distance, factory smoke-stacks
trailed sooty plumes across the sky. Across from the trees stood a small
circle of people, men and women, a mere handful, in black clothes. And
coming to a halt on a gravelled road by the grass was a limousine from
which alighted two men who turned to offer their hands to a woman in
black, emerging now from the car. The woman was I.

"I watched myself being escorted against my will to the group which
now parted to receive me. I made no sound, but struggled against the
necessity of moving towards them. I took one step and then stood stock
still. Gendy the two men urged me forward, a step at a time, until at last
I was among the others, and looked at the small hole cut in the grass —
a hole not more than two feet square.

"I looked once and turned my back on it, wanting to run away, but
held there by some irresistible force. There was a small box which
someone, bending over now, was placing in the earth with infinite ten-
derness— a box so small and light I could hold it in my hand and hardly
feel it. What was I doing here ? Where was I ? Why was I letting someone
put this box into the ground — this little box which held something very
precious to me? I couldn't speak or move. These people — who were they?
Then I recognized only the faces of my husband's family, tear-stained
and sad. The silence screamed and tore at me. I looked about. All the clan
were there. Only he was missing. Then I knew what was in the box, and
I crumpled on the grass without a sound."

When the vision fled she looked so ill, as she supported herself by a
lamp post, that a passing stranger came forward to assist her. He called
a taxi and she was driven to the office of her brother-in-law, who, likewise
startled by her appearance, poured out for her a good drink of whiskey.
She soon pulled 'round, dismissed the incident from her mind — just a
piece of too fervid imagination, the outcome of her loneliness — but she did
not forget it.

Her holiday was continued until February, when she decided to sail
from Vancouver on the Empress of Canada. As soon as she boarded the

30 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

ship the purser advised her to get in touch with the passenger agent, who,
when she approached him, produced a wire from the Kuhn family in
Chicago: "Please advise Mrs. Bert L. Kuhn husband dangerously ill,
best not sail."

At the moment the Empress of Canada sailed — without her — she re-
ceived another wire: "Bert dead."

She returned to Chicago, where she accepted the ofter of a job on the
Mirror; meanwhile her husband's ashes were being sent home to Chicago
to rest beside his father's in the city of his birth.

"And it was on May 30 that, all arrangements having been completed,
I went with my two brothers-in-law in a limousine to Rosehill Cemetery,
which I had never seen before.

"We drove across the city, through the cemetery gates and came to a
stop. The men got out first and waited to help me. I put my foot on
the ground, and something held me back. For a second I couldn't
raise my eyes because I knew what I should see. At last I looked. There
was the spring grass underfoot. There were the three young trees in fresh
leaf; there the fence of iron palings, and the smoke-stacks of the city's
industries far beyond in the distance. My feet were weighted with lead.
I didn't want to go.

"Bert's brothers urged me forward gently. I saw the ring of black-clad
mourners over to one side, waiting. I stopped.

" 'You didn't have to open a full grave, did you?' I asked.

"'How do you know?' asked Paul with astonishment.

" 'There's just a little square hole big enough to take the box with Bert's
ashes, isn't there?' I pressed on.

"Paul's face was white beneath his natural tan.

" 'Yes, that's right. They said it would be foolish to open a full grave for
a small box of ashes. But how did you know?' he persisted.

"I didn't answer. I was thinking of that December day on Michigan
Boulevard when I had seen into the future, over the bridge of time. . . ."

Lest anyone should imagine that Irene Kuhn was a woman much given
to dreams and fancies, a perusal of her book will soon alter that opinion.
Her life, before this incident, although full of adventure and excitement,
was lived in a practical fashion, her emotions and feelings always under
strict control.

Chapter 2

HAUNTED HOUSES

There is nothing superstitious in the investigation of such curiosities as
haunted houses; if phenomena occur, as is so often alleged, then it is the
duty of the psychical researcher to investigate, record, and study them, and
this has been done in many cases in a perfectly cool, calm, and judicial
manner. Attempts have been made to obtain permanent records of visual
and auditory phenomena by means of scientific instruments and to observe
what happens in a purely dispassionate manner.

Various theories have been advanced to account for this type of phe-
nomenon. The common version is that it is due to the direct action of the
discarnate, while others hold the view that certain "atmospheres" exist
in houses of this nature, permeating and affecting the minds and senses
of all dwellers sensitive enough to feel this influence. Telepathy
from the living and the dead are other theories advanced, while the
materialist considers the entire phenomenon can be explained by natural
causes, rats, mice, wind, heat, cold, and creaking boards, etc., and if these
explanations do not cover the entire range, then hallucination and imag-
ination meet the case. Nevertheless, the fact remains that figures have
been seen, and that animals — which know nothing of theories — have acted
in an extraordinary manner, as well as physical noises heard that seem
to invalidate all the theories.

Only the future can decide what the final verdict will be.

According to Ingram's The Haunted Houses and Family Traditions
of Great Britain there are at least 150 haunted houses in this country. The
most ancient case of haunting is that of Pausanias, a traitorous general,
who, immured in the Temple of Athene at Sparta, died of starvation.
After his death terrifying noises were heard in the temple, but when a
magician came and laid his ghost they ceased entirely.

There is one type of haunting that is in a class by itself, that of pre-
monitory haunting which usually foretells disaster or death, and many
old castles in Europe have a traditional ghost, the appearance of which is

31

32 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

usually regarded as the herald of death. The White Lady of the Royal
Palace, Berlin, the White Lady of Schonbrunn, the Dark Lady of Norfolk
Castle and the Grey Lady of Windsor Castle are traditional and well
known. The Berlin apparition is well authenticated; she is supposed to be
the ghost of Countess Agnes of Orlemunde who murdered her two chil-
dren. She appeared eight days before the death of the Prince Elector John
George in 1589 and twenty-three days previous to the death of Sigismund
in 1619. The attempt on the life of Count Frederick William was made in
1850, shortly after she had been seen in the palace gardens. The Schon-
brunn White Lady has a similar record ; her appearances were prior to the
death of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico in 1867, the Mayer ling
drama, and before information was received of the death of the ex-Arch-
duke John Orth in 1889.

As recently as November, 1930, the question came before the Berlin
courts as to the right of a man to keep his family ghosts on the premises.
Lucy Regulski, eleven years of age, was alleged to be disturbed by the
spirit of her uncle, and as the house had acquired a bad name, the owner
applied for the eviction of his tenants. The court decided in favor of the
tenant Herr Regulski; he could keep as many ghosts as he wished, the
value of the property had not deteriorated thereby.

case no. 14
The D Case1

"In relating simply what I saw one July morning in the year 1873,
I will first describe the room in which I saw it. It is a bedroom with
a window at either end, a door and a fireplace at opposite sides. . . . The

room is on the upper story of a house some miles from the city of D .

One morning . . . opening my eyes I saw right before me the figure of
a woman, stooping down and apparently looking at me. Her head and
shoulders were wrapped in a common grey woolen shawl. Her arms were
folded, and they were also wrapped, as if for warmth, in the shawl. I
looked at her in my horror and dare not cry out lest I might move the
awful thing to speech or action. . . . After what may have been only
seconds — of the duration of this I cannot judge — she raised herself and
went backwards towards the window, stood at the table and gradually van-

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., II, 141-44.

HAUNTED HOUSES 33

ished. . . . Now I could take my oath that I did not mention this circum-
stance to either my brother or the servant, as had I done so, the latter,
whom we valued, might have left.

"Exactly a fortnight afterwards, I noticed my brother was out of sorts
at breakfast time. 'I've had a horrid nightmare,' he said. 'I saw it early
this morning as distinctly as I see you. A villainous looking old hag, with
her head and arms wrapped up in a cloak, stooping over me.' 'Oh, Henry,'
I said, 'I saw the same thing a fortnight ago.' He answered, 'Why did you
not tell me?' 'I was afraid you would laugh at me,' I said. 'This is no
laughing matter,' he said, 'for it has quite upset me.'

"About four years later, a boy of four or five years of age left alone in
the drawing-room came out pale and trembling, and said to my sister,
'Who is that old woman that went upstairs?' My sister tried to convince
him that there was no old woman, and though they searched every room
in the house, the child did maintain that the old woman 'did go upstairs.'

"A gentleman with whom we became acquainted in the neighborhood
started when we first told him of what we had seen, and asked had we
never heard that a woman had been killed in that house many years
previously and that it was said to be haunted."

The witnesses in this case were all alive at the time it was published in
the Proceedings of the S.P.R. and known personally to Professor Henry
Sidgwick and Sir William F. Barrett.

CASE NO. 15

The Morton Case1
This case was submitted to F. W. H. Myers by his friend, Miss R. C.
Morton, a lady of scientific training. It was very well authenticated and
corroborated by six written and signed statements, as well as by the
original informant:

"The house was built about the year 1860; the first occupant was
Mr. S., an Anglo-Indian, who lived in it for about sixteen years. During
this time, year uncertain, he lost his wife to whom he was passionately
attached and to drown his grief took to drinking. His second wife, a
Miss I. H, hoped to cure him of his intemperate habits, but instead she

l Proceedings, S.P.R., VIII, 311-32.

34 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

also took to drinking, and their married life was embittered by constant
quarrels, frequently resulting in violent scenes. A few months before
Mr. S.'s death on July 14, 1876, his wife separated from him and went
to live in Clifton. She was not present at the time of his death, nor, as far
as is known, was ever in the house afterwards. She died on September 23,
1878.

"After Mr. S.'s death the house was bought by Mr. L., an elderly gentle-
man, who died rather suddenly within six months of going into it. The
house then remained empty for some years — probably four."

Miss Morton takes up the story:

"My father took the house in March, 1882, none of us ever having then
heard of anything unusual about the house. We moved in towards the end
of April and it was not until the following June that I first saw the
apparition.

"I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed when I heard some-
one at the door and went to it, thinking it might be my mother. On
opening the door, I saw no one; but on going a few steps along the
passage, I saw the figure of a tall lady dressed in black standing at the
head of the stairs. After a few moments she descended the stairs, and I
followed for a short distance, feeling curious.

"During the next two years — from 1882 to 188-1 — I saw the figure about
half a dozen times, at first at long intervals, and afterwards at shorter,
but I only mentioned these appearances to one friend, who did not speak
of them to anyone. During this period, as far as we know, there were
only three appearances to anyone else :

"1. In the summer of 1882 to my sister, Mrs. K., when a figure was
thought to be that of a Sister of Mercy who had called at the house, and
no further curiosity was aroused. She was coming down the stairs rather
late for dinner at 6:30, it being then quite light, when she saw the figure
cross the hall in front of her, and pass into the drawing-room.

"2. In the autumn of 1883 it was seen by the housemaid about 10 p.m.,
she declaring that someone had got into the house; her description agreed
fairly with what I had seen.

"3. On or about December 18, 1883, it was seen in the drawing-room
by my brother and another little boy. They were playing outside on the

HAUNTED HOUSES 35

terrace when they saw the figure in the drawing-room, close to the win-
dow, and ran in to see who it could be that was crying so bitterly. They
found no one in the drawing-room and the parlormaid told them that
no one had come into the house.

"After the first time, I followed the figure several times downstairs into
the drawing-room, where she remained a variable time, generally standing
to the right-hand side of the bow-window. From the drawing-room she
went along the passage towards the garden door, where she always
disappeared.

'The first time I spoke to her was on January 29, 1884. I opened the
drawing-room door softly and went in, just standing by it. She came in
past me and walked to the sofa and stood still there, so I went up to her
and asked if I could help her. She moved, and I thought she was going
to speak, but she gave only a slight gasp and moved towards the door.
Just at the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed as if she were quite
unable to speak. She walked into the hall and then by the side door she
seemed to disappear as before.

"I have also attempted to touch her, but she always eluded me. It was
not that there was nothing there to touch, but she always seemed to be
beyond me, and if followed into a corner, simply disappeared.

"The appearances during the months of July and August, 1884, became
much more frequent; indeed, they were then at their maximum, from
which time they seem gradually to have decreased.

"On the night of August 1, 1 again saw the figure. I heard the footsteps
outside on the landing about 2 a.m. I got up at once and went outside.
She was then at the end of the landing at the top of the stairs, with her
side view towards me. She stood there some minutes, then went down-
stairs, stopping again when she reached the hall below. I opened the
drawing-room door and she went in, walked across the room to the
couch in the bow-window, stayed there a little, then came out of the room,
went along the passage and disappeared by the garden door. I spoke to
her again, but she did not answer.

"On the evening of August 11 we were sitting in the drawing-room
with the gas lit but the shutters were not shut, the light outside getting
dark, my brother and a friend having just given up tennis; my eldest
sister, Mrs. K., and myself both saw the figure on the balcony outside,

36 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

looking in at the window. She stood there for some minutes, then walked
to the end and back again, after which she seemed to disappear. She soon
after came into the drawing-room, when I saw her but my sister did not.
The same evening my sister E. saw her on the stairs as she came out of a
room on the upper landing.

"The following evening, August 12, while coming up the garden I
walked towards the orchard, when I saw the figure cross the orchard, go
along the carriage drive in front of the house and in at the open side
door, across the hall and into the drawing-room, I following. She crossed
the drawing-room and took up her usual position behind the couch in the
bow-window. My father came in soon after and I told him she was there.
He could not see the figure, but went up to where I showed him she was.
She then went swiftly 'round behind him, across the room, out of the
door, and along the hall, disappearing as usual near the garden door,
we both following her. We looked out into the garden, having first to
unlock the garden door, which my father had locked as he came through,
but saw nothing of her.

"On August 12, about 8 p.m. and still quite light, my sister E. was
singing in the back drawing-room. I heard her stop abruptly, come out
into the hall and call me. She said she had seen the figure in the drawing-
room close behind her as she sat at the piano. I went back into the room
with her and saw the figure in the bow-window at her usual place. I
spoke to her several times but had no answer. She stood there for ten
minutes or a quarter of an hour; then went across the room to the door
and along the passage, disappearing in the same place by the garden door.

"My sister M. then came in from the garden, saying she had seen her
coming up the kitchen steps outside. We all three then went into the
garden, when Mrs. K. called out from a window on the first story that
she had just seen her pass across the lawn in front and along the carriage
drive towards the orchard. This evening, then, altogether four people
saw her. My father was then away and my youngest brother was out.

"On the morning of August 14, the parlormaid saw her in the dining-
room about 8:30 a.m., having gone into the room to open the shutters.
The room is very sunny and even with all the shutters closed it is quite
light, the shutters not fitting well and letting sunlight through the cracks.
She had opened one shutter when, on turning 'round, saw the figure

HAUNTED HOUSES 37

cross the room. We were all on the look-out for her that evening; in fact,
whenever we had made arrangements to watch and were especially expect-
ing her, we never saw anything.

"During the rest of that year and the following, 1885, the apparition
was frequently seen through each year, especially during July, August
and September. In these months the three deaths took place, viz., Mr. S.
on July 14, 1876; the first Mrs. S. in August and the second Mrs. S. on
September 23. The apparitions were of exactly the same type, seen in the
same places and by the same people at varying intervals.

"At Mr. Myers' suggestion, I kept a camera constantly ready to try to
photograph the figure, but on the few occasions I was able to do so I got
no result; at night, usually by candle-light, a long exposure would be
necessary for so dark a figure and this I could not obtain. I also tried to
communicate with the figure, constantly speaking to it and asking it
to make signs, with no result. I also tried especially to touch her, but did
not succeed. On cornering her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared.

"Some time in the summer, of 1886, Mrs. Twining, our regular char-
woman, saw the figure, while waiting in the hall at the door leading to
the kitchen stairs, for her payment. Until it suddenly vanished from her
sight, as no real figure could have done, she thought it was a lady visitor
who had mistaken her way.

"During the next two years, 1887 to 1889, the figure was very seldom
seen, though footsteps were heard, the louder noises having gradually
ceased. From 1889 to the present,, 1892, so far as I know, the figure has
not been seen at all; the lighter footsteps lasted a little longer, but now
even they have ceased. The figure became much less substantial on its
later appearances. Up to about 1886 it was so solid and lifelike that it was
often mistaken for a real person. It gradually became less distinct. At
times it intercepted the light; we have not been able to ascertain if it
cast a shadow."

Proofs of Immateriality
"1. I have several times fastened fine strings across the stairs at various
heights before going to bed, after all the others have gone up to their
rooms. I have at least twice seen the figure pass through the cords, leaving
them intact.

38 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"2. The sudden and complete disappearance of the figure, while still in
full view.

"3. The impossibility of touching the figure. I have repeatedly followed
it into a corner, when it disappeared, and have tried to suddenly pounce
upon it, but have never succeeded in touching it of getting my hand up
to it, the figure eluding my touch.

"4. It has appeared in a room with the doors shut.

"On the other hand, the figure was not called up by a desire co see it,
for on every occasion when we have made special arrangements to watch
for it, we never saw it. On several occasions we have sat up at night,
hoping to see it, but in vain — my father, with my brother-in-law, myself
with a friend three or four times, an aunt and myself twice, and my
sisters with friends more than once; on none of these occasions was any-
thing seen. Nor have all the appearances been seen after we have been
talking or thinking much of the figure.

"The figure has been connected with the second Mrs. S., the grounds
for which are:

"1. The complete history of the house is known, and if we are to con-
nect the figure with any of the previous occupants she is the only person
who in any way resembled the figure.

"2. The widow's garb excludes the first Mrs. S.

"3. Although none of us had ever seen the second Mrs. S., several people
who had known her identified her from our description. On being shown
a photograph containing a number of portraits, I picked out one of her
sister as being most like that of the figure and was afterwards told that
the sisters were much alike.

"4. Her step-daughter and others told us that she especially used the
front drawing-room in which she continually appeared and that her
habitual seat was on a couch placed in similar position to ours.

"5. The figure is undoubtedly connected with the house, none of the
percipients having seen it anywhere else, nor had any other hallucinations."

Conduct of Animals in the House
"We have strong ground for believing that the apparition was seen by
two dogs. Twice I remember seeing our dog run up to the mat at the

HAUNTED HOUSES 39

foot of the stairs, wagging its tail and moving its back the way dogs do
when they are expecting to be caressed. It jumped up, fawning as it
would do if a person were standing there, but suddenly slunk away with
its tail between its legs and retreated, trembling, under a sofa. Its action
was peculiar and was much more striking to the onlooker than it could
possibly appear from a description.

"In conclusion, as to feelings aroused by the presence of the figure, it is
very difficult to describe them; on a few occasions I think the feeling of
awe at something unknown, mixed with a strong desire to know more
about it, predominated. Later, when I was able to analyze my feelings
more closely and the first novelty had worn off, I was conscious of a
feeling of loss, as if I had lost power to the figure. Most of the other per-
cipients speak of feeling a cold wind, but I myself have not experienced
this.

"R. C. Morton."

CASE NO. 16

The Egham Case1
This case was vouched for by the English poet and dramatist, Stephen
Phillips (1868-1915), regarding a house he leased in Egham, near Windsor:

"I went there for peace and quiet, and yet, although many people knew
my purpose, nobody had the pluck to tell me that the place had the
reputation of being haunted. We found it out pretty quickly ourselves,
my household and I. No sooner had we been installed in the place than
the uncanniest noises conceivable beset us. There were knockings and
rappings, footfalls, soft and loud; hasty, stealthy hurryings and scurryings
and sounds as of a human creature being chased and caught and then
strangled or choked. Doors banged and were opened and closed unac-
countably as if by unseen hands. I would be sitting quietly in the study
writing when the door would open soundlessly. That in itself is enough
in the dead of night to a man with his imagination aflame. It was sus-
ceptible of explanation, however: 'It is only a bit of a draught,' I would
say to myself, as I held my breath and watched, but draughts do not

1The Herald (New York: July 24, 1904). Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses
for Psychic Occurrences.

40 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

turn door handles, and on my life the handle would turn as the door
opened, and there was no hand visible.

"This happened repeatedly. All the household heard sounds and experi-
enced the same sensations.

"My little daughter reported having seen a little old man creeping
about the house, but there was no such person to be found. . . .

"According to common report and local tradition, an old farmer
strangled a child fifty years ago in the vicinity of our house at Egham.
This tradition I learned after and not before our experiences.

"If there really is a ghost on the prowl it explains a lot.

"Needless to say, we gave up our lease of the residence and got out
of it like a shot. The servants left so precipitately that they did not even
take their boxes, so you may imagine how scared they were. The house
has not had another tenant since, and I learned that before my advent it
rarely, if ever, was occupied.

"As a man of reasonable intellect I am open to accept any feasible
explanation of our experiences. Indeed, as the house continues 'To let'
and is still reported to be haunted, I should be quite glad if some respect-
able body such as the Psychical Research Society would endeavor to clear
the matter up."

case no. 17 »

The Sayce Case1
When the Rev. A. H. Sayce was thirteen years of age, he and his
brother visited friends in a house near Bath, which they had just taken,
and while there events took place which made an indelible impression
upon his memory:

"On a Thursday afternoon when the light was failing I closed my
books and went upstairs to prepare myself for dinner while there was
still sufficient light to do so without the help of a candle. I was standing,
brushing my hair before the toilet table which stood in front of the
window, when I happened to turn to the right and there saw a man
standing a few steps away at the entrance of the dressing-room. I can still
see him as he stood facing me, with a closely shaven face, fine features,
dark brown hair parted in the middle, and a dark coat buttoned below

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, 42-44.

HAUNTED HOUSES 41

the chin like an oriental stambouli or a clerical coat. The button was of
gold; and there was a gold button also on either wrist.

"The suddenness of the apparition naturally startled me, and without
imagining for a moment that it was anything more than an ordinary
individual who had found his way into the house, I rushed downstairs
into the morning-room and there told my hosts that there was a strange
man upstairs. I was naturally laughed at, and informed that poring over
books indoors day after day had excited my 'nerves.' By the time dinner
was over I had been induced to believe that such was really the case.

"The following Sunday I awoke early in the morning. The log fire
was nearly extinct, but there was still sufficient light from it to enable
the outlines of objects to be discerned. In the dim light I saw a human
figure pass to the foot of the bed and there stand for a moment or two
between the bedstead and the dying fire. I asked my brother Herbert,
who was sharing the bed with me and happened also to be awake, who
it was. He, too, saw the figure and replied, 'It's only Lizzie' — the daughter
of our hosts, whose room was close to ours, and therefore we both turned
'round and went to sleep again. In the morning I mentioned to our
hostess, Mrs. Boyd, that her daughter had visited our bedroom during
the night. She replied, 'What could she have been doing there?' and then
the matter passed out of our memories until it was recalled to me the
following autumn by Mrs. Boyd.

"The next event of which I know was a visit paid by a Mrs. Herbert to
the house in the spring. On a certain Sunday morning she asked if she
might change her room, as she had had an unpleasant experience early
that morning. She had seen a man come out of the dressing-room, pass
along the side of the bed and then stoop down so as to be concealed by
its foot. She jumped out of bed to see who was there, and nothing was
visible. The whole story was naturally treated as a dream by those who
heard it.

"In the following September the married daughter of the Boyds and
her husband paid a visit to the Court. A few days later we were lunching
there, and I heard from Mrs. Holt a somewhat vivid account of the
experiences they had just had. They occupied the drab room, and she
slept on the side of the bed nearest the dressing-room. Early on the
previous Friday morning she was roused from her slumbers by feeling

42 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

'a cold, clammy hand' laid across her forehead. She opened her eyes, and
saw the dark brown figure of a man hieing away from her into the little
dressing-room. She awoke her husband, who told her she had had a
nightmare; but she refused to sleep again on that side of the bed. The
next night Mr. Holt was rendered sleepless by a toothache and, therefore,
as he informed his wife, had there been any ghosts about, he must have
seen them. By Saturday night, however, his toothache was cured, and his
sleep accordingly was sounder than usual. He was startled out of it by
feeling the same 'cold, clammy hand' as that described by his wife and,
as he opened his eyes, seeing the same figure retreating into the dressing-
room. He looked at his watch and found that it was four o'clock. He got
out of bed and sponged his face and head with cold water; then returned
to the bed and sat up in it for a moment or two. Before he could lie
down 'the figure' returned from the dressing-room and stood close to his
shoulder. He was able to measure it against the window-frame, but I do
not remember what he said was the exact height. His description of 'the
figure,' however, agreed exactly with what I had seen, even to the three
gilt buttons. While he sat gazing at it, the figure slowly vanished out of
view.

"That there was a ghost in the Court now began to be noised abroad,
and the old servants of our friends threatened to leave them. In the course
of the winter, consequently, they gave up the place and took a house
elsewhere. From that day to this I have heard nothing more about it or
its occupants, ghostly or otherwise."

case no. 18
The New Guinea Case1
"One night, in Moreton's house, I had a curious and uncanny experi-
ence. I was sitting at the table, writing a long dispatch which engaged
all my attention; my table was in the middle of the room, and on my
right and left hand respectively there were two doors, one opening on
to the front and the other on to the back veranda of the house; both
doors were closed and fastened with ordinary wooden latches, which
could not possibly open of their own accord as a spring lock might do;

1 Monckton, C. A. W., Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate (Har-
mondsworth: Penguin Books, Ltd.).

HAUNTED HOUSES 43

the floor of the room in which I was, was made of heavy teak-wood
boards, nailed down, the floor of the veranda being constructed of laths
of palm, laced together with native string. As I wrote, I became conscious
that both doors were wide open and — hardly thinking what I was doing —
got up, closed them both and went on writing; a few minutes later, I
heard footsteps upon the coral path leading up to the house; they came
across the squeaky palm veranda, my door opened and the footsteps
went across the room, and — as I raised my eyes from my dispatch — the
other door opened, and they passed across the veranda and down again
on to the coral. I paid very little attention to this at first, having my
mind full of the subject about which I was writing, but half thought that
either Poruma or Giorgi, both of whom were in the kitchen, had passed
through the room; however, I again rose and absent-mindedly shut both
doors for the second time.

"Some time later, once more the footsteps came, crash crash on the
coral, squeak squeak on the veranda; again my door opened and the
squeak changed to the tramp of booted feet on the boarded floor. As I
looked to see who it was, the tramp passed close behind my chair and
across the room to the door, which opened; then again the tramp changed
to the squeak and the squeak to the crash on the coral. I was by this time
getting very puzzled, but, after a little thought, decided my imagination
was playing me tricks, and that I had not really closed the doors when
I thought I had. I made certain, however, that I did close them this time,
and went on with my work again. Once more the whole thing was
repeated, only this time I rose from the table, took my lamp in my hand,
and gazed hard at the places on the floor from which the sound came,
but could see nothing.

"Then I went on to the veranda and yelled for Giorgi and Poruma.
'Who is playing tricks here?' I asked in a rage. Before Poruma could
answer, again came the sound of footsteps through my room. 'I did not
know that you had anyone with you,' said Poruma in surprise, as he
heard the steps. 'I have no one with me, but somebody keeps opening my
door and walking about,' I replied, 'and I want him caught.' 'No one
would dare come into the Government compound and play tricks on the
R.M.,' said Poruma, 'unless he were mad.' I was by this time thoroughly
angry. 'Giorgi, go to the guard-house, send up the gate-keeper and all

44 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

the men there, then go to the jail and send Manigugu (the jailer) and
all his warders; then send to the Siai (a sailing ship) for her men; I
mean to get to the bottom of all this fooling.' The gate-keeper arrived,
and swore that he had locked the gate at ten o'clock, that no other than
Government people had passed through before that hour; that since then,
until Giorgi went for him, he had been sitting on his veranda with some
friends, and nobody could have passed without his knowledge. Then
came the men from the jail and the Siai, and I told them some scoundrel
had been playing tricks upon me and I wanted him caught.

"First they searched the house, not a big job, as there were only three
rooms furnished with spartan simplicity; that being completed, I placed
four men with lanterns under the house, which was raised on piles about
four feet from the ground; at the back and front and sides I stationed
others, until it was impossible for a mouse to have entered or left that
house unseen. Then, again I searched the house myself; after which
Poruma, Giorgi and I shut the doors of my room and sat inside. Exactly
the same thing occurred once more; through that line of men came the
footsteps, through my room in precisely the same manner came the tread
of a heavily booted man, then on to the palm veranda, where — in the now
brilliant illumination — we could see the depression at the spots from
which the sound came, as though a man were stepping there. 'Well, what
do you make of it?' I asked my men. 'No man living could have passed
unseen,' was the answer. 'It's either the spirit of a dead man or a devil.'
'Spirit of dead man or devil, it's all one to me,' I remarked ; 'if it's taken
a fancy to prance through my room, it can do so alone; shift my things
off to the Siai for the night.'

"The following day I sought out Armit. 'Do you know anything about
spooks?' I asked. 'Because something of that nature has taken a fancy
to Moreton's house.' 'Moreton once or twice hinted at something of the
sort,' said Armit, 'but he never would speak out; I will come and spend
tonight with you, and we will investigate.' Armit came, but nothing out
of the ordinary occurred; nor did I ever hear of it afterwards, and before
a year elapsed the house had been pulled down. When Moreton returned,
I related my experience to him ; and he then told me that one night, when
he was sleeping in his hammock, he was awakened by footsteps, such
as I have described, and upon his calling out angrily to demand who was

HAUNTED HOUSES 45

making the racket, his hammock was violently banged against the wall.
'I didn't care to say anything about it,' he said, 'as I was alone at the time,
and didn't want to be laughed at.' "

I have told this story for what it is worth; I leave my readers, who are
interested in the occult or psychical research, to form what opinion they
choose. All I say is that the story, as I have related it, is absolutely true.

9

CASE NO. 19

The Borley Rectory Case1

The criticism that good accounts of haunted houses are a thing of the
past cannot apply in this instance; for this case is right up-to-date, investi-
gated from 1929 to 1939 by 100 people drawn from many walks of life:
university students, B.B.C. officials, clergymen, doctors, scientists, con-
sulting engineers, and army men, etc., none of whom were interested in
the subject until they began their investigations of what is claimed to be
the best authenticated case of haunting in the history of psychical research.

In this book, it is impossible to do more than sketch a bare outline of
the haunting of Borley Rectory, and readers desiring the full account
should consult Harry Price's record.

In June, 1929, Mr. Price, after a reporter's statement had been published
in the Daily Mirror on the 10th of that month, was asked by the editor
of that paper to take charge of the investigation of the haunting of Borley
Rectory.

Mr. Price's first consideration was to learn something of the history of
the place. It was built in 1863, on the foundation of two — probably more —
earlier dwellings, one of which, according to tradition, was a monastery.
Local legend declared that a lay brother at the monastery and a young
novice in the nunnery at Bures were caught in the act of eloping by
other monks and sentenced to death. The man was beheaded while the
woman was buried alive in the walls of the monastery.

The Rev. Henry Bull was the first rector, from 1862 to 1892, and was
succeeded by his son, the Rev. Harry Bull, from 1892 to 1927. The Rev.
Guy E. Smith was rector from 1928 to 1930, followed by the Rev. L. A.
Foyster from 1930 to 1935. On account of the strange happenings in the

1 Price, Harry, The Most Haunted House in England (London: Longmans, Green &
Co., Ltd.).

46 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

house, the bishop decided that no more rectors should live there, and in
1936 the livings of Borley and Linton were merged into one, the Rev.
A. C. Henning acting as minister of both parishes. In 1938 it was sold to
Captain W. H. Gregson, in whose hands it remained until it was de-
stroyed by fire in February, 1939.

From the three surviving sisters of the Rev. Harry Bull, Mr. Price
received an account of the hauntings: bells were rung, articles mysteri-
ously disappeared and reappeared, and the figure of a nun was seen on
one occasion by four persons collectively. The Rev. L. A. Foyster con-
tinued the story: the figure of the Rev. Harry Bull was seen several times,
articles played tricks, crockery was smashed, windows were broken, bells
were rung and voices and footsteps were heard. Once Mrs. Foyster was
given a terrific blow in the eye by an unseen assailant and on another
occasion struck on the head by a piece of metal thrown downstairs.
Unseen hands scribbled messages on various walls, all apparently ad-
dressed to Marianne (Mrs. Foyster), as follows: "Marianne Light Mass
Prayer," "Marianne Please Help Get," "Marianne At Get Help Enfant
Bottom Me," "Light in . . . Write Prayer and O . . .',' "Edwin" and
"Get Light Mass and Prayers Here."

Lady Whitehouse of Arthur Hall, Sudbury, and her nephew, Dom
Richard Whitehouse, O.S.B., who had been friendly with the Bull family
and various occupants of the Rectory, corroborated the previous state-
ments and added a bit more: Lady Whitehouse's gloves and parasol had
jumped from a bed to a dressing-table; a brass stiletto had landed in
Dom Richard's lap; Mrs. Foyster, seriously ill, had been thrown out of
bed on several occasions; doors were locked of their own accord and
smoke had issued from a skirting board. "Happening to turn my eyes,"
Dom Richard stated, "towards a bit of the wall that jutted out from the
landing, I was surprised to notice a fresh bit of writing on an otherwise
clean bit of the wall. The message, which was scribbled in pencil, but
quite legible, ran as follows: 'Get light mass and prayers, M. . . .' A
little later, returning to the spot, the word 'here' was written up quite
clearly under the other writing." Eventually, Lady Whitehouse persuaded
the Foysters to live with her at Arthur Hall.

From Mr. Edward Cooper, groom-gardener at the Rectory, Mr. Price

HAUNTED HOUSES 47

heard, among other things, the story of a black coach drawn by two
horses, driven by two figures wearing high top hats.

In June, 1929, Mr. Price and his secretary paid their initial visit to the
Rectory. They searched the house from roof to cellar and with Mr. V. C.
Wall were speculating on a terrific crash that they had just heard when,
"We descended by the main staircase and had just reached the hall when
another crash was heard and we found that a red glass candlestick, one
of a pair we had just seen on the mantelpiece of the Blue Room, had
been hurled down the main stairs, had struck the iron stove and finally
disintegrated into a thousand fragments on the hall floor. Both Mr. Wall
and I saw the candlestick hurtle past our heads. We at once dashed
upstairs, made another search and found nothing. We returned to the
hall . . . and the entire party sat on the stairs . . . just waiting. A few
minutes later we heard something come rattling down the stairs . . . and
in full light the following articles came tumbling down the stairs: first
of all some common seashore pebbles, then a piece of slate, then some
more pebbles."

On October 13, 1931, Mr. Price, with Mrs. Henry Richards, Mrs. A.
Peel Goldney and Miss May Walker, returned to the Rectory, still occu-
pied by the Foyster family. The party arrived at an appropriate time
for phenomena: a glass of Chambertin wine was turned into black ink,
and an empty claret bottle was hurled down the staircase well, smashing
itself into bits at their feet; after that, bell-ringing, taps, etc., were merely
an anticlimax!

Up till May, 1937, Mr. Price, with an occasional visit to the Rectory,
had been receiving reports concerning the phenomena, but on the 19th
of that month he decided to take a lease of the house for one year from
the Rev. A. C. Henning. Next, he inserted an advertisement in The
Times inviting intelligent, critical and unbiased observers to join him
in his investigations. He received about 200 replies, out of which he
selected 40 — all total strangers. They were provided with a book of
instructions for their guidance should any manifestations occur. Then
they set to work in couples. Mr. Price and Mr. Ellic Howe, on June 2,
1937, were sitting in silence when they heard a series of short, sharp taps
and a quarter of an hour later were startled by two loud "thumps" that

48 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"left nothing to the imagination." On June 16, a tobacco tin was moved
three inches outside the line chalked 'round it and a small box seven feet
from where it had been left. Mr. Mark Kerr-Pease, a pro-consul at Geneva,
home on holiday, while taking his supper in the pantry found that he
had been locked in. Fortunately for him the key was on the inside of the
door. On June 28, at 11:40 a.m., he placed a screw on the mantelpiece in
the Blue Room, ringing it very carefully with chalk; and at 11:45 a.m.,
glancing at the mantelpiece, noticed that the screw had been removed
to one side of the chalk, this happening while he was in the room only
a few yards away. On the walls pencil markings appeared and every one
was ringed and dated; yet daily new markings continued to show up
before his eyes. On September 21, while on duty with his cousin, Mr.
Rupert Haig, a sack of coal weighing about fifty pounds was moved a
distance of eighteen inches, its original site being indicated by a stain on
the floor.

On July 28, 1937, Professor C. E. M. Joad, after thoroughly examining
the walls, found a mark that had not been there previously.

So it went on with other observers : articles were removed outside their
chalk markings, sounds of dragging footsteps were heard, doors slammed
on windless days, new pencil lines appeared on walls, bells were rung
and keys were mysteriously turned.

In October, 1937, Mr. S. H. Glanville, his son Roger, Mr. A. J. Cuthbert
and Mr. Mark Kerr-Pease decided to hold seances to try the "spirits."
They used a planchette, which told them that the nun whose body was
buried in the Rectory ground was the cause of the haunting. She had
been murdered in 1667 and, still earth-bound, wanted mass and prayers
said for the benefit of her soul. They also obtained a great deal of infor-
mation concerning the lives of past rectors that for obvious reasons cannot
be revealed.

Five months later, Miss Glanville and her brother tried the planchette
and this time a new "communicator" appeared; his name was "Sunex
Amures" and he threatened to burn the Rectory, starting the fire in the
hall. On May 19, 1938, Mr. Price's lease of the Rectory expired.

On February 27, 1939, exactly eleven months after the threat, the Rec-
tory was gutted by fire, which started exactly as forecast by Sunex Amures.

Captain W. H. Gregson, the owner of the Rectory at the time of the

HAUNTED HOUSES 49

fire, informed a newspaperman that a constable had seen "a woman in
grey and a man wearing a bowler hat" cross the courtyard in front of
him about four o'clock on the morning of the fire. Captain Gregson said
there was no woman in the house at the outbreak; he was quite alone.
"The fire," stated the Captain, "was caused through a big pile of books
(which I was dusting and sorting in the main hall) falling over on to a
lamp and upsetting it. The only suggestion of any mysterious influence
lies in the fact that I stacked the books quite carefully, and that in ordinary
common sense they should haye remained in their stack without falling
over at all."

Mr. Price summed up his opinion on the Rectory phenomena thus:
". . . Is Borley Rectory haunted or is it not? My answer to my own ques-
tion is 'Yes, decidedly!' It is difficult to put into cold print the enthusiasm
with which I record my affirmation. But then the reader has not had a
glass candlestick hurled at him from above when he knew there was no
one above to hurl it! The reader has not seen two keys fall from two
doors simultaneously, when he was looking at them, knowing that no
mortal hand supplied the energy. The reader has not interviewed about
100 people, as I have, who have experienced similar manifestations. But
I will ask him to weigh very carefully all the evidence submitted in my
monograph before he hastily gives his verdict."

Mr. Price says regarding the explanation of the phenomena, ". . . the
spirit hypothesis is the one that best covers many of the observed phe-
nomena at Borley Rectory."

Chapter 3

APPARITIONS

"Only one thing is certain about apparitions," wrote Andrew Lang,
"namely, that they do appear. They are really perceived." Probably that
is the very point on which the average person would join issue with him
and contend that there are no such things as apparitions: science has
explained them away. Yet strangely enough, more apparitions are re-
ported today than ever before. Literally, thousands of such cases are on
record, first hand, well authenticated and documented. Some years ago,
a statistical investigation revealed the surprising fact that approximately
one person in every ten had (or thought he had) experienced some psy-
chical phenomenon.

A systematic inquiry into phantasmal appearances was instigated by
the S.P.R. in 1882, and Myers, Gurney, and Podmore embodied the
results in their book, Phantasms of the hiving. Out of 5,705 persons
chosen at random, 702 provided good cases that showed that "between
death and apparitions a connection exists not due to chance alone." Later,
in 1889, 32,000 answers were reviewed on the same subject by the S.P.R.
and once more chance-coincidence was ruled out and the previous con-
clusion confirmed. The American S.P.R. and Flammarion, the French
scientist, conducted censuses that produced the same result.

What are apparitions? Are they hallucinations? Such was the theory
put forward years ago and still believed today. Or are they due to the
direct action of the discarnate? Or are they . . .?

Stories of apparitions are as old as the history of man, and all the
ancient writings — Greek, Roman, Jewish, medieval, and oriental — con-
tain many accounts of them. They happen to rich and poor alike. It is
known that Josephine appeared to Napoleon at St. Helena warning him
of his approaching demise. Mozart saw an apparition which ordered him
to compose a Requiem and frequendy came to inquire about its progress.
He completed it in time to be played at his own funeral.

Do apparitions occupy an objective area in space or are they merely

50

APPARITIONS 51

ideas externalized by the percipient's mind? The old-fashioned school
accepted the former theory, even though apparitions were seen in unusual
clothes. The modern school of psychical research accepts the latter theory,
and indeed it is the better explanation of the two: it accounts for the
clothes as well. The idea is that the discarnate, more or less successfully,
implants by the process of telepathy a certain piece of information con-
cerning himself, and the percipient's mind creates a more or less veridical
hallucination. Apparitions cannot be dismissed as fictitious products of
the imagination when it is remembered that they often convey informa-
tion found later to be correct that was not known to the seer.

The public are prone to confuse apparitions with ghosts, yet they are
entirely different types of phenomena. Ghosts often appear at the same
place at regular intervals, rarely conveying information or paying atten-
tion to the beholder. Their visits seem futile and purposeless, but appari-
tions are entirely different: they are seen once, very occasionally twice,
then never again. They impart information, sometimes a warning of
approaching death, often to inform of the passing of an absent friend,
and occasionally to right a wrong.

CASE NO. 20

The Brougham Case1
In December, 1799, Lord Brougham, then twenty-one years of age, was
journeying in Sweden with some friends. He says:

"We set out for Gothenburg, determining to make for Norway. About
one o'clock in the morning, arriving at a decent inn, we decided to stop
for the night. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take ad-
vantage of a hot bath before I turned in, and here a most remarkable
thing happened to me — so remarkable that I must tell the story from the
beginning.

