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Harold  E.    Escctt 


THE  WIDOW'S  MITE  AND  OTHER 
PSYCHIC    PHENOMENA 


THE  WIDOW'S  MITE 
AND    OTHER 
PSYCHIC 
PHENOMENA 


BY 

ISAAC  K.  FUNK 


Science,  when  she  has  accomplished  all  her  triumphs 
in  her  order,  will  still  have  to  go  back,  when  the  time 
comes,  to  assist  in  building  up  a  new  creed  by  which 
man  can  live. — John  Morley. 

Sit  down  before  a  fact  as  a  little  child,  be  prepared 
to  give  lip  every  preconceived  notion,  follow  humbly 
wherever  and  to  whatever  abysses  nature  leads,  or 
you  shall  learn  nothing. — Thomas  Huxley. 


FUNK  ^  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

MDCCCCIV 


Copyright,  1904 
By  FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  A  merica 
Published  May,  1904 


PREFACE 


A  YEAR  ago  a  representative  of  a  New  York  daily  came  to 
me  with  a  proof  slip  of  a  story  which  he  said  his  paper  intended 
to  print  the  next  day,  saying  that  the  editor  desired  the  proof 
corrected  wherein  it  was  in  error.  The  story  was  entitled  *'  The 
Finding  of  the  Widow's  Mite  through  the  Spirit  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,"  or  something  after  that  sort.  The  represen- 
tative was  told  that  the  report  contained  many  errors,  and  that 
its  publication  was  premature,  as  there  had  been  no  opportunity 
to  make  any  exhaustive  examination  of  the  facts  involved.  It 
was  earnestly  requested  that  the  publication  be  postponed  until 
after  the  completion  of  a  full  investigation. 

The  protest  was  in  vain,  and  the  story,  as  the  newspaper 
had  it,  went  to  the  public  and  around  the  world.  To  end  the 
untimely  discussion  that  followed,  a  note  was  sent  to  the  press 
promising,  if  further  exploitation  of  the  incident  was  postponed, 
that  when  the  investigation  was  ended  a  true  version  of  the 
story  would  be  given  to  the  public. 

This  book  is  the  fulfilment  of  that  promise.  In  a  sense  it 
has  not  been  hastily  prepared,  for  it  is  a  growth  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century  or  so.  Every  book  should  be  in  a  way  a  biography 
of  the  author,  who  progresses  to  a  thought  or  point,  and  then 
gives  a  record  of  his  tr  .vels  hither.  During  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  I  have  devoted  such  time  as  could  be  spared  from 
multifarious  duties  to  the  investigation  of  psychic  phenomena 
— this  has  been  a  recreation — keeping  a  record  of  the  more 
important  things  seen  and  heard.     Finding  myself  tied  up  to 

give  to  the  public  this  "  widow's  mite  "  incident,  it  seemed  that 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


it  might  serve  a  good  purpose  to  describe  as  nearly  as  may  be 
what  had  become  to  my  mind  the  real  psychic  problem — a 
problem  that  is  looming  to  such  proportions  as  certainly  to 
justify  much  attention  from  many  of  the  best  trained  of  our 
scientists ;  it  has  been  my  purpose  in  this  book  to  do  my  best 
to  persuade  a  larger  number  of  trained  scientists  to  serious, 
persistent,  and  intelligent  efforts  to  help  in  the  solution  of  this 
problem. 

As  Sir  William  Crookes  says  of  himself  in  giving  the  results 
of  his  own  experience  in  psychic  investigations  (see  page  328), 
I  feel  somewhat  after  my  many  years  of  experience  like  a  trav- 
eler who  has  been  long  exploring  a  strange  country  and  has 
some  most  puzzling  stories  to  tell.  The  aim  has  been  in  the 
preparation  of  these  pages  to  record  those  observations  in 
as  simple  and  straightforward  a  manner  as  possible;  but  I 
realize  that  not  one  reader  in  a  score  will  find  it  easy  to  believe 
what  is  here  told,  and  yet  nearly  all — I  venture  to  say  all  who 
know  me — would  believe  me  fully  in  other  affairs.  I  confess 
that  some  of  these  experiences  are  so  startling  that  if  they  had 
not  come  within  my  own  vision  and  hearing,  being  myself  fully 
acquainted  with  the  details  of  the  test  conditions  imposed,  I 
should  be  strongly  tempted  to  doubt  them ;  nor  even  as  it  is 
would  I  be  sure  of  the  testimony  of  my  own  senses  were  their 
testimony  not  corroborated  by  that  of  expert  psychologists  and 
other  trained  scientists. 

Yet  here  a  word  of  caution :  when  the  facts  are  admitted  to 
be  true  as  here  told,  the  reader  must  not  leap  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  hypothesis  of  spiritualism  is  proved.  There  are  many 
chasms,  each  miles  and  miles  wide,  yet  to  be  bridged  or  filled. 
Permit  me  another  cautionary  word :  there  is  danger — real  dan- 
ger—along these  lines  of  investigation.  I  have  seen  psychic 
cobwebs — if  cobwebs  they  be — tangle  the  feet  of  even  intel- 
lectual giants;  and  the  shrewdest  experts — to  change  the 
simile — need  to  sail  these  mystic  seas  with  sharp  eyes  and  level 


PREFACE  V 

heads,  for  these  seas  are  almost  wholly  uncharted,  and  in  sail- 
ing over  them  at  times  the  ship's  compasses  exhibit  inexplicable 
variations. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  best  to  give  very  freely  in  Part  I.  of 
this  volume  the  "  talks  "  of  so-called  "  spirit  controls  "  and  other 
"  spirits."  These  talks,  as  a  whole,  are  to  me  the  most  inter- 
esting and  puzzling  of  the  entire  phenomena,  coming  as  they 
often  do  from  cabinets  in  which  are  uneducated  mediums,  some- 
times mediums  who  are  but  little  children.  These  speeches 
are  given  very  freely,  that  the  reader  may  be  able  to  judge  of 
the  intellectual  caliber  of  these  intelligences.  Quite  likely  they 
will  make  dull  reading  to  some  readers,  but  they  are  sure  to 
prove  interesting  to  all  who  care  to  master  this  psychic  puzzle. 
Some  of  the  wiser  sort  of  talks  have  been  mingled  with  those 
that  are  trivial,  to  enable  the  reader  to  judge  better  both  classes. 

There  should  be,  however,  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
methods  used  in  reporting  these  utterances.  In  some  cases  there 
were  jotted  down  in  the  darkened  room  sufficient  words  to  enable 
me  to  recall  the  leading  thoughts — at  the  best  it  was  reporting 
under  unusual  difficulties.  In  other  cases  the  memory  had  to 
be  trusted  wholly,  but  usually  the  talks  of  both  sorts  were 
written  out  immediately  afterward.  I  have  a  memory  that  has 
a  reputation  with  editorial  associates  of  being  unusually  reten- 
tive of  thoicghts^  but  it  is  a  wretched  verbal  memory.  The  reader 
may  rest  assured  that  the  thoughts  in  these  reports  are  the 
"  spirits',"  but  the  verbal  garb  is  quite  likely  at  times  my  own. 
Besides,  these  talks  are  almost  always  condensations ;  to  con- 
dense is  to  interpret.  In  these  interpretations  the  aim  has  been 
to  give  with  strict  accuracy  the  thinking  that  runs  through 
these  strange  speeches,  and  extreme  care  has  been  exercised  to 
so  use  words  as  to  make  this  thinking  clear.  I  again  repeat, 
that  there  may  be  no  mistake,  the  thoughts  are  the  so-called 
"  spirits'  " ;  the  words  and  style  of  expression  necessarily  more 
or  less  my  own. 


VI 


PREFACE 


Besides,  I  thought  it  but  fair  to  submit  ali  of  these  talks, 
after  having  written  them  out,  to  two  of  the  so-called  "  spirit 
bands  "  for  corrections.  Whatever  the  source  of  these  strange 
intelligences,  whether  they  are  the  flaming  out,  above  the 
threshold  of  consciousness,  of  some  unknown  power  residing 
within  us  all  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree — the  subjective  mind, 
the  subliminal  self,  or  what  not — or  whether  they  are,  as  they 
claim  to  be,  foreigUy  of  one  thing  we  can  be  sure — they  are 
intelligences^  and  as  such  deserve  the  courteous  treatment  that 
we  of  the  press  are  in  the  habit  of  extending  to  the  interviewed. 
Even  ghosts  should  be  granted  this  ghost  of  a  chance  to  correct 
misquotation  and  hasty  utterance.  These  two  "  bands  "  are  the 
most  intelligent  of  those  I  have  encountered.  Possibly  this  fa- 
vorable judgment  has  been  influenced  by  the  fact  that  one  band 
returned  the  proofs  as  "wholly  correct."  The  other,  whose 
leader  I  am  told  was  last  century  "  one  of  the  best  known  of 
the  world's  clergymen,"  made  a  number  of  comments,  some  of 
which  will  be  found  in  Part  I.  as  footnotes,  signed  "  Pastor." 
If  these  bands  are  composed  truly  of  spirits — as  they  claim 
and  as  their  friends  claim — then  these  pages  have  had  a 
unique  proofreading — having  been  approved  on  the  other 
side  of  the  "  silent  gulf,"  whatever  may  be  their  fate  on  this 
side. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  this  book  would  have  been  issued  in 
March  had  it  not  been  for  the  strange  prophecy  (see  page  231) 
that  it  would  be  so  issued.  I  count  it  somewhat  of  a  satisfac- 
tion to  have  proved  that  if  another  intelligence  can  "  forecast 
my  future,"  it  has  not  power  to  dominate  my  free  agency.  Pos- 
sibly the  prophecy  was  only  a  lucky  guess. 

That  I  may  present  this  psychic  problem  in  its  full  propor- 
tions I  have  drawn  largel  upon  the  investigations  of  trained 
scientists  who  have  labored  in  this  field  of  study.  The  results 
of  the  labors  and  conclusions  are  given  of  those  whose  names 
carry  weight — all  with  the  hope  of  so  arousing  public  interest 


PREFACE  vii 

as  to  incite  psychologists  and  physicists  to  help  make  an  end 
one  way  or  the  other  of  these  mysteries. 

The  letters  from  psychologists  and  other  students  of  psychic 
research  which  are  given  in  the  Appendix  will  be  of  interest  to 
my  more  serious  readers.  These  letters  are  many — some  forty 
in  all — coming  mostly  from  the  universities  in  various  parts  of 
the  world.  They  indicate  a  great  variety  of  thought,  compara- 
tively few  accepting  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis,  yet  there  are 
some  strong  names  among  those  who  give  this  hypothesis  much 
more  than  respectful  consideration,  as  the  names  of  Crookes, 
Lodge,  James  of  Harvard,  Hyslop,  late  of  Columbia,  Wallace, 
and  others.  Such  names  must  give  pause  to  those  who  are 
inclined  to  treat  this  hypothesis  lightly. 

Sir  William  Crookes  opens  up  a  line  of  startling  speculation 
in  his  provisional  explanation  of  telepathy,  which  by  his  special 
permission  is  given  on  page  518.  If  this  speculation  turns  out 
to  be  true,  wor  is  upon  worlds  of  astounding  proportions  open 
to  science.  If  I  understand  correctly  Mr.  Crookes's  table  of 
vibrations,  the  differences  between  sound,  electricity,  light, 
jjr-rays,  and  radium  are  only  the  differences  in  the  frequency  of 
vibrations  or  waves — those  of  sound  in  the  coarse  atmosphere, 
and  those  of  the  others  in  ether,  possibly  something  higher; 
that  is,  if  an  ear  were  sufficiently  sensitive  it  could  hear  color, 
hear  the  beauty  of  a  picture.  Radium  is  vibration  up  to  the 
sixtieth  degree  or  step. 

And  now  Edison  tells  us,  "  It  is  probable  that  there  are 
rays  of  vibration  in  ether  set  in  motion  from  some  unknown 
source,  and  that  these  rays  make  their  presence  known  by  their 
action  in  causing  radium  to  emit  or  reflect  light  and  heat " ; 
that  is,  that  radium  is  heated  and  lighted  by  some  sun  vastly 
more  subtle  and  potent  than  is  the  sun  of  our  solar  system. 
The  ^ir-rays  and  radium,  it  is  quite  likely,  are  only  at  the  thresh- 
old of  a  far  finer  and  more  potent  universe  of  substances. 

The  human  body  is  coarse,  made  up  of  slow,  sluggish  vibra- 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


tions,  but  were  these  vibrations  as  rapid  as  those  of  the  ;r-rays 
our  bodies  would  be  invisible  and  pass  through  many  solids, 
and  were  they  as  rapid  as  radium  they  would  pass  through  all 
solids,  as  Christ's  resurrected  body  passed  through  the  walls 
of  the  chamber  at  Jerusalem.  Scientists  will  soon  make  the 
miracles  of  Christ  elementary.  Already  they  are  changing 
their  attitude  toward  what  has  been  regarded  as  supernatural. 
Hume  must  be  waxing  uncomfortable  in  his  grave.  Lord  Kel- 
vin tells  us  miracles  are  common :  "  Every  action  of  human  free 
will  is  a  miracle  to  physical,  chemical,  and  mathematical  sci- 
ence." If  this  be  true  of  the  free  will  of  us  mortals,  what  is  it 
when  we  come  to  pass  upon  the  free-will  action  of  the  infinite 
One.? 

Now  I  venture  a  request  of  every  reader  who  finds  profit 
in  these  pages,  that  he  become  a  member  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  paying  the  annual  fee  of  ^5,  receiving  in 
return  the  reports  of  the  society.  If  five  th>  usand  persons 
will  thus  join,  an  additional  income  of  $25,000  will  be  supplied, 
and  this  will  enable  the  society  to  carry  on  even  more  effec- 
tively its  immensely  important  work — a  work  which,  if  Glad- 
stone's judgment  was  correct,  "is  the  most  important  which  is 
being  done  in  the  world — by  far  the  most  important."  The 
application  for  membership,  with  fee,  should  be  sent  to  either 
Richard  Hodgson,  treasurer,  5  Boylston  Place,  Boston,  Mass., 
or  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  19  Buckingham  Street, 
Adelphi,  W.  C,  London,  England. 

On  page  488  I  ask  those  of  my  readers  who  have  the  nerve 
to  do  it,  and  care  to  do  it,  to  join  with  me  in  making  a  series 
of  psychic  experiments  which  may,  if  followed  out  patiently 
and  wisely,  lead  to  definite  results. 

A  good  motto  just  now  for  all  psychic  investigators,  bor- 
rowing from  our  friends  of  the  legal  profession,  is  this : 

"THE  TRUTH,  THE  WHOLE  TRUTH,  AND 
NOTHING  BUT  THE  TRUTH." 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY— A  Plea  for  Psychic  Research.  3 

The  Psychic  Riddle;  a  Great  Interrogation  Point  (3)— Spir- 
itualism a  "  Suspect "  (4)— Truth  the  Only  Safe  Thing ;  the  Uni- 
verse Fireproof  (4)— A  Gain  to  Prove  Scientifically  there  are 
"  Evil  Spirits  "  (5)— Inviolability  of  a  Soul  with  Pure  Intent  (5) 
—A  Network  of  Psychic  Nerves  (6)— Huxley  a  Little  Child  Be- 
fore a  Fact;  "  I  Don't  Know"  (6)— The  Musician  on  Wagner's 
Level  alone  Knows  Wagner ;  Appeal  to  Within  (7)— The  Next 
a  Complex  World  (8)— Where  Lies  the  Solution  of  the  Psychic 
Problem?  (8)— Gladstone's  Strong  Testimony  to  Psychic  Re- 
search (9) — Rudimentary  Faculties  (10) — A  New  Sphinx  (11) — 
Spiritualism  Still  Unexplained  (12)—"  Don't  Throw  Away  the 
Baby  with  the  Water  from  the  Bath  "  (12)— Judgment  of  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  and  Frederic  Myers  (13) — Spiritualism  a  Great, 
Blundering  Attempt  to  Utilize  a  New  Force  (13) — Opinions  of 
Prof.  William  James  and  of  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
(14) — Fraud?  Yes,  but  What  More?  (15) — Denial  by  Scientists 
Not  Conclusive  (16) — Increasing  Distance  from  Bible  Times 
Makes  Faith  More  and  More  Difficult  (17) — Frederic  Myers' 
Remarkable  Prediction  about  Scientists'  Future  Belief  in 
Christ's  Resurrection  (18). 

PART  I.— Hindering  Dispositions  AND  Opinions.  19 

I.— -Ways  in  Which  Some  Spiritualists  Predispose  Inves- 
tigators Unfavorably— Hindering  Dispositions  and 
Opinions.  21 

Too  Credulous  (21) — Spirit  Wires  Crossed  (22)— Heartless 
Frauds  (22) — Luther  R.  Marsh  (23) — Too  Ready  to  Believe  in 
the  Supernatural :  Nothing  Supernatural  but  God  (25) — "  Fool's 
World  "  (26) — Subconscious  Faculties  Often  Ignored  (27)— Un- 
explained Apparitions  (28) — Flippant  "Spirit"  Talk  (28)— Sit- 
tings for  Fun  Dangerous  (29) — "Spirit"  Teachings  Not  Infal- 
lible (31)  —  "  Predigested  Thought "  (32) — Too  Quick  to  Denounce 
Skeptics  (33)— Was  This  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll?  (^t^) — 
Requirements  of  Extraordinary  Evidence  Not  Unreasonable  (35) 
— Investigation  Should  be  Made  Easy  (36) — Common  Sense 
Suggestions  to  Mediums  (36). 

ix 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

2.— Ways  in  Which  Some  Non-Spiritualists  Predispose 
Themselves  Unfavorably— Hindering  Dispositions 
AND  Opinions.  38 

Endangering  Free  Agency  by  "  Foreign  "  Interference  (38)— In- 
dividuality Inviolate  (39) — Was  Christ  a  Materialized  Spirit? 
(40)— A  Conflict  of  "Spirits"  (41)— "Subpoena  Gabriel"  (42) — 
"  Thomas  Paine's  "  Bad  Memoiy  (44)— A  Very  Human  "  Spirit " : 
"You  Won't  Mind  if  My  Face  is  Cold?"  (46)— Character  a 
Growth  on  Both  Sides  of  the  Death  Line  (47) — Spirit  Commun- 
ion a  Complicated  Transaction  (49) — "  The  Work  of  Conjurers  " 
(50) — "Spirit"  Communications  Contradictory  (54) — A  Babel  of 
Voices  (55) — A  "  Spirit's  "  Explanation  of  These  Contradictions 
(56)— "  Mediumship  Hurtful  to  the  Medium"  (57)— "  Spirit's  " 
Advice  to  Safeguard  Mediums  (59) — "  The  Work  of  Evil  Spirits  " 
(60)— A  Converted  Medium's  Warning  (63) — "  I  am  the  Evil 
One"  (64)— "Gone  to  Consult  the  Witch  of  Endor"  (66)— Bible 
Teachings  on  Spirit  Communing  (67) — Goodness  the  Best 
Touchstone  (68)— Outside  Intelligences,  Yes,  but  What?  (70) — 
Like  Draws  Like  (71) — "Spiritualism  Conclusively  Disproved  " 
(72) — Great  Variety  of  Mediumistic  Frauds  (74) — Mediums  Ex- 
changing Tests  (76)— At  Times  Much  Money  Made  (77)— 
Beecher's  Belief,  "  There  is  Something  in  it "  (78) — Draw  off 
the  Filth,  but  Find  the  Pearls  (80) — Faith  Predisposes  the  Eye 
to  See  (8i)  — Power  of  Auto-Suggestion  (82)  —  "Harmonious 
Conditions  Necessary"  (84)— Faith  is  Growth  of  the  Inner  Na- 
ture ;  the  Heart  Sees  (85)—"  Leads  to  Insanity  "  (87)— Spirit  In- 
formation often  Inaccurate  (88) — Spirit  Explains  (89) — Require- 
ment of  Unusual  Testimony  (91) — Don't  Give  the  Ghost  a  Ghost 
of  a  Chance  (91)— Ridicule;  Guying  Columbus  and  Stephenson 
(92) — A  Corpse  "  Sassing  "  Back  (93)— "Psychic  Intelligence  Not 
Beyond  the  Age;  the  Zeitgeist"  (9S)"--A  "  Lady  from  Mars";  a 
Linguistic  Curiosity  (96)— Suggestive  "  Spirit  Talks  "  (97) — "  We 
have  Many  Fools  Over  Here  "  (99). 

3. -A  Letter  from  Scientists — A  Study.  ici 

Professor  William  James's  Experience  with  Mrs.  Piper(ioi)— A 
Very  Sensitive  Spirit  (103)— Odd  Reason  for  Failure  of  a  Stance 
(104)— Thought  Waves  and  Wireless  Telegraphy  (106)— Contra- 
diction to  the  Senses  Not  Positive  Proof  of  Error  (107) — God  the 
only  Supernatural  Power  (109) — Scientist  Wallace  :  "Spiritual- 
ism Requires  no  Further  Proof  (no)— Beecher's  dual  Experi- 
ence (no)— How  the  Bible  Made  a  "Fool"  of  Newton  (112)— 
Scientists  Refuse  to  Believe  the  Testimony  of  their  Senses  (113) 
Sir  David  Brewster's  Curious  Self-Contradiction  (114)— Back- 
ward Swing  from  Scientific  Materialism  (118). 


CONTENTS  xi 

FACE 

4.— Special  "  Spirit-Talks  "  to  Clergymen.  120 

A  Criticism  of  the  Churches  (120) — Skepticism  Dominant  (121) 
— "  Unbelief  in  Spirit  Communication  Provincial,  not  Christian- 
ity "  (123)—"  Revelation  Did  Not  End  with  Patmos  "  (127)—"  Gil- 
den,  not  a  Golden  Age  "  (128)—"  Why  not  Two  Worlds  in  the  Same 
Space  and  Time  at  Work  ?  "  (130) — A  Test  that  Spiritualism  Must 
Stand  (131)— Exalted  Talk,  Whence  Comes  It?  (133)— "God's 
Restoring  Love  Never  Ceases  toward  a  Soul"  (135) — "Divine 
Justice  and  Love  Manifested  in  Christ"  (136) — "  Supreme  Good- 
ness is  Supreme  Helpfulness"  (138) — A  "Spirit's"  Appeal  to 
Seek  Inspiration  Direct  (139) — "Christ  a  Materialized  Spirit" 
(142) — Joseph  Parker  and  Commander  Booth  Claimed  to  Com- 
municate with  their  Spirit  Wives  (144) — A  "Spirit"  Explains 
why  Mediums  are  Necessary  (147) — God  the  Soul  of  the  Uni- 
verse (149)— Some  "  Spirits"  seem  Profoundly  Religious  (153). 

PART  II.— The  Finding  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite,"  and  Other 

Similar  Phenomena.  155 

I.— Detailed  History  of  the  Incident.  157 

The  Medium  and  Her  Family  (158) — The  Beecher  Inquiry  (159) 
— "  In  a  Large  Iron  Safe,  in  a  Drawer  "  (160)— Sure  Coin  was  Re- 
turned (161) — Found  as  Indicated  (162) — So  Far  and  no  Farther 
(163)— Report  from  the  United  States  Mint  (164)— Strong  Affi- 
davits (165) — Important  Points  (168)  —  Possible  Explanation; 
Fraud,  Coincidence,  Subjective  Faculties,  Spirit  Communication 
(169) — If  Spirits,  Why  so  Trivial  a  Thing?  (173) — Cross-Exami- 
nation  (175) — Questions  to  Psychologists;  Answers  from  Many 
(176) — Prof.  Wilham  James'  Opinion  (178). 

2.— Was  This  Beecher's  Face?  179 

A  Spirit's  Explanation  (182)— Is  This  Beecherian  Wit?  (184). 

3.— Similar  Psychic  Phenomena.  185 

The  Finding  of  a  Lost  Receipt  by  Swedenborg  (185) — Im- 
manuel  Kant's  Testimony  (i86) — Various  Hypotheses  Examined 
(189) — The  Finding  of  a  Lost  Will  (193) — The  Finding  of  a 
Promissory  Note  (194) — Rev.  Dr.  Savage  Finds  the  Papers  of 
His  Dead  Son  (197) — Finding  of  a  Watch  (198)— Professor  James 
Tells  of  the  Finding  of  the  Bank-book  of  His  Mother- in-Law 
(198). 

4.— The  "  Talks  "  of  Spirits  at  the  "  Mite  "  Circle  :  198 

(i)  "  The  Law  of  Nature  "  (199) ;  (2)  Reincarnation  (204). 

5.— Other  Phenomena  at  the  "  Mite  "  Circle.  210 

Was  This  My  Arab  Guide?  (211)— Correct  and  Incorrect  Infor- 
mation (212) — Was  This  Clairvoyance?  (213). 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PART  III.— Typical  Psychic  Phenomena.  215 

I. — Telepathy— Clairvoyance.  217 

The  Remarkable  Reading  of  a  Series  of  Sealed  Letters  (217) — 
Named  the  One  I  Thought  the  Author,  but  was  not  (218) — An 
Extraordinary  and  Interesting  Mixture  (220) — Clearly  Clairvoy- 
ant, but  What  Mind  does  the  Reading?  (221)— Was  This  George 
Hepworth?  (222) — Coincidence  in  This  Case  Unthinkable  (224)  — 
"Only  a  Cook":  Joseph  Cook  (227) — My  Niece's  Remarkable 
Series  of  Successes  (228) — A  Suicide's  Persistent  Assertion  (230) 
— Whereabouts  of  a  Leaf  from  Our  Family  Bible  (232) — A 
Mediumistic  Trick  (235) — Personal  Experiences  with  Mai^aret 
Fox  Kane  (237)— A  Strangely  Mischievous  Intelligence :  "  Not  so 
Smart  as  You  Think  You  Are  "  (240) — Professor  James's  Experi- 
ments with  Mrs.  Piper  (241)— Inexplicable  Phenomena;  James 
Convinced  that  Mrs.  Piper  has  Supernormal  Powers  (243) — 
Frederic  Myers's  Experiences  at  His  Own  Home  (246) — Con- 
vinced of  Mrs.  Piper's  Honesty  (249) — Rev.  Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage 
Believes  in  Mrs.  Piper  (251) — Dr.  Savage's  Daughter's  Experi- 
ence (253) — The  Doctor  has  Exact  Spirit  Reports  of  Absent 
Friends  (254) — Sir  William  Crookes  Proves  Ability  to  See  With- 
out Eyes  (256) — Closed  Books  Read  (258)— Burning  of  a  House 
Described  by  a  Spirit  through  a  Friend  (259) — Remarkable 
Verification  of  the  Earth  History  of  Two  Spirits  (262-66) — An 
Amazing  Premonition  (267) — Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  Experi- 
ences a  Singular  Coincidence  (270) — Alfred  Russel  Wallace 
Gives  a  Series  of  Clairvoyant  Experiences  (272) — "  The  Rector 
Magnificus  "  of  the  University  of  Leipsic  Corrects  an  Injustice 
to  Professor  Zollner  (276) — Zollner  Gives  the  Reading  of  the 
Date  of  a  Coin  in  a  Sealed  Box  (276)— Thought-Reading  Will 
Not  Explain  These  Wonders  (278) — Zollner  Doubly  Surprised 
(280) — Podmore  Reasons  Loosely  (281) — The  Views  of  Scientists 
Revolutionized  about  Telepathy  in  Twenty  Years  (283) — Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  Report  to  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
on  Thought  Transference  (284)— Series  of  Extraordinary  Re- 
sults (291). 

2.— Clairaudience.  309 

Socrates's  Spirit  Guide  (310)— "Six  Bells— Janette  Lost"  (311) 
— Two  Persons  in  Brooklyn  Hear  at  the  Same  Time  the  Voice 
of  a  Brother  in  Texas  (311)  —  Wife  Hears  Words  of  Her 
Wounded  Husband  150  Miles  Distant  (314) — A  Doctor  Hears 
Distant  Call  for  Help  (315) — Mother  and  Sister  Hear  Drowning 
Boy's  Cry,  Thousands  of  Miles  Away  (316). 

3.— Display  of  Psychic  Force  Independent  of  Muscular 

Action.  318 

Guffaw  That  Greeted  Sir  William  Crookes 's   Psychic  Experi- 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 

ments  (319) — Crookes's  Statement  of  His  Purpose  (321) — He 
Secures  Amazing  Results  (325)— His  Formal  Report  of  Four 
Years'  Inquiry  in  "  Phenomena  Called  Spiritual "  (328) — Various 
Classes  of  Extraordinary  Phenomena  Which  He  Witnessed  (330) 
— Crookes  Sees  "  Phantom  Forms  and  Faces"  (338) — He  Sees  a 
Bell  Come  Through  a  Closed  Door  (341) — He  Sees  a  Man  Rest- 
ing in  the  Air  (343) — The  Scientist,  Lord  Lindsay,  Reports  a 
Marvel  (346) — Professor  Zollner's  Experiments  at  Leipsic  (349) 
— A  Display  of  Force  Equalling  that  of  Two  Horses  (350) — Many 
Scientists  Unfair  to  Zollner  (357) — Knots  in  Endless  Bands  (359) 
— A  Table  Disappears  and  Reappears  (363) — Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace's Psychic  Experiments  in  His  Own  Home  (364) — "  Impos- 
sible," Yet  True  (367)— Dr.  O.  B.  Frothingham  Tells  of  Himself 
and  Six  Other  Men  Lifted  with  a  Piano  (368)— My  Brother 
Secures  Writing  on  a  Doubly  Sealed  Slate  (369) — A  Remarkable 
Experiment  through  Zollner  (371) — A  Careful  Test  (376)-- Slate- 
writing  Often  Fraudulent;  Thomson  Jay  Hudson  Has  Strange 
Success  (377) — Hudson's  Inconclusive  Reasoning  (378). 

4. — Apparitions.  380 

Are  There  Ghosts?  (380) — Have  Some  Living  Persons  Power  to 
Visit  at  a  Distance  from  Their  Bodies?  (381) — An  Astounding 
Fact  of  Distinct  Visitation  Analyzed  by  Premier  Balfour's  Sister 
(383) — Curious  Success  at  Self-Projection  (387) — Do  the  Dead 
Reappear?  (391) — An  Experience  in  My  Father's  Family  (391) — 
Lord  Brougham's  Vision  of  a  Dead  Friend  (392) — Many  Cases 
Told  by  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  (395) — Alfred  Rus- 
sel Wallace's  Reasoning  from  Effect  of  Ghosts  on  Animals  (398). 

5.— Secondary  Personalities— Obsessions.  402 

Dr.  Weir  Mitchell's  Striking  Story  (403)— The  Case  of  Mollie 
Fancher  (407)— The  Celebrated  "Watseka  Wonder"  (408) — Dr. 
Richard  Hodgson,  Treasurer,  Boston,  S.  P.  R.,  Thinks  it  a  Case 
of  "  Spirits  "  (408)— Crookes  Sees  Materializations :  His  astound- 
ing Series  of  Letters  (413)— Crookes's  Experiments  with  Ma- 
terializations in  His  Own  Locked  Room  (416) — He  is  Fully 
Convinced  That  There  is  No  Fraud  (422)— A  Business  Friend 
Reports  to  Me  Test  Investigations  (424)— My  Brother's  Careful 
Experiments  to  Verify  Materializations  (424) — My  Own  Experi- 
ence in  My  own  Chosen  Room  (425) — Professor  Zollner  Sees 
Prints  of  Spirit  Hands  and  Feet  on  Sooted  Paper,  etc.,  under 
Severe  Test  Conditions  (429)— Frederic  Myers's  Explanation  of 
Genuine  Materializations  (435). 

6.— Spirit  Identity— The  Crucial  Test  of  Spiritualism.    442 
A  Spirit  Claiming  to  be  My  Mother  Tries  to  Identify  Herself 
(442)— Rev.  Dr.  Savage  Gives  a  Forceful  Case  of  Identification 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAOR 

(443)_Dr.  Hudson's  Explanation  (446)— A  Good  Case  by  Rev. 
W.  Stain  ton -Moses  (446)— Dr.  Savage  Tells  of  Relief  of  the 
Poor  by  Spirits  (446)— George  Pelham  Case  of  S.  P.  R.  (449). 

7.— Spirit  Photography.  451 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace's  Photographic  Experiences  (454)— A 
Business  Friend  Makes  Series  of  Remarkable  Tests  (454)— Dr. 
W.J.  Pierce's  Investigations  (457) — Series  of  Pictures  Without 
Camera  (458)— Photographs  between  Two  Plates  (462)— Rev.  Dr. 
J.  T.  Wills,  San  Francisco,  Makes  His  Own  Spirit  Photo  (463) 
—  Dr.  Pierce  Makes  Pictures  Alone  in  Unopened  Box  (474)— 
Dr.  H.  A.  Reid  of  S.  P.  R.  Investigates  Spirit  Photos  (478). 

Addenda— Spirit  Identity.  484 

Attempted  Identification  of  Spirits  by  Handwriting  (484) — Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  Thinks  Identification  of  Frederic  Myers  Prob- 
able (485) — Spirit  Autograph  of  Leading  Clergyman  Thought 
Genuine  by  New  York  Bank  Experts  (485)— Professor  Hyslop 
Obtains  Proofs  of  Spirit  Identity  (486) — Threefold  Request  to 
the  Public  (488)— A  Prayer— Who  is  Its  Author?  (490). 

APPENDIX.  491 

I.— Comments  by  Psychologists  and  Other  Scholars  on 

THE  Finding  of  "The  Widow's  Mite."  493 

2.— Sir  William  Crookes'  Provisional  Explanation  of 

Telepathy.  418 

3.— How  TO  Personally  Test  Spiritualism;  Advice  by 

Rev.  Wm.  Stainton-Moses,  M.A.  (Oxon.).  520 

4.— Bibliography— (Partial).  523 


INTRODUCTORY 


A  Plea  for  Psychic  Research 


it  t  The  great  field  for  new  discoveries,'  said  a  scientific 
friend  to  me  the  other  day,  *  is  always  the  unclassified  resid- 
uum.* Round  about  the  accredited  and  orderly  facts  of  every 
science  there  ever  floats  a  sort  of  dust-cloud  of  exceptional  ob- 
servations, of  occurrences  minute  and  irregular  and  seldom  met 
with,  which  it  always  proves  more  easy  to  ignore  than  to  at- 
tend to.  .  .  .  Only  the  born  geniuses  let  themselves  be  worried 
and  fascinated  by  these  outstanding  exceptions,  and  get  no 
peace  till  they  are  brought  within  the  fold.  Your  Galileos, 
Galvanis,  Fresnels,  Purkinjes,  and  Darwins  are  always  get- 
ting confounded  and  troubled  with  insignificant  things.  Any 
one  will  renovate  his  science  who  will  steadily  look  after  the 
irregular  phenomena.  And  when  the  science  is  renewed,  its 
new  formulas  often  have  more  of  the  voice  of  the  exceptions  in 
them  than  of  what  were  supposed  to  be  the  rules.  No  part  of 
the  unclassified  residuum  has  been  treated  usually  with  a  more 
contemptuous  scientific  disregard  than  the  mass  of  phenomena 
generally  called  mystical.'* — WILLIAM  JAMES,  Professor  of 
Psychology  Harvard  University,  **  Will  to  BelievCp"  pp.  299- 
300. 


INTRODUCTORY 


A  PLEA  FOR  PSYCHIC  RESEARCH 

"  Science  is  bound  by  the  everlasting  law  of  honor  to  face  fearlessly 
every  problem  which  can  be  fairly  presented  to  it." — Sir  William 
Thomson.  ^ 

In  the  making  of  this  book  I  have  set  before  me  a  very 
simple  task — to  some  of  my  friends  it  seems  a  foolish  one. 
I  do  not  say,  **  Columbus  was  willing  to  be  laughed  at  as  a 
fool,  and  discovered  America,"  for  I  am  not  attempting  to 
discover  anything ;  but  am  attempting  to  state  clearly  a  prob- 
lem and  to  urge  others,  better  qualified,  to  the  discovery 
of  its  solution. 

It  is  my  purpose  to  tell  what  others  and  I  under  careful 
test  conditions  have  seen  and  heard ;  many  of  the  others  are 
well-equipped,  trained  observers.      I  have  not  thought   to 
pass  upon  these  facts  or  to  attempt  an  explanation,  but  I 
wish  to  urge  as  forcefully  as  I  can  upon  the  scientific  mind 
of  the  world  what  to  me  is  a  profound  riddle.     After  an  in- 
vestigation that  has  spread  over  many  years,  I 
place  right  here  a  great  interrogation  point.       ^^^T 
Now  I  wish  to  press  for  an  answer,  or  at  least 
help  so  to  arouse  the  public  mind  as  to  compel  a  patient, 
systematic  investigation  by  trained  scientists  far  beyond  any 
heretofore  undertaken.     Are  not  the  verified  facts  sufficient 
to  justify  competent  scientists  to  try  generalization.^     Not 

*  Address  before  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  in  1871. 

3 


4  A   "SUSPECT" 

being  such  a  one  I  do  not  make  the  attempt.  I  simply  tell 
what  I  do  know,  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  learned  ones  of 
earth  and  again  and  again  ask  the  question,  "  What  is  it?  " 

There  are  thousands  of  well- verified  psychic  facts — many 
verified  by  such  competent  scientific  physicists  as  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  Sir  William  Crookes,  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
and  the  eminent  psychologist  and  physiologist  Prof.  Charles 
Richet  of  Paris — recorded  in  books  so  easily  accessible  it 
is  necessary  for  me  to  give  here  only  typical  ones  of  the 
different  classes  together  with  a  number  that  I  myself  have 
witnessed. 

To  the  large  majority  of  scientists  and  of  the  general 
public  Spiritualism  is  a  **  suspect "  ;  on  the  other  hand,  too 
many  justify  the  maxim.  It  is  not  hard  to  fool  a  man  who  is 
willing  to  be  fooled.  There  is  need  for  this  double-barreled 
caution :  Do  not  be  afraid  overmuch  of  being  fooled,  nor 
undermuch,  for  we  may  be  as  greatly  deceived  by  believing 
too  little  as  by  believing  too  much.  The  worst  kind  of 
credulity  is  sometimes  seen  in  incredulity. 

The  only  credit  I  claim  for  myself  is  the  courage  to  say, 
"  I  don't  know,"  as  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  the  substantial 
and  ever-increasing  unexplained  remainder  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena— that  which  remains  after  the  severest  winnowing, 
by  every  reasonable  test  for  coincidence  and  fraud. 

Not  a  few  persons,  some  of  whom  are  scholars  of  reputa- 
tion, have  thought  it  worth  while  to  write  me  during  the 
past  year  in  order  to  warn  me  of  the  great  danger  of  such  an 
investigation.  A  new  truth  is  always  accompanied  with  an 
element  of  danger;  so  the  birth  of  a  child,  but  to  prevent 
that  birth  would  be  fatal.  But  are  we  not  exaggerating  this 
danger  ?     Truth  is  the  safe  thing ;  error  alone 

I^r   mi-^    ^^  is  dangerous.     God  has  made  the  universe,  as 
Safe  Thing.  ° 

it  has  been  wittily  said,  fireproof,  and  hence 
permits  man  the  matchbox  to  play  with — fireproof  on  both 
sides  of  the  ribbon  line  we  call  death.  The  universe  is  one 
infinite   eye.     There   is   a   restraining   and  directing  hand 


"EVIL  SPIRITS"  5 

everywhere.  We  need  not  fear;  God,  in  weaving  His  plan 
throughout  the  ages,  has  never  dropped  a  thread,  nor  is  He 
dropping  one  now. 

A  surprisingly  large  number  of  letters  warn  me  against 
the  danger  of  evil  spirits.  I  have  received  gratis,  postpaid, 
some  two  score  books  and  pamphlets  written  to  prove  that 
Satan  is  the  moving  power  behind  the  s6ance-room.  In  this 
collection  no  one  pamphlet  appears  more  frequently  than 
that  brilliant  one  written  by  Dr.  Austin  Phelps  about  a  gen- 
eration ago  urging  this  explanation.  It  does  not  seem  clear 
why  this  thought,  even  when  believed,  should  prevent  an  in- 
vestigation. It  would  be  a  point  gained  to  prove  scientifi- 
cally that  devils  are  at  work  on  the  earth ;  this  would  prove 
the  existence  of  a  spirit  world  and  deal  a  deathblow  to  mate- 
rialism. I  should  think  much  less  of  myself  were  I  afraid  to 
enter  a  s6ance-room,  tho  I  knew  it  to  be  full  of  devils  as  the 
air  with  bees  at  swarming-time.  A  soul  with  pure  intent  is 
inviolable. 

"  How  dare  you  agree  with  me  ?  "  said  a  professor  to  one 
of  his  too  readily  assenting  students ;  "  I  do  not  agree  with 
myself."  The  professor  was  right  and  the  student  wrong. 
The  world  has  not  "  achieved."  Its  **  future  is  before."  "  Of 
no  use  to  the  world,"  said  Emerson,  "are  those  men  who 
study  to  do  exactly  as  was  done  before,  who  never  understand 
that  to-day  is  a  new  day." 

Many  steps  in  the  last  few  years  have  been  taken  upward 
toward  the  boundary  line  that  separates  the  spirit  from  mat- 
ter. The  phonograph  that  photographs  the  voice,  the  long- 
distance telephone  which  enables  us  to  hear     «- 

^     ,  Narrowing 

the  voice  of  a  friend  tho  the  ocean  intervenes.  Boundary 
the  wireless  telegraph  which  by  waves  of  ether  between  Spirit 
is  a  prophecy  of  conversation  with  the  inhabi-  ^  Matter, 
tants  on  other  planets,  the  ;ir-ray  giving  us  power  to  look 
through  solids,  the  kinetoscope  that  helps  us  to  see  events  of 
the  past  in  action — where  is  the  end  ?  Lord  Kelvin  has  dis- 
covered that  an  atom  of  matter  and  an  atom  of  ether  may 


6  HUXLEY  AS   A   CHILD 

occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  and  that  an  electron 
is  so  small  that  it  will  take  one  hundred  thousand  of  them 
to  make  an  atom ;  and  Sir  William  Crookes  tells  us  that  there 
is  such  stupendous  energy  in  the  radiations  from  radium,  the 
newly  discovered  element,  that  a  few  grains  of  it  would  suffice 
to  lift  the  entire  English  navy  two  miles. 

It  is  in  this  "  new  day  "  much  easier  to  believe  that  there 
is  an  inner  universe,  that  this  inner  universe  is  a  stupendous 
vitalizing  force  through  which  run  streams  of  individuality, 
and  that  he  who  fully  believes  has  the  intelligence  and  power 
A  Network  '^^^  goodness  of  this  universe  to  draw  on — the 
of  Psychic  inner  universe,  a  network  of  psychic  nerves. 
Nerves.  touch  one,  touch  all.  Thought  and  feeling 
vibrate  everywhere.  No  man  lives  to  himself  nor  thinks  to 
himself;  as  waves  of  light  are  darting  everywhere  across  the 
ocean  of  light-ether  and  nowhere  get  confused,  each  object 
standing  out  clearly  revealed,  so  in  that  greater  and  far  more 
refined  ocean  of  thought- ether  each  thought  is  clear,  distinct 
to  the  receiver-mind  which  is  attuned  to  the  transmitter- 
mind.  We  now  know  that  we  occupy  but  a  minute  corner 
of  the  universe,  and  that  there  easily  may  be  a  thousand 
laws  and  a  thousand  forces  of  which  we  have  never  as  yet 
dreamed.  In  infinite  space  there  is  room  for  many,  many 
things. 

The  first  step  in  progress  is  to  be  willing  to  say,  "  I  don't 
know" ;  and  the  second  step  is  like  unto  it,  to  be  willing  to 
be  led,  empty  of  theories,  empty  of  preconceptions,  by  a  fact. 
Says  Huxley :  ^  "  Science  seems  to  me  to  teach  in  the 
highest  and  strongest  manner  the  great  truth  which  is  em- 
Huxlev  as      ^^^^^^  i^i  the  Christian  conception  of  entire 
a  Little  Child  surrender  to  the  will  of  God.     Sit  down  be- 
before  a        fore  the  fact  as  a  little  child,  be  prepared  to 
^^  *  give   up    every   preconceived    notion,    follow 

humbly  wherever  and  to  whatever  abysses  nature  leads,  or 
you  shall  learn  nothing.     I   have  only  begun  to  learn  con- 

'  From  "  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Huxley,"  by  bis  son,  vol.  i,  p.  935. 


APPEAL   TO  WITHIN  7 

tent  and  peace  of  mind  since  I  have  resolved  at  all  risks  to 
do  this." 

And  Goethe  tells  us  that  when  he  set  about  to  learn  any 
new  truth  he  first  emptied  himself  of  all  knowledge,  until  he 
could  feel  as  he  felt  when  he  began  to  learn  his  ABC. 
Humility  is  ever  the  entrance-way  to  the  temple  of  truth. 

I  claim  for  myself  in  the  preparation  of  this  book  only 
these  simple  virtues,  if  virtues  they  be:  (i)  The  humility  of 
a  man  who  knows  that  he  doesn't  know ;  and  (2)  the  willing- 
ness to  state  clearly  the  exact  problem  to  be  solved,  content 
to  leave  its  solution  to  the  trained  psychologists  of  the 
world,  inside  and  outside  of  universities— outside,  I  say,  for 
some  of  the  best  psychologists  are  not  so  named,  are  common 
folks  equipped  with  a  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  good 
horse  sense.  This  is  a  problem  concerning  which  the  com- 
mon sense  of  the  fairly  enlightened  should  have  much  to  say. 
It  is  largely  a  study  of  self,  and,  to  understand  it,  self- 
growth  is  the  essential  factor.  The  appeal  is  largely  from 
experience  to  experience,  and  the  response  is  from  within. 
In  an  art-gallery  it  is  safer  to  trust  the  instincts  of  a  lad  who 
has  an  artist's  soul  than  the  most  critical  judgment  of  a  pro- 
fessor who  has  perfect  knowledge  of  the  mechanics,  the  tech- 
nique of  painting,  but  who  has  not  the  soul-growth  that  re- 
sponds to  art.  The  logician  may  smile  at  instinct  as  that 
power  by  which  a  woman  knows  a  thing  is  true  when  it  is 
not ;  but  a  musician  on  its  level  knows  that  Wagner's  "  Parsi- 
fal "  is  music ;  he  has  contempt  for  the  process  of  logic  by 
which  the  logician  would  convince  him,  for  he  has  that  within 
which  responds  as  easily  and  naturally  to  music  as  the  eye 
to  light  or  the  ear  to  sound.  Tennyson  exaggerated  pardon- 
ably  when  he  said  nothing  is  worth  knowing  that  can  be 
proved. 

Every  faculty  recognizes  truth  up  to  the  faculty's  devel- 
opment, and  up  to  that  level  the  whole  domain  of  truth  is 
credible  truth. 

What  if  it  be  true  that  we  are  breaking  through  into  the 


8  CRUDITY   EXPECTED 

next  stage  of  evolution  ?  It  is  not  likely  that  we  shall  find 
that  world  to  be  a  simple  world,  but  rather  one  vastly  more 

complex  than  this.     It  should  in  no  way  sur- 

The  Next      prise  us  if  at  first  we  see  weakness  and  con- 

^  Worm^^      tradiction  and  all  things  in  confusion.     When 

men  broke  through  into  the  intellectual  world 
it  is  easy  to  believe  that  they  did  not  find  at  first  a  world  of 
sound  reason.  "Ah,"  said  a  disappointed  skeptic  in  those 
days,  "  you  told  us  that  this  is  a  world  of  reason ;  instead  it 
is  a  world  of  madness.  I  judge  it  by  its  fruits,  and  its 
fruits  are  folly."  The  fault  was  not  with  the  world,  but  with 
man's  blundering  control  of  it.  After  tens  of  thousands  of 
years  of  effort  we  have  not  fully  gained  the  mastery  of  our 
reasoning  faculties.  If  the  next  stage  of  evolution  is  the 
mastery  of  faculties  by  which  we  shall  be  able  to  commune 
consciously  with  the  spirit  world,  is  it  unreasonable  to  be- 
lieve that  the  mastery  of  these  higher  faculties  will  prove  a 
more  complicated  and  difficult  task  than  has  proved  the  mas- 
tery of  the  reasoning  faculties?  The  ages  of  blunders  in 
winning  the  mastery  of  the  one  should  prepare  us  for  a  hard 
and  long  journey  and  many  blunders  in  winning  the  other. 

The  Problem. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of 
psychic  phenomena  that  are  not  explainable  by  any  theories 
of  mistake,  coincidence,  or  fraud  ? 

All  attempts  at  intelligent  solution  now  seem  to  lie  in 
two  directions : 

1.  The  subjective  mind — variously  called  unconscious 
mind,  subliminal  self,  subnormal  self,  etc.  While  there 
may  be  some  differences  between  these  terms  scientifically 
speaking,  for  the  purposes  of  this  book  they  will  be  treated 
as  identical. 

2.  Spiritualism.  By  this  is  meant  the  theory  that  refers 
the  explanation  to  intelligences  outside  of  men  liwng  in  the 
flesh,    sometimes   called   extramundane   intelligences.      The 


GLADSTONE'S   FAITH  9 

advocates  of  this  theory  make  the  term  cover  good  angels  and 
bad  angels,  intelligences  from  any  other  part  of  the  physical 
universe,  and  from  human  beings  who  previously  existed  in 
the  flesh.  Human  beings  in  the  body  are  called  incarnate 
men ;  those  who  have  died  discamate  men. 

Formerly  it  was  a  very  simple  question  when  any  psychic 
phenomena  were  encountered.  They  were  considered  the 
results  of  coincidence,  or  of  fraud,  or  of  spirits.  Now  when  we 
succeed  in  eliminating  coincidence  and  fraud,  we  reach  only 
the  threshold  of  the  difficulty. 

Immense  progress  has  been  made  by  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  and  other  psychologists  in  the  exploration 
of  the  subjective  mind.  Marvels  upon  marvels  have  been  re- 
vealed, with  hints  often  of  a  far  greater  domain  to  be  explored 
— a  domain  so  great  and  marvelous  as  to  make  us  stand  still 
with  amazement.  It  is  easy  to  understand  why  Gladstone 
said,  when  accepting  honorary  membership  in  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  speaking  of  the  work  of  the  society :  "  It 
is  the  most  important  work  which  is  being  done  in  the  world 
— by  far  the  most  important."  It  appears  that  the  conscious 
mind  is  only  a  small  segment  of  our  spirit  selves ;  the  greater 
part  of  the  mind  or  soul  is  below  the  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness. As  the  solar  spectrum  reveals  only  a  fragment  of  the 
forces  in  light — other  forces  are  above  the  ^  ,  ., 
waves  that  make  ultra-violet,  and  others  be-  Threshold  of 
low  that  make  ultra-red,  as  all  the  heat-waves,  Con- 

the  chemical  waves,  the  Hertzian  waves — so  our     sciousness. 
spirit  or  mind  spectrum  as  revealed  in  consciousness  is  lim- 
ited.    Who  can  tell  how  far  below  or  above  consciousness 
extend  the  powers  of  the  soul } 

That  much  of  our  inner  self  remains  outside  of  conscious- 
ness is  now  certain,  and  it  begins  to  be  more  than  probable 
that  the  far  greater  part  of  the  soul  is  subjective  or  uncon- 
scious.    Wonderful  faculties  are  revealing  themselves,  as : 

Clairvoyance,  the  power  to  see  independently  of  the  out- 
ward organ  of  the  eyes. 


lo  RUDIMENTARY   FACULTIES 

Clairaiidiencey  the  power  to  hear  independently  of  the 
physical  organ  of  the  ears. 

Telepathy y  the  power  to  communicate  thought  independ- 
ently of  all  physical  senses,  transcending  space. 

Prevision,  the  power  to  transcend  time. 

Telekinesis,  the  power  to  influence  physical  objects  with- 
out physical  contact. 

Self- Projection,  the  power  of  a  man  to  make  himself  vis- 
ible at  a  distance. 

These  faculties  and  possibly  others  which  are  beginning 
to  appear,  it  so  seems — in  rudimentary  form  it  may  be,  in 
some  persons  already  active  in  curiously  blundering,  hesita- 
ting, and  unsatisfactory  ways — throw  a  flood  of  light  on  many 
of  the  phenomena  that  have  been  heretofore  set  down  as  in- 
explicable or  the  work  of  the  spirits.  The  subjective  mind 
as  thus  viewed  is  a  bough  of  unblossomed  buds — mostly 
unblossomed. 

Is  it  hard  to  believe  that  these  rudimentary  faculties  are 

growing  for  our  next  stage  of  evolutionary  development,  in 

„    ,.       ^         harmony  with  the  environment  of  our  objective 
Rudimentary  •'  •' 

Faculties       ^r  subjective  nature,  or  both;  and  that  when 

for  the  Next    developed  they  will  make  us  citizens  of  the  uni- 

Step  ill        verse — both  the  inner  and  outer — as  our  pres- 
£2  volution. 

ent  physical  senses  have  made  us  citizens  of 

this  planet.^     This  is  man's  history,  a  slow  adjustment  of 
himself  to  his  environment. 

Let  us  bear  this  thought  in  mind — will  not  the  reader 
pardon  its  repetition.?  Here  we  are  earth-bound  and  are 
conscious  almost  only  of  those  powers  that  have  to  do  with 
the  earth ;  but  we  are  passing  through  an  evolution  that  will 
make  us  universal  or  cosmic  beings,  and  now  we  have  in  the 
rudimentary  stage  those  faculties  that  will  have  to  do  with 
this  next  stage  of  our  evolution.  In  some  these  faculties  in 
a  blundering  way  are  already  performing  functions,  as  telep- 
athy, clairvoyance,  prescience — is  it  altogether  absurd  to 
believe  that  there  are  those  among  us  in  whom  these  powers 


I 


A   NEW   SPHINX  II 

have  reached  the  functional  stage,  some  of  whom  we  call 
geniuses,  some  prophets,  some  sensitives,  and  some  me- 
diums ? 

Gladstone  was  wholly  right :  The  exploration  of  the 
nature  and  laws  of  the  subjective  mind — including  the  laws 
that  govern  its  development — is  by  far  the  most  important 
work  being  done  on  earth  to-day.  With  greater  emphasis 
than  Pope  thought  of,  "The  proper  study  of  mankind  is 
man  " ;  and  the  Greek  wrote  more  wisely  than  he  knew  when 
he  wrote,  "  Know  thyself. " 

A  Sphinx,  this  time  invisible  but  far  more  real,  has 
seated  herself  at  the  world's  pathway  and  is  propounding 
mighty  riddles,  such  as  we  have  not  heard  before.  Wo  to 
men  if  they  answer  foolishly !  Another  period  of  dark  ages, 
another  frightful  night  will  overwhelm  us  and  we  shall  not 
escape  until  we  make  correct  answer.  Where  is  our  QEdipus } 
An  invisible  hand  is  writing  down  on  the  world's  blackboard 
mighty  problems — social,  political,  moral,  religious — answers 
to  which  we  must  work  out.     There  is  no  escape. 

An  immense  gain  has  been  made  in  this :  we  know  in 
what  direction  lies  the  way  of  safety,  scientifically  considered, 
the  way  that  leads  upward;  that  way  is  the  subjective  mind, 
an  open  door  to  the  inner  world,  the  world  of  inexhaustible 
growth  and  intelligence;  an  open  door  consciously  to  the 
few,  unconsciously  to  the  great  masses.  Never  did  the  lines 
of  science  and  those  of  Christ's  teachings  so  converge  as 
they  do  to-day  and  at  this  point. 

If  this  book  will  assist  a  little  in  rallying  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  the  help  needed,  that  it  may  carry  for- 
ward in  a  larger  way  and  more  rapidly  its  investigations,  it 
will  serve  at  least  one  most  worthy  purpose. 

But  let  it  not  be  thought  that  the  revelation  of  the  mar- 
velous capacity  of  the  subjective  mind  solves  the  entire  prob- 
lem of  psychic  phenomena.  It  solves  much,  but  how  much 
remains  to  be  seen. 

Spiritualism  is  by  no  means  fully  explained.     This  also 


12  SPIRITUALISM    UNSOLVED 

is  a  stupendous,  vital  problem,  and  must  be  squarely  met, 
and  it  will  not  be  solved  until  thus  met. 

Long  ago  a  correspondent  in  the  London  Times  put  it  thus 
aptly,  speaking  of  the  report  on  Spiritualism  made  by  the 
Dialectical  Society,  London:  "If  it  proves  nothing  else,  it 
Spiritualism  Proves  that  it  is  high  time  competent  hands 
Still  undertook  the  unraveling  of  the  Gordian  knot 

Unexplained.  |-Qf  Spiritualism].  It  must  be  fairly,  patiently 
unraveled  and  not  cut.  The  slash  of  an  Alexandrian  blade 
has  been  tried  often  enough,  and  has  been  ineffective. " 

And  the  London  Spectator  in  its  April  number  (1903) 
remarks  :  "  The  Spiritualists'  movement  and  allied  phenom- 
ena have  yet  survived  unexplained  the  attack  of  every  form 
of  evidentiary  analysis." 

Frank  Podmore  in  his  great  anti-spiritualistic  work,  "  Mod- 
ern Spiritualism" — published  1903  and  is  the  ablest  work 
against  Spiritualism  yet  written,  comes  to  the  conclusion : 

"  Whether  the  belief  in  the  intercourse  with  spirits  is  well  founded  or 
not,  it  is  certain  that  no  critic  has  yet  succeeded  in  demonstrating  the 
inadequacy  of  the  evidence  upon  which  the  Spiritualists  rely." 

And  he  closes  his  two  volumes  with  this  word  of  warning 
against  too  great  incredulity  in  the  treatment  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  Spiritualism : 

"  There  is  a  superstition  of  incredulity ;  and  the  memory  of  that  dis- 
creditable episode  in  the  history  of  science  in  these  islands  [The  British 
Isles],  the  contemptuous  rejection  for  nearly  two  generations  of  the 
accumulating  evidence  for  hypnotic  anesthesia  and  kindred  phenomena, 
should  suffice  to  teach  us  that  even  the  extravagances  of  mysticism  may 
contain  a  residuum  of  unacknowledged  and  serviceable  fact.  We  must 
not,  for  the  second  time,  throw  away  the  baby  with  the  water  from  the 
bath." 

Dr.  Hudson  says,  in  his  book  against  Spiritualism,  "The 
Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena "  (page  206) :  **  The  man  who 
denies  the  phenomena  of  spiritism  to-day  is  not  entitled  to 
be  called  a  skeptic;  he  is  simply  ignorant."  And  the  great 
scientist,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  recently  said  that  no  more 


PSYCHOLOGISTS   SHOULD   HELP       13 

evidence  is  needed  to  prove  Spiritualism,  for  no  accepted  fact 
in  science  has  a  greater  or  stronger  array  of  proof  in  its 
behalf. 

During  the  early  part  of  last  year  a  work  of  extraordinary 
importance  was  issued  by  the  English  press — the  posthumous 
work  of  Frederic  Myers,  "  Human  Personality  and  Its  Sur- 
vival of  Bodily  Death."  Dr.  Myers  was  most  << Myers' 
closely  identified  from  the  beginning  with  the  Human  Per- 
work  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  as  sonahty." 
its  secretary,  and  for  a  time  as  its  president.  Recently  Dr. 
Newell  Dwight  Hillis  publicly  said  that  in  a  century  from 
now  this  book  of  Myers  will  be  looked  upon  as  the  greatest 
book  of  this  generation.  Dr.  Myers,  when  he  began  his 
work  with  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  at  Cambridge, 
England,  was  an  agnostic  as  to  future  existence.  He  did 
yeoman  service  in  the  exploration  of  the  subjective  mind — 
he  called  it  the  subliminal — and  at  the  time  of  his  death,  three 
years  ago,  unquestionably  knew  more  about  the  entire  sub- 
ject of  psychic  phenomena  than  did  any  other  psychologist. 
For  this  reason  this  conclusion  of  his  should  carry  great 
weight :  After  deducting  all  that  is  fraudulent  and  misleading 
in  spiritualistic  phenomena^  and  attributing  all  possible  to  sub- 
jective faculties f  there  still  remains  sufficient  to  justify  sure 
belief  in  actual  physical  communication  with  discarnate 
spirits. 

Of  this  I  am  not  sure. 

But  of  this  I  am  sure,  after  a  score  of  years  of  investiga- 
tion and  having  had  to  do  with  the  mass  of  frauds  that  swarm 
about  and  batten  upon  Spiritualism,  dogging  its  every  step, 
there  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  most  careful  investigation  by 
our  best- trained  psychologists. 

While  I  found  a  world  of  fraud,  I  saw  again  and  again 
much  which  indicated  the  near  discovery  of  a  vast  world  of 
most  important  truths,  and  now  and  then  I  dropped  the  plum- 
met and  touched  no  bottom. 

Spiritualism,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  is  a  great  blundering 


14        DISGUST   WITH    SPIRITUALISM 

attempt  to  utilize  a  colossal  new  force  or  rather  a  world  of 
new  forces. 

Many  other  and  abler  investigators  have  had  inexplicable 
yet  strangely  unsatisfactory  experiences.  Professor  James, 
of  Harvard,  in  a  letter  speaking  of  an  explanation  of  "  The 
An  Opinion  of  Widow's  Mite  "  '  incident,  says :  "  The  hy- 
Professor  pothesis  of  spirit  communication  is  undoubt- 
James.  edlya  possible  one  and  simpler  than  any  other, 
provided  one  supposes  the  spirits  in  question  to  have  been 
tremendously  inhibited  in  their  communications." 

It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  of  the  more 
intelligent  people  nine-tenths  hear  the  mention  of  Spiritual- 
ism with  a  curling  of  the  lip.  This  disgust  is  easily  ex- 
plained by  the  contradictory  character  and  absurdity  of  the 
general  run  of  communications  attributed  to  spirits,  the  de- 
generacy of  many  mediums,  the  darkness  and  general  unsatis- 
factoriness  of  the  average  seance-room,  the  childlike  credulity 
of  many  Spiritualists,  and,  beyond  all,  the  fraud  that  surrounds 
the  whole  subject  like  an  atmosphere. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  evidence  is  so  great  in 
favor  of  the  spiritualistic  explanation  of  a  large  portion  of 
psychic  phenomena  that  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
has  devoted  much  of  its  time  in  the  past  twenty  years  to  this 
branch  of  its  investigation — and  this  under  the  lead  of  such 
presidents  as  Professor  Sidgwick  of  Cambridge  University, 
Frederic  Myers,  Arthur  J.  Balfour  (the  present  Prime  Minis- 
ter of  England),  Prof.  William  James  of  Harvard,  Sir  William 
Crookes,  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  Nearly  all  of  these  men,  if 
not  all,  found  it  necessary  to  accept  the  spiritualistic  expla- 
Settline  the  ^^^^^^  ^^  certain  of  the  phenomena.  Yet  there 
Question  are  multitudes  of  vehement  critics  who  settle 
hy  a  Wave  of  the  whole  question  at  a  single  sitting — they 

®  *^  *  know  "just  how  the  trick  is  done."  Those 
who  thus  settle  it  are  usually  men  of  little  scientific  training 
at  investigations  of  this  sort,  or  men  who  have  had  scarcely 

»  See  Part  II. 


BABBLE   OF    BABES  15 

any  opportunity  for  investigation.  They  settle  it  all  by  an  in- 
terior process,  an  inner  illumination,  by  that  certain  instinct, 
as  already  mentioned,  that  knows  a  thing  is  not  true  even  when 
it  is.  Yet  there  is  not  one  of  these  critics  who  is  not  calmly 
confident  of  his  superiority  as  a  close  observer.  In  this  in- 
vestigation cocksureness  is  the  certain  mark  of  the  tyro. 

I  can  not  reconcile  myself  to  the  spirit  hypothesis  except 
through  thinking  that  we  are  entering  a  psychic  field  of  in- 
vestigation that  is  marvelously  complex,  and  that  what  we 
are  getting  now  is  but  the  babble  of  babes,  not  because  of 
the  lack  of  the  intellectual  ability  of  spirits,  but  of  the  lack 
of  ability  on  both  the  earth  side  and  the  spirit  side  to  handle 
the  forces  that  make  communication  possible.  A  wretched 
piano  might  easily  make  hodgepodge  of  masterpieces  even 
tho  rendered  by  a  Paderewski ;  so  an  intellectually  shallow 
medium  might  readily  enough  make  silly  the  wisest  utter- 
ances of  Shakespeare  or  Franklin. 

The  world  is  justified  in  refusing  to  accept  the  spirit 
hypothesis  as  long  as  it  can  find  any  other  reasonable  expla- 
nation of  psychic  phenomena.  We  have  a  right  to  require 
not  only  clear  evidence  of  communication  from  outside  in- 
telligences, but  that  this  communication  must  be  of  a  nature 
that  will  enable  us  to  identify  the  communicating  spirits. 

We  all  know  that  there  is  unending  chicanery,  disgusting 
fraud ;  but  is  there  anything  genuine  ?     If  so,  what  and  from 
whence  .^    Those  are  the  questions  to  be  solved,    i^aud  ?  Yes  • 
Nobody  cared  whether  the  message  was  wise      but  What 
or  foolish  that  Marconi  ticked  across  the  ocean.         More  P 
The  important  thing  was  that  the  letter  S  was  ticked  across 
by  the  one  who  claimed  to  have  ticked  it,  and  that  it  was  re- 
ceived by  the  one  who  claimed  to  have  received  it.     Those 
feeble  taps  proved  the  practicability  of  wireless  telegraphy. 
The  rest  was  detail. 

If  but  a  single  communication  has  crossed  "  the  gulf  of 
silence,"  and  this  can  be  scientifically  demonstrated,  that 
fact  is  of  extraordinary  interest  and  of  inestimable  impor- 


i6  SCIENTISTS   FALLIBLE 

tance.  All  discoveries  of  the  past  are  as  nothing  in  com- 
parison. The  one  who  demonstrates  the  practicability  of 
intramundane  communication  will  go  down  into  history  as  a 
far  greater  discoverer  than  Columbus,  than  Newton,  than 
Morse,  than  Marconi,  yes,  than  all  combined. 

The  present  generation  must  work  out  anew  the  answer 
to  this  spiritualistic  problem  in  the  light  of  all  our  present 
psychic  knowledge. 

The  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  scientists  are  against 

this  hypothesis  is  not  conclusive  evidence,  for  not  thirty 

years  ago  they  were  more  unanimously  against  hypnotism. 

OTDDosition     Hypnotism  was  everywhere  denounced  as  de- 

of  Scientists    lusion  or  charlatanry.  Even  Lord  Kelvin  said : 

not  Con-       "  Nearly  everything  about  it  is  imposture,  the 

c  usive.  j.gg^  faulty  observation. "  Not  thirty  years  ago 
I  had  at  my  residence  several  meetings,  inviting  representa- 
tive men,  physicians,  and  other  professional  men,  and  had 
Prof.  Edward  Payson  Thwing  give  exhibitions  of  hypnot- 
ism under  test  conditions.  Some  scientists  whom  I  had  in- 
vited would  not  come;  they  pooh-poohed  it  all  as  delusion 
or  fraud.  It  was  only  after  repeated  demonstrations  in  the 
hospitals  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  of  the  hypnotizing  of 
patients  who  were  to  be  operated  on  that  we  could  get  New 
York  scientists  to  treat  the  matter  seriously.  Now,  who 
doubts  hypnotism  ?  A  quarter  of  a  century  shows  a  complete 
change  of  front  by  scientists.  They  made  a  mistake  once ; 
why  should  it  be  thought  impossible  for  them  to  make  a  second 
mistake  ?  Galileo  tells  how  tne  scientists  at  Padua  refused 
to  look  through  his  telescope  when  he  offered  them  a  chance 
to  do  so,  saying  that  it  was  humbuggery. 

Science  shows  herself  in  an  unfavorable  light  when  she 
attempts  to  browbeat  us  out  of  the  evidence  of  our  senses, 
and  is  in  the  last  degree  unscientific  when  she  refuses  to  in- 
vestigate multitudes  of  well-authenticated  facts. 

Science  should  move  in  this  matter  with  great  delibera- 
tion, but  move.     The  subject  is  worthy  of  it.     The  phenom- 


THE   CHURCH  17 

ena  should  be  subjected  to  the  most  severe  critical  tests,  put 
through  the  furnace,  heated  seven  times,  of  critical  investi- 
gation— this  by  that  class  of  scientists  who        ^  . 

.  Science 

have  learned  to  do  accurate  thinking,  accurate      should  be 

work  along  the  lines  of  modern  psychology.       Conserva- 
Scientists  can  never  recall  too  frequently  the         tively 
fact  that  all  beliefs,  in  their  early  history,  were 
contradictory  and   ran   wild:   Astronomy  ran  to  astrology, 
chemistry  to  alchemy  and  many  other  chimeras,  hypnotism 
to  every  sort  of  humbuggery.     Healing  by  suggestion  is  still 
in  its  chaotic  crazy-quilt  state.     It  is  just  what  we  might 
expect  of  Spiritualism,  if  it  be  true,  that  it  also  must  pass 
its  crazy-quilt  period. 

The  Church  also  must  have  care.  There  is  a  real  danger 
lest  in  its  zeal  to  get  rid  of  spirit  communications  it  gets  rid 
of  the  Bible  itself.  If  the  power  to  communicate  between 
this  and  the  spirit  world  be  a  fact,  the  remedy  is  not  to  deny 
it,  but  to  understand  just  what  it  is  and  what  are  its  laws, 
and  to  bring  it  under  control.  If  true,  we  may  rest  assured 
that  it  will  not  in  the  end  work  harm,  but  good;  truth 
matches  all  around.  It  is  not  well  in  an  a  priori  fashion  to 
deny  it  and  assail  it. 

Nineteen  hundred  years'  removal  from  the  spirit  phenom- 
ena of  the  Bible  and  the  men  who  witnessed  them  and 
vouched  for  their  occurrence  is  imposing  a  greater  and  greater 
strain  upon  faith. 

Apply  the  claims  of  Spiritualists  to  the  facts  in  the  Bible 
hardest  to  believe — hardest  for  scientists  to  believe — the 
facts  of  the  birth  and  resurrection  of  Jesus.  If  certain 
phenomena  which  I  have  seen  in  the  s6ance-room,  and  which 
I  have  not  been  able  to  explain  by  any  hypothesis  of  fraud  or 
coincidence,  stand  the  fuller  tests  of  scientific  investigation, 
it  will  become  scientifically  easy  to  believe  that  a  supreme 
spirit,  as  was  Jesus,  came  down  into  the  flesh,  as  did  He, 
and  was  able  to  lay  down  His  life  and  to  take  it  up 
again. 


i8      FREDERIC    MYERS'    PREDICTION 

Says  Frederic  Myers :  * 

"  I  venture  now  a  bold  saying ;  for  I  predict  that,  in  consequence  of 
the  new  evidence,  all  reasonable  men,  a  century  hence,  will  believe  in 
the  resurrection  of  Christ ;  whereas  in  default  of  the  new  evidence,  no 
reasonable  man,  a  century  hence,  would  have  believed  it." 

Let  us  not  be  alarmed.  It  is  one  thing  to  master  Spiri- 
tualism ;  it  is  another  thing  to  be  mastered  by  it.  Spirit 
communications  may  be  true — communications  from  good 
and  from  bad  spirits — and  yet  much  of  the  teaching  known 
as  Spiritualism  be  untrue.  The  religious  thought  that  goes 
under  this  name  is  one  thing;  belief  in  communication 
between  the  spirit  world  and  this  is  another. 

Yet  is  there  not  a  real  danger  that  in  trying  to  build  a 
tower  to  the  spirit  world  we  may  have  for  our  pay  another 
and  worse  babel  of  tongues — this  for  a  while }  If  this  be  a 
danger,  is  it  not  possible  to  avert  it.^ 

But  let  us  beware  lest  we  give  occasion  for  future  genera- 
tions to  say  also  of  us,  The  Stone  the  Spiritual  Build- 
ers Rejected  has  Become  the  Head  of  the  Corner. 

»  ("  Human  Personality,"  vol.  2,  p.  288.) 


PARTI 

HINDERING  DISPOSITIONS  AND 
OPINIONS 

An  auto-suggestion  may  be  as  hurtful  to  sound  reasoning 
when  it  is  against  as  when  it  is  in  favor  of  an  hypothesis. 


I 


<*  My  supposed  opponent  and  I  are  like  two  children  who 
have  looked  through  a  keyhole  at  the  first  few  moves  in  a  J 
game  of  chess,— of  whose  rules  we  are  entirely  ignorant.  My 
companion  urges  that  since  we  have  seen  only  <  pawns '  moved, 
it  is  probable  that  the  game  is  played  with  the  pawns  alone ; 
and  that  the  major  pieces  seen  confusedly  behind  the  pawns 
are  only  a  kind  of  fringe  or  ornament  of  the  board.  I  reply 
that  those  pieces  stand  on  the  board  like  the  pawns ;  and  that 
since  they  are  larger  and  more  varied  than  the  pawns,  it  is 
probable  that  they  are  meant  to  play  some  even  more  impor- 
tant role  in  the  game  as  it  develops.  "We  agree  that  we  must 
wait  and  see  whether  the  pieces  are  moved ;  and  I  now  main- 
tain that  I  have  seen  a  piece  moved,  altho  my  companion 
has  not  noticed  it.  The  chessboard  in  this  parable  is  the 
Cosmos ;  the  pawns  are  those  human  faculties  which  make 
for  the  preservation  and  development  on  this  planet  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  race;  the  pieces  are  faculties  which  may 
be  either  the  mere  by-products  of  terrene  evolution,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  may  form  an  essential  part  of  the  faculty  with 
which  the  human  germ  or  the  human  spirit  is  originally 
equipped,  for  the  purpose  of  self-development  in  a  cosmical,  as 
opposed  to  a  merely  planetary,  environment." — FREDERIC 
W.  H.  MYERS,  **  Human  Personality,**  vol.  i.,  pp.  93-94. 


WAYS  IN  WHICH  SOME  SPIRITUALISTS  PRE- 
DISPOSE INVESTIGATORS  UNFAVORABLY 
—HINDERING  DISPOSITIONS  AND  OPINIONS 

I.  That  they  are  too  credulous. 

A  prominent  New  York  lawyer  has  a  wife  who  is  a  "  sen- 
sitive," or  medium.  The  husband  is  a  man  of  undoubted 
veracity  and  has  occupied  in  the  city  a  high  judicial  position. 
The  wife  is  what  is  called  a  trance  medium,  but  she  never 
gives  public  sittings  and  is  reluctant  about  giving  any  sit- 
tings except  to  members  of  her  family  and  at  times  to  inti- 
mate friends. 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  be  admitted  to  the  confi- 
dence of  this  family  and  to  have  received  from  them  not  a 
little  help  in  the  making  of  this  book,  as  will  appear  in  sev- 
eral chapters. 

As  this  lady  has  requested  that  in  no  way  shall  I  so  use 
her  name  or  that  of  her  husband  as  to  identify  them  before 

the  public,  I  shall  speak  of  her  as  Mrs.  Judge  C ,  and 

her  husband  as  Judge  C .     The  reader  must  take   my 

word  for  it  that  both  the  judge  and  his  wife  are  persons  of  high 
standing,  of  intellectual  force,  and  of  unimpeachable  veracity. 

Judge  C informs  me  that  at  one  time  he  asked  the 

"  spirit  control "  ^  of  his  wife  whether  a  medium  who  was 

having  materializations  at  a  certain  place  was 

fraudulent  or  not.     The  spirit  control  said,  "  I       ^^^1^^^ 

^  Detective. 

Will  attend  a  stance  and  see."    In  a  few  days  he 
reported  that  he  had  attended  and  found  part  of  the  phenom- 
ena genuine  and  part  fraudulent,  and  explained  the  way  the 

^  The  spirit  that  is  said  to  control  a  medium  when  in  a  trance  or  semi-trance 
condition. 

21 


22  HEARTLESS   FRAUDS 

fraudulent  ones  were  performed.  Knowing  nothing  of  this 
until  afterward,  I  made  my  own  investigation  of  similar  mani- 
festations through  another  medium  and  discovered  that  this 
kind  of  fraud  was  there  committed  in  the  way  that  the  spirit 
control  said  that  he  saw  it  done. 

At  a  circle  given  by  this  materialization  medium,  I  saw 
a  form  appear  that  was  recognized  by  a  business  man  present 
as  that  of  his  wife  who  had  lately  died.  He  took  the  form 
by  the  hand  and  kissed  her,  and  then  introduced  her  to  the 
circle.  No  less  than  ten  other  forms  were  recognized  by 
different  sitters  as  those  of  departed  members  of  their  fami- 
lies or  of  friends.  Many  in  the  circle  were  affected  to  tears, 
and  yet  all  of  these  so-called  materializations  were  the  me- 
dium herself.  If  she  desired  to  impersonate  one  whose 
stature  was  less  than  her  own,  she  would  walk  or  glide  with 
knees  more  or  less  bended ;  or  if  a  child  was  to  be  repre- 
sented she  would  move  about  awkwardly  on  her  knees ;  if  the 
one  to  be  impersonated  was  taller  than  herself,  she  would 
make  use  of  a  wire  bust  that  fitted  the  shoulders  and  made 
her  seem  nearly  a  foot  higher  than  her  normal  height.  Such 
trickery,  with  the  paraphernalia  of  white  gauze,  false  faces, 
etc.,  in  a  room  nearly  dark,  makes  it  easy  to  deceive  the  eyes, 
especially  when  the  emotions  are  deeply  stirred. 

At  a  circle  of  another  medium  it  was  announced  that  L 

was  present  and  would  materialize  for  his  wife.  There  was 
a  lady  of  this  name  in  the  circle,  whose  husband  was  in  the 
spirit  world.  She  was  much  surprised  when  L ap- 
peared in  front  of  the  curtain  in  full  military  uniform  and 
with  the  stars  of  a  major-general  and  she  was  called  to  the 
curtain  "to  greet  her  husband."  Her  husband  had  never 
been  a  general  nor  had  he  been  in  the  army  at 

The  Spirit      ^j^y  time,  but  there  had  been  a  prominent  ma- 
Wires  -^ 
Seem  Crossed,  j or- general  in  the  Civil  War  of  this  same  name. 

Evidently  a  mistake  had  been  made ;  the  wires 

had  gotten  badly  crossed,  either  upon  this  side  or  upon  the 

spirit  side.     But  Mrs.  L ,  who  was  a  spiritualist  rooted 


LUTHER   R.    MARSH  23 

and  grounded  in  the  faith,  just  the  same  aftef  the  sitting  as 
she  was  before — probably  took  no  more  precaution  than  be- 
fore against  error  or  deception. 

At  another  circle  it  was  announced  that  a  near  relative  of 
mine  was  present.  When  I  asked  if  he  had  any  way  of  iden- 
tifying himself,  he  said,  through  the  control,  that  shortly 
before  he  had  died  he  had  assumed  a  serious  obligation — 
describing  the  obligation.  This  was  true;  but  with  a  little 
detective  work  I  discovered  that  at  a  few  sittings  pre- 
vious to  this  one  this  same  control  had  cross-examined  a 
friend  of  mine  and  had  got  this  identical  bit  of  informa- 
tion. 

I  attended  a  circle  at  which  a  husband  was  called  up  to 
the  curtain  of  the  cabinet  by  the  "  spirit "  of  his  wife.  She 
said  to  him :  "  Dear,  we  on  this  side  are  much  concerned  for 
our  medium  and  I  want  you  to  help  her.  She  worries  so 
greatly  on  account  of  the  mortgage  that  is  on  her  house,  and 
this  worry  depletes  her  psychic  force  to  such  a  degree  that  I 
fear  I  can  not  come  to  you  any  more,  and  this  will  so  grieve 
me.  Now,  my  dear,  I  want  you  to  do  me  a  favor — to-mor- 
row pay  off  her  mortgage,  won't  you?  " 

"  Yes,  darling,  if  you  wish  it." 

"Thank  you,  thank  you,  dear;  I  do  wish  it,  as  this  will 
make  it  easy  for  me  to  come  to  you  hereafter." 

And  the  faithful  in  the  circle  all  praised  the  husband 
as  affectionate,  soft-hearted,  and  the  spirits  rapped  in  ap- 
proval. 

Yes,  but  there  is  a  softness  of  heart  that  reaches  upward, 
too  often,  to  the  brain. 

In  November,  1903,  there  was  a  court  trial  in  New  York 
State  at  which  the  assignments  of  several  life-insurance  poli- 
cies were  set  aside  by  the  judge.  The  assignments  had  been 
made  by  the  late  well-known  New  York  lawyer,  Luther  R. 
Marsh.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Marsh  was  shame- 
lessly duped  by  the  medium,  Mme.  Diss-Debar,  as  was  re- 
vealed in  the  exposure  that  took  place  in  newspaper  and 


(24  PSYCHIC   COBWEBS 

court  in  1888.     At  the  trial  in  November  last  a  Mr.  Huy- 
ler,  the  husband  of  medium  Huyler,  testified : ' 

On  the  day  Mr.  Marsh  transferred  the  policies  he  and  his  wife  had 
gone  to  Mr.  Marsh's  room,  where  Mrs.  Huyler  claimed  to  hold  com- 
munication with  the  spirits,  and  told  Mr.  Marsh  there  was  a  terrible 
uproar  in  spiriiland  because  he  declined  to  transfer  the  policies.  She 
told  him  that  his  spiritualistic  wife,  Adelaide  Neilson,  was  tearing  her 
hair  and  weeping  reproaches  upon  him. 

His  wife,  Mrs.  Marsh,  was  acting  in  the  same  fashion,  and  his 
deceased  father-in-law,  " Sunset"  Alvin  Stewart,  was  exceedingly  wroth. 

Mr.  Marsh  was  alarmed  at  this  manifestation  of  spiritualistic  dis- 
pleasure, and  agreed  to  transfer  the  policies.  At  the  last  moment  he  hesi- 
tated, and  claimed  that  because  his  will  was  made  out  he  thought  it  bet- 
ter to  postpone  the  matter  a  little  while;  but  Mrs.  Huyler  insisted  that 
he  go  across  the  way  to  a  lawyer's  office,  and  he  did  .so. 

While  he  was  gone  Mrs.  Huyler  admitted  that  the  trance  was  a 
**  fake  "  and  said  that  she  wanted  to  get  all  she  could  from  **  the  old  fool " 
before  he  died. 

Mr.  Marsh  returned  to  the  room  presently  and  assured  her  that  the 
transfer  had  been  made  as  she  desired. 

As  soon  as  this  evidence  had  been  given  by  Huyler,  Justice  Marean 
ended  the  proceedings. 

"  This  man  is  a  thief  and  a  fraud,"  he  said,  turning  to  Huyler,  "  and 
he  acted  the  part  of  a  thief  when  he  and  his  wife  conspired  to  secure 
these  policies  by  the  means  he  has  just  related." 

Poor  Marsh !  We  do  well  to  believe  in  religious  things, 
of  course ;  but  with  our  religion  we  should  have  sanctified 
common  sense. 

Blind,  unthinking  belief  is  as  objectionable  as  blind  un- 
thinking skepticism,  and  is  sometimes  dangerous. 

Honest  skepticism  need  not  be  antagonism ;  to  avoid  an- 
tagonism it  is  not  necessary  to  "  spill  over  on  the  other  side." 
One  who  is  willing  to  be  fooled  is  easily  fooled.  Barnum 
was  right:  a  large  portion  of  mankind  place 

Willingly      themselves  in  a  mental  attitude  that  makes  it 
Fooled  an 
Easy  Dupe.     ^^^V  ^^^V  ^^  humbug  them.     But,  as  says  the 

poet,  the  right  to  be  a  fool  is  "  safe  from  all 
devices  human."  These  psychic  cobwebs  have  tangled  the 
feet  of  even  many  an  intellectual  giant,  and  the  shrewdest 

'  Quoted  from  the  New  York  Times,  November  a6,  1903. 


NATURE'S    LAWS   UNCHANGING       25 

experts  need  to  sail  these  mystic  seas  with  sharp  eyes  and 
level  heads,  for  many  here  have  lost  their  bearings. 

We  can  not  repeat  too  often  to  ourselves  in  these  inves- 
tigations that  this  is  a  question  that  should  be  approached 
with  coolness,  with  judgment,  with  deliberation,  not  with 
preconception  or  prejudice  in  favor  of  or  against,  for  what 
we  expect  to  see  we  are  apt  to  see.  An  earnest  wish  plays 
pranks  with  our  senses,  making  us  "  see  substance  where 
there  is  empty  nothing  " ;  and  the  reverse  is  equally  true. 
We  should  always  remember  that  some  of  us  gravitate  easily 
toward  certain  facts,  others  against  them;  it  is  a  matter 
largely  of  initial  momentum,  temperament,  education,  char- 
acter. 

2.  That  they  are  too  ready  to  believe  in  the  Super- 
natural. 

Men  feed  on  superstitions  as  greedily  as  little  children 
on  bonbons.  We  nearly  all  dearly  love  the  marvelous.  It 
is  bewitching  to  the  average  man,  giving  spur  and  loose  reins 
to  a  heated  fancy,  changing  affairs  of  the  imagination  into 
imaginary  affairs — there  is  a  vast  difference  between  these 
two.  The  desire  to  commune  with  existences  thought  to  be 
"beyond  nature" — an  unknown  mundus  intellectuum — is  a 
deathless  hunger.  This,  when  it  becomes  morbid,  makes  us 
ready  to  leap  clear  over  nature  and  nature's  laws  and  gulp 
down  the  most  impossible  stories.  Admit  the  supernatural, 
then  anything  becomes  possible. 

There  is  nothing  supernatural   but  God  —  He  is  back 

of  but  not  contrary  to  nature.      Natural  law  rules  wherever 

intelligence  is — alike  on  both  sides  of  the  grave.     Heaven 

and  earth  may  pass  away,  but  not  one  jot  nor 

one  tittle  of  law  will  cease,  for  law  is  an  ex-        Nothing 

r     1  r   ^    1       TTT,        ,       'i  •,     Supernatural 

pression  of  the  nature  of  God.     Why  should       ^mt  God. 

the  getting  rid  at  death  of  these  outer  husks 
change  our  relations  to  nature  and  nature's  laws.?     Doubt- 
less at  death  we  get  rid  of  our  coarser  environments — those 


26  "FOOUS  WORLD" 

with  which  the  physical  senses  have  to  do ;  but  these  senses 
and  environments  are  the  shadows  of  real  substances,  and  the 
substance  answers  to  its  shadow. 

Whatever  the  spirit  world  is,  we  may  rest  assured  that 
we  shall  find  it  natural,  in  no  way  a  contradiction  of  true 
common  sense  or  true  reason.  We  can  not  any  more  there 
than  here  get  warm  before  a  painted  fire,  nor  satisfy  hunger 
with  a  painted  feast.  Yet  thousands  of  Spiritualists  seem  to 
expect  the  world  to  believe  that  the  ghosts  of  Beecher,  of 
Franklin,  of  Shakespeare,  can  appear  at  ten  thousand  circles 
in  different  parts  of  the  world  on  the  same  evening,  and  if 
need  be  at  the  same  instant  of  time.  It  may  easily  be  that 
there  are  a  thousand  laws  of  nature  of  which  we  know  noth- 
ing ;  but  were  there  a  billion  it  is  only  reasonable  to  believe 
that  no  two  laws  will  be  found  anywhere  in  the  universe, 
on  either  side  of  the  death  line,  that  contradict  one  an- 
other. The  universe  is,  as  its  name  implies,  a  unit.  One, 
supreme  Reason,  consistent  and  unchangeable,  governs  it. 
Belief  in  this  is  part  of  the  granite  foundation  that  under- 
lies all  things.  Disbelief  in  it  is  the  way  to  the  insane 
asylum. 

The  wife  of  a  sea  captain  told  me  that  once  when  on 
shore  she  went  into  what  is  called  a  "fool's  world,"  where 
things  are  so  arranged  by  machinery  that  the  floor  and  sides 
of  the  room,  furniture,  pictures  on  the  wall,  table,  lamp, 
pitcher,  tumblers,  turn  slowly  upside  down,  while  the  chair 
on  which  you  sit  remains  right  side  up.  She  said  she  had 
never  been  seasick  in  her  life,  altho  very  frequently  upon 
the  ocean  in  the  stormiest  of  weather,  yet,  strange  to  say, 
when  in  this  "fool's  world"  she  became  seasick,  altho  she 
knew  all  the  time  that  she  was  sitting  still  and  all  the  other 
things  were  turning  round,  each  screwed  fast  to  its  place. 
That  foolish  section  of  the  Spiritualist  host  who  are  ready 
to  believe  anything  that  comes  from  the  cabinet  must  expect 
to  encounter  incredulity  and  at  times  disgust  when  they  run 
against  the  common  sense  ingrained  in  mankind.     But  when 


SUBJECTIVE    MIND  27 

belief  in  the  supernatural  becomes  a  disease,  it  is  past  the 
reach  of  all  argument  and  generally  of  all  medicine. 

3.  That  they  constantly  confound  the  workings  of  the 
subjective  mind  of  the  entranced  medium  with  the  work- 
ings of  spirits. 

From  out  of  the  subjective  mind  come  hysteria,  ecstasy, 
much  of  what  passes  for  obsession,  somnambulism,  hypno- 
tism, much  of  so-called  witchcraft,  clairvoyance,  clairaudi- 
ence,  secondary  personality,  and  we   know   not  what  else. 
In  investigations  of  this  sort,  the  first  of  all 
things  that  we  should  know  is,  as  Kant  put  it,      T^®  Power 
the  faculty  of  cognition  and  the  sources  of    g  ^         . 
knowledge  which  lie  within  it.     A  mechanic      Faculties, 
is  wiser  than  are  we.      His  first  concern  is  to 
know  his  tools ;  then  he  goes  to  work.      But  we  go  to  work 
too  often  to  master  the  world  of  psychic  phenomena  before 
we  have  learned  anything  of  the  tools  of  the  mind  that  have 
to  do  with  this  phenomenon. 

Of  two  ways  to  account  for  a  phenomenon,  the  simplest 
that  explains  all  of  the  facts  should  be  adopted — all  of  the 
facts.  With  our  present  lack  of  knowledge,  Spiritualists  are 
not  justified  in  settling  these  phenomena  offhand — any  more 
than  are  Antispiritualists. 

Who  among  us  can  give  an  explanation  of  the  following 
personal  experience }  One  day  while  asleep  I  dreamed  that 
I  saw  a  battle,  I  saw  the  maneuverings  of  great  armies, 
heard  the  cannonading,  many  people  were  killed,  the 
battle  continued  for  a  long  time;  then  one  of  the  armies 
retreated,  and  I  saw  the  field  covered  with  dead  and  wounded, 
and  the  dead  gathered  and  buried.  I  awoke  and  was  told  that 
not  more  than  half  a  minute  before  a  gun  had  been  shot  off 
out  in  the  street.  That  gun  evidently  started  my  dream,  in 
which  were  crowded  the  events  of  hours.  At  times  when  we 
are  not  asleep  a  loud  noise  will  start  the  imagination  into 
action,  and  seemingly  in  an  objective  way  many  objects  will 


28  UNEXPLAINED   APPARITIONS 

appear  to  us,  and  appear  so  real  that  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  subjective  and  objective.  Besides, 
who  can  limit  the  strange  things  that  may  happen,  if  it  be 
true  that  there  is  some  power  within  us  in  certain  normal  or 
abnormal  states  that  even  enables  us  to  project  ourselves  so 
really  that  we  become  apparent  to  the  physical  senses  of 
others  and  see  and  hear  things  at  a  great  distance  ? 

What  are  we  to  do  with  facts  of  which  the  following  two 
are  typical  ? 

An  aunt  of  mine  died  suddenly  at  midnight  in  a  house  in 
which  I  was  resident.  Her  son-in-law,  living  on  a  farm  two 
miles  away,  at  about  the  time  the  aunt  died, 
Apparitions  ^Q^it  for  water  at  a  spring  some  distance  from 
after  Death.  ^^^  house.  He  saw  Standing  by  the  spring  a 
well-defined  apparition  of  this  aunt.  He  knew 
nothing  of  her  illness.  Imagination,  coincidence — possibly. 
Many  facts  like  this  one  are  given  by  The  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  verified  as  carefully  as  possible. 

Take  this  other  typical  fact :  The  son  of  a  clergyman  at  his 
home  in  Illinois  was  playing  on  the  floor  with  his  four-year- 
old  son,  who,  pointing  to  the  ceiling,  said :  "  Dada,  look 
there !  "  The  father  looked  up  and  saw  with  perfect  clear- 
ness his  own  father  looking  at  him.  A  comparison  of  time 
showed  that  this  was  //iree  hours  before  the  death  of  the  elder 
father  in  Kentucky,  the  son  being  wholly  ignorant  of  the  ill- 
ness of  the  father.  As  the  apparition  was  first  seen  by  the 
child,  there  seemed  to  be  no  possibility  of  hallucination  or 
any  known  operation  of  telepathy ;  and,  as  the  father  was  not 
dead,  how  does  Spiritualism  supply  the  certain  explanation } 

Should  not  Spiritualists  also  apply  to  themselves  the 
words  of  Shakespeare :  "  There  are  more  things  in  heaven 
and  earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy  "  } 

4.  That  they  are  too  flippant. 

Huxley,  after  attending  a  stance,  said  the  trivialities  seen 
and  heard  at  these  circles  had  but  one  good  result :  they  sup- 


A   "SPIRIT'S"    TALK  29 

plied  a  strong  argument  against  suicide.  I  heard  at  a  circle 
a  spirit  jokingly  invited  to  be  present  at  a  Thanksgiving 
dinner.  He  said  he  would  be  there,  as  he  always  liked  turkey 
and  cake.  This  produced  a  hearty  laugh,  in  which  the 
"spirit  "  joined.  This  kind  of  exhibition  will  never  convert 
to  Spiritualism  the  sober-minded,  the  men  of  judgment. 
The  most  sacred  instincts  of  the  soul  are  against  it. 

If  Spiritualism  be  true,  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  it  is  a 
fundamental  error  to  have  sittings  for  fun ;  that  the  kind  of 
heart  you  throw  into  the  spirit  world  determines  the  kind  of 
spirits  that  come  after  it;  that  in  the  psychic  realm  like 
draws  like. 

There  is  much  sound  wisdom  in  these  words  I  heard  at  a 
circle  from  one  who  was  said  to  be  a  spirit : 

"  Friends,  some  who  come  here  and  who  believe  in  Spir- 
itualism do  not  take  these  communications  seriously,  but  as  a 
matter  of  amusement.     This  is  wholly  wrong 

and  hurtful,  making  it  exceedingly  difficult  for      I>anger  of 
*  .  .         ^  .  T^  1  Frivolity  at 

developed  spirits  to  communicate.    Remember,        sittings. 

we  spirits  are  in  a  world  where  thought  and 
feeling  have  dynamic  force.  You  are  in  a  coarse  physical 
world  and  are  not  so  subject  to  these  influences.  You  make 
a  mistake  that  is  injurious  to  yourselves  in  not  knowing  the 
laws  of  spiritual  attraction  and  repulsion.  You  should  de- 
velop a  consecrated  spiritual  life.  A  frivolous  spirit  in  the 
s6ance-room  opens  the  door  to  spirits  that  you  may  find  it 
hard  to  get  rid  of.  Beware  of  having  fun  with  what  you  some- 
times jestingly  call  the  Devil ;  he  has  in  every  way  the  advan- 
tage. He  doesn't  need  to  mark  the  cards  to  read  them,  nor 
run  lead  into  the  dice  to  make  them  turn  to  his  guessing. 
No!  life  is  no  joke,  either  on  your  side  or  on  ours.  Spir- 
itual development  is  the  result  of  a  serious  purpose. 

"  Remember,  you  are  living  in  a  world  largely  of  effects ; 
we  are  living  in  a  world  of  causes,  and  also  of  effects  from 
higher  worlds.  All  things  of  importance  in  your  earth  life 
begin  on  this  side  and  are  carried  into  execution  under  our 


30  HARD-HEADEDNESS   NEEDED 

direction.     There  are  many   spirits  who  are  frivolous  and 

truculent;  some  are  simply  mischievous,  some  mean  harm. 

Death  has  not  radically  changed  their  charac- 

Charactera     ^gj.g      Good  character  is  a  matter  of  growth. 
Matter  of       _,  .        ,  ...  .    , 

Growth.        "  y^^  S^^^  ^^^  conditions,  some  of  these  spirits 

will  wheedle  you,  flatter  you,  bamboozle  you, 
making  you  believe  that  they  are  anybody  you  ask  for — your 
child,  sister,  or  mother,  or  Shakespeare,  or  St.  Paul.  You 
are  easily  led  captive  by  your  foolish  vanity. 

"  The  greatest  of  all  forces  in  the  spirit  world  is  goodness, 
which  holds  the  evil  spirits  in  control,  but  not  against  their 
will,  except  to  prevent  injury  to  others  against  the  consent 
of  those  others.  If  you  give  the  conditions  for  them  to  enter 
the  sphere  of  your  life,  we  can  not  keep  them  from  entering, 
nor  keep  you  from  harm. 

"  Friends,  hear  me :  Do  not  come  to  the  spirit  circle 
through  mere  curiosity  or  to  have  some  idle  talk  with  de- 
parted friends.  Come  with  a  sincere  desire  to  get  good,  and 
goodwill  come  to  you;  otherwise,  I  entreat  you  not  to  come." 

The  time  may  come  when  Spiritualists  will  enter  circles 
only  after  fasting  and  prayer.  When  that  time  comes,  it 
may  be  that  a  chief  argument  for  skepticism  will  be  removed. 

5.  That  they  are  too  ready  to  accept  foolish  or  hurt- 
ful utterances  from  the  s6ance-room. 

The  world  will  not  soon  forget  the  mad  doctrine  of  "  soul 
affinities "  which  quickly  degenerated  into  free  love,  the 
teachings  that  the  "  Bible  is  a  book  the  world  has  outlived," 
that  "God  is  not  a  person,  but  a  principle,"  that  "men  are 
parts  of  God,"  that  "  it  is  folly  to  talk  of  Christ  as  a  sac- 
rifice for  sin."  The  spirit  world  was  made  responsible  for 
these  and  many  other  like  teachings.  Of  course  many  Spiri- 
tualists, quite  likely  a  large  majority,  did  not  accept  these 
utterances.  But  a  large  portion  of  the  outside  public  to  this 
day  believe  that  these  are  the  teachings  of  this  "cult." 

At  only  a  few  circles  are  heard  even  now  expressions 


BETTER   THOUGHTS  31 

of  fervent  love  for  God,  reverence  for  things  sacred,  expres- 
sions of  meekness,  of  true  piety,  of  self-abnegation. 

Why  should  this  be?     Many  leading  Spiritualists  have 
told  us  that  Jesus  was  chiefest  of  mediums,  and 
so  have  many  spirit  controls.    If  this  be  so,  then  If  "Jesus  was 
why  should  not  Spiritualists  reverently  heark-      -..  ^.  ®®  „ 
en  to  the  utterances  of  this  prince  of  mediums     Hear  Him. 
concerning  the  inner  life  of  the  spirit  world  ^ 

I  listened  one  evening  to  one  who  I  was  told  was  an 
exalted  spirit.  He  said :  **  Listen  to  what  this  Jesus  said. 
He  spoke  what  He  knew.  He  came  down  from  the  higher 
realms,  far  higher  than  the  one  I  inhabit.  He  is  an  exceed- 
ingly great  spirit,  a  bright  light,  who  came  down  to  mate- 
rialize on  earth.  He  had  power  to  give  up  His  life  and  to 
take  it  again.  Read  carefully  and  understand  His  words. 
We  here  feel  His  influence  but  do  not  see  Him ;  He  is  a 
mighty  power  to  lift  up  mankind  in  the  flesh  and  out  of 
the  flesh." 

Yet  again  and  again  I  have  heard  Jesus  spoken  of  lightly 
in  the  seance-room  as  "  good  enough  for  the  age  in  which  He 
lived  " ;  as  the  Boston  merchant  who,  after  reading  Shake- 
speare for  the  first  time,  confidently  assured  his  friends  that 
he  did  not  believe  that  there  were  a  do^en  men  in  all  Boston 
who  could  have  written  these  plays,  so  these  people  are 
sure  that  there  are  some  to-day — possibly  not  many — who 
excel  Jesus  in  wisdom  and  in  purity  of  life  and  spiritual 
power. 

Even  from  the  standpoint  of  Spiritualists  there  is  a  pro- 
digious likelihood  against  the  infallibility  of  spirit  teachings. 
Let  Spiritualism   be   so    presented   that   the 
world  will  understand  it  to  mean  clean  man-        Spirits' 
hood  and  womanhood,  love  to  God  and  man,      infallible. 
God  a  person  supreme  and  Father  over  all,  and 
Jesus  Christ  His  embodiment  on  earth,  and  the  pathway  of 
Spiritualism  will  have  removed  from  it  some  of  its  chiefest 
rocks  of  offense  and  stumbling.     I  have  in  my  notebooks 


32  THE   SWEET   NOW 

many  records  of  what  I  have  heard  which  bear  testimony  that 
some  of  the  teachings  in  the  stance-rooms  are  in  harmony 
with  these  better  thoughts.     The  following  are  typical : 

Question  from  circle  :  "  Why  does  not  the  spirit  world 
prevent  the  miseries  that  are  pressing  so  hard  upon  this  world, 
and  have  for  myriads  of  ages  ?  *' 

Answer  :  "  The  spirit  world  is  doing  everything  to  pre- 
vent these  miseries  that  it  possibly  can  without  infringement 
upon  the  free  agency  of  the  individual  on  earth.  It  is  a 
fixed  law  that  can  not  possibly  be  evaded,  that  each  individual 
is  free ;  his  individuality  can  not  be  invaded  without  his  con- 
sent by  even  the  most  exalted  spirits.  Then, 
*'Predigested  dij  vvg  interfere  unnecessarily  in  your  world,  it 

ot^l^  would  simply  end  in  a  greater  tangle.     A  law 

Best.  o^  your  nature  requires  you  to  think  out  very 

largely  the  answers  to  the  problems  you  en- 
counter ;  it  is  your  education.  It  is  not  well  for  the  stomach 
that  its  food  be  predigested  for  it,  except  now  and  then  to 
help  it  over  difficulties  too  great  for  it.  The  same  law  holds 
for  the  soul." 

Again :  "  You  are  not  always  to  sing  about  the  sweet  by 
and  by,  but  the  sweet  now ;  as  Jesus  said,  Sufficient  is  the 
day  unto  the  necessities  for  it,  and  each  world  until  you 
reach  it.  Let  there  be  gladness  without  frivolity,  serious- 
ness without  despair.  Friends,  sufficient  is  one  world  at  a 
time,  one  home  at  a  time,  one  moment  at  a  time ;  and  fill 
that  world,  that  home,  and  that  moment  with  good,  holy 
thoughts  and  good  service,  and  then  the  great  Father  in  His 
own  time  will  bring  you  to  the  other  worlds. 

"  If  a  man  worships  a  little  God  in  a  little  city  with  a 
few  people,  he  becomes  a  little  man  and  his  God  is  a  little 
God.  But  if  he  worships  a  God  who  is  Himself  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  sacrifice  of  service,  who  loves  all,  and  is  to  be 
found  in  all,  and  interpreted  by  all  events  and  all  things,  all 
of  which  work  together  for  good,  such  a  one  is  a  large  soul ; 
for  as  a  man  thinketh  so  he  is." 


''COLONEL   INGERSOLUS   SPIRIT"      3;^ 

6,  That  they  are  too  apt  to  denounce  skeptics  as 
hostile  when  these  skeptics  are  engaged  in  making  only 
honest  investigations. 

It  is  foolish  to  tell  men :  **  You  must  believe  before  you 
investigate,  as  your  unbelief  shuts  the  door  against  spirit 
communication."  This  is  a  closed  circle :  Must  believe  be- 
fore you  can  investigate ;  must  investigate  before  you  can  be- 
lieve. The  other  world  is  to  this  world  a  foreign  country,  a 
hinterland,  or  rather  a  foreland.  If  one  comes  to  me  claim- 
ing to  be  a  spirit  messenger,  I  have  a  right  to  ask  for  his 
credentials.  I  must  not  be  denounced  as  of  a  skeptical 
temperament  because  I  so  ask. 

At  a  circle  Wilson  MacDonald,  the  well-known  sculptor, 

said  in  my  hearing :  "  This  thing  of  spirit  return  I  know  to 

be    true.      After  my  old  friend,    Robert   G. 

Ingersoll,  had  died,  he  appeared  to  me  at  a       ^^^  ^o^* 

circle  in  this  same  room  in  materialized  form.       ..  „ 

Ingersoll 

He  said  to  me :  *Mac,  my  old  friend,  I  am  glad    Materialize? 
to  see  you.     You  know,  I  believed  nothing  in 
this,  but  now  here  I  am. '     I  looked  him  all  over,  then  I  said : 
*  Colonel,  this  surely  is  you ;  it  is  you.     How  glad  I  am  to 
see  you ! '" 

However  certain  men  like  MacDonald  are  in  their  belief 
in  Spiritualism,  it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  for  them 
to  expect  men  of  the  temperament  and  beliefs  of  an  Ingersoll 
when  he  was  in  the  flesh  to  believe  in  spirit  return  without 
fullest  proofs.  The  opposition  to  investigation  exhibited  by 
some  mediums  and  other  Spiritualists  is  simply  dogmatism 
and  intolerance  in  a  new  dress.  It  is  far  removed  from  the 
spirit  that  frees  itself  from  all  predisposition,  prejudice,  bias, 
— from  Huxley's  spirit  of  the  little  child  sitting  before  a  fact 
interrogating  it. 

There  is  much  food  for  thought  for  this  class  of  ob- 
jecting Spiritualists  in  this  talk  directed  to  me  by  a  "  spirit 
control "  : 

"  Sometimes  I  almost  grow  weary  at  the  little  progress 
3 


34  GROWTH    ESSENTIAL 

which  seems  to  be  made  toward  bringing  the  race  of  men  to 
understand  the  possibilities  and  certainties  of  spiritual  commu- 
nication. I  have  worked  for  many  years  giving  a  very  large 
portion  of  my  possible  service  to  this  work — service  that  I  have 
taken  from  other  and  very  important  employments  in  the 

spirit  world.     But  I  see  that  men  can  not  get 
A  "Spirit  .  .  ^. 

Control"       ^^  ^^^^  truth  except  by  growth.     It  is  not  arbi- 

Grows  Weary  trarily  to  be  seized.     You  yourself  have  forci- 
of  Our         biy  expressed  this  truth  in  your  little  book  on 
*  Evolution/  a  copy  of  which  you  sent  to  our 
instrument  and  which  she  read  in  my  hearing.      As  you  say, 
we  can  not  understand  a  spiritual  truth  unless  we  grow  to 
it.     How  can  an  artist  understand  the  beauty  of  a  picture 
until  he  develops  up  to  that  stage  of  beauty  ?     Progress  will 
be  made  toward  these  divine  truths  only  as  the  human  race 
grows  the  faculties  by  which  these  truths  are  comprehended." 
We  surely  can  lay  it  down  as  axiomatic  that  there  is  no 
truth  in  the  universe,  on  either  side  the  grave,  that  will  de- 
prive man  of  the  right  of  judgment. 

"  The  One  that  worketh  high  and  wise, 
Nor  pauses  in  His  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man." 

Spiritualists,  however  certain  they  may  be  that  they  have 
the  truth,  must  learn  to  have  patience  with  honest  unbeliev- 
ers. Scoffers  are  an  entirely  different  class  of  people  and 
need  be  given  no  attention ;  but  for  the  former  class  spiritual- 
ists should  strive  to  imitate  the  spirit  shown  by  a  London  pic- 
ture-dealer, who  had  some  works  of  art  for  sale  which  he 
claimed  were  by  **  old  masters  " — his  advertisement  assured 
the  public  that "  dissentious  skeptics  can  have  every  satisfac- 
tion." 


EXPERT   TESTIMONY   PREFERRED     35 

7.  That  they  are  too  unwilling  in  many  cases  to  per- 
mit the  application  to  psychic  phenomena  of  real  tests, 
and  in  nearly  all  cases  too  neglectful  or  unskilful  to 
supply  such  tests. 

Much  more  is  expected  of  Spiritualism  than  that  it  be 
able  to  stand  a  trial  by  jury;  this  for  two  reasons.  The 
phenomena  often  take  place  in  a  dark  room,  usually  the  inves- 
tigator is  not  permitted  to  touch  the  materializing  forms,  nor 
is  he  permitted  to  make  necessary  tests  to  discover  whether 
ventriloquism  and  other  of  the  arts  of  the  con- 
jurer are  used.  Then,  the  phenomena  are  con-  Extra- 
tradictions  to  the  ordinary  ongoings  of  nature,  _  ^^,  ^^^  , 
or  at  least  to  our  common  observation  of  these  Unreasonable, 
ongoings.  To  such  phenomena  we  must  apply 
something  more  than  the  ordinary  rules  of  evidence.  It  is 
not  altogether  unreasonable  that  they  be  required  to  stand 
extraordinary  tests  of  demonstration.  As  long  as  any  other 
reasonable  theory  than  that  of  spirits  will  explain  the 
phenomena,  this  one  will  not  be  accepted  by  the  average 
man.  There  is  common  sense  in  this  requirement.  If  a 
witness  says  that  he  saw  a  man  steal  an  overcoat,  he  will  be 
much  more  readily  believed  than  if  he  says  he  saw  a  man 
take  off  his  arm  and  put  it  on  again.  It  is  not  quantity  of 
evidence  that  is  now  required  of  Spiritualism;  it  is  quality. 
There  has  been  gathered  a  prodigious  quantity  of  facts 
vouched  for  by  honest  persons,  but  the  test  conditions  ap- 
plied are  generally  most  insufficient. 

I  would  rather  have  the  testimony  of  an  expert  who  had 
seen  the  phenomena  one  time  than  that  of  a  non-expert  who 
had  seen  the  same  phenomena  a  score  of  times.  An  expert 
is  one  who  knows  what  to  look  for,  and  can  see  clearly  and 
can  so  express  himself  as  to  make  you  see  what  he  saw.  The 
faculty  of  accurate  observation  is  an  exceedingly  important 
but  rare  faculty — very,  very  few  possess  it.  In  addition, 
these  qualifications  in  a  witness  of  these  phenomena  are 
necessary :  honesty,  spiritual  insight,  unfaltering  courage  to 


^6     COMMON    SENSE    REQUIREMENTS 

deny  or  accept  what  is  presented  in  obedience  to  conscience 
— to  tell  just  what  he  observes — the  truth,  the  whole  truth, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth. 

The  burden  of  proof  lies  with  Spiritualists  who  assert 
things  that  are  contrary  to  the  common  experiences  of  man- 
kind.    And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  it  is  a 
Spiritualists 

Should        ^^^y  "^^^  ^  hypothesis  that  refers   to  spints 

Make  Inves-    everything  in  the  sdance-room  that  is  difficult 

tigation       ^q    understand.      Spiritualists   must    reverse 

^'         their  methods.     They  now  usually  block  the 

way  to  investigation ;  they  should  lead  the  way ;  they  should 

give  weight  to  the  following  demands : 

1 .  That  every  medium  stand  a  critical  examination  as  to 
his  or  her  mediumship,  and  that  those  who  stand  such  ex- 
amination be  given  certificates,  which  certificates  are  to  be 
on  exhibition  in  the  seance-room. 

2.  That  leading  Spiritualists  have  nothing  to  do  with  a 
medium  who  will  not  submit  to  such  conditions  as  will  make 
fraud  impossible.  These  stances  must  not  be  only  upon- 
honor  affairs.  The  requirement  should  be  carried  even  so  far 
as  to  recognize  that  it  is  not  reasonable  for  a  materialized 
spirit  to  refuse  always  to  permit  himself  to  be  led  back  to  the 
cabinet,  and  with  arms  about  him,  to  dematerialize. 

Turn  on  the  searchlight  of  critical  investigation  in  all 
fulness.  Insist  that  everything  be  done  in  the  open  that  is 
possible  to  be  thus  done — in  full  daylight. 

If  fraud  is  discovered,  let  exposure  be  public  and  unpity- 
ing,  no  matter  whose  feelings  or  interests  are  hurt. 

Will  not  mediums  permit  a  word  of  exhortation  from  a 
well-wisher }  Be  content  to  fail.  If  you  can  give  only  little 
phenomena,  say  so.  Do  not  determine  to  give  more  phe- 
nomena than  any  other  medium  or  satisfy  morbidly  increas- 
ing desires  for  more  and  more.  Be  just  what  you  are.  If 
you  can't  be  a  loaf,  be  a  slice,  be  a  crumb;  be  honest. 
And  do  not  be  oversensitive  or  too  impatient  for  recognition 
of  what  you  deem  your  just  claims,  or  for  your  reward.     Re- 


APPEAL   TO    MEDIUMS  37 

member,  idealists  and  reformers  do  not  get  their  pay  every 
Saturday  night ;  in  the  Hall  of  Fame  books  are  not  promptly 
posted.  A  wit  once  said  of  Horace  Greeley :  He  made  and 
unmade  more  Presidents  than  any  other  man  living,  and  his 
reward  "  was  permanent  Secretary  of  the  Exterior,  in  charge 
of  the  thermometer. "  As  Luther  passed  through  an  ante- 
chamber to  face  the  Diet  at  Worms,  George  of  Freunsberg, 
a  brave  German  knight,  placed  his  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
saying : 

**  Little  Monk,  you  are  about  to  face  what  neither  I  nor  the  bravest 
soldier,  whose  trade  is  war,  ever  faced  on  the  battle-field.  If  thy  heart  is 
right  and  thy  cause  is  just,  go  on  in  God's  name  and  He  will  not  forsake 
thee." 

If  Spiritualists  know  that  they  have  a  vision  others  have  not; 
if  it  can  be  said  of  them  as  Cromwell  said  of  his  army.  They 
know  what  they  want  and  love  what  they  know,  they  can 
afford  to  be  patient  and  brave,  remembering  the  words  of 
John  Fiske :  "  Keep  pegging  away;  this  is  not  an  overintelli- 
gent  age. "  The  swine  dominates  in  the  average  man,  and 
we  know  the  hog — his  ears  are  pulled  off  to  get  him  to  the 
trough,  and  his  tail  to  get  him  away. 


II 

WAYS  IN  WHICH  SOME  NON-SPIRITUALISTS 
PREDISPOSE  THEMSELVES  UNFAVORABLY 
—HINDERING  OPINIONS  AND  DISPOSITIONS 

I.  That  for  intelligences  who  belong  to  another 
world  and  are  back  of  our  consciousness  and  beyond 
the  control  of  our  laws  and  police  and  public  opinion,  to 
be  permitted  to  interfere  with  the  affairs  of  this  world 
would  endanger  our  free-agency. 

This  interference  is  denounced  as  "  control  by  a  superior 
force,"  an  "  impertinence,"  a  *'  battering  down  of  the  accus- 
tomed order  of  things,"  the  application  of  "a  spiritual  dyna- 
mite to  our  ideas  of  the  universe,  of  God,  of  our  relations  to 
our  fellows,"  "  a  general  disintegration  and  unhinging  of  our 
free  will  as  applied  to  ourselves  and  the  affairs  of  earth." 

If  all  this  be  true,  the  objection  is  conclusive,  for  that 
which  destroys  free  will  destroys  liberty,  and  with  that  gone, 
nothing  in  existence  is  worth  the  having;  hence,  as  the  uni- 
verse works  for  good,  the  spirit  hypothesis  must  be  erroneous. 
We  come  into  consciousness,  says  Emer- 

Eacli  gQj^^  Qj^  ^  stairway.     It  is  for  us  to  say  whether 

Individual  ,    ,,  ,  ^       i   •       i        /■ 

a  Free  Affent.  ^^  shall  go  up  or  down.     Good  is  the   free 

will  choosing  of  what  is  right ;  evil  is  the  free 

will  choosing  of  what  is  wrong.      No  dagger  can  injure  my 

individuality  except  sin ;  and  no  hand  can  wield  that  dagger 

except  mine. 

**  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 
Nor  iron  bars  a  cage." 

The  subjection  of  the  higher  nature  to  the  lower,  the  lack  of 
love  for  our  fellows,  for  truth — these  are  bars  out  of  which 
our  prisons  are  made.     We  can  not  think,  try  as  we  will,  of 

38 


INDIVIDUALITY   INVIOLATE  ^9 

this  being  otherwise  on  either  side  of  the  grave — that  is,  if 
we  really  think. 

As  there  is  but  one  God,  the  moral  universe  must  be  a 
unit.  Its  framework  is  truth,  goodness  its  steel  skeleton. 
Rust  can  never  corrode  it ;  fires  never  melt  it ;  age  never 
cause  decay,  nor  weight  bend  it. 

No  one  living  on  earth  can  affect  the  character  of  another 
except  by  the  other's  consent. 

Christ  met  two  blind  men  who  desired  Him  to  cure  them 
(Matt.  ix.  27-31):  "Believe  ye,"  said  He  to  them,  "that  I 
am  able  to  do  this  .-*  "  This  was  not  idle  talk,  no  device  for 
compliment,  but  an  effort  to  secure  the  active  consent  of 
their  subconscious  mind.  This  real  self,  which  dominates 
in  us  all,  replied :  "  Yea,  Lord."  When  He  had  secured  this 
free  consent  of  their  unconscious  minds.  He  said,  "  Accord- 
ing to  your  faith,"  your  free  consent,  "  be  it  unto  you  " ;  and 
He  added :  See  that  you  do  not  speak  of  this  before  others, 
for  they  may  deride  your  credulity  and  lead  you  to  doubt  the 
reality  of  this  cure,  and  thus  your  consent  will  be  weakened 
and  you  relapse.  There  was  not  a  single  thing  done  by  this 
Ambassador  from  the  spirit  world,  Christ,  in  violation  of  the 
free-agency  of  these  blind  men. 

When  Christ  and  the  apostles  lived,  spirits  held  direct 

communication  with  earth.     Moses  and  Elias,  who  had  passed 

from  earth  hundreds  of  years  before,  were  with 

Christ  on  the   Mount  and  talked   with  Him  Intramundane 

about  things  that  were  shortly  to  take  place  at       .  °°^°^^" 

°  J  ^  nications  m 

Jerusalem.     Angels  rolled  back  the  stone  and    Bible  Times. 

met  the  women  at  the  sepulcher,  and  came  to 
Paul  and  Peter  in  prison.  In  what  way  did  the  spirit  com- 
munications violate  free  will }  After  the  days  of  the  apostles, 
spirit  communication  became  largely  a  memory,  a  tradition, 
an  argument.  Was  this  loss  of  spirit  communication  neces- 
sary.? If  spirits  once  communed  without  injury  to  man's 
liberty,  why  not  now,  and  now  as  then  supply  such  facts  as 
proof  of  the  existence  of  the  immaterial  world } 


40      SERVICE    MEASURES   GREATNESS 

Why  should  it  seem  unreasonable  to  us  that  there  are  in- 
telligences immeasurably  above  us  who  are  producing  great 
results  on  earth,  back  usually  of  our  consciousness,  in  har- 
mony with  the  laws  of  evolution  and  of  free-agency  ?  Why 
is  it  necessary  to  believe  that  this  is  the  first  series  of  evolu- 
tion ?  Is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  there  has 
been  a  countless  series  of  them  ?  Eternity  is  a  long  while — 
no  beginning,  always  an  eternity,  count  from  when  you  will, 
count  forward  or  backward.  Who  can  think  of  a  past  eter- 
nity in  which  nothing  took  place  ?  May  there  not  be  spirits 
who  have  been  evolving  billions  and  billions  and  cycles  of 
trillions  of  years  ?  Is  it  unthinkable — were  we  to  accept  the 
theory  that  Christ  was  not  God — that  one  of  these  devel- 
oped spirits  knew  how  to  materialize  as  Christ 
"Was  Christ  ^^^^  ^^^  came  into  this  world  having  power  to 
Spirit?  ^^y  ^^^^  ^^s  body  and  to  take  it  again;  that 
He  came  down  from  the  Father,  to  reveal  the 
Father  and  exalted  spirit  life  to  man  ?  It  is  not  what  God 
/ias  that  makes  Him  God,  but  what  He  gives.  It  is  not  the 
power  a  spirit  has  over  us  that  makes  it  an  exalted  spirit,  but 
his  ability  to  unfold  the  free  individuality  of  those  below  him. 
It  is  compassion,  love,  that  is  the  measure  of  greatness  in  the 
inner  world ;  and  compassion,  love,  work  not  toward  bondage, 
but  toward  freedom.  The  truth  makes  us  free.  It  is  this 
spirit  that  dwelt  in  Him  that  makes  the  life  of  Jesus  the 
gentlest  memory  of  the  ages ;  and  this  that  makes  that  mem- 
ory age  toward  youth — 

**  The  ages  sweep  around  Him  with  their  wings, 
Like  angered  eagles  cheated  of  their  prey." 

Here  is  a  curious  incident  which  I  witnessed  in  a  stance- 
room.  In  the  circle  was  a  Mr.  L.,  whose  wife  was  dead. 
Mr.  L.  was  an  ardent  Spiritualist  and  was  having  a  conversa- 
tion with  what  purported  to  be  the  spirit  of  his  wife,  when 
we  heard  from  the  cabinet  a  protesting  voice,  saying,  "  Don't, 


A   CURIOUS   INCIDENT  41 

don't ! "  and  the  voice  of  a  "  negro  spirit  "  known  as  "  Aunt 
Eliza  "  began  talking,  and  it  appeared  that  Aunt  Eliza  had 
crowded  out  the  spirit  of  Mrs.  L.  Mr.  L.  protested,  telling 
Aunt  Eliza  she  must  not  do  this,  and  the  following  conversa- 
tion took  place : 

Aunt  Eliza :  "  Oh,  I  wanted  a  chance  to  talk." 

Mr.  L. :  "  But  my  wife  was  talking  first,  and  you  have  a 
chance  to  talk  every  evening,  and  my  wife  has  not  talked  for 
four  weeks." 

Aunt  E. :  "  It  is  all  right. " 

Mr.  L. :  "  But  it  is  not  all  right ;  my  wife  always  was 
considerate,  modest,  non-assertive,  yielding.  It  seems  that 
you  use  brute  force  on  your  side  as  well  as  do  mortals 
on  this." 

Aunt  Eliza  held  the  fort,  but  when  she  left  she  was  curt 
and  did  not  come  back  for  weeks. 

If  this  was  really  what  it  claimed  to  be,  a  conflict  of 
spirits,  it  seems  that  spirits  retain  their  mentality,  character, 
individuality,  in  crossing  the  death  line,  and 
the  outer  nature. there  as  here  can  be  domi-     Was  This  a 
nated — the  outer  nature,  but  not  necessarily     ^^  Spirits  ? 
the  real,  the  inner  nature,  the  true  self.     The 
individuality  can  be  dominated  neither  here  nor  there.     It  is 
the  universal  teaching  in  the  seance-room,  as  far  as  my  ex- 
perience reaches,  that  man  after  death  still  has  a  body — an 
outer  and  an  inner  nature,  a  "  spirit  body,"  far  more  sensi- 
tive, subtle,  and  refined  than  the  one  he  had  on  earth,  invis- 
ible to  earthly  eyes,  but  as  real  as  earthly  bodies.     The  outer 
nature  there  as  here  may  be  oppressed,  but  the  inner  nature 
— the  true  self — there  and  here  is  forever  inviolable,  except 
by  consent. 

If  Spiritualism  will  be  able  to  carry  out  the  purpose  that 
so-called  spirits  claim  for  it,  in  the  near  future  other  intelli- 
gences than  men  in  the  flesh  will  participate  in  a  large  effec- 
tive way  in  human  affairs — foreign  intelligences  who  are  not 
subject  to  earthly  control  in  the  same  way  as  are  earthly  in^ 


42  "SUBPENA   GABRIEL" 

telligences.  "  Catch  me  if  you  can,"  said  the  dying  Socrates 
to  his  friends. 

The  breaking  into  this  world  of  another  world  of  intelli- 
gences who  shall  have  influence  over  but  not 
of  Foreign      ^^  responsible  to  us  is  a  startling  suggestion. 
Intelligences   To  believe  ourselves  to  be  in  the  presence  of 
in  Earthly      other  folks,  folks  who  have  not  bodies  as  have 

Affq.Tra. 

we,  and  whose  power  we  can  not  gage,  con- 
fuses and  dismays  us. 

A  lawyer  was  told  by  his  client,  who  was  a  Spiritualist, 
that  he  had  been  visited  by  Gabriel  in  a  dream  and  told  cer- 
tain things.  "  Very  well,"  said  the  lawyer,  without  looking 
up,  "  subpena  Gabriel."  Yes ;  but  how  enforce  your  subpena } 
Says  Shakespeare's  Hotspur,  in  reply  to  one  who  boasted 
that  he  could  call  "  Spirits  from  the  vasty  deep," 

**  Why,  so  can  I  or  so  can  any  man ; 
But  will  they  come  when  you  do  call  for  them  ?  " 

We  are  asked  to  establish  relations  with  foreign  powers,  with 
a  foreign  world.  What  is  the  bearing  of  those  powers  to- 
ward us ;  what  are  their  intentions } 

But  is  this  a  correct  statement  of  the  case }  Is  it  not 
the  purpose  of  Spiritualism  simply  to  make  known  to  our 
consciousness  a  relationship  that  already  exists,  not  to  create 
that  relationship }  Is  it  true  that  these  spirits  are  not  ame- 
nable to  law,  to  the  higher,  the  real  law  that  governs — a  law 
far  more  effective  than  ours,  neither  coarse  nor  clumsy,  a 
law  that  never  fails  in  its  execution  ?  The  higher  intelli- 
gences control  absolutely  and  prevent  the  lower  from  work- 
ing harm,  except  to  themselves;  and  even  the  self-inflicted 
harm,  in  a  broad  way,  they  overrule.  The  potent  part  of  this 
foreign  power  is  friendly. 

I  repeat,  the  visible  participation  in  earthly  affairs  of  out- 
side intelligences  is  not  new.  The  two  men  who  visited 
Lot  had  power  to  pull  Lot  inside  the  door  and  close  the  door 
and  strike  with  blindness  the  citizens  outside,  and  yet  these 


MAN^S    BLIND    CONCEIT  43 

two  men  were  not  amenable  to  the  laws  of  Sodom.  So 
Jesus  was  taken  in  the  spirit  and  carried  to  the  mountaintop 
and  to  the  Temple;  an  angel  struck  helpless  the  band  of 
Roman  soldiers  at  the  sepulcher,  and  spirits  opened  prison 
doors  that  had  been  closed  by  the  governmental  authorities 
and  set  free  Paul  and  Silas.  The  spirit  world  does  partici- 
pate, so  this  argument  proves  so  much  that,  if  true,  it  would 
compel  us  to  let  go  many  things  that  we  already  religiously 
believe.     As  says  Milton : 

"  Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the  earth 
Unseen,  both  when  we  wake  and  when  we  sleep." 

In  our  blindness  and  conceit  we  greatly  overestimate  our 
power  of  control  on  this  earth.  It  is  altogether  likely  that 
the  system  of  law  that  governs  the  psychic  world  is  per- 
fect and  that  this  government  already  greatly  influences  on 
earth  through  the  psychic  powers  of  men.  We  are  pressed 
upon  from  a  thousand  sides.  Our  consciousness  is  single- 
eyed,  and  that  eye  is  very  limited  in  its  vision.  Sooner  or 
later  we  must  put  our  hand  into  the  hand  of  the  Infinite,  and 
like  a  little  child  suffer  ourselves  to  be  led.  To  do  this  is  to 
be  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  with  some  there  is  already  too 
great  aptness  to  attribute  to  "  foreign  powers  "  the  successes 
and  failures  in  life.  Benjamin  F.  Butler  is  said  to  have 
humorously  chided  Fate  for  so  directing  his  affairs  that  in 
his  later  years  he  never  had 

"a  slice  of  bread, 
However  good  and  wide, 

But  that  it  fell  on  the  sanded  floor 
And  always  on  the  buttered  side." 

A  careful  student  of  Mr.  Butler's  physical,  mental,  and  moral 
make-up  is  apt  to  find  in  them  very  largely  the  springs  of  his 
mishaps. 


44  TRIVIAL  "SPIRIT"   TALK 

2.  That  these  phenomena  conflict  with  the  commonly 
accepted  ideas  of  death  and  the  spirit  world— are  often 
commonplace,  trivial,  repellent. 

Among  the  many  notes  illustrative  of  this  objection  which 
I  have  preserved  of  "  spirit  talks,"  I  take  the  following  al- 
most at  random.     They  have  an  earthly,  familiar  sound : 

Doctor  R. :  "  Have  you  not  a  message  for  me  to  take  to 
Professor  H.  ? " 

"No;  let  Professor  H.  come  and  get  it.  But  I  have 
something  ior  you. " 

*'  I  wish  to  take  a  message  to  Professor  H." 

"  I  have  already  told  you,  let  him  come  after  it.  Well, 
some  men  go  round  and  round  a  peg  to  which  they  have  tied 
themselves,  and  think  it  an  oak.     I  will  give  you  nothing." 

A  child  control ;  "  Mr.  K.,  you  are  soon  going  far  West 

— to  California." 

Mr.  K. :  "  It  is  true ;  but  how  did  you  know  that  ?  " 
Control:  "Why,  I  just  pulled  it  out  of  the  top  of  your 

head  "  ;  and  the  control  laughed. 

One  who  was  announced  as  a  spirit  and  spoke  for  some 

time  on  the  value  of  liberty  of  thought  as  more  important 

than  liberty  of  body,  and  of  the  cowardice  of 

Thomas        *'  a  farge  part  of  the  clergy  "  in  not  giving  ex- 

^'  jf^  4.    '     pression  to  their  full  conceptions  of  truth,  was 
satisfactory     ^  ^  ' 

Memory.       asked  his  name.     He  replied :  "  Why  should 

I  give  it  ?     If  I  give  it,  it  will  prejudice  you 

against  the  truths  I  have  told  you,  for  few  can  judge  truth 

on  its  own  merit."     I  said:  "No,  it  will  not  prejudice  us. 

Kindly  let  us  have  your  name." 

Spirit,  after  a  moment's  hesitation  :  "  My  name  is  Thomas 
Paine." 

Thereupon  I  said :  "  If  you  are  Thomas  Paine,  would  you 
not  give  us  proof  of  it  ?  " 

"  In  what  way  ?  " 


"THOMAS   PAINE^S"  QUANDARY       45 

"  Tell  us  the  date  of  your  birth,  date  of  death,  and  where 
buried." 

**I  shall  tell  you  at  your  next  meeting." 

"  Can  you  not  tell  now  ?  If  you  wait  until  the  next  meet- 
ing, skeptics  will  be  apt  to  say  the  medium  consulted  an 
encyclopedia  and  thus  got  these  facts." 

"  I  will  not  consult  an  encyclopedia." 

"That  may  be,  but  how  make  the  public  believe  that 
somebody  did  not  if  you  postpone  answer?  " 

After  a  silence  of  about  two  minutes :  "  I  can  not  now 
remember.  When  spirits  come  within  earth  conditions,  it  is 
like  an  earth  person  entering  a  trance  state.  The  faculties 
become  benumbed.  You  can  not  realize  the  difficulties 
which  we  must  surmount  to  communicate  at  all  with  those 
who  are  in  the  flesh.     Good-night." 

This  is  a  fairly  good  illustration  of  the  unsatisfactoriness 
of  not  a  little  of  the  so-called  spirit  talk. 

On  one  occasion  a  "  spirit "  was  speaking  who  we  were 
told  afterward  by  the  control  was  Lucretia  Mott.  When 
asked  her  name  she  could  not  give  it,  and  finally  said :  "  I 
have  forgotten  my  earth  name." 

One  who  was  recognized  by  a  mother  as  her  little  girl 
who  had  passed  from  life  several  years  before,  called  for  her 
mother  to  come  to  the  curtain.  The  mother  asked  if  she 
might  kiss  her.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "but  you  won't  mind  if 
my  face  is  cold.^"  The  mother  kissed  her,  and  told  the 
circle  that  her  face  was  cold  as  that  of  a  corpse.  This  cold 
effect  may  be  produced  easily  by  a  dishonest  medium  through 
rubbing  a  bit  of  ice  or  some  chemicals  on  the  face  of  the 
confederate  who  impersonates  the  spirit. 

Priests  at  these  circles  often  appeared  as  rigidly  Catholic 
as  when  on  earth,  and  Protestant  preachers  as  rigidly  Prot- 
estant. 

A  negro  of  the  extreme  vSouthern-plantation  type  came 
frequently  through  a  New  York  medium  whose  circles  I 
attended.     She  talked  a  broad  negro  dialect  and  was  full 


46  VERY   HUMAN 

of  a  very  earthly  negro  humor.     She  often  asked  the  circle 

to  join  her  in  singing  "Jim  Crow"  and  "Dixie  Land,"  and 

at  times   would    dance   a  hoedown;  yet   she 

A  Negro  would  often  surprise  us  by  the  strange  incon- 
^"^V       ^     gruity  of   "lofty   talks."     One   evening    she 

Human.  said — it  is  quite  likely  that  I  do  not  give  with 
exactness  what  seemed  to  be  her  perfect  plan- 
tation dialect:  "Iwantster  tell  y'all  yo's  got  ter  b'leibe 
in  Gawd,  kase  my  teacher,  she  lows  ef  we  b'leibe  in  sump'm 
n' udder  sko  'nought  we's  gwine  tu'n  in  an'  be  jes  lak  it  some 
day." 

"  Why,  auntie,"  I  said,  "  I  thought  you  told  us  at  our 
last  circle  that  you  did  not  know  whether  there  was  a  God." 

"No,  I  did'n  say  dat,  n'udder;  yo'  ax  me  ef  I  ebber 
^  seed'  Gawd,  an'  I  sez  '  No';  kase  dat's  de  trufe;  I  ain't 
nebber  seed  'im.  I  sez  I  wa'nt  bleeged  ter  pray  hyah — whut 
I  gwine  pray  fur.-* — I's  got  eber'ting  I  wants;  I's  jest  chuck 
full  o'  happiness." 

"  But,  auntie,  have  you  seen  God  ">  " 

"No,  'cose  I  ain't  seed  'im;  ain't  nobody  seed  'im  's  I 
knows  'bout.  My  teacher,  she  say  I  gwine  see  Gawd  some- 
time when  I  *  grows,'  but  I  don'  'zackly  know  'bout  dat — 
kase  I's  done  growed,  an'  I  ain't  seed  'im  yit." 

A  spirit  control  said  to  one  who  did  not  respond  quickly : 
"  If  you  are  stupid  we  must  pass  you  by." 

Glimpses  of  the  spirit  world  as  such  talks  reveal  give 
the  average  man  a  recoil,  a  shuddering  that  is  apt  to  end  in 
disgust.  If  these  are  genuine  spirit  talks,  we  must  recast 
our  notions  of  much  of  the  spirit  world,  for  that  world  then 
is  very  different  from  what  some  of  us  were  led  to  expect 
when  we  were  taught  to  sing : 

I  want  to  be  an  angel  and  with  the  angels  stand, 
A  crown  upon  my  forehead,  a  harp  within  my  hand. 

I  must  do  a  little  moralizing  here  at  the  risk  of  being 
thought  doing  some  special  pleading,  a  "  helping  out  the 


DEATH    CHANGES    LITTLE  47 

spirits,"  for  right  here  I  think  we  skeptics  do  much  incon- 
clusive reasoning. 

We  are  shocked  to  find  that  spirits  are  folks  just  as  we 
are,  the  same  as  they  were  when  they  lived  on  earth. 

These  spirits  seem  to  be  altogether  too  natural  and  hu- 
man ;  but  what  should  we  expect }     Are  we  quite  sure  that 
we  are  right  in  believing  that  at  death  we  are 
changed   instantly  into   angels;  that  there  is        Growth 
some  magical  virtue  in  death  which  transforms  on  Both  Sides 
character.^     Character    is   a   growth,    a    slow         of  the 
growth,  wholly  dependent  upon  free  choice. 
That  is  the  invariable  law  of  character  growth  in  this  life. 
Is  this  law  changed  at  death }     Who  can  think  of  the  growth 
of  character  except  in  harmony  with  this  law }     The  inner 
nature,  the  real  self,  by  getting  rid  of  this  outer  husk,  may 
not  thereby  be  able  to  change  the  law  by  which  it  here 
grows.    Death  may  make  spiritual  growth  more  rapid,  but  is 
it  at  all  probable  that  this  growth  will  cease  to  depend  upon 
our  choice  and  effort  ? 

Whether   Spiritualism  is  true  or  false,  is  it  reasonable 
to  believe  that  spirits  are  omniscient  or  that  they  are  alto- 
gether good .?     We  must  not  judge  the  "out-    -...    ,. 
*=*  **  JO  Mischievous 

put "  of  the  stance- room  too  hastily.     We  ask         Spirits 
a  question,  and  we  are  surprised  to  find  that      and  Lying 
the  spirits  do  not  know  or  that  they  prevari-  Ones. 

cate,  tell  white  and  even  black  lies,  that  they  mischievously 
lead  us  on  wild-goose  chases,  and  laugh  at  us  just  as  folks 
in  the  flesh  often  do  at  one  another.  We  say  that  we  do 
not  like  this  weakness  in  the  spirit  world ;  buf  what  if  this 
is  one  of  the  things  that  spirit  communication  is  to  teach — 
this  one  thing,  that  death  does  not  change  character  ? 

There  are  many  mansions  in  the  spirit  kingdom,  quite 
likely  many  more  than  there  are  in  this  earthly  kingdom. 
While  in  the  flesh,  men  live  in  wholly  different  worlds.  The 
ignorant  do  not  get  a  glimpse  of  the  learned.  Darwin  said  he 
had  ceased  to  have  any  interest  in  poetry,  painting,  music,  and 


48  THE   MANY   MANSIONS 

yet  these  latter  were  the  home  worlds  of  Tennyson,  Ruskin, 
Wagner.  After  these  men  slipped  out  of  their  husks,  many 
of  the  marks  by  which  they  knew  each  other  would  no  longer 
be  seen.  The  Master  said  in  effect  to  His  disciples :  "  In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions.  I  will  so  develop 
you  that  you  will  be  like  unto  Me  and  hence  be  where  I  am, 
and  we  shall  recognize  one  another  and  be  comrades  one  of 
another,  for  we  shall  be  like  one  to  the  other.  In  that  day 
many  will  say  unto  Me,  Lord,  Lord,  whom  I  shall  not  know, 
for  no  man  can  be  where  I  am  who  does  not  do  the  will  of 
the  Father  and  thus  grow  by  exercise  the  faculties  that  make 
him  like  unto  Me;  for  in  that  world  what  you  are  will  de- 
termine your  dwelling  and  recognition." 

Really  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  what  "  sense  or  rea- 
son" is  there  to  expect  that  a  soul  on  entering  the  other 
world  will  break  out  a  blaze  of  goodness,  intelligence,  ge- 
nius ?  Neither  analogy  nor  the  law  of  the  growth  of  our 
inner  nature  gives  the  slightest  basis  for  this  expectation. 

Our  general  idea  of  heaven  makes  personalities  there  as 

indistinct   as   the   rivulets  in   the   ocean.     Common    sense 

should  be  shot  through  our  thinking  about  the  other  world. 

After  all,  why  should  we   be  shocked  when 

Mansions  •     ^^^^  ^^^^  spirits  are  folks  to  be  talked  to,  rea- 

Many  soned  with,  exactly  the  same  as  mortals  .•*  We 
Personalities  are  apt  to  think  of  a  dead  man  as  either  hence- 
0th  Wo  Id  ^^^^^  ^  devil  or  an  angel.  Quite  likely  he  is 
neither,  but  is  as  he  was,  only  now  he  is  out- 
side of  his  earthly  tabernacle,  which  was  something  our  phys- 
ical senses  could  take  cognizance  of.  He  is  a  ghost;  yes, 
but  what  are  we  but  ghosts  walking  around  clothed  with  flesh 
and  skin  ? 

In  John's  account  of  the  resurrection  we  read  that  Mary 
looked  into  the  sepulcher  and  saw  two  angels,  one  at  the  feet 
and  one  at  the  head  where  Jesus  had  lain,  and  they  reasoned 
with  her,  and  one  of  the  angels  was  a  young  man,  and  when 
she  had  turned  around  she  saw  a  man  standing  there  in  such 


HOW   GOD   IS  SEEN  49 

a  human  fashion  that  she  took  him  at  first  for  the  gardener. 

And    when    she  finally  recognized  the  Master,    He   said: 

"  Touch  me  not ;   for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my  Father, 

.  .  .  my  God  and  your  God."     Yet  He  had  passed  the  death 

line.     He,  notwithstanding,  had  come  again  upon  the  plane 

of  the  physical  senses  and  was  recognized  as  a 

man.     He  had  not  ascended  to  the  Father.     It         Spirit 

required  some  other  ascent  through  the  spirit      ^       ,.    ^  ^ 
^  .  °  ,  a  Complicated 

spheres  for  a  spirit  to  reach  the  Father.  Transaction. 
Hence  "Aunt  Eliza"  may  not  have  been  so 
absurdly  wrong  when  she  declared  that  tho  a  spirit  she  had 
not  seen  God.  For  a  spirit  to  come  down  from  the  Father 
and  to  ascend  to  the  Father  is  a  complicated  and  comprehen- 
sive transaction — not  simply  the  passing  of  the  death  line,  as 
we  usually  think.  The  pure  in  heart  see  God.  To  become 
pure  in  heart  is  a  stupendous  change.  Who  can  analyze 
the  process }  Who  can  measure  the  distance  between  purity 
and  impurity  ?  Existence  becomes  more  and  more  compli- 
cated, every  step  upward. 

It  was  very,  very  hard  for  Laura  Bridgman  and  Helen 
Keller  to  grasp  the  thought  that  there  was  another  world, 
that  beside  their  world  of  touch  and  smell  and  taste  there 
was  a  world  of  sound  and  sight  and  of  intelligence  far  greater 
than  their  world  and  that  interpenetrated  their  own.  When 
the  walls  of  darkness  first  began  to  give  way  the  thought 
quite  likely  seemed  to  them  uncanny,  unreal.  But  then 
other  intelligences  did  exist,  and  it  was  a  complicated  matter 
for  father,  mother,  friends,  to  make  themselves  known,  to 
communicate  with  these  unfortunates,  to  enter  their  world. 

Why  then  should  the  thought  be  an  a  priori  absurdity 
that  we  too  are  in  a  dungeon,  and  that  another  world  of 
intelligences  is  in  contact  with  our  own — a  world  of  men 
and  women  like  ourselves,  with  other  senses  doing  duty, 
senses  which  we  have  in  rudimentary  form — a  world  that 
interpenetrates  our  own } 

Seeing  the  multitude  the  king  had  sent  out  against  them, 


50   HELEN  KELLER'S  EXPERIENCE 

the  servant  cried  to  Elisha,  "  Alas,  my  master !  how  shall 
we  do?  And  he  answered,  Fear  not;  for  they  that  be 
with  us  are  more  than  they  that  be  with  them.  And  Elisha 
prayed,  and  said.  Lord,  I  pray  thee,  open  his  eyes,  that  he 
may  see.  And  the  Lord  opened  the  eyes  of  the  young  man, 
and  he  saw;  and  behold,  the  mountain  was  full  of  horses 
and  chariots  of  fire  round  about  Elisha."  * 

What  if  these  other  intelligences  are  thus  real  and  are 
asking  us  to  exercise  the  common  sense  exercised  by  Laura 
Bridgman  and  Helen  Keller,  exercised  by  them  greatly  to 
their  advantage  and  to  the  everlasting  credit  of  their  intelli- 
gence ? 

Is  not  he  alone  the  wise  skeptic  who,  in  an  affair  of  such 
moment  as  this  possibly  may  turn  out  to  be,  scrutinizes  again 
and  again  the  foundations  of  his  skepticism } 

3.  That  these  phenomena  are  the  work  of  conjurers. 

I  know  that  there  are  men  so  skilled  in  sleight-of-hand 
and  in  ventriloquism  that  they  can  outwit  my  eyes  and  ears 
and  make  seem  true  what  is  not.  How  am  I  to  know  that 
the  medium  I  am  watching  is  not  a  trickster  who  has  learned 
the  art  of  jugglery.?  Am  I  to  believe  every  trick  a  truth 
simply  because  I  can  not  understand  it } 

I  have  sat  before  Signor  Blitz  and  Hermann  and  Harry 

Kellar  and  could  not  explain  one  trick  in  ten,  yet  I  knew  that 

they  were  tricks.     Kellar  was  before  the  Seybert  Commission 

of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  gave  exhibitions  in 

slate-writing  which  they  could   not   explain, 

Ease  with      ^j^^o  he  told  them  in  advance  that  what  he 

^^Tliicli 
Coniurers       would  do  would  be  simply  tricks. 

Deceive.  There  is  much  force  in  this  objection — 

that  the  average  man  is  no  match  whatever  for 
a  tricky  medium  who  has  had  years  of  experience  in  prac- 
tising sleight-of-hand.     I  have  seen  many,  many  so-called 

»  a  Kings  vi.  15-17. 


SLEIGHT-OF-HAND  51 

mediums  of  this  description  who  easily  deceive  the  "  elect " 
Spiritualist — the  man  who  does  not  object  to  being  fooled 
— and  even  many  a  man  who  makes  loud  boast  that  his 
"eye  teeth  are  cut."  There  are  tricks  of  the  juggler  here 
in  profusion,  but  is  there  anything  else  ?  This  is  a  question 
that  professional  conjurers  should  be  able  to  answer  much 
better  than  laymen,  especially  those  conjurers  who  by  their 
expertness  have  secured  world-wide  reputation. 

What  say  they } 

Professor  Sidgwick,  of  Cambridge  University,  England, 
and  for  many  years  president  of  The  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  said :  ^  "  We  can  no  longer  be  told  offhand  that  all 
the  marvels  recorded  by  Mr.  Crookes,  Professor  Zollner,  and 
others  are  easy  conjuring  tricks,  because  we  have  the  uncon- 
trovertible evidence  of  conjurers  to  the  contrary." 

That  there  is  a  force  here  that  baffles  conjurers  the  fol- 
lowing would  seem  well-nigh  conclusively  to  show : ' 

Testimony  of  Robert  Houdin. 

[A  half  century  ago  Robert  Houdin  was  the  leading  prestidigitator 
in  the  world ;  he  was  perhaps  the  greatest  who  has  ever  lived.] 

The  Marquis  Endes  de  Mirville  published  during  the  lifetime  of 
Houdin  two  letters  from  the  latter,  in  his  "  M^moire  address^  k  MM.  les 
membres  de  I'Acad^mie  des  Sciences  Morales  et  Politiques,  sur  un  grand 
nombre  de  phdnom^nes  merveilleux  int^ressant  dgalement  la  Religion,  la 
Science,  et  les  hommes  du  Monde,"  in  which  the  conjurer  confesses  his 
inability  to  explain  the  phenomena  he  witnessed  in  the  presence  of  Alexis, 
the  clairvoyant.  A  circumstantial  account  is  given  of  M.  de  Mirville 's 
visit  to  Houdin  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  him  in  this  investigation,  of 
the  latter's  confidence  in  his  own  ability  to  detect  the  trick,  and  of  what 
took  place  at  the  stance,  the  conditions  of  which  were  entirely  under 

>  S.  P.  R.  Reports,  vol.  iv.,  Part  x.,  p.  102. 

'These  statements  of  Houdin,  Kellar,  and  Bellachini  were  collected  by  Rev. 
Stainton  Moses  and  after  careful  examination  were  published  by  him  in  his  paper 
Lights  London,  December  12,  1885.  In  a  recent  letter  to  me  E.  Dawson  Rogers,  the 
present  editor  of  Lights  referring  to  the  compilation  of  these  letters  by  Mr.  Moses, 
says  that  Mr,  Moses  was  a  very  cautious  man,  and  "his  accuracy  in  these  letters 
can  be  be  relied  on."  F.  W.  H.  Meyers  in  his  great  work,  "  Human  Personality," 
speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Moses  with  whom  he  has  been 
for  a  long  while  closely  associated.  I  am  not  aware  that  a  denial  has  anywhere 
appeared  of  the  authenticity  of  these  letters. 


52  HOUDIN   ASTONISHED 

Houdin's  control.  This  account  extends  over  twelve  pages,  and  its  accu- 
racy is  confirmed  by  Houdin  in  the  first  of  the  documents  now  translated : 

"  Altho  very  far  from  accepting  the  eulogies  which  M. is  good 

enough  to  bestow  upon  me,  and  especially  insisting  that  I  am  not  at  all 
committed  to  opinions  either  in  favor  of  magnetism  or  against  it,  I  can 
nevertheless  not  refrain  from  declaring  that  the  facts  above  reported  are 
entirely  correct  {sont  de  la  plus  compilte  exactitude)^  and  that  the  fnore  J 
reflect  upon  them,  the  more  impossible  I  find  it  to  rank  them  among  those 
which  belong  to  my  art  and  prof ession, 

"  4th  May,  1847.  Robert  Houdin.** 

A  fortnight  later,  M.  de  Mirville  received  another  letter,  in  which  the 
following,  referring  to  another  seance,  occurs : 

"  I  have,  therefore,  returned  from  this  stance  as  astonished  as  it  is 

possible  to  be,  and  persuaded  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  that  chance  or 

skill  could  ever  produce  effects  so  wonderful  {tout  a  fait  impossible  que  le 

hasard  ou  Vadresse  puisse  jamais  produire  des  effets  aussi  merveilleux). 

**  I  am,  monsieur,  etc., 

"  May  16,  1847.  (Signed)  Robert  Houdin.** 

Testimony  of  Harry  Kellar. 

Harry  Kellar,  a  distinguished  professor  of  legerdemain,  investigated 
the  slate-writing  phenomena  which  occurred  in  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Eglinton,  at  Calcutta,  in  January,  1882,  and  on  the  25th  of  that  month  he 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  The  Indian  Daily  News,  in  which  he 
said : 

"  In  your  issue  of  the  13th  January  I  stated  that  I  should  be  glad  of  an 
opportunity  of  participating  in  a  stance,  with  a  view  of  giving  an  unbiased 
opinion  as  to  whether,  in  my  capacity  of  a  professional  prestidigitator,  I 
could  give  a  natural  explanation  of  'effects  said  to  be  produced  by  spiri- 
tual aid. 

"  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Eglinton,  the  Spiritualistic  me- 
dium now  in  Calcutta,  and  of  his  host,  Mr.  J.  Meugens,  for  affording  me 
the  opportunity  I  craved. 

"It  is  needless  to  say  I  went  as  a  skeptic,  but  I  must  own  that  I  have 
come  away  utterly  unable  to  explain  by  any  natural  means  the  phenomena 
that  I  witnessed  on  Tuesday  evening.  I  will  give  a  brief  description  of 
what  took  place." 

After  describing  several  successful  experiments,  Mr.  Kellar  proceeds : 

"  In  respect  to  the  above  manifestations,  I  can  only  say  that  I  do  not 
expect  my  account  of  them  to  gain  general  credence.  Forty-eight  hours 
before  I  should  not  have  believed  any  one  who  described  such  manifesta- 
tions under  similar  circumstances.     I  still  remain  a  skeptic  as  regards 


PRESTIDIGITATION   INADEQUATE     53 

Spiritualism,  but  I  repeat  my  inability  to  explain  or  account  for  what 
must  have  been  an  intelligent  force  that  produced  the  writing  on  the  slate, 
which,  if  my  senses  are  to  be  relied  on,  was  in  no  way  the  result  of  trick- 
ery or  sleight-of-hand." 

On  the  30th  of  the  same  month  Mr.  Kellar  addressed  another  letter  to 
The  Indian  Daily  News,  reporting  some  experiences  of  another  kind  with 
Mr.  Eglinton,  and  regarding  which  he  said : 

"  In  conclusion,  let  me  state  that  after  a  most  stringent  trial  and  strict 
scrutiny  of  these  wonderful  experiences  I  can  arrive  at  no  other  conclu- 
sion than  that  there  was  no  trace  of  trickery  in  any  form,  nor  was  there 
in  the  room  any  mechanism  or  machinery  by  which  could  be  produced 
the  phenomena  which  had  taken  place.  The  ordinary  mode  by  which 
Maskelyne  and  other  conjurers  imitate  levitation  or  the  floating  test  could 
not  possibly  be  done  in  the  room  in  which  we  were  assembled." 

These  letters  of  Kellar's  were  written  after  several 
"  exposures  "  had  been  published  of  the  ways  in  which  Eglin- 
ton performed  his  "tricks." 

Shortly  after  the  arrest  and  conviction  in  England  of  the 
famous  medium,  Henry  Slade,  some  influential  people  in 
Berlin,  several  of  whom  were  members  of  the  aristocracy, 
requested  the  court  prestidigitator,  Bellachini,  to  have  pri- 
vate sittings  with  Slade  and  report  whether  or  not  his  phe- 
nomena were  sleight-of-hand  tricks.  The  published  affidavit 
of  Bellachini  as  given  below  created  widespread  comment : 

Testimony  of  Samuel  Bellachini. 

Court  Conjurer  at  Berlin. 

**  I  hereby  declare  it  to  be  a  rash  action  after  only  one  sitting  and  the 
observations  so  made  to  give  decisive  judgment  upon  the  objective 
medial  performance  of  the  American  medium,  Mr.  Henry  Slade.  After 
I  had,  at  the  wish  of  several  highly  esteemed  gentlemen  of  rank  and  posi- 
tion, and  also  for  my  own  interest,  tested  the  physical  mediumship  of 
Mr.  Slade,  in  a  series  of  sittings  by.  full  daylight,  as  well  as  in  the  eve- 
ning in  his  bedroom,  I  must,  for  the  sake  of  truth,  hereby  certify  that  the 
phenomenal  occurrences  with  Mr.  Slade  have  been  thoroughly  examined 
by  me  with  the  minutest  observation  and  investigation  of  his  surround- 
ngs,  including  the  table,  and  that  I  have  not  in  the  smallest  degree  found 
anything  to  be  produced  by  means  of  prestidigitative  manifestations  or 
by  mechanical  apparatus ;  and  that  any  explanation  of  the  experiments 
which  t«ok  place  under  the  circumstances  and  conditions  then  obtaining 


54 


"SPIRITS"    CONTRADICTORY 


by  any  reference  to  prestidigation  is  absolutely  impossible.  It  must  rest 
with  such  men  of  science  as  Crookes  and  Wallace  in  London,  Perty  in 
Berne,  Butlerof  in  St.  Petersburg,  to  search  for  the  explanation  of  this 
phenomenal  power  and  to  prove  its  reality.  I  declare,  moreover,  the 
published  opinions  of  laymen  as  to  the  *  How  '  of  this  subject  to  be  pre- 
mature and,  according  to  my  view  and  experience,  false  and  one-sided. 
This,  my  declaration,  is  signed  and  executed  before  a  notary  and  wit- 
nesses. (Signed)  Samuel  Bellachini. 
"Berlin,  December  6,  1877." 

Professor  Carpenter,  an  expert  lecturer  on  hypnotism  and 
practical  demonstrator,  well  known  throughout  the  United 
States,  was  convinced  that  there  was  a  radical  difference  be- 
tween the  hypnotic  state  and  the  state  of  a  medium  in  a 
trance.  Professor  Carpenter  finally  announced  himself  a  be- 
liever in  the  reality  of  Spiritualism. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  have  been  conjurers,  as  Maske- 
lyne  and  Cook,  who  claimed  ability  to  duplicate  the  phenom- 
ena produced  in  the  presence  of  mediums ;  and  many  conjurers 
during  the  past  half-century  have  made  exposures  of  me- 
diumistic  tricks  a  drawing-card.  The  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  records  a  number  of  these  exposures.  Spiritualists 
claim'that  these  are  not  duplications,  but  imitations  and  coun- 
terfeits, as  were  the  magicians'  tricks  before  Pharaoh,  to 
bring  into  contempt  the  marvels  which  Moses  wrought. 

4.  That  communications  from  the  seance-rooms  are 
often  contradictory  to  each  other. 

Within  twenty-four  hours  of  the  time  Thomson  J.  Hud- 
son (the  author  of  "The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena  ")  died, 
a  friend,  whom  I  had  requested  to  attend  a  circle  in  Chicago, 
was  told  by  "a  spirit  control"  that  Hudson  had  just  passed 
into  the  spirit  world  and  was  so  confused  that 
Thomson  J.     "he  had  to  be  treated  in  a  hospital."     After- 
Hudson        ward  I  inquired  at  a  circle  in  New  York  as  to 

Returned       ^^iQ  truth  of   this.     The  answer  was:    "Not 
Since  Death  P  ,  ,       .         ,         •     1     r  1 

so ;  he  can  not  be  m  a  hospital,  for  no  such 

treatment  is  given  spirits  that  come  over  from  earth.    Every- 
thing here  is  so  easily  understood  and  so  natural  that  no  one 


"YES"   AND   "NO"  55 

is  bewildered."  A  friend  tells  me  that  at  a  Boston  circle 
"  Hudson  himself  appeared  and  expressed  regrets  for  the  great 
mistake  he  made  in  his  denial  of  spirit  communication." 
This  also  was  within  a  few  days  of  his  death.  He  evidently 
got  through  in  a  short  time  with  his  hospital  experience. 

At  stances  I  have  witnessed  contradictions  of  which  the 
following  is  typical : 

Spirit  control :  "  Dr.  F ,  I  see  that  you  are  crowded 

in  that  corner." 

"  Yes ;  can  you  see  me  clearly }  " 

"Oh,  yes." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  what  I  have  in  my  hand  ?  " 

"No;  I  can  not  see  it  distinctly." 

"  Look  again ;  I  have  my  hand  now  open." 

"  I  can  not  be  sure,  as  I  do  not  see  perfectly  in  your  at- 
mosphere." 

A  gentleman  was  present  with  me  at  a  circle  in  New 
York,  having  with  him  his  little  daughter.  His  wife,  lately 
deceased,  was  announced  as  present,  and  soon  appeared  in 
materialized  form  in  front  of  the  curtain.  The  little  daugh- 
ter was  called  up  and  kissed.  The  husband  was  also  called 
to  the  curtain,  and  he  greeted  the  form  as  that  of  his  wife. 
This  "spirit  wife"  also  greeted  me  as  one  who  had  been 
acquainted  with  her  when  in  the  flesh. 

The  following  Wednesday,  at  another  circle  in  the  same 
city,  the  husband  and  myself  being  present,  we  were  greeted 
by  the  supposed  spirit  of  the  same  wife  and  mother.  When 
asked  if  she  had  appeared  to  us  at  another  circle  the  previous 
week,  she  said:  "No,  I  was  not  there'*  Evidently  some  of 
these  "spirits  "  "drop  stitches." 

There  seems  to  be  a  Babel  of  voices  in  the  beyond  as  well 
as  here.     Every  phase  of  theological  doctrine 
appears  to  have  its  advocate — except  possibly        f  v  *  * 
that  of  endless  punishment.     The  brotherhood 
of  man  and  the  Fatherhood  of  God  every  "  spirit  talker " 
believes   in    and   advocates  with  enthusiasm;  but  when  it 


56  BABEL  OF  VOICES 

comes  to  Christ's  miraculous  birth,  the  atonement,  and  the 
full  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  there  is  a  division  almost  as  well 
marked  as  we  find  on  this  side  of  the  grave. 

It  is  hard  to  get  rid  of  the  thought  that  the  Zeitgeist 
largely  determines  the  talk.  To  one  who  accepts  the  Spiri- 
tualistic theory  this  must  be  a  disappointment.  With  death, 
most  of  us  think  that  we  shall  be  rid  of  these  battles.  "  Here 
we  see  through  a  glass  darkly,"  but  not  so  there;  that  has 
been  our  belief. 