'After I left the high school, I went with G., my most intimate friend,
to attend the classes in the university. There was no divinity class, but
we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave
subjects — among others, on the immortality of the soul, and on a future
state. This question, and the possibility, I will not say of ghosts walking,

1 Life and Times of Lord Brougham, 201. Prince, Dr, Walter F., Noted Witnesses
for Psychic Occurrences.

52 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation;
and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement written
in our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear
to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of the 'life
after death.' After we had finished our classes at the college, G. went to
India, having got an appointment there in the civil service. He seldom
wrote to me, and after a lapse of a few years I had almost forgotten him;
moreover, his family having little connection with Edinburgh, I seldom
saw or heard anything of them, or of him through them, so that all this
schoolboy intimacy had died out and I had nearly forgotten his existence.
I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it and
enjoying the comfort of the heat after the late freezing I had undergone,
I turned my head 'round, looking towards the chair on which I had de-
posited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. On the chair
sat G., looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I know not, but
on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling on the floor. The
apparition — or whatever it was — that had taken the likeness of G., had
disappeared.

"This vision produced such a shock that I had no inclination to talk
about it or to speak about it even to Stuart; but the impression it made
upon me was too vivid to be easily forgotten; and so strongly was I af-
fected by it that I have here written down the whole story, with the
date, December 19, and all the particulars as they are now fresh before
me. No doubt I had fallen asleep; and that the appearance presented so
distinctly to my eyes was a dream, I cannot for a moment doubt; yet
for years I had had no communication with G., nor had there been
anything to recall him to my recollection. Nothing had taken place during
our Swedish travels either connected with G. or with India, or with any-
thing relating to him or to any member of his family. I recollected
quickly enough our old discussion and the bargain we had made. I could
not discharge from my mind the impression that G. must have died,
and that his appearance to me was to be received by me as proof of a
future state; yet all the while I felt convinced that the whole was a dream;
and so painfully vivid, so unfading was the impression, that I could not
bring myself to talk of it or to make the slightest allusion to it."

APPARITIONS 53

Lord Brougham afterwards wrote that "Soon after my return to Edin-
burgh, there arrived a letter from India announcing G.'s death, and
stating that he had died on December 19."

case no. 21
The Lanne Case1
The unusual feature of this interesting case is that it contains the in-
stance of a warning from a person recently deceased to one who was about
to die, and the percipient was totally unaware of the death of the com-
municator.

"On last November 27, an old woman named Mme Guerin, sixty-six
years of age, living at No. 34 (fourth story) in the street Fosses-du-Temple,
was slightly ill with what the doctor thought was a slight attack of in-
digestion. It was five o'clock in the morning; her daughter, a widow
named Mme Guerard, had risen early, lit the lamp and was working at
the fire by her mother's bedside. While working the daughter said to her
mother, 'Why, Mme Lanne must have come back from the country.'
(This Mme Lanne, a good-natured stout woman of sixty, had retired from
<a grocery business at the corner of the streets St. Louis and St. Claude
with an income of 40,000 francs and lived on the first floor in the Boule-
vard Beaumarchais in a new house.) Mme Guerard added, 'I must go
to see her today.' 'No use to do that,' said her mother.

"'Why, Mother?'

"'She died an hour ago.'

" 'Why, Mother, what do you mean? Are you dreaming?'

'"No, I am quite awake. I have not slept, but as four o'clock struck
I saw Mme Lanne pass and she said to me, "I am going, are you
coming?" '

"The daughter thought that her mother had dreamed it and later in
the day went to see Mme Lanne, only to find that she had died at 4 a.m.

"The same evening Mme Guerin vomited blood and the doctor said,
'She will not last twenty-four hours.' The next day at noon she had a
second attack and died.

1 Hugo, Victor, Choses Vues.

54 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"I knew Mme Guenn, and the story was told me by Mme Guerard, a
pious, good woman."

case no. 22
The Marry at Case1
Florence Marryat, in her biography of her father, Captain Frederick
Marryat (1792-1848), the great writer of novels of the sea, gives this inci-
dent as she heard it from him, which happened towards the end of his life :

"The last fifteen years of my father's life were passed on his own estate
at Langham, in Norfolk, and among his country friends were Sir Charles
and Lady Townshend, of Raynham Hall. At the time I speak of, the
title and property had lately changed hands, and the new baronet had
repapered, painted, and furnished the Hall throughout, and come down
with his wife and a large party of friends to take possession. But to their
annoyance, soon after their arrival rumors arose that the house was
haunted, and their guests, one and all (like those in the parable), began
to make excuses to go home again. It was all on account of a Brown Lady,
whose portrait hung in one of the bedrooms, and in which she was repre-
sented as wearing a brown satin dress with yellow trimmings, and a ruff
around her throat — a very harmless, innocent-looking young woman. But
they all declared they had seen her walking about the house — some in the
corridor, some in their bedrooms, others in the lower premises, and neither
guests nor servants would remain in the Hall. The baronet was naturally
very much annoyed about it and confided his trouble to my father, and
my father was indignant at the trick he believed had been played upon
him. There was a great deal of smuggling and poaching in Norfolk at
that period, as he knew well, being a magistrate of the county, and he
felt sure that some of these depredators were trying to frighten the
Townshends away from the Hall again. So he asked his friends to let him
stay with them and sleep in the haunted chamber, and he felt sure he
could rid them of the nuisance. They accepted his offer, and he took
possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and
in which she had often been seen, and slept each night with a loaded
revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw nothing, and

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, 164-66.

APPARITIONS 55

the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the third night, however,
two young men (nephews of the baronet) knocked at his door as he
was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room
(which was at the other end of the corridor), and give them his opinion
of a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and
trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except
themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were
leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, 'in case we meet the Brown
Lady,' he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the
young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father
back again, 'in case you meet the Brown Lady,' they repeated, laughing
also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company.

"The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished,
but as they reached the middle of it they saw the glimmer of a lamp
coming towards them from the other end. 'One of the ladies going to
visit the nurseries,' whispered the young Townshends to my father. Now,
the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had
a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned
country houses. My father (as I have said) was in shirt and trousers
only, and his native modesty made him feel so uncomfortable, so he
slipped within one of the outer doors (his friends following his example),
in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have
heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer,
through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him
to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the
figure as the facsimile of the portrait of 'The Brown Lady.' He had his
finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop
and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its
own accord before the door behind which he stood, and, holding the
lighted lamp she carried to her features, deliberately grinned at him. This
act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition,
that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the
revolver right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared — the figure at
which for the space of several minutes three men had been looking to-
gether— and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the
opposite side of the corridor and lodged in the panel of the inner door.

56 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

My father never attempted again to interfere with the Brown Lady, and I
have heard that she haunts the premises to this day. That she did so at the
time there is no shadow of doubt."

Sir Charles Townshend, proprietor of Raynham Hall, told Miss Lucia
C. Stone that "I cannot but believe, for she (the Brown Lady) ushered me
into my room last night." Miss Stone also reported that Colonel Loftus,
a cousin of Sir Charles, saw the apparition while staying at the Hall.
According to the Rev. W. P. M. McLean, rector of West Raynham, the
apparition was also seen in 1903.

Note. — See also Case No. 36, page 76.

CASE NO. 23

The Bellamy Case1

"When she was a schoolgirl my wife made a pact with one of her com-
rades that the one who died first should appear to the surviving one,
God willing. In 1874 my wife, who had neither seen her school friend
nor heard of her, learned of her death. This news reminded her of the
compact they had made and she then began to dwell upon it and spoke
of it to me. I knew of this agreement with my wife, but had never seen a
photograph of her friend, nor heard anything concerning her.

"One or two nights afterwards we were sleeping quietly; a bright fire
shone in the room and there was a lighted candle. I awakened suddenly
and saw a lady seated beside the bed in which my wife was sleeping
deeply. I sat up in bed and gazed at her. I saw her so clearly that I can
still remember form and attitude. If I had an artist's skill I could paint her
likeness upon canvas. I remember that I was struck particularly with the
careful way in which her hair was dressed; it was arranged with a certain
elegance. I cannot say how long I sat gazing at her, but as soon as this
odd phantom vanished I got up out of bed to see if the garments hung
over the bed had caused some optical illusion. But there was nothing in
my line of vision between me and the wall. Since I could not think it a
hallucination, I did not doubt that I had really seen an apparition.

"I got back into bed and remained there until my wife awakened,
some hours afterwards. Only then did I describe to her the face which I
had seen. Complexion, stature, etc. — all in exact accordance with my wife's

1 Myers, F. W. H., Human Personality (London: Longmans, Green & Co.), II, 350.

APPARITIONS 57

recollection of her childhood friend. I asked my wife if there was anything
particularly striking in her friend's appearance; she answered at once,
'Yes, at school we used to tease her about her hair, which she always
arranged with special care.' It was precisely this which had struck me.

"I must add that I have never seen an apparition before this and have
not since.

"The Rev. Arthur Bellamy,
Bristol."

CASE NO. 24

The Rosa Case1
This case, guaranteed by Harriet Hosmer, the first prominent American
woman sculptor, occurred while she was studying her art in Italy and
was published in the Atlantic Monthly of May, 1862, and later in the
Phantasms of the Living:

"An Italian girl named Rosa was in my employ for some time, but was
finally obliged to return home to her sister on account of confirmed ill-
health. When I took my customary exercise on horseback I frequently
called to see her. On one of the occasions I called about 6 p.m., and found
her brighter than I had seen her for some time past. I had long relin-
quished hopes of her recovery, but there was nothing in her appearance
that gave me the impression of immediate danger. I left her with the
expectation of calling to see her again many times. She expressed a wish to
have a bottle of a certain kind of wine, which I promised to bring her
myself next morning.

"During the remainder of the evening I do not recollect that Rosa was
in my thoughts after I parted from her. I retired to rest in good health
and in a quiet frame of mind. But I woke from a sound sleep with an
oppressive feeling that someone was in the room. I reflected that no
one could get in except my maid, who had the key of one of the two
doors of my room — both of which doors were locked. I was able dimly
to distinguish the furniture in the room. My bed was in the middle of the
room with a screen around the foot of it. Thinking someone might be
behind the screen I said, 'Who's there?' but got no answer. Just then the
clock in the adjoining room struck five; and at that moment I saw the

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, 249-50.

58 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

figure of Rosa standing by my bedside; and in some way, though I could
not venture to say it was through the medium of speech, the impression
was conveyed to me from her of these v/ords : ' Adesso son jelice, son con-
tents*! And with that the figure vanished.

"At the breakfast table I said to the friend who shared the apartment
with me, 'Rosa is dead.' 'What do you mean by that?' she inquired;
'you told me she seemed better when you called to see her yesterday.' I
related the occurrence of the morning, and told her that I had a strong
impression Rosa was dead. She laughed, and said I had just dreamed it all.
I assured her that I was thoroughly awake. She continued to jest on the
subject, and slightly annoyed me by her persistence in believing it a dream,
when I was perfectly sure of having been wide awake. To settle the
question I summoned a messenger, and sent him to inquire how Rosa
died. He returned with the ansv/er that she died that morning at five
o'clock.

"I was living at the Via Babuino at the time."

case no. 25
The Russell Case1
This case was sent to Professor Adams of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
who in turn forwarded it to F. W. H. Myers:

"St. Luke's Church,
San Francisco,
September 11, 1890.

"Some weeks ago our choir leader, a man robust in health and of a
most skeptical turn of mind, saw positively the apparition of one of his
singers who had just died.

"Mr. Russell, the bass of the choir, had a stroke of apoplexy in the
street, on a certain Friday at ten o'clock; he died in his home at eleven
o'clock. My wife, learning of his death, sent my brother-in-law to the
home of Mr. Reeves, the choir leader, to discuss the music to be played at
his funeral. He arrived at the choir leader's house at about half past one.
Suddenly he heard an exclamation in the vestibule. Someone had just
cried out, 'Good God!' In the middle of the stairway, sitting on a step, was
the choir leader, in his shirt sleeves, showing signs of great terror.

1 Myers, F. W. H., Human Personality, II, 45.

APPARITIONS 59

"When Mr. Reeves had come out of his room, he had seen Mr. Russell
standing on the stairway, one hand on his forehead and the other holding
a roll of music out to him. The choir leader went towards him, but the
phantom vanished. It was then that he uttered the exclamation mentioned
above.

"He knew nothing of Mr. Russell's death.

"This is the most authentic ghost-story that I have ever heard. I know
all these persons very well and can swear to their sincerity. I have no
doubt that the choir leader saw something, subjectively or objectively;
it made him ill for several days, in spite of his usual fine health.

"To state my own personal conviction, Mr. Russell was a man of very
regular habits, very loyal and very dependable; he had sung in the choir
for years without pay; his last thoughts must have been: 'How shall I let
the choir leader know that I cannot rehearse tomorrow evening?' He
died in an hour, without having regained consciousness.

"The attitude in which he showed himself bears out this hypothesis;
it indicated his malady (pain in the head) and his desire to perform his
duty.

"W. M. W. Davis,
Rector."

A reporter of The San Francisco Chronicle later published Mr. Reeves's
version of the incident:

"On Friday morning Edwin Russell, a well-known Englishman, had
reached the corner of Stutter and Mason streets, when he had a stroke of
apoplexy and died before noon. He had lived in our city for ten years and
was respected in the commercial world. He was a member of the
Protestant Episcopal Church and had a magnificent bass voice. For this
reason he was a great asset to the choir of St. Luke's Church, and was in
constant touch with the Rev. W. M. W. Davis, rector of the church, and
with Harry Reeves, the new choir leader.

"It was to Mr. Reeves that the sensational thing happened which
people are talking about. I interviewed him at the home of his sister,
Mrs. Cavanagh, in California Street, and he gave me the following
account :

" 'I had seen Russell on the Saturday before his death. He had come

60 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

to rehearse. I had asked him where I might find a good cigar and he had
taken me to a good cigar store. Then I invited him to my home — or,
rather, to my sister's home — to rehearse and we arranged to meet on the
following Saturday. I thought no more of the matter until Friday after-
noon. As is my custom to look through my volumes of music one or two
days beforehand for selection to be sung on Sunday, I chose two
Te Deums. I left my room and saw on the landing, which was half lighted
as it is now, my friend Mr. Russell, so real, so alive, that I went forward at
once to give him my hand in welcome.

" 'He had a roll of music in one hand and the other was before his
face. It was really he. I am absolutely sure of it. Well, he melted away like
a cloud which vanishes into thin air.

" 'I was about to speak to him but was struck dumb. I sank down
against the wall, crying out, "Oh, my God!" My sister, my niece, and
another person came up. My niece asked, "Uncle Henry, what's the
matter?" I wished to explain but could not speak. Then my niece said to
me, "Did you know that Mr. Russell is dead?" I was literally stupefied
by this. I saw this Russell three hours after his death as well as I see you
in that armchair.' "

case no. 26
The Court Dress Case1

"My mother married at a very early age, without the consent of her
parents. My grandmother vowed that she would never see her daughter
again. A few weeks after her marriage my mother was awakened about
2 a.m. by a loud knocking at the door. To her great surprise my father
did not wake. The knocking was resumed; my mother spoke to my
father, but, as he still slept, she got up, opened the window and looked out,
when to her amazement she saw her mother in full court dress, standing
on the step and looking up at her. My mother called to her, but my
grandmother, frowning and shaking her head, disappeared.

"At this moment my father awoke and my mother told him what had
happened. He went to the window but saw nothing. My mother was sure
that my grandmother, even at that late hour, had come to forgive her and
entreated my father to let her in. He went down and opened the door but

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., I, 126.

APPARITIONS 61

nobody was there. He assured my mother that she had been dreaming
and she at last believed it was so.

"The next morning the servants were questioned, but they had heard
nothing and the matter was dismissed from the minds of my parents till
the evening, when they heard that my grandmother had been in full
court dress at a ball the night before — I think at Kensington Palace, but
of this I am not sure — that, feeling unwell, she had returned home and
after an hour's illness had died at 2 a.m. She had not mentioned my
mother's name during her short illness."

case no. 27
The Harford Case1

; "12th May, 1884.

"When my old friend John Harford, who had been a Wesleyan lay
preacher for half a century, lay dying in June of 1851, he sent for me,
and when I went to his bedside he said, 'I am glad you have come, friend
Happerfield; I cannot die easy until il am assured that my wife will be
looked after and cared for until she may be called to join me in the other
world. I have known you for many years, and now want you to promise
to look to her well-being during the little time which she may remain
after me.' I said, 'I will do what I can, so let your mind be at rest.' He said,
'I can trust you,' and soon after, on the 20th day of the month, he fell
asleep in the Lord.

"I administered his affairs, and when all was settled there remained
a balance in favor of the widow, but not sufficient to keep her. I put her
into a small cottage, interested some friends in her case, and saw that
she was comfortable. After a while Mrs. Harford's grandson came and
proposed to take the old lady to his house in Gloucestershire, where he
held a situation as schoolmaster. The request seemed reasonable. I con-
sented, providing she was quite willing to go; and the young man took
her accordingly. Time passed on. We had no correspondence. I had done
my duty to my dying friend, and there the matter rested.

"But one night as I lay in bed wakeful, towards morning, turning over
business and other matters in my mind, I suddenly became conscious that
someone was in the room. Then the curtain of my bed was drawn, and

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., IV, 29.

62 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

there stood my departed friend, gazing upon me with a sorrowful and
troubled look. I felt no fear, but surprise and astonishment kept me
silent. He spoke to me distinctly and audibly in his own familiar voice,
and said, 'Friend Happerfield, I have come to you because you have not
kept your promise to see my wife. She is in trouble and in want.' I assured
him that I had done my duty and was not aware that she was in any
difficulty, and that I would see about her first thing and have her attended
to. He looked satisfied and vanished from my sight.

"I awoke my wife, who was asleep at my side, and told her what had
occurred. Sleep departed from us and, on rising, the first thing I did was
to write the grandson. In reply he informed me that he had been deprived
of his situation through persecution, and was in great straits, insomuch
that he had decided on sending his grandmother to the Union. Forthwith
I sent some money and a request to have the old lady forwarded to me.

"She came, and was again provided with a home and had her wants
supplied. These are the circumstances as they occurred. I am not a nervous
man; nor am I superstitious. At the time my old friend came to me I
was wide awake, collected, and calm. The above is very correct and not
overdrawn.

"C. Happerfield."

case no. 28
The Madeira Case1
Mr. Edmond Gurney of the S.P.R. investigated this case and saw both
percipient and witness, receiving full viva voce accounts from each. The
incident is told in two letters :

"September 15,

"The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira early
in 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows were open and
the blinds were up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes,
I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at
the side of my bed and pointing with the first finger of his right hand
to the place I was lying in. I lay there for some seconds to convince
myself of someone being really there. I then sat up and looked at him.
l Proceedings, S.P.R., V, 416.

APPARITIONS 63

1 saw his features so plainly that I recognized them in a photograph which
was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted; he did
not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place.
As he did not answer I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but
did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly
vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me
all the time.

"Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died
in the room I was occupying.

"John E. Husbands."

"Church Terrace,
Wisbech.

October 8, 1886.
"The figure that Mr. Husbands saw while in Madeira was that of a
young fellow who died unexpectedly some months previously, in the
room which Mr. Husbands was occupying. Curiously enough, Mr. Hus-
bands had never heard of him or his death. He told me the story the
morning after he had seen the figure, and I recognized the young fellow
from the description. It impressed me very much, but I did not mention
it to him or anyone. I loitered about until I heard Mr. Husbands tell the
same story to my brother; we left Mr. Husbands and said simultaneously,

'He has seen Mr. D .'

"No more was said on the subject for days; then I abruptly showed
him the photograph. Mr. Husbands said to me at once, 'This is the
young fellow who appeared to me the other night, but he was dressed dif-
ferently'— describing a dress he often wore— 'cricket suit (or tennis)
fastened at the neck with a sailor knot.' I must say Mr. Husbands is a most
practical man, and the very last one would expect a 'spirit' to visit.

"K. Falkener."

Mr. Gurney interviewed Mr. Husbands and Miss Falkener and summed
them up: "They are both thoroughly practical and as far removed as
possible from a superstitious love of marvels. ... So far as I could judge
Mr. Husbands' view on himself is entirely correct — that he is the last
person to give a spurious importance to anything that might befall him,

64 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

or to allow facts to be distorted by imagination. As will be seen, his
account of his vision preceded any knowledge on his part of the death
which had occurred in the room."

CASE NO. 29

The St. Louis Case1
This account was sent to the American Society for Psychical Research

by Mr. F. G of Boston. Professor Josiah Royce and Dr. Richard

Hodgson knew him well and vouched for his high character:

"Sir: "11th January, 1888.

"Replying to the recently published request of your Society for
actual occurrences of psychical phenomena, I respectfully submit the fol-
lowing remarkable occurrence to the consideration of your distinguished
Society, with the assurance that the event made a more powerful impres-
sion on my mind than the combined incidents of my whole life. I have
never mentioned it outside my family and a few intimate friends, know-
ing well that few would believe it, or else ascribe it to some disordered
state of my mind at the time; but I know well I never was in better health
or possessed a clearer head and mind than at the time it occurred.

"In 1867, my only sister, a young lady of eighteen years, died suddenly
of cholera in St. Louis, Mo. My attachment for her was very strong, and
the blow a severe one to me. A year or so after her death the writer
became a commercial traveller, and it was in 1876, while on one of my
western trips, that the event occurred.

"I had 'drummed' the city of St. Joseph, Mo., and had gone to my
room at the Pacific House to send in my orders, which were unusually
large ones, so that I was in a very happy frame of mind indeed. My
thoughts, of course, were about these orders, knowing how pleased my
house would be at my success. I had not been thinking of my late sister,
or in any manner reflecting on the past. The hour was high noon, and
the sun was shining cheerfully into my room. While busily smoking a
cigar and writing out my orders, I suddenly became conscious that some-
one was sitting on my left with one arm resting on the table. Quick as
a flash I turned and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for a

i Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 17.

APPARITIONS 65

brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so sure was I that it
was she, that I sprang forward in delight, calling her by name, and as
I did so the apparition instantly vanished. Naturally, I was starded and
dumbfounded, almost doubting my senses; but with the cigar in my
mouth, and pen in hand, with the ink still moist on my letter, I satisfied
myself that I had not been dreaming and was wide awake. I was near
enough to touch her, had it been a physical possibility, and noted her
features, expression, and details of dress, etc. She appeared as if alive.
Her eyes looked kindly and perfectly naturally into mine. Her skin was
so lifelike that I could see the glow or moisture on its surface, and, on
the whole, there was no change in her appearance otherwise than when
alive.

"Now comes the most remarkable confirmation of my statement, which
cannot be doubted by those who know what I state actually occurred.
This visitation, or whatever you may call it, so impressed me that I took
the next train home, and in the presence of my parents, and others, I
related what had occurred. My father, a man of rare good sense and
very practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw how earnestly I
believed what I had stated; but he, too, was amazed when later on I told
them of a bright red line or scratch on the right hand side of my sister's
face, which I distinctly had seen. When I mentioned this my mother
rose trembling to her feet and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she
sufficiently recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her
face she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal
but herself was aware of the scratch, which she had accidentally made
while doing some little act of kindness after my sister's death. She said
she well remembered how pained she was to think that she should have
unintentionally marred the features of her dead daughter and, un-
known to all, how she had carefully obliterated all traces of the slight
scratch with the aid of powder, etc., and that she had never mentioned
it to a human being from that day to this. In proof, neither my father
nor any of our family had detected it and positively were unaware of the
incident, yet / saw the scratch as bright as if just made.

"So strangely impressed was my mother that even after she had retired
to rest she got up and dressed, came to me and told me she \new at
least that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later my mother died, happy

66 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

in her belief that she would rejoin her favorite daughter in a better world."

Later, Dr. Hodgson received letters from the father and brother of
Mr. F. G corroborating the incident, exactly as he had stated.

case no. 30
The Wiinscher Case1

" About a year ago there died in a neighboring village a brewer called
Wiinscher, with whom I stood in friendly relations. His death ensued
after a short illness, and as I seldom had an opportunity of visiting him,
I knew nothing of his illness nor of his death. On the day of his death I
went to bed at nine o'clock, tired with the labor which my calling as a
farmer demands of me. Here I must observe that my diet is of a frugal
kind: beer and wine are rare things in my house, and water, as usual,
had been my drink that night. Being of a very healthy constitution, I fell
asleep as soon as I lay down. In my dream I heard the deceased call out
with a loud voice, 'Boy, make haste and give me my boots.'

"This awoke me, and I noticed that, for the sake of our child, my wife
had left the light burning. I pondered with pleasure on my dream, think-
ing in my mind how Wiinscher, who was a good-natured, humorous man,
would laugh when I told him of this dream. Still thinking on it, I heard
Wiinscher 's voice scolding outside, just under my window. I sat up in
bed at once to listen but could not understand his words. What can the
brewer want? I thought, and I knew for certain that I was much vexed
with him that he should make a disturbance in the night, as I felt that
his affairs might surely have waited till the morrow.

"Suddenly he comes into the room from behind the linen press, steps
with long strides past the bed of my wife and the child's bed; wildly
gesticulating with his arms all the time, as his habit was, he called out,
'What do you say to this, Herr Oberamtmann? This afternoon at five
o'clock I have died.' Startled by this information, I exclaim, 'Oh, that is
not true!' He replied, 'Truly as I tell you, and what do you think? They
want to bury me already on Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock,' accentu-
ating his assertions all the while by his gesticulations. During this long
speech of my visitor I examined myself as to whether I was really awake
and not dreaming.

i Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 341.

APPARITIONS 67

"I asked myself: Is this a hallucination? Is my mind in full possession
of its faculties? Yes, there is the light, there the jug, this is the mirror,
and this is the brewer; and I came to the conclusion: I am awake. Then
the thought occurred to me, what will my wife think if she awakes and
sees the brewer in our bedroom? In this fear of her waking up I turn
'round to my wife, and to my great relief I see from her face, which is
turned towards me, that she is still asleep, but she looks very pale. I say
to the brewer, 'Herr Wiinscher, we will speak softly, so that my wife
may not wake up; it would be very disagreeable to her to find you here.'
To which Wiinscher answered in a lower and calmer tone: 'Don't be
afraid, I will do no harm to your wife.' Things do happen indeed for
which we find no explanation — I thought to myself, and said to Wiinscher :
'If this be true, that you have died, I am sincerely sorry for it; I will
look after your children.' Wiinscher stepped towards me, stretched out
his arms, and moved his lips as though he would embrace me; therefore
I said in a threatening tone, and looking steadfastly at him with a frown-
ing brow: 'Don't come so near, it is disagreeable to me,' and lifted my
right arm to ward him off, but before my arm reached him the apparition
had vanished. My first look was to my wife to see if she were still asleep.
She was. I got up and looked at my watch; it was seven minutes past
twelve. My wife woke up and asked me: 'To whom did you speak so
loud just now?' 'Have you understood anything?' I said. 'No,' she an-
swered and went to sleep again.

"I impart this experience to the Society for Psychical Research, in the
belief that it may serve as a new proof for the real existence of telepathy.
I must further remark that the brewer had died that afternoon at five
o'clock, and was buried on the following Tuesday at two.

"Karl Dignowity,

(Landed Proprietor)
Dober Und Pause,
"12th December, 1889." Schlesien."

In a letter to F. W. H. Myers, Fraulein Schneller (sister-in-law to the
percipient), who had reported the case, wrote, "The usual time for burial
in Germany is three days after death. This time may be prolonged on
application. There are no special hours fixed."

68 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

In conversation Fraulein Schneller described her brother-in-law as a
man of strong practical sense and of extremely active habits.

The S.P.R. received the "Sterbeurkunde" from the "Standesbeamte"
Siegismund, Kreis Sagan, certifying that Karl Wiinscher died on Satur-
day, September 15, 1888, at 4:30 p.m., and was buried on Tuesday, Sep-
tember 18, 1888, at 2 p.m.

Later Herr Dignowity wrote on January 18, 1890: "Frau Wiinscher
told me that the time of the burial was settled in the death-room immedi-
ately after Wunscher's death, because relations at a distance had to be
summoned by telegram. Wiinscher had suffered from inflammation of
the lungs, which ended in a spasm of the heart. During his illness his
thoughts had been much occupied with me, and he often wondered what
I should say if I knew how ill he was."

Finally, Frau Dignowity (born Schneller) wrote from Pause, January
18, 1890:

"I confirm that my husband told me on the morning of September 16,
1888, that the brewer Wiinscher had given him intimation of his death."

CASE NO. 31

The Belasco Case1
David Belasco was owner and manager of the Belasco Theatre in New
York, and in a booklet issued in connection with the production of his
own play, The Return of Peter Grimm, he makes the following statement:

"My mother convinced me that the dead come back by coming to me
at the time of her death. One night, after a long, exhausting rehearsal, I
went to bed, worn out, in my Newport home, and fell at once into a
deep sleep. Almost immediately, however, I was awakened and attempted
to rise, but could not, and was then greatly startled to see my dear mother
(whom I knew to be in San Francisco) standing close by me. As I strove
to speak and to sit up she smiled at me a loving, reassuring smile, spoke
my name — the name she called me in my boyhood — 'Davy, Davy, Davy,'
and then leaning down, seemed to kiss me; then drew away a little and
said, 'Do not grieve. All is well and I am happy,' then moved towards the
door and vanished.

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, 150-51.

APPARITIONS 69

"The next day I related the incident to my family and expressed the
conviction that my mother was dead. A few hours later (I was still
directing rehearsals of Zoza) I went to luncheon during a recess with
a member of my staff, who handed me some letters and telegrams which
he had brought from the box-office of the theatre. Among them was a
telegram telling me that my darling mother had died the night before,
at about the time I had seen her in my room. Later I learned that just
before she died she roused herself, smiled, and three times murmured,
'Davy, Davy, Davy.'

"I am aware that such experiences as this are, by some, explained on
a theory of what they call 'thought transference,' but such explanation,
to me, is totally inadequate. 1 am sure that I did see her. And other
experiences of a kindred nature served to confirm my knowledge that
what we call supernatural is, after all, at most but supernormal. Then,
after long brooding on the subject, I determined to write a play in terms
of what I conceive to be actuality, dealing with the return of the dead."

case no. 32
The Bowyer-Bower Case1
On the early morning of March 19, 1917, Captain Eldred Bowyer-
Bower of the R.F.C. was shot down while flying in France.

On that day, his half-sister, Mrs. Spearman, was living at the Grand
Hotel, Calcutta, totally unaware that her brother was in France; he had
been there only three weeks before he was killed.
On January 18, 1918, she wrote to her mother:

"Now I have never told you this before because I was afraid you would
not understand. Eldred was greatly in mind when baby was born and
I could only think of him. On March 19, in the late part of the morning,
I was sewing and talking to baby; Joan (another child) was in the sitting-
room and did not see anything. I had a great feeling I must turn 'round
and did, to see Eldred; he looked so happy and had that dear, mischievous
look. I was so glad to see him and told him I would just put baby in a
safer place, then we could talk. 'Fancy coming out here,' I said, turning
'round again, and was just putting my hands out to give him a hug and

l Journal, S.P.R., IX, 39-46. Salter, W. H., op. cit., 53.

70 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

a kiss, but Eldred had gone. I called and looked for him. I never saw him
again. At first I thought it was simply my brain. Then I did think
for a second something must have happened to him and a terrible fear
came over me. Then again I thought how stupid I was and it must be
my brain playing tricks. But now I know it was Eldred, and all the time
in church at baby's christening he was there, because I felt he was and
knew he was, only I could not see him. ... I did not tell anyone of the
vision I saw of my brother for quite one or two months after I heard of
his death. . . . My husband was not with me, and I did not write to him
about it, because he did not believe in that sort of thing."

On June 5, 1918, Mrs. Chater, Captain Bowyer-Bower's sister, wrote:

". . . One morning while I was still in bed, about 9:15, she (the child)
came to my room and said, 'Uncle Alley-Boy is downstairs.' Although I
told her he was in France, she insisted that she had seen him. Later in
the day I happened to be writing to my mother and mentioned this, not
because I thought much about it, but to show that Betty still thought and
spoke of her uncle, of whom she was very fond. A few days afterwards
we found that the date my brother was missing was the date of my letter.
This letter has since been destroyed."

"Alley-Boy" was Captain Bowyer-Bower's pet name since childhood,
and his niece Betty was only a little under three years of age at the time.
Captain Bowyer-Bower's mother wrote :

"Mrs. Watson, an elderly lady I have known many years, wrote to me
on the afternoon of March 19 after not corresponding with me for quite
eighteen months, and said she felt she must write because she felt I was
in great anxiety over Eldred . . . and I asked her in my reply what she
felt about Eldred, and she replied to this effect: On the afternoon of the
day she wrote, about tea-time, a certain and awful feeling came over her
that he was killed."

Two weeks after March 19, 1917, Mrs. Spearman saw the name of her
brother in the "Missing List" in the newspaper. His mother, however,
received notice on March 23, 1917, that he was officially reported missing,
but it was not till May 10, 1917, when his body was found, that his death
was ascertained.

APPARITIONS 71

CASE NO. 33

The Schenc\ Case1
Colonel C. de W. Willcox, former professor in the U.S. Military
Academy, wrote to Dr. Walter F. Prince:

"One day (in about 1900), Mrs. A. D. Schenck, the wife of Captain
A. D. Schenck, of the Second Artillery (my old regiment), stationed at
Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, at eleven in the morning, gave a cry and
said she had seen her son killed in action in the Philippines, where this
youngster was serving during the insurrection. No effort made by her
family or friends could calm her. Later in the day a telegram from the
War Department brought the news that the young man had been killed,
and on making allowance for the difference of longitude, it was found
that the hour given agreed with that of Mrs. Schenck's vision. What I
have given here is my recollection of what we all regarded as a remark-
able incident."

Dr. Prince obtained the address of Mrs. Charles C. Smith of Wash-
ington, D.C., a daughter of the Mrs. Schenck referred to, who corroborated
with this testimony:

"My mother was sewing one morning at Fort Screven, Georgia, outside
Savannah on Tybee Island. She got up from her chair with a little cry.
It impressed us very much, because she said, 'Oh, I saw your brother. I
saw Will's shoulder disappear as he fell backward.'

"She was restless all that day, nor could we quiet her anxiety. When
the evening papers came, they spoke of a clash in the Philippines, and
we hid the papers from her. The next morning (copied from my scrap-
book) appeared this notice: 'A scouting party of Americans, led by
Lieutenant Schenck, ran into a Filipino ambush. Four men were killed
and five wounded.' After that, more definite news seeped in, until General
Otis' report of: 'Twenty-fifth Inf., Jan. 29, 1900, near Subig, Luzon, First
Lieut. William T. Schenck killed.'

"This accorded to the very hour and day that my mother had felt his
departing presence. My mother was always particularly close to this one
of her six children, afterwards posthumously cited for bravery in action.

"Elizabeth Schenck Smith."

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., Human Experiences, I, 78-79.

72 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Dr. Prince applied to the War Department, who confirmed the date —
but not the hour — of Lieutenant Schenck's death. The place of the inci-
dent was not at Fort Warren, as stated by Colonel Willcox, but at Fort
Screven. The error is extraneous to the psychic core of the incident, and
is easy to understand, after it is learned that Captain Schenck was stationed
at Fort Warren in 1897-98, and went from there to Fort Screven. The
more so, when, as Colonel Willcox afterwards wrote, it was found that his
informant, a brother officer of his and of Captain Schenck's, was also at
Fort Warren.

case no. 34
The Byers Case1
This case was guaranteed by Professor Horace G. Byers, Ph.D., LL.D.,

University of Washington, who wrote as follows:

"About three days before the birth of our first child my wife was in a
highly nervous and sensitive condition. She awakened me by sitting up
suddenly in bed and crying out, 'Grandmother.' We at that time lived
in Seattle, and my wife's grandmother, by whom she had been brought
up, was in Chicago. I inquired what caused the excitement and was told
that her grandmother had stood by the side of the bed, looking intently
at her. Such a dream is perhaps nothing remarkable, but the fact remains
that the next morning I received a telegram, saying that the grandmother
had died the preceding night. The above are the bare facts. I am unable
to explain the event other than as a strange coincidence or a long range
example of telepathy between two sensitized minds. I have no accurate
data as to hours of death or vision."

At request, Professor Byers' wife also wrote, March 14, 1929:

"Mr. Byers has asked me to add my version of my experience in what
we have always felt, mental telepathy.

"As a word of introduction, please let me say that I was the only grand-
child and had lived with my grandmother ever since I could remember;
and when my mother died my grandmother felt a strong sense of trust
and responsibility in my care, as it had been my own and my mother's
wish, expressed after a talk together shortly before her death, that I con-
tinue to live with her. Also, it was easy to fix the date, as it was the night

l Prince, Dr. Walter F., Human Experiences, I, 79-80.

APPARITIONS 73

she, my grandmother, died and three days prior to the birth of my eldest
daughter.

"It was some time during the night of June 2, maybe really early on
June 3, 1904, as I don't remember that I looked at the time. My grand-
mother had been ill and in St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, for some weeks.
I had felt that I should be with her, but, under the circumstances, she
knew and I knew that it was impossible. Anyhow, I didn't realize how
ill she was. I awoke enough to feel that she was bending over me, had
been there for some time, trying to tell me something. I made out a
figure, but couldn't see her, as it was dark, but il \new it was she and
that she was wanting to tell or ask me something. I put up my arm to slip
it around her neck, and it was the absence of any physical presence that
startled me wide awake. I don't mean that I was startled by fear, but by
dismay, because I've always felt she was trying to tell me something.

"I don't know the hour of my grandmother's death. The telegram
reached us in Seattle the afternoon of June 3. But my husband didn't tell
me of her death till after my baby was born. It was several weeks later,
in thinking over the Vision,' that I asked my husband if it had occurred
on the night of her death, and he assented immediately with a very definite
answer, as though he had been thinking of the two things in conjunction."

In response to queries, Professor Byers stated that his wife's experience
took place at 3 a.m. of June 3, that it certainly was not a dream, but a
"vision," while awake, and that never at any other time, so far as he
knows, has she cried out in the night on account of any similar impres-
sions. The telegram arrived the next morning, according to Professor
Byers; the next afternoon, according to Mrs. Byers. But they are clear
that, at any rate, it arrived the next day, and that the grandmother died
the same night as the vision. She was old — seventy years of age — and had
been in the hospital several weeks and was not known to be seriously ill;
her death was unexpected.

case no. 35
The McConnel Case1
In this example, it will be observed that the correspondence of time
between the death and the apparition are well vouched for by several
competent witnesses of the R.F.C. (R.A.F.)

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XXXIII. Salter, W. H., op. cit., 58.

74 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

On December 7, 1918, at 3:25 p.m., Lieutenant David McConnel, while
flying from Scampton, Lines., to Tadcaster, was killed by his machine
crashing. The accident was witnessed, and his watch, which had stopped
at 3:25 p.m., fixed the exact time. At his funeral on December 11, his
father, hearing that one of his friends, Lieutenant Larkin, at Scampton,
had a vision of him about the time of his crash, wrote to him a letter
which produced the following reply:

"David [McConnel], in his flying clothes, about 11 a.m. went to the
hangars intending to take a machine to the 'Aerial Range' for machine-
gun practice. He came into the room again at 11:30 and told me that he
did not go to the range, but that he was taking a 'camel' to Tadcaster
drome. He said, 'I expect to be back in time for tea. Cheero.' He walked
out and half a minute later knocked at the window and asked me to hand
him his map, which he had forgotten. After I had lunch, I spent the
afternoon writing letters and reading, sitting in front of the stove fire.
[After disclaiming any previous belief in the supernormal, he continued]
I was sitting as I have said, in front of the fire, the door of the room
being about eight feet away at my back. I heard someone walking up the
passage; the door opened with the usual noise and clatter which David
always made; I heard his 'Hello, boy!' and I turned half 'round in my
chair and saw him standing in the doorway, half in and half out of the
room, holding the door-knob in his hand. He was dressed in his full
flying clothes, but wearing his naval cap, there being nothing unusual in
his appearance. His cap was pushed back on his head and he was smiling,
as he always was when he came into the room and greeted us. In reply
to his 'Hello, boy!' I remarked, 'Hello! Back already?' He replied, 'Yes,
got there all right, had a good trip.' I am not positively sure of the exact
words he used, but he said, 'Had a good trip,' or 'Had a fine trip,' or
words to that effect. I was looking at him the whole time he was speaking.
He said, 'Well, cheero!' closed the door noisily and went out. I went on
with my reading and thought he had gone to visit some friends in one
of the other rooms, or perhaps had gone back to the hangars for some
of his flying-gear, helmet, goggles, etc., which he may have forgotten. I
did not have a watch, so could not be sure of the time, but was certain
it was between a quarter and half-past three, because shortly afterwards

APPARITIONS 75

Lieutenant Garner-Smith came into the room and it was a quarter to four.
He said, 'I hope Mac (David) gets back early, we are going to Lincoln
this evening.' I replied, 'He is back, he was in the room a few minutes
ago.' He said, 'Is he having tea?' and I replied that I did not think so,
as he (Mac) had not changed his clothes, but that he was probably in
some other room. Garner -Smith then said, 'I'll try and find him.' I then
went into the room, had tea, and afterwards dressed and went to Lincoln.
In the smoking-room of the Albion Hotel I heard a group of officers talk-
ing, and overheard their conversation and the words 'crashed,' 'Tadcaster,'
and 'McConnel.' I joined them, and they told me that just before they had
left Scampton, word came through that McConnel had crashed and
been killed, taking the 'camel' to Tadcaster. At that moment I did not
believe it, that he had been killed on the Tadcaster journey. My impression
was that he had gone up again after I had seen him, as I felt positive
that I had at 3 :30. Naturally I was eager to hear something more definite,
and later in the evening I heard that he had been killed on the Tad-
caster journey. . . ."

The account of their conversation was corroborated by Lieutenant
Garner-Smith, which he stated took place at 3 :45, and another officer wrote
that Lieutenant Larkin told him about the incident on the following
morning.

The mention of the "naval cap" — an important detail — is explained by
Mr. McConnel:

"My son David was proud of his connection with the earlier service.
Having a complete kit of the naval flying service, he always wore the
naval flying uniform about the aerodrome and was one of only three
at the drome who had followed the same course in entering. . . ."

Lieutenant Larkin had no doubt as to the identity of the man he saw,
and later he wrote that the room he was sitting in was a small one; the
electric stove was on and also a good fire burning in an open stove. "I
may mention that the light was particularly good and bright, and there
were no shadows or half-shadows in the room."

• In this case, W. H. Salter puts forward the theory that Lieutenant
McConnel, fatigued by the long flight, may not have known that he was
crashing, but may have imagined that he had safely arrived at Tadcaster
and was back again at Scampton.

76 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

CASE NO. 36

The Raynham Hall Case1

This case is valuable because the individuals connected with it were not
in the least interested in any branch of psychical research, and thoughts
of apparitions were not in their minds when the event occurred. The
phenomenon happened spontaneously when Captain Provand, Art Di-
rector, and Mr. Indre Shira, of the firm of Indre Shira, Ltd., Court
Photographers, 49 Dover Street, Piccadilly, London, W.I., were photo-
graphing Raynham Hall, Norfolk, the seat of the Marquess of Town-
shend, as part of their routine work and not in any special circumstances.
Lady Townshend had commissioned them to photograph the entire place.

Shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of September 19, 1936,
they commenced to take a large number of pictures of the grounds and
the house, and by four o'clock in the afternoon were ready to photograph
the oak staircase. Captain Provand took one photograph of the staircase
while Mr. Shira flashed the light and, just as the Captain was focusing
for another exposure, Mr. Shira — flashlight pistol in hand — stood beside
him at the back of the camera looking right up the staircase. Detecting
what he described as "an ethereal veiled form" moving slowly down the
staircase, he shouted out excitedly, "Quick! Quick! There's something!
Are you ready?" The Captain, answering "Yes," removed the cap from
the lens and Mr. Shira pressed the flashlight pistol worked at the speed
of one-fiftieth of a second, by a Sasha bulb.

Captain Provand was mystified by Mr. Shira's demeanor and removing
the focusing cloth from his head asked, "What's all the excitement about?"
Mr. Shira replied that he had distinctly seen, coming down the staircase,
a transparent figure through which the steps could be seen. The Captain
laughed and said that he must have been imagining things, for there was
nothing in sight now; but Mr. Shira maintained that he had seen a per-
fectly real ethereal form.

On the journey back to London they argued and discussed the incident
over and over again, Captain Provand stating that it was impossible to
secure a genuine ghost photograph outside a seance room — not that he had
experience in such — and he would stake his reputation as a court photog-

l Country Life (December 16, 1936), 673-75.

APPARITIONS 77

rapher of thirty years' experience on his statement. Mr. Shira conceded
that he did not possess the same amount of skill and knowledge in
photography as Captain Provand and neither was he interested in psychic
photography, but he stoutly affirmed that he had seen a figure on the
staircase that must have been caught at the psychological moment by the
lens of the camera. As others have done when both sides are adamant,
they decided to have a bet on it, and shaking hands agreed to stake /5
each.

They were in the darkroom together when the negatives, one after
another, were being developed. Suddenly Captain Provand exclaimed,
"Good Lord, there's something on the staircase negative, after all!" Mr.
Shira took one glance and decided to call in a third party, Mr. Benjamin
Jones, manager of Blake, Sandford and Blake, chemists, whose premises
were downstairs, as a witness. Mr. Jones, arriving in time to see the nega-
tive being taken from the developer and placed in the hypo bath, de-
clared that if he had not actually seen the negative being fixed he would
not have accepted the subsequent picture as genuine. Mr. Jones was an
amateur photographer of some experience and had often developed his
own plates and films.

Mr. Shira concluded his article thus:

"Mr. Jones, Captain Provand, and I vouch for the fact that the negative
has not been retouched in any way. It has been examined critically by a
number of experts. No one can account for the appearance of the ghostly
figure. But it is there clear enough — and I am still waiting for payment
of that £5!

"Indre Shira."

The Editor of Country Life submitted the photograph for criticism to
Mr. Harry Price, who examined the negative and cross-examined the
photographers, but could not alter them in their statements. "I could not
shake their story," wrote Mr. Price, "and I had no right to disbelieve them.
Only collusion between the two men would account for the 'ghost' if it
is a fake. The negative is entirely innocent of any faking."

Note. — The compiler regrets that he could not obtain permission to
publish the photograph in this book, but any reader desiring to see it
will find it in Country Life (December 16, 1936), page 673. This astonish-

78 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

ing photograph is 7% inches by 6% inches. Mr. Shira has not exaggerated
one iota in his account: it is a definite human figure not unlike a nun
dressed in white, bi/t face, hands, and feet are not discernible, although the
folds of the dress can be seen distinctly and the steps are visible through
the ethereal form. [See Case No. 22, page 54.]

case no. 37
The Great Dunmow Case1

It is very seldom that one comes across a really first-class story about an
apparition. My skeptical friends always say that people talk very freely
about such things, but that it is always difficult to find someone who has
really had such an experience.

I personally know quite a number who have, but I have never come
across an account of an apparition being seen which is so conclusive as the
one I am about to relate.

A few miles from my house, near the market town of Great Dun-
mow, there lived a woman who shot herself one evening (Monday,
December 5, 1938) after having shot her husband. They were both alone
in the house at the time, and the discovery was not made until 7:45 on
the following morning when the servant, who came by the day, arrived
at the house to find the woman's body in the garden.

She immediately informed the police, who were on the scene by 8:30
with a doctor, who certified that they must both have been dead since
the previous evening. The radio had not even been turned off.

There is, therefore, no doubt that these two people were dead at 8 :30 in
the morning. A husband and wife, both friends of mine (who do not
wish their name mentioned), gave me the following information:

They were motoring to the station on the morning the discovery was
made, to catch the 9:30 train. They passed the house where the tragedy
occurred at about 9:20.

As they came in sight of the house they saw the woman who had shot
herself walking along the pavement towards them. She was seen first
by the man driving the car, who said to his wife beside him, "Oh, there
is Mrs. . She gives me the creeps."

His wife replied, "Oh, so it is," as she also saw her. As they passed,

1 Findlay, Arthur, The Psychic News (January 2, 1939), 5.

APPARITIONS 79

they smiled in recognition, though they cannot remember whether she
responded or not. They thought nothing more about the affair, and after
spending the day in London they bought an evening paper on their way
home in which they read the story of the tragedy.

This was the first they had heard of it and my friend went to the
police on his return home and told them that the woman could not have
been dead at the time stated as he and his wife had seen her at 9:20.

The police, however, assured him that they were in the house by 8:30
that morning, and that the doctor had certified that the woman they saw
had been dead since the previous evening.

Such is the story told to me by my friends, who both agree about the
facts. They have not the slightest doubt that the woman they saw was

Mrs. , who had killed her husband and then herself the previous

evening. There was nothing about her dress which occasioned my friends
any surprise, and when I asked whether she looked happy or sad I was
told, "She looked just as she always did." All these details as to time
of death came out at the inquest and are to be found in the local newspaper.

This is an interesting case, because when my friends saw the apparition
they were unaware that the woman was dead and discovered only some
seven hours later that the woman they had seen that morning walking
along the pavement had died the previous evening. Because they were
going for a train they knew the time they saw her, and the police and
the doctor were able to certify that the woman was dead when they
arrived at the house an hour earlier. Both my friends saw the apparition

and are quite definite that it was Mrs. , the dead woman. Thus we

have two witnesses who saw the apparition at the same time, which
greatly strengthens the evidence.

I cannot imagine that telepathy can be brought in here as an explanation.
The two witnesses are reliable and can be trusted. There is not the
slightest doubt that the woman was dead when they saw her, so here we
have another instance of a person being seen after death.

This is one more stone added to the mountain of evidence which has
been built up over past ages, and proves to us that we on earth do
get glimpses from time to time of the inhabitants of the other world.

This seeing of apparitions, I believe, has been the cause of all religions
from the time of early man.

Chapter 4

DEATH-BED VISIONS

This class of physical phenomena — the alleged visions which many dying
persons have had of deceased friends, some of whom have died unknown
to them — is well worthy of the most careful attention, and such cases,
if well enough attested as facts, have a tremendous scientific value.

It would be natural to suppose that the crisis of death is often attended
by all sorts of hallucinations and may be dismissed as such, but when we
discover that dying persons impart supernormal information that cannot
be accounted for by telepathy or chance-coincidence, it is apparent that
this fact possesses a special significance, giving the strongest support to
the theory of the survival of human personality after bodily death.

It is regretted that this is the rarest type of phenomenon, but cases of
this nature cannot be produced to order; we can only accept them grate-
fully when they happen. Doubtless, there are innumerable instances kept
hidden in family circles that have never been divulged; everyone does
not rush to display such sacred things to a cold and skeptical world, not
even in the cause of truth. Professor Charles Richet, who resisted the
survival theory almost to the end of his days, said that when cases of
death-bed visions, particularly when a young child was involved, came to
his notice, he felt uneasy in denying survival. He thought this was the
purest type of phenomenon in the vast realm of psychical research.

Miss Frances Power Cobbe in The Pea\ in Darien well described cases
when deceased friends came to welcome a new arrival:

"The dying person is lying quietly, when suddenly, in the very act of
expiring, he looks up — sometimes starts up in bed — and gazes at what
appears to be vacancy, with an expression of astonishment sometimes
developing into joy, and sometimes cut short in the first emotion of
solemn wonder and awe. If the dying person were to see some utterly
unexpected but instantly recognized vision, causing him great surprise
or rapturous joy, his face could not better reveal the fact. The very instant

80

DEATH-BED VISIONS 81

this phenomenon occurs, death is actually taking place, and the eyes glaze
even when they gaze at the unknown sight."

One curious feature of death-bed visions should be kept in mind, and
that is, that the dying only claim to see those who have died before them,
whereas, if hallucination were at work, he might also imagine that he
saw some person still alive but absent from the room. Rarely do we hear
of this happening.

Sometimes the witnessing of a death-bed of this nature is sufficient
to convince skeptics of survival; the demonstration of one instance of this
natural psychical phenomenon is worth all the second-hand cases — however
well attested — in the world.

case no. 38
The Edward Case
This case was vouched for by Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, who con-
tributed it to The Spectator many years ago:

"A young girl, a near connection of mine, was dying of consumption
and she had lain for some days in a prostrate condition taking no notice
of anything, when she opened her eyes and looking upwards, said slowly,
'Susan and Jane and Ellen,' as if recognizing the presence of three sisters
who had previously died of the same disease.

"Then after a short pause she added, 'And Edward too,' naming a
brother then supposed to be well and alive in India, as if surprised at
seeing him in the company. She said no more and sank shortly afterwards.

"In the course of the post letters were received from India which stated
that Edward had died as the result of an accident one or two weeks
previous to the death of his sister in England.

"This incident was related to me by an elder sister who nursed the
dying girl, and was present at the bedside at the time of the apparent
vision."

case no. 39
The Julia Case1
The writer of the following account is Colonel B., a well-known Irish
gendeman. He explains that his wife engaged to sing with her daughters
1 Lodge, Sir Oliver, The Survival of Man (New York: George H. Doran Co.), 148.

82 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

a Miss X., who was training as a public singer but who ultimately did
not come out in that capacity, having married a Mr. Z.

Six or seven years afterwards Mrs. B., who was dying, spoke in the
presence of her husband of voices she heard singing, saying that she had
heard them several times that day and that there was one voice among
them which she knew, but could not remember whose voice it was.

"Suddenly she stopped and said, pointing over my head," says Colo-
nel B., " 'Why, there she is in the corner of the room; it is Julia X. She is
coming on; she is leaning over you; she has her hands up; she is praying.
Do look; she is going.' I turned but could see nothing. Mrs. B. then said,
'She is gone.' All these things [the hearing of singing and the vision of
the singers] I imagined to be the fantasies of a dying person.

"Two days afterwards, taking up The Times, I saw recorded the death
of Julia Z., the wife of Mr. Z. I was so astounded that in a day or so

after the funeral I went up to and asked Mr. X. if Mrs. Z., his

daughter, was dead. He said, 'Yes, poor thing, she died of puerperal fever.
On the day she died she began singing in the morning, and sang and
sang until she died.' "

case no. 40
The Aspley Case1
This case was given in a paper to the S.P.R. by Edmund Gurney and
Frederic W. H. Myers, who had it from the Rev. C. J. Taylor, who in

turn received it direct from the narrator, the Vicar of H , who wished

to remain anonymous:

"On November 2 and 3, 1870, I lost my two eldest boys, David Edward
and Harry, from scarlet fever, they being three and four years old
respectively.

"Harry died at Abbot's Langley on November 2, fourteen miles
from my vicarage at Aspley, David the following day at Aspley. About
one hour before the death of this latter child, he sat up in bed, and point-
ing to the bottom of the bed said distinctly, 'There is little Harry calling
to me.' Of the truth of this fact I am sure, and it was heard also by the
nurse.

"(Signed) X. Z., Vicar of H ."

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., V, 459.

DEATH-BED VISIONS 83

Frank Podmore in letters and conversations with Mr. Taylor received
the following details: "Mr. Z. (the Vicar) tells me that great care was
taken to keep David from knowing that Harry was dead, and that he
feels sure that David did not know it. Mr. Z. was himself present and
heard what the boy said. The boy was not delirious at the time."

case no. 41

The Ogle Case1

"My brother, John Alkin Ogle, died at Leeds, July 17, 1879. About an

hour before he expired he saw his brother, who had died about sixteen

years before, and looking up with fixed interest said, 'Joe! Joe!' and

immediately exclaimed with ardent surprise, 'George Hanley!'

"My mother, who had come from Melbourne, a distance about forty
miles, where George Hanley resided, was astonished at this, and turning
to my sister-in-law, asked if anybody had told John of George Hanley's
death. She said, 'No one,' and my mother was the only one present who
was aware of the fact. I was present and witnessed this.

"(Signed) Harriet H. Ogle."

In answer to inquiries Miss Ogle stated:

"John A. Ogle was neither delirious nor unconscious when he uttered
the words recorded. George Hanley was an acquaintance of John A.
Ogle, not a particular, familiar friend. The death of Hanley was not
mentioned in his hearing."

case no. 42
The Priscilla Case
Dr. E. H. Plumtree, the Dean of Wells, forwarded this case to The
Spectator, which published it on August 26, 1882:

"The mother of one of the foremost thinkers and theologians of our
time was lying on her death-bed in April of 1854. She had been foi
some days in a state of almost complete unconsciousness. A short time
before her death, the following words came from her lips, 'There they
are, all of them — William, Elizabeth, Emma and Anne.' Then after a
pause, she added, 'And Priscilla too.'

1 Bozzano, Ernest, Annates des Sciences Psychiques.

84 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"William was a son who had died in infancy, and whose name had
never for years passed the mother's lips. Priscilla had died two days
before, but her death, though known to the family, had not been reported
to her."

CASE NO. 43

The F Case1

"Notice of F 's death was in a Boston morning paper and I (Dr.

Richard Hodgson) happened to see it on my way to the sitting. The first
writing came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She wrote

clearly and strongly, explaining that F was there with her but unable

to speak direcdy, that she wished to give me an account of how she had
helped F to reach her.

"She said that she had been present at his death-bed and had spoken
to him; and she repeated what she had said, an unusual form of expres-
sion, and indicated that he had heard and recognized her.

"This was confirmed in detail in the only way possible at that time,
by a very intimate friend of Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the
nearest surviving relative of F .

"I showed my friend the account of the sitting, and to this friend,
a day or two later, the relative who was present at the death-bed stated

spontaneously that F , when dying, said that he saw Madame Elisa

who was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was saying.

"The expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my friend,
was that which I had received from Madame Elisa through Mrs. Piper's
trance,2 when the death-bed incident was of course entirely unknown
to me."

case no. 44
The Jennie Case3
This is a well-authenticated case on the authority of Dr. Minot J.
Savage, who knew the names and addresses of the witnesses concerned:

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XIII, 378, footnote.

2 A celebrated American medium.

3 Journal, A.S.P.R. (January, 1907), 50.

85

"In a neighboring city were two little girls, Jennie and Edith, one about
eight years of age and the other a little older. They were schoolmates
and intimate friends. In June, 1889, both were taken ill of diphtheria. At
noon on Wednesday, Jennie died. Then the parents of Edith, and her
physician as well, took particular pains to keep from her the fact that her
little playmate was gone. They feared the effect of the knowledge on
her own condition. To prove that they had succeeded and that she did not
know, it may be mentioned that on Saturday, June 8, at noon, just as she
became unconscious of all that was passing about her, she selected two
of her photographs to be sent to Jennie, and also told her attendants to
bid her good-bye.

"She died at half-past six on the evening of Saturday, June 8. She had
roused and bidden her friends good-bye, and was talking of dying per-
sons and seemed to have no fear. She appeared to see one and another
of the friends she knew were dead. So far it was like the common cases.
But now suddenly, and with every appearance of surprise, she turned
to her father and exclaimed, 'Why, Papa, I am going to take Jennie with
me!' Then she added, 'Why, Papa! Why, Papa! You did not tell me that
Jennie was here!' And immediately she reached out her arms as if in
welcome, and said, 'Oh, Jennie, I'm so glad you are here.' "

case no. 45
The Notari Case
In a strict sense, this case is out of category in this chapter, but since
it concerns the death-bed of a baby, it is given because of the apparition
seen by the percipient, a girl three years of age. It was reported by Signor
Pelusi, Librarian of the Victor Emmanuel Library in Rome, and pub-
lished in Luce e Ombra, 1920:

"A little girl of three, Hippolyte Notari, partly paralyzed, was in the
same room with her little brother of four months, who was dying. The
father, mother, and grandmother of the two children were present. About
fifteen minutes before the death of the infant, little Hippolyte stretched
out her arms, saying, 'Look, Mother, Aunt Olga.' This Aunt Olga was a
younger sister of the mother, who had killed herself a year previously
owing to a disappointment in love. The parents asked, 'Where do you see

86 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Aunt Olga?' The child replied, 'There, there!' and tried insistently to
get out of bed to go to her aunt. They let her get up, she ran to an empty
chair, and was much discountenanced because the vision had moved to
another part of the room.

"The child turned 'round and said, pointing to a corner, 'Aunt Olga
is there.' Then she became quiet and the baby died."

case no. 46
The Moore Case1
It is conceded that there is no evidence in this instance, but Dr. Wilson
of New York City, who witnessed this death-bed scene, declared it was one
of the most beautiful examples of this kind he had ever known.

Mr. James Moore, a well-known American tenor, was dying, and
Dr. Wilson, happening to be in the room when the death occurred, de-
scribed the incident as follows:

"Then something which I shall never forget to my dying day happened,
something which is utterly indescribable. While he appeared perfectly
rational and as sane as any man I have ever seen, the only way that I can
express it is that he was transported into another world; and though I
cannot satisfactorily explain the matter to myself, I am fully convinced that
he had entered the Golden City — for he said in a stronger voice than he
had used since I had attended him, 'There is Mother. Why, Mother, have
you come to see me? No, no, I'm coming to see you. Just wait, Mother,
I am almost over. I can jump it. Wait, Mother.' On his face there was a
look of inexpressible happiness, and the way in which he said the words
impressed me as I have never been before, and I am as firmly convinced
that he saw and talked with his mother as I am that I am sitting here.
In order to preserve what I believe to be his conversation with his mother
and also to have a record of the strangest happening of my life, I imme-
diately wrote down every word he said. It was one of the most beautiful
deaths I have ever seen."

1 First published in Light.

DEATH-BED VISIONS 87

CASE NO. 47

The Adamina Case1

In its issue of September, 1924, The Review Verdade e Luz of San
Paolo has remarks on the striking incident in which the dying Adamina
Lazare was the heroine.

A few hours before her death, the patient said to her father that she
saw near the bed several members of the family, all deceased some years
previously. The father attributed this declaration in extremis to a state of
delirium, but Adamina insisted with renewed force, and among the
invisible "visitors" named her own brother Alfredo, who was employed at
the time at a distance of 423 kilometers, on the lighthouse of the port of
Sisal.

The father was more and more convinced of the imaginary nature of
these visions, well knowing that his son Alfredo was in perfect health,
for a few days previously he had sent the best possible news of himself.

Adamina died the same evening, and the next morning her father
received a telegram informing him of the death of young Alfredo. The
dying girl was still living at the time of the death of her brother.

case no. 48
The Moody Case2

As D. L. Moody, the famous American preacher, lay dying in 1899,
he was heard to exclaim on his last day:

"Earth recedes; Heaven opens before me." The first impulse of the
attendants was to try and rouse him from what appeared to be a dream.
"No, this is no dream, Will," he repeated. "It is beautiful. It is like a
trance. If this is death, it is sweet."

He then conversed with perfect rationality about what should be done
regarding his work after his death.

Then his face lit up, and he said in a voice of joyful rapture: "D wight!
Irene! I see the children's faces," referring to the two little grandchildren
God had taken from his life the past year.

1 Revue Spirite (December, 1924).

2 Moody, W. R., Life of D. L. Moody, 552-53. Prince, Dr. Walter F., Noted Wit-
nesses for Psychic Occurrences.

¥

88 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

He then became unconscious, revived and said: "What does all this
mean? What are you all doing here?"

Then, realizing the situation, he went on:

"This is a very strange thing. I have been beyond the gates of death
and to the very portals of Heaven. And here I am back again."

case no. 49
The Durocq Case1
Sir William F. Barrett, in his book, Death Bed Visions, quotes this and
the case which follows:

"My uncle, M. Paul Durocq, left Paris in 1893 for a trip to America,
with my aunt and other members of the family. While they were at
Venezuela my uncle was seized with yellow fever, and he died at Caracas
on June 24, 1894.

"Just before his death, and while surrounded by all his family, he had
a prolonged delirium during which he called out the names of certain
friends left in France and whom he seemed to see. 'Well, well, you too,
, and you , you as well.'

"Although struck by this incident, nobody attached any extraordinary
importance to these words at the time they were uttered, but they acquired
later an exceptional importance when the family found, on their return
to Paris, the funeral invitation cards of the persons named by my uncle
before his death, and who had died before him. It is only recently that
I have been able to collect the testimony of the only two survivors of this
event, my cousins Germaine and Maurice Durocq."

Germaine corroborated as follows:

"You ask me details of the death of my poor father. I well remember
him as he lay dying, though it is many years ago. The thing which prob-
ably interests you is that he told us of having seen some persons in Heaven
and of having spoken to them at length. We were much astonished on
returning to France to find the funeral cards of those same persons whom
he had seen when dying. Maurice, who was older than I, could give you
more details on this subject."

Maurice Durocq wrote:

1 Barrett, Sir William F., Death Bed Visions (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.).

DEATH-BED VISIONS 89

"Concerning what you ask me with regard to the death of my father,
which occurred a good many years ago, I recall that a few moments
before his death my father called out the name of one of his old com-
panions— M. Etcheverry — with whom he had not kept up any connection,
even by correspondence, for a long time past, crying out, 'Ah! you too,'
or some similar phrase. It was only on returning home to Paris that we
found the funeral card of this gentleman. Perhaps my father may have
mentioned other names as well, but I do not remember them."

case no. 50

The B Case

Lady Barrett brought this case to the notice of Sir William F. Barrett,
who included it in his book, Death Bed Visions, page 10. It occurred when
Lady Barrett was attending a patient in the Mothers' Hospital at Clapton,
of which she is one of the obstetric surgeons. She received an urgent
message from the resident medical officer, Dr. Phillips, to come to a
patient, Mrs. B., who was in labor and suffering from serious heart
trouble. Lady Barrett went at once, and the child was delivered safely,
though the mother was dying at the time. After seeing other patients
Lady Barrett went back to Mrs. B.'s ward, and the following conversation
occurred, which was written down soon afterwards. Lady Barrett writes:

"When I entered the ward Mrs. B. held out her hands to me and said,
'Thank you, thank you for what you have done for me — for bringing the
baby. Is it a boy or a girl?' Then holding my hand lightly she said, 'Don't
leave me, don't go away, will you?' And after a few minutes, while the
house surgeon carried out some restorative measures, she lay looking up
towards the open part of the room, which was brightly lighted, and said,
'Oh, don't let it get dark, it's getting so dark . . . darker and darker.'
Her husband and mother were sent for.

Suddenly she looked eagerly towards one part of the room, a radiant
smile illuminating her whole countenance. 'Oh, lovely, lovely,' she said.
I asked, 'What is lovely?' 'What I see,' she replied in low intense tones.
'What do you see?' 'Lovely brightness, wonderful beings.' It is difficult
to describe the sense of reality conveyed by her intense absorption in the
vision.

90 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"Then — seeming to focus her attention more intently on one place for
a moment — she exclaimed, almost with a joyous cry, 'Why, it's Father!
Oh, he is so glad I'm coming; he is so glad. It would be perfect if only W.
(her husband) could come too.' Her baby was brought for her to see.
She looked at it with interest and then said, 'Do you think I ought to
stay for baby's sake?' Then turning towards the vision again, she said,
'I can't, I can't stay; if you could see what I do, you would know I can't
stay.'

"But she turned to her husband, who had come in, and said, 'You
won't let baby go to anyone who won't love him, will you?' Then she
gently pushed him to one side, saying, 'Let me see the lovely brightness.'

"I left shortly after and the matron took my place by the bedside. She
lived for another hour and appeared to have retained to the last the
double consciousness of the bright forms she saw and also of those attend-
ing her at the bedside; e.g., she arranged with the matron that her pre-
mature baby should remain in the hospital till it was strong enough
to be cared for in an ordinary household.

"(Signed) Florence E. Barrett."

Dr. Phillips, who was present, after reading the notes wrote to Sir
William F. Barrett, saying that he "fully agrees with Lady Barrett's
account."

The most important evidence is yet to come, and it was supplied by
the matron of the hospital, who sent the following account:

"I was present shortly before the death of Mrs. B., together with her
husband and her mother. Her husband was leaning over her and speak-
ing to her when, pushing him aside, she said, 'Oh, don't hide it, it's so
beautiful.' Then turning away from him towards me, I being on the other
side of the bed, Mrs. B. said, 'Oh, why, there's Vida,' referring to a sister
of whose death three weeks previously she had not been told. Afterwards
the mother, who was present at the time, told me, as I have said, that Vida
was the name of a dead sister of Mrs. B.'s, of whose illness and death she
was quite ignorant, as they had carefully kept this news from Mrs. B.
owing to her serious illness.

"(Signed) Miriam Castle, Matron."

DEATH-BED VISIONS 91

Mrs. B.'s mother — Mrs. Clark — furnished Sir William F. Barrett with
an independent report:

"I have heard you are interested in the beautiful passing of my dear
daughter's spirit from this earth on January 12, 1924.

"The wonderful part of it is the history of the death of my dear daugh-
ter, Vida, who had been an invalid some years. Her death took place on
December 25, 1923, just two weeks and four days before her younger
sister, Doris, died. My daughter Doris, Mrs. B., was very ill at that time,
and the matron at the Mothers' Hospital deemed it unwise for Mrs. B.
to know of her sister's death. Therefore when visiting her we put oflf
mourning and visited her as usual. All her letters were also kept by
request until her husband had seen who they might be from before
letting her see them. This precaution was taken lest outside friends might
possibly allude to the recent bereavement in writing to her, unaware of the
very dangerous state of her health.

"When my dear child was sinking rapidly . . . she said, 'I can see
Father. . . . He has Vida with him,' turning again to me saying, 'Vida is
with him.' Then she said, 'Do you want me, Dad ? I am coming. . . .'

"Yours respectfully,

"(Signed) Mary C. Clark."

Chapter 5
AUTOMATIC WRITING

This type of mediumship may be classified into two groups :

(1) Automatic writing performed with pencil and paper by the autom-
atist who may, or may not, be in a trance; such writings by their very
nature must be strongly suspected as emanating from the subconscious —
or even conscious — mind of the medium and 95 per cent, revealing noth-
ing but hidden desires and wishes, may be safely dismissed as rubbish.
This form of mediumship is the happy hunting-ground of persons pos-
sessing a super-abundance of imagination with a great poverty of critical
faculties; and unfortunately the long-suffering public has been deluged
with books written by individuals of this type.

(2) The ouija-board,1 an apparatus consisting of a "traveller" and a
board with alphabet and figures printed thereon in alphabetical and
numerical rotation, with the words "Yes," "No" and "Uncertain" added
for convenience. The traveller is usually a small heart-shaped piece of
wood half an inch thick. The medium — or a combination of two — places
his hands on the traveller and it moves over the board, from letter to
letter, spelling out messages. The remarks concerning handwriting may
also be applied to ouija-board work.

Automatic writing, like apparitions and dreams, is "as old as the hills,"
and many ancient, as well as modern, writers have declared that they
have produced work in the semi-trance condition. Harriet Beecher Stowe,
the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin, said she did not write that book: her
hand was the instrument of another personality. William Blake, in the
preface to his great poem Jerusalem, wrote that it was dictated to him.
"The grandest poem that this world contains ; I may praise it since I dare
not pretend to be other than the secretary. I have written this poem from
immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time,
without premeditation and even against my will." One of the most volu-
minous examples of automatic writing ever produced was Hudson

1 A combination of the French and German words Out and Ja, both meaning "Yes."

92

AUTOMATIC WRITING

93

Tuttle's Arcana of Nature, from which Charles Darwin quoted in his
Origin of Species. Would the great naturalist have mentioned Tuttle's
work had he known its mystical origin?

There are various theories in vogue regarding the inspiration of both
types of automatic writing. Some mediums state the idea takes hold of
their minds and they express it in their own language in normal con-
ditions. Others aver they are in a state of trance and are totally unaware
of what the hand has produced until they recover consciousness. Critics,
however, are indifferent to the technique; they judge the communica-
tion by its content.

case no. 51
The Hall Case1

"First let me say that I was a most hardened skeptic before the message
came through to me which converted me.

"My sister, to whom I was gready attached, had for many years been
in close touch and affectionate friendship with a Miss Wingfield, who
possessed in a very high degree the power of . . . 'automatic writing.'

"In order to make the matter quite clear to my reader, I am afraid
I shall have to go into a matter of family history which is not altogether
a pleasant recollection. For some time previous to this date in March,
1894, a brother of mine much older than myself, who, after great pros-
perity, had fallen into great poverty, was in South Africa in receipt of an
allowance, and this allowance was paid by me on behalf of the family
through a kind friend, Archdeacon Gaul, who very reluctantly had ac-
cepted the somewhat disagreeable task.

"To put it very shortly, my brother was an inebriate, and as is always
the case, any money coming direct to his hands went in drink. To avoid
this, Archdeacon Gaul had kindly procured a lodging where the unfortu-
nate fellow could be looked after, fed, and clothed, and, as far as possible,
deprived of the means of procuring drink. As so often happens in this
class of case, the recipient of this form of assistance resented very much
that the payment should be made in that way, and demanded that the
money should be paid to him direct. There had been some considerable
correspondence between us on this subject. I had absolutely refused to

1 Hall, Sir Edward Marshall, Evidences of Survival (London: Putnam's Sons).

94 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

accede to his request, and the tone of his letters had become more and
more unpleasant. He had even gone so far as to write and threaten me
with an action, unless I paid him a sum approximately ,£50, being, as he
alleged, the arrears of an agreement which I was said to have made with
him, that if he would go to South Africa I would give him ^1 per week.
The unpleasant details of this correspondence I had never communi-
cated to my sister, but of course she knew that he was in South Africa,
and she also knew that Archdeacon Gaul was interesting himself on his
account.

"On Friday or Saturday, March 9 or 10, I had received from South
Airica a short and insulting letter from my brother, again demanding that
the allowance should be paid direct and threatening all sorts of pains and
penalties if I refused. This letter happened to be in my pocket; I had not
answered it, and I had not mentioned it to my sister, nor made any
reference to our brother. As a matter of fact, I had only been in the house
a few minutes. I realized that here was an opportunity of testing Miss
Wingfield's powers. I took the letter out of my pocket; it was in an
envelope. I folded it with the address and writing inside; I then placed
the whole in another envelope which I sealed. I wrote nothing, there was
no writing on the outside of the outer envelope and I handed the envelope
so sealed to my sister, desiring her to give it to Miss Wingfield and to ask
her: 'Where is the writer of the letter contained in that envelope?' It will
be noticed that I made no mention of sex and I am absolutely certain that
my sister had no knowledge as to who was the writer of the enclosed
letter. After considerable delay, a message came through in automatic
writing, 'The writer of the letter is dead.' This message was passed on to
me by my sister, and naturally caused considerable surprise. In order to
make a further test I asked another question: 'When and where did the
writer die?' Again the answer came back, stating that he had died yester-
day in South Africa. Again I had mentioned no sex and given no indi-
cation of the place of origin of the letter, and the answer, I remember,
seemed to me so ridiculous, because there was a letter from South Africa
which I had just received. For a moment by that curious lapse of memory
which sometimes affects us, I did not realize that the letter, although
received by me on March 9 or 10, had in fact been written some three
weeks before. I frankly admit that I was puzzled, for the letter about

AUTOMATIC WRITING 95

which 1 was asking was undoubtedly from South Africa, where my
brother, about whom I was inquiring, was — for all I knew to the con-
trary— then alive. My sister asked me if I wished to put any more ques-
tions. I simply said, 'No,' and I never told her anything about the facts
of that letter till some weeks later. In the evening I returned to London
and on Monday morning I dictated a letter to my confidential clerk
addressed to my brother, a letter which in fact was not sent. The following
Saturday, March 17, I received a letter of small importance from Arch-
deacon Gaul; it is dated March 5, and the envelope bears the postmark of
Kimberley, March 5, 1894, and the London postmark of March 27, on
which day I received it. This letter, which I have in my hands at this
moment, gives me an account of monies that have been expended for my
brother, but complains very much of his conduct and practically requests
that definite arrangements should be made as to remitting regularly
through the Standard Bank of South Africa.

"So incredulous was I of the message that I had received that, though
I remember having a qualm on the subject, I actually wrote a long letter
to the Archdeacon on March 29, 1894, in which I put the position plainly
before him and promised to do as he asked. The draft of that letter in
my clerk's handwriting I have now found. On April 2, 1894, I received
another letter from Archdeacon Gaul, dated Kimberley, March 8, 1894,
which begins: 'Dear Sir: I little thought when I wrote last week that I
should have this week the melancholy duty laid on me of informing you
of the death of your brother, which occurred yesterday,' and he goes on
to say that my brother had been found lying dead on the early morning
of that day and was going to be buried that afternoon. I need hardly say
that this communication staggered me, and after considering every pos-
sible explanation of the communication, and making every allowance
for imagination, I was convinced that the message I had received on
March 10 had come through some agency outside this material world.

"Telepathy, clairvoyance, and thought-reading are absolutely eliminated.
I was ignorant of the fact, when I asked the question on March 10, that
my brother was dead. My sister did not know that I was asking any
question about my brother, or even about a letter written by my brother,
and certainly she did not know that he was dead. Miss Wingfield had
never seen my brother ; I doubt if she ever knew of his existence, and she

96 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

certainly had no knowledge whatever that he was in South Africa at the
time, so the fact remains that on Saturday, March 10, 1894, I was told
that my brother had died in South Africa yesterday. I quite admit that this
is not strictly accurate, for, in point of fact he had died on the early morn-
ing of March 8; but that in my opinion does not weaken the conclusion
I have formed, and it is quite possible that the word my sister read as
'yesterday' may have been 'Thursday,' which was the day of the death.
If I am right in saying that this phenomenon cannot be explained by any
natural process, then I consider I am justified in continuing to believe, as
I do believe, that it was a supernatural communication.

"Some day the true explanation of these phenomena will be demon-
strated, and if it is not on the lines that I have indicated, and there is
some other means of accounting for it which does not involve survival
after death, I am convinced that we shall learn something even more
marvelous, more improbable, and certainly less acceptable to those who,
like myself, find comfort in our belief."

CASE NO. 52

The Pearl Tie-Pin Case1

This case was obtained through the mediumship of Mrs. Travers-Smith.

Miss C, the sitter, had a cousin, an officer in the British Army, who had
been killed in a battle in France one month previous to a sitting held with
Mrs. Travers-Smith. Miss C. was aware of her cousin's death. His name
was unexpectedly spelled out on the ouija-board and her name given back
in reply to her question, "Do you know who I am?" Then the following
message was given:

"Tell mother to give my pearl tie-pin to the girl I intended to marry.
I think she should have it."

The lady's full Christian and surname came through, the latter very
uncommon and quite unknown to either Mrs. Travers-Smith or Miss C.
An address in London was given which proved to be incorrect, as a
letter sent there was returned. The ladies thought that as the address was
either wrongly taken down or fictitious, no more would be heard of the
matter, but six months later it was discovered that the officer had been

1 Travers-Smith, Helen, Voices from the Void (London: Wm. Rider & Co.).

AUTOMATIC WRITING

97

engaged, shortly before going to France, and to the very lady whose
name had been spelled out on the ouija-board. Neither his family in
Ireland nor his cousin, Miss C, were aware of this fact, and they had
never seen her or even heard of her name until after his death, when the
War Office forwarded his effects. Among them they discovered a pearl
tie-pin, and in his will the lady's name was mentioned as his next of
kin, both Christian and surname being precisely as obtained at the
sitting.

The two ladies signed a document to the effect that the message was
recorded at the time of the sitting and not from memory after the
message had been verified. This statement was forwarded to Sir William
F. Barrett.

case no. 53
The Glastonbury Case1

This case is one in which the medium could not have known the facts,
as they were not known to anyone in the world.

In 1907, F. Bligh Bond and his friend, Captain J. Allen Bartlett, devoted
considerable time to the study of the ruins in the diocese of Bath and
Wells, and their history, as the former was hoping to obtain the position
of Honorary Architect for that district.

They read up all information to be found concerning the ruined Glaston-
bury Abbey from the works of medieval writers to those of the nineteenth
century.

Captain Bartlett possessed the gift of automatic writing and, by his
hand, Johannes (1497-1534), a monk of Glastonbury, purported to pro-
vide them with much information not to be found in any of the authori-
ties previously consulted, that led to the discovery of the Edgar Chapel —
which had been completely lost, previous excavation having failed to
reveal its existence.

At a sitting held in January, 1908, before the excavations of Bligh Bond
and Bartlett commenced, a detailed description of the Chapel was given
in medieval English and Latin. The Chapel was situated at the east end
of the Abbey. A door existed five paces behind the reredos. The Chapel
extended thirty yards to the east; the ending of the Chapel had walls at an
angle. The first part, built by Abbot Bere, was seventy or seventy-two

1 Bond, F. Bligh, The Gate of Remembrance (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

98 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

feet long, and there was an eastward extension made later by Whyting, the
last Abbot having these particular walls. This part had poor and thin
foundations, the ceiling was of crimson and gold; and the chamber,
seventy feet in length, had four bays, etc.

Excavations did not commence till June, 1908, a month after the ful-
fillment of Johannes' prediction that F. B. B. should receive his appoint-
ment as Director of Excavations "when the cuckoo cometh to the woods
of Mere": and all these statements were, one after another, found to
be correct, and no books or documents were in existence that could have
given such information as would have led to the discovery of the Edgar
Chapel, which had been the despair of antiquaries for half a century.

The Hon. Everard Feilding, who was Secretary of the S. P. R. at that
period, followed the case with keen interest and he wrote to Bligh Bond
that "there is no question but that the writing about the Edgar Chapel pre-
ceded the discovery of it by many months. I was present, if you remember,
at what I believe was the beginning of the recrudescence of Bartlett's
automatism, and that was before you were appointed to the work. I
remember your telling me when you were appointed how interesting
it was, as you were then able to test some of the statements made. No,
there is no doubt whatever in my mind on that point. . . ."

The discovery was credited to the emergence of latent knowledge de-
rived from the study of the documents, and the Trustees of the National
Church took no action; but in 1922, when further revelations came
through another medium, unfamiliar with the Abbey history,1 that re-
vealed the Norman wall of Herlewin, Bligh Bond was relieved of his
appointment as Director of Excavations. All work was suspended for six
years; many landmarks were removed, including those of the angular
extension of the Edgar Chapel. Stones were taken away, trenches filled,
while other records were allowed to perish through exposure. The moral
of the case should not require much emphasizing to the discerning reader.

To complete the case, F. B. B. has added the following, which may
be verified in detail by any member of the Council of the Somerset Ar-
chaeological Society who is willing to testify:

"At the annual meeting of the Somerset Archaeological Society in
July, 1939, the Council was moved by the then Chairman, who was also

1 Bond, F. Bligh, The Company of Avdlon (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

AUTOMATIC WRITING 99

Director of Excavations in succession to Bligh Bond, to procure the vote
of members to a resolution approving the destruction of the evidence on
the site, and thus justifying the action of the Trustees, on the alleged
ground that Bond had made an imaginary record to validate his own
theories.

"Of this, Bond had had no notice and he had not been asked to state
his case. But being warned in time he attended the meeting and was
able to satisfy his critics and forestall the hostile resolution. No account
of these proceedings was printed in the 1939-40 volume: only the text
of a resolution submitted by himself, calling upon the Office of Works, as
the paramount authority over the ruins, to make full inquiry into the
whole matter and, if possible, have the evidence reinstated."

case no. 54
The Patience Worth Case1

This case puzzled not only psychical researchers but scientists and
psychologists also, and those who opposed the survival theory were given,
in this instance, a difficult case to explain away when Patience Worth —
purporting to be a peasant girl who had lived her early life in Dorsetshire,
England, and killed by Indians in America, when she emigrated there in
the seventeenth century — controlled Mrs. John H. Curran, a medium of
St. Louis, Missouri. This woman's education had been limited: her read-
ing never exceeded that of the average American woman of her class, and
she had travelled little.

She first performed on the ouija-board, but later took to communicating
and dictating, in direct speech, a number of books of outstanding literary
merit, with extreme rapidity, over a wide range of subjects. The following
works are to her credit: The Sorry Tale, Hope True-Blood, Light from
Beyond, The Pot upon the Wheel, and Tel\a, the latter a 70,000-word
poem in the Anglo-Saxon language of three centuries ago, dictated for the
purpose of proving Patience Worth to be a personality independent of
the medium, as in it she did not use any words that had come into use
since her day — a feat she considered beyond the powers of anyone now
living in the world.