What  is  the  best  explanation  Spiritualism  can  give  of 
this  lack  of  consistency  and  unanimity  beyond  the  grave  ?  I 
put  the  matter  before  a  spirit  control,  with  the  following 
result : 

Question :  "  Are  we  not  justified  in  concluding  a  medium 
to  be  fraudulent  if  the  utterances  concerning  the  spirit  world 
that  come  through  her  are  contradictory.?  " 

Answer :  "  No ;  it  may  be  simply  a  mistake.  The  spirit 
world  is  not  some  great  temple  or  other  place  that  can  be 
measured  with  mathematical  precision,  to  be 
A  Spirit  reported  with  exactness ;  it  is  a  life,  a  condi- 
xp  ana  ion  ^j^^^  ^  growth,  an  experience.  What  a  man 
tradictions.  sees  depends  very  much  on  what  he  is.  How 
could  a  horse  report  the  inner  life  of  a  Mozart, 
or  a  Mendelssohn,  or  a  Shakespeare }  No  two  men  could  pos- 
sibly give  the  same  portrait  of  the  inner  life  of  a  third  man. 
No  one  truth  contradicts  another  truth.  All  facts  are  recon- 
cilable with  each  other,  but  our  interpretations  of  truths  or 
facts  do  often  contradict. " 

Hence,  if  we  are  to  believe  this  control,  and  what  he  says 
seems  reasonable,  a  contradiction  may  be  proof  only  that  a 
mistake  has  been  made,  but  not  certain  proof  that  spirits  are 
not  talking  with  us.  Take  this  illustration  from  Helen 
Keller's  early  life.  She  got  often  wrong  information,  more 
often  wrong  impressions  through  her  means  of  communica- 
tion, which  were  clumsy  and  uncertain.  It  was  a  Babel  of 
voices  also  that  came  to  her  from  this,  to  her,  the  unknown 


IS   MEDIUMSHIP   HURTFUL?  57 

world  of  mankind.  Voices  contradicted  each  other;  some 
sought  to  deceive  her ;  some  were  wicked,  all  intensely  hu- 
man. Had  she  given  up  in  disgust  and  said :  "  I  shall  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  medium  of  communication;  it  is  un- 
trustworthy if  it  is  not  wholly  a  deception  or  a  delusion  " — 
had  she  decided  thus  she  would  have  been  foolish  and  re- 
ceived immeasurable  loss.  Her  remedy  was  to  "try"  the 
human  voices,  and  learn  to  distinguish  the  good  from  the 
bad,  the  wise  from  the  foolish,  and  also  learn  to  improve  the 
means  of  communication. 

If  Spiritualism  peradventure  turn  out  to  be  true,  the  apos- 
tle's remedy  is  the  right  one,  "try  the  spirits,"  "discerning" 
the  good  and  the  bad,  the  wise  and  the  foolish. 

5.  That  Spiritualim,  if  true,  is  hurtful  to  the  medium, 
since  mediumship  requires  self-surrender  to  other  per- 
sonalities. 

The  theory  of  mediumship  is  that  a  spirit  outside  of  the 
flesh  has  the  power  to  enter  the  body  of  the  medium  and 
control  more  or  less  completely  her  organism.  It  is  easy  to 
believe  that  it  is  extremely  dangerous  for  a  person,  especially 
one  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  mediumship,  to  abdicate  her 
crown  to  another  even  for  a  limited  time.  There  are  recorded 
instances  of  the  subject  of  a  hypnotist  becoming  his  slave. 
This  would  seem  to  be  no  less  a  danger  if  the  hypnotist  be 
outside  of  the  flesh. 

Yet  may  not  one  who  understands  the  laws  of  medium- 
ship  safely  make  for  a  limited  time  this  surrender  >  There 
are  those  who  have  made  a  special  study  of  mediumship  who 
claim  that  this  may  be  done  with  safety  and  even  to  advan- 
tage. Officers  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  tell  us 
that  Mrs.  Piper,  after  sixteen  years  of  service  for  them  as  a 
trance  medium,  seems  now  to  possess  a  stronger  individual- 
ity and  better  mental  and  physical  health. 

It  is  safe  to  surrender  our  will  to  the  divine  will  and  let 
that  will  control.     "In  that  day,"  says  Christ,  "ye  shall 


58         COMMUNICATION    DIFFICULT 

know  that  I  am  in  you,  and  ye  in  me."     God  is  in  us  "to 

will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure."     May  there  not  be  an 

obsession  that  is  legitimate  and  helpful  ^     But, 

Can  One       gays  one,  God's  control  is  one  thing ;   the  con- 

«    ^f  1  T^-4.^    trol  by  a  finite  creature  is  another.     Yet  sup- 
Control  With-  ■''  ^         ^  ^  ^ 

out  Harm  P  pose  that  this  finite  creature  is  good,  that  he 
has  surrendered  himself  absolutely  to  God's 
control;  is  his  control  then  any  more  hurtful  than  is  God's .^ 
If  Spiritualism  be  true,  this  is  a  subject  that  should  receive 
most  careful  study  and  the  medium  should  be  safeguarded  in 
every  way  by  most  careful  provisions. 

I  submitted  this  question  to  a  "  spirit  control "  who 
seemed  to  be  of  an  unusually  intelligent  and  exalted  nature. 
This — the  thought,  was  his  answer,  not  necessarily  the  lan- 
guage ' : 

"  There  are  laws  that  govern  mediumship  on  the  earth  side 
and  on  the  spirit  side  that  must  be  observed  or  there  is  con- 
stant danger  of  injury.  It  is  with  great  difficulty  that  we 
put  ourselves  in  physical  contact  with  mortals,  and  we  can 
only  do  this  through  a  sensitive ;  that  is,  through  a  mortal 
who  is  so  negative  as  to  respond  easily  to  thought-waves. 
There  is  an  ocean  of  what  we  may  call  thought- ether,  as 
there  is  an  ocean  of  matter- ether.  The  matter-ether,  as  you 
know,  is  sensitive  to  light  vibrations — billions  of  waves  in  a 
second  of  time — and  \o  waves  of  electricity,  and  to  what  you 
call  ;r-rays.  There  are  far  more  subtle  matter- waves  than 
any  of  these.  Now  in  the  thought  world  there  are  also  waves 
far  more  subtle  than  the  subtlest  of  matter-waves.  I  speak 
in  this  way  that  you  may  understand  what  I  mean  by  anal- 
ogy.    Strictly  speaking,  thought-ether  and  matter-ether  are 


1  As  mentioned  in  the  Preface,  of  some  of  these  "talks"  by  the  controls  or 
spirits  I  jotted  down  in  the  darkened  seance-rooms  sufficient  words  to  recall 
the  leading  thoughts— at  the  best,  it  was  reporting  under  unusual  difficulties— of 
others,  I  had  to  trust  wholly  to  my  memory,  writing  out  the  "  talks  "  of  both  sort 
immediately  afterward,  I  have  a  memory  that  has  a  reputation  with  my  editor- 
ial friends  of  being  unusually  retentive  of  Mt'M^''///'^,  but  it  is  a  poor  verba/  memory. 
The  reader  may  rest  assured  that  the  thinking  in  these  reports  is  the  spirits',  but 
the  verbal  garb  is  quite  likely  at  times  to  be  more  or  less  my  own. 


THE   SAFEGUARD  59 

radically  different;  but  nevertheless  there  is  a  likeness. 
There  are  vibrations,  subtle,  effective — vibrations  in  the  soul 
world  that  are  understood  by  all  who  are  on  the  level  of  these 
vibrations,  and  understood  instantaneously  tho  millions  of 
miles  intervene.  Space  limitations  are  as  nothing  in  the 
thought  world. 

"  In  conveying  these  thoughts  to  you  in  this  audible  way, 
it  is  essential  that  I  have  at  my  service  some  sensitive  physi- 
cal organization  that  will  enable  me  to  convert  my  thought 
vibrations  into  matter-ether  vibrations,  and  then  on  down  to 
the  coarse  vibrations  of  the  air  which  your  physical  ears 
interpret. 

"  Now  that  quality  of  matter  and  spirit  in  this  medium 
which  I  am  using  is  a  source  of  constant  danger  to  her. 
It  exposes  her  to  control  by  any  spirit  in  the  flesh  or  out  of 
the  flesh  unless  she  fortifies  herself  against  such  use.  If  she 
consent  to  being  used  by  those  who  are  morally  and  spiritu- 
ally below  her,  harm  will  come  to  her  and  may  come  to  those 
who  hear  her  unless  they  are  on  their  guard;  if  she  is  used 
by  those  who  are  superior  to  her,  good  will  come  just  so 
surely,  and  may  come  to  all  those  who  are  in  her  circle. 

"  This  is  what  Jesus  meant  by  faith  in  the  higher  powers. 
This  faith  is  a  surrender  of  soul,  and  if  that  surrender  is 
directed  to  what  is  above,  the  soul  will  be  lifted.  Believe  it 
with  all  your  soul,  and  God  and  all  the  good  influences  in 
the  universe  will  flow  in  waves  into  your  soul  and  lift  you. 

"  I  have  urged  you  again  and  again  to  have  confidence 

in  the  better  forces  in  the  spirit  world,  and  to  organize  on 

your  side  to  safeguard  good  mediums  and  bring 

into  your  atmosphere  hisrh  spirits  ;  then  we  will       Mediums 
\  *^  .  ,         f^     ^         '  ,     .  Should  be 

organize  on  our  side.     Have  an  earnest  desire    safeguarded. 

to  know  the  truth  and  a  determination  to  fol- 
low it,  and  then  the  conditions  will  be  of  such  a  nature  that 
nothing  but  good  will  come  from  this  spirit  communication. 
"  The  Church  needs  this  more  than  I  can  tell  you.     The 
people  must  hear  a  note  of  spiritual  certainty,  or  stiff  eccle- 


6o  "EVIL   SPIRITS" 

siastical  authority  on  one  hand  and  materialism  on  the  other 
will  sweep  over  the  world.  Nothing  can  stay  this  tide  but 
a  new  revelation  from  the  spirit  world,  a  revelation  that  is 
capable  of  scientific  demonstration.  This  is  a  matter  just 
now  of  profound  study  among  spirits  who  are  giving  special 
attention  to  mortals. 

"  I  strongly  advise  that  none  among  you,  at  least  for  the 
present,  undertake  the  investigation  of  these  spirit  commu- 
nings, except  those  whose  purposes  are  pure  and  who  have 
had  considerable  training  in  psychic  studies.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  do  not  listen  for  a  moment  to  those  who  tell  you 
that  these  communications  are  undesirable  if  possible,  and 
impossible  if  desirable.  That  phrase  is  well  fitted  to  catch 
the  ear,  but  it  contains  no  truth. 

"  Ye  earth  men,  put  your  hand  in  God's  and  walk  bravely 
with  Him  in  this  matter.  The  darkness  and  the  storm  of 
materialism  are  about  you,  but  out  of  the  eternities  you  can 
see  the  spirit  world  walking  toward  you.  Do  you  cry  out 
in  alarm  that  this  is  contrary  to  all  you  have  heretofore  seen } 
Look  up  and  believe,  O  ye  of  little  faith !  Hark,  all !  Do 
ye  not  hear  the  voice :  *  Be  of  good  cheer,  it  is  I '  ?  Be  not 
afraid,  and  ye  shall  find  when  ye  take  aboard  this  new  truth, 
stripped  of  all  its  deceptions  and  errors,  and  when  it  is  fully 
appropriated,  that  the  storm  will  end  and  the  darkness  will 
be  over,  and  your  ship  will  ride  safely  in  a  haven  far  more  ex- 
cellent than  any  of  which  the  world  as  yet  has  had  vision." 

6.  That  they  are  the  work  of  evil  spirits. 

President  Day,  of  Yale  College,  long  ago  said  of  Spiri- 
tualism :  "  Either  nothing  is  in  it  or  the  devil  is  in  it. " 
Many  other  able  thinkers,  especially  in  the  earlier  history  of 
these  phenomena,  were  of  the  same  mind,  and  there  is  much 
to  justify  this  conclusion. 

Judge  C ,  of  New  York,  gave  me  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  an  event  that  took  place  in  his  own  house.  One  day 
Gerald  Massey,  the  well-known  English  writer,  was  at  din- 


UNDESIRABLE   VISITOR  6i 

ner  at  the  judge's  house.  At  the  table  was  a  distinguished 
English  medium.  During  the  day  this  medium  had  attended 
court,  where  a  murderer  was  on  trial.     The  _  ., 

murder  was  one  in  which  revenge  was  very   Eflfects  of  In- 
prominent.    "Suddenly,  at  the  table,"  said  the       dulging 
judge,  "  the  English  medium  became  possessed     Revengeful 
of  a   most  diabolical  spirit.     He  grabbed  a 
knife  and  said :  *  I  will  kill.     I  will  have  revenge.*     I  took 
in  the  situation  at  once  and  spoke  to  him,  saying :  *  Hold ! 
You  are  among  friends.'     He  replied  bitterly:  *  Friends! — 
there  is  no  friendship.     A  friend  shot  me,  murdered  me.' 
*  Yes,    but   he   is   not   here.     We  are  friends.     Who   are 
you } ' 

'*  Thereupon  this  obsessing  spirit  gave  some  facts  about 
himself,  and  repeated :  *  I  will  have  revenge.  I  was  treated 
most  brutally  when  I  was  on  earth,  and  will  have  revenge 
upon  mankind.'  Then  his  eyes  fell  upon  his  clothing,  which 
was  the  clothing  of  the  medium  whom  he  possessed,  and  he 
said :  *  Where  am  I  ?  '  He  examined  his  trousers  and  ex- 
claimed: '  These  are  not  mine.*  A  most  puzzled  look  came 
over  the  face  of  the  medium.  We  reasoned  with  the  spirit, 
and  finally  got  him  to  go  out,  and  then  the  *  spirit  control ' 
of  this  medium  took  possession  of  him  and  he  said :  *  That 
was  a  dark  one ;  let  this  be  a  lesson.  Never  indulge  low, 
revengeful  thoughts.  Never  even  let  them  pass  through 
your  minds.  This  medium  to-day  at  the  court  trial  enter- 
tained those  thoughts  and  this  opened  the  door  to  spirits  on 
that  plane.  Keep  yourself  and  your  thoughts  loving,  holy, 
and  these  evil  influences  can  not  enter  in.' 

**  It  turned  out  that  this  revengeful  spirit  had  lived  in  the 
colonial  times  when  the  knickerbocker  trousers  were  worn, 
and  when  his  eyes  fell  on  the  trousers  of  the  medium, 
feeling  that  he  was  in  that  body,  he  was  struck  with  the  in- 
congruity between  the  trousers  that  he  was  accustomed,  to 
wear  and  these,  and  this  made  him  hesitate  and  turned  his 
attention  elsewhere." 


62  IS   THIS   OBSESSION? 

Judge  C also  told  me  of  a  lady  medium  who  at  a 

Spiritualist  camp-meeting  became  possessed  of  an  evil  spirit. 
This  spirit  with  loud  oath-s  cried  out :  **  I  am 

Reasoningr     j^^j-g  ^^^  intend  to  Stay."     He  was  reasoned 
with. 
Dark  Spirits.    ^^^^  ^^^  finally  consented  to  go  and  promised 

that  he  would  not  return,  but  in  a  few  days  he 
did  return.  The  following  conversation  took  place  between 
a  gentleman  present  and  this  spirit : 

Gentleman :  "  What !  are  you  here  again  ?  " 

Spirit :  "  Yes ;  and  what  is  more,  I  intend  to  stay. " 

G.  :  "  You  promised  not  to  return.  Will  you  not  keep 
your  word  ^  " 

Sp. :  "  No ;  I  will  not,  and  neither  you  nor  the  medium 
can  help  yourselves." 

"Suddenly,"  says  the  judge,  "this  gentleman  fixed  his 
eyes  on  those  of  the  medium  and  in  a  commanding  voice 
said :  *  Go,  go !  *  The  medium  was  greatly  agitated  for  a 
moment,  and  then  was  free.     The  spirit  never  after  returned." 

Gerald  Massey  in  my  presence  told  a  pitiful  story  about 
his  wife,  who  was  a  private  medium,  being  "  obsessed  by  the 
spirit  of  a  murderer."  She  suffered  terribly  through  this 
delusion  or  fact,  whatever  it  was.  Massey  had  no  doubt 
whatever  that  it  was  a  case  of  possession  by  an  evil  spirit. 

A  lady  medium,  who  has  for  many  years  held  the  confi- 
dence of  leading  Spiritualists,  gave  me  the  following  personal 
experience : 

"  Once  at  a  Spiritualist  seance  a  spirit  entered  a  medium 
who  was  near  me,  and,  through  the  medium,  cursed  fright- 
fully, saying :  *  I  shall  have  my  revenge. '  The  possessed 
medium  suddenly  seized  me  and  hurled  me  across  the  room. 
My  friends  were  up  instantly  in  my  behalf.  One  began 
reasoning  with  the  spirit,  and  asked  what  he  meant.  He 
replied :  *  About  a  hundred  years  ago  I  killed  a  man,  and  I 
was  hung,  and  I  have  ever  since  been  trying  to  get  revenge, 
and  I  will  have  it.' 

"  *  But  how  has  this  woman  injured  you  ? ' 


CONVERTED    MEDIUM'S   WARNING     63 

"  '  She  has  not ;  but  I  shall  kill  some  one ! ' 
"  My  control  took  possession  of  me,"  continued  the  me- 
dium, "  and  began  to  reason  with  the  spirit  that  possessed  the 
other  medium,  and  told  the  spirit  how  he  was  hindering 
himself  by  harboring  such  revengeful  thoughts,  that  he  held 
himself  down  and  made  himself  wretched,  and  that  if  he 
tried  to  get  rid  of  that  evil  passion  and  invited  better  thoughts 
he  would  rise.  He  began  to  be  appeased,  the  tears  ran  down 
the  face  of  the  medium,  and  he  said :  '  Let  me  come  again 
and  I  will  think  over  what  you  say.*  In  a  few  days  he  re- 
turned and  said :  *  You  don't  know  the  good  that  you  have 
done.  I  am  associated  with  many  other  revengeful  spirits 
who  have  determined  to  get  even  with  the  human  race.  I 
have  told  them  about  my  experience  here  and  what  has  been 
said  to  me,  and  many  of  us  have  determined  to  listen  to  what 
you  say  and  try  to  advance.'  " 

The  following  letter  is  evidently  from  a  very  sincere  man. 

It  is  one  of  many  similar  letters  of  which  I  have  been  the 

recipient  during  the  past  few  months.     I  have 

had  considerable  correspondence  with  this  gen-  Warning  from 

tleman,  who  resides  in  California  and  is  a  mem-     ,    ^®,       ° 

has  been  a 

ber   of  the    Seventh-Day  Adventist   Church.        Medium. 
As  he  is  intelligent  and  has  had  newspaper 
training,  I  have  thought  it  well  to  give  his  letter,  as  typical 
of  many  others,  nearly  in  full : 

"  Pardon  a  letter  from  a  newspaper  man  who  knows  by  personal  ex- 
perience the  terrible  truths  of  Spiritualism.  It  is  a  seductive  investiga- 
tion in  which  you  are  engaged,  but  turn,  I  beg  of  you. 

**  I  was  impressed  by  the  marvelous  demonstration  of  intelligence  and 
power  exhibited  by  the  invisible  beings  that  responded  to  the  call  of  a 
medium  in  this  city,  and  I  desire  to  assure  you  that  any  test  you  may 
devise,  such  as  the  sending  of  a  representative  to  ask  of  the  spirits  ques- 
tions only  you  and  Mr.  Beecher  could  answer  correctly,  will  be  produc- 
tive of  the  correct  reply.  Do  not  be  deceived  thereby.  The  depths  of 
the  cunning  of  these  impersonating  spirits  are  equaled  only  by  tlieir 
wickedness  and  by  their  desire  to  deceive. 

"  Not  until  the  phenomena  were  produced  under  my  own  hand  and 
many  notable  tests  were  given  me  did  I  realize  the  truth.    Many  of  the 


64  "I    AM   THE   EVIL  ONE" 

messages  were  clothed  in  language  so  sublime  as  to  delight  the  intellect 
and  to  persuade  me  that  I  was  conversing  in  reality  with  the  spirits  of 
the  dead.  They  told  me,  however,  as  remarkable  things  in  regard  to  my 
own  life  experiences  as  they  did  in  respect  to  those  of  persons  I  had 
known  in  other  years  who  have  fallen  asleep.  It  was  evident  that  they 
might  have  assumed  my  name  had  I  been  dead,  and  that  they  could  have 
given  any  test  of  which  I  myself  would  have  been  capable,  without  my 
participation,  if  those  who  had  known  me  in  life  had  been  making  in- 
quiries through  a  medium. 

"  More  rapidly  than  an  expert  stenographer  would  care  to  record  their 
words,  they  conversed  with  me  on  subjects  of  engrossing  interest ;  but 
there  was  much  falsehood,  disagreement  in   testimony  regarding  the 

*  spirit  life,*  and  at  times  the  most  shocking  blasphemy  and  expressions 
of  a  diabolically  lascivious  mind.  These  were  written  by  my  own  hand, 
as  I  permitted  it  to  be  moved  by  the  invisible  agents,  and  my  mind  was 
clear  and  I  was  able  to  converse  with  the  utmost  ease,  orally,  mentally, 
or  in  writing,  with  these  visitants  from  another  world. 

"  I  was  converted  to  Christianity  when  a  child  and  for  years  I  had  be- 
lieved the  Bible  to  be  an  inspired  book,  but  I  had  lapsed  into  unbelief 
and  for  eighteen  years  I  had  been  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  skepti- 
cism. My  personal  religious  experience  and  a  conviction  that  the  spheres 
could  not  be  maintained  in  their  harmonious  relations  without  the  exer- 
cise of  omnipotent  power  convinced  me  that  there  was  a  God,  but  I  had 
lost  faith  in  Christ  and  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible. 

"  In  my  perplexity  over  the  manifestations  of  Spiritualism  occurring 
in  the  seclusion  of  my  own  house,  I  was  forced  to  renew  my  study  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  teachings  of  my  visitants  centered  in  the  idea  of  the 
conscious  state  of  the  dead  and  in  the  denial  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  and 
,i  ^  ^1  the  truth  of  the  Bible.  As  I  studied  the  text  in  different 
IT  •!  n  '>  versions  and  in  the  original  Greek  of  the  New  Testament, 
my  faith  in  Christ  was  renewed.  My  religious  experi- 
ence came  back  to  me,  my  heart  burned  with  love  to  God  and  to  my  fel- 
low men,  and  I  turned  from  the  whole  delusion  of  Spiritualism  to  the 
true  and  living  God  and  to  a  belief  in  His  Word.  I  was  a  changed  man. 
The  last  message  penned  by  one  of  my  visitants  was  this:  '  How  you 
have  made  this  a  strange  lane  to  the  light !    I  am  the  evil  one.' 

"  At  various  times  similar  admissions  had  been  made.  I  began  the 
investigation  of  Spiritualism  without  a  belief  in  tlie  existence  of  Satan, 
whom  I  regarded  as  the  mere  personification  of  evil  in  its  abstract  princi- 
ples. I  left  it  with  a  definite  conviction  of  his  actual  being  and  of  the 
verity  of  the  entire  Scriptures. 

"  The  dominating  power  of  modem  Spiritualism  is  the  devil, '  that  old 
serpent,'  whose  trail  is  marked  with  *  signs  and  lying  wonders  and  with 
all  deceivableness  of  unrighteousness.'  Nor  need  we  fail  to  discern  in 
the  phenomena  that  both  you  and  I  have  observed  the  *  strong  delusion ' 
permitted  by  God  to  prevail  among  tliose  who  turn  from  His  word  and 

*  believe  a  lie.* 


BIBLE   TEACHINGS  65 

"  As  you  value  your  soul  and  as  you  regard  your  responsibility  to  God 
for  the  influence  you  exert  over  your  fellow  men,  do  not  identify  yourself 
with  this  wretched  tho  seductive  philosophy  of  Spiritualism,  for  it  is  a 
device  of  the  enemy  of  mankind." 

There  is  a  danger  here  that  should  not  be  minified. 

Spiritualists  make  a  great  mistake  when  they  underrate 
the  power  of  evil  spirits.  The  greatest  who  ever  mediated 
between  this  and  the  spirit  world,  Christ  Jesus,  said  to  Peter : 
"  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  you,  .  .  .  but  I  have  prayed  for 
thee  that  thy  faith  fail  not."  That  Satan  is  a  power  that  re- 
quired the  help  of  Jesus  to  thwart  when  assailing  so  strong  a 
personality  as  Peter  is  a  fact  of  startling  significance.  Jesus 
again  and  again  cast  out  devils  who  had  seized  "  mediums  " 
and  so  hypnotized  them  as  to  make  them  subject  to  their 
wills. 

Paul  also,  we  are  told  by  Spiritualists,  was  a  medium  of 
great  power  through   whom   exalted   spirits   spoke.     What 
did   he   mean   when    he   said,    "Finally,  my 
brethren,  .  .  .  put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  Evil  Spiritual 
that  ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against  the  wiles  of  -    .       ,  p 
the  devil ;  for  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and         sonal. 
blood  [the  forces  of  this  world  which  are  appar- 
ent to  our  senses],  but  against  principalities,  against  powers, 
against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiri- 
tual wickedness  in  high  places  " — that  is,  against  organized 
intelligences  who  are  outside  of  flesh  and  blood,  yet  can  have 
great  power  over  us  ? 

The  Bible  certainly  teaches  that  evil  spirits  do  communi- 
cate with  men. 

*'  Then  there  came  out  a  spirit,  and  stood  before  the  Lord,  and  said, 
I  will  entice  him  [Ahab],  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him.  Wherewith? 
And  he  said,  I  will  go  out  and  be  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  all  his 
prophets  [mediums]."    And  he  so  did,  and  prevailed  (2  Chron.  xviii.). 

But  if  evil  spirits  spoke  through  evil  prophets,  did  not 
good  spirits  speak  through  good  prophets  ?     What  was  the 
spirit  of  the  Lord  that  at  this  time  spoke  through  the  good 
5 


66  THE   AUTHOR    WARNED 

prophet  Micaiah  ?  Was  it  God  direct  or  a  spirit  sent  of 
God  ?  God  uses  men  to  carry  His  messages  to  other  men ; 
why  should  we  think  it  strange  that  He  should  use  spirits  to 
carry  His  messages  to  other  spirits  and  to  men? 

The  evil  spirits  of  which  the  Bible  so  abundantly  speaks 
certainly  had  reality  and  personality.  Christ  cast  them  out 
and  so  did  His  disciples.  Christ  spoke  to  them,  and  when 
they  went  out  of  men  they  still  had  existence  and  power,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  legion  that  entered  the  swine.  "  When  the 
[an]  unclean  spirit  is  gone  out  of  a  man  "  he  gets  seven  others 
and  returns,  and  does  an  evil  work  in  that  man.  ^  Is  it  a  cred- 
itable interpretation  that  would  make  a  parable  out  of  the  ac- 
count of  the  casting  out  of  seven  devils  from  Mary  Magdalene } 
This  way  of  reading  the  Bible  would  justify  Erasmus  in  saying 
its  interpretation  "  is  like  a  nose  of  wax  that  can  be  molded 
for  any  face." 

We  are  told  that  the  Bible  forbids  communings  with 
spirits. 

A  lady  writes  to  me  kindly  from  South  Carolina : 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  the  Dr.  Funk  whom  I  have  so  long  admired 

has  like  Saul  gone  to  consult  the  Witch  of  Endor.     But  he  says  he  does 

not  believe  in  Spiritualism.     Neither  did  Saul,  but  he 

Bible         was  cursed  all  the  same.    Listen,  my  dear  doctor,  I  beg 

Forbids  Com-  you,  to  Isa.  viii.    19,  20:   'When  they  shall    say  unto 

muning'       you,  Seek  unto  them  that  have  familiar  spirits,  and  unto 

with.  Evil     wizards  that  peep,  and  that  mutter :  should  not  a  people 

Spirits.       seek  unto  their  God?  for  the  living  to  the  dead?    To  the 

law  and  to  the  testimony  :  if  they  speak  not  according  to 

this  word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in  them.' 

'**  And  oftentimes  to  win  us  to  our  harm, 
The  instruments  of  darkness  tell  us  truths ; 
Win  us  with  honest  trifles  to  betray  us 
In  deepest  consequence.' " 

These  considerations  should  have  weight,  but  there  are 
other  considerations  that  should  also  have  weight. 

Is  it  true  that  intermediaries  are  always  an  impertinence 
in  our  communings  with  God,  since  He  is  always  ready  to 

*  Matt.  xii.  43-45. 


"TRY   THE    SPIRITS"  67 

hear  and  to  answer?     Carry  this  out  logically,  then  there 

would  be  no  need  of  the  earnest  soul  conversing  with  the 

preacher  for  instruction  and  help.     Why  Paul  and  the  other 

writers  of  the  Scriptures  ? 

After  Jesus  had  commanded  Satan  to  get  behind  Him, 

angels  came  and  ministered  to  Him;  so  also  in  the  Garden 

of   Gethsemane;    on   the    Mount   of   Transfiguration   came 

Moses  and  Elias,  two  men  who  had  passed  into  the  spirit 

world  a  thousand  years  before,  and  now  talked 

^  Also  Good 

with  Christ  about  things  that  were  shortly  to         Spirits 

happen   at    Jerusalem,   bringing   quite  likely      Communed 

messages  from  the  higher  spheres;  and  two        in  Bible 

7imes 
men  came  to  Abraham  and  to  Lot,  and  talked 

to  them  about  what  God  intended  to  do,  and  these  men  were 
spirits.  So  on  through  the  Bible  to  the  time  that  angels 
visited  Paul  and  Peter  and  talked  to  them ;  and  to  the  time 
angels  talked  to  John  in  the  Apocalypse,  If  God  used  in- 
termediaries from  the  spirit  world  in  the  past,  why  not  now? 
Has  God  changed?  If  that  method  of  communication  was 
not  unworthy  of  God  two  thousand  years  ago,  can  we  be  quite 
sure  that  it  is  now  ? 

We  are  commanded  **  to  try  the  spirits."  Why  try  them 
if  they  are  all  bad  ?  "  Beloved,"  says  John,  "  believe  not 
every  spirit " — that  implies  that  there  are  some  to  be  believed 
and  some  that  are  not  to  be  believed ;  "  but  try  the  spirits, 
whether  they  are  of  God."  Says  one  with  an  effort  to  be 
witty :  "  By  trying  the  spirits  we  get  rid  of  the  lying  spir- 
its." 

Paul  tells  us  that  there  is  a  diversity  of  spiritual  gifts : 
To  one  man  is  given  the  gift  of  healing,  to  another  the 
working  of  miracles,  to  another  prophecy,  to  another  the  dis- 
cerning of  spirits,  to  another  divers  kinds  of  tongues.  *'  Covet 
earnestly  the  best  gifts"  (i  Cor.  xii.).  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  power  to  discern  spirits  is  a  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

There  are  "  ministering  spirits,"  we  are  told,  who  are  sent 


68  SPIRITUAL   DISCERNMENT 

forth  "  to  minister  for  them  who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation  " 
(Heb.  i.  14). 

That  God  uses  intermediaries  to  carry  on  His  work  be- 
tween the  spirit  world  and  this  world  would  be  in  accordance 
with  the  way  He  does  His  work  on  earth.  God,  if  spirit 
communication  be  true,  is  only  refining,  exalting  His  earth 
methods,  known  to  us  all.  It  has  been  said  that  Galileo  con- 
tended that  the  world  moves  from  the  West  to  the  East,  but 
Darwin  demonstrated  that  it  moves  from  down  to  up.  It  is 
the  supreme  act  of  faith  to  believe  in  the  unchangeability 
and  goodness  of  God.  As  it  was  not  against  God's  plan  in 
Bible  times  for  good  spirits  as  well  as  bad  to  work  among 
men  on  earth,  why  is  it  against  His  plan  now?  The  posses- 
sions by  evil  spirits  were  then  no  more  real  than  the  pos- 
sessions by  good  spirits.  If  it  be  true,  as  one  tells  us,  that 
"  Spiritualism  is  a  blast  from  hell,"  may  it  not  also  be  true 
that  it  is  a  blast  from  heaven  ^ 

It  is  difficult  for  one  to  attend  a  number  of  seances  where 

the  medium  is  pure  and  intellectual  and  the  members  of  the 

circle  are  also  of  noble  mind  and  heart,  and 

Goodness  the    j^^^  f^^j  g^^j.^  ^^^^  ^^^  intelligences  communi- 

Touchstone.  mating  are  well  meaning.  In  these  circles  of 
believers  are  often  found  well-developed  Chris- 
tian characters.  After  all,  goodness  is  the  best  detective 
of  evil  in  the  heart  of  another.  No  needle  can  be  nearly 
so  sensitive  to  the  electric  current  as  is  a  good  heart  to  the 
presence  of  good  or  evil.  Said  the  Master:  "My  sheep 
know  my  voice. "  The  pure  in  heart  know  God,  as  the  ar- 
tistic soul  recognizes  an  artist  or  a  musical  soul  a  musi- 
cian. A  spiritual  soul  has  a  spiritual  discernment.  Ye 
hypocrites,  ye  can  discern  the  signs  of  the  sky,  but  ye  can 
not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  times  when  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand,  and  yet  ye  profess  to  be  spiritually 
developed.  These  Pharisees  wished  a  sign  from  heaven,  but 
Christ  refused,  for  they  had  not  the  spiritual  vision  that 
would  give  them  recognition  of  things  that  were  spiritual. 


"GOOD    SPIRITS"  69 

A  medium  may  be  evil,  and  yet  the  circle  may  be  such 
as  draws  elevated  spirits.  It  is  an  uncomely  thing  that 
connects  the  trolley-car  with  the  wire  overhead,  but  were  it 
not  for  that  uncomely  thing  the  car  would  not  move  for- 
ward. Let  us  not  come  to  hasty  conclusions  touching  these 
matters.  On  the  theory  that  all  these  intelligences  in  the 
stance-room  are  devils,  it  is  hard  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
often  there  the  wicked  are  urged  to  give  up  wickedness,  the 
selfish  to  become  charitable,  and  that  revenge  should  give 
place  to  love.  Christ  when  accused  with  being  controlled  by 
Beelzebub,  replied,  A  kingdom  divided  against  itself  would 
fall.     This  is  true  now  as  then. 

At  a  seance  at  which  I  was  present,  a  member  of  the  cir- 
cle exhibited  a  bitter  spirit  toward  one  whose  name  had  been 
mentioned  and  who  had  deeply  wronged  him. 

He  said :  "  Never  mind,  I  shall  have  my  re-         Spirits 

,,      ^  1  1   '        ■,  11  .   .       Exhorting  to 

venge.       One  who  claimed  to  be  the  spirit        virtue 

control   immediately  responded,    telling  him 

"to  love  all  people;  revenge  holds  the  soul  down,  hatred 

makes  souls  dark.     In  the  spirit  world  souls  are  known  by 

their  color — yes,  color  expresses  this  thought,  yet  it  is  not 

that.     Seek  to  cultivate   those  thoughts  of  good-will   and 

helpfulness  that  make  the  soul  bright.     No,  brother,  never 

think  of  revenge.     If  you  have  an  enemy,  study  hard  how 

to  be  serviceable  to  him.      Remember,  the  man  who  does 

wrong  hurts  himself  a  thousandfold  more  than  he  does  the 

one  he  wrongs." 

At  many  stances  deep  concern  on  the  part  of  "  spirits  " 
for  the  welfare  of  the  sitters  is  manifest.  If  there  is  sick- 
ness reported,  suggestions  are  made  of  cure.  Frequently 
we  hear  such  words  as  these : 

"  See  that  there  is  no  sorrow  nor  gloom  in  the  circle. 
Some  heart  here  is  heavy — the  vibrations  are  interfered  with 
by  heaviness  of  heart.  Peace,  love,  good  cheer,  purity  of 
thought,  hope,  faith  in  God  make  the  right  conditions  for  us 
to  come  to  you.     Above  all  things,  free  yourselves  of  selfish 


70  '     LIKE   DRAWS   LIKE 

thoughts.  These  sink  the  soul  in  the  spirit  world  like  lead 
sinks  the  body  in  the  sea.  They  repel  from  the  circle  the 
better  spirits,  and  bring  to  you  earth  spirits  and  spirits  from 
cycles  lower  than  the  earth ;  there  are  cycles  lower  than  the 
earth." 

Rarely  are  the  spirits  in  the  seance-room  lawless,  that  is, 
free  from  restraint.  Frequently  we  are  told  that  "  We  are 
not  permitted,"  "This  is  against  the  will  of  God,"  **Our 
teachers  say "  this  or  that,  "  We  would  not  disobey  our 
teachers."  Of  course,  it  is  conceivable  that  an  evil  spirit 
might  speak  in  this  way  to  throw  souls  off  their  guard  and 
gain  access.  Men  do  this  on  earth,  and  yet  keen  observers 
of  human  nature  can  distinguish  the  hypocrite.  Possibly  to 
train  in  this  kind  of  work  is  what  the  apostle  means  when 
he  urges  us  to  "  try  spirits,"  that  is,  learn  to  distinguish  the 
good  from  the  bad.  As  Podmore  urges,  we  should  have  care 
not  to  throw  away  the  baby  with  the  water  for  the  bath. 

But  were  we  to  grant  that  these  intelligences  communi- 
cating are  supramundane  and  are  at  times  other  than  evil 
spirits,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  discar- 

Outside  nate  men,  that  is,  men  who  have  passed  into 
°^  ^ftfT^'   the  spirit  life.     Why  may  there  not  be  many 

What  ?  intelligences  in  the  universe  besides  those  who 
have  inhabited  the  earth  .^  This  involves  a 
stupendous  question,  that  of  the  identity  of  the  intelligences 
communicating.  Should  we  settle  it  in  our  minds  that  there 
is  spiritual  communication  between  this  world  and  the  spirit 
world,  this  other  question  of  identity  remains,  and  this  may 
turn  out  to  be  the  more  difficult  problem  of  the  two. 

Those  who  fully  believe  in  the  Bible  should  not  find  it 
hard  to  believe  that  Iniman  bcmgs  out  of  the  flesh  do  com- 
municate with  earth.  There  is  the  story  of  the  Witch  of 
Endor  calling  up  Samuel.  Was  this  spirit  that  of  Samuel 
or  some  evil  spirit  that  personated  him.^  If  Samuel,  it 
proves  that  the  dead  do  live,  can  come  back  to  earth,  and  can 
be  identified^  have  knowledge  of  what  is  taking  place  on  earth, 


HASTY   CONCLUSIONS  71 

retain  their  memories — or  it  proves  that  at  least  some  of 
the  dead  do.     The  Bible  story  appears  to  justify  this  deduc- 
tion.    It  seems  a  strained  interpretation  that 
makes  this    an  impersonation  of    Samuel  by    ^^Q  Witch  of 

an  evil  spirit.     Moses  and  Elias  certainly  did         -rJ^J^^-    , 
^  -'an  Historical 

appear  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  and  Fact, 

were  recognized.  And  the  two  messengers  who 
came  to  Abraham  and  Lot  to  announce  God's  displeasure 
with  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  appeared  to  be  human  beings. 
At  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  men  rose  from  their  graves  and 
walked  into  the  city ;  and  a  young  man  was  seen  by  Mary  in 
the  sepulcher,  and  this  young  man  was  a  spirit. 

Yet  if  Spiritualism  be  true,  there  may  be  grave  danger. 
Again  and  again  I  have  heard  repeated  from  the  cabinet 
words  like  the  following :  "  Character  gravitates  to  its  like : 
swine  require  no  finger-board  to  find  mud-holes  and  need  not 
be  urged  to  wallow  in  them.  Throw  your  heart  into  the 
spirit  world,  and  spirits  after  its  kind  are  sure  to  find  it  and 
comrade  it.  Evil  spirits  are  attracted  to  a  circle  of  unclean 
persons  as  wire  filings  to  a  magnet.  There  are  multitudes 
of  imperfect,  undeveloped  spirits  about  the  earth,  an  insectiv- 
orous plague  ready  to  crowd  in  anywhere  an  opportunity  is 
given."  If  this  really  is  true,  it  is  an  evil  of  portentous  mag- 
nitude, and  should  be  guarded  against  intelligently  and  per- 
sistently. 

Yet  one  in  union  with  God — in  union  with  God — need 
fear  no  evil.  Such  an  one  if  need  be  can  give  successful 
battle  anywhere  in  the  universe  to  the  entire  satanic  army. 
He  is  not  subject  to  devils,  neither  indeed  can  be,  but  is 
naturally,  inevitably  their  master.  As  already  urged — and  I 
beg  to  be  indulged  in  urging  this  same  thought  again  and 
again — there  can  be  no  psychic  invasiofis  of  human  personality 
without  consent.  Personality  is  always  and  everywhere  in- 
violable. 


72  NOT   DISPROVED 


7.  That  these  psychic  phenomena  have  been  con- 
clusively disproved. 

The  able  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate^  in 
a  series  of  notable  arguments  on  Spiritualism — notable  but 
not  conclusive — says  that  again  and  again  these  phenomena 
have  been  proved  to  be  the  result  of  fraud,  and  he  dismisses 
them  all  with  the  Latin  proverb,  falstis  in  uno^  falsus  in  om- 
nibus— false  in  one,  false  in  all.  This  controversial  editor 
has  a  penchant  for  the  use  of  sententious 
Falsus  in  XJno,  phrases,  a  brilliant  gift  that  sometimes  proves 
in  Omnibus.  "^^^^^  ^^  logic.  A  savage  chief  who  for  the  first 
time  came  into  contact  with  the  telegraph  re- 
ceived a  despatch  which  he  found  on  investigation  to  be  false, 
and  he  thereupon  ordered  the  telegraph-poles  cut  down 
wherever  found  in  his  dominion,  using  a  savage  phrase  which 
freely  interpreted  was  "  False  in  one,  false  in  all,"  and  hence 
his  kingdom  to  this  day  is  without  the  benefit  of  telegraphy. 
There  may  be  many  communing  intelligences  above,  as 
many  even  as  there  are  communing  intelligences  on  earth, 
who  send  telegraphic  despatches,  some  of  whom  on  both 
sides  of  the  death  line  are  truthful  and  some,  it  may  be, 
are  deceivers,  and  some  are  honest  but  mistaken. 

A  wave  of  the  hand  and  such  arguments  as  "  a  form  of  hys- 
teria," "another  phase  of  witchcraft,"  "a  creature  of  the 
imagination,"  "dreams,"  "phantasms,"  are  no  longer  satis- 
factory answers  to  these  phenomena  to  one  who  really  has 
investigated  them. 

It  would  not  be  hard  to  give  a  thousand  psychic  facts  that 
not  one  of  these  descriptive  epithets,  nor  all  combined,  can 
fully  cover. 

A  lawyer  who  is  noted  for  his  scholarly  qualifications 
said  to  me  recently :  "  It  is  to  deny  the  shining  of  the  sun  at 
noon-time  in  a  clear  sky  to  deny  that  there  are  Spiritistic 
communications.     You  can  not  blot  out  a  star  with  a  fog 


AUSTIN    PHELPS'   WARNING  73 

bank.     After  all  reasonable  allowances  for  coincidence  and 
fraud,  every  man  accustomed  to  weigh  evidence  will  be  com- 
pelled to  say,  when  he  has  weighed  the  facts 
in  controversy,  *  Here  are  well-authenticated     coincidence 
facts  so  prodigious  in  number  that  they  over-      and  Fraud 

whelm  the  mind/  "     Dr.  Austin  Phelps,  in  his     Theories  In- 

sufficient, 
brilliant  essay  in  which  he  sought  to  prove  the 

Satanic  origin  of  Spiritualism,  speaks  of  its  facts  after  this 

fashion : 

"  We  should  be  unreasonable  in  a  denial  in  toto  of  the  credibility  of 
testimony  as  applicable  to  the  phenomena  in  question.  Believers  in  Bib- 
lical miracles  on  the  evidence  of  testimony  must  not  question  the  possi- 
bility of  credible  testimony  to  necromantic  marvels.  The  Egyptians  did 
something  with  their  enchantments.  The  spectators  saw  what  they  saw. 
Come  what  may  of  it,  eyes  and  ears  and  fingers  are  tough  witnesses  to 
facts.  The  eyes  and  ears  and  fingers  of  a  hundred  other  men  are  of  more 
value  than  the  solitary  evidence  of  yours  or  mine.  We  practise  an  un- 
conscious evasion  of  the  point  in  logic  when  we  say,  *  I  will  believe  when 
I  see.'  We  lose  vastly  more  than  we  gain  by  any  <a:-/r/^r/ reasoning  or 
by  any  very  recondite  reasoning  against  the  blunt  testimony  of  the  senses 
of  a  regiment  of  men. 

"  As  little  reason  have  we  to  cavil  at  the  character  of  a  certain  portion 
of  the  testimony  by  which  the  toughest  facts  of  Spiritualism  are  sup- 
ported. Some  of  tiiat  testimony,  so  far  as  it  respects  the  sanity,  the  cul- 
ture, the  integrity,  and  the  opportunities  of  the  witnesses,  would  convict 
a  murderer  in  any  court  in  Christendom,  outside  of  New  York  City. 

"  It  is  too  late  also  to  set  down  the  Spiritualistic  phenomena  as  only  a 
revamping  of  old,  or  an  invention  of  new,  feats  of  jugglery.  Their  advo- 
cates are  not  to  be  censured  if  they  decline  to  argue  with  a  man  who 
comes  to  them,  as  from  the  detective  police,  with  the  logic  of  invisible 
wires,  and  of  sleight-of-hand,  and  of  leaden  plummets  concealed  under 
crinolines.  W.  might  have  been  excusable  for  such  innocence  twenty- 
five  years  ago  but  it  will  not  do  now.  Signer  Blitz,  who  probably  knows 
as  much  as  most  men  of  the  capacities  of  jugglery,  has  been  heard  to  say 
that  nothing  on  record  in  the  history  of  his  profession  could  account  for 
that  class  of  facts  on  which  Spiritualism  chiefly  builds.  Robert  Houdin 
also,  who  claims  to  be  the  inventor  of  most  of  the  tricks  performed  by 
the  fraternity  of  modem  jugglers,  has  declared  his  inability  to  equal  or 
to  account  for  the  so-called  spiritual  occurrences  which  he  has  witnessed. 
Similar  testimony  is  borne  by  M.  Hamilton,  a  Parisian  expert  in  leger- 
demam,  and  by  M.  Rhys,  a  maker  ot  the  conjuring  implements  used  by 
Houdin." 

Yet  it  is  true  that  deception,  duplicity,  fraud  of  every 


74  HEARTLESS    FRAUDS 

description  surround  and  saturate  Spiritualism.  The  ease 
with  which  a  large  proportion  of  the  advocates  of  Spiritualism 
are  duped  and  the  depravity  of  some  of  the  so-called  mediums 
and  their  hangers-on,  a  depravity  so  extreme  as  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  holiest  sentiments  and  the  most  sacred  griefs  that 
the  human  heart  knows,  are  reasons  efficient  if  not  sufficient 
for  the  contempt  in  which  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  in- 
telligent public  hold  Spiritualism.  An  ordinary  cheat,  as  a 
policy  sharper  or  a  three-card  monte  fraud,  or  other  swindler 
in  games  of  chance,  is  virtue  itself  in  comparison  with  a  me- 
dium who  will  take  advantage  of  the  unreason  of  grief  to  coin 
into  ready  cash  the  yearnings  of  a  mother's  heart  for  her 
loved  one,  who  has  passed  beyond  the  valley  of  the  shadow, 
or  of  a  wife  for  a  husband,  or  of  a  husband  for  a  wife,  or  of 
a  child  for  its  mother.  And  this  kind  of  humbuggery  is  con- 
tinent-wide, world-wide. 

I  find  in  my  notebooks  records  that  show  a  variety  of 

methods  in  conducting  these  frauds  that  is  amazing.     These 

frauds  are  practised  mostly  in  what  are  known 

Variety  of      g^g  materialization  circles.     The  ways  in  which 
Mediumistic     ^        ,    ,  ,.  ,        .         ,  ,  ,. 

Frauds         fraudulent  mediums  deceive  the  public  are  in- 
dicated by  these  entries  in  my  notebooks  I 
here  give  in  the  hope  that  some  thoughtless  investigators 
may  be  more  upon  their  guard : 

1.  A  medium  impersonated  "  a  lady  eight  feet  tall  from  the  planet 
Mars"  by  the  use  of  a  wire  bust  with  rubber  over  it,  and  a  false  face. 
This  was  so  arranged  that  it  fitted  snugly  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  me- 
dium and  was  inflated  with  air  when  in  use.  When  not  in  use  it  could  be 
made  into  a  small  package  and  easily  concealed. 

2.  Four  cork  soles,  each  an  inch  and  a  half  thick,  arranged  so  as  to 
be  strapped  to  the  bottom  of  the  shoes ;  these  helped  to  impersonate  per- 
sons of  different  height. 

3.  Wire  dummy  covered  with  rubber,  that  could  be  inflated  and  made 
to  represent  in  a  darkened  room  the  spirit  form  of  a  little  child;  when 
deflated  it  could  be  folded  and  worn  as  a  bustle  by  the  lady  medium. 

4.  Phosphorescent  clothing,  made  bright  in  spots  with  illuminating 
I>aint  or  phosphorescent  oil ;  a  compound  of  phosphorus  and  ether  is 
sometimes  used  for  this  purpose.    This  oil  produces  a  faint  light,  and  in 


r 


cc 


I   AM    HERE,   PAPA"  75 


the  dark,  with  bits  of  glass  or  paste  diamond  which  reflect  the  dim  light, 
makes  an  impressive  appearance.  This  is  used  to  represent  "bright 
spirits." 

5.  On  one  occasion  I  saw  a  star  which  had  been  cutout  of  paste- 
board ;  the  front  of  the  star  was  covered  with  phosphorus,  so  that  it 
glowed  in  a  weird-like  way.  The  card  was  mounted  on  a  wooden  cross 
some  five  inches  high,  and  appeared  on  a  "spirit"  lady's  head,  who,  I 
was  told,  desired  to  see  me,  "having  been  when  on  earth  a  particular 
friend  "  of  mine.  The  fraud  was  transparent,  but  the  same  thing  I  have 
seen  fool  many  people. 

6.  Gauze  dresses;  fine  white  tulle,  sometimes  lawn  of  pure  white, 
takes  but  little  space,  and  when  thrown  over  a  black  dress,  especially  if 
it  has  been  treated  with  illuminating  oil,  is  effective.  These  white  gauze 
dresses  are  sometimes  so  arranged  that  they  can  be  lowered  gradually  in 
such  a  way  that  when  on  the  floor  the  invisible  black  dress  covers  them. 
This  represents  dematerialization ;  and  then,  as  they  are  slowly  lifted  by 
a  wire  manipulated  from  the  cabinet,  the  white  again  appears  and  the 
spirit  is  said  to  have  rematerialized. 

7.  False  wigs  and  other  false  hair  and  false  whiskers  galore. 

8.  Fine  cambric  cloth  waved  in  the  air,  either  by  a  jointed  stick  or  by 
the  medium's  hand  or  the  hand  of  a  confederate  (a  person  dressed  in 
black  is  invisible  in  the  darkness  of  the  average  stance-room),  does  well 
for  what  is  called  etherealization ;  that  is,  a  spirit  materializing  out  in  the 
open,  in  a  way  that  makes  it  seem  to  have  but  little  substance.  When 
cleverly  done  this  deception  brings  out  many  "  Ohs  ! "  from  the  faithful 
in  the  circle. 

9.  Dummy  with  white  front  and  with  a  loose  black  cloth  covering  the 
entire  back  is  often  used  for  materializations  and  dematerializations. 
This  trick  is  done  by  gradually  lifting  the  dummy  from  the  floor  (see  6) 
so  that  the  white  appears,  and  then  by  letting  it  sink  down  again  slowly 
so  that  the  black  covers  it ;  the  light  is  kept  so  low  that  unless  one's  eyes 
are  particularly  good  it  is  impossible  to  detect  the  black  form.  It  can 
be  made  to  give  the  appearance  of  a  spirit  form  that  is  standing  out 
in  the  open,  away  from  the  cabinet,  or  sinking  through  the  floor.  The 
medium  herself  often  alone  performs  this  trick ;  being  dressed  in  black, 
she  is  not  visible.  Sometimes  this  fraud  is  perpetrated  in  a  fairly  bright 
light,  and  in  that  case  a  thin  steel,  jointed  rod  manipulates  the  dummy 
from  the  cabinet.  A  confederate  dressed  in  black  is  at  times  utilized  for 
this  purpose ;  sometimes  a  [child  is  thus  used — the  child  moves  behind 
the  circle,  and  suddenly  throws  off  the  black  covering  and  appears  a 
white  spirit  immediately  behind  some  father  or  mother  who  has  been 
inquiring  for  a  dead  child,  and  this  little  "materialized  form"  cries  out, 
"  I  am  here,  papa  !  I  am  here,  mama !  "  and  then  laughingly  disappears 
in  the  same  way  it  came,  amid  many  exclamations  of  wonder  that  a  ma- 
terialization and  a  dematerialization  can  thus  take  place  "  so  far  from  the 
cabinet,  with  no  chance  whatever  for  fraud  ! " 

10.  Fraud-proof  cabkiets,  set  out  sometimes  in  the  comer  of  the  room, 


76  "  TESTS  "  EXCHANGES 

with  no  window  or  door  behind  the  cabinet.  Some  of  these  I  have 
known  to  be  connected  with  a  skilfully  arranged  trapdoor  underneath 
that  leads  to  a  room  occupied  by  confederates.  On  one  occasion  the 
passage  was  found  %o  lead  through  a  brick  wall  to  the  cellar,  the  wall 
being  extra  thick.  In  another  instance  the  passage  led  between  the 
floor  of  the  sdance-room  and  the  ceiling  of  the  room  below  into  a  back 
room  where  there  was  another  trapdoor,  making  a  ready  avenue  to  and 
from  the  cabinet. 

II.  Invisible  writings  on  slates,  false  bottoms  to  slates,  etc.,  with  ar- 
rangements for  skilful  sleight-of-hand  by  which  slates  are  exchanged. 
The  invisible  writing  on  a  slate  is  utilized  in  some  such  way  as  the  fol- 
lowing :  Just  after  the  sitter  has  examined  the  slate,  the  medium  spits 
upon  its  surface  "  to  magnetize  it,"  and  rubs  it  quickly  with  his  hand, 
and  then  turns  the  slate  down  and  puts  another  one  on  top  of  it,  after 
showing  that  the  second  one  has  no  writing  on  it,  just  as  the  first  had  no 
writing  on  it.  Then,  after  you  hold  the  slates  for  a  little  while,  you  open 
them  and  find  the  first  slate  covered  with  writing.  Wetting  by  spittle 
made  apparent  the  writing,  which  until  wet  was  invisible.  There  are 
many  other  ways  of  performing  this  slate  deception. 


There  is  much  other  hocus-pocus. 

The  swindling  side  of  Spiritualism  is  organized  to  a  sur- 
prising extent,  if  newspaper  reports  are  to  be  believed.     But 
I  think  these  reports  greatly  overstate  the  matter.      It  is 
charged  that  there  is  a  systematic  exchanging  of  information 
by  mediums ;    that  is,  information  received  by 
Exchange      "pumping"  a  sitter  in  one  circle  is  passed  on 
°     ®®  ®        to  other  mediums  who  belong  to  the  ring  or 
Mediums.       trust,  and  the  dupe  is  recommended  by  his 
"  spirit  friends  "  to  see  such  and  such  mediums 
for  additional  information.     These  other  mediums  are  wholly 
unknown  to  him,  and  quite  likely  he  takes  good  care  to  go 
unannounced  and  is  surprised  by  their  knowledge  of  "the  se- 
crets of  his  life,"  never  dreaming  that  this"  information  had 
been  pumped  from  him  at  previous  sittings  with  other  me- 
diums.    There  are  medium  agencies  that  have  representatives 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  when  it  is  worth  while 
these  representatives  get  information  concerning  the  family 
history  of  the  sitter;  and  this  is  passed  on  to  spring  surprises 
ttpon  him  by  telling  him  "  what  could  not  possibly  be  known 


MUCH    MONEY   MADE  77 

to  the  medium."  Facts  are  told  that  he  had  not  thought  of 
for  years ;  at  times  facts  are  told  that  were  not  known  to  him 
until  he  had  inquired  of  friends  who  lived  at  the  home  of  hie 
childhood.  Representatives  of  the  medium  agencies  had 
quietly  pumped  dry  these  home  friends  before  he  had  made 
his  own  inquiry. 

I  caught  a  "  spirit  postmaster  "  at  the  shabby  trick  of 
opening  sealed  envelopes  before  the  mucilage  had  time  to 
dry.  When  I  kept  any  of  the  envelopes  so  long  that  the 
mucilage  had  had  time  to  dry  I  got  no  message,  as  "the 
power  was  exhausted." 

At  a  certain  dark  stance,  all  hands  joined,  I  was  sure  the 
medium  got  together  the  hand  of  the  sitter  at  her  right  and 
the  hand  of  the  sitter  at  her  left  and  covered 
both  with  her  one  hand,  and  thus  had  her  other     Why  I  was 
hand  free  for  "touching,"  or  playing  instru-  ^o  Sit^Next  to 
ments,  etc.     I  did  the  same  with  the  hands  of      a  Medium, 
the  sitters  who  were  adjoining  me;  thereupon 
the  lady  next  to  me  called  out  that  she  felt  a  hand  on  her 
shoulder.    I  therefore  was  invited  to  sit  alongside  the  medium ; 
but  I  held  the  medium'-s  hand  so  tightly  that  we  got  no  mani- 
festations until  finally  she  whispered  to  me :    "I  see  you 
understand  this;  please  let  my  hand  free."     I  did  so,  and 
then  the  manifestations  became  abundant. 

The  above  are  a  few  of  many  experiences  of  this  sort  of 
which  I  have  made  note. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  How  can  it  pay  mediums  to  support 
the  expensive  machinery  necessary  to  carry  out  swindles  as 
extensive  as  are  some  of  those  described  above?  It  at  times 
pays  largely.  At  one  circle  an  elderly  man  was  led  by  "  spirit 
direction  "  to  transfer  a  home  in  a  large  city  to  a  medium ;  this 
residence  was  said  to  be  worth  ;g5o,ooo.  Another  "sitter" 
was  persuaded  to  give  $10,000  to  the  "good  cause"  of  re- 
lieving a  medium  from  financial  embarrassment.  Other  in- 
stances of  communications  turning  to  the  financial  benefit  of 
mediums  I  give  on  another  page. 


78         SCOUNDRELISM   WRIT    LARGE 

Like  instances  have  been  kept  quiet  by  the  victims  and 
their  friends  to  avoid  scandal  or  public  laughter. 

This  is  the  dark  side,  and  it  is  very  dark;  but  is  there 
not  another  side  ?  If  so,  it  should  also  appear.  To  say  that 
the  development  of  Spiritualism  at  every  stage  of  its  growth 
has  not  been  marked  by  most  saddening  frauds  is  in  the 
teeth  of  historic  accuracy.  Scoundrelism  is  writ  large  on 
many,  many  pages  of  its  history.  But  need  no  other  ex- 
planation ever  be  given  when  a  spiritualistic  phenomenon  is 
witnessed,  except  that  somebody  lies  ? 

It  is  not  sound  reasoning  to   say :  "  I  saw  fraud  in  a 

stance-room;    therefore  there  are  no  genuine  phenomena." 

„    ^  There  is  much  deception,  trickery,  fraud;  but 

SJCucJi 
Trickery       ^^   there  not  something  else.-*     The  genuine 

Yes  ;  but       diamond  loses  nothing  of  its  value  because  of 
there  is  Some-  ^j^g   ^^^^   ^]^^^   ^^^^^   ^^e  a  thousand   imitation 
thing  Else.       ,.  ,     ^  .  ^^   . 

diamonds  to  one  genume.  It  is  an  assump- 
tion of  omniscience  to  relegate  to  fraud  all  things  in  a 
stance-room  that  we  can  not  otherwise  explain.  A  "  spirit 
control  "  put  it  sharply  thus  :  **  A  fool  saith  in  his  heart  that 
all  phenomena  are  frauds,  and  a  fool  of  an  equal  amount  of 
insight  saith,  *  There  never  has  been  a  "  rap  "  of  intelligence 
from  the  spirit  world.*  He  may  say  correctly,  '  I  never 
heard  one,'  but  that  is  to  say  a  different  thing." 

The  subject  is  far  deeper  than  is  reached  by  the  fraud 
hypothesis.  If  one  has  not  got  beyond  that,  he  has  yet  to 
pierce  the  crust  of  the  problem. 

The  writer  of  a  letter  asks :  "  Is  it  then  so  hard  for  you 

to  believe  that  somebody  lies  ?  "     It  is  very  hard  for  me  to 

believe  that  the  very  large  number  of  men  and 

Beecher's       women  required  by  this  hypothesis   lie — men 

Belief,  *<  There  ^^^  women  of  whom  very  many  are  of  excel- 

thing  in  It."    ^^^^  repute.     Henry  Ward  Beecher,  not  long 

before  his  death,  said  to  me :  "  What  makes 

me  believe  that  there  is  something  in  Spiritualism  is  not 

what  I  see  at  the  public  s6ance-room,  but  what  I  know  takes 


WHY    BEECHER    BELIEVED  79 

place  in  the  homes  of  many  of  my  friends,  whose  mothers 
and  wives  and  children  are  the  mediums."  If  conscious 
fraud  is  the  explanation  of  all  these  phenomena,  it  is  the 
most  inexplicable,  gigantic,  heartless  swindle  of  the  ages. 

Is  it  irrational  to  say  that  if  scores  of  thousands  of  people 
of  average  intelligence  in  our  civilized  countries  believe  in  a 
thing  for  half  a  century,  we  may  be  sure  there  is  something 
there.'*  Eagles  do  not  circle  around  and  around  nothing; 
even  flies  do  not.  There  is  argument  in  the  fact  that  Spiri- 
tualism has  held  its  ground  against  the  countless  exposures 
of  fraudulent  mediums.  An  explanation  to  be  satisfactory 
must  be  consistent  with  our  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
must  be  rational,  must  match  all  around. 

On  the  fraud  theory,  the  life  of  every  medium  is  a  sus- 
tained deceit,  a  coarse,  hateful  deception.  Such  mediums 
are  ghouls  who  tear  open  the  graves  of  the  dead,  feed  on 
sacred  affections,  on  the  heart's  blood  of  their  fellows,  many 
of  whom  are  life-long  friends.  Again  I  repeat,  that  many 
of  these  phenomena  take  place  in  the  presence  of  only  mem- 
bers of  the  families  of  these  mediums,  and  many  of  the  me- 
diums are  small  children,  even  as  young  as  two  years,  where 
there  is  no  money  consideration.  All  this  presents  most 
formidable  moral  difficulties  on  the  fraud  hypothesis. 

That   a   medium   takes   pay  should  not  be  a  sufficient 
ground  for  her  rejection,  for  a  medium  must  live,  as  must  a 
clergyman.     The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire. 
It  is  easy  to  rail  at  mediums,  asking :  "  Can  it       Mediums 
be  that  the  spirit  world  is  engaged  in  the  sa-     ^  ^^   ay  no 
cred  cause  of  supplying  intermundane  commu-       of  Fraud, 
nications  at  one  dollar  a  head  .^  "     So  we  might 
ask.  Can  it  be  that  heaven  is  saving  souls  at  this  and  that 
salary } 

Yet  as  Burns  sings 

"...  Mankind  are  unco  weak 

An'  little  to  be  trusted  ; 
If  self  the  wavering  balance  shake, 
It's  rarely  right  adjusted." 


8o  FIND   THE   PEARLS 

Now  and  then  there  is  an  instance  of  a  man  living  for  a 
score  of  years  a  gross  lie  and  not  showing  it  in  his  physiog- 
nomy, but  this  is  rare.  On  this  hypothesis  of  fraud  we  must 
believe  that  thousands  in  respectable  families  are  now  living 
such  a  life;  that  many  of  these — some  simple-minded  persons, 
some,  even  little  children — are  baffling  by  their  cunning  and 
sleight-of-hand  trained  conjurers  and  expert  scientists ! 

The  presence  of  the  disgusting  humbug  that  has  gathered 
about  much  of  Spiritualism  justly  excites  disgust  in  the 
hearts  of  honest  people.  One  in  seeking  truth  there  can  not 
be  blamed  if  he  feels  as  if  he  were  searching  for  pearls  in  a 
cesspool  or  in  a  sewer.  But  if  there  is  a  reasonable  possibility 
that  pearls  are  there  of  inestimable  value  to  the  world,  let 
not  the  hunt  cease ;  if  possible,  draw  off  the  filth,  but  at  all 
hazards  find  the  pearls.* 

An  expert  investigator  is  not  likely  to  have  fraud  imposed 
upon  him.  A  good  fisherman  can  usually  tell  the  kind  of 
fish  at  the  hook  by  its  bite.  An  intelligent  man,  after  a  few 
scores  of  visits  to  the  stance-room,  gets  to  know  the  ear- 
marks of  fraud.     If  reasonably  wary  he  is  seldom  fooled. 

8.  That  for  the  production  of  the  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism^  antecedent  faith  in  the  phenomena  is  es- 
sential. 

Thousands  stumble  in  these  investigations  when  told  that 
skepticism  and  faith  are  prime  factors  in  preventing  and  in 
helping  the  production  of  Spiritualistic  phenomena;  and  yet 
if  Spiritualism  be  true,  it  is  easy  to  give  the  solidest  kind  of 
scientific  and  Scriptural  reasons  for  this  claim.  Christian 
Science  throws  a  side-light  on  this  argument.  Look  at  it : 
Christian  Science  denies  the  existence  of  sickness,  pain,  the 
body,  death,  all  external  nature.  What  is  seemingly  more 
irrational  than  this  contention  ?    And  yet  faith  in  it  cures 

»  Pearls  lie  within  the  oyster  shell ;  the  right  process  will  open  the  shell  and 
give  you  the  pearls;  so  the  mind  gets  at  truth,  but  on  finding  the  truth  it  be- 
comes so  blended  and  interpenetrated  with  it  that  it  can  not  tail  to  detect  the 
counterfeit.    "  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


"ONLY    BELIEVE"  8i 

many.  Do  you  say  Christian  Science  often  fails  and  some- 
times causes  death  ?  Yes ;  but  where  it  causes  one  death,  it 
saves  the  lives  of  scores.  Why  ?  Not  necessarily  because 
it  is  truth,  but  because  of  the  potency  of  faith  over  external 
nature. 

To  make  faith  a  prerequisite  is  always  suspicious,  for  it 
predisposes  the  mind  to  see  what  it  believes  it  will  see.     But 
observe  that  this  was  a  prerequisite  in  Christ's 
phenomena  when  on  earth.     "  If  you  will  be-     ^aith  Pre- 
lieve,"  was  His  oft-repeated  condition.    He  told      g  ^  what 
many  of  those  who  applied  to  Him  for  cures,     we  Believe. 
It  will  be  done  to  you  according  to  your  faith. ^ 
When  He  could  do  no  miracles  in  His  own  country  because 
of  unbelief,  quite  likely  the  derisive  cry  went  up :  "  Yes, 
when  we  who  know  Him  are  watching,  He  can  not  perform 
His  tricks ;  the  *  power '  is  then  suddenly  *  exhausted  ' ;  ah, 
we  have  to  believe  before  these  things  can  be  done.     When  a 
magician  can  get  us  in  that  state  of  mind  then  his  success  is 
easy. " 

Church  people  who  are  so  violent  in  their  skepticism  of 
Spiritualistic  claims  must  beware,  or  by  and  by  they  will  be 
forced  logically  to  declare  the  Bible  also  to  be  "  a  patchwork 
of  superstitions  and  of  wonder  legends  " ;  a  work  in  which 
"the  mystical  overwhelms  the  actual." 

Hudson,  in  calling  attention  to  the  power  that  skepticism 
has  in  preventing  successful  hypnotic  and  "  Spiritualistic " 
experiences,  says,  in  his  book  against  Spiritualism : ' 

**The  controversy  between  Washington  Irving  Bishop  and  Mr.  La- 
bouchere  is  fresh  in  the  minds  of  most  readers.  Mr.  Bishop  was  giving 
successful  exhibitions  of  his  wonderful  powers  in  public  assemblies  and 
in  private  circles  in  London.  He  had  demonstrated  again  and  again 
his  power  to  read  the  thoughts  of  others  and  to  decipher  the  contents  of 
sealed  envelopes  under  the  strictest  test  conditions,  in  the  presence  of 

» Faith  is  of  the  essence  of  the  spiritual  atmosphere.  Without  it  there  can  not 
"be  love,  harmony,  and  cooperation.  It  is  a  vitalizing  force,  and  is  therefore  essen- 
tial to  all  successful  work.  Faith  gives  strength  and  vision  to  every  sincere 
seeker  after  truth  ;  without  it  we  can  not  find  the  truth.    "Pastor"— see  Preface. 

«  "Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  pp.  76-79. 
6 


82         POWER    OF   AUTO-SUGGESTION 

many  competent  and  trustworthy  observers.     In  the  height  of  his  success 

Mr.  Labouchere  came  out  in  his  paper  and  denounced  the  whole  thing 

as  a  humbug.     To  prove  his  sincerity  he  placed  a  Bank 

The  rorce     of  England  note  for  a  large  amount  in  a  sealed  envelope, 

of  Skepticism,  and  ojffered  to  give  it  to  Mr.  Bishop  if  he  should  correctly 

against       read  the  number.     Repeated  trials  to  do  so  ended  in  dis- 

Psychic  mal  failure.  It  was  a  feat  that  he  had  successfully  per- 
Phenomena.  formed  a  thousand  times  before  and  many  times  after- 
ward. But  the  number  on  that  particular  bank-note  he 
never  could  decipher.  .  .  . 

"  Exhibitions  of  the  phenomena  of  spiritism  are  constantly  liable  to 
utter  failure  in  the  presence  of  avowed  skeptics.  Every  one  who  has  at- 
tended a  'spiritual '  stance  is  aware  of  the  strict  regard  paid  to  securing 
'harmonious  conditions,'  and  all  know  how  dismal  is  the  failure  when 
such  conditions  can  not  be  obtained.  It  frequently  happens  that  some 
one  will  inadvertently  remark  that  'spirits  never  come  when  I  am 
around  ' ;  and  in  nine  such  cases  out  of  ten  the  seance  will  end  in  failure 
when  such  a  remark  is  made.  Any  argument  against  Spiritism,  espe- 
cially if  addressed  to  the  medium,  or  any  controversy  on  the  subject  in 
his  presence,  will  destroy  all  chance  of  a  successful  exhibition.  Inves- 
tigating committees  nearly  always  fail  to  observe  the  promised  phenom- 
ena when  the  character  and  objects  of  the  committee  are  known  to  the 
medium.  Thus  the  Seybert  Commission,  a  majority  of  whose  members 
were  pronounced  skeptics,  utterly  failed  to  witness  any  phenomena  which 
might  not  be  produced  by  legerdemain.  In  their  report  tliey  take  occa- 
sion to  say : 

"  *  Our  experience  has  been  .  .  .  that  as  soon  as  an  investigation  wor- 
thy of  the  name  begins,  all  manifestations  of  spiritist  power  cease.  .  .  . 
Even  the  very  spirit  of  investigation  or  of  incredulity  seems  to  exercise  a 
chilling  effect  and  prevents  a  successful  manifestation.'  * 

"It  will  be  observed  that  the  last  sentence  betrays  the  fact  that  the 
writer  regards  'the  spirit  of  investigation  '  and  'the  spirit  of  incredulity  * 
as  synonymous  terms.  It  is  certain  that  the  Seybert  Commission  as  a 
body  did  so  regard  them,  and  made  no  effort  to  conceal  the  fact  from  the 
mediums  who  submitted  to  be  examined.  Eveiy  medium  whom  they 
examined  was  made  fully  aware  of  the  incredulity  of  the  majority  of  the 
commission,  and  thus  every  effort  to  produce  the  phenomena  failed. 
The  same  peculiarity  is  observed  in  trance-speaking  mediums,  especially 
in  those  who  speak  in  a  purely  subjective  condition.  No  matter  how 
great  is  their  flow  of  eloquence  or  how  perfect  their  command  of  their 
subject,  they  utterly  break  down  when  confronted  by  an  adverse  argu- 
ment. So  well  is  this  peculiarity  known  that  their  friends  never  suffer 
them  to  be  interrupted. 

"  In  the  case  of  Bishop,  the  mind-reader,  the  same  principle  applies 
with  equal  force.     The  mental  state  which  enabled  him  to  read  tlie  con- 

»  Seybert  Commission,  Report,  p.  15. 


WONDER-WORKING   FAITH  83 

tents  of  a  sealed  envelope  was  self-induced.  It  v/as  a  partially  hypnotic 
condition,  induced  by  auto-suggestion.  When  Labouchere's  envelope 
was  presented  to  him,  the  very  manner  of  presenting  it — the  offer  of  its 
contents  as  a  gift  if  he  would  read  the  number  of  the  bank-note  within — 
was  a  defiance  of  his  power.  It  was  a  suggestion  of  the  most  emphatic 
character  and  potency  that,  do  what  he  would,  he  could  not  read  the  con- 
tents of  that  envelope.  Again,  the  anxiety  engendered  in  the  mind  of  the 
clairvoyant  was  another  factor  which  added  force  to  the  suggestion.  The 
offer  was  not  only  defiant,  it  was  even  public.  The  whole  civilized  world 
was  apprised  of  the  controversy.  The  professional  reputation  of  the  man 
was  at  stake.  His  future  career  depended  upon  his  success;  and  every 
dollar  of  value  in  that  note  not  only  added  to  his  anxiety  to  win  the  prize, 
but  contributed  its  force  to  the  suggestion  that  he  could  not  succeed.  .  .  . 
**  It  is  obvious  that  the  principle  of  adverse  suggestion  applies  to  all 
phases  and  conditions  of  subjective  mental  activity ;  and  the  necessity 
for  harmonious  conditions,  so  constantly  insisted  upon  by  spiritists  as  a 
condition  precedent  to  the  production  of  their  peculiar  forms  of  hypnotic 
phenomena,  is  seen  to  be  a  scientific  fact  of  immense  value  and  signifi- 
cance, and  not  a  mere  subterfuge  to  enable  them  to  practise  a  fraud  and 
impose  on  the  credulity  of  their  auditors." 

A  **  spirit  control,"  in  reply  to  a  question  why  skepticism 
interfered  with  phenomena,  replied  in  substance : 

"  A  candid,  simple  skepticism  does  not  necessarily  pre- 
vent us,  but  a  determined,  aggressive  skepticism  affects  un- 
favorably the  power  of  the  medium.     Spiritual  communion 
depends  much  upon  the  attitude  of  the  minds  of  those  pres- 
ent.    If  one  says,  *  I  can  not  believe  these  things ;  they  are 
to  me  absurd,  *  he  shuts  hard  the  door  against  us.     Do  you 
never  ask  yourself  why  Jesus  would  never  per- 
form  miracles  when   His  opponents  came  to  Hindering:  In- 
Him  and  challenged  Him  to  do  miracles,  say-     g,  ®^.®. 
ing.  If  you   will   do  such  and  such  miracles  against  Jesus, 
here,  then  we  too  will  believe.      He  simply 
could  not  in  that  atmosphere  or  while  they  presented  these 
hostile  psychic  conditions.     Faith   has  power   to   perform 
wonders  even  when  the  motive  is  wrong.     This  is  a  natural 
law  in  both  your  world  and  ours. 

"  Why  should  this  be  so  hard  for  men  to  believe }  It  is 
known  among  you  that  coarse  physical  vibrations  will  destroy 
even  disease  germs.     Can  you  not  believe  that  the  subtler  vi- 


84  HARMONIOUS   CONDITIONS 

brations  of  the  ether  universe,  of  the  nerve  world,  are  almost 
infinitely  more  effective  ?  ^  Non-resistant,  passive  power  of 
mind  is  efficient  if  positive  faith  in  the  infinite  inner  world 
be  present.  Faith  is  wonderfully  potent  in  setting  forces  in 
motion.  The  exercise  of  it  is  self-surrender  to  omniscience 
and  omnipotence,  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  makes  the 
one  who  exercises  it  in  just  that  degree  omnipotent  and 
omniscient.  It  moves  mountains;  yes,  all  things  are  possi- 
ble to  it.  It  gives  cheer,  confidence,  hope,  peace,  and  these 
are  each  a  greater  force  in  the  world  than  is  the  thunderbolt, 
the  earthquake,  the  volcano.  Terror,  doubt,  skepticism  open 
the  door  to  disease  and  other  evils,  giving  the  conditions 
under  which  physical  and  mental  microbes  thrive  and  mul- 
tiply.     This  is  both  physiologically  and  psychologically  true. 

*'  There  is  a  vital  difference  between  a  spirit  of  honest 
investigation  and  a  spirit  of  incredulity.  An  honest  skeptic 
is  not  one  who  honestly  thinks  a  thing  is  not  so,  but  is  one 
who  is  willing  honestly  to  weigh  arguments  for  a  truth  of 
which  he  is  doubtful.  In  investigating  Spiritualism,  it  is 
not  wise  to  make  the  spirit  world  from  whom  you  seek  favors 
feel  uncomfortable  in  your  atmosphere  by  being  discourteous 
and  antagonistic.  Do  not  smile  when  we  tell  you  that  the 
conditions  must  be  /larmomous  for  communication  between 
your  world  and  ours. 

"  You  blind  and  foolish  men,  you  recognize  at  once  physi- 
cal forces,  but  deny  analogous  mental  and  spiritual  forces. 
And  yet,  when  the  spirit  leaves  your  body,  what  becomes  of 
its  physical  forces  ?  Why  is  this  not  proof  sufficient  to  you 
that  you  are  creatures  of  the  spirit  world  even  while  you  are 

^The  spiritual  vibrations  are  of  a  very  refined  order,  connecting  the  outer 
organization  of  man  with  those  qualities  of  the  soul  that  have  to  do  with  what  is 
to  him  the  unseen  existence,  those  qualities  that  feed  the  springs  of  an  exalted  holy 
life.  These  high  vibrations  are  disturbed  when  they  are  brought  into  contact  with 
the  coarser  ones  that  surrouud  yoti.  For  this  reason  Jesus,  tho  possessing  extraor- 
dinary power,  confined  His  work  to  those  to  whose  psj-chic  recognition  His  nature 
responded.  He  wcs  anxious  to  be  interrogated,  but  would  not  submit  to  demand 
or  force,  for  He  had  not  come  to  call  into  action  the  harmony  necessary  for  a 
demonstration  of  the  kind  of  power  which  this  other  would  have  required. 
'  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


THE    HEART  SEES  85 

in  the  body,  and  that  the   spirit  is   the  only  real  force? 

The  truth  is,  but  few  men  believe  at  all  in  the  spirit  world 

except  in   a  perfunctory  way — matter  is  all 

and  in  all  to  them.     Their  fatal  mistake  is     Perfunctory 

Faith 
that  they  recognize  no  intelligence  that  does    jg  ^^^  Faith. 

not  demonstrate  itself  to  their  physical  senses. 

If  you  think  a  moment  you  will  see  how  absurd  this  is.     A 

poet  can  not  make  himself  known  through  the  physical  senses 

of  the  hearer;  nor  can  a  wit.     Let  them  make  trial  with  a 

savage.     That  savage's  physical  senses  are  better  than  those 

of  civilized  people." 

There  is  plenty  of  room  to  question  the  thought  in  much 
of  the  above  "  talk,"  but  no  room  at  all  to  question  the  exalta- 
tion of  spirit  in  the  last  paragraph.  For  indeed  what  are 
the  beauties  of  the  Yosemite  to  an  eye,  however  perfect  the 
eye  may  be,  if  there  is  not  an  esthetic  soul  behind  the  eye  ? 
What  are  the  sublime  harmonies  of  a  Wagner  to  an  ear, 
however  acute,  if  there  is  not  an  inner  ear  that  is  developed 
to  know  these  harmonies }  And  in  truth  why  should  it  be 
hard  to  believe  that  these  inner  senses  have  capacities  that 
have  a  scale  with  octaves  above  and  below  the  outer  senses, 
and  will  live  when  the  outer  senses  cease  ?  But  all  this  we 
can  believe  without  believing  in  spirit  communication.  The 
control  continues : 

"This  question  of  Spiritualism  is  much  more  than  a 
question  of  evidence;  it  is  a  growth.     Live,  grow  a  devel- 
oped soul,  and,  tho  you  never  hear  a  rap  or 
witness  a  single  spiritual  phenomenon,  to  be-         Faith 

lieve  in  spiritistic  communication  will  be  easy    ^\,  ^°J^     ° 
^  -^        the  Inner 

to  you.     Your  own  Bible  tells  you  that  to  him        Nature, 
that  overcometh — that  is,  succeeds  in  growing 
the  spirit  nature — will  be  given  a  white    stone  on  which 
will  be  a  writing  that  none  but  that  one  can  know.     Truth, 
like  the  rainbow,  is  not  exactly  the  same  to  any  two  per- 
sons. 

"  Wonder-seeking  is  materialism ;  curiosity  is  selfishness. 


86         COMMUNICATION   DIFFICULT 

The  power  to  grow  a  spiritual  nature  which  is  true  individual- 
ity is  the  chief  object  of  every  true  religion." 

All  this  philosophy,  whatever  its  source,  is  reasonable 
enough,  and  to  me  very  interesting,  but  it  carries  very  little 
weight  on  these  the  real  points  at  issue  between  Spiritualists 
and  non-Spiritualists :  Do  these  intelligences  who  are  mani- 
festing in  the  seance-room  dwell  outside  earthly  bodies ;  and 
if  so,  are  they  discarnate  men ;  and  if  this  is  settled  in  the 
affirmative,  are  they  the  discarnate  men  they  claim  themselves 
to  be?  A  thousand  talks  like  the  above,  taken  by  them- 
selves, should  not  be  able  to  convert  a  single  rational  skep- 
tic to  Spiritualism.  As  corroborating  proofs  they  have,  of 
course,  importance. 

There  is  no  question  whatever  in  my  mind  that  to  open 
visible  and  audible  communication  between  this  and  the 
spirit  world  would  prove  a  surpassingly  difficult  and  complex 
undertaking.  One  consideration  alone  settles  that  point  with 
me,  this  one — it  of  course  has  no  weight  with  those  who  do 
not  accept  the  New  Testament :  Jesus  did  not  realize  fully 
His  nature  and  mission  until  a  late  date  in  life.  This  reve- 
lation grew  upon  Him;  yet  He  came  from  the  Father  of  His 
own  free  will  to  do  just  what  He  did  do.  If  this  all  be  true, 
and  I  believe  it  is,  it  follows  that  the  entrance  of  even  so 
exalted  a  nature  into  the  flesh  realm  was  accompanied  by  an 
obscuration  of  His  consciousness,  and  His  inner  self  grew 
into  recognition  only  after  years. 

I  put  this  question  to  a  control,  and  he  replied :  **  Now 
listen:  Something  more  than  telling  is  necessary  to  give 
real  belief  in  these  higher  truths.  The  faculties  of  the  soul 
that  give  this  recognition  must  develop  up  to  them  by  re- 
peated decisions  of  the  will  and  by  exercise.  They  can  not 
be  extemporized  any  more  than  a  mother's  love,  or  the  facul- 
ties that  recognize  art  can  be  extemporized  by  a  monster. 
Altho  Jesus  had  done  many  miracles  among  them  and  spake 
as  never  man  spake,  they  did  not  believe  on  Him.  There  is 
no  royal  road  into  the  inner  kingdom.     Ye  must  be  born 


"LEADS   TO    INSANITY"  87 

again — born  into  it,  and  then  grow  its  spiritual  senses  and 
other  faculties  by  the  exercise  of  volition." 

9.  That  it  unfits  the  believer  in  it  for  the  affairs  of 
daily  life — often  leading  to  insanity. 

This  story  is  told  of  Senator  Pettigrew,  of  South  Carolina : 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  replying  to  a  stranger  who 
inquired  the  way  to  the  insane  asylum,  he  said,  "  Go  any- 
where, sir;  you  can  not  go  wrong."  This  is  about  the  public 
estimate  of  Spiritualism.  The  average  physician  diagnoses 
it  as  follows :  An  unbridled  imagination,  disordered  nerves, 
and  jaundiced  liver;  and  he  prescribes  quiet  sleep,  vigorous 
massage  around  the  solar  plexus,  with  a  few  doses  of  blue 
mass  and  protoxid  of  iron. 

We  must  be  reasonable  in  our  arguments  against  Spiri- 
tualism, or  we  shall  help  it,  not  hurt  it.  Injustice  is  a  gun 
that  does  a  surprisingly  large  amount  of  its  execution  at  the 
breech.  It  gives  the  soil  in  which  new  movements  grow 
rapidly.  Already  many  people  are  saying,  Have  these  bitter 
attacks  any  more  justification  than  had  similar  assaults  in  the 

past  whenever  a  new  truth  was  advocated  on 

Many  of  the 
earth  ?     Jesus  had  a  devil ;  much  learning  had        World's 

made    Paul    mad ;    Luther  and  Wesley  were  Greatest  Men 

beside  themselves.     Many  of  those  who  have        Thought 

opened  doors  upward  have  been  the  victims  of 

shameful  persecutions,  even  to  torture  and  death.     The  other 

day  a  newspaper  feathered  its  arrow  thus :  **  The  faith  of  a 

Spiritualist  is  that  of  a  man  who  believes  a  lie  to  be  true 

when  he  knows  it  to  be  a  lie. " 

It  takes  a  long  while  to  have  it  ground  into  our  braiiis 
that  the  emphasis  of  disbelief,  denunciation,  ridicule  may  but 
measure  the  profundity  of  our  ignorance ;  and  that  there  is 
a  skepticism  from  ignorance  as  well  as  a  skepticism  from 
knowledge. 

Extensive  statistics  have  been  published  that  seem  clearly 
to  prove  that  the  percentage  of  Spiritualists  in  insane  asy- 


88  SOCRATES'   THOUGHT 

lums  is  not  beyond  that  of  other  religious  classes — curiously, 
the  statistics  make  this  percentage  to  be  less. 

It  is  seriously  asserted  that  those  who  become  interested 
in  Spiritualism  lose  their  grip  somewhat  on  this  world.  Is 
there  any  immediate  danger  that  the  human  race  will  have 
its  stock  of  unworldliness  increased  out  of  due  proportion  ? 
Can  not  the  world  stand  somewhat  more  spirituality  without 
harm  ?  Really,  if  Spiritualism  can  help  us  to  average  up  on 
the  right  side,  we  shall  have  received  a  distinct  gain.  We 
are  sententiously  told,  "  One  world  at  a  time."  We  might 
have  said  that  to  Christ  and  Paul — they  both  had  their  eyes 
fixed  on  a  world  out  of  sight. 

Old  Socrates  did  not  hesitate  to  teach  that  *'  the  study  of 
death  is  the  philosophy  of  life."  When  will  we  learn  that 
the  way  to  conquer  this  world  is  by  being  willing  to  let  it  go? 
He  who  seeks  this  life  loses  it.  The  other  world  is  the 
fulcrum  whereby  we  can  lift  this. 

10.  That  the  information  given  through  mediums  is 
often  inaccurate. 

The  information  which  we  thus  receive,  whether  it  comes 

from  the  subjective  mind  of  the  medium  or  from  spirits,  is  at 

times  unreliable  and  the  intelligence  speaking  is  often  most 

capricious ;  but  again,  we  must  not  press  our  conclusions  too 

far  or  too  fast.     Ah,  poor  Peter !  who  can  believe  you — you 

lied  and  backed  up  your  lie  with  an  oath,  and  now  you  ask 

us  to  believe  that  you  were  set  free  from  a  prison  by  an 

angel !     No,  Peter;  "false  in  one,  false  in  all."     That  is  the 

travesty  of  reasoning.     There  are  nine  hundred 

Poor  and    ninety-nine    poisonous   foods,    therefore 

Peter '  * '  False  . 

*n'o  there  is  no  genuine  food  and  we  should  refuse 

False  in  All."  to  eat.  It  is  good  reasoning  if,  instead,  we 
say.  Therefore  we  should  be  exceedingly  cir- 
cumspect with  ^he  food  we  do  eat  and  have  it  most  carefully 
analyzed.  It  would  be  an  act  of  supreme  folly  to  say, 
Therefore  we  will  refuse  to  accept  any  food  and  starve. 


SPIRITS   INACCURATE  89 

I  brought  these  matters  of  contradictions  and  inaccuracies 
before  a  spirit-control.  In  doing  so  I  made  mention  of  a 
particular  case  that  showed  illiteracy  as  well  as  bad  memory. 
The  control  replied  as  follows : 

**  I  know  nothing  of  the  circumstances  of  this  particular 
case  of  which  you  make  mention,  but,  granting  that  the 
medium  was  genuine  and  that  the  true  spirit  of  the  wife  was 
communicating,  the  probabilities  are  that  this  woman,  having 
but  lately  passed  into  the  spirit  world,  could  not  communi- 
cate directly  but  had  to  use  intermediaries.  She  probably 
expressed  what  she  desired  to  say  to  one  on  her  plane,  and 
he  to  another  nearer  to  the  earth,  and  this  one  to  a  third 
who  acted  as  the  amanuensis,  having  power  to  speak  through 
some  earthly  medium.  Now  this  amanuensis  may  have  been 
an  ignorant  person  and  the  medium  on  your  side  may  have 
been  ignorant.  Then,  in  addition  to  all  this,  often  when  a 
spirit  comes  into  earth  conditions  he  is  himself  partly  hypno- 
tized, so  that  he  does  not  see  things  straight,  makes  mistakes, 
is  confused,  and  becomes  half-controlled  or  wholly  controlled 
by  environments. 

"  Sometimes  circles  fail,  as  the   recent  circle  of  Mrs. 

of  which  you  spoke  to  me  a  while  ago,  because  of  the 

disturbance  of  the  nerve-centers  of  the  medium.     There  are 
times  when,  if  you  should  examine  the  blood  of 
a  medium  with  a  microscope,  you  would  find         Spirit 
that  the  corpuscles  are  much  disturbed,  so  that      ^^  V^  ^°^^ 
the  blood  is  something  like  curdled  milk.     Such     accuracies, 
successful  experiments  as  those  you  referred  to 
by  Sir  William  Crookes  with  Miss  Cook  could  not  have  been 
made  had  there  not  been  a  perfect  harmony  secured  through 
confidence.     The  great  wonderful  working  power  is  confi- 
dence.    Confidence  sets  natures  in  harmony  and  brings  out 
the  best  that  is   in   each.     As  Jesus   said,  where   two   or 
three  agree  touching  any   one   thing   it  would   take  place, 
and  again  and  again  He  repeated :  If  ye  only  believe — have 
confidence  —  all  things  would  become  possible.     Sugges- 


90  PERSONAL   EQUATION 

tion  has  great  power  with   a   medium.     Learn   what   that 


means." 


Another  "  control "  to  whom  I  put  a  similar  question  re- 
plied :  "  Sometimes  the  outside  intelligence  lays  hold  of  the 
organs  of  the  body  and  controls  them  without  the  conscious- 
ness or  the  mind  of  the  medium  being  in  any  way  affected. 
At  other  times  the  impression  is  made  on  the  mind  direct 
and  there  is  a  conscious  doing -of  the  thing;  that  is,  the  will 
of  the  recipient  is  affected  or  controlled.  But  in  either  case 
the  message  is  greatly  affected  by  the  organism  of  the  me- 
dium, as  is  light  by  the  color  of  the  glass  through  which  it 
passes.  The  personal  equation  should  never  be  ignored  in 
the  interpretation  of  messages.  We  are  endeavoring  here  on 
our  side  to  overcome  this ;  you  must  do  what  you  can  to  give 
us  mediums  who  will  not  distort  or  deflect  our  messages. " 

Putting  this  same  question  to  still  another  control  in 
another  city,  the  answer  was:  "Some  spirits  in  trying  to 
communicate  are  so  confused  that  they  even  forget  where 
they  were  born,  the  names  of  their  parents,  etc.  ;  in  the 
effort  to  come  to  their  friends,  they  enter  the  environments 
of  the  physical  plane  and  strive  to  use  the  physical  organism 
of  the  medium.  The  physical  organism  is  far  more  complex 
than  your  greatest  physiologists  even  dream  of.  For  one 
intelligence  to  use  the  organism  of  another  is  not  an  easy 
task.  A  spirit  attempting  to  communicate  with  those  on 
your  side  has  to  pass  through  a  condition  that  is  somewhat 
akin  to  the  trance  state.  We  use  at  times  mediums  on  our 
side.  One  in  this  circle  put  it  well  the  other  evening.  He 
said:  *As  with  wireless  telegraphy  imperfect  receivers  often 
make  nonsense  of  intelligent  messages,  so  in  spirit  communi- 
cation. If  a  piano  be  much  out  of  tune,  the  discords  must 
not  be  attributed  to  a  Mozart  or  a  Wagner  who  may  be  play- 
ing upon  it.'  Why  must  we  repeat  this  simple  truth  again 
and  again  to  ha^'e  the  human  understanding  grasp  it  ? 

"  If  you  are  opening  a  new  mode  of  communication  or  at- 
tempting to  utilize  a  new  force  and  new  faculties,  you  must 


"GHOST    OF   A    CHANCE"  91 

expect  aberrations.  Remember,  some  of  these  new  faculties 
which  you  are  attempting  to  use  are  as  immature  as  are  the 
reasoning  powers  of  a  nine  clays'  old  babe.'* 

I  give  these  "  talks, "  not  because  the  reasoning  is  con- 
clusive, but  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  philosophy,  the 
mode  of  reasoning,  and  the  intellectual  caliber  of  many  of 
the  "  spirit  intelligences  "  to  be  met  with  in  stance-rooms. 

II.  That  these  facts,  being  contradictory  to  general 
belief  and  experience,  require  unusual  testimony,  and 
that  this  testimony  is  not  forthcoming. 

One  editor  writes :  "  If  Dr.  Funk  finds  that  he  can  pos- 
sibly account^  for  the  finding  of  the  coin  in  any  other  way 
than  by  spirit  hypothesis,  he  should  reject  this  hypothesis." 
This  rule  I  have  adopted,  but  is  it  not  an  unusual  condition 
in  the  acceptance  of  evidence,  a  rule  that  is  not  applied  in 
courts,  and  is  it  wholly  fair  in  the  testing  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena.? If  A.  misses  his  watch  and  it  is  found  in  the 
pocket  of  B.,  the  presumption  is  that  B.  stole  it.  No;  I  must 
hold  it  impossible  for  B.  to  have  stolen  that  watch  if  there 
is  any  other  conceivable  way  for  the  watch  to  have  got  into 
his  pocket.  The  law  of  probabilities  is  excluded.  The 
"  Beecher  spirit "  is  held  guilty  of  lying  if  there  is  any  other 
possible  way  that  can  be  thought  of  by  which  that  ancient 
coin  could  have  been  located,  no  matter  how  great  the  im- 
probabilites  against  the  theory.  Suppose  the  probabilities 
against  the  other  theory  are  ninety-nine  and  the  probability 
against  the  spirit  theory  is  one,  we  must  reject  the  spirit 
theory.  This  is  rather  hard  on  the  ghost  of  Mr.  Beecher. 
Judge  Abram  H.  Daileysays:  "We  don't  give  the  ghost 
the  benefit  of  reasonable  doubt."  We  don't  give  it  a  ghost 
of  a  chance. 

The  Apostle  John,  speaking  of  blood  and  water  coming 
out  of  Jesus 's  side,  said  :  "  And  he  that  saw,  bare  record,  and 
his  record  is  true:  and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true." 
Only  one  witness,  but  he  had  confidence  in  his  eyes  against 


92  BUTT   FOR  JESTS 

the  common  occurrences  of  life,  and  the  Christian  world 
accepts  his  single  testimony. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand.  Spiritualists  must  not  forget  that 
they  are  asking  credence  for  a  series  of  facts  which  upset  the 
notions  of  causation  that  have  been  held  by  a  majority  of 
intelligent  people  in  all  civilized  lands ;  and  they  must  be 
very,  very  patient.  The  extreme  sensitiveness  of  mediums 
and  other  Spiritualists  to  criticism  and  investigation  is  the 
chiefest  difficulty  I  have  had  to  contend  against  in  my  in- 
vestigations. 

12.  That  belief  in  psychic  phenomena  exposes  its 
advocates  to  ridicule. 

Immanuel  Kant  admits  that  fear  of  ridicule  from  his  fel- 
low philosophers  kept  him  from  frankly  telling  what  he 
thought  of  the  transcendental  marvels  that  appeared  through 
Swedenborg.  Dr.  Savage  says  that  an  English  scientist  who 
is  a  Spiritualist  told  him  that  he  did  not  speak  of  his  belief 
except  to  particular  friends,  "for,"  he  said,  "you  know  a 
man  does  not  like  to  be  thought  a  fool." 

It  is  quite  easy  to  make  an  investigator  feel  uncomfort- 
able, especially  if  he  is  somewhat  sensitive,  by  greeting  him 
in  company  with :  "  Well,  have  you  seen  any 

Guying        more  spirits?  "     Quite  likely  it  was  a  common 

Columbus  and    ...  ,  r    ^   i        -,  ,,  r^^  ^ 

Stephenson.  3^^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^*^  ^^^^  ^^  Columbus :  Old 
man,  have  you  found  any  new  worlds  ?  "  And 
Stephenson  probably  had  the  laugh  turned  on  him  more  than 
once  while  experimenting  with  his  iron  horse  with  such 
chaffing  as :  "  Let  us  have  two  iron  trotting  horses  to-day 
for  an  hour  and  to-morrow  two  galloping  ones."  Every  man 
who  attempts  something  beyond  his  age  becomes  a  butt  for 
jests. 

Spiritualism  is  a  rich  vein  for  the  funny  man  in  the 
average  newspaper  office  to  work,  but  somehow  the  less 
we  know  of  these  phenomena  the  easier  it  is  to  laugh  at 
them. 


"A   VERY    BAD   SPELL"  93 

A  preacher  preaching  the  sermon  at  the  funeral  of  a 
Spiritualist  did  not  please  the  widow.     She  grew  quite  uneasy 
and   finally  arose  and    said,   "  My  husband's 
spirit  has  taken  possession  of  me";  and  pro-      j^^^^^^.^^®,, 
ceeded  to  speak  most  strongly  against  things  Back, 

which  the  preacher  had  said,  and  expounded  a 
theology  not  laid  down  in  any  text-book.  The  old  preacher, 
after  she  had  finished,  quietly  said :  "  Brethren,  for  thirty- 
and  five  years  I  have  buried  your  dead  and  have  held  all  man- 
ner of  funeral  services,  but  never  before  have  I  preached  a 
funeral  sermon  and  had  the  corpse  to  sass  back."  Of  course 
we  all  laugh  at  this  as  a  capital  joke  against  Spiritualists,  a 
kind  of  argument  that  is  hard  to  answer. 

The  Atlanta  Constitution  said,  at  the  time  of  the  talk 
about  the  finding  of  the  "Widow's  Mite"  :  "Dr.  Funk  may 
be  good  at  making  a  dictionary,  but  when  he  thought  he  talked 
with  the  spirit  of  Beecher  he  was  having  a  very  bad  spell." 
Another  paper  said :  "  Dr.  Funk  has  been  so  faithful  against 
spirits  alcoholic,  it  is  a  thousand  pities  that  he  should  have 
fallen  at  last  a  victim  to  the  spirits  satanic." 

A  newspaper  friend  sent  me  the  following  good-natured 
letter : 

"  My  dear  Doctor  :  An  old  lady  subscriber  writes :  *  I  have  been 

a  subscriber  for  the these  many  years.     I  like  your  paper  in  every 

way,  except  that  you  do  not  publish  any  more  the  weekly  sermons  of  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Talmage.  If  you  do  not  intend  to  continue  the  publication  of 
these  sermons  weekly  as  preached  by  Dr.  Talmage,  you  may  stop  my 
subscription.'  Now,  my  dear  doctor,  you  must  come  to  my  relief  and 
just  tell  Dr.  Talmage  to  please  to  send  to  me  a  copy  of  each  of  tlie 
weekly  sermons  that  he  preaches  to  his  spirit  audiences  *  just  over  the 
border.' " 

Of  course  we  all  know  that  there  is  no  argument  in  all 
this,  but  they  are  more  effective  with  the  multitude  than 
any  amount  of  argument.  One  Monday  morning,  some  years 
before  his  death,  I  met  Dr.  Deems  on  Broadway,  who,  with  a 
half-comical  expression,  said : 

"Doctor,  do  I  look  like  a  fool.?  " 


94  STUBBORN    FACTS 

"No;  why?" 

"  Did  you  read  what  The  Herald  reported  this  morning 
that  I  said  yesterday?  " 

"No." 

"  Oh,"  said  he,  "  I  wish  that  no  one  else  would  read  it. 
I  can't  correct  it.  If  I  do,  the  reporter  will  swear  I  said  it 
or  something  worse,  and  this  will  give  it  wings  and  make  all 
laugh  at  me." 

He  had  had  experience  in  correcting  newspaper  reports — 
experience  like  unto  that  of  the  captain  who,  upon  his  return 
from  the  Cuban  war  to  his  country  home  with  his  company, 
was  indignant  at  finding  in  the  local  paper  in  great  letters : 
"The  battle-scared  veterans  have  returned."  Upon  his 
protest,  the  next  day  the  paper  contained  an  apology  and 
said:  "We  meant  to  say  '  the  bottle- scarred  veterans  had 
returned.'"  Being  myself  somewhat  of  a  newspaper  man,  I 
have  learned  that  the  best  way  to  correct  reports  in  news- 
papers is  to  go  ahead  with  your  work  and  they  correct  them- 
selves. Hence  I  let  the  reporters  last  year  say  just  about 
what  they  pleased  about  that  "  Widow's  Mite  "  incident. 

There  is  great  force  in  droll  analogies,  pat  anecdotes, 
exaggerated  comparisons,  in  irony  if  not  too  severe. 

I  can  not  but  call  that  man  superior  who  sees  things  as 
I  see  them.  And  so  it  turns  out  that  testimony  amounts  to 
little ;  for  if  favorable  to  the  fact  and  against  our  precon- 
ceived opinion  of  it,  that  stamps  it  proof  positive  of  the  lack 
of  judgment  in  the  observer.  When  one  of  recognized  level- 
headedness says  that  he  has  found  reason  to  believe  that 
spirits  do  communicate,  he  must  not  be  surprised  to  hear 
rung  the  death-knell  of  his  reputation  for  common  sense. 

But  facts  have  a  way  of  getting  their  revenge.  "  Take 
truth,"  says  Carlyle,  "and  surround  it  with  bitter  denials 
and  contradictions,  and  the  soil  is  furnished  for  its  perma- 
nent growth."  A  fact  is  not  changed  one  iota  whether  we 
indorse  it  or  rail  at  it.  If  we  hoot  at  it  and  turn  our  back 
upon  it,  and  then  again  turn  toward  it,  we  shall  find  it  look- 


THE   ZEITGEIST 


95 


A  Fact, 

Banquo-like, 

will  not 

Down. 


ing  us    squarely  in  the  eye.     Why  rail  at  a  Spiritualistic 

phenomenon  ?     That  will  not  change  the  result,  whether  it 

be  true  or  false ;   the  result  is  wrapped  up  in 

the  inviolability  of  fact.     Abuse  should  cease. 

Call  no  man  a   crank  who  is  seeking  to  lift 

the  world.     Conscience  has  in  it  saving  salt, 

even  tho  it  be  in  error.     From  the  army  of 

cranks  to-day  will  come  the  great  men  of  to-morrow,  and  our 

grandchildren  will  celebrate  their  centennial  birthdays  at  the 

Waldorf- Astorias  of  that  day. 

"  Speak,  History  !    Who  are  life's  victors?    Unroll  thy  long  annals  and 

say. 
Are  they  those  whom  the  world  called  the  victors  who  won  the  success 

of  a  day  ? 
The  martyrs,  or  Nero?    The  Spartans  who  fell  at  Thermopylae's  tryst, 
Or  the  Persians  and  Xerxes?    His  judges,  or  Socrates?    Pilate,  or 

Christ? "» 

We  are  not  in  a  judicial  frame  of  mind  when  we  adjudge 
every  man  a  butt  for  wit  the  moment  he  declares  that  certain 
phenomena  point  to  spirit  causes,  and  these  witticisms  lose 
much  of  their  side-splitting  qualities,  since  among  those  who 
thus  declare  are  men  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Prof.  James 
Hyslop,  late  of  Columbia,  Sir  William  Crookes,  Prof.  William 
James  of  Harvard,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  etc. 

13.  That  the  information  given  by  psychic  intelli- 
gence is  not  beyond  the  age  in  which  it  is  given — the 
Zeitgeist ;  frequently  it  is  not  beyond  the  intelligence  of 
the  circle. 

Had  from  the  cabinet  come  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
evolution,  the  plan  for  freeing  the  negro,  the  plan  for  inter- 
national arbitration,  the  phonograph,  the  tele- 
phone, then  the  skeptic  would  have  had  a  much 
harder  nut  to  crack.  Andrew  Jackson  Davis 
did  anticipate  the  discovery  of  Uranus.  But  why  in  the  his- 
tory of  Spiritualism  should  there  be  so  few  incidents  after 
this  sort  ? 

»  W.  W.  story,  "  Hymn  of  the  Conquered." 


Bepellent 
Commonplace. 


g6  LINGUISTIC   CURIOSITY 

The  commonplace  of  the  seance-room  is  one  of  the  most 
repellent  objections  to  it. 

Such  trivialities  as  the  following  shock  and  repel,  and  if 
telepathy  be  true,  can  be  easily  accounted  for,  it  is  the  spirit 
of  the  circle : 

Member  of  Circle :  "  Is  that  you,  George  ?  " 

G.  :  "  Yes ;  how  are  you  ?  " 

M. :  "  Why  weren't  you  at  our  home  on  Thanksgiving 
Day?" 

G. :  "I  was  there.  Why  didn't  you  give  me  some  of 
that  plum-pudding.^     Ha,  ha !  " 

George  was  presumed  to  be  a  spirit.  When  I  asked  him 
whether  he  cared  for  plum-pudding,  he  replied :  "  No ;  I  speak 
in  this  way  so  as  to  make  you  all  feel  that  I  am  one  like 
yourselves." 

A  spirit  from  Mars  was  announced,  and,  in  answer  to  a 
question,  gave  the  following  curious  information : 

**My  body  is  in  Mars.  I  have  not  passed  out  [died]. 
We  no  kill  things  there;  no  eat  flesh.  We  study  philosophy 
of  life,  growth.  You  could  do  as  we  do,  go  out  of  your 
body,  if  you  have  confidence." 

"What  about  the  canals  in  Mars.>  " 

"  Oh,  great  water,  so  blue,  so  blue ! " 

"  What  is  the  language  ?  " 

"  I  can't  talk  language  of  Mars  here.  I  am  in  earth  con- 
ditions." 

"  What  is  the  name  of  water?  " 

"Aqua." 

Evidently  the  Martians  and  the  Romans  were  linguisti- 
cally related.^ 

While  much  of  the  communication  given  from  the  cabi- 
net is  of  a  character  that  reflects  closely  the  beliefs  of  the 
medium  or  of  members  of  the  circle — of  the  earth,  earthy — 

» An  intelligent  friend  of  mine  who  sat  closer  to  the  cabinet  than  did  I,  under- 
stood the  word  that  was  given  for  water  to  be  a£vra,  which  he  assured  me  is  a 
native  African  word  for  water ;  either  term  verified  as  the  word  used  in  Mars 
would  surely  furnish  a  very  interesting  linguistic  study. 


LIKE    DRAWS    LIKE  97 

there  are  utterances  that  are  weighty,  examples  of  which  I 

give  on  other  pages. 

The  information  given  by  the  Bible  writers  shows  also 

marks  of  strange  limitations.     The  sun  stood  still,  not  the 

earth:  the  earth  is  spoken  of  as  having/(??/r        ^. ,  , 

,1  ,,    .       .  11  Did  the 

corners^  and  other  talk  is  given  that  does  not   Zeitgeist  also 

harmonize  with  our  present  knowledge.     Was         Affect 

this  the  Zeitgeist  of  that  day }     Why  did  not       *^®  ^^^^® 

Paul  help  the  ship  captain  in  his  emergency 

by  the  invention  of  the  mariner's  compass.-*     This  would 

have  been  an  easy  thing  for  the  inspiring  powers,  and  what 

proof  it  would  have  given  of  Paul's  inspiration! 

In  putting  this  question  to  a  spirit  control  I  got  this 
answer : 

"  Remember  two  things :  No  more  certain  is  the  law  that 
water  finds  its  level  than  is  the  law  that  a  spirit  finds  his 
level.  The  vast  majority  of  the  communications  that  come 
through  the  spirit  circles  are  from  ignorant  spirits,  often 
mischievous,  at  times  very  earthly.  The  more  earthly  they 
are,  the  easier  it  is  for  them  to  enter  your  earth  conditions 
and  communicate — absorbing  knowledge  from  the  mind  of 
the  medium  and  from  the  minds  of  the  members  of  the  circle. 

"  A  man  may  pass  out  of  your  world  with  savage,  hateful, 
rebellious  passions  in  his  blood,  and  be  not  wholly  a  bad 
man.  These  may  belong  largely  to  the  body  and  die  with 
the  body;  but  if  a  man  is  selfish,  is  a  liar,  is  proud,  and  is 
full  of  hate  and  contempt,  that  man  has  a  bad  character; 
that  is,  he  has  small  soul  development,  he  is  bound  to  be  a 
dwarf,  a  deformed  one  as  he  enters  into  this  life  and  will 
here  appear  as  he  is.  On  earth  you  know  each  other  in 
part ;  here  each  sees  the  other  as  he  is.  It  is  this  class  of 
spirits  that  crowd  the  average  stance-room.  They  go  to 
their  level,  and  hence  the  familiarity  and  commonplace  shown 
in  the  communications — like  draws  like. 

"  The  other  thing  to  remember  is  that  the  spirit  doors  are 
all  the  time  wide  open  between  the  higher  minds  here  and 
7 


98  LAW   OF   COMMUNICATION 

the  higher  minds  on  earth.  Back  of  your  consciousness, 
your  spirit  natures — that  is,  your  true  selves — are  in  con- 
stant communication  with  the  spirit  world. 
S  •  't  S  Id       ^^  rapidly  as  your  world  is  ready  to  receive, 

Speak  we  give  through  those  who  are  ready  to  re- 
Through  ceive.  As  yet,  the  really  great  spirits  but  sel- 
®  ^^^^  ^^^  speak  through  your  mediums.     They  com- 

municate direct,  that  is,  by  mental  voices  and 
impressions.  The  spirit  world  keeps  no  secrets  from  you. 
Knowledge  is  free  as  the  air  you  breathe ;  but  as  air  can  be 
breathed  only  by  lungs  that  have  developed  up  to  it,  so  the 
entrance  of  knowledge  into  a  mind  is  determined  by  the  ca- 
pacity of  that  mind  to  receive  it.  The  ability  to  receive  de- 
termines the  limitations ;  not  our  'will  nor  yours — your  will 
only  so  far  as  it  determines  the  growth  of  your  capacity  to 
receive.  True,  we  know  myriads  of  things  not  known  to 
you,  and  about  which  you  will  know  when  you  have  capacity 
to  receive  and  assimilate  them. 

"  With  spirits  information  is  not  imparted  mechanically. 
It  enters  wherever  there  is  capacity  to  receive,  as  does  the 
wireless  message.  Every  soul  gets  all  knowledge  to  which 
it  is  attuned. 

"  Neither  the  impartation  nor  the  acceptance  of  knowl- 
edge is  arbitrary.  Ears  they  have,  but  hear  not,  the  outward 
but  not  the  inward  capacity.  As  has  been  truly  said,  'Life 
has  power  to  reveal  itself  only  to  life,  and  to  each  life  only 
after  its  kind. '  " 

What  this  control  says  about  the  Zeitgeist  may  possibly 
explain  the  following  incident :  A  *'  spirit  "  gave  an  exposi- 
tion on  immortality  which  was  not  original,  but  a  quotation 
from  a  book.  When  asked  to  explain,  the  answer  was :  "  In 
the  memory  before  death,  in  the  memory  ^/^r death."  Hud- 
son, in  his  writings  against  Spiritualism,  tells  us  the  subjec- 
tive mind  never  forgets.  Our  knowledge  is  too  limited  for 
us  safely  either  to  affirm  or  deny  the  truth  of  this,  yet  it 
seems  to  fit  in  with  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  that  there 


JUDGED    BY    ITS    BEST  99 

is  nothing  in  death  that  necessarily  should  cause  forget- 
fulness. 

There  are  millions  of  skeptics  to-day  on  earth  who  would 
rejoice  to  accept  Spiritualism  if  its  communications  from  the 
spirit  world  revealed  a  quality  of  mind  and 
goodness  worthy  of  that  world.     It  is  often  the        Inferior 
lack  of  this  quality  that  makes  them  recoil.        essages  a 
Much,  much  of  its  so-called  revelation  is  pre-      Drawback, 
tentious  nonsense.     I   protested  at  a  seance 
that   some   spirits   babbled   like   fools.     The  answer  was: 
"  Quite  likely  we  have  many  fools  over  here — light  minds 
whose  thoughts  flit  about  like  newly  hatched  spawn  in  a 
summer  lake.     If  you  continue  to  send  us  fools,  how  can  we 
help  ourselves  ^ " 

Another  control  said : 

"  There  is  something  in  Spiritualism  far  better  than  any- 
thing you  have  received  from  it,  as  there  was  something  far 
better  than  *  tick,  tick  '  in  Morse's  first  successful  experiments 
with  the  telegraph. 

"  But  do  not  overlook  seemingly  little,  but  in  fact  very 
important,  things  that  have  resulted,  as : 

"  I .  The  simple  fact  of  communication.  You  can  not 
repeat  too  often  this  thought  expressed  by  one  here :  If  but 
a  single  message  has  crossed  this  '  gulf  of  silence,'  and  this 
can  be  scientifically  proved,  this  fact  alone  is  of  unspeakable 
value.  You  said  last  week  that  to  set  in  operation  the 
machinery  of  the  spirit  world  to  find  a  little  coin  is  like  the 
Czar  of  all  the  Russias  mobilizing  his  army  to  kill  a  mouse. 
Do  not  blunder  in  thinking  that  our  object  was  to  find  that 
coin.  Mr.  Beecher  told  you  that  he  cared  nothing  for  the 
coin,  but  the  object  was  to  give  you  and  others  a  clear  dem- 
onstration that  the  spirit  world  can  and  does  communicate. 
Was  not  that  object  worthy  of  the  attention  of  spirits.^ 

"  2.  The  spirit  world  is  mixed  in  quality — good,  bad,  in- 
different; and,  hear  my  insistence,  the  output  is  to  be  judged 
by  its  best,  not  by  its  lowest,  or  its  average,  but  by  its  best. 


loo     KEEP   THE   DOOR   OPEN   UPWARD 

The  spirits  with  which  you  come  mostly  in  contact  are  but 
the  stage  carpenters  of  the  stupendously  important  drama 
that  is  being  enacted.  Look  up  and  see  the  true  actors — 
them  you  must  learn  to  recognize  not  by  sense  organs. 

"  Sometimes  trivial  things  are  often  the  best  proof — no 
feeling  is  awakened,  as  of  affection,  and  can  you  not  see  that 
sometimes  for  this  reason  trivial  things  should  be  selected  by 
the  spirit  world? 

"  3.  We  are  seeking  to  place  under  your  civilization  a 
religion  that  has  a  solid  basis  in  facts  that  can  be  verified  by 
your  scientists.  When  you  harness  your  civilization  to  the 
spirit  world  your  progress  will  be  greatly  augmented. 

"  Let  us  pray : 

"  Father  God,  we  give  Thee  gratitude  for  knowledge  that 
life  is  continuous,  and  that  this  knowledge  is  being  revealed 
to  earth  as  it  is  to  us  in  the  spirit  world.  We  thank  Thee 
that  there  is  no  death  and  that  the  communion  of  spirits  is  a 
reality  between  the  spirits  who  inhabit  the  spirit  world  and 
those  who  inhabit  the  earth  world.     Amen. 

"  Friends,  keep  the  door  open  upward.  Bring  into  action 
your  noblest  thoughts,  and  these  will  be  so  many  voices  call- 
ing down  nobler  spirits,  and  their  communication  will  be 
food  on  which  your  souls  will  grow. " 

There  is  much  talk  of  this  quality  in  the  s6ance-room. 
Whence  come  these  utterances.?  Are  they  *' blasts  from 
heaven,  or  from  hell,"  ^  or  from  the  conscious  or  unconscious 
mind  of  the  medium.?     Who  can  tell  me? 

1  "  The  devil  does  not  intentionally  defeat  his  own  kingdom.    Why  then  think 
such  communications  proceed  from  a  fiend  or  fraud? "    •'  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


Ill 

A   LETTER   FROM   SCIENTISTS— A   STUDY 

I  have  culled  the  following  from  letters  by  several  well- 
known  scientists,  who  have  written  to  me  their  reasons  why 
they  do  not  make  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  psychic 
problem ;  I  have  woven  these  extracts  into  a  single  letter : 

"  Among  the  reasons  why  scientists  object  to  investigating  Spiritualis- 
tic phenomena  are  the  darkness  of  the  seance-room,  the  joining  of  hands, 
the  sitting  arrangements  in  the  circle,  and  other  rules  imposed  in  '  talking 
to  the  spirits,'  all  of  which  make  anything  worthy  of  the  name  inveetiga- 
ting  exceedingly  difficult  and  unsatisfactory.  Then  the  medium  is  usually 
a  woman,  and  the  meetings  are  generally  held  at  the  houses  of  the  me- 
diums officiating  or  at  the  houses  of  friends  and  believers,  and  belief  in 
the  '  spirits  '  is  a  matter  of  religion  with  nearly  all  in  the  circles ;  hence 
to  question  the  honesty  of  the  medium  conflicts  with  courtesy  to  *  mine 
host '  and  with  the  rules  of  good  breeding.  And,  further,  scientists  can 
not  accept  any  psychic  facts  until  they  become  positive,  mathematical, 
scientific.    The  proof  is  not  positive,  hence  not  scientific." 

In  addition  to  the  hindrances  indicated  in  the  above  let- 
ter, there  are  others  encountered  at  stances  that  are  apt  to 
predispose  scientists  against  an  investigation  of  these  phe- 
nomena.    William   James,  Professor  of  Psy- 
chology at  Harvard  University,  giving  a  de-       Professor 

scription  of  his  first   experiences   with    Mrs.     ^^®^  ^^  -^^r- 
_.  ,  ,.  r     ,       r-     .  vard,  and 

Piper,  the  trance  medium,  now  of  the  Society     jy^j-s.  Piper. 

for  Psychical  Research,  says  ^  the  "  spirit  con- 
trol Phinuit "  gave  the  names  "  of  many  of  my  relatives  and 
friends,"  but  those  names  were  given  with  difficulty  and 
were  only  gradually  made  perfect.  The  professor's  wife's 
father's  name  of  Gibbens  was  announced  first  as  Biblin,  then 
as  Giblin.  His  child  Herman,  who  had  died  the  previous 
year,  had  his  name  spelt  as  Herrin. 

»  Proceedings  of  S.  P.  R.,  vol.  6,  pp,  651-9. 
lOI 


I02      TRIVIAL   THINGS    CONVINCING 

"  I  think,"  says  the  professor,  "  that  in  no  case  were  both  the  Christian 
and  surnames  given  on  this  [first]  visit.  But  the  facts  predicated  of  the 
persons  named  made  it  in  many  instances  impossible  not  to  recognize  the 
particular  individuals  who  were  talked  about.  We  took  particular  pains 
on  this  occasion  to  give  the  Phinuit  control  no  help  over  his  difficulties 
and  to  ask  no  leading  questions.  In  the  light  of  subsequent  experience, 
I  believe  this  not  to  be  the  best  policy.  .  .  . 

"  The  most  convincing  things  said  about  my  own  immediate  house- 
hold were  either  very  intimate  or  very  trivial.  Unfortunately  the  former 
things  can  not  well  be  published.  Of  the  trivial  things,  I  have  forgotten 
the  greater  number,  but  the  following,  rarcB  nantes,  may  serve  as  sam- 
ples of  their  class :  She  said  that  we  had  lost  recently  a  rug  and  I  a 
waistcoat.  (She  wrongly  accused  a  person  of  stealing  the  rug,  which  was 
afterward  found  in  the  house.)  She  told  of  my  killing  a  gray-and-white 
cat  with  ether,  and  described  how  it  had  '  spun  round  and  round  '  before 
dying.  She  told  how  my  New  York  aunt  had  written  a  letter  to  my  wife 
warning  her  against  all  mediums,  and  then  went  off  on  a  most  amusing 
criticism,  full  of  traits  vifs,  of  the  excellent  woman's  character.  (Of 
course,  no  one  but  my  wife  and  I  knew  the  existence  of  the  letter  in  ques- 
tion.) She  was  strong  on  the  events  in  our  nurser}',  and  gave  striking 
advice  during  our  first  visit  to  her  aoout  the  way  to  deal  with  certain 
'  tantrums '  of  our  second  child,  *  little  Billy-boy,'  as  she  called  him, 
reproducing  his  nursery  name.  She  told  how  the  crib  creaked  at  night, 
how  a  certain  rocking-chair  creaked  mysteriously,  how  my  wife  had  heard 
footsteps  on  the  stairs,  etc.  Insignificant  as  these  tilings  sound  when 
read,  the  accumulation  of  a  large  number  of  them  has  an  irresistible 
effect.     And  I  repeat  again  what  I  said  before  that,  taking  everythmg 

that  I  know  of  Mrs.  P into  account,  the  result  is  to  make  me  feel  as 

absolutely  certain  as  I  am  of  any  personal  fact  in  the  world  that  she 
knows  things  in  her  trances  which  she  can  not  possibly  have  heard  in  her 
waking  state  and  that  the  definitive  philosophy  of  her  trances  is  yet  to  be 
found.  The  limitations  of  her  trance  information,  its  discontinuity  and 
fitfulness,  and  its  apparent  inability  to  develop  beyond  a  certain  point, 
altho  they  end  by  rousing  one's  moral  and  human  impatience  with  the 
phenomenon,  are  yet,  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  among  its  most 
interesting  peculiarities,  since  where  there  are  limits  there  are  conditions, 
and  the  discovery  of  these  is  always  the  beginning  of  explanation." 

In  making  my  investigations  I  ran  against  difficulties  at 
almost  every  turn.  On  one  occasion,  in  response  to  urgent 
requests  that  I  be  permitted  to  apply  severe  critical  tests  to 
a  certain  medium,  the  control  said :  "  In  making  tests  with 
the  medium  outside  of  her  house,  you  must  not  forget  that 
our  medium  is  an  exceedingly  nervous  woman.  We  must 
use  her  as  she  is.     If  she  has  a  seance  outside  of  her  own 


SPIRIT   FORGETS   NAME  103 

home  and  her  familiar  surroundings,  there  is  much  strain 
placed  upon  her.  If  you  make  tests,  putting  her  in  an  iron 
cage,  or  placing  netting  over  the  cabinet  door,  or  tacking 
down  a  netting  over  and  around  her,  or  sewing  her  in  a  bag, 
you  treat  her  as  a  culprit.  This  inevitably  affects  her  nerves 
and  the  vibratory  condition  of  the  nerve  ether  within  and 
about  her.  We  must  protect  her,  or  we  shall  destroy  the 
powers  that  make  her  a  medium.  You  must  give  attention 
to  the  laws  that  govern  the  production  of  these  phenomena  or 
we  can  do  nothing.  The  forces  at  best  are  difficult  to  mas- 
ter, extremely  subtle,  and  are  understood  only  by  those  who 
truly  know  psychology  on  your  side  and  the  chemistry  of 
the  spiritual  world  on  our  side. " 

Again  and  again  in  one's  investigation  the  door  is  thus 
shut  in  his  face. 

On  another  occasion  I  was  told  that  the  spirit  of  a  cousin 
of  mine  was  present.     I  asked :  "  If  this  is  my  cousin,  would 
he  not  kindly  give  his  full  name  ?  "     The  "  con- 
trol "  answered,   after  a  moment's  delay  and       „    very 
,.,  ,  .  ,      ,  .  .    ,  Sensitive 

some  audible  remonstrance  with  the  spirit  be-         Spirit. 

hind  the  curtain :  "  You  asked  for  the  name 
too  suddenly.  This  has  disconcerted  the  spirit  in  his  strained 
condition,  and  in  spite  of  my  urgency  makes  it  impossible 
for  him  to  give  you  what  you  ask.  This  again  illustrates 
the  supreme  difficulties  spirits  meet  in  communicating  with 
earth.     I  tell  you  that  it  is  no  easy  task. " 

The  discouragements  an  investigator  encounters  are  en- 
hanced at  times  by  the  fact  that  the  spirits  do  not  agree  with 
one  another.  At  a  stance,  shortly  after  the  above  occurred, 
a  spirit  told  me  that  she  had  forgotten  her  mother's  name. 
When  pressed  to  tell  how  this  could  be  true,  she  said  she 
could  not  understand  the  reason,  but  that  her  guardian  spirits 
caused  her  to  forget.  When  asked  to  explain  in  what  way  it 
is  that  guardian  spirits  so  control,  she  said  that  they  were 
"  over  all  souls ;  that  each  guardian  is  like  unto  the  soul  he 
guards,  only  higher ;  sometimes  bigoted,  sometimes  supersti- 


I04  WHY   SEANCE   failed 

tious,  sometimes  ignorant,  never  infallible.  Like  here  also 
draws  like,  so  that  every  soul  is  in  a  degree  the  chooser  of  his 
guardian  and  may  influence  and  even  change  one  guardian  for 
another  by  the  law  that  like  draws  like.  Guardian  spirits  do 
not  absolutely  control,  for  every  soul  is  sovereign.  Not  any- 
thing can  interfere  with  that  sovereignty;  individuality  must 
be  respected.  A  man  may  advance  beyond  his  guardian  and 
become  in  reality  the  guardian  spirit  of  the  one  who  had  been 
his  guardian.  The  law  of  fitness  determines  this.  Now  my 
guardian,  whom  I  strive  always  to  obey,  does  not  wish  me  to 
give  this  name  and  he  made  me  forget  it.  He  does  not  give 
me  his  reason.     That  is  all  I  can  tell  you." 

Were  a  medium  dishonest,  this  is  an  easy  way  to  prevent 
discovery;  if  honest,  such  conditions  are  extremely  unfortu- 
nate and  annoying  from  the  viewpoint  of  an  investigator. 

At  Mrs. 's  circle  one  evening  when  I  was  present, 

there  was  a  gathering  in  the  parlors  of  more  than  forty  per- 
sons. It  seemed  to  be  a  good  time  to  advertise 
Odd  Reason  the  meetings  that  were  to  follow,  as  each  per- 
ai  ure     ^^^  ^^-^  ^ ^  to  be  present,  and  yet  it  was  given 

Seance.  out  at  the  beginning,  even  before  the  stance, 
that  the  sitting  would  be  a  comparative  failure 
and  those  who  desired  to  leave  were  offered  back  their  money. 
When  asked  why  "a  failure,"  the  answer  was  "because 
there  are  so'  many  inexperienced  persons  present  it  will  make 
it  difficult  to  harmonize  the  vibrations."  If  the  phenomena 
were  under  the  control  of  the  medium,  a  crowded  audience  or 
bad  weather  would  scarcely  make  any  difference.  It  certainly 
would  seem  bad  policy  for  a  theater  or  a  circus  manager  to 
make  his  exhibition  a  failure  because  of  the  fulness  of  the 
house  or  of  the  condition  of  the  atmosphere  outside.  I  have 
heard  many  a  circle  announced  a  failure  by  a  control  because 
"of  the  stormy  atmospheric  conditions." 

We  are  persistently  told  at  circles  that  "mutual  con- 
fidence is  essential — confidence  of  the  medium  in  the  sitters, 
and  confidence  of  the  sitters  in  the  medium.     There  must  be 


GROUNDING   THE   WIRE  105 

a  receptive  condition  in  the  circle.  The  requisites  are  seren- 
ity of  mind,  confidence  in  the  integrity  of  each  other,  and 
calm  desire."  Again,  these  are  unfortunate  conditions,  as 
they  predispose  one  to  accept  whatever  comes. 

The  following  is  typical :  In  a  circle  in  New  York  two 
men,  well  dressed  and  intelligent,  were  quietly  requested  by 
the  medium  to  leave  the  room,  as  she  was  im- 
pressed that  their  presence  hindered  the  "vi-     Turned  Out 
bratory  wave  conditions."     In  explanation  of  glance  Room. 
this  it  was  said  by  a  "  control "  :  "  How  often 
have  you  observed  that  a  telegraphic  wire  would  not  work, 
and  on  examination  it  was  found  that  another  wire  had  crossed 
and  grounded  it,  and  the  electric  force  was  absorbed.     Some 
men  absorb  somehow  the  psychic  force  that  is  necessary  to 
make  phenomena.     They  ground  the  wire.     They  may  not 
be  violent  skeptics,  may  be  really  sincere  persons  and  even 
believers  in  the  phenomena,  and  yet  their  presence  hinders 
us." 

As  elsewhere  mentioned,  Dr.  Hudson,  in  his  able  attempt 
to  explain  psychic  phenomena  otherwise  than  by  Spiritual- 
ism, shows  the  necessity  of  faith,  confidence,  harmony,  as 
helpful  agencies  in  what  he  calls  mental  therapeutics.'  Dr. 
Hudson  illustrates  this  by  the  so-called  miracle  workings  of 
Christ.  Note  how,  at  the  raising  of  Jairus's  daughter.  He 
urged  the  father  to  dismiss  fear  and  have  faith,  He  excluded 
the  doubters  from  the  room,  sought  to  give  them  confidence 
by  telling  them  that  the  maid  was  not  dead — in  every  way 
He  strove  to  make  the  environment  that  of  belief  and  har- 
mony. If  skepticism  hindered  the  workings  of  the  psychic 
powers  of  Jesus,  there  should  not  be  an  a  priori  reason  against 
the  contention  of  these  controls — at  least  there  should  not  be 
among  Christians. 

A  control  said  to  me :  "  There  are  emanations  that  come 
from  some  persons  which  strike  the  medium  like  shots  from 
a  gun,  and  even  I,  experienced  as  I  am,  find  it  difficult  to  keep 

»  "The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenome.na," pp.  361-4, 


io6  FAITH    OMNIPOTENT 

my  balance  in  earth  conditions  while  these  adverse  waves 

strike  me.     Why  should  this  seem  strange  to  you  ?     Your 

psychologists  no  longer  laugh  when  one  speaks 

Thought-       of  a  finite  mind  vibrating  in  harmony  with  the 

ayes  an       universal  mind.     Thought- waves  should   not 
Wireless  ° 

Telegraphy,  be  Strange  in  an  age  when  it  is  known  that 

waves  of  the  electric  ocean  go  around  the 
world  in  a  second  or  two,  and  that  there  are  waves  of  sub- 
stances like  radium  that  travel  hundreds  of  thousands  of  miles 
in  a  second  and  have  amazing  potency.  Foolish  mortals, 
when  will  you  learn  that  the  potency  of  the  coarse  and  clumsy 
forces  of  the  physical  world  are  as  nothing  compared  with 
that  of  psychic  forces  ?  Your  prophet  did  not  exaggerate 
the  slightest  when  He  said.  If  you  had  but  the  beginnings  of 
real  faith  you  could  lift  mountains  and  hurl  them  into  the 
ocean. 

"  It  is  to  adapt  ourselves  to  your  low  earth  conditions  that 
we  use  mediums,  for  it  is  only  in  this  way  that  we  can  reach 
your  coarse,  physical  senses.  We  are  compelled  to  use  the 
organisms  of  mediums.  This  hinders,  embarrasses,  confuses 
us,  often  causes  us  to  blunder,  by  having  our  utterances 
mixed  and  confused  with  those  of  the  medium's  psychic 
nature  and  with  the  nerve  and  thought  vibrations  of  the  mem- 
bers of  your  circle.  Again  and  again  you  wish  us  to  satisfy 
unreasonable  skepticism  by  working  wonders,  and  you  can 
not  understand  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  we  can  not. 
Why  do  you  not  see  that  skepticism  is  an  impassable  bar } 
Never  forget  that  Christ,  altho  having  extraordinary  power, 
could  not  exercise  that  power  when  demanded  of  Him  by  the 
skeptics  of  the  age;  He  never  did  anything  for  display  or  to 
satisfy  curiosity.  He  really  could  not  at  times.  You  believe 
your  Bible ;  study  what  this  means. 

**  Besides,  spirit  communications  have  limitations  from 
our  side.  Your  scientists  smile  at  this,  and  say  '  that  is 
hedging.*  But  if  that  be  hedging,  you  will  find  many  illus- 
trations of  hedging  in  your  Bible." 


LORD    BROUGHAM'S   VISION  107 

Quite  likely  my  scientist  correspondents  will  smile  on 
reading  the  above.  "Ah,  yes,"  they  will  laughingly  retort; 
"  and  yet  they  call  this  science !  Science  bases  its  conclu- 
sions on  the  evidence  of  the  senses ;  Spiritualism,  like  Chris- 
tian Science,  bases  its  conclusions  on  the  evidence  of  the 
non-senses^     We  must  believe  in  order  to  see ! 

Some  scientists  tell  us  that  these  phenomena  are  outside 

of  experience  and  that  therefore  they  can  not  investigate 

them.    Is  not  that  begging  the  question }    What 

is  experience.?     Will  any  one  say  that  the  fact     "Proof  not 

that  a  man  has  a  mind  is  outside  of  experience      _  °®^  ^^®' 

^  Hence  not 

because  it  does  not  report  itself  directly  to  any      Scientific." 
of  the  five  senses  ?    Besides,  thousands  of  these 
psychic  facts  have  been  tested  by  the  senses  and  found  to  be 
physical  facts,  by  such   competent   scientific    witnesses   as 
Crookes,  Wallace,  and  scores  and  scores  of  others. 

How  shall  we  escape  the  fact  of  the  finding  of  "  The 
Widow's  Mite,"  provided  coincidence  and  fraud  are  excluded.? 
How  shall  we  escape  Lord  Brougham's  testimony  about  the 
vision  he  had  of  his  friend,  in  accordance  with  a  promise 
which  that  friend  had  made  to  report  himself  if  possible  after 
death  t  ^  Can  we  frame  a  reasonable  theory  of  coincidence .? 
If  so,  then  that  itself  is  worthy  of  investigation  and  may 
lead  to  the  discovery  of  some  unthought-of  laws  that  govern 
what  we  call  coincidence. 

It  seemed  wholly  unreasonable  to  many  of  the  learned  men 

in  the  days  of  Columbus  that  by  sailing  westward  he  could 

reach  India.     That  the  earth  was  round  was  a 

direct  contradiction  of  the  senses  and  of  the      ,.  ??^  ^*" 

dictions  to 

then  experience.     Common  sense  rebelled  at      the  Senses 
the  idea  that  the  world  turned  upside  down    ^ot  Positive 

every  twenty-four  hours  while  water  remained         Jl^^^ 

01  £rror. 
in  pots  undisturbed.     In  vain  Columbus  pre- 
sented a  lot  of  facts,  as  that  of  driftwood  and  of  the  shadow 
of  the  earth  on  the  moon.      Science  threw  all  this  aside  as 

1  "Life  and  Times  of  Lord  Brougham,"  written  by  himself,  pp.  201-3. 


io8         HUXLEY'S  "LITTLE   CHILD" 

worthless  because  it  did  not  accord  with  the  known  positive 
mathematical  laws  of  nature  and  contradicted  the  common 
observations  of  man.  For  a  similar  reason  the  French 
Academy  of  Science  outvoted  mesmerism  in  the  thirties  of 
the  last  century.  The  British  Science  Association  refused 
to  hear  Braid's  paper  on  hypnotism,  as  they  later  refused  to 
hear  Sir  William  Crookes's  paper  on  his  experiments  in 
psychic  phenomena ;  and  yet  there  is  no  more  doubt  now 
that  hypnotism  is  a  fact  than  that  the  sun  shines,  scientists 
themselves  being  the  witnesses. 

How  slow  we  are  to  learn  with  Virchow  ^  that  "  what  we 
call  the  laws  of  nature  must  vary  according  to  our  frequent 
experiences."  If  we  get  hold  of  a  conflicting  fact,  all  we 
have  to  do  is  to  find  out  whether  it  is  a  fact ;  and  then,  if  it 
proves  a  fact,  to  enlarge  our  conception  of  the  domain  of  the 
natural  world,  of  science.  Says  Professor  James:''  "... 
And  it  so  happens  a  fact  is  denied  till  a  welcome  interpreta- 
tion comes  with  it.  Then  it  is  admitted  readily  enough. " 
Science  will  not  accept  a  fact  until  she  can  give  an  expla- 
nation for  it.  Many  a  scientific  skeptic  like  Hume  cries 
out :  "  Laugh  at  the  miracles  of  Christ  without  any  exami- 
nation of  them."  The  scientists  say,  "The  superstitious 
accept  the  phenomena  without  exammation!'  and  then  turn 
around  and  reject  the  phenomena  without  examination. 
Which  is  the  more  irrational  and  unscientific  act }  Possibly 
the  world  will  again  see  a  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected taking  its  place  at  the  head  of  the  corner.  Here  is 
an  anomaly :  The  pride  of  modern  science  is  induction.  This 
is  its  fetish;  but  before  a  mass  of  psychic  facts  it  comes  to 
a  dead  halt  and  refuses  to  take  up  these  facts,  because  it 
does  not  know  where  they  will  land  science.  Where  in  this 
is  the  spirit  of  Huxley's  little  child.? 

Scientists  cry  out :  "  We  see  on  every  hand  in  these 
phenomena  evidences  of  ignorance,  superstition,  credulity, 

>  Moll's  "Hj'pnotist,"  p.  357. 

•  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  6x2. 


KANT^S   THEORY  109 

blind  sentimentality."  True,  but  there  is  clear  evidence  of 
something  underneath  and  beyond  all  this  rubbish.  But,  it 
is  said,  this  is  not  a  science.  True  again;  it  is  an  immense 
accumulation  of  facts,  many  verified,  others  partially  verified 
— facts,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  suggest  the  possible  dis- 
covery of  a  world  more  important  than  the  discovery  made  by 
Columbus,  a  world  that  may  be  just  below  the  horizon  toward 
which  the  earth  is  turning.  Science  comes  slowly  after  the 
facts  are  known — continuity,  self- consistency,  harmony  after 
demonstration ;  but  the  preliminary  work,  the  unearthing  and 
the  verification  of  the  facts  should  also  be  the  work  of 
scientists. 

It  is  urged  that  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  effects 
that  are  beyond  natural  causes.  Is  not  this  another  man  of 
straw }  What  reason  is  there  to  doubt  that  if  spirits  are  be- 
hind any  of  these  phenomena  they  are  doing  their  work  in 
perfect  harmony  with  natural  law,  the  same  as  is  the  farmer 
when  he  makes  his  field  grow  wheat  instead  of  thistles? 
What  is  a  farmer  but  a  spirit  enrobed  in  skin  ?  What  is 
there  in  flesh  and  bone  to  make  a  boundary  line  between  the 
natural  and  supernatural.^  God  is  the  only  supernatural 
power — power  back  of  nature. 

Professor    Zollner,   of    Leipsic,   after  observing    many 

psychic  phenomena  under  critical  test  conditions,  explains 

them  by  Kant's  theory  that  space  perceptions  are  merely  a 

category  of  the  understanding ;  that  in  this  world  there  are 

three   dimensional  intelligences,  while   there 

are  worlds  in  which  there  are  four  dimensional       ZoUner's 

,,.  ,  .,.11  n  Scientific  Ex- 

mtelligences,  others  in  which  there  are  five,  etc.      pianation. 

Zollner  thus  explains  the  spiritual  phenomena 
of  the  tying  of  knots  in  an  endless  chain,  levitating  tables 
without  physical  contact  until  they  disappear  to  reappear 
in  another  part  of  the  room,  passing  matter  through  matter, 
etc.,  all  of  which  occurrences  he  vouched  for  as  happening 
in  his  own  room  in  the  full  light  of  day  under  absolute  scien- 
tific test  conditions.     Tho  all  this  was  done,  he  claims  it  was 


no  ARRANT   FOOLS 

done  in  strict  harmony  with  natural  law — that  no  phenomena 
are  supernatural — all  natural. 

To  get  around  all  this  and  similar  testimony,  are  scientists 
ready  to  take  the  position  that  human  testimony  is  not  to  be 
credited  in  the  matter  of  Spiritualism,  no  matter  how  mul- 
titudinous it  may  be?  Again,  I  ask,  Is  this  the  spirit  of 
Huxley's  little  child  sitting  before  a  fact  interrogating  it? 
Tests  could  not  have  been  made  more  painstakingly  and 
scientifically  accurate  than  those  by  Robert  Hare  and  Wil- 
liam Russel  Wallace  and  Crookes  and  Zollner,  and  by  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  during  the  past  twenty  years. 
Are  scientists  ready  to  say  of  such  men  that  they  too  were 
**  such  easy  dupes  as  to  be  arrant  fools  "  ?  Tens  of  thousands 
of  men  and  women,  recognized  as  sensible  people  in  the 
common  affairs  of  life,  give  testimony  to  facts  the  truth  of 
which  depends  upon  common  honesty.  It  is  becoming  more 
and  more  difficult  to  waive  all  of  this  testimony  aside  as  the 
results  of  deceptions  or  faulty  observations. 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the  eminent  English  scientist 
and  codiscoverer  with  Darwin  of  evolution,  says,  as  indi- 
cated in  the  introductory  chapter :  "  My  position,  therefore,  is 
that  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  in  their  entirety,  do  not 
require  further  confirmation.  They  are  proved  quite  as  well 
as  any  facts  are  proved  in  other  sciences."  Does  Wallace 
go  too  far?  Has  he  generalized  too  quickly?  That  may 
be,  but  it  is  certain  many  other  scientists  are  resting  at  the 
other  extreme.  There  are  multitudes  of  indisputable  psychic 
facts  that  have  not  been  sufficiently  examined  by  scientists, 
and  it  is  surely  the  business  of  science  to  account  for  facts, 
whether  physical,  moral,  or  spiritual. 

Here  is  one  of  a  class  of  facts  that  has  come 
Beecher  s     Jj^^q  ^^q  experience  of  many  men,  and  belongs 
Experience.  Probably  to  our  subjective  natures,  but  has  re- 
ceived not  the  tenth  of  attention  from  scien- 
tists that  have  the  fossil  remains  of  some  extinct  trilobite: 
Mr.  Beecher,  years  before  his  death,  told  me  that,  when  he 


BEECHER'S   STRANGE   VISION        iii 

was  delivering  his  famous  speech  to  the  mob  at  Liverpool 
during  the  Civil  War,  he  felt  that  he  was  some  distance 
above  the  platform,  watching  his  other  self  gaining  control 
over  the  mob ;  the  experience  being  that  of  two  distinct  per- 
sonalities. Explain  that,  and  we  may  explain  the  marvelous 
phenomena  of  what  are  called  secondary  personalities. 

When  we  see  facts  that  are  not  accounted  for  by  any 
explanation  by  scientists,  what  are  we  to  do  .'*  There  is  com- 
pulsion in  reason  as  forceful  as  is  gravity.  By  pooh-poohing 
we  never  shall  be  able  to  stop  the  exodus  to  Spiritualism. 
Spiritualists,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us,  have  a  right  to  demand 
of  science  a  sufficient  cause  for  what  they  see  and  hear.  The 
flaming  out  of  a  heated  imagination,  the  ebullitions  of  feel- 
ing, are  poor  foundations  to  build  on,  but  equally  unsatisfac- 
tory is  the  "won't  believe  it  even  if  we  see  it"  of  science; 
the  one  is  as  irrational  and  unworthy  as  the  other. 

Scientists,  as  the  rest  of  us,  are  bound  by  the  everlasting 
law  of  honor  so  to  spend  life  that  they  may  know  what  is 
right,  and  then  help  to  give  it  recognition,  to  give  the  world 
the  best  that  is  in  them—each  of  us  alike  to  think  his  life 
but  a  missile  to  hurl  against  an  error, 

"...  an  arrow— therefore  we  must  know 
What  mark  to  aim  at,  how  to  use  the  bow — 
Then  draw  it  to  the  head  and  let  itgo." 

This  with  little  or  no  thought  as  to  the  consequences. 

Scientists  are  swinging  away  from  the  scientific  material- 
ism of  a  generation  ago.  They  tell  us  that  there  must  have 
been  an  intelligent  Creator.  Is  He  dead }  If  not,  where  is 
He.^  If  alive,  it  is  the  most  natural  thing  to  suppose  that 
He  is  here  with  His  work.  Then  it  follows  that  the  mightiest 
force  of  the  universe,  the  real  force,  is  outside  of  our  physi- 
cal senses;  and  it  also  follows  that  scientists  should  most 
carefully  consider  this  mightiest  of  forces  and  the  possibili- 
ties of  sensitive  human  beings  through  which  this  force  works. 
We  must  never  forget  that  there  is  intelligence  behind  these 


112  VOLTAIRE   ON    NEWTON 

so-called  spiritual  phenomena,  and  that  it  is  not  at  all  likely 
that  the  forces  of  nature  and  its  laws  can  create  intelligence. 

Whence  this  intelligence?  Is  it  from  the  subjective 
mind?  If  so,  that  mind  should  be  explored,  its  laws  of 
development  discovered,  its  tremendous  forces  intelligently 
utilized.  Or  is  this  intelligence  from  the  Beyond  ?  If  so, 
here  is  a  stupendous  fact  which  science  should  scientifically 
demonstrate.  As  said  Gladstone,  these  investigations  of 
psychic  phenomena  by  science  are  far  more  important  than 
all  other  work  done  on  earth. 

A  century  ago  horseback  was  the  most  rapid  means  of 
communication ;  now  steam  and  electricity  have  come.  The 
railroad,  the  telegraph,  and  the  telephone  al- 
How  the  most  annihilate  distance.  "  Many  shall  run 
^  n%  pf  t^  ^^^  ^^^»  ^^^  knowledge  increase,"  said  the 
of  Newton,  prophet.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  commenting  on 
this  prophecy,  said :  "  I  should  not  wonder  if 
some  day  men  will  travel  at  the  rate  of  fifty  miles  an  hour." 
Voltaire,  a  great  admirer  of  the  English  philosopher,  speak- 
ing of  this  comment,  declared  that  this  prophecy  of  God's 
Word  made  a  fool  of  Newton  when  it  led  him  to  talk  that  way. 
Prophets  are  seers,  and  often  see  further  and  clearer  than  do 
scientists.  He  is  a  blundering  scientist  who  refuses  hints 
from  the  world's  seers — for  a  seer  is  one  who  sees. 

A  man  is  a  lighted  candle ;  he  carries  with  him  a  light 
much  larger  than  his  physical  organization,  and  this  light 
often  announces  his  coming  in  advance  to  our  senses.  What 
if  this  light  also  lights  up  dark  places  independent  of  the 
senses  ?  A  soul  that  has  been  forming  for  ages  through  the 
processes  of  evolution  did  crystallize  an  outward  body  fitted 
to  itself,  every  part  the  shadow  of  a  better  part  within.  If 
that  be  true,  the  better  part  of  our  senses,  their  substance,  is 
to  be  found  within,  and  the  substance  in  the  prophet  may 
often  do  better  service  than  the  shadow  in  the  scientist. 

These  psychic  phenomena  when  rightly  understood  may 
prove   interesting,    startling    testimonies    coming    from    a 


UNSCIENTIFIC   SCIENTISTS  113 

region  not  as   yet  clearly  penetrated  by  a  single  ray  from 
science. 

Some  scientists  talk  about  a  possible  explanation  to  be 
found  in  a  further  analysis  of  the  forces  of  nature.  Very 
well,  clearly  ascertained  facts  are  necessary  for  this  further 
analysis.  And  who  better  than  scientists  to  help  on  this 
further  analysis  ?  Others  speak  about  the  laws  of  the  mind 
causing  us  to  see  things  that  are  not  true.  Who  made  these 
laws  and  just  what  are  they?  This  also  is  an  excellent  line 
of  investigation,  but  let  the  requirements  for  the  evidence  as 
to  these  facts  and  the  reasoning  based  upon  them  be  as  rigid 
as  we  are  requiring  of  Spiritualists.  Sublimated  reasonings 
about  a  possible  subliminal  and  subjective  mind,  and  about 
odic  and  other  forces,  are  not  satisfactory  explanations  of 
the  finding  by  Swedenborg  of  the  mislaid  receipt,  of  Lord 
Brougham's  vision  of  his  dead  friend,  of  the  phenomena  Sir 
William  Crookes  describes  as  witnessed  by  himself,  of  the 
finding  of  "The  Widow's  Mite."  Science  has  yet  to  deal 
seriously  and  comprehensively  with  the  unanswered  question 
about  this  class  of  psychic  phenomena : 

WHAT  IS  IT.> 

Prof.  William  James  says  that  a  number  of  his  fellow 
professors  at  Harvard  refused  to  attend  a  stance  to  witness 
psychic  phenomena,  and  to  which  he  had  invited  them. 
Some  scientists  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  they  would 
not  believe  the  testimony  of  their  senses  if  they  gave  testi- 
mony in  favor  of  these  phenomena.  Ah,  the  spirit  of  Hux- 
ley's little  child !  Hegel  complained  of  a  similar  attitude  of 
scientists  in  his  day,  of  ^n  a  priori  settlement  by  scientists  of 
what  is  possible  and  what  is  impossible.  To  them  spirit  and 
Spiritualism  are  inherently  absurd,  and  matter  contains  in 
itself  the  promise  and  potency  of  all  life;  force,  life,  thought, 
feeling,  heat,  light,  gravity  are  only  different  forms  of  mat- 
ter. That  is  a  stone  wall  of  skepticism  against  which  it  is 
8 


114  BREWSTER'S    EXPERIENCE 

useless  to  butt  our  heads.     Sir  David  Brewster  declared,  in 
reference  to  these  phenomena,  that  "  spirit  is  the  last  thing 
that  I  will  give  in  to. "     He  clung  like  grim 
Sir  David      death  to  his  a  priori  conclusion  that  spirits  do 
c    '        s  If     ^^^  return.     How  a   predisposition,  a  dense 
Contradiction,   prejudice  may  influence  and  warp  the  judg- 
ment and  memory  of  so  great  a  scientist  even 
as  Brewster  is  illustrated  by  the  following  two  accounts  he 
gave  of  a  stance  he  attended  with  the  medium,  D.  D.  Home, 
in  June,  1855  : 

From  an  Account  by  Sir  David  Brewster  in  the  London  Advertiser^ 

October  12^  18 j^. 

"At  Mr.  Cox's  house,  Mr.  Home,  Mr.  Cox,  Lord  Brougham,  and 
myself  sat  down  to  a  small  table,  Mr.  Home  having  previously  requested 
us  to  examine  if  there  was  any  machinery  about  his  person,  an  examina- 
tion, however,  which  we  declined  to  make.  When  all  our  hands  were 
upon  the  table  noises  were  heard — rappings  in  abundance;  and,  finally, 
when  we  rose  up  the  table  actually  rose,  as  appeared  to  me,  from  the 
ground.  This  result  I  do  not  pretend  to  explain ;  but  rather  than  believe 
that  spirits  made  the  noise,  I  will  conjecture  that  the  raps  were  produced 
by  Mr.  Home's  toes,  which,  as  will  be  seen,  were  active  on  another  occa- 
sion ;  .  .  .  and  rather  than  believe  that  spirits  raised  the  table,  I  will 
conjecture  that  it  was  done  by  the  agency  of  Mr.  Home's  feet,  which 
were  always  below  it. 

"  Some  time  after  this  experiment  Mr.  Home  left  the  room  and  re- 
turned, probably  to  equip  himself  for  the  feats  which  were  to  be  per- 
formed by  the  spirits  beneath  a  large  round  table  covered  with  copious 
drapery,  beneath  which  nobody  was  allowed  to  look} 

"  The  spirits  are  powerless  above  board ;  .  .  .  a  small  hand-bell,  to 
be  rung  by  the  spirits,  was  placed  on  the  ground  near  my  feet.  I  placed 
my  feet  round  it  in  the  form  of  an  angle,  to  catch  any  intrusive  apparatus. 
The  bell  did  not  ring;  but  when  taken  to  a  place  near  Mr.  Home's  feet, 
it  speedily  came  across  and  placed  itself  in  my  hand.  This  was  amus- 
ing. 

"  It  did  the  same  thing,  bunglingly,  to  Lord  Brougham,  by  knocking 
itself  against  his  lordship's  knuckles,  and,  after  a  jingle,  it  fell.  How 
these  things  were  produced  neither  Lord  Brougham  nor  I  could  say,  but 
I  conjecture  that  they  may  be  produced  by  machinery  attached  to  the 
lower  extremities  of  Mr.  Home." 

*  Home,  commenting  on  this  passage,  explains  that  he  was  seized  with  a  violent 
fit  of  coughing  and  left  the  room  to  get  a  handkerchief  ("  Incidents,"  First  Series, 
p.  238). 


BELIEF   AFFECTS   MEMORY  115 

From  an  Account  in  the  Private  Diary  of  Sir  David  Brewster^  Dated 
June,  i8^Si  ^^^  Published  after  His  Death. 

"  Last  of  all  I  went  with  Lord  Brougham  to  a  stance  of  the  new 
spirit- rapper,  Mr.  Home,  a  lad  of  twenty,  the  son  of  a  brother  of  the  late 
Earl  Home.  ...  He  lives  in  Cox's  Hotel,  Jermyn Street;  and  Mr.  Cox, 
who  knows  Lord  Brougham,  wished  him  to  have  a  stance,  and  his  lord- 
ship invited  me  to  accompany  him  in  order  to  assist  in  finding  out  the 
trick.  We  four  sat  down  at  a  moderately  sized  table,  the  structure  of 
which  we  were  invited  to  examine.  In  a  short  time  the  table  shuddered, 
and  a  tremulous  motion  ran  up  all  our  arms ;  at  our  bidding  these  motions 
ceased  and  returned.  The  most  unaccountable  rappings  were  produced 
in  various  parts  of  the  table ;  and  the  table  actually  rose  from  the  ground 
when  no  hand  was  upon  it.  A  larger  table  was  produced  and  exhibited 
similar  movements.  ...  A  small  hand-bell  was  then  laid  down  with  its 
mouth  on  the  carpet;  and,  after  lying  for  some  time,  it  actually  rang 
when  nothing  could  have  touched  it.  The  bell  was  then  placed  on  the 
other  side,  still  upon  the  carpet,  and  it  came  over  to  me  and  placed  itself 
in  my  hand.  It  did  the  same  to  Lord  Brougham.  These  were  the  prin- 
cipal experiments.  We  could  give  no  explanation  of  them,  and  could 
not  conjecture  how  they  could  be  produced  by  any  kind  of  mechanism."  ^ 

Concerning  the  marked  discrepancies  in  these  two  ac- 
counts by  Brewster,  Mr.  Podmore,''  altho  a  disbeliever  in 
Spiritualism,  is  constrained  to  remark : 

"  It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  interval  between  June  and  October  Brews- 
ter's mental  attitude  had  undergone  a  decided  change,  and  that  he  now 
finds  himself  able  to  "  conjecture  "—at  a  distance  of  some  months  from 
the  actual  facts— how  the  things  were  done.  It  may  be  urged,  indeed, 
that  this  change  of  attitude  is  due  to  the  discovery  of  suspicious  circum- 
stances at  the  second  stance,  described  in  the  same  letter  to  The  Adver- 
tiser. But  no  later  discoveries  of  the  kind  can  explain  or  excuse  positive 
discrepancies  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  account  of  the  first  sitting. 
In  the  earlier  account  it  is  expressly  stated  that  the  bell  rang  on  the  floor, 
when  nothing  could  have  touched  it ;  in  the  later  account  it  is  stated  that 
the  bell  did  not  ring ;  and  various  incidents,  tending  to  throw  suspicion 
or  ridicule  on  the  performance,  are  introduced  for  the  first  time  in  the 
later  account.  Suppose  the  positions  had  been  reversed,  and  that  two 
discrepant  accounts  of  the  same  stance,  the  later  account  embellished 
with  marvelous  details  which  found  no  place  in  the  contemporary  version, 
had  been  published  by  some  preposterous  Spiritualist.  Brewster  would, 
no  doubt,  for  our  warning  and  edification,  have  pointed  the  obvious 

1  "The  Home  Life  of  Sir  D.  Brewster,  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Gordon,  pp.  257-8, 
Edinburgh,  1869. 

'Podmore's  "Modern  Spiritualism,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  143-4. 


ii6       DANGER   OF   AUTO-SUGGESTION 

moral;  and  perhaps,  if  the  names  are  changed,  the  moral  will  still  serve. 
But  the  Spiritualists  were  denied  their  revenge,  for  Brewster's  diary  was 
only  published  after  his  death." 

A  scientist  may  be  superstitiously  afraid  of  superstition ; 
nor  are  all  truly  scientific  who  scoff  at  superstition.  He 
talks  much  of  the  danger  of  auto-suggestion.  Should  he  not 
also  be  on  his  guard  against  the  auto-suggestion  of  doubt  and 
of  predisposition  ? 

The  scientist  is  indignant  when  told  that  there  is  no 
physical  world.  Why  is  he  surprised  that  we  laugh  at  him 
when  he  tells  us  that  there  is  no  spiritual  world  ?  The  latter 
is  proved  by  an  interior  experience,  the  other  by  an  exterior. 
As  a  witness  the  interior  experience  has  the  advantage.  Says 
Du  Bois-Reymond : ^  "In  the  *  Law  Book  of  Research  in 
Natural  Science  '  we  read  the  same  command  as  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, *  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  become  as  a  little 
child  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. '  " 

Said  Tennyson,  "  Nothing  worth  believing  can  be  proven," 
that  is,  as  mathematics  prove  things  or  as  sense  perceptions 
prove  things.  Sense  perceptions  claim  to  be  the  sole  arbiters 
of  what  is,  self-asserting,  dogmatizing.  The  shortest  way  to 
truth  is  not  to  be  measured  by  a  tape  line.  The  intellectual 
and  spiritual  evidence  along  the  lines  of  inner  development 
is  a  far  more  certain  and  direct  proof  of  things  that  come  oti 
their  plane  than  are  all  the  senses  combined.  Here,  after 
all,  is  the  only  certainty.  Those  who  have  not  this  develop- 
ment are  blind  and  deaf,  no  matter  how  delicate  and  wide 
open  their  eyes  and  ears  may  be. 

If  it  be  true  that  man  is  a  spirit  incarnate. 
If  Christ  is         ,      .     .    .    ,  ,       ,         1,1. 

First  Fruits    ^"7  ^^  ^^  inherently  absurd  to  believe,  even  in 

of  the         the  extremest  claim  of  these  spirit  controls, 

Resurrection,    ^\^^^  ^j^g  ^[^j^q  ^[\\  come  when  a  man  may  take 

up  his  life  and  lay  it  down  again  .^  Christ 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light.  What  does  that 
mean  ?     May  it  not  mean  that  the  ego  in  man  has  in  it  the 

» A  Lecture,  "Tierische  Bewegung." 


TO   BE   MET   SQARELY  117 

power  of  development  by  which  the  last  enemy,  Death,  may 
be  overcome  ?  Goethe  once  said :  **  Mankind  is  always  ad- 
vancing, but  man  remains  the  same."  True,  if  this  refers 
to  the  race  of  men,  and  means  that  each  individual  holds 
his  position  relatively  to  the  whole.  The  high  spiritual  powers 
of  the  race  and  of  individuals  are  getting  into  the  ascendancy. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.  The  Church  has  not 
prayed  in  vain,  "Thy  kingdom  come."  The  thought  that 
Jesus  here  expresses  is  of  unspeakable  power  for  good  in  the 
world. 

I  repeat,  and  will  repeat  until  heard,  that  scientists  will 
not  get  rid  of  this  psychic  problem  until  they  meet  it  seri- 
ously, squarely,  and  give  sufficient  answer. 

One  earnest  man.  Garrison,  in  1835,  said  against  slavery: 
"I  am  in  earnest;  I  will  not  equivocate;  I  will  be  heard." 
He  thundered  on  in  spite  of  ridicule  and  abuse  and  mob,  until 
all  the  world  listened  and  the  wrong  was  righted.  There  are 
ten  thousand  believers  in  the  truth  of  psychic  phenomena 
to-day  determined  as  was  Garrison  that  this  truth  be  heard. 

A  few  years  ago  Henry  Seybert,  a  Spiritualist,  bequeathed 

a  large  amount  of  money  to  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

This  money  was  to  be  used  primarily  in  the 

investigation  of  Spiritualism.     Unfortunately    The  Seybert 

the  fund  has  been  turned  aside  from  the  pri-    ^      ^~ 

^         Great  Wrong 

mary  intention  of  the  donor.  Provost  Pepper  Done, 
appointed  a  committee,  giving  it  little  money, 
published  a  report  of  failure,  and  then  used  the  money  for 
other  purposes.  The  work  done  by  the  Seybert  committee 
was  exceedingly  inefficient,  a  mere  surface  investigation. 
The  committee  had  not  learned  the  A  B  C  of  investigation  of 
these  phenomena,  such  investigation  as  has  been  followed  by 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  No  one  doubts  that  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  is  investigating  Spiritualism 
and  finds  much  to  investigate.  Why  is  not  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  carrying  out  the  sacred  trust  of  a  dying  man 
whose  money  it  has  ?     In  this  the  University  has  done  a  most 


ii8  A    GREAT   WRONG    DONE 

hurtful,  unfair  thing,  and  even  now  should  right  as  far  as 
practicable  the  wrong.  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  a  doubt 
as  to  what  the  dead  man  intended.  Nor  is  there  any  doubt 
that  this  class  of  phenomena  can  be  and  is  being  effectively 
investigated.  Let  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  engage  a 
man,  equipped  as  is  Professor  Hyslop  or  Dr.  Hodgson,  and 
turn  over  to  him  the  interest  of  this  fund  for  a  few  years,  and 
see  if  he  will  not  have  a  report  of  startling  importance  to 
make.  The  University  of  Pennsylvania  can  not  afford  to  rest 
under  the  charge  made  by  many  intelligent  men  that  it  has 
been  unfair  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  a  will. 