1 Prince, Dr. Walter F., The Case of Patience Worth. Yost, Casper S., Patience
(forth — A Psychic Mystery.

100 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Dr. W. F. Prince, considering it to be a masterpiece, wrote: "The char-
acters in Tel\a live, we see and know them; one of them is not the replica
of another. . . . On the contrary, the characters of Maeterlinck — and I
may refer to him because he has a great reputation as a great writer — are
usually pale wraiths and we all admit Maeterlinck is a great artist . . .
but it will be discovered that Patience Worth as judged by Telkjz is a
greater."

Professor Schiller of Oxford observed regarding the antiquated lan-
guage of Tel\a: "It is certainly impressive to be told that one of her tales,
Tel\a, extending to 70,000 words, exhibits a vocabulary 'as to ninety per
cent of the Anglo-Saxon origin,' and contains no word of later entry into
the language of 1600 except 'amuck' (which is first recorded in the second
half of the seventeenth century), and no word wrongly formed among
those which are on record. When we are told further that the 'Authorized
Version' has only seventy-seven per cent of Anglo-Saxon, and that it is
necessary to go back to Layamon (1205) to equal Patience Worth's per-
centage, we realize that we are face to face with what may be fairly called
a philological miracle."1

And this amazing idyllic poem of 70,000 v/ords (270 pages) in blank
verse, judged by competent critics to be superior to analogous works by
Maeterlinck, was dictated in the brief time of thirty-five hours!

Once, when the early chapters of a novel far advanced were mislaid,
Patience Worth dictated them again, and when the missing documents
were found, it was seen that the second dictation was an exact replica of
the first.

The critics attacked the case with three hypotheses: secondary sub-
conscious personality, subliminal consciousness, and cosmic consciousness.
Professor Schiller reviewed the three hypotheses, particularly the latter,
concluding: "If Patience Worth be a selection from the Absolute, so is
everyone else, and therefore, so far as this argument goes, she is as good a
'spirit' as any!"2

The conclusion of Dr. W. F. Prince was: "Either our concept of what
we call the subconscious mind must be radically altered so as to include
potencies of which we hitherto have had no knowledge, or else some cause

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XXXVT, 574.

2 Ibid., XXXVI, 57-59.

AUTOMATIC WRITING 101

operating through, but not originating in, the subconsciousness of Mrs.
Curran must be acknowledged."

Professor Allison, of Manitoba University, who personally studied the
case, thought she "must be regarded as the outstanding phenomenon of
the age," and Dr. Usher, Professor of History in Washington University,
considered "The Sorry Tale, a work of 350,000 words, the greatest story
penned of the life and times since the Gospels were published."

The claim of Patience Worth to be a personality who once lived on
this earth does not depend entirely upon her works — great though their
value is — but upon the fact that some of her statements concerning her
home and her environment have been verified.

case no. 55
The Buttons Case1
This case was written by Mrs. Margaret Deland for the Clark Univer-
sity Symposium which was held at Clark University, Worcester, Mass.,
in November and December, 1926:

"In her paper for the Symposium, Mrs. Deland makes use of the
ingenious argument of a scientific sieve through which, by means of the
familiar tags 'clairvoyance,' 'intuition,' 'coincidence,' 'telepathy,' etc., she
essays to push various incidents of ouija-board spellings, automatic writ-
ings, visions, and so on, in the contention that if any refuse, even after
'some pushing and straining,' to pass through the meshes of this sieve it is
a logical deduction that this residuum argues for the theory of survival.
We will let her tell this 'button' incident in her own words" :

"I know a story," she says. ". . . It is concerned with a baby's rompers.
About a year and a half ago a friend — whom I will call Molly — and I
were sitting with Mrs. Piper in Boston, and Molly's sister, Lucy, who had
died, 'purported' (as the saying is) to write with the entranced Mrs. Piper's
hand. She said that the day before she had seen her mother in another
town, doing so and so. The statement was correct; but as Molly happened
to know exactly what her mother had been doing at the time she, of
course, credited the information to mind-reading on the part of Mrs.
Piper. Then another personality began to write but paused to say:

1 Piper, Alta L., The Life and Work of Mrs. Piper (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co., Ltd.), 190-92.

102 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

" 'Lucy has gone again to find Mother and see what she is doing.'

"I, rather surprised, said, 'What now!' There was no reply; the other
communicator just went on writing about his own affairs, then after some
twenty minutes paused to say abruptly:

"'Here's Lucy!'

"I said, as nearly as I can remember, 'Well, Lucy, did you see your
mother? What was she doing?' Mrs. Piper's hand wrote:

" 'Mother just looked at morning news (here followed a drawing of
newspaper) and laid it on a little table. Picked up what looked like a
box of buttons (here the hand drew seven little circles suggesting buttons)
and shook them. Looked into it. Picked up two or three and sat down in
a chair to put them in another place.'

"Later this was reported to Lucy's mother, who said that at the time
this was being written in Boston, she may have been reading a paper;
she generally did about that hour, but she couldn't be certain. But she
was certain that she had taken up a little tray of buttons, perhaps a dozen,
shaken it, because (she remembered) some ravellings were clinging to the
buttons, then picked out two, and sat down to sew them on to her little
granddaughter's rompers. To me, these buttons for a baby's bloomers lie
as residuum in the sieve, when golden crowns or harps would have slipped
through! No eye of flesh saw that simple domestic scene. Mrs. Piper in
Boston knew nothing of Lucy's mother, nor of her occupation; nor did
Lucy's sister Molly have any idea what was going on in Cambridge at
eleven o'clock that April morning. Yet here is a statement coincidental
with an event: 'She picked up a box of buttons and shook them.' "

CASE NO. 56

The X Case1

After the death of Professor James H. Hyslop on June 17, 1920, Miss
Gertrude O. Tubby, his secretary, believing that after the post-mortem
Hyslop would still be interested in psychical research, decided to inaugu-
rate a scheme of cross-correspondence in which his cooperation was
necessary.

Hyslop, five hours after his death, seized his first opportunity of reveal-

1 Tubby, Gertrude O., James H. Hyslop, X, His Book (The New York Publishing
Co.).

AUTOMATIC WRITING 103

ing himself when Miss Tubby, making an ostensible casual, friendly call
on Mrs. G. C. Saunders, of New York, was given pertinent and highly
evidential information, the medium being unaware of Hyslop's death.

Thereafter, through various mediums in the United States, Hyslop
always indicated his presence with the sign X; and Miss Tubby, decid-
ing to cast her net over a wider area, planned a trip to England and
France for the purpose of allowing Hyslop to prove himself through
mediums to whom Miss Tubby was a total stranger. To be on the safe
side, it was agreed between them that no communication on foreign soil
would be considered genuine — even though it contained apparent evidence
— unless the sign X was also given. Miss Tubby, a true disciple of Hyslop,
shrouded herself in anonymity: only three persons in England and none
in France were aware of her impending visit, and all the psychical re-
searchers in New York were pledged to strict silence.

Miss Tubby, arriving in London, made an appointment with 'Mrs.
Hester Travers-Smith over the telephone, stating that she had been recom-
mended by a friend in the United States to have a sitting with her. No
name was given and she was sure her anonymity was well protected.

The sitting took place on Tuesday, July 8, 1924. Miss Tubby offered the
medium some small articles (in a cardboard box wrapped in oil-silk) that
had belonged to Hyslop. The first name spelled out was one that Miss
Tubby did not expect, "Ernest Ainslee." Though he had communicated
through this medium before, the significant feature of his name was that
he was a friend of the lady, Laura, who was Miss Tubby's hostess in
London, whose name was specially mentioned and whose presence was
also desired. "Ernest" was unacquainted with Miss Tubby and a request
for her Christian name brought out at first the incorrect answer, "Marion,"
but when informed of his error he replied, "Not Laura's Gert!" Miss
Tubby stated that this expression spoke volumes. "I was 'Gert' to Laura
and to no one else. She had given me the somewhat absurd nickname from
our early acquaintance, before I knew of it myself. But 'Ernest Ainslee'
had passed from this life a perfect stranger to me. Hence for him to
address me as 'Gert' would have been entirely inappropriate, but to refer
to me as Laura's Gert' is highly evidential. Mrs. Travers-Smith had never
been informed of any intimacy between Laura and me, and would not
normally hit upon this, even had she known who I was."

104 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Miss Tubby's mission was not to contact strangers, evidential though
their communications were, so she sat tight and waited. Then quite dra-
matically the apparent owner of the packet appeared on the scene asking
some questions. Miss Tubby retaliated by asking for a name; it came,
very slowly, a letter at a time — "hyslop." Then after the sitter had shown
her appreciation by shouting, "Hooray! That is good," the full name,
"james h. hyslop," followed. Next came a piece of information that
Miss Tubby considered very evidential, but the sign had not been given.
Just as the sitting was concluding, and Miss Tubby had almost given up
hope, it came — "X."

Later, Miss Tubby proceeded with her investigations of different
mediums in England and France, and assessing her work at the end of
the tour found that in dealing with twenty-seven mediums she obtained
ninety-six items of cross-references.

case no. 57
The T helm a Case1
In the summer of 1924, while Mrs. Lydia W. Allison was engaged in
a series of sittings with Mrs. Leonard, a chance remark by a friend, Mrs.
de Crespigny, turned her attention to another medium, Mrs. Hester
Travers-Smith, of whom she often heard but had never experimented
with. Mrs. de Crespigny arranged a sitting "without mentioning her
,name — merely asking 'for a friend' — and I knew nothing concerning
Mrs. Allison's life in America nor of her friends." Mrs. Allison at her
three sittings obtained splendid evidence, as the following extracts show.
The first sitting was held on June 27.

l. w. a. (producing a tobacco pouch belonging to her husband) : Can
you tell me to whom this pouch belongs?

ouija: Edward.

L. w. a.: Correct. Can you give me the name by which you were always
called?

ouija: Ned.

L. w. a. : Tell me who was married the other day ? (No response.)

L. w. a. : Can you tell me who gave you the pouch ?

1 Allison, Lydia W., Leonard and Soule Experiments in Psychical Research (Boston),
162-74.

AUTOMATIC WRITING 105

oui ja : Anita.

l. w. a. (excitedly) : This is most astonishing. Where did she give it to
you?

There were several unsuccessful attempts to give the name, so a dif-
ferent method was adopted. Mrs. Travers-Smith, placing a pencil in Mrs.
Allison's hand, covered it with her own.

pencil (writing on the paper) : Ned Londan [sic]. (Mrs. Allison states:
"I am perfectly certain that I retarded the action of the pencil, which I
held very limply, fearing to give it assistance. The psychic's hand guided
my own, in fact, pushed it ahead.")

l. w. a. : Can you give me your surname ?

pencil: All (Scrawl, imperfecdy written, but recognizable.)

l. w. a.: Can you give me your middle name?

pencil: Wood.

l. w. a.: Good.

pencil: Edward!

L. w. a. : Will you try the last name again ? (A number of attempts were
made that roughly resembled the name so this request was abandoned.)

pencil: Lydia. (Correct name of sitter.)

pencil: Wood. (Correct middle name of purported communicator.)

Medium and sitter then rested and had tea; the latter taking special
care not to divulge information concerning herself; then the ouija-board
was resumed, Mrs. Allison lightly putting her fingers on the back of the
medium's hand.

l. w. a. : Ned, is it really you ?

oui ja : I should say it is.

l. w. a.: Well then ... try and give me your sister's name?

ouija: Anna. (Correct.)

l. w. a.: Good! and your other sister's name?

ouija: Mary.

l. w. a.: Splendid. Now can you give me your surname?

ouija (slowly) : Allesn — Allisn — Allison.

At the next sitting on July 3, Mrs. Allison asked the medium if she
would work the board without her hand. Mrs. Travers-Smith said she

106 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

would try, and during the entire sitting Mrs. Allison \ept her hands on
her own lap.

ouija: Edward Allison is here.

l. w. a.: . . , Do you remember Gretchen? (Note by Mrs. Allison:
"My manner was rather defiant. I felt that if the names given in this and
the preceding sitting came from the source they purported to come from,
I ought to get a correct answer to any question, provided the question
recalled an important association to the purported communicator.")

ouija: Yes.

l. w. a.: Well, then, give me her name?

ouija: Elsa . . . Elsie. (Correct. Baptismal name Elsa but regularly
called Elsie by her family and friends, including the purported communi-
cator. She was one of the closest friends of both the communicator and
the sitter. Two other sisters might have been mentioned who were only
casual friends.)

l. w. a. : Do you remember Jack ? Jack and Marian ?

ouija : Yes.

l. w. a.: What was their last name?

ouija: Mackay.

l. w. a. : That's right.

ouija (spontaneously) : Macky.

l. w. a.: Yes, you omitted a letter this time.

ouija: That's the way it's pronounced. (Correct.)

l. w. a.: Do you remember my mother? . . . Give me her first name?

ouija: Paula.

l. w. a.: That is excellent . . . but give me her nickname.

ouija: Mudder.

l. w. a.: Splendid. But the other one, you know.

ouija: Polly.

The conditions at the third sitting on July 9 were exactly similar to
those at the second sitting.

l. w. a.: I shall ask for one name only today, then we'll go on to some-
thing else. Give me your sister's name again?
ouija: Anna.

AUTOMATIC WRITING 107

l. w. a.: Right, the other sister now? . . . You were particularly fond
of her.

ouija : Mary.

l. w. a.: That's right. Now give me the name of the young girl (very
emphatically), your sister's daughter.

ouija: Thm (very rapidly).

l. w. a. (interrupting) : Wait a moment. Begin over.

ouija: Thelma! (Thelma would have been the correct answer to the
question as to recent marriage. See first sitting.)

Dr. Walter F. Prince, in reviewing these sittings, said :

"There is a singular fitness to the spiritistic theory in the failure of
Edward to give the name of the person lately married, though it was
later given when the name of his sister's daughter was demanded. For
he would remember the name of his sister's daughter, but could not be
expected to remember what had happened since his departure, unless
on the unreasonable assumption that spirits must know all that takes
place on earth. But Mrs. Allison had the name 'Thelma' as definitely in
mind when she asked who was married as when she asked who was the
sister's daughter. Why should telepathy between the living observe the
consistencies appropriate only to a spirit consciousness?"

case no. 58
The Dribbell Case1

On March 8, 1933, Mr. Harry Price, the famous psychical investigator
and Honorary Secretary of the University of London Council for Psy-
chical Investigation, received a report of a private sitting with Mrs. Hester
Travers-Smith, which he describes as being very successful and convinc-
ing. Strictly anonymous, Mrs. Grace Dribbell, an English lady married
to a Dutchman, was one of the sitters; and she was very careful that no
information was imparted to the medium by her. Mrs. Dribbell asked
to contact some of her deceased "in-laws," though she was ignorant of
the Dutch language.

The first name she received was "Leman" (her husband's brother),

1 Price, Harry, Fifty Years of Psychical Research (London: Longmans, Green & Co.,
Ltd.), 160-61.

108 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

then came "Lies" (i.e., Louisa, the pet name of his wife), "Lili" (their
daughter), "Jan Stookis" (Lili's sweetheart) and "Anna" (the mother
of Jan).

Next came the words "Liesje," "Jacob" "moeder," and "cancer," which
were represented as emanating from "Leman," who had died of heart
disease at Bussum, Holland, in the year 1929.

When Mrs. Dribbell asked "Leman": "What pet name did you call
me?" the reply came, "Peggy mijn Kind," roughly "Peg o' my Heart"
in Dutch. Still unsatisfied, Mrs. Dribbell wanted another message from
"Leman" in his native tongue. "He" supplied it: "1\ heb je lief" (I love
you), followed by "Lex" (Mrs. Dribbell's husband), "Jack" (her son),
"Sophie," "Marie," and "Lida," all related to Mr. Dribbell, whose mother
was a victim of cancer. As every name and every statement made at this
sitting was correct, Mrs. Dribbell, a very matter-of-fact person, formed the
opinion that she — in some fashion or other — was contacting certain de-
ceased persons.

Chapter 6

TRANCE PHENOMENA

The true nature of trance is unknown, and not all those on platform or
in seance-room may be considered in this condition merely because they
close their eyes, groan, vigorously shake their head, and speak in a lighter
or heavier voice. Neither is the stamping of the foot the hall-mark of
trance; it must be taken on trust, and the medium's abilities judged by
the supernormal content of her utterances.

Genuine trance is a sleep of some kind in which the medium's normal
mind is put out of action, but whether by the action of the deceased or
by a process of self-hypnosis is a matter on which the experts are not
agreed.

Dr. Richard Hodgson and Professor William James tested the trance
reactions of Mrs. Piper, the American medium : a lighted match was held
to her arm, salt placed in her mouth, while she was made to undergo a
strong inhalation of ammonia. She passed all these physical tests, yet
Hodgson and James only accepted her genuineness — provisionally. It was
by the supernormal, evidential character of her communications that Mrs.
Piper vindicated herself and later convinced Hodgson of survival.

F. W. H. Myers described the three successive stages of trance as fol-
lows: In the initial stage control is obtained by the medium's own sub-
conscious mind; the second stage is when a discarnate — usually a regular
control — makes telepathic contact with his own spiritual world; and the
last stage is when the entire organism, brain and body, is taken over by
an invading entity — usually a relative.

Mediums are assumed to have no recollection of what transpires when
they are in trance, and to all intents and purposes there is a totally different
personality while in that state.

case no. 59

The Gree\ Case1

This is the case of a medium in trance speaking a language of which,

1 Annates des Sciences Psycbiques (1905), XV, 317.

109

J 10 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

in her normal condition, she was entirely ignorant. The medium was
Laura Edmunds, the daughter of Judge Edmunds, president of the Senate
and judge of the Supreme Court of New York, a man of high intelligence
and unimpeachable rectitude.

He entered psychical research for one reason: to prove that it was
worthless and those who were interested in it were fools. His surprise may
be imagined when his daughter Laura developed mediumistic powers.

She was a fervent Catholic and very pious, speaking only a few phrases
of French in addition to her mother tongue.

Once, Mr. Evangelides, a Greek, paid the Edmunds a visit and at a
sitting held later, Laura, in trance, was controlled by a friend of Evan-
gelides', a Mr. Botzaris, who had died in Greece. This communicator,
according to Judge Edmunds, speaking in modern Greek to Evangelides,
informed him that the sitter's son — whom he still supposed well and alive
in Greece, had recently died. Evangelides was moved to tears by this
announcement and would scarcely believe it, yet the statement was later
found to be only too true. Judge Edmunds concluded his report:

"To deny the fact is impossible, it was too well known; I could as well
deny the light of the sun; nor could I think it an illusion, for it is in no
way different from any other reality. It took place before ten educated
and intelligent persons. We had never seen Mr. Evangelides before; he
was introduced by a friend that same evening. How could Laura tell him
of his son? How could she understand and speak Greek, which she had
never previously heard?"

case no. 60
The Uncle Jerry Case1

When Mrs. Piper came to England from the United States in the year
1889, Sir Oliver Lodge held a series of twenty-two sittings with her. This
information may surprise a certain section of the public who believe that
Lodge became interested in psychical research only after his son Raymond
was killed in the 1914-18 war. Mrs. Piper had been rigorously tested in
the United States by Professor William James and Dr. Richard Hodgson
and been considered genuine, but it was thought advisable to send
her to England, where she would be in absolutely new surroundings;

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., VI.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 111

there every sitting would be held in test conditions. Lodge saw to that:
the servants in his house were new at the time of her visit, her letters
were inspected by him, and Mrs. Lodge (as she was then) hid all the
photo albums and family Bibles out of sight.

The sittings that ensued produced such good results that Lodge pro-
visionally accepted the survival theory as the explanation of her phenom-
ena. Friends and strangers (strictly anonymous) were brought to her
sittings and the evidence obtained was analyzed by Lodge. Some of this
evidence that Lodge received has been summarized in a convenient form
for the reader ; it did not come in sequence as presented here, but in small
quantities during several sittings.

Mrs. Lodge's Father

phinuit1 : "Alex — Alexander, that's his name. He had something wrong
with his heart. He tried to speak to Mary, his wife, stretched out his hand
to her, couldn't reach her, fell and passed away. You (Mrs. Lodge) were
just a little thing then.

"He had a pain in his right leg, below the knee. He wore a uniform
dress, an officer, but not military. He took long voyages over the water.
He used to be on board ship, fell through a hole in the boat, that's how
he hurt his leg. His name was Alexander Marshall."

Comment by Sir Oliver Lodge

"My wife's father's name was Alexander, intimately called Alex. His
health had been broken by tropical travel and he was a captain in the
merchant service. Shordy after marriage he went on what was to be his
last voyage and returned three months before his wife was confined.
Thirteen days after the confinement, which had been very severe and the
strain of which had made him faint, he entered his wife's room half-
dressed, holding a handkerchief over his mouth, which was full of blood.
He stretched out his hand to her, removed the handkerchief and tried
to speak, but only gasped and fell on the floor. Very soon he was dead.
My wife was only a fortnight old at this time.

"He had broken his leg once by falling down the hold of his ship, and
in certain states of weather it used to pain him. It was his right leg, just
below the knee. His full name was Alexander Marshall, as stated."

1 Mrs. Piper's control is speaking.

112 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Relatives of Sir Oliver Lodge
phinuit: "You (O. L.) had an Aunt Anne on your mother's side. That's
her ring you have, her last present to you for your wife. Your mother
passed away before Aunt Anne. There is also an Uncle Robert on your
father's side."

Comment
"The statement regarding my Aunt Anne is correct and the ring inci-
dent is precisely accurate. My mother died before her sister Annie. My
father had a brother Robert."

Other Relatives of Mrs. Lodge
phinuit: "A Mrs. White connected with your father. You (Mrs. L.)
had two fathers, Alex was one, I've named him already; the other was
William, a very depressed man in life. He had trouble here (indicating
the lower part of the stomach and bladder)."

Comment
"Mrs. White was my wife's aunt. It is true that Mrs. Lodge had a step-
father (she had given that information away), but his name, given con-
vincingly, was not. He was subject to fits of depression and had a stone
in his bladder, for which he was operated on just before he died."

Uncle Jerry1

"It happens that an uncle of mine in London, now quite an old man
and one of a surviving three out of a very large family, had a twin brother
who died some twenty or more years ago. I interested him generally in
the subject and wrote to ask if he would lend me some relic of this brother.
By morning post on a certain day I received a curious old gold watch,
which his brother had worn and been fond of; and that same morning,
no one in the house having seen it or knowing anything about it, I
handed it to Mrs. Piper when in a state of trance.

"I was told almost immediately that it had belonged to one of my uncles
— one that had been mentioned before as having died from the effects of
a fall, one that had been very fond of Uncle Robert, the name of the sur-
vivor— that the watch was now in possession of this same Uncle Robert,
with whom he was anxious to communicate. After some difficulty and

l Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 458.

TRANCE PHENOMENA -» 113

many wrong attempts Phinuit caught the name, 'Jerry,' short for Jere-
miah, and said emphatically, as if a third person was speaking: 'This
is my watch and Robert is my brother and I am here, Uncle Jerry, my
watch.' All this at the first sitting on the very morning the watch had
arrived by post, no one but myself and a shorthand clerk who happened
to have been introduced for the first time at this sitting by me, and whose
antecedents are well known to me, being present.

"Having thus ostensibly got into communication through some means or
other with what purported to be a deceased relative, whom I had indeed
known slighdy in his latter years of blindness, but of whose early life I
knew nothing, I pointed out to him that to make Uncle Robert aware
of his presence it would be well to relate trivial incidents of his boyhood,
all of which I would faithfully report.

"He quite caught the idea and proceeded during several successive sit-
tings ostensibly to instruct Phinuit to mention a number of little things
such as would enable his brother to recognize him.

"References to his blindness, illness, and main facts of his life were
comparatively useless from my point of view; for these details of boyhood
two-thirds of a century ago were utterly and entirely out of my ken. My
father was one of the younger members of the family and only knew
these brothers as men.

" 'Uncle Jerry' recalled episodes such as swimming the creek when they
were boys together, and running some risk of getting drowned; killing
a cat in Smith's field; the possession of a small rifle, and of a very peculiar
skin, like a snake-skin, which he thought was now in possession of Uncle
Robert.

"All these facts have been more or less completely verified. But the
interesting thing is that his twin brother, from whom I got the watch,
and with whom I was thus in a sort of communication, could not remem-
ber them all. He recollected something about swimming the creek, though
he himself had merely looked on. He had a distinct recollection of having
had the snake-skin, and of the box in which it was kept, though he does
not know where it is now. But he altogether denied killing the cat, and
could not recall Smith's field.

"His memory, however, is decidedly failing him, and he was good
enough to write to another brother, Frank, living in Cornwall, an old

114 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

sea captain, and ask him if he had any better remembrance of certain
facts — of course, not giving any inexplicable reason for asking. The result
of this inquiry was triumphantly to vindicate the existence of Smith's
field as a place near their home, where they used to play, in Barking,
Essex; while of the swimming of the creek, near a mill-race, full details
were given, Frank and Jerry being the heroes of that foolhardy episode.

"Later, Lodge brought Professor G. H. Rendall to two sittings, intro-
ducing him as 'Roberts.' "

phinuit: "You (G. H. R.) had an old friend, a lady, Agnes, passed out
with cough. Grey eyes, brown hair. Her mother alive. Her sister not well
of late, she married after Agnes died. They took Agnes a trip for her
health, but it did not do any good. She gradually died, hemorrhage. She
sends her love to Lu, and to your brother Arthur, she knew him best.
Here's a spirit, Charlie Randall, R-a-n-d-a-1-1."

Professor G. H. Rendall' s Comment
"The foregoing statements are quite correct. A good description of her
death, features as stated. Agnes died at Cannes of consumption. She had
a friend called Louie, who was very fond of her, and she knew my brother
Arthur best. My name was never mentioned in Mrs. Piper's presence and
I knew a Charlie Rendall. Any getting up of the Agnes incident seems
impossible. She was a relative by marriage who died twenty-one years
back, whose existence, to the best of my belief, was unknown to anyone
in Liverpool (where the sitting was held). I also received the names of
my four brothers — Charlie, Fred, Arthur and Arnold — correctly, and
statement of mother's death, eldest brother and (vaguely) an infant
sister. Regarding my two sittings, I am quite convinced of the genuine-
ness of the phenomena; there was no opening for concerted fraud. I have
no theory: confused communications with persons dead ... is not out
of accord with facts received, but nothing occurred to me that this was
the only admissible explanation."

CASE NO. 61

The Clar\e Case1
On December 29, 1889, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Clarke held one sitting with
Mrs. Piper, and the following is an extract:
1 Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 578.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 115

phinuit: How is M ? (Trying to get at the German pronunciation

of the name.) Somebody belonging to you is called M (says name

correctly this time). I want to talk to you about young Uncle C .

There is someone with him — E . He is your cousin.

mrs. clarke : Is he in the body ?

phinuit: No.

mrs. clarke: How did he die?

phinuit: There was something the matter with his heart and with his
head. He says it was an accident. He wants you to tell his sister. There's

M and E . They are sisters of E and there is their mother.

She suffers here (pointing to abdomen). Now, how do you think I
know this?

mrs. clarke: I don't know.

phinuit: E told me his mother had been very unhappy about his

death. He begs you, for God's sake, to tell them it was an accident — that
it was his head — and that he was hurt there (making motion of stabbing
heart), that he inherited it from his father. His father was out of his
mind^-crazy. Here's M , she is your aunt.

mrs. clarke: What does she say about her husband?

phinuit: She says that he has changed his life since. She does not like
it that he married again.

mrs. clarke : Does she love the one whom he married ?

phinuit: Oh, she loves her dearly, but she does not like him to have
married so soon. He married her sister. Two brothers married two sisters.
Her husband has children now. There are two boys.

Mrs. Clarke's explanation is as follows:

"The Uncle C incident is a striking account of my uncle's family in

Germany. The names and facts are all correct. The father was disturbed
in mind for the last three years of his life, in consequence of a fall from
a horse. The son committed suicide in a fit of melancholia by stabbing

his heart as described. The Aunt M incident: Accurate description

of the family of another uncle. His wife died childless, and he soon after
married her sister, by whom he had children. His brother had previously
married a third sister. Some of the facts she gave me were unknown to
anyone out of Germany — even my husband. The more important events—

116 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

my uncle's and aunt's death, and my cousin's suicide, which happened
twenty-eight, fifteen, and twelve years ago — were known only to two
persons in England besides my husband. It is absolutely impossible that
Mrs. Piper got at the facts through information derived from these
persons."

case no. 62
The Derham Case1

Dr. Richard Hodgson of the S.P.R. investigated Mrs. Piper, the famous
American medium, for a period of twelve years, and he published some
of his results in the Proceedings2, of that society. A few extracts from some
sittings now follow — not by any means the best, as these have been already
stated elsewhere. Dr. Hodgson was in complete charge of Mrs. Piper's
sittings; no one could sit with her unless by his sanction and he intro-
duced all new sitters as "Smith," usually accompanying them as note-taker.

Mr. T. P. Derham was Dr. Hodgson's brother-in-law — having married
his younger sister — and lived in Melbourne, Australia. No name was
given when the appointment was made by Dr. Hodgson, who took the
notes himself during the sitting. Mr. Derham had two sittings and
summed them up as follows : "The history of my family, living and dead,
was given straight out — without any guessing, and without the slightest
assistance from either Dr. Hodgson or myself. I think I did not speak at
all and Dr. Hodgson only spoke to bring her to the point. ... I am
naturally skeptical and, by training, incredulous."

case no. 63
The G. P. Case3

What is the most evidential case on record of a deceased person return-
ing to prove his identity? That is a question often asked, and it is gen-
erally agreed by those best qualified to judge such matters that a plain
American citizen, George Pelham (pseudonym), worthily earned that
honor. If this is so, theh future generations should owe him a debt of
profound gratitude; for in proving himself, he labored in extreme diffi-
culties, for he was trying to prove this fact through the organism of
another person — of the opposite sex.

He was killed by a fall from his horse in New York in February, 1892,

i Proceedings, S.P.R., VIII, 68.
2 Ibid., VIII, XIII.
*Ibid., XIII, 328-30.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 117

and four weeks later appeared at sittings that Dr. Hodgson was holding
with Mrs. Piper. This was not a chance occurrence, as Dr. Hodgson had
known him and they had often discussed the possibility of survival — of
which Pelham was skeptical; but one evening after an argument, Pelham
declared that if he should die before Hodgson and find himself still sur-
viving, he would "make things lively" in the effort to reveal the fact. For
several years he communicated and later Hodgson gave a general sum-
mary of the whole series of his manifestations:

"On the first appearance of the communicating G. P. to Mr. Hart in
March, 1892, he gave not only his own name and that of the sitter1 but
also the names of several of their most intimate common friends, and
referred specially to the most important private matters connected with
them. At the same sitting reference was made to other incidents unknown
to the sitters, such as the account of Mrs. Pelham taking the studs from
the body of G. P. and giving them to Mr. Pelham to be sent to Mr. Hart,
and the reproduction of a notable remembrance of a communication
which G. P. living had with Katharine, the daughter of his most intimate
friends, the Howards. These were primary examples of two kinds of
knowledge concerning matters unknown to the sitters, of which various
other instances were afterwards given: knowledge of events connected
with G. P. which had occurred since his death, and knowledge of special
memories pertaining to the G. P. personality before death.

"A week later, at a sitting of Mr. Vance, he made an appropriate
inquiry after the sitter's son, and in reply to inquiries rightly specified
that the sitter's son had been at college with him, and further gave
a correct description of the sitter's summer home as the place of a special
visit. This again was paralleled by many later instances where appropriate
inquiries were made and remembrances recalled concerning the other
personal friends of G. P. Nearly two weeks later came his most intimate
friends, the Howards, and to these, using the voice directly, he showed
such a fullness of private remembrance and a specific knowledge and
characteristic intellectual and emotional quality pertaining to G. P. that,
though they had previously taken no interest in any branch of psychical
research, they were unable to resist the conviction that they were actually
conversing with their old friend G. P. And this conviction was strength-
ened by their later experiences.

1 Mr. Hart had been introduced anonymously.

118 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"Not least important, at that time, was his anxiety about the disposal
of a certain book and about certain specified letters which concern matters
too private for publication. He was particularly desirous of convincing
his father, who lived in Washington, that it was indeed G. P. who was
communicating, and he soon afterwards stated that his father had taken
his photograph to be copied, as was the case, though Mr. Pelham had
not informed his wife of this fact. Later on, he reproduced a series of
incidents, unknown to the sitters, in which Mrs. Howard had been
engaged in her own home. Later still} at a sitting with his father and
mother in New York, a further intimate knowledge was shown of private
family circumstances; and at the following sitting, at which his father and
mother were not present, he gave the details of certain private actions
which they had done in the interim. At their sitting, and at various sit-
tings of the Howards, appropriate comments were made concerning
articles presented which had belonged to G. P. living, or had been
familiar to him; he inquired after the other personal articles which were
not presented at the sittings, and showed intimate and detailed recollec-
tions of incidents in connection with them. In points connected with the
recognition of articles with their related associations of a personal sort,
the G. P. communicating, so far as I know, has never failed.

"Nor has he failed in the recognition of personal friends. I may say
generally that out of a large number of sitters who went as strangers to
Mrs. Piper, the communicating G. P. has picked out the friends of G. P.
living, precisely as the G. P. living might have been expected to do.
(Thirty cases of recognition out of at least one hundred and fifty who
have had sittings with Mrs. Piper with the first appearance of G. P. and
no case of false recognition.) He has exhibited memories in connection
with these and other friends which are such as would naturally be associ-
ated as part of the G. P. personality, which certainly do not suggest in
themselves that they originate otherwise, and which are accompanied by
the emotional relations which were connected with such friends in the
mind of G. P. living.

"At one of his early communications G. P. expressly undertook the
task of rendering all the assistance in his power towards establishing the
continued existence of himself and other communicators, in pursuance of
a promise of which he himself reminded me, made some two years or

TRANCE PHENOMENA 119

more before his death, that if he died before me and found himself 'still
existing,' he would devote himself to prove the fact; and in the persistence
of his endeavor to overcome the difficulties in communicating, as far as
possible, in his constant readiness to act as amanuensis at the sittings, in
the effect which he has produced by his counsel — to myself as investigator,
and to numerous other sitters and communicators — he has, in so far as I
can form a judgment in a problem so complex and still presenting so
much obscurity, displayed the keenness and pertinacity which were emi-
nently characteristic of G. P. living.

"Finally, the manifestations of this G. P. communicating have not been
of a fitful or spasmodic nature; they have exhibited the marks of a con-
tinuous living and persistent personality, manifesting itself through a
course of years, and showing the same characteristics of an independent
intelligence whether friends of G. P. were present at the sittings or not.
I learned of various cases where, in my absence, active assistance was
rendered by G. P. to sitters who had never previously heard of him, and
from time to time he would make brief, pertinent references to matters
with which the G. P. living was acquainted, though I was not, and some-
times in ways which indicated that he could to some extent see what was
happening in our world to persons in whose welfare G. P. living would
have been specially interested."

case no. 64
The Edmunds Case1
The following account is an abridgment of the notes taken at three
sittings with Mrs. Piper by Miss Lucy Edmunds, Dr. Hodgson's secretary :

"Mrs. Piper knew my name; that I was English; had seen me at the
office of the S.P.R. During the conversation we had before the first sitting,
I had made a passing allusion to a nephew; beyond these facts I think she
knew nothing of me. (The nephew was not alluded to during the sitting.)

"Phinuit stated that I had a father in spirit and mother in body, describ-
ing some characteristics of each . . . then Joseph. (Father and Mother
each had a brother named Joseph, both deceased.) 'There's four brothers,
two passed out little things — with their father — that's all there was of you
passed out. (True.) There's a little one, came after father passed out.

i Proceedings, S.P.R., VIII, 135-38.

120 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

(True.) Alice— another little girl. (Not Alice, forgetting for the moment
that Lillie's name is Alice Lilian, and that my brother calls her Alice and
writes to her as such.) Yes, Alice, you call her Lil, but she's Alice!' Phinuit
made a dash at my watch. 'Your father gave it to your aunt and she gave
it to you. (True.)

"'There's a little girl here for you, rather pretty. Light hair and dark
eyes — bright. You had something to do with teaching her. You heard
from her when she was ill. She says she had a cousin Gideon in Australia,
Maria, Maria, sends her love to Emma. Emma is not well — not happy.'

"All this is true. Maria is the little girl's name; Emma is the mother's
name, and Gideon the name of the nephew, whose whereabouts are not
at present known.

"'There are two children just alike in spirit. They are twins.' (True.)"

case no. 65
The Savage Case1

"During the winter of 1885-86 I had my first sitting with Mrs. Piper.
Immediately on becoming entranced, her control, Phinuit, said there were
many friends present. Among them was an old man whom he described,
but only in a general way. Then he said, 'He is your father and he calls
you Judson.' Attention was also called to the fact that he had a peculiar
bare spot on his head, and Mrs. Piper put her hand on the corresponding
place on my own head.

"Now for the facts that give these two apparently simple points what-
ever significance they possess. My father had died during the preceding
summer, aged ninety years and six months. He had never lived in Boston,
and Mrs. Piper, I am quite sure, had never seen film nor been in any way
interested in him. He wasn't at all bald but when quite young had been
burned, so that there was a bare spot on the right side of the top of his
head, perhaps an inch wide and three inches long, running from the
forehead back towards the crown. This he covered by combing his hair
over it. This was the spot that Mrs. Piper indicated.

"Now as to the name by which he addressed me: I was given the middle
name, Judson, at the request of a half-sister, my father's daughter, who
died soon after I was born. Out of tenderness for her memory (as I
always supposed) Father always used, when I was a boy, to call me

l Proceedings, S.P.R., VIII, 100.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 121

Judson, though all the rest of the family called me by my first name,
Minot. In his later life Father also got to calling me by my first name.
No one, therefore, had called me by my second name for many years.
I was therefore naturally struck and surprised by suddenly hearing
one who claimed to be my father giving me once more my old boyhood
name. I was not consciously thinking of these things, and I am convinced
that Mrs. Piper couldn't have known anything about them.

"During this same sitting Mrs. Piper's control also said, 'Here is some-
one who says his name is John. He was your half-brother.' Then pressing
her hand on the base of her brain, she moaned, as she swayed to and fro.
Then she continued, 'He says it was so hard to die away off there all
alone. How he did want to see Mother.' She went on to explain that he
died from a fall, striking the back of his head. Her whole account of
this was realistic in the extreme. My half-brother John, the son of my
mother: — for both Father and Mother had been twice married — died sev-
eral years previous to this sitting. While building a mill in Michigan
he fell, striking the back of his head on a piece of timber. He was far
from all friends, and was in most tender love of his mother. I was not
thinking of him until told that he was present.

"Many other things occurred during the sitting, but I only mention
these because, though simple, they are so clear-cut and striking, and
because I see no way by which Mrs. Piper could ever have known them.
I have had other sittings with Mrs. Piper. Most of the things told, how-
ever, were too personal for publication. Nearly all are inexplicable on any
theory that does not go at least as far as telepathy.

"M. J. Savage."

CASE NO. 66

The Shaler Case1
The following is an extract from notes of a sitting that Professor N. S.
Shaler, the well-known geologist of Harvard, had with Mrs. Piper :

"My wife handed Mrs. Piper an engraved seal, which she knew, though
I did not, had belonged to her brother — a gentleman from Richmond,
Virginia, who died about a year ago. At once, Mrs. Piper began to make
statements clearly relating to the deceased, and in the course of the fol-
lowing hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XIII, 540.

122 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family in Hartford,
Conn., with whom the Richmond family had been in close social rela-
tions. ... I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of
knowledge which the medium seems to have concerning my wife's
brother's affairs. Certain of the facts, as, for instance, those relating to the
failure to find his will after his sudden death, were very neatly and
dramatically rendered. They had the real life quality. So, too, the name of
the man who was to have married my wife's brother's daughter, and who
died a month before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given,
both as regards surname and Christian name, though the Christian name
was not remembered by my wife or me."

case no. 67
The Ring Case1
Professor Herbert Nichols, of Harvard University, had a sitting ar-
ranged for him by Dr. Hodgson, and after the sitting he wrote to his
friend, Professor William James, who forwarded this extract to Dr.
Hodgson :

"Just before coming away I had a wonderful sitting with Mrs. Piper.
As you know, I have been a Laodicean toward her heretofore; but that
she is no fraud, and that she is the greatest marvel I have ever met I am
now convinced. I think my interview more wonderful than any I have
ever heard reported before. I went under an assumed name through ap-
pointment made with Hodgson by letter — even he did not know who I
was, probably does not now. Most of the interview, and by far the most
important part, was of such a nature that I can't write about it, but
should like to tell you somewhat of it sometime.

"I asked her scarcely a question, but she ran on for three-quarters of
an hour, telling me names, places, events in a most startling manner. Then
she suddenly stopped talking and began writing — this was far less satis-
factory and about an entirely different set of matters — mostly about
Mamma (who recently fell and was killed) and messages to her grand-
children.

"One thing here, however, will interest you. Mamma and I one Christ-
mas exchanged rings. Each had engraved in their gift the first word of

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XIII, 535.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 123

their favorite proverb. The ring given me I lost many years ago. When
Mamma died a year ago, the ring I had given her was, at her request,
taken from her finger, and sent to me. Now I asked Mrs. Piper, 'What
was written in Mamma's ring?' and as I asked the question I held the
ring in my hand and had in mind only that ring, but I had hardly got
the words from my mouth till she slapped down on paper the word on the
other ring — the one Mamma had given me and which had been lost
years ago while travelling. As the word was a peculiar one, doubtfully
ever written in any ring before, and as she wrote it in such a flash it was
surely curious. . . .

"Nichols."

CASE NO. 68

The "Too Private" Cases
Those who have read and studied the reports of sittings contained in
the Proceedings of the S.P.R. will have noticed how often some investi-
gators have withheld details of various cases on the plea that they were
"too private" for publication. Dr. Hodgson in his two reports on the Piper
phenomena often commented on this, regretting that so many evidential
cases were held back for this reason, otherwise the evidence for survival
in his reports would have been greatly strengthened. He wrote:

"Of the written reports of first sittings there are many which I am prac-
tically unable to use as evidence, owing to the reluctance of the sitters to
allow the private matters concerned to be published in any form and a
large amount of the best evidence derivable from first sittings is unavail-
able for publication."1

The critic may state, "How can we be certain that cases of this nature
are evidential? We have only the sitters' word for it and are we not being
asked to take too much for granted?" Surely it is not illogical to presume
that the privacy of these cases makes for first-class evidence. If the com-
munications had been nonsensical or erroneous, sitters would not have
hesitated to proclaim this fact to the world; there was no motive in con-
cealing it as there would have been when it was "too private," and con-
sequently, veridical and evidential. Perhaps these sitters were a trifle selfish

l Proceedings, S.P.R., XIII, 288.

124 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

in withholding material that would have benefited humanity — yet it is
quite natural and we cannot condemn, although we may well wish they
had been more altruistic. We must accept human nature as we find it
and make the best of it. Everyone is not idealistic enough to reveal family
secrets simply for the sake of proving survival to their neighbors.

Three or four examples now follow so that the reader will be able to
form his own opinion on this matter.

The first is of a Mr. Howard1 who was investigating the "G. P." case.
Howard had already obtained some good evidence, yet he was still waver-
ing; he wanted some facts that would absolutely clinch the question of
G. P.'s identity and at a sitting he said to G. P., "Tell me something in
your past that you and I alone know. You have failed with certain ques-
tions; give me an answer in your own terms." G. P. commenced to write
and Dr. Hodgson described the scene thus:

"The transcription of the words written by 'G. P.' conveys, of course,
no proper impression of the actual circumstances; the inert mass of the
upper part of Mrs. Piper's body turned away from the right arm, and
sagging down, as it were, limp and lifeless over Mr. Howard's shoulder,
but the right arm, and especially hand, mobile, intelligent, deprecatory,
then impatient and fierce in the persistence of the writing which followed,
contains too much of the personal element in 'G. P.'s' life to be reproduced
here. Several statements were read by me, and assented to by Mr. Howard
and then written 'private' and the hand gently pushed me away.

"I retired to the other side of the room and Mr. Howard took my place
close to the hand where he could read the writing. He did not, of course,
read it alone, and it was too private for my perusal. The hand, as it
reached the end of each sheet, tore it off from the block book and thrust
it wildly at Mr. Howard, and then continued writing. The circumstances
narrated, Mr. Howard informed me, contained precisely the kind of test
for which he had asked, and he said he was 'perfectly satisfied, perfectly.' "

Some time later Dr. and Mrs. A. B. Thaw2 held a series of thirteen
sittings with Mrs. Piper and twelve were published by Hodgson. One
was "omitted altogether, at the request of the sitters, as being too intimately
personal, and containing much very private matter concerning the de-
ceased." As the twelve were full of private and personal matters this sup-

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XIII, 321.
* Ibid., XIII, 351.

TRANCE PHENOMENA 125

pressed sitting must have contained some very extraordinary private evi-
dence and one may well wonder of what it consisted.

Seventy-six sittings were held when Mrs. Piper was in England from
November, 1889, to February, 1890, for the purpose of being tested among
complete strangers; and although many sitters permitted full accounts of
their sittings to be published, F. W. H. Myers,1 who had two sittings
on January 24 and 25, 1890, summed up as follows:

"In these sittings some private facts as to deceased friends were given
as to which it is practically impossible that Mrs. Piper could have acquired
any information."

Regarding another medium, Mrs. Willett, Lord Balfour2 wrote:

"It would be impossible to do justice to the argument in favor of spirit
communication on the basis of the Willett phenomena without violating
confidences which I am bound to respect. The reader will probably wonder
why, since the communications through the Willett trance are of such
a clear and coherent kind, as evidence is quoted from it which tends
to prove directly the identity of the communicators. The answer is that
such evidence exists but cannot be divulged. The bulk of Mrs. Willett's
automatic output is too private for publication; the material withheld
from publication is of a very strong and convincing kind. It is indeed very
greatly to be deplored that such supremely important evidence must be
withheld from publication in the interests of privacy."

case no. 69

The Signore X Case

This account of a seance held on April 5, 1904, was first published in
Luce e Ombra (Rome, 1920) by Professor Ernest Bozzano, who was
present when the occurrence described took place. The publication of this
important piece of evidence was withheld for many years, and was only
made possible by the death of the chief protagonist:

"Seance held on April 5, 1904. The following were present: Dr. Giuseppe

Venzano, Ernesto Bozzano, Cavaliere Carlo Peretti, Signore X , Sig-

nora Guidetta Peretti and the medium, L. P. The seance commenced at
ten o'clock in the evening.

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 645.

2 Ibid., XXV.

126 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"From the beginning, we noticed that the medium was troubled for
some unknown reason. The 'spirit guide,' Luigi, the medium's father,
did not manifest himself and L. P. gazed with terror towards the left cor-
ner of the room. Shortly afterwards he freed himself from his 'spirit-
controls,' rose to his feet, and began a singularly realistic and impressive
struggle against some invisible enemy. Soon he uttered cries of terror, drew
back, threw himself to the floor, gazed towards the corner as though terri-
fied, then fled to the other corner of the room, shouting: 'Back! Go away.
No, I don't want to. Help me! Save me!' Not knowing what to do, the wit-
nesses of this scene concentrated their thoughts with intensity upon Luigi,
the spirit guide, and called upon him to aid. The expedient proved effec-
tive, for litde by little the medium grew calmer, gazed with less anxiety
towards the corner of the apartment; then his eyes took the expression of
someone who looks at a distant spectacle, then a spectacle still more
distant. At last he gave vent to a sigh of relief, and murmured, 'He's gone!
What a bestial face!'

"Soon afterward, the spirit guide Luigi manifested himself. Expressing
himself through the medium, he told us that in the room there was a
spirit of the basest nature, against which it was impossible for him to
struggle; that the intruder bore an implacable hatred for one of the
persons of the group. Then the medium exclaimed in a frightened voice,
'There he is again! I can't defend you any longer. Stop the .'

"It is certain that Luigi wished to say, 'Stop the seance,' but it was
already too late. The evil spirit had taken possession of our medium. He
shouted; his eyes shot glances of fury. His hands, lifted as though to
seize something, moved like the claws of a wild beast, eager to clutch

his prey. And the prey was Signore X , at whom the medium's furious

looks were cast. A rattling and a sort of a concentrated roaring issued
from our medium's foam-covered lips, and suddenly these words burst
from him : 'I've found you again at last, you coward ! / was a Royal Marine.
Don't you remember the quarrel in Oporto? You filled me there. But
today I'll have my revenge and strangle you.'

"These distracted words were uttered as the hands of the medium,
L. P., seized the victim's throat, and tightened on it like steel pincers. It

was a fearful sight. The whole of Signore X 's tongue hung from his

wide-open mouth; his eyes bulged. We had gone to the unfortunate man's
assistance. Uniting our efforts with all the energy which this desperate

TRANCE PHENOMENA

127

situation lent us, we succeeded, after a terrible hand-to-hand struggle, in
freeing him from the desperate grip. At once we pulled him away, and
thrust him outside, locking the door. We barred the medium's access to
the door; exasperated, he tried to break through this barrier and run after
his enemy. He roared like a tiger. It took all four of us to hold him down.
At last he suffered a total collapse and sank down upon the floor.

"On the following day we prepared to clear up this affair — to seek in-
formation which might enable us to confirm what 'the Oporto spirit'
had said. We were, in fact, already quite certain of the truth of the

accusation, for it was noteworthy that Signore X had not protested

in the least when the serious charge of homicide had been hurled at him.

"The words uttered by the furious spirit served me as a means of arriv-
ing at the truth. He had said, 'I was a Royal Marine.' And I knew

vaguely that Signore X had himself, in his youth, been an officer of

Marines, that he had witnessed the battle of Lissa, and after resigning
his commission had devoted himself to commercial enterprises. With
these facts as a basis, I proceeded to ask a retired vice-admiral for other
details; he, too, had fought at Lissa. As for Dr. Venzano, he questioned

a relative of Signore X , with whom the latter had broken off all

relations years before. Between us we gathered separate bits of informa-
tion which tallied amazingly, and which, brought together, led us to
these conclusions:

"Signore X had, indeed, served with the Royal Marines. One day,

being upon a battleship on a training cruise, he had landed for some
hours at Oporto, Portugal. During his stay, while he was walking in
the city, he heard a noise of drunken, furious voices coming from an inn.
He perceived that the language was Italian, and, realizing that it was a
quarrel between men of his vessel, he went into the room, recognized his
men, and commanded them to return to their ship. One of the drinkers,
more intoxicated than the others, answered him back, and even went so far
as to threaten his superior officer. Angered by his attitude, the officer
drew his sword and plunged it into the insolent fellow's breast; the latter
died soon afterward. As a result of this adventure, the officer was court-
martialed, sentenced to six months' imprisonment and, on the expiration
of his term, asked to resign his commission.

"Those are the facts; it follows from them that the disturbing spirit
had not lied. He had exactly stated his rank as a Royal Italian Marine.

128 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

He had remembered that Signore X had killed him. He had, more-
over— and this was a particularly remarkable statement — indicated the
place where he had died, the setting for the drama, Oporto.

"A painstaking inquiry confirmed the authenticity of all this. By what
hypothesis could one explain occurrences so strikingly in agreement —
those which were revealed to us at the seance of April 5, 1904, and those
which had taken place in Portugal many years before?"

case no. 70
The South African Case1

H. Dennis Bradley, in this case, relates how a Scandinavian gentleman
who had lived many years in South Africa, called upon him, asking if
he could supply the name of a reliable medium. Bradley, who had previ-
ously obtained exceptionally good evidence from a Mrs. Scales, naturally
recommended her to his visitor, who, though not a spiritualist, had read
Towards the Stars and The Wisdom of the Gods. He was an intelligent
man and wished to experiment, as certain and important events had
recently happened in his life, of which occurrences he did not inform
Bradley at this time. The visitor said quite frankly that he was very
skeptical so far as the subject was concerned, and to safeguard his
anonymity Bradley took good care that Mrs. Scales did not learn his name
through him.

The visitor returned after the sitting and informed Bradley of the
circumstances of his case. He was anxious to meet a medium as his wife
had been mysteriously murdered in South Africa and the murderer had
not been discovered.

The communications that purported to come from his wife were
astonishing. The medium minutely described his house and farm in
South Africa and the exact position and outlook of the room in which his
wife was murdered. The exact position in which his wife's body was found
was also described and the statement was made that she had been shot
by a black man employed on a neighboring farm.

The sitter agreed that all the details described were quite correct, except
that the guilt of the native, though a logical surmise, could never be
proved.

1 Bradley, H. Dennis, And After (London: T. "Werner Laurie, Ltd.), 63.

Chapter 7

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE

The theory of cross-correspondence is that a word or words given through
one medium is stated later through another, or that an idea partly con-
veyed in one case is completed and extended through a second or third.

The theory — to eliminate from mediumistic communication the hypoth-
esis of telepathy between the living — has been credited to the deceased
personality of F. W. H. Myers, as it was noticed after his death in 1901
that in scripts of various sensitives, fragmentary utterances were found sup-
plementing each other which, when collected and put together, gave a
coherent idea in each instance.

Miss Alice Johnson, research officer of the S.P.R., was the first to observe
this connection. Many cases are to be found in the Proceedings of the
S.P.R., requiring the ingenuity of those who attempted to solve them —
men of classical and scientific education.

It was the S.P.R. that first inaugurated the cross-correspondences, and
except for some sporadic work through the mediums Valiantine and Mrs.
Crandon, and a few French sensitives, little has been done in this respect
by any other individuals or organizations.

case no. 71
The Hope, Star and Browning Case1
Eight individuals took part in this experiment if we allow that the
deceased F. W. H. Myers and Dr. Richard Hodgson still functioned on
"the other side"; Mrs. Piper in London and Mrs. Verrall and Miss Verrall
in Cambridge were the automatists, while Miss Alice Johnson, Mrs. Sidg-
wick and Mr. J. G. Piddington were the sitters.
Miss Johnson expressed the idea in the Proceedings:2

"About a month after the cross-correspondence just described had
occurred, viz., in April, 1906, the theory that cross-correspondences were

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XXII, XXVII.

2 Ibid., XXVII.

129

130 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

expressly designed to provide evidence for something transcending telep-
athy between the minds of the automatists was first definitely formulated.
... In the autumn of the same year Mr. Piddington and I, in view of the
sittings with Mrs. Piper which were about to be held in London, devised
the experiment of a 'Latin message' to be addressed to Myers in Latin.
The original version of the message was as follows : 'We are aware of the
scheme of cross-correspondences which you are transmitting through vari-
ous mediums, and we hope you will go on with them. Try also to give to
A and B two different messages, between which no connection is dis-
cernible. Then as soon as possible give to C a third message which will
reveal the hidden connection.' It appeared to us that if the experiment suc-
ceeded and cross-correspondences of the desired type occurred, they would
afford almost conclusive evidence of a mind external to those of all the
automatists, and might afford strong evidence of the identity of his mind."

Dr. A. W. Verrall, a distinguished classical scholar, translated into
Ciceronian Latin this message :

"Diversis internuntiis quod invicem inter se respondentia jamdudum
committis, id nee fallit nos consilium, et vehementer probamus. Unum
accesserit gratissimum nobis, si, cum duobus quibusdam ea tradideris, inter
quae hullus appareat nexus, postea quam primum rem per tertium
aliquem ita perficias, ut latens illud in prioribus explicetur."

This message, though given now in one paragraph, was only given in
sentences later to Mrs. Piper, as will be seen from the two or three pages
that follow.

This Latin message, according to Mr. J. G. Piddington, may be rendered
thus literally in English :

"As to the fact that (quod) for some time past you have been entrusting
(committis) to different intermediaries (or messengers) things which cor-
respond mutually between themselves, we have observed your design, and
we cordially approve it. One thing besides this most agreeable to us will
have happened (i.e., You will even add to our pleasure) if, when you shall
have delivered to two particular persons things between which no connec-
tion is apparent, afterwards as soon as possible through some third person
you so complete the matter (or business) that which was latent in the first
two messages may be revealed."

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 131

It is well to state at this stage the knowledge the three automatists pos-
sessed concerning the experiment. According to Miss Johnson, (a) Mrs.
Verrall was fully acquainted with it, (b) Miss Verrall must be assumed to
know something about it, since she was present at the sitting of December
19, 1906, when part of the message was dictated to the entranced Mrs.
Piper, (c) to Mrs. Piper the subject was mentioned only when she was in
trance, and the message was dictated in Latin to the trance-personalities.

Did the ignorance or knowledge on the part of the three automatists
affect the value of the cross-correspondence? Miss Johnson thought not:
"The knowledge or ignorance of the automatists about the Latin message
had of course no bearing on the evidential value of the cross-correspond-
ences, but it might have some effect on the wording of the script."

On December 17, 1906, the experiment commenced in London by Mr.
J. G. Piddington giving to Myers p.1 the first nine words of the Latin
message, pronouncing each word syllable by syllable and spelling it letter
by letter, which plan he maintained till the Latin message was concluded.
Furthermore, at this sitting, Mr. Piddington emphasized to Rector (Mrs.
Piper's control, acting on behalf of Myers) : "I attach great importance to
the message and its being correctly transmitted. One object in sending this
message in Latin is to see whether Myers can understand it; to show that
he must send an intelligent reply to it, not merely such a reply as 'I under-
stand,' or 'Yes' or 'No,' but a reply which will show that he has grasped
the purport of it."

The clock struck twelve as Mr. Piddington reached the word committis,
and at that exact moment Mrs. Verrall in Cambridge began to write:

"Revolving axes

Revolving spheres the mystic music make.
Revolving spheres the harmony began
Harmonious sound scarce audible to man
Then from every several unit of the whole
Joined the majestic music of the Soul

No! No!
Majestic music

No — you don't see what I want — begin again.
Revolving spheres the harmony began —

1 Meaning F. W. H. Myers purporting to be communicating through Mrs. Piper;
Myers v, through Mrs. Verrall.

132 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

A diapason manifest to man —
Each single unit played its several part
Discoursing symphony with godsent art,
Till the majestic music of the whole
Throbbed in pulsation — and the throbbing Soul
Saw through the sound the burning of the flame
Felt the lost Presence — to the Presence came."

In Mr. Piddington's opinion the lines :

"Each single unit played its several part
Discoursing symphony with godsent art,
Till the majestic music of the whole
Throbbed in pulsation — and the throbbing Soul
Saw through the sound the burning of the flame"

pointed to the poem Abt Vogler, the basis of this cross-correspondence, and
he placed special emphasis on the phrase :

"and the throbbing Soul
Saw through the sound the burning of the flame"

as bearing a strong connection with the line:

"That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound but a star"

in Browning's poem Abt Vogler.

Later, it will be observed how the idea of the star became a very impor-
tant factor in this cross-correspondence.

On December 19, with Miss Verrall present, Mr. Piddington gave more
words of the Latin message, on December 24 thirteen more, then on
December 31 he carried on to the word rem in the second sentence. At this
meeting Rector said, "We have in part understood and conveyed your
message to your friend Myers and he is delighted to receive it so far as he
has been able to receive it." At the next sitting on January 2, 1907, Rector
wrote: "Hodgson is helping Myers with his translation" — a very interest-
ing remark, as subsequent developments show. Later at this sitting Myers
p. said that the message impressed him and he offered to translate it into
English, but Mr. Piddington replied that he did not wish that; all he
wanted from Myers p. was an answer indicating that he understood its

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 133

purport. Myers p. replied, "I quite understand and I will certainly do so."
Then Mr. Piddington gave him the rest of the Latin message.

On January 16, Mr. Piddington suggested to Myers p. that it would be
a good idea when giving a cross-correspondence if he would sign it with a
symbol, such as a triangle within a circle, to show a connection where such
was intended between the scripts. Myers p. thought this was a reasonable
suggestion and replied that he would be glad to try this.

On January 23, Myers p. said, "I should like to go over the first and
second sentences of our Latin message ... I believe I can send you a mes-
sage which will please you if I can understand it clearly," and that night
Mrs. Verrall wrote:

"Justice holds the scales.

That gives the words but an anagram would be better.

Tell him that — rats, star, tars, and so on. Try this.

It has been tried before RTATS re-arrange these five letters or again

tears

stare

seam

same

and so on.

Skeat takes Kate's Keats stake steak

But the letters you should give tonight are not so many — only three — ast."

Myers p. did not refer to the Latin message, but on January 28 and
February 3 Mrs. Verrall and Miss Verrall wrote respectively, and it is
emphasized that Miss Verrall knew nothing of her mother's script :

Mrs. Verrall — January 28

"Aster (a star)

Repas (a sign or wonder)

The world's wonder

And all a wonder and a wild desire —

The very wings of her.

A WINGED DESIRE

vutottTEQog eq(o<; (winged love)

Then there is Blake

And mocked my loss of liberty.

134 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

But it is all the same thing — the winged desire £9005 jtoSeivoc; (passion)
the hope that leaves the earth for the sky — Abt Vogler for earth too hard
that found itself or lost itself — in the sky.
That is what I want.
On the earth the broken sounds
threads
In the sky the perfect arc
The C Major of this life.
But your recollection is at fault

ADB is the part that unseen completes the arc."

Miss Verrall — February 3

"A green jerkin and hose and doublet where the song birds pipe their

tune in the early morning, therapeuti\os e\ exoti\on (a healer from

aliens)

a monogram

The crescent moon
remember that V\ and the star

^

like a thunder riven oak the grim remains
Stand on the level desolation of the plains

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 135

A record for all ages of the span

which nature gives to the weak labor of a man.

bird

On February 11 Mr. Piddington was informed by Myers p. that "Hope,"
"Star," and "Browning" had been referred to in a script of Mrs. Verrall's.

On February 15 Miss Verrall was told by her mother that a cross-
correspondence had been made and was given the words "Planet," "Mars,"
"Virtue," and "Keats," instead of "Hope," "Star," and "Browning," to
prevent her script from being influenced.

On February 17 Miss Verrall wrote:

"androsace (?) Carthusian candelabrum

many together

that was a sign she will understand when she sees it.

diapason 5ia xaccov quOuoc, (rhythm through all)

no arts avail

the heavenly harmony ob? e<pr) oidorcou (sic)

(as Plato says)
the mystic three (?)
and a star above it all
rats everywhere in Hamelin town,
now do you understand ? Henry."

On February 27 Myers p. informed Mr. Piddington that "Hope," "Star,"
and "Browning" were his reply to the Latin message, and on March 6, 13,
and 20 said that Mrs. Verrall had been given a circle and triangle, in
addition to the words "Hope," "Star," and "Browning."

On April 8, when Mrs. Sedgwick was the sitter, the following con-
versation ensued:

136 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

myers p. (after referring to the Latin message and poem) : Inside a
circle.

mrs. s.: Oh! a circle. Yes, I remember.

myers p.: As it suggested it to my mind ... I then drew or tried to
draw a star.

mrs. s. : I see, you drew a star.

myers p. : And I did so, so you would understand that I understood the
message.

mrs. s.: Yes.

myers p.: And I did this.

mrs. s.: Yes, there was a star drawn.

myers p.: I drew it so you would understand that I did it, also a
crescent.

mrs. s.: Do you remember the name of the poem?

myers p. : That is what I am trying to get through here. ... I was very
much afraid my message would not be understood, therefore I drew a star
to make sure.

mrs. s. : I see.

myers p.: That I did understand and I will try to give you the name
again. ... I am most anxious to make Rector understand the name of the
poem.

It will be seen from the foregoing that Myers p. declared that he had
drawn a star and a crescent through another automatist. Myers p. stated
that he had Browning's poem Abt Vogler in mind, when Mrs. Sidgwick
returned on April 24. He also said that he had given the words "Hope,"
"Star," and "Browning" as the answer, then he continued :

"Now, dear Mrs. Sidgwick, in future have no doubt or fear of so-called
death, as there is none, as there is certainly intelligent life beyond it."

mrs. s. : Yes, it's a great comfort.

Myers p.: Yes, and I have helped to proclaim it for you all.

mrs. s. : You have indeed.

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE

137

Towards the end of this sitting Myers p. explained that it was "the
uncertainty of Abt and the faith which he held" that reminded him of
his own experience and made him quote the poem.

When Mrs. Sidgwick asked him why he chose Abt Vogler as his reply
to the Latin message, he said :

"I chose that because of the appropriate conditions mentioned in it
which appealed to my own life. Understand?"

mrs. s.: I see.

myers p.: And nothing I could think of so completely answered it to
my mind as those special words.

On May 7, again to Mrs. Sidgwick, he said:

"Now one word more, Mrs. S., my reply was about the poem, and long
ago I gave the word 'music' which came to me as appropriate to my
answer and understanding of the message."

mrs. s.: Yes. Quite right.

myers p.: You must patch things together as best you can. Remember
we do not give odd or singular words without a deep or hidden
meaning."

On May 7, Myers p. emphasized the quotation from Abt Vogler:
"If instead of a fourth came a star (here an incomplete drawing of a
star was made) ... In my Passion to reach you clearly I have made
Rector try to draw a star for me so there can be no mistake"

mrs. s. : No, there can be no mistake.
myers p.: Now are you satisfied?
mrs. s.: Yes, quite.

At this point let us leave Myers communicating through Mrs. Piper
and see the effect he had on the scripts of Mrs. Verrall and Miss Verrall.
The starting-point is the script of Mrs. Verrall which commenced as Mr.
Piddington had just given Rector the first nine words of the Latin
message. "Music" or "Harmony" is the predominant theme of this script —
"music" is stated four different times, which becomes interesting when
we consider that Myers p. stated that "long ago" he had given the word
"music." The critic may well ask, "Why should we credit to Myers this

138 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

script of Mrs. Verrall's which is unsigned?" Mr. Piddington replies thus:
"In spite of the absence of signature I have no hesitation in attributing
the script of December 17 to Myers v., for not only is it in the same
style as many of the signed communications of this personality, but as
Mrs. Verrall herself pointed out . . . some of its phraseology is cer-
tainly borrowed from a verse-translation of F. W. H. Myers." Myers'
translation of two Greek oracles, published in Essays Classical, pp. 97-100,
is the work referred to, and the particular quotation is :

"O God ineffable, eternal Sire,
Throned on the whirling spheres, the astral fire,
Hid in whose heart the whole creation lies, —
The whole world's wonder mirrored in thine eyes,

Thee the first Number and harmonious whole
Form in all forms, and of all souls the Soul.

Once by God's grace was from thine eyes unfurled
This veil that screens the immense and whirling world,
Once, while the spheres around thee in music ran,
Was very Beauty manifest to man. . . ."

In the phraseology of this script Mr. Piddington also noticed evidences
of this quotation from Dryden's Hymn for St. Cecilia's Day:

"From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began.
From harmony to harmony,
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move."

Mrs. Verrall's script of December 17 was not the only one to express the
ideas of Dryden's poems, for Miss Verrall's script of February 17 con-
tained the words "heavenly harmony" and "diapason" — actual quotations
from it. Mr. Piddington pointed out that the occurrence in both scripts

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 139

of the word "diapason," in addition to the fact that the "Harmony" of
Mrs. Verrall's script clearly indicates a heavenly harmony, bringing these
two scripts into contact with each other. Not only did Miss Verrall's
script of February 17 link up with Mrs. Verrall's of December 17, but
it connected with her one of February 3 as the following items show: In
both scripts the word "star" and a drawing of this symbol appears, and
the script of February 3 contains the first hint to Browning's Pied Piper
of Hamelin, in the words "pie" and "a healer from the aliens." The
February 17 script has a marked reference to this poem in the words
"rats everywhere in Hamelin town," and further these two scripts of
Miss Verrall have points in common with that of Mrs. Verrall of Jan-
uary 28. As Mrs. Verrall was forwarding the latter script to Mr. Pid-
dington she wrote on the back of the envelope a note suggesting that the
words in it, i.e., "wings," "winged," and "Vogler" (Vogel) might be
an attempt at the word "birds." Now, Miss Verrall's script of February 3
contained — like that of Mrs. Verrall's of January 28 — the word "star" and
the allusion to Browning already observed, while in her February 17
script the drawing of a star preceding the words "that was a sign she
(Mrs. Verrall) will understand when she sees it" and "a star above it
all" is clearly related to the "aster" (star sign) of the January 28 script.

The reader will have noticed that Browning and his poem Abt Vogler
permeate the scripts of February 3 and 17 and the word "hope" appeared
in this script in the line before that in which Abt Vogler is mentioned
in this fashion. In the script the phrase "the hope that leaves the earth for
the sky" is an apparent error of the phrase in the poem which reads,
"The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky." Mrs. Verrall
knew this and wrote in a letter to Mr. Piddington on February 15, "I
knew perfectly well when I read the script that it should have been
'passion' which left the ground for the sky — and I was annoyed at this
blunder!"

Mr. Piddington at first thought the scripts were meaningless and it
was Myers p. that enlightened him at the February 11 sitting by saying
that he had given the words "Hope," "Star," and "Browning" to Mrs.
Verrall, whereupon Mr. Piddington re-read the scripts and observed
that they did contain allusions to these words. He then read Abt Vogler
for the first time and was immediately impressed by the extraordinary

140 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

aptness of the answer to the second sentence of the Latin message which
could be taken from one of the only passages in the poem in which the
word "star" occurs:

"But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Consider it well; each tone of our scale itself is nought;
It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all is said :
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:
And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!"

Mr. Piddington summed up the appropriateness of this stanza by
saying: "Were one to search English literature for a quotation pertinent
to the experiment suggested in the Latin message, it would be difficult
to find one more felicitous than these lines from stanza vii of Abt Vogler"
He explained his reason for thinking it was this stanza which Myers p.
had in mind. He first noticed that the word "star" was emphasized both
in Mrs. Verrall's and Miss Verrall's script, and then after reading Abt
Vogler he was specially struck with the aptness of "aster repas," the open-
ing words of the second script, to the star in the poem which was framed
out of "three sounds" and was "both a sign and a wonder." The "broken
sounds" of the script also seemed suggestive of this particular stanza.
Later, Mr. Piddington found his reasoning reinforced by this definition
of repas given in Liddell and Scott's Gree\ English Dictionary: "Any
appearance or event in which men believed they could see the finger of
God," and this definition occurred in the actual phrase of stanza vii —
"But here is the finger of God."

Also, the phrase "Justice holds the scales" resembled "each tone of our
scale," which belief was strengthened when Myers p. in a sitting on
May 7 succeeded in giving the word "scale" and so completed the quota-
tion, "In my passion to scale the sky." This play on the three different
meanings of the word scales has a definite meaning, quite in keeping
with the nature of this experiment in which anagrams played an im-
portant part.

The words 6ia jtaacov qvOjxo? in Miss Verrall's script of February 17

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 141

also suggested the lines, "each tone of our scale in itself is nought, It is
everywhere in the world," while the phrase "the mystic three" before
the words "the heavenly harmony" recalled to his mind "the three
sounds" of stanza vii.

The similarity of the anagrams and the emphasis placed on "star"
in the scripts of January 23 and February 17 shows that a connection
was established between these two scripts. When Mr. Piddington read
the February 17 script which contained the words "rats, star, arts, etc.,"
he felt that he had seen these anagrams before and he could not rid
himself of this impression as he seemed to remember having seen them
in Dr. Hodgson's handwriting among papers in Boston, Mass. He wrote
to Dr. Hodgson's executors in the United States asking them to look
through his papers for one containing the words "rats, star, arts, etc.,"
and in August, 1907, he received from Mr. Henry James a sheet of
paper on which in Dr. Hodgson's own handwriting were the following
anagrams :

(Coal) Tars

Rates

Teresh

Star

Stare

Esther

Tars

Tears

Aster

Hester

Rats

Tears

He rest

Arts

Tares

Rest he

Tras

Are st

Threes

St are

Here st

A rest

There's

Rest a

"I confess," said Mr. Piddington, "that when this paper came into
my hands I felt as I suppose people do who have seen a ghost for, though
not surprised to see the 'rats, arts, star' anagrams, I was positively startled
when I saw the anagram, 'rates, tears, aster,' etc., of which I had no recol-
lection whatever." Mr. Piddington also found correspondence which
showed that F. W. H. Myers and Dr. Hodgson had been exchanging ana-
grams for about six years, and on a postcard dated 1896, F. W. H. Myers
had written, "As many and grammatic anagrams as you like. — F. W.
H. M." This coincidence is very suggestive when it is remembered that
Dr. Hodgson was stated to be assisting F. W. H. Myers and anagrams

142 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

came naturally to both, while Mrs. Verrall was not interested in them.

Mr. Piddington drew attention to another point. Dr. Hodgson when
living and Mrs. Verrall and Miss Verrall in script had made anagrams
of the word "star," yet all had omitted a very obvious one — "Tsar"!
Further, Dr. Hodgson and Mrs. Verrall also composed a five letter ana-
gram on "Aster." The reader will remember that in the Myers p. sitting
of January 2, Rector had declared that Hodgson was helping Myers with
his translation.

The anagrams produced by Miss Verrall were not a mere jumble of
words, but each had a distinct bearing on the cross-correspondence.
"Star" is obviously one of the three words emphasized by Myers p.;
"rats" has a distinct reference to Browning; and "arts" in the phrase,
"No arts avail," when taken with the phrases, "the heavenly harmony,"
"the mystic three," and "a star above it all," all point, as Miss Alice John-
son says, to the following lines from Abt Vogler:

"It (i.e. both painting and poetry) is all triumphant art, but art in

obedience to laws . . .
But here (i.e. in music) is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can.
That out of the three sounds he frame, not the fourth sound but a star."

The "Hope," "Star," and "Browning" case fulfills the requirements
of the Latin message. A complex set of references were alluded to and
implied in the scripts of Mrs. Verrall and Miss Verrall, which, taken by
themselves, were meaningless, and it was only when, through Mrs.
Piper, the words were given outright that the whole problem was solved.

On cross-correspondences Mr. Piddington wrote:

"On the problem of the real identity of this directing mind . . . the
only opinion I can hold with confidence is this: that if it was not the
mind of Frederic Myers, it was one which deliberately and artistically
imitated his mental characteristics."

case no. 72
The Ear of Dionysius Case1
Strictly speaking, this is not a cross-correspondence, but it has been
included here because the complexity of its nature attains the same
i Proceedings, S.P.R., XXIX, 197-243.

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 143

purpose, and furthermore, the knowledge displayed by one of the com-
municators was not in the minds of the investigators, but ultimately
found in a very obscure book, known to be the property of and used
by that communicator.

Some people — men of classical and scientific training, and well qualified
to judge such matters — consider this the most convincing evidence to be
found in one single case.

On August 26, 1910, Mrs. A. W. Verrall held a sitting with Mrs.
Willett, an automatist of good position, whose bona -fides and integrity
were well known to the S.P.R. At this sitting the following words were
recorded by Mrs. Verrall: "Dionysius Ear the lobe." The word "Diony-
sius" was given the Italian pronunciation. Mrs. Verrall noted the phrase
but could not attach any significance to it.

The "Ear of Dionysius" is a kind of grotto in the quarries at Syracuse
on the island of Sicily, in which quarries Dionysius the Tyrant kept his
prisoners of war. On account of its shape, and as it had the properties of a
whispering gallery, it became known as the "Ear of Dionysius" because
he was reputed to have hidden himself in it in order to overhear the
conversation of the prisoners. Although Mrs. Willett had been in Italy
and spoke Italian, she had never visited Sicily, though she may have
heard of the grotto, one of the attractions of Syracuse.

About two years after the sitting, Mrs. Verrall's husband, Dr. A. W.
Verrall, died.

On January 10, 1914, though Sir Oliver Lodge was the sitter with
Mrs. Willett, reference was made directly to Mrs. Verrall as the follow-
ing extract shows:

Do you remember you did not \now and I complained of your classical
ignorance. IGNORANCE. It concerned a place where, slaves were \ept —
and Audition belongs, also Acoustics. Thin\ of the whispering Gaily
(sic).

To toil, a slave, the Tyrant — and it was called Orrechio — that's ear.

One ear, a one-eared place . . . a one-eared person. You did not \now
(or remember) about it when it came up in conversation, and I said Well
what is the use of a classical education.

Where were the fields of Enna?

144 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

(Drawing of an ear.)

an ear ly (sic) pipe could be heard.

To sail for Syracuse.

Who beat the loud-sounding wave, who smote the moving furrows

The heel of the boot.

Dy Dy and then you thinly of Diana Dimorphism.

To fly to find Euripides.

Not the Pauline Philemon.

This sort of thing is more difficult to do than it loo\s.

After her sitting in 1910, Mrs. Verrall had asked her husband what
was meant by the words "Ear of Dionysius," who, after expressing sur-
prise at her ignorance, duly enlightened her. Lord Balfour, one of the
investigators in this case, knew of the foregoing conversation between
Dr. and Mrs. Verrall and had a faint recollection of relating it to Mrs.
Willett, who failed to remember it.

The allusions in the script are explained as follows :

Orrechio is the Italian word for ear; Enna is a Sicilian town. It was
on the fields of Enna that the rape of Proserpine occurred. An "ear-ly"
pipe is apparently a pun on the word ear. The route followed by the
Athenian fleet in the war against Syracuse is indicated by the sentences:
"To sail for Syracuse," "Who beat the sounding wave, etc.," and "The
heel of the boot." "To fly to find Euripides" refers to Browning's poem
Aristophanes' Apology, in which Balaustion tells Philemon that she
had sent the original tablets of Euripides' play, Hercules Furens, which
he had given to her as a parting gift, to Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse.
This poem had not been read by Mrs. Willett, but she had seen references
to it in the reports of an earlier cross-correspondence, "Euripides," pub-
lished in the Proceedings.

The next sitting was held on February 28, 1914, and this time Lord
Balfour was the sitter. The following extracts pertaining to the case were
in the script, and to assist the reader the sources of the quotations are
given in parentheses:

Some confusion may appear in the matter transmitted, but there is now
being started an experiment, not a new experiment but a new subject, and
not exactly that but a new line which joins with a subject already got
through.

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 145

a little anatomy if you please.

Add one to one.

One Ear X (sic) one eye.

(Then the drawing of an ear and an eye in a circle.)

The one eyed kingdom.

no, in the K. of the Blind the i eyed man is King.

It is about a i eyed man ("man" was crossed out in the original).

i eyed.

The entrance to the cave Arethusa.

Arethusa is only to indicate it does not belong to the i eyed.

A Fountain on the Hill Side.

(Then a drawing of a volcano or smoking mountain.)

What about Baulastion (sic).

(Then a drawing of a boot.)

(Laughs.) Supposed to be a Wellington Boot.

12 little nigger boys thin\ing not of Styx.

Some were eaten up and then there were Six. Six.

(At this point Mrs. Willett ceased to write and began dictating to the
sitter.)

Someone said — Oh, I'll try, I'll try. Oh, someone's showing me a pic-
ture and talking at the same time.

Someone said to me, Homer . . .

Nor sights nor sounds diurnal.

Here where all winds are quiet.

(Swinburne, The Garden of Proserpine.)

. . . It's about a cave and a group of men. Somebody then — a trident,
rather li\e a toasting for\, I thin\.

Poseidon. Poseidon.

Who said it was. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down — find the
great Achilles that we /(new (Tennyson's Ulysses).

He's got a flaming torch in his hand. And then someone said to met
Can't you thin\ of Noah and the grapes?

Optics — Oh! that, you know (putting a finger to her eye).

. . . Somebody said to me, Don't forget about Henry Sidgwic\ that
he pleased not himself. Do you \now that he used to wor\ when he hated
wording. I mean sometimes he had to grind along without enjoying what

146 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

he was doing. That's what I'm trying to do now. Do you \now that man
with the glittering eyes I once saw? He hit me with one word now.

(Note by Lord Balfour: Here Mrs. Willett traced a word with one
finger along the margin of the paper. I failed to make it out and handed
the pencil to her, whereupon she wrote.)

Aristotle.

(Dictation resumed.) And Poetry, the language of the Gods, Somebody
\illed a President once and called out — something in Latin, and I only
heard one word of it. Tironius, Tiranus, Tiranius — something about sic.
(Note by Lord Balfour: "Sic semper tyrannis" — uttered by Booth when
he murdered Lincoln. . . .)

What is a tyrant?

Lots of wars — a siege I hear the sound of chipping. It's on stone.

Fin and something gleba. Find — Oh, it's got to do with the serf. It's
about a man who said it was better — Oh! a shade among the shades.
Better to be a slave among the living, he said.

Oh, the toil — Woe to the vanquished.

That one eye has got something to do with the one ear. That's what
they wanted me to say. There's such a mass of things, you see, rushing
through my mind that I can't catch anything.

(A pause and then sobbing.) He was turned into a fountain that sort
of Stephen man, he was turned into a fountain. WHY? That's the point.
WHY?

Oh, dear me! Now I seem to be wal\ing about a school and I met a
dar\ boy, and — it's the name of a Field Marshal I'm trying to get, a
German name. And then something says, All this is only memories re-
vived: it's got nothing to do with the purely literary. There are two people
in that literary thing, chiefly concerned in it. They're very close friends —
they've thought it all out together.

Somebody said something about Father Cam walking down arm in
arm — with the Canongate? What does that mean?

Enough for this time. There is sense in that which has been got through
though some disentanglement is needed. A literary association of ideas
pointing to the influence of two discarnate minds.

Many of the subjects of the scripts were again raised and need not be
repeated, but may be briefly stated:

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 147

The Ear of Dionysius.

The stone quarries in which the vanquished Athenians worked.

Enna (indirectly suggested by a quotation from The Garden of Proser-
pine) .

Syracuse (Wars — a Siege and Arethusa).

The heel of Italy (Wellington boot).

The adventures of Balaustion.

Furthermore, it was stated that an experiment was being engineered by
two discarnate friends — Professor Henry Butcher and Dr. A. W. Verrall,
and Mrs. Verrall was to be kept strictly in ignorance of it. The phrase,
"Father Cam walking arm in arm with the Canongate" signified the
friendship between the two men. Dr. A. W. Verrall was the Cambridge
man while Professor Butcher was a Professor of Greek in Edinburgh.
(The Canongate is a well-known street in Scotland's capital.)

Two new subjects were introduced into this Balfour script — the stories
of Polyphemus and Ulysses from Homer, and Acis and Galatea from
Ovid. The first story relates how Ulysses with twelve men, seeking shelter
in the country of the Cyclopes, were captured by Polyphemus, the one-
eyed son of the sea-god Poseidon, who began to devour them two at a
time. Ulysses and the survivors made Polyphemus drunk; then, burning
out his eye with a flaming stick, made their escape by concealing them-
selves under the bellies of sheep.

According to tradition, the cave is situated in Sicily, though Homer
makes no mention of it in his writings.

In the other story, the one-eyed cyclops also plays the part of the vil-
lain. Acis and Galatea are lovers, and Polyphemus, mad with rage and
jealousy at the former, hurls a mighty rock at his rival and crushes him
to death. Galatea changes her lover into a stream that issues from a foun-
tain out of the stone that killed him. A clue to this story is the fact
that Stephen, the apostle, met his death in the same manner as Acis.

The case was continued on March 2, 1914, when Lord Balfour again
was the sitter.

Aristotelian to the Hegelian friend greeting. (The Aristotelian is Pro-
fessor Butcher, who had written a book on Aristotle.) Also the Rationalist
to the Hegelian friend greeting. (Dr. Verrall had written a book, Euripi-
des the Rationalist, and Lord Balfour was the Hegelian.)

148 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

These twain be about a particular tas\ and now proceed with it.

(Then a zither was drawn.)