Frank  Podmore,  of  London,  tho  hostile  to  Spiritualism, 
says :  ^ 

"  Spiritualists  contend,  and  not  apparently  without  justification,  that 
th6  intentions  of  Mr.  Seybert  were  never  fairly  carried  out,  and  that  the 
prepossessions  of  the  committee  against  the  subject  under  investigation 
are  demonstrated  by  their  willingness  to  leave  the  inquiry  unfinished  and 
to  divert  the  funds  entrusted  to  them  to  an  object  which  was  regarded  by 
the  testator  as  at  most  of  secondary  importance." 

It  is  a  grave  pity  that  this  wrong  was  done.     We  need 
much  of  the  kind  of  investigation  Seybert  had  in  mind — pa- 
tient, unemotional,  exact.     Why  should  not  a  University  deem 
it  worthy  of  itself  to  help  solve  the  question  of  personal  immor- 
tality, engaging  upon  its  solution  with  the  same  patience  and 
thoroughness  that  it  has  engaged  upon  other  problems  .-•     A 
few  scientists  are  engaged  upon  this  problem, 
Backward      and  already  reports  come  from  the  front  that 
^^•^^f  fi°^    indicate  startling  progress,  and  there  are  many 
Materialism,    indications  of  a  backward  swing  of  the  pendu- 
lum from  materialistic  pessimism.     Surely  it 
is  true,  as  says  Andrew  Lang :  "  There  can  never  be  any  real 
harm  in  studying  masses   of  evidence  from  fresh  points  of 
view."     And  let  us  have  the  common  sense  to  admit  with 
Aristotle :  "  Things  which  happened  are  manifestly  possible ; 
for  if  they  had  been  impossible,  they  would  not  have  hap- 
pened." 

1"  Modern  Spiritualism,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  194. 


THE   "COMING   ONE"  119 

After  some  thousands  of  years  of  study  of  the  physical 
world  we  are  still  conscious  that  we  have  but  begun  its  inves- 
tigation. How  much  more  is  this  true  of  the  psychic  world, 
which  has  not  been  seriously  investigated  prior  to  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  ?  Let  there  be  careful  scientific  inves- 
tigation of  every  evidence  of  the  existence  within  us  of  rudi- 
mentary faculties,  intended  for  use  possibly  when  we  break 
from  this  planet  and  our  prisonhouse  of  flesh  and  become 
cosmic  intelligences.  We  may  discover  that  these  faculties 
have  functional  uses  here  and  now;  and  it  may  be  possible 
even  for  us  to  find  out  their  laws  of  development  and  thus 
help  on  greatly  the  evolution  of  the  race. 

If  there  is  a  bare  possibility  of  this  being  true,  should  it 
not  profoundly  interest  every  scientist  worthy  of  the  name 
and  profoundly  interest  all  other  men  who  care  for  their 
kind.? 

Of  this  we  may  be  sure,  the  phenomena,  the  honest  psychic 
phenomena,  still  await  a  revealing  genius  to  make  them 
plain. 

Science  sooner  or  later  will  give  us  that  genius.  Is  it 
needful,  in  view  of  the  rapidly  increasing  multitude  of 
psychic  events,  to  put  the  ear  close  to  the  ground  to  hear  the 
steppings  of  the  "coming  one,"  a  scientist  by  faith  enlight- 
ened to  be  in  this  the  world's  Parsifal  ?  I  am  not  a  prophet, 
nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  nor  do  I  count  myself  in  "the 
sunset  of  life,"  nor  gifted  with  a  "mystical  lore,"  and  hence 
could  only  say  Amen  if  some  such  a  one  should  apply  to 
psychic  phenomena  these  words  of  the  poet :  Tho 

'* .  .  .  my  sight  I  should  seal, 
Yet  I  can  not  cover  what  God  would  reveal. 
'Tis  the  sunset  of  life  gives  me  mystical  lore, 
And  coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before.** ' 

1  Campbell :  "  Lochiel's  Warning." 


IV 

SPECIAL  "SPIRIT-TALKS"   TO    CLERGYMEN 

"You  are  a  clergyman"  is  a  greeting  I  meet  with  at 
almost  every  new  circle  or  seance  which  I  attend ;  "  we  have 
something  special  to  say  to  you." 

My  answer  usually  is :  "  Say  on." 

And  they  say  on,  wise  or  otherwise,  more  often  the  latter; 
often  these  utterances  are  very  curious,  and  sometimes  so 
profound  as  to  give  me  reason  for  pause.  Frequently  they 
are  the  voices  of  criticism.     Take  this  one : 

"  Your  histories  of  the  Christian  Church,  biographies  of 
many  of  your  saints,  histories  of  your  denominations,  and  of 
many  of  your  revivals  are  shot  through  and 
A  Criticism  through  with  vanity.  Vanity  has  played  a 
Churches  great  part  in  the  advance  of  the  churches,  in 
the  persecutions  that  have  arisen,  and  in  the 
religious  controversies,  and  it  is  to  be  found  in  not  a  little 
degree  in  your  creeds.  No  man  is  truly  religious  who  does 
not  care  for  something  intensely  outside  and  above  himself. 
You  need  a  church  that  cares  first  of  all  for  the  glory  of  the 
truth  and  for  the  uplifting  of  humanity,  a  church  that  is 
alive  and  loves,  that  draws  the  energy  of  life  out  of  the  free 
air  and  the  free  sunshine,  whose  organism  never  degenerates 
into  mere  mechanism,  but  is  an  organism  that  adapts  means 
to  ends,  as  the  growth  of  humanity  makes  man  vary.  How 
can  the  machinery  of  the  Middle  Ages  help  you  now  and 
here  in  America }  To  have  fine  church  buildings,  eloquent 
preachers,  big  pew  rentals,  and  increasing  membership — 
what  are  all  there  but  vanity  ?  Go  wash  the  feet  of  the  poor, 
give  drink  to  the  thirsty,  and  put  new  heart  into  the  dis- 
couraged— that  is  what  you  ought  to  do. 

xao 


HEAVEN   AT   HAND  121 

"The  street  harlots  are  nearer  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
than  is  the  average  preacher,  for  the  average  preacher  has 
become  the  slave  of  organization,  and  organization  is  mechan- 
ical. His  faith  and  his  love  for  men  are  kept  in  the  cold 
storage  of  an  icy  heart.  I  tell  you,  the  spirit  world  is  com- 
ing on  the  earth  like  a  rising  tide,  now  here,  now  there,  now 
everywhere,  receding  now  and  then,  only  to  advance  with 
renewed  strength.  If  you  preachers  will  not  hear  us,  we 
shall  find  our  audiences  even  among  the  poorest,  as  did  Jesus. 

"  The  best  of  men 
That  e'er  wore  earth  about  him.  .  .  .** 

Yes,  you  will  then  make  hysterical  haste  to  investigate. 
When  that  time  comes  remember  that  this  knowledge  does 
not  come  by  frenzy,  but  by  meditation,  study,  growth. 

**  If  you  will  open  wide  the  door  of  faith  to  the  spirit 
world,  you  will  see  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand, 
and  you  will  cast  out  Satan,  the  world  spirit,  and  then  the 
angels  of  God  will  minister  to  you. "  * 

Here  my  skepticism  got  the  better  of  me : 

Question:  "But  how  do  I  know  that  you  are  a  good 
spirit  and  not  an  evil  one,  or  that  you  are  even  a  spirit.-* 
How  can  I  tell  that  there  is  anything  here  beyond  my  senses, 
that  I  am  not  now  pumping  at  a  dry  well  ?  " 

Answer :  "  One  who  asks  that  can  not  know.  Your  ma- 
terialism is  the  stone  wall  that  hinders  your  progress.  You 
shut  your  eyes  and  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  light. 
Friend,  to  get  rid  of  spirit  phenomena  you  are  getting  rid  of 
the  Bible,  exchanging  humming-birds  for  mosquitoes,  killing 
roses  to  grow  docks,  running  from  sheep  to  wolves.  Awake, 
ye  sleepers,  look  up,  you  are  not  alone.     The  hills  and  the 

1  "  Up  to  the  highest  cycles  to  which  I  have  access,  the  distribution  of  force 
comes  through  what  on  your  plane  are  called  vibrations.  Forces  through  vibration 
are  brought  to  bear  upon  the  lower  cycles  by  the  higher,  and  through  them  is  the 
communication  of  the  lower  possible  with  the  higher.  Our  Savior  performed 
His  miracles  through  these  forces  which  connected  Him  with  the  Father.  He 
says,  I  and  my  Father  are  one  ;  now,  this  oneness  existed  in  His  willingness  to  be 
led  and  in  His  obedience  to  the  will  of  God.  This  made  it  possible  for  the  high 
forces  to  enter  His  soul  and  to  control  Him."    '•  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


122  COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS 

valleys  are  covered  with  multitudes.  There  is  no  death. 
How  long,  oh,  how  long  will  ye  sleep,  O  fellow  men? 
Read  your  Bible ;  it  tells  you,  to  some  will  be  given  the  gift 
of  healing,  to  others  the  gift  of  discerning  spirits.  Was  this 
said  only  for  the  old  times  or  for  all  time  ?  The  same  law 
governs  now  that  governed  then.  Only  now  your  unbelief  has 
hardened  into  a  rock." 

At  this  point  I  remonstrated,  urging  that  the  spirit  com- 
munion in  the  Bible  times  was  for  a  special  purpose,  and  had 
ceased.     Without  replying  to  my  remark  he  continued : 

"The  seventy  rejoiced  that  the  demons  were  subject  to 
them,  and  Christ  said  He  saw  Satan  fall  as  the  lightning 
from  heaven.  We  and  you  can  rule  over  the  evil  spirits. 
They  who  came  to  Jesus  desired  more  and  more  visible  signs, 
until  Christ  denounced  them  as  hypocrites  who  could  discern 
the  signs  of  the  sky  but  could  not  forecast  the  coming  of  the 
spirit  powers.  Where  in  Scripture  do  you  preachers  find 
your  intense  opposition  to  all  spirit  communion  ?  That  is  a 
book  full  of  spirit  phenomena.  You  say,  *  We  believe  in  the 
communion  of  saints.'  Cease  your  hypocrisies  and  lies. 
Tell  the  truth,  say  you  believe  in  the  communion  of  saints 
on  earth,  in  communion  only  when  it  takes  place  through 
your  carnal  senses,  and  that  you  believe  there  is  no  other 
communion. 
Contrasted  **  The  first  time  Saul  heard  a  voice  speaking 

«     ,y^^    ,      to  him  from  heaven  he  straightway  believed. 
Saul's  Ready      ^       .    ,  , 

Belief.         "^^  ^^  been  you,  you  had  been  startled  for  a 

day  or   two,  and  then  reasoned   that    it  was 

some  subjective  mind  delusion,  or  that  one  of  the  soldiers  had 

hypnotized   you,  or  some   juggler's  trick  had  been   played 

upon  you ;  *  and  with  the  aid  of  your  excited   imagination 

1  "True,  much  harm  has  come  to  the  earth  through  these  sources,  so  has  much 
harm  come  in  many  forms  from  the  unskilful  and  indiscriminate  use  of  dyna- 
mite ;  yet  dynamite  ^s  one  of  the  mightiest  and  most  helpful  of  your  forces 
Would  you  banish  it  from  the  world  because  it  has  brought  destruction  m  the 
hands  of  the  ignorant  few  ?  It  is  equally  foolish  to  stamp  Spiritualism  as  harmful 
and  debasing  because  in  the  hands  of  the  ignorant  or  vicious  it  has  wrought 
harm.    No,  my  friends,  learn  how  to  handle  the  explosive  dynamite  and  you  will 


SPIRIT   SENSES  123 

and  thoughts  of  ventriloquism  and  vain  belief  in  your  su- 
perior discernment,  you  would  have  put  your  conscience  to 
sleep  and  have  gone  on  with  your  persecutions.  Saul 
was  proud,  had  love  for  consistency,  was  loyal  to  his 
beliefs  and  comrades,  and  was  well  balanced,  and  yet  he 
turned  abruptly,  opening  wide  the  gates  of  his  soul;  be- 
ware lest  you  be  of  the  number  who  will  not  know  when 
God  speaks.  Christ  says  there  will  be  those  who  know 
His  voice;  others  who  will  not  know  it.  Many  clergymen 
there  are  now,  as  in  the  days  of  Christ  in  Palestine,  who  are 
not  able  to  distinguish  the  voices  of  the  spirit  world  from 
the  noises  of  earth.  Why.'*  You  have  not  the  spiritual 
growth  that  develops  the  spirit  senses.  These  things  are 
spirit,  and  to  be  heard  must  be  listened  to  by  a  developed 
spirit  nature.  How  will  you  know  in  'that  day*  that  Jesus 
is  in  the  Father.'*  You  will  not  be  able  to  see  Him.  If 
you  do  not  radically  change,  you  will  be  forever  *  doubting 
Thomases. ' 

"Your  unbelief  is  provincialism,  not  Christianity;  it  is 
of  this  hard,  commercial  age.  Christianity  is  universal  truth. 
No  one  can  be  a  developed  Christian  who  is  not  loyal  to 
universal  truth.  You  are  loyal  to  truths  that  come  in  at  the 
doors  of  your  senses,  and  to  no  other  truth.  You  say  that 
you  do  not  know;  say  rather  you  will  not  know.  If  you 
wish  to  know,  rise  and  follow  the  pillar  of  fire  by  day  and 
the  cloud  by  night,  for  God  is  in  them.  He  is  where  sincer- 
ity is.  Your  unbelief  has  sent  you  into  the  wilderness  for 
more  than  forty  years,  but  you  will  reach  the  other  side; 
whether  this  year  or  a  billion  years  hence,  you  must  deter- 
mine. 

receive  no  little  advantage ;  so  learn  how  to  use  mediumship  and  you  will  re- 
ceive untold  advantage.  Let  yovir  thoughts  dwell  upon  things  above,  and  by 
a  reasoning  faith,  and  a  sincere  desire  perfect  your  life  here  so  as  to  perform  the 
mission  your  Christ  has  placed  before  you,  and  you  will  find  a  ready  solution  to 
many  of  earth's  unsolved  problems  ;  and  by  developing  a  spiritual  insight  there 
will  be  revealed  to  you  such  an  unbounded  world  of  experience  that  your  souls 
will  be  lifted  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  earth.  This  vision  will  give  you  a  con- 
scious connection  with  the  world  above,  and  with  friends  now  invisible  and  to 
you  unreal."    '*  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


124  KEEP   MEDIUMS   PURE 

"Keep  your  mediums,  I  entreat  you,  honest  and  pure. 
Let  your  circles  be  holy  places.  Do  not  let  the  mediums 
be  the  victims  of  curiosity  or  of  whim  as  were  the  subjects 
of  hypnotism  a  generation  ago.  You  have  here  the  force  of 
forces.  Learn  prayerfully  to  utilize  it.  Friend,  hear  me 
— -you  need  me;  I  do  not  need  you. 

"  The  heart  of  the  Church  beats  altogether  too  feebly. 
We  would  administer  to  it  the  digitalis  of  Spiritualism." 

Why  this  reasoning  is  not  satisfactory  to  me  is  because 
the  proof  I  ask  for  is  on  the  physical  plane,  while  the  proof 
this  spirit  talks  about  is  on  the  spiritual  plane.  To  know 
Christ  spiritually  and  believe  that  He  was  sent  down  from 
the  Father  is  one  thing,  but  for  the  disciples  to  have  believed 
that  the  one  who  claimed  to  be  Christ  after  the  resurrection 
was  the  same  person  they  had  previously  known  as  Christ 
was  altogether  a  different  matter.  The  one  required  a  spiri- 
tual growth  that  would  give  spiritual  discernment ;  the  other 
required  memory  of  physical  facts.  Christ  identified  Him- 
self to  the  disciples  at  Emmaus  by  breaking  bread  in  the  way 
that  they  had  seen  Him  do  it  before  death,  and  He  identified 
Himself  to  Thomas  by  the  wounds  in  His  hands  and  His 
side — all  physical  facts.  All  Thomas  needed  was  memory; 
it  surely  did  not  require  growth  to  remember  the  spear  and 
the  nails.  But  **  in  that  day  "  to  know  that  Christ  is  in  the 
Father,  and  we  in  Him,  and  He  in  us,  will  require  ^r^ze^///. 
My  spirit  mother  can  identify  herself  to  me  by  an  appeal  to 
my  memory  in  telling  me  facts  only  known  to  herself  and 
myself.  When  I  ask  for  such  proof,  and  am  answered,  You 
must  grow  spiritually  before  it  can  be  given  you,  is  it  strange 
that  I  deem  this  information  inconclusive  ?  The  puzzle  is 
that  this  intelligence,  if  he  was  what  he  claimed  to  be,  did 
not  reason  more  closely.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he  was 
not  what  he  claimed  to  be,  what  was  he?  I  continued  the 
talk  with  this  intelligence : 

Question  :  "  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  letter  from  an  eminent 
clergyman,  who  says  that  in  his  experience  much  harm  has 


A   GIGANTIC   FACT  125 

come  from  Spiritualism;  many  members  have  been  drawn 
from  his  and  other  churches  by  it;  husbands  and  wives  have 
been  separated,  and  industrious  men  made  idlers  and  ruined. 
What  reply  to  this  ?  " 

Answer :   "  A  new  truth  often  works  harm.     Have  you 
forgotten   how  in  the  early  history  of   Christianity  many 
threw  off  all  restraint  and  went  naked  ?     Do 
you  not   remember  the  story  of  the  Anabap-    ^s  Spiritual- 
tists  in  Luther's  day.?     Was  not  the  Salem     ^    4.    4.1, 
witchcraft  an  outgrowth  of  belief  in  the  Bible  ?        Church  ? 
Master  the  laws  of  Spiritualism  on  your  side, 
let  us  master  them  on  ours,  and  then  you  may  judge.     Do 
not  come  to  hasty  conclusions.     Many  thousands  of  people 
have  been  killed  by  electricity.     What  is  the  remedy  ?     Mas- 
ter its  laws,  and  then  you  have  a  great  helper.     Avoid  hasty 
conclusions,  that  bane  of  reasoning. 

"  You  compel  us  to  repeat  truths  again  and  again.  Why 
are  you  so  slow  to  believe  ?  Why  do  you  not  understand  ? 
You  must  realize  it  to  be  a  fact  that  evil  spirits  have  among 
them  those  who  are  capable  of  great  cunning  and  deviltry, 
who  come  to  you  in  the  garb  of  angels  of  light,  and  are  wolves 
in  sheep's  clothing,  that  they  may  deceive  all  those  who  are 
not  spiritually  proof  against  them,  proof  by  the  law  of  good 
intention.  You  are  face  to  face  with  a  gigantic  fact  that 
means  both  good  and  evil.  A  medium  can  become  an  open 
door  through  whom  will  come  a  most  disagreeable  set  of 
people  from  the  other  world  or  a  most  agreeable  set  of  people ; 
it  will  all  depend  upon  yourself  and  upon  your  medium. 
You  get  what  you  bring.  The  circle  simply- reveals  the 
manifestations  you  make  possible.  You  determine  the  kind 
of  manifestations  these  will  be.*     Moses  called  good  spirits, 

»  "  This  is  very  true ;  and  why  do  you  hesitate  to  accept  it  ?  Would  you  not  ex- 
pect that  the  conditions  are  essentially  different  in  a  room  filled  with  people  cul- 
tivated and  congenial,  filled  with  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  and  vibrant  with  sweet 
music,  from  what  they  are  in  a  gambling-hell,  no  matter  how  brilliant  the  lights 
and  alluring  the  surroundings,  and  the  courtesies  given  you  ?  In  the  atmosphere  of 
the  one  there  would  be  to  your  soul  harmony  and  peace;  in  that  of  the  other  there 
would  be  disturbance  and  unrest,  no  matter  how  gaudy  or  glittering  ia  outward 


126  KEY   TO   THE    BIBLE 

and  then  the  magicians  called  evil  spirits  to  imitate  the  won- 
ders that  Moses  wrought.  The  magicians  did  all  that  Moses 
did.  It  was  not  wise  then  to  deny  the  genuine  because  of 
the  correctness  of  the  counterfeit.  Pharaoh  did,  and  made 
an  awful  mistake.  It  would  be  unfortunate  if  the  Church 
were  not  wiser  to-day. 

"  Spiritualism  is  the  natural  heirloom  of  the  Church,  and 
should  be  hailed  with  rejoicing.  Rightly  understood,  it  is 
the  key  to  the  Bible  and  it  will  usher  in  your  millennium. 
It  will  teach  you  to  love  truth,  goodness,  spirituality,  and  to 
prefer  others  to  yourselves — these  are  more  to  be  desired 
than  your  billions  of  money  and  all  of  your  physical  discov- 
eries. You  churchmen  have  a  moral  and  spiritual  astigma- 
tism distressful  to  behold,  and  yet  you  think  you  have  per- 
fect sight.  You  repeat  to  yourselves  the  blindness  of  the 
Pharisees  when  Jesus  was  with  them.  You  too  are  blind 
leaders  of  the  blind ! 

"  How  will  this  age  escape  the  pathetic  experience  of 
Rome  and  Greece  when  those  people  became  conscious  that 
their  faith  in  their  gods  had  died } 

"  You  say  you  believe  in  the  spirit  world.  Put  then  your 
belief  to  the  test  of  a  full  investigation,  and  see  if  spirits  will 
not  respond.  Do  this  in  the  right  mind,  with  effort  to  realize 
that  your  faith  is  a  fact,  and  you  will  be  led  logically  to  accept 
spirit  communication. 

"  You  clergymen  are  too  busy  taking  care  of  the  machin- 
ery of  religion  to  look  for  God  in  the  machine.  You  wor- 
ship the  letter,  but  forget  that  the  letter  killeth.  Accept 
Spiritualism,  understand  the  laws  of  mediumship,  and  protect 

appearance.  You  would  feel  the  one  elevating,  the  other  debasing.  The  occu- 
pants of  the  latter  might  assume  the  outward  garb  of  light,  but  to  j'our  soul 
there  would  be  the  grinning  skull  behind  the  smiling  face.  However  pure  the 
atmosphere  you  take  with  you,  in  this  wicked  place  it  will  become  vitiated,  un- 
clean, partaking  of  the  nature  of  the  surrounding  atmosphere.  In  this  way  it  is 
that  a  class  of  wicked  persons  invite  spirits  that  are  in  harmony,  and  the  medium 
is  the  conductor  through  which  all  these  influences  must  be  expressed.  How  can 
communications  be  of  a  high  order  if  the  correspondences  are  of  a  low  order  ?  It 
would  be  as  impossible  as  it  is  for  you  to  draw  from  a  stagnant  pond  the  clear 
eparkling  waters  of  a  mountain  rill."    "  Pastor  "—see  Preface. 


\ 


DECORATED    CORPSES  127 

and  develop  mediums,  and  you  will  find  that  Spiritualism 
will  be  the  greatest  friend  the  Church  has  had  since  Jesus 
left  earth.  Do  not  be  afraid  that  Spiritualism  will  destroy 
the  Church.  It  may  burst  the  rivets  and  loose  the  joints  in 
much  of  your  dogmatic  theology,  but  it  will  leave  the  essen- 
tials of  religion,  of  Christianity  unchanged — these  are  in- 
grained in  the  mental  and  spiritual  universe.  Fear  not,  the 
physical  universe  will  be  ground  to  powder  before  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  a  spirit  truth  will  fail." 

I  replied :  But  how  are  we  to  judge  Spiritualism  except 
by  its  fruit  .^  Thus  judged,  it  merits  little  recognition  by 
the  Church.  What  has  it  done.**  His  reply  was  that  Spiri- 
tualism, through  the  investigations  of  leading  scientists  who 
are  almost  in  spite  of  themselves  making  clear  the  spirit 
origin  of  some  of  these  phenomena,  as  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  has  already  stemmed  the  current  of 
scientific  materialistic  thinking,  so  that  now  the  materialism 
in  the  Church  was  the  chief  danger.     He  continued : 

"  Materialistic  thinking  is  the  dead  weight  on  the  Church. 
It  has  been  said  that  about  the  only  light  of  heaven  that  gets 
into  your  churches  is  through  the  colored  glass 
in  your  pictured  windows — a  light  that  is  dimly      Revelation 
religious,  all  too  dimly  so.      Why  think  that  ^  ^?^ 

all  revelation  ended  with  Patmos?     Interro-        Patmos. 
gate  the  spirit  world  as  the  prophets  did.  but 
do  it  as  the  prophets  did.     They  came  with  fasting  and 
prayer  and  faith.     Do  likewise  and  hearken  for  answer,  for 
all  heaven  will  move  to  reply. ^ 

"A  materialistic  Church  has  no  vitality.  It  is  dead. 
Your  light  is  darkness.  Your  salt  has  lost  its  savor.  Great 
buildings,  great  organs,  elaborate  music,  splendid  ritual,  and 
marvelous  benevolences,  in  themselves  are  only  painted  fires 
and  decorated  corpses. 

1  "  Fasting  and  prayer  are  as  important  factors  to  pure  Spiritualism  as  air, 
food,  and  water  are  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  life.  The  failure  to  come  to 
Spiritualism  in  this  spirit  is  the  cause  of  so  much  disappointment."  "Pastor  "— 
see  Preface. 


128  GULF   OF   MATERIALISM 

"  Hearken  to  me,  ye  men  of  the  Church,  and  your  ship  of 
Christian  faith  will  sail  with  an  even  keel  tho  the  breeze 
from  the  spirit  land  through  the  cabinet  gateways  helps  fill 
its  sails — will  sail  with  a  more  even  keel  and  far  greater 
speedway." 

These  "  talks  "  to  clergymen  by  the  spirits  are  frequently 
aimed  even  more  directly  against  the  prevailing  materialism 
of  the  age.     The  following  is  brief  but  vigorous : 

**  Your  world  is  well-nigh  swept  into  the  gulf  of  utter 
materialism,  as  the  result  of  the  scientific  atheism  taught  a 
generation  ago  by  your  Huxleys  and  Tyndals  and  Darwins 
and  Spencers.  It  is  a  mad  age  of  commercialism.  The 
ablest  of  your  men  spend  life  most  absurdly  and  count  this 
superior  civilization.  As  your  Shakespeare  says,  '  They 
pile  up  gold  * — they  pile  up  honor,  they  pile  up  pleasure — 
*  like  bees  taking  toll  from  every  flower,  thighs  packed  with 
wax,  mouths  with  honey,  bring  it  to  the  hives,  and  like  the 
bees  are  murdered  for  their  pains.' 

"  Yours  is  the  gilden  age ;  call  it  not  the  golden.     Even 

to  the  larger  part  of  clergymen  a  spirit  world  is  a  dream. 

You  require  a  thousand  times  more  proof  for 

Gilden,        spiritual  facts  than  material.     Why.?     Jesus 

^  said  to  His  disciples  as  with  alarm  they  saw 

Him  asleep  when  the  storm  was  on,  *  O  ye  of 
little  faith.'  Thomas  would  have  taken  His  disciples'  word 
for  the  size  of  a  tree  or  the  draft  of  fishes,  but  not  for  the 
vision  they  had  that  proved  that  Jesus  was  seen  alive  after 
death.  The  Church  has  not  outgrown  this  faithless  spirit, 
but  has  strengthened  it.  Break  through  the  stone  wall 
of  your  materialism.  The  grave  is  not  the  sepulcher  of 
your  dreams.  Believe  me,  Spiritualism  is  able  to  furnish 
to  the  world  a  scientific  basis  for  Christianity.  That  is 
its  mission.  It  makes  the  spirit  phenomena  of  the  Bible 
continuous. 

"  We  come  to  save  you  from  materialism.  Communion 
with  the  spirit  world  is  a  necessity  to  you.     This  is  but  the 


CROWD    OF   WITNESSES  129 

beginning  of  a  stupendous  upheaval  of  that  molten  mass  that 
lies  down  deep  in  man's  nature,  and  which  in  the  past  now 
and  then  has  faintly  revealed  its  presence.  You  must  not 
limit  the  capacity  of  the  infinite  for  new  things.  What  if 
God  means  again,  after  nineteen  hundred  years,  to  have  the 
spirit  world  break  into  full  evidence — fuller  than  then.** 
Men  do  not  take  kindly  to  the  disturbance  of  their  material- 
istic slumbers  by  voices  from  the  unseen  world,  and  they 
dogmatize  about  the  impossibility  of  such  voices.  Foolish 
people,  not  to  know  that  Providence  intends  just  such  dis- 
turbance. You  can  not  turn  back  by  a  hair's  breadth  your 
earth  on  its  axis,  and  yet  you  think  to  reverse  the  lever  of 
the  moral  universe  when  held  by  the  hand  of  the  Omnipotent 
One.  You  spin  a  cobweb  around  the  earth  and  imagine  that 
you  can  stop  its  progress. " 

Question:  "But  what  is  your  remedy.?  In  what  way 
would  spirit  communication  supply  a  remedy }  " 

"  What  the  world  needs  is  outlook ;  believe  with  Paul 
that  you  are  surrounded  with  a  multitude  of  witnesses.  You 
must  have  a  rational  scientific  answer  '  Yes '  to  the  question, 
*  If  a  man  die  shall  he  live  again  ?  '  Were  you  to  have  open 
communication  with  your  spirit  mother,  your  father,  your 
child,  with  a  Beecher,  a  Lincoln,  a  Thomas  a  Kempis,  the 
Misses  Carey,  Margaret  Fuller,  and  were  you  to  know  that 
these  people  were  looking  at  you,  would  you  not  act  more 
nobly  ? 

"  No ;  you  do  not  believe  in  the  *  communion  of  the  saints  * 
or  even  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  Let  one  tell  you 
that  he  spoke  to  your  dead,  and,  like  Thomas,  you  would 
say  it  is  too  absurd  for  credence.  Even  tho  you  your- 
self saw  them,  you  would  doubt  your  own  eyes.  Dog- 
matic acceptance  is  not  belief.  In  that  day  many  shall 
say.  Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  done  this  and  that  in  Thy 
name  ?  but  He  shall  say  to  you,  I  never  knew  you,  depart 
from  Me. 

'*  I  tell  you  your  dogmatic  religious  belief  is  jacked  up 
9 


I30         ^         "FACTS   BEAT   ME" 

to  a  level  far  beyond  that  of  your  spiritual  development  and 
real  intelligence ;  and  your  seen  world  is  the  visible  stage  of 
the  unseen  intelligences  of  the  spirit  world.  I  say  intelli- 
gences. 

"  A  man  can  turn  a  wilderness  into  a  garden  and  a  garden 

into  a  wilderness,  a  straight  tree  into  a  crooked 

f  M  d     ^^^  ^^  ^  crooked  one  into  a  straight  one.     Is 

Spirits        it  hard  for  you  to  believe  that  even  greater 

to  Help  or      freedom  and  power  belong  to  the  spirit  world 

to  Mar         ^^  j^gj     ^^  ^^  j^^j.  QQ(^'g  physical  universe.'* 

God's  Work.  ^  .       .  ,,  ,      , 

Have  not  your  own  scientists  told  you  truly  that 

ether  and  matter  do  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time ; 
and  why  not  two  worlds  here  in  the  same  space  be  now  at 
work.?" 

A  long  talk  followed  on  the  materialistic  tendencies  of 
the  Church.  I  combated  some  of  the  criticisms,  but  to 
others  I  had  to  plead  guilty  for  the  Church. 

The  specific  suggested  by  this  "  spirit  control "  for  the 
mental  and  spiritual  disease  of  materialism  was  certainly 
efficient  in  the  case  of  the  famous  scientist,  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace,  who  says,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Miracles  and 
Modern  Spiritualism,"  published  in  1874:  "Up  to  the  time 
when  I  first  became  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  Spiritual- 
ism, I  was  a  confirmed  philosophical  skeptic.  .  .  .  The  facts 
beat  me. " 

And  Judge  Edmonds,  writing  of  Prof.  Robert  Hare,  then 
Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  to  this  day  a  celebrated  scientist,  says : 

"  Dr.  Hare  has  all  his  life  long  been  an  honest,  sincere,  and  inveter- 
ate disbeliever  in  the  Christian  religion.  But  late  in  life  Spiritualism 
comes  to  him,  and  in  a  short  time  works  in  his  mind  the  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  a  God  and  his  own  immortality.  .  .  .  The  last  time  I  ever 
saw  him  he  told  me  that  he  was  at  length  a  full  believer  in  the  revelations 
through  Jesus— th-.t,  in  fine,  he  was  now  a  Christian,  full  in  faith — that 
but  a  few  days  before  he  had  made  a  public  proclamation  of  his  belief  at 
a  meeting  which  he  had  addressed  at  Salem,  Mass.,  and  he  read  me  a 
long  article  on  that  subject,  which  he  had  prepared  for  publication." 


"BY   THEIR   FRUITS"  131 

This  is  a  test  that  Spiritualism  must  be  able  to  stand : 
"  By  their  fruits  shall  ye   know  them."     If 
these  fruits  are  not  sweet,  pure,  uplifting,  true,       T®st  that 
then  Spiritualism  is  worthless  and  must  per-    ualism  Must 
ish.     In  making  this  test,  I  would  also  apply         Stand, 
literally  this  text  of  John's : 

**  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits  whether  they 
are  of  God.  .  .  .  Hereby  know  ye  the  Spirit  of  God :  Every  spirit  that 
confesseth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  of  God :  and  every 
spirit  that  confesseth  not  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  not  of 
God  "  (i  John  iv.  1-3). 

This  to  me  is  the  supreme  test  of  the  rightness  of  Spiri- 
tualism :  Does  it  recognize  Jesus  Christ  as  the  revealer  of  the 
living  God?  To  me  this  Jesus  is  the  Light  of  the  world, 
and  His  cross  is  the  Niagara  bridge  over  an  otherwise  im- 
passable gulf.  There  is  that  in  my  deepest  experience  that 
responds  to  Christ,  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the 
sins  of  the  world ;  when  I  am  at  my  best  I  know  that  I  am 
utterly  unworthy  of  the  inner  kingdom,  and  this  sense  of 
unworthiness  increases  as  my  inner  life  develops.  Hence 
Jesus  Christ  becomes  to  me  more  and  more  a  necessity — 
one  whose  righteousness  in  some  profound  way  takes  the 
place  of  my  unrighteousness.  As  said  Gladstone,  dying: 
The  righteousness  of  Jesus  Christ  is  my  only  trust. 

If  Spiritualism  were  wholly  the  outcome    of  fraud,  of 

coincidence,  of  the  subjective  faculties  of  the  medium,  of 

evil  or  undeveloped  spirits,  then  it  may  not 

know  Jesus  Christ:  but  if  these  communings     «  t,  x-x  i. 
•'  '  ^        Substitute. 

be  from  spirits  who  are  from  beyond  and  above, 
they  will  confess  Christ  the  Savior.  With  me  this  proof  of 
identity  does  not  rest  upon  a  dogma,  but  upon  the  necessity 
of  my  inner  experience;  as  much  as  would  proof  of  identity 
with  a  Mozart  rest  upon  an  expression  of  music,  or  with  an 
Angelo  upon  the  expression  of  beauty.  It  is  not  intellectual ; 
it  is  experimental. 

I   do   not   think   that   I   magnify   unduly   Christianity. 


132  WHERE    RELIGIONS    MEET 

While  I  say  that  it  is  right,  if  correctly  understood,  at  all 
points,  I  do  not  say  that  other  religions  are  right  at  no  point. 
There  is  a  radical  difference  between  Christianity  and  other 
religions,  yet  if  we  go  down  deep  enough,  as  one  control  put 
it  to  me,  we  shall  reach  a  point  where  all  religions  meet. 
Lessing  illumines  this  thought  neatly  where  he  has  the 
Jewish  Nathan  say  to  the  Christian  monk :  "  Heaven  bless 
us !  That  which  -makes  me  to  you  a  Christian,  makes  you  to 
me  a  Jew. " 

A  man  should  not  be  afraid  of 

"  Truth  wherever  found, 
On  heathen  or  on  Christian  ground  ; 
Among  his  friends,  among  his  foes, 
The  plant  is  divine  where'er  it  grows.** 

The  indifference,  if  not  the  hostility,  of  many  Spiritual- 
ists toward  Jesus  Christ  stands  as  a  barrier  to  the  progress  of 
Spiritualism  in  the  Church.  In  this  they  are  often  misun- 
derstood, for  a  large  class  of  Spiritualists  are  imaginative  and 
sentimental  with  little  care  for  systematic  or  careful  state- 
ment of  religious  truth. 

Religion  with  other  Spiritualists  is  only  communion  with 
intelligences  who  exist  out  of  the  flesh — intelligences  on 
their  own  moral  and  religious  plane.  They  believe  them- 
selves talking  with  folks  who  think  as  they  think. 

They  must  let  me  thunder  in  their  ears  the  instruction  of 
their  own  spirit  controls — I  have  heard  it  so  often  that  I  can 
not  forgot  it : 

Forever  the  law  holds,  like  draws  like — those  who  are 
hateful,  selfish  are  apt  to  hear  talk  of  that  kind,  and  their 
associates,  whether  in  the  flesh  or  out  of  the  flesh,  will  be  of 
that  order.  Were  all  the  talks  heard  in  Spiritualist  circles 
after  this  sort,  these  phenomena  might  be  of  little  value  ex- 
cept as  proof  conclusive  that  there  are  intelligences  inde- 
pendent of  nerve-  and  brain-cells — that  there  is  life  beyond 
the  grave.     But  this  is  not  all,  nor  nearly  all,  that  comes 


HELPFUL   TALK  133 

from  the  stance  room.     There  frequently  come   from   the 
cabinet  requests  for  sacred  songs,  as  "  Nearer,  my  God,  to 
Thee,"  "Jesus,  Lover  of  my  Soul,"  "Blest  be 
the  Tie,"   "Rock  of  Ages,"  and  often  most        Whence 
earnest  appeals  to  the  intemperate,  the  pro-  g 

fane,  the  immoral,  the  selfish  to  cease  all  wick-  of  Talk  ? 
cdness,  to  live  clean  lives,  giving  strong 
reasons  for  these  appeals,  and  other  helpful  talk.  If  all 
this  be  the  work  of  devils,  does  it  not  suggest  a  house  divided 
against  itself.-^  It  is  much  easier  to  believe  this  the  work 
of  a  fevered  subjective  mind — that  is,  if  we  have  conclusive 
proof  that  there  is  in  us  such  a  mind. 

At  a  certain  stance  we  were  earnestly  urged : 

"  Free  yourselves  from  selfishness.  You  are  not  living 
as  brothers  on  earth,  and  this  is  the  reason  of  so  much  of 
your  affliction.  You  profess  the  Christian  religion.  Live 
it ;  give  to  others,  give  what  you  have,  give  yourselves.  Jesus 
did  this,  and  He  is  the  way.  This  is  not  Christian,  Jewish, 
Buddhistic,  but  simple  truth.  The  path  of  self- surrender  is 
love  for  God,  for  man,  for  right.  It  is  seeking  first  the  good 
of  others,  and  then  finding  that  all  other  things  come  freely. 

"  Hear  me,  Jesus  Christ  is  over  all,  the  greatest  and  high- 
est of  spirits.  To  Him  all  must  be  conformed;  there  can 
be  no  spiritual  advance  except  by  being  conformed  to  the 
requirements  of  the  God-man.  Earth  life  is  too  short  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  God's  type.  Growth  goes  on  from 
cycle  to  cycle.  It  is  not  well  to  tell  you  all,  all  that  this 
means,  nor  could  you  understand  it  were  I  able  to  tell  it  to 
you. 

"  You  get  rid  of  blame  for  sin  by  pardon  in  Christ,  but 
not  of  the  effects  of  sin.  The  effects  must  be  outgrown, 
and  growth  comes  from  the  purpose  of  the  heart,  from  the 
free-will  effort  of  the  sinner.  The  spiritual  husbandman 
also  gets  his  harvest  by  the  sweat  of  exertion.  In  this  work 
there  is  no  substitution.  You  must  work  out  your  own  sal- 
vation; so  must  spirits  in  every  cycle.     We  in  our  spirit 


134        STILL  "HIGHER   CRITICISM" 

sphere  can  hear  the  heart-throb  of  the  higher  spirit  worlds  in 
their  desires  to  help. 

"  Some  of  you  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  Jonah  was  swal- 
lowed by  the  whale,  and  you  think  that  that  story  should  be 
torn  out  of  the  Bible.     That   story  is  true, 
God  rightly  understood.     My  dear  friends,  I  have 

many  thmgs  to  tell  you,  but  will  say  now  only 
without  Spots,  this  :  Eye  hath  not  seen  and  ear  hath  not  heard 
t\iQ  full  meaning  of  your  Bible.      Do  not  lose 
faith  in  it.     God  has  never  made  a  sun  without  spots ;  that 
is  His  way." 

Higher  criticism,  if  this  be  really  spirit  talk,  may  find  a 
formidable  rival  in  a  still  higher  criticism.  It  would  be 
worth  going  some  distance  to  hear  Dr.  Briggs  or  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott  arguing  these  points  with  some  disembodied  intelli- 
gence in  a  darkened  s6ance-room !  After  the  battle  of  Gettys- 
burg, Lincoln  said :  "  This  war  is  being  fought  over  our  heads." 
If  the  contention  of  Spiritualists  should  turn  out  true,  this 
saying  of  Lincoln's  will  have  an  extended  and  tremendous 
application.  What  will  scholarship  count  for  should  we  all 
become  Spiritualists.?  The  seance-room  would  be  exalted 
above  the  university.  I  propounded  this  objection,  half  in 
amusement,  to  this  spirit  control.  He  answered  promptly : 
"  Your  universities  very  largely  would  then  determine  the 
quality  of  the  stance  circles,  for  remember  the  eternal  law, 
like  draws  like."     He  continued: 

"  You  need  the  spirit  world  to  help  you  in  the  compre- 
hension of  spiritual  truths,  and  it  can  and  does  help  far — 
immensely  far — beyond  what  you  think.  There  are  many 
conscientious  Spiritualists  who  overdo  by  being  overzealous. 
They  are  like  a  high-mettled  horse,  which  often  spoils  its 
work  and  tires  itself  out  by  needless  exertion.  It  is  well  at 
times  to  stand  still  with  a  live,  active  faith  and  see  the  ease 
with  which  problems  are  solved.  The  solution  comes,  you 
know  not  how,  but  it  comes.  But  unless  your  hearts  are 
rightly  attuned  to  the  higher  spirit  worlds,  you  will  receive 


THERE    IS   NO    DEATH  135 

no  messages  from  thence.  That  you  receive  none  is  proof 
only  that  there  is  fault  in  you ;  your  receiver-hearts  need 
fresh  attunement." 

A  Member  of  the  Circle  :  "  We  thank  you,  spirit  con- 
trol, for  what  you  are  giving  us  and  getting  others  to  give  us. " 

Control  :  "  No,  my  dear  sir,  it  is  God  you  are  to  thank, 
for  all  good  things  come  from  Him.  He  is  over  all  and 
in  all. 

"  Life  is  one,  true  religion  is  one ;  yet  the  religions  are 
many.  There  is  no  death.  There  are  countless  streams  of 
personalities  in  the  infinite  ocean  of  life.  This  ocean  is 
one.  We  live  in  God ;  but  God  is  righteousness  and  love, 
and  a  spirit  that  is  not  righteousness  and  love  is  a  disturb- 
ance in  the  ocean,  a  storm-center.     He  is  not  at  peace  and 

never  can  be  until  he  also  is  righteousness  and       _   ,  . 

.    .         Gods'  Re- 
love,  and  the  great  ocean  of  life — God — is  in    gtoring  Love 

trouble  until  that  spirit  is  in  harmony.  God  Never 
leaves  the  ninety  and  nine  and  seeks  and  re-  Ceases  toward 
stores  the  one.  That  is  the  Christ  spirit  of 
this  ocean.  That  is  religion.  The  measure  of  character  in 
the  high  realms  is  what  he  gives.  To  be  Godlike  is  to  be 
like  God,  and  that  is  to  give.  All  else  is  selfishness. 
Christ's  mission  was  to  reveal  this  truth — this  He  did  by  a 
life  of  sacrifice.  To  be  a  Christian  is  to  do  the  same.  All 
creeds  and  ceremonies  are  the  mere  shells  of  religion;  this 
alone  is  the  kernel.  Have  this  and  you  have  all;  have  all 
else  and  not  this,  and  you  have  nothing.  This  was  what 
made  Christ  the  light  of  the  world;  it  is  the  light  of  all 
spheres.  He  is  a  Christian  who  has  it,  and  he  also  is  a  light. 
This  is  the  sun  to  spirit  eyes.  Where  it  is  not  is  darkness 
to  the  spirit,  and  that  spirit  that  has  it  not  is  in  outer  dark- 
ness and  is  darkness.  This  love  is  gravity  to  the  spirit; 
it  draws  a  soul  toward  the  heart  of  God,  never  ceasing  to 
draw  until  that  soul  is  Godlike.  That  soul  is  born  again 
every  time  it  ascends  from  cycle  to  cycle — that  is  to  higher 
light  and  life. 


136  BEECHER   AND    INGERSOLL 

"  Creeds  and  dogmatisms  and  forms  and  ceremonies  pass 
away,  but  the  reasons  for  them  remain  and  men  will  never 
outgrow  religion. 

**  The  motion  of  the  universe  is  toward  wisdom  and  con- 
science and  duty  and  love.  If  any  one  would  have  success 
let  him  go  with  this  sweep.  Against  it  is  eternal  destruc- 
tion, hell.  The  law  is  eternal ;  it  is  eternally  true  that  that 
way  is  hell.  It  is  eternally  true  that  a  man  in  that  way  is 
in  hell.  But  no  man  falls  outside  of  the  reach  of  God's 
affections;  he  falls  not  backward,  but  forward  into  God's 
arms.  Yet  God  is  righteous,  absolutely  and  immovably  so. 
In  the  inner  world  punishment  is  never  partial  nor  arbitrary, 
but  is  always  in  strict  accordance  with  desert.  Justice  and 
mercy  join  in  sacrifice ;  the  supreme  exhibition 
Divine  Justice  of  this  was  in   Christ.      You  say  that  you  do 

-,     .^    .  ^  .     not  understand  how  this  can  be.     Neither  can 
Manifested  in 

Christ.  we  understand  it  fully,  but  waves  come  down 
from  cycle  to  cycle  with  which  this  thought 
harmonizes.  We  know  that  through  sacrifice  of  the  pure  for 
the  impure,  God  can  be  just  and  yet  exalt  every  soul  that 
turns  its  yearnings  toward  Him.  No  yearning  for  a  better 
life  is  lost.  Somewhere  and  somehow  it  will  bear  fruit  after 
its  kind.  All  efforts  for  the  benefit  of  others  can  not  but 
have  good  results.  Do  not  let  this  truth  of  infinite  goodness 
and  love  be  an  anesthetic  truth  to  you,  but  a  stimulative 
one.  Your  own  poet,  Tennyson,  quoted  in  a  letter  to  his 
son,  '  The  love  of  God  constraineth  us  ' ;  it  should  not  only 
restrain,  but  quicken  in  us  new  life  and  zeal. 

"  We  look  upon  sin  here  as  you  look  upon  the  disease  of 
the  body — a  soul  disease.  There  is  a  difference;  but  we 
have  soul  retreats,  soul  hospitals.  Do  not  understand  this 
literally.  You  can  not  understand  me  in  this  until  you  have 
grown  much,  very  much. 

"  I  see  Mr.  Beecher  talking  to  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  Mr. 
Ingersoll  has  made  very  rapid  advancement  and  is  a  bright 
spirit.     He  and  Mr.  Beecher  are  often  together  and  are  close 


MATTER-OF-FACT   PEOPLE  137 

friends.  Mr.  Beecher  says — he  smiles  when  he  says  it — 
that  I  shall  tell  clergymen  that  '  in  some  things  on  earth 
Ingersoll  was  more  nearly  right  than  was  I.  I  did  not 
always  speak  my  fullest  and  largest  conviction.  He  did, 
and  sometimes  a  little  more. '  " 

Right  glad  was  I  to  get  this  news,  and  can  only  wish  that 
the  later  reports — when  we  are  more  sure  of  the  wires  and 
the  identity  of  the  reporter — may  fully  confirm  it;  much 
gladder  than  I  should  have  been  had  I  been  made  sure  that 
these  two  stalwart  spirits — one  when  on  earth  a  strong  be- 
liever in  the  Bible,  as  he  interpreted  it ;  the  other  a  bitter 
antagonist,  no  matter  who  interpreted  it — stood  now,  like 
those  in  Coleridge's  Christabel : 

.  .  .  Stood  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 
.  Like  cliffs  which  had  been  rent  asunder, 
A  dreary  sea  rolling  between. 

The  talk  continued, 

**  The  great  seed-house  of  earth  is  the  spirit  world. 

"  Do  not  think  that  this  spirit  world  is  all  sentiment.     It 

is  thought,  order;  not  chaos.     Were  there  real  faith  among 

men,  faith  in  the  spirit  world,  then  you  would 

•  r  •  .  ,  \  I  ,,  The 

give  us  a  fair  opportunity  to  help,  and  you  could  seed-House  of 

judge  by  results.     The  power  behind  all  great         Earth 

movements  on  earth  is  the  spirit  world.      In     ^^  ^^®  Spirit 

World 
your  world  rise  and  fall  the  tides  of  our  think- 
ing.    The  work  to  be  done  is  to  break  down  the  partition 
walls  of  unbelief  between  your  life  and  ours  that  there  may 
be  unrestricted  intercourse.     This  truth  is  one  of  immense 
importance. 

"  You  say  these  angels  do  not  talk  as  you  thought  angels 
would  talk.  Did  you  think  us  ethereal,  dreamy ;  and  instead 
you  find  us  a  matter-of-fact  people  ?  We  are  your  brothers, 
a  mighty  spirit  world  of  men  and  women  obscured  from  you 
behind  a  veil  of  flesh  that  hides  your  eyes.  Our  world  inter- 
sperses yours.     We  also  have  bodies ;  the  vibrations  of  our 


138 


KIND    TO   ANIMALS 


bodies  are  more  rapid  than  those  of  the  ;r-ray,  so  that  we  can 
pass  through  all  of  what  you  call  solids,  as  the  ^-ray  passes 
through  some,  and  as  Christ's  resurrected  body  passed  through 
the  closed  door  into  the  presence  of  His  disciples. 

**  I  will  show  you  how  altogether  human  we  are :  There 
is  here  a  little  girl  who  has  passed  out  of  life  only  a  short 
time,  and  she  wishes  me  to  tell  her  mother,  who  is  here  in 

the  circle,  Mrs. ,  that  she  is  so  glad  that  her  little  pets 

have  been  taken  care  of  since  she  passed  to  this  side.  Now 
is  not  that  natural  ?  Does  it  not  show  how  little  this  child 
has  changed }  And  I  want  to  say  to  you  all,  love  animals 
that  are  about  you  and  treat  them  kindly.  God  wishes  it — 
the  spirit  world  wishes  it.  That  man  who  is  kind  to  his 
animals  will  be  apt  to  have  kind  animals.  An  ugly  tempered 
man  will  be  apt  to  have  ugly  tempered  animals.  Animals 
do  not  cease  with  their  earth  existence.  When  will  you 
know  that  the  universe  is  unlimited  and  eternal,  and  that  the 
spirit  universe  and  the  physical  universe  are  not  two  separate 
universes  ?  Think  what  that  means.  Ye  slow-witted  men, 
how  often  must  this  simplest  of  truths  be  told  you  .-*  And 
yet  you  think  nothing  can  be  true  that  you  can  not  think 
around  and  through  and  understand  altogether. 

"  There  is  also  a  woman  in  this  circle  who  has  an  invalid 
child,  whose  physical  and  mental  development  had  been 
arrested  for  years.  I  wish  to  say  to  that  mother,  your  love 
to  that  child,  who  is  so  devoted  to  you,  illus- 
trates that  God's  love  to  us  is  not  because  we 
help  Him,  but  because  we  need  Him,  and  He 
helps  us ;  and  the  best  that  He  asks  of  us  is 
that  we  should  be  willing  to  let  Him  help  us 
by  His  providence  and  His  grace.  He  is  glorified  not  by 
rising  above  Himself,  but  by  condescension,  and  the  anthem 
*  Glory  to  God  in  the  Highest '  was  heard  on  earth  when  the 
Eternal  One  descended  to  our  humanity  and  dwelt  with  the 
Holy  Child  at  Bethlehem.  And  as  we  in  our  poor  way  repeat 
that  condescension  we  have  God's  love  and  show  it,  and  as 


Supreme 
Ooodness  is 

Supreme 
Helpfulness. 


GOD   CHIEFEST   OF   SERVANTS       139 

we  befriend  and  help  those  who  need  our  care  and  love  we 
grow  to  new  wisdom  and  excellency — we  grow  spiritually. 
You  say  that  you  would  go  to  the  lowest  pit  of  hell  if  your 
child  were  there.  Ah,  that  is  divine  love !  He  comes  down 
and  abides  with  us  even  when  we  make  our  bed  in  hell. 
God  is  helpfulness.  Never  forget,  He  never  gives  up  the 
effort  to  bring  back  lost  sheep — leaving  the  ninety  and  nine 
in  His  efforts  for  the  wandering  one.  Let  us  now  pray: 
O  Father,  open  wide  Thy  gates  for  the  dear  ones  who  have  gone 
before.  Grant  that  they  may  come  and  bless 
their  friends  in  this  circle  with  sweet  commu-  ^^® 

I^rfliVGi*  of  El 

nion.     O  Father,  teach  us  charity,  love  for  all         Spirit. 

Thy  works  everywhere.      And  grant  us  to  know 

the  spirit  of  sacrifice  that  was  revealed  in  Christ  Jesus. 

May  all  the  churches  be  blest  by  Thy  holy  spirit,  that  they 

may  learn  to  know  the  height  and  depth  and  breadth  of  the 

communion  of  saints  on  both  sides  of  the  grave.     Open 

more  and  more  widely  to  the  people  of  earth  the  floodgates 

of  the  knowledge  of  the  spirit  world. 

"  Clergymen,  why  will  you  not  accept  us  as  coworkers 

with  you,  and  make  of  Spiritualism  a  tool  in  your  earthly 

carpenter- shop }    It  will  prove  your  chief  tool.     Why  are  you 

content  to  get  your  religious  knowledge  on  hearsay  ?     Your 

knowledge  is  retrospective,  hearsay,  tradition  some  thousands 

of  years  old.      In  olden  times   people   were 

wiser.     They  had  direct  communication  with      -^^  Appeal 

the  spirit  world.     You  take  their  word  for  it,     ^   ^  .  ®® 

^  .  Inspiration 

instead  of  having  experience  at  first  hand.  Direct. 
We  tell  you  what  they  heard.  All  truth  car- 
ries with  it  its  own  proof.  Open  your  soul  and  wisdom  will 
justify  itself  to-day  and  in  your  own  experience.  The  uni- 
verse is  a  vast  whispering  gallery.  You  have  ears,  but  you 
hear  not.  Even  now,  after  a  score  of  centuries  of  Christian- 
ity, you  are  involved  in  enormous  errors  as  to  what  Jesus  and 
His  apostles  taught  you.  You  are  ashamed  of  the  ignorance 
and  superstition  of  Christians  of  five  centuries  back.     Chris- 


I40     STRANGE   SHAKESPEARIAN    NEWS 

tians  five  centuries  hence  will  be  as  much  ashamed  of  you. 
At  the  best  you  are  like  men  lost  in  a  strange  country  cov- 
ered with  Egyptian  darkness,  with  now  and  then  a  flash  of 
lightning  which  serves  little  better  than  to  let  you  know  how 
dense  is  the  darkness  and  which  gives  you  a  glimpse  of  the 
road  out.  Those  flashes  of  lightning  come  from  above.  Lis- 
ten to  us  and  you  will  have  broad  daylight  all  the  time,  and 
then  your  progress  will  be  rapid. 

"  We  do  not  claim  infallibility — we  also  are  learners,  but 
we  know  far  more  than  you  on  earth  know,  as  those  above 

us  know  far  more  than  we.     It  is  God's  way 
The  Higher       ,  ,       ,  .    ,  i  ^        ■,  ,       , 

Spheres        ^^^^  ^"^  higher  spheres  be  the  schoolmasters 

the  School-     of  the  lower.     We  grow  by  helping.      Sacri- 

masters        ^qq  jg  the  way.     That  is  what  Jesus  meant 

when  He  said,  *  I  am  the  way,'  and  that  was 

what  He  meant  when  He  put  stress  on  fasting  and  prayer. 

There  is  no  merit  in  self-denial  of  itself,  but  to  fast  and  pray 

takes  the  mind  from  self.     You  love  praise  from  one  another, 

and  that  is  dishonesty,  for  you  take  what  does  not  belong 

to  you.      Let  in  the  spirit  of  truth  and  you  will  know  that  a 

vain  man  is  a  dishonest  man.     You  follow  will-o'-the-wisps, 

and  yet  you  say  spirit  communication  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp. 

This  will-o'-the-wisp  will  turn  to  be  a  star  that  will  shine 

forever.     I  say  you  are  dishonest,  for  you  claim  credit  for 

what  is  not  yours.     Listen  to  me :    Who  was  the  Shakespeare 

you  knew  and  idolize  ?     He  was  not  the  man  Shakespeare, 

but  a  band  of  spirits  who  through  this  man  communicated 

with  the  earth.     This  band  was  back  of  the  consciousness  of 

Shakespeare.     He  did  not  know  the  source  of  his  inspiration. 

He  believed  all  came  from  his  own   mind.     You  wonder 

when  the  spirit  of  Shakespeare  now  speaks  through  some 

medium  that  his  utterances  are  inferior.     You  now,  if  the 

medium  is  well  developed,  hear  Shakespeare  as  he  is;  you 

then  heard,  when  he  wrote  on  earth,  Shakespeare  as  the 

Shakespearian  band  of  spirits  was." 

This  was  startling;  for  a  few  moments  it  looked  as  if  it 


CHURCHES*    GREATEST   ALLY        141 

might  prove  too  much  for  the  faith  of  even  some  of  the 
"rock-ribbed  believers  "  in  the  circle.  Yet  they  stood  it. 
It  was  surely  an  astounding  bit  of  information.  In  spite  of 
its  solemn  import  to  the  reputation  of  my  favorite  among 
poets,  the  thought  of  the  tremendous  possibilities  of  a  theory 
of  this  sort,  if  applied  to  other  of  our  great  ones,  diverted 
me  not  a  little ;  but  quieting  myself,  I  said  to  the  control, 
"  Do  you  not  think  that  this  explanation  will  be  ridiculed  by 
the  public  as  a  convenient  cloak  for  fraud  ?  "  "  Quite  likely," 
he  quietly  replied,  "  but  that  will  not  change  the  fact.  The 
explanation  that  Jesus  on  occasions  could  do  no  mighty  works 
because  of  the  unbelief  of  the  people  is  to  this  day  ridiculed 
by  some,  and  by  others  made  to  cover  fraud;  and  yet  it  was 
a  true  explanation.  You  hear  with  your  ears  and  the  lower 
part  of  your  brains ;  spiritual  truths  are  spiritually  discerned. 

"  Let  people  know  that  they  will  survive  the  shock  of  death, 
and  you  will  add  immensely  to  the  dignity  of  life.     Let  this 
be  a  step  with  them  from  belief  to  knowledge, 
and  hope  will  have  a  thousandfold  more  power     Faith  in  the 
to  lift  the  world.      Nothing  so  dwarfs  the  spiri-    -vVorld^Lift- 
tual  nature  and  hinders  progress  as  materialism,      ing  Power. 
It  were  better  for  a  soul  to  believe  that  he  is 
a  spirit  who  has  been  sentenced  by  some  superior  spirit  power 
to  do  hard  labor  in  a  prison-house  of  flesh  and  bone  for  three 
score  years,  and  to  grow  restless  and  beat  his  hands  against 
his  prison  bars,  than  to  settle  to  the  conviction  that  this  is 
the  beginning  and  the  end.     That  man  among  you  who  can 
get  the  world  to  believe  that  spirit  communication  is  a  fact 
demonstrating  individuality  and  immortality  will  do  for  the 
earth  more  than  has  ever  been  done  by  any  man  save  Jesus 
Christ.     He  will  place  free  institutions  on  an  immutable 
basis  and  lift  the  roof  from  the  world's  temple.     The  barest 
chance  that  Spiritualism  is  true  should  profoundly  interest 
every  intelligent  man  on  your  side  of  life. 

**  Do  you  not  know,  will  not  the  Church  understand,  that 
this  will  make  credible  the  strange  birth  and  the  resurrection 


142    PEDANTRY   VERSUS   KNOWLEDGE 

of  Jesus  Christ  ?     If  your  dead  can  materialize  and  walk  on 

earth,  why  is  it  strange  that  an  exalted  being  like  Jesus 

should   materialize   and   walk    on    earth    for 

Clirist  a       thirty- three  years  and  come  back  again  after 

Spirit.  ^^^  ^^^  entered  the  grave?  The  Church 
should  regard  Spiritualism  as  its  greatest  ally. 

"  The  Church  must  unlearn  much  of  what  she  has  learned. 
Why  should  this  make  her  hesitate  ?  Neither  is  the  Church 
infallible.  She  does  not  claim  to  be — at  least  the  Protestant 
Church  does  not  so  claim — but  when  told  that  she  is  not  by 
the  spiritual  world  she  bitterly  resents  it.  Your  dogmas  are 
milestones  in  your  religious  progress.  The  Church  too  often 
mistakes  theologic  pedantry  for  spiritual  knowledge.  Knowl- 
edge of  the  mechanics  of  music  does  not  measure  the  growth 
of  the  music  soul.  Said  the  Master :  *  Except  your  righteous- 
ness shall  exceed  that  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  you 
can  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. '  Why  ?  The 
inner  kingdom  is  entered  by  the  development  of  the  spirit. 
Study  well,  friends,  the  full  meaning  of  what  I  have  just 
said. 

"  The  higher  cycles  do  nothing  carelessly  nor  foolishly. 

There  is  high  purpose  in  their  determination  to  bring  their 

communication  with    you  into  the   realm   of 

The  High     your  consciousness.     It  is  not  a  matter  of  jest 

f  th^^^'^  't    ^^^  ^^  satisfy  wonder,  altho  many  of  the  lower 

World.  spirits  on  both  sides  are  so  using  it.  This 
trifling  will  soon  be  overcome.  The  spirit 
world  will  be  capitalizing  itself  in  your  thinking.  The  audi- 
ble communication  once  heard  by  the  world's  best  men  will 
be  heard  again.  Then  there  will  be  prophets  and  apostles  in 
your  pulpits,  and  then  there  will  be  no  complaints  of  empty 
churches.  This  will  be  a  visible  and  audible  demonstration 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ts  at  hand,  as  it  was  when  Jesus 
and  the  angels  at  Bethlehem  broke  through,  and  when  Moses 
and  Elijah  appeared. 

"  These  truths  we  know  that  you  will  accept  only  by  iter- 


ENLARGING   SELF-RESPECT  143 

ation  and  reiteration.  By  making  spiritual  truths  part  of 
your  thinking  you  will  grow  to  them.  Facts  demand  expla- 
nation of  scientists,  and  scientists  too  will  enlarge  their  ideas 
of  nature  and  its  laws  so  as  to  take  in  these  facts. 

"  All  this  will  immensely  enlarge  man's  self-respect,  not 
his  pride  nor  vanity,  for  he  will  know  that  this  is  not  his 
doing,  but  is  of  the  infinite  essence  of  all  knowledge,  and 
goodness,  and  life — what  you  will  call  God.  Give  a  man  the 
certain  consciousness  that  there  is  such  a  God  and  that  this 
God  is  with  him  and  in  him,  then  the  dream  to  him  of  a 
billionaire  will  be  a  triviality.  It  will  prove  that  personality 
continues ;  that  space  and  time  are  nothing  to  spirit ;  as  one 
of  your  own  philosophers  said :  *  It  is  all  the  same  whether 
the  distance  be  an  inch  or  a  billion  of  Uranus's  orbits.'  This 
is  not  altogether  true,  not  in  the  lower  cycles,  but  there  is 
much  truth  in  it.  Life  is  the  only  truth,  all  else  is  corollary, 
or,  rather,  shadow.  Take  heed  how  you  hear.  We  are  not 
permitted  to  tell  you  many  of  the  higher  truths,  for  until 
you  have  that  in  your  development  that  answers  to  them,  you 
misunderstand  them,  and  they  work  injury. 

**  What  is  life  ?     The  life  germ  of  dn  egg,  of  a  grain  of 
wheat — what  is  it.**     The  life  germ  of  the  body — what  is  it.^ 
The  grain  of  wheat  lies  in  the  ground  in  a 
sealed  vessel  for  centuries.     Plant  it,  and  it    crystallizing 
produces  new  bodies  after  its  kind.     Each  has       Power  in 
in  it  the  organizing  and  crystallizing  princi-     Materaliza- 
ples  of  its  own  body.     Yes,  but  what  is  the 
life  principle  or  power  ?     Who  can  tell  ?     This  crystallizing 
principle  does  not  perish  with  the  grain.     This  you  see  and 
believe;  why  may  not  the  human  body  also  have  these  prin- 
ciples ?    It  has.     It  has  the  spiritual  body  that  crystallizes  into 
form  after  the  earthly  body  ceases.     This  may  be  controlled 
by  us  through  the  force  of  will,  and  some  of  us  can  and  do  at 
times  crystallize  into  earthly  bodies,  each  like  unto  himself, 
and  reappear  in  materialized  forms  on  earth.     Jesus  was  only 
\h^  first  fruits  of  this  resurrection." 


144  JOSEPH    PARKER'S   FAITH 

On  one  occasion  I  put  the  following  question  to  a  spirit 
control ; 

Question :  "  Does  anything  exist  in  the  universe  except 
mind,  God  ? " 

Answer :  "  Yes ;  no.  I  can  not  answer  you  more  defi- 
nitely. That  is  a  mystery  we  ourselves  have  not  fathomed, 
nor  can  I  tell  you  what  we  know.  Nor  is  it  altogether  well 
to  trouble  yourselves  by  thoughts  so  far  above  your  reach. 
Why  should  a  schoolboy  struggling  with  the  multiplication 
table  bother  with  the  value  of  logarithms  or  calculus  ?  Suf- 
ficient each  problem  until  the  time  we  reach  it.  Then  we 
shall  have  that  within  us  that  answers  to  it  and  interprets  it. 

"  But  first  of  all  we  wish  you  to  get  this  practical  thought, 

to  fix  it  fully  in  your  mind,  have  it  as  a  certain  belief,  that  you 

are  surrounded  by  those  who  have  passed  on 

Surrounded     — folks,  not  etherealized,  shadowy  folks,  you 

M  it't^d       know  not  what — but    your  folks,  looking  at 

of  Witnesses,    you,  seeking  to  help  you ;  then  you  will  find 

it  easy  in  the  midst  of  temptations  to  keep 

your  poise.     This  gives  the  undisturbed,  quiet  courage  of 

the  soul  that  nothing  can  break.     A  man  who  really  believes 

that  angel  eyes  are  upon  him — that  is,  that  the  dead  are 

around  him  and  his  secrets  open  to  their  eyes — is  most  apt  to 

regard  his  life  on  earth  with  solemnity  and  circumspection, 

which  otherwise  would  be  impossible." 

That  many  eminent  clergymen  who  are  not  regarded  as 
Spiritualists  believe  that  they  receive  spiritual  counsel  from 
their  dead,  the  following  two  incidents  illustrate:  Joseph 
Parker,  the  famous  London  preacher  recently  dead,  said  that 
he  prayed  every  day  to  his  wife  after  she  had  passed  from 
earth.  He  declared  that  he  never  came  into  his  pulpit  to 
preach  without  requesting  her  to  come  with  him.  And 
again  he  said :  "  I  encourage  a  friend  of  mine  whose  wife 
has  departed  to  pray  to  her  and  to  pray  to  God  to  ask  her  to 
come  to  his  help.  She  will  be  more  to  him  than  twelve 
legions  of  unknown  angels."     And  General  Booth,  of  the 


LIFT   THE   FLOODGATES  145 

Salvation  Army,  in  The  War  Cry,  November  27,  1897,  under 
"  Communion  with  the  Departed,"  writes  the  following : 

"Through  all  my  history,  my  personal  intercourse  with  the  spirit- 
world  has  been  but  limited.  I  have  not  been  favored  with  many  visions, 
and  it  is  but  seldom  that  I  dream  dreams  that  impart  either  pleasure  or 
profit ;  and  yet  I  have  a  spiritual  communion  with  the  departed  .':aints 
that  is  not  without  both  satisfaction  and  service.  And  especially  of  late 
the  memories  of  those  with  whom  my  heart  has  had  the  choicest  commu- 
nion in  the  past,  if  not  the  very  beings  themselves,  have  come  in  upon 
me  as  I  have  sat  at  my  desk  or  lain  wakeful  on  my  bed  in  the  night- 
season.  Among  these,  one  form,  true  to  her  mission,  comes  more  fre- 
quently than  all  besides,  assuring  me  of  her  continued  partnership  in  my 
struggle  for  the  temporal  and  eternal  salvation  of  the  multitudes — and 
that  is  my  blessed,  my  beautiful  wife  ! " 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  conscious  presence  of  our 
friends  who  have  passed  into  the  beyond,  the  conscious  pres- 
ence of  another  world,  would  strike  through  and  through 
with  added  importance  the  present  life,  lifting  it  as  the  world 
is  lifted  by  the  attraction  of  a  near  planet.  However  great 
our  faith  in  the  presence  of  the  spirit  world,  there  is  some- 
thing startling  in  the  thought  that  the  dead  hold  communion 
with  us.  This  is  knowing  that  there  is  no  death,  that  the 
separation  of  the  body  from  the  spirit  or  the  spirit  from  the 
body  is  a  birth,  not  a  funeral.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that 
a  preacher  realizing  this  fully,  and  believing  that  he  is  in 
communication  with  intelligences  in  the  inner  world,  be- 
comes a  voice,  not  an  echo,  speaking  as  a  messenger,  an  am- 
bassador, as  one  having  authority.  In  a  Spiritualist  church 
in  Brooklyn  there  is  this  motto  over  the  pulpit,  "  The  Fra- 
ternity of  Soul  Communion." 

I  have  heard  these  strange  intelligences  from  the  cabinets 
urge  a  hundred  times  their  ability  immensely  to  help  human- 
ity beyond  what  they  are  now  helping  it  if  we  would  believe 
and  permit.     Said  one : 

"  Lift  the  floodgates  and  you  will  make  an  advance  in 

knowledge  such  as  you  have  never  known.     As  you  have 

often  heard  from  this  side,  there  has  never  been  a  great 
10 


146  OUR    ELDER    BROTHER 

intellectual  forward  movement,  never  a  reform,  never  an  ad- 
vance, but  that  the  thought  of  it  had  its  origin  on  the  spirit 
side  and  was  impinged  upon  the  brain  of  some 
Urgent        mortal.      Open  now  communication  so  that  we 

ppea    or      ^^^  transfer  our  thoughts  to  your  plane  more 
Intercom-  °  •'  ^ 

munication.     easily,  then  will  there  be  immensely  greater 

progress;  the  ocean  of  knowledge  in  our 
world  and  the  ocean  of  knowledge  in  your  world  will  inter- 
flow until  they  reach  as  nearly  as  may  be  a  common  level. 
Organize  to  study  seriously  how  to  get  help  from  the  spirit 
world  and  then  judge  of  the  results.  A  tree  is  known  by  its 
fruits. 

"  The  time  has  come  that  the  spirit  world  should  become 
your  foster-mother — nay,  rather  your  elder  brother  who  has 
reached  a  higher  level  and  yearns  to  help  your  world  up  from 
its  sorrow  and  ignorance.  Through  the  s6ance-room  the  two 
worlds  are  brought  within  credible  speaking  distance  with 
each  other,  but  these  s6ance-rooms  should  be  immensely 
multiplied  and  purified — multiplied  only  after  they  are  puri- 
fied. Now  they  work  blunderingly  and  do  much  harm.  It 
is  appalling  to  us,  your  lack  of  interest  in  this  work;  all  the 
improvements  of  the  past  centuries  combined  do  not  equal 
this  one  in  possible  value. 

"  It  is  thought  by  some  that  the  spirit  world  has  made  in 
advance  a  world  of  things  for  your  use — inventions,  philos- 
ophies, religions,  poems,  orations ;  and  have  them  in  a  kind 
of  cold  storage,  to  be  shipped  to  you  as  the  market  is  ready 
for  them.  Instead,  all  truths  and  systems  of  truths  are  free 
in  the  inner  universe,  and  come  into  your  world  whenever 
and  wherever  there  is  an  opening.  Do  not  forget  that  we 
are  your  brothers,  folks  like  you  are.  When  we  passed  from 
you  we  left  behind  only  the  shell  of  ourselves,  the  outer  form, 
hindrances  to  progress,  of  value  of  course  and  necessary, 
but  now  we  grow  more  rapidly  and  see  more  clearly." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  preceding  control  told  us 
that  there  were  many  higher  truths  they  were  not  permitted 


CRUMBS    OF   CONSISTENCY  147 

to  tell  us,  because  in  our  present  imperfect  development  they 
would  work  us  harm.  Now  here  we  seem  to  be  told  that  if 
we  consent  to  open  communication  nothing  will  be  kept  back. 
Dr.  Holmes  tells  us,  in  his  *' Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast- 
Table,"  that  he  objected  vigorously  against  the  obtrusion  of 
a  fact  in  contradiction  to  something  he  was  saying ;  not  that 
he  objected  to  facts — he  liked  facts;  but  because  he  believed 
bread  to  be  good,  is  no  reason  why,  he  said,  he  should  per- 
mit a  crumb  to  be  blown  down  his  throat  and  strangle  him. 
Possibly  these  controls  would  say  the  same  should  we  ven- 
ture to  intrude  in  their  talks  any  references  to  crumbs  of 
consistency. 

Question  from  one  in  the  circle :  "  Spirit  Control,  can 
you  not  make  it  clear  to  us  why  a  medium  and  a  cabinet  are 
necessary  ?  If  your  world  is  desirous  to  commune  with  clergy- 
men in  this  world,  why  do  you  not  come  to  each  direct.^ " 

Answer :  *'  Why  does  steel  go  to  the  magnetized  iron,  and 

not  to  a  piece  of  granite  ?     Answer  me,  if  you  can  tell  me, 

why  in  crystallization  one  atom  moves  to  this 

place  and  another  to  that  ?     These  laws  have  "^^^^7 

T-.  ,  ,  Mediums  are 

many  variations.     Do  you  not  observe  how     Necessary. 

some  men  attract  you  and  others  repel  you } 

Freed  from  your  present  coarse  bodies,  you  will  discover  that 

this  law  of  repulsion  and  attraction  is  almost  irresistible.     It 

is  this  law  that  helps  make  a  spirit  inviolable.     Every  soul 

produces  vibrations  that  protect  it  from  foreign  influences, 

we  may  call  them  spirit  or  thought  waves.     They  are  more 

than  those  words  describe.      Here  also  you  will  have  to 

think  my  meaning.     What  makes  one  a  medium  to  us  is 

that  she  sends  out  vibrations  of  a  kind  that  do  not  repel  us. 

These  vibrations  are  not  necessarily  from  her  high  moral  or 

spiritual  nature.     Many  elements  go  to  make  them. 

"  There  is  a  light  that  goes  out  from  human  beings  more 

subtle  than  the  physical.      I  can  detect  it.      It  can  be  seen 

by  the  eye  of  the  inner  or  so-called  spirit  body.     I  can  see 

it  because  I  am  in  this  spirit  body,  and  I  can  use  it.     This 


148         MEDIUMS    BORN,  NOT    MADE 

light  streams  from  the  solar  plexus  or  center  of  the  nervous 
system  of  the  medium.  I  can  now  see  it  streaming  from 
this  medium.  Will  you  step  up.?  I  think  that  it  is  so 
strong  now  that  you  can  see  it." 

I  stepped  to  the  cabinet  and  saw  a  glow  of  light  where 
the  medium  seemed  to  be  sitting.  It  was  too  dark  to  tell 
whether  it  was  the  medium  or  whether  the  light  was  not  a 
bit  of  phosphorus.     I  said : 

"Professor  Goodspeed,  of  Philadelphia,  has  just  an- 
nounced that  he  can  take  ;tr-ray  pictures  from  an  invisible 
light  that  is  imparted  by  his  hand — is  this  the  same  light  of 
which  you  are  speaking.?  "     To  this  the  control  replied, 

"  It  must  be  if  the  report  you  speak  of  be  true.  But 
I  think  that  he  is  in  error.  I  do  not  think  that  a  suffi- 
cient amount  of  light  comes  from  the  hand  of  any  one  to 
enable  him  to  take  a  photograph.  It  comes  much  more 
freely  from  the  solar  plexus.  At  any  rate,  he  will  find  that 
if  the  camera  will  be  situated  so  as  to  catch  the  rays  that 
come  from  the  solar  plexus  of  a  mediumistic  person,  he  will 
get  a  much  more  complete  picture. 

"  You  do  not  understand  why  a  medium  is  necessary. 
You  ring  up  one  on  the  telephone,  but  what  if  the  girl  in 
charge  is  not  present  and  the  switchboard  is  not  arranged 
and  connection  made.?  You  may  call  ever  so  loudly  and 
you  get  no  response.  The  medium  is  the  '  hello-girl,'  as  you 
call  her,  between  the  two  worlds,  absolutely  necessary  for 
making  communication  possible.  She  makes  connection  be- 
tween you  and  your  friends.  It  depends  not  on  the  loudness 
of  your  talk,  or  your  desire,  or  the  importance  of  your  mes- 
sage, but  upon  connection  being  made." 

The  control  said  much  more  on  this  point,  much  that 
must  have  proved  somewhat  discouraging  to  several  beginners 
in  the  circle,  who  had  been  telling  me  that  they  intended  to 
develop  mediumship.  According  to  this  control,  mediums 
are  born,  not  made — like  Victor  Hugo's  idea  of  poets  in 
his  reply  to  the  remark,  "  It  must  be  very  difficult  to  write 


"IT  WAS   NOT   I"  149 

good  poetry,"  "No,  sir,"  was  the  vigorous  reply;  "it  is 
either  very  easy  or  utterly  impossible."  As  has  been  said  of 
prophets,  it  seems  that  God  when  He  makes  the  medium 
does  not  unmake  the  man.  The  control  ended  his  talk  as 
follows : 

"In   thinking   out   what    I   have  told  you,  this  further 
thought  may  help  you :  The  man  nature  is  made  up  of  soul, 
spirit,  and  body.     The  soul  is  the  essence,  never  seen  even 
by  ourselves.     With  physical  eyes  you  can  see  only  the 
material.     With  our  eyes  we  can  see  the  spirit  body,  but  we 
can  no  more  see  the  soul  than  you  can  now 
see  the  spirit.      Soul  is  as  mysterious  to  us  as    ^°^  *^®  ^°^^ 
the  spirit  is  to  you.     God  is  the  essence  of  the       -gniverse 
universe,  the  soul  of  the  universe,  the  same  as 
your  soul  is  the  essence  of  the  body.     The  physical  universe 
is  the  physical  expression  of  God,  as  your  body  is  your 
physical  expression.     The  atoms  of  light  do  not  crowd  out 
the  atoms  of  glass ;  they  intersperse  it.     Another  world  in- 
tersperses this  world  as  the  soul  intersperses  the  body,  as 
light  intersperses  and  illuminates  glass. " 

The  following  supplies  a  very  curious  comment  on  this 
explanation  of  mediumship  and  adds  not  a  little  to  the  com- 
plication. I  take  it  from  my  notebook,  having  been  at  both 
sittings. 

George  Carroll,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  one  of  the  princi- 
pal controls  at  the  circle  which  discovered  the  Widow's  Mite. 
By  several  members  of  the  circle  it  was  be- 
lieved that  George  had  appeared  at  a  seance  in         Spirit 
New  York  the  preceding  Sunday.     His  mate-         Spirit 
rialization  there  was  spoken  of  by  Mr.  R.  as 
very  fine.     When  George  was  talking  this  Wednesday  eve- 
ning he  was  asked  by  Mr.  R.  some  questions  about  his  ap- 
pearance on  the  previous  Sunday,  and  was  thanked  for  what 
he  there  said;  but  to  Mr.  R.'s  astonishment  he  replied,   "I 
was  not  present." 

"  But  you  materalized,"  said  Mr.  R. 


I50       INVIOLABILITY   OF   THE   EGO 

"But  I  did  not,  for  I  was  not  present." 

"  Why,  George,  there  was  a  form  there  that  said  it  was 
you,  and  he  told  me  some  things  that  were  important. " 

"  But  I  tell  you  it  was  not  I," 

"Who  was  it.?" 

"  You  must  not  believe  everything  you  see. " 

"  Do  you  mean,  George,  that  that  form  was  the  medium's }  " 

"All  I  say  is,  do  not  believe  everything  you  see." 

"  But,  George,  the  medium  was  tied  and  could  not  free 
herself  easily." 

"  So  you  think ;  but  don't  trust  to  tying.  There  are  some 
things  about  mediumship  that  you  do  not  yet  understand,  and 
it  is  difficult  for  me  to  make  you  understand.  I  can't  explain 
all  to  you  for  two  reasons.  First,  I  do  not  know  all.  Sec- 
ond, I  am  not  permitted  to  cross  certain  lines.  Within  cer- 
tain limits  mortals  must  protect  themselves." 

"  But  if  spirits  are  permitted  to  come  and  deceive  us,  may 
they  not  work  us  great  harm }  They  already  move  chairs, 
tables,  and  make  things  disappear.  If  they  can  do  this,  what 
would  prevail  if  they  were  permitted  to  do  greater  things  ? 
They  are  not  subject  to  our  laws.  They  would  produce 
chaos." 

"  You  need  not  fear.  Spirits  are  not  permitted  to  inter- 
fere with  you  beyond  giving  you  some  phenomena.  You  are 
protected  absolutely.  The  moving  of  tables,  chairs,  etc.,  is 
permitted  only  when  it  is  necessary  to  do  this  to  give  proof 
of  another  world." 

"  But  what  is  our  protection  if  spirits  are  permitted  to 
represent  themselves  to  be  those  whom  they  are  not }  How 
can  we  tell.-*  How  do  we  know  that  you  are  you.?  May 
we  not  be  deceived.?  " 

"  Well,  you  will  have  to  learn." 

"  Why  do  not  the  greater  spirits  combine  and  protect  me- 
diums against  wicked  and  deceiving  spirits .?  " 

"  Why  do  not  the  greater  ones  among  yourselves  combine 
and  keep  away  wicked  and  deceiving  people  from  circles  ? " 


MEDIUM   A   DYNAMO  151 

The  above  would  seem  to  tell  against  Dr.  Hudson's  theory 
that  the  subjective  mind  in  trance  or  hypnotic  condition  is 
the  source  of  these  intelligences,  as  he  says 
that  the  hypnotic  condition  will  not  endure  The^ 

argument  or  contradiction.     Argue,  he   tells        ^j^^a^^ 
us,  with  a  person  in  trance,  and  he  will  not      Discusses, 
hear  or  will    immediately   come   out  of   the 
trance.     This  has  not  been  my  experience,  and  I  have  had 
frequent  discussions  with  these  trance  intelligences. 

We  had  this  further  talk  on  mediumship : 

Question :  "  Why  is  it  necessary  for  a  medium  to  go  into 
a  trance  state  to  come  into  touch  with  the  spirit  world  .^ " 

Answer:    "It  is  not  necessary  in  all  cases  and  in  the 
future  it  will  become  less  necessary,  every  year  less  and  less. 
The  soul  must  be  acquiescent.     That  is  the 
meaning  of  faith.     Belief  is  essential  now,  as  Is  Trance  Con- 
it  was  in  the  days  of  the  New  Testament.     Necessary? 
This  subjective  condition  of  the  soul  is  easier 
attained  in  the  trance  condition.     But  the  medium  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  negative  force.      She  is  a  dynamo  to  us  of 
psychic  force.     We  must  have  a  battery.     We  call  it  by  that 
name,  as  you  will  understand  it  better.     A  portion  of  this 
battery  is  supplied  from  your  side  and  part  from  ours. 

"  Let  me  tell  you  again  what  you  have  often  heard.  The 
spirit  world  is  seeking  recognition,  not  to  gratify  curiosity  or 
to  please  the  wonder  imagination  of  men,  but  to  start  a  new 
life  in  man,  that  is,  quicken  into  life  his  spiritual  powers 
and  natures.  God  has  made  man  so  that  he  can  not  find 
peace  until  he  is  in  harmony  with  himself  and  with  truth — 
that  is,  with  God.  The  spirit  world  is  starting  a  fire  on 
earth  that  will  not  be  quenched  until  this  life  is  made  anew. 
This  is  not  another  or  different  work  from  what  Christ  re- 
vealed. It  is  the  same  work  quickened  and  enlarged,  and 
the  influence  that  sent  Christ  to  earth  is  behind  it.  The 
higher  spirit  world  is  in  harmony  in  this  work.  Clergymen, 
of  all  men,  should  learn  to  measure  things  aright.     Good- 


152  TRUE   RELIGION 

ness  is  greatness.  He  who  loves  most  is  greatest,  for  love  is 
giving  self  for  another,  as  a  mother  gives  herself  for  her 
child,  which  is  the  most  Godlike  thing  on  earth.  Jesus 
might  also  have  said,  except  your  heart  becomes  as  a  mother 
heart,  you  can  not  know  God. 

"  I  apply  a  thought  you  mentioned  here  the  other  eve- 
ning :  In  the  spirit  world  we  know  only  that  up  to  which  we 
have  developed.  How  would  you  explain  to  a  brutal  man  the 
beauty  of  a  picture  ?  As  easily  explain  to  a  goose  the  value 
of  a  diamond.  The  goose  after  your  explanation  would  for- 
get all  you  have  said  at  the  sight  of  a  grain  of  corn.  Accus- 
tom yourself  to  think  of  the  soul  as  independ- 
^of  STrthf '*^  ent  of  the  body.  The  body  is  not  your  real 
j^^fQ^  self.     Your  life  is  unreal;  in  a  sense,  it  is  a 

deception.  You  kiss  one  another  while  your 
souls  are  repellent.  No  soul  can  be  kissed  except  through 
sympathy.  Get  into  the  spirit  of  truth  and  reveal  yourselves 
to  your  fellows.  Then  you  will  see  to  it  that  your  lives  are 
torches  in  the  darkness  of  this  world.  There  is  great  sweat 
and  worry  and  waste  of  energy  on  earth,  and  in  the  end  you 
have  nothing.  Spiritualism  has  in  it  the  millennial  age; 
it  is  the  prophecy  of  that  age  and  its  occasion.  Culti- 
vate your  spirit  life  and  you  will  find  it  to  be  that  which 
makes  of  life  a  day  that  grows  brighter  as  it  approaches  sun- 
set, and  your  sunset  will  be  as  the  sinking  of  a  star  in  the 
West  to  rise  on  another  world.  Religion — what  is  it  ?  As 
one  of  your  writers  has  said,  this  word  as  used  by  Cicero  and 
other  Latin  writers,  was  not  derived  from  relegere^  to  bind 
back,  as  some  following  Lactantius  have  asserted,  but  from 
religare^  to  think  or  ponder  deeply. 

"  The  truth  is  not  attained  by  less  thinking,  but  by  more 
thought.  But  there  is  a  higher  method  of  reasoning  than 
any  Aristotle  taught  you.  What  is  more  reasonable,  if  God 
is  infinite  in  goodness  and  reason  and  power,  than  that  we 
make  complete  surrender  of  self  to  Him.?  To  make  this 
surrender  is  the  supreme  test  of  reasonableness.     Conceit 


JESUS    IS    CHIEFEST  153 

is  falsehood.  A  chief  danger  of  your  age  is  the  loss  of 
the  consciousness  of  sin  and  dependence  upon  the  higher 
cycles  and  upon  God.  Supreme  fulness  is  through  supreme 
emptiness.  Jesus  is  chiefest,  but  is  chiefest  in  dependence 
on  the  Father.  To  feel  thus  dependent  is  simply  a  recogni- 
tion of  truth,  and  it  is  the  spirit  of  truth  that  is  to  rule. 

*'  I  tell  you,  friends,  spirit  truths  are  to  be  found  not  so 
much  in  psychic  research  societies,  as  upon  your  knees  in 
your  closets.  An  humble  one  has  an  open  doorway  to  the 
heart  and  mind  of  God.  You  call  this  preaching ;  I  am  not 
preaching.  I  am  telling  you  the  A  B  C  of  truth.  I  am 
a  fingerboard  to  the  way  upward,  the  way  of  life.  These  are 
the  foundations  to  build  on,  the  hope  of  the  world.  How 
will  you  lift  your  wretched  and  poor  except  you  kindle  in 
them  hope  ?  Give  your  depressed  ones  this  hope  through  a 
vision  of  the  majesty  and  glory  and  importance  of  the  spirit 
world  and  the  certainty  of  its  presence,  and  you  will  have 
rolled  the  stone  from  the  mouth  of  the  sepulcher.  It  is  resur- 
rection and  life  to  the  world.  Here  are  joy  and  growth  and 
riches,  more  real  than  anything  on  earth.  O  ye  fools  and 
slow  of  heart  to  believe  the  truths  that  we  iterate  and  reite- 
rate to  you !  In  these  truths  there  is  nothing  denominational 
or  racial  or  provincial — no  more  than  the  sun  or  air  is  limited 
by  geographical  boundary  lines.     These  are  universal  truth." 

Every  now  and  then  in  these  spirit  circles  I  have  heard 
superior  intelligences  talk,  as  in  the  above  conversation,  in- 
telligences who  seemed  profoundly  religious, 
full  of  reverence  and  a  profound  sense  of  re-    Some  Spirits 
sponsibility ;  but  the  reader  must  not  imagine  f ^^^di 

that  this  is  usual.     In  my  experience  this  man-      Religious, 
ner  of  talk  is  the  exception.     There  is  gold 
in  the  mass  of  these  communications,  but  you  have  to  crush 
the  quartz  very  fine  and  run  through  much  water  to  get  the 
golden  grains ;  but  that  there  is  more  than  a  little  gold  there 
is  certain.     From  whence  does  this  gold  come  ^     It  is  claimed 


154      FREDERIC    MYERS'  TESTIMONY 

that   it   comes   from   another    kingdom,    the   spirit   realm. 
"Prove  that,"  I  again  say  to  Spiritualists,  "and  you  have 
proved  something  that  is  of  immeasurable  worth. " 
Frederic  Myers  says  ' : 

"  The  high  moral  quality  of  these  automatic  communications  is  a 
phenomenon  worth  consideration.  I  must  indeed  confess  myself  unable 
to  explain  why  it  is  that  beneath  the  frequent  incoherence,  frequent  com- 
monplaces, frequent  pomposity  of  these  messages,  there  should  always 
be  a  substratum  of  better  sense,  of  truer  Catholicity,  than  is  usually  to 
be  heard,  except  from  the  leading  minds  of  the  generation.  The  almost 
universally  high  moral  tone  of  genuinely  automatic  utterances — whether 
claimed  as  spirit  communications  or  proceeding  obviously  from  the  au- 
tomatist  himself — has  not,  I  think,  been  sufficiently  noticed  or  adequately 
explained." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  at  these  various  circles  I  never 
have  heard  an  obscene,  immoral,  or  profane  word.  This  is 
a  factor  in  this  problem  that  should  carry  some  weight. 

My  experience  in  these  investigations  has  left  upon  the 
whole  a  pleasant  taste  in  my  memory.  I  have  had  given  me 
much  nonsense,  much  that  was  disappointing,  much  repug- 
nant ;  but  I  say,  upon  the  whole.  What  a  delightful  world  is 
the  spirit  world  if  these  are  spirits  !  Thinking  myself  into 
this  belief,  I  can  easily  see  how  one  thus  believing  may  not 
have  the  least  repugnance  to  death,  and  would  enter  with 
gladness  the  other  world. 

»  "Human  Personality,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  133. 


PART   II 


THE    FINDING    OF 


"THE  WIDOW'S  MITE," 

AND 

SIMILAR  PSYCHIC  PHENOMENA 

The  Views  of  Leading  Psychologists 


ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE,  the  eminent  scientist  who 
divides  with  Darwin  the  honor  of  the  discovery  of  evolution, 
replied  in  <<  Light/'  London,  January  i6,  1904,  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  it  is  true  that  he  had  recanted  his  published 
belief  in  the  spirit  hypothesis  as  explaining  much  of  psychic 
phenomena : 

<<Dear  Sir:  The  statement  to  which  you  refer  is  abso- 
lutely and  entirely  false  (and  it  is  equally  so  as  regards  my 
friend  Sir  William  Crookes).  I  have  several  times  had  to 
deny  it.  I  have  arranged  for  a  new  issue  of  my  book 
[< Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism'].  I  adhere  to  every 
statement  in  the  book. 

<<  Yours  truly,  ALFRED  R.  WALLACE." 


SIR  WILLIAM  CROOKES,  in  his  President's  Address  be- 
fore the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
in  1898,  said : 

<<No  incident  in  my  scientific  career  is  more  widely  known 
than  the  part  I  took  many  years  ago  in  certain  psychic  re- 
searches. Thirty  years  have  passed  since  I  published  an  ac- 
count of  experiments  tending  to  show  that  outside  our  scientific 
knowledge  there  exists  a  Force  exercised  by  intelligence  differ- 
ing from  the  ordinary  intelligence  common  to  mortals.  This 
fact  in  my  life  is,  of  course,  well  understood  by  those  who 
honored  me  with  the  invitation  to  become  your  president. 
Perhaps  among  my  audience  some  may  feel  curious  as  to 
whether  I  shall  speak  out  or  be  silent.  I  elect  to  speak, 
altho  briefly.  To  ignore  the  subject  would  be  an  act  of 
cowardice — an  act  of  cowardice  I  feel  no  temptation  to  commit. 
I  have  nothing  to  retract.  I  adhere  to  my  already  published 
statements.    Indeed,  I  might  add  much  thereto." 


THE    FINDING  OF  "THE  WIDOW'S  MITE," 
AND  SIMILAR  PHENOMENA 


Detailed  History  of  the  Incident — Affidavits— Opinions  of  Forty  Psy- 
chologists in  Universities  throughout  the  World — Was  this  Beecher's 
Face?— Similar  Psychic  Phenomena:  Swedenborg,  through  "  Spirit 
Aid,"  Finds  a  Receipt — Finding  a  Will  and  a  Promissory  Note — 
Minot  J.  Savage  directed  by  the  Spirit  of  his  Dead  Son  to  Certain 
Papers — Prof.  William  James  Tells  of  the  Finding  of  the  Bankbook 
by  his  Mother-in-law,  through  Mrs.  Piper — Other  Phenomena, 


1 

THE   INCIDENT 

In  the  early  part  of  February,  1903,  having  heard  of  a 
woman  in  Brooklyn  who  every  Wednesday  evening  gave 
spiritualistic  "  sittings "  to  her  family  and  a  few  invited 
guests,  I  requested  a  mutual  friend  of  the  family  and  myself, 
Mr.  Irving  S.  Roney,  a  gentleman  who  has  long  been  in  the 
employment  of  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Company  and  who  has  the 
confidence  of  us  all,  to  secure  for  me  an  invitation  to  attend 
several  of  these  meetings.  I  found  the  family  plain,  intelli  • 
gent  folks,  in  humble  circumstances ;  the  medium  a  delicate 
lady  of  sixty-eight  years,  of  little  school  education,  refined 
in  manners.  The  family  is  composed  of  this  lady,  a  son  of 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  a  brother  of  fifty-eight  years. 
The  woman  is  a  widow,  and  the  brother  a  widower  whose 
three  children  died  many  years  ago.  The  controls  report 
themselves  to  be  three  in  number :  a  daughter  of  this  brother 
by  the  name  of  Mamie,  who  died  at  the  age  of  seven,  and  a 
friend  of  one  in  the  circle  by  the  name  of  George  Carroll,  and 
a  son  of  the  medium  by  the  name  of  Amos. 

157 


158  MANY  "SPIRIT"  VOICES 

The  sittings  are  a  kind  of  prayer- meeting,  a  weekly 
reunion  of  the  family,  "living  and  dead,"  and  have  so  been 
held,  I  am  told,  every  Wednesday  for  over  four  years.  No 
charge  of  any  sort  whatever  is  made,  nor  is  there  any  collec- 
tion taken.  The  communications  are  believed  to  be  by  direct 
or  independent  speech  and  by  raps,  with  lights  occasionally 
appearing  on  the  curtains.  The  medium  says  that  she  knows 
nothing  whatever  of  what  takes  place  during  the  sittings, 
being  lost  in  trance.  The  voices  are  of  a  great  variety ;  I 
counted  in  a  single  evening  as  many  as  twenty — some  appar- 
ently the  voices  of  children,  and  others  of  middle-aged  per- 
sons and  of  old  men  and  women ;  a  few  of  these  are  the  voices 
of  Indians,  and  one  of  a  jolly,  typical,  Virginian  negro. 
Each  voice  maintains  its  individuality  during  the  evening 
and  from  one  evening  to  another.  Listening  very  closely,  I 
was  never  able  to  detect  any  confusion  of  the  voices,  except 
on  one  occasion  in  the  voices  of  Mamie  and  the  negro.  Aunt 
Eliza.  When  attention  was  drawn  to  this,  Aunt  Eliza  ex- 
plained that  she  and  Mamie  were  much  of  the  time  together, 
and  that  she  sometimes  fell  into  the  habit  of  talking  "  like 
them  folks  I  like."  This  explanation  fitted  in  with  the 
theory  that  I  was  inclined  to  adopt  from  the  first,  that  the 
mediumship  in  this  circle  was  an  excellent  case  of  secondary 
personality,  not  of  spirit  control.  The  brother  and  son  of  the 
medium  were  always  at  the  circle  and  in  sight,  so  that  there 
was  no  collusion  possible  on  the  part  of  any  of  these  mem- 
bers of  the  family. 

The  medium  at  these  sittings  sat  behind  a  curtain  in  the 
dark.  A  dim  light  in  a  corner  of  the  room  in  which  we  sat, 
controlled  from  the  cabinet,  made  objects  about  us  faintly 
visible — by  it  with  a  little  straining  of  my  eyes  I  could 
tell  the  time  by  my  watch.  The  bedroom  in  which  sat 
the  medium  opened  into  the  kitchen.  The  conditions  were 
not  at  all  of  a  test  kind.  It  was  all  "  upon  honor. "  After 
considerable  investigation,  however,  and  fuller  acquaintance 
with  the  family,  I  am  morally  certain  that  this  confidence  in 


THE    BEECHER    INQUIRY  159 

the  integrity  of  the  medium  and  family  at  the  time  of  this 
mite  incident  was  not  misplaced.  The  greater  part  of  the 
communications  claim  to  come  from  departed  members  of  the 
family,  especially  to  the  brother;  this  brother  is  a  man  of 
hard  common  sense  who  seems  much  affected  by  the  commu- 
nications, especially  those  purporting  to  come  from  his  little 
seven-year- old  daughter  and  from  his  deceased  wife.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  above  facts,  the  absence  of  any  apparent  advan- 
tage to  the  medium  or  her  family  that  would  come  from  any 
trick,  as  no  effort,  up  to  the  time  of  my  visit,  was  made  to 
secure  sitters  and  no  money  directly  or  indirectly  given, 
make  it  hard  to  think  that  there  is  any  intended  deception. 

The  conclusion  that  this  mediumship  was  a  remarkably 
good  case  of  secondary  personality  was  almost  fixed  in  my 
mind,  up  to  the  time  that  I  had  the  singular  experience  which 
I  give  below. 

On  my  third  visit  I  was  quite  tired,  and  sat  rather  quietly 
during  the  entire  evening  listening  to  the  talk  between  the 
cabinet  and  the  sitters — of  the  sitters  there  were  fewer  than 
a  dozen.  About  eleven  o'clock  the  control  named  "  George," 
in  his  usual  strong  masculine  voice,  abruptly  asked :  "  Has 
any  one  here  got  anything  that  belonged  to  Mr.  Beecher  ?  " 
There  was  no  reply.  On  his  emphatic  repetition  of  the  ques- 
tion, I  replied,  being  the  only  one  present,  as  I  felt  sure, 
who  had  ever  had  any  immediate  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Beecher :  "  I  have  in  my  pocket  a  letter  from  Rev.  Dr.  Hillis, 
Mr.  Beecher's  successor.      Is  that  what  you  mean  ?  " 

The  answer  was :  "  No ;  I  am  told  by  a  spirit  present, 
John  Rakestraw,  that  Mr.  Beecher,  who  is  not  present,  is  con- 
cerned about  an  ancient  coin,  *  The  Widow's  Mite.'  This 
coin  is  out  of  its  place,  and  should  be  returned.  It  has  long 
been  away,  and  Mr.  Beecher  wishes  it  returned,  and  he  looks 
to  yotii  doctor,  to  return  it." 

I  was  considerably  surprised,  and  asked :  "  What  do  you 
mean  by  saying  that  he  looks  to  me  to  return  it }  I  have  no 
coin  of  Mr.  Beecher's !  " 


i6o  "IN   A   SAFE" 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  it  except  that  I  am  told 
that  this  coin  is  out  of  its  place,  and  has  been  for  a  number 
of  years,  and  that  Mr.  Beecher  says  you  can  find  it  and  can 
return  it." 

I  remembered  then  that  when  we  were  making  "The 
Standard  Dictionary, "  some  nine  years  before,  I  had  borrowed 
from  a  gentleman  in  Brooklyn — a  close  friend  of  Mr. 
Beecher's,  who  died  several  years  ago — a  valuable  ancient  coin 
known  as  "The  Widow's  Mite."  He  told  me  that  this  coin 
was  worth  some  hundreds  of  dollars,  and,  under  promise  that 
I  would  see  that  it  was  returned  to  the  collection  where  it 
belonged,  he  would  loan  it  to  me.  Altho  a  member  of  Dr. 
Richard  S.  Storrs's  church,  this  gentleman  remained  a  con- 
spicuous friend  of  Mr.  Beecher  all  through  the  famous  trial 
which  so  severely  tested  the  loyalty  of  many  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
friends. 

I  said  to  the  control,  "  The  only  *  Widow's  Mite '  that  has 
ever  been  in  my  charge  was  one  that  I  borrowed  some  years 
ago  from  a  gentleman  in  Brooklyn ;  this  I  promptly  returned  " ; 
to  which  the  control  replied : 

"This  one  has  not  been  returned."  And  then,  after  a 
moment's  silence,  he  said :  "  Do  you  know  whether  there  is 
a  large  iron  safe  in  Plymouth  Church  .-*  " 

I  answered :  "  I  do  not." 

He  said :  "  I  am  impressed  that  this  coin  is  in  a  large 
iron  safe,  that  it  has  been  lost  sight  of ;  it  is  in  a  drawer  in 
this  safe  under  a  lot  of  papers,  and  that  you  can  find  it,  and 
Mr.  Beecher  wishes  you  to  find  it." 

I  said :  "  Do  you  mean  that  this  safe  is  in  Plymouth 
Church.?" 

He  said :  "  I  don't  know  where  it  is.  I  am  simply  im- 
pressed that  it  is  in  a  large  iron  safe  in  a  drawer  under  a  lot 
of  papers,  and  has  been  lost  sight  of  for  years,  and  that  you 
can  find  it,  and  Mr.  Beecher  wishes  you  to  find  it.  That  is 
all  that  I  can  tell  you." 

The  next  day  when  I  went  to  New  York  I  thought  over 


THOUGHT   COIN    RETURNED         i6i 

this  curious  communication  about  "The  Widow's  Mite." 
I  was  certain  the  coin  had  been  returned,  but  the  insistent 
statement  that  it  had  not  been  returned  and  the  curious  fact 
that  such  an  unusual  piece  of  money  should  have  been  so 
positively  mentioned,  all  impressed  me  very  strongly.  Dur- 
ing the  day  my  brother,  who  had  been  the  business  manager 
of  "The  Standard  Dictionary,"  called  at  my  editorial  rooms. 
I  asked  him,  without  telling  him  anything  of  the  incident  of 
the  night  before,  if  he  remembered  "The  Widow's  Mite" 
which  we  had  used  in  the  illustration  of  the  dictionary.  He 
said  that  he  did,  and,  in  reply  to  my  question  as  to  what  he 
had  done  with  it,  he  replied :  "  I  returned  it."  "  To  whom  ?  " 
I  asked.  He  said :  "  I  don't  know  the  man,  but  I  returned  it 
to  the  person  from  whom  you  said  you  had  borrowed  it."  To 
my  cross-examination  he  repeated  again  and  again  that  he 
was  certain  that  it  had  been  returned. 

In  the  afternooon,  at  our  business  conference,  Mr.  Wag- 
nails,  the  vice-president  of  our  company,  and  Mr.  E.  J. 
Wheeler,  the  editor  of  TAe  Literary  Digest,  being  present,  I 
told  them  of  my  curious  experience.  Mr.  Wagnalls  said : 
"  I  never  heard  that  you  had  borrowed  such  a  coin. "  Mr. 
Wheeler,  who  is  particularly  skeptical  of  "  spirit  communica- 
tions," playfully  remarked :  "  Well,  now  find  that  coin,  and  it 
will  be  a  good  test."  I  said,  half- jestingly,  "  All  right  "  ;  and, 
tapping  the  bell,  called  in  the  cashier  and  asked  him  :  "  Do 
you  remember  an  old  coin  called  *  The  Widow's  Mite  '  which 
was  in  our  possession  during  the  making  of  the  dictionary }  " 
He  replied  that  he  did,  that  it  was  given  to  him  by  Mr.  B. 
F.  Funk,  and  he  was  under  the  impression  that  it  had  been 
returned  to  its  owner.  I  asked:  "  Are  you  sure  of  this.?" 
He  said :  "  I  believe  it  has  been  so  returned. "  I  told  him 
to  go  to  the  large  iron  safe  (we  have  two  safes  in  the  cashier's 
office),  and  have  his  assistants  help  him  see  whether  that 
coin  was  anywhere  in  the  safe.  In  about  twenty  minutes 
one  of  his  assistants  came  into  the  office,  and  handed  me  an 

envelope  in  which  were  two  "  Widow's  Mites.''     The  en- 
II 


i62  FOUND   AS   INDICATED 

velope  had  been  found  in  a  little  drawer  in  the  large  iron  safe 
under  a  lot  of  papers  ^  where  it  had  lain  forgotten  for  a  mim- 
ber  of  years. 

In  examining  the  two  coins  and  also  the  plate  of  illustra- 
tions in  tiie  dictionary,  it  was  found  that  we  had  used  for 
reproduction  the  smaller  and  lighter  colored  one.  The  other 
was  much  blacker.  I  concluded  that  the  light  one  was  the 
genuine  widow's  mite,  for  I  remembered  that  we  had  sent 
both  to  the  curator  of  the  Philadelphia  Mint,  who  was  an 
expert  on  ancient  coins,  and  had  asked  him  kindly  to  let  us 
know  which  of  the  two  was  genuine.  I  instructed  Mr.  B.  F. 
Funk,  the  business  manager  of  the  Dictionary  Department, 
to  follow  the  information  of  this  expert  in  making  the  coin- 
plate,  and  up  to  the  time  of  this  interview  with  the  control 
I  had  thought  that  this  instruction  had  been  carried  out. 
We  determined  at  once  to  make  further  test  of  this  curious 
intelligence  by  seeing  whether  the  control  could  tell  which  of 
the  two  coins  should  be  returned.  So  we  agreed  to  keep  the 
whole  matter  to  ourselves,  not  telling  even  the  cashier  our 
reason  for  the  inquiry. 

On  the  following  Wednesday  evening  I  attended  this 
same  Brooklyn  circle. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  stance  "  George  "  began  talking. 
I  said  to  him  :  "  George,  you  remember  the  request  you  made 
of  me  last  Wednesday  evening?  " 

He  at  once  replied :  "  Yes,  about  the  coin,  the  widow's 
mite?" 

**  There  are  two  of  them ;  now,  George,  can  you  tell  me 
which  of  the  two  is  the  right  one? " 

Without  an  instant's  hesitation  he  answered  :  "  The  black 
one." 

I  was  certain  that  the  lighter  one  was  the  correct  coin,  as 
that  was  the  one  we  had  used  in  the  Dictionary.  I  asked 
him  whether  he  was  sure  that  it  was  the  black  one.  His 
reply  was  instant :  "Certainly."  Then  I  asked  whether  he 
could  tell  me  to  whom  it  was  to  be  returned.     He  said  that 


so   FAR   BUT   NO    FARTHER  163 

he  could  not  tell,  but  he  thought  it  was  to  be  returned  to 
some  place  in  Connecticut,  but  he  did  not  know  for  sure.  I 
asked  him  whether  he  could  tell  me  from  whom  I  had  re- 
ceived it.  He  said  that  it  belonged  to  some  friend  of  Mr. 
Beecher's.  I  wished  to  know  what  friend,  if  he  could  not 
give  me  the  name.  He  said  that  he  could  not,  but  that  he 
was  shown  a  picture  of  a  college,  that  he  did  not  know  what 
this  meant  unless  that  this  man  had  been  connected  with  a 
large  school.      I  said : 

"Where  located.?" 

"  In  Brooklyn." 

"  What  part  of  Brooklyn.?  " 

"On  the  Heights." 

"  A  gentlemen's  school  or  a  ladies*  school .?  " 

"  A  ladies'  school." 

This  information  about  the  owner  of  '*  The  Widow's  Mite  " 
was  all  correct  as  far  as  it  went,  for  the  gentleman  from 
whom  I  had  got  it  was  Prof.  Charles  E.  West,  who  was, 
at  the  time  that  I  had  borrowed  the  coin  and  had  been  for 
many  years,  at  the  head  of  a  ladies'  high- school  on  the 
Brooklyn  Heights.  But  the  curious  thing  was  that  so  much 
could  be  told  of  the  details  and  yet  the  name  of  the  owner 
of  the  coin  could  not  be  given,  nor  could  I  be  told  with  any 
certainty  where  Mr.  Beecher  desired  the  coin  to  be  sent. 
The  answer  to  my  repeated  questions  on  these  two  points  was 
at  this  sitting  and  two  future  sittings :  "  I  can  not  tell  you ; 
I  do  not  know;  for  some  reason  Mr.  Beecher  does  not  tell." 

At  a  circle  with  another  medium  the  following  week,  I 
asked  these  same  two  questions  of  Mr.  Beecher,  who  was  said 
to  be  present.  I  was  told  by  the  control  that  Mr.  Beecher 
said  that  he  was  not  concerned  about  the  return  of  the  coin ; 
what  he  was  concerned  about  was  to  give  me  a  test  that 
would  prove  the  certainty  cf  communication  between  the 
two  worlds,  and  since  that  has  been  accomplished  in  my  find- 
ing the  coin,  he  cared  nothing  further  about  it.  In  the  con- 
versation at  this  second  circle  I  had  spoken  of  the  finding  of 


i64  REPORT    FROM    U.  S.  MINT 

a  coin  through  another  medium.     This  clew  vitiated  some- 
what the  evidential  value  of  this  later  interview  as  a  test. 

After  receiving  the  surprising  answer  from  the  control, 
George,  that  it  was  "  the  black  coin  "  which  was  the  correct 
one,  I  sent  both  coins  again  to  the  Philadelphia  mint,  with- 
out giving  them  any  indication  or  clew  of  what  had  taken 
place,  simply  requesting  to  know  which  of  the  two  coins  was 
the  genuine  "  Widow's  Mite. "     The  reply  that  came  back 

was  as  follows : 

Mint  Service, 
Office  of  Superintendent,  U.  S.  Mint, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.,  March  ii,  1903. 
Funk  6r»  Wagnalls  Company, 

30  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 
Gentlemen  :  Our  best  authority  on  Jewish  coinage  is  the  book  by 
Frederic  W.  Madden,  M.R.S.L.,  assistant  in  the  Department  of  Coins 
and  Medals,  British  Museum.  He  describes  the  larger  of  the  two  pieces 
as  having  a  center  knob,  surrounded  by  six  stars  or  lobes,  in  which  is 
written  in  Jewish  characters  the  name,  when  translated— /-^^^^^^^^^^ 
Hamelik  or  King  Jehonathan.  The  reverse  contains  the  figure  of  an 
anchor.  The  time  of  this  kind  is  given  as  that  of  Alexander  Jannaeus  as 
105  B.C.  to  B.C.  78. 

The  second  and  smaller  piece  is  evidently  a  copy,  made  at  a  compara- 
tively recent  date,  of  a  coin  representing  a  somewhat  later  date  than  tlie 
first  piece,  the  obverse  of  which  is  filled  with  Jewish  characters  represent- 
ing, when  translated,  "Jonathan  the  High  Priest  and  tlie  Confederation 
of  the  Jews,"  written  within  a  wreath  of  laurel  or  olive.  The  reverse  has 
two  cornucopias  and  a  poppy  head  with  a  dotted  circle,  and  its  time  not 
later  than  78  B.C.  (Signed)        Albert  A.  Norris, 

Acting  Superintendent. 

It  was  the  second  and  smaller  coin  that  we  had  used  by 
mistake  in  the  dictionary;  the  larger  is  the  "black  coin  "  and 
the  one  that  we  should  have  used,  and  which  we  have  ordered 
on  the  above  information  to  be  substituted  in  the  dictionary 
plate  in  the  next  edition. 

The  envelope  containing  the  two  coins  when  found  was 

sealed,  and  on  it  were  written  these  words : 

Mr.  Raymone  :  The  widow's  mite — please  put  in  vault  for  safe- 
keeping.   Value  $12^.  (Signed)        B.  F. 

This  envelope  contains  two  widow's  mites— shekel,  half  shekel,  and 
denarius. 


A   STRONG   AFFIDAVIT  165 

Nothing  else  was  written  on  the  envelope,  but  in  the 
preface  to  the  dictionary  there  is  this  statement,  speaking 
of  the  illustrations :  "  The  Widow's  Mite  (which  was  en- 
graved from  an  excellent  original  coin  in  the  possession  of 
Prof.  Charles  E.  West  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.). "  Unfortunately, 
few  people  read  the  preface  to  a  dictionary.  Mr.  Roney  and 
even  Mr.  Wagnalls  can  not  remember  to  have  ever  read  this 
statement  in  the  preface.  Mr.  Roney  was  the  only  person 
besides  myself  in  the  circle  who  was  likely  to  know  of  my 
connection  with  this  "Widow's  Mite."  Mr.  Roney  is  one 
of  the  most  truthful  men  I  have  ever  met — in  my  judgment 
incapable  of  falsehood  or  trick.  I  give  his  affidavit  below, 
and  add  that  Mr.  Roney  never  has  anything  to  do  with  the 
safes  in  the  cashier's  department,  and  that  there  is  not  the 
least  likelihood  that  he  could  have  known  of  the  fact  of  this 
coin's  presence  in  the  safe — a  fact  unknown  to  myself  and 
unremembered  by  the  cashiers.  No  one  is  allowed  access  to 
these  safes  except  the  officers  of  the  company  and  the  cashiers. 

AFFIDAVIT  OF   IRVING  S.  RONEY 

I  have  read  very  carefully  the  above  statement  as  to  "  The  Widow's 
Mite,"  and  declare  that  the  conversation  started  with  the  abrupt  question 
by  the  control,  George,  as  described  above,  and  that  in  all  other  points 
this  description  accords  exactly  with  my  memory  of  the  incident.  The 
discovery  of  the  coin  in  the  safe,  of  which  I  was  not  informed  for  some 
time  afterward,  was  a  complete  surprise  to  me.  When  the  control, 
George,  put  the  question  as  to  the  whereabouts  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite," 
I  had  no  idea  of  its  bearings,  nor  did  I  know  the  meaning  of  the  conver- 
sation at  the  succeeding  circle  in  reference  to  the  coin  until  after  the  test 
in  all  of  its  details  was  completed,  and  Dr.  Funk  explained  all  to  me. 

':  1'  'i  [1 :  (Signed)  Irving  S.  Roney. 

:  N.  Y.  County  : 


Sworn  and  subscribed  to  before  me  this  31st  day  of  March,  1903. 
,  -^^-^v ,  (Signed)        H.  L.  Raymond,  Notary  Public^ 

\    ^^"^   ^  Westchester  County. 

""^^  Certificate  filed  in  New  York  County. 

The  medium  has  sent  me  a  most  sweeping  and  solemn  written  state- 
ment that  she  knew  nothing  whatever  of  my  connection  with  this  coin, 
and  that  she  had  no  knowledge  that  there  ever  existed  in  Brooklyn  such 
a  man  as  Professor  West.    See  Appendix. 


i66  OTHER   STATEMENTS 


STATEMENT   OF  OTHERS   PRESENT  AT  THE  CIRCLE 

We,  the  undersigned,  declare  that  we  were  present  at  the  first  stance 
in  which  the  incident  described  by  Dr.  Funk  in  the  above  narration  took 
place.  Up  to  the  time  of  this  stance  we  had  never  heard  anything  about 
this  coin  being  used  in  any  way  by  him  or  by  his  company,  or  of  it  being 
in  their  possession,  or  that  any  such  coin  was  missing.  The  whole  inci- 
dent, in  all  of  its  details,  was  new  to  us.  The  description  given  by  Dr. 
Funk  above  accords  altogether  with  our  memory  of  what  took  place 
touching  this  affair;  there  was  no  word  nor  action  of  any  kmd  that  led 
up  to  the  question  by  **  George  Carroll "  other  than  here  given. 

(Signed)  Leslie  G.  King, 
Emily  Johnson, 
Louis  Justement.^ 

STATEMENT  OF   THE  BUSINESS    MANAGER  OF  THE 
DICTIONARY   DEPARTMENT 

All  portions  of  the  above  statement  in  which  I  had  any  participation 
are  correct.  I  was  absolutely  certain  that  the  coin  had  been  returned  to 
its  owner,  having  instructed  the  Cashier's  Department  in  1893  so  to  return 
it ;  and  had  never  heard  nor  thought  about  that  coin  from  that  time  up  to 
the  day  that  Dr.  Funk  told  me  of  the  strange  request  from  the  so-called 
spirit  control. 

How  the  mistake  was  made  in  making  for  the  dictionary  a  copy  of 
the  wrong  coin  I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  to  understand,  as  it  was  my  inten- 
tion to  follow  the  instruction  of  the  curator  at  the  Philadelphia  mint,  and 
thought  I  had  so  followed ;  but  I  now  see  that  a  mistake  in  some  unac- 
countable way  was  made.  Not  being  a  Spiritualist,  the  entire  incident 
has  greatly  puzzled  me. 

How  fully  convinced  I  was  that  I  had  followed  the  instruction  of  the 
curator  will  appear  from  the  following  words  on  page  368  of  "  The  Stand- 
ard Dictionary":  "This  coin  has  been  termed  lepton  (the  technical 
name  of '  The  Widow's  Mite ')  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Du  Bois,  for 
many  years  director  of  the  United  States  Mint,  Philadelphia." 

April  23,  1903.  (Signed)        B.  F.  Funk. 

STATEMENTS   OF  THE   CASHIERS 

I  am  head  cashier  in  the  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Company,  and  have  been 
for  over  fifteen  years.  The  description  of  the  finding  of  the  widow's 
mite  as  given  in  tlie  statement  above,  as  far  as  I  am  connected  with  it,  is 
in  all  respects  true. 

I  was  under  the  impression  that  the  coin  had  been  promptly  returned 
to  its  owner.     I  do  not  remember  seeing  the  coin  nor  the  envelope  con- 

1  Was  present  only  at  the  second  meetini;  when  the  color  of  the  coin  was 

named. 


FROM    DR.  WEST^S   SON  167 

taining  it  since  1893,  nor  can  I  remember  to  have  heard  or  thought  any- 
thing about  it  since  that  date.  The  two  safes  in  the  cashier's  department 
were  wholly  in  the  charge  of  myself  and  assistants.  No  other  persons, 
not  even  the  officers  of  the  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Company,  knew  the  com- 
binations of  the  safes,  and  no  other  employees  at  any  time  have  access 
to  these  safes.  (Signed)        H.  L.  Raymond. 

April  23,  1903. 

We,  the  undersigned  assistant  cashiers  in  the  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Com- 
pany, declare  that  when  asked  by  Dr.  Funk  to  search  for  this  coin  we 
were  not  aware  that  it  was  in  either  of  the  safes.  Its  discovery  was  a 
complete  surprise  to  us.  (Signed)  H.  Tibbs, 

P.  Turner. 
April  23,  1903. 

STATEMENT   OF  A.  W.  WAGNALLS 

The  portion  of  the  statement  above  in  which  my  name  is  mentioned  is 
true  in  all  particulars.  I  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  fact,  previous  to 
the  date  on  which  the  coin  was  found,  that  it  was  in  our  posses- 
sion. 

I  have  thought  much  over  the  incident  and  have  examined  every  sus- 
picious circumstance  connected  with  it,  and  can  not  discover  the  slightest 
chance  for  a  fraud  or  trick  to  have  been  played. 

(Signed)       A.  W.  Wagnalls. 
April  6,  1903. 

LAW  OFFICE   OF   CHARLES   W.  WEST 

New  York,  April  6,  1903. 

My  dear  Dr.  Funk  :  As  sole  executor  of  the  estate  of  the  late  Dr. 
Charles  E.  West,  I  beg  to  acknowledge  receipt  from  you  this  day  of  the 
copper  coin  known  as  "  Widow's  Mite,"  which  many  years  since  was 
loaned  by  Dr.  West  to  you  for  the  purpose  of  use  in  illustrating  the  plate 
of  coins  contained  in  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Dictionary;  and  I  wish  to  add, 
that  so  far  as  I  can  be  certain  of  anything  that  passed  in  my  father's 
mind  since  his  loan  of  this  article,  I  am  sure  that  he  supposed  that  it  had 
been  returned  by  you  to  him,  as  you  until  of  late  supposed  you  had 
returned  it. 

As  executor  of  my  father's  estate,  I  felt  so  certain  that  this  coin  had 
been  returned  that  it  never  occurred  to  me  to  make  inquiry  of  you  whether 
it  was  in  your  possession.  The  extraordinary  method  by  which  your 
possession  of  it  was  divulged  has  made  a  strong  impression  upon  my 
mind,  as  it  must  upon  all  who  have  become  acquainted  with  the  facts, 
and  I  can  assure  you  now  that  my  intention  is  to  preserve  the  coin  in  the 
family,  associated  as  it  is  with  the  very  extraordinary  occurrences  leading 
to  your  delivery  of  it  to  me,  so  long  as  that  family  shall  continue  to  exist. 

(Signed)       C.  W.  West. 


i68  VALUE   OF   THE   COIN 

Mr.  West  assures  me  that  no  other  members  of  his  father's 
family  knew  of  the  loan  of  this  coin  or  of  its  absence  from 
its  place  in  the  collection. 

It  should  also  be  mentioned  that  the  elder  Mr.  West  and 
I  were  members  of  the  same  club,  and  dined  together  prob- 
ably not  fewer  than  fifty  times  from  1893  up  to  the  time  of 
his  death.  This  fact,  and  the  fact  that  he  did  not  in  all 
these  years  speak  to  me  of  the  coin,  shows  how  completely 
he  had  forgotten  about  my  having  it.  The  son  informs  me 
that  after  his  father's  death  he,  as  administrator,  sold  the 
coin  collection  for  some  ;^  17,000,  and  that  he  does  not  know 
its  present  possessor.  He  also  says  that  he  and  his  father 
valued  the  coin  at  ^2,500. 

POINTS   TO    OBSERVE 

1.  I  believed  the  coin  had  been  returned.  This  was  not 
a  case  oiforgetf nines Sy  as  my  belief  was  based  on  the  natural 
thought  that  my  instructions  for  its  return  had  been  carried 
out. 

2.  Mr.  B.  F.  Funk's  belief  that  the  coin  had  been  re- 
turned was  also  not  a  case  oiforgetfiilnessy  as  he  too  believed 
that  his  instructions  had  been  obeyed. 

3.  Mr.  Raymond's,  the  cashier's,  belief  was  a  case  of  for- 
getfulness.     He  intended  to  return  it,  but  forgot  to  do  so. 

4.  Neither  of  the  assistant  cashiers  knew  anything  about 
the  coin.  They  tell  me  that  they  now  remember  some  three 
years  ago  to  have  seen  the  envelope,  but  that  they  knew 
nothing  whatever  about  the  contents  except  what  was  written 
on  the  envelope ;  they  knew  nothing  of  the  coins  having  been 
used  in  the  making  of  the  dictionary  and  nothing  of  the 
history  of  our  possession  of  them. 

5.  The  cashiers  alone  knew  the  combinations  of  the  two 
safes. 

6.  The  cashier's  department  is  a  single  room  about  thirty 
feet  by  fifteen  feet. 


IMPORTANT   POINTS  169 

7.  While  the  safes  are  open  there  is  always  at  least  one 
of  the  cashiers  in  this  room. 

8.  Mr.  Roney  was  the  only  person  at  the  seance  with 
whom  I  had  any  previous  acquaintance. 

9.  Mr.  Roney  declares  to  me  that  he  never  saw  inside  of 
the  two  safes  in  the  cashier's  department,  and  says  in  his 
affidavit  he  never  had  heard  that  we  had  had  such  a  coin  in 
our  possession  or  that  we  had  used  such  a  coin  in  the  ma- 
king of  the  dictionary. 

10.  On  careful  inquiry  I  am  assured  that  there  is  not  the 
slightest  acquaintance  between  any  of  the  cashiers  and  the 
medium  or  her  family ;  they  live  widely  apart  in  the  crowded 
city  of  New  York. 

1 1 .  Both  Mr.  B.  F.  Funk  and  myself  believed  that  we 
had  used  the  West  coin  in  the  making  of  the  dictionary  plate, 
and  we  had  no  thought  or  suggestion  from  any  source  to  the 
contrary  until  the  information  came  through  the  spirit  con- 
trol that  the  correct  coin — the  black  coin — was  the  one  we 
had  not  used  and  then  we  were  sure  that  the  spirit  control 
was  in  error.  We  did  not  yield  this  point  until  after  we  had 
received  the  above-mentioned  letter  from  the  Philadelphia 
Mint. 

12.  No  talk  or  question,  not  a  word,  led  up  to  the  direct 
inquiry  from  the  control  about  the  coin,  and  this  is  true 
also  as  to  the  questions  and  answers  as  given  which  made 
mention  of  the  black  coin  as  the  one  to  be  returned. 

13.  All  efforts  failed  to  secure  from  the  spirit  control 
on  three  succeeding  evenings  the  name  of  the  person  from 
whom  the  coin  was  borrowed  and  the  name  of  the  person  to 
whom  it  was  to  be  returned. 

POSSIBLE   EXPLANATIONS 

I.  Fraud, 

II.  Coincidence. 

III.  Telepathy  and  clairvoyance  —  covering  hypnosis, 
trance,  subliminal  personality,  etc. 


I70  "SOMEBODY   LIED"* 

IV.   Spirit  commu7iication. 

No  explanation  explains  that  does  not  cover  in  a  reason- 
able way  all  of  the  facts  involved. 

I.  The  Theory  of  Fraud 
"  The  explanation  is  simple ;  somebody  lied." 

The  difficulties  this  theory  meets : 

1.  The  medium  is  an  elderly  lady,  sixty-eight  years  of 
age,  against  whose  simple  honesty  I  have  not  heard  a  whis- 
per, altho  careful  inquiry  has  been  made  of  those  who  have 
known  her  for  many  years.  I  have  now  visited  her  house 
something  like  twelve  times, ^  and  have  watched  her  care- 
fully:— even  when  she  has  been  under  severe  stress.  My 
judgment  of  her  is  very  favorable.  She  seems  wholly  art- 
less, simple-minded,  tender-hearted,  and  ideally  truthful. 
As  my  experience  is  that  mediums  often  degenerate  morally, 
I  would  not  vouch  for  the  future  truthfulness  of  any  medium. 

2.  The  medium  up  to  the  date  of  this  writing,  March, 
1903,  receives  no  money  for  her  sittings  and  insists  that  her 
name  shall  not  be  given  by  me  in  connection  with  these  sit- 
tings, as  she  does  not  wish  any  increase  in  the  attendance ; 
so  it  seems  reasonable  to  exclude  as  motives  those  of  gain 
and  notoriety. 

3.  The  owner  did  not  know  that  the  coin  was  missing 
from  the  collection,  and  those  who  had  access  to  the  safe  in 
which  the  coin  was  most  solemnly  declare  that  they  had  not 
thought  of  the  coin  for  years.  Had  there  been  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  any  one  to  commit  fraud,  it  does  not  appear  that 
there  was  opportunity  to  do  so. 

After  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  all  possible  trick  or 
fraud  it  seems  to  me  that  this  theory  is  eliminated. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  here  that  for  years  I  was  edi- 
tor-in-chief of  a  journal   that  made  its  mark  as  a  fighting 

>  Since  this  was  written  many  times  additional.    This  account  was  written 
March  i,  1903. 


COINCIDENCE— CLAIRVOYANCE      171 

political  reform  paper  of  wide  circulation ;  I  think  no  one 
will  deny  that  in  that  capacity  I  gained  considerable  reputa- 
tion as  an  expert  in  unearthing  frauds. 

II.  The  Theory  of  Coincidence 
'*  The  law  of  averages  runs  through  all  nature." 

The  difficulties  this  theory  meets : 

1.  "  The  Widow's  Mite  "  is  a  rare  coin ;  there  are  but  very 
few  of  what  are  known  as  "originals  "  in  existence;  not  one 
man  in  ten  millions  has  one  in  his  possession,  and  the  great 
probabilities  are  that  I  was  the  only  man  out  of  the  sixteen 
hundred  millions  on  the  earth  who  had  borrowed  one  and  failed 
to  return  it. 

2.  The  naming  by  the  control  of  Mr.  Beecher  as  one 
interested  in  the  coin's  return — a  man  who  was  a  close  friend 
of  Professor  West,  from  whom  it  was  borrowed. 

3.  The  pointing  out  of  its  location  in  a  "  drawer  "  "  under 
a  lot  of  papers  "  in  a  "  large  iron  safe."  This  guess  might 
logically  have  followed  the  first,  for  if  it  were  known  that  I 
had  the  coin,  it  was  very  likely,  since  the  coin  was  valuable, 
that  I  would  have  kept  it  for  safekeeping  in  just  such  a 
place.  This  reasoning,  however,  would  have  required  a  fairly 
shrewd  business  training,  while  the  medium  is  an  elderly 
lady  who  has  had  no  training  in  business  methods. 

4.  The  designation  as  the  right  coin  that  one  which  had 
not  been  used  in  the  making  of  the  dictionary.  As  there 
were  but  two  coins,  this  might  have  been  guessed;  yet  imi- 
tations of  ancient  coins  are  usually  colored  black. 

5.  The  correct  designation  of  the  owner  as  one  who  had 
been  connected  with  "a  ladies'  school"  "on  the  Heights" 
"  in  Brooklyn." 

III.  The  Theory  of  Telepathy  and  Clairvoyance 

"  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt 
of  in  our  philosophy." 

A.  The  points  that  favor  this  explanation : 


172  SPIRIT   COMMUNICATION 

1.  It  was  in  the  memory  of  Mr.  West,  myself,  the  head 
cashier,  and  Mr.  B.  F.  Funk  that  the  coin  had  been  bor- 
rowed. 

2.  It  is  possible  that  it  was  in  the  subconscious  memory 
of  the  cashier,  Raymond,  that  he  had  not  returned  it. 

3.  It  may  have  been  in  the  subconscious  memory  of 
the  assistant  cashiers  that  they  had  seen  in  the  safe  the  en- 
velope with  the  inscription  on  it :  "  This  envelope  contains 
two  widow's  mites." 

B.  The  difficulties  this  theory  meets : 

1 .  My  memory  was  that  I  had  ordered  the  coin  returned, 
and  I  had  never  known  the  contrary ;  that  I  believed  the 
coin  had  been  returned,  and  I  was  the  only  one  present  at 
the  sitting  who  could  have  known  that  the  coin  had  not  been 
returned;  hence  in  what  possible  way  could  the  facts  have 
been  in  the  subconscious  memory  of  any  one  present } 

2.  Had  the  medium's  subconscious  mind  discovered, 
among  the  millions  of  things  written  on  my  subconscious 
memory,  the  fact  that  I  had  once  borrowed  such  a  coin,  it 
remains  to  be  explained  how  she  knew  that  I  had  not  re- 
turned it.  My  subconscious  memory  bore  testimony  to  just 
the  opposite. 

3.  There  is  no  probability  that  the  medium  had  ever  met 
the  cashier,  the  only  man  on  whose  subconscious  memory 
could  have  been  an  impression  that  this  coin  had  been  bor- 
rowed and  had  not  been  returned.  How  could  she  have 
picked  him  out  from  the  millions  of  other  men  in  the  city  of 
New  York.?  Had  she  succeeded  in  thus  picking  him  out, 
then  she  would  still  have  had  the  farther  task  before  her  of 
finding  out  from  the  millions  of  impressions  on  his  memory 
this  inscription  about  "The  Widow's  Mite." 

IV.  The  Theory  of  Spifit  Communication 

A.   The  points  that  favor  this  explanation : 
I.  Professor  West's  well-known  deep  interest  in  his  coin 
collection,  and  the  friendship  between  him  and  Mr.  Beecher 


WHY  SO   TRIVIAL  A   THING?       i73 

in  earth  life,  and  the  presumption  that  this  friendship  has 
continued  in  spirit  life. 

2.  If  the  professor  was  interested  in  the  return  of  the 
coin,  it  is  likely  that  he  would  have  remembered  that  I  had 
it,  and  would  have  deemed  it  probable  that  it  would  be  found 
in  my  safe ;  then  by  clairvoyance  he  could  have  thus  located 
it,  and  then  the'  rest  could  have  followed. 

3.  If  communication  between  the  spirit  world  and  this 
world  is  possible  and  desired  by  spirits,  it  is  quite  likely  Mr. 
Beecher  would  have  been  willing  to  have  helped  to  turn  this 
matter  into  such  a  proof  of  intercommunication  between  the 
two  worlds  as  would  arouse  wide  attention. 

B.  Difficulties  this  theory  meets : 

1.  Why  did  not  Professor  West  speak  of  this  matter  him- 
self, or,  if  he  was  not  able  to  control  the  medium,  why  did 
not  Mr.  Beecher  so  speak  .^  He,  I  am  told,  has  in  the  past 
spoken  through  this  medium. 

2.  Why  was  not  the  test  completed  by  giving  the  name 
of  the  person  from  whom  the  coin  had  been  borrowed  and  of 
the  person  to  whom  the  coin  was  to  be  returned } 

3.  If  Mr.  Beecher  was  desirous  of  giving  a  test  proof 
that  actual  communications  are  taking  place  between  the 
spirit  world  and  this,  why  did  he  not  choose  to  communicate 
something  far  more  worth  while?  It  would  not  be  difficult 
to  think  of  a  thousand  things  concerning  any  one  of  which 
the  world  would  have  listened  with  strained  attention  to  Mr. 
Beecher,  and  could  have  just  as  certainly  recognized  that 
his  knowledge  on  these  higher  themes  was  beyond  the 
knowledge  current  upon  earth. 

Or: 

Is  this  a  case  in  which  we  are  to  follow  the  directions  of 
Huxley,  to  sit  as  little  children  before  a  fact  and  interrogate 
it — not  dictate  or  dogmatize  ? 

Must  we  indeed  become  as  little  children  to  enter  into 
communication  and  fellowship  with  the  kingdom  of  heaven.? 


174       CONFOUNDING   THE   MIGHTY 

If  this  be  the  right  explanation,  then  truly  the  other  world 
doth  at  times  choose  the  foolish  things  of  this  world  to  con- 
found men  who  think  themselves  mighty. 

I.  K.  Funk. 
30  Lafayette  Place,  New  York, 
March  i,  1903. 


ADDITIONAL  INFORMATION   IN   REPLY  TO 

QUESTIONS 

Question  i ;  **  You  say,  In  the  conversation  at  this  second  circle  I 
had  given  such  clews  as  vitiated  to  some  extent  this  test.  In  what 
way?" 

Answer :  This  second  circle  was  with  another  medium, 
and  some  time  after  I  had  been  told  about  the  non-return  of 
"The  Widow's  Mite."  I  was  informed  at  this  second  circle 
that  Mr.  Beecher  was  present,  whereupon  I  said  to  the  spirit 
control  of  the  cabinet:  "Will  you  please  ask  him  about 
the  ancient  coin  concerning  which  I  was  told  in  another  cir- 
cle he  is  solicitous,  desiring  that  I  return  it  to  the  collection 
to  which  it  belongs.?  I  should  like  to  have  him  tell  me  from 
whom  I  borrowed  it  and  to  whom  I  am  to  return  it."  This 
of  course  made  of  no  evidential  value  the  answer  which  I  got 
that  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  concerned  about  the  coin,  but  sim- 
ply desired  to  give  me  a  test.  Had  the  answer  been  to  the 
question  asked,  the  clew  would  not  have  affected  the  answer. 

Question  2  :  "  Who  knew,  besides  Professor  West  and  his  son,  of  the 
absence  of  the  coin  from  the  collection  ? " 

Answer:  The  son  thinks  it  altogether  likely  that  his 
father  told  at  the  time  other  members  of  the  family,  and  pos- 
sibly some  persons  outside  of  the  family.  This  was  nine 
years  ago.  He  says  the  absence  of  the  coin  from  the  collec- 
ton  was  forgotten  by  all  concerned.  He  had  not  heard  any 
mention  of  its  having  been  loaned  from  that  time  up  to  the 
present  discovery  of  its  whereabouts.  Professor  West  was 
proprietor  and  head  teacher  of  a  fashionable  ladies'  school  in 
the  most  aristocratic  part  of  Brooklyn.     The  medium's  fam- 


CROSS-EXAMINATION  175 

ily  are  in  humble  circumstances.  I  am  fully  convinced  that 
of  the  few  persons  present  in  the  circle,  there  was  not  one 
besides  myself  who  knew  that  such  a  man  as  Professor  West 
had  ever  lived.  I  am  certain  of  this  because  of  my  cross- 
examination  of  those  who  were  present,  and  because  of  what 
I  know  about  them. 

Question  3 :  "  Who  all  were  engaged  in  utilizing  the  coin  for  the  dic- 
tionary, and  do  you  not  think  mention  was  made  of  it  to  others?" 

Answer :  My  brother,  B.  F.  Funk,  had  charge  of  it  and  of 
all  the  other  several  thousand  illustrations  that  went  into  the 
dictionary.  This  coin  was  photographed,  as  were  the  other 
objects,  and  then  returned  to  him.  After  that,  not  the  origi- 
nal objects  but  their  photographs  were  handled  by  the  Illustra- 
tion Department.  Quite  likely  at  that  time  mention  was 
made  that  this  coin  was  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  coins  the 
widow  cast  into  the  treasury  at  the  Temple — this  I  assume, 
as  the  coin  is  a  rare  one.  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  this 
transaction  took  place  nine  years  before  and  in  the  heart  of 
the  great  city  of  New  York,  where  millions  of  notable  things 
are  taking  place  and  crowd  each  other  out  of  mind,  and  that 
this  stance  was  held  in  a  somewhat  remote  part  of  Brooklyn, 
among  a  few  people  who  gave  little  attention  to  dictionary- 
making.  And  then  it  must  be  remembered  that  all  those 
who  had  charge  of  the  coin  intended  to  return  it  to  its  owner 
and  thought  it  had  been  returned. 

Question  4 :  "  Is  No.  10  in '  Points  to  Observe '  fully  ascertained — that 
there  is  not  the  slightest  acquaintance  between  any  of  the  cashiers  and 
the  medium  or  her  family  ? " 

Answer :  Yes ;  this  point  has  been  covered  by  the  most 

careful  investigation  and  cross-examination  that  I  am  capable 

of. 

Question  5 :  "On  the  last  page  of  your  narrative  you  say  that  *  he 
[Mr.  Beecher],  I  am  told,  has  in  the  past  spoken  through  this  medium.' 
Can  you  say  why  he  spoke  through  this  medium,  and  what  he  had  to 
say?" 

Answer :  I  can  not  say  why,  nor  am  I  by  any  means  con- 


176       PSYCHOLOGISTS   QUESTIONED 

vinced  that  he  did.  I  am  told  by  those  who  heard  what 
claimed  to  be  Mr.  Beecher's  voice  that  he  said  that  he  was 
glad  to  find  a  Brooklyn  medium  through  whom  he  could  talk 
to  Brooklyn  people  who  lived  in  his  home  city.  He  then 
delivered  a  homily  that  is  said  to  have  been  Beecheresque  in 
style  and  full  of  common  sense.  After  investigating  along 
this  line  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  anything  that  seemed 
to  have  the  slightest  bearing  on  the  '*  Mite  incident "  one 
way  or  the  other. 

"The  Widow's  Mite"  Submitted  to  Psychologists. 

The  history  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite  "  incident,  as  given  in 
the  preceding  pages,  I  forwarded  to  a  number  of  the  leading 
psychologists  and  other  students  in  different  parts  of  the 
world  who  were  thought  to  be  interested  in  psychic  phenom- 
ena. The  history  was  accompanied  with  the  following  ques- 
tions : 

Copy  of  Questions 

First  Question :  In  view  of  all  the  facts,  would  you  regard  fraud  on 
the  part  of  some  one  as  a  probable  solution  ? 

Second  Question :  Is  coincidence  a  solution  within  the  range  of  prob- 
abilities? 

Third  Question :  Is  there,  in  your  judgment,  any  reasonable  theory  of 
the  existence  of  subconscious  faculties  that  would  explain  all  of  the  facts? 

Fourth  Question :  Is  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  cojn?nunication  a  possi- 
ble solution? 

In  reply  I  received  a  large  number  of  answers.  Forty- 
two  of  these  answers,  which  fairly  represent  all,  will  be  found 
printed  in  Appendix  A. 

It  is  difficult  to  tabulate  justly  the  preferred  theory  of 
each  of  these  scholars,  as  many  modify  their  theories  with 
explanations  and  some  hold  mixed  theories;  others  write 
what  they  regard  as  possible  explanations  while  not  ready  to 
commit  themselves  to  any  particular  theory. 

The  following  table  will  give  an  approximate  notion  of 
the  views  held  by  these  scholars.     The  reader  is  urged  to 


ANSWERS   FROM    MANY 


177 


consult  the  letters  in  full,  which  are  given  in  the  Appendix 
in  the  order  here  numbered. 

List  of  Some  of  the  Principal  Scholars  in  Different  Parts  of  the 
World  who  have  Written  Concerning  the  Widow's  Mite  Incident. 
(See  Full  Letters,  Appendix  A.) 


Name. 


1.  William  James 

2.  Geo.  Trumbull  Ladd. 

3.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace 

4.  C.  A.  Young 

5.  Max  Wentscher 

6.  A.  Kirschmann 

7 

8,  A.  Sadowsky 

9.  Sir  William  Crookes. 
10.  Prank  Chapman  Sharp 

XI.  Edward  H.  Griffin.... 

12.  Paul  Carus 

13.  I.  J.  De  Bussy 

14.  Walter  D.  Scott 

15.  Collins  Denny 

16.  James  H.  Hyslop 

17.  Thomson  J.  Hudson.. 

18.  Louis  T,  More 

19.  Frederick  Slate 

20.  Arthur  L,  Foley 

21.  A.  Riehl 

22.  Robert  M.  Yerkes .... 

23.  Benjamin  F.Thomas. 

24.  George  Rebec 

25.  Sydney  H.  Mallone... 

26.  D.  W.  Hering 

27.  M.  Anesaki 

28.  John  Trowbridge  .... 

29.  W.B.  Pillsbury. 

30.  Edward  L.  Nichols... 

31.  John  Daniel 


Position. 


Prof.  Psychology,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. 

Prof.  Philosophy,  Yale  Univer- 
sity. 

English  scientist 

Prof.  Astronomy,  Princeton  Uni- 
versity. 

Prof,  Philosophy,  Bonn,  Ger- 
many. 

Director,  Psychologic  Labora- 
tory, University  of  Toronto. 

Prof,  Philosophy,  one  of  the  larg- 
est universities. 

Prof.  Physics,  Imperial  Univer- 
sity, Jurjev,  Russia. 

English  scientist 

Prof.  Philosophy,  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

Prof.  History  of  Philosophy,  Johns 
Hopkins  University. 

Editor  and  author,  Chicago 

Prof.  Ethics  and  Religious  Philos- 
ophy, University  of  Amster- 
dam, Holland. 

Prof.  Psychology,  University  of 
Chicago. 

Prof.  Philosophy,  Vanderbilt  Uni- 
versity. 

Late  Prof.  Logic  and  Ethics, 
Columbia  University. 

Author,  "  Law  of  Psychic  Phe- 
nomena," etc. 

Prof.  Physics,  University  of 
Cincinnati. 

Prof.  Physics,  University  of  Cali- 
fornia. 

Prof.  Physics,  University  of  Indi- 
ana. 

Prof.  Philosophy,  Halle  Univer- 
sity. 

Prof.  Psychology,  Harvard 
University. 

Prof.  Physics,  Ohio  State  Uni- 
versity. 

Prof.  Philosophy,  University  of 
Michigan. 

Hollywood,  Belfast,  Ireland. 

Prof.  Physics,  New  York  Univer- 
sity. 

Prof.  Literature  and  History,  Im- 
perial University  of  Tokyo, 
Japan. 

Prof.  Physics,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity. 

Prof.  Psychology,  University  of 
Michigan. 

Prof.  Physics,  Cornell  University. 

Prof.  Physics,  Vanderbilt  Uni- 
versity. 


Most  Probable 
Theory. 


Subjective  faculties 
and  spirits. 

Fraud  and  honesty 
mingled. 

Spirits. 

Trick  easiest  solu- 
tion. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Fraud. 

Inclined  to  extra- 
mundane. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Spirits. 

Fraud  or  telepathy. 

All  four  theories 
open  to  objection. 

Coincidence ;  spirits 
as  last  resort. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Self-deception  and 
coincidence. 

Psychic  facts  not  yet 
enough  for  gener- 
alization. 

Possibly  spirits. 

Subconscious   facul- 
ties. 
Possibly  fraud. 

Not  ready  for  decis- 
ion. 

Thinks  solution 
fraud  or  spirits. 

Rejects  spirit  com- 
munication. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Fraud. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Possibly  s  u  b  c  o  n  - 
scious  faculties. 

Fraud. 

Spirits. 


Fraud. 

Possibly      coinci' 

dence. 
Possibly  fraud. 
Fraud. 


12 


lyS     PROFESSOR   JAMES   OF   HARVARD 


Name. 


32.  William  T.  Stead 

33.  Arthur  Allin 

34.  Edwin  B.  Holt 

35.  A.  Meinong 

36.  Alfred  H.  Lloyd 

37.  E.  Colsenet 

38.  Minot  J.  Savage,  D.D. 

39.  J.  Brough 

40.  "William  Duane 

41.  C.  H.  Parkhurst 

42.  Sydney  Alrutz 


POSITION. 


Editor  Review  of  Reviews^  London, 

England. 
Prof.  Psychology,  University  of 

Colorado. 
Instructor  Psychology,  Harvard 

University. 
Prof.  Philosophy,   University    of 

Gratz,  German}'. 
Prof.   Philosophy,  University  of 

Michigan. 
Prof.   Philosophy,  University  of 

Besangon,  France. 
Author,     "Can     Telepathy     Ex- 
plain ?  "  etc..  New  York. 
Prof.    Philosophy,   University  of 

Wales. 
Prof.    Physics,    Colorado    State 

University. 

Clergyman,  New  York .... 

Prof,   of   Psychology,  University 

of  Upsala,  Sweden. 


Most  Probable 
Theory. 


Spirits, 

Possibly     uncon- 
scious deception. 
A  jest. 

Unknown  natural 
laws. 

Too  trivial  to  be  of 
spirits. 

Subconscious  facul- 
ties. 

Spirits. 

Deception. 

Fraud  and  subcon- 
scious faculties. 

Possibly  spirits. 

No  opinion  ;  asks  ad- 
ditional questions. 


Of  this  large  number  of  answers  to  my  questions — given 
in  full  in  the  Appendix — typical  ones  are  those  from  Pro- 
fessors James  of  Harvard,  Ladd  of  Yale,  Max  Wentscher  of 
Bonn,  Germany,  Anesaki  of  the  University  of  Tokyo,  Japan, 
de  Bussy  of  the  University  of  Amsterdam,  Holland,  Kirch- 
mann  of  the  University  of  Toronto,  Young  of  Princeton,  and 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace  and  Sir  William  Crookes  of  England. 

Prof.  William  James,  of  Harvard,  is  so  well  known 
throughout  this  country  and  England  as  a  psychologist  that 
the  reader  will  pardon  me  for  giving  here  also  his  answer  in 
full: 

From  William  James,  Professor  of  Psychology,  Harvard  University. 

**  I  regard  fraud  as  an  improbable  hypothesis,  and,  if  the  circum- 
stances are  completely  reported,  not  seriously  to  be  considered. 

"The  improbabilities  of  an  accidental  coincidence  grow  with  the 
number  of  details  which  coincide.  The  medium  hit  so  many  details  in 
reference  to  this  "  Widow's  Mite"  that  the  probabilities  of  her  success 
being  altogether  accidental  are  very  small.  It  is  difficult  to  measure  the 
improbability  mathematically,  but  common  sense  will  consider  it  almost 
infinitely  great  in  this  case. 

"  In  view  of  the  many  recent  proofs  that  our  *  subconscious  self '  may 
often  know  what  our  conscious  self  is  ignorant  of,  it  is  possible  that  die 
medium  (had  her  subconscious  mind  been  in  communication  with  the 
cashier's  subconscious  mind)  might  have  thus  known  that  the  coin  hnd 
never  been  sent  back.    The  greater  genuineness  of  the  darker  coin,  if  it 


DO  YOU    SEE   MY   FACE?  179 

were  not  a  pure  coincidence,  might  have  been  similarly  gathered  from 
other  minds  at  a  distance.  It  is  obvious  that  in  the  case  under  discus- 
sion subconscious  mindreading  would  have  to  go  beyond  the  actual 
sitters  at  the  '  stance.' 

"  The  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication  is  undoubtedly  a  possible 
one  and  simpler  than  any  other,  provided  one  supposes  the  spirits  in 
question  to  have  been  tremendously  inhibited  in  their  communications. 
This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  gaps  and  guesses  which  the  facts 
they  reported  exhibited." 


WAS  THIS   BEECHER'S   FACE? 

In  a  circle  in  New  York,  shortly  after  "The  Widow's 
Mite"  incident,  I  was  called  up  to  the  cabinet,  it  having 
been  announced  that  Mr.  Beecher  was  present  and  wished 
to  speak  to  me. 

Sure  enough,  when  the  curtains  were  parted,  there  was 
the  Beecher  face,  wonderfully  life-like. 

"  Doctor,"  said  a  deep,  husky  voice — all  the  spirit  voices 
at  this  particular  circle  are  peculiarly  husky,  except  those  of 
the  three  controls — "  I  am  glad  to  talk  to  you  in  this  way. 
I  and  others  here  wish  you  to  organize  on  your  side,  and 
we  shall  organize  on  our  side,  for  an  effort  to  bring  about 
conditions  that  will  make  it  easy  for  us  to  come  in  a  visible 
form  and  talk  to  you  face  to  face.  If  we  shall  be  able  to  do 
this,  it  will  greatly  tend  to  bring  to  an  end  all  thought  of 
materialism  on  earth,  and  will  lift  the  world  to  a  much  higher 
plane  of  thought  and  action.  Do  not  put  this  by  lightly;  it 
means  much  to  the  world. 

"  Do  you  see  my  face  clearly }  "  He  drew  the  curtains 
back,  and  the  face  was  turned  full  toward  the  dim  light.  "  It 
is  with  great  difficulty  that  we  come  back  into  visible  form. 
You  have  no  adequate  thought  of  the  nature,  the  largeness, 
and  the  complexity  of  the  difficulties  that  must  be  surmounted 
by  the  spiritual  world  in  order  to  return  in  this  way,  but  we 
can  surmount  these  fully,  so  our  scientific  leaders  assure  us. 
We  have  surmounted  them  in  part;  your  side  can  largely 


i8o        MY    EARTHINESS    HINDERED 

help  by  supplying  the  proper  thought  and  heart  conditions. 
Do  not  smile  when  we  speak  of  magnetism  and  vibrations 
and  waves.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  mind  or  soul  ether. 
To  this  ether  your  thought  and  feeling  and  will  and  ours  are 
disturbing  and  controlling  forces — very  real.  You  must 
study  on  your  side  these  psychic  forces  and  their  laws. 

"  I  can  not  hold  longer  the  force  by  which  I  have  come — 
watch  me  closely." 

The  image,  or  whatever  it  was,  slowly  sank  to  the  floor 
and  then  disappeared.  Before  it  sank,  a  hand  was  placed 
upon  my  shoulder.     The  hand  was  substantial — very  human. 

What  was  it  ? 

POINTS  TO   OBSERVE 

1.  I  was  not  permitted  to  touch  the  curtain  or  the  appari- 
tion, as  my  "  positive  earthly  condition  "  disturbed  in  propor- 
tion to  my  earthiness,  in  some  kind  of  a  geometric  ratio,  the 
"  vibratory  conditions  "  which  enabled  Mr.  Beecher  to  hold 
his  visible  form  together — as  it  was  afterward  explained  to 
me  by  the  control. 

2.  The  room  was  so  dark  that  it  was  impossible  to  deter- 
mine satisfactorily  with  the  eye  as  to  whether  this  was  not 
an  artistically  got  up  imitation  of  the  bust  of  Mr.  Beecher ; 
the  bust  only  was  visible,  not  the  full  form.  I  do  not  say 
that  it  was  a  fraud ;  I  simply  say  that  I  can  not  be  sure  that 
it  was  not. 

3.  While  I  had  taken  the  necessary  precautions  to  exclude 
confederates,  it  was  not  permitted  me  to  exclude  the  possi- 
bility of  the  medium  consciously  or  otherwise  impersonating 
a  spirit  form.  I  am  convinced  that  mediums  often  uncon- 
sciously impersonate  others,  and  will  do  it  as  readily  if  these 
others  are  living  as  if  they  are  dead ;  I  have  often  had  talks 
with  the  "  spirits  "  of  living  persons,  and  yet,  singular  as  it 
may  seem,  there  was  no  intentional  deception. 

Before  Mr.  Beecher's  death  I  had  had  repeated  conversa- 


IS  THIS   PARALLEL?  "      i8i 

tions  with  him  about  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  spiritualistic 
phenomena.  If  the  form  that  here  appeared  had  been  Mr. 
Beecher,  is  it  not  likely  that  he  would  have  sought  harder  to 
have  given  me  proof  of  identification  ?  Possibly,  as  Professor 
James  suggests,  a  spirit  is  tremendously  inhibited  when  he 
comes  into  earthly  conditions.  Maybe  his  memory  is  con- 
fused. Possibly  there  are  difficulties  in  keeping  separate  the 
impressions  that  proceed  from  the  medium,  from  the  mem- 
bers of  the  circle,  and  from  the  spirit.  The  magnetism  and 
the  vibrations  from  the  different  personalities  may  get  some- 
what mixed.  In  reply  to  close  questioning  along  this  line, 
the  following  thought  was  suggested  by  one  who  represented 
himself  as  a  spirit  control : 

"  Evolutionists  tell  you  that  man  has  come  up  along  the 
fish  pathway  of  development.  His  lungs  were  once  gills  and 
he  lived  under  water.  Now,  suppose  the  thought  should 
come  to  some  of  you  that  it  would  be  well  to  go  down  into 
the  sea  and  help  the  fish  develop  to  your  way  of  thinking. 
In  order  to  do  this  it  would  be  necessary  for  you  to  get  on 
the  fish's  plane  of  thinking  and  on  the  plane  of  the  fish's 
physical  condition.  How  would  you  go  about  it.^  How 
would  you  live  under  the  water.-*  And  how  communicate 
intelligently  with  the  fish  ?  You  might  carry  down  under  the 
water  some  concentrated  air  and  remain  there  for  a  while,  but 
by  and  by  you  would  be  compelled  to  say  that  your  *  power  to 
stay  longer  was  exhausted.'  Were  fish  intelligent  enough, 
they  might  reason  somewhat  as  follows :  It  is  foolish  to  be- 
lieve that  these  men  are  what  they  claim  to  be,  that  they  are 
descendants  of  our  ancestors,  that  they  were  fish  in  a  pre- 
vious existence.  If  they  had  been  once  fish,  how  easy  it 
would  be  for  them  to  prove  it  by  living  down  here  with  us 
and  talking  to  us  in  a  language  that  we  can  understand. 
Until  they  do  this,  we  will  have  none  of  them." 

In  investigating  these  phenomena,  at  least  in  the  present 
stage,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  wholly  right  in  applying 
this  rule :  Exclude  the  spirit  explanation  if  any  other  hypoth- 


i82  A   "SPIRIT   EXPLANATION 

esis  will  explain  them.  Even  then  we  must  remember  that 
a  conjurer  like  Harry  Kellar  will  produce  many  a  sleight-of- 
hand  trick  that  we  can  not  explain.  It  will  not  do  to  attribute 
to  spirits  all  phenomena  for  which  we  can  not  find  other 
explanation.  But  as  a  general  working  rule  the  rule  is  a 
safe  one — reasonably  safe  as  a  working  hypothesis. 

After  the  "  Mite  "  incident  had  been  published,  a  number 
of  mediums  in  this  and  other  countries  made  strenuous 
efforts  to  put  me  in  communication  with  Mr.  Beecher.  I 
received  many  letters  from  both  private  and  public  mediums 
kindly  volunteering  their  help  to  this  end.  The  following  is 
a  sample  of  many  of  these  letters : 

Denver,  Colo.,  April  i6,  1903. 

Dear  Sir  :  I,  as  a  **  private  individual,"  presume  to  offer  the  simple 
facts  as  related  to  me  on  the  14th  inst.,  when  the  Chicago  Tribune  first 
came  to  my  notice,  giving  a  description  of  the  finding  of  the  lost  coin 
through  spiritual  agency. 

Having  personal  acquaintance  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  being 
favored  with  several  most  interesting  interviews  since  he  passed  away,  I 
at  onee  sent  a  telepathic  message  to  inquire  if  he  would  kindly  grant  me 
attendance  at  a  stance,  naming  nine  o'clock.  Within  an  hour's  time  a 
messenger  came  to  say  that  Mr.  Beecher  and  Professor  West  would 
make  a  special  engagement  for  thirty  minutes  later. 

The  two  gentlemen  came  promptly,  and  the  following  replies  were 
given  to  inquiries : 

Question :  Why  did  Professor  West  make  special  effort  for  return  of 
coin? 

Answer — Prof.  Charles  E.  West :  "  I  was  exceedingly  anxious  for  the 
return  of  the  coin  to  my  family,  as  I  had  prized  it  very  highly  when  on 
earth,  it  being  a  rare  coin  relic,  and  my  family  were  aware  of  that 
fact." 

Q. :  Why  could  not  you  give  to  the  medium  location  of  coin  yourself? 

A. :  **  I  could  not  utilize  the  medial  influence  at  hand  unaided,  and  re- 
quested Mr.  Beecher  to  assist  me  in  accomplishing  it,  as  he  and  Dr.  Funk 
were  friends.  Spirits  in  the  higher  life  are  subject  to  helpful  personal 
influence,  which  we  find  a  universal  law  of  compensation  in  nature ; 
therefore  we  combine  to  perfect  manifestations — the  more  effective 
method  of  spreading  this  gospel  of  spiritual  truth." 

At  this  moment  Professor  West  requested  Dr.  S.  B.  Brittan,  guide 
and  teacher  of  the  medium,  to  explain  tlie  principles  involved  in  trans- 
mission of  thought. 

Dr.  Brittan :  "  Every  effort  made  to  bring  the  facts  of  communication 


THOUGHT   WAVES  183 

between  the  spiritual  and  material  states  to  public  recognition  receives 
the  cooperation  of  intelligent  minds,  dwelling  in  spirit  life ;  accordingly 
the  gentlemen  in  question  united  to  emphasize  this  truth  by  using  all 
available  means  at  command.  The  law  of  transmitted  thought  is  ever 
the  same  in  all  fields  of  human  activity. 