A zither that belongs the sound also stones, the tool of prisoners and
captives beneath the Tyranfs rod.

The Stag not stag, do go on.

Stagyr write rite.

(Mrs. Willett ceased writing and commenced to dictate.)

Somebody said to me Mousi\e.

Do you \now, it's an odd thing, I can see Edmund (i.e., Edmund
Gurney) ... ^

What does Ars Poetica mean.

Edmund said to me Juvenal also wrote satires — and then he laughed
and said, Good shot.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Oh, it's so confusing — stones be-
long, and so does the pen. Oh!

Somebody said, Try her with the David story. She might get it that
way. The man he sent to battle hoping he'd get killed, because he wanted
him out of the way.

A green-eyed monster.

Now all of a sudden I had it. Jealousy, that first infirmity of petty
minds.

What does the Sicilian Artemis mean?

Such an odd old human story of long ago.

He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.

What is an ear made for?

Oh, this old bothersome old rubbish is so tiresome.

(Mrs. Willett commenced writing again and first drew an ear and a
circle.)

Find the center (Here she added an eye in the circle).

Gurney says she has done enough, but there is more, much more later.
Until the effort is completed the portions as they come are not to be seen
by any other AUTOMATIST. E. G.

The question, "Why was Acis changed into a fountain?" is answered
by the passages, "Try her with the David story," "A green-eyed monster,"
and "Jealousy," etc. Zither, Mousike, Stagyr, and Ars Poetica are refer-

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 149

ences to Aristotle, the Stagyrite, and incidentally to Professor Butcher,
who wrote a treatise on Aristotle's Poetics. There is also a further associa-
tion from the subject of poetics to satire, one of the classical forms of
poetry, and Juvenal was one of the classical satirists.

At this point the following list of topics has been presented:

The Ear of Dionysius.

The stone quarries of Syracuse.

The story of Polyphemus and Ulysses.

The story of Acis and Galatea.

Jealousy.

Music.

Something to be found in Aristotle's Poetics.

Satire.

The investigators so far had not been able to find the connecting link.
On August 2, 1915, when Mrs. Verrall had another sitting, the script
contained the following items:

Ecate.

The aural instruction was I thin\ understood, aural pertaining to the
Ear.

and now he as\s: HAS the satire satire been identified.

Surely you have had my messages concerning it (it) belongs to the Ear
and comes in.

It has a thread. Did they not tell you of references to a cave?

The mild eyed melancholy Lotus Eaters came.

That belongs to the passage immediately before the one I am now try-
ing to spea\ of. Men in a cave, herds.

listen, don't tal\. (Mrs. Verrall had repeated two words, half aloud.)

herds and a great load of firewood and the EYE.

olive wood staff.

(Then a drawing something like an arrow head.)

the man clung to the fleece of a Ram and so passed out, surely that is
plain.

Well, conjoin that with Cythera and the Ear-man. . . . Aristotle then
Poetics. The incident was chosen as being evidential of identity and it
arose out of the ear train of thought.

There is a Satire.

150 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Write Cyclopean Masonry, why do you say masonry, I said Cyclopean.

Philox. He labored in the stone quarries and drew upon the earlier
writer for material for his Satire. Jealousy.

The story is quite clear to me and I thin\ it should be identified.

A musical instrument comes in something li\e a mandolin thrumming,
that is the sense of the word.

He wrote in those stone quarries belonging to the Tyrant.

Is any of this clear?

(Drawing of an Ear.)

You have to put Homer with another and the Ear theme is in it too.
The pen dipped in vitriol that is what resulted and S. H.1 \nows th&
passage in Aristotle which also comes in. There's a fine tangle for your
unravelling and he of the impatient will. Let her wait, try again,
Edmund.

Sicily.

He says when you have identified the classical allusions he would li\e
to be told.

It will be observed now that though old subjects have been mentioned,
a little fresh matter was added, and that extra matter solved the problem.
The clues were "Cythera," "Cyclopean," "Philox," "He labored in the
stone quarries and drew upon the earlier writer for material for his
Satire," and "Jealousy."

Though little is known of Philoxenus of Cythera today, he was known
to be a poet of some repute in his age and only to specialists in classical
literature are his writings known, as few of his lines have been preserved.

"Philoxenus was a writer of dithyrambs, a species of irregular lyric
poetry which combined music with verse, the musical instrument most
generally employed being the zither, a kind of lyre. He was a native of
Cythera and at the height of his reputation spent some time in Sicily at
the court of Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse. He ultimately quarrelled
with his patron and was sent to prison in one of the stone quarries."1

Cyclops or Galatea was his most famous poem — a burlesque on the love
of Cyclops for the nymph, and in it Philoxenus represents himself as
Odysseus, the Tyrant as Polyphemus, and as Dionysius was partially

1 Professor S. H. Butcher was known to his friends by his first two initials.

2 Proceedings, S.P.R., XXIX, 232.

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 151

or wholly blind in one eye the poem may be well described as a satire.

Lord Balfour searched through various English authorities and books
of reference in order to discover if there was any single modern source
from which the story told in the scripts could be derived and was able to
find only two that fulfilled that condition — Lempriere's Classical Diction-
ary and Dr. Herbert W. Smyth's Gree\ Melic Poets; certainly Mrs. Wil-
lett did not know they existed. The latter book was intended only for
scholars and was not likely to attract the attention of the general public.
Dr. A. W. Verrall was presented with a special copy of Gree\ Melic Poets
by the publishers and used it as a textbook in connection with his lectures!

The leading topics presented in the scripts and combined into one nar-
rative are to be found only in Philoxenus' poem, Cyclops or Galatea. Every
item is accounted for: the setting, the stone quarries, and the "Ear of
Dionysius." Ulysses, Polyphemus, and Galatea are the characters. The
motive is jealousy; the zither and music describe the form of the poem —
the dithyramb — and satire was the character of the poem.

The final script obtained by Lord Balfour on August 19, 1915, made it
clear that the correct solution had been found.

Lord Balfour: First of all, Gurney, I want to tell you that all the
classical allusions recently given to Mrs. Verrall are now completely
understood.

Good — at last!

Lord Balfour: We think the whole combination extremely ingenious
and successful.

And A. W.-ish.

Lord Balfour: What is after "A. W."?

A. W.-ish.

Lord Balfour: Yes.

Also S. H.-ish.

A. W. and S. H. are, of course, Dr. A. W. Verrall and Professor S. H.
Butcher.

The six members of the investigating group: Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr.
}. G. Piddington, Mrs. Sidgwick, Miss Alice Johnson, Mrs. Verrall and
Lord Balfour, did not know anything about Philoxenus of Cythera until
the hint "Philo" in the script set Mrs. Verrall on the right track. It

152 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

seems evident that this complex literary puzzle could have been designed
only by ripe and classical scholars, and Dr. A. W. Verrall and Professor
S. H. Butcher were entitled to that distinction. It should be noted
throughout the scripts that the communicators claiming to be Dr. A. W.
Verrall and Professor S. H. Butcher distinctly stated that a complex prob-
lem had been deliberately set, and allusions and quotations given to assist
in the solution for one purpose only, viz., the proving of their identity.

Chapter 8

BOOK-TESTS

This curious phenomenon, known as "book-tests," designed to eliminate
telepathy from the living as an alternative explanation to the survival
theory, is, in a certain sense, an offshoot or extension of the cross-corre-
spondence idea.

The method consists of a communication specifying the number of
a page in a book, indicated only by its numbered place on a given shelf
in a bookcase whose location in indicated, in a house which the medium
has not entered. The idea is that a paragraph shall be found on that
page by the sitter, who follows the instruction and identifies the book,
which paragraph shall sufficiently convey an intended message, or shall
show a similarity in thought to what has otherwise been said, or shall
be appropriate to the actual or past connection of communicator and
intended recipient.

Probably the first book-test was unconsciously invented by Sir William
Crookes, when a lady was writing with a planchette and Crookes asked
the controlling intelligence if he could see the contents of the room. On
receiving an affirmative answer Crookes placed his finger on a copy of
The Times, and asked that the communicator indicate the word that his
finger covered. The planchette wrote the word "However," which was
correct, and the scientist had not glanced at the paper as he wished to
rule out the theory of "unconscious cerebration," a phrase equivalent to
our modern telepathy.

The newspaper tests of the Rev. C. Brayton Thomas, which he con-
ducted with Mrs. Osborne Leonard, are similar in idea to book-tests.
The communicating intelligences gave names one day that were printed
in certain columns and pages of the next day's Times, and the results
obtained were very striking, as neither the compositor nor the editor of
that paper could tell at the hour when Mr. Thomas was sitting what
particular item would appear in next day's issue. Newspaper tests have
not been included in this book, but readers desiring to know something

153

154 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

of them will find accounts in Mr. Thomas' book, Some Recent Evidence
for Survival.

case no. 73
The Beetles Case1

In 1921, Lady Pamela Glenconner published The Earthen Vessel, con-
taining twenty-seven examples of book-tests, from which this case is
quoted. Lady Glenconner considered that this example was the finest in
her collection, providing abundant proof of the identity of the communi-
cator, her son, Edward Wyndham Tennant, known in his family as
"Bim," who had fallen in the battle of the Somme in 1916, while serving
with the Grenadier Guards.

Previous to 1914, his father, Lord Glenconner, was interested in forestry
to such an extent that in order to learn more of the subject he went to
Germany in 1901 to study the forests grown there under government super-
vision. Although he gathered much useful information from the Germans,
he did not entirely agree with them on the extreme regularity and severity
with which their forests were laid out; yet he planned his own woods and
plantations more carefully and intelligently than many owners of such
estates in Britain.

"His eye became trained to a higher state of perfection to growing trees
than is the case in most people, for often during walks through the fragrant
fir woods, when expressions of admiration or delight in the lovely scenery
arose, how often would the depressing verdict be uttered by 'The Master
of Trees' that the young shoots were being ruined by the 'beetle.' "

"You see all those quirks — those sudden bends in the new growths?

Those show the beetle has got at them. You wouldn't see the damage to

the young trees as I do, and it's the greatest pest we have to deal with . . ."

and much more of the like in conversation. So familiar was the theme

to the family that Bim has been known to say to his mother, sotto voce,

"See if we get through this wood without hearing about the beetle." If his

father was unduly pessimistic about something, Bim would say, "All the

woods have got the beede."

1 Glenconner, Lady Pamela, The Earthen Vessel (London: John Lane, The Bodley
Head), 58-61.

BOOK-TESTS

155

Light words, almost forgotten, hardly worth remembering, yet it was
Bim himself who brought them back to his mother's mind.

A sitting was held with Mrs. Osborne Leonard on December 17, 1917,
and Feda (Mrs. Leonard's control), after giving other messages, said: "Bim
now wants to send a message to his father. This boo\ is particularly for his
father. Underline that, he says. It is the ninth book on the third shelf,
counting from the left to right, in the bookcase on the right of the door
in the drawing-room as you enter ; take the title and look at page 37."

The ninth book on the shelf indicated was Trees}

On page 36, right at the bottom and leading on to page 37, were the
words :

"Sometimes you will see curious marks in the wood; these are caused
by a tunnelling beetle, very injurious to the trees. . . ."

Signatures of two testificators to the finding and verifying of this book-
message :

Glenconner,
David Tennant.

Lady Glenconner concluded her report of this case with these words:

"Had a chance observer been present when we traced this test, 'This ,
is no mourning family,' he would have said; 'these are happy people.'
"And he would have been right!"

case no. 74
The Mother and Son Case2

There was always a very strong bond of affection between Bim and
his younger brother David, one of those children who entered into games
and lessons with great zeal and vigor, and furthermore, he had the
characteristic of performing very unexpected actions.

Once Bim told his mother that David, when a boy six or seven years
old, playing in the midst of a crowd of noisy children, suddenly left the
noisy rabble and came over to him and said with great seriousness, "Bim,
you know Sirius is a star of the first magnitude." Then he returned to
his play.

1 J. Harvey Kelman. Jack, Edinburgh.

2 Glenconner, Lady Pamela, op. cit., 38.

156 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Often Lady Glenconner told stories and read books to her children,
and on one such occasion Bim said to her, "All the time that you are
reading aloud I love to look at David listening, with his large dark eyes."
Long after the two boys had gone to school the phrase "Mother and Son"
was used by Bim in connection with David and his mother.

At a sitting held on October 23, 1917, Bim sent a message through the
mediumship of Mrs. Osborne Leonard.

"... A book-message for his brother David; David mustn't think it
is too patronizing, as if he were still a little boy. It is, nevertheless, espe-
cially for David.

"This is in the house in London and it is to be found in a room down-
stairs. The page is number 14, and the message is three-quarters down
the page. It is in the eighth book on the third shelf counting from right
to left. You will find something round connected with the book in
question.

"Close to it there is a book which tells of great spaces — large, great
spaces. It is a book which tells of stars."

When Lady Glenconner returned to the library of her house at
34 Queen Anne's Gate, London, she found, counting from right to left, on
the third shelf, that the eighth book was Lewes' Life of Goethe.1 Two
books from this was a volume called Astro Theology, or the Demonstra-
tion of the Attributes of God, from a Survey of the Heavens?

On the fourteenth page of the eighth book (Lewes' Life of Goethe),
the following passage was found :

"One fine afternoon when the house was quiet, Master Wolfgang, with
his cup in his hand and nothing to do, finds himself looking into the silent
street, and telegraphing to the young Ochsensteins who dwelt opposite.
By way of doing something he begins to fling the crockery into the street,
delighted with the noise it makes and stimulated by the brothers Ochsen-
steins, who chuckle at him over the way. The indulgent mother returns,
and sees the mischief with housewifely horror, till melting with sympathy
she laughs as heartily as the child. . . .

"This mother employed her faculties for story-telling to his and her

1 Smith Elder and Co., London.

2 W. Derham, London.

BOOK-TESTS 157

own delight. 'To all natural phenomena,' she writes, 'I gave a meaning.
As we thought of the paths which lead from star to star, and that we one
day should inhabit the stars, and when we thought of the great spirits we
should meet there, I was as eager for the hours of story-telling as the
children themselves. There I sat and Wolfgang held me with his large
black eyes.' "

The passage concluded with these words :

"What a charming glimpse of Mother and Son."

This book-test — wrote Lady Glenconner — carried such conviction to the
members of Bim's family that when it was found and read aloud it was
met with the laughter of instant recognition.

Only one last direction had yet to be followed, that which told of "some-
thing round in connection with this book." And it was considered dis-
covered when, turning to the frontispiece, it was seen that it represented
a reproduction of a miniature painting set in a round black frame.

To attempt to describe the happy glow in the hearts of Bim's family
circle when this book-message was read would be, in cold print, im-
possible. There are, however, moments well known to all to which it may
be likened: when a wished-for letter arrives; when a door swings open
and a treasured presence is before one; when, in short, he who has been
absent is home again. Laughter runs from lip to lip, and eyes speak con-
tentment. Such a moment was theirs now; they were happy, and it was
Bim, as of old, who had cheered them.

"We guarantee that the facts of this case are as above represented, and
we were present at the finding of the message.

"(Signed) Glenconner,

David Tennant."

case no. 75
The Talbot Case1
This case, strictly speaking, is not a book-test, although a book is the
prominent feature of it. In the opinion of Mrs. Henry Sidgwick it is one
l Proceedings, S.P.R., XXXI, 253.

158 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

of the best single pieces of definite evidence we have that communicators
remember their earth life, therefore proving personal identity.

Mrs. Hugh Talbot's report, written out and sent to Lady Troubridge
on December 29, 1917, is as follows :

"Two sittings with Mrs. Leonard were arranged for me through Mrs.
Beadon last March, one for Saturday, the 17th, at 5 p.m. and the other
at the same hour on Monday, the 19th. Mrs. Leonard at this time knew
neither my name nor address, nor had I ever been to her or any other
medium before, in my life.

"On Monday, the first part of the time was taken up by what one might
call a medley of descriptions, all more or less recognizable, of different
people, together with a number of messages, some of which were in-
telligible and some not. Then Feda (as I am told the control is called)
gave a very correct description of my husband's personal appearance, and
from then on he seemed to speak (through her of course), and a most
extraordinary conversation followed. Evidently he was trying by every
means in his power to prove to me his identity and to show me it really
was himself, and as time went on I was forced to believe this was indeed so.

"All he said, or rather Feda said for him, was clear and lucid. Incidents
of the past known only to him and me were spoken of, belongings trivial
in themselves but possessing for him a particular personal interest of
which I was aware, were minutely and correcdy described, and I was
asked if I still had them. Also I was asked repeatedly if I believed it was
himself speaking, and was assured that death was not really death at all,
that life continued not so very unlike this life, and that he did not feel
changed at all. Feda kept on saying, 'Do you believe, he does want you to
know it is really himself.' I said I could not be sure, but I thought it must
be true. All this was very interesting to me, and very strange, more
strange because it all seemed so natural. Suddenly Feda began a tiresome
description of a book; she said it was leather and dark, and tried to show
me the size. Mrs. Leonard showed a length of eight to ten inches long
with her hands, and four or five wide. She (Feda) said, 'It is not exactly a
boo\, it is not printed. Feda wouldn't call it a book, it has writing on.' It
was long before I could connect it with anything at all, but at last I
remembered a red leather notebook of my husband's which I think he
called a log book, and I asked, 'Is it a log book?' Feda seemed puzzled at

BOOK-TESTS 159

this and not to know what a log book was, and repeated the word once or
twice, then said, 'Yes, yes, he says it might be a log book.' I then said, 'Is
it a red book?' On this point there was some hesitation; they thought
possibly it was, though he thought it was darker. The answer was un-
decided and Feda began a wearisome description all over again, adding
that I was to look on page 12, for something written (I am not sure
of this word) there, that it would be interesting after this conversation.
Then she said, 'He is not sure it is page 12, it might be page 13, it is so
long since, but he does want you to look and try to find it. It would
interest him to know if this extract is there.' I was rather half-hearted in
responding to all this ; there was so much of it, and it sounded purposeless,
and also I remembered the book so well, having often looked through it
wondering if there was any good keeping it. Besides things to do with
ships and my husband's work there were, I remembered, a few notes and
verses in it. But the chief reason I was anxious to get off the subject was
that I felt sure the book would not be forthcoming: either I had thrown
it away, or it had gone with a lot of other things to a luggage room in
the opposite block of flats where it would hardly be possible to get it.
"However, I did not quite like to say this, and not attaching any
importance to it, replied rather indefinitely that I would see if I could
find it. But this did not satisfy Feda. She started all over again, becoming
more and more insistent and went on to say, 'He is not sure of the color,
he does not know. There are two books, you will know the one he means
by a diagram of languages in the front.' And here follows a string of
words, in which order I forget : 'Indo-European, Aryan, Semitic languages'
and others, repeating them several times, and she said, 'There are lines
but not straight, going like this' — drawing with her finger lines going out
sideways from one center. Then again the words, 'A table of Arabian
languages, Semitic languages.' I have tried to put it as she said it, but of
course I cannot be sure she put the names in that order. What I am
quite sure of is the actual words she used at one time or another. She said
all the names and sometimes 'table,' sometimes 'diagram,' sometimes
'drawing,' and all insistently. It sounded absolutely rubbish to me. I had
never heard of a diagram of languages and all these eastern names jumbled
together sounded like nothing at all, and she kept on repeating them and
saying this is how I was to know the book, and kept on and on, 'Will

160 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

you look at page 12 or 13. If it is there it would interest him so much
after this conversation. He does want you to, he wants you to promise.'
By this time I had come to the conclusion that what I have heard of
happening at these sittings had come to pass, viz., that the medium was
tired and talking nonsense; so I hastened to pacify her by promising to
look for the book, and was glad when the sitting almost at once came to
an end.

"I went home thinking very little of all this last part; still, after telling
my sister and niece all that I considered the interesting things said in the
beginning, I did mention that in the end the medium began talking a lot
of rubbish about a book, and asking me to look on page 12 or 13 to find
something interesting. I was to know the book by a diagram of languages.
After dinner the same evening, my niece, who had taken more notice of
all this than either my sister or myself, begged me to look for the book at
once. I wanted to wait till next day, saying that I knew it was all nonsense.
However, in the end I went to the bookshelf, and, after some time, right
at the top of the back shelf I found one or two old notebooks belonging
to my husband, which I had never felt I cared to open. One, a shabby
black leather, corresponded in size to the description given, and I absent-
mindedly opened it, wondering in my mind whether the one I had been
looking for had been destroyed or only sent away. To my utter astonish-
ment, my eyes fell on the words, 'Table of Semitic or Syro-Arabian lan-
guages,' and pulling out the leaf, which was a long piece of paper folded in,
I saw on the other side, 'General table of the Aryan and Indo-European
languages.' It was the diagram of which Feda had spoken. I was so taken
aback I forgot for some minutes to look for the extract. When I did I
found it on page 13. I have copied it out exactly.

"I cannot account now for my stupidity in not attaching more impor-
tance to what Feda was trying to say about the book, but I was so con-
vinced if any book was meant, it was the red book. This one I had never
opened, and as I say, there was little hope of getting the other, nor did I
feel there could be anything in it my husband would want me to see. Also
it was only my second sitting. I knew nothing of mediums, and the de-
scriptions seemed so endless and tedious. I can't see why now.

"(Signed) Lily Talbot."
"1 Oakwood Court."

BOOK-TESTS 161

Page 13 of Notebook

"I discovered by certain whispers which it was supposed I was unable
to hear and from certain glances of curiosity or commiseration which it
was supposed I was unable to see, that I was near death. . . .

"Presently my mind began to dwell not only on happiness which was
to come, but upon happiness that I was actually enjoying. I saw long-
forgotten forms, playmates, schoolfellows, companions of my youth and
of my old age, who one and all smiled upon me. They did not smile with
any compassion, that I no longer felt I needed, but with that sort of kind-
ness which is exchanged by people who are equally happy. I saw my
mother, father, and sisters, all of whom I had survived. They did not
speak, yet they communicated to me their unaltered and unalterable
affection. At about the time when they appeared, I made an effort to
realize my bodily situation . . . that is, I endeavored to connect my soul
with the body which lay on the bed in my house . . . the endeavor failed
... I was dead. . . ."1

Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, who examined this book-test, said, "The dia-
gram of languages ... is complicated, but Feda's description of it as
having lines going out from a center is correct; this branching out from
points and from lines happens repeatedly."

Here follow corroborations by Mrs. Talbot's niece and sister:

Miss Bowyer Smyth's Account

"On March 19, 1917, my aunt, Mrs. Hugh Talbot, had a sitting with
Mrs. Leonard. When she came home, her sister, Mrs. Fitzmaurice, and I
asked her about it. Among other things she had been told to look for 'a
book, but not exactly a book, a sort of notebook.' She would know the
book by a 'drawing about languages' in the beginning of it and on page
12 and 13 she would find something interesting.

"My aunt did not seem at all impressed or interested; in fact, she thought
the whole thing sounded such nonsense that she was quite sure it was
no use looking for the book, the size of which had been indicated by the
medium with her hands, namely, about eight to ten inches long.

"It was not till after dinner that night that Mrs. Fitzmaurice and I
persuaded her to look for the book, she was so firmly convinced it would

1 Post Mortem (Blackwood and Sons, 1881).

162 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

be no use. She finally got out some old and dusty notebooks of her late
husband's, and in one found first a table of languages, and on page 12 or
13, the sensations of a man passing through death. I remember the whole
incident quite clearly, as it seemed to me so unusual and interesting,
especially as my aunt had evidently never opened or read these note-
books before; in fact, it took her a considerable time to find them and she
at first thought she had not kept them.

"(Signed) Doris Bowyer Smith."
"Charnmouth."

Mrs. Fitzmaurice's Account

"On Monday, March 19, 1917, my sister, Mrs. Talbot, had her second
sitting with Mrs. Leonard. She had already had one very interesting one,
so that my niece, Miss Bowyer Smyth, and myself were very anxious to
hear about it. My sister repeated as far as she could everything the medium
had said and mentioned particularly that she had been asked to look for
a certain book. She asked the medium what kind of book, and she was
told that it was a book with a diagram or table of languages in the front.
My sister said, 'Is it what they call a "log" book?' and the medium im-
mediately said, 'Yes, yes, a log book,' and that she was to find page 12
or 13. My sister, in telling us, spoke as if this were nonsense, and I per-
sonally did not pay much attention about the book. I was so much more
interested in certain remarks purporting to come from my brother-in-law,
for, to me, who knew him so well, they seemed so exactly like what I
could imagine him saying; they seemed to bear his personality.

"Later on, at the end of the dinner, my sister went to a bookcase in
the dining-room to look for the book (I do not remember asking her
to do so, though my niece says we both asked her to), but she suddenly
gave an exclamation of surprise and handed me across the table a leather
notebook open at page 12 and 13, and there we found an extract which
was plainly what she had been told to look for. It described the sensations
of a man who had died, or nearly died. I have forgotten it exactly, but I
know it described a man whose spirit was passing away, and what he
felt when he saw the faces of his people 'round his bed. And on turning
to the front pages of the book we found the diagram of languages which
had been mentioned in his effort to describe through the medium which

BOOK-TESTS 163

book the extract was in, for it appears there were two books somewhat
similar.

"To us, my sister's interview seemed intensely interesting, and I have
written it down as far as I can, exactly how I remember it.

"(Signed) Mabel Fitzmaurice."
"December 20, 1917."

CASE NO. 76

The Beadon Case1
At a sitting with Mrs. Leonard, this test was received by Mrs. Beadon,
whose husband, Colonel Beadon, purported to be the sender:

"It was in a squarish room, some books in the corner, not quite in the
corner, but running by the wall to the corner from the window. (Feda in-
dicated by a gesture of her left hand a shelf across a corner and said, 'It
is not that.') Counting from right to left the fifth book, page 71. Feda is not
sure if it is 17 or 71. After repeating both numbers, Feda says she is sure
it is page 71, second paragraph, or about the middle of the page. 'On
page 71 will be found a message from him to you. The message will not
be as beautiful as he would like to make it, but you will understand he
wants to make the test as good as he can. On the same shelf is a book
in a dirtyish brown cover, and a reddish book and an old-fashioned book.

1. It refers to a past condition.

2. It has also an application to the present.

3. It is an answer to a thought which was much more in your mind at
one time than it is now . . . especially since you have known Feda.

4. On the opposite page is a reference to fire.

5. On the opposite page is a reference to light.

6. On the opposite side is a reference to olden times. These have nothing
to do with the message but are just testing whether you have the right
page.

7. On the same page or opposite page or perhaps over the leaf a very im-
portant word beginning with "s." '

(I asked if it was on the top shelf and Feda said 'Yes.' It turned out
there was only one shelf.)"
l Proceedings, S.P.R., XXXI, 260.

164 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Verification

"Six of the seven indications are found to be true. The room proved to
be the dining-room of (address given) my mother's house where I was
staying temporarily. Mrs. Leonard had never been inside the house at all.
There was a bookshelf across the corner as well as the one in which the
book-test was to be found. The room was not square: one end was
squared, the other end octagonal. There was an old volume of Dryden's
poems and others as described on the same shelf. The fifth book from
right to left was a volume of poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Rout-
ledge pocket library edition). I had never read O. W. Holmes' poems.
Pages 71 and 17 had the same thought."

Page 71, second paragraph, has the following:

"The weary pilgrim slumbers,
His resting place unknown,
His hands were crossed, his lids were closed,
The dust was o'er him thrown.
The drifting soil, the moldering leaf,
Along the sod were blown.
His mound has melted into earth,
His memory lives alone."

(The communicator) was killed in Mesopotamia. He was buried by
chaplain and officers the same night near where he fell. The officer in
charge wrote that all traces of the grave had been carefully obliterated to
avoid desecration by the Arabs.

On page 17 the appropriate verse is :

"The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball,

The saber's thirsting edge,
The hot shell shattering in its fall,

The bayonet's rending wedge.
Here scattered death; yet seek the spot,

No trace thine eye can see,
No altar — and they need it not,

Who leave thy children free."

Mrs. Beadon wrote that between pages 17 and 71, she could not find

BOOK-TESTS 165

any page which fulfilled the conditions of the message at all. (The fol-
lowing explanation refers to page 71.)

"1. The poem {The Pilgrim's Vision) refers to settlers in America
(refers to a past condition).

"2. There is an application in this verse to the communicator's own case.
He received reverent burial, his resting-place unknown.

"3. It was a question in my mind constantly at one time whether it
would be possible to identify the spot with the help of the officers
present, and when the war is over to mark it with a cross. I have
thought very little of that lately and have not felt concerned as I
did at first that his grave was unmarked and unknown."

On the opposite page is the following verse:

"Still shall the fiery pillar's ray

Along the pathway shine,
To light the chosen tribe that sought
This Western Palestine."

The reference to fire, light, and the journey of the Israelites fulfills 4,
5, and 6.

There is a poem on the next page called The Steamboat. This title headed
the page in capital letters and this page was all about steamboats: "The
important word beginning with V on the next page." It is an important
word on the page, if not connected with the message.

Mrs. Beadon gave her personal reasons for preferring page 17:

"1. That it is essentially a soldier's message about a battlefield. Page 17
gives the conditions of a battlefield and hot fighting.

"2. It mentions 'The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball.' It was a feature
of the war in Mesopotamia that mixed troops were employed — In-
dian and British brigaded together. My husband was commanding
Indian troops.

"3. Above all I was told the main message was about a question that
occupied my mind a great deal and troubled me at one time. The
question was whether it would be possible to erect a memorial. This
is answered on page 17: 'No altars — and they need them not who
leave thy children free.' I felt that this was what he wanted to say —

166 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

that their achievement would be their best memorial. On page 71
there is no reference to its being a soldier's message, no reference to a
battlefield. Nbr is there any reference to the main question — 'altars'
or 'memorials to their fame.' I felt the expression 'weary pilgrim' very
inapplicable to the state of mind expressed in his letters, written
up to the very day before he was killed. So altogether I feel page 17
gave the message and page 71 strengthened and supplemented it."

Chapter 9
PROXY SITTINGS

When a sitter obtains good evidential matter from a medium, concerning
a deceased person, some critics are not impressed ; they merely shrug their
shoulders and reply, "Telepathy." So to refute this argument, the sitter
asks a friend, or even a stranger, to hold a sitting on his behalf, usually
sending to the sitting some article used by the deceased person.

If any evidence is obtained at the proxy-sitting, the critic still does not
admit survival; he has a loophole left and he uses it by answering,
"Travelling clairvoyance," that is, the mind of the medium has travelled
so many miles through the air, picked certain information from a distant
person's mind, returned again to the medium and handed out the in-
formation to the proxy-sitter as a bona fide communication from the de-
ceased.

There is hardly any reply to this objection except by asking the critic
to prove his case, which will usually take the form of something far more
inconceivable than survival — and if the sitter has a strong sense of humor,
he will enjoy the explanation.

case no. 77
The Bridge Case1

In April, 1920, Mrs. White, whose husband had previously died, wrote
to Sir Oliver Lodge for help, as she found herself utterly bereft and her
church unable to do anything for her. Lodge was in the United States
at that time, but Miss Nea Walker (N. W.), his psychic secretary, replied
on his behalf. She suggested to Mrs. White that when next working the
ouija-board (which Mrs. White had mentioned) she should ask her hus-
band to try and communicate with N. W. Mrs. White agreed to the
experiment.

One of the mediums that N. W. commenced to sit with was her own
sister, Damaris (D. W.), the possessor of a fairly strong psychic faculty.

1 Walker, Nea, The Bridge (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd.).

167

168 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

D. W. was deliberately kept in the dark about Mrs. White and her affairs,
but in her first sitting she produced some good descriptions: the appear-
ance of Mrs. White's father, a pain from which Mrs. White had suffered,
and a living brother of Mrs. White. Then followed information concern-
ing the unusually romantic type of relationship that had existed between
Mr. and Mrs. White, and a description of the interior of the house in
which they had first met. During this time, however, Mrs. White was
having sittings with other mediums which provided evidence that dove-
tailed into that which N. W. was receiving from D. W.; in a way, it
could be described as a kind of cross-correspondence.

In May, 1921, N. W. commenced to act as a proxy-sitter on Mrs. White's
behalf with Mrs. Leonard; and it should be understood that though there
had been a slight correspondence passing between N. W. and Mrs. White,
the latter had taken pains to keep her affairs private. The Leonard sittings
lasted until March 15, 1925, and an extract from one, that of September 7,
1921, is quoted.1 September 5 was the anniversary of the Whites' wedding,
and unknown to N. W., Mrs. White had made mental requests to her
husband that he might refer to it in the September 7 sitting.

Annotations by Mrs. White Statements by Feda

Here Gwyther (Mr. White) ap- Church, church, church.

parSntly begins his references to our
wedding day.

Acock's Green Church where we He's trying to say something about

were married. September 5 was the a church that he was interested in,
anniversary. when he was here. He didn't just go

there, in and out, and forget all about
it, but he was really interested in it.
i.e., the wedding anniversary on He says that he's been very inter-

September 5. ested lately in this church on the

earth, and that he had been helping it

from the other side. He speaks of a

church, not just the church, like a

religion, but of a particular church.

It is my custom to send pink roses And he says she will understand,

to be placed on my mother's grave because she too has been doing some-

in Acock's Green Churchyard on this thing about the church he's speaking

day. of.

1 Walker, Nea, op. at., 140-44.

Annotations by Mrs. White
N. W. thinks of St. Nicholas
Church (Wales). She knew by this
time that we were married in Acock's
Green Church, but did not know of
the recent anniversary, nor of the cus-
tom alluded to.

Because N. W. did not know the
date of the anniversary.

PROXY SITTINGS 169

Statements by Veda
He seems to think that you would
guess about him being interested in
the church.

(Note by N. W. — I had learned
that they were married at Acock's
Green, but it made no impression — I
was swamped in masses of detail I did
not grip, having been "in the dark so
long.")

No, he had not jumped. My wed-
ding bouquet was of pin\ roses. Also
I had sent pink roses to be placed on
his grave in St. Nicholas Churchyard
on the 5th.

A Honiton lace bertha, my mother's
wedding gift to me, and worn on the
wedding frock, has a design of roses.

It is not shown to anyone. This
frock was referred to at an anony-
mous sitting of Mrs. White on May

I might (N. W.).

He is smiling a little.

You wouldn't understand about
him specially helping lately, because
he felt her doing something about it.
(N. W.) I could guess the church,
that's all. (Thinking of St. Nicholas,
Wales.) j j

And he says —

feda: Oh, dear, he's jumped from
that.

The pink roses were beautiful.

The pink ones.

He loves all roses. And they are
symbolic to her and to me.

N. W.: I know that now.

(And I \new that pin\ ones were
specially so — N. W.)

Anyone might speak of roses, but
they mean something to her and to
me.

. . . there's something that she's
got to do with roses, that she had
when he was here, that she still keeps.
It looks to Feda like a kind of design
of roses. On something, a design on
something.

She doesn't show it to people, she
keeps it away. And I get something
close to it, like verses, verses. Poetry.

170

SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Annotations by Mrs. White
20, 1922.

The hymn-sheet used at our wed-
ding service, also kept with the dress.

I had asked Gwyther to refer to
our wedding anniversary (September
5). Gwyther does so very fully by
referring:

1. To the church at which we were
married.

2. To the pink roses which formed
my wedding bouquet, and which
in consequence have held a spe-
cial significance for us.

3. To the Honiton lace bertha on
the dress, which has the design
on it.

4. To the hymn-sheet used at our
wedding services, also kept with
the dress.

5. To the "time of roses," signifi-
cant of a "day of union" in the
past and in the future.

(a) Our engagement.

(b) Our wedding.

Statements by Veda
(Feda doesn't like poetry, but she
thinks Mrs. White does.)

Yes, he says, and he shows Feda a
sheet of paper with something like
a poem on it.

And it's something she's got, and
she's been looking at it lately. And she
was thinking of Mr. White strongly
in connection with a verse of poetry
quite lately. Now again he says roses
seem to come into this.

And he says roses often come into
things and conditions with us. Very
often.

And he says, you see, the time of
roses was a very, very important one
to us, the time of roses.

Tell her it was a very important
time, twice, at two different times it
was very important, but in quite a
different way.

Contemporary note by N. W. stating her \nowledge at this time
"I know now that the Whites' wedding was a rose wedding: pink roses.
And that pink roses were buried with Gwyther; that roses grew on his
grave and in his garden; also that Mrs. White became engaged in July
when there would be roses.

PROXY SITTINGS 171

"And I accidentally learnt that Mrs. White was married in September,
but not the date."

The constant and continual allusion to roses in this and other Leonard
sittings and those with other mediums is strikingly appropriate. Their
garden was a rose garden; roses of all types, dwarf, climbing and pergola
grew there and the average gardener might have criticized it on the
ground that rose growing was cultivated to excess, to the exclusion of
almost every flower.

Mrs. White then decided on another test: she would go and sit with
Mrs. Leonard to see if the communicators who turned up for N. W.
would respond to her. She was unknown to Mrs. Leonard, for, taking
a card of anonymous introduction from N. W. with her, there was no
normal method by which the medium could obtain a clue to her identity.
The sitting took place on November 10, 1921, and the results were ex-
cellent. Her husband, quickly arriving on the scene, proceeded to repeat
some of the material he had already related to N. W. He referred to
her experiments with the ouija-board, his communications via D. W.,
the symbol of roses, and mentioned that her brother Harold was beside
him. (He had already stated this to N. W.) He concluded by prophesying
that she would soon be beside him.

In September, 1922, though Mrs. White was in bed with a serious
illness, N. W. still continued on her behalf with Mrs. Leonard. Mr. White
indicated that he was well aware of his wife's condition.

Feda: Do you know, he's a bit worried about Mrs. White. (Said in a
very surprised tone.) This is the first time he has talked in that way
about her. And he's looking quite serious when he begins to talk about
her. It isn't a light matter. . . . Do you know, he's anxious about her
health. Very anxious indeed about her health. He wouldn't mind if she
was to come over to him. I want that, she wants that. But he somehow
felt that the time had not yet come.

Mrs. White lingered on in varying conditions of health, but eventually
died in July, 1924, and this occurrence was the opportunity for a good
test. Would the Whites — husband and wife — appear together to N. W '.,
who had taken every precaution to conceal Mrs. White's name and
address from the medium so that even if Mrs. Leonard had seen the

172 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

announcement of her death in a newspaper, it would not have had any
special significance for her?

On September 12, 1924, N. W. had her first sitting after Mrs. White's
death, and at the beginning Mr. White quickly indicated that his wife
was now with him but was not capable of taking part in the sitting;
but on November 1, 1924, Mrs. White spoke on her own behalf, con-
cluding this unique case by thanking N. W. for all her efforts.

case no. 78
The Bobby Newlove Case1

In September, 1932, the Rev. C. Drayton Thomas, when having sittings
with Mrs. Leonard, received a letter from a Mr. Hatch, of Nelson, Lanes.,
asking if he would attempt to obtain information about his step-daughter's
son, ten years of age, who had recently died of diphtheria. The reply of
Mr. Thomas did not encourage expectation of success, but he resolved to
make the attempt, though he did not inform the child's people of his
intention.

He took Mr. Hatch's letter to the sitting on November 4, 1932, and at
the appropriate moment said to his father and sister who were com-
municating: "I have an earnest request for news of a little boy, Bobby."

The first message that Mr. Thomas received was a description of Bobby's
home town which Mr. Hatch acknowledged as accurate. Several further
statements were made, all proving more or less correct, but, on the whole,
Mr. Thomas considered the results were poor.

In following sittings, however, the communications from Bobby im-
proved; he referred to a friend — a Mr. Burrows — who had been fitting
up a gymnasium for him before he died; a photograph of himself in
fancy dress; a girl friend, Marjorie, who was the mascot of the hockey
team that played on the rink that Bobby attended; and a very accurate
description, with much detail, particularly mentioning a damaged stile,
of a favorite walk. On receipt of this information about a favorite walk,
Mr. Hatch replied that its several details were recognized and that the
most striking was the reference to a broken stile; for he found that
this stile was no longer there, having been removed shortly before Bobby's

1 Proceedings, S.P.R., XLIII, Part 143. Thomas, Rev. C. Drayton, An Amazing
Experiment (London: Lectures Universal Ltd.).

PROXY SITTINGS 173

death. Clearly, it was something other than a medium's clairvoyance
which had produced this mention of the stile which Bobby in his time
had so often climbed, but which was not now to be seen.

Mr. Hatch, not quite satisfied, wrote to Mr. Thomas for information
on the following points:

1. What did Bobby keep in the bathroom cupboard?

2. Where did he go with his mother last winter in the evenings and

was to go again this winter?

3. What did he do in the attic besides boxing?

When the replies came back they correctly described or referred to:

1. A cinematograph lantern.

2. The skating rink.

3. Working an apparatus for developing the muscles.

Mr. Hatch presently considered that Bobby had proved his identity.
He sent many other evidential points relative to his boy friends, his
diary, and his surroundings that cannot be inserted here for lack of
space, and the selection already given shows evidence that passes far be-
yond anything attributable to chance-coincidence: out of 126 items only
18 were unrecognized.

Quite early in the sittings, it was indicated by Mr. Thomas' father that
though Bobby had died of diphtheria there had been something that had
weakened him nine wee\s before his death. When Mr. Thomas asked to
be told what it was, the reply came : "Pipe, pipes, that should be sufficient."
Mr. Thomas thought this indicated defective drainage, but Mr. Hatch
would not acquiesce in this idea.

Eventually, Mr. Hatch learned that Bobby and another boy had formed
themselves into a secret society which they had called "The Gang," and
in the summer before Bobby's death had frequented a place they called
the "Heights" for play and adventure. Mr. Hatch was still at a loss about
the pipes and asked for fuller information.

At the sitting that followed this request a route was indicated very
minutely : starting from Bobby's house, looping 'round the railway station,
up the hill past Bentley Street, leading to the old stocks in the churchyard,

174 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

then right up to the "Heights." It was evident that the intelligence thai
gave this information was intimately acquainted with Bobby's home and
surroundings.