"  The  spirit  does  not  change  its  mode  of  expression  because  it  has 
entered  upon  life  beyond  the  change  called  death ;  immortality  of  the 
human  individual  is  established  by  divine  law.  The  Creator  carries  to 
perfection  by  that  law  all  the  benefits  that  may  accrue  to  the  individual 
mind  through  expressed  thought  or  intellectual  communication. 

"  Gentlemen,  there  are  two  elements  inseparable  from  success  in 
thought  transference  on  all  mental  planes : 

"  First,  the  transmitter  and  receiver  must  be  in  harmony  with  scientific 
laws  governing  through  vibration. 

"  Secondly,  the  spirit  or  inner  consciousness  liberates  a  series  of 
thought-waves  generated  through  electromagnetism  by  chemical  affinity 
within  the  human  brain,  the  reservoir  of  dynamic  force.  This  power  be- 
comes the  transmitter  and  stimulates  nerve'currents  to  receive  and  convey 
to  the  perceptive  faculties,  or  receiver,  the  ideas  conveyed.  Thought- 
waves  may  be  thus  continued  through  unlimited  space  should  sensitive 
minds  be  acted  upon  as  receivers,  thus  renewing  dynamic  force  to  repeat 
the  process  of  thought  transmission.  Herein  lies  the  marvelous  mental 
power  demonstrated  in  telepathy. 

"  Spirits  possess  individual  minds,  still  subject  to  the  laws  of  organic 
life,  and  remain  as  completely  dependent  upon  proper  conditions  for  ex- 
pression as  are  their  friends  in  the  physical  body. 

"It  is  true  that  all  spirits  labor  under  difficulties  in  giving  perfect 
manifestations,  as  time  is  required  to  study  the  principles  of  magnetism 
and  electricity — absolute  factors  in  producmg  spiritual  manifestations  of 
every  kind  or  degree. 

"  Hence  the  receptive  minds  are  those  which  more  readily  master  the 
science  of  spirit  control.  Is  it  consistent  to  expect  an  untaught  man  suc- 
cessfully to  manipulate  a  telegraphic  instrument?  Far  more  delicate  and 
sensitive  is  the  spiritual  key  and  mental  system  used  in  spirit  telepathy 
and  telegraphy. 

"As  to  possible  knowledge  for  locating  the  coin,  tho  Dr.  Funk  had 
wholly  forgotten  its  hiding-place,  Mr.  Beecher  might  easily  read  the  fact 
concerning  it,  indelibly  recorded  upon  the  doctor's  memory,  since  tlie 
analytical  mind  of  Mr.  Beecher  has  lost  none  of  its  cultured  skill,  tho  he 
may  have  exchanged  his  physical  brain  for  the  more  delicate  spiritual 
sensorium. 

"  Those  who  are  familiar  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher  will  realize  that 
his  chief  characteristics  enable  him  to  accomplish  a  desired  purpose,  tho 
he  uses  the  simplest  aids  conceivable.  The  employment  of  an  humble 
spirit,  as  Rakestraw  is  termed  by  Dr.  Funk,  is  strong  testimony  favoring 
Mr.  Beecher's  usual  custom  when  in  earth  life,  and  excellent  proof  of 
personal  identity." 


i84         IS   THIS    BEECHERIAN   WIT? 

Here  Mr.  Beecher  requested  the  privilege  of  controlling  the  medium, 
and  said : 

"If  I,  Beecher,  desire  to  send  a  message  from  spirit  life  and  find  a 
man  who  can  convey  that  message  effectively,  I  should  scorn  to  reject  his 
service  tho  he  fail  to  possess  a  distinguished  name  or  popular  position. 
John  Rakestraw  has  been  accustomed  to  attend  meetings  and  control  the 
medium  through  whom  the  coin  was  discovered.  What  more  reasonable 
than  the  united  effort  of  Professor  West,  Mr.  Rakestraw,  and  myself  to 
effect  return  of  the  coveted  coin  to  its  rightful  owners? 

"  Dr.  Funk,  allow  an  old  friend  to  suggest  that  investigation  of  new 
theology — spiritualism — requires  the  application  of  a  healthful  lesson, 
viz.,  use  practical  methods  only,  and  remember  that  God  gave  human 
reason  as  the  supreme  judge  of  valid  testimony  in  the  last  analysis. 

"  Genuine  communications  bear  the  stamp  of  personal  identity,  and  all 
manifestations  rest  on  scientific  laws.  Spiritualism  is  your  only  hope  for 
this  materialistic  age,  and  offers  the  one  proof  of  immortality  possible  to 
the  human  mind,  notwithstanding  theological  anathema.  If  evil  spirits 
can  communicate,  it  is  by  the  universal  law  of  expressed  thought;  and 
good  spirits  may  as  readily  approach  their  beloved  friends  in  earthly  life, 
to  soothe  the  wounds  made  by  separation,  and  verify  the  scriptural  prom- 
ise :  '  The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death.'  Knowledge  of 
the  future  life  disarms  fear." 

With  Longfellow's  beautiful  inspiration,  let  us  rejoice : 

"There  is  no  death— 
What  seems  so,  is  transition." 

Will  Dr.  Funk  kindly  accept  the  above  with  the  request  that  he  may 
carefully  scrutinize  the  contents,  and  permit  me  to  hope  that  truth  may 
be  apparent  to  aid  him  in  solving  the  problem  of  spiritual  manifestations? 

With  respect. 


If  mediums  from  Maine  to  California,  and  some  across 
the  sea,  have  done  what  they  write  to  me  that  they  have  done 
or  intended  to  do,  poor  Mr.  Beecher's  spirit,  I  fear,  has  been 
sadly  harassed  during  the  past  year,  and  I  am  not  at  all  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  he  has  lost  somewhat  his  patience,  as  one 
of  the  spirit  controls  reported  to  me  that  he  has,  saying : 
"The  widow's  mite  bother  Dr.  F.  to  their  hearts'  content 
for  aught  I  care.  I  will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  the 
affair."  That  at  least  has  something  of  the  old  Beecher 
ring  in  it. 


SWEDENBORG   FINDS   A   RECEIPT    185 


PSYCHIC    PHENOMENA   SIMILAR   TO    THE 
FINDING   OF    "THE   WIDOW'S    MITE" 

The  finding  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite  "  through  telepathy, 
clairvoyance,  or  what  is  claimed  to  be  spirit  help  does  not 
stand  alone  among  psychic  phenomena.  There  are  many 
reasonably  authenticated  similar  incidents  recorded.  I  in- 
stance here  four  typical  cases. 

Case  I. — The  finding  of  a  lost  receipt  by  Sweden- 
borg. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  February,  1903,  Mme.  Anna 
Rothe,  known  in  Germany  as  "  the  flower  medium,"  was 
condemned  by  a  German  court  to  a  year  and  a  half  imprison- 
ment for  "imposture  and  swindling."  In  the  critico-scien- 
tific  magazine.  Die  Zukmvft^  April  4,  1903  (Berlin,  Germany), 
the  editor,  Maximilian  Harden — perhaps  the  greatest  jour- 
nalist in  Germany — writes  a  long  editorial  in  criticism  of  this 
judicial  condemnation.  He  reminds  the  public  of  the  fact 
that  among  those  who  believe  in  psychic  phenomena  are 
many  of  the  ablest  brains  that  the  world  has  had  or  now  has. 
He  calls  particular  attention  to  the  finding  of  this  receipt 
for  a  considerable  sum  of  money  through  Emanuel  Sweden- 
borg,  who  claims  that  he  got  his  information  direct  from  the 
spirit  world.  The  story  is  told  by  the  German  editor  in  full, 
giving  the  version  of  Immanuel  Kant,  the  great  German 
philosopher.  The  incident  as  told  by  Kant  has  often  been 
repeated,  and  tho  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  passed 
since  this  account  has  been  given  to  the  world  by  Kant,  it  not 
only  has  never  been  seriously  questioned,  but  is  now  repub- 
lished without  contradiction  in  one  of  Germany's  ablest 
periodicals  and  is  incorporated  by  Frederic  Myers  in  his 
recently  published  work,  "Human  Personality." 


i86     IMMANUEL   KANT    INTERESTED 

As  there  are  strong  points  of  similarity  between  the  find- 
ing of  this  receipt  and  the  finding  of  "The  Widow's  Mite,"  it 
has  seemed  to  me  well  to  give  here  the  incident  as  described 
by  Kant  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Charlotte  von  Knob- 
loch.^  Kant  prefaces  his  account  of  Swedenborg's  remark- 
able supranormal  powers  as  follows : 

"  I  would  not  have  deprived  myself  so  long  of  the  honor  and  pleasure 
of  obeying  the  request  of  a  lady  who  is  tlie  ornament  of  her  sex,  in  com- 
municating the  desired  information,  if  I  had  not  deemed  it  necessary 
previously  to  inform  myself  thoroughly  concerning  the  subject  of  your 
request.  .  .  .  Permit  me,  gracious  lady,  to  justify  my  proceedings  in  this 
matter,  inasmuch  as  it  might  appear  that  an  erroneous  opinion  had 
induced  me  to  credit  the  various  relations  concerning  it  without  careful 
examination.  I  am  not  aware  that  anybody  has  ever  perceived  in  me  an 
inclination  to  the  marvelous  or  a  weakness  tending  to  credulity.  So 
much  is  certain  that,  notwithstanding  all  the  narrations  of  apparitions 
and  visions  concerning  the  spiritual  world,  of  which  a  great  number  of 
the  most  probable  are  known  to  me,  I  have  always  considered  it  to  be 
most  in  agreement  with  sound  reason  to  incline  to  the  negative  side ;  not 
as  if  I  had  imagined  such  a  case  to  be  impossible,  altho  we  know  but 
very  little  concerning  the  nature  of  a  spirit,  but  because  the  instances  are 
not  in  general  sufficiently  proved.  There  arise,  moreover,  from  the  in- 
comprehensibility and  inutility  of  this  sort  of  phenomena,  too  many  diffi- 
culties; and  there  are,  on  the  other  hand,  so  many  proofs  of  deception, 
that  I  have  never  considered  it  necessary  to  suffer  fear  or  dread  to  come 
upon  me,  either  in  the  cemeteries  of  the  dead  or  in  the  darkness  of  tlie 
night.  This  is  the  position  in  which  my  mind  stood  for  a  long  time, 
until  the  report  concerning  Swedenborg  came  to  my  notice. 

"  This  account  I  received  from  a  Danish  officer,  who  was  formerly  my 
friend  and  attended  my  lectures ;  and  who,  at  the  table  of  the  Austrian 
ambassador,  Dietrichstein,  at  Copenhagen,  together  with  several  other 
guests,  read  a  letter  which  the  ambassador  about  that  time  had  received 
from  Baron  de  Lutzow,  the  Mecklenburg  ambassador  in  Stockholm,  in 
which  he  says  that  he,  in  company  with  the  Dutch  ambassador,  was 
present  at  the  Queen  of  Sweden's  residence  at  the  extraordinary  transac- 
tion respecting  Swedenborg,  which  your  ladyship  will  undoubtedly  have 
heard.  The  authenticity  thus  given  to  the  account  surprised  me.  For  it 
can  scarcely  be  believed  that  one  ambassador  should  communicate  to 
another  for  public  use  a  piece  of  infonnation  which  related  to  the  Queen 
of  the  court  where  he  resided,  and  which  he  himself,  together  with  a  dis- 
tinguished company,  had  the  opportunity  of  witnessing,  if  it  were  not  true. 

*  This  letter  is  given  in  full  in  Borowsky's  "  Darstellting  des  Lebens  und 
Charakters  Immanuels  Kant."  Konigsberg,  1S04,  pp.  211-25.  I  here  give  the  trans- 
lation as  it  appears  in  "  Dreams  of  a  Spirit  Seer,"  by  Frank  Sewall. 


SWEDENBORG  TALKS  TO  A  SPIRIT  187 

Now,  in  order  not  to  reject  blindfold  the  prejudice  against  apparitions 
and  visions  by  a  new  prejudice,  I  found  it  desirable  to  inform  myself  as 
to  the  particulars  of  this  surprising  transaction.  I  accordingly  wrote  to 
the  officer  I  have  mentioned,  at  Copenhagen,  and  made  various  inquiries 
respecting  it.  He  answered  that  he  had  again  had  an  interview  concern- 
ing it  with  Count  Dietrichstein ;  that  the  affair  had  really  taken  place  in 
the  manner  described;  and  that  Professor  Schlegel  also  had  declared 
to  him  that  it  could  by  no  means  be  doubted.  He  advised  me,  as  he  was 
then  going  to  the  army  under  General  St.  Germain,  to  write  to  Sweden- 
borg  himself,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  particular  circumstances  of  this 
extraordinary  case." 

Then  follows  a  description  of  two  occurrences  that  most 
deeply  impressed  Kant.  These  I  give  in  full,  altho  the  second 
has  been  often  told,  as  they  illustrate  very  fully  the  peculiar 
power  of  Swedenborg : 

"  In  order,  gracious  lady,  to  give  you  two  proofs,  of  which  the  present 
existing  public  is  a  witness,  and  the  person  who  related  them  to  me  had 
the  opportunity  of  investigating  them  at  the  very  place  where  they  oc- 
curred, I  will  narrate  to  you  the  two  following  occurrences. 

"Madame  Herteville  (Marteville),  the  widow  of  the  Dutch  ambassa- 
dor in  Stockholm,  some  time  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  was  called 
upon  by  Croon,  a  goldsmith,  to  pay  for  a  silver  service  which  her  husband 
had  purchased  from  him.  The  widow  was  convinced  that  her  late  husband 
had  been  much  too  precise  and  orderly  not  to  have  paid  this  debt,  yet 
she  was  unable  to  find  this  receipt.  In  her  sorrow,  and  because  the 
amount  was  considerable,  she  requested  Mr.  Swedenborg  to  call  at  her 
house.  After  apologizing  to  him  for  troubling  him,  she  said  that  if,  as 
all  people  say,  he  possessed  the  extraordinary  gift  of  conversing  with  the 
souls  of  the  departed,  he  would  perhaps  have  the  kindness  to  ask  her 
husband  how  it  was  about  the  silver  service.  Swedenborg  did  not  at  all 
object  to  comply  with  her  request.  Three  days  afterward  the  said  lady 
had  company  at  her  house  for  coffee.  Swedenborg  called  and  in  his  cool 
way  informed  her  that  he  had  conversed  with  her  husband.  The  debt 
had  been  paid  several  months  before  his  decease,  and  the  receipt  was  m 
a  bureau  in  the  room  upstairs.  The  lady  replied  that  the  bureau  had 
been  quite  cleared  out,  and  that  the  receipt  was  not  found  among  all  the 
papers.  Swedenborg  said  that  her  husband  had  described  to  him  how 
after  pulling  out  the  left-hand  drawer  a  board  would  appear,  which  re- 
quired to  be  drawn  out,  when  a  secret  compartment  would  be  disclosed, 
containing  his  private  Dutch  correspondence,  as  well  as  the  receipt. 
Upon  hearing  this  description  the  whole  company  arose  and  accompanied 
the  lady  into  the  room  upstairs.  The  bureau  was  opened ;  they  did  as 
they  were  directed ;  the  compartment  was  found,  of  which  no  one  had 


i88  THE  STOCKHOLM    FIRE 

ever  known  before ;  and,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  all,  the  papers 
were  discovered  there,  in  accordance  with  his  description. 

"  The  fo\lowing  occurrence  appears  to  me  to  have  the  greatest  weight 
of  proof  and  to  place  the  assertion  respecting  Swedenborg's  extraordi- 
nary gift  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt. 

"  In  the  year  1759,  toward  the  end  of  September,  on  Saturday  at  four 
o'clock  P.M.,  Swedenborg  arrived  at  Gottenburg  from  England,  when 
Mr.  William  Castel  invited  him  to  his  house,  together  with  a  party  of 
fifteen  persons.  About  six  o'clock  Swedenborg  went  out,  and  returned 
to  the  company  quite  pale  and  alarmed.  He  said  that  a  dangerous  fire 
had  just  broken  out  in  Stockholm,  at  the  Sodermalm  (Gottenburg  is 
about  fifty  German  miles  from  Stockholm),  and  that  it  was  spreading 
very  fast.  He  was  restless  and  went  out  often.  He  said  that  the  house 
of  one  of  his  friends,  whom  he  named,  was  already  in  ashes,  and  that  his 
own  was  in  danger.  At  eight  o'clock,  after  he  had  been  out  again,  he 
joyfully  exclaimed,'  Thank  God  !  the  fire  is  extinguished;  the  third  door 
jfrom  my  house.'  This  news  occasioned  great  commotion  throughout 
the  whole  city,  but  particularly  among  the  company  in  which  he  was.  It 
was  announced  to  the  governor  the  same  evening.  On  Sunday  morning 
Swedenborg  was  summoned  to  the  governor,  who  questioned  him  con- 
cerning the  disaster.  Swedenborg  described  the  fire  precisely,  how  it 
had  begun  and  in  what  manner  it  had  ceased ,  and  how  long  it  had  con- 
tinued. On  the  same  day  the  news  spread  through  the  city,  and  as  the 
governor  thought  it  worthy  of  attention,  the  consternation  was  consid- 
erably increased;  because  many  were  in  trouble  on  account  of  their 
friends  and  property,  which  might  have  been  involved  in  the  disaster. 
On  Monday  evening  a  messenger  arrived  at  Gottenburg,  who  was  de- 
spatched by  the  Board  of  Trade  during  the  time  of  the  fire.  In  the  letters 
brought  by  him,  the  fire  was  described  precisely  in  the  manner  stated  by 
Swedenborg.  On  Tuesday  morning  the  royal  courier  arrived  at  the 
governor's  with  the  melancholy  intelligence  of  the  fire,  of  the  loss 
which  it  had  occasioned,  and  of  the  houses  it  had  damaged  and  ruined, 
not  in  the  least  differing  from  that  which  Swedenborg  had  given  at 
the  very  time  when  it  happened ;  for  the  fire  was  extinguished  at  eight 
o'clock. 

"  What  can  be  brought  forward  against  the  authenticity  of  this  oc- 
currence (the  conflagration  in  Stockholm)?  My  friend  who  wrote  this  to 
me  has  examined  all,  not  only  in  Stockholm,  but  also,  about  two  months 
ago,  in  Gottenburg,  where  he  is  well  acquainted  witli  the  most  respect- 
able houses,  and  where  he  could  obtain  the  most  authentic  and  complete 
information,  for  as  only  a  very  short  time  has  elapsed  since  1759,  most 
of  the  inhabitants  are  still  alive  who  were  eye-witnesses  of  this  occur- 
rence. 

"  He  has  also  given  me  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which,  according 
to  Mr.  Swedenborg,  his  intercourse  with  other  spirits  takes  place,  and 
also  the  ideas  which  he  communicates  regarding  tlie  condition  of  de- 
parted spirits." 


HYPOTHESES   EXAMINED  189 

In  the  incident  of  finding  the  receipt,  the  hypotheses  of 
fraud  and  of  coincidence  may  be  safely  eliminated.  Two  hy- 
potheses remain : 

I.  That  of  the  subjective  mind. 

Points  in  favor  of  this  hypothesis  are : 

1.  That  if  the  subjective  mind  of  a  second  person  is  able 
to  become  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  subjective  mind 
of  another  person  and  have  no  consciousness  of  this  knowl- 
edge, then  it  would  be  possible  that  the  subjective  mind  of 
Madame  Herteville  got  this  information  from  the  subjective 
mind  of  her  husband  before  his  death  and  yet  had  no  con- 
sciousness whatever  of  this  fact. 

2.  There  is  a  bare  possibility  that  the  ambassador  may 
have  told  somebody  else  of  the  existence  of  this  secret 
drawer  and  of  the  receipt  and  other  papers  being  there  con- 
cealed. 

3.  The  manufacturer  who  made  the  drawer  knew  of  the 
fact  that  there  was  such  a  secret  drawer  in  the  bureau. 

Points  2  and  3  imply  that  Swedenborg  may  have  got  his 
information  wholly  unconsciously  to  himself  from  the  sub- 
jective mind  of  either  of  these  persons. 

Points  against  this  hypothesis  : 

1.  It  seems  extremely  unlikely  that  the  husband  would 
have  told  other  persons  of  the  whereabouts  of  this  receipt 
and  of  the  drawer  and  not  have  told  his  wife,  when  it  seems 
that  both  he  and  his  wife  lived  upon  friendly  terms,  and 
that  she  was  intimately  concerned  about  the  location  of  this 
drawer  and  of  the  receipt  there  concealed. 

2.  Swedenborg  evidently  intended  to  have  it  inferred  that 
he  got  his  information  from  spirits  and  not  from  any  other 
source,  and  no  one  even  now  questions  Swedenborg's  abso- 
lute sincerity;  hence  if  the  theory  of  the  subjective  mind  be 
valid,  Swedenborg's  subjective  mind,  unconsciously  to  him- 
self, must  have  read  the  subjective  mind  of  some  other  per- 
son, who,  unconsciously  to  that  other  person,  got  the  secret 
from  the  ambassador's  subjective  mind. 


I90         KANT'S   FEAR  OF   RIDICULE 

3.  This  supposition  makes  it  necessary  for  Swedenborg 
to  have  found  through  his  subjective  mind  the  one  or  two 
persons  in  the  world  who  was  acquainted  with  this  fact ;  and, 
after  having  found  this  other  person,  he  would  have  had  to 
discover  this  particular  fact  in  the  person's  subjective  mind. 
Would  not  this  be  clothing  the  subjective  mind  of  a  medium 
with  a  power  akin  to  omniscience?  Where  is  there  proof 
that  it  possesses  such  power? 

II.  The  spirit  hypothesis. 

If  we  admit  that  spirits  are  able  and  willing  to  commu- 
nicate to  persons  of  mediumistic  power  in  this  world,  the 
difficulty  which  this  hypothesis  would  encounter  is  for 
Swedenborg  to  have  by  thought  transference  come  in  com- 
munication with  the  spirit  of  Herteville  and  explained  to 
him  the  loss  of  the  receipt  and  to  have  got  from  him  the 
exact  information. 

As  to  the  conflagration  at  Stockholm,  if  the  existence  of 
the  faculty  of  clairvoyance  is  admitted,  we  have  a  sufficient 
explanation. 

The  attitude  which  scientists  and  scholars  generally  are 
most  prone  to  exhibit  toward  strange  psychic  phenomena  is 
exhibited  in  Kant's  later  unfriendly  bearing  toward  Sweden- 
borg. He  afterward  frankly  admitted  that  he  was  influenced 
in  this  matter  by  fear  of  ridicule  on  the  part  of  other  scholars 
at  his  university.  In  a  letter  to  Moses  Mendelssohn,  dated 
April  8,  1766,  he  says:  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  would  be 
difficult  for  me  to  conceive  of  a  method  of  so  clothing  my 
thoughts  that  I  shall  not  subject  myself  to  ridicule."  Dr. 
J.  F.  Immanuel  Tafel,  of  the  University  of  Tubingen,  in  the 
"Sammlung  von  Urkunden,"  iv.,  255,  expresses  the  opinion 
that  it  was  Kant's  fear  of  ridicule  among  his  philosophical 
colleagues  that  led  him  to  affect  so  trifling  an  attitude  to- 
ward Swedenborg  who  had  in  reality  deeply  and  lastingly 
impressed  him. 

Maximilian  Harden,  in  the  article  to  which  reference 
was  made  at  the  beginning  of  this  section,  recalls  a  remarkable 


GOETHE^S   ODD    EXPERIENCE        191 

psychic    phenomenon   which    Goethe   experienced   and   de- 
scribes thus :  ^ 

"  I  rode  now  on  the  footpath  toward  Drusenheim,  and  there  one  of 
the  strangest  presentiments  surprised  me.  I  saw  myself  coming  to  meet 
myself,  on  the  same  way,  on  horseback,  but  in  a  garment  such  as  I  had 
never  worn.  It  was  of  a  light  gray,  mingled  with  gold.  As  soon  as  I 
had  aroused  myself  from  this  dream,  the  vision  entirely  disappeared. 
Remarkable,  nevertheless,  it  is  that,  eight  years  afterward,  I  found  my- 
self on  that  same  road,  intending  to  visit  Friederika  once  more,  and  in 
that  same  garment  which  I  had  dreamed  about  and  which  I  now  wore, 
not  out  of  choice,  but  by  accident.  This  wonderful  hallucination  had  a 
quieting  effect  on  me."  Here,  in  this  way,  for  a  mourning  one,  a  comer 
of  the  veil  is  blown  aside,  and,  for  consolation,  a  meeting  again  is  pointed 
out  in  the  distant  future. 

Harden  closes  his  comments  on  the  Rothe  sentence  with 
the  following  suggestive  remarks : 

"  A  few  voices  to  which  every  one  listens  should  remind  us  of  this  one 
point,  that  the  questions  which  now  appear  to  the  philosophers  of  the 
press  to  require  no  answer  have  occupied  our  brightest  heads  very 
earnestly.  ...  In  the  first  place,  this  modem  world-survey  has  not  yet 
reached  down  from  its  elevation  into  the  darker  lodging-places  of  the 
masses,  and  consequently  it  must  in  the  dawning  light  arouse  again  to  the 
attempt  to  provide  a  buffer-state  betwixt  knowing  and  believing.  .  .  . 

"  Yet  men  content  themselves  as  if  the  court  procedure  against  the 
flower  medium,  Madame  Anna  Rothe,  has  revealed  an  emptiness  of  experi- 
ence, and  as  if  all  those  who  testified  for  the  accused  were  idiots  who 
ought  not  to  be  allowed  at  large.  Exceedingly  modern  was  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  petty  Saxon  public,  and  the  folly  of  the  critics  who  amused 
themselves  with  contemptuous  witticisms.  In  Berlin,  says  the  old  Fon- 
taine, everything  turns  shabby. 

"  Before  the  conclusion  of  the  testimony  one  could  not  but  ask : 
'  Does  this  Rothe  case  taken  as  a  whole  show  the  proof -marks  of  fraud  ? ' 
This  question  was  answered  by  us  in  the  negative ;  but  the  court  answered 
it  affirmatively  after  a  short  deliberation.  The  flower  medium  was  con- 
demned to  imprisonment  for  a  year  and  a  half— a  strange  transaction,  an 
incomprehensible  sentence.  The  court  summons  witnesses  for  the  de- 
fense— dozens — altho  the  proof-notes  show  that  almost  all  testify  to  the 
same  effect.  They  come,  are  sworn,  and  declare  almost  without  excep- 
tion, we  feel  ourselves  in  no  way  injured  ' ;  the  most  say,  '  we  are  con- 
vinced that  no  false  representations  were  worked  off  on  us  by  the  Rothe 
woman.'    Paragraph  263  calls  for  the  devismg  of  falsehoods  and '  the 

1  "Aus  Meinem  Leben,"  Book  xi. 


192       CRITICIZES    GERMAN   JUSTICE 

injury  of  the  good  estate  of  another.'  That  makes  no  difference.  The 
court  says, '  You  have  all  sworn  what  is  objectively  untrue.  We  find 
that  you  have  been  injured,  and  we  sentence  the  woman,  notwithstand- 
ing mitigating  circumstances  present  in  the  case,  hysteria,  impaired  men- 
tal accountability,  within  certain  limits  even  good  intentions — not  to  a 
fine,  but  to  imprisonment.'  To  illustrate,  let  us  suppose  that  a  butcher 
has  sold  the  back  and  legs  of  a  sheep  and  on  that  score  has  been  accused 
of  violating  the  twelfth  section  of  the  food  law.  The  purchasers  are 
heard  and  say, '  The  meat  tasted  well  and  did  not  injure  our  health  ' ;  but 
an  inspector  says,  under  his  oath  of  office :  '  I  have  examined  the  meat 
sold  these  people.  It  was  fitted  to  injure  human  health.'  Then  the  ex- 
perts step  forth  and  say :  '  Since  the  meat  is  as  the  inspector  credibly  as- 
serted, it  must  have  injured  the  health  of  men.'  Judgment — imprisonment 
for  a  year ;  for  a  second  year  deprivation  of  civil  privileges. 

"  Almost  exactly  so  it  was  in  the  Rothe  case.  The  experts,  after  all 
the  experience  of  science,  after  the  results  of  investigations  in  the  sphere 
of  material  existence,  can  only  say :  '  The  sworn  testimonies  must  be 
false.'  Of  course,  an  umbrella,  for  instance,  could  not  come  through  a 
glass  window  without  even  scratching  the  window-pane — assuredly  not. 
.  .  .  The  enlightened  Roman,  the  learned  Jew,  smiled  at  the  Galilean 
wonder-worker  who  at  the  sick-bed  drove  out  evil  spirits,  and,  almost  five 
hundred  years  after  Hippocrates,  could  cure  with  saliva  and  the  laying 
on  of  His  hands.     Nevertheless,  they  who  believed  in  Him  were  healed. 

"  But  the  sentence  has  been  pronounced  on  Frau  Rothe — in  the  name 
of  justice.  The  criticism  of  the  tokens  of  fraud  has  become  purposeless. 
Instead  of  tearing  at  the  materialistic  mind  and  deriding  the  sickly  weak- 
ness of  its  adherence,  one  should  rather  ask  whither  such  streams  of 
occultism  flow. 

"  Is  it  into  the  fountain  region  of  a  new  religion  ?  That  would  explain 
the  anger  of  the  church  officers.  A  young  clergyman  said  to  Schopen- 
hauer in  the  year  1850 :  *  He  who  believes  in  animal  magnetism  can  not 
believe  in  God.'  Now  whole  troops  of  people  seek  for  a  God  who  can 
live  above  and  along  with  animal  magnetism.  We  call  their  leaders 
quacks  and  humbugs.  Certainly  not  without  reason.  When  Max  Miiller 
once  asked  one  of  the  most  sensible  admirers  of  Madam  Blavatsky  why 
the  prophetess  let  herself  down  to  such  common  jugglery,  he  received 
the  answer :  '  Without  miracles  it  is  impossible  to  found  any  religion, 
and  the  founder  has  always  to  help  along  a  little  so  that  it  may  spread 
itself  quicker.' 

"  We  must  not  allow  the  outcry  of  voices  to  deafen  us.  We  must 
recognize  in  Spiritualism,  in  theosophy,  in  all  the  rivulets  and  brooks  of 
occult  lore  currents  which  stream  together  for  the  high  flood  of  a  new 
faith.  The  water  comes  often  out  of  a  muddy  slough,  often  also  down 
from  stately  summits.  At  the  imperial  court  of  Berlin  Theosophists  and 
Spiritualists  might  easily  raise  a  majority.  .  .  . 

"  Now  can  it  be  expected  that  such  feeling  as  this,  which  seeks  to 
lighten  up  the  deep  pessimism  of  Christendom  and  which  in  its  own 


A   LOST   WILL  193 

fashion  would  come  to  terms  with  modem  knowledge,  will  be  uprooted 
by  penal  declaration  ? 

"  This  faith  has  already  supplied  itself  with  the  needful  miracles.  If 
now  only  the  martyrs  should  be  furnished  by  the  state,  it  will  soon  be 
able  to  build  a  church." 


Case  II. — A  spirit  indicating  to  a  Russian  nobleman 
the  whereabouts  of  a  lost  will. 

This  affair  has  been  so  reasonably  verified  as  to  have  se- 
cured its  publication  in  the  Proceedings  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research/  It  also  has  been  deemed  worthy  of 
publication  by  Frederic  Myers  in  his  work,  "  Human  Per- 
sonality." '  It  was  investigated  by  the  careful  Russian 
psychic  student,  Alexander  Aksakoff,  and  published  originally 
in  his  scientific  periodical,  Psychische  Studien,^ 

It  appears  that  after  the  death  of  Baron  von  Korf,  at 
Warsaw,  Russia,  his  will  could  not  be  found.  The  son  of 
the  baron  gave  to  M.  Aksakoff  an  account  of  the  circum- 
stances which  were  printed  in  the  following  article : 

"  The  father,  Gen.  Paul  von  Korf,  died  at  Warsaw  on  April  7,  1867. 
It  was  known  that  he  had  made  a  will,  but  after  his  death  it  could  not  be 
found.  In  the  month  of  July,  1867,  his  sister,  the  Baroness  Charlotte  von 
Wrangel,  was  living  with  her  sister-in-law,,  Madame  D.  von  Obuchow,  in 
the  town  of  Plock  (pronounced  Plozk).  not  far  from  Warsaw.  Her 
mother,  the  widow  of  General  von  Korf,  was  traveling  abroad ;  and  in 
her  mother's  absence  she  was  entrusted  with  the  opening  of  her  corre- 
spondence. Among  the  letters  thus  received  and  opened  was  one  from 
Prince  Emile  von  Wittgenstein  (also  abroad)  addressed  to  the  widow  of 
General  von  Korf,  in  which  he  informed  her  that  a  spiritualistic  commu- 
nication had  been  received  by  him  in  the  name  of  her  deceased  husband, 
indicatmg  the  place  where  his  will  would  be  found.  The  Baroness  von 
Wrangel,  who  knew  how  much  trouble  the  absence  of  tliis  will  had  given 
to  her  elder  brother  [Baron  Joseph  Korf,]  who  was  engaged  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  property  and  who  was  at  that  time  in  Warsaw,  went 
at  once,  with  her  sister-in-law,  to  Warsaw,  to  inform  him  of  the  impor- 
tant contents  of  the  letter  of  Prince  von  Wittgenstein.  Her  brother's 
first  words  were  that  he  had  jubt  found  the  will ;  and  when  the  letter  of 
Pnnce  von  Wittgenstein  was  read,  it  was  apparent,  to  the  astonishment 
of  those  present,  that  the  place  indicated  in  the  spiritualistic  communica- 

» Vol.  vi.,  pp.  353-5.  '  Vol.  ii.,  p.  493.  8  March,  1889,  p.  131. 

13 


194  FINDING   A    LOST   NOTE 

tion  where  the  will  would  be  found  was  precisely  that  in  which  the  baron 
had  at  last  found  it." 

The  following  is  the  letter  from  the  prince  through  whose 
mediumship  came  this  spirit  information : 

"Warsaw,  July  17,  1867. 

"It  seems  an  age,  my  dear  parents,  since  I  have  had  any  news  of 
you;  my  mother's  last  letter  was  dated  June  5.  I  have  occupied  myself 
much  with  Spiritualism  of  late,  and  my  mediumistic  faculties  have  devel- 
oped themselves  in  an  astonishing  way.  I  write  often  with  great  facility 
in  various  kinds  of  writing ;  I  have  had  direct  communications  from  the 
spirit  which  haunts  Berlebourg,  a  woman  of  our  family  who  killed  her- 
self one  hundred  and  two  years  ago.  I  have,  moreover,  obtained  a  very 
singular  result.  One  of  my  friends,  Lieutenant-General  Baron  de  Korf, 
deceased  some  months  since,  manifested  himself  to  me  (without  my  hav- 
ing thought  of  him  the  least  in  the  world),  to  enjoin  upon  me  to  indicate 
to  his  family  the  place  where  his  will  had  been  maliciously  hidden ;  that 
is  to  say,  in  a  chest  of  drawers  in  the  house  where  he  died.  I  did  not 
know  that  the  family  were  looking  for  this  will,  and  had  not  found  it. 
Well,  they  found  it  in  the  very  place  which  the  spirit  had  indicated  to 
me.  It  is  a  document  of  great  importance  for  the  management  of  his 
property  and  for  the  settlement  of  questions  which  will  arise  when  his 
children  attain  their  majority.     Here  are  facts  which  can  stand  criticism. 

"  Emile  Wittgenstein." 

Case  III. — The  finding  of  a  lost  promissory  note 
through  spirit  communication. 

The  verification  as  given  in  the  "  Reports  "  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  (S.  P.  R.)  of  the  finding  through 
spirit  intelligence  of  this  lost  note  seems  complete.  Dr. 
Richard  Hodgson,  of  Boston,  is  the  secretary  and  treasurer 
of  the  American  branch  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  and  is  probably  the 
most  expert  detective  along  psychic  lines  living.  Sir  Wil- 
liam Crookes,  in  his  presidential  address  before  the  British 
Society  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  in  1898,  speaking 
of  Dr.  Hodgson's  ability  in  ferreting  out  these  truths,  names 
him  a  "  detective  genius  " ;  and  Professor  James  speaks  of 
him  as  "  distinguished  by  a  balance  of  mind  almost  as  rare 
in  its  way  as  Professor  Sidgwick's. " 

Dr.  Hodgson  reported  the  case  of  finding  the  promissory 


MODUS   OPERANDI  195 

note  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society.*  I  give  it  here  in 
part.  It  should  be  remembered  that  Judge  W.  D.  Harden, 
of  Savannah,  Georgia,  is  well  known  personally  to  Dr. 
Hodgson.  Dr.  L.  Knorr  is  a  physician  of  good  standing  in 
the  same  city. 

G.    218. 

345  W.  34TH  Street,  New  York,  October  3,  1888. 
Dr,  Richard  Hodgson^ 

My  dear  Sir  :  Thinking  that  you  may  possibly  be  back  from  your 
vacation,  I  send  you  with  this  the  account  of  the  finding  of  the  note  by 
Mrs.  B.  and  the  letter  to  me  from  Dr.  Knorr. 

(Signed)        W.  D.  Harden. 


Savannah,  Ga.,  September  16,  il 
Judge  W.  D.  Harden^ 

345  W.  24^k  Street^  New  York. 

Dear  Friend  :  This  morning,  when  I  paid  a  professional  visit  to 
Mrs.  B.'s  sick  son,  she  showed  me  a  rough  draft  of  the  statement  she  in- 
tended to  send  to  you.  Fearing  further  delay  from  her  intended  rewri- 
ting report,  I  begged  her  to  let  me  have  it.  She  consented,  if  I  would 
explain  to  you  the  circumstances  of  the  shortcomings  of  that  draft, 

I  think  I  need  to  add  very  little  to  Mrs.  B.'s  statements.  You  are 
acquainted  with  the  modus  operandi  of  the  communications  with  the 
sliding-rod,  the  rod  and  the  alphabet  board  being  at  B.'s  house,  the  same 
you  saw  at  Miss  Maggie  R.'s.  In  order  to  facilitate  your  description  for 
Dr.  H.,  I  send  you  a  paper  model  of  the  rod  and  a  printed  alphabet  (with 
other  convenient  inscriptions),  that  is  to  be  pasted  near  the  two  (right  and 
left)  edges,  leaving  a  space  between  of  sufficient  width  for  the  points  of 
the  rod  to  point  out  the  desired  letters. 

I  have  to  remark  that  a  couple  of  days  after  the  death  of  Miss  Nina 
^.''s  fiancd  (Mr.  N.  H.)  I  assisted  her  to  get  into  communication  with 
him.  We  succeeded.  Miss  Nina  turning  out  to  be  feebly  mediumistic, 
and  many  communications  were  received  from  him. 

This  attracted  Major  B.'s  attention.  He  tried  then  with  me  (the 
major  was  then  an  agnostic),  and  found  that  he  also  was  mediumistic, 
and  he  got  communications  from  his  father  and  his  uncle  that  were  so 
characteristic  that  he  became  convinced  of  the  reality  of  spirit  commu- 
nion. So  when  the  major  departed  [died]  last  spring  or  summer,  he  was 
well  acquainted  with  the  7nodus  opera7idi  of  spirit  communion ;  and 
therefore  the  very  day  after  his  departure  we  could  receive  a  few  words 
from  him.     Later  on  we  received  many  messages  from  him. 

I  think  I  was  present  at  the  seance  when  he  stated  that  the  note  was 
deposited  somewhere,  but  could  not  tell  where.     It  looks  as  if  at  that 

» Proceedings,  vol.  viii.,  pp.  233-42. 


196        HOW  TELEPATHY   EXPLAIN 

time  he  had  not  yet  discovered  the  whereabouts  of  the  note,  but  con- 
tinued hunting  for  it,  and  at  last  discovered  it. 

I  think  I  have  touched  upon  every  point  that  needed  elucidation. 

L.  Knorr,  Savannah. 

{The  Letter  of  Mrs.  B:\ 

Judge  Harden  :  In  compliance  with  your  request  I  will  state :  After 
my  honored  husband  Major  Lucius  B.'s  departure  from  this  life,  I  was  in 
distress  of  mind  that  none  could  understand  but  one  surrounded  by  sim- 
ilar circumstances.  Of  his  business  transactions  I  knew  but  little.  After 
a  week  or  two  of  stunning  agony,  I  aroused  myself  to  look  into  our 
financial  condition.  I  was  aware  that  he  had  in  his  keeping  a  note  given 
by  Judge  H.  W.  Hopkins  to  some  several  hundred  which  was  due,  and 
I  searched  all  the  nooks  and  corners  of  his  secretaire,  manuscript,  letters, 
memorandum-books,  read  several  hundred  letters;  but  all  for  naught. 
For  two  months  I  spent  most  of  the  time  going  over  and  over,  but  with 
the  same  result.     I  finally  asked  him  at  a  stance  about  the  note. 

Q. :  "Have  you  deposited  the  note  anywhere?"    A. :  "I  have." 

Q. :  "  Where  ?  "    No  answer. 

Finally  I  wrote  to  Judge  H.  (who  had  written  me  about  it) :  "  I  had  as 
well  tell  you  the  note  has  not  been  found.  I  can  not  imagine  where  it 
is."  This  was  on  Friday.  The  following  Sunday,  about  four  o'clock, 
my  daughter  Nina,  who  possesses  some  singular  power,  proposed  we  try 
if  we  could  not  get  a  communication  from  our  loved  ones.  While  she 
went  to  get  a  little  arrangement  (a  rod  that  worked  on  a  board  upon 
which  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  were  printed)  I  sat  in  my  room  alone, 
thinking,  if  it  were  possible  for  Major  B.  to  see  the  heart  filled  to  over- 
flowing with  anguish,  and  added  to  this  the  mind  distressed  by  business 
cares,  would  he  not  communicate  with  me  and  try  to  give  some  consola- 
tion or  assistance. 

But  I  did  not  express  my  thoughts  to  any  one.  Nina  returned,  and 
after  a  little  conversation  we  put  our  hands  on  tlie  r^^and  '\\.  protuptly 
spelt  "  Look  in  my  long  drawer  and  find  Willie."  I  became  excited,  ran 
to  the  bureau  and  pulled  out  the  bottom  drawer,  turned  the  contents  upon 
the  floor,  and  commenced  to  search.  Under  all  the  things  was  a  vest ; 
in  its  little  breast  pocket  was  the  note. 

Major  B.  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  the  bottom  drawer,  where  only 
his  undergarments  were  kept,  "  My  long  drawer,"  to  designate  it  from 
several  small  drawers  set  aside  for  his  use.  The  vest  was  the  only  gar- 
ment, other  than  underwear,  in  the  drawer.  The  vest  was  the  one  taken 
off  him  when  he  first  became  ill.  He  was  unconscious  during  the  first 
day  of  his  ilkiess.  The  vest  was  put  in  the  drawer  after  or  during  his 
ilbiess  by  my  friend,  I  think,  who  assisted  in  caring  for  him  while  sick. 

The  drawer  had  not  been  opened  that  we  knew  of  after  he  left  us 
until  the  note  was  discovered.  Altho  I  had  moved  to  another  room,  I 
gave  instructions  that  the  bottom  drawer  was  not  to  be  disturbed. 

As  soon  as  the  rod  spelt  "  Look  in  my  long  drawer  and  find  Willie," 


DR.   SAVAGE'S   EXPERIENCE  197 

I  was  perfectly  electrified  with  the  knowledge  that  Willie  H.'s  note  was 
in  that  drawer,  altho  I  never  would  have  thought  of  looking  in  such  a 
place  for  a  valuable  paper. 

Major  B.  and  myself  always  spoke  to  and  of  Judge  H.  as  "  Willie," 
he  being  a  relation  of  mine  and  a  favorite  of  Major  B.  from  Willie's 
childhood, 

I  have  just  read  the  above  to  my  daughter,  and  she  says  she  will  in- 
dorse the  statement  as  being  correct.     I  am,  very  respectfully, 

(Signed)        Mrs.  £.  F.  B.  B.,  widow  of  the 
late  Major  Lucius  C.  B. 
(Signed)        N.  H.  B. 


Savannah,  Ga.,  September  16,  il 
The  two  signatures  have  been  made  in  my  presence,  and  I  corroborate 
many  of  the  facts  and  circumstances  mentioned  in  the  above  report.     I 
am  now  requested  by  the  ladies  to  say  that  they  do  not  wish  their  names 
to  appear  in  public.  (Signed)        Louis  Knorr,  M.D. 

Case  IV.— Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage,  D.D.,  directed  by 
the  spirit  of  his  son  to  papers  of  which  the  doctor  knew 
nothing. 

No  one  at  all  acquainted  with  Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage's  in- 
vestigations of  psychic  phenomena  will  doubt  his  level- 
headedness as  an  investigator.  The  following  incident  is  de- 
scribed by  him  in  his  late  book,  "  Can  Telepathy  Explain?  "  * 

I  am  now  to  detail  a  little  experience  which  seems  to  me  to  have 
about  it  certain  features  which  are  very  unusual,  and  therefore  worthy  of 
special  remark.  Never  in  my  life  until  my  son  died  did  I  attempt  to  get 
into  communication  with  any  special  person  at  any  sitting  held  with  any 
medium.  I  have  always  taken  the  attitude  of  a  student  trying  to  solve 
the  general  problem  involved.  On  two  or  three  occasions,  however, 
within  the  last  two  years,  I  have  tried  to  see  if  I  could  get  anything  that 
appeared  to  be  a  message  from  my  boy.  He  died  three  years  ago  last 
June  at  the  age  of  thirty-one.  I  was  having  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper. 
My  boy  claimed  to  be  present.  Excluding  for  the  moment  all  other 
things,  I  wish  definitely  to  outline  this  one  little  experience.  At  the  time 
of  his  death  he  was  occupying  a  room  with  a  medical  student  and  an  old 
personal  friend,  on  Joy  Street  in  Boston.  He  had  moved  there  from  a 
room  he  occupied  on  Beacon  Street  since  I  had  visited  him,  so  that  I 
never  had  been  in  the  Joy  Street  room.  I  knew  nothing  about  it  what- 
ever, and  could  not  even  have  guessed  as  to  anything  concerning  it  which 
he  might  say.  He  said :  "  Papa  [and  this  with  a  great  deal  of  earnest- 
ness], I  want  you  to  go  at  once  to  my  room.     Look  in  my  drawer,  and 

I "  Can  Telepathy  Explain  ? "  pp.  105-8. 


198  FINDING  WATCH  AND    BANKBOOK 

you  will  find  there  a  lot  of  loose  papers.  Among  them  are  some  which  I 
wish  you  to  take  and  destroy  at  once."  He  would  not  be  satisfied  until  I 
had  promised  to  do  this.  Mrs.  Piper,  remember,  was  in  a  dead  trance  at 
the  time,  and  her  hand  was  writing.  She  had  no  personal  acquaintance 
with  my  son,  and  so  far  as  I  know  had  never  seen  him.  I  submit  that 
this  reference  to  loose  notes  and  papers  which  for  some  unknown  reason 
he  was  anxious  to  have  destroyed  is  something  which  would  be  beyond 
the  range  of  guesswork  even  had  Mrs.  Piper  been  conscious.  Tho  my 
boy  and  I  had  been  intimate  heart  friends  all  his  life,  this  request  was 
utterly  inexplicable  to  me.  It  did  not  even  enter  into  my  mind  to  give  a 
wild  guess  as  to  what  he  meant  or  why  he  wanted  this  thing  done.  I 
went,  however,  to  his  room,  searched  his  drawer,  gathered  up  all  the 
loose  papers,  looked  through  them,  and  at  once  saw  the  meaning  and  im- 
portance of  what  he  had  asked  me  to  do.  There  were  things  there  which 
he  had  jotted  down  and  trusted  to  the  privacy  of  his  drawer  which  he 
would  not  have  had  made  public  for  the  world.  I  will  not,  of  course, 
violate  his  privacy  by  detailing  what  they  were.  I  will  simply  say  that 
his  anxiety  in  regard  to  them  was  entirely  justified. 

Case  v.— Finding  of  a  watch  through  spirit 
direction. 

This  incident  is  described  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the 
famous  English  scientist,  see  Part  III. 

Case  VI.— Finding  of  a  bankbook  through  Mrs. 
Piper  as  told  by  William  James,  Professor  of  Psychol- 
ogy,  Harvard  University. 

He  says :  "  My  mother-in-law,  on  her  return  from  Europe, 
spent  a  morning  vainly  seeking  for  a  bankbook.  Mrs.  Piper 
[the  trance  medium  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research], 
on  being  shortly  afterward  asked  where  the  book  was,  de- 
scribed the  place  so  exactly  that  it  was  instantly  found."  ^ 

4 

THE    TALKS    OF   SPIRITS   AT    ^'THE    WIDOW'S 

MITE"    CIRCLE 

That  the  reader  may  have  a  measure  of  the  intelligence 
that  is  sometimes  in  evidence  at  the  Brooklyn  circle — the 
circle  through  which  the  widow's  mite  was  found — I  will 

» Proceedings  of  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol.  vi.,  p.  657. 


TALKS   BY   "SPIRITS"  199 

here  give  a  talk  by  a  spirit  at  the  stance  that  preceded  the 
finding  of  this  coin  and  follow  with  a  talk  given  at  a  seance 
shortly  after  this  incident. 

The  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  this  medium  is  an 
aged,  uneducated  woman,  and  that  I  have  now  met  her  at 
some  forty  circles,  thus  having  had  full  opportunity  to  study 
her  mental  qualifications.  I  have  fully  proven  to  my  own 
mind  that  there  are  no  "  confederates  "  at  this  circle.  This  I 
proved,  among  other  ways,  as  follows :  Some  time  after  the 
mite  incident,  I  selected  as  a  standing  place  for  the  cabinet 
the  corner  of  a  room,  and  directly  against  a  brick  wall,  and 
furnished  my  own  cabinet  curtains.  There  was  no  opening 
of  any  kind  whatever  from  the  cabinet  except  at  the  front, 
and  I  sat  at  this  opening  on  one  side  against  the  curtain,  and 
chose  a  friend  to  sit  at  the  other  side  of  the  opening.  There 
was  sufficient  light  in  the  room  to  enable  us  to  see  the  other 
two  members  of  the  medium's  family  and  all  other  persons 
in  the  room.  The  talks  came  from  the  cabinet.  I  am 
fully  convinced  that  they  were  either  uttered  by  the  woman 
medium  or  by  some  disembodied  intelligences.  I  could  de- 
tect no  resemblance  in  certain  of  these  voices  to  the  voice  of 
the  woman  or  to  each  other.  The  medium  is  a  frail  woman 
who  weighs  scarcely  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  and  has 
a  weak,  feminine  voice,  while  the  voices  of  the  speakers  who 
uttered  these  two  talks  were  strong  and  seemingly  wholly 
masculine — not  at  all  like  the  normal  voice  of  the  medium. 

First  Talk — The  Laws  of  Nature. 

A  Masculine  Voice  from  the  Cabinet :  "  Your  Jesus  told 
you,  heaven  and  earth  should  pass,  but  not  one  jot  of  the  law 
should  pass — that  is,  of  the  principles  by  which  God  rules. 
Principles  are  eternal.  Character  is  of  worth  and  eternal 
only  when  founded  on  principles.  Mere  profession  is  a  lie, 
and  liars  sink.  Learn  to  subject  yourselves  to  the  spirit  of 
truth  and  you  will  ascend." 

Question :  "  But  are  we  not  saved  by  faith }  " 


aoo  NATURE   IS   ONE 

Answer :  "  Faith  of  itself,  as  usually  understood,  is  noth- 
ing. It  is  what  we  will  to  do  that  helps  or  hurts.  Character 
comes  from  willing.  When  you  come  to  the  spirit  world 
your  measure  is  your  character.  What  you  have  you  leave 
behind;  what  you  are  you  bring  with  you.  When  Jesus  told 
you  He  did  not  judge  you,  that  your  own  acts  judged  you. 
He  announced  a  principle,  for  your  acts  make  you  what  you 
are.  He  told  you  that  '  It  is  not  every  man  that  saith. 
Lord,  Lord,  that  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but 
he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God.'  What  is  it  to  do  this  will 
but  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  universe,  which  are  truth.  The 
laws  of  nature  are  the  will  of  God.  Get  rid  of  the  idea  that 
nature  does  not  extend  to  this  side  of  life.  Nature  is  one, 
but  has  many  spheres  or  departments. " 

Q. :  "  When  you  say  that  you  obey  the  laws  of  nature  and 
study  nature,  do  you  mean  that  you  study  the  forces  of  nature 
and  the  applications  of  these  forces,  as,  for  example,  elec- 
tricity.?" 

A.  :  "  Most  certainly — far  more  so  than  you  do  on  your 
side.  Your  study  is  crude,  very  crude.  We  also  have  our 
schools,  in  comparison  with  which  your  best  schools  are 
kindergartens." 

Q. :  "  Do  you  apply  these  laws  to  the  perfecting  of  in- 
ventions }  " 

A. :  "  Yes ;  but  the  greatest  hindrance  to  the  entrance 
of  knowledge  is  lack  of  humility.  Conceit,  pride  are  of  the 
spirit  of  untruth,  and  this  shuts  the  spirit  doors.  Good 
comes  from  above.  The  mind  of  man  has  great  possibilities, 
but  you  must  learn  that  mind,  memory,  consciousness  sur- 
vive what  you  call  death.  The  mind  continues  not  only  in 
its  full  vigor  in  all  of  its  various  faculties,  but  it  is  in  many 
ways  quickened.  It  is  on  this  side  the  same  mind,  but  is 
placed  under  far  more  favorable  conditions  and  expands  far 
more  rapidly.  Besides,  consider  we  have  minds  here  that 
have  been  thousands  of  years  listening  to  instructions  from 
spirits  still  higher,  and  have  been  and  are  themselves  teachers, 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  201 

yet  are  ever  students  of  nature's  laws  and  forces,  students  of 
those  same  laws  that  are  applicable  to  the  physical  world,  for 
these  laws  under  which  you  exist  are  in  an  exalted  way  appli- 
cable to  the  spiritual  world.  Now  these  inventions  of  which 
you  speak,  and  for  which  you  on  your  side  are  apt  to  be 
puffed  up,  are  with  scarcely  an  exception  made  here,  some  of 
them  centuries  ago,  and  were  not  given  you  until  earth  con- 
ditions were  right  for  them.  When  these  conditions  have 
ripened,  then  they  are  impinged  on  some  brain  fitted  to  re- 
ceive them.  The  only  credit  that  is  thus  due  to  that  brain 
is  that  it  was  ready  to  receive  the  invention.  The  receiver 
of  the  wireless  message  can  claim  only  one  credit,  and  that  is 
that  it  was  attuned  to  the  transmitter ;  otherwise  the  waves 
would  have  passed  by  unheeded.  A  brain  when  attuned  to 
the  spiritual  message  will  receive  that  message,  and  only  that 
brain  and  others  thus  attuned  can  receive  it.  To  all  other 
brains  there  is  absolute  silence.  Were  the  earth  world  ready, 
what  it  has  received  in  the  way  of  inventions  are  as  nothing 
to  what  would  be  given  it. 

"  You  ask  why  we  do  not  tell  you  more.  We  tell  you  all 
that  you  can  receive.  Why  does  not  the  receiver  get  mes- 
sages for  which  it  is  not  attuned  ?  Waves  may  be  passing 
in  all  directions,  and  weighted  with  most  important  informa- 
tion, but  the  receiver,  not  attuned  to  them,  responds  not  at 
all.  Do  not  imagine  that  we  have  no  communications  with 
your  world  except  through  mediums  and  their  circles.  Every 
brain  that  has  uplift  and  is  friendly  to  progress  is  an  open 
door  for  us — an  open  door  up  to  its  capacity  to  receive.  A 
man  may  not  know  from  whence  come  his  thoughts,  but  they 
come  from  the  spirit  world,  back  of  his  consciousness,  and 
these  thoughts  we  receive  from  sources  still  higher.  You 
think  that  you  originate,  but  you  do  not.  If  the  doors  of  the 
earth  world  were  open  wider  and  men  were  more  in  harmony 
with  us,  so  that  they  could  more  constantly  commune  with 
us,  progress  would  be  far  more  continuous  and  greatly  accel- 
erated." 


202  SPIRITS   ALSO    LEARNERS 

Q. :  *'  Yet  our  inventions  come  to  us  from  men  among  us 
who  have  large  brains.  Why  always  so,  if  these  brains  are 
but  echoes  of  the  spirit  world  ?  " 

A. :  "  For  us  to  impart  to  your  world  a  complicated  and 
deep  thought,  we  must  do  it  through  a  brain  that  can  master 
such  a  thought.  A  human  brain  must  be  fitted  for  a  thought, 
or  the  thought  remains  unnoticed,  and  no  one  human  brain 
is  far  ahead  of  its  age.  As  I  have  already  said,  the  spirit 
world  has  an  abundance  to  tell.  What  is  needed  is  for  your 
world  to  get  itself  ready  to  receive.  Remember,  as  in  your 
wireless  telegraphy,  the  receiver  must  be  adjusted  to  the 
transmitter.     There  must  be  harmony. 

"It  is  a  law  of  nature  that  where  and  when  there  is  a 
readiness  to  receive  knowledge,  knowledge  is  imparted.  This 
is  true  in  all  spheres.  All  knowledge  comes  from  above, 
always  from  above.  We  think  a  thought  after  it  has  been 
thought  higher  up.  Original  thinking  is  always  above. 
Hence,  humility  also  is  truth." 

Q. :  "  Have  you  ever  seen  the  person  we  call  God  ?  " 

A. ;  "  No ;  I  have  never  seen  such  a  person,  nor  have  I 
ever  seen  any  one  who  has." 

Q. :  "  Is  there  then  no  God.?  " 

A. :  "  No  God  after  the  kind  that  is  in  your  mind.  May 
I  ask  what  you  mean  by  a  person  ?  " 

Q. :  "I  mean  one  who  has  a  conscious  individuality,  a 
unity  and  continuity  of  mind,  heart,  memory.  In  this  sense 
I  speak  of  God  as  a  person.     Is  there  not  such  a  God.^* " 

A. :  "  There  is  infinite  truth ;  we  also  are  learners.  What 
is  truth.?  We  speak  of  it  as  a  principle.  But  back  beyond 
our  words  and  beyond  all  we  know  is  the  infinite  center  of 
things.  Truth  is  life,  truth  is  God.  So  with  all  elements 
that  we  call  principles.  W^e  feel  this  infinite  essence  of 
things  that  is  omniscient  and  omnipotent  and  perfect  love. 
This  infinite  potency,  call  it  what  you  will,  draws  us  upward 
as  the  sea  is  drawn  by  the  moon  or  as  gravity  pulls  toward 
the  center." 


NOT  ANGELS,   BUT   PEOPLE  203 

Q. :  "  Do  you  see  Jesus  face  to  face  ?  " 

A. :  "  No ;  nor  have  I  ever  seen  any  who  have.  We  are 
as  you  are.  Never  forget  that  life  is  continuous  and  the  laws 
that  govern  us  are  continuous.  We  are  not  angels,  we  are 
people.  We  were  as  you  are,  and  we  still  are  as  you  are,  only 
we  have  shaken  off  the  outward  covering.  You  can  not  see 
higher  spirits;  neither  can  we.  A  spirit  sees  a  spirit  on  its 
own  plane  and  on  the  planes  below  it.  You  can  not  see 
God ;  neither  can  we  except  we  have  the  God  nature.  The 
pure  in  heart  see  God,  and  the  loving  heart  sees  God  just  in 
that  degree  that  it  is  pure  and  that  it  loves.  We  see  Jesus 
face  to  face  as  we  develop  His  nature.  How  can  a  poet  be 
understood  except  by  one  who  is  essentially  a  poet  ?  Spirit 
recognition  is  by  an  inner  response  in  a  like  nature.  This 
is  what  Jesus  meant  when  He  said,  *  My  sheep  shall  know 
my  voice.'     This  is  true  at  every  stage  of  spirit  intercourse. 

"  If  you  think  out  well  what  I  say,  you  will  reach  my 
meaning  when  I  tell  you  to  understand  and  obey  the  laws  of 
nature.      I  must  say  good- by  to  you." 

Q. :  "  Will  you  not  tell  us  your  name.^  " 

A. :  "  My  name  signifies  nothing ;  be  not  curious  about 
trifles.  What  I  say  is  the  only  thing  that  is  important. 
Good-night." 

Little  Mamie,  the  control,  began  talking. 

Q. :  "  Mamie,  will  you  not  tell  us  who  was  the  spirit  just 
speaking  ?  " 

A. :  "  Wait  a  moment  and  I  will  see  if  I  can  find  out." 

After  a  little  while  Mamie  said:  "The  spirit's  name  is 
Wright— Silas  Wright." 

If  Mamie  told  us  truly,  we  had  been  talking  with  the 
spirit  of  one  who  had  been  a  famous  governor  of  the  State  of 
New  York.     Was  Mamie  right  or  wrong.-* 

From  the  cabinet  came  the  voice  of  the  control  Amos : 
"  A  bright  spirit  is  here  whom  I  wish  to  introduce  to  you 
this  evening.     He  will  take  a  little  time  in  teaching  you 


204         REBIRTH    ON    EARTH    RARE 

about  reincarnation,  a  subject  concerning  which  you  have 
made  inquiry.  He  is  a  highly  developed  spirit,  and  is  a 
teacher  with  us.  He  comes  in  answer  to  the  invitation  of 
the  band  [the  spirits  controlling  the  circles].  You  remem- 
ber you  have  asked  questions  on  several  evenings  on  this  sub- 
ject which  we  could  not  satisfactorily  answer,  and  for  this 
reason  we  thought  it  well  to  request  this  advanced  spirit  to 
come  and  address  you,  and  he  has  kindly  consented  to  do  so — 
I  am  sorry  Professor  Hyslop  is  not  here,  as  he  asked  several 
questions  on  this  subject  the  other  evening." 

Second  Talk — Reincarnation. 

A  voice  much  stronger  and  seemingly  very  different 
spoke  as  follows :  "  Good-evening,  friends.  Reincarnation 
is  the  law  of  development  of  the  soul  or  spirit.  In  the 
growth  of  the  soul — and  we  all  must  grow,  slowly  it  may  be 
and  with  long  cessations  and  sometimes  less,  but  in  the  long 
ages  it  is  growth — the  time  comes  when  it  is  born  again  and 
it  enters  into  a  higher  sphere  of  existence.  I  am  not  talking 
about  reincarnation  on  earth.  A  birth  does  not  often  take 
place  from  the  spirit  life  back  to  earth  life.  Sometimes 
spirits  are  so  much  attached  to  the  earth  and  its  enjoyments, 
the  gratification  of  animal  passions  and  appetites  and  those 
pleasures  that  come  through  the  other  senses,  that  they 
reenter  bodies  and  live  again  earth  lives;  but  this  is  not 
necessary.  In  the  spirit  body  and  under  the  conditions 
here,  far  greater  progress  can  be  made  than  in  the  earth  life, 
and  this  is  true  in  every  succeeding  sphere." 

Question :  "  Was  Jesus  reincarnated  ?  " 

Answer :  "  He  was,  but  this  was  not  because  of  yearning 
for  an  earth  life  that  He  might  enjoy  its  pleasures.  It  came 
from  a  strong  desire  to  show  mortals  the  way  to  a  higher 
life,  to  teach  men  the  truth,  that  is  the  way  of  growth.  He 
came  down  from  a  great  height  and  entered  your  sphere.  It 
was  the  coming  of  a  great  light  to  the  world ;  much  greater 
than  you  yet  think  it  to  be.     Higher  spirits  can  come  down 


MUST   BE   BORN    AGAIN  205 

by  permission  from  the  higher  spheres,  but  it  is  a  great 
spiritual  achievement — in  its  way  as  difficult  as  reentering 
a  womb  to  be  reborn,  and  sometimes  this  is  the  way  in  which 
it  is  done. " 

Q.  :  "Are  we  to  understand  that  there  is  a  rebirth  from 
your  sphere  into  a  higher  sphere — that  is,  that  you  now  a 
spirit  are  to  be  reborn  ?  " 

A. :  *'  Yes ;  and  then  again  and  again  until  we  are  one 
with  God,  the  great  Father  of  us  all  in  the  distant  ages — 
one,  yet  retaining  our  separate  individuality ;  a  mystery  not 
only  to  you,  but  to  us  also.  So  meant  Jesus  when  He  prayed 
that  His  disciples  may  be  one  as  He  and  the  Father  are  one, 
and  when  He  said :  *  Then  ' — in  the  distant  future — '  will 
ye  know  that  I  am  in  the  Father  and  ye  in  me  and  I  in  you.' 
What  you  call  death  may  be  a  birth — the  soul  enters  its 
spirit  body,  is  clothed  upon.  I  remember  well  when  I  died 
looking  at  my  spirit  body  as  something  objective,  and  I  was 
attracted  irresistibly  to  enter  it.  Every  soul  born  on  earth 
has  a  spirit  body,  and  all  souls  in  this  realm  have  higher 
bodies  more  refined  and  subtler  for  their  next  reincarnation, 
and  so  on  upward.  The  body  is  the  system  of  organs  by 
which  the  soul  is  brought  into  contact  with  its  coarser  envi- 
ronments, or  what  in  your  life  you  would  call  the  physical 
universe.  As  we  ascend,  these  environments  constantly  be- 
come more  and  more  refined,  ethereal,  but  are  none  the  less 
real.  The  progress  is  to  greater  and  still  greater  reality. 
The  law  always  holds :  Ye  must  be  born  again.  This  higher 
birth  can  never  take  place  until  the  soul  has  matured  up 
to  it." 

Q. :  "  But  all  men  die.  Some  of  the  worst  die  earliest, 
and  are  thus  *  born '  into  your  sphere.  What  then — since 
death  does  not  depend  upon  maturity  of  the  soul  ?  Can  this 
death  of  a  wicked  person  be  a  birth  into  a  higher  sphere  ?  " 

A.:  "This  death  you  speak  of  is  not  the  rebirth  that  I 
am  talking  about.  There  are  vast  multitudes  of  spirits  here 
who  have  not  been  reborn  and  are  on  the  earthy  plane ;  some 


2o6     SIN    HURTS   ONLY   THE   SINNER 

have  been  in  that  condition  for  thousands  of  years,  and 
will  remain  there  until  they  of  their  own  choice  seek  that 
which  is  above.  There  are  those  here  who  go  about  dazed, 
not  knowing  even  that  they  have  died.  Others  are  in  an- 
guish because  of  conscience  and  a  sense  of  utter  un worthi- 
ness. A  man  is  in  anguish  and  in  darkness  who  is  conscious 
of  a  sin  for  which  he  is  not  sorry  and  from  which  he  has  not 
turned  away.  A  thief  can  not  right  a  wrong  by  making 
restitution.  If  the  one  whom  he  wronged  has  become  a  spirit, 
how  can  he  make  restitution  ?  Will  he  give  back  the  money 
he  has  stolen.?  A  spirit  does  not  need  money  nor  will  words 
of  any  kind  help.  A  lower  spirit  can  never  make  amends  to 
a  higher  spirit,  for  he  has  nothing  that  is  of  worth  to  the 
higher.  He  must  grow  until  he  sees  the  defect  in  his  spirit 
that  made  it  possible  for  him  to  do  wrong,  and  is  sorry  for  that 
defect.  And  then,  and  only  then,  will  the  sin  be  gone.  A 
man  does  not  suffer  so  much  for  so  much  sin.  It  is  not 
pound  for  pound  or  yard  for  yard.  Suffering  does  not  pay 
for  sin.  Suffering  is  only  a  remedy  in  so  far  as  it  teaches  us 
the  nature  of  sin  and  shows  the  way  to  perfect  the  spirit. 
One  who  has  done  wrong  need  not  necessarily  beg  pardon  of 
the  one  he  wronged,  for  he  really  wronged  nobody  but  him- 
self. If  the  one  from  whom  he  stole  is  revengeful,  that  one 
hurts  himself  and  is  carried  down  by  his  revengeful  spirit. 
When  the  people  on  the  earth  plane  know  that  sin  hurts  only 
the  one  that  sins,  a  great  gain  will  be  made.  When  I  say  on 
the  earth  plane,  I  mean  those  who  are  on  the  earth  plane 
whether  on  this  side  of  the  death  line  or  upon  your  side. 

"  Oh,  my  friends,  if  you  only  would  know  how  right  liv- 
ing on  your  plane  will  make  you  progress  rapidly  on  the 
spirit  plane,  you  would  strive  while  in  your  present  condition 
to  do  right,  to  love,  to  get  rid  of  selfishness,  and  to  hate  deceit 
of  every  kind,  and  to  grow  your  better  soul  powers.  Life  in 
your  physical  bodies  is  exceedingly  important,  and  it  is  a 
great  misfortune  if  a  spirit  comes  over  here  without  getting 
the  full  benefit  of  the  earth  life.     We  are  laboring  here  to 


JESUS   THE    REAL   WAY  207 

prevent  this,  seeking  to  impress  upon  earth  minds  a  knowl- 
edge of  sanitary  laws,  urging  the  adoption  of  measures  that 
will  prevent  early  deaths,  and,  what  is  of  greater  importance 
still,  that  will  grow  spirit  excellence." 

Q. :  **  Are  those  who  are  born  from  your  sphere  into  the 
next  higher  sphere  as  invisible  to  you  as  you  are  to  us?  " 

A. :  "  In  a  sense,  yes ;  we  are  conscious  that  they  exist, 
and  we  can — that  is,  the  highest  of  us — consciously  com- 
mune with  them  by  what  you  would  call  thought  transference 
or  spirit  vibration.  But  there  is  a  real  chasm  of  a  new  birth 
between  every  two  successive  spheres,  and  each  new  birth  is 
a  marvelous  change.  I  do  not  say  that  I  am  not  permitted 
to  tell  what  these  changes  are.  I  can  not  tell,  nor  would 
you  understand  me  if  I  tried  to  tell  you,  any  more  than  you 
could  hope  to  explain  to  an  ox  the  beauties  of  a  picture  by 
Rembrandt.  The  ox  is  drawn  more  to  a  handful  of  grass 
than  to  all  of  the  paintings  in  an  art-gallery. 

"  I  have  never  seen  God,  but  have  felt  His  restraining 
and  enlightening  and  uplifting  power.  I  always  feel  Him. 
I  have  never  seen  Jesus,  but  I  feel  Him.  He  is  a  great 
spirit  whose  thoughts  come  down  from  higher  spheres  and 
are  of  great  help  to  this  sphere.  How  great  the  benefit  of 
His  teachings  to  earth !  Who  can  measure  the  benefit  of  a 
teaching  like  this :  You  are  brethren  and  God  is  your  Father, 
and  you  must  love  one  another,  not  seeking  your  own,  but 
giving  your  property  and  your  lives  for  the  good  of  others. 
This  is  the  way  to  the  truth  and  the  life ;  this  is  the  way 
to  the  Father's  house,  that  is,  to  the  highest  sphere.  This 
reincarnated  Jesus  is  sending  His  thoughts  through  our  sphere 
and  through  your  sphere  and  is  greatly  helping.  He  is  a 
real  Savior.  Love  is  sacrifice,  and  sacrifice  is  atonement. 
Love  gives  itself  for  another,  and  that  harmonizes  the  other 
with  the  higher  sphere,  with  God  Himself,  if  that  other 
yields  to  the  vibrations  of  this  love.  God  can  be  just  and 
accept  any  who  yield  themselves  to  sacrificing  love." 

Q. :  "  Dr.  A says  that  he  objects  to  Spiritualism  be- 


2o8  THINGS   WORTH    WHILE 

cause  it  does  not  tell  things  that  are  of  real  importance  to  the 
world ;  if  these  are  real  spirits  talking,  would  they  not  tell 
us  something  of  value  to  us  ?  " 

A. :  "  Dr.  A is  intellectually  and   spiritually  above 

the  masses.  Why  does  he  not  tell  those  who  steel  their 
hearts  against  him,  those  who  are  below  him,  the  things  that 
will  help  them }  Tho  Jesus  spoke  the  most  important  words 
ever  heard  on  earth,  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  thought  His 
talk  was  nonsense.  If  we  give  proof  to  those  in  your  sphere 
— conclusive,  positive  proof — that  there  is  a  life  beyond  your 
life,  proof  that  life  is  continuous,  that  is  something,  is  it 
not?  If  we  can  break  down  materialism  that  raises  itself 
like  adamant  in  your  way,  is  not  that  something  of  worth, 
and  is  it  not  worth  the  while  of  intelligent  and  good  spirits 
to  do  this  thing  ?  If  I  tell  you  that  there  is  reincarnation 
for  those  who  leave  the  earth  plane,  an  entrance  into  bodies 
that  inhabit  the  spirit  plane,  and  then  that  these  pass  from 
this  spirit  plane  to  the  next  above,  and  these  again  and 
again  on  to  the  highest  life,  should  not  that  be  something 

that  is  worth  the  while.'*     If  Dr.  A is  called  upon  to 

bury  a  person,  how  does  he  comfort  those  who  remain  be- 
hind.^ Does  he  not  say  as  the  consummation  of  all  of  his 
consolations  :  *  I  commend  you  to  the  infinite  mercy  of  God '  ? 
A  child  of  six  years  old  could  say  that.  We  spirits  seek  to 
give  you  certain  knowledge,  and  if  you  will  listen  to  us  you 
shall  have  it,  certain  knowledge  that  there  is  no  death,  that 
what  you  call  death  is  no  more  destruction  of  your  individual- 
ity than  is  the  shedding  of  the  skin  a  destruction  of  a  ser- 
pent or  the  breaking  of  the  shell  is  the  destruction  of  the 
bird.  We  say  that,  and  yet  you  say,  tell  us  something  worth 
while.  In  what  are  you  better  than  the  Pharisees  ?  They 
asked  for  marvels  at  the  very  time  Jesus  was  uttering  truths 
that  had  power  in  them  to  lift  the  earth  from  its  sockets." 

Q. :  "  Can  you  tell  us  whether  the  human  soul  is  wholly 
within  our  consciousness  ?  " 

A. :  "I  do  not  understand  you." 


ONLY   ONE   SOUL  209 

Q. :  "  We  are  told  by  some  learned  men  that  there  is  a 
subliminal  personality  in  every  individual,  a  subjective  mind, 
and  that  only  about  that  part  of  the  soul  that  comes  into 
consciousness  can  we  know  anything.  The  other  and  greater 
part  is  outside  of  our  consciousness,  and  of  this  we  know 
nothing.     Are  there  two  souls  or  two  parts  of  the  same  soul  ?  " 

A.  :  "  There  are  not  two  souls  in  any  individual — only 
one.  Every  spirit  is  a  personality,  and  every  personality  is 
a  unit — one." 

Q.  :  "  Is  the  medium  now  wholly  asleep  so  that  no  part 
of  her  soul  is  active.^  " 

A.  :  "  Her  soul  is  taken  absolute  possession  of  by  a  spirit. 
It  has  no  activity  of  its  own  during  this  hypnosis,  no  more 
thought,  no  more  conscious  individuality  than  if  it  did  not 
exist.  We  use  her  physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  organ- 
ism, she  having  given  her  consent.  We  do  this  so  as  to  con- 
vey to  you  our  own  thoughts,  not  hers.  Of  course  we  must 
conform  somewhat  to  her  physical  and  mental  constitution, 
and  to  some  extent  our  communications  will  receive  color 
from  her  own  thinking  and  feelings.  This  is  always  true 
except  when  there  is  great  power  in  the  spirit  seeking  to 
communicate  and  the  medium  unusually  negative.  For  this 
reason  it  is  of  great  value  to  you  that  mediums  be  of  good 
minds  and  are  virtuous,  pure,  wholly  truthful.  We  can  use 
evil  mediums,  but  so  can  evil  spirits.  But  with  such  me- 
diums even  the  communications  of  good  spirits  are  at  times 
twisted  and  vitiated  so  as  to  be  really  worse  than  worthless. 
But  I  must  now  close  and  leave  you.  I  came  on  invitation 
of  your  band  to  talk  to  you  on  the  subject  of  reincarnation — 
your  questions  have  led  me  to  ramble  over  a  much  larger 
field  of  thought.     Good-night." 

According  to  Hudson,  in  his  "  Law  of  Psychic  Phenom- 
ena," it  is  the  subjective  mind  of  the  medium  that  "says 
and  does  "  things  when  the  medium  is  in  a  trance.     One  of 
Mr.  Hudson's  strongest  proofs  of  this  is  that  trance  and 
14 


2JO       FRAILTY    OF    SOME    MEDIUMS 

hypnosis  are  the  same,  and  that  "  every  professor  of  hypnot- 
ism knows "  that  if  other  than  the  agent  puts  questions 
to  the  subject  either  the  questions  go  unanswered  or  the 
spell  is  broken  and  the  subject  awakes.  The  same  is  the 
result  if  the  subject  is  contradicted  or  argued  with.^  If  we 
apply  this  rule  to  the  spirit  talks  just  given,  Mr.  Hud- 
son's observation  would  seem  to  exclude  the  subjective  mind 
hypothesis,  as  questions  were  freely  asked  and  answered 
during  these  talks,  in  fact,  many  more  than  are  here  given. 

Unquestionably,  the  intelligence  exhibited  in  these 
talks  is  far  beyond  that  of  at  least  the  objective  mind  of  the 
elderly  lady  who  served  as  the  medium. 

5 

OTHER   PHENOMENA  AT  THE  "MITE"    CIRCLE 

At  the  many  seances  of  the  Brooklyn  medium  that  I  have 
attended  since  the  finding  of  "The  Widow's  Mite,"  I  have 
tried  to  study  closely  the  phenomena  there  exhibited. 

The  three  personal  experiences  of  which  descriptions 
follow  are  typical  of  many  others  which  I  have  witnessed  at 
this  circle.  I  am  well  aware  that  these  will  have  but  little 
evidential  value  except  to  those  critics  who  place  some  con- 
fidence in  my  skill  as  an  investigator  and  in  my  judgment 
that  the  woman  was  not  a  schemer  and  the  family  were  not 
schemers.  On  these  points  I  have  satisfied  my  own  mind. 
Whether  the  true  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  subcon- 
scious faculties  of  the  medium  or  in  supramundane  intelli- 
gences I  do  not  attempt  to  determine. 

It  is  true  that  many  mediums  who  start  out  honest  finally 
degenerate  into  tricksters — often  revealing  in  their  character 
a  mixture  of  the  fraudulent  and  the  genuine.  Now  since  this 
Brookyn  medium  has  discovered  her  powers,  it  will  not  take 
her  long  to  discover  that  these  powers  have  a  cash  value,  and 

»  Hudson's  "Law  of  Psj'chic  Phenomena,"  pp.  76-8. 


WAS   THIS   MY   ARAB   FRIEND?      211 

then  she  will  be  strongly  tempted  so  to  use  them,  and  then, 
to  make  them  of  more  value,  she  will  be  tempted  to  "  help 
out  the  spirits."  I  trust  that  she  will  be  able  to  stand ;  but 
to  stand  will  take  character  and  strength  of  will  and  intel- 
ligence. A  medium  is  very  often  of  infirm  will  and  is  "a 
negative  " — unfortunately  for  us,  at  least  seemingly  so,  me- 
diumship  does  not  depend  upon  moral  qualifications. 

As  is  frequently  urged  by  controls,  genuine  mediums 
should  be  safeguarded,  as  their  gifts  are  of  great  value  to 
science  and  to  the  public,  whether  Spiritualism  is  true  or  not. 

Case  i. — One  evening  "George  Carroll,"  the  spirit  con- 
trol, said :  "  I  see  an  ancient  standing  by  the  side  of  Dr.  F. — 
no,  not  an  ancient — doctor,  were  you  ever  in  China  .^  " 

"No." 

"  Oh,  this  is  an  Arab.  He  does  not  talk,  but  he  makes 
me  understand  that  you  know  him;  that  you  and  he 
climbed  a  high  place  together,  very  high.  He  helped  you — 
he  and  others.     Did  you  climb  a  pyramid  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  You  had  some  Arabs  to  help  you.  This  was  the  leader 
of  those  who  helped  you.  He  smiles,  and  makes  me  under- 
stand that  before  you  got  to  the  top  you  all  rested  and  he 
held  out  his  hand  to  you  as  if  asking  you  for  something. " 

"  If  this  is  the  Arab  who  climbed  Cheops  with  me,  will 
he  tell  me  how  many  Americans  were  in  my  company }  " 

"  He  holds  up  three  fingers." 

In  1 87 1  a  clergyman,  then  living  at  Fasten,  Pa.,  and  a 
member  of  his  church,  and  myself  made  the  ascent  of  the 
great  pyramid.  I  was  assisted  by  four  or  five  Arabs — five  if 
my  memory  is  correct.  When  about  two-thirds  of  the  way 
up,  I  became  very  tired,  but  did  not  wish  to  confess  my 
weakness  to  the  Arabs,  so  I  took  out  my  notebook  and  made 
them  understand  that  I  wished  to  describe  the  view.  They 
watched  me  silently  and  with  ostentatious  reverence.  When 
completely  rested  my  description,  was,  therefore,  complete, 


212    CORRECT  AND  INCORRECT 

and  I  put  my  book  in  my  pocket.  The  leader  approached  me 
with  a  profound  salaam,  and  said :  "  Is  American  man  satis- 
fied?" "Yes,"  I  replied;  "American  man  is  satisfied." 
"  Then,"  stretching  out  his  open  hand  to  me,  he  said,  "  make 
me  satisfied." 

I  do  not  remember  ever  publicly  to  have  described  this 
scene,  nor  to  have  alluded  to  it  for  years.  It  is  extremely 
unlikely  that  this  medium  or  any  of  her  friends  could  have 
heard  of  it. 

Case  2. — At  another  sitting  with  the  same  medium  I 
was  told  that  a  brother  of  mine  by  the  name  "Crist"  was 
present.  I  had  a  brother  by  the  name  Christian,  we  called 
him  Crist;  he  died  several  years  ago  in  Ohio,  where  he 
always  lived.  I  asked  a  question,  but  was  told  that  he  was 
gone.     I  then  said  to  the  control : 

"  Did  you  see  that  one  who  gave  the  name  Crist  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Did  you  notice  anything  peculiar  about  him .?  " 

"  Yes ;  he  hitched  when  he  walked." 

"In  what  leg?" 

"His  left  leg." 

One  of  this  brother's  legs  was  shorter  than  the  other, 
about  two  inches.  I  do  not  think  a  dozen  people  in  all 
Greater  New  York  knew  that  I  had  such  a  brother,  as  he 
never  visited  me  more  than  two  or  three  times  in  thirty  years, 
and  then  only  for  a  few  days. 

But  here  is  a  curious  fact  about  this  incident.  I  was  sure 
when  the  control  said  it  was  the  left  leg  that  he  was  wrong. 

Some  six  months  after  this  sitting  this  same  brother  was 
announced.     I  said  to  the  control : 

"  Do  you  notice  anything  strange  about  him  ?  " 

"Yes;  he  is  lame." 

"In  what  leg. ''" 

"The;'^;^//Meg." 

I  thereupon  made  inquiry  of  my  brother's  family  resi- 


WAS   THIS   CLAIRVOYANCE?         213 

ding  in  Michigan,  and  received  word  that  it  was  his  left  leg 
in  which  he  had  been  lame. 

Query :  Did  my  certain  belief  that  it  was  the  right  leg 
confuse  the  psychic  power  of  the  medium  or  was  the  first 
information  a  lucky  guess  ? 

I  told  this  control  at  a  later  meeting  of  the  mistake. 
The  answer  was : 

"  Always  accept  the  first  answer  that  comes  from  a  cabi- 
net. Positive  beliefs  in  a  circle  confuse  the  vibrations.  In 
the  spirit  world  conversations  are  by  vibrations  of  thought 
ether.  A  thought  or  feeling  with  us  is  talk ;  positive  belief 
in  the  earth  circle  is  also  talk  to  us,  making  vibrations  on 
the  thought  ether,  the  same  exactly  as  does  spirit  talk,  and 
so  we  are  not  always  able  to  distinguish  whether  the  talk 
is  from  a  spirit  source  or  from  an  earthly  source.  I  thought 
the  answer  *  the  right  leg '  at  our  recent  circle  came  from 
your  brother  Crist,  but  it  may  have  come  from  your  own 
positive  thought." 

Case  3. — At  one  time  when  the  "negro  spirit.  Aunt 
Eliza,"  was  present,  a  lady  acquaintance  of  mine  in  the  circle 
said  to  her : 

"  Won't  you  give  me  a  test,  aunty  ?  " 

"Yes,  if  'tisn't  too  hard." 

"  I  want  you  to  go  to  my  house  and  tell  me  what  two  sim- 
ilar things  there  are  in  the  parlors — one  in  the  front  parlor 
and  the  other  in  the  back." 

In  about  two  minutes  the  thumping  of  a  tune  on  the  wall 
was  heard  in  the  cabinet,  and  Aunt  Eliza  said : 

"  Peayners.     The  nicest  one  is  in  the  front  parlor." 

The  lady  explained  that  a  day  or  two  before  she  had  two 
pianos  removed  from  a  storage  warehouse  to  her  home,  that 
they  had  been  in  storage  for  a  long  while,  and  had  placed  the 
finer  one  in  the  front  parlor.  She  assured  me  that  it  was 
not  possible  that  any  one  in  the  circle  could  have  known  of 
this  fact,  as  she  had  not  mentioned  it. 


<<  Some  of  us  have  proofs  that  the  individuality  persists  after 
death,  which  are  as  certain  as  proof  can  be.  .  .  .  The  laborious 
documents  of  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  are  there  for 
all  the  world  to  see,  and  while  we  have  exposed  much  fraud 
and  discredited  much  spiritualism,  we  have  collected  evidence 
of  the  possibility  of  communication  between  this  and  other 
worlds  which  deserves  consideration.  We  are  publishing  shortly 
remarkable  examples  of  automatic- writing,  which  some  of  us 
believe  to  be  a  communication  from  Frederic  Myers.  I  believe 
this  document  will  prove  to  be  of  great  importance.  .  .  .  What 
we  CAN  take  before  the  Royal  Society  and  what  we  can  chal- 
lenge the  judgment  of  the  world  upon,  is  telepathy.  Here  is 
the  beginning  of  a  wider  conception  of  science.  .  .  .  The  whole 
region  appears  to  be  in  the  occupation  of  savages  abandoned  to 
the  grossest  superstition.  But  I  say  we  have  got  to  take  the 
country  and  rule  it  for  the  advantage  of  mankind.  Galileo, 
you  remember,  funked  teaching  the  Copernican  theory  aban- 
doning the  Ptolemaic,  because  he  was  not  quite  firmly  seated 
in  his  University  chair.  It  is  exactly  the  same  thing  to- 
day. Men  are  too  nervous,  and  not  unnaturally,  to  avow 
any  interest  in  a  study  which  has  so  long  been  left  in  the 
hands  of  quacks  and  impostors.  But  some  of  them  are  bound 
to  study  it.  Everything  in  the  world  has  to  be  examined." — 
SIR  OLIVER  LODGE,  M.Sc,  F.R.S.,  D.Sc.  Lond.,  Oxon.  and 
Vict.;  LL.D.  St.  Andrews  and  Glasgow;  Principal  of  the 
University  of  Birmingham;  President  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  in  the  Pall  Mall  Magazine,  London, 
January,  1904. 


PART  III 

TELEPATHY— CLAIRAUDIENCE 

PHYSICAL   EFFECTS 
WITHOUT  CONTACT— MATERIALIZA- 
TION—SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY 
SPIRIT   IDENTITY 


I 

TELEPATHY— CLAIRVOYANCE 

Telepathy  in  a  sense  includes  clairvoyance,  altho  in  the 
vocabulary  of  psychic  research  there  is  a  difference  between 
the  terms.  Telepathy,  strictly  speaking,  is  the  direct  com- 
munion of  mind  with  mind,  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of 
the  body — communion  without  the  assistance  of  any  of  the 
physical  senses ;  clairvoyance  is  the  ability  to  see  indepen- 
dently of  the  physical  sense  of  sight. 

The   Remarkable   Reading   of   Series   of   Sealed 

Letters 

The  Medium  Named  the  One  I  Thought  the  Author ,  but  Who 
was  Not — An  Instructive  Mistake — An  Extraordinarily 
Interesting  Mixture — Coincidence  Unthinkable —  Undeniable 
Mind-reading —  Was  this  Joseph  Cook  f — My  Niece's  Success 
— Telling  Whereabouts  of  a  Leaf  from  the  Family  Bible — 
A  Mediumistic  Trick 

A  few  weeks  ago  I  called  upon  a  medium,  Mrs.  A. ,  who 
was  at  the  house  of  Judge  C.  in  New  York.  Her  home 
is  in  a  neighboring  State.  I  was  known  only  by  name 
to  her,  and  I  called  by  appointment,  taking  with  me  eight 
sealed  envelopes.  These  envelopes  contained  each  a  letter 
written  by  some  deceased  person,  also  a  note  addressed  to 
the  writer  in  which  I  had  written  one  or  more  questions. 
There  was  no  writing  whatever  on  the  outside  of  the  envel- 
opes except  the  penciled  numbers,  which  tallied  with  an  in- 
dex of  the  contents  in  my  memorandum-book.  The  envel- 
opes I  closed  and  sealed  just  before  leaving  my  home,  giving 

217 


21 8         READING   SEALED    LETTERS 

no  hint  whatever  to  any  one,  not  even  my  family,  of  what 
the  envelopes  contained.  In  my  various  tests  of  this  sort,  I 
use  invariably  envelopes  made  of  paper  so  thick  as  to  make 
it  impossible  for  the  eye  to  detect  the  contents,  even  when 
the  envelopes  are  held  before  an  electric  light.  I  also  so 
folded  each  enclosed  letter  as  to  bring  the  name  of  the  writer 
on  the  inside  fold. 

The  judge  invited  us  to  his  study  for  our  sitting,  and  he 
and  all  others,  except  the  medium  and  myself,  left  the  room. 
The  medium  and  myself  were  seated  on  the  same  side  of  the 
table,  so  that  her  hands  and  lap  were  always  within  about 
thirty  inches  of  me  and  in  full  view.  She  immediately  se- 
lected out  of  the  envelopes  which  I  had  spread  on  the  table 
one  numbered  5,004.  She  said:  "I  feel  like  going  on  a 
journey  to  the  West  some  hundreds  of  miles.  The  writer 
of  this  letter  does  not  live  here.  You  do  not  know  this 
writer — that  is,  personally.  I  hear  the  name  X.^  The  per- 
son who  wrote  this  letter  is  named  X.  Oh,  this  letter  came 
through  a  medium,  and  this  medium's  name  is  also  X.  The 
person  who  wrote  this  letter  is  in  the  spirit  world ;  he  wrote 
through  a  m.edium,  and  the  medium's  name  is  the  same  as 
his.  But  these  two  X.'s  confuse  me.  Ah,  there  are  three 
X.  's,  the  medium  and  her  husband,  but  this  husband  did 
not  write  the  letter — another  X.  wrote  it.  I  hear  the  name 
Alexander — Alexander  X.  But  this  X.  didn't  sign  his  name 
to  what  he  wrote.  The  name  he  signed  to  the  letter  which 
is  in  this  envelope  is  *  Pastor. '  " 

This  was  a  very  instructive  test,  especially  so  as  the 
sequel  proved.  Some  of  the  facts  were  unknown  to  me  at 
the  time  of  this  sitting.     The  facts  are  as  follows : 

Residing  some  hundreds  of  miles  west  of  New  York  is  a 
lady  physician  (whom  I  shall  call  Dr.  T.),  in  whose  home  has 
developed  lately  a  sensitive  or  medium.  This  mediumship 
is  strictly  private.     Public  consultations  are  not  given,  and 

1 1  do  not  give  the  correct  names,  as  the  family  are  not  known  as  Spiritualists 
and  request  that  these  names  be  not  given  to  the  public. 


CLEARLY   MIND-READING  219 

no  money  whatever  is  charged.  Neither  of  the  ladies  was  a 
believer  in  Spiritualism  prior  to  this  family  experience,  and 
they  are  not  now  Spiritualists  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of 
the  term.  Among  the  spirits  who  claim  to  write  through 
this  medium's  hand  are  the  medium's  husband  (Mr.  X.)  and 
the  spirit  of  one  who  was  the  pastor  of  herself  and  husband, 
a  very  eminent  divine  while  on  earth.  The  publication  of 
the  account  of  the  finding  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite  "  led  Dr.  T. 
to  write  to  me  an  account  of  the  phenomena  taking  place  in 
her  home.  She  sent  to  me  from  time  to  time  sermons  and 
letters  purporting  to  come  from  this  deceased  clergyman. 
These  were  always  signed  "  Pastor. "  The  name  of  the  pas- 
tor was  withheld,  I  was  told,  as  he  wished  at  some  future 
time  to  reveal  himself  to  me  "  in  a  way  that  would  convince  " 
me  of  his  "  identity." 

On  last  Christmas  I  received  a  short  personal  letter,  pur- 
porting to  have  been  written  by  the  "  Pastor  "  and  signed  by 
this  pseudonym — written  through  the  hand  of  the  medium, 
Mrs.  X.  It  was  this  Christmas  letter,  thus  signed,  that  I 
had  enclosed  in  the  envelope  with  the  question,  "  Will  Pastor 
tell  me  his  name.^  "  The  name  "  X."  was  not  in  the  envel- 
ope nor  in  my  memoranda.  There  was  no  name  inside  the 
envelope  but  the  signature  "  Pastor  "  and  my  name  signed  to 
the  question ;  and  in  my  memorandum-book  I  had  simply  the 
name  "Pastor."  However,  a  few  days  before  this  time,  I 
had  written  to  Dr.  T.  my  guess  of  the  pastor's  name,  and  my 
guess  was  Dr.  X. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  the  medium,  Mrs.  A.,  told 
me: 

1.  The  name  of  medium  X. 

2.  The  name  of  her  deceased  husband.  ;  ^^ 

3.  The  fact  that  the  sealed  letter  was  signed  '^tastor,"  a 
fact  that  I  had  not  told  to  any  person. 

4.  The  name  of  Dr.  X.  as  the  correct  name  of  the  "Pas- 
tor," in  answer  to  my  written  question  in  the  sealed  envelope. 

5.  That  the  letter  was  written  by  a  "spirit"  through  a 
medium. 


220  INSTRUCTIVE   MISTAKE 

6.  That  the  medium  through  whom  this  letter  was  written 
lived  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  West. 

All  of  these  statements  were  exactly  what  I  at  that  time 
believed  to  be  true. 

The  sequel  is  the  most  instructive  point  in  the  story. 
The  "Pastor"  is  a  different  person  from  the  one  whom  I  had 
guessed;  I  now  know  the  facts.  The  medium,  Mrs.  A.,  told 
exactly  what  was  in  the  envelope,  and  told  exactly  what  I 
thought  to  be  the  true  name  of  the  "  Pastor." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  clearer  case  of  mind- 
reading. 

The  medium,  Mrs.  A.,  picked  up  from  the  table  a  second 
envelope  numbered  5,006.  A  glance  at  my  memorandum- 
book  told  me  that  the  envelope  contained  a  question  to  a 
clergyman  who  had  recently  died  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  whom  I  will  call  Charles  Johnson — for  obvious  reasons  I 
withhold  his  correct  name.     The  medium  said : 

"This  person  is  in  the  spirit  world.  He  died  suddenly 
by  an  accident.  He  says  some  thought  it  suicide.  But  he 
says  that  I  shall  tell  you  that  he  did  not  commit  suicide. 
Gas  had  something  to  do  with  his  death.  Didn't  he  die 
through  gas  t  " 

"  Yes.      What  was  his  name.^     Can  you  give  it  .<*  " 

"J — O — Jones;  no,  John — John  something.  I  can't 
make  it  out.  I  can't  see  the  whole  name.  It  is  John — 
something.     Tell  me." 

"  You  are  close  to  it;  can  you  give  me  his  first  name.^  " 

"  I  see  the  letter  C;  the  last  letter  of  this  name  is  S,  and 
the  next  to  the  last  is  E,  and  the  next  L — it  is  Charles." 

"Yes." 

"  He  wants  you  to  be  sure  to  know  that  he  did  not  com- 
mit suicide.  He  had  suffered  a  good  deal  with  sickness  and 
was  willing  to  go,  but  he  did  not  kill  himself." 

I  thereupon  opened  the  letter  and  immediately  saw  that 
I  had  made  a  mistake  in  numbering  the  envelope.  The  let- 
ter in  this  envelope  was  one  from  Mr.  Beecher,  and  Johnson's 


WHAT    MIND    READS  221 

letter  I  had  placed  by  mistake  into  Mr.  Beecher's  envelope, 
and  hence  my  index  was  wrong.  Yet  the  medium,  with  the 
Beecher  envelope  in  her  hand,  answered  exactly  the  questions 
in  the  Johnson  envelope — answered  them  exactly  as  they 
were  in  my  mind.  When  I  opened  the  envelope  and  saw 
the  mistake,  and  before  I  had  said  a  word,  the  medium  said : 
"  Mr.  Johnson  is  laughing  at  you ;  he  says  you  have  made  a 
mistake." 

This  reading  by  Mrs.  A.  is  also  explicable  on  the  theory 
of  mind-reading.  There  is  no  chance  whatever  for  fraud,  and 
not  one  chance  in  a  million  for  mere  guessing  or  coincidence. 
As  says  one  of  the  professors  of  psychology  in  the  Appendix, 
speaking  of  coincidence  as  an  explanation  to  "The  Widow's 
Mite  "  incident,  that  an  explosion  of  a  type-foundry  might 
some  time  in  eternity  result  in  the  type  taking  the  form  of 
Homer's  "Iliad."  We  can  suppose  anything,  but  practical 
sense,  I  feel  sure,  will  here  rule  out  as  an  explanation  any 
theory  of  coincidence  or  successful  guessing.  Let  us  leap 
no  chasms.  If  we  admit  mind-reading  as  a  certainty  in  this 
and  the  former  case,  then  what?  Whose  mind  did  the  read- 
ing of  my  mind  ?  Was  it  the  mind  of  the  medium  or  that  of 
her  spirit  control  or  of  some  other  spirit  present } .  If  it  was 
the  mind  of  the  spirit  he  represented  himself  to  be,  why  did 
he  not  at  once  detect  the  mistake }  But  we  might  also  ask. 
If  it  was  the  mind  of  the  medium  who  read  my  mind,  why 
was  it  not  equally  easy  for  her  to  read  what  was  in  the 
envelope  and  to  detect  the  mistake } 

Even  on  the  hypothesis  of  spirits  communicating,  it  is  not 
likely  that  in  these  two  cases  the  spirits  were  the  persons 
they  claimed  to  be — surely  not  in  the  case  of  Dr.  X. 

Let  us  remember  that  mind-reading  or  telepathy  is  quite 
likely  the  result  of  what  we  call  thought-waves.  These 
thought- waves  are  interpreted  wherever  there  is  an  intelli- 
gence attuned  to  them.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  this 
law  holds  whether  this  intelligence  is  in  the  body  or  out  of 
the  body.     To  read  sealed  letters  would  require  the  exercise 


222    WAS  THIS   GEORGE   HEPWORTH? 

of  the  power  that  is  more  accurately  called  clairvoyance. 
Now  with  some  minds,  whether  incarnate  or  discarnate,  the 
exercise  of  clairvoyance  seems  a  more  difficult  task  than 
thought-reading;  hence  it  may  have  been  easier  to  read  the 
questions  in  my  mind  than  to  detect  the  error  in  the 
envelopes. 

I  submitted  this  matter  to  a  spirit  control,  and  received 
the  following  reply : 

"  Sometimes  low  earth  spirits,  as  we  call  them,  possess 
certain  mediums  who  are  not  sufficiently  on  their  guard. 
Nothing  pleases  this  class  of  spirits  better  than  to  get  back 
to  their  old  earth  conditions,  and,  in  order  to  make  their  return 
more  acceptable  to  these  mediums,  they  will  strive  to  give 
clients  of  the  mediums  the  information  for  which  they  make 
inquiry ;  by  making  themselves  financially  profitable  to  their 
mediums,  they  make  their  welcome  sure.  Yet  it  may  be  that 
in  the  case  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Johnson  he  was  present  and  domi- 
nated the  situation,  giving  his  answers  to  the  questions  which 
you  desired  to  ask  and  which  he  read  in  the  other  envelope, 
or  he  may  have  got  them  from  the  thought-waves  coming  from 
your  mind." 

The  following  series  took  place  with  a  sensitive  whom  I 
shall  call  Miss  B.  I  had  never  met  her  before  my  first  visit 
as  described  below ;  my  attention  was  called  to  her  by  Dr. 
Minot  J.  Savage.  I  called  without  an  appointment  or  any 
introduction,  telling  her  when  she  entered  the  parlor  that 
unless  she  required  it  I  should  not  give  my  name,  as  I  wished 
to  make  some  test  experiments.  She  replied,  "  Very  well," 
and  we  immediately  entered  her  sitting-room,  which  was 
light  as  day.  This  medium  does  not  go  into  a  trance ;  the 
talk  between  us  was  natural;  no  table  intervened  between 
our  chairs.  Raps  repeatedly  came  on  the  back  of  the  chair 
in  which  Miss  B.  was  sitting — an  easy  trick  for  a  medium 
who  is  dishonest.     She  said : 

"  I  hear  a  voice  saying,  *  At  it  again.  *  Strange !  this  is 
George  Hepworth  speaking,  and  he   says,  '  Doctor,  we  did 


EXACT  INFORMATION  223 

this  long  ago. '  Did  you  ever  investigate  Spiritualism  with 
Dr.  Hepworth  ?  " 

"  Yes,  some  twenty  years  ago.  '* 

"He  says,  *  Of  course  you  did,  but  it  was  not  very  satis- 
factory. '  He  asks,  *  Why  don't  you  take  those  letters  out  of 
your  pocket.-* '  " 

''  Out  of  which  pocket  ?  " 

"That  pocket" — touching  my  right-hand  inner  vest 
pocket. 


Before  going  to  this  medium  I  prepared  a  number  of  en- 
velopes, inserting  old  letters  in  some,  in  one  a  bit  of  hair, 
and  had  sealed  the  envelopes.  The  envelopes  were  in  the 
pocket  indicated.  That  they  were  there  was  not  an  impos- 
sible guess,  as  visitors  to  mediums  often  do  just  as  I  did, 
and  the  bundle  may  have  been  sufficiently  large  to  indicate 
its  presence  to  the  trained  eyes  of  one  who  makes  a  living 
by  guessing.     I  took  the  package  from  the  pocket. 

Among  the  envelopes  was  one,  as  already  mentioned,  that 
contained  a  little  bit  of  hair — not  a  dozen  hairs,  none  an 
inch  in  length.  These  were  from  my  son's  head,  and  were 
tied  with  a  white  silk  thread  and  enclosed  in  a  sheet  of  note- 
paper.  She  immediately  covered  this  envelope  which  was  in 
my  hand  with  her  own  hand,  and  instantly  said :  "  This  en- 
velope contains  a  little  something  which  belongs  to  a  living 
person — some  hair,  tied  with  a  white  cord — no — a  white 
thread.  The  person  to  whom  this  belongs  has  suffered  very 
greatly  in  mind  and  body  and  has  been  watched  over  by  one 
who  has  cared  most  tenderly  for  him.  He  is  better,  and 
will  get  well."  My  son  was  just  recovering  from  a  four 
years'  siege  of  a  most  trying  nervous  prostration.  Other 
things  she  said  about  him,  all  of  which  were  correct.  These 
few  hairs  I  could  not  detect  from  the  outside  by  the  hand. 
Afterward  I  had  Professor  Hyslop,  of  Columbia  University, 
examine  the  envelope,  and  he  pronounced  it  impossible  to 
tell  from  the  outside  of  the  envelope  what  was  inside;  that 
is,  by  the  use  of  normal  powers. 


224  A    REMARKABLE    READING 

Of  only  one  other  envelope  would  she  speak  at  that  time. 
This  contained  a  letter  from  a  member  of  my  family  now 
deceased.  Miss  B.  took  the  envelope  in  one  hand  and  said : 
*'  This  contains  a  very  old  letter,  yellow  with  age,  written  in 
a  very  even  hand;  the  writing  is  very  fine,  the  letters  are 
small  and  neatly  made;  it  was  written  by  a  lady  now  dead." 
She  described  the  writer  of  this  letter,  and  the  description, 
as  far  as  it  went,  was  perfectly  accurate.  The  letter  was 
written  over  thirty  years  ago,  and  was  yellow  with  age,  and 
was  v/ritten  in  a  very  fine  hand,  with  not  a  blot  nor  ill-made 
letter.  Miss  B.  closed  the  seance  by  saying :  "  I  see  you  are 
investigating  Spiritualism  with  a  clergyman  now.  I  see  be- 
fore me  the  letters  T-U-P."  This  was  surprisingly  cor- 
rect, but  she  may  have  guessed  who  I  was,  and  the  fact  of 
my  investigation  with  a  gentleman  named  Dr.  Tupper  may 
have  become  known  to  the  medium  through  some  mediumis- 
tic  system  of  exchange  of  information. 

At  a  second  sitting  with  Miss  B.  I  had  with  me  eight 
or  ten  sealed  envelopes,  some  numbered  and  others  unnum- 
bered. These  I  had  prepared  over  a  month  before  for  a  test 
with  another  medium,  and  could  not  tell  for  certain  what  any 
one  envelope  contained.  I  purposely  avoided  consulting  my 
index,  so  my  own  mind  could  tell  nothing.  I  took  from  the 
package  one  numbered  105. 
I  said  to  the  medium : 

"  Can  you  get  anything  from  this?  " 

"  Let  me  see." 

And  she  immediately  took  the  envelope  in  her  hand.  As 
she  did  so,  she  said :  "  This  is  a  sweet  influence,  most  gentle, 
loving,  and  lovely,  always  thinking  of  others,  trying  to  do 
something  for  somebody  else.  [Then  suddenly:]  Why, 
what  is  this }  What  does  this  mean  ?  She  throws  up  her 
hands  and  says :  *I  did  it,  I  did  it,  I  couldn't  help  it.'  I  feel 
a  very  strange  influence. "  Then  turning  fully  toward  me, 
the  medium  asked  quickly:  "  Did  this  lady  commit  suicide.^ 
Yes,  I  know  she  did.  She  was  not  in  her  right  mind,  she 
tells   me;    it  was    not    love — it   was   overstudy.     She   was 


TELLS   WHAT   I    FORGOT  225 

trying  to  help  some  others  when  her  mind  was  overtaxed 
and  gave  way.  Tell  me  about  it.  I  hear  the  name  Ella, 
Ella." 

I  then  took  from  my  pocket  my  index.  It  gave  after  No. 
105  the  name  Ella  Martain — I  do  not  here  give  the  correct 
name,  but  did  with  my  question  in  the  sealed  envelope. 
This  lady  was  the  daughter  of  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  and 
had  a  few  months  before  committed  suicide.  She  was  a 
young  woman  of  a  charming  disposition,  loved  by  all  who 
knew  her,  exceedingly  gentle,  very  sweet  of  heart,  and  very 
ambitious  to  do  something  to  help  her  family,  as  she  did  not 
wish  to  be  a  burden  to  them.  The  family  was  in  somewhat 
straitened  financial  circumstances.  This  worried  the 
daughter  and  caused  her  to  overwork.  She  had  taken  charge 
of  a  school  in  which  she  was  teaching  art,  and  at  the  same 
time  was  seeking  to  qualify  herself  for  a  state  superinten- 
dency;  depression  followed  the  overtaxing  of  her  mind,  and 
in  a  fit  of  melancholy  she  took  her  life.  It  should  be 
remembered  that  I  had  sealed  this  envelope  with  others  nearly 
a  month  before,  intending  to  use  it  with  another  medium. 
I  had  forgotten  just  what  I  had  written  inside  of  the  envel- 
ope. I  wrote  down  on  the  envelope  the  words  which  Miss  B. 
had  spoken,  and  in  my  office,  in  the  presence  of  my  secre- 
tary, after  reading  to  him  the  record  on  the  outside,  opened 
the  envelope  and  on  the  inside  found  folded  a  slip  of  paper 

on  which  were  written  these  words :  "  Will tell 

me  why  she  took  her  life?"  My  secretary  immediately 
made  the  following  record  : 

"On  Wednesday,  this  third  day  of  June,  1903,  Dr.  Funk 
showed  me  a  sealed  envelope,  the  contents  of  which  I  was 
unable  to  discern  when  the  envelope  was  held  before  a 
bright  light.  The  said  envelope  was  opened  in  my  presence 
by  Dr.  Funk,  and  from  within  was  taken  a  piece  of  paper 
that  had  been  folded  over  twice,  on  the  inside  of  which  the 

following  question  was  written :   *  Will tell  me 

why  she  took  her  life?  " 
15 


226        FEAR   FOR    MY    ORTHODOXY 

Miss  B.  added,  as  I  took  the  envelope  from  her : 

"  I  see  the  hand  going  as  if  it  were  drawing  or  painting 
something.  Was  this  person  an  artist?  This  spirit  tells 
me  that  she  left  a  picture  unfinished,  and  that  you  will  find 
a  mark  in  a  book  only  partly  read.  She  says :  '  Tell  mother 
not  to  worry ;  it  is  now  all  right.  *  '* 

It  is  true  that  she  left  on  an  easel  a  picture  unfinished ; 
I  made  no  inquiry  as  to  the  mark  in  the  book,  as  in  almost 
every  household  a  number  of  books  contain  bookmarks. 

This  test  may  be*explicable  by  the  hypothesis  of  telep- 
athy, as  in  my  own  mind  were  the  facts  in  the  case,  except 
the  fact  of  the  unfinished  picture ;  and,  if  clairvoyance  be 
true,  my  written  question  in  the  sealed  envelope  could  have 
been  read. 

I  then  handed  the  medium  another  envelope.  As  she 
took  it  in  her  hand,  she  said : 

"This  is  from  a  departed  person  of  great  strength,  a 
clergyman,  I  think;  one  who  is  what  would  be  called  ortho- 
dox, and  who  laid  considerable  emphasis  on  orthodoxy.  He 
seems  afraid  to  have  you  investigate  Spiritualism.  He  him- 
self did  some  little  investigating,  but  was  afraid  of  the  sub- 
ject. He  is  concerned  about  your  investigation,  as  he  fears 
that  it  may  undermine  your  orthodoxy.  He  repeats  the 
name,  *  Christ,  Christ,  Christ;  let  nothing  come  between 
you  and  Christ. '  He  was  a  man  of  large  brain,  but  narrow 
in  his  views;  and  yet  he  was  a  man  of  a  large  heart."  Then 
she  turned  to  me,  asking :  "  Do  you  know  what  is  in  this 
envelope  ?  " 

"  No ;  it  is  not  numbered." 

"  Will  you  let  me  see  it?  " 

I  opened  the  envelope  and  found  in  it  a  letter  which, 
without  unfolding,  I  saw  at  once  was  in  the  handwriting  of 
Joseph  Cook.  She  quickly  said  to  me:  "Don't  unfold  it; 
only  let  me  have  it  in  my  hand."  I  gave  her  the  letter 
folded,  and  she  held  it  for  a  moment  in  her  closed  hand, 
and  said : 


"ONLY   A   COOK"  227 

"  My  little  control  keeps  saying  the  words :  *  Cook,  cook, 
only  a  cook.'  Was  the  writer  of  this  a  servant  of  yours,  one 
who  worked  in  your  kitchen,  a  cook  ?  " 

"No." 

"Well,  that  is  curious;  all  I  can  hear  is,  *  Cook,  cook, 
only  a  cook.'  My  little  control  says  this  laughingly.  I 
don't  know  what  it  means  if  this  man  was  not  a  cook  some 
time  in  his  life." 

When  she  could  get  nothing  more,  I  showed  her  the  signa- 
ture— "Joseph  Cook."  She  looked  surprised,  and  said: 
"  Who  was  he.-*  "  She  may  have  recognized  the  handwriting 
when  I  opened  the  letter.  She  did  not  see  the  signature,  as 
the  letter  was  folded  with  the  signature  inside.  Miss  B.  is 
not  what  would  be  called  a  well-read  woman,  and  the  proba- 
bilities are  greatly  against  her  ability  to  recognize  at  a  glance 
the  handwriting  of  Joseph  Cook. 

Shortly  after  this  experience  of  mine  with  Miss  B.  there 
was  visiting  in  my  home  in  Brooklyn  a  niece  of  my  wife, 
whose  home  was  in  Toledo,  Ohio.  She  was  a  total  stranger 
in  New  York.  I  will  here  call  her  Miss  M.  Miss  M.  had 
had  some  experience  in  Ohio  in  investigating  psychic  phe- 
nomena, is  alert  to  deception,  of  quick  eye  and  good  judg- 
ment, and  is  a  good  investigator,  being  neither  overcredulous 
nor  repellent  to  mediums.  As  she  was  a  stranger  in  the 
city,  I  thought  it  well  to  have  her  make  a  test  visit  to  Miss 
B.,  which  she  did  in  November,  1903.  It  may  be  well  to 
say  that  Miss  B.  lived  in  upper  New  York,  over  seven  miles 
from  my  residence. 

Miss  M.  is  a  rapid  stenographer  and  made  notes  on  the 
back  of  the  envelopes  of  what  the  medium  said  about  each. 
In  her  report  to  me  she  said  that 

"  Miss  B.  did  not  at  any  time  *  fish '  for  information,  as  is 
usual  with  many  mediums,  and  I  gave  her  not  the  slightest 
clew  about  myself,  my  own  name,  home,  or  history,  or  about 
the  contents  of  any  of  the  envelopes;  nor  did  she  ask  a 
single  question  about  any  until  after  she  had  given  what 
information  she  could." 


228  TELLS    MANY   FACTS 

Miss  M.  took  with  her  a  number  of  sealed  envelopes. 
Among  these  were  three  prepared  by  myself.  These  I  got 
ready  in  my  library,  without  the  slightest  intimation  being 
given  to  Miss  M.  or  to  any  one  else  as  to  their  contents. 
The  six  envelopes  examined  by  Miss  B.  are  given  below, 
with  the  results  of  the  tests.  The  first  three  are  those  pre- 
pared by  Miss  M.,  and  the  second  three  are  those  prepared 
by  myself. 

Envelope  i  contained  a  medical  thesis  written  by  the 
father  of  Miss  M.,  who  was  a  physician.  It  was  nearly  forty 
years  old.  The  paper  was  written,  in  the  opinion  of  Miss  M., 
when  her  father  was  attending  medical  lectures  at  Willoughby 
College  in  Ohio.  The  medium,  after  touching  the  envelope, 
said: 

"  I  hear  the  word  *  Toledo.'  I  get  the  letters  *  F  '  and 
*  W.'  I  do  not  know  what  these  letters  mean.  I  also  get 
the  name  *  Ella.*  This  Ella  is  your  oldest  sister.  There 
are  three  of  you.  I  see  two  brothers-in-law.  You  are  not 
married.  Your  oldest  sister  has  six  children.  You  are  not 
living  with  her,  but  you  have  been  together  during  the  sum- 
mer. Your  oldest  sister  does  not  live  in  Toledo,  but  toward 
Cincinnati.  Your  father  says :  *  Tell  Ella  she  has  not  heart 
trouble;  it  is  only  nervousness.*  I  hear  *  Tom.'  Your  sis- 
ter has  a  son  by  that  name." 

Miss  M.  tells  me  that  "  This  reading  by  the  medium  was 
correct  in  every  point.  She  did  not  fumble,  half  utter  a 
name,  and  then  change  it.  Each  name  was  given  correctly 
at  first.  The  letters  '  F  *  and  *  W '  were  correct,  if  F 
referred  to  the  surname  of  my  father  and  W  if  it  referred  to 
the  name  of  the  college  for  which  this  thesis  was  prepared." 
The  medium  also  gave  an  accurate  detailed  description  of  the 
cemetery  and  grave  where  Miss  M.'s  father  and  mother  are 
buried.     She  said : 

"  Your  father  says  you  need  not  worry  so  much  about  the 
condition  of  the  grave;  that  that  does  not  signify.     Your 


GIVES    EXACT    DAY  229 

father  also  says  :  '  I  knew  at  1 1  130  on  Thursday  night  that  I 
would  not  get  well.'  " 

Miss  M.  informs  me  that  she  has  a  man  hired  to  take  care 
of  the  graves,  and  that  she  has  been  concerned  because  the 
burial  plot  had  been  permitted  to  run  down.  Her  sister  Ella 
had  expressed  concern  about  her  heart ;  naturally  so,  because 
both  her  father  and  her  mother  had  died  of  heart  trouble. 
Miss  M.  also  says:  "My  father  died  on  March  7,  1890; 
the  night  before  his  death  he  had  a  very  bad  turn  and  we  felt 
that  he  had  given  up  all  expectation  of  getting  well.  He 
died  about  two  hours  afterward."  After  getting  this  report 
from  Miss  M.,  I  looked  in  a  perpetual  calendar  and  found 
that  March  7  fell  on  Friday.  Miss  M.  informs  me  that 
her  father  died  at  i  130  a.m.  Hence  the  Thursday  night  in 
the  message  is  correct. 

Envelope  2  contained  a  letter  from  a  lady  acquaintance 
who  had  committed  suicide. 

Medium :  "  I  can  get  nothing  from  this  letter  except  that 
it  is  from  a  lady  who  committed  suicide.  She  suffered  from 
melancholia.  I  can  see  her  face,  very  white  and  distressed, 
and  her  large  dark  eyes.  This  lady  does  not  belong  to  your 
family." 

This,  as  far  as  it  went,  was  wholly  correct. 
Envelope  3  contained  a  letter  written  by  the  mother  of 
Miss  M.,  now  deceased.  . 

Medium :  "  There  is  something  in  this  besides  the  letter. 
It  may  be  hair  or  something  like  it.  There  is  also  a  clipping 
from  a  newspaper  about  the  death  of  a  friend.  The  edge  of 
this  clipping  looks  as  if  it  were  cut  uneven  or  turned  over. 
She  calls  you  '  May'  and  *  Mamie.'     She  is  your  mother." 

Miss  M.  showed  me  the  contents  of  her  letter.  Instead 
of  hair,  there  was  a  little  bit  of  black  braid;  it  looked  like 
hair,  and  the  letter  also  contained  a  clipping  from  a  news- 
paper; the  clipping  was  folded  unevenly,  and  described  the 


230     FACTS   UNKNOWN   TO   "SITTER" 

death  of  a  friend  of  Miss  M.  Miss  M.'s  name  is  May,  and 
she  is  often  called  Mamie.  The  reference  to  the  clipping 
was  perfect. 

The  following  three  envelopes  were  the  ones  I  gave  Miss 
M. ;  in  giving  them,  as  said  above,  I  did  not  reveal  the  slight- 
est clew  to  their  contents.  The  medium  picked  out  the  three 
letters  from  the  bunch  of  letters  and  said :  "  These  three 
you  know  nothing  about.  They  have  been  given  to  you  by 
a  friend  and  are  given  for  a  test. " 

Envelope  4  contained  a  lock  of  hair  given  to  me  some 
time  before  as  a  test  by  my  brother,  to  be  used  with  another 
medium.     I  knew  nothing  of  the  owner  of  the  hair. 

Medium :  "  I  can  get  nothing  at  all  from  this — nothing 
at  all." 

Envelope  5  contained  a  slip  of   paper  on  which  I  had 

written  the  words,  "  Will tell  me  why  she  took 

her  life?  "  (Signed)  "  I.  K.  Funk."  (The  name  of  the  per- 
son appeared  in  the  spaces  here  left  blank;  this  lady  had 
been  a  teacher.)  The  note  was  written  on  ordinary  writing 
paper  with  blue  ink  and  much  blotted,  and  was  folded  with 
the  writing  inside.  By  no  possibility  could  the  writing  be 
read  by  the  natural  eye  through  the  notepaper  and  the  heavy 
envelope  in  which  it  was  sealed.  This  was  the  same  note, 
and  to  the  same  person,  as  used  in  my  personal  test  with  Miss 
B.  described  on  a  previous  page.  In  this  present  test  I  put 
the  note  in  a  different  envelope  from  the  one  that  I  had  used 
in  my  visit  with  Miss  B. 

Miss  B :  "  This  refers  to  a  lady.  She  says :  '  Tell  him  I 
don't  know  why  I  did  it.  I  wish  I  were  back  again  in  life. 
It  would  be  so  different.'     This  lady  committed  suicide.     I 

see  books   piled   around   her,  and    I    hear  the  name  . 

[Correct.]  This  ^'s  v/ritten  in  blue  ink  and  is  much  blotted. 
You  did  not  know  this  lady,  but  you  know  of  her.  This 
letter  is  sent  by  a  friend  of  yours  as  a  test.  This  friend 
knew  the  lady." 


A   PROPHECY  231 

Envelope  6  contained  about  fifteen  hairs  which  I  clipped 
from  my  head  and  tied  with  a  silk  thread.  When  tied,  the 
construction  of  hairs  and  thread  had  the  shape  of  a  figure  8. 

Medium :  "  This  is  foolishness.  It  is  given  only  as  a 
test  by  one  who  is  living.  I  see  something  that  is  like 
this "       . 

She  drew  a  sort  of  figure  8  with  the  threads  or  points 
sticking  out.  Her  drawing  was  so  nearly  like  the  lock  of 
hair  with  the  silk  thread  as  it  lay  in  the  paper  after  the 
envelope  was  opened  as  to  cause  Miss  M.  to  break  out  into 
a  laugh. 

Medium  :  "  The  man  that  sent  you  with  this,  and  whose 
hair  this  is,  is  engaged  on  a  work  that  has  to  do  with  type- 
writing. I  see  a  lot  of  pigeon-holes.  The  work  on  which 
he  is  engaged  will  be  finished  in  March." 

It  happened  when  I  arranged  these  envelopes  for  Miss  M. 
that  I  was  leaning  against  a  large  group  of  pigeon-holes  in 
my  study;  right  alongside  was  a  desk  on  which  were  piled 
the  manuscripts  for  this  book.  Miss  M.  was  not  present. 
Whether  the  book  will  be  issued  in  March  the  future  will 
have  to  determine. 

Fraud  and  coincidence  are  barred  absolutely  as  explana- 
tions of  the  above  remarkable  series  of  tests.  Clairvoyance 
would  largely  explain  thein,  so  would  the  spirit  hypothesis ; 
but  not  many  psychologists  accept  the  former  hypothesis,  and 
still  fewer  the  latter. 

The  facts,  however,  remain;  and  after  them  I  place  a 
huge  interrogation  point. 

My  niece.  Miss  M.,  since  her  return  to  Ohio,  has  written 
out  at  my  request  the  following  experience  that  she  and 
other  members  of  her  family  had  two  years  ago  with  a  me- 
dium, Mrs.  C,  who  resides  in  the  West : 

"  Our  family  had  no  acquaintance  whatever  with  Mrs.  C. 
prior  to  our  call  upon  her  professionally.     We  went  without 


232         GIVING   NAMES   CORRECTLY 

any  introduction  or  appointment,  and  were  careful  not  to 
give  the  slightest  clew  to  our  identity. 

"  She  told  us  the  full  names  of  our  father,  *  Thomas,'  our 
mother,  *  Catherine,'  and  our  uncle,  '  John,*  all  of  whom  had 
resided  in  a  different  part  of  the  country  and  had  been  dead 
many  years.  She  also  gave  their  surnames.  She  told  us 
that  our  mother  was  present,  and  said  that  my  sister  had  a 
little  girl  at  home  by  the  name  of  Catherine ;  that  at  the 
time  my  sister  gave  her  that  name  my  mother,  who  was  then 
living,  objected  somewhat,  but  that  she  wished  to  say  that 
she  was  now  glad  that  the  name  was  given,  and  that  it  was 
a  special  work  of  hers  in  the  spirit  world  to  guide  and  care  for 
this  little  grandchild. 

"  Mrs.  C.  then  gave  us  both  many  full  names  of  friends 
who  had  departed  this  life,  including  relatives  on  my  sister's 
husband's  side  of  the  house,  some  of  whom  my  sister  had 
never  met.  She  also  told  us  that  with  our  mother  came  a 
little  boy  by  the  name  of  Willie,  who  was  the  child  of  our 
oldest  sister  who  resided  in  a  different  city.  This  child  had 
been  in  the  spirit  world  since  he  was  a  little  baby. 

"  A  year  later  my  two  sisters  and  their  husbands  went  to 
a  public  meeting  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  C.'s.  At  this  meeting,  at 
which  there  were  two  or  three  hundred  people,  Mr.  C,  who 
is  also  a  medium,  gave  the  full  names  of  my  father,  mother, 
and  uncle,  and  also  to  my  oldest  sister  and  her  husband  the 
full  name  of  their  little  boy,  Willie  Zay  A . 

"  All  of  these  names  were  given  to  us  promptly  and  with- 
out any  assistance  on  our  part.  In  fact,  we  asked  but  few 
questions  and  took  every  precaution  against  giving  clews. 

"  Mrs.  C.  seems  to  me  to  have  remarkable  supernormal 
power  of  some  nature  unknown  to  science,  or  at  least  un- 
known to  me." 

At  my  request  my  brother,  B.  F.  Funk,  had  a  sitting 
with  the  medium.  Miss  B.  He  also  was  a  total  stranger  to 
her,  and  called  without  any  appointment  and  did  not  give  his 
name ;  nor  is  there  any  telltale  resemblance  between  himself 
and  myself.  He  had  with  him  a  number  of  sealed  envelopes. 
Among  these  were  two  from  myself,  one  of  which  contained 
the  same  bit  of  notepaper  that  my  niece  took  with  her  in 
calling  upon  this  medium  and  which  I  had  with  me  on  my 


MY   BROTHER'S    EXPERIMENTS      233 

first  interview  with  this  medium.  On  this  notepaper  the 
reader  will  remember  that  I  had  written  the  question :  "  Will 

tell  me  why  she  took  her  life?"     I  used  again 

the  precaution  to  place  this  slip  in  a  different  envelope.  I 
count  my  brother  experienced  and  careful  in  spiritualistic 
investigation,  and  he  is  a  stiff  skeptic  as  to  the  spirit  origin 
of  the  phenomena.  It  should  be  remembered  that  in  each 
of  my  envelope  tests  nothing  is  v/ritten  on  the  outside  except 
the  number  of  the  envelope. 

My  brother  reported  that  the  medium  took  the  envelopes 
in  her  hand,  and  said  that  one  was  addressed  to  a  person 
who  had  committed  suicide,  and  that  she  heard  the  names 
**  Toledo,  Tom,  Louisa."  It  will  be  remembered  that  when 
my  niece  visited  this  medium  with  this  same  letter — the 
envelope,  however,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  was  different — 
the  medium  said  she  heard  the  names  "Toledo  and  Tom." 
My  niece's  home  was  in  Toledo,  and  the  medium  told  her 
that  Tom  was  the  name  of  one  of  the  six  children  in  the 
family  of  her  sister  Ella.  The  only  connection  between  my 
brother's  visit  to  Miss  B.  and  my  niece's  visit  was  the  fact 
that  both  carried  to  her  this  letter  in  which  was  written  my 
question  to  the  lady  who  committed  suicide. 

Miss  B.,  taking  another  envelope,  said : 

"This  is  addressed  to  Henry,  or  rather  Harry — Harry  J." 
This  was  correct.     She  went  on  to  say : 

"This  man  died  suddenly — heart  or  head  trouble.  Is 
not  that  true.^  "  This  brother  died  from  apoplexy  while  out 
walking.  My  brother,  B.  F.,  in  his  written  account  of  his 
experience  with  this  medium,  continuing  the  report,  says : 

"  Next  she  pressed  between  her  two  hands  a  letter  which 
I  had  addressed  to  my  mother.     Miss  B.  said : 

"  'This  seems  to  be  a  young  person,  very  much  attached 
to  you ;  and  then  again  she  seems  to  be  old.  She  was  very 
religious,  and  seems  to  be  a  Methodist,  as  she  is  singing 
"Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee."  No — she  was  of  German  ex- 
traction and  talked  German.     She  was  raised  to  believe  in, 


234  "IS   THIS   A   GOOD   TEST?" 

or  identify  herself  with  one  faith,  and  then  she  changed  to 
another.  I  think  it  was  Presbyterian.  She  was  very  reti- 
cent, slow  to  make  friends,  but  those  she  had  were  stanch 
friends.      I  think  she  was  a  sister — was  she }  * 

"  I  said  ^  No.' 

"  *  She  seems  young.  Would  you  mind  opening  the 
letter.?  ' 

"  I  opened  the  letter.  She  fumbled  it  in  her  hand,  and 
may  possibly  have  seen  the  name  or  the  word  *  mother ' — 
barely  possible,  but  I  think  not — and  then  said : 

" '  Oh,  your  mother !  That  is  it.  I  thought  it  was  a 
young  person,  as  she  had  your  grandmother  with  her.  She 
says,  "  Tell  Bennie  to  tell  Isaac  to  go  slow  with  what  he  is 
doing."  She  is  holding  your  nephew  by  the  hand — a  young 
man — Isaac's  son.  He  says,  "Tell  father  he  is  working  too 
hard.      He  simply  must  let  up,  or  it  will  be  serious."  ' 

"I  said:  '  Can't  you  tell  mother  to  give  me  a  test  or 
answer  my  question  in  the  letter  .-* ' 

"  The  medium  then  said : 

**  *  Your  mother  tells  me :  "  Ask  Bennie  why  he  didn't 
put  those  leaves  back  in  my  Bible,  the  old  family  Bible."  ' 

"I  asked,  'What  leaves?  ' 

"  She  said  :  '  What  you  have  in  a  drawer.' 

"  I  then  recalled  that  I  had  leaves  or  a  leaf  of  the  old 
family  Bible  which  I  found  among  the  old  papers  of  father's 
in  a  pigeon-hole  in  his  desk  after  his  death,  nearly  a  score  of 
years  ago.  Quite  likely  one  of  our  sisters  had  taken  this 
leaf  out  of  the  Bible,  as  it  contained  a  record  of  their  ages. 
I  said  to  the  medium :  *  I  remember  having  a  leaf  or  leaves 
containing  the  births  or  deaths. ' 

"She  then  said:  'Your  mother  says,  "Is  this  a  good 
test.?"' 

"  After  reaching  home  I  found  that  I  had  in  my  bureau 
drawer  one  leaf,  not  leaves,  lying  flat  on  the  bottom  of  the 
drawer,  and  that  it  belonged  to  mother's  old  family  Bible. 
I  do  not  know  who  has  the  Bible. " 

My  brother's  name  is  Benjamin — mother  called  him 
"  Bennie."  "  Isaac  "  is  my  own  name,  and  my  son  died  when 
a  young  man.  Our  mother  died  before  she  reached  fifty. 
She  was  of  German  descent,  having  been  born  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  when  she  moved  to  Ohio  could  not  talk  English. 


A   SHALLOW   FRAUD  235 

She  was  a  member  of  the  Mennonite  Church,  and  afterward 
joined  the  Presbyterian  Church.  I  did  not  have  any  knowl- 
edge whatever  of  my  brother  having  the  leaf  of  the  family 
Bible,  and  he  says  he  never  told  any  one  in  Greater  New 
York  of  this  fact,  and  had  himself  forgotten  it.  He  lives  on 
Staten  Island,  over  ten  miles  distant  from  where  the  medium 
lived,  and  had  never  met  nor  even  heard  of  her  before  I  re- 
quested him  to  call  upon  her. 

A  Mediumistic  Trick 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  the  reader  to  contrast  with  the 
above  the  following  unsatisfactory  tests  which  carry  with 
them  the  earmarks  of  a  kind  of  fraud  that  dishonest  mediums 
are  working  very  successfully  just  now  throughout  this  coun- 
try and  Europe. 

Visiting  New  York  at  this  writing  are  two  well-known 
mediums  whose  names  I  feel  tempted  to  give,  but  shall  call 
them  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  Having  heard  much  of  their  "  rare 
gifts,"  I  visited  them.  While  waiting  in  the  parlor  I  was 
asked  to  write  on  a  pad  which  was  handed  to  me  questions 
to  "  any  two  spirit  friends,"  and  then  to  fold  the  paper  and 
put  it  in  my  pocket.  All  of  which  I  did  exactly  as  instructed, 
and  then  in  another  room  I  was  seated  at  a  table  opposite 
the  medium  in  full  light. 

Medium :  "  You  have  a  paper  in  your  pocket  on  which 
you  have  written  questions.  Will  you  kindly  take  out  the 
paper  and  burn  it .''  " 

She  struck  a  match,  and  I  held  the  paper  in  my  hand 
until  it  was  partly  reduced  to  ashes,  and  then  kept  my  eye 
on  the  remains  until  the  cremation  was  complete. 

"  Why  this  ?  "  I  asked. 

"The  essence  from  this  burned  writing  permeates  in  this 
way  the  surrounding  ether,  and  the  spirits  more  easily  sense 
the  questions." 

At  this  explanation  I  could  scarcely  keep  my  nose  from 


12,^  SHREWD   "SPIRITS" 

turning  upward  a  little;    it  sometimes  grows  rebellious  at 
these  places. 

The  medium  soon  announced  the  presence  of  the  spirits 
to  whom  I  had  addressed  my  queries,  and  these  were  an- 
swered to  the  last  detail. 

The  trick  practised  by  this  medium  is  a  simple  but  usu- 
ally an  effective  one.  The  pad  on  which  questions  are 
written  in  the  parlor  is  the  key.  This  pad  is  made  of  thin, 
sensitive  paper,  and  the  pencil  handed  the  visitor  is  hard  and 
sharp ;  the  impression  of  the  pencil  is  clearly  seen  on  the 
under  sheet,  which  is  passed  in  to  the  medium  by  the  parlor 
attendant,  and  the  medium  thus  knows  exactly  what  is  written 
on  the  folded  slip  in  your  pocket,  and  which  is  burned. 

Shrewd  spirits ! 

During  the  next  few  weeks  I  quietly  urged  again  and  again 
upon  this  medium  and  her  husband  that  I  be  permitted  to 
bring  questions  written  at  my  home,  and  that  these  be 
burned  and  then  answered. 

But  the  conditions  for  an  experiment  of  this  kind  were 
never  favorable. 

Instead,  I  was  invited  to  bring  my  questions,  duly  written 
at  home,  to  a  dark  seance.  At  these  dark  seances  with  this 
medium  the  questions  are  thrown  into  a  letter  basket  on  the 
table.  A  music-box  is  set  going,  and  all  the  lights  are  turned 
completely  out,  and  all  hands,  including  those  of  the  medium 
and  her  husband,  are  joined  on  the  table.  In  about  ten  min- 
utes a  voice  speaks  through  a  trumpet  which  is  left  lying  on 
the  table.  The  voice  answers  the  various  questions  deposited 
in  the  basket. 

To  perform  this  trick,  all  that  is  necessary  is  that  a  con- 
federate enter  the  room  in  stocking  feet  and  take  the  basket 
with  the  questions  from  the  table,  and  then  in  another  room 
read  the  questions,  and  return  and  announce  the  answers 
through  the  trumpet. 

And  yet  such  shallow  tricks  are  fooling  the  people  by  the 
tens  of  thousands. 


ONE   OF   THE   FOX   SISTERS         237 

It  is  difficult  to  say  which  deserves  the  more  blame,  the 
dishonesty  of  such  sharpers  or  the  silliness  of  their  dupes. 


Experience  with  Mrs.  Margaret  Fox  Kane 

Surprisingly  Accurate  Information — Persistettt  Misinforma- 
tion— Agreement  with  the  **  Spirits  " — A  Strangely  Mis- 
chievous Intelligence — ^^  Not  so  Smart  as  You  Think  You 
Are'' 

In  the  year  1878  I  determined  to  make  a  serious  investi- 
gation of  Spiritualism,  having  dabbled  before  somewhat  in 
the  waters.  I  quietly  found  the  address  of  Mrs.  Margaret 
Fox  Kane,  one  of  the  celebrated  Fox  sisters  with  whom 
the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  are  said  to  have  started  in 
1848.  I  went  to  her  room  wholly  unannounced,  not  having 
made  any  engagement  nor  having  told  any  one  of  my  inten- 
tion. I  had  never  previously  met  her,  nor  is  there  any  like- 
lihood that  she  had  in  any  way  heard  of  me.  I  was  little 
known  to  the  public,  nor  had  my  picture  up  to  that  time 
appeared  in  any  public  print — at  least,  not  so  far  as  I  had 
knowledge.  Mrs.  Kane  lived  in  a  poor  neighborhood  in 
New  York,  on  the  second  floor,  and,  as  I  afterward  discov- 
ered, she  was  very  poor  financially  and  unfortunately  had  be- 
come addicted  to  strong  drink.  It  is  a  fact  to  be  noted  that 
a  number  of  the  earlier  mediums  fell  victims  to  evil  habits 
— a  fact  that  told,  rightly  or  wrongly,  against  the  cause  of 
Spiritualism.  In  judging  any  system  that  touches  along  the 
lines  of  morality,  we  have  a  right  to  take  into  account  the 
influence  of  the  system  on  those  who  profess  it.  This  is  not 
the  only  test ;  but  it  is  a  test,  and  the  advocates  of  Spiritualism 
do  not  act  wisely  when  they  object  to  the  application  of  it. 

The  room  into  which  I  was  ushered  was  poorly  furnished, 
having  three  cheap  chairs  and  a  light  stand  or  table.  While 
waiting  for  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Kane,  I  moved  the  table 
from  the  spot  on  which  it  was  standing,  and  turned  it  upside 
down  to  see  if  there  were  any  wires  or  other  apparatus.     I 


238  MY   "UNCLE   SEITZ" 

voted  that  it,  at  least,  was  innocent  of  trick.  On  Mrs. 
Kane's  entrance  she  seated  herself  at  the  little  stand. 
Immediately  we  had  many  raps,  and  much  automatic  writing 
followed.  Each  writing,  as  those  acquainted  with  automatic 
writing  often  find,  had,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  individ- 
uality of  the  seeming  intelligence  that  it  was  claimed  wrote 
the  message.  After  many  messages  we  had  a  loud  double 
rap,  and  in  reply  to  my  question  who  it  was  that  was  rapping, 
the  hand  of  Mrs.  Kane  wrote  rapidly :  "  I  am  your  uncle,  J. 
Seitz."  The  oddity  of  this  name  and  the  fact  that  I  had  a 
cousin  whom  we  always  called  "  Uncle,"  by  the  name  of  J. 
Seitz,  aroused  at  once  my  interest,  especially  as  this  uncle, 
when  I  last  heard  from  him,  was  alive  and  well.  We  had 
the  following  conversation,  he  answering  through  the  writing 
of  Mrs.  Kane : 

"  Are  you  living  or  dead?  ** 

"lam  dead." 

"When  did  you  die.?" 

The  answer  was  by  nine  raps. 

"  Nine  years  ago }  " 

"No." 

"  Nine  months }  " 

"  No." 

"Nine  weeks?" 

"No." 

"Nine  days.?" 

"Yes." 

"  Where  did  you  die  ?  " 

I  was  told  to  call  off  the  names  of  different  States,  which 
I  did,  being  very  careful  not  to  give  the  slightest  clew  by  the 
tone  of  my  voice.  After  naming  half  a  dozen  States  and 
coming  to  the  name  Ohio,  immediately  the  answer  was : 

"Yes." 

Then  I  was  told  to  call  off  the  names  of  different  cities 
in  Ohio.  This  I  did  until  I  came  to  the  name  Springfield, 
when  the  answer  was : 

"Yes." 

I  knew  that  Mr.  Seitz  had  his  home  in  Springfield,  Ohio. 
Then  I  said : 


AN   AGREEMENT   WITH    SPIRITS     239 

"  Am  I  to  understand  that  you  died  in  Springfield,  Ohio, 
nine  days  ago  ?  " 

The  answer  was,  with  considerable  emphasis,  "  Yes." 

I  then  said :  "  I  was  not  aware  that  you  had  died.  Shall 
I  write  to  Springfield,  Ohio,  and  find  out  the  facts  ?  Now, 
if  this  turns  out  to  be  true  that  you  did  pass  out  of  this  life 
nine  days  ago  in  Springfield,  I  will  regard  this  as  a  good 
test.      Shall  I  do  so.?" 

Immediately  there  were  raps  seemingly  all  around  the 
room. 

I  said :  **  Very  well.  I  will  write  down  now  in  my  note- 
book as  follows :  Jacob  Seitz,  my  uncle,  says  he  died  nine 
days  ago  in  Springfield,  Ohio."  I  said  :  "  Is  this  now  mutu- 
ally understood  by  us  to  be  a  test  of  the  truth  of  Spiritual- 
ism.?" 

Immediately  the  response  again  was  general. 

Two  days  after  this  I  had  another  sitting  with  Mrs.  Fox 
Kane,  and  after  a  number  of  other  communications  the  same 
double  rap  came.  I  asked :  "  Who  is  this .?  "  Immediately 
there  was  a  message  signed  "  Your  uncle,  J.  Seitz." 

I  said :  "  How  long  ago  was  it  since  you  passed  out  of 
life.?" 

The  answer  was  prompt — eleven  raps, 

I  said :  "  Eleven  years .?  " 

"  No." 

**  Eleven  months  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Eleven  weeks  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Eleven  days .?  " 

"  Yes." 

Then  I  went  over  the  whole  series  of  questions  again  as 
before,  and  the  answers  were  the  same :  that  he  had  passed 
out  of  this  life  eleven  days  before  in  Springfield,  Ohio. 

I  said :  "  I  have  written  to  Springfield  for  the  facts,  and 
it  is  understood  that  this  is  a  test " ;  and  I  read  from  my 
memorandum-book  the  understanding. 

Immediately  there  was  a  general  response  of  raps  all 
around  the  room. 


240  EXCEEDINGLY   ODD 

I  had  written  to  my  sister,  Mrs.  Kate  Deaver,  of  Spring- 
field, Ohio,  to  let  me  know  when  she  had  seen  "  Uncle  "  Jacob 
Seitz  last  and  let  me  know  whether  he  was  well.  The  fol- 
lowing week  I  engaged  Mrs.  Margaret  Fox  Kane  to  come  to 
my  residence  in  Brooklyn,  and  also  had  invited  Dr.  George 
Beard,  the  well-known  nerve  and  brain  specialist ;  Prof.  E.  P. 
Thwing,  an  accomplished  amateur  hypnotist,  and  several 
other  people  of  note.  I  had  received  meanwhile  a  letter 
from  my  sister  in  Springfield,  in  which  she  said  that  my 
uncle  Jacob  Seitz  was  well,  she  having  seen  him  the  "  day 
before."  This  letter  was  signed  "Kate."  I  put  it  in  my 
pocket  to  bring  out  at  the  proper  time  as  a  crusher  against 
the  pretended  spirit.  We  had  present  two  mediums  on  that 
occasion.  After  a  number  of  communications  by  raps 
through  Mrs.  Kane,  there  came  the  easily  recognizable 
double  rap  of  Seitz.  I  asked :  "  Who  is  this  ?  "  Mrs.  Kane 
wrote  on  a  small  blackboard  which  I  had  in  the  room  a  mes- 
sage signed  "J.  Seitz."  I  said:  "Is  this  my  uncle,  J. 
Seitz.?"  "Yes."  "How  long  ago  is  it  that  you  died.!*" 
Immediately  she  wrote :  "  You  are  not  so  smart  as  you  think 
you  are.  That  letter  you  have  in  your  pocket  signed  *  Kate  ' 
is  a  lie.     J.  Seitz." 

From  that  evening  I  never  heard  that  double  knock  nor 
had  I  another  message  from  my  "uncle,  J.  Seitz." 

I  have  never  been  able  to  account  satisfactorily  to  my 
own  mind  for  this  strange  experience.  Neither  fraud  nor 
coincidence  fully  covers  the  facts;  nor  does  Mr.  Hudson's 
theory  of  the  subjective  mind,  for  to  my  mind  Mr.  Seitz  was 
living,  and  in  fact  was  alive.  The  fact  that  he  was  alive 
also  tells  somewhat  against  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis. 
The  hypothesis  of  a  tricking  or  jesting  intelligence  outside 
of  the  body  covers  the  facts  better  than  any  other  theory. 
But  this  theory  jars  on  our  notions  of  the  propriety  that 
should  reign  in  the  spirit  realms,  yet  there  are  any  number 
of  spirits  in  the  body  who  would  delight  in  playing  such 
pranks,  and  are  we  quite  sure  that  there  is  anything  in  death 


PROFESSOR  JAMES'S  EXPERIMENTS    241 

to  change  character?  In  this  world,  as  many  spirit  controls 
reminded  us  (see  Part  I.  of  this  book),  character  is  a  growth; 
why  not  in  the  next?  There  were  lying  spirits  who  could 
speak  through  men  in  the  days  of  Christ  and  the  prophets. 
Is  it  altogether  absurd  to  believe  that  such  spirits  still  exist 
and  still  have  this  power  ?  At  this  time  Mrs.  Margaret  Fox 
Kane  was  so  given  to  debasing  appetites  that  she  was  an  easy 
doorway  for  this  class  of  spirits,  if  the  theory  of  Spiritualism 
be  true. 

But  does  some  one  remind  me  that  Mrs.  Margaret  Fox 
Kane,  not  long  before  her  death,  confessed  that  she  and  her 
sisters  had  duped  the  public,  that  the  phenomena  of  raps, 
etc.,  which  were  manifested  through  them  were  produced  by 
the  snapping  of  joints,  etc.  ?  I  know  all  this,  knew  of  this 
theory  at  the  time  of  my  experiments  through  her ;  but  I  also 
know  that  so  low  had  this  unfortunate  woman  sunk  that  for 
five  dollars  she  would  have  denied  her  mother,  sworn  to  any- 
thing. At  that  time  her  affidavit  for  or  against  anything 
should  not  be  given  the  slightest  weight. 

Experiments   of   Professor  James,  of    Harvard    Uni- 
versity, WITH  Mrs.  Piper 

Many  Inexplicable  Phenomena — Names  of  Relatives  Told — 
Professor  James  is  Convinced  that  She  has  Supernormal 
Powers — He  Abandons  the  Fraud  and  Coincidence  Theories 
^-Facts  Given  Right  when  the  Professor's  Memory  was 
Wrong — "  Hardly  Ever  Made  a  Mistake  " 

One  of  the  best-known  psychologists  in  the  world,  if  not 
the  best  known,  is  Prof.  William  James,  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, author  of  *'  Principles  of  Psychology  "  and  other  books. 
He  may  be  called  justly  the  discoverer  of  Mrs.  Piper,  the 
celebrated  medium,  whom  he  introduced  to  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  and  who  has  now  been  investigating  the 
phenomena  she  exhibits  for  fifteen  years  or  more,  having 

control  of  her  whole  time,  and  having  had  her  under  the 
16 


242  PLAYING    ESPRIT    FORT 

closest  supervision  of  detectives,  until  there  is  no  longer  any 
question  of  her  honesty.  In  1890,  at  the  request  of  Frederic 
Myers,  Professor  James  sent  to  the  S.  P.  R.  a  record  of  his 
experiences  with  Mrs.  Piper,  which  was  published  in  the 
Proceedings.^  I  give  here  copious  extracts  from  this  paper, 
repeating  a  paragraph  or  two  which  I  have  given  on  another 
page: 

**  I  made  Mrs.  Piper's  acquaintance  in  the  autumn  of 
1885.  My  wife's  mother,  Mrs.  Gibbens,  had  been  told  of 
her  by  a  friend  during  the  previous  summer,  and,  never  hav- 
ing seen  a  medium  before,  had  paid  her  a  visit  out  of  curios- 
ity. She  returned  with  the  statement  that  Mrs.  P.  had  given 
her  a  long  string  of  names  of  members  of  the  family,  mostly 
Christian  names,  together  with  facts  about  the  persons  men- 
tioned and  their  relations  to  each  other,  the  knowledge  of 
which  on  her  part  was  incomprehensible  without  supernor- 
mal powers.  My  sister-in-law  went  the  next  day,  with  still 
better  results,  as  she  related  them.  Among  other  things 
the  medium  had  accurately  described  the  circumstances  of 
the  writer  of  a  letter  which  she  held  against  her  forehead, 
after  Miss  G.  had  given  it  to  her.  The  letter  was  in  Italian, 
and  its  writer  was  known  to  but  two  persons  in  this  country. 

"  [I  may  add  that  on  a  later  occasion  my  wife  and  I  took 
another  letter  from  this  same  person  to  Mrs.  P. ,  who  went  on 
to  speak  of  him  in  a  way  which  identified  him  unmistakably 
again.  On  a  third  occasion,  two  years  later,  my  sister-in-law 
and  I  being  again  with  Mrs.  P., she  reverted  in  her  trance  to 
these  letters,  and  then  gave  us  the  writer's  name,  which  she 
said  she  had  not  been  able  to  get  on  the  former  occasion.] 

"  But  to  revert  to  the  beginning.  I  remember  playing 
the  esprit  fort  on  that  occasion  before  my  feminine  relatives, 
and  seeking  to  explain  by  simple  considerations  the  marvel- 
ous character  of  the  facts  which  they  brought  back.  This 
did  not,  however,  prevent  me  from  going  myself  a  few  days 
later,  in  company  with  my  wife,  to  get  a  direct  personal  im- 
pression. The  names  of  none  of  us  up  to  this  meeting  had 
been  announced  to  Mrs.  P.,  and  Mrs.  J.  and  I  were,  of  course, 
careful  to  make  no  reference  to  our  relatives  who  had  pre- 
ceded.    The   medium,    however,  when   entranced,  repeated 

»  Vol.  vi.,  pp.  651-9. 


SUPERNORMAL  POWERS,  SAYS  JAMES  243 

most  of  the  names  of  '  spirits '  whom  she  had  announced  on 
the  two  former  occasions  and  added  others.  The  names 
came  with  difficulty,  and  were  only  gradually  made  perfect. 
My  wife's  father's  name  of  Gibbens  was  announced  first  as 
Niblin,  then  as  Giblin.  A  child  Herman  (whom  we  had 
lost  the  previous  year)  had  his  name  spelt  out  as  Herrin.  I 
think  that  in  no  case  were  both  Christian  and  surnames 
given  on  this  visit.  But  the  facts  predicated  of  the  persons 
named  made  it  in  many  instances  impossible  not  to  recognize 
the  particular  individuals  who  were  talked  about.  We  took 
particular  pains  on  this  occasion  to  give  the  Phinuit  ^  control 
no  help  over  his  difficulties  and  to  ask  no  leading  questions. 
In  the  light  of  subsequent  experience  I  believe  this  not  to  be 
the  best  policy.  For  it  often  happens,  if  you  give  this 
trance-personage  a  name  or  some  small  fact  for  the  lack  of 
which  he  is  brought  to  a  standstill,  that  he  will  then  start 
off  with  a  copious  flow  of  additional  talk,  containing  in  itself 
an  abundance  of  *  tests.' 

"  My  impression  after  this  first  visit  was  that  Mrs.  P.  was 
either  possessed  of  supernormal  powers  or  knew  the  members 
of  my  wife's  family  by  sight  and  had  by  some  lucky  coinci- 
dence become  acquainted  with  such  a  multitude  of  their  do- 
mestic circumstances  as  to  produce  the  startling  impression 
which  she  did.  My  later  knowledge  of  her  sittings  and  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  her  has  led  me  absolutely  to  reject 
the  latter  explanation  and  to  believe  that  she  has  supernor- 
mal powers. 

"  I  visited  her  a  dozen  times  that  winter,  sometimesalone, 
sometimes  with  my  wife,  once  in  company  with  the  Rev.  M. 
J.  Savage.  I  sent  a  large  number  of  persons  to  her,  wishing 
to  get  the  results  of  as  many  first  sittings  as  possible.  I 
made  appointments  myself  for  most  of  these  people,  whose 
names  were  in  no  instance  announced  to  the  medium.    .  .    . 

"  The  details  of  these  sittings  would  prove  nothing  to  the 
reader,  unless  printed  in  extensoy  with  full  notes  by  the  sit- 
ters. It  reverts,  after  all,  to  personal  conviction.  My  own 
conviction  is  not  evidence,  but  it  seems  fitting  to  record  it. 
I  am  persuaded  of  the  medium's  honesty  and  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  her  trance;  and,  altho  at  first  disposed  to  think 
that  the  *  hits  '  she  made  were  either  lucky  coincidences  or 

1  Phinuit  is  the  name  of  the  early  control  of  Mrs.  P.    He  has  since  been  replaced 
by  "Imperator,"  and  much  more  satisfactory  results  have  followed. 


244         EXTRAORDINARY    MEMORY 

the  result  of  knowledge  on  her  part  of  who  the  sitter  was  and 
of  his  or  her  family  affairs,  I  now  believe  her  to  be  in  posses- 
sion of  a  power  as  yet  unexplained.  .   .  . 

"  In  the  fall  of  1889  she  paid  us  a  visit  of  a  week  at  our 
country  house  in  New  Hampshire,  and  I  then  learned  to  know 
her  personally  better  than  ever  before,  and  had  confirmed  in 
me  the  belief  that  she  is  an  absolutely  simple  and  genuine 
person.  No  one,  when  challenged,  can  give  *  evidence  '  to 
others  for  such  beliefs  as  this.  Yet  we  all  live  by  them 
from  day  to  day,  and  practically  I  should  be  willing  now  to 
stake  as  much  money  on  Mrs.  Piper's  honesty  as  on  that  of 
any  one  I  know,  and  am  quite  satisfied  to  leave  my  reputa- 
tion for  wisdom  or  folly,  so  far  as  human  nature  is  concerned, 
to  stand  or  fall  by  this  declaration.  .  .  . 

"  The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  Phinuit  personal- 
ity seems  to  me  the  extraordinary  tenacity  and  minuteness  of 
his  memory.  The  medium  has  been  visited  by  many  hun- 
dreds of  sitters,  half  of  them,  perhaps,  being  strangers  who 
have  come  but  once.  To  each  Phinuit  gives  an  hour  full  of 
disconnected  fragments  of  talk  about  persons  living,  dead,  or 
imaginary,  and  events  past,  future,  or  unreal.  What  normal 
waking  memory  could  keep  this  chaotic  mass  of  stuff  together  ? 
Yet  Phinuit  does  so ;  for  the  chances  seem  to  be  that  if  a 
sitter  should  go  back  after  years  of  interval,  the  medium, 
when  once  entranced,  would  recall  the  minutest  incidents  of 
the  earlier  interview,  and  begin  by  recapitulating  much  of 
what  had  then  been  said.  So  far  as  I  can  discover,  Mrs. 
Piper's  waking  memory  is  not  remarkable,  and  the  whole 
constitution  of  her  trance-memory  is  something  which  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  understand."  .  .  . 

The  spirit  of  an  aunt  of  Professor  James  claimed  at  times 
to  take  control  of  the  medium  instead  of  Phinuit,  and  then 
the  results  were  better.  On  one  occasion  the  spirit  aunt 
spoke  of  the 

"condition  of  health  of  two  members  of  the  family  in  New 
York,  of  which  we  knew  nothing  at  the  time,  and  which  was 
afterward  corroborated  by  letter.  We  have  repeatedly  heard 
from  Mrs.  Piper  in  trance  things  of  which  we  were  not  at  the 
moment  aware.  If  the  supernormal  element  in  the  phenom- 
enon be  thought-transference,  it  is  certainly  not  that  of  the 


"CONVINCING   THINGS"  245 

sitter's  conscious  thought.  It  is  rather  the  reservoir  of  his 
potential  knowledge  which  is  tapped ;  and  not  always  thatf 
but  the  knowledge  of  some  distant  living  person,  as  in  the 
incident  last  quoted.  It  has  sometimes  even  seemed  to  me 
that  too  much  intentness  on  the  sitter's  part  to  have  Phinuit 
say  a  certain  thing  acts  as  a  hindrance.  .  .   . 

"  I  was  told  by  Mrs.  P.  that  the  spirit  of  a  boy  named 
Robert  F.  was  the  companion  of  my  lost  infant.  The  F.'s 
were  cousins  of  my  wife  living  in  a  distant  city.  On  my 
return  home  I  mentioned  the  incident  to  my  wife,  saying, 
'  Your  cousin  did  lose  a  baby,  didn't  she }  but  Mrs.  Piper 
was  wrong  about  its  sex,  n^me,  a  ad  age.'  I  then  learned 
that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  quite  right  in  all  those  particulars, 
and  that  mine  was  the  wrong  impression.  .  .  .  On  my 
m_other-in-law's  second  visit  to  the  medium  she  was  told  that 
one  of  her  daughters  was  suffering  from  a  severe  pain  in  her 
back  on  that  day.  This  altogether  unusual  occurrence,  un- 
known to  the  sitter,  proved  to  be  true.  The  announcement 
to  my  wife  and  brother  of  my  aunt's  death  in  New  York  be- 
fore we  had  received  the  telegram  (Mr.  Hodgson  has,  I  be- 
lieve, sent  you  an  account  of  this)  may,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  been  occasioned  by  the  sitters'  conscious  apprehension 
of  the  event.  This  particular  incident  is  a  *  test '  of  the  sort 
which  one  readily  quotes ;  but  to  my  mind  it  was  far  less 
convincing  than  the  innumerable  small  domestic  matters  of 
which  Mrs.  Piper  incessantly  talked  in  her  sittings  with 
members  of  my  family.  With  the  affairs  of  my  wife's  ma- 
ternal kinsfolk  in  particular  her  acquaintance  in  trance  was 
most  intimate.  Some  of  them  were  dead,  some  in  Cali- 
fornia, some  in  the  State  of  Maine.  She  characterized  them 
all,  living  as  well  as  deceased,  spoke  of  their  relations  to 
each  other,  of  their  likes  and  dislikes,  of  their  as  yet  unpub- 
lished practical  plans,  and  hardly  ever  made  a  mistake,  tho, 
as  usual,  there  was  very  little  system  or  continuity  in  any- 
thing that  came  out.  A  normal  person,  unacquainted  with 
the  family,  could  not  possibly  have  said  as  much;  one 
acquainted  with  it  could  hardly  have  avoided  saying  more. 

"  The  most  convincing  things  said  about  my  own  imme- 
diate household  were  either  very  intimate  or  very  trivial. 
Unfortunately  the  former  things  can  not  well  be  published. 
Of  the  trivial  things  I  have  forgotten  the  greater  number, 
but  the  following,  rarcB  nantes^  may  serve  as  samples  of  their 


246  "LITTLE   BILLY-BOY" 

class :  She  said  that  we  had  lost  recently  a  rug,  and  I  a  waist- 
coat. [She  wrongly  accused  a  person  of  stealing  the  rug, 
which  was  afterward  found  in  the  house.]  She  told  of  my 
killing  a  gray-and- white  cat  with  ether,  and  described  how  it 
had  *  spun  round  and  round '  before  dying.  She  told  how  my 
New  York  aunt  had  written  a  letter  to  my  wife,  warning  her 
against  all  mediums,  and  then  went  off  on  a  most  amusing 
criticism,  full  of  traits  vifsy  of  the  excellent  woman's  charac- 
ter. [Of  course  no  one  but  my  wife  and  I  knew  the  exist- 
ence of  the  letter  in  question.]  She  was  strong  on  the 
events  in  our  nursery,  and  gave  striking  advice  during  our 
first  visit  to  her  about  the  way  to  deal  with  certain  *  tantrums ' 
of  our  second  child,  *  little  Billy-boy, '  as  she  called  him,  re- 
producing his  nursery  name.  She  told  how  the  crib  creaked 
at  night,  how  a  certain  rocking-chair  creaked  mysteriously, 
how  my  wife  had  heard  footsteps  on  the  stairs,  etc.  Insig- 
nificant as  these  things  sound  when  read,  the  accumulation 
of  a  large  number  of  them  has  an  irresistible  effect.  And 
I  repeat  again  what  I  said  before,  that,  taking  everything  that 
I  know  of  Mrs.  P.  into  account,  the  result  is  to  make  me  feel 
as  absolutely  certain  as  I  am  of  any  personal  fact  in  the 
world  that  she  knows  things  in  her  trances  which  she  can 
not  possibly  have  heard  in  her  waking  state,  and  that  the 
definitive  philosophy  of  her  trances  is  yet  to  be  found.  The 
limitations  of  her  trance-information,  its  discontinuity  and 
fitfulness,  and  its  apparent  inability  to  develop  beyond  a  cer- 
tain point,  altho  they  end  by  rousing  one's  moral  and  human 
impatience  with  the  phenomenon,  yet  are,  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view,  among  its  most  interesting  peculiarities,  since 
where  there  are  limits  there  are  conditions,  and  the  discov- 
ery of  these  is  always  the  beginning  of  explanation." 

Frederic  Myers's  Experiences  with  Mrs.  Piper  ^ 

"  Mrs.  Piper's  case  has  been  more  or  less  continuously 
observed  by  Professor  James  and  others  almost  from  the  date 
of  the  first  sudden  inception  of  the  trance,  some  five  years 
ago  [written  in  1890].  Mr.  Hodgson  has  been  in  the  habit 
of  bringing  acquaintances  of  his  own  to  Mrs.  Piper,  without 
giving  their  names ;  and  many  of  these  have  heard  from  the 
trance-utterance  facts  about  their  dead  relations,  etc.,  which 

» S.  p.  R.,  Proceedings,  vol.  vi.,  pp.  436-42,  December,  1890. 


DETECTIVES  WATCH    MRS.  PIPER    247 

they  feel  sure  that  Mrs.  Piper  could  not  have  known.  Mr. 
Hodgson  also  had  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Piper  watched  or  *  shadowed' 
by  private  detectives  for  some  weeks,  with  the  view  of  dis- 
covering whether  Mr.  Piper  (who  is  employed  in  a  large 
store  in  Boston,  U.  S.  A.)  went  about  inquiring  into  the 
affairs  of  possible  '  sitters,'  or  whether  Mrs.  Piper  received 
letters  from  friends  or  agents  conveying  information.  This 
inquiry  was  pushed  pretty  closely,  but  absolutely  nothing 
was  discovered  which  could  throw  suspicion  on  Mrs.  Piper — 
who  is  now  aware  of  the  procedure,  but  has  the  good  sense 
to  recognize  the  legitimacy — I  may  say  the  scientific  neces- 
sity— of  this  kind  of  probation. 

"  It  was  thus  shown  that  Mrs.  Piper  made  no  discoverable 
attempt  to  acquire  knowledge  even  about  persons  whose  com- 
ing she  had  reason  to  expect.  Still  less  could  she  have  been 
aware  of  the  private  concerns  of  persons  brought  anonymously 
to  her  house  at  Mr.  Hodgson's  choice.  And  a  yet  further 
obstacle  to  such  clandestine  knowledge  was  introduced  by 
her  removal  to  England — at  our  request — in  November, 
1889.  Professor  Lodge  [Sir  Oliver  Lodge]  met  her  on  the 
Liverpool  landing-stage,  November  19,  and  conducted  her 
to  a  hotel,  where  I  joined  her  on  November  20,  and  es- 
corted her  and  her  children  to  Cambridge.  She  stayed  first 
in  my  house;  and  I  am  convinced  that  she  brought  with  her 
a  very  slender  knowledge  of  English  affairs  or  English  people. 
The  servant  who  attended  on  her  and  on  her  two  young 
children  was  chosen  by  myself,  and  was  a  young  woman  from 
a  country  village  whom  I  had  full  reason  to  believe  to  be 
both  trustworthy  and  also  quite  ignorant  of  my  own  or  my 
friends'  affairs.  For  the  most  part  I  had  myself  not  deter- 
mined upon  the  persons  whom  I  would  invite  to  sit  with  her. 
I  chose  these  sitters  in  great  measure  by  chance;  several  of 
them  were  not  resident  in  Cambridge ;  and  (except  in  one  or 
two  cases  where  anonymity  would  have  been  hard  to  preserve) 
I  brought  them  to  her  under  false  names — sometimes  intro- 
ducing them  only  when  the  trance  had  already  begun. 

"  In  one  sitting,  for  instance,  which  will  be  cited  below, 
I  learned  by  accident  that  a  certain  lady,  here  styled  Mrs.  A., 
was  in  Cambridge ;  a  private  lady,  not  a  member  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  who  had  never  before  visited 
my  house  and  whose  name  had  certainly  never  been  men- 
tioned before  Mrs.    Piper.     I  introduced  this  lady  as  Mrs. 


248  MRS.  PIPER   IN    ENGLAND 

Smith ;  and  I  think  that,  when  the  reader  is  estimating  the 
correct  facts  which  were  told  to  her,  he  may  at  any  rate  dis- 
miss from  his  mind  the  notion  that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  able 
either  to  divine  that  these  facts  would  be  wanted,  or  to  get 
at  them  even  if  she  had  known  that  her  success  depended  on 
their  production  on  that  day. 

"  Mrs.  Piper  while  in  England  was  twice  in  Cambridge, 
twice  in  London,  and  twice  in  Liverpool,  at  dates  arranged 
by  ourselves;  her  sitters  (almost  always  introduced  under 
false  names)  belonged  to  several  quite  different  social  groups, 
and  were  frequently  unacquainted  with  each  other.  Her 
correspondence  was  addressed  to  my  care,  and  I  believe  that 
almost  every  letter  which  she  received  was  shown  to  one  or 
other  of  us.  When  in  London  she  stayed  in  lodgings  which 
we  selected;  when  at  Liverpool,  in  Professor  Lodge's  house; 
and  when  at  Cambridge,  in  Professor  Sidgwick's  or  my  own. 
No  one  of  her  hosts  or  of  her  hosts'  wives  detected  any  sus- 
picious act  or  word. 

"We  took  great  pains  to  avoid  giving  information  in 
talk ;  and  a  more  complete  security  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  we  were  ourselves  ignorant  of  many  of  the  facts 
given  as  to  our  friends'  relations,  etc.  In  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Verrall,  for  instance  (cited  below),  no  one  in  Cambridge  ex- 
cept Mrs.  Verrall  herself  could  have  supplied  the  bulk  of  the 
information  given ;  and  some  of  the  facts  given  (as  will  be 
seen)  Mrs.  Verrall  herself  did  not  know.  As  regards  my  own 
affairs,  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  cite  in  extenso 
such  statements  as  might  possibly  have  been  got  up  before- 
hand, since  Mrs.  Piper  of  course  knew  that  I  should  be  one 
of  her  sitters.  Such  facts  as  that  I  once  had  an  aunt,  *  Cor- 
delia Marshall,  more  commonly  called  Corrie,'  might  have 
been  learned — tho  I  do  not  think  that  they  were  learned — 
from  printed  or  other  sources.  But  I  do  not  think  that  any 
larger  proportion  of  such  accessible  facts  was  given  to  me 
than  to  an  average  sitter  previously  unknown ;  nor  were  there 
any  of  those  subtler  points  which  could  so  easily  have  been 
made  by  dint  of  scrutiny  of  my  books  or  papers.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  my  case,  as  in  the  case  of  several  other  sitters, 
there  were  messages  purporting  to  come  from  a  friend  who 
has  been  dead  many  years,  and  mentioning  circumstances 
which  I  believe  that  it  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for 
Mrs.  Piper  to  have  discovered. 


"NO    FRAUD"  -  249 

"  I  am  also  acquainted  with  some  of  the  facts  given  to 
other  sitters,  and  suppressed  as  too  intimate  or  as  involving 
secrets  not  the  property  of  the  sitter  alone.  I  may  say  that, 
so  far  as  my  own  personal  conviction  goes,  the  utterance  of 
one  or  two  of  these  facts  is  even  more  conclusive  of  super- 
normal knowledge  than  the  correct  statement  of  dozens  of 
names  of  relations,  etc.,  which  the  sitter  had  no  personal  mo- 
tive for  concealing. 

"On  the  whole,  I  believe  that  all  observers,  both  in 
America  and  in  England,  who  have  seen  enough  of  Mrs. 
Piper  in  both  states  to  be  able  to  form  a  judgment,  will  agree 
in  affirming  (i)  that  many  of  the  facts  given  could  not  have 
been  learned  even  by  a  skilled  detective ;  (2)  that  to  learn 
others  of  them,  altho  possible,  would  have  needed  an  expendi- 
ture of  money  as  well  as  of  time  which  it  seems  impossible 
to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Piper  could  have  met ;  and  (3)  that  her 
conduct  has  never  given  any  ground  whatever  for  supposing 
her  capable  of  fraud  or  trickery.  Few  persons  have  been  so 
long  and  so  carefully  observed ;  and  she  has  left  on  all  ob- 
servers the  impression  of  thorough  uprightness,  candor,  and 
honesty. 

"  Less  than  this  it  would  not  be  fair  to  say.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  personal  honesty 
of  Mrs.  Piper,  in  the  waking  state,  covers  only  a  part  of  our 
difficulties.  We  are  dealing  with  an  honest  subject  and  with 
a  genuine  trance,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  trance- 
personality  is  as  honest  as  the  waking  one.  Analogy  would 
be  against  such  an  assumption.  It  may  be  remembered  that 
in  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Newnham's  case  of  thought-transference, 
manifested  by  planchette-writing,^  the  unconscious  self  of 
Mrs.  Newnham,  which  in  some  way  learned  the  questions 
which  Mr.  Newnham  was  writing  down,  exhibited  at  times 
a  trickiness  and  a  pretension  to  knowledge  that  it  did  not 
possess,  which  were  quite  foreign  to  Mrs.  Newnham's  con- 
scious mind.  With  other  automatic  messages — whether  con- 
veyed by  table- tilting,  planch ette- writing,  or  ordinary  auto- 
matic script — the  case  is  much  the  same.  Even  tho  the 
messages  may  usually  seem  straightforward  enough,  times 
will  come  when  the  responses  degenerate — when  silly  jokes, 
or  manifest  untruths,  or  violent  expressions  are  written, 
perhaps,  over  and   over    again.     This   seems   to  go   with 

1 "  Phantasms  of  the  Living,"  vol.  i.,  p.  63. 


250  CONTROL  "FISHING" 

fatigue  in  the  automatist,  and  to  show  some  want  of  coor- 
dination. 

"Mrs.  Piper's  trance  condition  is  markedly  subject  to 
these  forms  of  degeneration.  As  will  be  more  fully  described 
later  on,  she  passes  with  slight  convulsions  into  a  condition 
in  which  a  personality  calling  itself  '  Dr.  Phinuit '  comes  to 
the  front.  And  *  Phinuit ' — to  use  his  own  appellation  for 
brevity's  sake — is  by  no  means  above  '  fishing.'  His  ways 
of  extracting  information  from  the  sitter,  under  the  guise  of 
giving  it,  will  be  described  in  detail  by  Mr.  Leaf.  Different 
trances,  and  different  parts  of  the  same  trance,  varied  greatly 
in  quality.  There  were  some  interviews  throughout  which 
Phinuit  hardly  asked  any  question,  and  hardly  stated  anything 
which  was  not  true.  There  were  others  throughout  which 
his  utterances  showed  not  one  glimmer  of  real  knowledge,  but 
consisted  wholly  of  fishing  questions  and  random  assertions. 
"  These  trances  can  not  always  be  induced  at  pleasure. 
A  state  of  quiet  expectancy  or  *  self-suggestion '  will  usually 
bring  one  on;  but  sometimes  the  attempt  altogether  fails. 
We  never  attempted  to  induce  the  trance  by  hypnotism.  I 
understand,  indeed,  that  Mrs.  Piper  has  never  been  deeply 
hypnotized,  altho  Professor  Richet  tried  on  her  some  experi- 
ments of  suggestion  in  the  waking  state  and  found  her  some- 
what *  suggestible. '  On  the  other  hand,  the  trance  has  occa- 
sionally appeared  when  it  was  not  desired.  The  first  time 
that  it  occurred  (as  Mrs.  Piper  informs  us),  it  came  as  an 
unwelcome  surprise.  And  Mrs.  Piper  believes — our  evidence 
lies  in  her  own  inference  from  her  own  sensations — that  the 
access  has  several  times  come  upon  her  during  sleep,  ex- 
hausting her  for  the  succeeding  day.  An  instance  of  this 
kind  occurred  at  Cambridge.  Before  going  to  bed  she  had, 
at  my  request,  and  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  been  looking 
into  a  crystal,  with  the  desire  to  see  therein  some  hallucina- 
tory figure  which  might  throw  light  on  the  nature  of  the 
mysterious  secondary  personality.  She  saw  nothing;  but 
next  morning  she  looked  exhausted,  and  said  that  she  thought 
that  she  had  had  an  access  during  the  night.  The  next  time 
that  she  went  into  a  trance  Phinuit  said  he  had  come  and 
called,  and  no  one  had  answered  him.  It  appeared  as  if 
the  concentration  of  thought  upon  the  crystal  had  acted  as  a 
kind  of  self-suggestion,  and  had  induced  the  secondary  state 
when  not  desired. 


DR.  SAVAGE   AND    MRS.  PIPER       251 

"The  trance  when  induced  generally  lasted  about  an 
hour.  On  one  occasion  in  my  house,  and  I  believe  once  at 
least  in  America,  it  lasted  only  for  about  a  minute.  Phinuit 
only  had  time  to  say  that  he  could  not  remain,  and  then  the 
habitual  moaning  began,  and  Mrs.  Piper  came  to  herself. 

"  There  was  often  a  marked  difference  between  the  first 
few  minutes  of  a  trance  and  the  remaining  time.  On  such 
occasions  almost  all  that  was  of  value  would  be  told  in  the 
first  few  minutes ;  and  the  remaining  talk  would  consist  of 
vague  generalities  or  mere  repetitions  of  what  had  already 
been  given.  Phinuit,  as  will  be  seen,  always  professed  him- 
self to  be  a  spirit  communicating  with  spirits ;  and  he  used 
to  say  that  he  remembered  their  messages  for  a  few  minutes 
after  *  entering  into  the  medium,'  and  then  became  confused. 
He  was  not,  however,  apparently  able  to  depart  when  his 
budget  of  facts  was  empty.  There  seemed  to  be  some  irre- 
sponsible letting-off  of  energy  which  must  continue  until 
the  original  impulse  was  lost  in  incoherence." 

Rev.    Dr.    Minot  J.    Savage's  Experience    with    Mrs. 

Piper 

Dr.  Savage  has  packed  his  little  book,  recently  issued, 
"  Can  Telepathy  Explain }  "  with  most  impressive  phenomena. 
Every  one  interested  in  this  subject  should  read  this  book, 
for  Dr.  Savage  is  a  close  observer  and  is  a  man  of  excellent 
judgment  and  of  unquestioned  integrity. 

The  following  two  incidents  illustrate  his  experience  with 
Mrs.  Piper:' 

Dr.   Savage's  First  Sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper 

"  I  had  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  years  ago,  before  the 
society  was  organized  or  her  name  was  publicly  known.  On 
the  occasion  of  my  first  visit  to  her,  she  was,  I  think,  in  a 
little  house  on  Pinckney  Street  in  Boston.  At  this  time  she 
went  into  a  trance,  but  talked  instead  of  writing.  The  first 
person  who  claimed  to  be  present  was  my  father.  He  had 
died  in  Maine  at  the  age  of  ninety.  He  had  never  lived  in 
Boston,  nor,  indeed,  had  he  visited  there  for  a  great  many 

I  "Can  Telepathy  Explain  ?"  pp.  73-78. 


/' 


252  "HE   CALLS  YOU  JUDSON" 

years,  so  that  there  was  no  possibility  that  Mrs.  Piper  should 
ever  have  seen  him  and  no  likelihood  of  her  having  known 
anything  about  him.  She  described  him  at  once  with  accu- 
racy, pointing  out  certain  peculiarities  which  the  ordinary 
observer,  even  if  he  had  ever  seen  him,  would  not  have  been 
likely  to  notice.  Without  any  question  on  my  part,  she  told 
me  that  it  was  my  father,  and  added :  *  He  calls  you  Judson. ' 
This,  tho  a  little  fact,  is  striking  enough  to  call  for  notice. 
Judson  is  my  middle  name.  It  had  been  given  me  when  I 
was  born,  at  the  request  of  my  father's  daughter,  a  half-sis- 
ter. She,  however,  had  died  suddenly  in  another  State  and 
had  never  seen  me.  In  all  my  boyhood  all  the  members  of 
the  family  except  my  father  and  my  half-brother,  soon  to  be 
referred  to,  had  always  called  me  Minot.  Father  had  called 
me  Judson  through  my  boyhood,  as  I  always  supposed,  out  of 
a  tender  feeling  for  the  daughter  who  had  given  me  the  name. 
For  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  however,  before  his  death  he  had 
fallen  into  the  family  way  and  had  also  called  me  Minot. 
It  struck  me,  then,  as  peculiar  and  worthy  of  note  that  Mrs. 
Piper  should  actually  describe  him,  and,  among  other  per- 
sonal peculiarities  which  she  mentioned,  should  have  called 
up  this  tiny  fact  from  the  oblivion  of  the  past.  She  went  on 
to  say :  *  Here  is  somebody  else  besides  your  father.  It  is 
your  brother- — no,  your  half-brother,  and  he  says  his  name  is 
John.'  This  John  was  my  mother's  boy.  Then  Mrs.  Piper 
went  on  to  describe  with  somewhat  painful  accuracy,  partly 
in  pantomime  and  partly  by  speech,  the  method  of  his  death ; 
and  she  added :  *  When  he  was  dying,  how  he  did  want  to  see 
his  mother ! '  Now  this  half-brother  John  had  also  been  in 
the  habit  of  calling  me  Judson  in  the  years  long  past.  It 
had  been  a  good  many  years  since  I  had  seen  him.  He  had 
never  lived  in  Boston,  and  there  is  no  conceivable  way  by 
which  Mrs.  Piper  could  have  known  anything  about  him. 
He  was  not  consciously  in  my  mind,  and  I  was  not  expecting 
to  hear  from  him.  He  had  died  a  year  or  two  before  this  in 
Michigan,  in  precisely  the  way  in  which  the  medium  had 
described  the  facts.  As  to  his  exclamation  about  his  mother, 
it  came  to  me  as  peculiarly  personal  and  appropriate,  because 
he  was  one  of  those  who  would  be  spoken  of  as  a  *  mother- 
boy.*     He  was  passionately  devoted  to  her." 


ACCURATE   CLAIRVOYANCE  253 

Dr,  Savage^ s  Daughter's  Experience 

*'  Mrs.  Piper  moved  from  the  west  end  of  Boston  to  a 
house  in  Roxbury.  My  daughter  made  an  engagement  for 
a  sitting  with  her.  She  did  this  through  a  friend  who  was 
living  in  Roxbury,  having  this  friend  write  the  letter  making 
the  appointment,  and  having  the  reply  come  to  her  house 
under  an  assumed  name,  at  least  two  miles  away  from  where 
I  was  living  then.  My  daughter  went  to  meet  the  appoint- 
ment, of  course  utterly  unknown.  A  friend  gave  her  three 
locks  of  hair.  She  placed  them  in  a  book,  one  at  the  front, 
one  at  the  back,  and  one  in  the  middle,  so  that  they  should 
not  come  in  contact  with  each  other.  She  knew  nothing 
about  them,  not  even  as  to  whether  they  had  been  cut  from 
the  heads  of  people  living  or  dead.  After  Mrs.  Piper  had 
gone  into  a  trance,  these  locks  of  hair  were  placed  in  her 
hand,  one  after  another.  She  told  all  about  them,  gave  the 
names,  the  name  of  the  friend  who  had  asked  my  daughter  to 
bring  them,  told  whose  heads  they  were  from,  whether  they 
were  dead  or  living,  and  in  regard  to  one  of  them  asked  why 
they  had  cut  it  off  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  hair  where  it 
was  lifeless,  instead  of  taking  a  lock  nearer  the  head.  My 
daughter  of  course  did  not  know  whether  any  of  the  names 
given  or  the  statements  made  were  correct  or  not.  She  made 
notes,  however,  and  found  that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  accurate 
in  every  particular." 

How  shall  we  explain  this  strange  power  of  Mrs.  Piper 
and  certain  other  psychics  as  revealed  in  experiments  of  this 
sort.-*  Is  it  mind-reading.^  Possibly;  but  note,  my  niece 
when  she  called  upon  the  New  York  psychic  did  not  know 
what  was  in  my  envelopes,  nor  did  the  medium  know  her. 
To  explain  by  Hudson's  "  law  of  psychic  phenomena,"  that  is, 
by  the  law  of  mind-reading  (it  is  mind-reading  whether  it  be 
done  by  the  subjective  mind  or  the  conscious  mind),  the  me- 
dium first  had  to  get  the  fact  that  I  sent  the  letters  from  my 
niece's  mind  and  then  had  to  find  me  and  read  the  thoughts 
in  my  mind.  Mrs.  Piper,  in  the  experience  of  Dr.  Savage's 
daughter,  could  not  have  found  out  the  facts  as  to  th-e  owner 
of  the  locks  of  hair  by  reading  the  mind  of  the  sitter,  but 


254  SEVERE   TESTS 

could  have  found  out  the  name  and  address  of  the  person 
who  gave  her  these  locks,  and  then  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Piper 
would  have  had  the  task  of  discovering  the  whereabouts  of 
this  woman,  and  then  of  rummaging  through  the  millions  of 
cells  of  her  memories  for  these  facts — all  this  she  would  have 
had  to  perform  almost  instantaneously.  This  theory  clothes 
the  mind  of  a  medium  with  well-nigh  omniscience. 

A  theory  to  explain  must  explain  all  the  facts  of  the  class 
to  be  valid. 

Take  such  other  facts  as  these  which  Dr.  Savage  gives 
out  of  his  own  experience.  He  said  to  a  spirit '  that  was 
writing  through  the  hand  of  a  young  man : 

"  If  you  are  really  a  person  and  are  really  here,  you  ought 
to  be  able  to  go  somewhere  in  the  city  for  me,  find  out  some- 
thing at  my  request,  return,  and  tell  me  about  it. " 

The  spirit  said  he  had  never  done  anything  of  the  kind, 
but  would  try.  Dr.  Savage  sent  him  to  his  own  house  to  find 
out  what  Mrs.  Savage  was  doing.  Mrs.  Savage  had  told  the 
doctor  before  he  left  home  that  morning  that  she  would  be 
away  all  forenoon.  In  four  or  five  minutes  the  spirit  re- 
turned and  said :  "  Mrs.  Savage  was  at  home,  and  when  I 
was  there  she  was  standing  in  the  front  hall  saying  good-by 
to  a  caller."  The  doctor  believed  that  she  was  anywhere 
but  home.  Yet  it  turned  out  that  a  caller  had  come  and  Mrs. 
S.  did  not  go  elsewhere  as  she  had  expected ;  and  on  compar- 
ing notes  Dr.  Savage  found  that  at  the  time  that  the  spirit 
said  he  called  she  was  saying  good-by  to  her  guest. 

Remember  that  this  is  not  hearsay.  It  is  not  the  talk  of 
an  uneducated  or  emotional  man,  but  the  talk  of  an  experi- 
enced observer  of  psychic  phenomena,  well  known  to  the 
world,  and  he  tells  it  out  of  his  own  personal  experience. 

Here  is  another  case  that  Dr.  Savage,  in  this  same  little 
book,  relates  that  is  even  more  wonderful : 

»  "Can  Telepathy  Explain  ?"  pp.  93,  94. 


A   SPIRIT    REPORTER  255 

Report  of  a  Friend  Two  Hundred  Miles  Away 

"  I  have  already  stated  one  case  in  which  the  invisible 
intelligence  acts  at  my  request  to  find  out  something  and 
report  to  me.  I  wish  now  to  give  another  illustration  of  the 
same  kind,  only  more  remarkable  still.  I  was  sitting  with  a 
friend  in  my  study  in  Boston.  This  friend,  tho  having 
psychic  sensitiveness,  was  not  in  a  professional  sense  a 
medium.  She  did  not  go  into  a  trance,  but  was  in  her  nor- 
mal condition.  The  communications  were  made  chiefly 
through  automatic  writing.  The  intelligence  at  work  claimed 
to  be  the  spirit  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  had  recently  died, 
but  who  during  her  life  had  lived  in  a  town  on  the  Kennebec 
River  in  Maine.  She  had  a  sister  still  living  in  this  same 
town.  It  occurred  to  me  to  make  this  test,  and  I  explained 
what  it  was  which  I  wanted.  I  asked  her  if  she  knew  where 
her  sister  was  at  the  time.  She  answered  that  she  did  not, 
and  had  no  way  of  knowing,  unless  she  could  go  or  send  and 
find  out.  I  then  asked  her  if  she  would  not  try  to  find  out 
for  me  while  I  waited.  The  answer  being  in  the  affirmative, 
we  sat  in  perfect  silence  and  quiet  for  nearly  fifteen  minutes, 
when  the  influence  appeared  again  and  the  hand  began  to 
write.  She  said  she  had  been  to  Maine,  and  told  me  dis- 
tinctly and  clearly  where  the  sister  was,  and  what  she  was 
doing.  And  here  let  me  ask  careful  attention  to  the  fact  that 
there  were  conditions  in  the  family  with  which  I  was  ac- 
quainted, which  led  me  to  believe  that  the  sister  at  this  time 
would  probably  be  in  another  town ;  so  that  the  answer  was 
directly  opposed  to  my  expectation.  It  seems  to  me  that 
this  has  a  bearing  on  the  theory  of  telepathy  as  explaining 
matters  of  this  kind.  I  immediately  wrote  a  letter  to  Maine, 
and  had  the  correctness  of  the  statement  made  to  me  cor- 
roborated in  every  particular  by  return  mail." 

Dr.  Savage,  in  his  various  writings,  records  more  won- 
derful experiences  than  these  which  I  have  given.  He  has 
reached  the  conclusion,  he  tells  us,  that  telepathy  can  not  ex- 
plain all  of  these  psychic  facts ;  that  we  must  look  to  actual 
spirit  communication  for  the  true  explanation  of  some  of  these 
phenomena. 

Is  Dr.  Savage  right  in  this  conclusion } 


256      SIR   WILLIAM    CROOKES'S   TEST 

Reading  from  Books  without  the  Use  of  the  Eyes 

Sir  William  Crookes,  the  well-known  English  scientist, 
tells  the  following  experiment  he  made  that  well  illustrates 
this  remarkable  gift  of  sight  independent  of  the  eyes :  ^ 

"A  lady  was  writing  automatically  by  means  of  the 
planchette.  I  was  trying  to  devise  a  means  of  proving  that 
what  she  wrote  was  not  due  to  *  unconscious  cerebration.' 
The  planchette,  as  it  always  does,  insisted  that,  altho  it  was 
moved  by  the  hand  and  arm  of  the  lady,  the  intelligence  was 
that  of  an  invisible  being  who  was  playing  on  her  brain  as 
on  a  musical  instrument,  and  thus  moving  her  muscles.  I 
therefore  said  to  this  intelligence :  *  Can  you  see  the  contents 
of  this  room.? '  *  Yes,'  wrote  the  planchette.  *  Can  you  see 
to  read  this  newspaper } '  said  I,  putting  my  finger  on  a  copy 
of  The  TifneSy  which  was  on  a  table  behind  me,  but  without 
looking  at  it.  '  Yes,'  was  the  reply  of  the  planchette. 
*  Well,'  I  said,  *  if  you  can  see  that,  write  the  word  which  is 
now  covered  by  my  finger,  and  I  will  believe  you. '  The 
planchette  commenced  to  move.  Slowly  and  with  great  diffi- 
culty the  word  *  however '  was  written.  I  turned  round  and 
saw  that  the  word  *  however '  was  covered  by  the  tip  of  my 
finger. 

"  I  had  purposely  avoided  looking  at  the  newspaper  when 
I  tried  this  experiment,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  lady, 
had  she  tried,  to  have  seen  any  of  the  printed  words,  for  she 
was  sitting  at  one  table,  and  the  paper  was  on  another  table 
behind,  my  body  intervening." 

My  friend,  Mrs.  Judge  C,  of  New  York,  is  an  intimate 
friend  of  Mollie  Fancher,  the  famous  invalid  clairvoyant  of 
Brooklyn.  She  tells  me  that  again  and  again  Miss  Fancher 
has  read  for  her  from  letters  and  books  when  she  purposely 
kept  the  writing  or  print  so  that  she  could  not  see  it. 

Rev.  Stanton  Moses,  the  great  English  medium,  whose 
integrity  has  never  been  questioned  to  my  knowledge,  and  is 
strongly  vouched  for  by  Frederic  Myers  in  his  book,  "  Hu- 
man Personality,"  gives  the  following  interesting  account  of 

»Crookes's  "Researcbes  in  Spiritualism,"  pp.  9S.  96. 


SPIRIT   IDENTIFIES   HIMSELF       257 

a  dialog  he  had  with  spirits  which  resulted  in  the  reading 
of  sentences  in  books  which  were  closed  and  under  test 
conditions :  ^ 

"  Already  several  facts  and  precise  records  of  the  life  of 
some  spirits  had  been  given.  For  instance,  on  May  22,  I 
was  writing  on  quite  another  subject  when  the  message  broke 
off  and  the  name  of  Thomas  Augustine  Arne  was  written. 
It  was  said  that  he  had  been  brought  into  relation  with  me 
through  his  connection  with  a  son  of  Dr.  Speer's,  a  pupil  of 
mine,  who  displayed  great  musical  ability. 

"  I  was  at  this  time  greatly  impressed  with  the  character 
of  the  automatic  writing  and  with  the  information  given.  I 
inquired  at  once  if  I  could  ascertain  from  Arne,  through  the 
medium  of  the  spirit  doctor,  who  was  writing,  any  precise 
facts  as  to  his  life.  The  request  was  at  once  complied  with, 
there  being  no  interval  between  my  question  and  the  reply. 
The  date  of  his  birth  (17 10);  his  school  (Eton);  his  in- 
structor in  the  violin  (Festing) ;  his  works,  or  at  any  rate 
some  eight  or  nine  of  them ;  the  fact  that  *  Rule  Britannia  ' 
was  contained  in  the  masque  of  Alfred;  and  a  number  of 
other  minute  particulars  were  given  without  the  least  hesita- 
tion. Profoundly  astonished  at  receiving  such  a  mass  of 
information,  foreign  not  only  to  my  mind  in  its  details,  but 
utterly  foreign  to  my  habit  of  thought — for  I  know  abso- 
lutely nothing  about  music,  and  have  read  nothing  on  the 
subject — I  inquired  how  it  was  possible  to  give  information 
so  minute.  It  was  said  to  be  extremely  difficult,  possible 
only  when  an  extremely  passive  and  receptive  state  in  the 
medium  were  secured.  Moreover,  spirits  were  said  to  have 
access  to  sources  of  information  so  that  they  could  refresh 
their  imperfect  recollection. 

''I  asked  how?  By  reading;  under  certain  conditions, 
^d  with  special  end  in  view ;  or  by  inquiry,  as  man  does, 
only  to  spirits  it  would  be  more  difficult,  tho  possible. 

"  Could  my  friend  himself  so  acquire  information }  No ; 
he  had  too  long  left  the  earth,  but  he  mentioned  the  names 
of  two  spirits  accustomed  occasionally  to  write,  who  could 
perform  this  feat.  I  asked  that  one  of  them  should  be 
brought.     I  was  sitting  waiting  for  a  pupil  in  a  room,  not 

»  "  Spirit  Teachings,"  M.A.  (Oxon.),  pp.  31-33. 
17 


258         SUCCESSFUL   READING   TEST 

my  own,  which  was  used  as  a  study,  and  the  walls  of  which 
were  covered  with  bookshelves. 

"The  writing  ceased,  and  after  an  interval  of  some  min- 
utes, another  kind  of  writing  appeared.  I  inquired  if  the 
newly  arrived  spirit  could  demonstrate  to  me  the  power 
alleged. 

"  '  Can  you  read  ? ' 

"  *  No,  friend,  I  can  not ;  but  Zachary  Gray  can,  and 
Rector.  I  am  not  able  to  materialize  myself  or  to  command 
the  elements.' 

"  *  Are  either  of  those  spirits  here.^ ' 

"  *  I  will  bring  one  by  and  by.  I  will  send.  .  .  .  Rector 
is  here.' 

"  '  I  am  told  you  can  read.  Is  that  so  ?  Can  you  read 
a  book .? ' 

"  [Spirit  handwriting  changed.] 

"  *  Yes,  friend,  with  difficulty.' 

"  *  Will  you  write  for  me  the  last  line  of  the  first  book  of 
theiEneid.?' 

"  *  Wait — "  Omnibus  errantem  terris  et  Jluctibus  cestas!' ' 

"  [This  was  right.] 

"  *  Quite  so.  But  I  might  have  known  it.  Can  you  go  to 
the  bookcase,  take  the  last  book  but  one  on  the  second  shelf, 
and  read  me  the  last  paragraph  on  the  ninety-fourth  page } 
I  have  not  seen  it,  and  do  not  even  know  its  name.' 

"  *  "  I  will  curtly  prove,  by  a  short  historical  narrative, 
that  popery  is  a  novelty  and  has  gradually  arisen  or  grown 
up  since  the  primitive  and  pure  time  of  Christianity,  not  only 
since  the  apostolic  age,  but  even  since  the  lamentable  union 
of  kirk  and  the  state  by  Constantine."  ' 

"  [The  book  on  examination  then  proved  to  be  a  queer 
one  called  *  Roger's  Antipopopriestian,  an  attempt  to  liberate 
and  purify  Christianity  from  Popery,  Politikirkality,  and 
Priestrule.'  The  extract  given  above  was  accurate,  but  the 
word  *  narrative  '  was  substituted  for  *  account. '] 

"  *  How  came  I  to  pitch  on  so  appropriate  a  sentence } ' 

"  *  I  know  not,  my  friend.  It  was  by  coincidence.  The 
word  was  changed  by  error.  I  knew  it  when  it  was  done, 
but  would  not  change.' 

"  *  How  do  you  read }  You  wrote  more  slowly,  and  by 
fits  and  starts. ' 

I  wrote  what  I  remembered,  and  then  I  went  for  more. 


<(  ( 


"TO   HIM    BE   GLORY"  259 

It  is  a  special  effort  to  read,  and  useful  only  as  a  test. 
Your  friend  was  right  last  night :  we  can  read,  but  only  when 
conditions  are  very  good.  We  will  read  once  again,  and 
write,  and  then  impress  you  of  the  book :  "  Pope  is  the  last 
great  writer  of  that  school  of  poetry,  the  poetry  of  the  intel- 
lect, or  rather  of  the  intellect  mingled  with  the  fancy." 
That  is  truly  written.  Go  and  take  the  eleventh  book  on 
the  same  shelf.  [I  took  a  book  called  "  Poetry,  Romance, 
and  Rhetoric."]  It  will  open  at  the  page  for  you.  Take  it 
and  read,  and  recognize  our  power,  and  the  permission  which 
the  great  and  good  God  gives  us,  to  show  you  of  our  power 
over  matter.     To  Him  be  glory.     Amen. ' 

"  [The  book  opened  at  page  145,  and  there  was  the  quota- 
tion perfectly  true.  I  had  not  seen  the  book  before ;  cer- 
tainly had  no  idea  of  its  contents.]  " 

Personal  Experiences  of  Ex-Judge  Abram  H.  Dailey, 

New  York  City 

The  Burning  of  a  Friend's  House  Described  by  a  Spirit — Re- 
markable Verification  of  the  Earth  History  of  Two  Spirits 
— Does  this  Prove  Personal  Identity  ? 

Judge  Dailey  is  a  well-known  lawyer  in  New  York  City 
and  has  served  a  term  on  the  bench ;  president  of  the  Medico- 
Legal  Society  of  New  York  (vice-chairman  of  the  Psycho- 
logical Section) ;  vice-president  of  the  American  Congress  of 
Tuberculosis,  etc.  He  is  a  gentleman  with  whom  I  am  well 
acquainted,  having  been  his  fellow  citizen  in  Brooklyn  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  I  esteem  him  to  be  a  man  whose 
character  is  above  reproach.  I  have  been  a  frequent  visitor 
at  the  judge's  house,  and  he  has  given  me  some  remarkable 
personal  experiences.'  I  purpose  to  give  several  incidents 
that  have  occurred  under  the  judge's  own  eye,  and  to  relate 
them  in  his  own  language,  without  the  change  of  a  word. 
There  is  no  room  for  fraud  or  for  inaccuracy  of  statement. 

'  "  Something  over  twenty  years  ago,"  says  the  judge  in  a  pamphlet,  '  Spirit- 
ism and  Mrs.  Leonora  E.  Piper,'  "my  wife  became  conscious  of  some  unconscious 
manifestations  in  her  presence,  and  suddenly  developed  clairvoyant  and  clairaudi- 
eut  powers  '* 


26o       DESCRIBING   A   DISTANT   FIRE 

The  judge  is  a  trained  lawyer  and  understands  fully  the  force 
of  evidence. 

"  Some  eighteen  years  ago,"  the  judge  says,  "  the  medium 
and  I  were  quite  intimately  acquainted  with  a  Dr.  Howard, 
his  wife,  and  family.  During  our  absence  of  a  few  weeks 
from  the  city,  his  wife  had  died,  and  had  been  some  six  weeks 
in  the  spiritual  world  at  the  time  the  incident  I  am  relating 
occurred.  The  medium  was  entranced  of  one  who  had  rep- 
resented herself  as  the  spirit  of  a  little  girl,  whose  name  was 
Daisy  Crandall.  She  had  come  to  us  many  times,  and  is 
still  part  of  our  spiritual  family.  Several  friends  were  pres- 
ent when  she  spoke  hurriedly,  saying:  *Why,  here  is  Mrs. 
Howard.  She  says  she  has  just  come  from  the  doctor's 
house;  that  the  house  is  on  fire,  and  that  she  was  frightened, 
fearing  that  the  old  doctor  would  be  burned  up.'  It  was  a 
pat  statement  and  quite  startling.  I  remarked :  *  I  hope, 
Daisy,  you  are  not  mistaken,  for  you  know  very  well  that  the 
medium  knows  nothing  of  what  you  say,  and  if  it  turns  out 
that  there  was  no  fire  there,  it  would  be  very  annoying  to 
her.'  She  became  immediately  indignant,  and  asked  me  if 
I  supposed  that  Mrs.  Howard  would  come  there  and  tell  a 
lie.  I  meekly  replied :  '  No,  but  I  didn't  know  but  that  there 
might  be  a  mistake. '  She  reiterated  that  there  was  no  mis- 
take. She  believed  what  Mrs.  Howard  said.  I  said  nothing 
of  the  occurrence  until  after  the  company  had  gone.  When 
I  told  the  medium  of  what  had  been  said  through  her  lips, 
while  she  had  been  entranced,  she  became  very  much  excited 
— stamped  her  foot,  and  said  that  no  control  should  put  her 
in  that  position,  for  she  did  not  believe  there  was  a  word 
of  truth  in  the  statement.  She  had  hardly  got  the  words 
from  her  mouth  before  the  spirit  returned,  seizing  control  of 
her,  and,  sitting  down,  she  burst  into  tears  and  said  to  me : 
*  To-morrow  morning  I  want  you  to  harness  the  horse  and 
carriage  and  take  the  medium  down  to  Dr.  Howard's  house, 
and  I  will  tell  you  just  what  you  will  find  there.  You  will 
find  that  the  fire-engines  were  there,  that  they  put  water  in 
through  the  house,  that  it  came  down  through  the  ceiling, 
that  the  bedding  was  on  fire,  and  that  they  threw  the  mat- 
tresses in  the  backyard ;  and  say  to  her  when  I  am  gone  that 
she  must  not  question  our  truthfulness,  for  we  do  not  lie. '  I 
did  as  requested.     We  drove  down  to  Dr.  Howard's.     He 


"WE    DO   NOT  LIE"  261 

lived  in  a  brown-stone  house  on  Bedford  Avenue.  As  I 
drove  up  to  the  curbstone,  there  was  no  sign  of  fire  in  the 
front  part  of  the  building.  The  medium  immediately  ex- 
claimed: '  There,  I  told  you  so.'  I  said:  'Wait.'  I  ran  up 
the  steps  and  rang  the  bell  at  the  door.  The  call  was  an- 
swered by  the  doctor  himself,  and  the  moment  the  door  was 
opened  the  work  of  the  flames  and  water  was  before  me. 
The  doctor  at  once  stated  that  fire  had  broken  out  the  night 
before,  and  he  came  near  being  burned  up.  I  hurriedly  ran 
through  the  hall  of  his  house,  looked  out  of  the  back  window 
of  the  parlor,  and  the  mattresses  were  still  smoldering  in 
the  yard,  and  the  ceilings  were  soaking  with  water." 

The  above  being  wholly  an  experience  with  one  who  is 
not  a  professional  medium,  and  on  the  word  and  honor  of  a 
well-known  citizen  of  New  York,  it  should  be  given  great 
weight. 

The  following  is  another  very  remarkable  incident  from 
Judge  Dailey's  personal  experience : 

"  In  attempting  to  examine  into  the  phenomena  of  the 
Spiritualists  with  a  view  to  explain  them  and  explode  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis,  I  became  convinced,  by  some  of  the 
most  startling  phenomena  occurring  in  my  presence,  which  I 
shall  not  here  describe.  I  became  convinced  of  its  supermun- 
dane source  and  that  I  was  wrong,  and,  like  Paul,  I  asked : 

*  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  .'* '     The  answer  came : 

*  Wait,  and  it  will  be  shown  to  you. '  Some  days  later  this 
lady  became  entranced  in  my  presence  by  what  claimed  to 
be  the  spirit  of  a  man  who  in  this  life  was  a  sailor,  who 
during  the  early  part  of  the  Rebellion  had  commanded  a  ves- 
sel in  the  government  service;  he  said  he  died  in  the  early 
sixties,  of  asthmatic  consumption,  in  the  vicinity  of  New 
York,  aged  upward  of  sixty  years.  To  certain  questions 
which  I  put  to  him  he  refused  to  give  me  answers,  but  as  to 
the  place  of  his  nativity,  his  relatives,  many  of  the  incidents 
and  hardships  of  his  early  life,  of  his  going  out  to  sea  on  a 
whaling-ship  from  New  Bedford  when  a  little  boy,  of  the 
brutality  of  his  captain,  of  his  leaving  the  ship  in  a  foreign 
port  and  being  taken  up  by  another  captain  and  taught  navi- 
gation, and  of  numerous  events  in  his  life,  he  then  told  me. 


262      PROVING   SPIRIT   STATEMENTS 

He  said  he  had  been  brought  to  the  lady  medium  by  a 
daughter  of  mine,  who  had  been  then  a  good  many  years  in 
the  spirit  world,  having  died  in  infancy.  That  he  came  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  charge  of  the  young  medium,  of  giving 
to  me  counsel  and  warnings  in  so  far  as  he  was  able,  and  that 
thereby  he  would  help  me  and  advance  himself  spiritually. 
He  made  plain  to  me  what  he  required,  but  required  that  I 
should  be  as  faithful  to  him  as  he  would  be  to  me.  He 
required  that  I  should  be  kind  and  charitable,  that  I  should 
bear  testimony  to  the  truth  as  I  found  it  to  be.  I  have  tried 
to  do  so,  and  I  shall  be  astonished  to  find  that  I  have  been 
deceived  and  have  been  misleading  others  these  many 
years. 

"  Having  now  been  for  so  many  years  living  in  the  midst 
of  convincing  phenomena,  and  having  thousands  of  times 
been  v/isely  advised  and  deservedly  censured  and  admonished 
by  him,  I  did  not  take  any  steps  to  verify  the  truth  of  his 
statements  as  to  his  identity  or  any  of  the  incidents  of  his 
early  life  until  last  September,  when  I  went  with  this  lady 
to  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  for  that  express  purpose.  We  had 
neither  of  us  ever  been  there,  and  had  no  acquaintances  in 
the  town.  You  will  pardon  me,  I  hope,  for  being  a  little 
explicit,  for  in  this  experience  I  am  confirmed  in  my  position, 
and  meet  the  argument  of  Dr.  Hudson  and  other  supporters 
of  the  telepathic  theory.  Having  alighted  from  the  train,  we 
stepped  aside,  and  I  then  said  :  '  Now,  captain,  we  are  in  your 
hands,  and  we  want  you  to  do  what  you  can  to  verify  your 
statement  ? '  He  immediately  replied  through  the  medium  : 
*  Do  you  realize  what  you  ask  of  me  ?  Do  you  consider  that 
it  is  ninety  years  since  I  lived  here ;  that  I  went  away  when 
a  little  boy  and  seldom  came  back,  and  never  to  stay,  and 
that  I  have  been  now  away  from  here  entirely  over  sixty 
years ;  that  all  I  ever  knew  here  are  dead  long  ago }  Well,  I 
will  do  the  best  I  can.  We  lived  in  a  place  up  back  on  the 
hill  called  Spruce  Lane,  now  Spruce  Street;  go  there.'  I 
went  to  a  coachman  and  asked  him  if  there  was  a  street 
called  Spruce  Lane  or  Spruce  Street  in  the  city.  He  said  : 
'  Yes,  over  back  on  the  hill  is  a  little  street  by  that  name.* 
We  went  then  to  a  hotel  and  got  our  dinner,  and  while 
there  he  told  uj  of  the  name  of  a  former  owner,  and  of  the 
changes  that  had  been  made  in  the  hotel.  All  was  true. 
We  then  took  a  coach  and  drove  to  Spruce  Street.     On  our 


GRAVEYARDS'  STRONG  TESTIMONY  263 

way  he  pointed  out,  and  said  through  the  medium,  that,  where 
now  are  paved  streets  and  blocks  of  houses,  when  he  was  a 
boy  there  were  open  lots,  criss-crossed  with  paths.  When 
we  drove  into  Spruce  Lane,  he  found  all  was  changed ;  the 
little  house  where  he  said  he  lived  was  gone.  '  Go,'  said  he, 
*  to  the  graveyards,  first  to  the  new  one,  and  look  at  the  tomb- 
stones. I  will  tell  you  the  names  before  you  go  of  some  I 
knew  and  who  are  buried  there.'  He  gave  us  the  full  names 
of  those  persons  and  the  relations  they  bore  to  each  other. 
Some  of  these  persons  he  had  mentioned  to  me  in  Brooklyn, 
more  than  twenty  years  before.  We  entered  the  cemetery 
and  found  them  as  he  had  given  them  to  us.  *  Now,'  said 
he,  '  go  to  the  old  Second  Street  cemetery  where  mother  was 
buried.'  I  asked  the  driver  if  there  was  such  a  cemetery, 
and  he  said,  '  Yes.'  Now,  twenty  years  before,  in  Brooklyn, 
he  had  told  me  of  the  sad  life  of  his  mother  and  of  her  death 
in  want  before  poverty  drove  him  to  sea.  He  spoke  of  his 
devotion  to  her,  and  that  when  she  died  a  friend  by  the  name 
of  Spooner  had  given  her  a  burial-place  in  his  family  plot ; 
that  stones  were  erected  in  the  plot  with  the  name  of  Spooner 
inscribed  thereon,  but  that  only  a  piece  of  board  with  her 
name  was  placed  at  the  head  of  his  mother's  grave.  When 
we  reached  the  old  cemetery  we  found  it  closed  by  a  high 
fence  and  the  gate  locked,  but,  standing  by  the  fence,  he 
pointed  out  to  us,  one  hundred  feet  or  more  away,  the  place 
of  his  mother's  burial,  and  we  could  read  the  name  of  Spooner 
upon  the  stones  in  the  plot  he  pointed  to.  On  our  way  to 
the  cemetery  he  told  us  that  his  mother  attended  a  little 
Methodist  church  which  we  would  pass,  unless  it  too  was 
gone.  Directly  we  came  to  a  new  but  small  church,  which 
had  succeeded  to  the  old  one  he  had  attended.  Of  that  little 
church  he  had  spoken  many  years  before.  We  could  only 
remain  a  few  hours  in  New  Bedford,  and  we  anticipate  going 
there  again  to  complete  the  identification  of  this  spirit,  whose 
name  while  here  was  John  Taylor,  Taylor  being  a  very  com- 
mon family  name  in  New  Bedford.  The  first  time  this  spirit 
came  to  me  I  was  alone  with  the  medium  in  Brooklyn.  His 
existence  was  utterly  unknown  to  us.  To  set  the  law  of 
suggestion  at  work,  there  must  be  a  suggester.  Who  was 
the  suggester  in  this  case  .-*  I  claim  to  have  obtained  some 
evidence  to  corroborate  his  claim  to  having  once  lived  in 
New   Bedford.     From   whose    subjective    mind    came    the 


264      STRONG   FACTS    UNEXPLAINED 

idea  to  this  lady  of  a  sailor  by  the  name  of  John  Taylor, 
who  was  born  in  New  Bedford,  and  all  this  story  of  his 
life? 

"  I  have  stated  a  case  of  facts  known  neither  to  the  me- 
dium nor  to  any  person  present ;  those  facts  have,  to  a  certain 
extent,  been  verified.  Will  the  doctrine  of  telepathy  account 
for  it  ?  If  it  does,  from  whence  did  the  telepathic  thoughts 
proceed?  They  must  have  originated  in  the  mind  of  some 
absent  or  present  person  in  mortal  form,  or  from  some  absent 
or  present  being  in  invisible  form.  They  could  not  have 
originated  in  either  the  mind  of  the  medium  or  my  own.  In 
the  absence  of  any  other  known  method  of  communicating 
the  name  of  this  personality,  and  his  having  put  in  an  ap- 
pearance declaring  his  identity  and  means  of  determining  it, 
is  there  any  presumption  raised  that  he  is  what  he  purports 
to  be  ?  It  is  true,  the  medium  was  not  in  her  normal  condi- 
tion when  he  first  appeared.  The  question  arises :  Is  that 
abnormal  condition  a  manifestation  that  she  is  for  the  time 
being  possessed  of  a  separate  intelligence?  The  fact  that 
truthful  statements  come  through  her  lips  concerning  mat- 
ters of  which  neither  she  nor  I  ever  had  any  knowledge  is 
very  conclusive  evidence  that  the  communications  are  from 
some  other  intelligence.  If  they  are  not  from  such  a  person- 
ality, the  question  is  presented :  Is  it  possible  that  the  com- 
munication could  have  originated  from  any  other  source  ?  If 
so,  from  what  source  ?  Has  Dr.  Hudson  anywhere  explained  ? 
If  he  can  not  explain,  then  the  argument  is  against  him  and 
his  various  theories  fail." 


This  incident  presents  some  very  great  difficulties  for  the 
subjective-mind  hypothesis  to  overcome.  It  is  a  statement 
of  facts  not  known  to  the  medium  nor  any  person  present 
with  her  or  known  to  her — a  statement  of  facts  many  of 
which  have  been  verified.  For  telepathy  to  explain  it,  there 
should  be  an  explanation  of  how  these  thoughts  were  secured. 
In  what  mind  did  they  originate  ?  They  did  not  originate 
in  the  mind  of  the  medium  or  in  the  mind  of  Judge  Dailey, 
or  in  the  mind  of  any  other  known  living  person.  As  the 
judge  asks:  "In  the  absence  of  any  other  known  source  of 
this  intelligence,  the  captain  communicating  the  name  of  his 


A   SPIRIT   DOCTOR  i6s 

personality  and  his  having  put  in  an  appearance,  declaring 
his  identity  and  means  of  determining  it,  is  there  not  at 
least  a  strong  presumption  raised  that  he  is  what  he  purports 
to  be  ?  "  The  fact  that  the  medium  was  not  in  her  normal 
condition,  does  that  or  does  it  not  indicate  that  she  was  pos- 
sessed of  spirit  intelligence?  The  statements  that  came 
through  her  lips  were  concerning  matters  of  which  she  had 
no  knowledge,  and  are  conclusive  evidence  that  the  commu- 
nications were  from  some  other  intelligence.  If  from  some 
other  intelligence,  then  the  question  remains  from  what  other 
intelligence. 

Among  many  other  incidents  which  the  Hon.  Judge 
Dai  ley  presents  is  the  following : 

"  Once  a  spirit  entranced  the  same  medium  when  she 
and  I  were  alone,  and  announced  himself  as  Dr.  Morse,  giv- 
ing his  full  name,  and  stating  to  me  that  he  had  died  a  num- 
ber of  years  before  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  where  he 
had  lived  and  practised  his  profession,  and  where  he  had  a 
family  still  living.  He  said  that  he  had  been  prominently 
connected  with  the  hospitals  in  New  Orleans,  and  had  a  very 
extensive  practise,  saying  that  he  probably  had  occasioned 
the  death  of  some  patients,  but  that  he  had  assisted  a  great 
many  and  had  done  the  best  he  could.  I  was  not  well  at  the 
time  and  the  medium  herself  was  in  poor  condition  of  health. 
He  said  that  he  had  come  to  be  of  assistance  to  us,  and,  while 
he  did  not  propose  to  interfere  unless  it  was  necessary  with 
the  treatment  we  were  receiving,  he  would  stand  by  and 
warn  us  of  mistakes  insofar  as  possible.  He  was  very  faith- 
ful in  coming  to  us,  and  gave  me  very  salutary  advice  in 
regard  to  my  health.  Upon  one  occasion  the  medium,  whom 
I  may  say  is  my  wife,  was  in  a  very  weak  condition.  She 
had  ascended  a  flight  of  stairs  to  her  chamber,  when  I  found 
her  suddenly  entranced  of  Dr.  Morse,  who  directed  me  to 
give  her  a  spoonful  of  brandy  as  quickly  as  possible,  for  she 
was  on  the  point  of  passing  out  of  her  body.  Her  face  was 
deathly  pale  and  I  hurriedly  gave  her  the  brandy.  He 
directed  me  to  place  one  of  my  hands  upon  her  forehead,  and 
the  other  upon  the  back  of  her  head,  while  he  would  hold 
control  until  she  had  rallied.     This  was  done,  and  in  a  short 


266  TRIP   TO   NEW   ORLEANS 

time  she  rallied  and  her  heart  resumed  its  wonted  action,  he 
directing  me  to  sense  her  pulse. 

"  At  the  time  of  the  Exposition  in  New  Orleans,  being 
in  poor  health,  the  medium  and  I  went  to  that  city  and  spent 
a  few  days.  As  we  approached  the  city  she  informed  me  that 
she  felt  the  presence  of  Dr.  Morse  very  strongly,  and  pres- 
ently became  quite  interested  in  everything  to  be  seen  around 
us.  She  pointed  out  the  locality  in  the  city  where  Dr. 
Morse  had  lived,  and  said  she  could  go  directly  to  his  house. 
Up  to  this  time  I  had  taken  no  steps  to  verify  what  I  have 
here  stated.  Arriving  at  our  hotel,  I  visited  a  drug-store, 
questioned  the  druggist  as  to  whether  such  a  person  had  ever 
lived  in  the  city  as  this  Dr.  Morse,  and  I  received  the  fullest 
verification  of  all  he  had  told  me,  even  to  the  location  of  the 
house  where  he  resided,  which  was  in  the  section  of  the  city 
indicated  by  the  medium. 

"  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  Spiritualists  that  through  the 
personality  or  aura  of  a  medium  the  spirit  can  get  en  rapport 
with  the  medium,  so  that  the  spirit  can  see  again  upon  the 
earth  as  if  still  in  mortal  form.  Consequently  the  opportu- 
nity was  afforded  Dr.  Morse,  he  being  e7t  rapport  with  the 
medium,  to  look  again  upon  the  city  and  its  surroundings, 
with  which  he  had  been  so  familiar  many  years  before.  The 
medium  had  this  consciousness  of  his  almost  constant  pres- 
ence with  her  during  our  stay  there.  I  regret  to  say  that  she 
became  rather  tired  of  it,  and  one  day,  while  we  were  sitting 
outside  the  exposition  grounds  on  a  settee,  she  arose  and 
remarked :  *  I  wish  Dr.  Morse  would  go  away  from  me.  I 
can  not  take  a  step  but  I  feel  him  stepping  beside  me,  and  it 
begins  to  annoy  me. '  I  instantly  arose,  considerably  vexed 
at  her  remark,  saying :  '  When  you  have  been  ill.  Dr.  Morse 
has  been  on  hand  to  save  your  life.  When  I  have  been  ill, 
I  have  had  the  benefit  of  his  wisdom.  I  think  you  and  I  can 
both  stand  a  good  deal  of  Dr.  Morse,  and  you  should  make 
no  such  remark  as  that.'  Immediately  the  firm  pressure  as 
of  a  hand  was  upon  my  shoulder,  and  imagining  somebody 
whom  I  had  not  seen  was  present,  pushing  me,  I  hurriedly 
turned,  asking  who  pushed  me,  but  saw  nothing ;  we  were 
entirely  alone  in  so  far  as  I  could  see,  but  I  knew  what  it 
meant,  and  I  knew  that  the  remark  had  deeply  wounded  our 
kind  friend." 


CORRECT    PREMONITION  267 


The  Unspoken  Warning — A  Mother's  Experience 

The  incident  of  the  fire  described  by  Judge  Dailey  as 
given  above  suggests  thefollowing,  published  in  the  Proceed- 
ings of  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  ^  after  inquiry  by 
Dr.  Hodgson,  American  secretary  of  the  society,  Boston, 
and  now  published  by  Frederic  Myers  in  "  Human  Person- 
ality." 

"  One  bitter  cold  day  in  winter  a  merry  party  of  us, 
nestled  down  under  furry  robes,  went  to  meet  an  appointment 
with  a  friend  living  a  few  miles  distant,  with  whom  we  were 
to  spend  the  afternoon  and  in  the  evening  attend  a  concert 
to  be  held  near  by.  The  sleighing  was  delightful,  the  air 
keen  and  inspiriting,  the  host  and  hostess  genial  as  the  crack- 
ling fires  in  the  grates,  and  the  invited  guests,  of  whom  there 
were  many  besides  ourselves,  in  that  peculiar  visiting  trim 
which  only  old-time  friends,  long  parted,  can  enjoy.  Re- 
straint was  thrown  aside;  we  cracked  jokes;  we  chattered 
like  magpies,  and  not  a  little  of  the  coming  concert,  which 
promised  a  rare  treat  to  our  unsophisticated  ears.  All  went 
merry  as  a  marriage-bell,  and  merrier  than  some,  till  just 
before  tea,  when  I  was  seized  with  a  sudden  and  unaccount- 
able desire  to  go  home,  accompanied  by  a  dread  or  fear  of 
something,  I  knew  not  what,  which  made  the  return  appear, 
not  a  matter  of  choice,  but  a  thing  imperative.  I  tried  to 
reason  it  away,  to  revive  anticipations  of  the  concert;  I 
thought  of  the  disappointment  it  would  be  to  those  who  came 
with  me  to  give  it  up,  and,  running  over  in  my  mind  the 
condition  in  which  things  were  left  at  home,  could  find  no 
ground  for  alarm. 

"  For  many  years  a  part  of  the  house  had  been  rented  to 
a  trusty  family;  our  children  were  often  rocked  in  the  same 
cradle,  and  half  of  the  time  ate  at  the  same  table ;  locks  and 
bolts  were  things  unused,  and  in  deed  as  in  word  we  were 
neighbors.  In  their  care  had  been  left  a  boy  of  ten  years, 
the  only  one  of  the  family  remaining  at  home,  who  knew 
that  when  he  returned  from  school  he  was  expected  to  bring 
in  wood  and  kindlings  for  the  morning  fire,  take  supper  alone, 
or  with  little  Clara  E. ,  as  he  chose,  and  otherwise  pass  the 

»  Vol.  XX.,  pp.  35-7. 


268  IMPRESSION   OF   DANGER 

time  as  he  pleased,  only  that  he  must  not  go  into  the  street 
to  play  or  on  to  the  pond  to  skate.  He  had  been  left  many 
times  in  this  way,  and  had  never  given  occasion  for  the 
slightest  uneasiness ;  still,  as  this  nameless  fear  grew  upon 
me,  it  took  the  form  of  a  conviction  that  danger  of  some  sort 
threatened  this  beloved  child. 

"  I  was  rising  to  go  and  ask  Mr.  A.  to  take  me  home, 
when  some  one  said :  '  You  are  very  pale ;  are  you  ill } ' 
*  No, '  I  answered,  and,  dropping  back  in  the  chair,  told  them 
how  strangely  I  had  been  exercised  for  the  last  few  minutes, 
adding,  *  I  really  must  go  home. '  There  was  a  perfect 
chorus  of  voices  against  it,  and  for  a  little  time  I  was  silenced, 
tho  not  convinced.  Some  one  laid  the  matter  before  Mr. 
A.,  who  replied:  *  Nonsense;  Eddie  is  a  good  boy  to  mind, 
will  do  nothing  in  our  absence  that  he  would  not  do  if  we 
were  there,  and  is  enjoying  himself  well  at  this  moment,  I'll 
warrant. '  This  answer  was  brought  to  me  in  triumph,  and 
I  resolved  to  do  as  they  said,  '  not  to  think  about  it.'  But  at 
tea  my  trembling  hand  almost  refused  to  carry  food  to  my 
lips,  and  I  found  it  utterly  impossible  to  swallow  a  mouthful. 
A  death-like  chill  crept  over  me,  and  I  knew  that  every  eye 
was  on  me  as  I  left  the  room.  Mr.  A.  rose,  saying,  in  a 
changed  voice  and  without  ceremony :  *  Make  haste ;  bring 
the  horse  round,  we  must  go  right  away.  I  never  saw  her  in 
such  a  state  before ;  there  is  something  in  it. '  He  followed 
me  to  the  parlor,  but  before  he  could  speak  I  was  pleading 
as  for  dear  life  that  not  a  moment  be  lost  in  starting  for 
home.  *  I  know,'  said  I,  '  it  is  not  all  imagination,  and 
whether  it  is  or  not  I  shall  certainly  die  if  this  dreadful  in- 
cubus is  not  removed  shortly.' 

"  All  was  now  confusion ;  the  tea-table  deserted,  the  meal 
scarce  tasted;  and  my  friends,  alarmed  as  much  at  my  looks 
as  at  my  words,  were  as  anxious  to  hurry  me  off  as  they  had 
been  before  to  detain  me.  To  me  those  terrible  moments 
seemed  hours,  yet  I  am  assured  that  not  more  than  half  an 
hour  elapsed  from  the  time  my  fears  first  found  expression 
before  we  were  on  the  road  toward  home.  A  horse  some- 
what noted  for  fleetness  was  before  us,  and  with  only  two  in 
the  cutter — the  rest  stayed  to  concert,  and  made  Mr.  A. 
promise  that  if  nothing  had  happened  we  would  return — 
went  over  the  road  at  a  rapid  pace.  I  knew  from  the  fre- 
quent repetition  of  a  peculiar  signal  that  the  beast  was  being 


CAME   AT   NICK   OF   TIME  269 

urged  to  his  best,  yet  I  grew  sick  with  impatience  at  the 
restraint.  I  wanted  to  fly.  All  this  while  my  fears  had 
taken  no  definite  shape.  I  only  knew  that  the  child  was  in 
danger,  and  felt  impelled  to  hurry  to  the  rescue.  Only  once 
was  the  silence  broken  in  that  three-mile  journey,  and  that 
was  when  the  house  was  in  full  view.  I  said :  *  Thank  God, 
the  house  is  not  on  fire ! '  '  That  was  my  own  thought,'  said 
Mr.  A.,  but  there  was  no  slackening  of  speed. 

"  On  nearing  home  a  cheerful  light  was  glimmering  from 
Mrs.  E.'s  window;  before  the  vehicle  had  fairly  stopped  we 
were  clear  of  it,  and,  opening  the  door,  said  in  the  same 
breath:  *  Where's  Eddie?'  '  Eddie .^  why,  he  was  here  a 
little  while  ago,'  answered  Mrs.  E.  pleasantly,  striving  to 
dissipate  the  alarm  she  saw  written  on  our  countenances. 

*  He  ate  supper  with  the  children  and  played  awhile  at  mar- 
bles ;  then  spoke  of  Libby  Rose  having  a  new  picture-book 
and  that  he  wanted  to  see  it.  You'll  find  him  over  there.* 
With  swift  steps  Mr.  A.  crossed  the  street  to  the  place  men- 
tioned, but  returned  with  '  He  has  not  been  there.'  Eddie 
was  remarkably  fond  of  skating,  and  my  next  thought  was 
that  he  had  been  tempted  to  disobedience.     I  said  calmly : 

*  We  will  go  to  the  pond.'  I  was  perfectly  collected ;  I  could 
have  worked  all  night  without  fatigue  with  the  nerves  in  that 
state  of  tension;  but  Mr.  A.  said:  *  No,  you  must  go  in  and 
lie  down.  Eddie  is  safe  enough,  somewhere  about  the  vil- 
lage. I'll  go  and  find  him. '  But  there  was  nothing  in  the 
tone  as  in  the  words  to  reassure  me. 

"  As  he  spoke  he  crossed  the  hall  to  our  own  room  and 
turned  the  knob.  The  door  was  locked.  What  could  that 
mean  ?  Eddie  was  either  on  the  inside  or  had  taken  the  key 
away  with  him.  Mr.  A.  ran  round  to  a  window  with  a 
broken  spring  which  could  be  opened  from  the  outside.  It 
went  up  with  a  clang,  but  a  dense  volume  of  smoke  drove 
him  back.  After  an  instant  another  attempt  was  made,  and 
this  time,  on  a  lounge  directly  under  the  window,  he  stum- 
bled on  the  insensible  form  of  little  Eddie,  smothered  in 
smoke.  Limp  and  apparently  lifeless,  he  was  borne  into  the 
fresh  cold  air,  and  after  some  rough  handling  was  restored  to 
consciousness. 

"  Eddie  said,  on  returning  from  school,  he  made  a  good 
fire,  and  as  the  wood  was  snowy  thought  he  would  put  it  in 
the  oven  to  dry;  something  he  had  never  done  before.     Then 


270  DR.  HOLMES'S   STORY 

on  leaving  Mrs.  E.  's  room  he  went  in  for  an  apple  before 
going  to  see  Libby  Rose's  picture-book,  and  it  seemed  so 
nice  and  warm  he  thought  he  would  lie  down  a  while.  He 
could  give  no  explanation  as  to  what  prompted  him  to  turn 
the  key;  it  was  the  first  and  last  time;  but  this  could  have 
made  no  difference  in  the  result,  for  no  one  would  have  dis- 
covered the  smoke  in  time  to  save  his  life.  The  wood  in  the 
oven  was  burned  to  ashes,  but  as  the  doors  were  closed  there 
was  no  danger  of  falling  embers  setting  the  house  on  fire ; 
and  had  we  stayed  to  the  concert  everything  would  have  been 
as  when  we  left,  except  that  little  Eddie's  voice  would  never 
more  have  made  music  for  our  ears.  Every  one  said  that 
with  a  delay  of  five  or  even  three  minutes  we  should  have 
been  too  late. 

(Signed)         "  Mrs.  C.  A.  C.  Hadselle. 

"28  Bradford  Street,  Pittsfield,  Mass., 
"  May  28,  1888." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  Experiences  a  Singular 

Coincidence 

I  quote  the  following  from  Frederic  Myers :  * 

The  following  case  is  quoted  from  "  Over  the  Teacups," 
by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  (3d  ed.,  1891,  p.  12).  We  are 
told  in  the  introduction  that  the  part  of  the  book  containing 
these  cases  was  written  in  March,  1888. 

"  I  relate  a  singular  coincidence  which  very  lately  occurred 
in  my  experience.  ...  I  will  first  copy  the  memorandum 
made  at  the  time : 

"  *  Remarkable  coincidence.     On  Monday,  April  18,  being 

at  table  from  6  130  p.m.   to  7  :30,  with and  [the 

two  ladies  of  my  household],  I  told  them  of  the  case  of  "  trial 
by  battel"  offered  by  Abraham  Thornton  in  18 17.  I  men- 
tioned his  throwing  down  his  glove,  which  was  not  taken  up 
by  the  brother  of  his  victim,  and  so  he  had  to  be  let  off,  for 
the  old  law  was  still  in  force.  I  mentioned  that  Abraham 
Thornton  was  said  to  have  come  to  this  country,  "and  I 
added  he  may  be  living  near  us  for  aught  that  I  know."  I 
rose  from  the  table  and  found  an  English  letter  waiting 
for  me,  left  whib  I  sat  at  dinner.  I  copy  the  first  portion 
of  this  letter : 

1  "  Humaa  Personalitj',"  vol.  i.,  pp.  660,  661. 


WATERPROOF  AND  INCOMBUSTIBLE  271 

** '  "  20  Alfred  Place  West  (near  Museum), 
South  Kensington,  London,  S.W., 
April  7,  1887. 

"  *  "  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes, — Dear  Sir  :  In  traveling  the 
other  day  I  met  with  a  reprint  of  the  very  interesting  case 
of  Thornton  for  murder,  18 17.  The  prisoner  pleaded  suc- 
cessfully the  old  Wager  of  Battel.  I  thought  you  would  like 
to  read  the  account,  and  send  it  with  this.  .  .  . — Yours 
faithfully,  Fred.  Rathbone."  ' 

"  Mr.  Rathbone  is  a  well-known  dealer  in  old  Wedgwood 
and  eighteenth-century  art.  As  a  friend  of  my  hospitable 
entertainer,  M.  Willett,  he  had  shown  me  many  attentions 
in  England,  but  I  was  not  expecting  any  communication 
from  him ;  and  when,  fresh  from  my  conversation,  I  found 
this  letter  just  arrived  by  mail  and  left  while  I  was  at  table, 
and  on  breaking  the  seal  read  what  I  had  a  few  moments 
before  been  telling,  I  was  greatly  surprised,  and  immediately 
made  a  note  of  the  occurrence,  as  given  above. 

"  I  had  long  been  familiar  with  all  the  details  of  this  cele- 
brated case,  but  had  not  referred  to  it,  so  far  as  I  can  remem- 
ber, for  months  or  years.  I  know  of  no  train  of  thought 
which  led  me  to  speak  of  it  on  that  particular  day.  I  had 
never  alluded  to  it  before  in  that  company,  nor  had  I  ever 
spoken  of  it  with  Mr.  Rathbone.  .  .   . 

"  The  case  I  have  given  is,  I  am  confident,  absolutely 
free  from  every  source  of  error.  I  do  not  remember  that 
Mr.  Rathbone  had  communicated  with  me  since  he  sent  me 
a  plentiful  supply  of  mistletoe  a  year  ago  last  Christmas. 
The  account  I  received  from  him  was  cut  out  of  The  Sport- 
ing Times  of  March  5,  1887.  My  own  knowledge  of  the 
case  came  from  Kirby's  *  Wonderful  Museum,'  a  work  pre- 
sented to  me  at  least  thirty  years  ago.  I  had  not  looked  at 
the  account,  spoken  of  it,  nor  thought  of  it  for  a  long  time, 
when  it  came  to  me  by  a  kind  of  spontaneous  generation,  as 
it  seemed,  having  no  connection  with  any  previous  train  of 
thought  that  I  was  aware  of.  I  consider  the  evidence  of 
entire  independence,  apart  from  possible  *  telepathic '  causa- 
tion, completely  waterproof,  air-tight,  incombustible,  and 
unassailable." 


272         STAGES   OF   CLAIRVOYANCE 


Facts  with  Comments  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  that  Wallace  stands  in  the  front 
rank  of  living  scientists,  and  that  for  many  years  he  has  care- 
fully studied  psychic  phenomena  with  the  same  thoroughness 
and  system  that  first  gave  him  fame  in  the  Molucca  Islands 
in  the  pre- Darwinian  days. 

The  following  is  from  his  pen :  ^ 

"The  subject  of  animal  magnetism  is  still  so  much  a  dis- 
puted one  among  scientific  men,  and  many  of  its  alleged 
phenomena  so  closely  border  on,  if  they  do  not  actually 
reach,  what  is  classed  as  supernatural,  that  I  wish  to  give  a 
few  illustrations  of  the  kind  of  facts  by  which  it  is  supported. 
I  will  first  quote  the  evidence  of  Dr.  William  Gregory,  late 
professor  of  chemistry  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  who 
for  many  years  made  continued  personal  investigations  into 
this  subject,  and  has  recorded  them  in  his  '  Letters  on  Ani- 
mal Magnetism,*  published  in  185 1.  The  simpler  phenom- 
ena of  what  are  usually  termed  *  hypnotism  '  and  '  electrobiol- 
ogy '  are  now  universally  admitted  to  be  real,  tho  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  they  too  had  to  fight  their  way  through  the 
same  denials,  accusations,  and  imputations  that  are  now 
made  against  clairvoyance  and  phrenomesmerism.  The 
same  men  who  advocated,  tested,  and  established  the  truth 
of  the  more  simple  facts  claim  that  they  have  done  the  same 
for  the  higher  phenomena;  the  same  class  of  scientific  and 
medical  men  who  once  denied  the  former  now  deny  the 
latter.  Let  us  see,  then,  if  the  evidence  for  the  one  is  as 
good  as  it  was  for  the  other. 

"  Dr.  Gregory  defines  several  stages  of  clairvoyance,  some- 
times existing  in  the  same,  sometimes  in  different  patients. 
The  chief  division,  however,  is  into  (i)  sympathy  or  thought- 
reading,  and  (2)  true  clairvoyance.  The  evidence  for  the 
first  is  so  overwhelming,  it  is  to  be  met  with  almost  every- 
where, and  is  so  generally  admitted  that  I  shall  not  occupy 
space  by  giving  examples,  altho  it  is,  I  believe,  still  denied 
by  the  more  materialistic  physiologists.  We  will,  therefore, 
confine  our  attention  to  the  various  phases  of  true  clairvoy- 
ance. 

»  "  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,"  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  pp.  61-64. 


STOLEN  WATCH    RESTORED         273 

"  Dr.  Haddock,  residing  at  Bolton,  had  a  very  remarkable 
clairvoyante  (E.)  under  his  care.  Dr.  Gregory  says  :  *  After 
I  returned  to  Edinburgh,  I  had  very  frequent  communica- 
tion with  Dr.  H.,  and  tried  many  experiments  with  this 
remarkable  subject,  sending  specimens  of  writing,  locks  of 
hair,  and  other  objects,  the  origin  of  which  was  perfectly 
unknown  to  Dr.  H.,  and  in  every  case  without  exception  E. 
saw  and  described  with  accuracy  the  persons  concerned  *  (p. 

403). 

*'  Sir  Walter  C.  Trevelyan,  Bart.,  received  a  letter  from 

a  lady  in  London,  in  which  the  loss  of  a  gold  watch  was  men- 
tioned. He  sent  the  letter  to  Dr.  H.  to  see  if  E.  could  trace 
the  watch.  She  described  the  lady  accurately,  and  her  house 
and  furniture  minutely,  and  described  the  watch  and  chain, 
and  described  the  person  who  had  it,  who,  she  said,  was  not 
a  habitual  thief,  and  said  further  that  she  could  tell  her 
handwriting.  The  lady,  to  whom  these  accounts  were  sent, 
acknowledged  their  perfect  accuracy,  but  said  the  description 
of  the  thief  applied  to  one  of  her  maids  whom  she  did  not 
suspect,  so  she  sent  several  pieces  of  handwriting,  including 
that  of  both  her  maids.  The  clairvoyante  immediately  se- 
lected that  of  the  one  she  had  described,  and  said  ^  she  was 
thinking  of  restoring  the  watch,  saying  she  had  found  it.' 
Sir  W.  Trevelyan  wrote  with  this  information,  but  a  letter 
from  the  lady  crossed  his,  saying  the  girl  mentioned  before 
by  the  clairvoyante  had  restored  the  watch  and  said  she  had 
found  it  (p.  405). 

"  Sir  W.  Trevelyan  communicated  to  Dr.  Gregory  another 
experiment  he  had  made.  He  requested  the  secretary  of  the 
Geographical  Society  to  send  him  the  writing  of  several  per- 
sons abroad,  not  known  to  him,  and  without  their  names. 
Three  were  sent.  E.  discovered  in  each  case  where  they 
were;  in  two  of  them  described  their  persons  accurately; 
described  in  all  three  cases  the  cities  and  countries  in  which 
they  were,  so  that  they  could  be  easily  recognized,  and  told 
the  time  by  the  clocks,  which  verified  the  place  by  difference 
of  longitude  (p.  407). 

"  Many  other  cases,  equally  well  tested,  are  given  in  great 
detail  by  Dr,  Gregory,  and  numerous  cases  are  given  of  tests 
of  what  may  be  called  simple  direct  clairvoyance.  For  exam- 
ple, persons  going  to  see  the  phenomena  purchase  in  any 
shop  they  please  a  few  dozens  of  printed  mottoes  enclosed  in 
18 


274       WALLACE    LOSING   PATIENCE 

nutshells.  These  are  placed  in  a  bag,  and  the  clairvoyante 
takes  out  a  nutshell  and  reads  the  motto.  The  shell  is  then 
broken  open  and  examined,  and  hundreds  of  mottoes  have 
been  thus  read  correctly.  One  motto  thus  read  contained 
ninety-eight  words.  Numbers  of  other  equally  severe  test 
cases  are  given  by  Dr.  Gregory,  devised  and  tried  by  himself 
and  by  other  well-known  persons. 

"  Now  will  it  be  believed  that  in  the  very  elaborate  article 
in  The  British  and  Foreign  Medico-Chirurgical  Review  y  already 
referred  to,  on  Dr.  Gregory's  and  other  works  of  an  allied 
nature,  not  one  single  experiment  of  this  kind  is  mentio7ied  or 
alluded  to  ?  There  is  a  great  deal  of  general  objection  to 
Dr.  Gregory's  views,  because  he  was  a  chemist  and  not  spe- 
cially devoted  to  physiology  (forgetting  that  Dr.  Elliotson  and 
Dr.  Mayo,  who  testify  to  similar  facts,  were  both  specially 
devoted  to  physiology),  and  a  few  quotations  of  a  general 
nature  only  are  given;  so  that  no  reader  could  imagine  that 
the  work  criticized  was  the  result  of  observation  or  experiment 
at  all.  The  case  is  a  complete  illustration  of  judicial  blind- 
ness. The  opponents  dare  not  impute  wilful  falsehood  to 
Dr.  Gregory,  Dr.  Mayo,  Dr.  Haddock,  Sir  Walter  Trevelyan, 
Sir  T.  Willshire,  and  other  gentlemen  who  vouch  for  these 
facts ;  and  yet  the  facts  are  of  such  an  unmistakable  nature 
that  without  imputing  wilful  falsehood  they  can  not  be 
explained  away.  They  are  therefore  silently  ignored,  or 
more  probably  the  records  of  them  are  never  read.  But  the 
silence  or  contempt  of  our  modern  scientific  men  can  not 
blind  the  world  any  longer  to  those  grand  and  mysterious 
phenomena  of  mind,  the  investigation  of  which  can  alone 
conduct  us  to  a  knowledge  of  what  we  really  are." 

Evidently  Wallace  is  losing  patience  with  his  brother 
scientists — almost  as  much  so  as  another  who  said : 

"  The  truth  is  that  the  average  scientific  man  lives  and 
has  his  being  in  a  world  full  of  closed  doors,  which  he  never 
dreams  of  trying  to  open." 

But  we  must  be  patient ;  it  is  far  better  that  the  average 
scientist  is  too  conservative  than  it  would  be  if  he  were  too 
ready  for  change. 


PROFESSOR   ZOLLNER  WRONGED    275 

An  Extraordinary  Experiment  by  Professor  Zollner, 
OF  Leipsic  University,  Germany 

The  Reading  of  the  Date  of  a  Coin  in  a  Sealed  Box —  The 
Passage  of  Matter  through  Matter — Official  Denial  of  An 
Injurious  Report  against  Zollner 

Professor  Zollner  was,  at  the  time  of  his  famous  experi- 
ments with  Professor  Slade,  the  medium,  in  iZyj-"]^^  one  of 
the  most  authoritative  scientists  in  continental  Europe. 
There  was  not  a  whisper  up  to  this  time  against  his  keenness 
as  an  observer  of  natural  phenomena  or  against  the  soundness 
of  his  judgment.  It  is  not  creditable  to  scientists  that,  no 
sooner  had  this  learned  professor  announced  his  conviction 
that  his  many  experiments  demonstrated  the  presence  of 
supramundane  intelligences,  than  abuse  was  poured  upon  him, 
by  none  more  freely  than  by  the  scientists  who  before  had 
done  him  honor,  and  who  now  abused  him  without  first  even 
attempting  to  test  the  truth  or  falsity  of  his  experiments. 
His  experiments  by  a  large  proportion  of  scientists  were 
rejected  in  bulk  and  without  inquiry.  This  is  to  the  lasting 
discredit  of  his  fellows. 

At  first  Zollner  was  made  the  butt  of  ridicule,  as  having 
been  hoodwinked  as  some  said,  hypnotized  as  others  said; 
but  finally  his  opponents  seemed  to  have  agreed  upon  the 
charge  that  "  Zollner  was  suffering  from  incipient  insanity, 
which  would  have  developed  to  a  manifest  degree  had  he  not 
died  so  early." 

I  think  I  need  give  no  further  proof  of  the  injustice  of 
this  charge  than  the  facts  that  Zollner  did  not  die  until  1882, 
and  that  he  retained  the  confidence  of  his  university  up  to  his 
sudden  death  by  apoplexy. 

The  following  official  letter  has  been  written  to  me  by 
the  Rector  Magnificus,  Leipsic  University : 


276  VINDICATION    BY  HIS   UNIVERSITY 

"  The  Rector  Magnificus  of   the  University  of 
Leipsic,  November  7,  1903 

"  Your  letter  addressed  to  the  rector  of  the  university, 
October  20,  1903,  received.  The  rector  of  this  university- 
was  installed  here  after  the  death  of  Zollner  and  had  no  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  him ;  but  information  received  from 
Zollner's  colleagues  states  that  during  his  entire  studies  at 
the  university  here,  until  his  death,  he  was  of  sound  mind; 
moreover,  in  the  best  of  health.  The  cause  of  his  death  was 
a  hemorrhage  of  the  brain,  on  the  morning  of  April  25,  1882, 
while  he  was  at  breakfast  with  his  mother,  and  from  which 
he  died  shortly  after.  It  is  true  that  Professor  Zollner  was 
an  ardent  believer  in  Spiritualism,  and  as  such  was  in  close 
relations  with  Slade. 

"  Dr.  Karl  Bucher, 

^^  Professor  of  Statistics  and  National  Economy  at  the 
University'' 

I  quote  from  Zollner's  writings '  the  following  record  of 
a  remarkable  experiment : 

**  On  May  5,  1878,  at  about  twenty-five  minutes  past 
four,  Mr.  Slade,  Herr  Oscar  von  Hoffmann,  and  I  took  our 
places  at  the  table,  and  in  the  sun-lighted  room,  of  which  a 
photographic  copy  is  seen  in  the  frontispiece.  Besides  a 
number  of  slates,  purchased  by  myself,  there  lay  upon  the 
table  other  things,  among  them  two  small  cardboard  boxes, 
in  which,  at  Slade's  first  residence  at  Leipsic,  in  December, 
1877,  I  had  put  some  pieces  of  money,  and  then  firmly  plas- 
tered it  up  outside  with  strips  of  paper.  I  had  already  at 
that  time  been  in  hopes  of  the  removal  of  the  enclosed  pieces 
of  money  without  opening  of  the  boxes.  However,  my 
friends  and  I  were  so  astonished  and  occupied  with  the  mul- 
titude of  the  other  phenomena  which  happened  at  Slade's  first 
and  second  visits  to  Leipsic  (November  and  December, 
1877)  that  I  abandoned  the  above-mentioned  experiment  for 
the  time,  and  postponed  it  till  Slade's  return  to  Leipsic.  One 
of  these  boxes  was  in  form  circular,  and  within   it  was  a 


138-149 


>  "Transcendental    Physics,"  translated  by  Charles    Carleton    Massey,  pp. 


SPIRITS   DIRECT   TEST  277 

large  piece  of  money ;  this  box  was  firmly  fastened  by  a 
strip  of  paper,  the  breadth  of  which  corresponded  to  the 
height  of  the  box,  and  its  length  much  exceeded  the  circuit 
of  the  box ;  so  indeed  that  first  the  strip  of  paper  was  spread 
with  liquid  glue  on  one  side  over  its  whole  length  and 
breadth,  and  was  then  stuck  several  times  round  the  box,  so 
that  the  latter,  after  the  fastening,  presented  the  appearance 
of  a  low  cylinder  of  pasteboard.  The  other  box  was  rectan- 
gular, of  the  same  sort  as  those  in  which  steel  pens  are  kept. 
In  this  box  I  had  put  two  small  pieces  of  money,  and  had 
then  closed  it  by  sticking  a  strip  of  paper  round  it,  perpen- 
dicularly to  its  length,  by  means  of  liquid  glue. 

"As  mentioned  above,  I  had  already,  in  December,  1877, 
fastened  up  these  boxes,  and  as  I  had  noted  neither  the  value 
of  the  enclosed  coins  nor  their  date,  I  could  afterward  only 
ascertain  by  the  noise  from  shaking  the  boxes  :  that  enclosed 
in  the  circular  one  was  a  large  German  coin  (a  thaler  or  a 
five-mark  piece),  in  the  rectangular  one  were  two  smaller 
coins ;  whether  these  were  pennies,  groschen,  or  five-groschen 
pieces  I  had,  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  year,  at  the  time  of 
Slade's  last  stay  in  Leipsic,  entirely  forgotten. 

"  After  we  had  taken  our  places  at  the  card-table  on  the 
above-mentioned  day  in  the  manner  described,  I  took  up  the 
round  box,  and  satisfied  myself,  by  shaking,  of  the  presence 
of  the  coin  I  had  enclosed  in  it.  Herr  O.  von  Hoffmann  did 
the  same,  and  lastly  Mr.  Slade,  who  asked  us  for  what  pur- 
pose I  had  designed  this  box.  I  explained  my  purpose  in  a 
few  words,  and  at  the  same  time  declared  that  it  would  be 
one  of  the  finest  confirmations  of  the  reality  of  the  fourth 
dimension,  if  his  invisible  intelligent  beings  succeeded  in 
removing  that  coin  from  the  box  without  opening  it.  Slade, 
ready  as  always  to  conform  to  my  wish,  took  in  the  usual 
manner  one  of  the  slates  which  lay  at  hand,  laid  a  morsel  of 
slate-pencil  upon  it  (indeed,  as  it  happened,  a  considerably 
larger  one  than  usual),  and  held  the  slate  with  his  right 
hand  half  under  the  table.  We  heard  writing,  and  when  the 
slate  was  drawn  out  there  was  found  upon  it  the  request  to 
lay  a  second  piece  of  pencil  on  the  slate,  which  was  done. 
Then  Slade,  who  sat  at  my  left  (von  Hoffmann  was  on  my 
right),  held  the  slate  with  the  two  bits  of  pencil  again  under 
the  table,  while  he  as  well  as  we  waited  intently  what  should 
come  there.     Meanwhile  the  two  fastened-up  boxes  lay  un- 


278  NOT   THOUGHT  READING 

touched  on  about  the  middle  of  the  table.  Some  minutes 
passed  without  anything  happening,  when  Slade  gazed  fixedly 
in  a  particular  direction  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  and  at 
the  same  time  said,  quite  astonished,  but  slowly,  the  words 
dragged  after  one  another,  and  partly  with  repetition :  *  I  see 
— see  funf  and  eighteen  hundred  seventy-six.'  Neither  Slade 
nor  we  knew  what  that  could  mean,  and  both  Herr  O.  von 
Hoffmann  and  myself  remarked  almost  simultaneously  that 
at  any  rate  '  funf '  signified  *  funf  '  (five),  and  made  the  sum 
of  the  addition  5  +  1876  =  1881.  While  I  threw  out  this 
remark  half  in  jest,  we  heard  a  hard  object  fall  on  the  slate, 
which  Slade  during  all  the  time  had  held  under  the  table 
with  his  right  hand  (the  left  lying  before  us  on  the  table). 
The  slate  was  immediately  drawn  out,  and  on  it  was  found 
the  five-mark  piece,  with  the  date  1876.  Naturally  I  forth- 
with snatched  up  the  pasteboard  box  standing  before  me,  and 
which  during  all  the  foregoing  had  been  touched  by  nobody, 
to  ascertain,  by  shaking,  the  absence  of  the  piece  of  money 
which  had  been  in  it  half  an  hour  before ;  and,  behold !  it 
was  quite  empty  and  silent;  the  box  was  robbed  of  its  con- 
tents in  the  shape  of  the  five-mark  piece. 

"  As  may  be  supposed,  our  pleasure  at  such  an  unhoped- 
for success  of  our  experiment  was  extremely  great ;  all  the 
more  that  by  it  at  the  same  time  was  established  the  exist- 
ence of  a  direct  perception  of  objects,  not  effected  in  the 
ordinary  way  of  our  sense-conceptions. 

**  Moreover,  it  could  not  be  any  so-called  thought-read- 
ing by  the  medium ;  that  is,  the  perception  of  representations 
already  in  the  heads  of  human  beings.  For  neither  I,  and 
much  less  Mr.  Slade  and  Herr  von  Hoffmann,  knew  what 
sort  of  coin  there  was  in  the  box  nor  what  date  it  bore. 

"  I  was  so  satisfied  with  the  success  of  this  experiment 
under  such  stringent  conditions  that  I  was  thinking  of  put- 
ting an  end  to  the  sitting  and  postponing  further  attempts 
to  a  later  one.  However,  Slade  remarked  that  he  did  not 
feel  himself  at  all  exhausted  by  the  sitting,  which  had  lasted 
at  most  ten  minutes.  This  remark  of  Slade  caused  us  to 
keep  our  places  at  the  card-table  and  to  engage  in  uncon- 
strained conversation  with  him.  I  introduced  the  subject  of 
his  sitting  with  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine  of  Russia,  and 
requested  him  to  give  us  a  detailed  account  of  the  phenom- 
ena which  took  place  at  it,  as  hitherto  we  had  seen  only  the 


PROOF    OF   CLAIRVOYANCE  279 

brief  paragraph  statement  about  them  in  the  press.  Thus 
urged,  Slade  mentioned  that  a  very  remarkable  experiment 
in  slate- writing  had  succeeded  in  the  presence  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Constantine.  Accidentally  there  had  been  two  bits  of 
pencil  on  the  slate ;  when  he  held  it  under  the  table  the 
writing  of  two  pencils  was  heard  at  the  same  time,  and  when 
he  drew  out  the  slate  the  one  pencil  had  written  from  left  to 
right,  the  other,  at  the  same  timey  from  right  to  left.  I  at 
once  proposed  to  try  whether  this  experiment  would  succeed 
also  with  us ;  the  suggestion  arose  from  me  quite  naturally, 
from  the  association  of  ideas  elicited  by  the  two  bits  of  pen- 
cil which  had  been  required  in  the  above-mentioned  experi- 
ment, without  our  having  as  yet  known  the  object  of  this 
written  demand. 

"  Slade,  at  once  ready  to  comply  with  my  wish,  held  the 
slate  with  the  two  bits  of  pencil  under  the  table-surface,  and 
we  soon  heard,  very  clearly,  writing  upon  it. 

"  When  the  slate  was  withdrawn  there  was  a  communica- 
tion in  English  as  follows : 


(( ( 


10 — Pfennig —  i  Z'j6 
2 — Pfennig — 1875. 

Let  this  be  proof  to  you  of  clairvoyance.  After  the  nine 
days  you  must  rest,  or  it  will  harm  you  and  the  medium. 
Believe  in  me,  your  friend. ' 

"  We  at  once  referred  the  first  part  of  this  message  to  the 
two  coins  contained  in  the  rectangular  box  still  unopened. 
I  was  just  about  to  open  it,  we  having  immediately  before 
convinced  ourselves  by  shaking  the  box  and  the  distinct  jin- 
gling within  it  of  the  presence  of  the  two  smaller  coins,  yet 
without  knowing  the  value  or  date  of  them.  Suddenly,  how- 
ever, I  changed  my  intention,  and  set  the  little  box  again 
uninjured  on  the  middle  of  the  table,  while  Herr  von  Hoff- 
mann as  also  Slade  suggested  the  possibility  that  perhaps  in 
like  manner,  as  the  five-mark  piece  fell  shortly  before,  the 
two  coins  might  fall  from  the  unopened  box  upon  the  slate 
underneath.  Immediately  upon  this  suggestion  Slade  again 
held  an  empty  slate  under  the  middle  of  the  table.  Scarcely 
was  this  done  when  we  distinctly  heard  two  coins  drop  down 
on  the  surface  of  the  slate,  and  on  closer  examination  we, 
in  fact,  found  confirmed  the  above  statements  on  the  slate. 


28o      ZOLLNER    DOUBLY   SURPRISED 

Highly  delighted,  I  now  seized  the  still  closed  box,  in  the 
confident  expectation  that  it  would,  like  the  round  box,  be 
empty,  and  that  therefore  on  shaking  no  rattling  within  would 
be  heard.  How  great  was  my  surprise  when  nevertheless 
the  rattling  happened,  proceeding,  indeed,  likewise  from  two 
bodies,  which  yet,  judging  from  the  altered  character  of  the 
sound,  could  not  be  coins.  Already  I  was  intending  to  con- 
vince myself  of  the  contents  of  the  box  by  opening  it,  which 
could  not  be  done  without  tearing  the  strips  of  paper  pasted 
over  it,  when  Slade  prepared  to  get  our  question  answered, 
as  usual  in  such  cases,  through  slate- writing,  by  his  spirits. 
Scarcely  had  he  taken  a  slate  with  a  fragment  of  pencil 
lying  upon  it,  and  held  it  half  under  the  table,  when  we  dis- 
tinctly heard  writing.  Upon  the  upper  surface  of  the  slate 
was  written  in  English : 

"  *  The  two  slate-pencils  are  in  the  box.  * 

"  In  fact,  the  two  large  pieces  of  slate-pencil  were  nowhere 
to  be  found,  and  when  I  now  opened  the  box  by  tearing  the 
strip  of  paper  glued  to  it,  there  within  it,  to  our  delight,  were 
both  the  pieces  of  pencil. 

"  The  foregoing  facts  are  of  great  value  in  a  threefold 
aspect.  Firsty  there  is  proved  the  occurrence  of  writing 
under  the  influence  of  Slade,  the  purport  of  which  was  neces- 
sarily zmknown  to  him  before.  It  is  consequently  impossible 
that  these  writings  occur  under  the  influence  of  the  conscious 
will  of  Slade,  whatever  modics  operandi  is  presupposed. 

"  Secondly,  the  apparent  so-called  passage  through  matter 
is  proved  in  a  highly  elegant  and  compendious  manner.  In 
order  to  reach  by  the  shortest  way  the  surface  of  the  slate, 
the  coins  must  apparently  have  penetrated  not  only  the  walls 
of  the  box,  but  also  about  20  millimeters  thickness  of  the  oak 
table.  The  two  slate-pencils  must  have  traveled  the  same 
way  in  a  reverse  direction  from  the  surface  of  the  slate. 

"'  Thirdly,  by  these  experiments  an  incontrovertible  proof 
is  afforded  of  the  reality  of  so-called  clairvoyafice,  and  that  in 
a  double  way.  The  first  time,  with  the  five-mark  piece,  the 
contents  of  the  closed  box  appeared  in  the  form  of  a  definite 
represented  image  in  Slade's  intuitional  life;  he  *  saw*  the 
numbers  5  and  1876.  The  second  time  this  was  not  the 
case,  but  the  contents  were  communicated  to  us  in  the  form 
of  written  characters  on  the  slate.  The  contents  of  this 
rectangular  box  must  therefore  have  existed  as  imaged  in 


PODMORE    REASONS    LOOSELY       281 

another,  not  a  three-dimensionally  incorporated  intelligence, 
before  that  represented  image  could  be  transmitted  to  us  by 
the  aid  of  writing.  Hereby  is  proved,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
in  a  very  cogent  manner  the  existence  of  intelligent  beings, 
invisible  to  us,  and  of  their  active  participation  in  our  ex- 
periments." 

Frank  Podmore,  in  his  book  against  Spiritualism,  says,^ 
in  explanation  of  this  coin  experiment  of  Zollner : 

"  As  a  commentary  on  this  performance,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  state  that  the  experiment  had  been  tried  and  failed 
some  six  months  previously,  that  the  boxes  had  not  been 
opened  in  the  interval,  and  that  Zollner  had  kept  no  record 
of  the  values  and  dates  of  the  coins  enclosed.  Again  oppor- 
tunity for  preparation  on  the  part  of  the  medium  and  for  sub- 
stitution was  afforded." 

The  reader  will  observe : 

1.  Podmore  does  not  say  in  what  way  this  test  was 
vitiated  by  the  fact  that  Zollner  had  not  recorded  the  value 
and  dates  of  the  coins. 

2.  Zollner  does  not  say  that  he  had  tried  this  experiment 
and  had  failed,  but  that  he  intended  to  try  it  but  did  not. 
Mr.  von  Hoffmann  writes  me  that  the  experiment  had  not 
been  made  prior  to  the  above  successful  effort. 

3.  Zollner  assured  himself  that  the  coins  were  in  the 
boxes  just  before  the  experiment  by  shaking  the  boxes,  and 
he  found  out  that  the  coins  were  not  in  the  boxes  by  shaking 
and  then  by  opening. 

4.  Zollner  detected  the  difference  between  the  sound  when 
he  shook  the  box  after  the  pencils  were  in  it.  A  child  would 
easily  distinguish  the  difference  between  the  sound  made  by 
two  silver  pieces  and  the  sound  made  by  two  bits  of  pencil. 

5.  One  box  when  first  shaken  by  Zollner  had  a  large  coin 
in  it,  and  when  again  shaken  it  had  nothing  in  it. 

I  fear  autosuggestion  at  times  vitiates  Mr.  Podmore's  rea- 
soning. 

*  Frank  Podmore,  "Modern  Spiritualism,"  vol.  ii.,  p,  192. 


282  UNIVERSAL   SKEPTICISM 


Scientific  Experiments  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  in  Thought-Transference 

A  few  years  ago  I  knew  of  no  psychologist  of  repute  any- 
where in  the  world  who  believed  in  the  possibility  of  convey- 
ing a  thought  from  one  mind  to  another  except  through  one 
or  the  other  of  the  five  senses. 

In  the  first  report  on  thought-reading  made  by  its  com- 
mittee in  1882  to  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  are 
these  words : 

"  Is  there  or  is  there  not  any  existing  or  attainable  evi- 
dence that  can  stand  fair  physiological  criticism  to  support  a 
belief  that  a  vivid  impression  or  a  distinct  idea  in  one  mind 
can  be  communicated  to  another  mind  without  the  interven- 
ing help  of  the  recognized  organs  of  sensation?  And  if  such 
evidence  be  found,  is  the  impression  derived  from  a  rare  or 
partially  developed  and  hitherto  unrecognized  sensory  organ, 
or  has  the  mental  precept  been  evoked  directly  without  any 
antecedent  sense-precept?  .   .  . 

"  The  present  state  of  scientific  opinion  throughout  the 
world  is  not  only  hostile  to  any  belief  in  the  possibility  of 
transmitting  a  single  mental  concept,  except  through  the 
ordinary  channels  of  sensation,  but,  generally  speaking,  it  is 
hostile  even  to  any  inquiry  upon  the  matter.  Every  leading 
physiologist  and  psychologist  down  to  the  present  time  has 
relegated  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  has  been  called 
*  thought-reading '  to  the  limbo  of  exploded  fallacies.^  Dr. 
W.  B.  Carpenter,  whose  name  and  distinguished  contribu- 
tions to  the  science  and  literature  of  physiology  command 
universal  recognition  and  respect,  finds  in  the  so-called 
thought-reading  a  striking  confirmation  of  views  he  has  long 
advocated,  that  the  '  communications  are  made  by  uncon- 
scious muscular  action  on  the  part  of  one  person  and  automati- 

1  In  the  July  number  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  the  senior  assistant  phy- 
sician at  Westminster  Hospital  expressed  his  amazement  at  the  hardihood  of  any 
one  having  the  slightf  st  pretense  to  scientific  knowledge  daring  to  put  forth  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  thought-reading ;  and  a  recent  writer  in  the  Saturday  Review 
gives  expression  to  the  general  scientific  point  of  view  of  the  present  day  on  this 
subject  when  he  remarks  that  "we  thought  we  had  beard  the  last  of  thought- 
reading." 


REVOLUTION    IN    TWENTY  YEARS      283 

cally  interpreted  by  the  other.'  Where  collusion  does  not 
come  into  play  all  that  Dr.  Carpenter  has  ever  seen  or  heard 
rests  upon  the  *  intermediation  of  those  expressional  signs 
which  are  made  and  ifiterpreted  alike  unconsciously. '  Dr. 
H.  Maudsley,  in  his  *  Pathology  of  Mind/  takes  the  same 
view  as  Dr.  Carpenter,  treating  the  subject  as  hardly  worthy 
of  serious  refutation.  Collusion,  hallucination,  unconscious 
interpretation  of  unconsciously  imparted  signs,  furnish,  ac- 
cording to  the  physiologists  of  to-day,  abundant  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  under  investigation. " 

A  marked  revolution  in  twenty  years  has  been  wrought 
in  public  and  in  scientific  opinion  on  this  subject,  chiefly 
through  the  persistent  and  wise  scientific  experiments  of  this 
society.  Its  experiments  fall  little,  if  any,  short  of  absolute 
demonstration.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  the  president  in  1903  of 
the  S.  P.  R.,  recently  said  (see  The  Pall  Mall  Magazine  for 
January,  1904) :  "  What  we  [the  S.  P.  R.]  can  challenge  the 
judgment  of  the  world  upon  is  telepathy.  Here  is  the  begin- 
ning of  a  wider  conception  of  science.  Directly  men  see 
and  admit,  as  they  must  do  from  the  overwhelming  evidence, 
that  it  is  possible  to  transmit  ideas  direct  from  brain  to 
brain  without  the  intermediaries  of  speech  and  hearing,  they 
are  looking  into  and  gaining  admission  to  new  fields  of 
exploration." 

A  few  of  the  earlier  experiments  in  telepathy  published 
by  the  S.  P.  R.  are  here  given — since  the  publication  of 
these  reports  very  great  progress  toward  certainty  has  been 
made  along  the  lines  of  these  investigations. 

Experiments   Made   and   Reported   by   Sir   Oliver 

Lodge,  D.Sc.^ 

"  Members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  are  all 
perfectly  aware  of  the  experiments  in  thought-transference 
which  have  been  originated  and  carried  out  by  Mr.  Malcolm 
Guthrie,  in  Liverpool. 

1  Report  by  Professor  Lodge  to  S.  P.  R.,  in  1884,  Proceedings,  vol.  i.,  Part  vi., 

pp.  190-8. 


284      SIR   OLIVER    LODGE'S   REPORT 

"  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  considered  impertinent,  since  it 
bears  on  the  question  of  responsibility  and  genuineness,  if  I 
state  that  Mr.  Guthrie  holds  an  important  position  in  Liver- 
pool, being  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  an  active  member  of 
the  governing  bodies  of  several  public  institutions,  among 
others  of  the  nev^  University  College;  that  he  is  a  severe 
student  of  philosophy,  and  the  author  of  several  v^orks  bear- 
ing on  the  particular  doctrines  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  I 
may  also  say  that  he  is  a  relative  of  Prof.  Frederick  Guthrie, 
and  that  he  has  exhibited  in  this  experimental  research  such 
care  and  systematic  vigilance  as  might  perhaps  have  been 
expected  on  Mr.  Francis  Galton's  principles,  and  such  as 
would,  if  properly  directed,  have  placed  him  in  a  high  rank 
of  experimental  philosophers.  I  may  also  remind  you  of 
what  he  himself  has  here  said,  viz.,  that  he  is  a  partner  in 
the  chief  drapery  establishment  in  Liverpool,  and  that  it  is 
among  the  employees  of  that  large  business  that  the  two 
percipients  hereafter  referred  to  were  accidentally  discovered. 

"  Let  it  be  understood  that  the  experiments  are  Mr.  Guth- 
rie's, and  that  my  connection  with  them  is  simply  this :  that 
after  Mr.  Guthrie  had  laboriously  carried  out  a  long  series  of 
experiments  and  had  published  many  of  his  results,  he  set 
about  endeavoring  to  convince  such  students  of  science  as  he 
could  lay  his  hands  upon  in  Liverpool;  and  with  this  object 
he  appealed  to  me,  among  others,  to  come  and  witness,  and 
within  limits  modify,  the  experiments  in  such  a  way  as  would 
satisfy  me  of  their  genuineness  and  perfect  good  faith. 

"  Yielding  to  his  entreaty  I  consented,  and  have  been,  I 
suppose,  at  some  dozen  sittings ;  at  first  simply  looking  on 
so  as  to  grasp  the  phenomena,  but  afterward  taking  charge  of 
the  experiments — Mr.  Guthrie  himself  often  not  being  pres- 
ent, tho  he  was  always  within  call  in  another  room,  ready  to 
give  advice  and  assistance  when  desired. 

"In  using  the  term  *  thought-transference,'  I  would  ask 
to  be  understood  as  doing  so  for  convenience,  because  the 
observed  facts  can  conveniently  be  grouped  under  such  a 
title;  but  I  would  not  be  understood  as  implying  that  I  hold 
any  theory  on  the  subject.  It  is  a  most  dangerous  thing  to 
attempt  to  convey  a  theory  by  a  phrase,  and,  probably,  if  I 
held  any  theory  on  the  subject,  I  should  be  more  guarded  in 
my  language,  and  should  require  many  words  to  set  it  forth. 
As  it  is,  the  phrase  describes  correctly  enough  what  appears 


LODGE'S   HYPOTHESIS  285 

to  take  place,  viz.,  that  one  person  may,  under  favorable  con- 
ditions, receive  a  faint  impression  of  a  thing  which  is  strongly 
present  in  the  mind,  or  thought,  or  sight,  or  sensorium  of 
another  person  not  in  contact,  and  may  be  able  to  describe 
or  draw  it  more  or  less  correctly.  But  how  the  transfer  takes 
place,  or  whether  there  is  any  transfer  at  all,  or  what  is  the 
physical  reality  underlying  the  terms  '  mind, '  '  conscious- 
ness,' '  impression, '  and  the  like ;  and  whether  this  thing  we 
call  mind  is  located  in  the  person  or  in  the  space  round 
him,  or  in  both,  or  neither;  whether  indeed  the  term  loca- 
tion, as  applied  to  mind,  is  utter  nonsense  and  simply  mean- 
ingless— concerning  all  these  things  I  am  absolutely  blank 
and  have  no  hypothesis  whatsoever.  [This  report  was  made  in 
1884;  since  then  Professor  Lodge  has  become  much  more 
positive  in  his  thinking  on  this  subject.]  I  may,  however, 
be  permitted  to  suggest  a  rough  and  crude  analogy.  That 
the  brain  is  the  organ  of  consciousness  is  patent,  but  that 
consciousness  is  located  in  the  brain  is  what  no  psychologist 
ought  to  assert;  for  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric  charge, 
tho  apparently  on  the  conductor,  is  not  on  the  conductor,  but 
in  all  the  space  round  it;  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric 
current,  tho  apparently  in  the  copper  wire,  is  certainly  not 
all  in  the  copper  wire,  and  possibly  not  any  of  it ;  so  it  may 
be  that  the  sensory  consciousness  of  a  person,  tho  apparently 
located  in  his  brain,  may  be  conceived  of  as  also  existing 
like  a  faint  echo  in  space  or  in  other  brains,  tho  these  are 
ordinarily  too  busy  and  preoccupied  to  notice  it. 

"  The  experiments  which  I  have  witnessed  proceed  in 
this  sort  of  way.  One  person  is  told  to  keep  in  a  perfectly 
passive  condition,  with  a  mind  as  vacant  as  possible;  and  to 
assist  this  condition  the  organs  of  sense  are  unexcited,  the 
eyes  being  bandaged  and  silence  maintained.  It  might  be 
as  well  to  shut  out  even  the  ordinary  street  hum  by  plugging 
the  ears,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  was  not  done. 

"  A  person  thus  kept  passive  is  *  the  percipient.'  In  the 
experiments  I  witnessed  the  percipient  was  a  young  lady,  one 
or  other  of  two  who  had  been  accidentally  found  to  possess 
the  necessary  power.  Whether  it  is  a  common  power  or  not 
I  do  not  know.  So  far  as  I  am  aware  very  few  persons  have 
been  tried.  I  myself  tried,  but  failed  abjectly.  It  was  easy 
enough  to  picture  things  to  oneself,  but  they  did  not  appear 
to  be  impressed  on  me  from  without,  nor  did  any  of  them 


286  MODUS   OPERANDI 

bear  the  least  resemblance  to  the  object  in  the  agent's  mind. 
[For  instance,  I  said  a  pair  of  scissors  instead  of  the  five  of 
diamonds,  and  things  like  that.]  Nevertheless,  the  person 
acting  as  percipient  is  in  a  perfectly  ordinary  condition,  and 
can  in  no  sense  be  said  to  be  in  a  hypnotic  state,  unless  this 
term  be  extended  to  include  the  emptiness  of  mind  produced 
by  blindfolding  and  silence.  To  all  appearance  a  person  in 
a  brown  study  is  far  more  hypnotized  than  the  percipients  I 
saw,  who  usually  unbandaged  their  own  eyes  and  chatted  be- 
tween successive  experiments. 

**  Another  person  sitting  near  the  percipient,  sometimes 
at  first  holding  her  hands  but  usually  and  ordinarily  without 
any  contact  at  all  but  with  a  distinct  intervening  distance, 
was  told  to  think  hard  of  a  particular  object,  either  a  name, 
or  a  scene,  or  a  thing,  or  of  an  object  or  drawing  set  up  in  a 
good  light  and  in  a  convenient  position  for  staring  at.  This 
person  is  *  the  agent,'  and  has,  on  the  whole,  the  hardest  time 
of  it.  It  is  a  most  tiring  and  tiresome  thing  to  stare  at  a 
letter,  or  a  triangle,  or  a  donkey,  or  a  teaspoon,  and  to  think 
of  nothing  else  for  the  space  of  two  or  three  minutes. 
Whether  the  term  *  thinking'  can  properly  be  applied  to  such 
barbarous  concentration  of  mind  as  this  I  am  not  sure ;  but 
I  can  answer  for  it  that  if  diffictdty  is  an  important  element 
in  the  definition  of  *  thinking,'  then  it  is  difficult  enough  in 
all  conscience. 

"Very  frequently  more  than  one  agent  is  employed,  and 
when  two  or  three  people  are  in  the  room  they  are  all  told 
to  think  of  the  object  more  or  less  strenuously ;  the  idea  being 
that  wandering  thoughts  in  the  neighborhood  certainly  can 
not  help,  and  may  possibly  hinder,  the  clear  transfer  of  im- 
pression. As  regards  the  question  whether  when  several 
agents  are  thinking,  only  one  is  doing  the  work,  or  whether 
all  really  produce  some  effect,  I  have  made  a  special  experi- 
ment, which  leads  me  to  conclude  that  more  than  one  agent 
can  be  active  at  the  same  time.  We  conjecture  that  several 
agents  are  probably  more  powerful  than  one,  but  that  a  con- 
fusedness  of  impression  may  sometimes  be  produced  by 
different  agents  attending  to  different  parts  or  aspects  of  the 
object;  this,  however,  is  mere  conjecture. 

"  Most  people  seem  able  to  act  as  agents,  tho  some  appear 
to  do  better  than  others.  I  can  hardly  say  whether  I  am 
much  good  at  it  or  not.     I  have  not  often  tried  alone,  and  in 


TRICKERY   EXCLUDED  287 

the  majority  of  cases  when  I  have  tried  I  have  failed;  on  the 
other  hand,  I  have  once  or  twice  apparently  succeeded.  We 
have  many  times  succeeded  with  agents  quite  disconnected 
from  the  percipient  in  ordinary  life  and  sometimes  complete 
strangers  to  them.  Mr.  Birchall,  the  headmaster  of  the 
Birkdale  Industrial  School,  frequently  acted ;  and  the  house 
physician  at  the  Eye  and  Ear  Hospital,  Dr.  Shears,  had  a 
successful  experiment,  acting  alone,  on  his  first  and  only 
visit.  All  suspicion  of  a  prearranged  code  is  thus  rendered 
impossible  even  to  outsiders  who  are  unable  to  witness  the 
obvious  fairness  of  all  the  experiments. 

"The  object  looked  at  by  the  agent  is  placed  usually  on 
a  small  black  opaque  wooden  screen  between  the  percipient 
and  agents,  but  sometimes  it  is  put  on  a  larger  screen  behind 
the  percipient.  The  objects  were  kept  in  an  adjoining  room 
and  were  selected  and  brought  in  by  me,  with  all  due  precau- 
tion, after  the  percipient  was  blindfolded.  I  should  say, 
however,  that  no  reliance  was  placed  on,  or  care  taken  in, 
the  bandaging.  It  was  merely  done  because  the  percipient 
preferred  it  to  merely  shutting  the  eyes.  After  recent 
experiments  on  blindfolding  by  members  of  the  society,  I 
certainly  would  not  rely  on  any  form  of  bandaging;  the 
opacity  of  the  wooden  screen  on  which  the  object  was  placed 
was  the  thing  really  depended  on,  and  it  was  noticed  that  no 
mirrors  or  indistinct  reflectors  were  present.  The  only  sur- 
face at  all  suspicious  was  the  polished  top  of  the  small  table 
on  which  the  opaque  screen  usually  stood.  But  as  the  screen 
sloped  backward  at  a  slight  angle,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
object  on  it  to  be  thus  mirrored.  Moreover,  sometimes  I 
covered  the  table  with  paper,  and  very  often  it  was  not 
used  at  all,  but  the  object  was  placed  on  a  screen  or  a  settee 
behind  the  percipient ;  and  one  very  striking  success  was 
obtained  with  the  object  placed  on  a  large  drawing-board, 
loosely  swathed  in  a  black  silk  college-gown,  and  with  the 
percipient  immediately  behind  the  said  drawing-board  and 
almost  hidden  by  it. 

"  As  regards  collusion  and  trickery,  no  one  who  has  wit- 
nessed the  absolutely  genuine  and  artless  manner  in  which 
the  impressions  are  described  but  has  been  perfectly  con- 
vinced of  the  transparent  honesty  of  purpose  of  all  concerned. 
This,  however,  is  not  evidence  to  persons  who  have  not 
been  present,  and  to  them  I  can  only  say  that  to  the  best  of 


288  WHAT    IS   TRANSMITTED? 

my  scientific  belief  no  collusion  or  trickery  was  possible 
under  the  varied  circumstances  of  the  experiments. 

"  A  very  interesting  question  presents  itself  as  to  wJmt 
is  really  transmitted,  whether  it  is  the  idea  or  name  of  the 
object  or  whether  it  is  the  visual  impression.  To  examine 
this  I  frequently  drew  things  without  any  name — perfectly 
irregular  drawings.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  these  irregular 
and  unnamable  productions  have  always  been  rather  difficult, 
tho  they  have  at  times  been  imitated  fairly  well ;  but  it  is 
not  at  all  strange  that  a  faint  impression  of  an  unknown 
object  should  be  harder  to  grasp  and  reproduce  than  a  faint 
impression  of  a  familiar  one,  such  as  a  letter,  a  common 
name,  a  teapot,  or  a  pair  of  scissors.  Moreover,  in  some 
very  interesting  cases  the  idea  or  name  of  the  object  was 
certainly  the  thing  transferred,  and  not  the  visual  impression 
at  all ;  this  specially  happened  with  one  of  the  two  percip- 
ients ;  and,  therefore,  probably  in  every  case  the  fact  of  the 
object  having  a  name  would  assist  any  faint  impression  of 
its  appearance  which  might  be  received. 

"  As  to  aspecty  i.e.,  inversion  or  perversion,  so  far  as  my 
experience  goes  it  seems  perfectly  accidental  whether  the 
object  will  be  drawn  by  the  percipient  in  its  actual  position 
or  in  the  inverted  or  perverted  position.  This  is  very 
curious  if  true,  and  would  certainly  not  have  been  expected 
by  me.  Horizontal  objects  are  never  described  as  vertical, 
nor  vice  versa  ;  and  slanting  objects  are  usually  drawn  with 
the  right  amount  of  slant. 

"  In  proceeding  to  the  details  of  the  actual  experiments, 
it  would  take  far  too  long  to  recount  the  whole — failures  as 
well  as  successes ;  I  shall  only  describe  a  few  from  which  a 
more  or  less  obvious  moral  may  be  drawn. 

"  The  two  percipients  are  Miss  R.  and  Miss  E.  Miss 
R.  is  the  more  prosaic,  staid,  and  self-contained  personage, 
and  she  it  is  who  gets  the  best  quasi-visual  impression,  but 
she  is  a  bad  drawer,  and  does  not  reproduce  it  very  well. 

"  Miss  E.  is,  I  should  judge,  of  a  more  sensitive  tempera- 
ment, seldom  being  able  to  preserve  a  strict  silence  for  in- 
stance, and  she  it  is  who  more  frequently  jumps  to  the  idea 
or  name  of  the  object  without  being  able  so  frequently  to 
*  see '  it. 

"  I  was  anxious  to  try  both  percipients  at  once  so  as  to 
compare  their  impressions,  but  I  have  not  met  with  much 


TRIAL  WITH  A  DOUBLE  AGENT       289 

success  under  these  conditions,  and  usually  therefore  have 
had  to  try  one  at  a  time — the  other  being  frequently  absent 
or  in  another  room,  tho  also  frequently  present  and  acting 
as  part  or  sole  agent. 

"  I  once  tried  a  double  agent — that  is,  not  two  agents 
thinking  of  the  same  thing,  but  two  agents  each  thinking  of 
a  different  thing.  A  mixed  and  curiously  double  impression 
was  thus  produced  and  described  by  the  percipient,  and  both 
the  objects  were  correctly  drawn. 


"Description  of  Some  of  the  Experiments. 

"  In  order  to  describe  the  experiments  briefly  I  will  put 
in  parentheses  everything  said  by  me  or  by  the  agent,  and  in 
inverted  commas  all  the  remarks  of  the  percipient.  The  first 
seven  experiments  are  all  that  were  made  on  one  evening 
with  the  particular  percipient,  and  they  were  rapidly  per- 
formed. 

"  A.  Experiments  with  Miss  R.  as  Percipient, 

**  First  Agenty   Mr.   Birchall,   holding-  hands.      No  one  else 

present  except  myself. 

"  Object — a  blue  square  of  silk. — (Now,  it's  going  to  be  a 
color ;  ready.)  *  Is  it  green  ?  '  (No.)  '  It's  something  be- 
tween green  and  blue.  .  .  .  Peacock.'  (What  shape?)  She 
drew  a  rhombus. 

"  [N.B. — It  is  not  intended  to  imply  that  this  was  a  suc- 
cess by  any  means,  and  it  is  to  be  understood  that  it  was 
only  to  make  a  start  on  the  first  experiment  that  so  much 
help  was  given  as  is  involved  in  saying  *  it's  a  color.'  When 
they  are  simply  told  '  it's  an  object,'  or,  what  is  much  the 
same,  when  nothing  is  said  at  all,  the  field  for  guessing  is 
practically  infinite.  When  no  remark  at  starting  is  recorded 
none  was  made,  except  such  an  one  as  '  Now  we  are  ready,' 
by  myself.] 

^^  Next  object — a  key  on  a  black  ground. — (It's  an  object.) 
In  a  few  seconds  she  said,  *  It's  bright.  ...  It  looks  like  a 
key.'     Told  to  draw  it  she  drew  it  just  inverted. 

"  Next  object — three  gold  studs  in  morocco  case.  *  Is  it 
yellow .?  .  .  .  Something  gold.  .  .  .  Something  round.  .  .  . 
19 


290  SURPRISING   RESULTS 

A  locket  or  a  watch  perhaps. '  (Do  you  see  more  than  one 
round  ? )  *  Yes,  there  seem  to  be  more  than  one.  .  .  Are 
there  three  rounds?.  .  .  .  Three  rings.'  (What  do  they 
seem  to  be  set  in  i*)  *  Something  bright  like  beads. '  [Evi- 
dently not  understanding  or  attending  to  the  question.] 
Told  to  unblindfold  herself  and  draw,  she  drew  the  three 
rounds  in  a  row  quite  correctly,  and  then  sketched  round 
them  absently  the  outline  of  the  case ;  which  seemed,  there- 
fore, to  have  been  apparent  to  her  tho  she  had  not  consciously 
attended  to  it.  It  was  an  interesting  and  striking  experi- 
ment. 

^^  Next  object — a  pair  of  scissors  standing  partly  open  with 
their  points  down. — *  Is  it  a  bright  object.-*  .  .  .  Something 
long  ways  [indicating  verticality] .  ...  A  pair  of  scissors 
standing  up.  ...  A  little  bit  open.'  Time,  about  a  minute 
altogether.  She  then  drew  her  impression,  and  it  was  cor- 
rect in  every  particular.  The  object  in  this  experiment 
was  on  a  settee  behind  her,  but  its  position  had  to  be  pointed 
out  to  her  when,  after  the  experiment,  she  wanted  to  see  it. 

"  Next  object — a  drawing  of  a  right-angle  triangle  on  its 
side. — (It's  a  drawing.)  She  drew  an  isosceles  triangle  on 
its  side. 

"  Next — a  circle  with  a  cord  across  it. — She  drew  two 
detached  ovals,  one  with  a  cutting  line  across  it. 

"Next — a  drawing  of  a  Union  Jack  pattern. — As  usual  in 
drawing  experiments,  Miss  R.  remained  silent  for  perhaps 


x 

y 

y^ 

^ 

1^ 


ORIGINAL.  REPRODUCTION 

a  minute ;  then  she  said,  '  Now  I  am  ready.  *  I  hid  the  ob- 
ject; she  took  off  the  handkerchief,  and  proceeded  to  draw  on 
paper  placed  ready  in  front  of  her.  She  this  time  drew  all 
the  lines  of  the  figure  except  the  horizontal  middle  one.  She 
was  obviously  much  tempted  to  draw  this,  and,  indeed,  began 
it  two  or  three  times  faintly,  but  ultimately  said,  '  No,  I'm 
not  sure,'  and  stopped. 

"  [N.B. — The  actual  drawings  made  in  all  the  experi- 
ments are  preserved  intact  by  Mr.  Guthrie.] 

"  [end  of  sitting.] 


SLIGHT  DEVIATIONS  STRONG  PROOF    291 

^^Experiments  with  Miss  R. — continued. 

"  I  will  now  describe  an  experiment  indicating  that  one 
agent  may  be  better  than  another. 

''Object — a  playing-card,  the  Three  of  Hearts. — Miss  E. 
and  Mr.  Birchall  both  present  as  agents,  but  Mr.  Birchall 
holding  percipient's  hands  at  first.  '  Is  it  a  black  cross  .  .  . 
a  white  ground  with  a  black  cross  on  it  ? '  Mr.  Birchall  now 
let  Miss  E.  hold  hands  instead  of  himself,  and  Miss  R.  very 
soon  said,  *  Is  it  a  card  ? '  (Right.)  *  Are  there  three  spots 
on  it.-*  .  .  .  Don't  know  what  they  are.  ...  I  don't  think  I 
can  get  the  color.  .  .  .  They  are  one  above  the  other,  but 
they  seem  three  round  spots.  ...  I  think  they're  red,  but 
am  not  clear.' 

"  Next  object — a  playing-card  with  a  blue  anchor  painted 
on  it  slantwise  instead  of  pips. — No  contact  at  all  this  time, 

but  another  lady.  Miss  R d,  who  had  entered  the  room, 

assisted  Mr.  B.  and  Miss  E.  as  agents.  '  Is  it  an  anchor.^ 
.  .  .  a  little  on  the  slant.'  (Do  you  see  any  color  ?)  *  Color 
is  black.  .  .  .  It's  a  nicely  drawn  anchor.'  When  asked  to 
draw  she  sketched  part  of  it,  but  had  evidently  half  forgotten 
it,  and  not  knowing  the  use  of  the  cross  arm,  she  could  only 
indicate  that  there  was  something  more  there  but  she  couldn't 
remember  what.     Her  drawing  had  the  right  slant  exactly. 

"  Another  object — two  pair  of  coarse  lines  crossing  ;  drawn 
in  red  chalk,  and  set  up  at  some  distance  from  agents.  No 
contact.  *  I  only  see  lines  crossing.'  She  saw  no  color. 
She  afterward  drew  them  quite  correctly,  but  very  small. 

"  Double  object. — It  was  now  that  I  arranged  the  double 
object  between  Miss  R d  and  Miss  E.,  who  happened  to 


n   X 


ORIGINALS.  REPRODUCTION. 

be  sitting  nearly  facing  one  another.  [See  Nature,  June  12, 
1884.]     The  drawing  was  a  square  on  one  side  of  the  paper, 

a  cross  on  the  other.      Miss  R d  looked  at  the  side  with 

the  square  on  it.  Miss  E.  looked  at  the  side  with  the  cross. 
Neither  knew  what  the  other  was  looking  at — nor  did  the 
percipient  know  that  anything  unusual  was  being  tried.  Mr. 
Birchall  was  silently  asked  to  take  off  his  attention,  and  he 
got  up  and  looked  out  of  window  before  the  drawings  were 


292         FAR   BEYOND    COINCIDENCE 

brought  in,  and  during  the  experiment.  There  was  no  con- 
tact. Very  soon  Miss.  R  said,  '  I  see  things  moving  about. 
...  I  seem  to  see  two  things.  ...  I  see  first  one  up  there 
and  then  one  down  there.  ...  I  don't  know  which  to  draw. 
.  .  .  I  can't  see  either  distinctly.'  (Well  anyhow,  draw 
what  you  have  seen.)  She  took  off  the  bandage  and  drew 
first  a  square,  and  then  said,  *  Then  there  was  the  other 
thing  as  well  .  .  .  afterward  they  seemed  to  go  into  one,' 
and  she  drew  a  cross  inside  the  square  from  corner  to  corner, 
adding  afterward,  ^  I  don't  know  what  made  me  put  it  inside.' 

"  The  next  is  a  case  of  a  perfect  stranger  acting  as  agent 
by  himself  at  the  first  trial.  Dr.  Shears,  house  physician  at 
the  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary,  came  down  to  see  the  phenomena, 
and  Miss  R.  having  arrived  before  the  others,  Mr.  Guthrie 
proposed  his  trying  as  agent  alone.  Dr.  Shears,  therefore, 
held  Miss  R. 's  hand  while  I  set  up  in  front  of  him  a  card; 
nothing  whatever  being  said  as  to  the  nature  of  the  object. 

"  Object — the  five  of  clubs  y  at  first  on  a  white  ground.  *  Is 
it  something  bright  ? '  (No  answer,  but  I  changed  the  object 
to  a  black  ground  where  it  was  more  conspicuous.)  *  A  lot 
of  black  with  a  white  square  on  it.'  (Go  on.)  *  Is  it  a 
card.**'  (Yes.)  *  Are  there  five  spots  on  it.?'  (Yes.) 
*  Black  ones.'  (Right.)  *  I  can't  see  the  suit,  but  I  think 
it's  spades. ' 

"  Another  object  at  same  sittings  but  with  several  agents ^ 
no  contact y  a  drawing  of  this  form — 


y\ 


ORIGINAL.  REPRODUCTION. 

"  *  I  can  see  something,  but  I  am  sure  I  can't  draw  it.  .  .  . 
It's  something  with  points  all  around  it.  .  .  .  It's  a  star, 
...  or  like  a  triangle  within  a  triangle. '  Asked  to  draw  it, 
she  expressed  reluctance,  said  it  was  too  difficult,  and  drew 
part  of  a  star  figure,  evidently  a  crude  reproduction  of  the 
original,  but  incomplete.  She  then  began  afresh  by  draw- 
ing a  triangle,  but  was  unable  to  proceed. 

"  I  then  showed  her  the  object  for  a  few  seconds.  She 
exclaimed, '  Oh,  yes,  that's  what  I  saw.  ...  I  understand  it 


"SAW   THE   SAME    FLAG"  293 

now. '  I  said,  *  Well  now  draw  it.'  She  made  a  more  com- 
plete attempt,  but  it  was  no  more  really  like  the  original 
than  the  first  had  been. 

^^Experiments  at   a  Sitting  in   the  room  of  Dr.  Herdman^ 
Professor  of  Zoology  at    University  College. 

**  Object — a  drawing  of  the  outline  of  a  flag. — Miss  R.  as 
percipient  in  contact  with  Miss  E.  as  agent.  Very  quickly 
Miss  R.  said,  '  It's  a  little  flag ' ;  and  when  asked  to  draw, 


Y 


ORIGINAL.  REPRODUCTION. 

she  drew  it  fairly  well  but  perverted.  I  showed  her  the  flag 
(as  usual  after  a  success),  and  then  took  it  away  to  the  draw- 
ing-place to  fetch  something  else.  I  made  another  drawing, 
but  instead  of  bringing  it  I  brought  the  flag  back  again  and 
set  it  up  in  the  same  place  as  before,  but  inverted.     There 

was  no  contact  this  time.     Miss  R d  and  Miss  E.  were 

acting  as  agents. 

**  Object — same  flag  inverted. — After  some  time.  Miss  R. 
said :  *  No,  I  can't  see  anything  this  time.  I  still  see  that 
flag.  .  .  .  The  flag  keeps  bothering  me.  ...  I  sha'n't  do 
it  this  time.'  Presently  I  said:  *  Well,  draw  what  you  saw 
anyway. '  She  said :  '  I  only  saw  the  same  flag,  but  perhaps 
it  had  a  cross  on  it.'  So  she  drew  a  flag  in  the  same  posi- 
tion as  before,  but  added  a  cross  to  it.  Questioned  as  to 
aspect  she  said,  *  Yes,  it  was  just  the  same  as  before.* 


"  Object — an  oval  gold  locket  hanging  by  a  bit  of  string 
with  a  little  price  label  attached. — Placed  like  the  former  ob- 
ject on  a  large  drawing-board,  swathed  in  a  college  gown. 
The  percipient,  Miss  R. ,  close  behind  the  said  board  and 

almost  hidden  by  it.     Agents,  Miss  R d  and  Miss  E. 

sitting  in  front ;  no  contact ;  nothing  said.      T  see  something 


294       IT   IS   NOT   CLEVER   GUESSING 

gold,  .  .  .  something  hanging,  .  .  .  like  a  gold  locket.' 
(What  shape?)  ^  It's  oval,'  indicating  with  her  fingers  cor- 
rectly. (Very  good  so  far,  tell  us  something  more) — mean- 
ing ticket  at  top.  No  more  said.  When  shown  the  object 
she  said,  *  Oh,  yes,  it  was  just  like  that,'  but  she  had  seen 
nothing  of  the  little  paper  ticket. 

"  Next  object — a  watch  and  chain  pinned  up  to  the  board 
as  on  a  waistcoat. — This  experiment  was  a  failure,  and  is 
only  interesting  because  the  watch-ticking  sounded  abnor- 
mally loud,  sufficient  to  give  any  amount  of  hint  to  a  person 
on  the  lookout  for  such  sense  indications.  But  it  is  very  evi- 
dent to  those  witnessing  the  experiments  that  the  percipient 
is  in  a  quite  different  attitude  of  mind  to  that  of  a  clever 
guesser,  and  ordinary  sense  indications  seem  wholly  neglected. 
I  scarcely  expected,  however,  that  the  watch-ticking  could 
pass  unnoticed,  tho  indeed  we  shuffled  our  feet  to  drown  it 
somewhat,  but  so  it  was ;  and  all  we  got  was,  *  Something 
bright,  .  .  .  either  steel  or  silver.  .  .  .  Is  it  anything  like 
a  pair  of  scissors  t  '     (Not  a  bit.)  " 

Experiments  in  Transference  of  Physical  Sensations  ' 

"  The  following  experiments  in  transference  of  pains  and 
tastes  were  also  made  by  Frederic  Myers  and  myself,  on 
April  26,  the  agent  being  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith,  and  the  '  subject ' 
a  very  intelligent  young  cabinet-maker,  named  Conway,  who 
had  been  thrown  into  a  light  hypnotic  trance.  For  the  first 
set  Mr.  Smith  was  in  light  contact  with  Conway,  behind 
whom  he  stood.  No  hint  was  given  to  Conway  as  to  whether 
his  answers  were  right  or  wrong ;  he  was  simply  asked  by 
Dr.  Myers  or  myself  what  he  felt.  Mr.  Smith  kept  perfect 
silence  throughout. 

"  I.  Mr.  Smith  was  pinched,  by  one  of  the  experimenters, 
on  the  right  upper  arm.  Conway  localized  very  nearly  the 
corresponding  place  on  the  left  arm,  and  then  the  right  spot 
on  the  right  arm. 

"2.  Mr.  Smith's  right  foot  was  pressed.  Conway  began 
to  move  his  right  leg  uneasily,  and  complained  of  pain  from 
the  foot  upward. 

"  3.  Mr.  Smith's  right  little  finger  was  pinched.  Con- 
way complained  of  pain  in  the  right  shoulder. 

1  Reported  by  Edmund  Gnrney  to  S.  P.  R.,  Proceedings,  vol.  ii.,  Part  vi., 

pp.  205-6. 


SENSE   OF   TASTE    TRANSFERRED       295 

"4.  The  lower  lobe  of  Mr.  Smith's  left  ear  was  pinched. 
Conway  complained  that  the  hair  above  his  right  ear  was 
being  pulled. 

"  5.  Mr.  Smith's  right  upper  eyelid  was  pinched.  Con- 
way complained  of  pain  in  the  forehead. 

"  6.  Mr.  Smith's  left  popliteal  space  was  pinched.  Con- 
way complained  of  pain  in  the  lower  third  of  the  left  thigh. 

"  7.  Mr.  Smith  was  pinched  in  the  right  lumbar  region. 
Conway  complained  of  pain  in  the  left  hypochondrium  and 
lumbar  region. 

"  In  the  next  set  of  trials  there  was  no  contact  whatever 
between  Mr.  Smith  and  Conway.  Nor  was  Conway  (who 
was  still  in  the  hypnotic  state)  informed  before  the  experi- 
ments began  of  what  nature  they  were  to  be.  Standing  at 
some  distance  behind  him,  I  suddenly  and  silently  gave  Mr. 
Smith  some  salt,  motioning  to  him  to  put  it  into  his  mouth. 
He  did  so;  and  Conway  instantly  and  loudly  exclaimed, 
'What's  this  salt  stuff.?' 

I  now  gave  Mr.  Smith 
in  succession—  Conway  said— 

Sugar "  Sweeter ;  not  so  bad  as  before. " 

Citric  Acid *'  Bitter ;  something  worse — a  little  reminds  me  of 

cayenne — sweety." 

A  Raspberry  Drop ^'  A  sweetish  taste — like  sugar." 

Salt "I  told  you  I  liked  sweet  things,  not  Jd;//— such 

a  mixture." 

Cloves "Don't  like  it;  hot — little  bit  of  honey  mixed 

with  it." 

Salt *'  Something  acid,  salty — first  one  thing,  then  an- 
other— like  brine." 

Powdered  Ginger. "  Hot ;  dries  your  mouth  up."  Don't  like  it— re- 
minds me  of  mustard." 

Sugar "A  little  better — a  sweetish  taste." 

Powdered  Alum "You  call  that  sweet,  do  you?     Brackish  and 

bitter  this — enough  to  skin  your  mouth  out, 
bitter." 

Cayenne  Pepper "It's  hot,  and  there  is  some  sugar  in  it,  just  to 

soften  it  over  a  bit.  It  is  hot— you  would 
feel  hot,  I  can  tell  you." 

Cloves "  Not  so  very  much  better,  but  it's  sweeter ;  it's 

sugar,  only  something  else  witli  it." 

Vinegar Conway  had  sunk  into  a  deeper  hypnotic  sleep, 

and  made  no  remark. 


296    FAILURES  AND  SUCCESSES  REPORTED 

Experiments  in  Thought-Transference,  by  Malcolm 
Guthrie  and  James  Birch  all,  Honorary  Secretary 
OF  THE  Liverpool  Literary  and  Philosophical  So- 
ciety 

"Throughout  the  series  Mr.  Smith  preserved  perfect 
silence,  and  the  only  remarks  made  by  Dr.  Myers  and  myself 
were  brief  inquiries  as  to  what  Conway  tasted,  with  an  occa- 
sional word  calculated  to  mislead  him. 

"  These  are  not  picked  results ;  only  one  other  series  of 
experiments  has  been  made  with  Conway,  and  these  are 
fully  reported  in  Part  V.  of  the  Proceedings. " 

The  following  are  the  results  of  two  sittings  given  entire :  * 

April  25,  1883. 

Present:  Mr.  Guthrie,  Mr.  Birchall,  Principal  Kendall,  M.A.,  Mr.  E. 
Davies,  F.C.S.;  and  Miss  R— d.  Miss  J.,  Miss  E.,  and  Miss  R. 


Agent. 


Miss  R. 


All  present . 


All  present. 


All  present. 


ATI  present.    Miss  R 


Percipient. 


MissE, 


Miss  R 


MissR 


Miss  R. 


Object. 


Word     "  Puella,' 
letter  by  letter. 


A  diamond  of  blue 
silk  on  black 
satin. 

A  dark  green 
circle  of  silk  on 
satin. 

A  terra-cotta 
meerschaum 
pipe,  glazed  at 
the  mouthpiece; 
the  stem  joined 
to  the  bowl  by  a 
carved  bird's 
claw. 


A  small  toy  dog, 
colored  light 
brown,  with  tail 
extended,  and  in 
the  act  of  leap- 
ing. 


Result. 


"  Q  "  named  the  first  ..  . 
then  "P."  The  other 
letters  beginning  with 
the  U  named  correctly 
at  the  first  answer. 

"Is  it  a  diamond  ?" 

"  Is  it  dark  green?  Can't 
see  the  shape." 

"Is  it  yellow?  .  .  .  does 
not  seem  to  be  all  yel- 
low .  .  .  only  one  part 
of  it  .  .  .  Can't  see  the 
shape  well  ...  all  con- 
fused .  .  .  Do  not  know 
what  it  is  ...  seem  to 
be  a  lot  of  stems  .  .  . 
It  looks  like  this  "  (tra- 
cing an  imaginary  curve 
in  the  air),  "  with  claws  " 
(the  percipient  here 
shaped  her  fingers  like 
claws). 

"  Is  it  green?  ...  I  can 
see  something,  like  with 
a  lot  of  branches  .  .  . 
Can't  count  them — look 
too  many — like  a  long 
stem— so — "    (tracing    a 


267-8 


>  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical   Research,  vol.  i.,  Part  iv.,    pp. 


"IT   IS   AN    ORANGE" 


297 


Agent. 


All  present. 


All  present. 
All  present. 


MissE. 

MissE. 
Mr.  B.. 

Miss  R. 
Miss  R. 

None.  . 


Miss  R— d.. 


Miss  R—d.. 


Percipient. 


Miss  R 


Miss  R 

Miss  R 

Miss  R 


Miss  R 

Miss  E 


MissR 


Miss  E... 


Miss  R . 
placed  i  n 
the  next 
room  with 
Mr.  B. 


MissR 


MissR 


Object. 


A  dark  crimson 
apple,  brought 
in  by  Mr.  B., 
who  had  been 
out  for  some  ob- 
jects that  had 
not  been  pre- 
viously thought 
of. 

An  orange 

An  electroplated 
teaspoon. 

A    bright  steel 
door  key. 


A  red  ivory  ball . . 
A  cross  of  yellow 

silk   on    black 

satin. 
The  same 


"Tom."  All  the 
letters  fixed  up 
to  be  read  at 
once. 

A  gold  watch. 
Miss  R.  was  to 
describe  this 
from  the  next 
room — Mr.  B. 
taking  her  de- 
scription down. 

A  jug,  cut  out  in 
white  cardboard. 


A  five-barred  gate , 
cut  out  in  card- 
board. 


Result. 


horizontal  line  in  the  air) 
"with  things  down" 
(tracing  lines  downward). 
"  Looks  to  be  a  lighter 
color  now  .  .  .  not  green 
as  at  first,  .  .  .  but  now 
it  looks  like  an  animal. 
Can't  see  any  more." 
Is  it  round?  ...  a  dark 
red  shade  .  .  like  a  knob 
off  a  drawer.  .  .  It  is  an 
apple." 


"It  is  not  another  apple . . . 

it  is  an  orange." 
"Is  it  very  bright   .    .   . 

either  steel  or  silver  .  .  . 

is  it  a  spoon  ?  " 
"It    is    something    very 

bright — and  round  ...  Is 

it  a  brooch  ?  .  .  .  Silver, 

I  think." 
"Is  it  yellow?" 
No  answer. 


"It  looks  light .  .  .  yellow 
like.  Seems  like  a  lot 
of  rings  .  .  .  Is  it  round? 
.  .  Can't  see  any  shape." 

"Are  there  three  letters? 
.  .  .  one  is  an  O  .  .  . 
one  is  a  '  stroky '  letter 
.  .  .  Is  it  T?  .  .  .  oh, 
it's  Tom." 

A  failure. 


Can  not  see  any  color  . .  . 
looks  all  light  .  .  .  Is  it 
a  cup  ?  There  is  a  handle; 
oh,  it  is  a  jug." 
Same  color  as  the  last . . . 
seem  to  be  lines  across 
...  do  not  know  what 
it  is  .  .  .  seems  to  be 
nothing  but  lines." 


298 


SERIES   OF   TWELVE    DRAWINGS 


Agent. 


Miss  R-— d. 


Miss  R— d. 


All  present. 
Miss  R— d.. 


All  present. 


Percipient. 


Miss  R. 


Miss  R. 


Miss  R. 
MissR. 


MissR. 


object. 


An  electroplated 
egg  cup. 


A  toy  cat,  white, 
with  black 
stripes  radiating 
from  the  back, 
which  was  darkly 
shaded. 


Six  of  diamonds, 
Same 


A  white  toy  bird. 


Result. 


Is  it  a  narrow  stem — go- 
ing on  till  it  gets  wide? 
...  Is  it  a  wine-glass? — 
Seems  bright .  .  .  seems 
to  be  silver." 
Is  it  very  dark?  ...  Is 
it  a  card  ?  .  .  .  White  all 
round  .  .  .  like  with  a 
black  center  .  .  .  Seems 
to  be  crimped  in  and  out. 
Is  there  more  than  one 
color  in  the  center  ?  Do 
not  know  what  it  is — 
can't  see  any  shape  at 
all." 

Is  it  yellow?" 
Is  it  square?  .  .  A  card. 
Red  .  .  .  can  not  tell  how 
many  spots  .  .  .  seem  to 
be  two  or  three,  one  over 
the  other  .  .  .  Diamonds. 
Can  not  see  the  number. 
Card  seems  moving 
about." 

'Is  it  white?  .  .  .  Seems 
to  have  no  shape . "  Then 
placed  in  contact,  first 
with  Principal  Rendall, 
second  with  Miss  R — d, 
but  no  nearer  approach 
made.  The  percipient 
had  now  been  subject  to 
a  very  long  examination. 


A  Series  of  Twelve  Drawings  by  Thought- 
Transference  * 

[The  reproductions  described  in  this  paper  are  drawn  by 
impression.  The  experiments  were  conducted  by  Malcolm 
Guthrie,  J.P.,  and  James  Birchall,  honorary  secretary  of  the 
Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  Liverpool.  In  the 
twenty  years  since  these  experiments  were  made  there  have 
been  a  great  number  of  confirmatory  ones  witnessed,  giving, 
as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says,  a  sure  scientific  basis  to  telepathy.] 

"  The  originals  of  the  following  diagrams  were  for  the 

» Reported  to  S.  P.  R.,  by  Malcolm  Guthrie,  Proceedings,  vol.  i.,  Part  v.,  pp. 
34-48- 


TEST   CONDITIONS 


299 


most  part  drawn  in  another  room  from  that  in  which  the 
'  subject '  was  placed.     The  few  executed  in  the  same  room 


NO.  X.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  I.  REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E.    No  contact. 


NO.  2.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  2.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E.    No  contact. 


were  drawn  while  the  '  subject    was  blindfolded,  at  a  dis- 
tance from  her,  and  in  such  a  way  that  the  process  would 


300        WONDERFULLY   SUCCESSFUL 

have  been  wholly  invisible  to  her  or  any  one  else,  even  had 
an  attempt  been  made  to  observe  it.     During  the  process  of 


NO.  3.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  3.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E. 
No  contact. 


NO.  4.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  4.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E. 
No  contact. 


transference,    the    '  agent  *   looked   steadily   and  in   perfect 
silence  at  the  original  drawing,  which  was  placed  upon  an 


RECIPIENT   BLINDFOLDED 


301 


intervening  wooden  stand;  the  '  subject '  sitting  opposite  to 
him,  and  behind  the  stand,  blindfolded  and  quite  still.     The 


No.  5.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  5,     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E. 
No  contact. 


NO.  6.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Guthrie  and  Miss  E.    No  contact. 


NO.  6.   REPRODUCTION. 


Miss  E.  almost  directly  said,  "Are  you  thinking  of  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  with 
shells  and  fishes? "  and  then,  "Is  it  a  snail  or  a  fish  ?"— then  drew  as  above. 

*  agent '  ceased  looking  at  the  drawing,  and  the  blindfolding 
was   removed,  only  when   the  '  subject '  professed  herself 


302 


FRAUD    IMPOSSIBLE 


ready  to  make  the  reproduction,  which  happened  usually  in 
times  varying  from  half  a  minute  to  two  or  three  minutes. 
Her  position  rendered  it  absolutely  impossible  that  she  should 
glimpse  at  the  original.     She  could  not  have  done  so,  in  fact, 


NO.  7.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Gurney  and  Miss  R.    Contact  for  half  a  minute  before  the  reproduction 

was  drawn. 


No.  7.     REPRODUCTION. 


without  rising  from  her  seat  and  advancing  her  head  several 
feet ;  and  as  she  was  almost  in  the  same  line  of  sight  as  the 
drawing,  and  so  almost  in  the  center  of  the  '  agent's '  field 
of  observation,  the  slightest  approach  to  such  a  movement 


UNDER   CLOSEST   OBSERVATION     303 

must  have  been  instantly  detected.  The  reproductions  were 
made  in  perfect  silence,  and  without  the  '  agent '  even  fol- 
lowing the  actual  process  with  his  eyes,  tho  he  was  of  course 
able  to  keep  the  *  subject '  under  the  closest  observation. 


No.  8.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  8.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr,  Gurney  and  Miss  R.    No  contact. 


No.  9.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Birchall  and  Miss  R.    No  contact. 

NO.  9.     REPRODUCTION. 


Miss  R.  said  she  seemed  to  see  a  lot  of  rings,  as  if  they  were  moving,  and  she  could 
not  get  them  steadily  before  her  eyes. 

"  In  the  case  of  all  the  diagrams,  except  those  numbered 
7  and  8,  the  *  agent  *  and  the  *  subject '  were  the  only  two 
persons  in  the  room  during  the  experiment.  In  the  case  of 
numbers  7  and  8,  the  '  agent '  and  *  subject '  were  sitting 


3^4 


A   CONSECUTIVE   SERIES 


quite  apart  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  while  Mr.  Guthrie  and 
Miss  E.  were  talking  in  another  part  of  it.     Numbers  i-6 


NO.  lo.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  lo.     REPRODUCTION, 


Mr.  Birchall  and  Miss  R.    No  contact. 


NO.  II.     ORIGIMAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Birchall  and  Miss  E.    No  contact. 


are  specially  interesting  as  being  the  complete  and  consecu- 
tive series  of  a  single  sittting." 


TELEPATHY   BEYOND   DOUBT       305 

As  already  said,  these  experiments  by  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  and  the  other  experiments  since  made  by 

NO.  12.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Steel  and  Miss  R.    No  contact. 


NO.  12.     REPRODUCTION. 


this  society  and  by  others,  leave  no  reasonable  doubt  of  the 

fact  of  telepathy  or  thought-transference.     This  being  a  fact, 
20 


3o6 


EVIDENTIAL   MISTAKES 


NO.  13.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.  13.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Steel  and  Miss  E.    Contact  before  the 
reproduction  was  made. 


NO.   14.      ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


NO.   14.     REPRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Hughes  and  Miss  E.    Contact  before 
the  reproduction  was  made. 


Miss  E.  said,  "A  box  or  chair  badly 
shaped  "—then  drew  as  above. 


TELEPATHY   EXPLAINS   ALL 


307 


is  there  any  need  of  the  spirit  hypothesis  to  explain  psychic 
phenomena?  Does  not  telepathy  explain  all?  Let  the 
reader  apply  telepathy  as  revealed  in  the  above  experiments  to 
all  the  facts  which  have  been  given  in  this  book,  and  to  those 


NO.   15.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Hughes  and  Miss  B.    No  contact. 


NO.  15.     REPRODUCTION. 


Miss  E.  said,  "It  is  like  a  mask  at  a  pantomime,"  and  immediately  drew  as  above. 

that  are  yet  to  be  given,  and  then  make  answer  for  himself.  I 
submitted  this  question  to  a  spirit-control  at  a  circle,  to  see 
what  answer  would  be  given  by  the  curious  intelligence  that 
dominated  there,  and  the  response  was  prompt : 


3o8 


SOUL  TALKING   WITH    SOUL 


"  Foolish  men,  do  you  not  see  that  what  you  call  telepa- 
thy is  the  communication  of  soul  with  soul  ?     In  telepathic 


NO.  i6.     ORIGINAL  DRAWING. 


Mr.  Hughes  and  Miss  E.    No  contact. 


NO.  i6.     REPRODUCTION. 


experiments  you  are  blunderingly  using  the  method  of  com- 
munication which  you  will  use  when  free  from    the  body, 


A   SPIRITS    EXPLANATION  309 

and  which  the  spirit  world  uses  ordinarily  in  communicating 
thoughts  direct  to  mortals.  It  is  in  this  way  we  impress  the 
mind  of  mortals.  But  go  forward  with  your  experiments. 
They  are  steps  in  the  stairway  that  will  give  humanity  by 
and  by  a  glimpse  of  the  reality  of  spirit  communings.  The 
sounds  that  reach  your  mind  through  the  ear  are  waves  on 
your  coarse  atmosphere;  the  sounds  that  reach  your  soul  are 
waves  that  reach  your  spiritual  hearing  through  waves  on 
what  you  rightly  may  call  thought  ether.  To  the  soul  all 
languages  are  one.  Mere  physical  utterances  or  lip  talk  do 
not  reach  us." 

Then  we  should  carefully  consider  just  how  much  weight 
should  be  given  to  this  fact :  The  two  names  most  closely 
connected  with  the  investigation  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  have  been  those  of  Frederic  Myers  and  Richard 
Hodgson.  Both  of  these  men  carefully  weighed  the  evi- 
dence brought  to  light  in  favor  of  telepathy  and  against  the 
spiritual  hypothesis.  Both  started  in  the  investigation  firmly 
convinced  that  there  was  no  truth  in  the  spiritual  hypothesis, 
and  both  finally  reached  the  point  that  telepathy  explained 
much,  but  not  all,  and  that  there  was  solid  reason  for  believ- 
ing that  some  of  the  phenomena  could  not  be  accounted  for 
except  on  the  spirit  hypothesis. 

II 

CLAIRAUDIENCE 

Hearing  Independent  of  the  Ear — Socrates — Bible  P^'ophets 
— -Joan  of  Arc — The  Wife  of  an  Officer  on  the  Arctic 
Steamer  ^Jeannette^^ — Hearing  the  Voice  of  a  Brother  a 
Thousand  Miles  Distant 

The  hearing  of  voices  in  ways  which  can  not  be  explained 
by  any  known  law  is  a  common  psychic  phenomenon.  Often 
these  voices  seem  to  be  in  the  mind,  or  subjective;  at  other 
times  objective;  often,  very  often,  they  are  illusions,  more 
or  less  insane. 


3IO  SOCRATES'S   SPIRIT    GUIDE 

Students  of  classic  history  will  recall  the  "  invisible 
voice  "  that  was  to  Socrates  a  guide  all  of  his  life,  a  voice  he 
scrupulously  obeyed,  saying  at  one  time :  "  I  am,  it  seems,  a 
prophet  but  only  just  enough  for  my  private  use  and  bene- 
fit." Xenophon,  in  his  "Memorabilia,"  makes  the  fact  that 
Socrates  heard  this  voice  a  proof  that  he  was  not  an  atheist ; 
and  Plato  records  instances  of  this  voice  being  heeded  by 
Socrates.  In  obedience  to  it  he  was  silent  when  a  few  words 
at  his  trial  would  have  saved  his  life — silent,  tho  urged  to 
speak  by  his  friends. 

A  story  is  told  by  Plutarch  that  illustrates  how  even 
in  trivial  matters  it  was  believed  that  Socrates  was  thus 
guided.  At  one  time  he  and  his  friends  were  out  walking 
when  this  voice  warned  Socrates  of  danger.  He  called  to  his 
friends  to  turn  back  by  another  street.  Some  did  so ;  others 
went  on  and  had  a  sad  experience  with  a  great  herd  of  swine. 

Joan  of  Arc  from  childhood  heard  many  voices  and  con- 
versed with  them,  and  conformed  her  life  to  what  she  believed 
to  be  their  instruction.  Thus  directed,  though  a  simple- 
minded,  uneducated,  rustic  girl,  she  baffled  generals  on  the 
battle-field,  and  outwitted  the  highest  dignitaries  of  church 
and  state.  Whence  this  extraordinary  intelligence  ?  From 
the  subjective  mind?  Possibly.  But  what  foundations  have 
we  for  this  belief  ^  Does  it  stand  the  test  of  Science  ?  Science 
here  must  be  as  exacting  in  its  demands  as  it  is  with  Spirit- 
ualism. 

The  Bible  records  many  experiences  with  voices.  Samuel 
is  awakened  out  of  his  sleep  by  a  voice  calling,  "  Samuel, 
Samuel."  The  prophets  constantly  hear  voices.  Saul  on 
his  way  to  Damascus  hears  a  "  voice. "  Were  these  voices 
all  subjective.-*  It  seems  not;  for  sometimes  these  voices 
are  heard  by  many  at  the  same  instant,  as  when  the  mul- 
titude heard  the  voice  that  spake  to  Christ,  some  thinking 
"that  it  thundered."  Can  a  subjective  voice  be  heard  by 
many  different  persons  ? 

Do  you  say ;  "  But  the  Bible  voices  are  miracles  "  ?  How 


cc 


SIX    BELLS— JEANNP:TTE    LOST"       311 


do  you  know  that  they  are  miracles  ?  How  do  you  know 
that  they  are  not  heard  in  strict  accordance  with  some  natural 
law  that  we  have  not  as  yet  discovered ;  that  Christ  and  Paul 
and  the  prophets  and  Socrates  and  Joan  of  Arc  presented 
the  conditions  that  make  it  possible  for  these  voices  to  be- 
come audible  ? 

A  few  years  ago  the  wife  of  one  of  the  officers  on  board  of 
th^Jeannette — the  vessel  sent  by  the  New  York  Herald  to 
explore  the  polar  seas — wrote  to  me  that  one  night  she  was 
suddenly  awakened  and  was  amazed  to  see  her  husband  at 
her  bedside.  He  said  to  her,  "Count,  count."  She  says 
that  she  heard  distinctly  a  ship  bell.  She  heard  the  word 
again,  "  Count. "  She  counted  six  strokes,  when  he  said, 
"Six  bells,  and  tho. Jeannette  is  lost,"  and  the  vision  disap- 
peared. She  wrote  that "  Xh^Jeannette  was  lost  at  the  time  I 
had  that  vision." 

Two  Persons  in  Brooklyn  Hear  at  the  Same  Time  the 
Voice  of  a  Brother  in  Texas 

Miss  Ella  Stainthorp,  who  makes  the  following  affidavit, 
lives  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  She  is  a  woman  of  good  standing. 
She  and  her  friend.  Miss  O'Brien,  kindly  consented  to  put 
the  facts  in  the  form  of  an  affidavit.  I  am  indebted  to 
Judge  Dailey,  who  is  well  acquainted  with  the  parties  con- 
cerned, for  this  affidavit : 

"  I,  Ella  Stainthorp,  residing  at  No.  1015  Lafayette  Ave- 
nue, Borough  of  Brooklyn,  city  of  New  York,  being  duly 
sworn,  do  depose  and  say :  that  I  am  of  the  age  of  thirty- five 
years  and  unmarried,  and  at  the  time  of  the  occurrences  here- 
inafter named  resided  at  1096  Lafayette  Avenue  aforesaid, 
with  my  mother,  Ella  Stainthorp,  and  my  sister,  Jennie 
Stainthorp,  aged  fifty-five  years,  and  my  brother,  William, 
aged  forty  years. 

"  We  had  a  brother  George,  aged  about  fifty,  who  had 
been  absent  from  home  two  years  in  the  South.  We  had  not 
heard  from  him  for  two  years.  We  had  written  to  him, 
directing  our  letters,  some  to  Galveston,  and  others  to  Hous- 


312        HEARD   A   THOUSAND    MILES 

ton,  Texas.  We  received  no  replies,  and  after  a  while  our 
letters  all  came  back,  and  we  were  apprehensive  that  he  had 
been  drowned  in  the  great  flood  at  Galveston,  Texas. 

"  We  finally  decided  to  make  one  more  effort,  and  sent  a 
registered  letter  with  a  money  order  in  it,  payable  to  his 
order,  and  posted  it  to  Houston,  Texas,  on  the  25th  day  of 
February,  1903. 

"  The  evening  that  the  letter  was  posted  we  were  talking 
the  matter  over  in  the  family,  and  my  brother  William  said 
that  he  would  himself  write  in  the  morning  and  see  what  he 
could  do  toward  getting  a  reply  from  George.  This  was  a 
cold  night,  and  my  brother  William  had  in  his  room  a  gas- 
stove  ;  he  kissed  his  mother  good-night  and  retired,  saying  he 
was  going  to  light  the  gas-stove  and  get  the  room  warm, 
which  he  evidently  did,  intending  to  get  up  and  undress  him- 
self when  the  room  was  warm  and  turn  off  the  gas,  and  with 
this  intention  he  evidently  lay  down  upon  his  bed  and  fell 
asleep,  for  in  this  position  he  was  found  dead  between  the 
hours  of  one  and  two  the  next  morning. 

"  The  rest  of  the  family  retired,  and  between  the  hours 
of  one  and  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  awoke  with  a  strange 
feeling  over  me,  being  impelled  from  some  strong  impulse  to 
get  up  and  look  out  the  door  of  my  room  into  the  hall ;  and 
when  I  did  so  I  detected  the  odor  of  escaping  gas.  I  went 
downstairs  and  examined  the  gas  fixtures  in  the  hall  and  in 
the  parlor,  and  then  I  went  to  my  brother's  room,  where  I 
found  the  smell  of  gas  was  very  strong.  I  knocked  and  called 
at  the  door,  but  could  get  no  response ;  the  door  was  locked. 
So  I  called  my  sister  Jennie,  and  we  burst  in  the  door, 
and  found  my  brother  William  dead,  lying  upon  the  bed  with 
his  clothing  on. 

"The  third  night  after  this  occurrence,  Miss  Julia  A. 
O'Brien,  a  neighbor  and  intimate  friend,  sat  up  with  me  as 
watcher  of  the  corpse.  After  a  while  we  both  lay  down  ;  I 
fell  asleep,  but  Miss  O'Brien  kept  awake.  About  three 
o'clock  she  awoke  me,  saying  that  somebody  was  calling  me 
there  by  the  door.  Miss  O'Brien  arose  and  opened  the  door, 
looking  into  the  hall,  but  found  no  one  there ;  the  lights  were 
burning  and  everything  was  as  it  had  been  left.  I  raised 
myself  up,  and  the  voice  came  again,  saying:  'Nell,  Nell, 
letter.'  The  voice  I  heard  I  immediately  recognized  as  the 
voice  of  my  absent  brother  George.     I  arose  from  the  bed 


A   BROOKLYN    EXPERIENCE  313 

and  said :  *  Julia,  that  is  the  voice  of  George,  and  he  has  my 
letter.'  Miss  O'Brien  said  she  heard  the  voice  as  distinctly 
as  I  did.  *  Nell  '  is  the  name  by  which  George  usually  called 
me. 

"  Two  days  after  hearing  this  voice  we  received  a  letter 
in  answer  to  the  one  I  had  written  to  my  absent  brother 
George,  saying  that  he  had  received  the  letter  early  on  the 
morning  of  March  2,  1903,  which  it  will  be  noticed  was  the 
morning  when  we  heard  the  voice  calling  me  at  our  home  in 
Brooklyn.  In  his  letter  George  asks  :  *  Is  there  anything  the 
matter  with  Will.? ' 

*'  I  have  made  this  statement  by  request,  for  the  purpose 
of  furnishing  a  fact  to  be  investigated  and  determined  as  to 
the  method  or  means  by  which  this  communication  was  re- 
ceived from  my  brother  George,  he  having  no  knowledge  of 
the  decease  of  my  brother  William. 

"Ella  Stainthorp. 

"  Sworn  to  before  me  this  25  th  day  of  July,  1903. 

"  Wm.  W.  Hulst, 
"  Commissioner  of  Deeds  of  the  City  of  New  Yorky 
Residing  in  the  Borough  of  Brooklyn. 