At a still later sitting a further description was given which eventually
led to the actual place on the "Heights," where two drain pipes were
finally discovered. Water issued from the ground through these pipes into
two pools and it was there that Bobby had played during the weeks pre-
ceding his death.

Infection from the water may have caused a condition of the blood
which weakened the boy's system before the oncoming of diphtheria.
Justification for the communicator's opinion that the boy's death might
be attributed to his playing there is found in a statement made by the
Medical Officer of Health for the district:

"21st February, 1939.

". . . The water in both pools is obviously liable to contamination from
surface water and is not fit for drinking purposes. Any person, child or
adult, might develop a low or even acute infection from the drinking
of such water. /

"J. S. Wilson, M.B., CM.,
Medical Officer of Health,
Brierfield, Lanes."

Thus emerged information quite unsuspected by Bobby's people, but
which accounted for his illness and premature death. Mr. Thomas' com-
municators remarked that they had learned of the secret playground and
its pipes during conversations with the boy and had surmised its connec-
tion with his death. Mr. Thomas had asked their cooperation in enabling
the boy to give evidence of his identity. In his report, Mr. Thomas stated
that Mrs. Leonard was told absolutely nothing either in or out of trance,
about Bobby's town — Nelson — and his own knowledge of the place was
limited to a single visit many years before to another part of Nelson.

case no. 79
The Blair Case1
In 1937, when Mrs. Lydia W. Allison of New York was coming over
to England to have sittings with Mrs. Leonard, she arranged to act as a
1 Journal, A.S.P.R. (October, 1941), 196.

PROXY SITTINGS

175

proxy-sitter for a fellow American, Mr. Blair (pseudonym). Her knowl-
edge of Mr. Blair was scanty; she deliberately made it so, warning him
in advance not to be too hopeful — proxy sittings were sometimes a gamble.
Mrs. Allison received from Mr. Blair a small, round, white-metal vanity
case to enable her to contact the desired communicator — his wife. In all,
Mrs. Allison held three sittings, and like others they had their per-
centages of hits and misses; but with the Blair sittings the former out-
weighed the latter. An abbreviated account of the sittings follows:

Feda
This lady (Mrs. B.?) died in the
prime of life.

She was not fussy or shouted much.

She had an exhausted feeling at
death. It happened within five days.

Until the illness came she had a
strong constitution.

Before she died he (Mr. B.?) tried
to do something on a Monday. He
did not succeed. He tried to see im-
portant people but failed. H. and M.
are the letters connected with them.

Her thoughts go to a man and her
daughter.

She is anxious to get in touch with
F. B.

This man (F. B.) has something to
do with an office.

This lady's ancestors were not or-
dinary people.

She speaks of a Charlie.

He (F. B.) is closely linked with a
big institution.

He's been doing something special
lately, signing his name, something
big.

He is at the top of this institute, a
leader.

Annotations by Mr. Blair
She was thirty-seven years of age.

She was a woman of strong but
restrained character.
Correct as stated.

She had been well for the greater
part of her life.

I returned home on the Monday
before Mrs. Blair died. I found her
seriously ill. We went to a specialist
that day and a minor operation was
performed without beneficial results.
Later I called in Dr. M. and wanted
to get a Dr. H., but didn't.

We have three daughters.

My initials.

I am a lawyer and of course have
an office.

The Lorens — my wife's tolks — were
definitely not ordinary people. She
had some outstanding ancestors.

Her brother.

I am Director of Works in my state.

The oath of office of Director of
Public Works is signed in a large book
in the Comptroller's office. I signed it.

See previous remarks.

176

SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Veda
He was photographed much and
didn't like it.

Annotations by Mr. Blair
The press took pictures of my being
sworn in by the new Comptroller and
I didn't like it.

He's had special, unusual clothes
lately.

He has lots of people before him.
They listen to him like a Day of
Judgment. They want his opinion.

He has something to seal.

Is he fond of music?

He has at last realized what we
both talked over together so often.

He has got more money lately but
he is careless about it.

He was doing something big con-
nected with a platform.

Was he connected with invalids or
cripples in some big way?

I think this refers to my honorary
degree. I dressed up in an academic
cap and gown.

See previous remarks.

Seals are relevant to a lawyer's
business.
Doubtful.
Correct.

There has been a more or less favor-
able turn in some of my investments.
I do not think about money — probably
not as much as I should.

The honorary degree was conferred
on a platform.

I am trustee for a hospital for
crippled children.

Mr. Blair expressed his gratification with the records when they were
forwarded to him and said they contained some excellent points which
eliminated telepathy from the sitter.

Chapter 10

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA

At a direct voice seance, the medium sits in a chair, surrounded by the
sitters, who form a circle, and the room is pitch black; not one single ray
of light must enter.

A trumpet is placed in the center of the circle and after a certain period
of waiting, during which the sitters sing and talk, a faint voice is heard.
The voice is encouraged to speak up, then when the necessary "power"
has been obtained, the majority of the sitters are rewarded with messages
from departed friends.

In addition to the voice phenomena, touches are made by the trumpet
on the sitters' hands and faces, and pale grey and other shades of light
occasionally flicker in a most astonishing manner.

Is the whole thing a fraud? Was it the medium or an accomplice who
spoke through the trumpet? Were the touches and lights produced by
normal means? It is difficult to believe that discarnate intelligence is re-
sponsible for such physical action, and to be on the safe side, as in trance
mediumship, the sitter must rely on the evidential quality of the com-
munication alone before he condemns or approves. In the instances that
follow in this chapter, no stock has been taken of touches, lights, per-
fumes, etc., that are alleged to occur in direct voice seances; all that has
been presented are the communicators' efforts to give proofs of their
identity.

case no. 80
The Kennedy Case1
"On the evening of February 16, 1890, a seance was held at my house,
in Church End, Finchley, the circle consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Everitt
(Mrs. Everitt being the medium) ; Mr. H. Withall and Miss H. Withall,
of Angell Park Gardens, Brixton; my wife, my two daughters, my son,
and myself. We sat in the dark for the 'direct voice'; in that way com-

1 "The Life Story of Edmund Dawson Rogers, Journalist," Light.

177

178 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

munications had come from several spirit friends. In the course of the
evening a 'stranger' spoke, giving us his name, the time of his decease,
and his age, and mentioning a town in Missouri as the place of his resi-
dence when he departed this life. Wishing, if possible, to verify the cor-
rectness of the message, I addressed the following letter to Colonel Bundy,
the editor of The Religio-Philosophical Journal, Chicago:

During a seance held at my residence on the 16th inst., with Mrs.
Everitt, a spirit came, and speaking in firm, emphatic and distinct tones,
with a decidedly American accent, expressed his interest in the work in
which we were engaged and his wish for our success. He added that his
name was Moses Kennedy, and that he had passed away in September
last at Glenfield, Missouri, aged seventy-one. I had no opportunity of
making a note of his remarks until the close of the seance, and as to one
word, 'Glenfield,' I am not quite certain that I remembered it correctly,
but I think I did. I shall be glad if any of your readers can confirm the
accuracy of the message.

E. Dawson Rogers.
London, England.
February 23.

"This letter appeared in the Journal of March 22. In the meantime —
namely, on the evening of March 9 — we had another seance, the members
of the circle being the same as before, with the single exception that Miss
H. Withall was absent, and that her sister occupied her place. During
this sitting a spirit friend, referring to Moses Kennedy's communication
on the previous occasion, said he thought we had misunderstood the name
of his place of residence — he believed that the stranger had said 'not Glen-
field, but Glenwood, or some such name as that.' As there was no reason
to think that 'Glenwood' was more likely to be correct than 'Glenfield,'
no mention of this incident was sent to The Religio-Philosophical Journal.

"On the 17th, the post brought me the following letter from S. T.
Suddick, M.D., Cuba, Missouri, dated April 6:

"Respected Sir,

"Yours of underdate of February 23 was forwarded to me by Bro. Bundy
for confirmation. I have investigated the matter with the following results:

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 179

"There is no such town in Missouri as 'Glenfield.' I wrote to Glenwood,
Schuyler County, Missouri, and found that Moses Kennedy died there
September 30, 1889. He was born in Clement County, Ohio, November
18, 1818. His widow, Mrs. Phcebe Kennedy, still resides there. I have
written her, and her answer is before me, received today. Full particulars
will be sent to the Journal this p.m.

"I would be pleased to have you write me.

Yours very respectfully,

S. T. Suddick, M. D.

"From Mr. Suddick's letter it will be seen that the message was correct
in every particular — as to name, age, place of residence, and time of de-
cease. And yet none of us who formed the circle to which the message
was given had so much as known of Moses Kennedy's existence."

case no. 81
The Randall Case1
Mr. Edward C. Randall, a lawyer in Buffalo, experimented twenty years
with Mrs. Emily S. French, a very frail and deaf old lady. The medium's
deafness was a distinct advantage to Mr. Randall; it created a natural
test condition for the medium that the lawyer could not improve on.
"Often," he wrote, "we sat alone in my house and the voice that broke the
stillness was not the voice of Mrs. French, nor were her vocal organs
used by another. She, being deaf, often failed to hear the voices of spirit
people and spoke while they were speaking, such interruptions causing
confusion." In his investigation of Mrs. French over 700 sittings were
held, and when she died in 1912 he wrote regarding her:

"The memory of Emily S. French comes like a benediction. She made
me her friend by being honest; I made her my friend by being fair and
so we worked for twenty years and more to learn how to expel the fear
of death from the human heart. She was the noblest woman I have
known; she was both honest and brave; she enriched herself by aiding
others."

On May 26, 1896, Mr. Randall held a sitting with Mrs. French. At

ten o'clock that morning the Brown Building in Buffalo, then being

1 Randall, Edward C, The Dead Have Never Died (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc.).

180 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

repaired, collapsed and the city was full of rumors that many people had
been killed. The number was put at six or seven, but there was no way
of ascertaining the truth until the debris could be removed, and this would
require many days.

At the sitting that evening, four voices announced themselves : William
P. Straub, George Metz, Michael Schurzke, a Pole, and Jennie M.
Griffin, claiming that they had lost their lives in the fall of the building.
This was verified some days later.

On another occasion Mr. Randall's father stated that there was one
small item in the settlement of his estate that had been overlooked.

Mr. Randall replied, "Your mind was ever centered on the accumulation
of money. Why take up my time . . . with your estate? It has already
been divided."

"Yes," he answered, "I know that, but I worked too hard for my money,
and there is an asset you have not discovered."

"Tell me about it."

"Some years before I left, I loaned a small sum of money to Susan
Stone, who resided in Pennsylvania, and I took from her a promissory
note upon which, by the laws of that state, I was entitled to enter a judg-
ment at once without suit. I was somewhat anxious about the loan; so
before its maturity I took the note and filed it with the prothonotary at
Erie, Pennsylvania, and he entered judgment, which became a lien on her
property. In my books there was no reference to that note or judgment.
If you go to the prothonotary's office in Erie, you will find the judgment
on record and I want you to collect it. There are many things you don't
know and this is one of them."

Mr. Randall was much surprised at the information thus received and
naturally sent for a transcript of that judgment. He found it entered on
October 21, 1896, and with that evidence of the debt he collected from
the woman $70 with interest. He questioned if anyone knew of this affair
besides the makers of the note and the prothonotary in Erie. He certainly
did not and had no reason to suspect it; and he considered that it was
entirely impossible for Mrs. French to have any knowledge of it.

"My father's voice was clearly recognizable on that occasion, as it has
been on hundreds of others, and I cite this instance for the benefit of those
who measure everything from an evidential standpoint."

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 181

CASE NO. 82

The Rose Bay Case1

The two examples that follow are taken from an address delivered by
the late Vice-Admiral W. Usborne Moore at the South Place Institute,
Finsbury, on May 14, 1914, concerning the mediumship of Etta Wreidt,
an American direct-voice medium.

A lady born in Sydney, New South Wales, who had spent all her child-
hood there and latterly resided in Devonshire, gave him this evidence she
received at a sitting:

"One day in 1911, my sister and I had a private sitting at Cambridge
House and a voice announced itself as 'George.' We knew several Georges
who had passed over and my sister said, 'Are you George Lloyd?' Answer:
'No ! ' Question : 'What is your other name ? ' The voice seemed to find great
difficulty in replying to this positive Question, so I said, Where did you
know me?' Answer: 'At Rose Bay. My name is George Smith. Your
father brought me here.' I was much puzzled and the name conveyed
nothing to me, but my sister said, 'Did you live at Rose Bay?' 'Yes, near
your old home.' (Our old home was at Rose Bay, one of the numerous
little bays in Port Jackson; it is three miles from the city of Sydney.)

"Then the voice answered me, 'Where is your sling stone? When you
were a little girl, you used to have a sling stone.' Question: 'Do you
mean a catapult?' Answer: 'Yes, you were a little mischief.' (I used to
have a catapult when I was a small child; it is possible that I was a
great nuisance to the neighborhood.) Then turning to my sister he said,
'I should not have known you. What have you done to yourself? You
were always the sedate one.' (This allusion is quite correct.) When the
voice no longer spoke, my sister said, Well, I am the only one in the
world who would remember him. You were too young. George Smith
did live near us at Rose Bay. He was a contractor.' (This was forty-six
years ago.)

"(Signed) E. R. Richards."

Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Richards' sister, wrote:

"I beg to confirm my sister's account. I am six years older than my

1 Moore, W. Usborne, Spirit Identity by Direct Voice (Manchester: The Two Worlds
Publishing Co., Ltd.).

182 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

sister and certify to the fact that a contractor, named George Smith, did
live a short distance from my father's house at Rose Bay, Sydney. He
must have known us by sight when we played as children and probably
spoke to us now and then. My sister had a small catapult."

case no. 83

The W / Case1

Mr. W J , a Glasgow merchant, wrote concerning sittings he

participated in with Mrs. Wreidt:

"The medium was a stranger when I met her for the first time on the
morning of July 2, 1912. A voice we recognized at once came close to me
and said, 'Bill, Bill, how are ye?' 'Who are you?' I asked. 'Neil, Neil, I
am Neil, man,' followed by a hearty laugh ... his laugh was not like
that of anyone I knew. Neil McQuarrie was a relative of mine by marriage
and had been for many years our cashier. For a little he spoke to his wife
about their children, each by name. Mrs. White, who sat next to me,
whispered, 'Do you think he'll know me?' and immediately came the
answer, 'Dae ye think I'll no ken ye, Annie White?'

"The next sitting was on the following day. I phoned to Mrs. Mc-
Master and she came by putting off an engagement, so that her presence
was wholly unexpected; she had never been to a sitting before. The
first voice was that of her husband who had passed nine months before : 'I
am glad to see you getting on so well; give my love to Jeffrey.' Mrs. Mc-
Master, 'You can give your love to Mr. Jeffrey yourself, he is sitting next
to me.' The voice said, emphatically, 'No, no, I want to give my love
to my little boy, Jeffrey McMaster.'

"Another sitting was held five days later. The first to address me was
an old friend, Sterling, who had departed this life some twenty years
ago. . . . 'Are you the Mr. Sterling I knew long ago?' 'Yes,' was the
answer. 'Well, do you remember what was the matter with you before
you died?' I asked. He answered, 'I was totally blind for five years.'
This was correct and a strong bit of evidence for us. ... A voice saying
'Colin!' 'What Colin?' 'Colin Buchanan,' and shortly afterwards it ad-
dressed Mrs. McQuarrie, touching upon some sad and private matters
which I knew were unknown to anyone in the room. It went back into

1 Moore, W. Usborne, op. cit.

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA

183

old history of forty years ago — a revelation indeed. The facts unfolded
were of a character that with propriety cannot be given to others. I
regret this is the case, for it is evidence of this kind which is so convincing."

case no. 84

The Saunders Case

About the year 1918, Arthur Findlay, a stockbroker and chartered
accountant of Glasgow, commenced to investigate the mediumship of
John C. Sloan, little imagining that he would eventually publish his ex-
periences and make Sloan one of the best-known mediums of the present
day.

Findlay was slightly suspicious of Sloan at the first sitting, but giving
him the benefit of the doubt, patiently sat through another fifty and be-
came convinced of two things — human survival of death and Sloan's
integrity. Findlay did not conceal his beliefs and published them in four
books: On the Edge of the Etheric, The Koc\ of Truth, The Unfolding
Universe and The Torch of Knowledge. In the first1 he quotes the fol-
lowing case which he considers fraud-proof, telepathy-proof, cryptesthesia-
proof and coming up to his "Al" standard.

In 1919, Arthur Findlay took his brother John to a sitting, taking good
care that no one should know the relationship between the two. Midway
through the sitting a voice calling itself "Eric Saunders" claimed ac-
quaintanceship with John, who replied that he had never known any
person of that name.

j. f.: Where did you meet me?

voice: In the army.

Findlay mentioned a number of places: Aldershot, Bisley, France,
Palestine, etc., but he deliberately omitted Lowestoft, where he had spent
most of his army life.

voice: No, none of these places. I knew you when you were near
Lowestoft.

j. f.: Why do you say near Lowestoft?

voice: You were not in Lowestoft then but at Kessingland.

This was correct. Findlay had spent part of his time at that small
village near Lowestoft, training machine-gunners for the army.

1 Findlay, Arthur, On the Edge of the Etheric (London: Psychic Press, Ltd.), 92-96.

184 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

j. f.: What company were you in?

The answer was indistinct — it sounded like "B" or "C" — then Findlay
inquired if he remembered the name of the company commander.

voice: MacNamara.

This was correct; that was the name of the officer commanding B
Company.

j. f. (by way of a test) : You were one of my Lewis gunners, were you
not?

voice (evading the trap) : No, you had not the Lewis gun then, it was
the Hotchkiss.

Several leading questions were correctly answered, then the voice said
he had been killed in France.

j. f.: When did you go out?

voice: With the big draft in August, 1917.

j. f.: Why do you say "big draft"?

voice : Don't you remember the big draft, when the colonel came on the
parade ground and made a speech?

This statement applied to an extra large draft sent to France that month,
and the only occasion that Findlay could remember of the colonel per-
sonally saying good-bye to the men.

j. f.: Why have you come to speak to me?

voice : Because I have never forgotten that you once did me a good turn.

Findlay had a hazy recollection of obtaining leave for one of his gun-
ners, but could not remember if Saunders was his name. Six months later,
Findlay met by arrangement the man who had been his corporal, and
telling him of the incident, asked if he remembered Eric Saunders. The
corporal did not, but fortunately had brought a notebook in which he
had entered the names of the men who had served under him. In the
records of B Company for 1917 appeared the words, "Eric Saunders, f.q.
August, 1917," with a red line drawn through them. Although Findlay
knew quite well what the red line represented, he inquired its meaning.

"Don't you remember, Mr. Findlay?" answered the ex-corporal. "I al-
ways drew a line through the men's names when they went away. This
shows that Saunders went out in August, 1917."

John Findlay regretted that he did not ask Saunders, at the sitting, the
name of his regiment, and so was unable to trace his death. Without this

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 185

information the War Office could give no details except that 4,000 men
of the name of Saunders fell in the 1914-18 war.

case no. 85
The Sew aid Case1

In the year 1922, when living in Scotland, the Rev. V. G. Duncan
began reading books concerning psychical research, and his bookseller,
noticing his predilection for this type of literature, offered to introduce
him to a lady, a Miss McCall, who would give him an opportunity of
having a sitting with the Misses Moore, of Glasgow, direct-voice mediums.
Mr. Duncan accepted the bookseller's offer and a sitting was arranged
to be held in a house in the suburbs of Edinburgh. In case his history
had been worked up in advance, Mr. Duncan decided to take a friend —
who belonged to a north European race — with him, and he was certain
that neither the bookseller, Miss McCall, or the Misses Moore knew any-
thing about the unknown stranger.

"The lady," wrote Mr. Duncan, "who has made my appointment had
promised that my name, as well as any information she might know
concerning me, should be withheld from the mediums. In any case, my
colleague in the experiment was a total stranger to them all, as I had
taken care that he should remain anonymous by simply stating that a
'friend would accompany me.'

"Early in the sitting a control indicated that a lady wished to speak to
Mr. L. (Mr. Duncan's friend). In soft tones a voice spoke, 'Jan! Jan!'

sitter: Oh, Mother darling, is it really you?

voice: Yes, Jan, it is really me.

"Then," says Mr. Duncan, "they talked of the trifling things which
make life for us all: of the father who was left behind; of the son who
needed special care; of the son's wife (addressed correctly by name);
and of the uncle who would soon pass over. Before she left, my friend
asked one final question — not so much, he told me afterwards, in a spirit
of doubt, but because he felt every shred of evidence was of such tre-
mendous value to him. 'Can you remember, Mother,' he asked, 'the second
name of B.?' Now my friend's father belonged to a north European race.

1 Duncan, Rev. V. G., Proof (London: Wm. Rider and Co.).

186 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

But nobody in the room except himself knew that fact. The name asked
for was a peculiar one and had reference to the origin.

" 'Why, Sewald, of course,' came the answer, without a moment's hesita-
tion.

"It was perfectly true."

The George W. Crawford Case1

The following extracts are taken from accounts of sittings which Mr.
H. Dennis Bradley had with George Valiantine, an American medium.

(Mr. Bradley, while on a visit to the United States in June, 1923, met
Valiantine at the house of Mr. Joseph de Wyckoff, where — so far as Dennis
Bradley was concerned — a test sitting was arranged. The communications
that Dennis Bradley received on that day were so convincing that some
time later he invited Valiantine to visit him in England for the purpose
of holding a series of sittings during the early months of 1924.)

On February 8, 1924, a sitting was in progress in the dining-room of
Dennis Bradley's house at Dorincourt when a voice addressed Joseph De
Wyckoff. There was some difficulty in deciphering the voice — it was not
too clear — but eventually the voice described how "he" had died on board
a ship coming from New York to England in 1916.

the voice: I was travelling on the same boat with Joe and Minerva
(Mr. and Mrs. De Wyckoff).

de wyckoff : Will you please tell us whether you were a small or a big
man?

the voice: I was very big.

de wyckoff: How big?

the voice: So big that I could hardly get through the door.

mrs. de wyckoff (excitedly) : George Crawford!

De Wyckoff, annoyed at his wife for giving the name away before it
had been volunteered, said, "Why did you do that?" At that moment the
voice disappeared from the sitting.

Two days later, February 10, another sitting was held but this time in
Dennis Bradley's study. The voice returned and on this occasion gave his
name so clearly that all in the room heard it.

1 Bradley, H. Dennis, Towards the Stars (London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.), 173-74,
178, 184-85.

I

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 187

the voice : I am George W. Crawford.

De Wyckoff asked for further evidence of his personality and "George
W. Crawford" replied, "Don't you remember when you changed the
room ? "

De Wyckoff (under the impression that Crawford was referring to the
present sitting taking place in the study instead of the dining-room as
formerly) answered, "Yes, we changed the room because the conditions
here are better."

crawford: I do not mean that, I mean that you changed my room for
me aboard ship.

This information startled De Wyckoff, and he stated that when Craw-
ford was taken ill on board ship he persuaded the purser to have him
removed to a larger cabin, in which he died.

On February 15, Crawford returned and renewed his conversation with
De Wyckoff.

de wyckoff: How long is it since you passed away?

crawford: About eight years. (Correct.)

de wyckoff: What was the name of the boat you were travelling on?

crawford: The St. Paul. (Correct.)

De Wyckoff then asked what was the cause of his death, to which Craw-
ford replied, "Over-eating." (Crawford weighed about twenty-five stone
and had an appetite equivalent to his weight.)

de wyckoff: Do you remember your burial?

crawford: Yes, I was put in a box with heavy weights. (He was buried
at sea.)

The foregoing are a few of the evidential questions put by De Wyckoff;
in every case the correct answer was returned, and at the end Crawford
said, "I think I have given you enough."

case no. 87
The Welsh Language Case1
On February 27 another sitting was held at Dorincourt, composed of
the following: Dennis Bradley, Mrs. Dennis Bradley, Newman Flower,
Harold Wimbury, Mr. and Mrs. Caradoc Evans, Miss Queenie Bayliss,
and George Valiantine.
Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who had attended previous sittings, renewed
1 Bradley, H. Dennis, Towards the Stars, 208-11.

188 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

acquaintanceship with an old friend — Edward Wright. After various
topics of mutual interest had been discussed, a new voice, claiming to
be that of Mr. Evans' father, came on the scene.

caradoc evans : Do you want me?

voice: Yes.

caradoc evans : Who are you ?

voice: Your father!

caradoc evans: Father! Can't be. How do you know that I am here?
Who told you?

voice: Edward Wright.

caradoc evans : Well, look, if you are my father, siaradwch a fy yn etch
iaith}

voice: Beth i chwi am i fy ddweyd?

caradoc evans: Eich enw, wrth gwrs.

voice : William Evans.

caradoc evans: Yn le marwo chwi?

voice: Caerfyrddin.

caradoc evans : Sir?

voice: Tre.

caradoc evans : Ble mae'r ty?

voice: Uch ben ye avon. Mae steps — lawer iawn — rhwng y ty ar rheol.
Pa beth yr ydych yn gojyn? Y chwi yn mynd i weled' a ty bob tro yr
rydych yn y dre.

caradoc evans : 'Nhad .

Translation

. . . speak to me in your own language.

voice: What do you want me to say?

caradoc evans: Your name, of course.

voice : William Evans.

caradoc evans: Where did you die?

voice: Carmarthen.

caradoc evans: Shire?

voice: Town.

caradoc evans: Where is the house?

1 After the sitting, Caradoc Evans supplied Dennis Bradley with the conversation in
Welsh and the translation in English.

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 189

voice: Above the river. There are steps — many steps — between the
house and the road. Why do you ask me? You go to see the house every
time you are in the town.

caradoc evans : My father .

case no. 88
The Walter Case1

Mr. Harold Wimbury was fortunate to receive substantial evidence
at the same sitting, although it had not the same high dramatic quality
as that obtained by Mr. Caradoc Evans.

A voice spoke and someone in the circle said, "It sounds like Walter."

harold wimbury: Is it Walter?

voice: Yes.

harold wimbury: Did I know you here?

voice: Yes.

harold wimbury: For how long?

voice: For several years.

harold wimbury: How long ago?

voice: About twenty years.

harold wimbury: Where?

voice: Birmingham.

harold wimbury: What is your other name?

voice: Downing.

harold wimbury: Good Lord, Walter, I am glad to see you. Do you
remember our last holiday?

voice : Yes — I've all my faculties now.

harold wimbury: You always had.

harold wimbury: Do you remember Sally? (This was a trap. Sally
was the nickname of a man named Sanders. Not a woman?)

voice: Yes — I remember him and all of them. Tell them I am very
happy here.

harold wimbury : Do you remember we lived together ?

voice: Yes.

harold wimbury: Where?

1 Bradley, H. Dennis, Towards the Stars, 211-13.

\

190 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

voice: Over the hotel.

("Walter and I, working on a morning paper, often missed our last
trains to our homes and so we shared a room in Birmingham, where we
snugged in when late, often together. The room was over the Crown
Hotel, two minutes from the office." — Harold Wimbury.)

Mr. Wimbury supplied the foregoing explanations to Dennis Bradley.

Incidents from Various Sittings Case1

In the month of February, 1925, George Valiantine paid a return visit
to England for the purpose of holding a further series of sittings with
Dennis Bradley — this visit lasting to the month of April.

On this occasion, Bradley made a point of bringing — without making
introductions to Valiantine — friends and strangers from many profes-
sions: law, art, science, stage, politics, journalism, the army, etc., and
this was deliberately done with a view to observing the reactions on
Valiantine's mediumship.

The sittings were of a varied character, good, bad and indifferent; not
all the good sittings were completely evidential, while many of those
which were inferior contained some evidential items. In the course of this
series communicators spoke in most European languages, occasionally in
Chinese and Japanese; and sitters, during the conversation, changed the
language from German to English, Danish to Russian, or Italian to
French, and the communicators carried on without pause.

Some of the outstanding evidence in these sittings has been collected
and summarized in this case.

Sitting on February 25, 1925
A voice addressed Countess Tyong Oeitiongham in Chinese, in which
language a conversation was carried on between them for a short time.
After the sitting the Countess stated that there were at least twenty
dialects in Chinese, each of which might have been used. The voice spoke
to her in two languages, mixed in a way which no European — even if he
were able to speak Chinese — could do. One of the dialects was one in
which her father used to spea\ to her when she was a child, and the other
was one which they spo\e together after she had grown up.

1 Bradley, H. Dennis, The Wisdom of the Gods (London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.),
221-386.

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 191

Sitting on March 10, 1925
A voice addressed Countess Ahlefeldt-Laurvig and she replied to it in
Danish. The voice then said to her, "Speak to me in Russian," and an-
nounced that he was her brother Oscar. Together they talked for a little
time in the Russian language.

Sitting on March 18, 1925
The most dramatic event of the evening was when a voice addressed
Mr. Gonnoske Komai in Japanese. The voice called, "Gonnoske, Gon-
noske," and then gave the name "Otani." Identity was established and
a conversation was carried on in Japanese. Afterwards, Mr. Komai stated
an important point: in Japan, only an elder brother, father, or mother
is allowed to address a man by his first name, and the voice was that of
his elder brother who had passed away some time ago.

Sitting on April 7, 1925

A voice claiming to be Dr. Peebles spoke to Dr. Abraham Wallace.
"You remember there was a banquet held in my honor when the empty
chair was left for me and I appreciated it very much; I enjoyed the
gathering."

Afterwards, Dr. Wallace explained that a banquet had been held in
California in honor of the 100th birthday of Dr. Peebles, who died just
prior to the banquet; nevertheless, the banquet was held with the empty
chair at the table in appreciation of Dr. Peebles. This incident was
accepted as evidential by Dr. Wallace, as no one in the room but himself
knew of this happening.

Sitting on April 10, 1925
Michael Bradley — an uncle of Dennis Bradley — spoke in loud and dis-
tinct tones. "He addressed my father as 'Dan,' the name by which he
was accustomed to address him. They conversed together for quite a
while, my father asking many questions which called for evidential re-
plies. Michael spontaneously volunteered all the information which was
required of him. He remembered the place of his birth, near Galway,
his age when he passed over, and many details of his career on earth,
thereby establishing his identity."

Sitting on April 16, 1925
A voice spoke to Mr. P. H. G. Fender, claiming the relationship of

192 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

grandfather. Mr. Fender asked where he had lived and he correcdy
replied "Dundee."

To Mrs. Theodore McKenna a voice announced itself as "Just
McKenna." Later, Mrs. McKenna said that her son, Justine McKenna,
who had died when he was twenty-one years old, was addressed by the
family as "Just."

A voice claiming to be his mother spoke to Mr. Oscar Hammerstein,
and in the course of her conversation mentioned Aunt Annie. Mr. Ham-
merstein did not quite catch the name, but Mrs. Hammerstein, seated
opposite, heard it and said, "She is speaking of Aunt Annie." The voice
then went over to Mrs. Hammerstein and said, "I was talking of
'Mousie' " — the nickname by which Aunt Annie was known in the family.

case no. 90
The Chinese Case1

When Dr. Neville Whymant, lecturer for many years in Chinese at
Oxford, was in New York, where he had been controlling the Oriental
department of a new encyclopaedia, he was invited by Judge W. M. Can-
non to attend a sitting with Valiantine. Dr. Whymant had been informed
that voices had spoken in foreign tongues, European and Oriental, at
previous sittings; and as Dr. Whymant spoke thirty dialects and lan-
guages his presence was desired to pass judgment on those voices, which
none of the sitters could interpret.

He was amused at the invitation and thought that after an evening
of enjoyable relaxation listening in the dark to various voices someone
would reveal the technique of an ingenious hoax. Dr. Whymant, when
he met Valiantine, formed the opinion that he was a simple, rather stupid
and unlettered man, utterly incapable of any form of acting.

The sitting began with the Lord's Prayer, followed by some singing,
and the first voices that came spoke on such private matters to the other
sitters that the lecturer "felt like an eavesdropper, but luckily the dark-
ness covered all blushes." Next a voice spoke in Italian which Dr.
Whymant translated for the benefit of one of the sitters. Then suddenly —
"a weird, crackling, broken little sound which at once carried my mind

1 Whymant, Dr. Neville, Psychic Adventures in New York (London: Motley and
Mitchell Kennerley).

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 193

straight back to China. It was the sound of a flute, rather poorly played,
such as can be heard in the streets of the Celestial Land but nowhere
else." The next sound seemed to be a hollow repetition of a Chinese name,
K'ung-fu-T'zo, "The Philosopher-Master-K'ung," the name by which
Confucius was canonized. "I was not sure I had heard aright and I
asked in Chinese for another opportunity of hearing what had been said
before. This time without any hesitation at all came the name, K'ung-fu-
T'zo. Now, I thought, this was my opportunity. Chinese I had long
regarded as my own special research area, and he would be a wise man,
medium or other, who would attempt to trick me on such soil. It was
very difficult to discover what was said next, and I had to keep calling
for a repetition. Then it burst upon me that I was listening to Chinese
of a dialect not now spoken in any part of China. As the voice went on
I realized that the style of Chinese used was identical with that of a
Chinese classic edited by Confucius 2,500 years ago. Only among scholars
in archaic Chinese could one now hear that accent and style, and then
only when they intoned some passage from the ancient books. In other
words, the Chinese to which we were now listening was as dead col-
loquially as Sanskrit or Latin. I thought suddenly of a supreme test.
There are several poems in the Shih King (Classic of Poetry) which
have baffled the commentators ever since Confucius himself edited the
work and left it to posterity as a model anthology of early Chinese verse.
Western scholars have attempted in vain to wrest their meaning, and
Chinese classical scholars versed in the lore and literature of the ancient
empire have long ago given up trying to understand them. I have never
read any of these poems myself, but I knew the first lines of some of
them through seeing them so often while looking through the book for
others. At this moment it occurred to me that if I could remember the
first line of them I might now get a chance to astonish the communicator
who called himself 'Confucius.' I asked if the 'Master' would explain to
me the meaning of one of those long, obscure odes. Without exerting
conscious choice I said, 'Ts'ai Ts'ai chuan erh' which is the first line of
the third ode of the first book (Chow nan) of the Classic of Poetry. I cer-
tainly could not have repeated another line of this poem, for I did not
know any of the remaining fifteen lines; but there was no need or even
opportunity, for the voice took up the poem and recited to the end. I had

194 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

a pad of paper and a pencil and I made notes of what the voice said and
jotted down keys to the intonation used.

"In declaiming the ode the voice had put a construction on the verses
and made the whole thing hang together as a normal poem. Altogether
there were about sixteen sittings at which I assisted in exactly the same
fashion as that detailed in the first sitting. The self-styled Confucius was
very regular in its incidence. Fourteen foreign languages were used in the
course of the sittings I attended. They included Chinese, Hindu, Persian,
Basque, Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Yiddish (spoken with
great fluency when a Yiddish and Hebrew speaking Jew was a member
of the circle), German, and modern Greek."

Dr. Whymant stressed several points on "Confucius," whom, of course,
he did not accept at face value, but he said that only the Chinese could
have pronounced the name correctly, as this voice had done, and the
syllables "T'zu" or "T'ze" were very difficult to say; they were not
pronounced "T'zoo" or "T'zee" but "Ts," which latter sound cannot be
represented by English letters. As diction and Chinese intonation were
correctly uttered, Dr. Whymant did not doubt that the owner of the
voice was a Chinese scholar — wherever he operated from. One question
asked, "What was your popular name when fourteen years of age?"
brought out the correct reply with the true intonation, and this informa-
tion is known only to experts in the Chinese language.

On one occasion Dr. Whymant was thanked for the "work which thou
hast done for the Mongolians"; this, he thought, was a reference to a
small Mongolian grammar he had written and published anonymously.
One sitting was missed on account of illness and when Dr. Whymant
returned "Confucius" greeted him with the remark, "The weed of
sickness was growing beside thy door," a phrase no longer current in
China but used in ancient literature.

"Confucius" spoke in a dialect not used in China today, but Dr.
Whymant could not definitely say that it was the language of the
philosopher 2,500 years ago, and there is not one person alive who knows
how Chinese was spoken then. All that is known is the phonetic value
of some 3,000 words spoken 1,000 years after the death of Confucius.
After twenty-five years of research on this question there are only about
a dozen sounds known of the time of Confucius, and these archaic sounds
were uttered by the voice.

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA 195

To check up on the correct poetic diction furnished by the communi-
cating entity, Dr. Whymant went the next day to the Civic Library to
make the necessary investigations, concerning which he wrote: "By com-
paring my notes of the previous evening with the original text I discovered
that an error had been made — either I had misheard and had written
down one wrong character or the voice had erred in its recital of the
poem. Before I had time to comment on this at the second sitting the
voice said, 'Speaking the other day, this clumsy, witless one stepped into
error. Too frequently, alas! has he done this; and the explanation he gave
was a faulty one. Listen now to the reading of the passage about which
the illustrious scholar inquired.' Then followed the true reading with
the faulty character corrected! This certainly impressed me as out of the
ordinary."

case no. 91
The Bessy Manning Case1

"I am Bessy Manning and I want you to send a message to my mother."
This request was made to Maurice Barbanell at a direct-voice sitting held
on February 10, 1933, at which Estelle Roberts was the medium. Then the
voice added the mother's address: "14 Canterbury Street, Blackburn."

"My name is Bessy Manning," she repeated, "and I died with tubercu-
losis last Easter. I have brought my brother who was killed by a motor.
. . . Tell Mother I still have my long plaits. I am twenty-two and I have
blue eyes. Tell her to come, could you bring her here? . . . She is not
rich, she is poor."

Next day, without the slightest hesitation that the name and address
might be wrong; Maurice Barbanell sent off a telegram of invitation to
Bessy's mother in Blackburn — and it found her!

On February 20, Mr. Barbanell met Mrs. Manning at the station and
escorted her to Teddington, London, where the seance was held. A few
days after the seance she wrote thanking Mr. Barbanell, Mr. Hannen
Swaffer, and Mrs. Estelle Roberts for their kindness in making it possible
for her to visit London. "I heard my own daughter speaking, in the
same old loving way and the self-same peculiarities of speech. She spoke
of incidents that I know for a positive fact no other person could know.
I am her mother and am the best judge."

1 Barbanell, Maurice, The Trumpet Shall Sound (London: Wm. Rider and Co.), 129.

196 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"No theories of telepathy," writes Mr. Barbanell, "or subconscious mind
can apply to the evidence. No suggestion of fraud or collusion can be
entertained. Mrs. Manning had never seen Estelle Roberts in her life, yet
a full name and address were transmitted and a complete message given,
every detail of which was accurate."

case no. 92
The Hungarian Case1

This was Dr. Fodor's first experience of direct-voice phenomena with
Arthur Ford, to whom he was introduced by William Cartheuser. Dr.
Fodor had just arrived in New York a day or so previously, his ante-
cedents were unknown, and he went merely to pass the night; he might
easily have gone to a picture show or a theatre instead.

"We sat in a circle, men and women alternating. A shaded red lamp
cast a feeble glow on the middle of the floor. Alongside were two tele-
scopic trumpets. We sang and conversed to provide vibrations.

"In the red glimmer I saw one of the trumpets sway. Then it shot
up and vanished in the upper darkness. Occasionally, it was revealed in
swift motion by the red light.

"While the medium was heard speaking in his place, it travelled around
and gently touched various sitters.

"I heard whistling from the trumpet. Then a sonorous, pleasant, and
friendly voice says: 'Good evening, my friends.'

"The seance is in full swing. 'Dead' sweethearts, fathers, and mothers
come to talk.

"I feel breathless, keyed up. The trumpet is not very clear. It is only
Fletcher (Ford's guide) whom one can easily follow. He often steps in
and explains. He cracks jokes. His laugh is delightful.

"The strain is easing. It is a social evening. People are quite jolly.
| risk a request.

"Could Fletcher bring someone speaking Hungarian? My wife is more
practical. She wants her brother, a brilliant artist who died very young.
Fletcher, full of sympathy, says : 'I will try. Have a little patience.'

"The trumpet clatters to the floor. Silence. Now it shoots up. I hear a

1 By courtesy of Dr. Nandor Fodor, New York — from The Psychic News, November
7, 1936. London.

DIRECT-VOICE PHENOMENA

197

voice. Cold shivers run down my back. It sounds like a distant cry.
It is repeated. Someone is calling my name.

"'Who . . . who is it? Whom do you want?' I ask hoarsely in my
native tongue.

"The call is more explicit: 'Fodor. . . . Journalist!'

"The last word shakes me to the core. It is pronounced in German. It is
the only German word my father ever used. He used it only when he
spoke about me!

"I stammered an answer. Craning my neck in the dark in the direction
of the trumpet, I listened with strained nerves to tatters of a terrific
struggle for expression.

" 'Edesapa . . . edesapa. . . .' (Dear father . . . dear father.)

"The voice vibrates with emotion. It makes me hot and burning. I
sound unnatural to myself: 'Apdm? Apdtn?' (Father, dear?)

" 'Iges. Edes fiam. . . .' (Yes, dear son. . . .)

"I cannot describe the minutes that followed. From beyond the Great
Divide somebody who says he is my father is making desperate efforts
to master some weird instrument of speech, and trembles with anxiety
to prove his presence by speaking in his native tongue :

'"Budapest . . . nem ertesz? Ene\ele\. . . . Magyar Kislany vagyo\!
(Budapest . . . don't you understand? ... I will sing. . . .)

"I don't know the song. Two lines rhyming. Have I heard them before?

"I recognize the pet name of my eldest brother, to whom my father
was very attached.

"The voice comes from near the ceiling. But it comes nearer at my
request. It is still struggling for words.

"Fletcher takes pity and explains: 'Your father wishes to tell you that
he died on January 16. It is for the first time he tries to speak. That makes
it very difficult for him.'

"The interruption brings relief. The voice becomes much clearer. It
gives me a message about my mother and sister.

"Then: 'Isten dldjon meg, edes fiam.' (God bless you, my son.)

"Sounds of kisses. . . . Silence. . . .

"The trumpet provides a fresh thrill. It speaks again in Hungarian:
'Esti Ujsdg.' (Evening News.)