"  State  of  New  York  ) 
County  of  Kings     ) 

"Julia  A.  O'Brien,  being  duly  sworn,  deposes  and  says 
that  she  resides  at  iioo  Greene  Avenue,  in  the  Borough  of 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. ;  that  she  is  the  Julia  A.  O'Brien  referred 
to  in  the  foregoing  affidavit  made  by  Miss  Ella  Stainthorp ; 
that  she  has  read  the  foregoing  statement  made  by  her  and  is 
familiar  with  the  facts  therein  set  forth,  and  that  she  believes 
the  same  is  in  all  respects  true;  that  it  is  true  that  she  did 
distinctly  hear  a  voice  call  the  name,  '  Nell,  Nell ! '  as  therein 
stated,  while  her  friend.  Miss  Ella  Stainthorp,  was  asleep  in 
the  same  room,  while  she  was  watching  with  the  corpse  of 
her  deceased  brother  William ;  that  this  was  on  the  early 
morning  of  the  second  day  following  the  decease  of  the  said 
William;  that  the  voice  seemed  to  come  from  the  hall  into 
which  the  door  opened  to  the  room  where  she  and  Ella  were 
at  the  time ;  that  the  voice  was  clear  and  distinct ;  that  she 
awoke  the  said  Ella  and  told  her  some  one  called  her,  and 
deponent  at  once  arose  and  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it 


314         "THAT'S   GEORGE'S   VOICE" 

and  looked  out,  and  no  one  was  there,  the  hall  being  lighted 
at  the  time.  Neither  did  she  hear  anything.  All  was  quiet. 
She  returned  to  the  room  and  then  she  heard  the  voice  again 
distinctly  and  clearly  call,  '  Nell,  Nell,  letter.'  Miss  Stain- 
thorpe  at  once  exclaimed,  *  That's  George's  voice ;  he  has  got 
my  letter.'  The  voice  sounded  right  by  the  door  to  our 
room.  Julia  O'Brien. 

"  Sworn  to  before  me  this  25  th  day  of  July,  1903. 

"  Wm.  W.  Hulst, 
"  Commissioner  of  Deeds  of  the  City  of  New  York, 
Residing  i7t  the  Borough  of  Brooklyn^ 


A    Wife  Hears  the   Words  of  Her    Wounded  Husband  One 
Hundred  and  Fifty  Miles  Distant 

The  following  is  published  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research : ' 

"  We  are  acquainted  with,  but  not  at  liberty  to  publish, 
the  names  in  the  first  case,  which  is  related  by  the  wife  of 
General  R. 

"  'On  September  9,  1848,  at  the  siege  of  Mooltan,  Major- 
General  R.,  C.B.,  then  adjutant  of  his  regiment,  was  most 
severely  and  dangerously  wounded,  and,  supposing  himself 
dying,  asked  one  of  the  officers  with  him  to  take  the  ring  off 
his  finger  and  send  it  to  his  wife,  who  at  the  time  was  fully 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  distant,  at  Ferozepore. 

"  *  On  the  night  of  September  9,  1848,  I  was  lying  on  my 
bed,  between  sleeping  and  waking,  when  I  distinctly  saw  my 
husband  being  carried  off  the  field,  seriously  wounded,  and 
heard  his  voice  saying,  "  Take  this  ring  off  my  finger,  and 
send  it  to  my  wife."  All  the  next  day  I  could  not  get  the 
sight  or  the  voice  out  of  my  mind.  In  due  time  I  heard  of 
General  R.  having  been  severely  wounded  in  the  assault  on 
Mooltan.  He  survived,  however,  and  is  still  living.  It  was 
not  for  some  time  after  the  siege  that  I  heard  from  Colo- 
nel L.,  the  officer  who  helped  to  carry  General  R.  off  the 
field,  that  the  request  as  to  the  ring  was  actually  made  to  him, 
just  as  I  had  heard  it  at  Ferozepore  at  that  very  time. — M. 
A.  R.' " 

*  Proceedings,  vol.  i.,  Part  i.,  pp.  30,  31. 


IS   THE    VOICE   CARRIED    DIRECT?     315 


A  Prayer  Converted  into  a  Commmid 

Dr.  Joseph  Smith,  leading  physician  of  Warrington,  Eng- 
land, gives  the  following  from  his  own  personal  experience :  * 

"  I  was  sitting  one  evening  reading,  and  a  voice  came  to 
me  saying,  '  Send  a  loaf  to  James  Candy's. '  Still  I  con- 
tinued reading,  and  the  voice  came  to  me  again,  *  Send  a  loaf 
to  James  Candy's.'  Still  I  continued  reading,  when  a  third 
time  the  voice  came  to  me  with  greater  emphasis,  *  Send  a 
loaf  to  James  Candy's  ' ;  and  this  time  it  was  accompanied  by 
an  almost  irresistible  impulse  to  get  up.  I  obeyed  this  im- 
pulse, and  went  into  the  village,  bought  a  large  loaf,  and 
seeing  a  lad  at  the  shop  door,  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  James 
Candy's.  He  said  he  did ;  so  I  gave  him  a  trifle  and  asked 
him  to  take  the  loaf  there,  and  to  say  a  gentleman  had  sent 
it.  Mrs.  Candy  was  a  member  of  my  class,  and  I  went  down 
the  next  morning  to  see  what  had  come  of  it,  when  she  told 
me  that  a  strange  thing  had  happened  to  her  last  night.  She 
said  she  wanted  to  put  the  children  to  bed,  and  they  began  to 
cry  for  food,  and  she  had  not  any  to  give  them ;  for  her  hus- 
band had  been  for  four  or  five  days  out  of  work.  She  then 
went  to  prayer,  to  ask  Cod  to  send  them  something ;  soon 
after  which  a  lad  came  to  the  door  with  a  loaf,  which  he  said 
a  gentleman  gave  him  to  bring  to  her.  I  calculated,  upon 
inquiry  made  of  her,  that  her  prayer  and  the  voice  which  I 
heard  exactly  coincided  in  point  of  time. 

"Joseph  Smith,  M.D." 

Many  personal  experiences  similar  to  the  above  were  told 
me  from  time  to  time  by  the  late  Rev.  Mr.  Heydrick,  a  de- 
voted city  missionary  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  The  main  pyschic 
problem  to  be  solved  in  an  incident  of  this  kind  is  whether 
the  cry  or  prayer  is  conveyed  direct  from  the  agent  to  the 
percipient  or  whether  it  comes  through  intelligences  outside 
of  the  flesh. 

»  "Phantasms  of  the  Living,"  voL  ii.,  pp.  123, 124. 


3i6  WIRELESS  TELEGRAPHY 

The  Cry  of  a  Drowning  Boy  Heard  by  His  Mother 
AND  Sister  Thousands  of  Miles  Away 

The  account  of  this  incident*  is  from  Commander  T. 
Aylesbury  (formerly  of  the  Indian  navy),  of  Sutton,  Surrey, 
England.  The  vision  of  Commander  Aylesbury  we  probably 
would  be  justified  in  regarding  as  wholly  subjective,  the 
scene  being  such  a  one  as  a  drowning  person  might  vividly 
imagine. 

In  this  case  it  will  be  observed  that  a  number  of  persons 
heard  the  voice  at  the  same  time.  If  thought  transference 
be  the  correct  explanation  of  it,  it  would  seem  that  this 
thought  must  have  been  impressed  upon  the  different  minds 
by  something  objective.  Of  course  it  is  not  the  physical 
voice  that  is  carried,  but  it  is  possible  that  intense  psychic 
or  mental  excitement  may  make  waves  on  something  we 
may  call  psychic  ether  or  thought  ether,  and  that  these  waves 
enter  the  minds  of  all  who  are  in  harmony  with  the  trans- 
mitting soul  in  some  such  way  as  we  may  imagine  the 
waves  produced  by  the  transmitter  of  the  wireless  telegraph 
report  themselves  to  the  instruments  attuned  in  harmony 
with  the  transmitter,  be  they  one  or  a  thousand.  Wireless 
telegraphy  serves  me  well  as  an  illustration.  Is  this  the  ex- 
planation of  this  kind  of  phenomena,  or  is  the  explanation 
to  be  found  in  the  hypothesis  that  the  spirit  world  is  all  about 
us  and  to  it  distance  is  as  nothing,  and  that  this  spirit  world 
reports  at  times  to  us  what  is  taking  place  to  kindred  souls 
at  a  distance.**  Here  is  the  story  as  told  by  Commander 
Aylesbury : 

"  *  The  writer,  when  thirteen  years  of  age,  was  capsized 
in  a  boat,  when  landing  on  the  Island  of  Bally,  east  of  Java, 
and  was  nearly  drowned.  On  coming  to  the  surface,  after 
being  repeatedly  submerged,  the  boy  called  his  mother.  This 
amused  the  boat's  crew,  who  spoke  of  it  afterward,  and  jeered 
him  a  good  deal  about  it.  Months  after,  on  arrival  in  Eng- 
land, the  boy  went  to  his  home,  and,  while  telling  his  mother 

* "  Phantasms  of  the  Living,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  227,  228. 


((  ( 


VOICE   CALLING  "MOTHER"        317 

of  his  narrow  escape,  he  said :  "  While  I  was  under  water,  I 
saw  you  all  sitting  in  this  room ;  you  were  working  some- 
thing white.  I  saw  you  all — mother,  Emily,  Eliza,  and 
Ellen."  His  mother  at  once  said :  "  Why  yes,  and  I  heard 
you  cry  out  for  me,  and  I  sent  Emily  to  look  out  of  the  win- 
dow, for  I  remarked  that  something  had  happened  to  that 
poor  boy. "  The  time,  owing  to  the  difference  of  east  longi- 
tude, corresponded  with  the  time  when  the  voice  was  heard.' 
Commander  Aylesbury  adds  in  another  letter : 
I  saw  their  features  (my  mother's  and  sisters  '),  the 
room  and  the  furniture,  particularly  the  old-fashioned  Vene- 
tian blinds.     My  eldest  sister  was  seated  next  to  my  mother. ' 

"  Asked  as  to  the  time  of  the  accident,  Commander  Ayles- 
bury says : 

" '  I  think  the  time  must  have  been  very  early  in  the 
morning.  I  remember  a  boat  capsized  the  day  before  and 
washed  up.  The  mate  said  we  would  go  and  bring  her  off  in 
the  morning,  but  the  exact  time  I  can  not  remember.  It 
was  a  terrible  position,  and  the  surf  was  awful.  We  were 
knocked  end  over  end,  and  it  was  the  most  narrow  escape  I 
ever  had — and  I  have  had  many ;  but  this  one  was  so  im- 
pressed on  my  mind  with  the  circumstances — the  remarks 
and  jeers  of  the  men — "  Boy,  what  was  you  calling  for  your 
mother  for }  Do  you  think  she  could  pull  you  out  of  Davey 
Jones's  locker,"  etc.,  with  other  language  I  can  not  use.' 

"The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  written  to 
Commander  Aylesbury  by  one  of  his  sisters,  and  forwarded 
to  us  in  1883  : 

"  *  I  distinctly  remember  the  incident  you  mention  in  your 
letter  (the  voice  calling  "Mother");  it  made  such  an  im- 
pression on  my  mind,  I  shall  never  forget  it.  We  were  sit- 
ting quietly  at  work  one  evening ;  it  was  about  nine  o'clock. 
I  think  it  must  have  been  late  in  the  summer,  as  we  had  left 
the  street  door  open.  We  first  heard  a  faint  cry  of  "  Mother  "  ; 
we  all  looked  up,  and  said  to  one  another,  "  Did  you  hear 
that.?  Some  one  cried  out  'Mother.'"  We  had  scarcely 
finished  speaking  when  the  voice  again  called  "  Mother " 
twice  in  quick  succession,  the  last  cry  a  frightened,  agonizing 
cry.  We  all  started  up,  and  mother  said  to  me,  "  Go  to  the 
door  and  see  what  is  the  matter. "  I  ran  directly  into  the 
street  and  stood  some  few  minutes,  but  all  was  silent  and  not 
a  person  to  be  seen ;  it  was  a  lovely  evening,  not  a  breath 


3i8  CLAIRAUDIENCE   COMMON 

of  air.  Mother  was  sadly  upset  about  it.  I  remember  she 
paced  the  room,  and  feared  that  something  had  happened  to 
you.  She  wrote  down  the  date  the  next  day,  and  when  you 
came  home  and  told  us  how  near  you  had  been  drowned, 
and  the  time  of  day,  father  said  it  would  be  about  the  time 
nine  o'clock  would  be  with  us.  I  know  the  date  and  the 
time  corresponded.* 

"  [The  difference  of  time  at  the  two  places  is  a  little  more 
than  seven  hours ;  consequently  nine  in  the  evening  in  Eng- 
land would  correspond  with  *  very  early  in  the  morning '  of 
the  next  day  at  the  scene  of  the  accident.  But  the  incident 
happened  too  long  ago  for  memory  to  be  trusted  as  to  the 
exactitude  of  the  coincidence.]  " 

This  hearing  of  voices  is  a  far  more  common  experience 
than  is  usually  believed.  Of  course,  much  of  this  class  of 
phenomena  is  the  creation  of  the  imagination  and  much  is 
simply  coincidence,  but  there  is  a  large  remainder  that  must 
be  dealt  with  on  some  other  theory. 

Ill 

DISPLAY    OF    PSYCHIC    FORCE    INDEPENDENT 
OF   MUSCULAR   ACTION 

No  physical  effect  without  a  cause  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental dicta  of  science ;  but  a  scientist  greatly  errs  who  tells 
us  that  there  can  be  a  psychic  effect  without  a  cause,  and 
he  will  greatly  err  should  he  undertake  to  explain  mental  and 
spiritual  phenomena  on  a  physical  basis.  The  mind  is  a 
cause;  but  should  any  one  say,  because  you  can  not  find  this 
cause  by  chemical  analysis  or  by  test  of  the  scales  or  by  the 
microscope,  that  it  does  not  exist  ?  He  who  would  expect 
to  explain  a  field  of  wheat  by  physical  causes  alone  would 
go  astray.  One  of  the  chief  causes  that  we  have  a  field  of 
wheat  instead  of  a  field  of  thistles  is  the  will  of  the  farmer. 

In  the  study  of  psychic  phenomena  that  exhibit  themselves 
in  physical  ways,  the  claim  seems  reasonable  that  the  inves- 
tigator should  himself  have  a  well-developed  psychic  nature. 


CROOKES'S   ABIDING   FAITH  319 

Soul  interprets  soul,  as  love  interprets  love,  and  music, 
music.  This  is  a  law  that  does  not  seem  to  have  any  excep- 
tion, but  is  often  overlooked. 

In  the  study  of  psychic  phenomena  of  the  class  called  the 
"physical  order,"  the  physical  scientist  of  course  must  recog- 
nize that  these  phenomena  occur  on  the  physical  plane,  and 
hence  are  to  be  examined  by  physical  methods  of  investiga- 
tion to  find  the  physical  causes ;  but  unless  he  has  other  eyes, 
when  he  gets  to  the  end  of  his  investigations  he  will  say  sim- 
ply :  "  As  far  as  I  have  got  these  are  the  causes ;  the  physical 
causes  back  of  these  I  may  find  with  more  knowledge  and 
with  more  research."  Or  he  will  say,  *' There  is  some  trick 
here  which  I  can  not  explain."  He  has  eyes,  but  he  sees 
not,  and  hence  will  be  forever  a  skeptic.  There  will  always 
be  to  his  mind  a  cause  still  farther  back.  Such  a  one 
was  never  convinced  by  the  marvels  wrought  by  a  Christ  or 
an  apostle.  He  could  discern  the  coming  changes  of  the 
weather,  but  not  the  signs  of  psychic  movements.  There 
are  scientists  who  can  look  up  and  beyond.  One  who  has 
great  soul  development  may  be  none  the  less  exacting  with 
his  crucible  and  microscope  and  spectrum,  yet  to  him  the  soul 
of  man  is  more  manifest  than  the  hair  that  covers  the  head, 
more  manifest  than  the  skin,  flesh,  and  bone ;  so  to  such  a 
one  God  and  the  spirit  world  may  be  the  most  manifest  of 
actualities. 

Experiments  by  Sir  William  Crookes 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  Mr.  Crookes  utterly  denies 
the  statement  that  has  been  widely  published,  to  the  effect 
he  now  recognizes  that  he  was  wrong  in  his  investiga- 
tions in  the  seventies  which  he  at  that  time  published  in  TJie 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Science  (himself  the  editor),  and  since  in 
book  form  under  the  title  "  Crookes's  Researches  in  Modern 
Spiritualism."  In  several  recent  utterances  Mr.  Crookes 
says  that  the  facts  which  he  recorded  in  those  scientific  in- 
vestigations he  believes  now  were  facts  as  much  as  he  believed 


320        GUFFAW  GREETED   CROOKE3 

then  that  they  were  facts,  and  he  sees  no  reason  to  change  his 
mind  as  to  the  good  faith  of  the  mediums  through  whom  he 
made  these  experiments.  Now  Mr.  Crookes,  like  many  of  the 
rest  of  us,  would  interpret  these  facts — at  least  many  of  them 
— from  the  viewpoint  of  telepathy.  But  intelligences  out- 
side of  the  flesh,  as  well  as  inside  of  the  flesh,  may  be  able 
to  use  telepathy.  Telepathy  means  simply  a  method  by 
which  mind  communes  with  mind  in  a  direct  way  or  inde- 
pendent of  the  physical  senses.  This  we  can  easily  believe 
to  be  true  whether  the  mind  is  in  a  body  or  outside  of  a 
body. 

Sir  William  Crookes  is  one  of  the  three  really  great  scien- 
tists living  to-day  in  England ;  Lord  Kelvin  and  Alfred  Rus- 
sel  Wallace  are  the  other  two.  That  was  a  bright  galaxy  of 
English  scientists  in  1870 :  Darwin,  Huxley,  Tyndal,  Thomp- 
son (Kelvin),  Wallace,  Crookes — and  not  the  least  brilliant 
star  in  it  was  Crookes. 

Those  who  remember  thirty- three  years  back  will  recall 
easily  the  bombshell  exploded  by  Crookes  in  the  camp  of 
scientists — the  one  to  which  he  refers  in  his  presidential 
address  in  1898  at  Bristol.  Crookes  had  determined,  with 
the  approval  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  of  his  scientific 
brethren,  to  investigate  scientifically  the  so-called  "  spiritual 
or  psychic  phenomena  "  that  were  at  that  time  making  much 
noise  in  the  world.  In  the  July  number,  1870,  of  The  Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Science  y  he  published  his  first  paper  on  **  Ex- 
perimental Investigation  of  a  New  Force,"  announcing  that 
his  experiments  had  demonstrated  to  his  mind  the  existence 
of  a  psychic  force  controlled  by  an  intelligence  unknown  to 
science. 

The  guffaw  which  greeted  this  announcement,  the  incre- 
dulity, derision,  and  persecution  which  followed,  do  not  make 
a  bright  page  in  the  history  of  modern  science. 

Nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  the  spirit  with 
which  Mr.  Crookes  undertook  these  investigations.  He  was 
not  then  a  Spiritualist,  but  a  scientist  in  search  of  scientific 


CROOKES'S   PURPOSE  321 

truth.  Read  carefully  his  explanation  of  his  purposes  and 
methods  as  published  by  himself  at  the  outset  of  his  investi- 
gations : ' 

"  I  consider  it  the  duty  of  scientific  men,  who  have  learned 
exact  modes  of  working,  to  examine  phenomena  which  attract 
the  attention  of  the  public,  in  order  to  confirm  their  genuine- 
ness or  to  explain  if  possible  the  delusions  of  the  honest  and 
to  expose  the  tricks  of  deceivers.  .  .   . 

"  A  man  may  be  a  true  scientific  man,  and  yet  agree  with 
Professor  de  Morgan  when  he  says :  '  I  have  both  seen  and 
heard,  in  a  manner  which  would  make  unbelief  impossible, 
things  called  spiritual,  which  can  not  be  taken  by  a  rational 
being  to  be  capable  of  explanation  by  imposture,  coincidence, 
or  mistake.  So  far  I  feel  the  ground  firm  under  me;  but 
when  it  comes  to  what  is  the  cause  of  these  phenomena,  I 
find  I  can  not  adopt  any  explanation  which  has  yet  been  sug- 
gested. .  .  .  The  physical  explanations  which  I  have  seen 
are  easy,  but  miserably  insufficient.  The  spiritual  hypothe- 
sis is  sufficient,  but  ponderously  difficult. ' 

"  Regarding  the  sufficiency  of  the  explanation,  I  am  not 
able  to  speak.  That  certain  physical  phenomena,  such  as  the 
movement  of  material  substances  and  the  production  of  sounds 
resembling  electric  discharges,  occur  under  circumstances  in 
which  they  can  not  be  explained  by  any  physical  law  at  pres- 
ent known,  is  a  fact  of  which  I  am  as  certain  as  I  am  of  the 
most  elementary  fact  in  chemistry.  My  whole  scientific  edu- 
cation has  been  one  long  lesson  in  exactness  of  observation, 
and  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  that  this  firm  con- 
viction is  the  result  of  most  careful  investigation.  But  I  can 
not  at  present  hazard  even  the  most  vague  hypothesis  as  to 
the  cause  of  the  phenomena.  Hitherto  I  have  seen  nothing 
to  convince  me  of  the  truth  of  the  '  spiritual '  theory.  In 
such  an  inquiry  the  intellect  demands  that  the  spiritual  proof 
must  be  absolutely  incapable  of  being  explained  away ;  it  must 
be  so  strikingly  and  convincingly  true  that  we  can  not,  dare 
not  deny  it. 

"  Faraday  says  :  *  Before  we  proceed  to  consider  any  ques- 
tion involving  physical  principles,  we  should  set  out  with 
clear  ideas  of  the  naturally  possible  and  impossible.'  But 
this  appears  like  reasoning  in  a  circle ;  we  are  to  investigate 

1  Preface  to  early  edition  of  Crookes's  "Researches  in  Spiritualism." 
21 


322  "BE   SURE   OF   FACTS" 

nothing  till  we  know  it  to  be  possible ^  while  we  can  not  say 
what  is  impossible,  outside  pure  mathematics,  till  we  know 
everything. 

"  In  the  present  case  I  prefer  to  enter  upon  the  inquiry 
with  no  preconceived  notions  whatever  as  to  what  can  or  can 
not  be,  but  with  all  my  senses  alert  and  ready  to  convey  in- 
formation to  the  brain ;  believing,  as  I  do,  that  we  have  by 
no  means  exhausted  all  human  knowledge  or  fathomed  the 
depths  of  all  the  physical  forces,  and  remembering  that  the 
great  philosopher  already  quoted  said,  in  reference  to  some 
speculations  on  the  gravitating  force,  '  Nothing  is  too  won- 
derful to  be  true,  if  it  be  consistent  with  the  laws  of  nature ; 
and  in  such  things  as  these  experiment  is  the  best  test  of 
such  consistency.' 

"  The  modes  of  reasoning  of  scientific  men  appear  to  be 
generally  misunderstood  by  Spiritualists  with  whom  I  have 
conversed,  and  the  reluctance  of  the  trained  scientific  mind 
to  investigate  this  subject  is  frequently  ascribed  to  unworthy 
motives.  I  think,  therefore,  it  will  be  of  service  if  I  here 
illustrate  the  modes  of  thought  current  among  those  who  in- 
vestigate science,  and  say  what  kind  of  experimental  proof 
science  has  a  right  to  demand  before  admitting  a  new  depart- 
ment of  knowledge  into  her  ranks.  We  must  not  mix  up  the 
exact  and  the  inexact.  The  supremacy  of  accuracy  must  be 
absolute. 

"  The  first  requisite  is  to  be  sure  of  facts ;  then  to  ascer- 
tain conditions;  next,  laws.  Accuracy  and  knowledge  of 
detail  stand  foremost  among  the  great  aims  of  modern  scien- 
tific men.  No  observations  are  of  much  use  to  the  student 
of  science  unless  they  are  truthful  and  made  under  test  con- 
ditions ;  and  here  I  find  the  great  mass  of  spiritualistic  evi- 
dence to  fail.  In  a  subject  which,  perhaps,  more  than  any 
other  lends  itself  to  trickery  and  deception,  the  precautions 
against  fraud  appear  to  have  been  in  most  cases  totally  in- 
sufficient, owing  it  would  seem  to  an  erroneous  idea  that  to 
ask  for  such  safeguards  was  to  imply  a  suspicion  of  the  hon- 
esty of  some  one  present.  We  may  use  our  own  unaided 
senses,  but  when  we  ask  for  instrumental  means  to  increase 
their  sharpness,  certainty,  and  trustworthiness  under  circum- 
stances of  excitement  and  difficulty,  and  when  one's  natural 
senses  are  liable  to  be  thrown  off  their  balance,  offense  is  taken. 

**  In  the  countless  number  of  recorded  observations  I  have 


REALM    OF    MARVELS  323 

read,  there  appear  to  be  few  instances  of  meetings  held  for 
the  express  purpose  of  getting  the  phenomena  under  test  con- 
ditions, in  the  presence  of  persons  properly  qualified  by  scien- 
tific training  to  weigh  and  adjust  the  value  of  the  evidence 
which  might  present  itself.  The  only  good  series  of  test 
experiments  I  have  met  with  were  tried  by  the  Count  de 
Gasparin/  and  he,  while  admitting  the  genuineness  of  the 
phenomena,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  not  due 
to  supernatural  agency. 

"The  pseudo-scientific  Spiritualist  professes  to  know 
everything;  no  calculations  trouble  his  serenity,  no  hard  ex- 
periments, no  long,  laborious  readings ;  no  weary  attempts  to 
make  clear  in  words  that  which  has  rejoiced  the  heart  and 
elevated  the  mind.  He  talks  glibly  of  all  sciences  and  arts, 
overwhelming  the  inquirer  with  terms  like  *  electrobiolo- 
gize,'  *  psychologize,'  '  animal  magnetism,'  etc. — a  mere  play 
upon  words,  showing  ignorance  rather  than  understanding. 
Popular  science  such  as  this  is  little  able  to  guide  discovery 
rushing  onward  to  an  unknown  future ;  and  the  real  workers 
of  science  must  be  extremely  careful  not  to  allow  the  reins 
to  get  into  unfit  and  incompetent  hands. 

"  In  investigations  which  so  completely  baffle  the  ordinary 
observer,  the  thorough  scientific  man  has  a  great  advantage. 
He  has  followed  science  from  the  beginning  through  a  long 
line  of  learning,  and  he  knows,  therefore,  in  what  direction 
it  is  leading ;  he  knows  that  there  are  dangers  on  one  side, 
uncertainties  on  another,  and  almost  absolute  certainty  on  a 
third ;  he  sees  to  a  certain  extent  in  advance.  But  where 
every  step  is  toward  the  marvelous  and  unexpected,  precau- 
tions and  tests  should  be  multiplied  rather  than  diminished. 
Investigators  must  work ;  altho  their  work  may  be  very  small 
in  quantity,  if  only  compensation  be  made  by  its  intrinsic 
excellence.  But,  even  in  this  realm  of  marvels — this  won- 
derland toward  which  scientific  inquiry  is  sending  out  its 
pioneers — can  anything  be  more  astonishing  than  the  deli- 
cacy of  the  instrumental  aids  which  the  workers  bring  with 
them  to  supplement  the  observations  of  their  natural  senses  ? 

"The  Spiritualist  tells  of  bodies  weighing  fifty  or  one 
hundred  pounds  being  lifted  up  into  the  air  without  the  inter- 
vention of  any  known  force;  but  the  scientific  chemist  is 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  all  said  by  Crookes  in  1871,  ten  years 
before  th«  Society  for  Psychical  Research  began  its  scientific  investigations. 


324  WHAT   SCIENCE   ASKS 

accustomed  to  use  a  balance  which  will  render  sensible  a 
weight  so  small  that  it  would  take  ten  thousand  of  them  to 
weigh  one  grain;  he  is  therefore  justified  in  asking  that  a 
power,  professing  to  be  guided  by  intelligence,  which  will 
toss  a  heavy  body  up  to  the  ceiling,  shall  also  cause  his  deli- 
cately poised  balance  to  move  under  test  conditions. 

"  The  Spiritualist  tells  of  tapping  sounds  which  are  pro- 
duced in  different  parts  of  a  room  when  two  or  more  persons 
sit  quietly  round  a  table.  The  scientific  experimenter  is 
entitled  to  ask  that  these  taps  shall  be  produced  on  the 
stretched  membrane  of  his  phonautograph. 

"  The  Spiritualist  tells  of  rooms  and  houses  being  shaken, 
even  to  injury,  by  superhuman  power.  The  man  of  science 
merely  asks  for  a  pendulum  to  be  set  vibrating  when  it  is  in 
a  glass  case  and  supported  on  solid  masonry. 

"  The  Spiritualist  tells  of  heavy  articles  of  furniture  mov- 
ing from  one  room  to  another  without  human  agency.  But 
the  man  of  science  has  made  instruments  which  will  divide 
an  inch  into  a  million  parts,  and  he  is  justified  in  doubting  the 
accuracy  of  the  former  observations  if  the  same  force  is  power- 
less to  move  the  index  of  his  instrument  one  poor  degree. 

"  The  Spiritualist  tells  of  flowers  with  the  fresh  dew  on 
them,  of  fruit,  and  living  objects  being  carried  through  closed 
windows  and  even  solid  brick  walls.  The  scientific  investiga- 
tor naturally  asks  that  an  additional  weight  (if  it  be  only  the 
one-thousandth  part  of  a  grain)  be  deposited  on  one  pan  of  his 
balance  when  the  case  is  locked.  And  the  chemist  asks  for  the 
one-thousandth  of  a  grain  of  arsenic  to  be  carried  through  the 
s^des  of  a  glass  tube  in  which  pure  water  is  hermetically  sealed. 
**The  Spiritualist  tells  of  manifestations  of  power  which 
would  be  equivalent  to  many  thousands  of  *  foot-pounds,'  ta- 
king place  without  known  agency.  The  man  of  science,  be- 
lieving firmly  in  the  conservation  of  force,  and  that  it  is  never 
produced  without  a  corresponding  exhaustion  of  something 
to  replace  it,  asks  for  some  such  exhibitions  of  power  to  be 
manifested  in  his  laboratory,  where  he  can  weigh,  measure, 
and  submit  it  to  proper  tests.  ^ 

"J  la  justice  to  my  subject,  I  must  state  that,  on  repeating:  these  views  to 
some  of  the  leading  'Spiritualists' and  most  trustworthy 'mediums  '  in  England, 
they  express  perfect  confidence  in  the  success  of  the  inquiry,  if  honestly  carried 
out  in  the  spirit  here  exemplified;  and  they  have  ofifered  to  assist  me  to  the 
utmost  of  their  ability,  by  placing  their  peculiar  powers  at  ray  disposal.  As  far 
as  I  have  proceeded,  I  may  as  well  add  that  the  preliminary  tests  have  been  satis- 
factory," 


ADDED  WEIGHT  WITHOUT  CONTACT    32^ 

Mr.  Crookes  entered  at  once  with  rare  intelligence  upon 
his  series  of  experiments,  which  lasted  for  several  years. 
From  time  to  time  he  published  the  results  attained  in  T/ie 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Science  and  elsewhere,  and  finally  in 
book  form.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  in  the  progressive 
publications  the  conviction  growing  slowly  in  his  mind,  first, 
that  there  is  here  a  psychic  force  unrecognized  by  science; 
second,  that  this  force  is  governed  by  an  outside  intelligence. 
He  found,  what  we  all  find  who  undertake  a  serious  investi- 
gation, that  this  force  is  uncertain,  seemingly  capricious,  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  to  investigate ;  but  he  also  found  what  to 
his  mind  was  indisputable  evidence  that  it  exists. 

One  year  from  the  announcement  of  his  purpose  he  pub- 
lished his  second  paper  in  The  Quarterly.  He  had  made 
many  experiments  with  different  mediums,  especially  with 
Daniel  D.  Home,  who,  he  says,  proved  to  be  endowed  in  a 
remarkable  way  with  this  psychic  force.  His  account  of  these 
various  experiments  is  of  absorbing  interest  and  is  marked 
by  rare  scientific  skill  and  judgment.  He  scientifically 
demonstrated  by  carefully  prepared  apparatus  that  weight  can 
be  increased  many  pounds  without  physical  contact.  This 
he  again  and  again  tested  by  different  experiments  in  his  own 
house  and  through  different  mediums,  and  in  the  presence  of 
scientific  friends,  until  he  was  fully  convinced  of  the  fact. 
Those  who  care  to  follow  psychic  experiments  when  con- 
ducted by  a  master  scientist  and  who  can  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  facts  when  they  come  into  contact  with  them 
should  get  and  master  the  little  book  in  which  Mr.  Crookes 
has  published  these  experiments.  Its  title  is  Crookes 's  "  Re- 
searches into  Spiritualism. " 

1  he  opposition  Mr.  Crookes  encountered  from  scientists 
after  the  publication  of  the  first  series  of  his  experiments 
mentioned  is  instructive.     He  says  : 

"  I  confess  I  am  surprised  and  pained  at  the  timidity  or 
apathy  shown  by  scientific  men  in  reference  to  this  subject. 


226  CROOKES'S   PURPOSE 

Some  little  time  ago,  when  an  opportunity  for  examination 
was  first  presented  to  me,  I  invited  the  cooperation  of  some 
scientific  friends  in  a  systematic  investigation ;  but  I  soon 
found  that  to  obtain  a  scientific  committee  for  the  investiga- 
tion of  this  class  of  facts  was  out  of  the  question,  and  that  I 
must  be  content  to  rely  on  my  own  endeavors,  aided  by  the 
cooperation  from  time  to  time  of  a  few  scientific  and  learned 
friends  who  were  willing  to  join  in  the  inquiry.  I  still  feel 
that  it  would  be  better  were  such  a  committee  of  known  men 
to  be  formed,  who  would  meet  Mr.  Home  in  a  fair  and  un- 
biased manner,  and  I  would  gladly  assist  in  its  formation ;  but 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  are  great. 

"A  committee  of  scientific  men  met  Mr.  Home  some 
months  ago  at  St.  Petersburg.  They  had  one  meeting  only, 
which  was  attended  with  negative  results ;  and  on  the  strength 
of  this  they  published  a  report  highly  unfavorable  to  Mr. 
Home.  The  explanation  of  this  failure,  which  is  all  they 
have  accused  hiin  of,  appears  to  me  quite  simple.  Whatever 
the  nature  of  Mr.  Home's  power,  it  is  very  variable  and  at 
times  entirely  absent.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Russian  experi- 
ment was  tried  when  the  force  was  at  a  minimum.  The  same 
thing  has  frequently  happened  within  my  own  experience.  A 
party  of  scientific  men  met  Mr.  Home  at  my  house,  and  the 
results  were  as  negative  as  those  at  St.  Petersburg.  Instead, 
however,  of  throwing  up  the  inquiry,  we  patiently  repeated 
the  trial  a  second  and  a  third  time,  when  we  met  with  results 
which  were  positive." 

Mr.  Crookes  again  and  again  had  to  defend  himself  against 
all  manner  of  criticisms,  some  from  his  scientific  brethren, 
and  some  from  the  press — all  knew  "  just  how  the  thing  was 
done"  without  investigation  better  than  a  thorough  scientist 
knew  who  was  on  the  spot  and  applying  the  strictest  scientific 
tests.  The  most  common  accusation  was  that  he  had  be- 
come a  Spiritualist,  and  was  now  seeking  to  get  proofs  for 
his  belief.  The  truth  is  he  was  not  then  a  Spiritualist.  He 
started  in  the  investigation  believing  the  phenomena  were 
tricks  of  legerdemain,  hoodwinking  the  people,  and  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  scientists,  when  an  error  becomes  so  preva- 
lent, to  expose  it. 


CROOKES  EXPLAINS   HIS   POSITION     327 

Many  further  experiments  were  made  by  Sir  William 
Crookes  that  demonstrated  to  his  mind  that  physical  force 
can  be  exerted  without  mechanical  contact.  He  proved  that 
it  was  not  necessary  for  the  medium  Home  even  to  touch  the 
board  connecting  with  the  spring  balance.  He  arranged 
devices  that  required  contact  only  through  water  with  the 
spring  balance;  the  balance  automatically  recording  the 
results.  These  experiments  were  to  Mr.  Crookes  con- 
clusive that  he  was  dealing  with  a  force  hitherto  unknown 
to  science,  a  force  that  was  directed  by  some  outside  intel- 
ligence. But  each  publication  of  additional  experiments 
brought  upon  him  only  additional  ridicule,  especially  from 
his  fellow  scientists.  He  was  compelled  to  explain  again 
and  again  his  object  in  these  investigations : 

"  Let  me  take  the  opportunity  of  explaining  the  exact  posi- 
tion which  I  wish  to  occupy  in  respect  to  the  subject  of 
psychic  force  and  modern  Spiritualism.  I  have  desired  to 
examine  the  phenomena  from  a  point  of  view  as  strictly 
physical  as  their  nature  will  permit.  I  wish  to  ascertain 
the  laws  governing  the  appearance  of  very  remarkable  phe- 
nomena which  at  the  present  time  are  occurring  to  an  almost 
incredible  extent.  That  a  hitherto  unrecognized  form  of 
force — whether  it  be  called  psychic  force  or  x  force  is  of  little 
consequence — is  involved  in  this  occurrence  is  not  with  me 
a  matter  of  opinion  but  of  absolute  knowledge;  but  the 
nature  of  that  force,  or  the  cause  which  immediately  excites 
its  activity,  forms  a  subject  on  which  I  do  not  at  present 
feel  competent  to  offer  an  opinion.  I  wish,  at  least  for  the 
present,  to  be  considered  in  the  position  of  an  electrician  at 
Valentia,  examining  by  means  of  appropriate  testing  instru- 
ments certain  electrical  currents  and  pulsations  passing 
through  the  Atlantic  cable ;  independently  of  their  causation, 
and  ignoring  whether  these  phenomena  are  produced  by  im- 
perfections in  the  testing  instruments  themselves — whether 
by  earth  currents  or  by  faults  in  the  insulation — or  whether 
they  are  produced  by  an  intelligent  operator  at  the  other  end 
of  the  line." 


328  CROOKES^S   FINAL   REPORT 

Mr.  Crookes^s  Formal  Report  of  His  Four  Years  of  Inquiry 
of  ^^  Phenomena  Called  SpirititaV  ' 

"But  with  all  [mediums]  I  have  taken  such  precautions  as  place 
trickery  out  of  the  list  of  possible  explanations.  Be  it  remembered  that 
an  explanation,  to  be  of  any  value,  must  satisfy  all  the  conditions  of  the 
problem." — Crookes  in  the  final  report. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  retract.  I  adhere  to  my  already  published  state- 
ments. Indeed,  I  might  add  much  thereto." — Crookes  in  his  address,  in 
1898,  as  President  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science. 

"  Like  a  traveler  exploring  some  distant  country,  the 
wonders  of  which  have  hitherto  been  known  only  through 
reports  and  rumors  of  a  vague  or  distorted  character,  so  for 
four  years  have  I  been  occupied  in  pushing  an  inquiry  into 
a  territory  of  natural  knowledge  which  offers  almost  virgin 
soil  to  a  scientific  man.  As  the  traveler  sees  in  the  natural 
phenomena  he  may  witness  the  action  of  forces  governed  by 
natural  laws,  where  others  see  only  the  capricious  interven- 
tion of  offended  gods,  so  have  I  endeavored  to  trace  the 
operation  of  natural  laws  and  forces  where  others  have  seen 
only  the  agency  of  supernatural  beings,  owning  no  laws  and 
obeying  no  force  but  their  own  free  will.  As  the  traveler 
in  his  wanderings  is  entirely  dependent  on  the  good-will  and 
friendliness  of  the  chiefs  and  the  medicine  men  of  the  tribes 
among  whom  he  sojourns,  so  have  I  not  only  been  aided  in 
my  inquiry  in  a  marked  degree  by  some  of  those  who  possess 
the  peculiar  powers  I  have  sought  to  examine,  but  have  also 
formed  firm  and  valued  friendships  among  many  of  the  recog- 
nized leaders  of  opinion  whose  hospitalities  I  have  shared. 
As  the  traveler  sometimes  sends  home,  when  opportunity 
offers,  a  brief  record  of  progress — which  record,  being  neces- 
sarily isolated  from  all  that  has  led  up  to  it,  is  often  received 
with  disbelief  or  ridicule — so  have  I  on  two  occasions  selected 
and  published  what  seemed  to  be  a  few  striking  and  definite 
facts  ;  but  having  omitted  to  describe  the  preliminary  stages 
necessary  to  lead  the  public  mind  up  to  an  appreciation  of 
the  phenomena  and  to  show  how  they  fitted  into  other  ob- 
served facts,  they  were  also  met,  not  only  with  incredulity, 
but  with  no  little  abuse.     And,  lastly,  as  the  traveler,  when 

*  Quarterly  Journal  of  Science,  January,  1874. 


EXPERIMENTS  AT   HIS   HOME      329 

his  exploration  is  finished  and  he  returns  to  his  old  associates, 
collects  together  all  his  scattered  notes,  tabulates  them,  and 
puts  them  in  order  ready  to  be  given  to  the  world  as  a  con- 
nected narrative,  so  have  I,  on  reaching  this  stage  of  the 
inquiry,  arranged  and  put  together  all  my  disconnected  ob- 
servations, ready  to  place  before  the  public  in  the  form  of  a 
volume. 

"  The  phenomena  I  am  prepared  to  attest  are  so  extraor- 
dinary and  so  directly  oppose  the  most  firmly  rooted  arti- 
cles of  scientific  belief — among  others,  the  ubiquity  and  in- 
variable action  of  the  force  of  gravitation — that  even  now, 
on  recalling  the  details  of  what  I  witnessed,  there  is  an 
antagonism  in  my  mind  between  reason,  which  pronounces  it 
to  be  scientifically  impossible,  and  the  consciousness  that  my 
senses,  both  of  touch  and  sight — and  these  corroborated,  as 
they  were,  by  the  senses  of  all  who  were  present — are  not 
lying  witnesses  when  they  testify  against  my  preconceptions/ 

"  But  the  supposition  that  there  is  a  sort  of  mania  or  de- 
lusion which  suddenly  attacks  a  whole  roomful  of  intelligent 
persons  who  are  quite  sane  elsewhere,  and  that  they  all  con- 
cur to  the  minutest  particulars  in  the  details  of  the  occur- 
rences of  which  they  suppose  themselves  to  be  witnesses, 
seems  to  my  mind  more  incredible  than  even  the  facts  they 
attest.  .   .   . 

"  I  now  proceed  to  classify  some  of  the  phenomena  which 
have  come  under  my  notice,  proceeding  from  the  simple  to 
the  more  complex,  and  briefly  giving  under  each  heading  an 
outline  of  some  of  the  evidence  I  am  prepared  to  bring  for- 
ward. My  readers  will  remember  that,  with,  the  exception 
of  cases  specially  mentioned,  the  occurrences  have  taken 
place  in  my  ozvn  houses  in  the  light,  and  with  only  private 

1  "The  following  remarks  are  so  appropriate  that  I  can  not  forbear  quoting 
them.  They  occur  in  a  private  letter  from  an  old  friend,  to  whom  I  had  sent  an 
account  of  some  of  these  occurrences.  The  high  position  which  he  holds  in  the 
scientific  world  renders  doubly  valuable  any  opinion  he  expresses  on  the  mental 
tendencies  of  scientific  men.  '■  Kny  intellectual  vt.'^Xy  \.o  your  facts  I  cannot  see- 
Yet  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  even  I,  with  all  my  tendency  and  desire  to  believe 
spiritualistically,  and  with  all  my  faith  in  your  power  of  observing  and  j'our 
thorough  truthfulness,  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to  see  for  myself ;  and  it  is  quite  pain- 
ful to  me  to  think  how  much  more  proof  I  want.  Painful,  I  say,  because  I  see  that 
it  is  not  reason  which  convinces  a  man,  unless  a  fact  is  repeated  so  frequently  that 
the  impression  becomes  like  a  habit  of  mind,  an  old  acquaintance,  a  thing  known 
so  long  that  it  can  not  be  doubted.  This  is  a  curious  phase  of  man's  mind,  and  it 
is  remarkably  strong  in  scientific  men— stronger  than  in  others,  I  think.  For  this 
reason  we  must  not  always  call  a  man  dishonest  because  he  does  not  yield  to  evi- 
dence for  along  time.    The  old  wall  of  belief  must  be  broken  by  much  battering.' " 


330  CLASSIFIES   RESULTS 

friends  present  besides  the  medium.  In  the  contemplated 
vohime '  I  propose  to  give  in  full  detail  the  tests  and  precau- 
tions adopted  on  each  occasion,  with  names  of  witnesses.  I 
only  briefly  allude  to  them  in  this  article. 

"CLASS  I 

"  The  Movement  of  Heavy  Bodies  with  Contact,  but  with- 
out Mechanical  Exertion 

"  This  is  one  of  the  simplest  forms  of  the  phenomena  ob- 
served. It  varies  in  degree  from  a  quivering  or  vibration  of 
the  room  and  its  contents  to  the  actual  rising  into  the  air  of 
a  heavy  body  when  the  hand  is  placed  on  it.  The  retort  is 
obvious  that  if  people  are  touching  a  thing  when  it  moves, 
they  push  it  or  pull  it  or  lift  it;  I  have  proved  experimen- 
tally that  this  is  not  the  case  in  numerous  instances,  but  as  a 
matter  of  evidence  I  attach  little  importance  to  this  class  of 
phenomena  by  itself,  and  only  mention  them  as  a  preliminary 
to  other  movements  of  the  same  kind,  but  without  contact. 

"  These  movements  (and  indeed  I  may  say  the  same  of 
every  kind  of  phenomenon)  are  generally  preceded  by  a  pecul- 
iar cold  air,  sometimes  amounting  to  a  decided  wind.  I 
have  had  sheets  of  paper  blown  about  by  it,  and  a  thermome- 
ter lowered  several  degrees.  On  some  occasions,  which  I 
will  subsequently  give  more  in  detail,  I  have  not  detected 
any  actual  movement  of  the  air,  but  the  cold  has  been  so 
intense  that  I  could  only  compare  it  to  that  felt  when  the 
hand  has  been  within  a  few  inches  of  frozen  mercury. 

"CLASS   II 

"The  Phenomena  of  Percussive  and  Other  Allied  Sounds 

"  The  popular  name  of  *  raps  '  conveys  a  very  erroneous 
impression  of  this  class  of  phenomena.  At  different  times 
during  my  experiments  I  have  heard  delicate  ticks  as  with 
the  point  of  a  pin,  a  cascade  of  sharp  sounds  as  from  an  in- 
duction-coil in  full  work,  detonations  in  the  air,  sharp  me- 
tallic taps,  a  cracking  like  that  heard  when  a  frictional  machine 
is  at  work,  sounds  like  scratching,  the  twittering  as  of  a 
bird,  etc. 

'  Mr.  Crookes  says  that  he  never  found  time  to  complete  the  volume  here 
promised.  In  a  paper  published  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  December, 
1889,  he  gave  the  public  many  of  these  additional  facts. 


EXPERIMENTS   WITH    MISS    FOX       331 

"  These  sounds  are  noticed  with  almost  every  medium, 
each  having  a  special  peculiarity;  they  are  more  varied  with 
Mr.  Home,  but  for  power  and  certainty  I  have  met  with  no 
one  who  at  all  approached  Miss  Kate  Fox.  For  several 
months  I  enjoyed  almost  unlimited  opportunity  of  testing 
the  various  phenomena  occurring  in  the  presence  of  this  lady, 
and  I  especially  examined  the  phenomena  of  these  sounds. 
With  mediums  generally  it  is  necessary  to  sit  for  a  formal 
stance  before  anything  is  heard;  but  in  the  case  of  Miss 
Fox  it  seems  only  necessary  for  her  to  place  her  hand  on  any 
substance  for  loud  thuds  to  be  heard  in  it,  like  a  triple  pulsa- 
tion, sometimes  loud  enough  to  be  heard  several  rooms  off. 
In  this  manner  I  have  heard  them  in  a  living  tree,  on  a  sheet 
of  glass,  on  a  stretched  iron  wire,  on  a  stretched  membrane, 
a  tambourine,  on  the  roof  of  a  cab,  and  on  the  floor  of  a 
theater.  Moreover,  actual  contact  is  not  always  necessary; 
I  have  had  these  sounds  proceeding  from  the  floor,  walls, 
etc.,  when  the  medium's  hands  and  feet  were  held,  when  she 
was  standing  on  a  chair,  when  she  was  suspended  in  a  swing 
from  the  ceiling,  when  she  was  enclosed  in  a  wire  cage,  and 
when  she  had  fallen  fainting  on  a  sofa.  I  have  heard  them 
on  a  glass  harmonicon ;  I  have  felt  them  on  my  own  shoulder 
and  under  my  own  hands ;  I  have  heard  them  on  a  sheet  of 
paper,  held  between  the  fingers  by  a  piece  of  thread  passed 
through  one  corner.  With  a  full  knowledge  of  the  numerous 
theories  which  have  been  started,  chiefly  in  America,  to  ex- 
plain these  sounds,  I  have  tested  them  in  every  way  that  I 
could  devise,  until  there  has  been  no  escape  from  the  convic- 
tion that  they  were  true  objective  occurrences  not  produced 
by  trickery  or  mechanical  means. 

"  An  important  question  here  forces  itself  upon  the  at- 
tention. Are  the  movements  and  sojmds  governed  by  intelli- 
gence ?  At  a  very  early  stage  of  the  inquiry  it  was  seen  that 
the  power  producing  the  phenomena  was  not  merely  a  blind 
force,  but  was  associated  with  or  governed  by  intelligence ; 
thus  the  sounds  to  which  I  have  just  alluded  will  be  repeated 
a  definite  number  of  times,  they  will  come  loud  or  faint,  and 
in  different  places  at  request ;  and,  by  a  prearranged  code  of 
signals,  questions  are  answered  and  messages  given  with 
more  or  less  accuracy. 

"  The  intelligence  governing  the  phenomena  is  sometimes 
manifestly  below  that  of  the  medium.     It  is  frequently  in 


332  HEAVY   WEIGHTS    LIFTED 

direct  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  the  medium :  when  a  de- 
termination has  been  expressed  to  do  something  which  might 
not  be  considered  quite  right,  I  have  known  urgent  messages 
given  to  induce  a  reconsideration.  The  intelligence  is  some- 
times of  such  a  character  as  to  lead  to  the  belief  that  it  does 
not  emanate  from  any  person  present. 

"  Several  instances  can  be  given  to  prove  each  of  these 
statements,  but  the  subject  will  be  more  fully  discussed  sub- 
sequently, when  treating  of  the  source  of  the  intelligence. 

"CLASS  III 
"The  Alteration  of  Weight  of  Bodies 

"  I  have  repeated  the  experiments  already  described  in 
this  Journal  in  different  forms  and  with  several  mediums.  I 
need  not  further  allude  to  them  here. 

"CLASS   IV 

"Movements  of  Heavy  Substances  when  at  a  Distance  from 

the  Medium 

"  The  instances  in  which  heavy  bodies,  such  as  tables, 
chairs,  sofas,  etc.,  have  been  moved,  when  the  medium  has 
not  been  touching  them,  are  very  numerous.  I  will  briefly 
mention  a  few  of  the  most  striking.  My  own  chair  has  been 
twisted  partly  round,  while  my  feet  were  off  the  floor.  A 
chair  was  seen  by  all  present  to  move  slowly  up  to  the  table 
from  a  far  corner,  when  all  were  watching  it ;  on  another 
occasion  an  armchair  moved  to  where  we  were  sitting,  and 
then  moved  slowly  back  again  (a  distance  of  about  three  feet) 
at  my  request.  On  three  successive  evenings  a  small  table 
moved  slowly  across  the  room,  under  conditions  which  I  had 
specially  prearranged,  so  as  to  answer  any  objection  which 
might  be  raised  to  the  evidence.  I  have  had  several  repeti- 
tions of  the  experiment  considered  by  the  committee  of  the 
Dialectical  Society  to  be  conclusive,  viz.,  the  movement  of 
a  heavy  table  in  full  light,  the  chairs  turned  with  their  backs 
to  the  table,  about  a  foot  off,  and  each  person  kneeling  on 
his  chair,  with  hands  resting  over  the  backs  of  the  chairs, 
but  not  touching  the  table.  On  one  occasion  this  took  place 
when  I  was  moving  about  so  as  to  see  how  every  one  was 
placed. 


UNQUESTIONABLE    PROOF  333 


"CLASS  V 

"The  Rising  of  Tables  and  Chairs  off  the  Ground,  without 
Contact  with  any  Person 

"  A  remark  is  generally  made  when  occurrences  of  this 
kind  are  mentioned,  Why  is  it  only  tables  and  chairs  which 
do  these  things  ?  Why  is  this  property  peculiar  to  furni- 
ture ?  I  might  reply  that  I  only  observe  and  record  facts,  and 
do  not  profess  to  enter  into  the  why  and  wherefore;  but 
indeed  it  will  be  obvious  that  if  a  heavy,  inanimate  body  in 
an  ordinary  dining-room  has  to  rise  off  the  floor,  it  can  not 
very  well  be  anything  else  but  a  table  or  a  chair.  That  this 
propensity  is  not  specially  attached  to  furniture,  I  have 
abundant  evidence;  but,  like  other  experimental  demonstra- 
tors, the  intelligence  or  power,  whatever  it  may  be,  which 
produces  these  phenomena  can  only  work  with  the  materials 
which  are  available. 

"  On  five  separate  occasions  a  heavy  dining-table  rose  be- 
tween a  few  inches  and  one  and  one-half  feet  off  the  floor, 
under  special  circumstances  which  rendered  trickery  impos- 
sible. On  another  occasion  a  heavy  table  rose  from  the  floor 
in  full  light,  while  I  was  holding  the  medium's  hands  and 
feet.  On  another  occasion  the  table  rose  from  the  floor,  not 
only  when  no  person  was  touching  it,  but  under  conditions 
which  I  had  prearranged  so  as  to  assure  unquestionable  proof 
of  the  fact. 

"CLASS  VI 

"The  Levitation  of  Human  Beings 

"  This  has  occurred  in  my  presence  on  four  occasions  in 
darkness.  The  test  conditions  under  which  they  took  place 
were  quite  satisfactory,  so  far  as  the  judgment  was  concerned ; 
but  ocular  demonstration  of  such  a  fact  is  so  necessary  to  dis- 
turb our  preformed  opinions  as  to  ^  the  naturally  possible  and 
impossible,'  that  I  will  here  only  mention  cases  in  which  the 
deductions  of  reason  were  confirmed  by  the  sense  of  sight. 

"  On  one  occasion  I  witnessed  a  chair,  with  a  lady  sit- 
ting on  it,  rise  several  inches  from  the  ground.  On  another 
occasion,  to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  this  being  in  some  way 
performed  by  herself,  the  lady  knelt  on  the  chair  in  such 
manner  that  its  four  feet  were  visible  to  us.     It  then  rose 


334    NO  FACTS  MORE  STRONGLY  PROVED 

about  three  inches,  remained  suspended  for  about  ten  sec- 
onds, and  then  slowly  descended.  At  another  time  two  chil- 
dren, on  separate  occasions,  rose  from  the  floor  with  their 
chairs,  in  full  daylight,  under  (to  me)  most  satisfactory  con- 
ditions ;  for  I  was  kneeling  and  keeping  close  watch  upon  the 
feet  of  the  chair,  and  observing  that  no  one  might  touch  them. 

"  The  most  striking  cases  of  levitation  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed have  been  with  Mr.  Home.  On  three  separate  occa- 
sions have  I  seen  him  raised  completely  from  the  floor  of  the 
room.  Once  sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  once  kneeling  on  his 
chair,  and  once  standing  up.  On  each  occasion  I  had  full 
opportunity  of  watching  the  occurrence  as  it  was  taking 
place. 

"  There  are  at  least  a  hundred  recorded  instances  of  Mr. 
Home's  rising  from  the  ground,  in  the  presence  of  as  many 
separate  persons,  and  I  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  the  three 
witnesses  to  the  most  striking  occurrence  of  this  kind — the 
Earl  of  Dunraven,  Lord  Lindsay,  and  Captain  C.  Wynne — 
their  own  most  minute  accounts  of  what  took  place.  To 
reject  the  recorded  evidence  on  this  subject  is  to  reject  all 
human  testimony  whatever ;  for  no  fact  in  sacred  or  profane 
history  is  supported  by  a  stronger  array  of  proofs. 

"The  accumulated  testimony  establishing  Mr.  Home's 
levitations  is  overwhelming.  It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that 
some  person,  whose  evidence  would  be  accepted  as  conclusive 
by  the  scientific  world — if  indeed  there  lives  a  person  whose 
testimony  i7i  faiwr  of  such  phenomena  would  be  taken — 
would  seriously  and  patiently  examine  these  alleged  facts. 
Most  of  the  eye-witnesses  to  these  levitations  are  now  living, 
and  would  doubtless  be  willing  to  give  their  evidence.  But 
in  a  few  years  such  direct  evidence  will  be  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  be  obtained. 

"CLASS  VII 

"  Movement  of  Various   Small    Articles  without  Contact 

WITH  ANi'  Person 

"  Under  this  heading  I  propose  to  describe  some  special 
phenomena  which  I  have  witnessed.  I  can  do  little  more 
here  than  alluc^e  to  some  of  the  more  striking  facts,  all  of 
which,  be  it  remembered,  have  occurred  under  circumstances 
that  render  trickery  impossible.     But  it  is  idle  to  attribute 


NO    PREVIOUS    PREPARATIONS      335 

these  results  to  trickery,  for  I  would  again  remind  my  read- 
ers that  what  I  relate  has  not  been  accomplished  at  the  house 
of  a  medium,  but  in  my  own  house,  where  preparations  have 
been  quite  impossible.  A  medium,  walking  into  my  dining- 
room,  can  not,  while  seated  in  one  part  of  the  room  with  a 
number  of  persons  keenly  watching  him,  by  trickery  make 
an  accordion  play  in  mj/  own  hand  when  I  hold  it  keys  down- 
ward, or  cause  the  same  accordion  to  float  about  the  room 
playing  all  the  time.  He  can  not  introduce  machinery  which 
will  wave  window-curtains  or  pull  up  Venetian  blinds  eight 
feet  off,  tie  a  knot  in  a  handkerchief  and  place  it  in  a  far 
corner  of  the  room,  sound  notes  on  a  distant  piano,  cause  a 
card-plate  to  float  about  the  room,  raise  a  water-bottle  and 
tumbler  from  the  table,  make  a  coral  necklace  rise  on  end, 
cause  a  fan  to  move  about  and  fan  the  company,  or  set  in 
motion  a  pendulum  when  enclosed  in  a  glass  case  firmly 
cemented  to  the  wall. 

"CLASS  VIII 

"  Luminous  Appearances 

"  These,  being  rather  faint,  generally  require  the  room  to 
be  darkened.  I  need  scarcely  remind  my  readers  again  that, 
under  these  circumstances,  I  have  taken  proper  precautions 
to  avoid  being  imposed  upon  by  phosphorized  oil  or  other 
means.  Moreover,  many  of  these  lights  are  such  as  I  have 
tried  to  imitate  artificially,  but  can  not. 

"  Under  the  strictest  test  conditions  I  have  seen  a  solid 
self-luminous  body,  the  size  and  nearly  the  shape  of  a  tur- 
key's ^gg,  float  noiselessly  about  the  room,  at  one  time  higher 
than  any  one  present  could  reach  standing  on  tiptoe,  and 
then  gently  descend  to  the  floor.  It  was  visible  for  more 
than  ten  minutes,  and  before  it  faded  away  it  struck  the  table 
three  times  with  a  sound  like  that  of  a  hard,  solid  body. 
During  this  time  the  medium  was  lying  back,  apparently  in- 
sensible, in  an  easy-chair. 

"  I  have  seen  luminous  points  of  light  darting  about  and 
settling  on  the  heads  of  different  persons.  I  have  had  ques- 
tions answered  by  the  flashing  of  a  bright  light  a  desired 
number  of  times  in  front  of  my  face.  I  have  seen  sparks  of 
light  rising  from  the  table  to  the  ceiling,  and  again  falling 
upon  the  table,  striking  it  with  an  audible  sound.  I  have 
iiad  an  alphabetic  communication  given  by  luminous  flashes 


3:^6  CROOKES   SEES    MATERIALIZATIONS 

occurring  before  me  in  the  air,  while  my  hand  was  moving 
about  among  them.  I  have  seen  a  luminous  cloud  floating 
upward  to  a  picture.  Under  the  strictest  test  conditions  I 
have  more  than  once  had  a  solid,  self-luminous,  crystalline 
body  placed  in  my  hand  by  a  hand  which  did  not  belong  to 
any  person  in  the  room.  In  the  light  I  have  seen  a  luminous 
cloud  hover  over  a  heliotrope  on  a  side  table,  break  a  sprig 
off,  and  carry  the  sprig  to  a  lady;  and  on  some  occasions  I 
have  seen  a  similar  luminous  cloud  visibly  condense  to  the 
form  of  a  hand  and  carry  small  objects  about.  These,  how- 
ever, more  properly  belong  to  the  next  class  of  phenomena. 

**  CLASS   IX 

"The  Appearance  of  Hands,  either  Self-Luminous  or  Visible 

BY  Ordinary  Light 

"The  forms  of  hands  are  frequently/^/??  at  dark  stances 
or  under  circumstances  where  they  can  not  be  seen.  More 
rarely  I  have  seen  the  hands.  I  will  here  give  no  instances 
in  which  the  phenomenon  has  occurred  in  darkness,  but  will 
simply  select  a  few  of  the  numerous  instances  in  which  I 
have  seen  the  hands  in  the  light. 

"  A  beautifully  formed  small  hand  rose  up  from  an  open- 
ing in  a  dining- table  and  gave  me  a  flower ;  it  appeared  and 
then  disappeared  three  times  at  intervals,  affording  me  ample 
opportunity  of  satisfying  myself  that  it  was  as  real  in  appear- 
ance as  my  own.  This  occurred  in  the  light  in  my  own  room, 
while  I  was  holding  the  medium's  hands  and  feet. 

"  On  another  occasion  a  small  hand  and  arm,  like  a  baby's, 
appeared  playing  about  a  lady  who  was  sitting  next  to  me.  It 
then  passed  to  me  and  patted  my  arm  and  pulled  my  coat  sev- 
eral times. 

"At  another  time  a  finger  and  thumb  were  seen  to  pick 
the  petals  from  a  flower  in  Mr.  Home's  buttonhole,  and  lay 
them  in  front  of  several  persons  who  were  sitting  near  him. 

"  A  hand  has  repeatedly  been  seen  by  myself  and  others 
playing  the  keys  of  an  accordion,  both  of  the  medium's  hands 
being  visible  at  the  same  time,  and  sometimes  being  held  by 
those  near  him. 

"The  hands  and  fingers  do  not  always  appear  to  me  to  be 
solid  and  life-like.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  present  more 
the  appearance  of  a  nebulous  cloud  partly  condensed  into  the 


DEMATERIALIZATION    IN    HAND       337 

form  of  a  hand.  This  is  not  equally  visible  to  all  present. 
For  instance,  a  flower  or  other  small  object  is  seen  to  move; 
one  person  present  will  see  a  luminous  cloud  hovering  over 
it,  another  will  detect  a  nebulous-looking  hand,  while  others 
will  see  nothing  at  all  but  the  moving  flower.  I  have  more 
than  once  seen,  first  an  object  move,  then  a  luminous  cloud 
appear  to  form  about  it,  and,  lastly,  the  cloud  condense  into 
shape  and  become  a  perfectly  formed  hand.  At  this  stage 
the  hand  is  visible  to  all  present.  It  is  not  always  a  mere 
form,  but  sometimes  appears  perfectly  life-like  and  graceful, 
the  fingers  moving  and  the  flesh  apparently  as  human  as  that 
of  any  in  the  room.  At  the  wrist  or  arm  it  becomes  hazy, 
and  fades  off  into  a  luminous  cloud, 

*'To  the  touch  the  hand  sometimes  appears  icy  cold  and 
dead,  at  other  times  warm  and  life-like,  grasping  my  own 
with  the  firm  pressure  of  an  old  friend. 

"  I  have  retained  one  of  these  hands  in  my  own,  firmly 
resolved  not  to  let  it  escape.  There  was  no  struggle  or 
effort  made  to  get  loose,  but  it  gradually  seemed  to  resolve 
itself  into  vapor,  and  faded  in  that  manner  from  my  grasp. 

"CLASS  X 
"Direct  Writing 

"  This  is  the  term  employed  to  express  writing  which  is 
not  produced  by  any  person  present.  I  have  had  words  and 
messages  repeatedly  written  on  privately  marked  paper,  under 
the  most  rigid  test  conditions,  and  have  heard  the  pencil 
moving  over  the  paper  in  the  dark.  The  conditions — pre- 
arranged by  myself — have  been  so  strict  as  to  be  equally  con- 
vincing to  my  mind  as  if  I  had  seen  the  written  characters 
formed.  But  as  space  will  not  allow  me  to  enter  into  full 
particulars,  I  will  merely  select  two  instances  in  which  my 
eyes  as  well  as  ears  were  witnesses  to  the  operation. 

"  The  first  instance .  which  I  shall  give  took  place,  it  is 
true,  at  a  dark  stance,  but  the  result  was  not  less  satisfactory 
on  that  account.  I  was  sitting  next  to  the  medium.  Miss 
Fox,  the  only  other  persons  present  being  my  wife  and  a  lady 
relative,  and  I  was  holding  the  medium's  two  hands  in  one 
of  mine,  while  her  feet  were  resting  on  my  feet.  Paper  was 
on  the  table  before  us,  and  my  disengaged  hand  was  holding 
a  pencil. 

22 


338  A   LUMINOUS   HAND 

"  A  luminous  hand  came  down  from  the  upper  part  of  the 
room,  and,  after  hovering  near  me  for  a  few  seconds,  took  the 
pencil  from  my  hand,  rapidly  wrote  on  a  sheet  of  paper, 
threw  the  pencil  down,  and  then  rose  up  over  our  heads, 
gradually  fading  into  darkness. 

"  My  second  instance  may  be  considered  the  record  of  a 
failure.  '  A  good  failure  often  teaches  more  than  the  most 
successful  experiment.'  It  took  place  in  the  light,  in  my  own 
room,  with  only  a  few  private  friends  and  Mr.  Home  present. 
Several  circumstances,  to  which  I  need  not  further  allude, 
had  shown  that  the  power  that  evening  was  strong.  I  there- 
fore expressed  a  wish  to  witness  the  actual  production  of  a 
written  message  such  as  I  had  heard  described  a  short  time 
before  by  a  friend.  Immediately  an  alphabetic  communica- 
tion was  made  as  follows  :  *  We  will  try.'  A  pencil  and  some 
sheets  of  paper  had  been  lying  on  the  center  of  the  table ; 
presently  the  pencil  rose  up  on  its  point,  and  after  advancing 
by  hesitating  jerks  to  the  paper  fell  down.  It  then  rose 
and  again  fell.  A  third  time  it  tried,  but  with  no  better 
result.  After  three  unsuccessful  attempts,  a  small  wooden 
lath,  which  was  lying  near  upon  the  table,  slid  toward  the 
pencil,  and  rose  a  few  inches  from  the  table ;  the  pencil  rose 
again,  and,  propping  itself  against  the  lath,  the  two  together 
made  an  effort  to  mark  the  paper.  It  fell,  and  then  a  joint 
effort  was  again  made.  After  a  third  trial  the  lath  gave  it 
up  and  moved  back  to  its  place,  the  pencil  lay  as  it  fell  across 
the  paper,  and  an  alphabetic  message  told  us :  *  We  have 
tried  to  do  as'you  asked,  but  our  power  is  exhausted.' 

"CLASS  XI 
"Phantom  Forms  and  Faces 

"  These  are  the  rarest  of  the  phenomena  I  have  witnessed. 
The  conditions  requisite  for  their  appearance  appear  to  be  so 
delicate,  and  such  trifles  interfere  with  their  production,  that 
only  on  very  few  occasions  have  I  witnessed  them  under  sat- 
isfactory test  conditions.     I  will  mention  two  of  these  cases. 

"  In  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  during  a  seance  with  Mr. 
Home  at  my  house,  the  curtains  of  a  window  about  eight 
feet  from  Mr.  Home  were  seen  to  move.  A  dark,  shadowy, 
semitransparent  form,  like  that  of  a  man,  was  then  seen  by 
all  present  standing  near  the  window,  waving  the  curtain 


A   PHANTOM    FORM  339 

with  his  hand.     As  we  looked,  the  form  faded  away  and  the 
curtains  ceased  to  move. 

"  The  following  is  a  still  more  striking  instance.  As  in 
the  former  case,  Mr.  Home  was  the  medium.  A  phantom 
form  came  from  a  corner  of  the  room,  took  an  accordion  in 
its  hand,  and  then  glided  about  the  room  playing  the  instru- 
ment. The  form  was  visible  to  all  present  for  many  minutes, 
Mr.  Home  also  being  seen  at  the  same  time.  Coming  rather 
close  to  a  lady  who  was  sitting  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
company,  she  gave  a  slight  cry,  upon  which  it  vanished. 

"CLASS  XII 

"Special  Instances  which  seem  to  Point  to  the  Agency  of 
AN  Exterior  Intelligence 

"  It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  phenomena  are  gov- 
erned by  an  intelligence.  It  becomes  a  question  of  impor- 
tance as  to  the  source  of  that  intelligence.  Is  it  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  medium,  of  any  of  the  other  persons  in  the 
room,  or  is  it  an  exterior  intelligence }  Without  wishing  at 
present  to  speak  positively  on  this  point,  I  may  say  that 
while  I  have  observed  many  circumstances  which  appear  to 
show  that  the  will  and  intelligence  of  the  medium  have  much 
to  do  with  the  phenomena,^  I  have  observed  some  circum- 
stances which  seem  conclusively  to  point  to  the  agency  of  an 
outside  intelligence,  not  belonging  to  any  human  being  in 
the  room.  Space  does  not  allow  me  to  give  here  all  the 
arguments  which  can  be  adduced  to  prove  these  points,  but  I 
will  briefly  mention  one  or  two  circumstances  out  of  many. 

"  I  have  been  present  when  several  phenomena  were  going 
on  at  the  same  time,  some  being  unknown  to  the  medium. 
I  have  been  with  Miss  Fox  when  she  has  been  writing  a  mes- 
sage automatically  to  one  person  present,  while  a  message  to 
another  person  on  another  subject  was  being  given  alphabeti- 
cally by  means  of  '  raps,'  and  the  whole  time  she  was  convers- 
ing freely  with  a  third  person  on  a  subject  totally  different  from 
either.      Perhaps  a  more  striking  instance  is  the  following : 

"  During  a  sdance  with  Mr.  Home  a  small  lath,  which  I 
have  before  mentioned,  moved  across  the  table  to  me,  in  the 

*  "  I  do  not  wish  my  meaning  to  be  misunderstood.  What  I  mean  is,  nof  that  the 
medium's  will  and  intelligence  are  actively  employed  in  any  conscious  or  dis- 
honest way  in  the  production  of  the  phenomena,  but  that  they  sometimes  appear 
to  act  in  an  unconscious  manner." 


j40  MORSE   CODE   USED 

light,  and  delivered  a  message  to  me  by  tapping  my  hand ;  I 
repeating  the  alphabet,  and  the  lath  tapping  me  at  the  right 
letters.  The  other  end  of  the  lath  was  resting  on  the  table, 
some  distance  from  Mr.  Home's  hands. 

"  The  taps  were  so  sharp  and  clear,  and  the  lath  was  evi- 
dently so  well  under  control  of  the  invisible  power  which 
was  governing  its  movements,  that  I  said,  *  Can  the  intelli- 
gence governing  the  motion  of  this  lath  change  the  character 
of  the  movements  and  give  me  a  telegraphic  message  through 
the  Morse  alphabet  by  taps  on  my  hand  ? '  (I  have  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Morse  code  was  quite  unknown  to 
any  other  person  present,  and  it  was  only  imperfectly  known 
to  me.)  Immediately  I  said  this,  the  character  of  the  taps 
changed  and  the  message  was  continued  in  the  way  I  had 
requested.  The  letters  were  given  too  rapidly  for  me  to  do 
more  than  catch  a  word  here  and  there,  and  consequently  I 
lost  the  message ;  but  I  heard  sufficient  to  convince  me  that 
there  was  a  good  Morse  operator  at  the  other  end  of  the  line, 
wherever  that  might  be. 

"  Another  instance.  A  lady  was  writing  automatically 
by  means  of  the  planchette.  I  was  trying  to  devise  a  means 
of  proving  that  what  she  wrote  was  not  due  to  '  unconscious 
cerebration.'  The  planchette,  as  it  always  does,  insisted 
that,  altho  it  was  moved  by  the  hand  and  arm  of  the  lady,  the 
intelligence  was  that  of  an  invisible  being  who  was  playing 
on  her  brain  as  on  a  musical  instrument,  and  thus  moving 
her  muscles.  I  therefore  said  to  this  intelligence,  '  Can  you 
see  the  contents  of  this  room } '  *  Yes,'  wrote  the  planchette. 
*  Can  you  see  to  read  this  newspaper.? '  said  I,  putting  my 
finger  on  a  copy  of  TJie  Times,  which  was  on  a  table  behind 
me,  but  without  looking  at  it.  '  Yes,'  was  the  reply  of  the 
planchette.  '  Well,'  said  I,  *  if  you  can  see  that,  write  the 
word  which  is  now  covered  by  my  finger,  and  I  will  believe 
you.'  The  planchette  commenced  to  move.  Slowly  and 
with  great  difficulty  the  word  'however'  was  written.  I 
turned  round  and  saw  that  the  word  '  however '  was  covered 
by  the  tip  of  my  finger. 

"  I  had  purposely  avoided  looking  at  the  newspaper  when 
I  tried  this  experiment,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  lady, 
had  she  tried,  to  have  seen  any  of  the  printed  words,  for  she 
was  sitting  at  one  table,  and  the  paper  was  on  another  table 
behind,  my  body  intervening. 


A   BELL'S   EXPLOIT  341 

"CLASS   XIII 
"Miscellaneous  Occurrences  of  a  Complex  Character 

"  Under  this  heading  I  propose  to  give  several  occurrences 
which  can  not  be  otherwise  classified,  owing  to  their  complex 
character.  Out  of  more  than  a  dozen  cases  I  will  select  two. 
The  first  occurred  in  the  presence  of  Miss  Kate  Fox.  To 
render  it  intelligible,  I  must  enter  into  some  details. 

"  Miss  Fox  had  promised  to  give  me  a  seance  at  my  house 
one  evening  in  the  spring  of  last  year.  While  waiting  for 
her,  a  lady  relative,  with  my  two  eldest  sons,  aged  fourteen 
and  eleven,  were  sitting  in  the  dining-room  where  the  seances 
were  always  held,  and  I  was  sitting  by  myself,  writing  in  the 
library.  Hearing  a  cab  drive  up  and  the  bell  ring,  I  opened 
the  door  to  Miss  Fox  and  took  her  directly  into  the  dining- 
room.  She  said  she  would  not  go  upstairs,  as  she  could  not 
stay  very  long,  but  laid  her  bonnet  and  shawl  on  a  chair  in 
the  room.  I  then  went  to  the  dining-room  door,  and  telling 
the  two  boys  to  go  into  the  library  and  proceed  with  their 
lessons,  I  closed  the  door  behind  them,  locked  it,  and  (ac- 
cording to  my  usual  custom  at  seances)  put  the  key  in  my 
pocket. 

"  We  sat  down,  Miss  Fox  being  on  my  right  hand  and 
the  other  lady  on  my  left.  An  alphabetic  message  was  soon 
given  to  turn  the  gas  out,  and  we  thereupon  sat  in  total  dark- 
ness, I  holding  Miss  Fox's  two  hands  in  one  of  mine  the 
whole  time.  Very  soon  a  message  was  given  in  the  follow- 
ing words,  ^  We  are  going  to  bring  something  to  show  our 
power ' ;  and  almost  immediately  afterward  we  all  heard  the 
tinkling  of  a  bell,  not  stationary,  but  moving  about  in  all 
parts  of  the  room :  at  one  time  by  the  wall,  at  another  in  a 
further  corner  of  the  room,  now  touching  me  on  the  head, 
and  now  tapping  against  the  floor.  After  ringing  about  the 
room  in  this  manner  for  fully  five  minutes,  it  fell  upon  the 
table  close  to  my  hands. 

"  During  the  time  this  was  going  on,  no  one  moved  and 
Miss  Fox's  hands  were  perfectly  quiet.  I  remarked  that  it 
could  not  be  my  little  handbell  which  was  ringing,  for  I  left 
that  in  the  library.  (Shortly  before  Miss  Fox  came,  I  had 
occasion  to  refer  to  a  book,  which  was  lying  on  a  corner  of  a 
bookshelf.     The  bell  was  on  the  book,  and  I  put  it  on  one 


342  CROOKES'S   SURE    PROOF 

side  to  get  the  book.  That  little  incident  had  impressed  on 
my  mind  the  fact  of  the  bell  being  in  the  library.)  The  gas 
was  burning  brightly  in  the  hall  outside  the  dining-room 
door,  so  that  this  could  not  be  opened  without  letting  light 
into  the  room,  even  had  there  been  an  accomplice  in  the 
house  with  a  duplicate  key,  which  there  certainly  was  not. 

"  I  struck  a  light.  There,  sure  enough,  was  my  own  bell 
lying  on  the  table  before  me.  I  went  straight  into  the 
library.  A  glance  showed  that  the  bell  was  not  where  it 
ought  to  have  been.  I  said  to  my  eldest  boy,  *  Do  you  know 
where  my  little  bell  is.? '  *  Yes,  papa,'  he  replied,  '  there  it 
is,'  pointing  to  where  I  had  left  it.  He  looked  up  as  he  said 
this,  and  then  continued,  '  No — it's  not  there,  but  it  was 
there  a  little  time  ago.'  '  How  do  you  mean.-^ — has  any  one 
come  in  and  taken  it.?'  *  No,'  said  he,  *  no  one  has  been  in; 
but  I  am  sure  it  was  there,  because  when  you  sent  us  in  here 
out  of  the  dining-room,  J.  (the  youngest  boy)  began  ringing 
it  so  that  I  could  not  go  on  with  my  lessons,  and  I  told  him 
to  stop.'  J.  corroborated  this,  and  said  that,  after  ringing  it, 
he  put  the  bell  down  where  he  had  found  it. 

"  The  second  circumstance  which  I  will  relate  occurred 
in  the  light,  one  Sunday  evening,  only  Mr.  Home  and  mem- 
bers of  my  family  being  present.  My  wife  and  I  had  been 
spending  the  day  in  the  country,  and  had  brought  home  a 
few  flowers  we  had  gathered.  On  reaching  home,  we  gave 
them  to  a  servant  to  put  them  in  water.  Mr.  Home  came 
soon  after,  and  we  at  once  proceeded  to  the  dining-room. 
As  we  were  sitting  down,  a  servant  brought  in  the  flowers 
which  she  had  arranged  in  a  vase.  I  placed  it  in  the  center 
of  the  dining-table,  which  was  without  a  cloth.  This  was 
the  first  time  Mr.  Home  had  seen  these  flowers. 

"  After  several  phenomena  had  occurred,  the  conversation 
turned  upon  some  circumstances  which  seemed  only  expli- 
cable on  the  assumption  that  matter  had  actually  passed 
through  a  solid  substance.  Thereupon  a  message  was  given 
by  means  of  the  alphabet :  *  It  is  impossible  for  matter  to 
pass  through  matter,  but  we  will  show  you  what  we  can  do.' 
We  waited  in  silence.  Presently  a  luminous  appearance 
was  seen  hovering  over  the  bouquet  of  flowers,  and  then,  in 
full  view  of  all  present,  a  piece  of  China-grass  fifteen  inches 
long,  which  formed  the  center  ornament  of  the  bouquet, 
slowly  rose  from  the  other  flowers,  and  then  descended  to  the 


MRS.    CROOKES'S   EXPERIENCE       343 

table  in  front  of  the  vase  between  it  and  Mr.  Home.  It  did 
not  stop  on  reaching  the  table,  but  went  straight  through  it, 
and  we  all  watched  it  till  it  had  entirely  passed  through. 
Immediately  on  the  disappearance  of  the  grass  my  wife,  who 
was  sitting  near  Mr.  Home,  saw  a  hand  come  up  from  under 
the  table  between  them,  holding  the  piece  of  grass.  It 
tapped  her  on  the  shoulder  two  or  three  times  with  a  sound 
audible  to  all,  then  laid  the  grass  on  the  floor  and  disap- 
peared. Only  two  persons  saw  the  hand,  but  all  in  the  room 
saw  the  piece  of  grass  moving  about  as  I  have  described. 
During  the  time  this  was  taking  place,  Mr.  Home's  hands 
were  seen  by  all  to  be  quietly  resting  on  the  table  in  front 
of  him.  The  place  where  the  grass  disappeared  was  eighteen 
inches  from  his  hands.  The  table  was  a  telescope  dining- 
table,  opening  with  a  screw ;  there  was  no  leaf  in  it,  and  the 
junction  of  the  two  sides  formed  a  narrow  crack  down  the 
middle.  The  grass  had  passed  through  this  chink,  which  I 
measured  and  found  to  be  barely  one-eighth  inch  wide.  The 
stem  of  the  piece  of  grass  was  far  too  thick  to  enable  me  to 
force  it  through  this  crack  without  injuring  it,  yet  we  had 
all  seen  it  pass  through  quietly  and  smoothly;  and  on  exam- 
ination it  did  not  show  the  slightest  signs  of  pressure  or 
abrasion. " 


Sir  William  Crookes  Sees  a  Man  Resting  in  the 

Air 

Mr.  Crookes  gives  the  following  description  of  a  seance 
he  attended  at  his  brother's  house — Mr.  Walter  Crookes  :  ^ 

^^  Present :  Mr.  D.  D.  Home  (medium),  Mrs.  Douglas, 
Captain  C,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Crookes,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Wr.  Crookes. 

"  In  the  drawing-room,  round  the  center-table. 

^^  Phenomena:  Strong  vibrations  of  the  cabinet  behind 
Mr.  Home;  continuous  raps  on  the  table;  very  strong  vibra- 
tions of  the  cabinet.  Then  a  long  silence.  Mr.  Home  went 
to  the  piano. 

"On  his  return  the  vibrations  recommenced;  then  there 
were  powerful  raps  on  the  table  in  front  of  me. 

"  There  were  thumps  on  the  table  and  then  on  the  floor. 

1  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  vol.  vi.,  pp.  125-7. 


344  SITTING   ON   AIR 

'*'  I  was  touched  on  the  knee. 

"  I  was  touched  again  on  the  knee.  The  table  then  rat- 
tled about  so  violently  that  I  could  not  write. 

"  Mr.  Home  took  the  accordion  in  the  usual  manner.  It 
played  a  tune. 

"  Mrs.  Douglas's  handkerchief  was  taken  from  her  lap  by 
a  hand  visible  to  her  and  Mr.  Home,  the  accordion  playing 
beautifully  all  the  time.     A  message  was  given : 

"  '  Try  less  light.' 

The  handkerchief  moved  about  along  the  floor,  visible  to  all. 
"  Mr.  Home  nearly  disappeared  under  the  table  in  a  cur- 
ious attitude,  then  he  was  (still  in  his  chair)  wheeled  out  from 

JflR  VrfB  C^^         _ 


CAPTC 


W??WWC, 


M^V4i!C* 


under  the  table  still  in  the  same  attitude,  his  feet  out  in  front 
off  the  ground.  He  was  then  sitting  almost  horizontally, 
his  shoulders  resting  on  his  chair. 

'*  He  asked  Mrs.  Wr.  Crookes  to  remove  the  chair  from 
under  him  as  it  was  not  supporting  him.  He  was  then  seen 
to  be  sitting  in  the  air  supported  by  nothing  visible. 

"Then  Mr.  Home  rested  the  extreme  top  of  his  head  on 
a  chair,  and  his  feet  on  the  sofa.  He  said  he  felt  supported 
in  the  middle  very  comfortably.  The  chair  then  moved  away 
of  its  own  accord,  and  Mr.  Home  rested  flat  over  the  floor 
behind  Mrs.  Wr.  Crookes. 

"  A  stool  then  moved  up  from  behind  Mrs.  Wr.  Crookes 
to  between  her  and  Mr.  Home. 

"  Mr.  Home  then  got  up,  and  after  walking  about  the 


IN    BRIGHT   LIGHT 


345 


room  went  to  a  large  glass  screen  and  brought  it  close  up  to 
me,  and  opened  it  out  thus : 


Srff£iN.} 


\    D.D.H    / 


w.  c. 


"  Mr.  Home  then  put  his  hands  on  the  screen,  and  we 
had  raps  on  the  glass.  (The  gas  was  turned  brightly  up 
during  these  experiments.) 

"Then  Mr.  Home  put  his  hand  on  one  leaf  of  the  screen, 
and  I  put  my  hand  where  I  chose  on  the  other  leaf.  Raps 
came  from  under  my  hand. 

"  The  screen  was  then  put  thus  : 


"  Mr.  Home  stood  behind  the  screen  and  had  the  gaslight 
shining  full  on  him.  He  rested  his  two  hands  lightly  on 
the  top  of  the  center  leaf  of  the  screen.  In  this  position 
we  had  the  tablecloth  moved,  raps  on  the  table  in  front  of 
the  screen,  and  raps  on  the  glass  leaves  (either  one  at  request). 
A  lady's  dress  was  pulled,  and  the  chairs  were  shaken. 

"  The  screen  was  then  folded  up  and  laid  horizontally  on 


346        CONFIRMATORY   EXPERIMENTS 

two  chairs  so  as  to  form  a  glass  table.  Mr.  Home  sat  at 
one  side  and  I  sat  at  the  other  side,  by  ourselves.  The 
light  was  very  good,  and  the  whole  of  his  legs  and  feet  were 
easily  seen  through  the  screen. 

"  Many  experiments  were  then  tried  on  this  glass  table. 
Raps  came  from  it  at  my  request  where  I  desired.  It  was 
vibrated,  and  once  raps  came  when  Mr.  Home  was  not  touch- 
ing it. 

"  The  light  was  then  lowered  and  the  screen  put  aside. 

"  The  cushion  from  the  sofa  floated  off  it  and  came  be- 
tween Mr.  Home  and  Mrs.  Wr.  Crookes. 

"  Mr.  Home  took  the  accordion,  and  it  played  *  Auld  Lang 
Syne.* 

"  Some  one  was  seen  standing  behind  Mrs.  William 
Crookes. 

"Mrs.  William  Crookes  had  severe  pain  in  her  head. 
Mr.  Home  came  behind  her  and  mesmerized  her  and  the 
pain  went. 

"  A  message  came  to  Mrs.  Wr.  Crookes. 

"  Nothing  more  took  place  after  this." 

It  would  be  hopeless  to  expect  that  this  description  of 
the  loss  of  all  weight  by  Home  would  be  believed  on  the  tes- 
timony of  even  so  great  a  scientific  expert  as  is  Sir  William 
Crookes,  if  it  were  not  confirmed  by  many  other  similar 
phenomena ;  but  space  will  permit  me  to  give  but  one  mor^^ 
example.  This  I  give  on  the  testimony  of  a  witness  of  high 
scientific  standing,  Lord  Lindsay,  member  of  the  Council  of 
the  Royal  Society,  England.     Lord  Lindsay  writes : 

"  I  was  sitting  with  Mr.  Home  and  Lord  Adare,  and  a 
cousin  of  his.  During  the  sitting  Mr.  Home  went  into  a 
trance,  and  in  that  state  was  carried  out  of  the  window  in 
the  room  next  to  where  we  were  and  was  brought  in  at  our 
window.  The  distance  between  the  windows  was  about  seven 
feet  six  inches,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest  foothold  be- 
tween them,  nor  was  there  more  than  a  twelve-inch  projection 
to  each  window,  which  served  as  a  ledge  to  put  flowers  on. 

"  We  heard  the  window  into  the  next  room  lifted  up,  and 
almost  immediately  after  we  saw  Home  floating  in  the  air 
outside  our  window. 


I 


A    MARVEL   OF    MARVELS  347 

"  The  moon  was  shining  full  into  the  room ;  my  back  was 
to  the  light,  and  I  saw  the  shadow  on  the  wall  of  the  window- 
sill,  and  Home's  feet  about  six  inches  above  it.  He  remained 
in  this  position  for  a  few  seconds,  then  raised  the  window  and 
glided  into  the  room,  feet  foremost,  and  sat  down. 

"  Lord  Adare  then  went  into  the  next  room  to  look  at  the 
window  from  which  he  had  been  carried.  It  was  raised  about 
eighteen  inches,  and  he  expressed  his  wonder  how  Mr. 
Home  had  been  taken  through  so  narrow  an  aperture. 

"  Home  said,  still  entranced, '  I  will  show  you  * ;  and  then 
with  his  back  to  the  window  he  leaned  back,  and  was  shot  out 
of  the  aperture,  head  first,  with  the  body  rigid,  and  then  re- 
turned quite  quietly. 

"  The  window  is  about  seventy  feet  from  the  ground.  I 
very  much  doubt  whether  any  skilful  tight-rope  dancer  would 
like  to  attempt  a  feat  of  this  description,  where  the  only 
means  of  crossing  would  be  by  a  perilous  leap  or  being  borne 
across  in  such  a  manner  as  I  have  described,  placing  the 
question  of  the  light  aside.  Lindsay. 

"July  14,  1871." 

The  "  Theory  of  Fraud  "  is  usually  based  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  phenomena  are  all  the  results  of  tricks,  clever 
mechanical  arrangements,  or  legerdemain ;  the  mediums  are 
impostors,  and  the  rest  of  the  company  little  less  than  fools. 

"  It  is  obvious,"  says  Mr.  Crookes,  "  that  this  theory  can 
only  account  for  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  facts  ob- 
served. I  am  willing  to  admit  that  some  so-called  mediums 
of  whom  the  public  have  heard  much  are  arrant  impostors, 
who  have  taken  advantage  of  the  public  demand  for  Spiritual- 
istic excitement  to  fill  their  purses  with  easily  earned  guineas ; 
while  others  who  have  no  pecuniary  motive  for  imposture  are 
tempted  to  cheat,  it  would  seem,  solely  by  a  desire  for  no- 
toriety. I  have  met  with  several  cases  of  imposture,  some 
very  ingenious,  others  so  palpable  that  no  person  who  has 
witnessed  the  genuine  phenomena  could  betaken  in  by  them. 
An  inquirer  into  the  subject  finding  one  of  these  cases  at  his 
first  initiation  is  disgusted  with  what  he  detects  at  once 
to  be  an  imposture ;  and  he  not  unnaturally  gives  vent  to  his 
feelings,  privately  or  in  print,  by  a  sweeping  denunciation 
of  the  whole  genus  *  medium.*     Again,  with  a  thoroughly 


348  ONLY   GOOD    EXPLANATION 

genuine  medium,  the  first  phenomena  which  are  observed  are 
generally  slight  movements  of  the  table  and  faint  taps  under 
the  medium's  hands  or  feet.  These  of  course  are  quite  easy 
to  be  imitated  by  the  medium  or  any  one  at  the  table.  If,  as 
sometimes  occurs,  nothing  else  takes  place,  the  skeptical  ob- 
server goes  away  with  the  firm  impression  that  his  superior 
acuteness  detected  cheating  on  the  part  of  the  medium,  who 
was  consequently  afraid  to  proceed  with  any  more  tricks  in 
his  presence.  He,  too,  writes  to  the  newspapers  exposing  the 
whole  imposture,  and  probably  indulges  in  moral  sentiments 
about  the  sad  spectacle  of  persons,  apparently  intelligent, 
being  taken  in  by  imposture  which  he  detected  at  once. 

"  There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  tricks  of  a  pro- 
fessional conjurer,  surrounded  by  his  apparatus  and  aided  by 
any  number  of  concealed  assistants  and  confederates,  deceiv- 
ing the  senses  by  clever  sleight-of-hand  on  his  own  platform, 
and  the  phenomena  occurring  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Home, 
which  take  place  in  the  light,  in  a  private  room  that  almost 
up  to  the  commencement  of  the  seance  has  been  occupied  as 
a  living-room,  and  surrounded  by  private  friends  of  my  own, 
who  not  only  will  not  countenance  the  slightest  deception, 
but  who  are  watching  narrowly  everything  that  takes  place. 
Moreover,  Mr.  Home  has  frequently  been  searched  before 
and  after  the  seances,  and  he  always  offers  to  allow  it.  Dur- 
ing the  most  remarkable  occurrences  I  have  occasionally 
held  both  his  hands  and  placed  my  feet  on  his  feet.  On  no 
single  occasion  have  I  proposed  a  modification  of  arrange- 
ments for  the  purpose  of  rendering  trickery  less  possible 
which  he  has  not  at  once  assented  to,  and  frequently  he  has 
himself  drawn  attention  to  tests  which  might  be  tried. 

"  I  speak  chiefly  of  Mr.  Home,  as  he  is  so  much  more 
powerful  than  most  of  the  other  mediums  I  have  experi- 
mented with.  But  with  all  I  have  taken  such  precautions  as 
place  trickery  out  of  the  list  of  possible  explanations. 

"  Be  it  remembered  that  an  explanation  to  be  of  any  value 
must  satisfy  all  the  conditions  of  the  problem.  It  is  not 
enough  for  a  person,  who  has  perhaps  seen  only  a  few  of  the 
inferior  phenomena,  to  say,  *  I  suspect  it  was  all  cheating,' 
or,  *  I  saw  how  some  of  the  tricks  could  be  done.'  " 


INCIPIENT   INSANITY  349 


Professor  Zollner's  Experiments  at  Leipsic  * 

How  Much  Credibility  is  to  be  Given  to  These  Experi- 
ments f — The  Breaking  of  a  Pole  Requiring  the  Strength 
of  Two  Horses — The  Movements  and  Disappearance 
of  a  Table 

Zollner,  at  the  Leipsic  University,  Germany,  was  a  pro- 
fessor of  physics  as  well  as  of  astronomy,  and  ranked  among 
the  first  physicists  in  the  world  at  the  time  of  his  death  in 
1882.  His  was  a  life  trained  to  scientific  observation.  No 
one  has  ever  questioned  his  integrity.  The  charge  of  "  in- 
cipient insanity"  may  be  dismissed  as  groundless,  as  the 
convenient  ^/wr/ conclusion  of  those  of  his  fellow  scientists 
who  could  not  reconcile  sanity  with  what  Zollner  reported  he 
saw.  The  facts  that  he  continued  for  years  after  these  ex- 
periments as  professor  at  Leipsic  and  the  letter  of  the  Head 
of  the  University  (see  page  276)  may  be  regarded  as  answer 
to  this  charge.  Zollner  somewhat  weakened  the  evidential 
value  of  his  investigations  by  pushing  as  vigorously  as  he 
did  his  theory  of  explanation — that  of  the  fourth  dimension. 
Yet  Darwin  had  a  working  hypothesis  in  his  investigation  of 
nature,  that  of  evolution.  Do  scientists  insist  that  this  fact 
should  rule  Darwin  out  of  court  as  a  witness  .•*  Certainly 
not.  Zollner  describes  physical  phenomena  from  "  raps  " 
upward  as  taking  place  in  his  presence,  in  his  own  house, 
and  under  the  conditions  he  himself  prescribed. 

Slade  was  a  stranger  to  Professor  Zollner  and  a  stranger 
in  Leipsic,  having  reached  there  but  the  day  before.  He 
came  alone.  On  the  next  day  after  his  arrival  he  called  on 
Zollner,  and  the  following  incident  occurred  in  the  presence 
of  Professors  Weber,  Scheibner,  and  Zollner.  The  throwing 
of  the  knife  and  the  slate-writing  may  be  easily  explained 

1  The  descriptions  of  these  sittings  were  written  by  Professor  Z6llner  and  were 
published  in  Zollner's  "Transcendental  Physics/'  translated  by  Massey. 


3  so 


GREAT   DISPLAY    OF    FORCE 


on  the  theory  of  sleight-of-hand ;  but  how  explain  the  break- 
ing of  the  pole  ? 

"  While  experiments  similar  to  those  first  described  were 
being  successfully  made,  a  violent  crack  was  suddenly  heard, 
as  in  the  discharging  of  a  large  battery  of  Ley  den  jars.  On 
turning,  with  some  alarm,  in  the  direction  of  the  sound,  the 
before-mentioned  screen  fell  apart  in  two  pieces.  The 
wooden  screws,  half  an  inch  thick,  were  torn  from  above  and 
below,  without  any  visible  contact  of  Slade  with  the  screen. 
The  parts  broken  were  at  least  five  feet  removed  from  Slade, 
who  had  his  back  to  the  screen ;  but  even  if  he  had  intended 
to  tear  it  down  by  a  cleverly  devised  sideward  motion,  it 
would  have  been  necessary  to  fasten  it  on  the  opposite  side. 
As  it  was,  the  screen  stood  quite  unattached,  and  the  grain 
of  the  wood  being  parallel  to  the  axis  of  the  cylindrical 
wooden  fastenings,  the  wrenching  asunder  could  only  be 
accomplished  by  a  force  acting  longitudinally  to  the  part  in 
question." 

Professor  Zollner  further  speaks  of  the  breaking  of  this 
pole — and  let  it  be  remembered  that  the  professor  was  a 
trained  physicist,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  world's  specialists : 

**  In  all  phenomena  in  the  presence  of  Spiritualistic 
mediums  hitherto  observed  and  published,  it  is  almost  ex- 
clusively the  modus  operaiidi  that  has  led  to  controversies 
concerning  the  explicability  of  the  phenomena  from  the  stand- 
point of  our  conception  of  nature  heretofore.  An  argument 
has  been  founded  on  the  fact  that  things  occur  also  in  the 
presence  of  conjurers  in  which  the  modus  operandi  of  the 
performer  is  concealed  from  us,  and  thus  the  causal  connec- 
tion between  the  muscular  movements  of  the  artist  and  the 
effect  produced  by  him  is  so  interrupted  (apparently)  that  for 
the  spectator  there  arises  the  impression  of  the  inexplicable, 
and  therefore  of  the  miraculous.  This  argument,  however, 
has  for  its  premise  the  understood  and  thus  unexpressed  pre- 
supposition that  the  muscular  force  requisite  for  the  produc- 
tion of  these  tricks  of  the  conjurer  remains  withifi  those 
limits  which  ajcording  to  experience  are  prescribed  to  human 
beings  by  the  organization  of  their  bodies. 

"  If,  for  example,  one  man  alone  were  to  perform  a  trick 


STRENGTH    OF   TWO    HORSES       351 

requiring  the  strength  of  two  horses,  in  relation  to  such  a 
result  the  above  argument  would  be  no  longer  admissible, 
since  then  there  would  be  no  conceivable  modus  operandi 
able  to  produce  the  effect. 

"  In  the  case  of  my  bed-screen  I  am  fortunately  able  to 
establish  such  an  instance. 

"  The  material  of  the  frame  was  alder  wood ;  the  screen 
was  new,  and  had  been  bought  by  me  about  a  year  before  at 
the  furniture-shop  already  mentioned  by  me.  The  cross-cut 
of  the  two  pieces  of  wood  which  were  longitudinally  ^  and 
simultaneously  rent,  above  and  below,  amounted  to  3.142 
cubic  centimeters  (about  i  y^  inches  in  diameter).  According 
to  the  experiments  of  Ettelwein,^  the  amount  of  pull  requis- 
ite for  the  longitudinal  rending  of  such  a  piece  of  alder  wood 
is  4,957  kilograms,  or  about  99  cwts. ;  since,  therefore,  two 
such  rods  have  been  simultaneously  rent,  for  the  production 
of  this  effect  a  force  of  pull  {Zugkraff)  amounting  to  298 
cwts.  must  have  been  used. 

"  In  order,  now,  to  compare  the  force  here  given  with 
that  exercised  by  men,  in  what  follows  I  quote  literally  the 
appended  information  from  Gehler's  *  Dictionary  of  Physics, ' 
vol.  ii.,  p.  976 : 

"  *  The  muscles  of  the  thigh  hold  upright  the  body,  whose 
weight  can  be  put  at  150  lbs.;  and  since  there  are  muscles 
which  bear  300  lbs.  in  addition,  the  weight  of  pressure  al- 
ready amounts  in  itself  to  450  lbs.  To  cite,  however,  some 
examples  only  of  extraordinary  strength,  I  have  myself  known 
a  man  who  without  preparation  and  on  an  accidental  occasion 
carried  six  Rhenish  cubic  feet  (Brunswick  bushels)  of  wheat, 
and  upon  this  a  large,  strong  man,  up  a  flight  of  about  eight 
steps.  This  weight  of  itself  can  be  estimated  at  450  lbs., 
and,  with  the  added  weight  of  the  bearer,  in  the  whole  at 
600  lbs.,  resting  on  the  feet  and  legs  of  that  man. 

*  "That  the  pull  izug)  upon  the  screen  has  in  fact  acted  longitudinally  only  is 
still  evidenced  quite  independently  of  the  above-mentioned  direction  of  the  fibers 
at  the  places  of  division.  For  between  the  two  strong  beams  for  connecting  the 
movable  parts  of  the  frame  are  two  thin,  parallel  pieces  of  wood  for  securing  the 
green  woolen  stuff  with  which  the  screen  is  overlaid.  These  thm  pieces  are 
fastened  without  glue  to  the  vertical  supports  loosely  in  holes  about  25  millimeters 
deep  ;  if,  therefore,  instead  of  a  longitudinal  pull  a  rupture  {bruck)  has  taken  place, 
these  two  pegs  must  have  been  broken  away,  which  was  not  the  case." 

'  "  Handbook  of  Statistics  of  Solid  Bodies,  with  particular  regard  in  their  ap- 
plication  to  Architecture,"  vol.  iii.,  Berlin,  1808.  A  very  complete  review  of  earlier 
experiments  is  given  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia."  Compare  Gehler's  "  Dic- 
tionary of  Physics,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  138. 


:>S^    FAR   BEYOND   SLADE'S   STRENGTH 

"  *  There  are,  moreover,  many  instances  of  a  vastly  greater 
exertion  of  strength  produced  by  the  extensor  muscle  of  the 
leg,  like  that  mentioned  by  Desaguliers,  of  a  man  who  thus 
tore  a  rope  which  sustained  a  weight  of  i,8oo  lbs.  =  i8 
cwts. ;  he  himself  and  some  others  having  raised  1,900 
lbs.  weight  by  means  of  a  strap  hanging  down  over  the 
hips,  by  bringing  the  somewhat  bent  leg  into  a  straight 
direction. 

"  *  I  have  myself  seen  a  strong  man  raise  2,000  lbs.,  by 
placing  himself  in  a  bent  posture  under  a  board,  whereon 
this  weight  rested,  bringing  its  point  of  gravity  somewhere 
near  the  hips,  supporting  the  arms  on  the  knees,  and  then 
straightening  the  bent  legs.  The  muscles  here  applied  are, 
among  all  in  the  human  body,  able  to  overcome  the  greatest 
weights,  and  so  therefore  a  man  raises  much  heavier  burdens 
in  the  way  described  than  on  the  shoulders  or  with  the  upper 
part  of  the  body,  if  at  the  same  time  the  backbone  has  to  be 
straightened. 

"  *  I  myself  knew  a  man  who  raised  a  hundredweight  from 
the  chair  on  to  the  table  on  the  little  finger  of  the  right  hand 
with  outstretched  arm ;  and  even  this  instance  is  by  no  means 
the  strongest,  judging  from  credible  narratives;  so  I  saw  the 
above-mentioned  Hercules,  who  raised  the  2,000  lbs.,  grasp 
with  his  right  hand  a  perpendicular  rod  of  iron,  sufficiently 
secured,  and  with  outstretched  arm  keep  his  whole  body 
sustained  in  a  horizontal  position  for  about  five  seconds  with- 
out other  support. ' 

"  Comparing  the  above  with  the  force  198  cwts.,  requisite 
for  the  rending  of  my  bed-screen,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
strength  of  the  Hercules  referred  to  would  have  to  be  mul- 
tiplied by  nearly  10 — applied  in  a  favorable  position — to  pro- 
duce the  physical  manifestation  which  took  place  in  Slade's 
presence  without  contact.  Since  *the  force  in  the  move- 
ment of  weights  by  carrying  on  the  flat  *  is  with  a  horse  on 
the  average  about  five  times  greater  than  that  of  a  man, '  so 
for  the'  production  of  the  mechanical  effect  in  question  in 
Slade's  presence  about  two  horses  would  have  been  necessary. 
Even  if  Slade  should  be  assumed  to  be  a  giant,  and  the  fac- 

»  Gehler's  "  Dictionary  of  Physics,"  vol.  v.,  p.  1004.    Literally,  "  There  is  there- 
fore in  the  movement  by  carrying  of  weights  on  the  flat,  a  force: 
Of  a  man  =  i  according  to  Coulomb. 
Of  a  horse  =  4.8  according  to  Brunacci. 
Of  a  horse  =  6.1  according  to  Wessermann." 


A   SCIENTIST'S   CREDULITY  2S3 

ulty  ascribed  to  him  of  moving  so  swiftly  in  space  that  my 
friends  Wilhelm  Weber,  Scheibner,  and  I  myself  were  pre- 
vented by  this  rapidity  from  perceiving  how  he  tore  asunder 
the  screen  b^  his  own  action,  yet  will  rational  skeptics  be 
disposed  to  renounce  such  an  *  explanation '  after  the  state- 
ments just  given. 

"  But  in  case  I  should  be  reproached  with  having  in  the 
above  supposition  caricatured  the  so-called  *  rational '  attempt 
at  explanation,  I  may  observe  that  one  of  my  esteemed  col- 
leagues who,  on  the  day  after  the  sitting  in  question,  was 
himself  present  with  two  other  of  our  colleagues  at  a  sitting 
with  Mr.  Slade,  sought  quite  seriously  to  appease  his  scien- 
tific conscience  by  the  supposition  that  Slade  carried  dyna- 
mite about  with  him  for  the  purpose  of  such  strong  mechani- 
cal manifestations,  concealing  it  in  some  clever  fashion  in 
the  furniture,  and  then  with  equal  adroitness  exploding  it  by 
a  match.  This  explanation  reminded  me  of  one  by  which  a 
peasant  in  the  remote  part  of  Pomerania  attempted  to  ac- 
count for  the  motion  of  a  locomotive.  To  mitigate  in  some 
degree  the  terror  which  the  first  sight  of  a  self-moving  loco- 
motive must  naturally  excite  in  rude  and  ignorant  men,  the 
priest  of  the  village  in  question  tried  to  explain  to  his  par- 
ishioners the  mechanism  and  effect  of  a  steam-engine.  When 
now  the  pastor  had  conducted  his  peasants,  enlightened  by 
his  *  popular  lecture,'  ^  to  the  railroad  just  as  the  first  train 
rushed  by,  they  all  shook  their  heads  incredulously,  and  an- 
swered the  priest :  *  No,  no,  parson ;  there  are  horses  hidden 
inside ! '  That,  in  fact,  within  all  bodies  electrical  forces  are 
potentially  latent,  which,  suddenly  released,  could  exceed  the 
strongest  effects  of  a  charge  of  dynamite,  I  have  already  re- 
marked in  the  first  volume  as  follows :  *  It  is  proved  that  the 
electrical  energy  present  in  the  mass  of  one  milligram '  of 
water  (or  any  other  body)  would  be  able,  if  it  could  be  sud- 
denly set  free,  to  produce  the  amount  of  motion  which  the 
explosion  of  a  charge  of  16.7  kilograms^  of  powder  in  the 
largest  of  cannons  now  existing  can  impart  to  a  shot  of  520 
kilograms.' 

"  In  the  presence  of  spiritualistic  mediums  there  must 


*  For  reasons  given  in  other  parts  of  his  treatises,  Professor  Z511ner  holds 
popular  expositions  of  scientific  subjects  in  small  esteem.— TR. 
'  =  0.01543  grain. 
'  I  kilogram  =  2.20462x2  lbs. 

23 


354  "CATALYTIC   FORCES" 

therefore  have  been  operative  so-called  catalytic  ^  forces, 
hitherto  concealed  from  us,  which  were  able  to  release  and 
convert  into  active  force  a  small  part  of  the  potential  energy 
laid  up  in  all  bodies.  That  fifty  years  ago  a  physicist  could 
venture  with  impunity  publicly  to  declare  the  possible  exist- 
ence of  *  forces  up  to  the  present  unknown  to  us,'  without 
on  that  account  having  dirt  thrown  upon  him  by  anonymous 
writers  in  (so-called)  *  respectable  journals,'  is  proved  by  the 
following  words  of  the  then  professor  of  physics  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Heidelberg  in  the  year  1829:^  '  Not  a  few,  and 
among  them,  moreover,  advantageously  known  scholars,  have 
supposed  different  unknown  forces  in  nature,  and  especially 
in  man.  That  there  may  be  such,  from  whose  action  many 
as  yet  mysterious  phenomena  of  vegetable  and  animal  vital 


i"That  the  ordinary  chemical  and  physical  processes  require  for  their  ex- 
planation the  supposition  of  such  catalytic  forces  was  first  recognized  by  Ber- 
zelius,  with  whom,  as  is  well  known,  the  designation  of  these  forces  originated. 

"  It  is  certainly  a  proof  of  the  great  acuteness  of  Wilhelm  Weber,  and  of  the 
universal  significance  of  his  law^  that  already,  thirty-two  years  ago,  immediately 
following  the  discussion  of  the  analytical  expression  of  his  law  (compare  my 
"Principles  of  an  Electro-Dynamic  Theory  of  Matter,"  vol.  i.),  he  expressed  him- 
self concerning  the  existence  of  catalj'tic  forces  in  nature  as  follows  : 

"*Thus  this  force  depends  on  the'quantity  of  the  masses,  on  their  distance,  on 
their  relative  velocity,  and  further  on  that  relative  acceleration,  which  comes  to 
them  partly  in  consequence  of  the  persistence  of  the  motion  already  present  in 
them,  partly  in  consequence  of  the  forces  acting  upon  them  from  other  bodies. 

"  '  It  seems  to  follow  from  thence  that  direct  interaction  between  two  electrical 
masses  depends  not  exclusivelj"  upon  these  masses  themselves  and  their  mutual 
relations,  but  also  in  the  presence  of  third  bodies.  Now  it  is  known  that  Berze- 
lius  has  already  conjectured  such  a  dependence  of  direct  interaction  of  two  bodies 
in  the  presence  of  a  third,  and  has  designated  the  force  thence  resulting  by  the 
name  of  catalytic.  Adopting  this  name,  it  can  therefore  be  said  that  even  elec- 
trical phenomena  proceed  in  part  from  catalytic  forces. 

"  'This  proof  of  catalj'tic  forces  for  electricity  is  not,  however,  strictly  speak- 
ing, a  consequence  of  the  discovered  principles  of  electricity.  It  would  only  then  be 
so,  if  with  these  principles  was  necessarily  connected  the  idea  that  only  the  forces 
by  which  electrical  masses  act  directly  on  each  other  from  a  distance  were  thereby 
determined.  It  is,  however,  conceivable  that  among  the  forces  comprehended  under 
the  discovered  principles  are  some  exercised  mediately  by  electrical  masses  on  one 
another,  which  must  therefore  depend,  in  the  first  instance,  on  the  interposing 
medium,  and  furthermore  on  all  bodies  acting  on  this  medium.  Such  mediately 
exercised  forces,  if  the  interposing  medium  is  withdrawn  from  our  view,  may 
easily  pass  for  catalytic  forces,  altho  in  fact  not  so.  The  conception  of  catalytic 
forces  must  at  least  be  essentially  modified  in  speaking  of  them  in  such  cases. 
That  is  to  say,  under  catalytic  force  must  then  be  understood  such  a  mediately 
exercised  force  as  can  be  defined  according  to  a  general  rule  through  a  certain 
knowledge  of  the  bodies  to  whose  influence  the  interposing  medium  is  subjected, 
altho  without  knowledge  of  this  medium  itself.  The  discovered  fundamental  law 
of  electricity  gives  a  general  rule  for  the  determination  of  catalytic  forces  in  this 
sense.'  " 

"Muncke,  in  Gebler's  "Dictionary  of  Physics,"  vol,  v.,  p.  1007. 


REFUSING   GALILEO^S   TELESCOPE      355 

processes  could  be  explicable,  certainly  can  not  be  denied 
generally  and  a  priori ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite 
certain  that  the  greatest  circumspection  and  a  skepticism 
much  to  be  recommended  to  a  physicist  should  be  exercised 
in  this  supposition.' 

"  How  far  the  paternal  counsel  here  given  to  uncritical 
physicists  is  justifiable  and  decent  when  applied  to  men  of 
the  scientific  eminence  of  Wilhelm  Weber  or  Fechner,  par- 
ticularly from  the  mouths  of  literati  2indL pretended  {so-genann- 
ten)  '  men  of  science,*  posterity  may  judge.  In  the  mean 
while  we  console  ourselves  with  words  addressed  by  Galileo 
to  Kepler : 

" '  What  wilt  thou  say  of  the  first  teachers  at  the  Gym- 
nasium at  Padua  who,  when  I  offered  it  to  them,  would  look 
neither  at  the  planets  nor  the  moon  through  the  telescope? 
This  sort  of  men  look  on  philosophy  as  a  book  like  the  yEneid 
or  Odyssey,  and  believe  that  truth  is  to  be  sought  not  in  the 
world  or  nature  but  only  in  "  comparison  of  texts. "  How 
wouldst  thou  have  laughed,  when  at  Pisa  the  first  teacher 
of  the  Gymnasium  there  endeavored,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Grand  Duke,  to  tear  away  the  new  planets  from  heaven  with 
logical  arguments,  like  magical  exorcisms  ! ' 

"  Kepler,  however,  hereupon  answered  Galileo  : 

"  *  Courage,  Galileo,  and  advance !  If  I  see  rightly,  few 
of  Europe's  eminent  mathematicians  will  fall  away  from  us; 
so  great  is  the  power  of  truth, '  " 

Now  test  these  phenomena  by  tlife  two  hypotheses  usually 
given  to  explain  away  Zollner's  experiments  with  Slade,  that 
Slade  hypnotized  Zollner,  making  him  see  what  he  pleased, 
and  the  other,  that  Zollner  was  troubled  with  incipient  in- 
sanity. To  the  latter  charge  the  head  of  the  university  says 
"No,"  with  warmth.  The  talk  of  those  scientists  who  think 
belief  in  Spiritualism  is  sufficient  proof  of  incipient  insanity 
counts  but  little.  This  charge  of  insanity  has  been  urged 
against  the  utterance  of  almost  every  great  man  who  has 
taught  something  new.  The  leaders  in  Palestine  thought 
Christ  insane,  and  yet  His  mind  was  the  sanest  that  ever 
tabernacled  in  flesh ;  "  great  learning  "  had  made  Paul  mad ; 
Savonarola,  Luther,  Garrison  were  all  thought  by  the  world's 


356        HYPNOTISM    WON^T    EXPLAIN 

leaders  in  their  day  unsound  in  mind;  Hare,  de  Morgan, 
Wallace,  Crookes,  all  had  gone  daft  when  they  reported  that 
"there  is  something  in  Spiritual  phenomena." 

How  will  the  explanation  of  hypnotism  or  sleight-of-hand 
explain  the  physical  fact  that  this  piece  of  wood  was  broken 
before  these  professors  in  a  way  that  required  the  strength 
of  two  horses  to  do  it  ?  The  broken  pieces  of  wood  were  there 
afterward,  and  were  scientifically  examined  by  scientific  men 
who  were  among  the  greatest  physicists  of  the  age.  The  jag- 
ged ends  showed  the  direction  in  which  the  force  was  exerted. 

On  the  theory  of  hypnotism,  several  professors  would 
have  had  to  have  been  hypnotized  at  the  same  time  and  not 
have  known  it — possible,  but  not  likely ;  yet  the  fact  remained 
afterward  that  the  pole  was  broken  by  a  pull  that  required 
the  strength  of  two  horses. 

As  soon  as  Professor  Zollner  had  made  known  what  oc- 
curred in  his  presence,  a  storm  of  ridicule  and  criticism  burst 
upon  him  as  had  burst  upon  Wallace  and  Crookes.  Then  it 
was  discovered,  but  not  before,  that  he  was  afflicted  with 
incipient  insanity.  Zollner  urged  the  following  considera- 
tion upon  his  scientific  colleagues : 

"  The  establishment  of  physical  facts  falls  within  the  do- 
main of  the  physicist ;  and  if  men  of  such  distinguished  emi- 
nence as  Wilhelm  Weber,  Fechner,  and  others,  after  thorough 
experimental  investigation,  publicly  attest  the  reality  of  such 
facts,  it  is  evidently  nothing  but  an  act  of  modern  presump- 
tion for  unscientific  people,  at  their  pleasure,  to  accept  as 
facts  absurd  conjectures  concerning  the  possibility  of  trick- 
ery without  more  inquiry,  and  thus  to  deny  the  capacity  of 
these  men  for  exact  observations. 

"  I  have  already  described  in  detail  the  conditions  under 
which  the  knots  occurred  in  the  string  fastened  by  a  seal,  in 
the  presence  of  Mr.  Slade,  without  the  string  being  touched. 
Every  possibility  that  these  knots  were  in  the  string  already, 
before  the  sealing  of  the  ends,  and  had  only  been  brought  to 
another  part  of  the  same  by  pushing,  is  definitely  excluded." 

"  As  regards  the  following  experiments  with  Mr.  Slade, 


UNFAIR   SCIENTISTS  357 

I  describe  them  in  the  first  place  for  physicistSy  that  is,  for 
scientific  men  who  are  competent  to  understand  my  other 
physical  investigations  and  experiments,  to  which,  during 
the  space  of  twenty  years,  I  have  given  publicity  in  scientific 
journals.  Such  men  alone  are  able  to  form  an  independent 
judgment,  on  the  ground  of  my  antecedent  work,  as  to  how 
far  confidence  should  be  extended  to  me  as  a  physical  ex- 
perimentalist. For  tho  the  theoretical  considerations — by 
which  the  facts  of  observation  so  imparted  by  me  during  that 
space  have  been  connected  hitherto — deviate  in  many  re- 
spects from  my  own,  the  facts  themselves  so  observed  by  me 
have  up  to  this  time  received  only  confirmation  in  their  en- 
tirety. As  regards  such  men,  also,  who  on  the  ground  of  my 
labors  heretofore  are  able  to  form  their  own  independent 
judgment  on  my  reliability  and  credibility,  I  am  relieved 
from  the  useless  trouble  of  describing  more  minutely  and 
circumstantially  than  is  necessary  for  intellectual  and  scien- 
tific men  the  conditions  under  which  the  following  phenomena 
were  observed  by  me.  Suppose,  for  example,  I  observed 
during  a  physical  investigation  (as  in  that  concerning  the 
electric  fluid)  deviations  of  the  magnetic  needle  under  hith- 
erto unusual  conditions.  If  now  a  physicist,  wishing  to 
bring  my  observations  into  contempt,  were  to  suggest  that  I 
had  perhaps  accidentally  had  a  magnetic  knife  on  the  table, 
or  had  not  duly  taken  into  account  the  daily  variations  of  the 
earth's  magnetism,  such  suppositions  might  be  entertained 
with  respect  to  a  student  or  beginner  in  the  province  of  phys- 
ical observations,  but  I  myself  should  feel  them,  coming 
from  a  scientific  colleague,  as  an  insult,  and  should  hold  it 
beneath  my  dignity  as  a  physicist  to  reply  to  them.* 

"  I  assume  entirely  the  same  position  in  describing  the 
following  experiments  with  Mr.  Slade,  which  I  conducted 
partly  alone,  partly  in  company  with  my  above-named  friend, 
Oscar  von  Hoffmann,  as  in  describing  the  greater  number  of 
my  former  physical  investigations." 

»  "The  above  protest  recalls  that  of  Mr.  Crookes,  in  referring  to  a  suggestion 
that,  in  his  researches  with  Mr.  Home,  he  had  possibl}'  allowed  the  latter  to  sup- 
ply a  board  forming  an  essential  part  of  the  apparatus  employed, 

"It  is  seriously  expected,"  says  Mr.  Crookes,  "that  I  should  answer  such  a 
question  as  'did  Mr.  Home  furnish  the  board?'  Will  not  my  critics  give  me 
credit  for  the  possession  of  some  amount  of  common  sense  ?  And  can  they  not 
imagine  that  obvious  precautions,  which  occur  to  them  as  soon  as  they  sit  down  to 
pick  holes  in  my  experiments,  are  not  unlikely  to  have  also  occurred  to  me  in  the 
course  of  prolonged  and  patient  investigation  ?  "—TR. 


358  NO   A   PRIORI    CONDITIONS 

Zollner  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  would  have  been 
preposterous,  "  on  entering  a  new  and  wholly  unfamiliar 
province  of  physical  phenomena,  to  impose  a  priori  conditions 
under  which  these  phenomena  *  ought'  to  occur."  He  con- 
tinues : 

"The  experiments  formerly  described  (December  17, 
1878)  with  the  knotted  cord  suggest  two  explanations,  ac* 
cording  as  one  supposes  a  space  of  three  or  of  four  dimen- 
sions. In  the  first  case  there  must  have  been  a  so-called 
passage  of  matter  through  matter ;  or,  in  other  words,  the 
molecules  of  which  the  cord  consists  must  have  been  sepa- 
rated in  certain  places,  and  then,  after  the  other  portion  of 
cord  had  been  passed  through,  again  united  in  the  same  posi- 
tion as  at  first.  In  the  second  case  the  manipulation  of  the 
flexible  cord  being,  according  to  my  theory,  subject  to  the 
laws  of  a  four-dimensional  region  of  space,  such  a  separation 
and  reunion  of  molecules  would  not  be  necessary.  The  cord 
would,  however,  certainly  undergo  during  the  process  an 
amount  of  twisting  which  would  be  discernible  after  the 
knots  were  tied.  I  had  not  paid  attention  to  this  circum- 
stance in  December  last  year,  and  had  not  examined  the  cords 
with  regard  to  the  size  and  direction  of  the  twist.  The  fol- 
lowing experiment,  however,  which  took  place  on  the  8th  of 
May  this  year,  in  a  sitting  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  duration 
with  Mr.  Slade  in  a  well-lighted  room,^  furnishes  an  answer 
to  the  above  question  in  favor  of  the  four-dimensional  theory 
without  separation  of  material  particles. 

"The  experiment  was  as  follows:  I  took  two  bands  cut 
out  of  soft  leather,  44  centimeters  long  and  from  5  to  10 
millimeters  broad,  and  fastened  the  ends  of  each  together, 
as  formerly  described  with  the  cords,  and  sealed  them  with 
my  own  seal.  The  two  leather  bands  were  laid  separately 
on  the  card-table  at  which  we  sat ;  the  seals  were  placed 
opposite  to  one  another,  and  I  held  my  hands  over  the  bands. 
Slade  sat  at  my  left  side,  and  placed  his  right  hand  gently 
over  mine,  I  being  able  to  feel  the  leather  underneath  all  the 
time.  Slade  asserted  that  he  saw  lights  emanating  from 
my  hands,  and  could  feel  a  cool  wind  over  them.     I  felt  the 

1  Let  it  be  remembered  that  all  of  the  experiments  with  Slade  were  made 
either  in  Zollner's  own  house  or  the  house  of  his  personal  friend,  Mr  von 
Hoffmann. 


KNOTS   IN    ENDLESS   BANDS         359 

latter,  but  could  not  see  the  lights.  Presently,  while  I  still 
distinctly  felt  the  cool  breeze,  and  Slade's  hands  were  not 
touching  mine,  but  were  removed  from  them  about  two  or 
three  decimeters,  I  felt  a  movement  of  the  leather  bands 
under  my  hands.  Then  came  three  raps  in  the  table,  and 
on  removing  my  hands  the  two  leather  bands  were  knotted 
together.  The  time  that  the  bands  were  under  my  hands 
was  at  most  three  minutes. " 

Zollner,  to  test  further  the  power  of  these  unseen  intelli- 
gences who  seemed  to  be  working  with  Slade,  secured  two 
wooden  rings,  one  of  oak  and  the  other  of  alder-wood,  each 
turned  from  one  piece.     Zollner  reasoned : 

"  Could  these  two  rings  be  interlinked  without  solution 
of  continuity,  the  test  would  be  additionally  convincing  by 
close  microscopic  examination  of  the  unbroken  continuity  of 
the  fiber.  Two  different  kinds  of  wood  being  chosen,  the 
possibility  of  cutting  both  rings  from  the  same  piece  is  like- 
wise excluded.  Two  such  interlinked  rings  would  conse- 
quently in  themselves  represent  a  '  miracle,'  that  is,  a  phe- 
nomenon which  our  conceptions  heretofore  of  physical  and 
organic  processes  would  be  absolutely  incompetent  to  ex- 
plain.'* 

Zollner  also  had  cut  from  a  dried  gut,  such  as  is  used  in 
twine  factories,  a  band  without  ends,  holding  that  if  a  knot 
be  tied  in  this  band,  close  microscopic  examination  would  also 
reveal  whether  the  connection  of  the  parts  of  this  strip  had 
been  severed  or  not.     He  says : 

"  On  the  9th  day  of  May,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  I  was  alone  with  Slade  in  our  usual  sitting-room. 
A  fresh  wind  having  blown  all  the  afternoon,  the  sky  was 
remarkably  clear,  and  the  room,  which  has  a  westerly  aspect, 
was  brilliantly  lighted  by  the  setting  sun.  The  two  wooden 
rings  and  the  above-mentioned  entire  bladder  band  were 
strung  on  to  a  piece  of  catgut  one  millimeter  in  thickness 
and  1.05  meters  in  length.  The  two  ends  of  the  catgut  were 
tied  together  by  myself  in  a  knot,  and  then,  as  formerly  in 
the  case  of  the  string,  secured  with  my  own  seal  by  myself. 


360  ASTONISHING   RESULTS 

"  When  Slade  and  I  were  seated  at  the  table  in  the  usual 
manner,  I  placed  my  two  hands  over  the  upper  end  of  the 
sealed  catgut.  The  small  round  table,  already  referred  to, 
was  placed  shortly  after  our  entry  into  the  room  a  short  dis- 
tance from  where  we  were  sitting. 

"  After  a  few  minutes  had  elapsed,  and  Slade  had  asserted, 
as  usual  during  physical  manifestations,  that  he  saw  lights, 
a  slight  smell  of  burning  was  apparent  in  the  room ;  it  seemed 
to  come  from  under  the  table,  and  somewhat  recalled  the 
smell  of  sulfuric  acid.  Shortly  afterward  we  heard  a  rattling 
sound  at  the  small  round  table  opposite,  as  of  pieces  of  wood 
knocking  together.  When  I  asked  whether  we  should  close 
the  sitting,  the  rattling  was  repeated  three  times  consecu- 
tively. We  then  left  our  seats,  in  order  that  we  might  ascer- 
tain the  cause  of  the  rattling  at  the  round  table.  To  our 
great  astonishment  we  found  the  two  wooden  rings,  which 
about  six  minutes  previously  were  strung  on  the  catgut,  in 
complete  preservation,  encircling  the  leg  of  the  small  table. 
The  catgut  was  tied  in  two  loose  knots,  through  which  the 
endless  bladder  band  was  hanging  tminjured. 

"  Immediately  after  the  sitting,  astonished  and  highly  de- 
lighted at  such  a  wealth  of  permanent  results,  I  called  my 
friend  and  his  wife  into  the  sitting-room.  Slade  fell  into 
one  of  his  usual  trances,  and  informed  us  that  the  invisible 
beings  surrounding  him  had  endeavored,  according  to  my 
wish,  to  tie  some  knots  in  the  endless  band,  but  had  been 
obliged  to  abandon  their  intention  as  the  band  was  in  danger 
of  '  melting  '  during  the  operation  under  the  great  increase  of 
temperature,  and  that  we  should  perceive  this  by  the  white- 
ness of  a  spot  on  the  band.  Having  taken  the  band  into  my 
own  hands  immediately  after  the  sitting,  and  held  it  up  to 
the  moment  of  Slade 's  communication,  I  felt  great  interest 
in  testing  the  correctness  of  this  assertion.  There  was,  in 
fact,  a  white  spot  as  indicated,  and  when  we  took  another 
piece  of  exactly  the  same  material  and  held  it  over  a  lighted 
candle,  the  effect  of  the  increased  temperature  was  to  produce 
precisely  such  another  white  spot.  This  fact,  in  connection 
with  the  burning  smell  perceived  during  the  sitting,  as  well 
as  the  increase  in  temperature  in  a  former  experiment  (re- 
lated above),  will  be  worth  bearing  in  mind  in  further  experi- 
ments with  four-dimensional  movements  of  bodies. 

"  From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  my  prepared 


CONTEMPTUOUS   ABUSE  361 

experiments  did  not  succeed  in  the  manner  expected  by  me. 
For  example,  the  two  wooden  rings  were  not  linked  together, 
but  instead  were  transferred  within  five  minutes  from  the 
sealed  catgut  to  the  leg  of  the  round  birchen  table.  Since 
the  seal  was  not  loosened,  and  the  top  of  the  table  was  not  at 
any  time  removed — it  is  still  tightly  fastened — it  follows, 
from  the  standpoint  of  our  present  conception  of  space,  that 
each  of  the  two  wooden  rings  penetrated  first  the  catgut  and 
then  the  birch-wood  of  the  leg  of  the  table.  If,  however,  I 
ask  whether,  in  the  eyes  of  a  skeptic,  the  experiment  desired 
by  me  or  that  which  actually  succeeded  is  most  fitted  to  make 
a  great  and  convincing  impression,  on  closer  consideration 
every  one  will  decide  in  favor  of  the  latter.  For  the  demon- 
strative force  of  the  interlinked  rings  would  rest  merely  on 
the  credibility  of  the  botanically  educated  microscopist,  who 
must  have  been  my  witness  (as  the  imperial  court  conjurer, 
Bellachini,  was  for  Mr.  Slade)  that  the  natural  conformation 
of  the  rings  had  never  been  disturbed.  How  wholly  useless, 
however,  such  testimonies  are  at  present,  when,  according  to 
Goethe's  expression,  *  incredulity  has  become  like  an  inverted 
superstition  for  the  delusion  of  our  time,'  we  have  seen  in 
the  sort  of  criticism  which  Bellachini's  testimony  has  under- 
gone at  the  hands  of  the  Berlin  literati.^  The  question  will 
moreover  be  asked,  Why  just  here  in  Leipsic  the  experiments 
with  Mr.  Slade  have  been  crowned  with  such  splendid  suc- 
cess, and  yet  the  knot  experiment,  for  example,  has  not  once 
succeeded  in  Russia,  notwithstanding  so  many  wishes  .'*  If  it 
is  considered  how  great  an  interest  Mr.  Slade  must  have  in 
seeing  so  simple  and  striking  an  experiment  everywhere  and 
always  successful,  every  rightly  judging  and  unprejudiced 
person  must  see  just  in  this  very  circumstance  the  most 
striking  proof  that  Mr.  Slade  is  no  trickster  who  by  clever 
manipulations  makes  these  knots  himself.  For  such  a  one 
would  evidently  be  at  the  trouble  so  to  increase  his  expert- 
ness,  by  frequent  repetition  of  the  experiment,  as  to  be  able 
to  rely  with  certainty  on  his  art  to  deceive  other  *  men  of 
science. '  That,  nevertheless,  this  obvious  consideration  has 
not  suggested  itself,  the  above-mentioned  failure  being  re- 
garded, on  the  contrary,  as  just  the  proof  that  Mr.  Slade  has 
only  deceived  us  at  Leipsic,  which  he  could  not  do  with  the 

1  Mere  contemptuous  abuse— Professor  Zollner  gives  the  articles  at  length  in 
an  earlier  part  of  his  volume.— Tr. 


362       INEXPLICABLE    BY    KNOWN    LAW 

higher  intelligence  of  the  Russian  learned,  is  shown  by  the 
following  words  of  a  scientific  friend  from  Russia,  to  whom 
I  had  sent  my  '  Scientific  Treatises. '  " 

The  passing  of  the  rings  as  described  by  Zoliner  from 
the  sealed  catgut  on  to  the  legs  of  the  table. is  inexplicable 
by  any  known  law  of  nature.  Yet,  with  all  deference  to 
Zoliner,  had  the  two  wooden  rings  been  linked  together, 
the  experiment  would  have  been  more  satisfactory,  forever  a 
scientific  demonstration  of  matter  passing  through  matter. 
Zoliner  planned  well,  but  for  some  reason  the  "  intelligences  " 
did  not  carry  out  his  plan.  It  is  easy  to  believe  that  if  supra- 
mundane  intelligences  are  manifesting  themselves  on  earth, 
they  are  subject  to  limitations  of  which  we  know  nothing. 
We  are  not  in  a  position  to  say  what  "ought"  to  take  place. 
We  should  be  content  to  ask  what  can  take  place.  After 
Slade's  return  to  America  I  had  many  sittings  with  him  and 
tried  hard  to  perfect  this  experiment  of  Zollner's  with  turned 
wooden  rings,  but  did  not  succeed. 

The  Disappearance  and  Reappearance  of  a  Table 

The  following  marvel,  Zoliner  tells  us,  took  place  at 
about  midday  in  "  bright  sunshine  "  : 

"  I  had,  as  usual,  taken  my  place  with  Slade  at  the  card- 
table.  Opposite  to  me  stood,  as  was  often  the  case  in  other 
experiments,  a  small  round  table  near  the  card-table.  The 
height  of  the  round  table  is  77  centimeters,  diameter  of  the 
surface  46  centimeters,  the  material  birchen  wood,  and  the 
weight  of  the  whole  table  4.5  kilograms.  About  a  minute 
might  have  passed  after  Slade  and  I  had  sat  down  and  laid 
our  hands  joined  together  on  the  table  when  the  round  table 
was  set  in  slow  oscillations,  which  we  could  both  clearly 
perceive  in  the  top  of  the  round  table  rising  above  the  card- 
table,  while  its  lower  part  was  concealed  from  view  by  the 
top  of  the  card-table. 

"  The  motions  very  soon  became  greater,  and  the  whole 
table  approaching  the  card-table  laid  itself  under  the  latter, 


A   TABLE    DISAPPEARS  363 

with  its  three  feet  turned  toward  me.  Neither  I  nor,  as  it 
seemed,  Mr.  Slade,  knew  how  the  phenomenon  would  further 
develop/  since  during  the  space  of  a  minute  which  now 
elapsed  nothing  whatever  occurred.  Slade  was  about  to  take 
slate  and  pencil  to  ask  his  *  spirits  '  whether  we  had  anything 
still  to  expect,  when  I  wished  to  take  a  nearer  view  of  the 
position  of  the  round  table  lying,  as  I  supposed,  under  the 
card-table.  To  my  and  Slade's  great  astonishment  we  found 
the  space  beneath  the  card-table  completely  empty,  nor  were 
we  able  to  find  in  all  the  rest  of  the  room  that  table  which 
only  a  minute  before  was  present  to  our  senses.  In  the  ex- 
pectation of  its  reappearance  we  sat  again  at  the  card-table, 
Slade  close  to  me,  at  the  same  angle  of  the  table  opposite 
that  near  which  the  round  table  had  stood  before.  We  might 
have  sat  about  five  or  six  minutes,  in  intense  expectation  of 
what  should  come,  when  suddenly  Slade  again  asserted  that 
he  saw  lights  in  the  air.  Altho  I,  as  usual,  could  perceive 
nothing  whatever  of  the  kind,  I  yet  followed  involuntarily 
with  my  gaze  the  directions  to  which  Slade  turned  his  head, 
during  all  which  time  our  hands  remained  constantly  on  the 
table,  linked  together  {iiber-einander  liegend)\  under  the 
table,  my  left  leg  was  almost  continually  touching  Slade's 
right  in  its  whole  extent,  which  was  quite  without  design, 
and  owing  to  our  proximity  at  the  same  corner  of  the  table. 
Looking  up  in  the  air  eagerly  and  astonished,  in  different 
directions,  Slade  asked  me  if  I  did  not  perceive  the  great 
lights.  I  answered  decidedly  in  the  negative;  but  as  I 
turned  my  head,  following  Slade's  gaze  up  to  the  ceiling  of 
the  room  behind  my  back,  I  suddenly  observed,  at  a  height  of 
about  five  feet,  the  hitherto  invisible  table  with  its  legs 
turned  upward  very  quickly  floating  down  in  the  air  upon  the 
top  of  the  card-table.  Altho  we  involuntarily  drew  back  our 
heads  sideways,  Slade  to  the  left  and  I  to  the  right,  to  avoid 
injury  from  the  falling  table,  yet  we  were  both,  before  the 
round  table  had  laid  itself  down  on  the  top  of  the  card-table, 
so  violently  struck  on  the  side  of  the  head,  that  I  felt  the 
pain  on  the  left  of  mine  fully  four  hours  after  this  occurrence, 
which  took  place  at  about  half-past  eleven." 

1  "  The  movement  of  heavy  objects  without  any  possible  contact  by  Slade  was 
so  common  that  we  looked  on  the  movement  of  the  table  as  only  the  beginning  of 
a  further  succession  of  phenomena," 


364     WALLACE'S   HOME   EXPERIMENTS 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace's  Experiments  in  His  Own 
Home  with  a  Friend  who  did  not  think  Herself 
A  Medium 

The  famous  scientist,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  by  various 
experiments  sought  to  produce  psychic  phenomena  in  his 
■own  home  and  with  those  who  were  not  known  as  mediums. 
He  describes  some  of  these  experiments  as  follows :  ^ 

"  I  now  for  some  months  left  off  going  to  Mrs.  Marshall's 
[a  medium  with  whom  experiments  had  been  carried  on],  and 
endeavored  to  produce  the  phenomena  at  home.  My  friend, 
Mr.  R.,  soon  found  he  had  the  power  to  produce  slight  move- 
ments of  the  table,  but  they  were  never  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
satisfy  an  observer  that  they  were  not  produced  consciously 
or  unconsciously  by  our  own  muscles.  The  style  and  char- 
acter of  the  communications  obtained  through  these  move- 
ments were,  however,  such  as  to  satisfy  us  that  our  own 
minds  had  no  part  in  producing  thern. 

"  We  tried  among  all  our  friends  to  find  one  who  had 
power  to  produce  distinct  taps,  a  class  of  phenomena  that  ap- 
peared to  us  much  more  satisfactory,  because  we  could  not 
produce  them  ourselves,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
under  the  same  conditions.  It  was  in  November,  1866,  that 
my  sister  discovered  that  a  lady  living  with  her  had  the  power 
of  inducing  loud  and  distinct  taps  and  other  curious  phenom- 
ena, and  I  now  began  a  series  of  observations  in  my  own 
house,  the  most  important  of  which  I  shall  briefly  narrate. 

"  When  we  sat  at  a  large  loo-table  without  a  cloth,  with 
all  our  hands  upon  it,  the  taps  would  generally  commence 
in  a  few  minutes.  They  sounded  as  if  made  on  the  under 
side  of  the  leaf  of  the  table,  in  various  parts  of  it.  They 
changed  in  tone  and  loudness,  from  a  sound  like  that  pro- 
duced by  tapping  with  a  needle  or  a  long  finger-nail,  to  others 
like  blows  with  a  fist  or  slaps  with  the  fingers  of  a  hand. 
Sounds  were  produced  also  like  scraping  with  a  finger-nail, 
or  like  the  rubbing  of  a  damp  finger  pressed  very  hard  on  the 
table.  The  rapidity  with  which  these  sounds  are  produced 
and  are  changed  is  very  remarkable.  They  will  imitate,  more 
or  less  exactly,  sounds  which  we  make  with  our  fingers  above 

»  "Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,"  pp.  139-44. 


INADEQUATE   EXPLANATIONS       365 

the  table ;  they  will  keep  good  time  to  a  tune  whistled  by  one 
of  the  party;  they  will  sometimes,  at  request,  play  a  very 
fair  tune  themselves,  or  will  follow  accurately  a  hand  tapping 
a  tune  upon  the  table.  When  these  sounds  are  heard  repeat- 
edly in  one's  own  well-lighted  room,  upon  one's  own  table, 
and  with  every  hand  in  the  room  visible,  the  ordinary  ex- 
planations given  of  them  seem  utterly  untenable.  Of  course 
the  first  impression  on  hearing  a  few  taps  only  is  that  some 
one  is  making  them  with  the  feet.  To  set  this  doubt  at  rest, 
we  have  on  several  occasions  all  knelt  down  round  the  table, 
and  yet  the  taps  have  continued,  and  have  not  only  been 
heard  as  if  on  the  leaf  of  the  table,  but  have  been  felt  vibra- 
ting through  it.  Another  view  is  that  the  sounds  are  pro- 
duced by  the  slipping  of  tendons  or  the  cracking  of  joints  in 
some  parts  of  the  medium's  body;  and  this  explanation  is,  I 
believe,  the  one  most  commonly  accepted  by  scientific  men. 
But  surely,  if  this  be  so,  some  one  case  can  be  brought  for- 
ward in  which  a  person's  bones  or  tendons  can  make  sounds 
like  tapping,  rapping,  thumping,  slapping,  scratching,  and 
rubbing,  and  can  repeat  some  of  these  so  rapidly  as  to  follow 
every  tap  of  an  observer's  fingers  or  to  keep  time  to  music; 
and  further,  that  all  these  sounds  shall  appear  to  every  one 
present  not  to  come  from  the  individual's  body,  but  from  the 
table  at  which  he  is  sitting,  and  which  shall  often  vibrate 
when  the  sounds  are  heard.  Until  such  a  case  is  produced 
I  must  be  excused  for  marveling  at  the  credulity  of  those  who 
accept  so  absurd  and  inadequate  an  explanation. 

"  A  still  more  remarkable  phenomenon,  and  one  which  I 
have  observed  with  the  greatest  care  and  the  most  profound 
interest,  is  the  exhibition  of  considerable  force  under  condi- 
tions which  preclude  the  muscular  action  of  any  of  the  party. 
We  stood  round  a  small  work-table,  whose  leaf  was  about 
twenty  inches  across,  placing  our  hands  all  close  together 
near  the  center.  After  a  short  time  the  table  would  rock 
about  from  side  to  side,  and  then,  appearing  to  steady  itself, 
would  rise  vertically  from  six  inches  to  a  foot,  and  remain 
suspended  often  fifteen  or  twenty  seconds.  During  this  time 
any  one  or  two  of  the  party  could  strike  it  or  press  on  it,  as 
it  resisted  a  very  considerable  force.  Of  course,  the  first 
impression  is  that  some  one's  foot  is  lifting  up  the  table. 
To  answer  this  objection,  I  prepared  the  table  before  our 
second  trial  without  telling  any  one,  by  stretching  some  thin 


2,66  ISOLATING   THE   TABLE 

tissue  paper  between  the  feet  an  inch  or  two  from  the  bottom 
of  the  pillar,  in  such  a  manner  that  any  attempt  to  insert  the 
foot  must  crush  and  tear  the  paper.  The  table  rose  up  as 
before,  resisted  pressure  downward,  as  if  it  were  resting  on 
the  back  of  some  animal,  sunk  to  the  floor,  and  in  a  short 
time  rose  again,  and  then  dropped  suddenly  down.  I  now 
with  some  anxiety  turned  up  the  table,  and,  to  the  surprise 
of  all  present,  showed  them  the  delicate  tissue  stretched 
across  altogether  uninjured!  Finding  that  this  kind  of  test 
was  troublesome,  as  the  paper  or  threads  had  to  be  renewed 
every  time,  and  were  liable  to  be  broken  accidentally  before 
the  experiment  began,  I  constructed  a  cylinder  of  hoops  and 
laths,  covered  with  canvas.  The  table  was  placed  within  this 
as  in  a  well,  and,  as  it  was  about  eighteen  inches  high,  it 
effectually  kept  feet  and  ladies'  dresses  from  the  table.  This 
apparatus  in  no  way  checked  the  table's  upward  motion,  and 
as  the  hands  of  the  medium  were  always  close  under  the 
eyes  of  all  present,  and  simply  resting  on  the  top  of  the  table, 
it  would  appear  that  there  was  some  new  and  unknown  power 
here  at  work.  These  experiments  have  been  many  times 
repeated  by  me,  and  I  am  satisfied  of  the  correctness  of  my 
statement  of  the  facts. 

"  On  two  or  three  occasions  only,  when  the  conditions 
appear  to  have  been  unusually  favorable,  I  have  witnessed  a 
still  more  marvelous  phenomenon.  While  sitting  at  the  large 
table  in  our  usual  manner,  I  placed  the  small  table  about  four 
feet  from  it,  on  the  side  next  the  medium  and  my  sister. 
After  some  time,  while  we  were  talking,  we  heard  a  slight 
sound  from  the  table,  and  looking  toward  it  found  that  it 
moved  slightly  at  short  intervals,  and  after  a  little  time  it 
moved  suddenly  up  to  the  table  by  the  side  of  the  medium,  as 
if  it  had  gradually  got  within  the  sphere  of  a  strong  attrac- 
tive force.  Afterward,  at  our  request,  it  was  thrown  down 
on  the  floor  without  any  person  touching  it,  and  it  then 
moved  about  in  a  strange,  life-like  manner,  as  if  seeking  some 
means  of  getting  up  again,  turning  its  claws  first  on  one  side 
and  then  on  the  other.  On  another  occasion  a  very  large 
leather  armchair,  which  stood  at  least  four  or  five  feet  from 
the  medium,  suddenly  wheeled  up  to  her  after  a  few  slight 
preliminary  movements.  It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  say  that 
what  I  relate  is  impossible.  I  maintain  that  it  is  accurately 
true;  and  that  no  man,  whatever  be  his  attainments,  has  such 


"IMPOSSIBLE,"   YET   TRUE  367 

an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  powers  of  nature  as  to  justify 
him  in  using  the  word  impossible  with  regard  to  facts  which 
I  and  many  others  have  repeatedly  witnessed. 

"On  Wednesday  evening,  February  27,  1867,  some  very 
remarkable  phenomena  occurred.  The  parties  present  were 
my  sister  and  Miss  Nichol  (now  Mrs.  Volckman),  her  father, 
Mr.  H.  T.  Humphreys,  and  two  young  friends  of  mine,  Mr. 
and  Miss  M.  My  wife  and  her  sister  also  sat  in  the  room  at 
some  distance  from  the  table  looking  on.  There  was  no  fire, 
and  we  lowered  the  gas  so  as  to  give  a  subdued  light,  which 
enabled  everything  to  be  seen.  The  moment  we  were  all 
in  our  places  taps  were  heard,  indicating  that  the  conditions 
were  favorable.  We  now  sent  for  a  single  wineglass,  which 
was  placed  on  the  floor  between  Miss  Nichol  and  her  father, 
and  we  requested  it  might  be  struck.  After  a  short  time  it 
was  gently  tapped,  producing  a  clear  ringing  sound.  This 
soon  changed  to  a  sound  as  if  two  glasses  were  gently  struck 
together ;  and  now  we  were  all  astonished  by  hearing  in  suc- 
cession almost  every  possible  sound  that  could  be  produced 
by  two  glasses  one  inside  the  other,  even  to  the  clang  of  one 
dropped  into  another.  They  were  in  every  respect  identical 
with  such  sounds  as  we  could  produce  with  two  glasses,  and 
with  two  only,  manipulated  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  yet  I 
was  quite  sure  that  only  one  wineglass  was  in  the  room, 
and  every  person's  hands  were  distinctly  visible  on  the 
table. 

"  We  now  took  up  the  glass  again  and  put  it  on  the  table, 
where  it  was  held  by  both  Miss  N.  and  Mr.  Humphreys,  so 
as  to  prevent  any  vibration  it  might  produce.  After  a  short 
interval  of  silence  an  exquisitely  delicate  sound  as  of  tap- 
ping a  glass  was  heard,  which  increased  to  clear  silvery  notes 
like  the  tinkling  of  a  glass  bell.  These  continued  in  vary- 
ing degrees  for  some  minutes,  and  then  became  fainter  and 
gradually  died  away.  We  afterward  placed  a  rude  bamboo 
harp  from  the  Malay  archipelago  under  the  table,  and,  after 
several  alterations  of  position,  the  strings  were  twanged  as 
clearly  and  loudly  as  any  of  us  could  do  it  with  our  fingers. 
Having  had  such  success  with  the  glass,  we  asked  if  the  harp 
could  also  be  imitated,  and  having  received  permission  to  try, 
placed  it  also  on  the  table.  After  a  little  time  faint  vibra- 
ting taps  were  heard,  and  these  soon  changed  into  very  faint 
twangs  which  formed  a  distinct  imitation  of  the  harp  strings, 


368  DR.   SAVAGE'S   TESTIMONY 

altho  by  no  means  so  successfully  as  in  the  case  of  the  wine- 
glass. 

"  We  were  informed  by  taps  in  the  ordinary  way  that  it 
was  through  the  peculiar  influence  of  Mr.  Nichol  that  this 
extraordinary  production  of  imitative  musical  sounds  without 
any  material  object  was  effected.  I  may  add  that  the  imita- 
tion of  the  sound  produced  by  two  glasses  was  so  perfect 
that  some  of  the  party  turned  up  the  table  immediately  after 
we  left  it,  under  the  impression  that  the  unseen  power  had 
brought  in  a  second  glass,  but  none  could  be  found." 


Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage,  D.D.,  Sees  Chairs  Moved 
About  in  Extraordinary  Ways  —  Rev.  O.  B.  Froth- 
ingham's  Strange  Experience 

In  his  book,  "  Can  Telepathy  Explain  ?  "  Dr.  Savage  gives 
an  account  of  a  number  of  physical  manifestations  which  he 
or  friends  of  his  witnessed :. 

"  I  have  seen  tables  and  chairs  lifted  in  a  way  not  to  be 
explained  by  any  ordinary  methods,  and  this  a  good  many 
times.  On  one  occasion,  when  seated  in  a  heavy  armchair, 
I  was  myself  gently  and  quietly  lifted  into  the  air  while  a 
skeptical  friend  looked  on  and  carefully  studied  what  was 
taking  place.  The  only  possible  connection  with  any  human 
agency  was  in  the  fact  that  the  psychic  laid  his  hand  on  the 
back  of  the  chair  and  raised  it  as  the  chair  itself  was  lifted. 
It  would  have  been  beyond  the  limits  of  the  strength  of  the 
psychic  to  have  done  this,  even  tho  he  had  stooped  and 
grasped  the  chair  with  both  his  hands.  How  it  was  accom- 
plished I  do  not  undertake  to  say.  I  simply  note  the  fact  as 
a  contribution  to  this  discussion.  It  certainly  is  something 
that  needs  to  be  explained.  The  late  Rev.  O.  B.  Frothingham 
was  widely  known  as  an  exponent  of  the  most  liberal  theo- 
logical ideas.  He  was  a  keen  thinker  and  brilliant  speaker. 
His  prejudices  were  strong  against  what  is  known  as  '  Spiri- 
tualism.' During  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  had  little 
hope  of  personal  immortality.  I  speak  of  these  things  only 
to  show  that  his  prejudices  were  not  in  favor  of  the  reality 
of  any  occult  phenomena ;  and  yet  he  told  me  one  day  of  an 
experience  which  was  a  most  remarkable  illustration  of  the 


SEVEN    MEN    LIFTED  369 

exercise  of  some  power  which  needs  to  be  explained.  It 
occurred  in  the  city  of  New  York.  He  said  that  he  and  six 
other  men  sat  upon  the  top  of  a  large  square  piano,  while  it 
was  lifted  into  the  air.  The  only  visible  cause  lay  in  the 
fact  that  a  delicate  woman  touched  the  top  of  the  piano  with 
her  fingers.  I  should  be  very  skeptical  of  stories  like  this, 
even  from  so  clear-headed  an  observer  as  Mr.  Frothingham, 
did  I  not  know  that  similar  things  had  taken  place  on  other 


occasions." 


Slate- Writing 

Slate-writing  has  given  us  a  class  of  physical  phenomena 
which  is  under  special  suspicion  because  of  the  great  amount 
of  fraud  perpetrated  through  it  and  of  which  much  has  been 
made  by  professional  conjurers.  The  tricks  are  many  that 
can  be  played  with  slates — such  as  the  substitution  by  sleight- 
of-hand  of  slates  already  written  upon  for  those  examined, 
the  writing  with  invisible  ink  which  becomes  visible  by  wet- 
ting with  a  sponge  or  spittle,  false  bottoms,  etc. 

I  had  my  brother,  B.  F.  Funk,  visit  a  medium  in  a  distant 
city  to  secure  slate- writing  under  severe  test  conditions.  As 
I  have  said  elsewhere,  my  brother  is  not  a  novice  in  these 
investigations  and  can  not  be  easily  fooled.  He  is  not  a 
Spiritualist,  but  is  a  candid  investigator.  The  following  is 
his  report  of  this  experiment — the  Mr.  D.  spoken  of  is  a 
business  man  of  good  reputation. 

"  Mr.  D.  and  I  called  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  R.,  the  medium. 
Before  going  I  purchased  two  slates  at  a  department- store, 
took  them  to  my  room  in  the  hotel  where  I  was  stopping, 
washed  them  thoroughly,  and  tied  them  together  firmly  with 
a  cotton  twine  and  then  with  a  hemp  twine,  melted  sealing 
wax  on  the  knots  until  the  cords  were  cemented  together  and 
to  the  slates.  Both  slates  were  thus  fastened  where  the 
cords  crossed.  I  then  pressed  a  Yale  lock  key  on  the  wax, 
giving  a  good  imprint ;  the  number  of  the  key  was  legible. 
Before  fastening  the  slates  I  placed  a  small  piece  of  slate 
pencil  between  them.     These  slates  we  took  with  us. 

"  We  were  admitted  to  the  back  parlor.  I  asked  Mrs. 
24 


370        MY    BROTHER'S   EXPERIENCE 

R.  for  a  writing.  She  said  she  would  see  what  we  could  get. 
I  wrote  a  note  to  a  deceased  brother,  asking  for  a  communi- 
cation, and  sealed  it  and  laid  it  on  the  slates.  The  medium 
did  not  know  what  I  had  written.  She  held  the  slates  on  her 
lap  for  a  while,  but  not  out  of  my  sight ;  then  held  them 
under  an  open  stand  so  that  I  could  see  the  edges  of  the 
slates.  She  then  took  them  from  under  the  stand  and  laid 
them  on  a  music-box,  which  was  on  the  stand.  Her  husband, 
who  had  been  absent,  came  in  about  this  time.  He  did  not 
come  near  the  table  at  any  time.  We  four  sat  talking  some 
time,  then  Mrs.  R.  threw  a  small  shoulder  shawl  over  the 
slates  and  sat  down.  I  watched  her  every  moment  carefully. 
Presently  she  went  out  of  the  room.  I  was  sitting  within 
three  feet  of  the  music-box,  knowing  the  slates  were  under 
the  shawl.  After  not  more  than  two  minutes  Mrs.  R.  re- 
turned and  sat  down  five  or  six  feet  from  the  music-box,  not 
touching  it,  and  we  all  were  talking  when  she  suddenly  said : 
*  The  control  says,  "  We  have  done  the  best  we  can  and  we 
hope  it  will  be  satisfactory."  '  I  got  up  and  removed  the 
shawl,  took  up  the  slates,  examined  them  carefully,  Mr.  D. 
examined  them,  and  both  of  us  are  positive  that  the  knots  or 
cords  had  in  no  way  been  disturbed.  They  were  exactly  as 
I  had  tied  them  at  the  hotel.  The  s«als  were  intact.  I  then 
cut  the  strings  at  the  edge  of  the  slates,  and  there  were  two 
messages  written  on  one  slate  on  the  inside,  one  from  my 
brother  and  one  from  H.  W.  Beecher,  and '  Nellie  Gray  '  was 
also  printed  on  one.  She  is  one  of  the  controls.  The  wri- 
ting was  backward,  from  right  to  left,  so  that  we  had  to  hold 
it  before  a  mirror  to  read  it.  This  was  the  most  convincing 
and  satisfactory  proof  of  psychic  phenomena  I  had  ever  re- 
ceived. " 

The  one  suspicious  feature  about  this  test  is  that  the  me- 
dium went  out  of  the  room.  It  is  not  likely  that  there  was 
any  substitution  of  slates.  The  writing  was  an  answer  to  the 
letter  written  and  closed  after  the  slates  had  been  sealed. 
For  the  medium  to  have  written  what  was  on  the  slates  she 
would  had  to  have  taken  them  out  of  the  room,  and,  after 
prying  the  slates  slightly  apart  and  inserting  a  bit  of  wire 
with  a  piece  of  slate  pencil  attached,  to  have  done  the  writing. 
She  would  also  have  had  to  open  the  sealed  envelope  in  or- 


ZOLLNER   TRIES   SEALED    SLATES      371 

der  to  respond  to  the  question,  unless  she  is  gifted  with 
clairvoyant  power. 

My  brother  insists  that  this  explanation  is  not  a  possible 
one,  as  the  slates  were  placed  under  the  shawl,  and  that  the 
woman  did  not  touch  the  shawl  after  she  returned,  and  that 
when  he  lifted  the  shawl  the  slates  were  there. 

The  husband,  after  he  entered  the  room,  touched  neither 
the  shawl  nor  the  slates. 

Professor  Zollner  made  many  experiments  with  slate- 
writing.  The  following  is  a  remarkable  variation  from  the 
ordinary  slate-writing.  The  professor  purchased  a  large 
double  slate  fastened  with  hinges.  This  double  slate  he 
took  to  the  house  of  his  university  colleague.  Professor 
Wach.  They  there  agreed  upon  an  experimentation.  They 
placed  a  small  bit  o*f  pencil  between  the  two  slates  and  then 
fastened  the  slates  together  "  by  sticking  two  strips  of  paper, 
35  millimeters  broad,  with  liquid  glue  over  the  shorter  frame 
(184  millimeters  long).  Over  the  edges  of  the  strips  of  pa- 
per so  glued  Professor  Wach  also  placed  two  seals,  on  each 
side,  impressed  with  his  own  signet.  The  strips  of  paper 
were  intentionally  inscribed  on  the  inner  side  to  facilitate 
discovery  in  the  event  of  an  artificial  reunion  after  tearing. 
"  My  suggestion,"  says  Zollner,  "  to  place  two  seals  on  the 
front  side  for  greater  security  my  colleague  rejected  as  super- 
fluous, since  he  was  firmly  convinced  that  the  securing  with 
four  seals  completely  sufficed  already  for  the  discovery  of 
any  interference  or  trick. " 

Thus  sealed  these  slates  were  left  in  a  closet  during  the 
day  in  the  house  of  von  Hoffmann,  where  Slade  was  stopping. 
It  was  thought  certain  that  the  slates  were  so  fastened  and 
sealed  that  any  tampering  with  the  slates  would  be  easily 
discovered.  On  the  evening  of  this  same  day  the  sitting 
took  place  and  what  followed  is  thus  described  by  Zollner : 

"  After  some  words  of  greeting  I  took  the  slates  from  the 
closet  near  the  table  and  explained  to  Mr.  Slade,  who  now 


372  CAREFUL  TESTS 

apparently  saw  the  slate  for  the  first  time,  the  object  I  had 
in  view  in  regard  to  it.  We  both,  one  after  the  other,  satis- 
fied ourselves,  by  shaking,  that  the  small  piece  of  pencil  was 
between  the  surfaces  of  the  two  slates.  I  now  laid  this  slate 
on  that  side  of  the  card-table  (to  Slade's  left)  where  were  the 
other  slates  and  different  objects*  with  which  it  remained  ly- 
ing from  now  continuously  under  my  eyes.  Immediately  after 
laying  down  the  slate  I  sat  with  Slade  at  the  card-table,  on 
which  a  brightly  burning  candle  stood.  Slade  hereupon  took 
up  again  in  his  hands  the  slate  referred  to,  I  narrowly  and 
continually  watching  it,  and  asked  me  whether  I  would  not 
like  to  affix  two  seals  to  both  sides  of  the  above-described 
cylindrical  brass  spirals,  and  to  impress  them  with  my  own 
signet.  Having  the  latter  in  my  pocket,  and  a  stick  of  seal- 
ing-wax lying  on  the  table  among  other  writing  utensils,  I 
at  once,  on  the  above  words  of  Slade,  took  the  slate  with  my 
left  hand,  drew  the  signet  from  my  right  trouser  pocket,  laid 
it  on  the  table,  then  took  the  sealing-wax,  holding  the  slate 
all  the  time  with  my  left  hand,  with  the  wooden  edges  which 
had  to  be  sealed  turned  upward.  Thereupon,  holding  these 
edges  firmly  pressed  together  with  my  left  hand,  I  placed  on 
the  above- indicated  places  two  large  seals,  on  which  I  pressed 
my  signet.  When  the  wax  had  become  cold,  the  two  wooden 
edges  of  the  closed  slates  were  thus  so  tightly  connected  that 
it  was  impossible  to  push  a  sheet  of  paper  through  those  parts 
which  were  not  stuck  with  paper  and  seals.  Thereupon  I 
laid  the  slate  so  fastened  upon  the  table,  and  indeed  at  a 
place  at  least  a  foot  and  a  half  removed  from  Slade' s  hands, 
which  lay  under  mine,  and  were  thereby  controlled.  I  now 
joined  in  conversation  with  Slade,  and  asked  him,  among 
other  things,  whether  he  had  not  yet  tried,  instead  of  slate- 
writing,  to  obtain  writing  with  lead  pencil  and  paper,  since 
this  would  be  an  extremely  interesting  variation  of  the  direct 
writing  produced  in  his  presence.  Slade  replied  that  he  had 
not,  but  was  at  once  ready  to  make  the  attempt.  We  un- 
linked our  hands,  and  I  took  from  the  writing  utensils  lying 
ready  on  the  table  a  half  sheet  of  common  letter  paper  (219 
millimeters  long  143  millimeters  broad,  manufacture  mark 
Bath),  folded  it  again  about  the  middle,  as  if  it  had  to  be  put 
into  a  large  letter-cover  144  millimeters  broad  and  1 10  milli- 
meters deep,  and  laid  between  the  two  halves  of  this  sheet  a 
cyhndrical  piece  of  graphite  of  5  millimeters  length  and  i 


"LOOK   FOR   YOUR   PAPER"         373 

millimeter  thickness,  such  as  is  used  for  lead-pencil  holders. 
I  was  about  to  lay  this  piece  of  paper,  so  folded  with  the  bit 
of  graphite  lying  in  the  fold,  under  the  above-described 
sealed  slate,  when  Slade,  under  control,  proposed  that  I  should 
tear  off  two  bits  from  a  corner  of  the  folded  paper  and  keep 
these  by  me.  I  at  once  recognized  the  importance  of  this 
precaution,  to  establish  the  identity  of  the  piece  of  paper  in 
case  it  was  written  on,  or  disappeared  and  reappeared  after 
some  time.  Two  pieces  were  therefore,  according  to  Slade's 
suggestion,  torn  off  at  the  same  time  from  one  corner  of  the 
folded  half  sheet,  and  these  I  forthwith  put  into  the  gold 
compartment  of  my  purse.  Then  the  slate  was  again  laid 
on  the  above-described  place  on  the  table,  and  under  it  was 
pushed  the  folded  half  sheet  of  letter  paper  with  the  stick  of 
graphite  lying  between  the  folds,  so  that  the  slate  completely 
covered  it.  We  next  laid  our  hands  again  upon  the  table,  as 
before,  Slade's  hands  firmly  covered  by  mine,  and  thus  pre- 
vented from  moving. 

"  We  had  sat  quietly  in  this  position  for  some  time,  per- 
haps five  minutes,  but  nothing  worth  notice  occurred.  Slade 
often  shuddered  as  by  spasms  passing  through  him,  but  all 
remained  quiet,  so  that  we  became  impatient,  and  Slade  re- 
sorted to  his  usual  expedient  of  begging  information  from 
his  spirits,  by  help  of  a  slate  held  half  under  a  table.  We 
unjoined  our  hands  for  this  purpose.  Slade  took  the  upper- 
most of  the  slates,  which  always  lay  in  readiness  at  his  left, 
bit  a  splinter  from  a  slate  pencil,  laid  it  on  the  slate,  and 
held  the  latter  with  his  left  hand  half  under  the  table,  while 
he  placed  his  right  hand  again  under  both  of  mine.  We 
forthwith  distinctly  heard  writing,  and  very  soon  afterward 
the  three  ticks  {tick-tacks)  which  announced  that  the  writing 
was  finished.  When  the  slate  was  drawn  out  and  eagerly 
examined  by  us,  the  following  words  were  upon  it,  '  Look  for 
your  paper.*  I  immediately  raised  the  sealed  slate  to  look 
for  the  folded  sheet  of  letter  paper  pushed  under  it,  with  the 
bit  of  graphite  inside,  about  five  minutes  before :  both  had 
disappeared.  I  was  startled,  indeed,  at  this  unexpected  phe- 
nomenon, but  not  particularly  astonished,  since  I  had  already 
in  earlier  sittings  witnessed  the  disappearance  and  reappear- 
ance of  objects  so  abundantly  and  under  such  stringent  con- 
ditions that  this  fact  in  and  for  itself  offered  nothing  any 
longer  new  for  me.     I  looked  often  anxiously  to  the  ceiling 


374  A    REMARKABLE   SUCCESS 

of  the  room,  in  the  hope  that  the  paper  would  fall  down,  by 
good  chance  written  7ipofi,  but  it  came  not,  nor  did  anything 
else  remarkable  happen.  I  therefore  desired  Slade  again  to 
ask  his  spirits  in  the  usual  manner,  which  he  at  once  did  by 
means  of  one  of  the  slates  lying  ready.  The  noise  of  wri- 
ting was  immediately  heard,  and  on  the  slate  being  withdrawn, 
was  upon  it — 'The  paper  is  between  the  slates,  and  it  is  writ- 
ten on  it '  {sic  /).  Highly  pleased  at  the  ingenious  combina- 
tion of  physical  and  intellectual  phenomena,  I  forthwith 
seized  the  sealed  slate,  shook  it  violently,  and  in  fact  dis- 
tinctly heard  the  shifting  movement  of  a  paper  lying  between 
the  sides." 

Before  the  slates  were  opened  Zollner  says  Slade  fell  into 
a  trance,  and  with  closed  eyes  and  altered  tone  of  voice  made 
an  address  to  me  in  English  which,  in  conclusion,  contained 
statements  of  what  we  should  find  (on  opening  the  sealed 
double-slate)  written  with  pencil  on  the  paper  lying  therein. 
As  generally  in  such  cases,  Herr  O.  von  Hoffmann  wrote 
down,  as  far  as  possible,  the  words  spoken  by  Slade  during 
his  state  of  trance.     They  were  as  follows : 

"  Persevere  firmly  and  courageously,  untroubled  about  thy 
opponents,  v/hose  daggers  drawn  upon  thee  will  turn  back 
upon  themselves.  The  scattered  seed  will  find  a  good  soil — 
the  minds  of  good  men — altho  lower  natures  are  not  able 
to  value  it.  In  what  you  have  v/itnessed,  others  later  on  will 
discover  new  beauties  which  escape  you  at  the  time.  For 
science  it  will  be  an  event  of  unprecedented  significance. 
We  rejoice  that  the  atmospheric  conditions  have  been  favor- 
able to  us,  for  the  conditions  must  be  present,  and,  in  part, 
prepared.  They  can  not  be  explained  any  more  than  those, 
for  example,  which  must  immediately  precede  the  falling 
asleep.  Neither  in  the  one  case  nor  in  the  other  can  they 
be  compelled.  Many  enemies  of  the  movement  will  be  its 
friends,  as  one  of  the  most  important.  Carpenter,  whose  an- 
tagonistic disposition  has  been  already,  now,  through  thy 
labors,  somewhat  shaken,  and  who  later  will  be  thy  fellow 
laborer  in  the  jame  field.  As  regards  the  vianifcstatioji  of 
yesterday  eve')iiiig,  you  will  find  upon  the  paper  sentejices  in 
three  different  lariguages  ;  there  are  some  faults  in  the  Ger- 


SCIENTISTS   PUZZLED  375 

man  and  English.  At  the  lower  end  you  will  find  circle  Sy  by 
which  we  will  denote  the  different  dimensions  of  space.  To- 
morrow morning  O.  von  Hoffmann  shall  again  take  part  in 
the  sitting,  and  to-morrow  evening  something  strange  will 
happen."  ^ 

The  next  day  after  the  disappearance  of  the  note-paper, 
Zollner  says : 

"  I  met  my  colleagues  Wach  and  Herr  O.  von  Hoffmann 
at  the  residence  of  the  Councillor  Thiersch,  in  order  to  open 
the  slates  fastened  with  six  seals,  and  which  had  been  up  to 
this  time  continually  in  my  custody.  When  this  was  done, 
we  found  within  the  piece  of  paper  which  had  been  folded  by 
me  the  evening  before,  with  the  stick  of  graphite,  completely 
smoothy  without  showing  any  other  foldings  whatever  which 
could  denote  a  forcible  insertion  through  a  narrow  cleft.  This 
would  moreover  have  been  altogether  impossible  without  in- 
jury to  the  seals,  since  the  extent  of  the  edges  of  the  frame 
left  free  between  my  seals  and  the  strips  of  paper  employed 
for  fastening  by  Professor  Wach — quite  apart  from  their  tight 
adhesion  to  each  other — amounted  at  the  maximum  to  only 
80  millimeters,  whereas  the  narrowest  side  of  the  folded  sheet 
of  letter-paper  amounted  to  119  millimeters.  The  often- 
mentioned  two  brass  spirals  on  the  front  side  of  the  slate 
clasped  one  over  the  other  in  such  a  manner  that  every  pos- 
sibility was  excluded  of  shoving  in  a  piece  of  paper  from  this 
side.  After  opening  the  slate,  I  took  from  my  purse  the 
two  bits  of  paper  torn  off  on  the  evening  before  and  satisfied 
myself  and  my  friends  of  their  perfect  adaptation  to  the  sheet 
of  paper  found.  All  little  irregularities  of  the  edges  fitted 
into  each  other  so  exactly  that  not  the  slightest  doubt  could 
prevail  that  the  torn-off  bits  of  paper  formed  the  completion 
of  the  half  sheet  of  letter-paper. " 

I  reproduce  here  the  writing  obtained,  so  far  as  it  is  pos- 
sible for  me  to  read  it : 

Gottes  Vatertreue  geht 
Ueber  alle  Welt  hinaus 
Bete  dass  sie  (?)  kekrt 
Ein  in  unser  armes  Haus. 

1  "On  the  evening  of  the  8th  May  (from  8:20  to  8:35  o'clock)  the  two  endless 
leather  strips  were  knotted  fourfold  under  my  hands,  held  over  them." 


376  AN    UNFORTUNATE   SLIP 

Wtr  miissen  alle  sterben 
Ob  arm  wir  oder  reich 
Und  werden  einst  erwerben 
Das  schone  Himmelreich. 

Now,  is  the  fourth  dimension  proven  ?  We  are  not  work- 
ing with  slate  pencil  or  on  the  slate,  as  our  powers  are  now  in 
other  directions. 

The  strange  writing  is  unknown  to  me.  (Javanese  ?) 
Observe :  Professor  Zollner,  relying  on  the  fact  that  the 
slates  were  sealed,  left  them,  before  the  experiment,  in  a 
closet  to  which  Slade  may  have  had  access.  This  was 
Slade's  only  chance  to  have  inserted  between  the  slates  the 
note-paper  with  the  writing.  After  the  additional  seals  had 
been  placed  upon  the  slates  this  insertion,  under  the  condi- 
tions mentioned  by  Zollner,  would  have  been  impossible. 
Against  the  possibility  of  the  insertion  by  Slade  is  the  fact 
that  the  note-paper  which  was  found  between  the  slates  was 
the  identical  piece  put  under  the  slate  by  Zollner  after  the 
sitting  had  begun.  Zollner  had  marked  this  note-paper  in 
an  unmistakable  way  by  tearing  off  two  pieces  from  the 
paper  and  putting  these  pieces  in  his  purse.  These  pieces 
of  paper  fitted  exactly  to  the  note-paper  found  inside  the 
slate.  We  should  also  note  the  fact  that  for  this  note-paper 
to  have  been  slipped  between  the  seals,  it  would  have  had 
to  have  been  folded.  But  the  note-paper  found  inside  was 
not  folded  and  had  no  mark  on  it  of  having  been  folded. 
Upon  the  whole  this  seems  a  sound  test — one  of  true  evi- 
dential value.  But  against  it  we  must  weigh  the  fact  that 
the  Seybert  commission  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
and  others  claim  to  have  detected  Slade  substituting  slates, 
with  writing  on  them,  for  the  slates  watched  by  the  investi- 
gators. In  my  own  tests  with  Slade  I  had  suspicion  of 
tricks  attempted  by  Slade  after  this  same  order. 

But  the  facts  still  remain  that  these  slates  were  carefully 
sealed,  and  the  note-paper  was  marked  in  a  way  impossible 
to  imitate. 


HUDSON'S   SLATE   TEST  377 

A  Slate  Test   by  Thomson  Jay  Hudson,  the   Famous 
Antispiritualist  Writer 

Dr.  Hudson's  "The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  and 
his  other  books  against  Spiritualism,  have  had  a  very  exten- 
sive sale  in  this  country  and  Europe.  No  man  ever  waged 
a  more  effective  battle  against  Spiritualism  than  did  Dr. 
Hudson.  However,  the  Doctor  was  compelled  to  admit  that 
fraud  was  an  impossibility  in  the  following  experiment  which 
he  and  a  friend  of  his  made  with  a  slate-writing  medium. 
The  companion  of  Dr.  Hudson  in  the  experiment  was,  he 
says,  "  a  celebrated  Union  general  " ;  he,  as  well  as  Hudson, 
was  an  unbeliever  in  Spiritualism ;  the  general  was  to  be  the 
sitter,  he  agreeing  to  follow  strictly  the  suggestions  of  Hud- 
son in  making  the  test. 

The  Doctor  describes  this  experiment  in  great  detail.* 
He  says : 

"  The  plan  suggested  to  the  general  on  this  occasion,  and 
which  he  carried  out  to  the  letter,  was  as  follows : 

"  I.  To  write  three  letters  to  as  many  spirits  of  his  dead 
acquaintances,  each  one  couched  in  general  terms — such  as, 
'Dear  B.,  can  you  communicate  with  me  to-day?  If  so,  tell 
me  your  condition  in  the  spirit-land.'  This  could  be  answered 
by  very  general  remarks,  and  would  require  no  specific  answer 
involving  any  knowledge  of  the  sitter's  affairs  or  anything 
else. 

"  2.  To  write  two  similar  letters  to  two  persons  known  to 
the  sitter,  but  unknown  to  the  medium,  to  be  still  living  in 
the  flesh. 

**  3.  To  write  one  letter  to  a  deceased  person,  asking  a 
specific  question,  the  correct  answer  to  which  neither  the 
sitter  nor  the  medium  could  possibly  know. 

"  4.  To  place  the  medium  at  his  ease,  by  leading  him  to 
believe  that  he  had  to  deal  with  a  sympathetic  believer  in 
the  doctrine  of  Spiritism,  who  had  perfect  faith  in  the  medi- 
um's powers. 

"5.  To  prescribe  no  test  conditions  whatever,  but  let  the 
medium  have  his  own  way  in  everything. 

1  Hudson's  "  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  pp.  276-83. 


378  HUDSON'S   SYLLOGISM 

"  6.  Under  no  circumstances  to  let  the  medium  know  the 
name  or  antecedents  of  the  sitter. 

"  These  suggestions  were  carried  out  to  the  letter.  The 
general  was  unknown  to  the  medium,  and  was  introduced  by 
the  writer  under  a  fictitious  name.  .  .  . 

"  The  conclusions  which  are  inevitable  may  be  summed 
as  follows : 

"  I .  The  slate- writing  was  done  without  physical  contact 
with  the  pencil,  either  by  the  medium  or  any  one  else.  It 
all  occurred  in  broad  daylight.  The  slates  were  not  handled 
by  the  medium,  except  to  wash  them  and  to  place  his  hands 
upon  them  (in  all  cases  but  one)  while  the  writing  was  going 
on.  The  slates  were  not  for  an  instant  out  of  sight  of  the 
sitter  during  the  whole  stance,  nor  were  they  out  of  his  cus- 
tody during  that  time,  after  they  were  washed  by  the  me- 
dium. They  were  then  carefully  inspected  by  the  sitter,  the 
pencil  was  placed  between  them  by  the  sitter,  they  were  tied 
together  by  the  sitter,  and  opened  by  him  after  the  writing 
was  finished.  In  short,  there  was  no  chance  for  fraud  or 
legerdemain,  and  there  was  none. 

"  2.  The  power  which  moved  the  pencil,  being  clearly  not 
physical,  must  have  been  occult.  This  occult  power  was  either 
that  of  disembodied  spirits  or  that  of  the  medium.  Did  it  pro- 
ceed from  disembodied  spirits }  Let  us  see.  The  replies  to 
the  five  letters  emanated  from  the  same  source ;  that  is  to  say, 
if  the  replies  to  any  of  them  were  from  disembodied  spirits, 
they  were  all  from  disembodied  spirits.  They  were  clearly 
not  all  from  disembodied  spirits,  for  two  of  the  letters  were 
addressed  to  living  persons,  and  the  replies  were  of  the  same 
character  as  the  others.  The  logical  conclusion  is  inevitable 
that  none  of  the  replies  was  from  disembodied  spirits.  To  put 
it  in  the  simple  form  of  a  syllogism,  we  have  the  following : 

"  The  replies  to  the  five  letters  were  all  from  the  same 
source. 

"  Two  of  them  were  not  from  disembodied  spirits. 

"Therefore,  none  of  them  were  from  disembodied  spirits. 


"  Again : 


"The  power  to  produce  the  slate- writing  emanated  either 
from  disembodied  spirits  or  from  the  medium. 

"  It  did  not  emanate  from  disembodied  spirits. " 
Dr.   Hudson's  explanation  of   the   phenomenon  lies,   of 
course,  in  the  subjective  mind  of  the  medium.     Says  he: 


INCONCLUSIVE    REASONING         379 

**  The  power  to  read  the  contents  of  the  six  letters  was 
obviously  within  the  domain  of  telepathy.  He  was,  there- 
fore, just  as  well  equipped  for  the  performance  of  that  feat  as 
a  disembodied  spirit  could  be.  Suggestion  also  plays  its 
subtle  role  in  this  class  of  phenomena,  as  in  all  others,  and 
relieves  the  medium  of  all  imputation  of  dishonesty  or  insin- 
cerity in  attributing  it  to  the  wrong  source.  The  probability 
that  the  power  to  move  the  pencil  without  physical  contact 
resides  in  the  medium  is  as  great,  at  least,  as  the  probability 
that  it  resides  in  disembodied  spirits."    , 

Dr.  Hudson's  explanation  of  this  writing  is  interesting 
but  not  conclusive.  There  are  several  possibilities  of  error 
in  his  syllogism.  Again  and  again  it  is  claimed  by  "  intelli- 
gences in  spirit  circles  "  that  sometimes  part  of  a  manifesta- 
tion is  from  spirits  and  another  from  the  medium ;  that  some- 
times the  writing  is  done,  not  by  the  spirit  whose  name  is 
given,  but  by  a  "  spirit  amanuensis,"  and  that  this  amanuen- 
sis is  sometimes  in  what  is  equivalent  to  what  we  on  earth 
call  a  trance  condition,  he  writes  as  he  is  impressed,  more  or 
less  perfectly.  These  impressions  come  from  vibrations  in 
the  thought-ether,  and  may  be  produced  by  spirits  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body ;  also  it  is  claimed  that  often  a  me- 
dium is  controlled  by  a  deceiving  spirit,  and  he  answers  all 
questions  addressed  to  spirits,  pretending  himself  to  be  the 
different  spirits.  He  tries  to  help  out  the  medium  whom 
he  finds  it  to  his  interest  to  obsess. 

To  upset  wholly  Hudson's  syllogism  you  need  only  be- 
lieve that  the  control  of  the  slate-writer  was  a  deceiving 
spirit.  I  do  not  give  this  as  a  theory,  but  as  the  teaching  of 
some  spirit  cabinets.  It  does  not  seem  so  wholly  unreason- 
able as  to  justify  Dr.  Hudson's  conclusion.  On  either  expla- 
nation, that  of  Hudson  or  that  of  the  spirit,  it  is  clear  that 
investigators  have  a  hard  time  to  get  at  the  exact  truth,  and 
it  should  make  the  average  Spiritualist  far  less  credulous 
than  he  now  is,  and  on  the  other  hand  it  should  make  the 
average  skeptic  far  less  dogmatic  in  his  denials. 


38o  ARE   THERE   GHOSTS? 

IV 

APPARITIONS 

In  all  ages  of  the  world  the  belief  has  prevailed  more  or 
less  that  the  spirits  of  some  of  the  dead  make  themselves 
objectively  apparent.  This  age  had  about  settled  down  to 
the  conviction  that  this  belief  was  a  superstition,  but  now, 
principally  as  the  result  of  the  careful  scientific  investigations 
of  the  Society  for  Pyschical  Research,  a  reaction  has  set  in  in 
many  minds.  A  strong  doubt  has  been  cast  upon  the  con- 
viction that  the  ghost  is  invariably  a  delusion. 

The   Power   Some   Living   Persons   Seem  to   Have  to 
Make  Themselves  Appear  at  a  Distance 

The  Society  has  startled  all  by  convincing  such  eminent 
scientists  as  Sir  William  Crookes,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
and  William  James  of  Harvard,  that  it  is  probable  that  there 
are  persons  who  even  while  in  the  body  can  make  themselves 
objectively  apparent  to  others  at  a  distance,  not  only  by 
thought  transference,  but  by  the  sound  of  voice,  and  by  some 
sort  of  projection  of  the  visible  self.  It  has  become  more 
and  more  believable  with  many  hard-headed  scientists  that 
our  conscious  selves  are  not  nearly  so  dependent  upon  our 
bodies  as  we  have  been  led  to  believe. 

A  very  curious  illustration  of  this  possible  power  of  the 
soul  to  leave  the  body  is  the  following  experience  told  to  me 
by  an  elder  in  the  church  in  Brooklyn  of  which  I  was  pastor 
some  thirty  years  ago.  I  premise  by  saying  that  this  elder. 
Dr.  B.,  was  a  most  conscientious  man,  respected  by  all ;  was 
a  doctor  of  medijine,  an  inventor,  and  something  of  a  scien- 
tist. I  tell  the  story  in  his  exact  words,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recall  them: 


MY   ELDER'S    STRANGE    STORY       381 

Experience  of  Dr.  B,   Visiting  at  a  Distance  Independent 

of  His  Body 

"  In  the  fifties  there  was  an  explosion  in  my  factory  in 
New  York  City.  By  the  force  of  the  explosion  I  was  terri- 
bly burned  and  thrown  into  the  street.  During  the  sickness 
that  followed,  my  son,  Revere,  attended  me,  while  my  wife 
and  the  rest  of  my  family  lived  in  Allentown,  Pa. 

"  One  day  as  I  lay  delirious  on  my  bed  I  imagined  that  a 
large  wheel  was  turning  near  me  to  which  I  was  being  pushed 
by  my  son.  I  pushed  myself  away  from  this  wheel,  but  as 
often  as  I  did  so  I  would  be  pushed  back,  because  in  reality 
I  was  pushing  myself  to  the  edge  of  the  bed.  At  last  I  got 
the  idea  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  against  my  life,  and  I 
determined  to  go  away,  and  by  a  desperate  effort  got  out  of 
my  body.  I  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  and  with  perfect 
vision  I  saw  myself  lying  on  the  bed,  bandaged  and  evidently 
very  sick,  and  my  son  and  the  doctor  working  over  me.  I 
tried  to  talk  to  them  but  could  not  get  their  attention,  so  I 
concluded  that  I  would  go  av/ay. 

**  I  went  out  of  the  window  and  on  Broadway  entered  a 
stage  and  rode  downtown.  Coming  to  the  wharf  I  saw  an 
excursion-boat  about  to  go  down  the  bay  which  I  boarded. 
I  observed  that  nobody  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  me, 
not  even  the  ticket  man  who  collected  tickets  to  the  right  of 
me  and  left;  he  passed  me  by.  After  a  while  a  frightful 
storm  arose,  it  was  thought  that  the  boat  would  sink.  The 
passengers  were  in  terror,  many  praying.  Finally  the  boat 
turned  and  safely  reached  the  land.  I  then  determined  to 
go  to  Allentown,  Pa.,  and  visit  my  family.  It  was  evening 
when  I  reached  the  house.  I  saw  a  window  open  on  the  sec- 
ond floor,  through  which  I  entered.  There  I  saw  my  wife 
putting  the  children  to  bed.  I  heard  her  telling  them  about 
my  sickness  and  heard  her  asking  them  in  their  little  prayers 
to  pray  for  me.  The  manifest  distress  of  my  wife  troubled 
me,  and  I  desired  to  let  her  know  that  I  was  present  and 
sought  to  comfort  her;  but  I  could  not  possibly  get  her 
attention. 

"  The  thought  finally  occurred  to  me  that  if  I  did  not 
hurry  back  to  New  York  I  might  not  be  able  to  get  into  my 
body  again,  and  would  really  be  dead ;  so  I  went  down  to  the 
depot,  and  when  the  train  came  in  a  man  was  knocked  down 


382      WILL   COINCIDENCE    EXPLAIN? 

and  run  over  and  his  legs  cut  off.  I  saw  him  and  recognized 
him.  In  the  train  I  took  my  seat  in  one  of  two  seats  that 
faced  each  other.  The  other  seats  were  occupied  by  three 
prominent  business  men  whom  I  knew;  they  ignoring  my 
presence,  were  talking  with  each  other  about  a  scheme,  that 
they  were  trying  to  carry  through,  that  struck  me  as  dis- 
honorable. I  was  much  surprised  at  them.  One  of  the  men 
got  out  at  a  junction  of  the  railroad,  the  other  two  came  to 
New  York  City.  When  I  got  back  to  my  room  into  which  I 
easily  entered  through  the  window,  altho  it  was  some  dis- 
tance above  the  ground,  I  found  the  attendants  busily  work- 
ing over  my  body  thinking  that  I  was  dying.  With  some 
considerable  effort  I  entered  again  into  my  body. 

"  The  singular  part  of  this  experience  is  that  after  I  re- 
covered, I  found  that  on  that  day  and  that  hour  an  excursion- 
steamer  went  down  the  bay  and  had  the  storm  experience 
which  I  saw,  and  that  evening  my  wife  had  said  the  things 
to  my  children  that  I  heard  her  say,  and  the  accident  hap- 
pened at  the  depot  as  I  saw  it,  and  the  three  men  were  seated 
in  the  car  and  had  the  conversation  that  I  heard." 

Of  course  a  single  testimony  like  the  above  is  not  con- 
clusive. I  asked  the  elder  many  questions  which  he  answered 
clearly,  but  I  was  then  new  at  these  investigations,  otherwise 
I  would  have  gotten  from  him,  if  possible,  the  dates  so  that 
the  incidents  narrated  by  him  as  seen  in  his  vision  or  trance 
could  have  been  corroborated. 

I  sent  the  above  narration  to  Dr.  B.  's  two  sons,  who  are 
still  living.  They  write  me  that  they  heard  their  father  tell 
this  experience  substantially  as  I  here  give  it,  that  their 
father  at  the  time  spoken  of  was  so  nearly  dead  that  it  re- 
quired a  physician  to  determine  whether  there  was  life  in  the 
body  or  not.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  narration  in  all  of  its 
essential  features  is  correct,  whatever  may  be  the  explana- 
tion. A  very  interesting  question  arises — whether  Dr.  B.'s 
wife,  had  she  been  a  clairvoyant  or  sensitive,  would  have 
seen  Dr.  B.  at  the  time  he  thought  he  visited  the  home  and 
saw  her  putting  the  children  to  bed.  If  she  had  so  seen 
him,  she  would  have  seen  the.  g/iost  of  a  living  person. 


PREMIER    BALFOUR^S   SISTER         383 

In  the  following  incident 

A  Ghost  of  a  Living  Person  Appears 

The  next  incident  I  take  from  Mrs.  Sidgwick's  paper 
published  in  the  "  Proceedings  of  The  Society  for  Psychical 
Research."  '  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  the 
sister  of  the  present  English  Prime  Minister  Balfour,  and 
was  wife  of  the  late  Professor  Sidgwick  of  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity. This  case  is  also  given  by  Frederic  Myers  in 
"  Human  Personality."  The  account  was  sent  to  Colonel 
Thomas  W.  Higginson,  an  associate  of  the  American  Branch 
of  the  S.  P.  R. ,  and  by  him  transmitted  to  the  Society. 

**  December  18,  1889. 

"  If  the  enclosed  narrative  is  of  any  interest  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  it  may  be  placed 
in  the  archives  or  be  published.  The  incidents  were  related 
to  me  by  Mr.  S.  R.  Wilmot,  a  manufacturer  of  this  city, 
several  years  ago,  and  I  wrote  them  down  from  memory,  and 
he  afterward  revised  the  manuscript.  Mr.  Wilmot  and  his 
wife  and  sister  are  still  living  here,  and  would,  no  doubt,  be 
happy  to  answer  any  questions  about  the  matter. 

"  He  does  not  know  that  I  have  had  his  narrative  com- 
pared with  a  file  of  the  New  York  Herald^  as  per  memoran- 
dum appended.  It  seems  to  stand  the  test  pretty  well,  how- 
ever. 

"  If  published,  please  do  not  give  my  name,  as  I  have 
simply  acted  as  scribe,  and  have  no  personal  knowledge  about 
the  incidents. 

"Bridgeport,  Conn.  W.  B.  H." 

With  the  letter  was  sent  a  copy  of  the  original  manu- 
script, which  runs : 

"On  October  3,  1863,  I  sailed  from  Liverpool  for  New 
York,  on  the  steamer  City  of  Limerick ^  of  the  Inman  line. 
Captain  Jones  commanding.  On  the  evening  of  the  second 
day  out,  soon  after  leaving  Kinsale  Head,  a  severe  storm  be- 
gan, which  lasted  for  nine  days.     During  this  time  we  saw 

»  Vol.  vii.,  pp.  41-S. 


384  WIFE'S  VISIT   AT   SEA 

neither  sun  nor  stars  nor  any  vessel ;  the  bulwarks  on  the 
weather  bow  were  carried  away,  one  of  the  anchors  broke 
loose  from  its  lashings,  and  did  considerable  damage  before 
it  could  be  secured,  and  several  stout  storm  sails,  though 
closely  reefed,  were  carried  away  and  the  booms  broken. 

"  Upon  the  night  following  the  eighth  day  of  the  storm 
the  tempest  moderated  a  little,  and  for  the  first  time  since 
leaving  port  I  enjoyed  refreshing  sleep.  Toward  morning 
I  dreamed  that  I  saw  my  wife,  whom  I  had  left  in  the  United 
States,  come  to  the  door  of  my  stateroom,  clad  in  her  night- 
dress. At  the  door  she  seemed  to  discover  that  I  was  not 
the  only  occupant  of  the  room,  hesitated  a  little,  then  ad- 
vanced to  my  side,  stooped  down  and  kissed  me,  and  after 
gently  caressing  me  for  a  few  moments,  quietly  withdrew. 

"  Upon  waking  I  was  surprised  to  see  my  fellow  passen- 
ger, whose  berth  was  above  mine,  but  not  directly  over  it — 
owing  to  the  fact  that  our  room  was  at  the  stern  of  the  ves- 
sel— leaning  upon  his  elbow,  and  looking  fixedly  at  me. 
'You're  a  pretty  fellow,'  said  he  at  length,  'to  have  a  lady 
come  and  visit  you  in  this  way.'  I  pressed  him  for  an  ex- 
planation, which  he  at  first  declined  to  give,  but  at  length 
related  what  he  had  seen  while  wide  awake,  lying  in  his 
berth.     It  exactly  corresponded  with  my  dream. 

"  This  gentleman's  name  was  William  J.  Tait,  and  he  had 
been  my  room-mate  in  the  passage  out,  in  the  preceding  July, 
on  the  Cunard  steamer  Olympus  ;  a  native  of  England,  and 
son  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Established  Church.  He  had  for 
a  number  of  years  lived  in  Cleveland,  in  the  State  of  Ohio, 
where  he  held  the  position  of  librarian  of  the  Associated  Li- 
brary. He  was  at  this  time  perhaps  fifty  years  of  age — by 
no  means  in  the  habit  of  practical  joking,  but  a  sedate  and 
very  religious  man,  whose  testimony  upon  any  subject  could 
be  taken  unhesitatingly. 

"  The  incident  seemed  so  strange  to  me  that  I  questioned 
him  about  it,  and  upon  three  separate  occasions,  the  last  one 
shortly  before  reaching  port,  Mr.  Tait  repeated  to  me  the 
same  account  of  what  he  had  witnessed.  On  reaching  New 
York  we  parted,  and  I  never  saw  him  afterward,  but  I  under- 
stand that  he  died,  a  number  of  years  ago,  in  Cleveland. 

"The  day  after  landing  I  went  by  rail  to  Watertown, 
Conn.,  where  my  children  and  my  wife  had  been  for  some 
time,  visiting  her  parents.     Almost  her  first  question,  when 


ASTOUNDING   FACT  VERIFIED      385 

we  were  alone  together,  was,  'Did  you  receive  a  visit  from 
me  a  week  ago  Tuesday? '  *A  visit  from  you? '  said  I,  *we 
were  more  than  a  thousand  miles  at  sea.'  *I  know  it,'  she 
replied,  'but  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  visited  you.'  *It  would 
be  impossible,'  said  I.     'Tell  me  what  makes  you  think  so.' 

"  My  wife  then  told  me  that  on  account  of  the  severity 
of  the  weather  and  the  reported  loss  of  the  Africay  which 
sailed  for  Boston  on  the  same  day  that  we  left  Liverpool  for 
New  York,  and  had  gone  ashore  at  Cape  Race,  she  had  been 
extremely  anxious  about  me.  On  the  night  previous,  the 
same  night  when,  as  mentioned  above,  the  storm  had  just  be- 
gun to  abate,  she  had  lain  awake  for  a  long  time  thinking  of 
me,  and  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  it  seemed  to  her 
that  she  went  out  to  seek  me.  Crossing  the  wide  and  stormy 
sea,  she  came  at  length  to  a  low,  black  steamship,  whose  side 
she  went  up,  and  then  descending  into  the  cabin,  passed 
through  it  to  the  stern  until  she  came  to  my  stateroom. 
'Tell  me,'  said  she,  'do  they  ever  have  staterooms  like  the 
one  I  saw,  where  the  upper  berth  extends  farther  back  than 
the  under  one  ?  A  man  was  in  the  upper  berth,  looking  right 
at  me,  and  for  a  moment  I  was  afraid  to  go  in,  but  soon  I 
went  up  to  the  side  of  your  berth,  bent  down  and  kissed  you, 
and  embraced  you,  and  then  went  away.' 

"  The  description  given  by  my  wife  of  the  steamship  was 
correct  in  all  particulars,  tho  she  had  never  seen  it.  I  find 
by  my  sister's  diary  that  we  sailed  October  4;  the  day  we 
reached  New  York,  22d;  home,  23d. 

"  With  the  above  corrections  I  can  very  willingly  sub- 
scribe my  name. 

"  S.  R.  WlLMOT." 

By  Mr.  Hodgson's  system  of  questions  and  answers,  this 
incident  seemed  well  verified.  It  is  only  one  of  a  large 
number  which  indicate  that  the  spirit  has  an  existence  inde- 
pendent of  the  body,  even  while  it  is  in  this  life. 

In  this  case  hallucination  seems  excluded,  as  three  sepa- 
rate persons  participated  in  the  affair.  If  we  in  the  body 
have  power  thus  to  project  ourselves,  it  will  become  much 
easier  to  believe  that  spirits  out  of  the  body  have  power  to 
make  their  presence  also  manifest.  But  if  these  appearances 
are  actual  outward  presentations  of  oneself  to  another,  it 
25 


386     VOLITION   BRINGS  APPARITION 

would  account  in  some  cases  for  spirit  materializations;  for 
the  medium  would  have  the  power  to  make  herself  visible 
outside  of  the  cabinet  and  at  the  same  time  be  physically- 
present  in  the  cabinet.  This  itself  would  be  a  most  startling 
psychological  fact  should  it  be  found  to  be  really  a  fact. 

But  it  is  not  sure  that  these  appearances  are  not  wholly 
in  the  mind — are  not  wholly  subjective.  If  one  can  so  tele- 
pathically  impress  another  at  a  distance  as  to  cause  an  hallu- 
cination, this  might  explain  many  cases. 

Mrs.  Sidgwick  is  inclined  to  think  that  some  minds  have 
this  power  and  in  illustration  of  this  view  gives  the  following 
experience  of  Mr.  Wesermann,  a  gentleman  who  interested 
himself  in  thought-transference  in  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury. By  concentrated  effort  of  thought,  he  had  more  than 
once  imposed  dreams  on  distant  friends,  and  he  determined 
to  make  Lieutenant  N.  dream  that  a  certain  lady,  who  had 
been  dead  for  five  years,  came  to  him  and  incited  him  to  good 
works.  He  supposed  that  Lieutenant  N.  was  at  home  and 
asleep  at  the  time  selected,  but,  as  it  happened,  he  was  stay- 
ing in  a  different  town  with  a  friend.  Lieutenant  S.,  who  was 
a  stranger  to  Wesermann,  and  both  were  wide  awake  and 
talking.  This  did  not  interfere  with  the  success  of  Weser- 
mann's  experiment,  however,  for  both  gentlemen  saw  a  figure 
resembling  the  lady  in  question  enter  the  room  noiselessly 
by  a  door  that  usually  creaked,  make  gestures  of  greeting  and 
go  out  again.  It  will  hardly,  I  think,  be  contended  that 
Wesermann  called  up  the  dead  lady,  or  that  he  himself  ap- 
peared in  her  form,  or  that  Lieutenant  S.  would  have  seen 
her  if  Lieutenant  N.  had  not  been  there,  so  that  there  seems 
to  be  no  reasonable  alternative  except  that  of  a  telepathic 
action  of  Wesermann 's  mind  on  Lieutenant  N.,  communi- 
cated in  some  way  through  him  to  Lieutenant  S. 

Frank  Podmore  gives  the  case  of  Rev.  Clarence  Godfrey 
of  England,  who  by  willing  could  make  others  see  him  miles 
away.^ 

>  Myers's  "  Human  Personality,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  684-700. 


EFFORTS   AT   SELF-PROJECTION     387 

The  following  case  I  give  entire  from  the  report  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research.^  The  experiment  was  made 
by  Joseph  Kirk  through  whom  other  experiments  were  made 
by  the  Society — a  gentleman  in  whom  the  Society  had  full 
confidence. 


Joseph  Kirk — His  Appearing  to  a  Lady  Fne?id  at  a  Distance 

"2,  RiPON-viLLAS,  Upper  Ripon-road,  Plumstead, 

"July  7,  1890. 

"I  have  to  inform  you  that  from  the  loth  to  20th  June 
I  tried  a  telepathic  experiment  each  night  upon  IMiss  G.  I 
did  so,  as  suggested  by  you  in  your  letter  of  June  3,  with- 
out her  knowledge,  as  a  preliminary  to  entering  upon  experi- 
ments with  her  under  conditions  of  expectancy  and  the  re- 
cording of  dates  and  hours.  Each  trial  had  for  its  object 
the  rendering  myself  visible  to  her — simply  visible.  With 
the  exception  of  one — which  was  made  one  afternoon  from 
my  office  in  the  Arsenal — each  trial  took  place  at  my  house 
between  the  hours  of  1 1  p.m.  and  i  a.m. 

"  Up  to  June  23  I  heard  nothing  direct  from  my  'subject.' 
Indirectly,  however,  I  learned  that  my  influence  was  acting 
rather  strongly.  Each  time  Miss  G.  came  to  my  house, 
while  the  experiments  were  in  progress,  she  complained  of 
being  kept  sleepless  and  restless  from  an  uneasy  feeling 
which  she  was  unable  to  describe  or  account  for.  On  one 
night,  so  strong  was  this  uneasy  feeling,  she  was  compelled 
to  get  up,  dress  herself,  and  take  to  some  needlework,  and  was 
unable  to  throw  off  the  sensation  and  return  to  bed  until  two 
o'clock.  I  made  no  comments  on  these  complaints — never 
dropped  a  hint,  even,  as  to  what  I  was  doing.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  seemed  probable  to  me  that,  altho  my  influ- 
ence was  telling  upon  her,  to  her  discomfort,  I  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  the  object  of  my  experiments.  Supposing  this  to 
be  the  case,  and  that  I  was  only  depriving  her  of  rest,  I 
thought  it  best  to  discontinue  the  trials  for  a  time. 

"  I  felt  disappointed  at  this  apparently  barren  result. 
But,  on  June  23,  an  agreeable  surprise  was  sprung  upon  me, 
in  that  I  learned  I  had  most  effectually  succeeded  on  one 

*  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  pp.  270-3. 


388  CURIOUS   SUCCESS 

occasion — the  very  occasion  on  which  I  had  considered  suc- 
cess as  being  highly  improbable — in  presenting  myself  to 
Miss  G.  As  you  will  find  in  her  statement,  herewith  en- 
closed, the  vision  was  most  complete  and  realistic.  The  trial 
which  had  this  fortunate  result  was  that  I  had  made  from 
my  office  and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  I  had  been  rather 
closely  engaged  on  some  auditing  work,  which  had  tired  me, 
and  as  near  as  I  can  remember  the  time  was  between  3  130 
and  4  P.M.,  that  I  laid  down  my  pencil,  stretched  myself, 
and  in  the  act  of  doing  the  latter  I  was  seized  with  the  im- 
pulse to  make  a  trial  on  Miss  G.  I  did  not,  of  course,  know 
where  she  was  at  the  moment,  but,  with  a  flash,  as  it  were,  I 
transferred  myself  to  her  bedroom.  I  can  not  say  why  I 
thought  of  that  spot,  unless  it  was  that  I  did  so  because  my 
first  experiment  had  been  made  there. ^  As  it  happened,  it 
was  what  I  must  call  a  '  lucky  shot,'  for  I  caught  her  at  the 
moment  she  was  lightly  sleeping  in  her  chair — a  condition 
which  seems  to  be  peculiarly  favorable  to  receiving  and  ex- 
ternalizing telepathic  messages. 

"  The  figure  seen  by  Miss  G.  was  clothed  in  a  suit  I  was 
at  the  moment  wearing,  and  was  bareheaded,  the  latter  as 
would  be  the  case,  of  course,  in  an  office.  This  suit  is  of  a 
dark  reddish-brown  check  stuff,  and  it  was  an  unusual  circum- 
stance for  me  to  have  had  on  the  coat  at  the  time,  as  I  wear, 
as  a  rule,  an  office  coat  of  light  material.  But  this  office- 
coat  I  had,  a  day  or  so  before,  sent  to  a  tailor  to  be  repaired, 
and  I  had,  therefore,  to  keep  on  that  belonging  to  the  dark 
suit. 

**  I  tested  the  reality  of  the  vision  by  this  dark  suit.  I 
asked,  'How  was  I  dressed.-^ '  (not  at  all  a  leading  question). 
The  reply  of  Miss  G.  was,  touching  the  sleeve  of  the  coat  I 
was  then  wearing  (of  a  light  suit):  'Not  this  coat,  but  that 
dark  suit  you  wear  sometimes.  I  even  saw  clearly  the  small 
check  pattern  of  it ;  and  I  saw  your  features  as  plainly  as  tho 
you  had  been  bodily  present.  I  could  not  have  seen  you 
more  distinctly.' " 

»  The  first  experiment  of  this  series  was  on  the  night  of  the  loth,  the  successful 
experiment  on  the  afternoon  of  June  ii  (Wednesday).  Mr.  Kirk  tells  us  that  he 
made  a  note  at  the  time  on  his  blotting-paper  of  day  and  hour.  Mr,  Kirk  had  on 
four  occasions  during  the  previous  four  years  tried  from  a  distance  to  produce  an 
impression  of  preserce  on  Miss  G.  with  considerable  success,  but  had  not  tried  to 
appear  to  her.  These  experiments  and  others  are  described  in  the  Journal  S.  P. 
R.,  vol.  v.,  pp.  21-30. 


si 


NO   DREAM  389 

Miss  G.  's  account  is : 

"June  28,  1890. 

"  A  peculiar  occurrence  happened  to  me  on  the  Wednes- 
day of  the  week  before  last.  In  the  afternoon  (being  tired 
by  a  morning  walk),  while  sitting  in  an  easy-chair  near  the 
window  of  my  own  room,  I  fell  asleep.  At  any  time  I  hap- 
pen to  sleep  during  the  day  (which  is  but  seldom)  I  invari- 
ably awake  with  tired  uncomfortable  sensations,  which  take 
some  little  time  to  pass  off;  but  that  afternoon,  on  the  con- 
trary, I  was  suddenly  quite  wide  awake,  seeing  Mr.  Kirk 
standing  near  my  chair,  dressed  in  a  dark-brown  coat,  which 
I  had  frequently  seen  him  wear.  His  back  was  toward  the 
window,  his  right  hand  toward  me;  he  passed  across  the 
room  toward  the  door,  which  is  opposite  the  vs^indow,  the 
space  between  being  fifteen  feet,  the  furniture  so  arranged  as 
to  leave  just  that  center  clear;  but  when  he  got  about  four 
feet  from  the  door,  which  was  closed,  he  disappeared. 

"  My  first  thought  was,  *  had  this  happened  a  few  hours 
later  I  should  have  believed  it  telepathic,'  for  I  knew  Mr. 
Kirk  had  tried  experimenting  at  different  times,  but  had  no 
idea  he  was  doing  so  recently.  Altho  I  have  been  much  in- 
terested by  his  conversation  about  psychic  phenomena  at 
various  times  during  the  past  year,  I  must  confess  the  ele- 
ment of  doubt  would  very  forcibly  present  itself  as  to  whether 
telepathic  communication  could  be  really  a  fact;  and  I  then 
thought,  knowing  he  must  be  at  the  office  at  the  time  I  saw 
him  (which  was  quite  as  distinctly  as  if  he  had  been  really  in 
the  room),  that  in  this  instance,  at  least,  it  must  be  purely 
imaginary,  and  feeling  so  sure  it  was  only  fancy,  resolved  not 
to  mention  it,  and  did  not  do  so  until  this  week,  when,  almost 
involuntarily,  I  told  him  all  about  it.  Much  to  my  astonish- 
ment, Mr.  Kirk  was  very  pleased  with  the  account,  and  asked 
me  to  write  it,  telling  me  that  on  that  afternoon,  feeling 
rather  tired,  he  put  down  his  pen  for  a  few  moments,  and,  to 
use  his  own  words,  '  threw  himself  into  this  room. '  He  also 
told  me  he  had  purposely  avoided  this  subject  in  my  presence 
lately,  that  he  might  not  influence  me,  but  was  anxiously 
hoping  I  would  introduce  it. 

"  I  feel  sure  I  had  not  been  dreaming  of  him,  and  can  not 
remember  that  anything  had  happened  to  cause  me  even  to 
think  of  him  that  afternoon  before  falling  asleep." 


390  IS   THE   VISION    MENTAL? 

Mr.  Kirk  writes  later: 

**  I  have  only  succeeded  once  in  making  myself  visible 
to  Miss  G.  since  the  occasion  I  have  already  reported,  and 
that  had  the  singularity  of  being  only  my  features — my  face 
in  miniature^  that  is,  about  three  inches  in  diameter." 

In  a  letter  dated  January  19,  1891,  Mr.  Kirk  says  as  to 
this  last  appearance : 

"  Miss  G,  did  not  record  this  at  the  time,  as  she  attached 
no  importance  to  it,  but  I  noted  the  date  (July  23)  on  my 
office  blotting-pad,  as  it  was  at  the  office  I  was  thinking  of 
her.  I  say  '  thinking,'  because  I  was  doing  so  in  connection 
with  another  subject,  and  with  no  purpose  of  making  an  ex- 
periment. I  had  a  headache  and  was  resting  my  head  on  my 
left  hand.  Suddenly  it  occurred  to  me  that  my  thinking 
about  her  might  probably  influence  her  in  some  way,  and  I 
made  the  note  I  have  mentioned.  ^ 

"  Mrs.  Sidgwick  had  a  talk  with  Mr.  Kirk  and  Miss  G. 
on  April  8,  1892,  about  the  above  incidents  and  other  ex- 
periments in  thought-transference  between  them,  and  writes : 

"*Mr.  Kirk's  appearance  to  Miss  G.  evidently  impressed 
her  very  much.  It  was  extremely  realistic.  She  is  quite 
sure  she  was  awake.  It  was  as  if  she  had  waked  up  to  see 
it,  but  she  had  not  been  dreaming  of  Mr.  Kirk.  The  figure 
did  not  look  toward  her  or  appear  to  take  any  interest  in 
her.  The  other  time  she  saw  his  face  it  was  like  a  minia- 
ture.    She  did  not  think  so  much  of  that  experience.' " 

It  now  seems  certain  that  some  living  people  have  the 
power  of  making  others  see  them  at  a  distance.  Whether 
this  vision  is  mental  or  seen  by  the  eye  is  not  yet  certainly 
established.  It  is  certain  that  the  person  who  sees  the  vision 
is  often  as  sure  that  he  sees  it  with  his  eyes  as  he  is  of  any- 
thing else  that  his  eyes  see.  It  seems  that  the  mind  has 
power  at  times  to  send  out  waves  on  the  ocean  of  ether  that 
surrounds  us ;  has  it  also  power  to  transmit  some  material 

*  Mr.  Kirk  enclosed  the  piece  of  blottins:-paper  with  the  note. 


DO   THE   DEAD    REAPPEAR?         391 

essence  of  ourselves  that  will  report  to  the  outward  eye  of 
another?  It  is  a  most  interesting  problem,  well  worthy  of 
great  effort  to  solve. 

Have  the  Dead  Power   to    Reappear   on    the    Earth 
Independent  of  So-called  Mediums? 

If  the  souls  of  some  living  men  have  the  power  of  ma- 
king themselves  visible  outside  the  body,  why  should  it  be 
necessarily  absurd  that  some  souls  who  have  passed  out  of 
the  body  through  death  should  be  able  to  so  visit  persons  in 
the  flesh?  This  power  to  transmit  thought  waves  in  the 
ether  ocean  can  scarcely  belong  to  the  body;  it  is  more 
reasonable  to  believe  that  it  belongs  to  the  mind  or  soul. 
Are  we  sure  that  death  changes  the  powers  of  the  mind  or 
changes  the  powers  of  the  soul  ?  Is  it  not  possible  that  it 
will  increase  these  powers  rather  than  lessen  them  ? 

But  what  are  the  facts  ? 

Are  there  ghosts  ? 

Of  course  there  are  many  superstitions,  many,  many 
frauds. 

But  is  there  anything  more  ? 

Let  us  now  free  ourselves  from  all  judgment  for  or  against 
the  ghost  theory,  and  view  the  facts  gathered  and  sifted  by 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  and  by  others. 

Case  I. — In  Part  I.  I  tell  of  a  family  experience  which 
happened  when  I  was  a  young  man  in  my  father's  house. 
An  aunt  who  was  visiting  us  died  suddenly  at  about  mid- 
night. Her  son-in-law  was  a  well-to-do  farmer  living  about 
two  miles  in  the  country.  The  aunt  had  been  in  good  health 
up  to  a  few  moments  of  her  death.  At  about  the  time  of 
her  death  her  son-in-law  went  to  a  spring  about  one  hundred 
yards  from  his  home  for  water.  As  he  approached  the 
spring  he  saw  the  form  of  his  mother-in-law  standing  by  the 
spring  as  natural  as  in  life,  and  yet  he  was  somehow  im- 
pressed that  it  was  her  spirit.  He  did  not  know  until  the 
next  morning  of  her  death. 


392  LORD    BROUGHAM'S   VISION 

Case  II. — Lord  Brougham  gives  an  extraordinary  in- 
cident in  his  personal  experience ;  it  was  originally  an  entry 
in  his  diary.  I  quote  from  "  Phantasms  of  the  Living  "  (vol. 
i.,  pp.  394-7): 

"  The  entry  must  apparently  have  been  made  very  soon 
after  the  occurrence  which  it  describes ;  as  we  can  scarcely 
doubt  that  had  the  fact  of  his  friend's  death,  which  he  learned 
soon  afterward,  been  known  to  him  at  the  time  of  writing,  he 
would  have  included  it  in  his  account.  In  December,  1799, 
Lord  Brougham  was  traveling  in  Sweden  with  friends.  [He 
says,] 

"  We  set  out  for  Gothenburg  [apparently  on  December 
18]  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  advantage  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,  but  of  the  dead  appearing  to  the  living,  were  sub- 
jects of  much  speculation :  and  we  actually  committed  the 
folly  of  drawing  up  an  agreement,  written  with  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  the  lapse  of  a  few  years  I  had  almost  forgotten  him; 
moreover,  his  family  having  little  connection  with  Edin- 
burgh, 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  enjoy- 
ing the  comfort  of  the  heat,  after  the  late  freezing  I  had  un- 
dergone, I  turned  my  head  round,  looking  toward  the  chair 
on  which  I  had  deposited  my  clothes,  as  I  was  about  to  get 


AN   ASTOUNDING   STORY  393 

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  appa- 
rition, or  whatever  it  was,  that  had  taken  the  likeness  of  G, 
had  disappeared. 

"  This  vision  produced  such  a  shock  that  I  had  no  incli- 
nation 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  affected  by  it  that  I  have, 
here  written  down  the  whole  history,  with  the  date,  19th  De- 
cember, 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  can  not  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  bar- 
gain we  had  made.  I  could  not  discharge  from  my  mind 
the  impression  that  G.  must  have  died,  and  that  his  appear- 
ance to  me  was  to  be  received  by  me  as  a  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  impres- 
sion, that  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  talk  of  it,  or  to  make 
the  slightest  allusion  to  it. " 

Lord  Brougham  afterward  wrote  that  "  Soon  after  my  re- 
turn to  Edinburgh,  there  arrived  a  letter  from  India,  an- 
nouncing G.'s  death,  and  stating  that  he  had  died  on  the 
19th  of  December!  '*  Was  this  a  dream,  as  Lord  Brougham 
was  inclined  to  think?  Was  it  coincidence;  if  not,  what  was 
it?  The  profound  impression  the  incident  had  on  Lord 
Brougham's  mind,  the  finding  himself  sprawling  on  the  floor, 
and  the  identity  of  dates  are  hard  to  reconcile  with  either  a 
dream  or  the  hypothesis  of  coincidence. 

Case  III. — This  case'  has  been  partly  verified  by  the 
S.  P.  R.,  who  have  looked  up  the  official  records  of  the  date  of 
death  and  burial  of  the  bishop,  and  have  corresponded  with 
several  of  the  living.     The  family  does  not  wish  their  names 

1  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R,,   vol.  v.,  pp.  46^-1. 


394  A   DEAD    BISHOP   RETURNS 

given.     The  mother  writes  this   account — her  recollection 
seems  very  distinct,  and  she  adds  as  a  sort  of  postscript : 

"  '  You  may  safely  vouch  for  the  truth  to  the  letter  of  the 
statement.  I  could  never  in  my  life  forget  one  incident  of 
this  visitation ; '  " 

"  '  During  my  visit  to  the  convent  at  St.  Quay,  Pontrieux 
(August,  1882)  with  my  two  daughters  and  son,  the  good  sis- 
ters had  only  one  good  room  for  me  and  my  two  girls.  It 
was  the  room  set  apart  for  the  Bishop  of  St.  Brieux  when  he 
visited  the  convent,  and  was  in  the  priest's  house.  On  the 
morning  after  our  arrival  I  did  not  go  out  with  my  children, 
but  being  very  tired  I  lay  down  on  a  little  bed.  The  sun 
was  shining,  and  it  was  very  hot,  but  before  I  lay  down  I 
placed  a  chair  against  the  bedroom  door,  as  there  was  only 
a  latch  on  the  door,  and  no  bolt  or  key.  I  went  to  sleep 
only  for  a  few  minutes,  and  was  suddenly  awakened  by  a  soft 
touch  on  my  chest.  On  opening  my  eyes,  I  saw  a  venerable 
old  man,  with  something  of  a  white  and  black  dress  on,  kneel- 
ing by  the  side  of  the  bed  on  which  I  lay,  with  hands  clasped 
in  prayer,  and  looking  up  to  the  wall  over  the  bed.  I  looked 
at  him  silently,  and  he  rose,  and  when  going  to  the  door  he 
raised  his  two  hands  and  said  Te  beni  [je  te  bhiis  f]  three 
times  quite  distinctly,  and  I  lost  him.  I  got  up  instantly 
and  went  to  the  door,  thinking  he  was  some  old  priest  who 
had  come  to  pray  before  the  crucifix  which  I  then  saw  for 
the  first  time  on  the  wall  over  the  bed;  but  to  my  surprise  I 
found  the  door  shut,  and  the  chair  before  it,  as  I  had  placed 
it  before  I  lay  down.  The  old  sister  who  waited  on  us  had 
her  room  close  to  ours ;  so  I  called  her  and  told  her  that  an 
old  priest  had  come  into  my  room  to  pray  before  the  crucifix. 
The  old  nun  said  that  there  was  not  a  man  on  all  the  prem- 
ises, nor  a  priest,  as  they  were  all  gone  to  the  funeral  of  the 
Bishop  of  St.  Brieux,  sixteen  miles  away,  which  was  being 
performed  at  that  time.  I  described  the  appearance  and 
dress,  and  what  he  said  to  me.  She  immediately  went  down 
on  her  knees  to  me  and  said,  "  You  are  blessed  indeed,  for  it 
was  the  bishop  himself."  fie  had  come  to  his  accustomed 
place  of  prayer  for  the  last  time  on  earth.'  " 

This  writer  has  never  had  any  other  hallucination  of  the 
senses,  and  refuses  to  regard  this  vision  as  a  hallucination. 


STRONGLY   VERIFIED  395 

Her  daughter  writes,  under  date  April  18,  1889  : 
"'My  sister  and  I  have  the  liveliest  recollection  of  our 
mother  telling  us  about  seeing  the  Bishop,  directly  we  came 
in  from  a  walk.'  " 

It  was  learned  from  the  French  official  records  that  Mgr. 
Augustin  David,  Bishop  of  St.  Brieux,  died  July  27,  1882, 
and  was  buried  at  St.  Brieux,  Tuesday,  August  i,  at  10 
A.M.,  which  so  far  confirms  the  account  given  above. 

Case  IV. — This  is  a  case  given  at  great  length  in  the 
Proceedings  of  The  St)ciety  for  Psychical  Research,  vol.  viii., 
pp.  311-332.  Much  time  and  labor  have  been  given  to  verify 
it;  Frederic  Myers  himself  gave  it  much  attention,  and  de- 
votes many  pages  to  it  in  "  Human  Personality,"  vol.  ii.,  pp. 
389-396.  Miss  R.  C.  Morton,  the  chief  witness,  "is  a  lady 
of  scientific  training,"  says  Dr.  Myers,  "  and  was  at  the  time 
her  account  was  written  (in  April,  1892)  preparing  to  be  a 
physician."  The  Society  has  from  six  other  witnesses  "in- 
dependent first-hand  statements." 

Miss  M.  gives  the  following  account  of  her  first  experi- 
ence with  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  what  it  could 
be.  I  had  only  a  small  piece  of  candle,  and  it  suddenly 
burnt  itself  out;  and  being  unable  to  see  more,  I  went  back 
to  my  room. 

"  'The  figure  was  that  of  a  tall  lady,  dressed  in  black  of  a 
soft  woolen  material,  judging  from  the  slight  sound  in  mov- 
ing. The  face  was  hidden  in  a  handkerchief  held  in  the 
right  hand.  This  is  all  I  noticed  then ;  but  on  further  occa- 
sions, when  I  was  able  to  observe  her  more  closely,  I  saw  the 
upper  part  of  the  left  side  of  the  forehead,  and  a  little  of  the 
hair  above.  Her  left  hand  was  nearly  hidden  by  her  sleeve 
and  a  fold  of  her  dress.     As  she  held  it  down  a  portion  of  a 


396  "A    HAUNTED    HOUSE" 

widow's  cuff  was  v'isible  on  both  wrists,  so  that  the  whole 
impression  was  that  of  a  lady  Ln  widow's  weeds.  There  was 
no  cap  on  the  head,  but  a  general  effect  of  blackness  suggested 
a  bonnet,  with  long  veil  or  a  hood.'  " 

After  this,  for  a  number  of  years,  the  vision  appeared 
again  and  again.  Miss  Morton,  who  was  a  capital  witness, 
not  being  in  the  least  nervous,  frequently  followed  the  appa- 
rition; if  she  "cornered"  it^  it  would  suddenly  disappear. 
Many  others  saw  it  independently  of  Miss  Morton ;  some 
who  had  no  knowledge  that  the  apparition  had  appeared  to 
others  and  was  expected:  It  was  seen  both  in  the  house  and 
outside  the  house  in  the  garden.  Miss  ^I.  often  spoke  to 
it,  but  received  no  answer. 

Miss  M.,  in  the  report  published  by  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  sums  up  the  proofs  of  the  immateriality 
of  the  apparition : 

" '  I.  I  ha\-e  se^'eral  times  fastened  fine  strings  across  the 
stairs  at  \'arious  heights  before  going  to  bed,  but  after  all 
others  have  gone  up  to  their  rooms.  These  were  fastened 
in  the  following  way :  I  made  small  pellets  of  marine  glue, 
into  which  I  inserted  the  ends  of  the  cord,  then  stuck  one 
pellet  lightly  against  the  wall  and  the  other  to  the  banister, 
the  string  being  thus  stretched  across  the  stairs.  They  were 
knocked  down  by  a  very  slight  touch,  and  yet  would  not  be 
felt  by  any  one  passing  up  or  down  the  stairs,  and  by  candle- 
light could  not  be  seen  from  below.  They  were  put  at  \-ari- 
ous  heights  from  the  ground  from  six  inches  to  the  height  of 
the  banisters,  about  three  feet.  I  have  twice,  at  least,  seen 
the  figure  pass  through  the  cords,  leaving  them  intact 

"  *  2.  The  sudden  and  complete  disappearance  of  the  fig- 
ure, while  still  in  full  view. 

"  *  3.  The  impossibility  of  touching  the  figure.  I  ha\-e 
repeatedly  followed  it  into  a  comer,  when  it  disappeared,  and 
have  tried  suddenly  to  pounce  upon  it,  but  have  never  suc- 
ceeded in  touching  it  or  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  to  see  it,  for  on  ever)'  occasion  when  we  had  made 


IDENTIFICATION  397 

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  friends  more  than  once ;  but  on  none  of  these  occasions 
was  anything  seen.  Nor  have  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  : 

"  *  I .  The  complete  history  of  the  house  is  known,  and  if 
we  are  to  connect  the  figure  with  any  of  the  previous  occu- 
pants, she  is  the  only  person  who  in  any  way  resembled  it. 

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

"  *  3.  Altho  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  photo-album  containing  a 
number  of  portraits,  I  picked  out  one  of  her  sisters  as  being 
most  like  that  of  the  figure,  and  was  afterward  told  that  the 
sisters  were  much  alike. 

"  *  4.  Her  step-daughter  and  others  told  us  that  she  espe- 
cially used  the  front  drawing-room  in  which  she  continually 
appeared,  and  that  her  habitual  seat  was  on  a  couch  placed 
in  a  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  hallucination. 

" '  In  writing  the  above  account,  my  memory  of  the  oc- 
currences has  been  largely  assisted  by  reference  to  a  set  of 
journal  letters  written  [to  Miss  Campbell]  at  the  time  and  by 
notes  of  interviews  held  by  Mr.  Myers  with  my  father  and 
various  members  of  our  family.'  " 

This  case,  as  proof  of  the  reality  of  some  apparitions,  is 
a  remarkably  strong  one.  I  regret  that  my  space  limits  will 
not  permit  me  to  give  it  entire,  but  I  urge  all  who  are  inter- 
ested in  these  studies  not  to  make  the  mistake  of  passing  this 
by  as  one  of  the  ordinary  ghost  stories. 

The  number  of  cases  of  the  appearance  of  apparitions 
given  by  the  S.  P.  R.  is  large,  and  many  of  them  are  so  well 
authenticated  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  refuse  belief. 


398     SCIENTIST   WALLACE^S    REASONING 

The  scientist  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  gives  a  number  of 
cases  that  carry  with  them  much  evidence.  Wallace,  among 
many  other  proofs  of  the  reality  of  these  apparitions,  describes 
their  effect  upon  animals.     He  argues  the  case  as  follows :  ^ 

"  Effects  of  Phantasms  on  Animals. — We  now  come  to  a 
group  of  phenomena  which,  altho  frequently  recorded  in  the 
publications  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  have  re- 
ceived no  special  attention  as  bearing  on  the  theories  put 
forth  by  members  of  the  Society,  but  have  either  been  ignored 
or  have  been  attempted  to  be  explained  away  by  arbitrary  as- 
sumptions of  the  most  improbable  kind.  It  will,  therefore, 
be  necessary  to  refer  to  the  evidence  for  these  facts  some- 
what more  fully  than  for  those  hitherto  considered. 

"  I  have  already  mentioned  the  case  of  the  female  figure 
in  white,  seen  by  three  persons  floating  over  a  hedge  ten  feet 
above  the  ground,  when  the  horse  they  were  driving  'sud- 
denly stopped  and  shook  with  fright.'  In  the  remarks  upon 
this  case  in  *  Phantasms  of  the  Living,'  no  reference  is  made 
to  this  fact,  yet  it  is  surely  the  crucial  one,  since  we  can 
hardly  suppose  that  a  wholly  subjective  apparition,  seen  by 
human  beings,  would  also  be  seen  by  a  horse.  During  the 
tremendous  knocking  recorded  by  Mr.  Garling,  and  already 
quoted,  it  is  stated  that  there  was  a  large  dog  in  a  kennel 
near  the  front  entrance,  especially  to  warn  off  intruders,  and 
a  little  terrier  inside  that  barked  at  everybody;  yet,  when 
the  noise  occurred  that  wakened  the  servants  sixty  feet  away, 
*  the  dogs  gave  no  tongue  whatever;  the  terrier,  contrary  to 
its  nature,  slunk  shivering  under  the  sofa,  and  would  not  stop 
even  at  the  door,  and  nothing  could  induce  him  to  go  into 
the  darkness.* 

"  In  the  remarkable  account  of  a  haunted  house  during 
an  occupation  of  twelve  months  by  a  well-known  English 
church  dignitary,  the  very  different  behavior  of  dogs  in  the 
presence  of  real  and  of  phantasmal  disturbances  is  pointed 
out.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  rob  the  vicarage,  the 
dogs  gave  prompt  alarm  and  the  clergyman  was  aroused  by 
their  fierce  barking.  During  the  mysterious  noises,  however, 
tho  these  were  much  louder  and  more  disturbing,  they 
never  barked  at  all,  but  were  always  *  found  cowering  in  a 
state  of  pitiable  terror.'     They  are  said  to  have  been  more 

*  "Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,"  pp.  239-344. 


GHOSTS    FRIGHTEN    ANIMALS       399 

perturbed  than  any  other  members  of  the  establishment,  and 
*  if  not  shut  up  below,  would  make  their  way  to  our  bedroom 
door  and  lie  there,  crouching  and  whining,  as  long  as  we 
would  allow  them. '  ^ 

"  In  the  account  of  haunting  in  a  house  at  Hammersmith, 
near  London,  which  went  on  for  five  years,  where  steps  and 
noises  were  heard  and  a  phantom  woman  seen,  '  the  dog 
whined  incessantly  '  during  the  disturbances,  and  '  the  dog  was 
evidently  still  afraid  of  the  room  when  the  morning  came.  I 
called  to  him  to  go  into  it  with  me,  and  he  crouched  down  with 
his  tail  between  his  legs,  and  seemed  to  fear  entering  it.'  '^ 

"  On  the  occasion  of  a  'wailing  cry,'  heard  before  a  death 
in  a  rectory  in  Staffordshire,  a  house  standing  quite  alone  in 
open  country,  'we  found  a  favorite  bulldog,  a  very  courageous 
animal,  trembling  with  terror,  with  his  nose  thrust  into  some 
billets  of  firewood  which  were  kept  under  the  stairs.'  On 
another  occasion,  '  an  awful  howling  followed  by  shriek  upon 
shriek,'  with  a  sound  like  that  caused  by  a  strong  wind  was 
heard,  altho  everything  out  of  doors  was  quite  still,  and  it  is 
stated,  *We  had  three  dogs  sleeping  in  my  sisters'  and  my 
bedrooms,  and  they  were  all  cowering  down  with  affright, 
their  bristles  standing  straight  up ;  one — a  bulldog — was  un- 
der the  bed,  and  refused  to  come  out,  and  when  removed  was 
found  to  be  trembling  all  over.'  ^  The  remark  of  Mrs.  Sidg- 
wick  on  these  and  other  cases  of  warning  sounds  is,  that  'if 
not  real  natural  sounds,  they  must  have  been  collective  hal- 
lucinations.' But  it  has  not  been  shown  that  '  real  natural 
sounds '  ever  produce  such  effects  upon  dogs,  and  there  is  no 
suggestion  that  '  collective  hallucination '  can  be  telepatheti- 
cally  transferred  to  these  animals.  In  one  case,  however,  it 
is  suggested  that  the  dog  might  have  '  been  suddenly  taken 
ill!' 

"  In  the  remarkable  account  by  General  Barter,  C.B.,  of 
a  phantasmal  pony  and  rider  with  two  native  grooms  seen  in 
India,  two  dogs  which  immediately  before  were  hunting  about 
in  the  brushwood  jungle  which  covered  the  hill  came  and 
crouched  by  the  general's  side,  giving  low,  frightened  whim- 
pers ;  and  when  he  pursued  the  phantasm  the  dogs  returned 
home,  tho  on  all  other  occasions  they  were  his  most  faithful 
companions.  * 

>  Proc.  Soc.  for  Psych.  Res.,  Part  vi.,  p.  151.  ^ /did.,  Part  viii.,  p,  116. 

*  Idt'd.,  Part  xiii.,  pp.  307-308.  *  3id..,  Part  xiv.,  pp.  469,  470, 


400  THE  WESLEYS'    DOG 

"  These  cases,  given  on  the  best  authority  by  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  can  be  supplemented  by  a  reference 
to  older  writers.  During  the  disturbances  at  Mr.  Mompes- 
son's  house  at  Tedworth,  recorded  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Glan- 
vil,  from  personal  observation  and  inquiry,  in  his  work  *  Sad- 
ducismus  Triumphatus,'  *  it  was  noted  that  when  the  noise 
was  loudest,  and  came  with  the  most  sudden  surprising 
violence,  no  dog  about  the  house  would  move,  tho  the 
knocking  was  oft  so  boisterous  and  rude  that  it  hath  been 
heard  to  a  considerable  distance  in  the  fields,  and  awakened 
the  neighbors  in  the  village,  none  of  whom  live  very  near 
this.' 

"  So  in  the  disturbances  at  Epworth  Parsonage,  an  account 
of  which  is  given  by  the  eminent  John  Wesley,  after  descri- 
bing strange  noises  as  of  iron  and  glass  thrown  down,  he  con- 
tinues :  *  Soon  after  our  large  mastiff  dog  came,  and  ran  to 
shelter  himself  between  them  (Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wesley).  While 
the  disturbances  continued,  he  used  to  bark  and  leap,  and 
snap  on  one  side  and  the  other,  and  that  frequently  before 
any  person  in  the  room  heard  any  noise  at  all.  But  after  two 
or  three  days  he  used  to  tremble,  and  creep  away  before  the 
noise  began.  And  by  this  the  family  knew  it  was  at  hand ; 
nor  did  the  observation  ever  fail. ' ' 

"  During  the  disturbances  at  the  Cemetery  of  Ahrens- 
burg,  in  the  island  of  Oesel,  where  coffins  were  overturned  in 
locked  vaults,  and  the  case  was  investigated  by  an  official 
commission,  the  horses  of  country  people  visiting  the  ceme- 
tery were  often  so  alarmed  and  excited  that  they  became  cov- 
ered with  sweat  and  foam.  Sometimes  they  threw  them- 
selves on  the  ground,  where  they  struggled  in  apparent  agony, 
and  notwithstanding  the  immediate  resort  to  remedial  meas- 
ures, several  died  within  a  day  or  two.  In  this  case,  as  in 
so  many  others,  altho  the  commission  made  a  most  rigid  in- 
vestigation, and  applied  the  strictest  tests,  no  natural  cause 
for  the  disturbances  was  ever  discovered.' 

"In  Dr.  Justinus  Kerner's  account  of 'The  Seeress  of 
Prevorst,'  it  is  stated  of  an  apparition  that  appeared  to  her 
during  an  entire  year,  that  as  often  as  a  spirit  appeared  a 
black  terrier  that  was  kept  in  the  house  seemed  to  be  sensi- 

*  The  account  oC  these  disturbances  is  given  in  Dr.  Adam  Clarke's  "  Memoirs 
of  the  Wesley  Family";  in  Southey's  "Life  of  Wesley";  and  in  many  other 
works. 

»R.  D.  Owen's  "Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  Another  World,"  pp.  i86*^i92. 


DOGS    LEAVE    HAUNTED    HOUSE       401 

ble  of  its  presence ;  for  no  sooner  was  the  figure  perceptible 
to  the  seeress  than  the  dog  ran,  as  if  for  protection,  to  some 
one  present,  often  howling  loudly ;  and  after  his  first  sight  of 
it  he  would  never  remain  alone  of  nights.  In  this  case  no 
one  saw  the  figure  but  the  seeress,  showing  that  this  circum- 
stance is  not  proof  of  the  subjectivity  of  an  apparition. 

"  In  the  terrible  case  of  haunting  given  to  Mr.  R.  Dale 
Owen  by  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall,  who  was  personally  cognizant  of 
the  m_ain  facts,  the  haunted  man  had  not  been  able  to  keep  a 
dog  for  years.  One  which  he  brought  home  when  Mrs.  Hall 
became  acquainted  with  him  (he  being  the  brother  of  her 
bosom  friend)  could  not  be  induced  to  stay  in  his  room  day 
or  night  after  the  haunting  began,  and  soon  afterward  ran 
away  and  was  lost. ' 

'*  In  the  wonderful  case  of  haunting  in  Pennsylvania  given 
by  Mr.  Hodgson  in  The  Aj'ena  of  September,  1890  (p.  419), 
when  the  apparition  of  the  white  lady  appeared  to  the  infor- 
mant's brother,  we  find  it  stated: — 'The  third  night  he  saw 
the  dog  crouch  and  stare,  and  then  act  as  if  driven  round  the 
room.  Brother  saw  nothing,  but  heard  a  sort  of  rustle,  and 
the  poor  dog  howled  and  tried  to  hide,  and  never  again  would 
that  dog  go  to  that  room.' 

"  Now  this  series  of  cases  of  the  effect  of  phantasms  on 
animals  is  certainly  remarkable  and  worthy  of  deep  consid- 
eration. The  facts  are  such  as,  on  the  theories  of  telepathy 
and  hallucination,  ought  not  to  happen,  and  they  are  espe- 
cially trustworthy  facts  because  they  are  almost  invariably 
introduced  into  the  narratives  as  if  unexpected ;  while  that 
they  were  noticed  and  recorded  shows  that  the  observers 
were  in  no  degree  panic-struck  with  terror.  They  show  us 
unmistakably  that  large  numbers  of  phantasms,  whether 
visual  or  auditory,  and  even  when  only  perceptible  to  one  of 
the  persons  present,  are  objective  realities;  while  the  terror 
displayed  by  the  animals  that  perceive  them,  and  their  be- 
havior, so  unlike  that  in  the  presence  of  natural  sights  and 
sounds,  no  less  clearly  proves  that,  tho  objective,  the  phe- 
nomena are  not  normal,  and  are  not  to  be  explained  as  in 
any  way  due  to  trick  or  to  misinterpreted  natural  sounds. 
Yet  these  crucial  facts,  which  a  true  theory  must  take  ac- 
count of,  have  hitherto  been  treated  as  unimportant,  and,  ex- 
cept for  a  few  casual  remarks  by  Mr.  Myers  and  Mrs.  Sidg- 

»  "Footfalls from  the  Boundary  of  Another  World,"  pp.  326-329. 


402  HELPLESS    INVESTIGATORS 

wick,  have  been  left  out  of  consideration  in  all  the  serious 
attempts  hitherto  made  to  account  for  these  phenomena. " 

This  reasoning  of  Wallace,  and  much  more  like  it  in  his 
book,  is  well  fitted  to  impress  one  as  sane.  To  believe  that 
this  is  the  action  of  the  human  mind  on  the  minds  of  ani- 
mals seems  to  require  much  more  credulity  than  the  belief 
that  the  power  that  organized  a  visible  body  around  a  human 
spirit  might,  for  some  reason,  at  times  organize  another  at 
death,  or  after  death,  around  the  spirit.  This  terror  often 
seizes  animals  before  any  person  present  is  conscious  of 
having  had  any  thought  of  a  ghost.  Can  a  mind  that  is  not 
thinking  of  a  ghost  create  the  image  in  the  mind  of  a  dog 
or  of  a  horse  ?     It  seems  a  very  hard  thing  to  believe. 


V 

SECONDARY   PERSONALITY— OBSESSIONS 

Here  also  fraud  is  the  rule.  Sometimes  the  deception  is 
wholly  unconscious,  but  is  none  the  less  deception.  The 
unconscious  mind  is  now  known  to  have  powers  often  far 
beyond  the  conscious  mind.  Then  there  are  the  great  unex- 
plored fields  of  "secondary  personalities," — almost  wholly 
unexplored.  One  who  has  not  studied  the  phenomena  of 
"  secondary  personalities  "  is  poorly  fitted  to  investigate  Spir- 
itualism as  it  now  exhibits  itself.     He  is  well-nigh  helpless. 

There  are  those  who  can  at  will  believe  themselves  to  be 
Daniel  Webster,  Lincoln,  Shakespeare,  Dick  Turpin,  or  Jack 
the  Ripper — any  person  dead  or  living — and  yet  these  people 
are  not  to  be  classed  with  the  insane.  I  have  scores  of  times 
witnessed  their  impersonations.  At  that  time  the  face  of 
the  medium  will  suddenly  assume  the  look  and  even  some- 
thing of  the  shape  of  the  face  of  the  one  he  thinks  himself  to 
be.  The  words,  the  voice,  the  thoughts,  the  mannerisms, 
are  marvelously  alike. 


DR.   WEIR    MITCHELL'S   STORY      403 

If  this  person  is  a  medium — if  he  knows  anything  about 
Spiritualism,  he  is  very  likely  to  be — he  will  in  the  circle 
assume  character  after  character  of  almost  any  one  living  or 
dead  who  is  inquired  after.  You  ask  for  the  spirit  of  your 
brother  John,  and  John  will  probably  come,  even  tho  you 
never  had  a  brother  John.  The  medium  all  the  while  may 
\iQ  perfectly  honest. 

Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  gives  an  account  of  a  woman  in  Penn- 
sylvania, in  which  alternate  personalities  controlled.  The 
woman  at  first  was  of  a  melancholic  disposition.  Dr.  Mitchell 
says  * : 

"  Another  remarkable  case  is  that  of  Mary  Reynolds. 
This  dull  and  melancholy  young  woman,  inhabiting  the  Penn- 
sylvania wilderness  in  18 1 1,  was  found  one  morning,  long 
after  her  habitual  time  for  rising,  in  a  profound  sleep  from 
which  it  was  impossible  to  arouse  her.  After  eighteen  or 
twenty  hours  of  sleeping  she  awakened,  but  in  a  state  of  un- 
natural consciousness.  Memory  had  fled.  To  all  intents 
and  purposes  she  was  as  a  being  for  the  first  time  ushered 
into  the  world.  *A11  of  the  past  that  remained  to  her  was 
the  faculty  of  pronouncing  a  few  words,  and  this  seems  to 
have  been  as  purely  instinctive  as  the  wailings  of  an  infant; 
for  at  first  the  words  which  she  uttered  were  connected  with 
no  ideas  in  her  mind.'  Until  she  was  taught  their  signifi- 
cance they  were  unmeaning  sounds. 

"  Her  eyes  were  virtually  for  the  first  time  opened  upon 
the  world.  Old  things  had  passed  away ;  all  things  had  be- 
come new.  Her  parents,  brothers,  sisters,  friends,  were  not 
recognized  or  acknowledged  as  such  by  her.  She  had  never 
seen  them  before, — never  known  them, — \  j,s  not  aware  that 
such  persons  had  been.  Now  for  the  first  time  she  was  in- 
troduced to  their  company  and  acquaintance.  To  the  scenes 
by  which  she  was  surrounded  she  was  a  perfect  stranger. 
The  house,  the  fields,  the  forest,  the  hills,  the  vales,  the 
streams, — all  were  novelties.  The  beauties  of  the  landscape 
were  all  unexplored. 

"  She  had  not  the  slightest  consciousness  that  she  had 
ever  existed  previous  to  the  moment  in  which  she  awoke 

*  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  Transactions  of  the  Collegfe  of  Physicians  of  Philadelphia, 
April  4, 1888. 


404  A   CHANGED    PERSON 

from  that  mysterious  slumber.  *In  a  word,  she  was  an  in- 
fant, just  born,  yet  born  in  a  state  of  maturity,  with  a  ca- 
pacity for  relishing  the  rich,  sublime,  luxuriant  wonders  of 
created  nature.' 

"  The  first  lesson  in  her  education  was  to  teach  her  by 
what  ties  she  was  bound  to  those  by  whom  she  was  sur- 
rounded, and  the  duties  devolving  upon  her  accordingly. 
This  she  was  very  slow  to  learn,  and,  *  indeed,  never  did 
learn,  or,  at  least,  never  would  acknowledge  the  ties  of  con- 
sanguinity, or  scarcely  those  of  friendship.  She  considered 
those  she  had  once  known  as  for  the  most  part  strangers  and 
enemies,  among  whom  she  was,  by  some  remarkable  and  un- 
accountable means,  transplanted,  tho  from  what  region  or 
state  of  existence  was  a  problem  unsolved.' 

"  The  next  lesson  was  to  reteach  her  the  arts  of  reading 
and  writing.  She  was  apt  enough,  and  made  such  rapid 
progress  in  both  that  in  a  few  weeks  she  had  readily  relearned 
to  read  and  write.  In  copying  her  name,  which  her  brother 
had  written  for  her  as  a  first  lesson,  she  took  her  pen  in  a 
very  awkward  manner  and  began  to  copy  from  right  to  left 
in  the  Hebrew  mode,  as  tho  she  had  been  transplanted  from 
an  Eastern  soil. 

"  The  next  thing  that  is  noteworthy  is  the  change  which 
took  place  in  her  disposition.  Instead  of  being  melancholy 
she  was  now  cheerful  to  extremity.  Instead  of  being  re- 
served she  was  buoyant  and  social.  Formerly  taciturn  and 
retiring,  she  was  now  merry  and  jocose.  Her  disposition 
was  totally  and  absolutely  changed.  While  she  was,  in  this 
second  state,  extravagantly  fond  of  company,  she  was  much 
more  enamored  of  nature's  works,  as  exhibited  in  the  forests, 
hills,  vales,  and  watercourses.  She  used  to  start  in  the 
morning,  either  on  foot  or  horseback,  and  ramble  until  night- 
fall over  the  whole  country;  nor  was  she  at  all  particular 
whether  she  were  on  a  path  or  in  the  trackless  forest.  Her 
predilection  for  this  manner  of  life  may  have  been  occasioned 
by  the  restraint  necessarily  imposed  upon  her  by  her  friends, 
which  caused  her  to  consider  them  her  enemies  and  not  com- 
panions, and  she  was  glad  to  keep  out  of  their  way. 

"  She  knew  no  fear,  and  as  bears  and  panthers  were 
numerous  in  ^he  woods,  and  rattlesnakes  and  copperheads 
abounded  everywhere,  her  friends  told  her  of  the  danger  to 
which  she  exposed  herself,  but  it  produced  no  other  effect 


UTTERLY   FEARLESS  405 

than  to  draw  forth  a  contemptuous  laugh,  as  she  said :  *  I  know 
you  only  want  to  frighten  me  and  keep  me  at  home,  but  you 
miss  it,  for  I  often  see  your  bears  and  I  am  perfectly  con- 
vinced that  they  are  nothing  more  than  black  hogs.' 

"  One  evening,  after  her  return  from  her  daily  excursion, 
she  told  the  following  incident:  'As  I  was  riding  to-day 
along  a  narrow  path  a  great  black  hog  came  out  of  the  woods 
and  stopped  before  me.  I  never  saw  such  an  impudent  black 
hog  before.  It  stood  up  on  its  hind  feet  and  grinned  and 
gnashed  its  teeth  at  me.  I  could  not  make  the  horse  go  on. 
I  told  him  he  was  a  fool  to  be  frightened  at  a  hog,  and  tried 
to  whip  him  past,  but  he  would  not  go  and  wanted  to  turn 
back.  I  told  the  hog  to  get  out  of  the  way,  but  he  did  not 
mind  me.  "Well,"  said  I,  "if  you  won't  for  words,  I'll  try 
blows  " ;  so  I  got  off  and  took  a  stick,  and  walked  up  toward 
it.  When  I  got  pretty  close  by,  it  got  down  on  all  fours  and 
walked  away  slowly  and  sullenly,  stopping  every  few  steps 
and  looking  back  and  grinning  and  growling.  Then  I  got 
on  my  horse  and  rode  on.'  .  .   . 

"  Thus  it  continued  for  five  weeks,  when  one  morning, 
after  a  protracted  sleep,  she  awoke  and  was  herself  again. 
She  recognized  the  parental,  the  brotherly,  and  sisterly  ties 
as  tho  nothing  had  happened,  and  immediately  went  about 
the  performance  of  duties  incumbent  upon  her,  and  which 
she  had  planned  five  weeks  previously.  Great  was  her  sur- 
prise at  the  change  which  one  night  (as  she  supposed)  had 
produced.  Nature  bore  a  different  aspect.  Not  a  trace  was 
left  in  her  mind  of  the  giddy  scenes  through  which  she  had 
passed.  Her  ramblings  through  the  forest,  her  tricks  and 
humor,  all  were  faded  from  her  memory,  and  not  a  shadow 
left  behind.  Her  parents  saw  their  child ;  her  brothers  and 
sisters  saw  their  sister.  She  now  had  all  the  knowledge  that 
she  had  possessed  in  her  first  state  previous  to  the  change, 
still  fresh  and  in  as  vigorous  exercise  as  tho  no  change  had 
been.  But  any  new  acquisitions  she  had  made,  and  any  new 
ideas  she  had  obtained,  were  lost  to  her  now — yet  not  lost, 
but  laid  up  out  of  sight  in  safe-keeping  for  future  use.  Of 
course  her  natural  disposition  returned;  her  melancholy  was 
deepened  by  the  information  of  what  had  occurred.  All 
went  on  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  and  it  was  fondly  hoped 
that  the  mysterious  occurrences  of  those  five  weeks  would 
never  be  repeated,  but  these  anticipations  were  not  to  be  real- 


4o6         STRANGE   SECONDARY   SELF 

ized.  After  the  lapse  of  a  few  weeks  she  fell  into  a  pro- 
found sleep,  and  awoke  in  her  second  state,  taking  up  her 
new  life  again  precisely  where  she  had  left  it  when  she  be- 
fore passed  from  that  state.  She  was  not  now  a  daughter  or 
a  sister.  All  the  knowledge  she  possessed  was  that  acquired 
during  the  few  weeks  of  her  former  period  of  second  con- 
sciousness. She  knew  nothing  of  the  intervening  time. 
Two  periods  widely  separated  were  brought  into  contact. 
She  thought  it  was  but  one  night. 

*'  In  this  state  she  came  to  understand  perfectly  the  facts 
of  her  case,  not  from  memory,  but  from  information.  Yet 
her  buoyancy  of  spirits  was  so  great  that  no  depression  was 
produced.  On  the  contrary,  it  added  to  her  cheerfulness, 
and  was  made  the  foundation,  as  was  ever^'thing  else,  of 
mirth. 

"  These  alternations  from  one  state  to  another  continued 
at  intervals  of  varying  length  for  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  but 
finally  ceased  when  she  attained  the  age  of  thirty-five  or 
thirty-six,  leaving  her  permanently  in  her  second  state.  In 
this  she  remained  without  change  for  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century  of  her  life. 

•  •  «  «  • 

"  The  change  from  a  gay,  hysterical,  mischievous  woman, 
fond  of  jests  and  subject  to  absurd  beliefs  or  delusive  con- 
victions, to  one  retaining  the  joyousness  and  love  of  society, 
but  sobered  down  to  levels  of  practical  usefulness,  was 
gradual.  The  most  of  the  twenty-five  years  which  followed 
she  was  as  different  from  her  melancholy,  morbid  self  as 
from  the  hilarious  condition  of  the  early  years  of  her  second 
state.  Some  of  her  family  spoke  of  it  as  her  third  state. 
She  is  described  as  becoming  rational,  industrious,  and  very 
cheerful,  yet  reasonably  serious ;  possessed  of  a  well-balanced 
temperament,  and  not  having  the  slightest  indication  of  an 
injured  or  disturbed  mind.  For  some  years  she  taught 
school,  and  in  that  capacity  was  both  useful  and  acceptable, 
being  a  general  favorite  with  old  and  young. 

"  During  these  last  twenty-five  years  she  lived  in  the 
same  house  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  V.  Reynolds,  her  nephew, 
part  of  that  time  keeping  house  for  him,  showing  a  sound 
judgment  and  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  duties  of  her 
position. 

"Dr.  Reynolds,  who  is  still  living  in  Meadville,"  says 


MOLLIE   FANCHER  407 

Dr.  Mitchell,  "  and  who  has  most  kindly  placed  the  facts  at 
my  disposal,  states  in  his  letter  to  me  of  January  4,  1888, 
that  at  a  later  period  of  her  life  she  said  she  did  sometimes 
seem  to  have  a  dim,  dreamy  idea  of  a  shadowy  past,  which 
she  could  not  fully  grasp,  and  could  not  be  certain  whether 
it  originated  in  a  partially  restored  memory  or  in  the  state- 
ments of  the  events  by  others  during  her  abnormal  state. 

"Miss  Reynolds  died  in  January,  1854,  at  the  age  of 
sixty  one.  On  the  morning  of  the  day  of  her  death  she  rose 
in  her  usual  health,  ate  her  breakfast,  and  superintended 
household  duties.  While  thus  employed  she  suddenly  raised 
her  hands  to  her  head  and  exclaimed :  '  Oh,  I  wonder  what 
is  the  matter  with  my  head ! '  and  immediately  fell  to  the 
floor.  When  carried  to  a  sofa  she  gasped  once  or  twice  and 
died." 

The  case  of  Mollie  Fancher  is  generally  well  known — a 
Brooklyn  woman  who  since  1864  has  been  an  invalid.  She 
has  passed  from  personality  to  personality — sometimes  these 
separate  personalities  have  lasted  for  years.  In  one  she  for- 
gets her  previous  existence.  At  one  time  she  awoke  from  a 
personality  and  forgot  wholly  her  life  of  the  previous  nine 
years.  She  had  become  expert  in  embroidering,  but  now  for- 
got that  she  ever  knew,  and  began  to  live  her  earlier  life  over 
again.  She  exhibited  from  time  to  time  many  distinct  char- 
acters known  by  her  friends  by  distinct  names — "  Sunbeam," 
was  the  name  for  her  normal  condition.  Other  characters 
were  named  "Ruby,"  "Pearl,"  "Rosebud." 

Dr.  Morton  Prince,  of  Paris,  gives  an  account  of  a  re- 
markable case  that  came  under  his  treatment,  that  of  Miss 
Beauchamp.  This  woman,  when  in  her  normal  self,  could 
digest  little  or  nothing.  When  she  was  brought  to  Dr.  Mor- 
ton she  was  starving  to  death,  and  was  but  a  wreck.  Even 
water  gave  her  distress,  and  was  expelled  from  her  stomach. 
The  doctor,  to  save  her  life,  finally  hypnotized  her.  This 
developed  a  different  personality,  with  a  sound  stomach,  and 
she  began  quickly  to  gain  strength.  After  several  days  the 
doctor  restored  her  to  her  natural  condition.     Immediately 


4o8      CHRIST    CASTING   OUT    DEVILS 

all  of  the  old  symptoms  revived  in  full  force,  she  again  began 
to  starve.  After  repeated  attempts  the  doctor  was  compelled 
to  leave  her  in  charge  of  another  self  instead  of  her  normal 
self.  This  self  in  turn  gave  way  of  its  own  ?<ccord  to  a  third, 
and  the  last  two  would  alternate.  A  curious  phase  was  that 
one  of  the  personalities  knew  and  greatly  disliked  the  other. 

So  many  cases  of  secondary  personality  have  now  been 
investigated  and  classified  by  doctors  and  psychological  ex- 
perts as  to  give  it  well-nigh  the  standing  of  a  recognized  sci- 
entific fact.  It  is  likely  that  many  a  man  and  woman  thinks 
himself  or  herself  a  Spiritualist  medium,  who  is  simply  a  vic- 
tim of  the  disease  of  **  secondary  personality." 

Then  are  we  to  conclude  that,  if  fraud  is  eliminated, 
secondary  personality  will  explain  all  of  what  are  known  in 
Spiritualistic  circles  as  "  materializations,"  "  etherealizations," 
"transfigurations,"  "impersonations,"  and  "obsessions".? 

When  Christ  cast  out  evil  spirits  from  persons,  what  did 
He  do  .'*  Did  He  simply  restore  these  diseased  persons  to 
their  sane  selves  by  dispelling  the  hallucination  of  secondary 
personalities  ?  Were  the  spirits  who  had  usurped  the  organ- 
isms of  the  victims  outside  individualities }  Christ  certainly 
treated  the  spirits  as  outside  intelligences.  He  would  talk 
to  them  and  they  to  Him.  It  would  be  hard  to  account  for 
the  action  of  the  herd  of  swine  on  the  theory  of  secondary 
personalities. 

Let  us  see  how  far  this  theory  will  apply  to  actual  cases. 

Case  I. — The  Celebrated  "Watseka  Wonder."^ — 
This  marvelous  case  Dr.  Hodgson,  who  gave  it  much  personal 
attention,  thinks  goes  beyond  any  explanation  based  on  the 
theory  of  secondary  personality;  he  thinks  it  is  to  be  ex- 
plained by  spirits.  The  case  was  also  verified  in  all  of  its 
details  by  Colonel  J.  C.  Bundy,  editor  of  The  Rcligio-Philo- 
sophical  Journal^  of  Chicago,  who  is  spoken  of  by  Frederic 
Myers  as  "  well  known  as  a  skilful  and  scrupulously  honest 
investigator  "  of  Spiritistic  phenomena.     Colonel  Bundy  says 

1  Frederic  Myers,  "  Human  Personality,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  361-368. 


"WATSEKA   WONDER"  409 

that  he  and  Dr.  Stevens  "  took  great  pains  "  to  obtain  full 
corroboration  of  the  "  astounding  facts  from  unimpeachable 
and  competent  witnesses. " 

Rancy  Vennum,  the  "Wonder,"  was  a  girl  about  fourteen 
years  of  age,  living  in  1878  at  Watseka,  Ind.  In  the  same 
town  had  died  in  1865,  thirteen  years  before,  a  girl  by  the 
name  of  Mary  Roff .  Mary  died  about  a  year  after  Rancy's 
birth.  Of  course  the  girls  never  knew  each  other.  Rancy's 
parents  were  not  Spiritualists,  and,  up  to  this  time,  Rancy 
had  always  been  in  good  health.  Her  troubles  began  with 
trances  in  which  she  said  she  visited  heaven  and  angels.  She 
heard  voices  at  night  calling  her. 

Her  experiences  at  this  time  seemed  to  be  those  of  an 
insane  person.  She  became  sullen  and  disagreeable  and 
the  friends  thought  of  sending  her  to  an  asylum.  One  day 
Rancy  said  that  a  spirit  by  the  name  of  Mary  Roff  wanted 
"to  come"  to  her,  and  the  next  day  Mr.  Vennum  called  at 
the  office  of  Mr.  Roff  and  informed  him  that  his  daughter 
claimed  to  be  Mary  Roff,  and  wanted  to  go  home.  He  said : 
"  She  seems  like  a  child  real  homesick,  wanting  to  see  her 
pa  and  ma  and  her  brothers." 

After  the  supposed  control  by  Mary  Roff,  Rancy  became 
"  mild,  docile,  polite,  and  timid,  knowing  none  of  the  family, 
but  constantly  pleading  to  go  home,"  and  "only  found  con- 
tentment in  going  back  to  heaven,  as  she  said,  for  short 
visits." 

"  About  a  week  after  Mary  took  control  of  Rancy's  body, 
Mrs.  A.  B.  Roff  and  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Minerva  Alter,  Mary's 
sister,  hearing  of  the  remarkable  change,  went  to  see  the  girl. 
As  they  came  in  sight,  far  down  the  street,  Mary  Rancy,  look- 
ing out  of  the  window,  exclaimed  exultingly,  *  There  come  my 
ma  and  sister  Nervie ! ' — the  name  by  which  Mary  used  to 
call  Mrs.  Alter  in  girlhood.  As  they  came  into  the  house 
she  caught  them  around  their  necks,  wept  and  cried  for  joy, 
and  seemed  so  happy  to  meet  them.  From  this  time  on  she 
seemed  more  homesick  than  before.  At  times  she  seemed 
almost  frantic  to  go  home  [to  the  Roff  home]. 


4IO  SAID,  ANGELS   SENT   ME 

"On  the  nth  day  of  February,  1878,  they  sent  the  girl 
to  Mr.  Roff's,  where  she  met  her  *pa  and  ma  '  and  each  mem- 
ber of  the  family,  with  the  most  gratifying  expressions  of 
love  and  affection,  by  words  and  embraces.  On  being  asked 
how  long  she  would  stay  she  said,  'The  angels  will  let  me 
stay  till  some  time  in  May ' ;  and  she  made  it  her  home  there 
till  May  21,  three  months  and  ten  days,  a  happy,  contented 
daughter  and  sister  in  a  borrowed  body. 

"  The  girl  now  in  her  new  home  seemed  perfectly  happy 
and  content,  knowing  every  person  and  everything  that  Mary 
knew  when  in  her  original  body,  twelve  to  twenty-five  years 
ago,  recognizing  and  calling  by  name  those  who  were  friends 
and  neighbors  of  the  family  from  1852  to  1865,  when  Mary 
died,  calling  attention  to  scores,  yes,  hundreds  of  incidents 
that  transpired  during  her  natural  life.  During  all  the  period 
of  her  sojourn  at  Mr.  Roff's  she  had  no  knowledge  of,  and 
did  not  recognize  any  of  Mr.  Vennum's  family,  their  friends 
or  neighbors,  yet  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Vennum  and  their  children 
visited  her  and  Mr.  Roff's  people,  she  being  introduced  to 
them  as  to  any  strangers.  After  frequent  visits,  and  hearing 
them  often  and  favorably  spoken  of,  she  learned  to  love  them 
as  acquaintances,  and  visited  them  with  Mrs.  Roff  three 
times. 

"  One  day  she  met  an  old  friend  and  neighbor  of  Mr. 
Roff's,  who  was  a  widow  when  Mary  was  a  girl  at  home. 
Some  years  since  the  lady  married  a  Mr.  Wagoner,  with 
whom  she  yet  lives.  But  when  she  met  Mrs.  Wagoner  she 
clasped  her  around  the  neck  and  said:  *0  Mary  Lord,  you 
look  so  very  natural,  and  have  changed  the  least  of  any  one 
I  have  seen  since  I  came  back. '  Mrs.  Lord  was  in  some 
way  related  to  the  Vennum  family  and  lived  close  by  them, 
but  Mary  could  call  her  only  by  the  name  by  which  she  knew 
her  fifteen  years  ago,  and  could  not  seem  to  realize  that  she 
was  married.  Mrs.  Lord  lived  just  across  the  street  from 
Mr.  Roff's  for  several  years,  prior  and  up  to  within  a  few 
months  of  Mary's  death ;  both  being  members  of  the  same 
Methodist  church,  they  were  very  intimate. 

"  Some  days  after  Mary  was  settled  in  her  new  home, 
Mrs.  Parker,  who  lived  neighbor  to  the  Roffs  in  Middleport 
in  1852,  and  next  door  to  them  in  Watseka  in  i860,  came  in 
with  her  daughter-in-law,  Nellie  Parker.  Mary  immediately 
recognized  both  of  the  ladies,  calling  Mrs.  Parker  *  Auntie 


MANY   TESTS   OF   IDENTITY         411 

Parker,'  and  the  other  '  Nellie,'  as  in  the  acquaintance  of 
eighteen  years  ago.  In  conversation  with  Mrs.  Parker  Mary 
asked,  '  Do  you  remember  how  Nervie  and  I  used  to  come 
to  your  house  and  sing }  '  Mrs.  Parker  says  that  was  the 
first  allusion  made  to  that  matter,  nothing  having  been  said 
by  any  one  on  that  subject,  and  says  that  Mary  and  Minerva 
used  to  come  to  their  house  and  sit  and  sing  *  Mary  had  a 
little  lamb,'  etc.  Mrs.  Dr.  Alter  (Minerva)  says  she  remem- 
bers it  well.  This  was  when  Mr.  Roff  kept  the  post-office, 
and  could  not  have  been  later  than  1852,  and  twelve  years 
before  Lurancy  was  born. 

"  One  evening,  in  the  latter  part  of  March,  Mr.  Roff  was 
sitting  in  the  room  waiting  for  tea,  and  reading  the  paper, 
Mary  being  out  in  the  yard.  He  asked  Mrs.  Roff  if  she 
could  find  a  certain  velvet  headdress  that  Mary  used  to  wear 
the  last  year  before  she  died.  If  so,  to  lay  it  on  the  stand 
and  say  nothing  about  it,  to  see  if  Mary  would  recognize  it. 
Mrs.  Roff  readily  found  and  laid  it  on  the  stand.  The  girl 
soon  came  in,  and  immediately  exclaimed  as  she  approached 
the  stand,  *  Oh,  there  is  my  headdress  I  wore  when  my  hair 
was  short !  '  She  then  asked,  *  Ma,  where  is  my  box  of 
letters  ?  Have  you  got  them  yet  ? '  Mrs.  Roff  replied, 
*  Yes,  Mary,  I  have  some  of  them.'  She  at  once  got  the  box 
with  many  letters  in  it.  As  Mary  began  to  examine  them 
she  said :  *  Oh,  ma,  here  is  a  collar  I  tatted !  Ma,  why  did 
you  not  show  to  me  my  letters  and  things  before  ? '  The 
collar  had  been  preserved  among  the  relics  of  the  lamented 
child  as  one  of  the  beautiful  things  her  fingers  had  wrought 
before  Lurancy  was  born ;  and  so  Mary  continually  recog- 
nized every  little  thing  and  remembered  every  little  incident 
of  her  girlhood. 

"  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  family  moved  to  Texas 
in  1857.  Mr.  Roff  asked  Mary  if  she  remembered  moving 
to  Texas  or  anything  about  it.  '  Yes,  pa,  and  I  remember 
crossing  Red  River  and  of  seeing  a  great  many  Indians,  and 
I  remember  Mrs.  Reeder's  girls,  who  were  in  our  company.* 
And  thus  she  from  time  to  time  made  first  mention  of  things 
that  transpired  thirteen  to  twenty-five  years  ago." 

Scores  of  tests  were  made  like  those  just  mentioned, 
which  seemed  to  establish  as  nearly  as  anything  could  estab- 
lish the  identity  of  this  spirit  control.     After  three  months 


412      DR.   HODGSON   SAYS   "SPIRITS" 

and  ten  days'  *' sojourn  in  Rancy's  body,"  Mary  told  her  sup- 
posed parents  that  Rancy  was  coming  back  and  that  she  must 
return  "to  the  angels."  When  Rancy  returned  she  had  to 
be  introduced  anew  to  all  of  the  new  acquaintances  that  Mary 
had  made,  even  to  Mary's  doctor  and  to  the  members  of  the 
Roff  family.  Her  health  was  restored.  She  grew  to  woman- 
hood and  afterward  married. 

Dr.  Hodgson,  after  having  personally  visited  Watseka,  and 
cross-examining  many  witnesses,  concludes  his  thorough  and 
critical  review  of  this  extraordinary  case  as  follows : 

"  *  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  incidents  occurred  substan- 
tially as  described  in  the  narrative  by  Dr.  Stevens,  and  in 
my  view  the  only  other  interpretation  of  the  case — besides 
the  spiritistic — that  seems  at  all  plausible  is  that  which  has 
been  put  forward  as  the  alternative  to  the  spiritistic  theory  to 
account  for  the  trance  communications  of  Mrs.  Piper  and 
similar  cases,  viz.,  secondary  personality  with  supernormal 
powers.  It  would  be  difficult  to  disprove  this  hypothesis  in 
the  case  of  the  Watseka  Wonder,  owing  to  the  comparative 
meagerness  of  the  record  and  the  probable  abundance  of 
"  suggestion  "  in  the  environment,  and  any  conclusion  that  we 
may  reach  would  probably  be  determined  largely  by  our  con- 
victions concerning  other  cases.  My  personal  opinion  is  that 
the  "  Watseka  Wonder  "  case  belongs  in  the  main  manifesta- 
tions to  the  spiritistic  category. '  " 

In  this  strange  Watseka  case  it  will  be  observed  that  the 
person  that  claimed  to  be  Mary  Roff  never  appeared  to  any 
one  at  Watseka  except  through  the  body  of  Rancy.  She 
never  materialized  in  an  independent  body ;  at  any  rate  no 
one  reported  to  have  seen  such  a  materialization.  If  this 
was  a  spirit,  as  Mr.  Hodgson  thinks,  then  it  was  a  case  of 
obsession.  In  Bible  times  good  spirits  and  evil  spirits  seemed 
to  have  power  to  control  earthly  bodies.  The  "  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  " — that  is,  a  messenger  of  God — often  entered  the 
prophets  and  spake  through  them. 

But  is  there  good  proof  of  a  case  in  which  there  was  a 
visible  materialization  other  than  that  of  some  living  mortal  ? 


CROOKES    SEES    MATERIALIZATIONS  413 

Case  II. — Sir  William  Crookes's  Experiments  with 
Miss  Cook. — While  the  startling  psychic  experiments  by  Mr. 
Crookes  were  made  in  1871-74,  and  before  the  extensive  in- 
vestigations by  the  S.  P.  R.  into  telepathy  and  other  phases  of 
psychology  that  bear  on  the  subject,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  altho  Crookes  is  familiar  with  all  of  these  later  inves- 
tigations, he  sees  no  reason  whatever  to  change  his  mind  as 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  marvelous  materialization  and  other 
psychic  phenomena  which  he  published,  and  still  publishes^ 
as  having  been  witnessed  by  himself. 

I  here  give  the  entire  description  by  Mr.  Crookes  *  of  the 
materialization  class  of  his  experiments — these  experiments 
having  been  made  in  the  library -room  of  his  residence  under 
what  he  believed  and  still  believes  to  have  been  strict  test 
conditions : 

Sir  William  Crookes's  First  Letter:  "  It  has  been  my  en- 
deavor to  keep  as  clear  of  controversy  as  possible,  in  writing 
or  speaking  about  so  inflammatory  a  topic  as  the  phenomena 
called  Spiritual.  Except  in  very  few  cases,  where  the  promi- 
nent position  of  my  opponent  would  have  caused  my  silence 
to  be  ascribed  to  other  than  the  real  motives,  I  have  made 
no  reply  to  the  attacks  and  misrepresentations  which  my 
connection  with  this  subject  has  entailed  upon  me. 

"  The  case  is  otherwise,  however,  when  a  few  lines  from 
me  may  perhaps  assist  in  removing  an  unjust  suspicion  which 
is  cast  upon  another.  And  when  this  other  person  is  a 
woman — young,  sensitive,  and  innocent — it  becomes  espe- 
cially a  duty  for  me  to  give  the  weight  of  my  testimony  in 
favor  of  her  whom  I  believe  to  be  unjustly  accused. 

"  Among  all  the  arguments  brought  forward  on  either  side 
touching  the  phenomena  of  Miss  Cook's  mediumship,  I  see 
very  few  facts  stated  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  an  unpreju- 
diced reader,  provided  he  can  trust  the  judgment  and  veracity 
of  the  narrator,  to  say,  '  Here  at  last  is  absolute  proof.'  I 
see  plenty  of  strong  assertion,  much  unintentional  exaggera- 
tion, endless  conjecture  and  supposition,  no  little  insinua- 
tion of  fraud,  and  some  amount  of  vulgar  buffoonery ;  but  no 

1  Sir  William  Crookes's  "Researches  Into  the  Phenomena  of  Modern  Spiritual- 
ism," pp.  41-50,  1903  edition. 


414  LAUGHS   AT    LOCKSMITHS 

one  has  come  forward  with  a  positive  assertion,  based  upon  the 
evidence  of  his  own  senses,  to  the  effect  that  when  the  form 
which  calls  itself  '  Katie  '  is  visible  in  the  room,  the  body  of 
Miss  Cook  is  either  actually  in  the  cabinet  or  is  not  there. 

"  It  appears  to  me  that  the  whole  question  narrows  itself 
into  this  small  compass.  Let  either  of  the  above  alterna- 
tives be  proved  to  be  a  fact,  and  all  the  other  collateral  ques- 
tions may  be  dismissed.  But  the  proof  must  be  absolute 
and  not  based  upon  inferential  reasoning  or  assumed  upon 
the  supposed  integrity  of  seals,  knots,  and  sewing ;  for  I  have 
reason  to  know  that  the  power  at  work  in  these  phenomena, 
like  love,  *  laughs  at  locksmiths.' 

**  I  was  in  hopes  that  some  of  those  friends  of  Miss  Cook 
who  have  attended  her  seances  almost  from  the  commence- 
ment, and  who  appear  to  have  been  highly  favored  in  the 
tests  they  have  received,  would  ere  this  have  borne  testi- 
mony in  her  favor.  In  default,  however,  of  evidence  from 
those  who  have  followed  these  phenomena  from  their  begin- 
ning nearly  three  years  ago,  let  me,  who  have  only  been  ad- 
mitted, as  it  were,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  state  a  circumstance 
which  came  under  my  notice  at  a  stance  to  which  I  was  in- 
vited by  the  favor  of  Miss  Cook,  a  few  days  after  the  dis- 
graceful occurrence  which  has  given  rise  to  this  controversy. 

"  The  stance  was  held  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Luxmore,  and 
the  *  cabinet '  was  a  back  drawing-room,  separated  from  the 
front  room  in  which  the  company  sat  by  a  curtain. 

"  The  usual  formality  of  searching  the  room  and  examin- 
ing the  fastenings  having  been  gone  through,  Miss  Cook 
entered  the  cabinet. 

"  After  a  little  time  the  form  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  be- 
hind which  Miss  Cook  was  sitting,  and  I  could  frequently 
hear  her  moan  and  sob,  as  if  in  pain.  This  uneasiness  con- 
tinued at  intervals  nearly  the  whole  duration  of  the  seance, 
and  oncey  when  the  form  of  Katie  was  standmg  before  tne  in 
the  rooniy  I  distinctly  heard  a  sobbingy  moaning  soundy  ide?iti- 
cal  with  that  which  Miss  Cook  had  been  making  at  intervals 
the  whole  time  of  the  s^a^tccy  come  from  behind  the  curtain 
where  the  yoting  lady  was  supposed  to  be  sittifig. 


STARTLINGLY    LIFE-LIKE  415 

"  I  admit  that  the  figure  was  startlingly  life-like  and 
real,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  see  in  the  somewhat  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. 

"  Your  readers,  sir,  know  me,  and  will,  I  hope,  believe 
that  I  will  not  come  hastily  to  an  opinion  or  ask  them  to 
agree  with  me  on  insufficient  evidence.  It  is  perhaps  ex- 
pecting too  much  to  think  that  the  little  incident  I  have  men- 
tioned will  have  the  same  weight  with  them  that  it  had  with 
me.  But  this  I  do  beg  of  them :  let  those  who  are  inclined 
to  judge  Miss  Cook  harshly  suspend  their  judgment  until  I 
bring  forward  positive  evidence  which  I  think  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  settle  the  question. 

**  Miss  Cook  is  now  devoting  herself  exclusively  to  a  series 
of  private  seances  with  me  and  one  or  two  friends.  The 
seances  will  probably  extend  over  some  months,  and  I  am 
promised  that  every  desirable  test  shall  be  given  to  me. 
These  seances  have  not  been  going  on  many  weeks,  blit 
enough  has  taken  place  to  thoroughly  convince  me  of  the 
perfect  truth  and  honesty  of  Miss  Cook  and  to  give  me  every 
reason  to  expect  that  the  promises  so  freely  made  to  me  by 
Katie  will  be  kept. 

"  All  I  now  ask  is  that  your  readers  will  not  hastily  assume 
that  everything  which  is  prima  facie  suspicious  necessarily 
implies  deception,  and  that  they  will  suspend  their  judgment 
until  they  hear  from  me  again  on  this  subject,"  etc. 

Sir  William  Crookess  Second  Letter :  "  In  a  letter  which 
I  wrote  to  this  journal  early  in  February  last,  speaking  of  the 
phenomena  of  spirit-forms  which  have  appeared  through  Miss 
Cook's  mediumship,  I  said:  *  Let  those  who  are  inclined  to 
judge  Miss  Cook  harshly  suspend  their  judgment  until  I 
bring  forward  positive  evidence  which  I  think  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  settle  the  question.  Miss  Cook  is  now  devoting 
herself  exclusively  to  a  series  of  private  stances  with  me  and 
one  or  two  friends.  .  .  .  Enough  has  taken  place  to  thorough- 
ly convince  me  of  the  perfect  truth  and  honesty  of  Miss 
Cook,  and  to  give  me  every  reason  to  expect  that  the  promises 
so  freely  made  to  me  by  Katie  will  be  kept.' 

"  In  that  letter  I  described  an  incident  which  to  my  mind 


Ai6  CROOKES   SATISFIED 

• 

went  very  far  toward  convincing  me  that  Katie  and  Miss 
Cook  were  two  separate  material  beings.  When  Katie  was 
outside  the  cabinet,  standing  before  me,  I  heard  a  moaning 
noise  from  Miss  Cook  in  the  cabinet.  I  am  happy  to  say  that 
I  have  at  last  obtained  the  '  absolute  proof '  to  which  I  re- 
ferred in  the  above  quoted  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  stances  at  this  house,  and  will  only 
describe  one  or  two  which  I  have  recently  had.  I  have  for 
some  time  past  been  experimenting  with  a  phosphorus  lamp, 
consisting  of  a  six-ounce  or  eight-ounce  bottle,  containing  a 
little  phosphorized  oil,  and  tightly  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  stance  here,  after  Katie  had 
been  walking  among  us  and  talking  for  some  time,  she  re- 
treated 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  headdress.  I  immediately  walked 
into  the  library  up  to  Miss  Cook,  Katie  stepping  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  so  doing  had 
satisfactory  evidence,  in  spite  of  the  darkness,  that  Miss 
Cook  was  not  attired  in  the  '  Katie  '  costume,  but  had  on  her 
ordinary  black  velvet  dress,  and  was  in  a  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  phos- 
phorus lamp.     After  exhibiting  herself  by  it  for  some  sec- 


HASTY   REASONING   DANGEROUS      417 

onds,  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  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  her- 
self, and  taking  the  phosphorus  lamp  from  me  she  passed  be- 
hind the  curtain,  asking  me  not  to  look  in  for  the  present. 
In  a  few  minutes  she  handed  the  lamp  back  to  me,  saying 
she  could  not  succeed,  as  she  had  used  up  all  the  power,  but 
would  try  again  another  time.  My  eldest  son,  a  lad  of  four- 
teen, 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  about  in  space  over  Miss 
Cook,  illuminating  her  as  she  lay  motionless  on  the  sofa,  but 
he  could  not  see  any  one  holding  the  lamp. 

"  I  pass  on  to  a  stance  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  walk- 
ing, 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  recent 
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  given,  and  I  accord- 
ingly did — well,  as  any  gentleman  would  do  under  the  circum- 
stances. Mr.  Volckman  will  be  pleased  to  know  that  I  can 
corroborate  his  statement  that  the  *  ghost '  (not  '  struggling,' 
however)  was  as  material  a  being  as  Miss  Cook  herself.  But 
the  sequel  shows  how  wrong  it  is  for  an  experimentalist,  how- 
ever accurate  his  observations  may  be,  to  venture  to  draw 
an  important  conclusion  from  an  insufficient  amount  of  evi- 
dence. 

"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 
27 


4i8  SAW   SPIRIT   AND    MEDIUM 

the  room  now  used  as  a  cabinet.  This  I  did,  having  pre- 
viously asked  a  friend  who  was  skilful  at  shorthand  to  take 
down  any  statement  I  might  make  when  in  the  cabinet,  knovv^- 
ing  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  appear- 
ance perfectly  senseless ;  she  did  not  move  when  I  took  her 
hand  and  held  the  light  quite  close  to  her  face,  but  con- 
tinued quietly  breathing.  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  thor- 
oughly 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  steadfast  scrutiny  until  I  had  no 
doubt  whatever  of  her  objective  reality.  At  last  Miss  Cook 
moved  slightly,  and  Katie  instantly  motioned  me  to  go 
away.  I  went  to  another  part  of  the  cabinet  and  then  ceased 
to  see  Katie,  but  did  not  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  which  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  perfectly  smooth  both  to  touch  and  sight,  while 
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,  while    Miss    Cook    habitually 


SEANCES   AT   CROOKES'S   HOME     419 

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  differ- 
ences. 

"  Miss  Cook's  health  is  not  good  enough  to  allow  of  her 
giving  more  of  these  test  seances  for  the  next  few  weeks,  and 
we  have,  therefore,  strongly  advised  her  to  take  an  entire  rest 
before  recommencing  the  experimental  campaign  -  which  I 
have  sketched  out  for  her,  and  the  results  of  which  I  hope  to 
be  able  to  record  at  some  future  day." 

Sir  William  Crookes's  Third  Letter:  "Having  taken  a 
very  prominent  part  of  late  at  Miss  Cook's  seances,  and 
having  been  very  successful  in  taking  numerous  photographs 
of  Katie  King  by  the  aid  of  the  electric  light,  I  have  thought 
that  the  publication  of  a  few  of  the  details  would  be  of  inter- 
est to  the  readers  of  The  Spiritualist 

"  During  the  week  before  Katie  took  her  departure  she 
gave  stances  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,  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  fixing  baths  were  used, 
and  plenty  of  plates  were  cleaned  ready  for  use  in  advance, 
so  that  there  might  be  no  hitch  or  delay  during  the  photo- 
graphing operations,  which  were  performed  by  myself,  aided 
by  one  assistant. 

"  My  library  was  used  as  a  dark  cabinet.  It  has  folding- 
doors  opening  into  the  laboratory;  one  of  these  doors  was 
taken  off  its  hinges  and  a  curtain  suspended  in  its  place,  to 
enable  Katie  to  pass  in  and  out  easily.  Those  of  our  friends 
who  were  present  were  seated  in  the  laboratory  facing  the 
curtain,  and  the  cameras  were  placed  a  little  behind  them, 
ready  to  photograph  Katie  when  she  came  outside,  and  to 
photograph  anything  also  inside  the  cabinet,  whenever  the 
curtain  was  withdrawn  for  the  purpose.  Each  evening  there 
were  three  or  four  exposures  of  plates  in  the  five  cameras, 
giving  at  least  fifteen  separate  pictures  at  each  s6ance ;  some 
of  these  were  spoiled  in  the  developing  and  some  in  regula- 


420       CROOKES   PHOTOGRAPHS   SPIRIT 

ting  the  amount  of  light.  Altogether  I  have  forty-four  nega- 
tives, 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  gen- 
erally I  have  found  nobody  but  the  entranced  medium  lying 
on  the  floor,  Katie  and  her  white  robes  having  instantane- 
ously disappeared. 

''  During  the  last  six  months  Miss  Cook  has  been  a  fre- 
quent visitor  at  my  house,  remaining  sometimes  a  week  at  a 
time.  She  brings  nothing  with  her  but  a  little  hand-bag, 
not  locked ;  during  the  day  she  is  constantly  in  the  presence 
of  Mrs.  Crookes,  myself,  or  some  other  member  of  my  fam- 
ily, and,  not  sleeping  by  herself,  there  is  absolutely  no  oppor- 
tunity for  any  preparation  even  of  a  less  elaborate  character 
than  would  be  required  for  enacting  Katie  King.  I  prepare 
and  arrange  my  library  myself  as  the  dark  cabinet,  and  usu- 
ally, after  Miss  Cook  has  been  dining  and  conversing  with 
us,  and  scarcely  out  of  our  sight  for  a  minute,  she  walks 
direct  into  the  cabinet,  and  I,  at  her  request,  lock  its  second 
door  and  keep  possession  of  the  key  all  through  the  stance ; 
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.  Dur- 
ing the  photographic  stance  Katie  muffled  her  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  actually  see  the  face  of  the  me- 
dium 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  photo- 
graph of  the  two  together,  but  Katie  is  seated  in  front  of 
Miss  Cook's  head. 

"During  the  time  I  have  taken  an  active  part  in  these 
stances  Katie's  confidence  in  me  gradually  grew,  until  she 
refused  to  give  a  seance  unless  I  took  charge  of  the  arrange- 


SPIRIT   AND    MEDIUM    DIFFER       421 

ments.  She  said  she  always  wanted  me  to  keep  close  to  her 
and  near  the  cabinet,  and  I  found  that  after  this  confidence 
was  established,  and  she  was  satisfied  I  would  not  break  any 
promise  I  might  make  to  her,  the  phenomena  increased 
greatly  in  power,  and  tests  were  freely  given  that  would  have 
been  unobtainable  had  I  approached  the  subject  in  another 
manner.  She  often  consulted  me  about  persons  present  at 
the  stances,  and  where  they  should  be  placed,  for  of  late  she 
had  become  very  nervous,  in  consequence  of  certain  ill-advised 
suggestions  that  force  should  be  employed  as  an  adjunct  to 
more  scientific  modes  of  research. 

"  One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  pictures  is  one  in 
which  I  am  standing  by  the  side  of  Katie ;  she  has  her  bare 
foot  upon  a  particular  part  of  the  floor.  Afterward  I  dressed 
Miss  Cook  like  Katie,  placed  her  and  myself  in  exactly  the 
same  position,  and  we  were  photographed  by  the  same  came- 
ras, placed  exactly  as  in  the  other  experiment,  and  illumi- 
nated by  the  same  light.  When  these  two  pictures  are 
placed  over  each  other,  the  two  photographs  of  myself  coin- 
cide exactly  as  regards  stature,  etc.,  but  Katie  is  half  a  head 
taller  than  Miss  Cook,  and  looks  a  big  woman  in  comparison 
with  her.  In  the  breadth  of  her  face,  in  many  of  the  pic- 
tures, she  differs  essentially  in  size  from  her  medium,  and 
the  photographs  show  several  other  points  of  difference. 

"  But  photography  is  as  inadequate  to  depict  the  perfect 
beauty  of  Katie's  face  as  words  are  powerless  to  describe 
her  charms  of  manner.  Photography  may,  indeed,  give  a 
map  of  her  countenance ;  but  how  can  it  reproduce  the  bril- 
liant purity  of  her  complexion,  or  the  ever-varying  expression 
of  her  most  mobile  features,  now  overshadowed  with  sadness 
when  relating  some  of  the  bitter  experiences  of  her  past  life, 
now  smiling  with  all  the  innocence  of  happy  girlhood  when 
she  had  collected  my  children  round  her,  and  was  amusing 
them  by  recounting  anecdotes  of  her  adventures  in  India  .'* 

"  '  Round  her  she  made  an  atmosphere  of  life  ; 

The  very  air  seemed  lighter  from  her  eye 
They  were  so  soft  and  beautiful,  and  rife 

With  all  we  can  imagine  of  the  skies ; 
Her  overpowering  presence  made  you  feel 
It  would  not  be  idok.try  to  kneel.' 

"  Having  seen  so  much  of  Katie  lately,  when  she  has 
been  illuminated  by  the  electric  light,  I  am  enabled  to  add  to 


422  CROOKES  FINDS  PULSE  AND  HEART 

the  points  of  difference  between  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  indi- 
viduals 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  75,  whilst  Miss  Cook's  pulse,  a  little  time  after,  was  going 
at  its  usual  rate  of  90.  On  applying  my  ear  to  Katie's  chest 
I  could  hear  a  heart  beating  rhythmically  inside,  and  pulsating 
even  more  steadily  than  did  Miss  Cook's  heart  when  she  al- 
lowed 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. 

"  Your  readers  may  be  interested  in  having  Mrs.  Ross 
Church's,  and  your  own  accounts  of  the  last  appearance  of 
Katie,  supplemented  by  my  own  narrative,  as  far  as  I  can 
publish  it.  When  the  time  came  for  Katie  to  take  her  fare- 
well I  asked  that  she  would  let  me  see  the  last  of  her.  Ac- 
cordingly when  she  had  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  protec- 
tion of  Miss  Cook.  From  these,  which  were  taken  down  in 
shorthand,  I  quote  the  following  :  '  Mr.  Crookes  has  done  very 
well  throughout,  and  I  leave  Florrie  with  the  greatest  confi- 
dence in  his  hands,  feeling  perfectly  sure  he  will  not  abuse 
the  trust  I  place  in  him.  He  can  act  in  any  emergency  bet- 
ter than  I  can  myself,  for  he  has  more  strength.'  Having 
concluded  her  directions,  Katie  invited  me  into  the  cabinet 
with  her,  and  allowed  me  to  remain  there  to  the  end. 

"After  closing  the  curtain  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  tearfully 
entreated  Katie  to  stay  a  little  time  longer.  'My  dear,  I 
can't ;  my  work  is  done.     God  bless  you,'  Katie  replied,  and 


CROOKES'S    FIRM    BELIEF  423 

then  continued  speaking  to  Miss  Cook.  For  several  minutes 
the  two  were  conversing  with  each  other,  till  at  last  Miss 
Cook's  tears  prevented  her  speaking.  Following  Katie's  in- 
structions I  then  came  forward  to  support  Miss  Cook,  who 
was  falling  on  to  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  stances  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  were  to  try,  and  if  she  did  she  would  cer- 
tainly be  found  out  very  quickly,  for  such  a  line  of  action  is 
altogether  foreign  to  her  nature.  And  to  imagine  that  an 
innocent  school-girl  of  fifteen  should  be  able  to  conceive  and 
then  successfully  carry  out  for  three  years  so  gigantic  an  im- 
posture 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,  know- 
ing that  she  visited  me  with  the  express  object  of  submit- 
ting 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. 

"  It  would  not  be  right  for  me  to  conclude  this  article 
without  also  thanking  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cook  for  the  great  facili- 
ties they  have  given  me  to  carry  on  these  observations  and 
experiments." 

The  reader  should  read  through  the  second  time  these 
descriptions  by  Sir  William  Crookes,  remembering  that : 

I.  Crookes  is  a  trained  physicist,  skilled  in  investigations, 
and  of  world-wide  reputation,  and  that  when  he  began  his  in- 
vestigation he  was  not  a  Spiritualist. 


424  OTHER    TYPICAL   CASES 

2.  That  these  investigations  were  made  in  his  own  house, 
and  in  his  own  library  to  which  he  kept  the  key,  and  in  which 
library  the  medium  was  not  permitted  except  during  the 
investigations. 

3.  That  Sir  William  Crookes  says  that  he  believes  as 
firmly  to-day  as  then  in  the  conclusions  he  reached. 

Case  III. — I  requested  a  few  months  ago  a  business  ac- 
quaintance of  mine  who  lives  in  another  city  to  make  a  care- 
ful investigation  of  materialization  phenomena  that  were 
taking  place  in  his  city.  He  is  an  experienced  investigator. 
The  following  is  his  description  of  one  of  the  many  seances 
he  attended : 

"  The  medium  and  her  husband,  who  also  is  a  medium, 
myself  and  four  other  acquaintances  of  mine,  whose  names 
and  addresses  I  can  give  you  if  you  desire,  formed  a  company 
in  a  private  residence  where  Spiritualistic  stances  had  not 
previously  been  held.  We  repaired  to  an  upstairs  room 
selected  by  ourselves,  and  took  a  spread  from  off  of  the  lounge 
and  hung  it  across  an  ordinary  closet-door  opening;  this  con- 
stituted the  cabinet.  We  then  wrapped  a  tinted  silk  hand- 
kerchief around  an  electric  light  globe  and  the  other  lights 
were  turned  out.  The  door  leading  to  the  room  was  locked. 
There  was  no  opening  whatever  into  the  closet  other  than 
the  one  which  opened  into  the  room  in  which  we  were  sit- 
ting. Had  the  door  from  the  room  been  opened  at  any  time 
it  would  have  let  in  a  flood  of  light  from  the  hall.  Neither 
of  the  two  mediums  went  into  a  trance,  but  both  remained 
walking  about  the  room  in  which  we  were  sitting  and  engaged 
in  general  conversation  with  the  company.  Each  one  present 
could  at  any  time  see  the  face  of  everybody  else  in  the  room. 

"  The  spirit  friends  materialized  and  walked  forth  from 
the  closet  and  shook  hands  with  their  friends. 

"  I  sat  at  one  end  of  the  circle  directly  facing  the  incan- 
descent light  that  was  wrapped  about  with  the  handkerchief 
in  such  a  position  that  the  spirit  friends,  when  walking  out 
to  myself  and  other  members  of  the  circle,  had  to  come  be- 
tween me  and  the  light.  There  were  as  many  as  three  mate- 
rialized forms  at  one  instant  out  in  the  room ;  these  were 
escorted  about  by  the  two  mediums.     We  could  plainly  see 


MY    BROTHER'S    EXPERIMENT       425 

the  full  outlines  of  both  mediums  and  the  spirit  friends.     On 
this  occasion  only  one  of  the  materializations  took  place  out- 
side of  the  cabinet ;  this  was  a  young  lady  who  dematerial- 
ized  about  six  feet  from  and  directly  in  front  of  the  cabinet. 
"July  8,  1903.  " 

At  my  request  my  brother  went  to  this  city  and  in  com- 
pany with  the  writer  of  the  above  letter  attended  several  test 
seances.  Altho  close  watch  was  maintained  for  deception, 
they  discovered  none.  My  brother  sealed  the  windows,  and 
made  every  condition  that  he  could  think  of  to  exclude  fraud. 
His  experiences  were  as  remarkable  as  those  given  above. 
These  are  only  examples  of  many  hundreds  of  well  attested 
cases.  Of  course,  there  are  many  frauds,  but  those  who  best 
know  the  frauds  are  strongest  in  their  convictions  that  there 
is  a  large  unexplained  remainder. 

Case  IV. — I  arranged  for  a  medium  to  hold  a  sitting  at 
the  residence  of  my  business  associate,  Mr.  A.  W.  Wagnalls, 
at  which  there  had  been  held  no  Spiritualist  circle  previous 
to  this  date.  The  family  of  Mr.  W.  are  exceedingly  critical, 
and  very  skeptical  of  Spiritualistic  phenomena,  and  are  non- 
Spiritualists.  They  have  had  no  little  experience  in  the  inves- 
tigation of  fraud  after  this  sort  and  were  keenly  alive  to  the 
possibilities  of  deception.  Their  home  is  on  the  sixth  floor  of  a 
large  apartment  house  in  New  York.  We  used  two  rooms  for 
the  sitting,  both  small,  the  one  opening  into  the  other.  The 
smaller  one  served  for  a  cabinet.  This  cabinet  room  had  no 
opening  except  into  the  larger  room ;  the  windows  to  this 
room  opened  through  the  rear  wall  at  an  unbroken  height  of 
six  stories.  The  circle  consisted  of  twelve  persons,  all  ac- 
quaintances of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wagnalls  and  myself.  We  sat 
in  a  half-circle  around  the  room.  The  arrangement  precluded 
all  possibility  of  confederates.  The  medium  came  to  the 
house  only  a  short  time  before  the  opening  of  the  seance. 

The  problem  was  reduced  to  its  simplest  proportions. 
What  appeared  was  either  the  work  of  the  medium  or  the  work 
of  intelligences  outside  of  the  flesh.    I  took  my  position  second 


426  AT   A   FRIEND'S   HOUSE 

to  the  door  that  led  into  the  cabinet-room.  Mr.  Wagnalls 
turned  up  and  down  the  gas-burner  in  the  chandelier  as  dir- 
ected from  the  cabinet.  At  all  times  the  light  was  sufficient  to 
enable  me  to  see  everybody  in  the  room,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  any  one  to  have  left  his  seat  without  immediate  detection. 

During  the  sitting  many  forms  came  from  the  cabinet ; 
one,  a  little  girl,  came  to  me  and  spoke  and  then  crossed  the 
room  to  Mrs.  W.  The  medium  is  quite  a  heavy  woman, 
weighing  over  two  hundred  pounds.  I  can  not  think  of  any 
possible  delusion  or  trick  that  will  satisfactorily  account  for 
these  appearances.  Men  and  women  came  from  the  cabinet, 
two  at  one  time.  There  were  as  many  as  twelve  distinct 
voices  from  what  appeared  to  be  spirit-forms  during  the 
evening.  Some  voices  were  heavy  male  voices,  others  were 
female,  and  some  children  voices.  There  is  a  possibility,  of 
course,  of  any  kind  of  a  voice  being  imitated. 

I  have  had  much  experience  with  materialization  seances, 
and  think  that  I  know  pretty  thoroughly  the  fraudulent 
brand.  I  have  studied  the  methods  adopted  by  nearly  all  of 
the  exposed  mediums  in  the  different  large  cities  during  the 
last  twenty  years.  There  was  nothing  in  all  of  these  expo- 
sures sufficient  to  account  for  what  took  place  during  the 
evening  I  am  describing.  The  "phenomena"  produced  by 
conjurers  like  Hermann  and  Kellar  I  have  often  witnessed. 
They  help  nothing  whatever  in  solving  the  real  problem 
of  materialization  as  described  by  Crookes  and  as  here  de- 
scribed as  taking  place  at  the  residence  of  Mr.  W.  The 
tricks  of  conjurers  are  performed  with  elaborate  machinery; 
but  here  was  no  chance  for  machinery.  How  "  it  was  done  " 
at  this  circle  at  Mr.  W.'s  I  do  not  pretend  to  say.  I  simply 
say  that  here  at  a  private  house,  at  times  within  three  feet  of 
my  eyes,  without  any  chance  for  machinery  and  without  con- 
federates, marvels  took  place  as  wonderful  as  I  ever  saw  on 
conjurer's  stage  at  a  distance  from  me  and  with  elaborate 
machinery — and  all  this  took  place  with  a  woman  as  the  actor, 
who  is  without  reputation  as  a  conjurer. 


A   PHANTOM    HAND  427 

Case  V. — The  appearance  of  forms  in  the  presence  of 
Professor  Zollner  of  the  Leipsic  University. 

Appearance  of  a  Hand  and  a  Luminous  Object 

Exhibition  of  Force ^  LigktSy^  etc. — "  I  mention  here  a  sit- 
ting with  Slade  which  took  place  at  five  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon of  the  15th  December,  1877,  in  the  usual  sitting- 
room  of  the  house  of  my  friend  O.  von  Hoffmann,  whose 
wife  was  present.  It  was  the  only  one  in  which  the  room 
was  partially  darkened,  to  try  whether  in  Slade's  pres- 
ence, as  in  that  of  the  young  lady  of  fifteen  (Miss  Cook),  a 
human  form,  or  at  least  a  *  phantom  form,'  as  Mr.  Crookes 
described  it  in  his  book,  under  the  heading  *  Phantom 
Forms  and  Faces, '  would  be  evolved.  In  order  to  impro- 
vise a  cabinet,  a  string  was  drawn  obliquely  across  the  part 
of  the  room  opposite  my  usual  place,  at  about  two  meters ' 
above  the  floor,  and  of  a  breadth  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
edge  of  the  table,  a  dark-green  curtain  being  fixed  to  it. 
Slade  sat  at  his  usual  place,  at  his  right  Frau  von  Hoffmann, 
I  next,  and  Herr  von  Hoffmann  at  my  right.  We  had  already 
laid  our  hands,  linked  together,  on  the  table,  when  I  remarked 
it  was  a  pity  we  had  forgotten  to  place  a  small  hand-bell  on 
the  table.  At  the  same  moment  it  began  ringing  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  room  at  my  right  front,  at  least  two  meters  from 
the  middle  of  the  table ;  and  the  room  being  faintly  illumi- 
nated by  gaslight  from  the  street,  we  saw  a  small  hand- bell 
slowly  hover  down  from  the  stand  on  w^hich  it  stood,  lay  it- 
self down  on  the  carpet  of  the  floor,  and  move  itself  forward 
by  jerks,  till  it  got  under  our  table.  Here  immediately  it 
began  ringing  in  the  most  lively  manner,  and  while  we  kept 
our  hands  joined  together  as  above  described  on  the  table,  a 
hand  suddenly  appeared  through  an  opening  in  the  middle  of 
the  curtain  with  the  bell,  which  it  placed  on  the  middle  of 
the  table  in  front  of  us.  I  hereupon  expressed  the  wish  to 
be  allowed  to  hold  that  hand  once  firmly  in  my  own.  I  had 
scarcely  said  this,  when  the  hand  appeared  again  out  of  the 
opening,  and  now,  while  with  the  palm  of  my  left  hand  I 
covered  and  held  fast  both  Slade's  hands,  with  my  right  I 
seized  the  hand  protruded  from  the  opening,  and  thus  shook 

>  "Transcendental  Physics,"  pp.  183-185. 
2  About  six  aud  one-half  feet.— Tr. 


428  A   TUG   OF   WAR 

hands  with  a  friend  from  the  other  world.  It  had  quite  a 
living  warmth,  and  returned  my  pressure  heartily.  After 
letting  go  the  hand,  I  reached  it  a  slate,  and  challenged  it  to 
a  small  proof  of  strength ;  I  would  pull  to  one  side,  and  it 
should  pull  to  the  other,  and  we  would  see  which  of  us  kept 
the  slate.  This  was  done,  and  in  the  frequent  give-and-take, 
I  had  quite  the  feeling  of  an  elastic  tug,  as  tho  a  man  had 
hold  of  the  slate  at  the  other  side.  By  a  strong  wrench  I 
got  possession  of  it.  I  again  remark  that  during  all  these 
proceedings  Mr.  Slade  sat  quietly  before  us,  both  his  hands 
being  covered  and  detained  by  my  left  hand,  and  by  the 
hands  of  the  two  others. 

**  I  may  here  point  out  that  such  a  pull  on  one  side  by  a 
human  hand  or  other  solid  body,  as  a  slate,  would  be  a  viola- 
tion of  the  principle  of  the  equality  of  action  and  reaction 
if  no  material  object  undergoing  the  equal,  but  resisted,  pull 
were  to  be  found  in  three-dimensional  space.  But  no  such 
object  being  to  be  found  in  the  space  ordinarily  perceivable 
by  us  (in  unserem  gewohnlichen  Anschatiungsrmim)  it  must 
occupy  a  position  in  absolute  space,  falling  in  the  next  higher 
region  of  space.  Only  in  this  manner  can  the  apparent  con- 
tradiction, here  introduced,  of  a  fundamental  law  of  the 
interaction  of  bodies  be  satisfactorily  solved  for  our  under- 
standing. 

**  While  I  was  still  busied  with  the  above  observations 
and  experiments,  there  suddenly  emerged  from  above  the 
upper  border  of  the  curtain  a  half -circular  mass  gleaming  in 
phosphorescent  light,  of  the  size  of  a  human  head.  It  moved 
slowly  to  and  fro  at  the  same  height  from  one  side  of  the 
curtain  to  the  other  frequently;  and  gave  us  all  the  impres- 
sion of  appertaining  to  a  luminous  form  close  behind  the  cur- 
tain. Approaching  that  side  of  the  curtain  at  which  Slade 
sat,  this  luminous  form  became  visible  in  its  whole  extent. 
Slade  drew  back,  evidently  alarmed,  whereat  we  laughed,  and 
the  form  immediately  hovered  back  behind  the  curtain,  and 
with  the  same  speed  moved  to  the  other  side,  here  also  emerg- 
ing up  to  the  middle.  We  could  not  distinguish  features  or 
limbs.  In  brightness  and  color  the  phosphorescent  light  re- 
sembled that  observed  in  the  so-called  *  after-shining '  Geiss- 
ler's  tubes.  I  much  regretted  that  I  had  not  at  hand  my 
pocket  spectroscope,  in  order  more  closely  to  examine  the 
nature  of  the  emitted  light." 


PUZZLING    HANDPRINTS  429 

If  these  phenomena  actually  occurred  in  a  room  in  which 
Slade  had  not  arranged  some  machinery,  and  Slade  kept  his 
seat  at  the  table,  as  Zollner  says  he  did,  these  appearances 
can  not  be  accounted  for  by  any  force  or  law  as  yet  recognized 
by  science. 

The  questions  are : 

Did  Slade  get  behind  the  curtain  or  reach  behind  it  with 
some  instrument  to  which  he  had  attached  luminous  objects 
and  the  hand  that  gave  the  hard  pull  ? 

Was  it  Slade's  hand  that  gave  this  hard  pull,  Zollner  be- 
lieving all  the  time  that  he  had  Slade's  hand  covered  with 
his  own  ? 

The  supposition  seems  laughably  absurd  when  we  remem- 
ber that  Zollner  was  one  of  the  most  critical  scientists  of  his 
time,  and  yet  if  it  were  not  Slade's  hand,  whose  was  it? 
Did  this  exhibition  of  phenomena  stand  alone,  it  would  be 
comparatively  easy  to  believe  that  in  the  semi-darkness  Slade 
somehow  outwitted  these  people.  But  with  every  additional 
phenomenon  the  difficulty  increases  at  a  rapid  ratio. 

Prints  of  ^^  Spirit- Hand''  in  a  Bowl  of  MeaP 

The  following  interesting  result  was  obtained  by  Professor 
Zollner : 

"As  almost  regularly  at  all  the  sittings  (while  Slade's 
hands  rested  on  the  table,  visible  to  all  present,  and  his  feet, 
in  the  sideways  position  frequently  mentioned,  could  be  at 
any  time  observed)  we  felt  the  touch  of  hands  under  the  table, 
and,  as  above  remarked,  had  even  seen  these  transiently 
under  the  same  conditions,  I  desired  to  institute  an  experi- 
ment by  which  a  convincing  proof  of  the  existence  of  these 
»  hands  could  be  afforded.  I  therefore  proposed  to  Mr.  Slade 
-  to  have  placed  under  the  table  a  flat  porcelain  vase  filled  up 
to  the  edge  with  wheat  flour,  and  that  he  should  then  request 
his  *  spirits  '  to  put  their  hands  in  the  flour  before  touching 
us.  In  this  manner  the  visible  traces  of  the  touching  must 
be  shown  on  our  clothes  after  the  contact,  and  at  the  same 

1  "Transcendental  Physics,"  pp.  63-64. 


430  EXPERIMENTS  STRICTLY  SCIENTIFIC 

time  Slade's  hands  and  feet  could  be  examined  for  remains 
of  flour  adhering  to  them.  Slade  declared  himself  ready  at 
once  for  the  proposed  test.  I  fetched  a  large  porcelain  bowl 
of  about  one  foot  diameter  and  two  inches  deep,  filled  it 
evenly  to  the  brim  with  flour,  and  placed  it  under  the  table. 
We  did  not  trouble  ourselves  at  first  about  the  eventual 
success  of  this  experiment,  but  continued  for  over  five  min- 
utes the  magnetic  experiments,  Slade's  hands  being  all  the 
time  visible  upon  the  table ;  when  suddenly  I  felt  my  right 
knee  powerfully  grasped  and  pressed  by  a  large  hand  under 
the  table  for  about  a  second,  and  at  the  same  moment,  as  I 
mentioned  this  to  the  others  and  was  about  to  get  up,  the 
bowl  of  meal  was  pushed  forward  from  its  place  under  the 
table  about  four  feet  on  the  floor.  Upon  my  trousers  I  had 
the  impression  in  meal  of  a  large  strong  hand,  and  on  the 
meal  surface  of  the  bowl  were  indented  the  thumb  and  four 
fingers  with  all  the  niceties  of  structure  and  folds  of  the  skin 
impressed.  An  immediate  examination  of  Slade's  hands  and 
feet  showed  not  the  slightest  traces  of  flour,  and  the  compari- 
son of  his  own  hand  with  the  impression  on  the  meal  proved 
the  latter  to  be  considerably  larger.  The  impression  is  still 
in  my  possession,  altho  through  frequent  shakings  the  deli- 
cacy of  the  lines  is  becoming  gradually  obliterated  by  the 
falling  together  of  the  particles  of  meal." 

Permanent  Impressions  of  a  Foot  on  Sooted  Paper  ^ 

"  I  stuck  a  sheet  of  common  letter-paper  upon  a  somewhat 
larger  board  of  wood ;  it  was  the  cover  of  a  wooden  box,  in 
which  Herr  Merz  had  sent  me  some  large  prisms  for  spectro- 
scopic purposes  from  Munich  four  days  before.  By  moving 
the  paper  over  a  petroleum  lamp  without  a  cylinder  it  was 
spread  all  over  with  soot  (lampblack),  and  then  placed  under 
the  table  at  which  W.  Weber,  Slade,  and  I  had  taken  our 
seats.  Hoping  to  obtain  upon  the  sooted  paper  the  impress 
of  the  hand,  as  on  the  previous  day,  we  at  first  directed  our 
attention  again  to  the  magnetic  experiments.  Suddenly  the 
board  was  pushed  forward  with  force  under  the  table  about 
the  distance  of  one  meter,  and  on  my  raising  it,  there  was  on 
it  the  impression  of  a  naked  left  foot.  I  at  once  desired 
Slade  to  stand  up  and  show  me  both  his  feet.     He  did  this 

i  "Transcendental  Physics,"  pp.  67-68. 


OBJECTIONS    MET  431 

most  willingly ;  after  he  had  drawn  off  his  shoes,  we  exam- 
ined the  stockings  for  any  adhering  particles  of  soot,  but 
without  finding  anything  of  the  sort.  Then  we  made  him 
put  his  foot  on  a  measure,  from  which  it  appeared  that  the 
length  of  his  foot  from  the  heel  to  the  great  toe  was  22.5 
centimeters,  whereas  the  length  of  the  impression  of  the  foot 
between  the  same  parts  amounted  only  to  18.5  centimeters. 
"Two  days  later,  on  December  17,  1877,  ^^  eight  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  I  repeated  this  experiment,  only  with  the 
difference  that  instead  of  a  board  46  centimeters  long  by  22 
broad  a  slate  was  used,  whose  surface,  not  covered  by  the 
wooden  frame,  was  14.5  centimeters  broad  and  22  long. 
Upon  this  free  surface  I  stuck  a  half  sheet  of  letter-paper 
(Bath)  cut  down  to  exactly  the  same  dimensions.  Imme- 
diately before  the  sitting  I  myself,  in  the  presence  of  wit- 
nesses, sooted  the  paper  in  the  manner  above  described.  The 
slate  was  then,  as  before  the  board,  laid  under  the  table  at 
which  we  sat,  with  the  sooted  side  uppermost.  Upon  a 
given  sign  we  got  up  after  about  four  minutes,  and  upon  the 
slate  was  again  the  impression  of  the  same  left  foot  which  we 
had  obtained  two  days  earlier  upon  the  board.  I  have  had 
this  impression  reproduced  photographically  on  a  reduced 
scale. " 

In  reply  to  the  criticisms  of  some  of  his  skeptical  col- 
leagues at  the  Leipsic  University,  Zollner  says : 

**  That  Slade's  stockings  had  not  been  cut  away  under- 
neath for  this  purpose — as  was  conjectured  by  some  '  men  of 
science  *  in  Leipsic,  who  in  unimportant  things  accept  our 
physical  observations  with  absolute  confidence,  but  in  refer- 
ence to  the  foregoing  have  not  hesitated  to  instruct  us  in  the 
elementary  rules  for  instituting  exact  observations — of  that, 
as  already  mentioned,  we  satisfied  ourselves  immediately  after 
the  experiment. 

"  Meanwhile,  to  meet  all  such  doubts  (and  the  attempts 
at  explanation  are  scarcely  less  wonderful  than  are  the  facts 
themselves),  I  proposed  to  Mr.  Slade  an  experiment  which, 
according  to  the  theory  of  the  four-dimensional  space,  must 
easily  succeed.  In  fact,  if  the  effects  observed  by  us  pro- 
ceed from  intelligent  beings  occupying  in  the  absolute  space 
places  which  in  the  direction  of  the  fourth  dimension  lie 


432     FOURTH    DIMENSIONAL   BEINGS 

near  the  places  occupied  by  Mr.  Slade  and  us  in  the  three- 
dimensional  space,  and  therefore  necessarily  invisible  to  us, 
for  these  beings  the  interior  of  a  figure  of  three-dimen- 
sional space,  enclosed  on  all  sides,  is  just  as  easily  accessible 
as  is  to  us,  three-dimensional  beings,  the  interior  of  a  surface 
enclosed  on  all  sides  by  a  line — a  two-dimensional  figure. 
A  two-dimensional  being  can  represent  to  itself  a  straight 
line  with  only  one  perpendicular  in  the  respective  two-dimen- 
sional regions  of  space  (to  which  it  belongs  phenomenally). 
We,  on  the  contrary,  as  three-dimensional  beings,  know  that 
there  are  infinitely  many  perpendiculars  to  a  straight  line  in 
space,  which  collectively  form  the  two-dimensional  geometri- 
cal place  of  the  perpendicular  plane  of  that  straight  line. 
Analogously,  we  can  conceive  only  one  perpendicular  to  a 
plane;  a  being  of  four  dimensions  would,  however,  be  able 
to  conceive  infinitely  many  perpendiculars  to  a  plane,  collec- 
tively forming  the  three-dimensional  place  which  in  the  fourth 
dimension  stands  perpendicular  to  that  plane.  By  our  nature 
as  three-dimensional  beings  we  could  form  for  ourselves  no 
representation  of  these  space  relations,  altho  we  are  in  the 
position  to  discover  ideally  (begrifflicJi)^  by  analogy,  the  pos- 
sibility of  their  real  existence.  The  reality  of  their  existence 
can  only  be  disclosed  through /^^/j-  of  obsefvationy 

Professor  Zollner  made  the  following  interesting  experi- 
ment: 

Under  Severe  Test  Conditions 

*'  I  took  a  book-slate,  bought  by  myself ;  that  is,  two  slates 
connected  at  one  side  by  cross  hinges,  like  a  book  for  folding 
up.  In  the  absence  of  Slade  I  lined  both  slates  within,  on 
the  sides  applied  to  one  another,  with  a  half  sheet  of  my 
letter-paper,  which,  immediately  before  the  sitting,  was  evenly 
spread  with  soot  in  the  way  already  described.  This  slate  I 
closed,  and  remarked  to  Mr.  Slade  that  if  my  theory  of  the 
existence  of  intelligent  four-dimensional  beings  in  nature  was 
well  founded,  it  must  be  an  easy  thing  for  them  to  place  on 
the  interior  of  the  closed  slates  the  impression  of  feet  hither- 
to only  produced  on  the  open  slates.  Slade  laughed,  and 
thought  that  tnis  would  be  absolutely  impossible;  even  his 
*  spirits,'  which  he  questioned,  seemed  at  first  much  perplexed 
with  this  proposition,  but  finally  answered  with  the  stereo- 


A   STARTLING   SUCCESS  433 

typed  caution,  *  We  will  try  it.'  To  my  great  surprise,  Slade 
consented  to  my  laying  the  closed  book-slate  (which  I  had 
never  let  out  of  my  hands  after  I  had  spread  the  soot)  on  my 
lap  during  the  sitting,  so  that  I  could  continually  observe  it 
to  the  middle. '  We  might  have  sat  at  the  table  in  the  bright- 
ly lighted  room  for  about  five  minutes,  our  hands  linked 
with  those  of  Slade  in  the  usual  manner  above  the  table, 
when  I  suddenly  felt  on  two  occasions,  the  one  shortly  after 
the  other,  the  slate  pressed  down  upon  my  lap,  without  my 
having  perceived  anything  in  the  least  visible.  Three  raps 
on  the  table  announced "  that  all  was  completed,  and  when  I 
opened  the  slate  there  was  within  it  on  the  one  side  the  im- 
pression of  a  right  foot,  on  the  other  side  that  of  a  left  foot, 
and  indeed  of  the  same  which  we  had  already  obtained  on  the 
two  former  evenings." 

Professor  Zollner  described  the  appearance  at  times  of 
hands  in  the  clear  light  visible  to  all  around  the  table. 

Case  V. — Rev.  W.  Stainton  Moses  was  the  medium  in 
this  case.  The  account  is  given  by  Dr.  Stanhope  Temple- 
man  Speer.  I  take  it  from  the  article  on  Moses  in  the  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  S.  P.  R.'*  and  written  by  Frederic  Myers. 
I  repeat  that  Rev.  Mr.  Moses  was  a  man  of  great  ability  and 
purity  of  character.  Myers  knew  him  well  and  had  all  con- 
fidence in  him. 

"  On  the  loth  of  August,  after  some  other  phenomena,  a 
large  globe  of  light  rose  from  the  side  of  the  table  opposite 
to  me  and  sailed  up  to  the  level  of  our  faces,  and  then  van- 
ished. It  was  followed  by  several  more,  all  of  which  rose  up 
from  the  side  opposite  to  me,  and  sometimes  to  the  right  and 
sometimes  to  the  left  of  the  medium.  At  request  the  next 
light  was  placed  slowly  in  the  center  of  the  table.  It  was 
apparently  as  large  as  a  shaddock,  and  was  surrounded  with 
drapery.  At  this  time  the  medium  was  entranced,  and  the 
controlling  spirit  informed  me  that  he  would  endeavor  to 
place  the  light  in  the  medium's  hand.  Failing  in  this,  he 
said  he  would  knock  on  the  table  in  front  of  me.     Almost 

'  In  the  previous  experiments  the  board  and  the  slate  had  been  laid  open  upon 
the  floor  under  the  table. 
«  Vol.  ix.,  pp.  245-253. 
28 


434    REV.  W.  S.  MOSES'S   EXPERIMENTS 

immediately  a  light  came  and  stood  on  the  table  close  to  me. 
*  You  see;  now  listen,  I  will  knock.'  Very  slowly  the  light 
rose  up,  and  struck  three  distinct  blows  on  the  table.  *  Now 
I  will  show  you  my  hand. '  A  large,  very  bright  light  then 
came  up,  and  inside  of  it  appeared  the  materialized  hand  of 
the  spirit.  He  moved  the  fingers  about  close  to  my  face. 
The  appearance  was  as  distinct  as  can  be  conceived.  The 
power  having  become  exhausted,  he  exhorted  me  to  wake  the 
medium,  make  him  wash  his  face  and  hands  in  cold  water, 
and  to  tell  him  nothing  till  that  had  been  done.  He  also 
insisted  on  my  writing  a  close  account  of  what  had  been 
done. 

•*  On  the  following  evening  I  placed  the  paper  containing 
the  account  on  the  table,  together  with  a  pencil,  and  asked 
that  the  light  might  be  brought  down  upon  it.  This  was 
done  several  times.  The  medium  having  become  entranced, 
I  requested  the  controlling  spirit  to  append  his  signature 
to  the  document,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so.  He  said  he 
would  try.  He  then  brought  a  very  large  and  bright  light, 
and  passed  it  up  and  down  over  the  face  of  the  entranced 
medium,  so  that  I  could  see  it  distinctly.  He  told  me  that 
the  folds  which  I  saw  round  the  light  were  drapery,  and  to 
prove  it  he  brought  the  light  and  passed  the  drapery  over 
the  back  of  my  hand  several  times.  It  was  perfectly  tangi- 
ble. I  asked  that  a  light  might  be  placed  close  to  my  face. 
He  assented,  and  told  me  to  close  my  eyes  until  told  to  open 
them.  I  did  so,  and  in  opening  them  I  saw  close  to  my  eyes 
a  large  and  very  bright  light,  the  size  of  the  globe  of  a 
moderator  lamp.  He  told  me  to  rub  my  hands  so  as  to  gen- 
erate more  power,  and  very  soon  another  large  light,  held  by 
a  hand,  appeared  on  the  table.  This  time  the  hand  appeared 
to  be  outside  of  the  drapery,  and  moved  the  fingers  about 
freely,  and  receded  from  the  light,  as  tho  the  lamp  were  held 
in  another  hand.  After  other  lights  had  been  shown,  I  heard 
the  pencil  moving,  and  repeating  his  admonition  of  the  pre- 
vious evening,  he  departed,  leaving  on  the  paper  a  specimen 
of  direct  spirit  caligraphy. 

"  I  have  omitted  to  say  that  the  way  of  renewing  the 
light  when  it  grew  dim  was  by  making  passes  over  it  with 
the  hand.  The  lights  were  of  the  kind  described  previously, 
and  consisted  of  a  nucleus  which  was  said  to  be  brought  by 
the  controlling  spirit,  surrounded  by  a  luminous  haze  and  an 


EXHAUSTIVE   TO   THE    MEDIUM     435 

envelope  of  drapery.  They  varied  in  size  and  luminosity, 
and  seemed  to  be  more  easily  and  fully  developed  when  I 
rubbed  my  hands  together  or  on  my  coat.  At  one  time  a 
portion  of  a  forearm  was  distinctly  visible,  and  the  hand  con- 
taining the  light  was  pressed  very  distinctly  on  mine  as  it  lay 
on  the  table.  I  may  add  that  all  the  cases  recorded  by  me 
occurred  when  no  other  sitter  was  present  but  myself. 

"  S.  T.  S." 
Of  these  lights  Moses  says : 

"  These  strange  phenomena  have  now  ceased  for  some 
time  past.  The  drain  on  the  vital  strength  of  the  medium 
was  too  great  to  be  continued.  As  it  was,  the  experiments 
made  were  attended  by  very  great  subsequent  prostration,  and 
the  phase  passed  away,  as  the  levitations  described  in  Chapter 
I.  ceased  after  a  time.  In  the  one  case  I  strongly  objected 
to  the  manifestation;  in  the  other  harm  ensued.  Both 
have  therefore  ceased. 

"  Since  the  commencement  of  the  present  year  we  have 
had  another  kind  of  light  altogether,  which  is  still  shown 
occasionally.  It  is  apparently  a  little  round  disk  of  light, 
which  twinkles  like  a  star.  It  has  a  dark  side,  which  is  gen- 
erally turned  toward  me,  so  that  while  other  sitters  have  been 
carrying  on  a  conversation,  the  answers  being  given  by  this 
light,  I  have  not  been  able  to  see  it  at  all.  It  is  very  much 
brighter  than  the  large  light,  and  more  like  a  star.  It 
flashes  with  great  rapidity,  and  answers  questions  by  the 
usual  code  of  signals.  The  light  usually  hovers  over  my 
head,  sometimes  coming  into  the  circle,  but  more  frequently 
floating  in  a  distant  corner  of  the  room.  It  is  not  apparently 
solid  nor  does  it  seem  to  be  surrounded  with  drapery. 

"  On  a  few  occasions,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen,  we 
have  observed  a  bright  scintillating  light,  which  apparently 
rests  on  the  mantel-shelf.  It  is  about  the  size  of  a  pigeon's 
egg,  and  looks  like  a  large  diamond  lit  up  with  strong  light." 

Myers's  Explanation  of  Genuine  Materialization* 

In  the  following,  Myers  considers  life  on  earth  from  the 
material  and  what  he  calls  the  metethereal  points  of  view. 
The  latter  term  was  coined  by  Myers  to  represent  the  life 

*  "Human  Personality,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  544-549. 


436  MEYERS    EXPLAINATION. 

that  is  supposed  to  lie  beyond  or  after  ether.  By  metethereal 
environment  he  means  the  spiritual  world  in  which  the  soul 
exists.      Myers  explains : 

"To  the  disembodied  spirit  the  organisms  which  he  sees 
accreted  about  his  incarnate  fellows  are  no  isolated,  encap- 
suled  things.  The  identity,  the  unbridgeable  separation  is 
for  him — if  it  is  anywhere — in  the  spirit  world.  These 
protoplasmic  clouds  can  mix,  in  his  view,  as  easily  as  the 
tails  of  comets ;  or  say  as  tho  from  the  tidal  afflux  of  half- 
colliding  vaporous  suns  some  glowing  prominence  shot  forth, 
to  fall  back  presently,  again  divided,  and  a  part  attracted 
into  each  parent  mass.  Only  by  some  such  metaphor,  per- 
haps, can  we  picture  the  spirit's  next  achievement,  and  the 
fusion  of  portions  of  the  vital  force  of  several  persons  into  an 
agency  which  he  wields  in  independence  of  them  all ;  *  draw- 
ing power,'  as  the  phrase  goes,  from  the  circle  as  well  as  from 
the  medium,  and  accomplishing  mechanical  work  by  the  aid 
of  their  bodies,  but  at  a  distance  from  each. 

"All  the  energy  that  he  exerts,  then,  is  vital  energy;  it 
is  drawn  from  the  organisms  of  the  persons  present,  even 
when  the  effect  achieved  (as  the  production  of  a  cold  wind) 
is  unlike  the  effects  to  which  living  organisms  commonly 
give  rise.  But,  for  the  most  part,  the  effects  which  he  pro- 
duces do  resemble  the  organism's  natural  action ;  and  hence, 
indeed,  the  objections  of  triviality  and  uselessness  largely 
arise.  The  *  telekinetic  movements  '  (to  use  Mr.  Aksakoff's 
term)  which  it  is  easiest  to  produce  seem  to  differ  from 
movements  which  the  medium  himself  could  have  made  only 
by  starting  from  a  point  in  space  at  some  little  distance  out- 
side his  apparent  periphery.  The  movements  are  interest- 
ing, not  as  spectacles  in  themselves,  but  as  indications  that 
life  can  act  at  some  distance  from  a  living  organism;  just  as 
the  movement  of  a  half-drowned  man's  finger  is  interesting 
to  the  friend  who  knows  not  whether  there  still  be  life  in 
that  organism  at  all. 