"My wife screams.

198 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

"Esti Ujsdg was the newspaper on the staff of which her brother was
employed before he died.

" 'Sanyi\a?'

"Tes.'

"I feel her trembling with excitement.

"The voice is youthful and explosive. It speaks as my wife's brother
would. 'He' knows all about the family and is always about. 'He' has but
one regret: 'Szegeny Vilmis bacsil' (Poor Uncle Vilmos.)

" 'Why, what is wrong with Uncle Vilmos ? '

" 'He is not well. He will go blind.'

"We receive the prophecy in dead silence.

"My experience was more unusual than that of the majority. I was
a foreigner on the staff of a foreign daily in New York. I had few
friends. They were all new ones. None of them knew about my old
country relations. Yet the statements about my family were correct.

"The voice spoke in Hungarian. Plain as the words were, my native
tongue offers a variety of expression for the relationship between father
and son.

"The voice made no mistake. My father was in the habit of using the
very words.

"He had forgotten his German years before. It was no more spoken at
home. The only word retained was 'journalist.' He was very proud of his
boy, the journalist. The Hungarian equivalent is ujsdgiro. He never used
it. He preferred the German term.

"The reference to the date of his death was not correct. He did not die
on January 16. But he was buried on that day.

"Uncle Vilmos, as predicted, went blind — and committed suicide! I
knew him as Uncle Villy. Vilmos (the proper name) left me uneasy.
I had the matter out with my mother-in-law two years later when I
revisited Budapest. She opened her eyes wide.

"'Why, didn't you know? My boy alone in the family called him
Uncle Vilmos. He was Uncle Villy to everybody else!' "

Chapter 11
MATERIALIZATION

The character of the ordinary materializing seance is probably known
well enough to render any long description unnecessary.

The medium is usually inside a cabinet, sometimes tied or fastened,
while the investigators sit 'round in the form of a half-circle in a room,
sometimes completely dark or lighted by a red light. After a certain
time, full life-size figures issue from the cabinet and walk about the
sitters.

It is believed that these forms are built up in some way with a vital
substance, probably of biological origin — known as ectoplasm — drawn
from the bodies of the sitters and the medium. In the course of time,
when the power wanes, the forms dematerialize before the eyes of the
sitters.

The foregoing, of course, is what the sitters see when they attend
materializing seances; the interpretation of such is an entirely different
matter, on which authorities differ, and if any branch of psychical phe-
nomena should be left in the hands of the experts, it should be the study
of materialization. It is far too complicated for the amateur investigator.

case no. 93
The Katie King Case1
Today, the study and investigation of psychical research is considered
proper and respectable and in it even the clergy and aristocracy may safely
indulge to their heart's content without losing caste in their own par-
ticular strata of society, but there was a time — about seventy years ago —
when only the bravest of the brave could allow it to be known that such
was occupying their attention. Many scientists have been, and are,
psychical researchers, but none more courageous than Sir William
Crookes, who first blazed the trail in the bigoted Victorian era. He

1 Crookes, Sir William, Researches into the Phenomena of Spiritualism (London:
James Burns).

199

200 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

suffered not only at the hands of the general public, the press, and the
pulpit — that was only to be expected — but his fellow scientists poured
scorn and contempt upon his head. Nevertheless, he did not retreat from
the position he had taken, but stood his ground till the day of his death.
D. D. Home was one of the first mediums he investigated. We are not
concerned with him in this chapter, but with a lady — Miss Florence Cook,
a materializing medium.

Miss Cook had been attacked by opponents and Crookes defended
her by publishing his experiences with her in a series of letters in the
psychic press of that day.

The first letter, written on February 3, 1874, describes a single sitting:

"The seance was held at the house of Mr. Luxmore, and the 'cabinet'
was a black drawing-room, separated from the front room in which the
company sat by a curtain.

"The usual formality of searching the room and examining the fasten-
ings having been gone through, Miss Cook entered the cabinet. After a
little time the form of Katie appeared at the side of the curtain, but soon
retreated, saying her medium was not well and could not be put into
a sufficiently deep sleep to make it safe for her to be left.

"I was sitting within a few feet of the curtain close behind which Miss
Cook was sitting and I could frequently hear her sob and moan as if in
pain. This uneasiness continued at intervals nearly the whole duration
of the seance, and once, when the form of Katie (King, the materialized
control) was standing before me in the room I distinctly heard a sobbing,
moaning sound, identical with that which Miss Cook had been making
at intervals the whole time of the seance, come from behind the curtain
where the young lady was supposed to be sitting. I admit that the figure
was startlingly lifelike and real, and as far as I could see in the some-
what dim light, the features resembled those of Miss Cook; but still the
positive evidence of one of my own senses that the moan came from
Miss Cook in the cabinet, while the figure was outside, is too strong to be
upset by a mere inference to the contrary, however well supported."

Crookes was not quite convinced by this single sitting and he asked
his readers to suspend judgment until he had completed a series of

MATERIALIZATION 201

seances, when they would hear from him again one way or another,
whether she was fraudulent or genuine.
On March 30, he published his next letter:

"I will, for the present, pass over most of the tests which Katie has
given me on the many occasions when Miss Cook has favored me with
seances at this house, and will describe only one or two which I have
recently had. I have for some time past been experimenting with a phos-
phorus lamp, consisting of a 6-ounce, or 8-ounce bottle containing a little
phosphorized oil and tighdy corked. I have had reason to hope that by
the light of this lamp some of the mysterious phenomena of the cabinet
might be rendered visible, and Katie has also expressed herself hopefully
as to the same result. On March 12, during a seance here, after Katie had
been walking among us and talking for some time, she retreated behind the
curtain which separated my laboratory, where the company was sitting,
from my library, . which did temporary duty as a cabinet. In a minute
she came to the curtain and called me to her, saying, 'Come into the room
and lift my medium's head up; she has slipped down.' Katie was then
standing before me clothed in her usual white robes and turban head-
dress." I immediately walked into the library to Miss Cook, Katie step-
ping aside to allow me to pass. I found Miss Cook had slipped partially
off the sofa, and her head was hanging in a very awkward position.
I lifted her on to the sofa, and in doing so had satisfactory evidence, in
spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not attired in the 'Katie' cos-
tume, but had on her ordinary black velvet dress and was in a very deep
trance. Not more than three seconds elapsed between my seeing the
white-robed Katie standing before me and my raising Miss Cook on to the
sofa from the position into which she had fallen.

"On returning to my post of observation by the curtain, Katie again
appeared, and said she thought she should be able to show herself and
her medium to me at the same time. The gas was then turned out, and
she asked for my phosphorus lamp. After exhibiting herself by it for
some seconds, she handed it back to me saying, 'Now, come in and see
my medium.' I closely followed her into the library, and by the light of
my lamp saw Miss Cook lying on the sofa just as I had left her. I looked

202 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

'round for Katie but she had disappeared. I called her but there was no
answer.

"On resuming my place, Katie soon reappeared and told me that she
had been standing close to Miss Cook all the time. She then asked if she
might try an experiment herself, and taking the phosphorus lamp from
me she passed behind the curtain, asking me not to look in for the present.
My eldest son, a lad of fourteen, who was sitting opposite me in such a
position that he could see behind the curtain, tells me he distinctly saw the
phosphorus lamp apparently floating in space over Miss Cook, illuminat-
ing her as she lay motionless on the sofa, but he could not see anyone
holding the lamp.

"I pass on to a seance held last night at Hackney. Katie never appeared
to greater perfection, and for nearly two hours she walked about the
room, conversing familiarly with those present. On several occasions
she took my arm when walking, and the impression conveyed to my mind
that it was a living woman by my side instead of a visitor from the other
world, was so strong that the temptation to repeat a certain celebrated
experiment became almost irresistible. Feeling, however, that if I had not
a spirit, I had at all events a lady close to me, I asked her permission to
clasp her in my arms, so as to be able to verify the interesting observations
which a bold experimentalist has recently somewhat verbosely recorded.
Permission was graciously granted, and I accordingly did — well, as any
gentleman would do in the circumstances. . . .

"Katie now said she thought she should be able this time to show
herself and Miss Cook together. I was to turn the gas out, and then come
with my phosphorus lamp into the room now used as a cabinet. This I
did, having previously asked a friend who was skillful at shorthand to
take down any statement I might make when in the cabinet, knowing
the importance attaching to first impressions, and not wishing to leave
more to memory than necessary. His notes are now before me.

"I went cautiously into the room, it being dark, and felt about for Miss
Cook. I found her crouching on the floor. Kneeling down, I let air
enter the lamp, and by its light I saw the young lady dressed in black
velvet, as she had been in the early part of the evening, and to all
appearances perfectly senseless; she did not move when I took her hand
and held the light quite close to her face, but continued quietly breathing:

MATERIALIZATION 203

Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind
Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had seen her
previously during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine,
and still kneeling, I passed the lamp up and down so as to illuminate
Katie's whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I was really
looking at the veritable Katie whom I had clasped in my arms a few
minutes before, and not at the phantasm of a disordered brain. She
did not speak, but moved her head and smiled in recognition. Three
separate times did I carefully examine Miss Cook crouching before me,
to be sure that the hand I held was that of a living woman, and three
separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie and examine her with stead-
fast scrutiny until I had no doubt whatever of her objective reality. At
last Miss Cook moved slightly, and Katie instantly moved me to go
away. I went to another part of the cabinet and then ceased to see Katie,
but did not in fact leave the room till Miss Cook woke up, and two of
the visitors came in with a light.

"Before concluding this article I wish to give some of the points of
difference I have observed between Miss Cook and Katie. Katie's height
varies; in my house I have seen her six inches taller than Miss Cook. Last
night, with bare feet and not 'tip-toeing,' she was four and a half inches
taller than Miss Cook. Katie's neck was bare last night; the skin was per-
fectly smooth both to touch and sight, whilst on Miss Cook's neck is a
large blister, which, under similar circumstances, is distinctly visible and
rough to the touch. Katie's ears are unpierced, whilst Miss Cook habitu-
ally wears earrings. Katie's complexion is very fair, while that of Miss
Cook is very dark. Katie's fingers are much longer than Miss Cook's,
and her face is also larger. In manners and ways of expression there are
also many decided differences."

Later, Crookes described his final sitting when Katie King materialized
for the last time:

"During the week before Katie took her departure she gave seances at
my house almost nightly, to enable me to photograph her by artificial
light. Five complete sets of photographic apparatus were accordingly fitted
up for the purpose, consisting of five cameras, one of the whole-plate size,
one half-plate, one quarter-plate, and two binocular stereoscopic cameras,

204 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

which were all brought to bear upon Katie at the same time on each
occasion on which she stood for her portrait. Five sensitizing and fixed
baths were used, and plenty of plates were cleaned ready for use in ad-
vance, so that there might be no hitch or delay during the photographic
operations, which were performed by myself, aided by one assistant.
. . . Each evening there were three or four exposures of plates in the
five cameras, giving at least fifteen separate pictures at each seance; some
of these were spoilt in the developing, and some in regulating the amount
of light. Altogether I had forty-four negatives, some inferior, some
indifferent, and some excellent.

"Katie instructed all the sitters but myself to keep their seats and to
keep conditions, but for some time past she has given me permission to
do what I liked — to touch her, and to enter and leave the cabinet almost
whenever I pleased. I have frequently followed her into the cabinet, and
have sometimes seen her and her medium together, but most generally
I have found nobody but the entranced medium lying on the floor, Katie
and her white robes having instantaneously disappeared.

"During the last six months Miss Cook has been a frequent visitor
at my house, remaining sometimes a week at a time. She brings nothing
with her but a little handbag, not locked ; during the day she is constantly
in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other member of the
family; and, not sleeping by herself, there is absolutely no opportunity for
any preparation even of a less elaborate character than would be required
for enacting Katie King. I prepare and arrange my library as the dark
cabinet, and usually, after Miss Cook has been dining and conversing
with us, and scarcely out of our sight for a minute, she walks directly into
the cabinet, and I, at her request, lock its second door, and keep possession
of the key all through the seance. The gas is then turned out, and Miss
Cook is left in darkness.

"On entering the cabinet Miss Cook lies down upon the floor, with
her head on a pillow, and is soon entranced. During the photographic
seance Katie muffled the medium's head up in a shawl to prevent the
light falling upon her face. I frequently drew the curtain on one side when
Katie was standing near, and it was a common thing for the seven or
eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie at the same time,
under the full blaze of the electric light. We did not on these occasions

MATERIALIZATION 205

actually see the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw
her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of the
intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have one photograph
of the two together, but Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's head.

"One of the most interesting of the pictures is one in which I am
standing at the side of Katie; she has her bare feet upon a particular
part of the floor. Afterwards, I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed her
and myself in exactly the same position, and we were photographed by
the same cameras, placed exactly as in the other experiment, and illu-
minated by the same light. When these two pictures are placed over each
other, the two photographs of myself coincide exactly as regards stature,
etc., but Katie is half a head taller than Miss Cook, and looks like a big
woman in comparison with her. In the breadth of her face, in many of the
pictures, she differs essentially in size from her medium, and the photo-
graphs show several other points of difference.

"Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she has been illuminated
by the electric light, I am enabled to add to the points of difference be-
tween her and her medium which I mentioned in a former article. I
have the most absolute certainty that Miss Cook and Katie are two
separate individuals so far as their bodies are concerned. Several little
marks on Miss Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's hair is so
dark a brown as almost to appear black; a lock of Katie's which is now
before me, and which she allowed me to cut from her luxuriant tresses,
having first traced it up to the scalp and satisfied myself that it actually
grew there, is a rich golden auburn.

"One evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat steadily at seventy-five,
while Miss Cook's pulse a litde after was going at its usual rate of ninety.
On applying my ear to Katie's chest I could hear a heart beating rhyth-
mically inside, and pulsating even more steadily than did Miss Cook's
heart when she allowed me to try a similar experiment after the seance.
Tested in the same way Katie's lungs were found to be sounder than her
medium's, for at the time I tried my experiment Miss Cook was under
medical treatment for a severe cough."

Two of the tests that Crookes made with Miss Cook may be mentioned.
An electrical test was devised by Mr. Cromwell Varley. The medium was

206 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

placed in an electric circuit connected with a resistance coil and a gal-
vanometer. The movements of the galvanometer, on a large graduated
scale, were shown in the outer room to the sitters. If the medium had
removed the wires the galvanometer would have shown violent fluctua-
tions, yet nothing suspicious occurred, for Katie appeared, waved her
arms, shook hands with her friends and wrote in their presence. As an
additional test Crookes asked Katie to plunge her hands into a chemical
solution. No deflection of the galvanometer was seen. This would have
been infallibly the case if Katie had the wires on her because the solution
would have modified the current.

"When the time came for Katie to take her farewell I asked that she
would let me see the last of her. Accordingly, when she called each of the
company up to her and had spoken to them a few words in private, she
gave some general directions for the future guidance and protection of
Miss Cook. . . . Having concluded her directions, Katie invited me into
the cabinet with her and allowed me to remain to the end.

"After closing the curtains she conversed with me for some time and
then walked across the room to where Miss Cook was lying senseless on
the floor. Stooping over her, Katie touched her and said, 'Wake up,
Florrie, wake up! I must leave you now.' Miss Cook then woke and
entreated Katie to stay a little time longer. 'My dear, I can't, my work is
done. God bless you.' For several minutes the two were conversing with
each other, till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her from speaking.
Following Katie's instructions, I then came forward to support Miss
Cook, who was falling on the floor, sobbing hysterically. I looked 'round,
but the white-robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook was sufficiently
calmed, a light was procured and I led her out of the cabinet.

"The almost daily seances with which Miss Cook has lately favored
me have proved a severe tax upon her strength and I wish to make the
most public acknowledgment of the obligations I am under to her for
her readiness to assist me in my experiments. Every test that I have
proposed she has at once agreed to submit to with the utmost willingness;
she is open and straightforward in speech, and I have never seen anything
approaching the slightest symptom of a wish to deceive. Indeed, I do not
believe she could carry on a deception if she wished to try, and if she did

MATERIALIZATION 207

she would certainly be found out very quickly, for such a line of action
is altogether foreign to her nature. And to imagine that an innocent
schoolgirl of fifteen should be able to conceive and then successfully
carry out for three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that
time should submit to any test which might be imposed upon her, should
bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched at any time,
either before or after a seance, and should meet with even better success
in my own house than at that of her parents, knowing that she visited
me with the express object of submitting to strict scientific tests — to
imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the result of
imposture does more violence to one's reason and common sense than
to believe her to be what she herself affirms."

Crookes maintained his belief to the end of his life, and before the
British Association at Bristol in 1898 he declared: "Upon one other in-
terest I have not touched — to me the weightiest and farthest-reaching
of all. No incident in my scientific career is more widely known than
the part I took many years ago in certain psychic researches. Thirty years
have passed since I published an account of experiments tending to show
that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a Force exercised by
intelligence differing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals.
I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my already published statements.
Indeed, I might add much thereto."

case no. 94
The Palladino Case1
In this case Professor Richet describes two of the rare examples of
materialization in the career of Eusapia Palladino, the Italian medium.

"In the eighteenth seance, at Genoa," he says, "the best of them all,
in the presence of Morselli, Porro, L. Ramorino, L. Vassalo, and Dr.
Venzano of the Minerva Circle, on December 23, 1901, in the dark two
invisible forms manifested which were afterwards seen by weak light.
The first was a little deceased daughter of Porro who felt a child under
a veil. We heard the child speak in a baby voice; she kissed Porro. This

1 Richet, Charles, Thirty Years of Psychical Research (London: Wm. Collins Sons
and Co., Ltd.).

208 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

form could not be seen. Then another came, the son of Vassalo, who
died aged sixteen. This entity became visible ... a third and a fourth
entity appeared. The third was distinctly seen, but identification was
doubtful.

"In another seance, the twenty-third, which was also a very important
one, held in M. Avellino's house, Eusapia was fastened down on a bed
placed behind the curtain. Then an apparition was seen of a young girl;
the hand, shoulders and part of the bust being visible and perhaps slightly
phosphorescent. A turban hid her ears, chin, and hair; she remained still
for some twenty seconds. A second apparition then showed a tall man,
with an abundant full beard, large head with prominent bones, and a
thick neck. Four more appeared, first the head of a young woman in an
oriental garb; the fourth was not completely formed, it seemed imperfect
on the right side. Says Morselli, 'I saw the eyes looking at me; although
bright enough for me to see the reflection of the lights on the cornea,
they seemed veiled. When I approached her she made no attempt to
retreat but made a salutation with her arm and went. The fifth and sixth
were of a woman of about fifty and a young child; these appeared
together.' "

case no. 95
The Mart he Case1
This example is taken from an investigation of Marthe Beraud by
Professor Richet, whose conclusions were later confirmed by Dr. Schrenck-
Notzing and Mme Bisson. The experiments were held in a small isolated
building in Algiers. The conditions were test-proof, the window was
blocked up and remained shut at all times. The only door was locked
at the beginning of every seance. There was only one room in the build-
ing; it was minutely inspected by Richet and his friend Delanne before
every seance, and no stranger could enter during the seances.

"The materializations produced," wrote Richet, "were very complete.
The phantom of Bien Boa appeared five or six times under satisfactory
conditions in the sense that he could not be Marthe masquerading in a
helmet and a sheet. Also, Marthe and the phantom were both seen at the
same time. . . . He walked and moved, his eyes could be seen looking

1 Richet, Charles, op. at.

MATERIALIZATION 209

'round, and when he tried to speak his lips moved. He seemed so much
alive that, as we could hear his breathing, I took a flask of baryta water
to see if his breath would show carbon dioxide. The experiment suc-
ceeded. I did not lose sight of the flask from the moment when I put
it into the hands of Bien Boa who seemed to float in the air on the left
of the curtain at a height greater than Marthe could have been if standing
up. When he blew into the tube the bubbling could be heard and I asked
Delanne, 'Do you see Marthe?' He said, 'I see Marthe completely.' . . .
I could myself see the form of Marthe sitting in her chair, though I could
not see her head and her right shoulder. ... A comical incident oc-
curred at this point. When we saw the baryta show white (which inci-
dentally shows the light was good), we cried, 'Bravo.' Bien Boa then
vanished, but reappeared three times, opening and closing the curtain
and bowing like an actor who receives applause."

case no. 96
The Salmon Case1

Dr. Paul Gibier, an eminent physiologist and a director of the Pasteur
Institute in New York, had a very decisive experience with Mrs. Salmon.

He experimented in his own laboratory, using an iron cage specially
made to his instructions, with a door closing by a lock. Mrs. Salmon was
placed in the cage, the door was locked, and a stamp paper gummed over
the lock. He put the key in his pocket. A very short time after the lights
had been extinguished, hands, arms, and living forms came out of the
cage — a man, a woman, more often a gay, lively little girl. Suddenly
Mrs. Salmon emerged from the cage and fell half fainting on the floor.
The seals were found intact and the door had not been opened.

In a second experiment, still more demonstrative, the cage was replaced
by a wooden cabinet, specially constructed and hermetically closed. Mrs.
Salmon was tied firmly by a ribbon 'round her neck, sealed to the walls
of the cabinet. The lights were scarcely extinguished before a bare fore-
arm and hand appeared outside the cabinet, just twenty-four seconds after
darkness was made. Then another form moved outside. Then a woman,
seemingly alive, came out of the cabinet and was recognized by Mme
D. and Mme B. This phantasmal personage spoke French very well;

1 Annales des Sciences Psychiques (1901). Richet, Charles, op. cit.

210 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Mrs. Salmon can only speak a few words of French. The apparition re-
mained for about two minutes, and Dr. Gibier could distinguish the
features. She was slight in build, seemed about twenty-five, though Mrs.
Salmon is corpulent and aged about fifty. Little Mandy came later, about
a yard in height. Then a tall man, whose muscular, vigorous, and com-
pletely masculine hand Dr. Gibier was able to clasp. After a short time
this last form dissolved and seemed to sink into the floor.

After this stirring seance everything was found intact; Mrs. Salmon
was still bound, the silk ribbon 'round her neck just as placed prior to the

case no. 97
The Schrenck-Notzing Case1

Psychical researchers have a habit — when a colleague has issued a
report of a series of successful tests with a medium — of checking up on
that same medium under even more rigorous conditions, just in case
that colleague has committed a terrible blunder by permitting himself
to be deluded; and besides, most psychical researchers — about the most
distrustful class in the world, worse than lawyers — want to see for them-
selves.

Professor Richet had acquired the reputation of a cautious investigator,
but this meant nothing to Baron A. Schrenck-Notzing, and Marthe
Beraud was engaged to produce her phenomena again.

Was the German investigator stricter and did he take more precautions
than the Frenchman? Even Richet, who thought he had been very care-
ful, admitted that the Baron had excelled him in the art of preventing
a medium from assisting by normal means in the phenomena.

The experiments lasted over a period of four years and at their con-
clusion Marthe emerged triumphant.

The cabinet was thoroughly searched before and after each seance.
Marthe was completely undressed and in the presence of Schrenck-
Notzing and his assistants clothed in a special close-fitting garment cover-
ing her from head to foot. A veil of tulle sewn on to the other garment
completely covered her head. Hair, armpits, nose, mouth, and knees were

1 Schrenck-Notzing, Baron A., Materializations phaenomene (Munich: E. Reinhardt).
Richet, Charles, op. cit.

MATERIALIZATION 211

examined, and in some seances the investigators made, in the fullest sense
of the word, a complete examination of her. In Marthe's case the ecto-
plasm issues from the mouth and in case she was indulging in regurgita-
tion, syrup of bilberries was administered, whose strong coloring
properties are widely known, but despite this the materialized forms con-
tinued to emerge white as formerly. At one seance, determined to ensure
that regurgitation was not being resorted to, Marthe, in the sacred name
of science, was asked to drink a strong emetic!

The light in front of the curtain was strong enough to allow large
print to be read, and behind the curtain were red and white lights that
could be switched on whenever the investigators considered proper.

Three cameras, one of which was stereoscopic, were always focused
on the cabinet and ready to be worked at a moment's notice. Occasionally
the cameras were increased to nine in number. Yet, despite all these
precautions, materialized figures appeared, but it should be pointed out
that the figures were not so natural and lifelike as those obtained by
Richet; nevertheless, they were entirely supernormal, even allowing for
the inferior quality. Materialization was now an established fact!

In Schrenck-Notzing's book, numerous photographs accompany the
text, enabling the student to follow with intelligence the sequence of the
phenomena.

It is impossible in this book to give more than brief accounts of the
seances, and a few extracts only are quoted:

"April 15, 1912. — The manifestations began at once, white substance
appeared on the neck of the medium; then a head was formed which
moved from left to right and placed itself on the medium's head. A pho-
tograph was taken. After the flashlight the head reappeared by the side
of the medium's head, about sixteen inches from it, connected by a long
bunch of white substance. It looked like the head of a man, and made
movements like bows. Some twenty appearances and reappearances of
this head were counted; it appeared, retreated into the cabinet and
emerged again. A woman's head then appeared on the right, showed
itself near the curtains, and went back into the cabinet, returned several
times and disappeared.

"August 30, 1912.— The white substance was seen on the medium's left

212 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

shoulder, then on her abdomen. Dr. Klapfa verified that the medium's
hands were in sight holding the curtain during the whole time. A
brownish white mass was visible on her knees. On a sign Schrenck
entered the cabinet suddenly, put on the light, while Klapfa tried to
seize the white substance, but could grasp nothing, for it disappeared
at once. The experiment was resumed in spite of the terror evinced
by the medium at this attempt, and the face of a man appeared, which
vanished after a few seconds.

"June 13, 1913. — The substance emerged from the medium's mouth;
at its end was a materialized finger. M. Bourbon took hold of this as it
came from the medium's mouth and verified the bone in it, and also
that it was flexible. This finger came right through the tulle with which
the medium's head was covered, the tulle showing no sign of being
torn. The apparition (the form of a man, much larger than Marthe,
with long mustaches) came out of the cabinet, began to speak, and
went to Mme Bisson, who kissed him on the cheek; the sound was
quite audible."

In 1910, Dr. Gustave Geley, of the Metapsychic Institute, Paris,
had investigated Marthe; his findings were identical to those of Schrenck-
Notzing and Richet. He summed up his opinion on these researches as
follows: "I do not say merely, 'There was no trickery.' I say, 'There was
no possibility of trickery. Nearly all the materializations took place under
my own eyes and I have observed their genesis and development' "

case no. 98
The Goligher Case1

One of the problems that have puzzled investigators of physical phe-
nomena— the movement of objects without visible touch — for many years
is the technique of the operation. In almost every case the discarnate have
claimed to be the invisible operators, yet how were they able to move
objects about when the medium was fastened under test conditions?

Dr. W. J. Crawford of the Technical Institute, Belfast, experimenting
with a non-professional medium, Miss Kathleen Goligher (now Lady
G. Donaldson), saw table movements without contacts of any kind. "I

1 Crawford, Dr. W. J., Experiments in Psychical Science (London: John M.
Watkins) .

MATERIALIZATION 213

have seen," wrote Dr. Crawford, "hundreds of these levitations. Some-
times a chair would rise off its four feet and remain in the air for several
minutes." By different instruments Crawford measured the ectoplasmic
force emanating from the medium, and when she was placed on a weigh-
ing machine Crawford found that during the levitation of light objects
their weight was added to the medium — just as if, apparently, the medium
were lifting the objects herself; but Crawford took every precaution against
that.

He drew the inference that the ectoplasm, issuing from the medium,
materialized itself into rigid rods, and by this means objects were psychi-
cally raised. "The cantilever method is made use of for light bodies or
when the applied forces are small, and the strut method for heavy bodies
or when the applied forces are large."

At this stage the reader may well say, "These scientific tests on the
movement of objects without applied normal force are very interesting,
and as Dr. Crawford claimed he may have had such demonstrated again
and again under test conditions to his satisfaction, but what connection
have these tests with the question of survival? Undoubtedly, it is very
interesting to see a chair apparently of its own accord rise into the air,
but how does that prove that the personality of man has survived bodily
death?"

The whole point of this case turns on the identity of the operators of the
movements. The discarnate controlling Miss Goligher in trance claimed
that they were the operators, once inhabitants of this planet, and Craw-
ford, after long and mature consideration, accepted their claim ; this aspect
of the case he kept in mind throughout his investigations.

In his preface to The Reality of Psychic Phenomena he wrote:

"I do not discuss in this book the identity of the invisible operators.
That is left for another occasion. But in order that there may be no mis-
apprehension, I wish to state explicitly that I am personally satisfied they
are the spirits of human beings who have passed into the beyond."

case no. 99

The Klusfy Case1
No branch of psychic phenomena has given more positive proof of its
1 Richer, Charles, op. cit.

214 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

genuineness than that of the production of wax molds under test condi-
tions that entirely rule out all fraud and trickery on the part of the
medium, for not only does the process of materialization take place in the
presence of the experimenters, but the reverse operation, dematerialization,
also occurs.

Since the knowledge of this special type of psychical phenomenon is not
widely known, a brief explanation may be acceptable to the reader.

In the darkened seance room baths of melted wax are placed before
the seated medium, his hands and feet in the control of the investigators.
Ectoplasm issuing from his body assumes the form of hands, sometimes
feet, and these hands — manipulated by invisible operators — dip into the
melted wax until a thin waxen glove surrounds them. The hands then
dematerialize, leaving behind an empty shell, afterwards filled with plaster
of paris, which is kept as a permanent record, as the wax gloves are very
brittle and easily broken.

As far back as 1897, Aksakoff, a Russian investigator, cited in the
psychic journals of his day various cases of paraffin molds, but little atten-
tion was paid to his account and even the putty cast of a head created
at a Palladino seance was not given much consideration.

When Franck Kluski, a non-professional Polish medium, a man of
good education and position in Warsaw, produced, according to reports,
wax molds of the most unusual type under the severest conditions that
investigators could create, the psychical researchers of Europe were soon
on his trail; his mediumship must be confirmed or condemned.

Richet and Geley held a series of seances with him at the Metapsychic
Institute, and Richet describes one of the sittings as follows:

"Geley and I took the precaution of introducing, unknown to any other
person, a small quantity of cholesterin in the bath of melted paraffin wax
placed before the medium during the seance. This substance is soluble
in paraffin without discoloring it, but on adding sulphuric acid it takes
a deep violet-red tint; so that we could be absolutely certain that any
molds obtained should be' from the paraffin provided by ourselves. We
therefore had certain proof that the molds obtained could not have been
prepared in advance but must have been produced during the seance
itself. Absolute certainty was thus secured.

MATERIALIZATION 215

"During the seance the medium's hands were held firmly by Geley
and myself on the right and on the left, so that he could not liberate
either hand. The first mold obtained was of a child's hand, then a second
of both hands, right and left; a third time of a child's foot. The creases
in the skin and the veins were visible on the plaster casts made from
the molds.

"By reason of the narrowness at the wrists these molds could not have
been made from living hands, for the whole hand would have to be with-
drawn through the narrow opening at the wrist. Professional modelers
secure their results by threads attached to the hand which are pulled
through the plaster. In the molds here considered there was nothing of
the sort; they were produced by a materialization followed by dematerial-
ization, for the latter was necessary to disengage the hand from the
paraffin 'glove.' These" experiments, which we intend to resume on account
of their importance, afford an absolute proof of a materialization fol-
lowed by a dematerialization, for even if the medium had the means to
produce the results by a normal process, he could not have made use of
them. We defy the most skillful modelers to obtain such molds without
using the plan of two segments separated by thread and afterwards
united.

"We therefore affirm that there was a materialization and dematerial-
ization of an ectoplasmic or fluidic hand, and we think that this is the
first time that such rigorous conditions of experiments have been imposed."

Further experiments were made with Kluski, resulting in fresh paraf-
fin molds, which prove conclusively that the "gloves" of paraffin wax
were obtained during the seance, that these were of a living hand show-
ing the texture of the skin, the veins, and the creases of the skin, and
that a normal hand could not have released itself from the glove.

These were the conclusions of practiced molders, called in as experts.
They say, "We cannot understand how these paraffin molds could have
been made; it is an absolute mystery to us." This mystery is dematerializa-
tion, a correlative of materialization. The whole of this investigation
made by Geley with minute care is of the highest importance, for it gives
irrefragable scientific demonstration of ectoplasmic materialization.

216 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

CASE NO. 100

The Rosalie Case1

This unique case is out of category in this chapter, although it may
appear to possess superficial resemblances to such, and if the compiler
were pressed to give a definition of this seance, he would require to use
the word "etherealization" as the best description that springs to his mind.
There is always a medium confined in a cabinet in ordinary seances, but
in the account which follows the reader will notice that the cabinet
certainly and the medium apparently are absent.

Shortly after Mr. Harry Price had given a broadcast on haunted houses
on November 4, 1937, he was called at his office by a lady who said
she had recently read in The Listener of November 10, 1937, the pub-
lished version of that talk. The lady was impressed with his work
and said she could guarantee "a much more objective ghost" than the one
he had mentioned in his talk. Mr. Price was invited to a house in a
London suburb where he would see "Rosalie," a little girl spirit who
never failed to materialize! The invitation involved certain conditions,
however: he was not to reveal the locality of the house or the identity of
the sitters, but he could write and publish a candid report on the seance.
He was not to ask for a further scientific test if he was impressed with this
one, for Rosalie's mother was in terror lest her "girl" should be frightened
away; the seances were a sacred reunion between mother and daughter.
He was not to bring a light, or speak to or touch Rosalie without per-
mission. If these conditions suited, Mr. Price could search the whole
house from top to bottom and have full control of the sitters and the
seance room prior to the commencement of the seance. Mr. Price agreed,
and on Wednesday, December 15, arrived at the house at the appointed
hour. After a slight meal, the history of Rosalie was related. Mrs. X., his
hostess, had a friend, Mme Z., a lady of French extraction, the widow of
an English officer who had been killed in the 1914-18 war, leaving behind
him a baby, Rosalie. Five years later, Rosalie, aged six, died, and four
years after, Mme Z. believed she heard Rosalie crying in her room one
night. This happened so often that Mme Z. began to lie awake listening

1 Price, Harry, Fifty Years of Psychical Research (London: Longmans, Green & Co.),
130-44.

MATERIALIZATION 217

for the voice. Once, imagining she saw the outline of a form and hearing
the sound of footsteps, Mme Z. put out her hand and, according to her
story, touched the hand of Rosalie. Mme Z. eventually became friendly
with the X. family, who suggested that a circle should be formed for
development, and after six months of waiting Rosalie suddenly appeared
in 1929. From that time Rosalie came regularly every Wednesday, and
hand mirrors, coated with luminous paint, were used to enable the sitters
to see Rosalie.

Mr. Price set about examining the house. In his book he describes the
utmost precaution he took to prevent fraud in the seance room, and
needless to say, they were very thorough. Space is not available here to
describe them, but any reader desiring the full details will find them in
Mr. Price's book, pages 135-38. The seance was held in the drawing-
room; all unnecessary furniture was taken out. Furthermore, all the doors
and windows were thoroughly sealed. The problem of the chimney being
used as entrance and exit was solved by spreading a sheet of newspaper
under the vent and sprinkling it with starch powder, a monogram being
drawn thereon. Starch powder was also spread outside the seance room
door and the key of the door was in Mr. Price's pocket.

Mr. Price, by this time, was introduced to the sitters: Mme Z., Mr. X.,
Miss X., and the latter's fiance. The two men were examined without
trouble, but Mrs. X. and Mme Z. were a different proposition, so Mr.
Price arranged that they should sit on either side of him during the
seance; as for Miss X., he was fairly certain that she did not conceal any-
thing. The rest of the sitters were arranged to suit Mr. Price and at
9:10 p.m. the seance commenced. The room was in inky blackness, yet
Mr. Price was able to locate everyone by the sound of their voices. After
half an hour's conversation a radio was switched on, but in five minutes'
time was turned off and all were asked to keep silent. Mme Z. began to
whisper "Rosalie, Rosalie," and as the hall clock struck ten she gave
a choking cry and said, "My daughter." Rosalie had arrived, and Mr.
Price sensed a strange but not unpleasant odor in the room.

Mme Z., in a distressed condition, seemed to be caressing her child.
After some minutes, Mrs. X. asked if Mr. Price could be allowed to
touch Rosalie. On receiving sanction, he stretched out his left arm and
to his amazement felt the figure of a nude girl: chin, hair, cheeks, chest,

218 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

back, buttocks, thighs, legs, and feet — he touched them all. He was
bewildered and could hardly believe in his sense of touch, yet apparently
there was a girl before him. From where had she come ? In what manner
had she come? Then repeating the same process with two hands he
obtained the same results. He felt her pulse; it beat at the rate of ninety
a minute. He placed his ear against her chest and heard the beat of her
heart. Evidently there was no difference between a spirit girl and a
human girl!

Then he checked up on the sitters; they all responded from their
respective chairs.

Mr. Price next obtained permission to shine the plaques on Rosalie.
Mrs. X. and Mr. Price took one each and the plaques travelled upwards
— one in front and one to the side — from feet, legs, body to face. Her
eyes, shining with intelligence, appeared to be dark blue, her features
classical, and she looked a little older than her years — "a beautiful child
who would have graced any nursery in the land."

One minute was allowed for Mr. Price to ask questions and he man-
aged to get in six in that space of time.

"Where do you live, Rosalie?"

"What do you do there?"

"Do you play with other children?"

"Have you any toys there?"

"Are there any animal pets?"

These five were unanswered but at the last one:

"Rosalie, do you love your Mummy?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Yes," she lisped, and a moment later flew to
her mother's arms!

Fifteen minutes later, Rosalie vanished and how she went Mr. Price
could not say. The lights were switched on and the house examined
again — everything was in order!

At midnight Mr. Price departed, puzzled, and two hours later wrote
out his report while the events of the night were still fresh in his memory.
Was Rosalie a genuine spirit or the whole affair a swindle? Another
seance in his laboratory would settle the question. He had slight hopes
that way — perhaps they might be realized. He thought of the things

MATERIALIZATION 219

he ought to have done: taken fingerprints and discovered the medium,
as Mme Z. repudiated that claim. If the seance was a hoax, who were the
perpetrators, the X. family or Mme Z.? Together or singly? And for
what reason?

Was survival proved if Rosalie was genuine?

Which was the correct answer ? Mr. Price could not supply it.

INDEX OF CASES

Case No.

Adamina 47

Aspley 40

Austrian 12

B 50

Beadon 76

Beede 10

Beetles 73

Belasco 31

Bellamy 23

Bessy Manning 91

Blair 79

Bobby Newlove 78

Borley Rectory 19

Bowyer-Bower 32

Bridge 77

Brixham 3

Brougham 20

Buttons 55

Byers 34

Byfleet 11

C 8

Chaffin Will 9

Chinese 90

Clarke 61

Court Dress 26

D 14

Derham 62

Dribbell 58

Durocq 49

Ear of Dionysius 72

Edmunds 64

Edward 38

Egham 16

F 43

George W. Crawford 86

Glastonbury 53

Goligher 98

"G. P." 63

Great Dunmow 37

Greek 59

Hall 51

Harford 27

Hope, Star and Browning 71

Hungarian 92

Incidents from Various Sittings 89

Case No.

Jennie 44

Julia 39

Katie King 93

Kennedy 80

Kluski 99

Lanne 21

MacKenzie 5

Madeira 28

Marryat 22

Marthe 95

McConnel 35

Michigan Boulevard 13

Moody 48

Moore 46

Morton 15

Mother and Son 74

New Guinea 18

Notari 45

Ogle 41

Palladino 94

Patience Worth 54

Pearl Tie-Pin 52

Perth l

Priscilla 42

Randall 81

Raynham Hall 36

Ring 67

Rosa 24

Rosalie 100

Rose Bay 82

Rubinstein 7

Russell 25

Salmon 96

Sarawak 2

Saunders 84

Savage 65

Sayce 17

Schenck 33

Schrenck-Notzing 97

Sewald 85

Shaler 66

Signore X 69

South African 70

St. Louis 29

Talbot 75

221

222 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Case No. Case No.

Thelma 57 Welsh Language 87

"Too Private" 68 Wingfield 4

Uncle Jerry 60 W J 83

von Goertz 6 Wiinscher 30

Walter 88 X 56

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Hammonds worth: Penguin Books, Ltd.
Moody, W. R. The Life of D. L. Moody.

223

224 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Moore, W. Usborne. Spirit Identity by Direct Voice. Manchester: The Two
Worlds Publishing Co., Ltd.

Myers, F. W. H. Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. London:
Longmans, Green & Co.

. Phantasms of the Living. E. Gurney and F. Podmore.

Piper, Alta L. The Life and Wor\ of Mrs. Piper. London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co., Ltd.

Price, Harry. Fifty Years of Psychical Research. London: Longmans, Green &
Co.

. The Most Haunted House in England. London: Longmans, Green

& Co.

Prince, Dr. Walter F. The Case of Patience Worth.

. Human Experiences, Part I. Boston: S.P.R.

. Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences. Boston: S.P.R.

Proceedings, The Society for Psychical Research. London.

Psychic News, The. London.

Randall, Edward C. The Dead Have Never Died. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc.

Review Verdade e Luz. San Paolo.

Revue Spirite.

Richet, Charles. Thirty Years of Psychical Research. London: William Collins
& Co., Ltd.

Salter, William H. Ghosts and Apparitions. London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.

Schrenck-Notzing, Baron A. Materializations phaenomene. Munich: E. Rein-
hardt.

Spectator, The. London.
'Vv^ Thomas, Rev. C. Drayton. An Amazing Experiment. London: Lectures Uni-
versal, Ltd.

Travers-Smith, Hester. Voices from the Void. London: Wm. Rider & Co., Ltd.

Tubby, Gertrude O. fames H. Hyslop, X, His Boo\. The New York Publish-
ing Co.

Walker, Nea. The Bridge. London: Cassell & Co., Ltd.

Whymant, Dr. Neville. Psychic Adventures in New Yor\. London: Morley and
Mitchell Kennerley.

Yost, Casper S. Patience Worth — A Psychic Mystery.

K^

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