"The  condition  of  the  medium  from  whom  this  vital 
force  is  being  drawn  seems  to  vary  from  complete  tranquil- 
ity to  extreme  agitation,  according  to  the  ease  or  difficulty  of 
the  process.  With  Mr.  Moses  there  were  sometimes  agitated 
movements  during  some  difficult  manifestation  (as  the  giving 
of  minute  direct  writing) ;  but  generally  he  was  tranquilly 


"PROLONGATIONS"    OF   A   MEDIUM  437 

entranced,  with  his  arms  resting  on  the  table  in  front  of 
him. 

"  Let  us  now  survey  the  various  grades  of  these  ectoplas- 
tic  phenomena. 

"  We  will  begin  with  the  phenomena  which  keep  closest 
to  the  medium's  person,  and  in  that  sense  prepare  the  way 
for  the  production  of  visible  hands,  etc.,  acting  at  a  distance 
of  some  feet. 

"(a)  And  first  I  may  mention  a  mode  of  dealing  with 
the  medium's  body  which  involves  no  actual  extradition  of 
any  part  of  its  substance,  but  which,  nevertheless,  seems  to 
imply  a  molecular  manipulation  (so  to  say)  of  its  soft  tissues. 
I  refer  to  the  elongations  noticed  with  Mr.  D.  D.  Home. 
In  these  cases — if,  provisionally,  they  can  be  contemplated 
as  actual  objective  occurrences — the  intercostal  regions 
seemed  to  be  the  especial  seat  of  the  extension,  which  is 
described  as  rapid  and  painless,  altho  sometimes  followed  by 
vomiting. 

"  (/?)  Another  and  apparently  more  developed  form  of  pro- 
longation has  been  observed  with  Mr.  Moses.  These  are 
phantom  arms  and  hands,  reproducing  the  arms  of  the  me- 
dium, coat-sleeves,  shirt-cuffs,  and  all ;  and  extended  generally 
from  the  shoulder,  straightout,  and  above  the  true  arms. 
These  supplementary  or  '  counterpartal '  arms  (suspicious 
objects  enough,  until  observed  under  good  conditions)  seem 
never  to  have  been  actually  touched,  but  are  swiftly  retracted 
into  the  medium,  or  simply  vanish,  if  an  attempt  is  made  to 
grasp  them.  Nevertheless,  the  hands  in  which  they  terminate 
do  appear  to  move  objects. 

**  Odd  and  unexpected  as  these  phantasmal  arms  are,  they 
are  instructive  in  more  than  one  respect.  In  the  first  place 
they  supply  in  a  certain  way  a  missing  link  between  mere 
phantasms  and  ectoplastic  phenomena.  We  know  that  as  a 
rule  phantasmal  appearances  exert  no  objective  effect  upon 
the  material  world;  and  we  know  also  that  to  this  rule  there 
seem  to  be  some  few  exceptions.  It  is  through  these  shad- 
owy yet  materially  active  prolongations — collective  hallucina- 
tions which  yet  can  affect  the  solid  world — that  the  line  of 
continuity,  if  such  there  be,  between  purely  subjective  phan- 
tasm and  firmly  materialized  hand  or  body  may  have  to  be 
drawn. 


438  IMPRESSIONS  WITHOUT   VISIBILITY 

"  In  the  second  place,  these  reproduced  coat-sleeves  stand 
apparently  midway  between  two  phenomena  not  obviously 
allied — viz.,  the  appearance  of  dying  persons  as  tho  draped 
in  their  habitual  clothing,  and  the  greater  facility  (attested  by 
Mr.  Moses's  guides)  of  manufacturing  a  duplicate  of  some 
object  already  existing  on  earth,  rather  than  a  new  and  origi- 
nal object  of  their  own  devising. 

"  Perhaps  we  may  link  the  two  by  saying  that  everything 
which  is  not  a  purely  earthy  phenomenon  must  be  for  us 
mortals  to  some  extent  symbolicaly  and  that  the  simplest  form 
of  symbolism  depends  on  mere  reminiscence ;  that  thus  the 
line  of  least  resistance  for  the  psychic  force  or  telergic  im- 
pulse leads  to  the  upbuilding  of  the  ectoplastic  fabric  upon 
the  basis  of  thoughts  and  images  which  are  already  fashioned 
and  stored  in  the  human  spirit. 

"(r)  In  the  classes  of  ectoplasms  already  enumerated, 
there  has  been  at  least  an  apparent  continuous  connection 
with  the  body  of  the  sensitive ;  altho,  in  the  last-mentioned 
case  especially,  that  connection  is  of  a  very  shadowy  kind. 

"  We  now  come  to  ectoplasms  without  apparent  connec- 
tion with  the  organism  from  which  we  still  must  suppose 
them  to  be  in  some  way  derived.  Two  incomplete  forms  of 
such  isolated  ectoplasm  first  present  themselves;  the  one 
manifesting,  so  to  say,  definition  without  visibility ;  the  other 
visibility  without  definition. 

"  As  examples  of  a  certain  amount  of  definition  without 
visibility,  I  take  touches  and  imprints.  Slight  but  unmis- 
takable touches  are  often  observed  even  when  the  ectoplastic 
process  never  gets  any  farther  nor  is  identified  with  any  one 
spirit.     Imprints  are  more  rarely  recorded. 

"  (^)  A  commoner  way  in  which  the  detached  ectoplasm 
begins  its  development  is  with  an  appearance  of  cloud,  or 
light,  or  luminous  mist,  surrounding  some  object  which  is 
presently  moved — the  stem  of  a  flower  broken  or  a  bell  car- 
ried about  the  room.  Such  appearances,  already  mentioned 
under  the  heading  of  vital pkotogeny,  are  frequently  recorded 
both  with  D.  D.  Home  and  with  Mr.  Moses.  Their  connec- 
tion with  ectoplasms  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  sometimes 
some  of  those  present  have  perceived  a  hand,  while  others 
have  seen  only  a  cloud  or  a  light ;  and  sometimes  all  present 
have  seen  the  cloud  or  light  change  into  a  hand.  The  hand 
seems  to  oscillate  about  the  limits  of  definite  visibility,  like 


SEMIMATERIALIZATIONS  439 

vapor  which  in  a  changing  temperature  condenses  and  re- 
expands. 

"  Two  short  passages  (quoted  from  Mr.  Moses's  notebooks) 
will  illustrate  this  semimaterialization  [these  talks  are  with 
supposed  controls]  : 

"  *  Q.  The  beads  that  came  in  the  light  seemed  to  be 
projected  from  behind  me;  in  the  dark  they  seemed  to  fall. 

"  '  A.  It  is  necessary  to  use  the  force  or  power  emanating 
from  your  body  more  carefully  in  light.  It  is  far  more  diffi- 
cult to  regulate  it.  The  objects  were  thrown  near  you  gen- 
tly. At  other  times  they  were  allowed  to  fall  as  might 
chance. 

"  *  Q.  One  seemed  to  come  out  of  the  letter  I  was  hand- 
ing to  Mrs.  G. 

''  *  A.  No,  but  the  movement  of  your  hand  threw  off 
force,  as  in  darkness  you  may  see  luminous  vapor  proceeding 
from  the  fingers.  The  force  is  given  off  at  the  fingers  and 
head  most,  hence  objects  are  brought  or  moved  more  readily 
near  your  head  or  hands.  Hence  the  movement  of  objects 
over  your  head  and  the  production  of  the  scent.  Hence, 
too,  rubbing  the  hands  is  useful  and  placing  the  fingers  on 
the  table  charges  the  wood.  So  when  you  moved  your  hand 
it  gave  the  opportunity  which  was  used. 

"  '  Q.  That  scent  from  my  head  is  very  curious.  Is  it 
put  on  or  drawn  out  ? 

"  *  A.   Drawn  out,  but  I  can  not  tell  you  of  that. 

"  *  Monday y  March  23,  1874. 

"  *  Q.  Can  I  have  any  information  about  that  extraordi- 
nary writing } 

"  *  (We  held  a  stance  last  night  at  which  some  very  mi- 
nute direct  writing  was  given  by  Doctor  and  Prudens.) 

"  *  A.  It  was  done  with  great  pains  and  care  as  an  experi- 
ment.     We  can  do  more  than  that. 

"  *  Q.  It  is  the  most  curious  piece  I  ever  saw.  Who 
wrote  it } 

"  *  A.  The  spirits  who  signed,  aided  by  many  others.  We 
were  assisted  last  night  by  a  powerful  band  who  were  able 
to  overcome  unfavorable  conditions.  We  have  said  before 
that  no  such  manifestation  is  ever  done  by  us  alone,  but  by 
many  assistants. 

"  *  Q.  The  writing  is  so  minute  and  clear. 


440       A   SPIRIT    EXPLAINS   WRITING 

**  *  A.  We  could  do  more  minute  writing  and  will  en- 
deavor so  to  do.  Much  power  was  used  in  endeavoring  to 
complete  the  manifestation  with  care.  To  that  reason  is  due 
the  physical  contortion  which  attends  the  manifestation. 
It  is  more  difficult  to  write  with  minute  care.  We  will 
show  you  what  we  can  do  one  day. 

"  '  Q.  Doctor  and  Prudens  were  the  actual  amanuenses  ? 

" '  A.  Yes,  they  actually  wrote,  as  you  would  see  from 
the  character  of  the  writing.      It  is  always  so. 

" '  Q.  I  thought  Prudens 's  writing  was  not  his,  but  an 
imitation. 

"  *  A.  That  would  not  be  allowed. 

"  '  Q.  Was  the  pencil  actually  used  ? 

"'A.    Oh,  yes. 

"  *  Q.    Was  a  hand  materialized  ? 

"  *  A.  Not  as  you  understand  it,  but  sufficiently  so  to  use 
the  instrument.  It  would  not  have  been  visible  to  the  nat- 
ural eye. 

"  *  Q.   The  pencil  would  have  seemed  to  move  alone. 

"  *  A.  Yes,  to  the  natural  eye. ' 

"(e)  In  describing  these  imperfectly  aggregated  ecto- 
plasms we  have  already  touched  on  the  next  class,  that  of 
quasi-organic  detached  ectoplasms.  These  are  especially 
hands,  sometimes  with  wrists  or  arms  attached,  but  now  with 
no  mere  shadowy  or  duplicated  drapery,  but  a  drapery  which 
is  their  own,  and  for  the  time  being  is  as  tangible  as  them- 
selves. Such  hands  are  reported  in  the  cases  of  D.  D.  Home 
and  Mr.  Moses. 

"  These  ectoplasms,  moreover,  when  developed,  may  be 
recognizable ;  they  may  serve  as  indications  of  identity. 
With  D.  D.  Home  this  seems  frequently  to  have  been  the 
case,  and  the  special  shape  and  character  of  hands  seen  formed 
one  of  the  most  generally  impressive  points  in  his  phenomena. 
In  Mr.  Moses's  case  the  hands  (except  once  in  a  photograph) 
were  not  claimed  as  belonging  to  personal  friends ;  but  the 
lean  brown  hand  and  wrist  which  usually  appeared  (Mr. 
Moses's  own  hand  being  thick,  plump,  and  white)  seemed 
appropriate  to  the  Arabian  philosopher  to  whom  it  was  as- 
serted to  belong. 

"  Among  these  detached  ectoplasms  must  be  reckoned  the 
phenomenon  of  *  the  direct  voice.'     Utterance  may  be  refer- 


IF   A    HAND,  THEN   A    BODY         441 

able  to  an  ectoplastic  throat  as  distinctly  as  grip  to  ectoplastic 
fingers,  and  may  form  of  course  an  even  higher  manifesta- 
tion, capable  of  manifesting  more  intelligence  and  of  giving 
more  convincing  indications  of  identity.  But  this  phenom- 
enon (which  I  believe  myself  to  have  observed  elsewhere) 
has  been  only  imperfectly  shown  in  the  cases  on  which  this 
present  survey  is  based. 

"  (C)  Nor  is  it  desirable  here  to  dwell  at  length  upon  the 
most  advanced  type  of  ectoplasy ;  when  an  apparently  com- 
plete form  seems  to  live  for  the  time  an  independent  life. 
This  never  occurred  through  Mr.  Moses.  Something  like  it 
occurred  through  D.  D.  Home  several  times,  tho  the  solidity 
of  the  form  was  not  tested.  No  more,  therefore,  need  here 
be  said  than  that  this  completer  development  of  the  isolated 
or  independent  ectoplasm  differs  in  no  fundamental  way  from 
the  types  which  we  have  already  discussed.  On  the  frequent 
fraudulent  simulations  of  this  phenomenon,  there  is  no  need 
here  to  dwell.  But  for  those  who  admit  that  a  hand  can  be 
temporarily  thrown  off  in  this  strange  kind  of  a  sexual  gem- 
mation, it  would  be  illogical  to  deny  the  possibility  of  a  whole 
apparent  human  form  thus  originated  and  thus  reabsorbed  or 
disappearing. 

"  At  whatever  point,  indeed,  among  the  phenomena  of 
ectoplasy  we  may  draw  our  evidential  line,  it  seems  to  me 
probable  that  we  have  here  got  at  the  root  of  most  of  the 
physical  phenomena  assignable  to  external  control.  It  is 
this  power  of  using  the  vital  force  of  men  which  brings  unem- 
bodied  beings  into  relation  with  the  material  world.  It  is 
this  power,  too,  which  links  the  physical  with  the  mental 
phenomena  of  spirit  control,  enabling  the  unseen  guide  to 
use  the  machinery  of  thought  as  well  as  of  m.otion  in  ways 
which  the  unaided  organism  could  never  have  devised.  To 
some  of  these  intellectual  phenomena  we  must  now  turn." 


442    CRUCIAL   TEST   OF   SPIRITUALISM 

VI 

SPIRIT    IDENTITY 

Do  Any  of  these  So-called    Spirits  Prove  their 

Identity  ? 

Here  is  the  crucial  test  of  Spiritualism — the  proof  of 
identity.  Yet  are  we  quite  sure  that  this  is  not,  as  Mr. 
Kipling  would  say,  another  story?  The  fact  that  it  is  a 
spirit  outside  of  the  body  that  communicates  would  be,  if 
proved,  a  very  important  matter.  Marconi  might  have  been 
sure  that  the  influence  that  sounded  the  letters  in  his  receiver 
was  from  across  the  ocean,  but  he  might  not  have  been  sure 
that  somebody  else  had  not  found  out  the  code  and  how  to 
work  the  instrument — some  one  other  than  the  man  who 
claimed  to  be  signaling. 

But  Marconi  had  an  advantage  over  the  investigator  of 
Spiritualism.  He  had  seen  the  instrument  on  the  other  side 
of  the  ocean;  had,  in  fact,  superintended  its  construction. 
We  have  never  seen  the  other  side  of  the  "  silent  gulf  "  from 
which  these  spirit  signals  purport  to  come.  From  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  we  must  demand  proof  of  identity,  that 
we  may  know  that  the  signals  do  not  arise  from  material 
conditions  on  this  side,  either  in  or  outside  the  medium. 
The  proof  of  identity  may  not  be  essential  to  prove 
Spiritualism,  but  if  such  proof  can  be  furnished  it  should  be 
conclusive. 

Can  this  proof  be  furnished.^ 

Let  us  see  how  nearly  it  has  been  reached. 

Case  I. — Some  time  ago  in  a  distant  city  I  called  to  see 
a  medium  unannounced.  I  am  as  certain  as  I  can  be  of  any- 
thing not  mathematically  proved  that  she  had  no  thought  of 
my  identity.  In  this  interview  she  fell  into  a  trance.  My 
mother  claimed  to  be  present  and  indicated  what  caused  her 
death  by  expressing  pain  in  the  front  part  of  her  right  foot. 


A   WELL   VERIFIED    CASE  443 

The  fact  is,  my  mother,  when  I  was  a  boy,  stepped  upon  a 
needle  which  ran  through  her  slipper  into  her  foot.  I  pulled 
out  the  needle  with  a  pair  of  pincers,  but  within  three  days 
paralysis  of  the  nerves  began  at  the  wound,  and  before  a 
week  she  was  dead. 

This  experiment  may  be  explained  by  mind-reading  or 
telepathy;  hence  it  is  not  conclusive,  altho  it  tends Xo  proof 
of  identity. 

Case  II. — Rev.  Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage,  of  New  York  City, 
then  of  Boston,  narrates  the  following  incident — with  all  of 
the  facts  he  is  personally  acquainted,  the  affair  happening 
among  his  friends : 

"  Early  on  Friday  morning,  January  18,  1884,  the  steamer 
City  of  Cohimbtis,  en  route  from  Boston  to  Savannah,  was 
wrecked  on  the  rocks  off  Gay  Head,  the  southwestern  point 
of  Martha's  Vineyard.  Among  the  passengers  was  an  elderly 
widow,  the  sister-in-law  of  one  of  my  friends  and  the  mother 
of  another. 

"  This  lady,  Mrs.  K.,  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  B.,  had  both 
been  interested  in  psychic  investigation  and  had  held  sittings 
with  a  psychic  whom  I  will  call  Mrs.  E.  Mrs.  B.  was  in  poor 
health  and  was  visited  regularly  for  treatment  every  Monday 
by  the  psychic,  Mrs.  E.  On  occasion  of  these  professional 
visits,  Mrs.  B.  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  K.,  would  frequently 
have  a  sitting.  This  Mrs.  E.,  the  psychic,  had  been  known 
to  all  the  parties  concerned  for  many  years,  and  was  held  in 
the  highest  respect.  She  lived  in  a  town  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  from  Boston.  This,  then,  was  the  situation  of  affairs 
when  the  wreck  of  the  steamer  took  place. 

"The  papers  of  Friday  evening,  January  18,  of  course 
contained  accounts  of  the  disaster.  On  Saturday,  January 
19,  Dr.  K.,  my  friend,  the  son  of  Mrs.  K.,  hastened  down  to 
the  beach  in  search  of  the  body  of  his  mother.  No  trace 
whatever  was  discovered.  He  became  satisfied  that  she  was 
among  the  lost,  but  was  not  able  to  find  the  body.  Saturday 
night  he  returned  to  the  city.  Sunday  passed  by.  On  Mon- 
day morning,  the  21st,  Mrs.  E.  came  from  her  country  home 
to  give  the  customary  treatment  to  her  patient,  Mrs.  B. 
Dr.  K.  called  on  his  aunt  while  Mrs.  E.  was  there,  and  they 


444         DESCRIBES    HER   DROWNING 

decided  to  have  a  sitting  to  see  if  there  would  come  to  them 
anything  that  even  purported  to  be  news  from  the  missing 
mother  and  sister.  Immediately  Mrs.  K.  claimed  to  be 
present ;  and,  along  with  many  other  matters,  she  told  them 
three  separate  and  distinct  things  which,  if  true,  it  was  ut- 
terly impossible  for  either  of  them  to  have  known. 

"  I.  She  told  them  that,  after  the  steamer  had  sailed,  she 
had  been  able  to  exchange  her  inside  stateroom  for  an  out- 
side one.  All  that  any  of  them  knew  was  that  she  had  been 
obliged  to  take  an  inside  room,  and  that  she  did  not  want  it. 

"2.  She  told  them  that  she  played  whist  with  some 
friends  in  the  steamer  saloon  during  the  evening ;  and  she 
further  told  them  the  names  of  the  ones  who  had  made  up 
the  table. 

**  3.  Then  came  this  startling  and  utterly  unexpected 
statement :  *  I  do  not  want  you  to  think  of  me  as  having  been 
drowned.  I  was  not  drowned.  When  the  alarm  came  I  was 
in  my  berth.  Being  frightened,  I  jumped  up  and  ran  out  of 
the  stateroom.  In  the  passageway  I  was  suddenly  struck  a 
blow  on  my  head,  and  instantly  it  was  over.  So  do  not 
think  of  me  as  having  gone  through  the  process  of  drowning. ' 
Then  she  went  on  to  speak  of  the  friends  she  had  found 
and  who  were  with  her.  The  latter,  of  course,  could  not  be 
verified.  But  the  other  things  could  be.  It  was  learned, 
through  survivors,  that  the  matter  of  the  stateroom  and  the 
whist,  even  to  the  partners,  was  precisely  as  had  been  stated. 
But  how  to  verify  the  other  statement,  particularly  as  the 
body  had  not  been  discovered } 

"All  this  was  on  Monday,  the  21st.  On  Tuesday,  the 
22d,  the  doctor  and  a  friend  went  again  to  the  beach.  After 
a  prolonged  search  among  the  bodies  that  had  been  recovered, 
they  were  able  to  identify  that  of  the  mother.  And  they 
found  the  right  side  of  the  head  all  crushed  in  by  a  blow. 

"  The  impression  made  on  the  doctor,  at  the  sitting  on 
Monday,  was  that  he  had  been  talking  with  his  mother.  The 
psychic,  Mrs.  E. ,  is  not  a  clairvoyant,  and  there  were  many 
things  connected  with  the  sitting  that  made  the  strong  im- 
pression of  the  mother's  present  personality.  In  order  to 
have  obtained  all  these  facts  related  under  numbers  i,  2,  and 
3,  the  psychic  would  have  had  to  be  not  only  clairvoyant, 
but  to  have  gotten  into  mental  relations  with  several  differ- 
ent people  at  the  same  time.     The  reading  of  several  different 


FOUND    BODY   CORROBORATES       445 

minds  at  once,  and  also  clairvoyant  seeing,  not  only  of  the 
bruised  head,  but  of  the  facts  that  took  place  on  the  Friday 
previous  (this  being  Monday) — all  these  multiplex  and  diverse 
operations,  going  on  simultaneously,  make  up  a  problem 
that  the  most  ardent  advocate  of  telepathy  as  a  solvent  of 
psychic  facts  would  hardly  regard  as  reasonably  coming 
within  its  scope. 

"  Let  us  look  at  it  clearly.  Telepathy  deals  only  with 
occurrences  taking  place  at  the  time.  I  do  not  know  of  a 
case  where  clairvoyance  is  even  claimed  to  see  what  were 
once  facts,  but  which  no  longer  exist.  Then  there  must 
have  been  simultaneous  communication  with  several  minds. 
This,  I  think,  is  not  even  claimed  as  possible  by  anybody. 
Then  let  it  be  remembered  that  Mrs.  E.  is  not  conscious  of 
possessing  either  telepathic  or  clairvoyant  power.  Such  is 
the  problem. 

"  I  express  no  opinion  of  my  own.  I  only  say  that  the 
doctor,  my  friend,  is  an  educated,  level-headed,  noble  man. 
He  felt  sure  that  he  detected  undoubted  tokens  of  his  mother's 
presence.  If  such  a  thing  is  ever  possible,  surely  this  is 
the  explanation  most  simple  and  natural. " 

Dr.  Thomson  Jay  Hudson,  in  an  elaborate  attempt  to  ex- 
plain this  case  *  in  harmony  with  his  theory  of  telepathy,  in- 
sists that  Dr.  Savage  is  wrong  in  claiming  that  "telepathy 
deals  only  with  occurrences  at  the  time."  Hudson  holds  that 
Mrs.  K.  sent  the  telepathic  message  at  the  time  of  her  death 
and  that  it  did  not  report  itself  for  some  time  afterward. 
This  would  imply  that  after  her  skull  was  crushed  she  had 
time  to  send  a  message  that  her  death  was  instant. 

The  theory  of  clairvoyance  would  have  helped  out  Dr. 
Hudson,  but  he  does  not  accept  clairvoyance.  If  the  mes- 
sage was  sent  at  the  time  of  death  and  lodged  in  some  sub- 
jective mind  and  this  message  was  simply  read  by  the  me- 
dium to  the  son,  there  could  have  been  no  conversation 
between  the  spirit  of  the  mother  and  her  son.  With  the 
death  of  the  mother,  according  to  Hudson,  the  lines  of  com- 
munication were  broken  and  the  messages  absolutely  ceased. 

1  "  A  Scientific  Demonstration  of  a  Future  Life,"  pp.  81-89. 


446  STRONGLY   VERIFIED 

But  there  was  at  this  time  through  the  medium  additional 
communication  from  the  mother  to  the  son.  In  a  letter  Dr. 
Savage  tells  me :  "I  know  the  son  did  have  a  good  deal  of 
conversation  with  his  mother  at  this  time.  This  conversa- 
tion was  of  a  strikingly  personal  and  remarkable  character.^* 
Dr.  Savage  comments  on  Dr.  Hudson's  explanation:  "I 
think  the  theory  of  telepathy  is  entirely  inadequate  to  account 
for  the  facts  in  this  incident,  unless  the  telepathic  agent  was 
Dr.  K.'s  mother  in  the  other  world." 

Dr.  Hudson  gratuitously  clothes  the  subjective  mind  with 
omniscience.  Grant  him  his  assumption,  then  his  task  be- 
comes an  easy  one. 

Case  III. — The  Rev.  Wm.  Stainton  Moses  gives  the 
following '  with  much  detail  of  proof,  letters  from  United 
States  government  officers  giving  the  army  records,  and 
finally  the  interview  with  the  family  in  Brooklyn  by  Epes 
Sargent.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  proof  of  spirit 
identity  more  complete  than  this  case  supplies. ,  The  facts 
as  given  by  Stainton  Moses  are,  in  brief,  that  a  spirit,  who 
claimed  to  be  an  old  American  soldier,  communicated  to  him 
(Mr.  Moses  himself  was  the  medium)  at  Isle  of  Wight,  Eng- 
land. The  spirit  said  that  his  name  was  Abraham  Floren- 
tine and  that  he  fought  on  the  American  side  in  the  War  of 
1812,  and  that  he  had  lately  died  in  Brooklyn,  U.  S.  A.,  his 
home.  He  gave  his  age  and  his  time  of  service  in  the  war. 
Rev.  Stainton  Moses  declared  that  he  had  never  heard  of  the 
existence  of  such  a  man,  but  was  so  impressed  by  the  truth- 
fulness of  the  spirit  that  he  communicated  the  facts  to  an 
English  paper  and  requested  American  papers  to  copy.  The 
case  was  taken  up  by  Epes  Sargent  in  America  and  hunted 
down,  and  it  was  found  that  all  that  this  spirit  said  about 
himself  was  truth.  Did  my  space  permit,  I  would  give  the 
case  in  full,  as  it  is  typical  of  thousands  of  others. 

Case  IV. — Rev.  Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage,  of  New  York,  gives 
an  illustration  of  a  spirit  at  work  to  relieve  the  distress  of 

»  "  Spirit  Identity,"  pp.  110-116. 


"SPIRITS"    PLANNING   RELIEF       447 

the  poor.  This  case  also  is  strong  proof  of  identity  for  two 
reasons:  (i)  It  is  so  like  the  man  as  he  was  before  he  died; 
(2)  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that  a  deceiving  spirit  would  be 
so  persistently  interested  in  doing  good  to  others.  Dr. 
Savage  tells  us  that  the  man  was  a  famous  preacher  to  the 
poor  in  Boston ;  he  and  his  wife  made  a  specialty  in  help- 
ing the  poor  who  had  few  other  friends,  calling  them  "  my 
poor."  This  preacher  took  to  himself  a  man  helper  or  col- 
league. They  both  were  entirely  orthodox,  and  naturally 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Spiritualism.  After  the 
minister's  death  a  number  of  interesting  experiences  began 
which  Dr.  Savage  says  would  fill  a  book  should  he  describe 
them  all.  The  widow  and  this  man  helper  object  to  the 
attention  of  the  public  being  called  to  their  work,  as  notoriety 
would  hinder  the  privacy  of  the  relief  which  they  give — a 
work  that  has  been  carried  forward  now  for  years — and  hence 
the  name  and  address  are  not  given. 

I  must  let  Dr.  Savage  tell  the  balance  of  the  story  in  his 
sympathetic,  interesting  way :  ^ 

"  It  cost  effort  and  money  to  carry  on  this  work,  and  no- 
body but  two  or  three  intimate  friends  were  ever  let  into  the 
secret.  The  widow  of  the  colleague  of  this  old  clergyman 
was  the  *  medium.'  She  had  never  herself  seen  a  medium  in 
her  life.  She  had  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  ordinary 
Spiritualism,  did  not  believe  in  it,  and  in  fact  was  opposed 
to  it.  "  She  was,  and  is  still,  if  living,  not  only  orthodox, 
but  intensely  religious  in  her  feelings.  Such,  then,  was  the 
situation.  This  old  clergyman  and  his  wife  were  the  claimed 
agents  in  the  unseen,  who  spoke  through  this  widow  of  his 
former  colleague,  and  made  her  their  agent  in  their  charit- 
able undertakings.  She  lived  in  a  town  not  far  from  the  city 
of  Boston.  She  would  receive  orders  to  go  into  town  to  such 
a  street  and  such  a  number,  and  would  be  told  that  there  she 
would  find  such  and  such  person  or  persons  in  such  or  such  a 
condition,  and  she  was  to  render  them  the  service  that  was 
needed.  Cases  like  this  occurred  over  and  over  again.  She 
would  follow  these  directions,  knowing  absolutely  nothing 

»  "Can  Telepathy  Explain  ?"  pp.  84-89. 


448     A   "  SPIRIT ''    PREVENTS   SUICIDE 

about  the  case  except  that  which  had  thus  been  told  her,  and 
she  said  that  there  was  never  a  mistake  made.  She  always 
found  the  person  and  the  condition  as  they  had  been  described 
to  her,  and  she  did  for  them  what  their  case  required.  In 
one  instance  she  traveled  to  a  city  in  another  State  under 
orders  like  these,  knowing  not  even  the  name  of  the  person 
she  was  to  seek  out,  except  that  which  had  been  told  her. 
She  found  the  case,  however,  as  it  had  been  reported,  and 
rendered  the  called-for  assistance.  Not  all  of  these  were 
cases  of  mere  physical  need.  Some  of  them  were  instances 
of  rescue  from  moral  peril,  the  description  of  which  would 
read  like  a  chapter  in  a  sensational  story. 

"  As  a  part  of  this  general  ministry,  another  happening  is 
worthy  of  record.  The  daughter  of  this  old  minister  received 
explicit  orders,  claiming  to  come  from  her  father  and  through 
his  colleague's  widow  as  the  medium,  to  enclose  twenty  dol- 
lars in  an  envelope  and  send  it  to  another  town,  directing  it 
to  an  address  of  which  she  had  never  heard.  She  hesitated 
about  sending  the  money  in  this  way,  and  wanted  to  wait 
and  get  a  check  so  as  to  avoid  risk  of  loss.  She  was  per- 
emptorily ordered,  however,  not  to  wait,  as  the  matter  was  one 
of  immediate  and  vital  importance.  She  sent  the  money  as 
thus  directed,  two  ten-dollar  bills.  I  have  had  the  privilege 
of  reading  the  letter  acknowledging  its  receipt.  It  was 
written  with  difficulty  and  the  use  of  a  lead  pencil,  and  the 
grammar  and  spelling  were  poor.  One  could,  however,  almost 
hear  the  'drip  of  tears  as  he  read  it.  It  told  the  story  of 
abuse  and  desertion  on  the  part  of  her  husband.  The  for- 
saken wife  had  done  all  she  could  to  keep  her  little  family 
together.  She  had  reached  the  end  of  the  endeav^or,  had  just 
pawned  her  last  bit  of  decent  furniture,  and  with  the  proceeds 
had  bought  some  charcoal  and  was  making  preparations  to  go 
out  of  the  world  and  take  her  children  with  her,  when  the 
money  arrived. 

"  There  is  one  other  incident  in  the  life  of  this  minister's 
daughter  that  is  important  enough  to  set  down,  altho  it  is  not 
connected  with  this  particular  work.  This  lady  lived  at  the 
South  End  in  Boston.  She  had  a  friend,  a  wealthy  widow, 
living  at  the  Back  Bay.  This  widow  was  known  to  a  few 
intimates  as  possessing  psychic  sensitiveness,  so  that  she 
herself  received  what  she  claimed  to  be  communications  from 
the  other  world.   One  of  those  commonly  communicating  was 


SPIRIT   TELEGRAPHY  449 

the  old  minister  I  have  referred  to,  the  father  of  the  friend 
living  at  the  South  End.  One  day  there  came  a  note  from 
Beacon  Street  asking  her  friend  to  come  and  dine  with  her 
on  the  following  Monday,  as  she  had  many  things  which  she 
wished  to  talk  over.  The  South  End  lady,  when  she  read 
the  note,  said  to  herself :  *  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  go,  for 
I  have  an  engagement  in  another  direction  at  that  time.' 
And  then  the  thought  coming  into  her  mind,  she  said  to  her- 
self:  '  Now,  if  father  does  really  communicate  with  this 
friend,  why  can  not  he  tell  her  that  I  am  engaged  next  Mon- 
day ?  If  he  only  would,  it  would  be  quite  a  satisfactory  test.  * 
Then  the  matter  passed  from  her  mind.  The  next  morning 
before  breakfast  she  wrote  a  letter  explaining  the  situation, 
and  gave  it  to  the  postman  when  he  called  with  the  mail 
about  eight  o'clock.  Now  it  is  possible  that  this  letter 
might  have  reached  Beacon  Street  in  the  twelve  o'clock 
delivery,  tho,  from  my  experience  of  years  with  the  postal 
authorities  in  Boston,  I  should  say  that  the  probabilities  are 
that  it  would  not  arrive  before  three;  but  that  is  of  no  con- 
sequence. Between  nine  and  ten  that  same  morning  the 
coachman  of  the  friend  in  Beacon  Street  appeared  with  a 
note,  which  said :  *  You  need  not  take  the  trouble  to  answer 
my  invitation,  for  your  father  has  been  here  and  has  told  me 
that  you  are  engaged  next  Monday  and  so  can  not  dine  with 
me.'" 

Case  V. — -As  repeatedly  mentioned,  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  has  been  now  for  more  than  a  dozen 
years  scientifically  investigating  these  hidden  phenomena 
through  the  mediumship  of  Mrs.  Piper,  having  control  of 
her  whole  time,  and  paying  her  a  salary  so  as  to  relieve  her 
from  all  anxiety  and  the  ordinary  temptations  that  lead  some 
mediums  "  to  help  out  the  spirits."  Mrs.  Piper  is  under  the 
immediate  supervision  of  Richard  Hodgson  in  Boston,  the 
secretary  and  treasurer  of  the  American  branch  of  the  so- 
ciety. He  is  a  man  whose  peculiar  fitness  for  this  kind  of 
work  is  recognized  both  in  Europe  and  in  America.  When 
these  psychic  investigations  began,  Mr.  Hodgson  was  "  a  hard- 
headed,  critical  skeptic,"  a  disbeliever  in  life  beyond  the 
grave,  a  scientific  materialist. 
29 


450  "MAKES   THINGS   LIVELY" 

Much  time  has  been  given  by  Mr.  Hodgson  to  the  inves- 
tigation (i)  whether  spirits  do  communicate;  (2)  whether 
any  of  those  communicating  are  the  persons  they  claim  to 
be.  The  following  case  is  deemed  by  Mr.  Hodgson  as  pecul- 
iarly conclusive  on  both  these  points : 

George  Pelham  met  his  death  suddenly  in  New  York  in 
1892.  He  had  devoted  himself  to  literature  and  philosophy, 
was  trained  as  a  lawyer,  was  a  member  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  and 
he  and  Mr.  Hodgson  were  well  acquainted  and  had  had  ear- 
nest conversations  concerning  the  future  life,  in  which  neither 
believed.  Mr.  Pelham  in  one  of  their  talks  said  that  if  he 
died  first  and  found  himself  "  still  existing,"  he  would  "  make 
things  lively  "  in  the  effort  to  reveal  to  Mr.  Hodgson  the  fact 
of  his  continued  existence. 

Shortly  after  his  death  "  George  Pelham "  appeared 
through  Mrs.  Piper,  who  did  not  know  until  long  afterward 
who  Pelham  was.  In  many  ways  and  to  a  large  number  of 
friends  he  identified  himself  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of 
Mr.  Hodgson  and  other  acquaintances.  Mr.  Hodgson  gives 
an  account  of  many  of  these  sittings  in  his  "  History  of  the 
G.  P.  Communications."  *  The  whole  story  of  the  complete 
identification  of  Pelham  by  Hodgson  makes  exceedingly  inter- 
esting reading  to  any  one  who  cares  for  these  investigations 
which  seem,  in  the  judment  of  many  of  the  ablest  members  of 
the  Society  for  Physical  Research,  to  be  leading  to  a  scien- 
tific demonstration  that  "  if  a  man  die  "  he  will  live  again. 

>  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  vol.  xiii.,  pp.  395-335> 


GHOST   PICTURES  451 

VII 

SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHY 

A  Business  Friend  Secures  Remarkable  Results  under  Test 
Conditions — He  Brings  His  Own  Plates  and  He  Him- 
self Develops  the  Pictures — Pictures  Appear  when  the 
Medium  does  not  Touch  the  Plates — And  also  when 
no  Camera  is  Used — Results  Obtained  when  Plates  are 
Left  in  their  Original  Packages — My  Friend  Secures  Pic- 
tures when  Alone  in  His  Room — Alfred  Russel  Wallace  s 
Experiences — Investigations  by  a  Member  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research 

Fraud  has  been  writ  large  over  spirit  photography,  and 
all  spirit  photographs  are  viewed  by  the  public  with  more 
suspicion  perhaps  than  is  any  other  class  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena. 

Almost  any  photographer  will  tell  us  that  "ghosts*  pic- 
tures are  easily  made;  any  of  us  can  make  them."  If  this 
be  true,  a  "trick  photograph,"  as  Alfred  Russel  Wallace 
says,  should  be  easily  detected  by  the  professional  photog- 
rapher, and  the  particular  way  the  trick  is  done  could  be 
pointed  out.  Unquestionably  many  fraudulent  mediums 
have  reaped  a  rich  harvest  in  this  field  and  many  a  fraud  has 
been  uncovered.  There  are  numerous  ways  in  which  this 
particular  class  of  frauds  is  perpetrated.  The  double  expo- 
sure is  the  most  common  of  the  tricks  employed.  A  friend 
showed  me  the  other  day  a  picture  of  himself  and  his  spirit 
daughter  leaning  upon  his  breast.  He  assured  me  that  he 
recognized  at  a  glance  that  this  was  a  picture  of  his  dead 
daughter,  and  he  declared  that  it  was  a  good  one.  In  reply 
to  my  question,  how  do  you  know  that  this  picture  of  your 
daughter  is  not  the  result  of  a  second  exposure  of  the  same 
plate,  he  pointed  triumphantly  to  a  Grand  Army  badge  that 


452  SUCCESSFUL   FRAUD 

appeared'on  her  face  in  the  photograph.  The  badge,  he  said, 
was  on  the  lapel  of  his  coat,  right  "  undsr  this  particular  spot 
in  the  spirit  faccy'  when  his  picture  was  taken,  and  he  de- 
clared that  this  badge  could  not  appear  through  a  second  ex- 
posure. This  was  not  conclusive  proof,  for  a  bright  object 
will  appear  through  a  dark  spot  in  a  second  exposure.  Be- 
sides, these  army  badges  are  easily  obtained,  and  when  a 
trick  is  to  be  played  with  one  of  them,  it  is  easy  to  place  it  on 
the  picture  or  dummy  that  "  sits  "  for  the  second  exposure. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  about  a  score  of  years  ago 
M.  Buguet,  a  "  spirit  photographer,"  was  brought  to  book  for 
fraud  by  the  French  Government.  He  confessed  that  by 
second  exposures  he  performed  his  tricks  with  the  aid  of 
dummy  figures  and  "cut  cardboards  skilfully  draped." 

A  critical  examination  of  some  of  the  older  trick  photo- 
graphs reveal  backgrounds  marked  in  a  way  that  seem  clearly 
to  indicate  that  they  were  subjected  to  second  exposures. 
But  the  tricksters  have  become  so  skilful  that  now  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  detect  frauds  by  the  markings  of  the  background. 

Mrs.  Sidgwick,  the  wife  of  the  late  Professor  Sidgwick 
of  Cambridge  University,  and  the  sister  of  Prime  Minister 
Balfour,  gives  the  following  example  *  of  what  she  thinks  to 
be  a  form  of  mental  illusions  that  sometimes  fool  honest  me- 
diums and  investigators.  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  as  the  reader  will 
recall,  was  a  very  keen  investigator  of  psychic  phenomena, 
laboring  in  behalf  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

"  A  correspondent  writes :  '  One  fine  summer's  afternoon 
in  July  or  August,  1888, 1  decided  to  be  photographed  in  the 
small  yard  at  the  back  [of  the  house]  with  my  baby  boy  on 
my  shoulders.  His  mother,  as  you  know,  had  died  eighteen 
months  before,  leaving  me  a  widower  at  twenty-seven  years 
of  age,  with  a  boy  scarcely  a  fortnight  old.  I  prepared  the 
apparatus,  focused  it,  and  instructed  my  "  buttons  "  how  to 
expose  the  plate,  and  then  took  up  my  position  with  the  child 
crowing  with  delight  as  he  occupied  so  prominent  a  part  in 

*  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  Part  xix.,  p.  s<3. 


THE   CAMERA'S   WONDERFUL   EYE     453 

the  affair.  In  a  few  seconds  the  sun  had  done  its  share, 
whereupon  I  retired  to  the  dark  room  to  develop  the  **  pic- 
ture." I  was  watching  the  plate,  as  I  slowly  agitated  the 
solution  it  was  in,  with  deep  interest  to  see  with  what  success 
we  were  to  be  repaid  for  the  trouble,  when  suddenly  there 
appeared  before  my  startled  eyes  the  form  and  lineaments  of 
my  dead  wife !  It  was  there  and  then  and  has  been  ever 
since  absolutely  inexplicable.  The  very  idea  was  entirely 
unthought  of  and  unknown  to  me.  I  had  not  then  even 
heard  of  any  such  thing  as  spirit  photography.  Her  portrait 
appeared  just  behind  myself  and  child,  between  us  and  an 
ivy-clad  wall.  It  became  clearer,  and  then  slowly  faded,  tho 
still  discernible.  When  I  had  passed  the  plate  through  the 
hyposulphite  of  soda,  washed  it,  and  took  it  to  the  daylight, 
the  likeness  was  no  longer  traceable.  ...  I  was  then,  and 
still  am,  incredulous  as  to  the  power  of  spirits  departed  to 
reappear  in  a  spiritual  imitation  of  a  material  form,  and  am 
inclined  to  consider  the  "vision  "  referred  to  above  similar  to 
those  faces  and  forms  that  I,  for  one,  can  see  in  nearly  any 
wall  paper  of  fantastic  design,  if  so  desirous. '  " 

Possibly  the  correspondent  was  right  in  his  explanation, 
but  is  there  not  room  for  a  reasonable  doubt.? 

The  fact  that  photography  lends  itself  so  easily  to  fraud 
and  illusion  should  make  us  very  circumspect  when  we  have 
to  do  with  this  class  of  phenomena.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, however,  that  the  photographic  plate  is  far  more 
sensitive  to  light  than  is  the  eye.  It  often  reveals  to  the 
astronomer  distant  stars  which  his  eye  unassisted  can  not 
see.  If  it  be  true  that  spirits  at  times  take  to  themselves 
bodies  made  up  of  matter  so  attenuated  that  the  ordinary  eye 
can  not  detect  their  presence,  there  is  not  an  a  priori  reason 
why  their  presence  might  not  be  revealed  through  pho- 
tography. In  the  examination  also  of  this  class  of  phenom- 
ena we  should  free  our  minds  from  all  predisposition. 

My  conviction  had  long  been  that  at  least  this  class  of 
phenomena  is  all  fraudulent,  but  during  the  past  year  I  have 
been  brought  face  to  face  with  a  large  number  of  experi- 
ments through  private  individuals — one  a  personal  friend — 


454  WALLACE'S   JUDGMENT 

experiments  of  such  a  startling  character  as  to  have  shaken 
my  conviction  that  all  of  this  class  are  either  fraudulent  or 
the  result  of  faulty  observation.  Before  considering  these 
new  experiments,  it  would  be  well  to  recall  to  our  attention 
the  observation  of  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  on  the  subject  of 
spiritual  photography.  *  The  world-wide  reputation  of  Wal- 
lace as  a  careful  scientific  observer  claims  justly  for  his 
conclusion  most  careful  consideration : 

"  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes  advised  the  Dialectical  Committee  to 
distinguish  carefully  between  *  facts  and  inferences  fronii 
facts.'  This  is  especially  necessary  in  the  case  of  what  are 
called  spirit  photographs.  The  figures  which  occur  in  these, 
when  not  produced  by  any  human  agency,  may  be  of  *  spiri- 
tual'  origin  without  being  figures  *  of  spirits.'  There  is 
much  evidence  to  show  that  they  are,  in  some  cases,  forms 
produced  by  invisible  intelligences,  but  distinct  from  them. 
In  other  cases  the  intelligence  appears  to  clothe  itself  with 
matter  capable  of  being  perceived  by  us;  but  even  then  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  form  produced  is  the  actual  image 
of  the  spiritual  form.  It  may  be  but  a  reproduction  of  the 
former  mortal  form  with  its  terrestrial  accompaniments,/^/' 
purposes  of  recognition.^' 

Mr.  Wallace  points  out  a  number  of  tests  that  should  be 
applied  to  avoid  fraud  and  self-deception  in  making  these 
photographic  experiments.  He  then  gives  an  account  of  a 
number  of  successful  experiments  he  himself  and  friends 
made  under  severe  scientific  test  conditions,  which  led  him 
finally  to  the  conclusion  that  spirit-photography  is  to  his  mind 
an  indisputable  fact. 

New  Series  of  Experiments  in  Spirit  Photography 

Dr.  William  J.  Pierce,  who  figures  largely  in  these  exper- 
iments, is  a  business  man  with  whom  I  am  personally  ac- 
quainted.    That  he  is  a  man  of  probity  those  who  have 

^>  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  **  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,"  pp.  198-198. 


YEARS   OF   TESTING  455 

known  him  intimately  for  many  years  strongly  testify/  He 
is  a  manufacturer  and  inventor  and  has  been  for  twenty-five 
years  at  the  head  of  his  business  house,  having  succeeded  his 
father,  with  home  office  and  manufactory  at  206  Post  Street, 
San  Francisco,  and  branches  at  33  West  Twenty-fourth 
Street,  New  York,  and  10  City  Road,  London,  E.  C, 
England. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  first  series  of  experiments  by 
Dr.  Pierce  were  made  in  his  business  office  with  his  own 
negatives,  he  himself  attending  to  the  developing.  He  is 
an  amateur  photographer  of  much  experience.  In  no  case 
did  he  permit  the  medium  photographer,  Mr.  Wyllie,  to  have 
possession  of  the  negative.  This  series,  together  with  the 
descriptions  which  accompany  it,  was  sent  by  Dr.  Pierce  in 
the  first  instance  to  H.  A.  Reid,  M.  D.,  president  of  the 
Pasadena,  Cal.,  S.  P.  R.'  Dr.  Reid,  after  receiving  this 
report,  wrote  to  Dr.  Pierce,  most  heartily  commending  the 
skill  he  evinced  in  these  expe'KJments. 

In  answer  to  my  letters  of  inquiry,  Dr.  Reid  wrote  me  at 
length,  sending  me  descriptions  of  his  own  extended  investi- 
gations through  this  same  medium.     He  says : 

"  I  spent  over  two  years  *  investigating  *  Mr.  Wyllie's 
'spirit-photo  '  business.  Every  hint,  suspicion,  or  rumor  of 
fraud  on  his  part  I  followed  up  as  doggedly  as  ever  a  Pinker- 
ton  detective  followed  a  clew  to  crime.     And  in  every  in- 

1  JRev.  Andrew  Parsons^  Pastor  of  the  First  New  Jerusalem  Church,  San  Fran- 
cisco, Cal.,  writes  me  under  date  of  December  14,  1903  :  "  I  have  known  Dr.  Pierce 
for  over  three  years.  He  is  a  trusted  member  of  this  society,  and  a  successful  busi- 
ness man.  I  have  always  taken  him  to  be  a  man  of  integrity  and  of  good  practical 
judgment." 

F.  A.  Berlin,  attorney-at-law,  522  Montgomery  Street,  San  Francisco,  Cal., 
writes  under  date  of  December  10,  1903  :  "  I  have  known  Dr.  Pierce  about  twenty- 
eight  years,  and  have  always  found  him  to  be  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity  and 
one  of  the  most  careful  and  cautious  business  men  I  know." 

Rev.  D.  V.  Bowen,  113  Mulberry  Street,  Springfield,  Mass.,  writes  under  date 
of  December  8,  1903  :  "  I  have  known  Dr.  Pierce  for  many  years,  and  in  very  inti- 
mate relations ;  his  integrity  can  not  be  questioned,  and  I  know  of  no  one  who 
would  be  less  likely  to  be  imposed  upon  as  an  observer  or  investigator  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  which  you  speak  than  Dr.  Pierce." 

'Dr.  Reid  is  also  Associate  Member  of  the  London  S.  P.  R.,  and  was  five  years 
executive  secretary  of  the  State  Academy  of  Science,  Des  Moines,  Iowa. 


456  INVOLVES    BIBLE   FAITH 

stance  when  I  got  down  to  bedrock  facts  of  the  case  there 
was  absolutely  nothing  that  could  stand  in  a  court  of  equity 
for  a  minute.  This  was  true  as  to  suspicions  of  my  own  as 
well  as  imputations  made  by  others.  The  accusations  or 
suspicions  were  every  time,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge, 
critical  acumen,  and  fair  judgment,  shown  to  be  groundless 
and  unjust,  and  their  origin  fully  accounted  for  in  a  way  that 
was  not  evasive,  foggy,  or  quibbling.  It  would  make  a  big 
book  to  relate  in  detail  the  stress  of  time,  labor,  personal 
discomfort,  money  cost,  and  pushing  of  interviews  with  wit- 
nesses that  I  underwent  in  hunting  these  things  to  their 
holes,  and  finding  that  there  was  *  nothing  in  it.'  As  a  final 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  I  hold  most  profoundly  that 
my  researches  have  settled  and  verified  this  fact — that  the 
phenomena  of  so-called  spirit  photography  have  occurred  and 
do  occur  at  times  as  natural- law  phenomena^  without  any 
trickery  or  fraud  of  manipulation.  Beyond  this  I  do  not 
assert. 

"  If  the  testimony  I  have  collected  as  to  this  main  fact  is 
not  sufficient  to  substantiate  this  conclusion,  then  human 
testimony  can  not  substantiate  anything,  and  every  man  ever 
convicted  of  capital  crime  on  human  testimony  was  executed 
without  valid  proof.  Also,  then  every  psychic  phenomenon 
or  so-called  miracle  recorded  in  either  Old  or  New  Testa- 
ment has  no  proof  and  no  validity.  It  is  simply  crass  mate- 
rialism pitted  against  anything  that  can  not  be  explained  by 
known  physical  laws,  and  denying  the  possibility  of  any 
phenomenal  intrusion  of  spiritual  entities  or  forces  into  the 
realm  of  enfleshed  life.  I  consider  that  the  whole  founda- 
tion of  Christian  faith  in  the  life  and  career  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  His  apostles  is  involved  in  this  Psychical  Research 
movement. 

"  As  to  Mr.  Wyllie,  the  medium,  he  was  always  willing 
to  submit  to  any  sort  of  test  conditions  that  I  could  devise. 
In  all  my  intercourse  with  him  he  never  showed  the  least 
sign  of  having  anything  secret  or  hidden  or  mysterious  about 
his  business.  I  never  found  him  evasive,  nor  even  caught 
him  in  any  misrepresentation.  He  was  always  ready  to  help 
me  to  find  the  address  of  anybody  whom  I  wished  to  visit 
personally  or  to  correspond  with ;  and  he  told  me  freely  of 
patrons  who  went  away  disappointed,  disgusted,  sometimes 
*  mad,'  because  they  didn't  get  what  they  had  expected  to  get." 


TESTS    BY    A    BUSINESS    MAN 


457 


Dr.    Willimn  J.  Pierce  s  Report  of  His  Investigations 

"  This  report,  concerning  results  obtained  during  my  in- 
vestigations of  the  phenomena  commonly  known  as  *  spirit 
photography '  as  demonstrated  through  the  mediumship  of 
Mr.  Edward  Wyllie,  in  the  city  of  San   F'rancisco,  has  been 


Test  Photograph  taken  January  9th,  1903— (p   458). 

prepared  at  the  request  of  H.  A.  Reid,  M.D.,  133  Mar) 
Street,  Pasadena,  CaL,  in  answer  to  queries  propounded  b) 
him,  as  shown  below : 

"  Question   i. — When  and  how  many  times  did  you  procure  picture: 
without  using  camera  or  exposing  plates? 


458  MANY    PICTURES    TAKEN 

"Answer. — Between  January  i,  1902,  and  the  date  of 
this  writing  I  have  secured  satisfactory  results  on  plates  used 
in  the  manner  indicated  above  in  about  ten  instances,  the 
exact  and  approximate  dates  being  as  follows : 

"  During  the  month  of  February,  1902,  one  plate  on  which 
the  face  of  a  young  child  appeared.  Also  one  plate  showing 
face  of  an  old  man. 

"  December  9,  1902. — A  face  (supposed  to  be  that  of  an 
ancient  Egyptian)  appears  on  the  plate  used  on  this  date. 

"January  9,  1903. — The  face  of  a  military-looking  man 
appears  on  this  plate.  A  copy  accompanies  this  report, 
showing  the  date  (see  page  457). 

"January  23,  1903. — Face  of  a  small  child  made  its  ap- 
pearance on  the  plate  used  on  this  occasion. 

"  February  6,  1903. — Two  faces  appear  on  one  plate  on 
this  date,  one  face  much  resembling  that  of  the  military  man 
above  mentioned  and  the  other  that  of  the  Egyptian  previ- 
ously spoken  of. 

"  Note. — The  face  of  the  latter  is  somewhat  indistinct 
in  this  picture,  but  altho  the  picture  of  each  individual  has 
apparently  been  taken  from  a  different  point  of  view  from 
that  of  the  pictures  of  December  9,  1902,  and  January  9, 
1903,  the  personal  resemblance  in  each  instance  is  quite 
marked. 

"February  13,  1903. — The  face  of  a  woman  appears  on 
this  plate. 

"March  27,  1903. — Two  plates  were  experimented  upon 
on  this  date,  one  showing  up  the  face  of  a  woman  and  the 
other  that  of  a  man ;  the  latter  appearing  to  be  that  of  the 
military  man  already  mentioned,  but  evidently  taken  from 
another  point  of  view  from  that  of  either  of  the  others  previ- 
ously obtained. 

"April  I,  1903. — The  face  of  a  man  appears  on  the  plate 
held  on  this  occasion.  Memo. — A  print  from  this  negative 
accompanies  this  report,  to  illustrate  the  manner  of  picture 
usually  obtained  by  me  under  the  test  conditions  specified  in 
this  narrative  (see  page  459). 

"  Note. — I  would  add  to  the  above  statements  by  men- 
tioning the  fact  that  altho  almost  an  equal  number  of  plates 
(sensitized)  were  subjected  to  similar  tests  at  various  times 
during  the  period  named  in  this  report,  no  faces  whatever 
made  their  appearance  thereon  at  any  time. 


DEVELOPED    BY    HIMSELF 

Q.  2.— Did  you  or  did  Mr.  Wyllie  provide  the  plates? 


459 


''A.— I   provided   my  own  plates   in  every  instance  and 
marked  them  myself  in  every  case  before  he  touched  them. 

1  •   u?'  ?'C~^^^^  precautions,  if  any,  did  you  take  to  guard  against  any 
sleight-ot-hand  change  of  plates  being  made  by  the  medium  ?  ^ 

"A. — I   marked   the   plates   privately,  in    my  own  dark 
room,  before  taking  them  to  him,   never  allowed    them  to 


Test  Photograph  taken  April  ist,  Tgo3-(p.  458). 

leave  my  hands  for  an  instant  of  time  while  in  his  presence, 
developed  them  in  my  own  rooms,  kept  them  carefully  in 
my  possession  until  such  development  was  made,  and  in 
addition  thereto  took  every  other  precaution  that    I    could 


46o  NO    CAMERA    USED 

think  of  to  guard  against  possible  deception  of  any  descrip- 
tion. 

"  Q.  4. — How  many  unseen  faces  appeared  and  how  many  were  recog- 
nized ? 

"A. — In  my  reply  to  '  No.  i,'  it  is  shown  that  the  num- 
ber of  faces  which  appeared  on  the  plates  held  by  Mr. 
Wyllie  and  myself  amounted  to  eleven,  but  for  reasons  pre- 
viously mentioned  it  would  seem  that  not  quite  that  many 
individuals  are  represented  thereon.  Replying  further, 
would  say  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  identify  or  recognize 
any  of  the  faces  mentioned  above  or  of  any  one  in  the  photo- 
graphs obtained  through  Mr.  Wyllie  with  a  camera  (excepting 
the  sitter),  up  to  the  date  of  this  report. 

"  Q.  5. — Are  you  fully  convinced  that  they  were  produced  by  some 
natural  or  psychic  law  of  mediumship  and  not  by  any  hand-skill  or  trick 
of  the  medium  ? 

"A. — I  have  been  unable  to  detect  any  fraud  or  sleight- 
of-hand  work  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Wyllie  in  this  matter,  and, 
being  very  sure  that  I  did  not  do  it  myself  for  the  purpose  of 
fooling  myself  or  any  one  else,  am  naturally  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  must  have  been  done  by  some  invisible  in- 
telligent power,  operating  through  the  medium,  Mr.  W^yllie, 
who  thus  appears  to  be  merely  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
the  power  of  force,  and  therefore  not  a  sleight-of-hand  per- 
former or  trickster. 

"  Q.  6. — Did  any  living  person  or  sitter  appear  on  the  plates? 

"  A. — Not  being  able  to  recognize  any  of  the  faces  as  yet 
that  have  appeared  on  the  plates,  I  am  unable  to  say  whether 
any  one  now  living  on  this  earth  is  represented  therein  or 
not.  Inasmuch  as  the  plates  particularly  referred  to  in  this 
article  were  not  exposed  through  the  camera,  as  is  usual  in 
taking  photographs  of  living  persons  or  other  objects  in  the 
light,  there  was,  of  course,  nothing  of  this  sort  visible  on 
these  plates. 

"  Q.  7. — Are  there  any  other  points  or  explanations  of  your  knowledge 
or  experience  in  connection  with  this  strange  subject? 

"  A. — Regarding  my  personal  views,  in  addition  to  those 
already  expressed,  would  say  I  have  been  a  careful  and  ear- 
nest investigator  of  many  phases  of  the  phenomena  commonly 


MEDIUM    CLOSELY  WATCHED       461 

known  as  'Spiritism'  and  '  Spiritualism,'  during  a  period 
extending  over  the  past  eighteen  years,  but  up  to  this  writing 
I  have  been  unable  to  arrive  at  any  definite  conclusion  in 
regard  to  the  truth  of  the  claims  advanced  by  those  who  fully 
believe  therein. 

"  Note. — This  report  is  accompanied  by  two  others, 
on  the  same  subject,  from  personal  friends  who  are  some- 
what interested  in  my  investigations  along  these  lines  of 
thought.  In  addition  to  the  details  contained  in  these  state- 
ments, I  shall  conclude  my  report  at  this  time  by  inviting 
attention  to  the  accompanying  diagram  and  descriptive  notes, 
regarding  a  recent  experiment  and  test  made  through  the 
mediumship  of  Mr.  Wyllie  (April  20,  1903).      See  page  462. 

''  In  this  experiment,  as  in  several  others  mentioned 
herein,  the  plates  used  were  my  own,  and  were  arranged, 
handled,  and  developed  by  myself;  positively  no  one  else 
(except  Mr.  Wyllie)  had  any  opportunity  to  touch  them,  and, 
during  the  minute  or  two  in  which  his  hands  were  placed 
upon  them,  the  plates  never  left  my  own  hand  for  an  instant. 
It  will  be  observed  from  the  arrangement  of  the  two  plates 
that  it  was  an  utter  impossibility  for  Mr.  Wyllie  to  bring 
either  of  his  hands  in  direct  contact  with  the  sensitized 
plate  on  the  film  side,  both  hands  coming  in  contact  with  the 
plain  glass  and  nothing  else,  except  possibly  the  cord  on 
the  end  nearest  him  which  served  to  hold  the  two  plates 
together.  The  other  end  of  the  combination  I  looked  after 
myself,  and  can  guarantee  that  the  plates  were  not  separated 
during  the  experiment,  as  my  fingers  were  so  placed  as 
to  touch  the  edges  of  both  plates  during  the  whole  of  the 
time  the  experiment  took  place.  Notwithstanding  these  test 
conditions,  a  face  made  its  appearance  on  the  sensitized 
film — a  face  somewhat  indistinct  and  '  out  of  focus,'  it  is 
true,  but  sufficiently  plain  to  be  easily  recognized  as  that  of 
the  military- looking  individual  referred  to  in  '  Answer  No. 
I  '  of  this  report,  under  dates  of  January  9,  1903,  February 
6,  1903,  and  March  27,  1903. 

"  Respectfully  submitted, 

"  (Signed)         William  J.  Pierce. 
"  26  Post  Street,  San  Francisco,  Gal. 
"April  23,  1903. 


462 


WELL   PLANNED   TEST 


C'- 


L-. 


c- 

/ 


Test  Photograph  taken  April  20th,  1903 — (p.  461). 


"  Explanation  of  Diagram. 

"rt,  Plain  glass  plate,  size  4X5  inches. 

"  <^,  Sensitized  plate  (4  X  5)  with  the  film  side  facing  inward,  toward 
plate  a. 

"  c,  Thick  strawboard  comers,  placed  between  the  plates  a  and  b.  and 
separating  them,  as  shown. 

"^,  Location  of  face  which  appeared  on  plate  b  when  developed. 

"  ^,  Several  dark  spots  which  also  appeared  on  plate  b  when  devel- 
oped, two  of  the  spots  resembling  small  faces. 

"  /",  String  or  twine,  holding  plates  a  and  b  together  against  the  straw- 
board  corner  pieces,  as  shown  by  the  diagram." 


LEADING    PREACHER    BALKED       463 


Experiment  of   Rev.  J.  T.  Wills,'  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Franklin   Street  Presbyterian  C/mrchy   San 

Francisco,  Cal. 

"  I  wish  to  say  that  for  some  time  past  my  friend,  Dr. 
W.  J.  Pierce,  of  this  city,  had  been  telling  me  some  strange 
things  about  spirit  photography,  which  seemed  to  me  incredi- 
ble, and,  but  for  the  fact  that  they  were  told  me  by  such  a 
man  as  Dr.  Pierce,  I  should  have  paid  no  attention  to  them ; 
but  having  known  him  for  over  thirty  years  as  a  man  of  truth, 
I  could  not  doubt  his  word  for  one  moment,  but  fearing  it 
possible  that  the  doctor  might  be  deceived  in  some  way  in 
the  matter,  I  said  to  him  that  I  would  like  to  see  for  myself 
how  the  thing  was  done  and  if  possible  find  out  the  secret  of 
the  process ;  and  so  to  gratify  my  wish  the  doctor  made  an 
engagement  with  the  medium,  Mr.  Edward  Wyllie,  to  meet 
me  at  the  doctor's  office  on  April  i  at  4  p.m.,  where  the  doc- 
tor has  a  dark  room  and  all  the  equipment  for  photography 
development  purposes.  At  the  time  appointed  I  went,  and 
on  my  way  I  called  at  a  place  where  photographic  supplies  are 
sold  and  bought  a  half-dozen  4x5  Crown-Cramer  sensitized 
plates  and  took  them  with  me  in  my  coat  pocket  to  the  office, 
where  I  met  the  medium,  who  impressed  me  as  being  an 
honest  man.  After  some  little  talk  with  him  I  told  him  I 
wanted  to  test  the  matter  for  myself,  and  that  I  would  like 
him  to  wash  his  hands,  which  he  did,  first  in  alcohol,  then 
with  soap  and  water,  then  again  in  alcohol,  and  then  he 
dried  them  thoroughly  with  a  clean  towel ;  and  when  his 
hands  were  examined  and  found  to  be  perfectly  clean,  we 
went  into  the  dark  room,  which  was  not  really  dark,  but  was 
lighted  with  a  little  lamp  with  orange  color  light  such  as 
photographers  use  in  the  developing-room.  Then  I  took  the 
plates  out  of  my  pocket  and  took  one  plate  out  of  the  pack- 
age, and  after  marking  it  on  one  corner  thus,  0,  and  holding 
it  at  each  corner  of  the  end  toward  me,  I  held  the  plate  to- 
ward the  medium,  who  placed  his  hands,  the  one  on  the  top 
and  the  other  underneath,  holding  the  plate  between  his 
palms,  while  I  continued  to  hold  on  to  the  corners  and  never 
let  it  go  from  my  grasp  for  one  instant,  until,  to  my  surprise, 

1  Dr.  Wills  is  a  clergyman  who  stands  well  in  his  denomination  and  has  an  ex- 
tensive reputation  for  pulpit  ability. 


464 


PICTURE    RECOGNIZED 


I  heard  three  distinct  taps  upon  the  plate;  then  the  medium 
removed  his  hands  and  I  put  the  plate  at  once  into  the 
developer  and  developed  it  myself,  no  one  touching  it  for  an 
instant  but  myself,  neither  was  it  out  of  my  possession  for 
one  second  from  the  time  that  I  bought  it  some  four  blocks 
away  until  I  had  it  fully  developed;  and  to  my  astonishment 


t 


Test  Photograph  taken  by  Rev.  J.  T.  Wills,  D.D. 

there  was  the  face  of  a  lady  on  it,  and  that  so  plain  that  it 
has  been  recognized  by  my  daughter  as  the  likeness  of  a  lady 
who  was  never  in  California  and  who  died  in  England  several 
years  ago.      [See  Photograph  on  this  page.] 

"  After  this  I  gave  the  medium  another  test  in  the  same 
manner,  and  witn  the  result  of  another  face,  of  an  unknown 
man.      Then  the  doctor  tried  another  plate  after  the  .same 


"I    KNOW    NOT"  465 

fashion,  and  then  his  bookkeeper  another,  each  with  the  result 
of  another  and  a  different  face ;  so  that  in  the  course  of 
about  fifteen  minutes  we  had  four  tests,  with  four  distinct 
and  different  faces,  through  the  same  medium  and  in  the 
same  manner.  Then  I  felt  compelled  to  acknowledge  that 
by  a  force  not  visible  to  me  this  work  was  done ;  but  how  or 
by  what  power  it  is  done  /  know  not.  I  would  like  some 
one  to  tell  me  how  it  is  done. 

"(Signed)  J.  T.   Wills,  D.D. 

"  The  Abbotsford,  San  Francisco,   Cal. 
"April  9,  1903." 

Report  of  Experiments  by  ArtJinr  G.  Krmise 

"This  is  to  certify  that  on  a  certain  day  in  March,  1902, 
Mr.  Ed.  Wyllie,  a  photo,  medium,  called  at  the  office  of  Dr. 
W.  J.  Pierce;  but  not  finding  him  in,  he  was  just  on  the 
point  of  leaving  when  I  suggested  to  him  that  he  place  his 
hands  on  one  of  several  4X5  Seed's  Gilt-edge  No.  27  plates, 
which  I  had  had  nearly  three  years  in  my  possession  and 
which  were  bought  before  I  had  ever  heard  of  Dr.  Pierce, 
Mr.  Wyllie,  or  spirit  photography. 

"  Mr.  Wyllie  was  reluctant  to  do  so,  as  he  said  he  had  to 
return  to  his  office  without  delay,  but  consented ;  and,  taking 
one  of  the  plates  above  mentioned  (there  being  no  other),  we 
went  into  a  dark  room,  where  Mr.  Wyllie  held  the  plate  not 
over  eight  or  ten  seconds,  which  plate  never  left  my  posses- 
sion; two  of  the  corners  of  which  I  held,  as  Mr.  Wyllie 
placed  his  hands  thereon.  Upon  my  developing  it  later  there 
appeared  the  clear  features  of  a  lady,  a  print  of  which  is  here- 
with given  (see  page  466).  This  plate  was  not  exposed  in 
a  camera  nor  have  the  features  been  recognized  by  any  one 
so  far. 

"On  April  i,  1903,  I  was  present  at  the  test  imposed 
upon  Mr.  Wyllie,  being  the  bookkeeper  referred  to  in  the 
letter  of  the  Rev.  J.  T.  Wills,  D.D.  I  was  a  witness  to  all 
that  occurred  and  can  fully  substantiate  all  statements  made 
by  Rev.  J.  T.  Wills,  D.D.,  and  Dr.  Pierce,  and  I  also  heard 
the  three  distinct  taps  on  the  plates  on  which  Mr.  Wyllie 
had  placed  his  hands. 

"  On  the  plate  held  by  Mr.  Wyllie  and  myself,  the  head 
of  a  lady  with  closed  eyes  and  a  peculiar  cap  on  her  head 
30 


466 


MEDIUM    CAN'T    DO    IT 


made  its  appearance,  which   face  has   not  been  recognized. 
(Print  of  this  lady  is  herewith  given  see  page  467.), 

"  I  have  never  had  any  reason  to  believe  Mr.  Wyllie  to  be 
other  than  an  honest  man,  nothing  suspicious  about  his  ac- 


Test  Photograph  taken  by  Arthur  G.  Krause,  March,  1903 — (p.  465). 


tions,  and  always  ready  to  submit  to  any  test  conditions  im- 
posed upon  him.  I  believe  Mr.  Wyllie  docs  not  and  can  not 
control  the  power  that  operates  through  him,  as  he  is  never 
positively  certain  whether  there  is  or  is  not  anything  on  the 
plate  he  places  his  hands  upon. 

"  (Signed)         Arthur  G.  Krause. 
"  The  Abbotsford,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 
"April  T  T,  190.^" 


CLOSELY   CATECHIZED 


467 


% 


Supplemental  Questions  which    I    Submitted    to    Dr. 
Pierce,  and  His  Answers 

Question  i. — "  How  far  did  the  paper  comers  in  the  test  of  April  20 
separate  the  plates ;  and  why  were  these  paper  corners  used ;  and  what 
precaution  did  you  take  to  prevent  the  medium  slipping  a  paper  or  some 
print  between  the  plates  along  their  upper  edges?" 

Answer. — ''Upon  measurement  I  find  the  thickness  of 
the  paper  (strawboard)  corner  pieces  referred  to  was  exactly 


Test  Photograph  taken  by  Arthur  G.  Krause,  March,  1903— (p.  465). 

one-eighth  of  an  inch.  Upon  reasoning  the  matter  out  for 
myself,  I  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  by  leaving  a  little 
distance  between  the  two  plates,  instead  of  bringing  them 


468  CURIOUS    LIGHT    EFFECTS 

into  direct  contact  with  each  other,  I  should  be  more  likely 
to  obtain  satisfactory  results  than  would  be  possible  other- 
wise. My  object  was  to  provide  effectually  against  the  me- 
dium bringing  any  part  of  his  hands  in  direct  contact  with 
the  film  (sensitized)  side  of  the  plate,  and  in  this  test  I  posi- 
tively know  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  have  done  so  with- 
out my  knowledge.  While  taking  no  special  precaution  to 
prevent  his  slipping  a  paper  or  print  between  the  plates,  I  am 
confident  that  he  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  for  there  was  suffi- 
cient evidence  to  my  mind  that  he  merely  laid  one  hand  on 
the  upper  plate  and  the  other  on  the  lower,  for  the  space  of 
a  few  seconds,  keeping  them  in  that  position  quietly,  with- 
out further  manipulation." 

Q.  2. — "  In  this  test  did  the  sensitized  surfaces  touch  so  that  it  was 
impossible  for  anything  to  have  slipped  between?  That  is.  did  you  hold 
them  in  such  a  way  as  to  press  the  surfaces  together?  Explain  just  what 
care  you  took  in  this  test," 

A. — "  The  only  difference  between  the  test  of  April  22 
[not  given]  and  the  one  of  the  20th  of  the  same  month  was 
with  reference  to  the  fact  that  I  used  two  sensitized  plates 
(both  facing  inward),  instead  of  one  sensitized  and  one  plain 
glass  plate,  as  in  the  former  experiment.  In  all  other  respects 
the  arrangement  was  the  same,  with  the  exception  that  I  took 
still  further  precautions  in  tying  the  combination  together, 
using  four  pieces  of  twine  instead  of  two  and  running  the 
same  along  the  plates  lengthwise  as  well  as  across  both  ends 
thereof.  In  this  connection  permit  me  to  call  your  attention 
to  the  fact  that,  altho  the  two  plates  were  held  tightly  to- 
gether during  the  experiment,  not  only  by  the  cords  with 
which  they  were  tied,  but  by  my  two  hands  as  well,  as  strong 
a  light  or  manifestation  of  power  appeared  bctivccn  one  of  tJic 
comer  pieces  and  one  of  tJic  plates  as  appeared  elsewhere  at 
that  time.  See  print,  which  not  only  shows  the  light  men- 
tioned, but  shadow  of  the  straw-board  corner  piece  referred 
to  above."      [An  interesting  study,  but  no  face  appeared.] 

Q.  3. — "  Did  the  medium  or  his  control  explain  why  no  picture  ap- 
peared in  test  of  April  22  ?" 

A. — "No  explanation  was  asked  for  by  me,  nor  was  it 
volunteered  by  either  the  medium  or  his  control.  Under  the 
conditions  imposed,  the  test  was  satisfactory  and  pleasing  to 
me." 


MEDIUM'S    HANDS    CLEAN  469 

Q.  4. — "  Were  you  aware  of  the  possibility  of  a  medium  having  on 
his  arm  or  other  part  of  his  person  a  picture  sketched  with  acid,  and  then 
transferring  this  sketch  by  touching  the  same  with  his  hand  and  then 
touching  the  sensitized  plate  with  his  hand?  What  precautions  did  you 
take  to  prevent  such  transfer  being  made  in  your  experiments?" 

A. — "  My  precautions  for  preventing  the  medium  touching 
the  sensitized  plate  with  his  hand  or  any  other  part  of  his 
body  have  already  been  fully  described  in  my  report  to  Dr. 
Reid,  of  which  you  have  now  a  copy,  and  of  which  further 
particulars  are  given  in  this  communication.  See  above,  an- 
swers to  Questions  i  and  2.  Replying  further  to  Query  4, 
would  respectfully  beg  to  state  that  I  was  investigating  what 
appeared  to  come  under  the  name  of  '  photography,'  i.e.,  the 
appearance  of  what  appeared  to  be  the  faces  of  living  persons 
on  sensitized  photographic  plates,  which  could  be  '  printed  ' 
by  exposure  to  sun  or  other  suitable  light,  resulting  in  effects 
warranted  to  justify  this  theory.  I  was  not  in  the  least  con- 
cerned about  sketches  made  with  ink  or  acid,  visible  or  in- 
visible, nor  with  wash-drawings,  engravings,  pencil  sketches, 
etc.,  on  '  his  arm  or  other  part  of  his  person,'  for  such  things 
had  never,  in  my  experience  with  this  medium,  been  repro- 
duced on  any  plate  held  by  him  in  my  presence.  To  all 
appearances  they  were  photographs  or  reproductions  of  photo- 
graphs of  living  perso7is,  exhibiting  the  proper  gradation  of 
lights  and  shadows  usual  in  ordinary  photographs." 

Q.  5. — "  During  the  tests  did  the  medium  have  anything  in  or  on  his 
hand  or  fingers,  such  as  a  ring?" 

A.  — ''  The  medium  never  had  anything  unusual  about  his 
hands  or  fingers,  altho  he  usually  wore  a  couple  of  small  gold 
rings  on  one  of  his  little  fingers.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
test  at  my  San  Francisco  office  (as  well  as  on  one  or  two 
other  occasions),  as  will  be  noticed  by  reference  to  my  report 
to  Dr.  Reid,  it  will  be  apparent  that  these  rings  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  manifestations  under  consideration. 
Before  making  the  experiments  of  April  20  he  removed  his 
rings  when  washing  his  hands,  and  when  leaving  the  ofiice 
an  hour  or  two  later  went  away  without  them.  Shortly  there- 
after I  found  them  where  he  had  left  them  and  took  them 
back  to  him  a  day  or  two  later.  Meanwhile  his  business  of 
taking  '  spirit  photographs  '  evidently  went  along  as  usual,  as 
he  evinced  no  haste  in  asking  for  the  return  of  the  rings, 
merely  telephoning  to  inquire  whether  we  had  found  them." 


470         SUFFICIENT    LIGHT    TO    SEE 

Q.  6. — "  Did  you  observe  any  light  or  anything  else  abnormal  about 
the  hands  of  the  medium  ? " 

A. — '*  No,  I  did  not  observe  light  or  anything  abnormal 
about  the  hands  of  the  medium  (except  light  rappings,  sounds) 
on  April  20  or  22,  or  on  other  occasions,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  two  or  three  times.  Not  to  exceed  this  number  of 
times,  I  did  see  lights  of  various  shades  of  color  floating 
about  the  medium,  some  being  so  far  from  him  that  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  to  have  manipulated  them  him- 
self if  he  had  tried  to  do  so. " 

Q.  7. — "  Kindly  restate  the  precautions  you  took  to  prevent  any  pos- 
sible tampering  with  the  plates  prior  to  the  tests  or  immediately  succeed- 
ing the  tests." 

A. — ''  I  do  not  see  how^  I  can  add  anything  to  what  I 
have  already  stated  herein  and  in  my  report  to  Dr.  Reid  to 
prove  that  I  have  conducted  this  investigation  with  the  ut- 
most care,  guarding  against  every  possible  avenue  by  which 
fraud  might  enter.  My  investigations  in  this  particular  phe- 
nomenon embrace,  not  one  or  two,  but  many  experiments, 
extending  over  a  period  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  months  or 
thereabouts,  and  on  nearly  every  occasion  I  took  some  new 
precaution  to  guard  against  possible  deception.  To  describe 
them  all  would  tax  my  memory  and  your  time  perhaps  rather 
more  than  is  necessary.  I  will  say,  however,  that  on  several 
dates  when  satisfactory  results  were  had,  I  positively  know 
that  no  one  could  have  had  a  chance  to  handle  the  plates  from 
the  time  that  I  took  each  from  the  unbroken  package  as  it 
was  sent  out  by  the  makers  until  I  placed  it  in  the  developing- 
dish  (after  the  medium  had  placed  his  hands  upon  it  in  my 
presence  and  while  I  held  the  end  thereof),  and  watched  the 
face  of  the  so-called  '  spirit '  slowly  or  sometimes  more 
quickly  make  its  appearance  thereon.  I  repeatedly  examined 
the  sensitized  plate  before  developing  in  as  strong  an  orange- 
colored  light  as  possible  to  prevent  '  fogging,'  to  see  if  any 
marks,  spots,  etc. ,  could  be  detected  on  the  film ;  but  never 
a  sign  of  anything  could  I  see." 

Q.  8. — "Were  your  plates  kept  where  your  bookkeeper  or  other  per 
son  or  persons  could  have  had  access  to  them?" 

A. — "  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  the  honesty  of  my  book- 
keeper or  of  any  one  about  the  premises  where  the  sensitized 


OF    GOOD    REPUTATION.  471 

plates  were  kept,  nor  was  there  any  reason  why  any  one  in 
my  employ  should  endeavor  to  deceive  me  in  this  matter,  but 
quite  to  the  contrary.  The  only  one  about  the  premises  who 
had  any  knowledge  of  photography  or  knew  where  the  plates 
were  kept  was  my  confidential  clerk  and  bookkeeper,  and,  as 
already  stated,  I  believe  him  to  be  a  man  of  integrity  and 
worthy  of  trust.  But  even  with  him  I  did  not  always  go 
about  advertising  what  I  was  going  to  do  or  when  I  was 
going  to  do  it  in  the  matter  of  making  these  tests,  and  he 
had  sense  enough  to  attend  to  his  duties  at  the  office  and  sim- 
ply assist  in  these  experiments  when  he  was  requested  to 
do  so." 

Q,  9. — "  Did  you  make  any  examination  of  the  medium's  hands  and 
clothing  immediately  before  and  immediately  after  the  tests?" 

A. — "  Of  his  hands,  yes,  on  numerous  occasions ;  of  his 
clothing,  no.  I  saw  no  reason  for  the  latter.  To  have  done 
this  I  should  have  had  to  request  him  to  take  off  every  ves- 
tige of  clothing,  shave  off  his  hair,  and  seal  up  his  mouth. 
This  I  considered  going  a  little  too  far,  nor  was  it  at  all 
necessary  in  view  of  the  other  precautions  I  took." 

Q.  10. —  "Do  you  know  whether  this  medium  has  ever  been  charged 
with  trick  or  fraud,  and  if  so,  has  any  proof  been  furnished?" 

A. — "  I  never  heard  any  one  charge  this  medium  with 
fraud  or  trickery  and  never  heard  of  any  proof  to  substantiate 
such  charge." 

Q.  II. — "What  is  the  reputation  of  the  medium  among  Spiritualists 
and  others  who  know  him  in  California,  as  far  as  you  know  ? " 

A. — "  I  never  heard  any  one  speak  ill  of  him  among 
Spiritualists,  and  only  two  or  three  others  ever  condemned 
him  in  my  hearing,  and  they  did  so  on  general  principles, 
simply  because  the  phenomena  occurring  through  him  inter- 
fered with  their  theories  and  ideas  of  what  could  or  could 
not  be  done  by  or  through  human  agency." 

Q.  12. — "  Could  you  clearly  see  the  medium's  hands  during  the  tests? 
How  strong  was  the  light?" 

A. — "  In  from  six  to  ten  of  the  experiments  made  with 
this  medium,  Mr.  Edward  Wyllie,  the  orange-  or  red-colored 
light  in  the  room  was  sufficiently  strong  to  distinguish  the 


472  UNDER    A   CRITIC'S    GAZE 

medium  and  other  objects;  in  fact,  I  used  it  to  see  how  to 
open  the  box  containing  the  plates  brought  by  me  for  the 
purpose,  and  to  do  the  same  up  before  going  out  again  into 
the  daylight." 

A  Skeptic's  Thinking 

I  submitted  this  series  of  Dr.  Pierce's  photographs  and 
explanations  to  a  careful  critic  who  is  acquainted  with  the 
photographic  art.     The  following  is  his  report : 

"  We  know  that  a  figure  or  photograph  is  produced  upon 
the  dry  plate  by  a  chemical  cJia7ige  in  the  film.  This  chemi- 
cal change  is  begun  when  the  sensitive  film  is  acted  upon  by 
some  agency,  usually  light.  The  chemical  change  is  com- 
pleted by  the  action  of  the  chemicals  in  the  developing-bath 
upon  the  film  already  affected  by  the  first  agency.  We  can 
not,  of  course,  eliminate  the  chemical  action  from  the  proc- 
ess. It  is  not  a  matter  of  spirit  communication  with  mortal 
minds ;  it  is  a  matter  involving  chemical  action  upon  matter. 
We  must,  therefore,  seek  for  the  cause  of  this  chemical  action 
which  begins  on  the  sensitive  film  of  the  dry  plate. 

"  The  necessary  chemical  substance  to  produce  this  action 
could  be  brought  in  contact  with  the  sensitive  film  by  placing 
the  hand  directly  upon  the  film  or  by  placing  another  glass 
plate  or  other  substance  directly  upon  the  film.  If  the  film 
is  covered  by  a  glass  plate  and  so  protected  from  the  hand, 
we  must  eliminate  the  theory  of  acids  or  other  chemicals 
upon  the  hand  itself.  Then  it  is  necessary  to  know  if  the 
clear  plate  covering  the  film  is  perfectly  free  from  the  chemi- 
cal substance,  and  also  that  nothing  can  be  slipped  in  be- 
tween the  glass  plate  and  the  sensitive  film. 

"  In  the  '  diagram '  submitted  by  W.  J.  Pierce,  it  should 
be  noticed  that  the  dry  plate  bearing  the  sensitive  film,  and 
the  glass  plate  used  to  cover  the  film  side  of  the  dry  plate, 
are  separated  from  each  other  by  straw-board  corners.  This 
would  make  it  possible  to  slip  something  between  the  plates. 

"  It  is  assumed  from  Mr.  Pierce's  report  that  he  not  only 
provided  and  handled  the  dry  plates,  but  that  he  also  provided 
and  alone  handled  the  clear  glass  plates  used  to  protect  the 
dry  plates,  altho  Mr.  Pierce  does  not  definitely  state  this.  In 
arranging  for  s'lch  an  experiment  it  were  better  to  bind  the 
edges  of  the  plates  all  around  with  black  paper,  in  the  way 


FRAUD    NOT   TENABLE  473 

lantern  slides  are  bound.  This  would  give  better  assurance 
than  the  eye  could  give  that  nothing  was  slipped  between 
the  two  plates." 

The  above  and  other  criticisms  I  forwarded  with  as  search- 
ing criticisms  of  my  own  as  I  could  think  of  to  Dr.  Pierce. 
He  answered  from  his  London  office  by  the  following  addi- 
tional experiments,  which  are  certainly  marvelous.  I  can 
not  see  any  escape  from  accepting  Dr.  Pierce's  conclusion, 
except  by  disbelief  in  his  integrity.  Knowing  what  I  do  of 
him,  the  theory  of  fraud  on  his  part  is  wholly  untenable.  It 
will  be  observed  that  in  these  London  experiments  Dr. 
Pierce  obtained  pictures  in  closed  boxes  in  his  own  room  on 
his  own  plates  with  no  mortal  present  bnt  himself. 

Dr.   Pierce's  London  Experiments 

''London,  England,  November  26,  1903. 

"  To  Dr.  I.  K.  F?mk. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  I  send  you  a  print  of  a  hand  and  lower  part 
of  an  arm,  being  the  most  distinct  of  three  pictures  obtained 
on  the  8th  of  the  present  month,  the  others  being  a  lady's 
face  and  a  landscape.  These  pictures  were  secured  in  a 
closed  box  containing  six  plates  (quarter  size),  in  my  pres- 
ence, in  broad  daylight,  the  medium  merely  holding  the  box 
in  his  hands  for  about  two  or  three  minutes.  The  box  of 
plates  was  my  own  and  was  taken  to  him  for  the  experiment 
mentioned.  I  then  went  into  his  dark-room  and  developed 
and  fixed  the  plates  myself,  never  allowing  the  box  to  leave 
my  possession  for  a  single  moment.  Upon  examining  them 
in  the  light  we  found  that  two  contained  the  portrait,  two 
the  hand  and  arm,  and  the  balance  the  landscape.  I  found 
on  experimenting  that  I  could  obtain  a  better  print  by  pa- 
sting the  two  negatives  together  for  each  picture  than  by 
using  them  separately,  and  this  has  been  done  in  the  print 
sent  you. 

"  Thus  you  will  perceive  that,  by  the  above  experiment, 
I  have  fully  confirmed  (at  least  to  my  own  satisfaction)  the 
genuine  character  of  the  photographs  obtained  in  California, 
through  the  mediumship  of  Mr.  Wyllie,  of  which  you  have 
a  full  report,  even  going  farther  than   with  Mr.  Wyllie   in 


474      PICTURES    IN    UNOPENED    BOX 

getting  favorable  results  within  a  closed  box^  the  contents  of 
which  it  was  a  physical  impossibility  for  the  medium  to 
touch.  I  may  mention,  in  this  connection,  that  since  the 
above  experiment  was  made,  an  esteemed  friend  of  mine  has 
also  secured  pictures  through  the  same  medium,  with  a  box 
of  his  own  plates  and  under  exactly  similar  conditions." 

In  reply  to  further  questions  Dr.  Pierce  wrote  me  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  London,  January  1 1,  1904. 
"  My  dear  Dr.  Funk. 

"...  Replying  to  your  queries  regarding  the  experi- 
ments made  in  London,  of  which  I  recently  sent  you  an  ac- 
count, would  say  the  box  of  plates  had  not  been  opened  by 
me  before  developing  and  was  not  opened  by  the  medium,  but 
was  simply  held  between  his  hands  for  a  few  moments,  be- 
fore my  eyes,  then  passed  over  to  me,  and  I  immediately  took 
it  into  his  dark-room,  cut  open  the  box,  and  developed  and 
*  fixed '  the  plates  myself,  one  at  a  time.  The  medium  did 
not  touch  a  plate  on  the  film  side  or  any  other  side  until  the 
job  of  developing  and  fixing  had  been  entirely  completed  by 
myself.  I  had  previously  marked  the  box  with  my  initials 
and  otherwise,  so  that  I  know  there  was  no  substitution  of 
boxes.  On  Sunday,  November  29,  I  repeated  the  experi- 
ment, under  exactly  similar  conditions,  with,  if  possible,  more 
satisfactory  results  than  in  the  first  instance. 

"  My  object  in  sending  you  an  account  of  one  or  two 
of  my  recent  experiments  here  in  London  was  mainly  to 
confirm  my  experiments  with  Mr.  Wyllie  in  California,  of 
which,  from  beginning  to  end,  I  have  done  my  best  to  fur- 
nish a  full  and  faithful  account.  It  having  been  remarked 
by  several  persons  that  '  it  was  a  pity  these  pictures  could 
not  be  obtained  without  the  medium  being  allowed  to  touch 
the  plates  at  all,'  I  tried  to  overcome  this  objection  here  in 
London  and  succeeded,  as  I  think  my  supplemental  report 
to  you  will  fully  demonstrate.  And  now  I  rest  mv  case. 
You  have  my  report  and  are  at  liberty  to  ]uiblish  as  much  or 
as  little  of  it  as  you  choose.  You  know  whether  I  am  a  man 
whose  word  is  to  be  believed. 

"  And  now,  in  conclusion,  I  will  add  that,  as  a  result  of 
my  investigations  to  date,  I  have  become  fully  satisfied  as  to 
the  genuine  character  of  the  phenomenon  called  psychic  or 
spirit  photography.     This  does  not  mean  that  I  have  become 


STILL    GREATER    MARVEL 


475 


a  *  Spiritualist,'  for  such,  as  yet,  is  not  the  case.  The  ques- 
tion of  identity  is  still  unsettled.  I  do  not  knoiv  any  of  the 
numerous  men,  women,  and  children  who  have  come  to  me 


Test  Photograph  taken  while  the  Plate  was  in  the  Original  Box. 

Inscription  on  the  back  of  the  above  photograph  written  by  Dr.  Pierce  : 
"Obtained  in  London.  England,  October  8,  1903,  under  strictly  test  conditions, 
within  a  box  holding  six  sensitized  plates  :  no  camera  used.     The  plates  were  pur- 
chased, developed,  and  fixed  by  me,  the  medium  doing  nothing  except  to  hold  the 
unopened  box  between  his  hands  for  about  two  minutes  prior  to  the  developing." 

in  the  photographs  obtained  in  the  mysterious  manner  hereto- 
fore described  ;  but,  as  before  stated,  I  know  the  phenomenon 
is  true,  because^  in  addition  to  my  experiments  with  the  two 
photo  mediums  referred  to  in  my  reports,  and  as  to  whose 


476 


MANY    PICTURES    VERIFIED 


honesty  I  have  no  reasonable  doubts,  I  have,  since  my  arrival 
in  London,  been  able  to  obtain  these  pictures ,  both  zvith  and 
without   a    camera,    in    the    company  of    a  friend,   a  highly 


Plate  No.  1. 

Photograph  taken  bj-  Dr.  Pierce  when  alone  in  his  room  without  camera  on  a 
plate  purchased  bj-  himself  and  developed  by  himself— as  described  in  his  letter 

March  9,  1904— (pp.  477-8). 


respected   business   man;  and,   in   addition   to   this,    I    have 
myself  secured  pictures  on  plates  and  films,  without  a  camera, 

IN     MY    OWN    ROOM,  WITHOUT  A  MORTAL    BEING    PRESENT    BUT 

MYSELF.      For  these  results  I  am  profoundly  grateful  to  the 
unseen  forces  about  me. 

'*  I  am  no  *  medium,'  at  least  in  the  commercial  sense  of 
the  word,  but  just  an  independent  investigator  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  Spiritualism." 


SPIRIT    OBEYS    REQUEST 


477 


Photographs    Taken    by    Dr.    Pierce    When  Alone    in 

His  Room 

"  London,  March  9,  1904. 
'*  My  dear  Dr.    Funk  : 

*'  .  .  .  With  regard  to  your  request  that  I  send  you  a  copy 
of  a  photograph  which  I  have  taken  in  my  own  room  while 
alone,  etc.,  would  say  that  it  is  only  after  much  deliberation 


Plate  No.  11. 

This  is  the  photograph  in  plate  No.  I.  touched  up  by  pencil  to  bring  out  the 
features  more  clearly— (p.  476). 


and  hesitation  that  I  have,  at  the  last  moment,  decided  to 
comply  with  your  request.  I  have  been  reluctant  to  send 
such  a  picture  for  two  reasons : 


478         IMPRESSIVE    CONFIRMATION 

"  First.  Because  I  have  as  yet  obtained  none  under  the 
conditions  mentioned  sufficiently  distinct  to  make  a  good 
block  for  printing  purposes.  It  is  only  a  little  over  three 
months  since  I  have  been  able  to  secure  such  pictures  un- 
aided by  a  photo-medium,  and,  therefore,  evolution  in  this 
direction  has  only  just  begun  in  my  case,  with  naturally  im- 
perfect results. 

"  Second.  Because  of  my  dislike  to  have  anything  of  a 
psychic  nature,  which  has  come  through  myself  alone — that 
is  to  say,  in  the  absence  of  and  without  the  aid  of  a  'me- 
dium ' — brought  before  the  public  for  criticism  and,  perhaps, 
condemnation  by  the  ignorant  or  prejudiced.  My  objections 
thereto  were  plainly  set  forth  in  my  last  letter  to  you,  as  you 
will  no  doubt  remember. 

"  The  photograph,  in  duplicate,  which  I  send  you  here- 
with, is  the  plainest  in  outline  of  several  obtained  by  myself, 
alone,  in  my  own  room  in  the  West  End  of  London,  during 
the  latter  part  of  November,  up  to  about  the  20th  of  Decem- 
ber last.  I  used  quarter  size,  flat  films,  which  I  had  pur- 
chased at  a  shop  in  London.  The  box  was  never  opened 
or  out  of  my  possession  for  a  single  minute,  from  the  time 
of  purchase  until  I  made  the  experiment  mentioned  in  my 
room,  and  the  first  film  taken  from  the  box  and  developed  is 
the  one  I  now  send  you  the  duplicate  prints  of.  No  camera 
was  used,  and  it  was  not  ten  minutes  from  the  time  the  film 
was  taken  from  the  box  until  it  was  developed  and  in  the 
soda-bath.  One  of  the  prints  I  have  pencilled  out,  as  you 
will  observe,  as  by  so  doing  the  young  girl's  face  can  be  the 
more  readily  seen.  You  may  be  able  to  make  a  somewhat 
satisfactory  half-tone  block  from  this  print,  if  it  is  carefully 
handled.  At  any  rate,  it  is  the  best  I  have  to  send  of  those 
that  have  been  obtained  under  the  conditions  specified  in 
your  letter  of  February  23d." 

"Spirit"   Photograph  Results  Verified  by  Dr.   H.  A. 
Reid,  President  of  S.  P.   R.,  Pasadena,  Cal. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Dr.  Reid  was  for  years  execu- 
tive secretary  of  the  State  Academy  of  Science,  Des  Moines, 
Iowa,  and  is  a  trained  investigator  of  psychic  phenomena,  and 
has  been  for  a  long  while  associate  member  of  the  London 
Society  for  Psychical  Research. 


"NO    STONE    LEFT    UNTURNED"    479 

Dr.  Reid  has  sent  me  a  large  number  of  examples  of 
*'  spirit  photographs,"  which  he  has  investigated  and  has  veri- 
fied until  he  himself  has  become  perfectly  satisfied  as  to  their 
genuineness.  I  have  selected  from  these  examples  the  fol- 
lowing, quoting  from  Dr.  Reid  : 

"Case  I. — Mr.  A.  N.  Millspaugh,  a  mine  operator  at 
Ballarat,  Inyo  County,  Cal.,  at  my  request  has  given  the  Pasa- 
dena Society  for  Psychical  Research  the  following  account 
of  his  experience  with  Mr.  Wyllie  : 

"'  My  investigation  of  his  work  was  so  thorough,  and  tl>e  conditions 
under  which  the  pictures  were  produced  so  stringent,  as  to  leave  no  doubt 
whatever  in  my  mind  of  their  genuineness— or,  in  other  words,  that  they 
were  produced  by  some  unseen  agency,  and  not  by  any  trick  or  fraud 
practised  by  Mr.  Wyllie.  During  my  tirst  few  sittings  I  received  very 
good  pictures  of  relatives  who  had  passed  away — one  of  my  grandmother 
being  especially  good.  At  that  time  I  felt  confident  it  was  merely  a 
trick,  which  I  could  do  as  well  as  Mr.  Wyllie  if  I  only  knew  how.  And, 
having  had  some  experience  in  amateur  photography,  I  decided  to  go  to 
the  bottom  of  it  and  find  out  the  trick.  With  this  in  view,  while  entirely 
alone  in  my  private  ofiice  I  requested  my  daughter  (deceased)  to  come  on 
my  picture,  and  stated  the  place  and  position  which  I  wished  her  to  oc- 
cupy. I  then  went  to  the  wholesale  house  and  purchased  a  box  of  plates, 
and,  going  to  Mr.  Wyllie's  studio,  requested  him  to  allow  me  to  put  the 
plate  in  the  plateholder  and  take  them  out  myself,  he  doing  nothing  but 
simply  making  the  exposure— all  of  which  he  kindly  consented  to.  I 
took  the  plate  home  and  developed  it  myself,  getting  on  the  negative  just 
exactly  what  I  had  asked  for  in  every  particular,  and  which  I  could  swear 
no  living  person  except  myself  knew.  I  did  this  not  only  once,  but  I 
have  something  like  two  dozen  pictures  taken  under  the  same  conditions. 
I  had  at  that  time  in  my  employ  a  young  lady  stenographer,  who  was  an 
active  member  of  the  Methodist  Church,  and  who  is  now  the  wife  of  a 
leading  lawyer  of  Chicago.  She  was  inclined  to  doubt  that  I  was  getting 
each  time  just  what  I  asked  for;  and,  to  convince  her,  I  made  a  request 
in  her  presence  for  the  picture  of  my  daughter  to  appear  with  her  finger 
on  her  cheek,  and  looking  at  me  and  smiling.  I  then  took  my  box  of 
plates  and  went  to  Wyllie's  studio,  handling  the  plate  entirely  myself.  I 
brought  it  back  to  my  office  and  allowed  her  to  take  it  out  and  develop 
it  herself,  as  she  was  also  an  amateur  photographist.  She  found  upon 
developing  the  plate  my  daughter's  picture  in  exactly  the  position  I 
had  requested.  This  experience  convinced  her  that  these  pictures  were 
not  produced  through  trickery  or  fraud.  She  afterward  developed  sev- 
eral others  for  me,  and  was  as  thoroughly  convinced  of  Mr.  Wyllie's 
honesty  in  the  matter  as  was  I  myself. 

"'  I  am  not  a  Spiritualist  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  term,  but 
my  investigations  not  only  in  this  line  but  in  others  have  proven  to  me  be- 
yond any  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  there  are  unseen  intelligences  surround- 
ing us,  which  influence  our  lives  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.'  " 

"  Case  II. — The  following  is  regarded  by  Dr.  Reid  as 
of  special  value,  since  Mr.  Disler  is  an  experienced  pho- 
tographer : 


48o  "RESULT    SURPRISED    HIM" 

"'  Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  March  23,  1900. 

"'.  .  .  In  company  with  D.  E.  Lyons  and  T.  J.  Spencer, 
I  went  to  Dewey  Bros.,  photo-supply  house.  Mr.  Spencer 
purchased  a  box  of  4  X  5  dry  plates.  Then  Lyons  and  I 
went  to  the  photo  studio  of  Edward  Wyllie.  Upon  a  short 
interview  with  Wyllie  as  to  the  purpose  of  our  visit  and  trial 
for  pictures,  etc.,  he  readily  consented  to  any  and  all  de- 
mands I  made  of  him.  Then  I  proceeded  to  make  a  thorough 
examination  of  his  camera,  tablet,  background,  and  lens — 
even  taking  the  lens  apart.  Being  myself  a  photographer  of 
thirty  years'  experience,  I  left  not  a  stone  unturned,  as  I 
could  see,  where  there  could  have  been  any  chance  for  shift- 
ing of  plates  or  any  device  to  trick  me.  I  proceeded  to  the 
dark-room,  and,  taking  out  of  the  box  purchased  by  Mr. 
Spencer  one  of  the  plates,  placed  it  in  the  holder;  and,  to 
make  doubly  sure,  I  marked  the  plate  so  I  would  know  it  to 
be  the  same.  Mr.  Lyons  was  in  the  dark-room  with  me  to 
see  the  change  of  plates,  and  one  G.  F.  Mander  stayed  in 
the  operating-room  with  Wyllie  so  he  could  have  no  chance 
to  do  anything  on  the  outside.  I  brought  the  plateholder  out 
of  the  dark-room,  placed  it  in  the  camera,  and,  drawing  the 
slide  ready  for  exposure,  I  sat  down  on  posing-chair ;  and  all 
Mr.  Wyllie  did  was  to  remove  cap  off  lens  and  time  the  nec- 
essary exposure.  He  made  two  sittings  of  me.  [Both  are 
in  Dr.  Reid's  possession.]  After  this  we  went  to  the  Plaza 
studio,  entirely  away  from  Wyllie 's,  and  I  there  developed 
the  two  exposures  made.  Imagine  my  surprise  and  great 
joy  when  upon  developing  I  saw  the  correct  picture  of  my 
spirit-mother  and  two  grandfathers  and  grandmother  and 
control,  Dr.  Short.     I  swear  this  to  be  a  true  statement. 

(Signed)  "'J.   H.   Disler, 

" '  D.  E.    Lyons. 

"  *  I  also  make  affidavit  that  I  recognize  the  old  gentle- 
man, marked  "  unknown,"  as  Dr.  Dodson,  whom  I  have 
known  for  twenty  years.  There  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  the 
picture  being  a  true  likeness  of  the  doctor  as  he  passed  from 
this  life.  T.  J.   Spencer, 

"  '  238  New  High  Street,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

" '  Subscribed  and  sworn  before  me  this  29th  day  of 
March,  1900.  Edna   Leeser, 

"  *  Notary  Public  in  and  for  Los  Angeles  County,  State  of 
California.' 


SALOON'S   VARIOUS   SPIRITS         481 

"  I  talked  with  Mr.  Disler  about  this  case.  He  said  he 
was  well  versed  in  the  photographic  art ;  he  had  followed  it 
as  a  business  since  1870,  or  about  thirty  years,  at  Carthage, 
Mo.,  and  Coldwater,  Mich.  He  knew  all  the  tricks  of  the 
art.  He  could  make  photographs  himself  with  '  extra ' 
shadow-faces  and  spooky-looking  figures  on  them,  which  most 
people  would  say  were  just  like  the  Wyllie  pictures ;  but 
they  wouldn't  be.  He  said  neither  he  nor  any  other  pho- 
tographer could  produce  them  by  any  art  or  skill  or  science 
known  to  the  trade,  under  the  same  or  any  similar  test  con- 
ditions that  Mr.  Wyllie  submitted  to;  and  the  affidavit  'we 
made  was  simply  an  act  of  justice  and  fairness  to  Wyllie, 
after  we  had  so  far  suspected  him  as  to  impose  on  him  the 
relentless  test  conditions  which  we  did.' 

"  I  talked  also  with  Mr.  Spencer  about  the  case,  as  he 
was  the  prime  mover  in  this  rigid  test  experiment.  He  had 
believed,  and  had  told  it  to  others,  that  Wyllie  once  tried  to 
deceive  him,  by  somehow  reproducing  on  a  photo  of  him  a 
picture  of  his  deceased  sister  cut  from  an  old  number  of 
Mtmsey  s  Magazine.  And  he  fully  expected  to  prove  that 
Wyllie  could  not  get  any  '  extra '  or  so-called  spirit  faces  on 
a  photo  when  careful  test  conditions  were  applied.  He  had 
himself  privately  marked  one  of  the  plates  and  helped  to  de- 
velop them  at  the  Plaza  studio.  The  result  surprised  him 
beyond  measure. 

"  Mr.  Spencer  is  a  well-known,  keen,  practical,  every-day 
business  man,  proprietor  and  manager  of  a  printing-house 
which  does  a  large  amount  of  legal  printing  for  lawyers  of 
the  Los  Angeles  county  bar." 

"  Case  III. — Mrs.  Jane  M.  Samson,  of  Pasadena,  formerly 
resided  in  Boston,  Mass.,  and  was  a  member  of  the  congrega- 
tion of  which  Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage  was  pastor.  Mrs.  Sam- 
son's husband  died  in  Boston  in  1894,  and  his  funeral  sermon 
was  preached  by  Rev.  Dr.  Savage.  She  is  an  intelligent 
and  reputable  lady,  and  attended  years  ago  some  private  sit- 
tings for  psychical  research  at  which  Professor  James,  Rev. 
Savage,  Rev.  A.  A.  Miner,  D.D.  ,and  others  were  among  the 
critical  investigators.  Some  time  in  April,  1900,  she  sat 
for  a  photo  at  the  rooms  of  Mr.  Wyllie,  in  Los  Angeles,  Jic 
knowing  notJiing  at  all  of  her  former  residejice,  relationship, 
or  experiences.     A  good  plate  was  produced  [not  given  here] . 


482  GHOSTS    OF    THE    LIVING 

She  states  that  the  face  at  her  right  side  is  that  of  her  de- 
ceased husband,  Edwin  Samson ;  the  one  on  her  left  is  the 
deceased  wife  of  a  brother  of  hers  residing  in  Nebraska; 
and  the  old  man  below  them  both  is  her  husband's  father. 
She  has  a  brother,  C.  B.  Scott,  in  the  photography  business 
at  340  Fulton  Street,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  and  wrote  to  him 
something  about  the  faces  so  mysteriously  appearing  on 
her  photograph.  Under  date  of  May  6,  1900,  he  wrote  in 
reply : 

" '  We  have  had  considerable  to  do  with  spirit  photographs.  Mr. 
Foster,  a  spirit  photographer  and  medium,  has  been  bringing  and  send- 
ing photographs  to  us  to  be  enameled  for  the  past  five  years.  He  has  no 
studio,  but  goes  from  one  place  to  another,  and  he  sends  us  work  from 
different  cities.  All  of  his  prints  have  from  two  to  five  spirit  faces,  and 
we  have  always  been  watching,  as  he  sent  prints  from  different  cities,  to 
see  if  we  could  detect  the  same  faces,  but  we  have  never  been  able  to  do 
so.  When  he  sends  them  from  Philadelphia  they  are  covered  with  Indian 
and  Quaker  faces.  I  don't  think  the  spirits  have  much  to  do  with  the 
matter,  but  there  is  something  about  it  that  is  hard  to  detect.'' 

"  As  to  the  local  flavor  of  the  so-called  spirit  faces  from 
Philadelphia,  I  have  another  testimony  of  the  same  import. 
Mr.  Wyllie  states  that  in  1899  he  took  photos  in  Sycamore 
Grove,  a  place  in  outer  Los  Angeles  which  had  been  for  eigh- 
teen years  a  drinking-saloon,  Sunday  beer-garden,  and  gen- 
eral vile  resort.  This  evil  use  of  it  had  recently  been  abol- 
ished, and  a  spiritualist  camp-meeting  was  being  held  there 
during  the  month  of  September.  During  the  first  day  there 
appeared  on  many  of  his  plates  disgusting  pictures  of  bleared 
and  maudlin  faces,  nude  figures,  indecent  exposures,  etc.  ;  he 
had  to  destroy  such  negatives,  thus  losing  both  their  cost  and 
his  own  time  and  labor.  But  this  trouble  grew  less  day  by 
day,  till  after  the  first  week  he  had  no  more  of  it. 

''  Mrs.  Samson  being  perplexed  and  in  doubt  about  the 
strange  phenomena,  on  another  day  bojigJit  some  f^'esJi  sensi- 
tized plates  Jierself,  went  with  another  lady,  Mrs.  S.  L. 
Bettis,  to  Wyllie's,  got  him  to  let  her  put  the  plate  into  the 
camera  herself,  and  then  take  it  away  and  develop  it  herself, 
so  that  he  never  touched  it.  Her  own  face  appeared  as  usual, 
but  nothing  extra  was  noticed  on  it  by  Mr.  Wyllie  or  any  one 
except  a  few  scumbles  and  patches  of  light.  I  also  saw  the 
unfinished  trial  print  from  this  negative,  and  did  not  observe 
any  spirit  face  on  it.  She  threw  it  aside  as  *  no  good.' 
Nine  or  ten  months  later,  while  clearing  the  accumulated 


VISIBLE    TO    CLAIRVOYANTS  483 

rubbish  out  of  a  catch-all  drawer,  she  happened  to  cast  her 
eye  upon  this  old  failure  picture  as  it  lay  bottom  end  up — 
and  lo !  there  was  a  shadow  face  plainly  visible.  I  and 
others  have  reexamined  it.  There  was  no  change  in  it;  but, 
by  turning  it  over,  the  '  extra  '  face  was  seen  at  once,  tho  no 
one  has  recognized  the  likeness." 

Case  IV. — This  one  of  a  number  of  examples  of  faces 
of  living  persons  appearing  on  the  plates  greatly  deepens  the 
mystery  of  spirit  photography. 

"Mr.  T.  J.  Spencer,  a  reputable  business  man  and  pro- 
prietor of  a  printing-house  in  Los  Angeles,  had  an  exceptional 
experience,  and  gave  me  the  following  account  of  it : 

"'About  the  last  of  November,  1899,  I  sat  for  a  photo  at  Edward 
Wyllie's  studio.  And  there  came  on  the  plate,  besides  my  own  picture, 
the  likeness  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Frank  B.  Harbert,  real  estate  broker,  of 
Los  Angeles.  I  had  lost  a  dear  little  son  a  short  time  before,  and  Mr. 
Harbert  as  an  intimate  friend  deeply  sympathized  with  me.  By  reason 
of  this  sympathetic  intimacy  between  us  I  happened  to  be  thinking  of  him 
just  at  the  time  I  sat  for  the  picture.  The  affair  is  a  mystery  which  I  can 
not  solve.  On  inquiry  I  learned  that  Mr.  Harbert  had  never  had  a  pic- 
ture of  himself  corresponding  to  this  one.  He  and  his  friends  at  once 
recognized  it  as  a  correct  picture  of  him  at  this  time,  and  by  recall  of 
incidents  and  comparing  hours  of  day,  we  ascertained  that  at  the  mo- 
ment I  was  sitting  in  the  photographer's  chair  he  was  sitting  in  the  court- 
room of  Department  One  of  the  Los  Angeles  County  Superior  Court 
[Judge  B.N.  Smith's],  at  ease,  and  in  a  restful  and  passive  position  for  a 
short  time,  while  a  case  was  going  on.' 

"  At  my  earliest  opportunity  I  consulted  Mr.  Harbert 
about  this  matter,  and  he  corroborated  Mr.  Spencer's  state- 
ment substantially  as  given  above.  He  had  no  other  picture 
like  it,  with  same  cut  of  beard,  etc.  And  he  said  with  deep 
earnestness:  '  It  is  the  strangest  thing  I  ever  heard  of! 
How  do  you  account  for  it?  '  I  replied  that  I  was  not  trying 
or  pretending  to  account  for  it ;  I  was  merely  seeking  to  find 
out  whether  it  was  really  a  fact  that  that  thing  had  occurred, 
or  whether  there  was  some  mistake  in  the  rumors  which  I 
had  previously  heard  about  it.  I  said  if  it  was  a  genuine 
case,  the  '  accounting  for  it '  would  certainly  be  worked  out 
later.  He  reaffirmed  that  the  strange  thing  did  actually 
occur,  no  matter  how  great  a  puzzle  it  might  be  to  scientists 
or  others.      His  wife  confirmed  his  testimony. 

"  I  also  talked  with  Mr.   Wyllie  about  this  case.     We 


484  FACSIMILE    SIGNATURE 

canvassed  different  theories  about  it,  and  he  suggested  this : 
*  It  might  be  that  Mr.  Harbert  was  dozing  or  half  asleep  at 
that  moment,  and  his  "  astral  "  body  which  the  Theosophists 
tell  about  went  to  his  friend  who  was  thinking  of  him  just 
then,  and  produced  the  picture. '  He  did  not  pretend  to 
have  any  fixed  theory,  but  thought  this  one  might  probably 
be  as  good  as  any.  He  was  as  deeply  puzzled  and  mystified 
with  the  strange  incident  as  any  of  us,  and  wished  to  know 
if  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  of  London  had  ever  had 
an  account  of  a  similar  instance  anywhere  in  the  world.  To 
the  best  of  my  knowledge  it  had  not.  Mr.  Wyllie  said  that 
in  all  his  experience  this  phenomenon  of  a  living  person 
appearing  as  an  '  extra  '  on  a  plate  had  occurred  only  three 
or  possibly  four  times." 

Has  the  mind  the  power  to  project  itself,  crystallizing 
about  itself  some  objective  form  as  an  attenuated  body,  a 
body  with  sufficient  substance  for  a  camera  to  photograph  ^ 
If  so,  it  would  then  seem  that  the  mind,  soul,  or  spirit  is 
much  less  dependent  on  the  visible  body  than  has  been 
thought  heretofore  certain  by  many  scientists.  If  our  spirits 
while  in  the  flesh  have  this  power,  it  is  much  less  hard  to 
believe  that  spirits  out  of  the  flesh  have  the  power  to  make 
themselves  visible  to  clairvoyants,  to  the  eye  of  the  camera, 
and,  when  particularly  strong,  to  the  eye  of  the  average  man. 

Personal  Identity. — ^Addenda 

[The  following  should  have  been  inserted  under  Personal  Identity, 
but  was  accidentally  omitted.] 

Attempted  Identification  of  Spirits  bV   Handwriting 

Spiri't  AiUograpJi  of  a  Leading  Clergyman — Bank  Officers 
Give  Expert  Opinion  —  AntograpJiic  Writing  for  tJie  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research  by  the  Spirits  of  Frederic 
Myers  and  Professor  Sidgwick — Opinion  of  Mrs.  Sidg- 
ivick — Remarks  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

A  lady  frieiid,  whose  integrity  none  who  know  her  would 
question,  has   in   her  family  one  who  has  developed  medium- 


WAS    THIS    FREDERIC    MYERS?      485 

ship.  This  medium  never  practises  her  mediumship  publicly. 
She  does  not  even  like  to  be  called  a  medium,  never  sitting 
except  for  members  of  the  family  and  for  a  few  friends,  and 
no  compensation  whatever  is  given  her.  Her  mediumship 
is  that  which  is  known  as  automatic  writing,  that  is,  a  sup- 
posed spirit  writes  by  using  her  hand.  Usually  this  medium 
when  under  control  writes  very  rapidly,  not  stopping  to  dot 
i's  or  cross  t's  or  for  punctuation  or  paragraphing. 

What  claims  to  be  the  spirit  of  one  who  was  a  very  promi- 
nent American  clergyman  has  frequently  during  the  past 
year  written  to  me  through  this  medium.  He  has  written  me 
letters  signed  by  himself.  I  am  requested  by  the  family  not 
to  give  their  own  names  nor  the  name  of  this  spirit  clergy- 
man, as  that  might  reveal  themselves  to  the  public ;  hence  I 
can  not  give  facsimiles  of  this  writing.  The  "spirit  auto- 
graph signature"  is  remarkable,  being  as  nearly  like  the 
autographs  of  the  clergyman  written  when  in  the  flesh  as  can 
be.  I  took  to  the  leading  officers  of  two  large  banking  insti- 
tutions in  New  York  City  two  copies  of  the  admitted  signa- 
tures of  this  clergyman  and  two  of  these  "  spirit  "  signatures, 
and  these  bank  presidents  were  amazed  at  the  similarity  of 
the  writing,  one  of  them  declaring  that  he  "  would  pay  checks 
on  such  perfect  imitations." 

Observe : 

1.  This  medium  is  a  simple-minded  woman  and  has  never 
been  known  to  write  in  imitation  of  the  writing  of  others. 

2.  The  writing  is  not  "traced,"  and  is  written  in  the 
presence  of  others,  very  rapidly. 

3.  There  is  no  compensation  given. 

It  is  known  that  Frederic  Myers,  one  of  the  chief 
founders  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  and  its  leader 
for  many  years,  prior  to  his  death  arranged  for  ways  by 
which  officers  of  the  society  would  be  able  to  identify  him 
should  he  find  it  possible  to  communicate  with  them  after 
he  had  reached  the  spirit  world.  It  is  now  understood  that 
leading  officers  of  this  society  are  convinced  that  they  have 


486       PROF.  HYSLOP  AND  MRS.  PIPER 

received  communications  which  they  recognize  as  from  him. 
In  due  time  the  society  will  publish  all  of  the  facts.  In  its 
PreceedingSy  Part  47,  issued  in  January,  1904,  there  are  given 
samples  of  automatic  writing  purporting  to  come  from  Mr. 
Myers,  and  this  writing  is  so  similar  to  his  that  some  of  his 
closest  friends  believe  it  to  be  genuine.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
the  present  president  of  the  society,  is  reported  in  T/ic  Pall 
Mall  Magazine  for  January  as  saying :  ''  We  are  publishing 
shortly  a  remarkable  example  of  automatic  writing  which 
some  of  us  believe  to  be  a  communication  from  Frederic 
Myers."  Other  automatic  writing  is  given  in  Part  47,  pur- 
porting to  come  from  the  late  Professor  Sidgwick,  who  was 
one  of  the  chief  founders  of  the  society  and  its  first  presi- 
dent, and,  up  to  his  death,  its  most  trusted  leader.  Of  this 
automatic  writing  Alice  Johnson,  the  private  secretary  of 
Mrs.  Sidgwick,  says,  "  I  think  that  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  resemblance  is  not  accidental  "  ;  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick 
herself  says,  ''  There  is  an  unmistakable  likeness  in  the 
handwriting."  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  the 
sister  of  Prime  Minister  Balfour,  and  is  herself  one  of  the 
society's  most  eminent  and  critical  investigators. 

Pi'ofcssor  Hyslop   Obtains    WJiat  He  Believes  to   be   Strong 
Proof  of  Personal  Identity 

The  most  detailed  scientific  and,  upon  the  whole,  the  most 
convincing  proofs  of  personal  identity  were  secured  by  Prof. 
James  Hervey  Hyslop,  then  (1898-99)  Professor  of  Logic 
and  Ethics  in  Columbia  University,  New  York.  He,  with 
the  help  of  Richard  Hodgson,  Secretary  and  Treasurer  of  the 
American  branch  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  had 
twenty  carefully  planned  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper,  securing  a 
full  stenographic  report  of  everything  said.  This  full  re- 
port, with  explanations  and  comments  by  Professor  Hyslop, 
was  published  in  Xho.  Proceedings  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  London, 
the  whole  making  a  large  volume  of  640  octavo  pages,  small 


A    STRONG    TEST  487 

type,  in  all  about  500,000  words,  more  than  double  the  size 
of  this  present  volume. 

The  extreme  scientific  care  taken  by  Professor  Hyslop  in 
these  investigations  and  in  the  record  and  publication  of 
them  should  give  his  record  and  conclusions  great  weight. 
He  strongly  inclines  to  the  belief  that  the  intelligences  talk- 
ing were  those  of  his  father  and  of  other  deceased  rela- 
tives. The  identity  of  some  of  these  intelligences  he  feels 
has  been  established.  It  is  difficult  to  go  through  this 
mass  of  evidence,  weighing  all  carefully,  and  resist  this  con- 
clusion. Detailed  information  was  given  again  and  again 
by  intelligences  that  claimed  to  be  the  professor's  father  and 
other  of  his  relatives  about  matters  in  their  earthly  lives 
which  were  not  known  to  the  professor,  and  which  on  inves- 
tigation he  found  to  be  facts.  He  informs  me  that  he  asked 
his  father  to  give  him  a  key  or  watchword  by  which  he  would 
be  able  to  identify  him  in  any  future  communications.  He 
did  so,  and  some  time  afterward  the  professor  was  consult- 
ing an  intelligence  who  claimed  to  be  his  father  through  an- 
other medium,  and  this  intelligence  identified  himself  by 
giving  him  this  watchword  which  the  professor  had  told  to 
no  living  mortal. 

We  should  give  weight  also  to  the  fact  that  Professor 
Hyslop  was  not  a  Spiritualist  (is  not  now  in  the  ordinary 
sense),  was,  when  he  began  his  investigations  through  the 
S.  P.  R.,  an  agnostic  concerning  all  spirit  communications, 
and,  in  fact,  a  materialist.  The  fact  that  these  proofs  of 
identity  have  so  strongly  impressed  so  skeptical  and  com- 
petently critical  a  mind  as  is  Professor  Hyslop's  is  profound- 
ly significant. 


488       SHOULD    IT    NOT    BE    TESTED? 

A    THREEFOLD    REQUEST   TO    THE    PUBLIC 

Coopei'ation   Desired  in  the  FitrtJiering  of  Psychic  Research 

First  Request :  To  help  demonstrate  whether  telepathy 
is  true,  as  Sir  William  Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  Professor  Hyslop,  Professor  James,  and  many 
other  leading  scientists  are  inclined  to  think  it  is,  I  should 
be  glad  to  have  those  of  my  readers  who  believe  themselves 
to  be  mediumistic,  or  who  visit  mediums,  to  cooperate  with 
me  in  this  series  of  experiments  : 

1.  On  each  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  months  of  July  and 
October,  1904,  at  two  o'clock  New  York  time,  I  will  write 
down  and  utter  aloud  some  one  definite  maxim  or  thought. 

2.  These  cooperating  persons  at  this  same  hour  are  to 
make  themselves  as  ''receptive"  or  "negative"  as  possible, 
and  write  down  any  impressions  entering  their  minds  and 
which  they  may  think  to  come  from  me. 

3.  These  persons  are  to  write  to  me  these  impressions. 
It   is  understood  that  I  will  make  my  part  of  the  experi- 
ments in  my  study,  195  Washington  Park,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Care  must  be  had  to  make  allowance  for  the  difference  in 
time  between  New  York  and  the  locations  where  these  other 
experimenters  are.  Solar  time  is  to  be  observed,  not  stand- 
ard time. 

Second  Request :  I  wish  each  of  those  of  my  readers  who 
do  not  deem  the  subject  too  uncanny  and  have  the  nerve  to 
attempt  it,  and  are  otherwise  willing,  to  help  carry  out  care- 
fully the  following  plan  in  an  effort  to  demonstrate  whether 
the  dead  can  communicate : 

1.  To  now  send  to  me  his  promise  that  after  his  death, 
should  he  find  it  possible,  he  will  communicate  to  me  his 
name  and  a  certain  watchword  or  sentence. 

2.  This  certain  watchword  or  sentence  he  is  now  to  think 
out  and  tell  it  to  no  living  person,  but  is  to  write  it  and 
sign   it   with  his   name   and   seal  it  in  an  envelope,  and  this 


COOPERATION    REQUESTED         489 

envelope  he  is  to  send  to  me  in  a  larger  envelope.  In  this 
larger  envelope  his  name  and  address  with  date  are  to  be 
given,  but  not  the  watchword  or  sentence.  The  name  of  the 
sender  should  also  be  written  on  the  outside  of  the  inner  en- 
velope. 

3.  Should  I  at  any  time  receive  any  communication  from 
what  purports  to  be  a  spirit  giving  the  name  contained  in  any 
one  of  this  class  of  envelopes  which  I  shall  have  received, 
and  also  giving  a  watchword  or  sentence  which  the  intelli- 
gence will  say  is  in  the  envelope  corresponding  with  this 
name,  I  shall  then  open  the  envelope  and  see  if  the  commu- 
nication is  true. 

4.  In  case  of  my  own  death  I  will  leave  provision  to 
have  all  of  this  class  of  unopened  envelopes  turned  over  to 
the  secretary  of  The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  at  Bos- 
ton, with  the  request  that  he  take  my  place  in  receiving  and 
in  verifying  communications  r^.  harmony  with  this  plan. 

Third  Request:  I  wish  those  who  are  interested  in 
psychic  research  in  different  communities  to  form  circles 
after  the  plan  described  by  Rev.  Stainton  Moses  (see  Appen- 
dix 3,  page  520),  and  write  to  me  their  successes  if  they 
have  any,  or  their  failures  if  they  have  failures,  after  patiently 
making  tests  at  not  less  than  twenty  meetings,  devoting  not 
lejis  than  an  hour  to  each  meeting. 

Letters  in  reply  to  the  above  should  be  addressed  to  me 
at  195  Washington  Park,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


A  PRAYER— WHO  IS  ITS  AUTHOR  ? 

[This  prayer  came  to  me  through  the  automatic  wpting  of  a  private 
medium.  She  wrote  the  prayer  as  rapidly  as  her  hand  could  move  over  the 
paper,  and  it  was  sent  with  the  facsimile  signature  of  a  celebrated  preacher 
of  the  last  century,  whose  name  I  am  requested  not  to  publish  at  present. 
We  know  the  marvelous  memory  that  sometimes  reveals  itself  in  the  trance 
condition ;  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  recognize  this  prayer  as  one  that  has 
been  published  heretofore.  If  any  reader  of  this  volume  so  recognizes  it, 
I  will  regard  it  as  a  favor  if  he  notifies  me  of  the  fact.] 

<<  0  Thou  great  Spirit  of  love  and  justice,  it  has  seemed 
wise  to  Thee  to  so  ordain  that  the  supremacy  of  Thine  influ- 
ence in  this  material  world  should  be  dependent  upon  our 
yielding  ourselves  to  Thy  commands ;  so  fill  our  hearts  with 
the  sense  of  our  oneness  with  Thee  that  we  shall  be  able  so  to 
incorporate  this  sense  into  our  every-day  acts  that  each  day 
will  prove  a  joy  and  blessing  not  only  to  ourselves,  but  to 
every  one  with  whom  we  may  be  brought  into  contact,  and  will 
help  us  to  recognize  the  interpenetration  of  Thy  holy  spirit 
with  ours  in  all  His  fulness.  We  thank  Thee  for  the  blessed 
privilege  of  communion  with  our  loved  ones  who,  having  passed 
beyond  the  confines  of  this  material  world  with  its  pain  and 
narrow  existence,  have  put  on  more  and  more  of  Thine  ethereal 
essence,  and  are  rejoicing  in  far  more  extended  vision,  and 
have  entered  fields  of  far  more  extended  usefulness.  May  we 
so  progress  in  perfection  from  day  to  day  that  we  shall  feel 
the  evidence  of  Thine  illuminating  power  until  we  are  able  to 
stand  before  our  fellow  men  divested  of  all  selfishness,  and 
give  testimony  through  our  souls  to  Thine  unerring  justice. 
Thy  will  be  done  in  all  things,  so  when  this  life's  pilgrimage 
is  ended  we  may  mount  as  upon  eagles*  wings  as  from  world 
to  world,  from  sun  to  sun,  until  at  last  we  rest  in  the  everlast- 
ing arms,  following  His  steps  whose  life  knew  no  sin,  and  who 
stands  as  ready  to  intercede  for  our  shortcomings  now  as  when 
He  trod  this  material  plane  and  set  an  example  which  nothing 
can  take  from  the  memory  of  earth.  Upon  this  rock  help  us 
to  build  our  faith,  knowing  that  thus  built,  the  gates  of  hell 
can  not  prevail  against  it.  Bless  us  with  Thy  continuing  love 
and  care,  and  at  last  receive  us  within  Thy  blessed  abodes 
where  the  welcome  <  Well  done '  will  send  its  joyous  appeal 
abroad  in  our  purified  spirits  throughout  all  eternity.  Amen. 
Amen.** 

490 


APPENDIX 


t 


APPENDIX 

I 

COMMENTS    BY   PSYCHOLOGISTS   AND    OTHER 

SCHOLARS   ON   THE   FINDING   OF    ''THE 

WIDOW'S    MITE"* 

FORMAL   LETTER  OF   INQUIRY 

Dear  Sir: 

Would  you  do  me  the  very  great  favor  to  read  the  enclosed  care- 
fully prepared  account  of  the  finding  of  the  mislaid  coin,  "The  Widow's 
Mite,"  which  has  attracted  during  the  past  few  weeks  very  wide 
attention  in  America. 

The  facts  of  the  incident  are  given  with  every  care  I  am 
capable  of  to  avoid  all  color  or  suggestion  from  any  preaccepted 
hypothesis.  I  have  requested  the  press  to  withhold  further  comment 
until  the  facts  could  be  sifted  and  passed  upon  by  men  who  are  quali- 
fied by  their  scientific  or  other  training  in  exact  thinking  to  pass 
judgment  on  the  strange  occurrence.  Would  you  kindly  answer  some 
or  all  of  the  questions  below,  giving  such  expression  of  your  views  as 
you  may  desire,  and  return  the  same  to  me. 

By  so  doing,  you  will  greatly  oblige 

Yours  most  respectfully, 
April  lo,  1903.  I.  K.  Funk. 


♦A  Professor  of  one  of  the  European  Universities  asks  me  vrhy  I  did  not  get  a  state- 
ment from  the  medium  in  reference  to  this  incident.  It  did  not  seem  to  me  necessary  to  do 
so,  but  after  having  been  asked  this  question  I  requested  a  statement  from  the  medium.  I 
received  the  following  from  her,  duly  signed,  but  with  the  request  that  I  do  not  publish 
her  name  and  address,  as  she  is  not  a  professional  medium  and  does  not  like  publicity. 
Professor  James  H.  Hyslop  has  visited  this  medium  with  me,  and  knows  both  her  name 
and  address. 

THE  STATEMENT  OF  THE  BROOKLYN  MEDIUM. 

"  I  most  solemnly  declare  before  Almighty  God  that  I  never  knew,  before  the  night  of 
the  seance  at  my  house  in  which  '  The  Widow's  Mite '  was  talked  about,  that  the  Funk 
&  Wagnalls  Company  had  borrowed  from  anybody  a  coin  of  this  character  or  of  any  other 
character. 

"  I  never  knew  that  they  had  used  such  a  coin  in  the  making  of  their  Dictionary. 
"I  never  heard  of  the  coin's  whereabouts,  directly  or  indirectly. 
*'  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  heard  of  such  a  man  as  Prof.  Charles  E.  West. 
"The  entire  matter  was  wholly  new  to  me  when  I  was  told  about  it  afterward." 

Signed,  

493 


494  FROM  BONN  UNIVERSITY 

QUESTIONS  ASKED 

First  Question:    In  view  of  all  the  facts,  would  you  regard  fraud 
on  the  part  of  some  one  as  a  probable  solution  ? 

Second        "  Is  coincidence  a  solution  within  the  range  of  prob- 

abilities ? 

Third  "  Is  there,  in  your  judgment,  any  reasonable  theory 

of   the   existence    of   subconscious   faculties   that 
would  explain  all  of  the  facts? 

Fourth       "  Is  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication  a  possible 

solution  ? 
In  reply  to  these  questions  I  received  some  sixty  answers,  from 

which  I  have  selected  those  which  fairly  represent  all. 


From  William  James,  Professor  of  Psychology 
Harvard  University 

(This  letter  is  published  in  full  on  page  178,  which  see.) 

From    Max    Wentscher,     Professor    of    Philosophy, 
University  of  Bonn,  Germany 

Fraud  is  not  a  probable  explanation  and  coincidence  is  very 
improbable. 

The  solution  may  be  looked  for  in  the  direction  of  subconscious 
faculties:  the  physical  phenomena  (nerve  cturents,  etc.)  accompany- 
ing the  subconscious  psychical  phenomena  (especially  those  related 
to  memory)  are  transmitters  of  physical  effects  from  one  individual 
to  the  other. 

One  cannot  exactly  prove  that  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communi- 
cation is  impossible.  But  it  is  much  too  adventurous  and  is  too  far 
removed  from  all  facts  and  relations  scientifically  demonstrated  to 
be  adhered  to  merely  because  one  cannot  find  some  other  satisfactory 
explanation.  There  are  still  many  things  that  we  do  not  at  this 
hour  know. 

From  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  English  Scientist 

Certainly  not  as  to  fraud,  and  coincidence  is  totally  out  of  the 
question. 

Nor  do  I  think  the  theory  of  the  subconscious  self  can  explain  this 
incident.  Subconscious  self  is  a  theory  only,  and  not  only  not  proved, 
but  qtiite  as  difficult  to  prove  as  the  action  of  spirits,  and  more  improb- 
able. 

To  me  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication  is  not  only  possible, 
but  the  only  probable  solution. 


FROM  PROF.  LADD,  YALE  495 

From  George  Trumbull  Ladd,  Professor  of  Philosophy, 
Yale  University 

Every  expert  investigator  of  such  phenomena  knows  that  nothing 
is  more  difficult  or  requires  more  of  the  trained  skill  of  the  specialist 
than  the  ascertainment  of  the  actual  and  the  important  facts  bearing 
upon  an  attempt  at  explanation  of  so-called  "occult"  psychoses. 
Until  he  is  satisfied  that  he  is  in  full  possession  of  those  facts,  no 
properly  cautious  psychologist  would  venture  to  put  forth  an  explan- 
ation. 

In  this  particular  case,  some  of  the  facts  which  you  evidently  regard 
as  most  mysterious  and  difficult  to  explain  seem  to  me  quite  in  accord 
with  our  most  ordinary  experiences.  Other  alleged  facts  in  your 
statement,  which  are  assiuned  to  need  no  particular  verification,  seem 
to  me  most  doubtful,  and  most  likely  to  turn  out  false  assump- 
tions, mistaken  impressions,  lapses  of  memory — in  a  word,  not  facts 
at  all.  Again,  very  cardinal  facts,  as  they  must  have  actually 
occurred,  do  not  appear  anywhere  in  the  evidence  as  you  present    it. 

I  shall  doubtless  surprise  you  when  I  say  that  this  case,  as  it  is 
presented  in  this  fragmentary  and  rather  superficial  way,  does  not 
seem  to  me  likely  to  prove  especially  remarkable  or  difficult  of  solu- 
tion, if  it  could  be  subjected  to  prolonged  expert  investigation.  Give 
some  one  accustomed  to  such  psycho-physical  diagnosis  a  free  hand,  and 
I  venture  to  believe  that  its  seeming  mysteries  would  ultimately  be  dis- 
closed. 

As  to  the  request  for  explanation:  You  will  readily  see  my 
reason  for  declining  to  decide  among  a  number  of  different  explana- 
tions; especially  when  some  of  these  explanations  are  such  as  I  have 
thus  far  seen  no  adequate  reason  for  taking  into  the  list  of  acceptable 
hypotheses,  not  to  say  established  psychological  principles.  On  the 
one  hand  I  do  not  know  what  needs  to  be  explained;  I  do  not  know 
what  the  case  actually  was,  what  were  the  facts,  all  the  facts,  and 
nothing  but  the  facts.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  not  as  yet  a  convert — 
even  to  the  extent  of  holding  that  they  are  scientifically  credited 
hypotheses — to  either  telepathy  or  spiritualistic  communications. 
The  scientific  attitude,  as  I  imderstand  it,  requires  me  to  be  genial 
and  yet  cautious  with  reference  toward  all  observations  of  so-called 
occult  phenomena;  but  also  to  be  sparing  of  new  hypotheses  and 
patient  and  persistent  in  extending  to  such  phenomena  the  princi- 
ples of  explanation  which  have  best  stood  the  test  of  our  past  experi- 
ence, and  which  are  likeliest  to  continue  to  bear  the  test  of  our  new 
experiences.  Perhaps  I  might  venture  to  compare  my  attitude 
toward  the  theories  of  telepathy  or  spiritism,  to  the  attitude  of  those 
friends  of  mine,  who  are  experts  in  physics,  toward  radium  or  the 
Roentgen  rays. 

But  as  I  have  already  indicated,  I  very  much  doubt  whether  the 
case  of  "The  Widow's  Mite"  would  not  easily  lend  itself  to  solution, 


496    FROM  PROF.  YOUNG,  PRINCETON 

if  the  problem  it  proposes  were  undertaken  by  a  trained  investigator, 
with  an  absolutely  free  hand.  For  he  would  know  about  the  hyper- 
aesthesia,  and  the  extreme  suggestiveness,  and  the  only  half-conscious 
and  almost  involuntary  trickiness  of  self-induced  hypnosis ;  about  the 
astonishing  feats  of  memory  that  rest  upon  absolutely  forgotten 
bases  of  sense-impressions,  and  the  confusions  of  intention  and  expec- 
tation with  memory;  about  the  strange  mixtures  of  honesty  and 
fraud — more  or  less  unintentional — which  are  tolerated  in  the  mental 
activities  of  good  people;  about  the  almost  limitless  possibility  of 
correct  guessing,  in  view  of  very  insufficient  data,  which  may  be  culti- 
vated by  some  persons;  about  the  strong  but  imrecognized  influence 
of  selective  attention  (prevalent  as  it  is,  in  the  most  scientific  circles), 
where  there  is  a  preferred  form  of  theory  to  be  established; — and, 
indeed,  about  a  niunber  of  other  psychological  principles  which,  while 
they  dominate  our  daily  living,  do  not  ordinarily  combine  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  seem  to  make  either  the  telepathic  or  the  spiritualistic 
hypothesis  necessary. 

Nevertheless,  I  should  be  the  last  one  dogmatically  to  affirm  that 
modern  psychology  knows  enough  about  these  principles  or  about 
all  its  now  accepted  principles  to  render  forever  unnecessary  any  quite 
completely  new  points  of  view. 

From  Sydney  Young,  Professor  of  Chemistry,  Univer- 
sity College,  Bristol,  England 
The  fraud  explanation  does  not  seem  probable,  nor  do  I  hardly 
think  that  coincidence  can  explain.     Some  of  the  facts  do  not  appear 
to  be  explicable  by  the  theory  of  subconscious  faculties, 

I  see  no  reason  why  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication 
should  be  dismissed  as  absurd,  but  the  question  is  such  a  difficult 
one  that  I  think  much  more  evidence  will  be  required  before  it  can 
be  definitely  accepted. 

From  G.  A.  Young,  Professor  of  Astronomy,  Princeton 

University 

I  have  read  carefully  your  description  of  "  The  Widow's  Mite  "  inci- 
dent, but  have  such  an  inconquerable  distrust  of  all  phenomena 
exhibited  under  conditions  of  semi-darkness,  etc. — conditions  which 
so  easily  lend  themselves  to  deceit,  and  have  often  been  known  to 
do  so — that  I  do  not  care  to  attempt  to  deal  with  this  case.  I  am  too 
obstinately  prejudiced,  so  that  it  is  much  easier  for  me  to  believe  that 
we  have  to  do  with  a  trick  or  delusion  of  some  kind  than  that  Mr. 
Beecher's  spirit  should  really  busy  itself  in  such  a  manner;  or  even 
that  thought  can  be  transferred  in  the  way  necessary  to  explain  the 
phenomena. 

May  I  venture  to  suggest  a  doubt  that  previous  knowledge  about 
the  coin  was  so  narrowly  limited  as  you  think.  I  don't  know  how 
many  proofreaders  and  engravers  may  have  been  interested  in  the 


FROM  TORONTO  UNIVERSITY       497 

matter  and  learned  something  about  it  (a  little  copper  coin  like  that 
valued  by  its  owner  at  $2,500  naturally,  would  be  interesting);  nor 
how  many  of  Prof.  West's  family  and  friends  may  have  had  some 
knowledge  of  the  loan,  and  missed  the  coin  from  its  place  in  Prof. 
West's  collection.  I  don't  suppose  that  there  was  any  special  pains 
tfJcen  to  make  the  loan  and  use  of  the  coin  in  the  Dictionary  a  secret. 

From  Professor  A.  Kirschmann,  Director  of  the  Psycho- 
logical Laboratory,  and  Professor  of  Philosophy 
at  the  University  of  Toronto. 

NOTES    ON    THB    NARRATIVE 

1.  It  seems  to  me  very  questionable  that  one  should  be  able  to  dis- 

tinguish in  a  single  evening  as  many  as  twenty  voices  without  the 
use  of  the  corroborative  evidence  of  the  sense  of  sight  to  keep 
the  individuals  apart. 

2.  Whis  does  not  exclude  assistance  by  tricks  of  ventriloquism. 

[Possible,  but  extremely  unHkely,  that  you  would  find  a  most 
accomplished  ventriloquist  in  an  old  lady  of  sixty-eight  years,  tmedu- 
cated,  and  exhibiting  her  rare  art  every  week  for  years  without  the 
charge  of  a  penny.  I  know  what  ventriloquists  are,  having  seen 
the  best  that  come  before  the  public.     I.  K.  F.] 

3.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  "moral  certainty."     I  suppose  the  author 

simply  wants  to  say  that  he  believed  in  the  veracity  of  the  medium. 

[I  mean  the  certainty  we  reach  through  the  weighing  of  probabili- 
ties— distinguishing  it  from  mathematical  certainty.     I,  K.  F.] 

4.  It  seems  the  spirit  of  a  child,  who  died  at  the  age  of  seven  years, 

will  forever  remain  seven  years  old. 

[After  reading  this  letter  I  put  a  question  covering  the  point  to 
this  "control."  She  answered,  "  I  am  a  full-grown  person.  But  when 
I  come  back  here  to  my  father  I  wish  him  to  recogpnize  me  as  I  was 
when  I  left  earth,  and  so  choose  to  bring  about  me  my  former  con- 
ditions of  life.     Spirits  have  this  power."     I.  K.  F.] 

5.  Plymouth  Church  seems  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  affair. 

Here  the  spirits  were  mistaken. 

6.  It  is  not  clear  whether  this  answer  is  intended  for:    "The  black 

coin  is  the  true  widow's  mite,"  or,  "The  black  coin  is  the  one 
borrowed  and  not  returned." 
[I  imderstand  it  as  the  one  borrowed  and  not  returned.     I.  K.  F.] 

7.  Why  not,  if  he  knew  everything  else  about  the  coin?     It  would 

be  necessary  to  ascertain  whether  the  collection  had  ever  been  in 

Connecticut. 

[A  fair  criticism.  The  collection  has  not  been  in  Connecticut  as 
far  as  I  am  able  to  discover.  The  present  whereabouts  of  the  collec- 
tion is  not  known,  as  it  was  purchased  by  some  unrecognized  person 
who  was  purchasing  for  an  unnamed  collection.     I.  K.  F.] 


498  KEEN  CRITICISM 

8.  Did  they  see  the  envelopes  only,  or  did  they  see  the  coins?  or  did 

they  read  on  the  envelope  that  it  contained  the  "Widow's  Mite?" 

9.  But    Mr.    Roney   was    acquainted    with    the    medium.     Without 

reflecting  on  the  character  of  Mr.  Roney,  whom  I  do  not  know, 

I   must  state    that  his   sworn  statement  is  rather   vague   and 

indefinite.     It  doesn't  say  that  Mr.  Roney  had  no  knowledge  of 

the  coin  collection  in  question  and  of  the  fact  that  a  certain  coin 

was  missing.     Neither  does  it  state   that  Mr.   Roney  had  no 

commtmication  with  the  mediiim,  or  somebody  of  her  party, 

about  the  collection  or  the  missing  coin. 

[Mr.  Roney,  when  shown  this,  adds  to  what  he  has  already  said :   "I 

had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  coin  collection ;    never  had  heard 

of  it,  never  had  a  word  about  this  borrowed  coin  with  the  medium 

or  with  any  other  person  before  the  talk  by  "  George  '*  that  evening, 

had  never  heard  that  the  coin  in  the  Dictionary  illustration  had  been 

borrowed.      I   thought    the    illustration    had    been    made    from    a 

picture."     I.  K.  F.] 

IN  ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTIONS 

First   Question  :  Fraud  is  by  no  means   excluded.     If   the   coin, 

valued  at  $2,500,  was  "out  of  its  place,"  the  owner    certainly 

made  a  note  of  the  loan  of  such  a  valuable  piece.     He  may  have 

forgotten  about  the  affair,  but  the  said  note  either  filled  the 

vacated  place  in  the  collection  or  was  attached  to  the  catalogue 

of  the  collection,  when  the  latter  was  sold  for  $17,000,     Thus, 

friends  and  visitors  of  the  owners,  who  were  interested  in  the 

collection,  may  have  seen  the  slip  and  even  noticed  the  name  of 

the  person  to  whom  the  coin  was  loaned. 

["  Mr.  West  says  if  such  memoranda  had  been  made  by  his  father 

he  would  have  known  of  it  at  the  time  and  afterwards,  for  his  father 

closely  consulted  him  in  these  things.     After  his  father's  death  he 

was  his  executor,  and  no  record  of  any  kind  in  reference  to  the  coin 

or  of  its  having  been  loaned  was  found.     It  is,  hence,  of  no  piirpose, 

as  suggested  beloW,   to  trace  the  coins  since  their  sale,  as  there  was 

no  mention  made  of  this  particular  coin  in  the  catalogue  of  coins  sold 

or  otherwise  at  that  time.     It  was  wholly  forgotten.     I.  K.  F.] 

In  order  to  exclude  every  possibility  of  fraud  in  this  direction 
it  woiild  be  necessary  to  trace  the  whereabouts  of  the  collection  to  its 
present  owner,  which  has  not  been  done. 

To  the  many  sworn  statements,  attached  to  Dr.  Funk's  report, 
should  be  added  one  by  the  medium  herself,  in  which  she  assures  xis 
that  she  had,  previous  to  the  evening  of  that  remarkable 
seance,  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  coin  and  the  collection,  the 
loan  to  Dr.  Funk  and  the  Dictionary,  and  that  relations  between 
Mr.  Beecher  and  Dr.  Funk  were  not  suggested  to  her  by  remarks  of 
Mr.  Roney  or  of  any  other  visitor  of  the  meetings. 
[See  foot  note,  page  493.] 


FRAUD  PROBABLE  499 

Second  Question  :  "Coincidence"  is  always  a  statement  only,  never 
an  ''explanation.'^  In  other  words,  facts  can  never  be  explained. 
We  "explain"  only  relations  of  facts  (existences)  and  even  then 
explaining  can  never  mean  more  than  tracing  unknown  and 
complicated  relations  back  to  known  and  simple  ones.  The  last, 
i.  e.,  the  ultimate  and  absolutely  simple  relations  (mathematical 
axioms)  cannot  be  explained.  The  question  of  coincidence  is 
really  in  last  instance  the  problem  of  reality. 

Third  Question  :  By  the  subconscious  can,  of  course,  only  be  under- 
stood that  of  which  we  are  conscious,  but  to  which  we  do  not  or 
cannot  pay  attention.     The  unconscious  can  never  be  a  matter 
of  knowledge,  for   the  first  condition  for  knowledge  is  conscious- 
ness. 
^his  question  really  deals  with  the  problem  of  telepathy.     In 
telepathy   I    could  never  see   a  greater  enigma  than  in  any  physical 
force  acting  at  a  distance.     We  have  light,  heat,  gravity  transmitted 
through  space.     We  have  wireless  telegraphy.     Why,  then,  should  it 
be  impossible  or  even  improbable  that  some   vibratory  motion  is 
emanated   from   more   or  less   agitated  brain   cells.     Such   "brain- 
waves" might  be  propagated  through  space  unnoticed  and  imtrace- 
able,  causing  disturbance  or  change  only  in  such  brains  as  are  of 
exactly  equal  timing,  and  thus  form  a  proper  receiver. 

Fourth  Question  :  The  spirit  hypotheses  is  the  poorest  of  all.  It 
assumes  most  pitiful  conditions  for  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
deceased.  They  are  complete  slaves  of  the  medium,  compelled  to 
rap  at  tables,  to  phosphoresce,  to  write  and  speak  (and,  indeed, 
always  in  the  same  defective  grammar  and  orthography  as  the 
medium)  and  to  perform  sleight-of-hand  tricks  which  a  fair 
magician  at  a  variety  show  usually  performs  better.  They  seem 
to  retain  the  age  at  which  they  died  and  to  adapt  their  intelli- 
gence to  the  horizon  of  the  medium.  They  seem  to  be  quite 
adverse  to  the  condition  of  exact  scientific  experiment  and  per- 
form their  tricks  only  when  there  is  a  loophole  left  for  fraud. 
The  present  case  forms  no  exception  as  long  as  we  have  no  proof 
that  fraud  was  absolutely  excluded. 

Simiming  up,  I  may  say:  Although  I  think  everything  is  possible 
that  does  not  contain  a  mathematical  contradiction,  I  would  be 
Inclined  in  the  present  case  to  prefer  as  a  probable  explanation- 
"Fraud." 

From ,  Professor  of  Psychology  in University 

[The  following  is  from  a  well-known  professor  in  one  of  our  largest 
universities,  who  requests  the  withholding  of  his  name,  saying  : 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  be  quoted,  as  in  my  state  of  mind  I  do  not  care 
to  seem  too  dogmatic."] 


500         SUCCESSIVE  CONSCIOUSNESS 

I  am  not  a  spiritualist,  never  consulted  a  medium,  and  am  satis- 
fied that  I  shall  live  after  death,  and  have  no  interests,  therefore,  in 
any  new  objective  proof.  But  as  a  matter  of  science,  I  am  inter- 
ested and  regard  yotir  experience  as  very  curious,  to  say  the  least. 
I  hope  you  will  push  your  researches  to  ascertain,  if  possible,  any 
weak  link  in  the  chain  of  facts  or  absence  of  any  link. 

First  Question:   I  should  eliminate  fraud. 

Second  Question  :  I  should  not  explain  as  coincidence.  The  proba- 
bilities are  almost  infinitely  against  coincidence.  The  explosion 
of  a  type  fotmdry  might  possibly  in  infinite  time  compose  the 
Iliad,   but   the   probabilities    are   infinitely   against   this  result. 

Third  Question:  As  to  the  third  hypothesis,  the  experiments  and 
studies  of  men  like  McPierre  Janet  opens  up  a  wide  field  of 
investigation  in  what  he  denominates  la  principe  de  la  d^sagr^- 
gation  psychologique.  L'Automatisme  psychologique,  double 
personality,  etc.,  are  terms  that  cover  a  great  nimiber  of  curious 
phenomena.  Enough  seems  to  be  known  about  so-called  sub- 
liminal consciousness,  and  successive  personalities  to  justify  a 
suspicion  that  an  experience  like  this  one.  (See  accounts  of 
double  consciousness  of  Felida  X  the  three  or  four  of  Leonie.) 
I  should  reject  doctrine  of  multiple  personalities,  and  speak  of 
successive  consciousness,  of  the  "Moi." 
Adverse  (i)  All  these  psychologic  facts  are  too  new  and  obscure 

to  receive  any  scientific  explanations  as  yet — not  yet  scientific. 

(2)  Mundane  telepathy  may  be  scientific.  The  cases  of  extra- 
mundane  telepathy  cannot  be  explained,  if  there  are  such  cases.  I 
have  no  personal  experience,  but  the  evidence  from  so  many  observers, 
scientific  minds  as  well  as  literary,  force  a  candid  mind  to  hold  his 
judgment  at  least  in  suspense. 

(3)  The  explanation  by  simple  mimdane  telepathy  seems  to  pos- 
tulate a  capacity  almost  omniscient  on  the  part  of  the  sitter  :  I  should 
from  scientific  point  of  view  think  extra-mundane  commiuiication 
the  least  miraculous.  The  wide  range  of  simple  mind-reading, 
in  case  of  Hodgson  with  Mrs.  Peper,  seems  more  of  a  miracle  than 
extra  or  transmundane    commimication.     Let  one  take  his  choice. 

(4)  One  who  believed  that  Jesus  materialized  (passing  through 
shut  doors — suddenly  appearing  and  vanishing,  at  one  moment 
recognizable,  at  another  not  recognizable) — one  who  accepts  an 
objective  presentation  of  Jesus  to  his  followers,  cannot,  a  priori,  say 
that  there  can  be  no  other  objective  presentations  (voices,  etc.),  if 
the  zeit-geist,  skepticism,  despondency,  desire  for  evidence  of  another 
life  render  such  a  manifestation  necessary.  What  Max  Muller  and 
others  mean  by  spiritual  objectivity  means  either  transmimdane 
commimication  or  mere  subjective  illusion.  Subjective  states  which 
happen  to  500  disciples  seem  more  difficult  to  believe  than  an  objec- 
tive presentation  or  materialization.     All  theories  of  a  real  presenta- 


FROM  RUSSIAN  UNIVERSITY         501 

tlon  of  Jesus  must  be  given  up,  or  any  a  priori  judgment  as  to  trans- 
mimdane  intercourse  being  impossible  miist  be  rejected  as  irrational. 

A  thoughtful  man  must  avoid  a  priori  judgment  and  himably 
accept  evidence.  Evidence  must  be  personal  to  be  convincing.  I 
wait — am  willing  to  receive  it.  So  far,  I  have  never  happened  to 
experience  what  you  have.  It  is  an  age  of  intense  anxiety  respecting 
a  life  after  this.  Ten  thousand  experiences  are  given.  It  would 
seem  incredible  that  all  men  who  attest  these  transmxuidane  com- 
mimications  are  incompetents,  cranks,  or  lovers  of  fraud.  "Don't 
know"  at  present — but  I  am  ready  for  proofs. 

Be  kind  enough  to  regard  this  too  long  statement  as  CONFI- 
DENTIAL.    I  do  not  care  in  my  present  state  of  mind  to  dogmatize. 

From  A.  Sadowsky,  Professor  of  Physics,  Imperial  Uni- 
versity of  Jurjev,  Russia 
Neither  fraud  nor  coincidence  come  within  the  range  of  proba- 
bilities.    I  am  inclined  to  say  yes  to  the  hypothesis  of  subconscious 
faculties. 

From  Sir  William  Grookes,  English  Scientist 
I  have  taken  no  active  part  in  the  spiritualistic  movement  for 
nearly  twenty-five  years,  and  do  not  feel  that  I  can  do  justice  to  this 
curious  incident  by  giving  an  opinion.  All  that  I  can  say  is  that  the 
incident  as  related  does  not  differ  in  principle  from  many  other  simi- 
lar incidents  which  have  come  under  my  notice,  and  in  which  I  have 
every  confidence  that  fraud  did  not  play  any  part. 

[Mr.  Crookes  says  that  he  has  no  reason  to  change  the  opinions 
which  he  expressed  years  ago  about  spiritualism  and  which  are  freely 
quoted  in  this  volume.       I.  K.  F.^ 

From  Frank  Chapman  Sharp,  Professor  of  Philosophy, 
University  of  Wisconsin 

My  reply  will  take  the  form  of  an  answer  to  this  question:  Sup- 
pose Mr.  Beecher  intended  to  convince  the  public  of  the  reality  of 
present  commimication  between  the  dead  and  the  living,  did  he  use 
a  method  which  allowed  of  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  he  intended 
should  be  drawn? 

Whether  fraud  is  a  probable  explanation  would  require  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  your  employees  to  answer  properly,  also  a  dis- 
cussion of  all  the  valuable  evidence  of  alleged  communications  other 
than  this.  I  will,  therefore,  imdertake  no  more  than  to  say  that 
fraud  is  a  possible  explanation  (a)  on  the  part  of  the  cashier;  (b)  on 
the  part  of  Mr.  Roney;  and  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  not  devised  an 
experiment  against  which  criticism  could  not  properly  be  urged, 
(a)  We  may  suppose  the  cashier,  after  years  of  forge tfulness,  finds  the 
coins  in  the  safe.  Within  a  few  weeks  or  months  he  finds  through 
a  chance  remark  of  Mr.  Roney's,  or  otherwise,  that  you  are  attending 


502      FROM  WISCONSIN  UNIVERSITY 

Spiritualistic  meetings.  He  goes  to  the  partieai  and  iupplies  them 
with  the  interesting  information  which  you  receive.  If  he  had  for- 
gotten the  name  of  the  owner  of  the  coin,  that  would  account  for  the 
failiire  to  get  the  name.  If  he  later  happened  to  remember  the 
owner  was  connected  with  some  woman's  school,  this  information 
would,  naturally,  appear  at  the  second  meeting,  (b)  Mr.  Roney  may 
have  known  of  these  facts  when  they  occurred,  and  happened  to 
remember  them.  Suddenly  an  opportunity  offers  to  use  them, 
which  he  accepts.  This  theory  assumes  that  he  also  knew  the  coins 
had  not  been  returned.  This  would  probably  mean  collusion  either 
with  the  cashier  or  one  of  the  assistant  cashiers.  If  you  ask  under 
(a)  above,  why  didn't  the  cashier  return  the  coins  immediately  upon 
discovery,  the  answer  is  obvious  if  you  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
attending  such  meetings  for  some  time.  It  is  not  without  the  range 
of  possibilities  that  these  coins  were  discovered  only  after  his  dis- 
covery that  you  were  attending  these  particular  meetings.  Collusion 
between  Mr.  Roney  and  the  cashier  clears  up  all  real  difficulties.  I 
cannot  think  any  investigation,  however  careful,  which  any  one  could 
make  afterwards  establishes  the  proposition  that  no  commiinication 
could  have  taken  place  between  the  Brooklyn  family  and  an  employee 
of  your  firm.  In  a  great  city,  such  communication,  if  it  takes  place, 
is  almost  certain  to  remain  hidden.  Nor  can  I  think  a  proof  of 
ordinary  business  integrity  on  the  part  of  your  clerks  would  preclude 
the  possibility  of  fraud  in  this  instance.  The  history  of  "pious 
frauds,"  ancient  and  modern,  shows  that  commercial  integrity  and 
real  p\irity  of  purpose  can  exist  alongside  of  this  form  of  trickery. 
That  a  man,  for  example,  antecedently  convinced  of  the  immortality 
of  the  sold  and  of  the  value  of  this  belief  to  society  might  conceivably 
go  to  any  length  in  order  to  convince  others  of  the  truth.  A  practical 
joke  is  also  a  possible  motive. 

Coincidence  is  not  a  solution  to  be  considered.  It  is  out  of  the 
question. 

In  a  second  letter,  Professor  Sharp  sajrs: 

You  will,  perhaps,  pardon  me  if  I  repeat  one  statement  which 
explains  the  apparently  ultra-skeptical  attitude  of  several  persons, 
myself  included. 

We  cannot  sit  before  every  fact  without  preconception.  On  the 
contrary,  the  whole  advance  of  science  has  meant  persons  getting 
hold  of  the  right  preconception  and  leaving  no  stone  unturned  till 
they  had  shown  their  fact  to  be  explicable  by  their  theory.  Of  course 
we  need  flexibility  and  openmindedness.  But  the  right  road  is  here, 
as  usually  true,  a  middle  way  between  two  extremes. 

I  think,  then,  the  investigator  of  the  occult  is  justified  in  assuming 
as  a  working  h3-pothesis  that  the  "natural"  phenomena  that  have 
explained  so  many  facts  will  explain  these  also,  and  that  before  he 
can   give  up  this  theory  he  must  have  facts  which  he  se«s  can  be 


FROM  JOHNS-HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  503 

explained  in  no  other  way  and  that  such  facts  cannot  be  admitted 
into  the  body  of  science  until  they  appear  to  all  observers  to  be 
explicable  in  but  one  way.  While  I  can  well  understand,  therefore, 
your  own  confidence  that  you  have  not  been  tricked  by  some  of  the 
various  parties  who  have  been  connected  with  this  incident,  I  think 
you  ought  not  to  expect  others  to  close  their  eyes  to  that  possibility 
until  either  in  this  case  or  in  some  similar  one  this  has  been  demon- 
strated to  be  inadmissable  by  evidence  which  any  one  can  examine 
for  himself. 

As  to  subconscious  faculties,  I  will  not  imdertake  to  say  more 
than  that  telepathy  is  a  possible  explanation,  if  the  following  may 
be  supposed  to  be  the  real  history  of  the  case:  Some  time  after  the 
coins  passed  out  of  your  hands,  you  asked  the  cashier  if  he  had 
returned  them.  He  replied,  "No,  I  had  forgotten  all  about  them. 
They  are  now  in  the  safe,  etc."  You  made  up  your  mind  a  second 
time  to  ask  the  same  question,  feeling  some  doubt  whether  the  neglect 
had  not  continued.  It  slipped  your  mind  when  you  went  to  the 
office.  You  thought  of  it  at  home  and  felt  tmeasy  about  it,  and  so 
on,  until  the  matter  dropped  entirely  from  your  mind.  It  is  perfectly 
possible  that  all  this  may  have  happened  and  yet  now  have  dropped 
from  your  conscious  memory  never  to  rettu-n.  All  the  time,  however, 
this  may  have  been  in  yoiu"  subconscious  memory.  If  it  was,  and  if 
there  be  any  such  thing  as  telepathy  at  all,  then,  as  you  must  know 
from  the  literature  of  the  subject,  telepathy  would  bring  it  to  light. 
This  very  incident  affords  good  evidence  that  what  was  once  in 
consciousness  may  be  irrevocably  lost  to  conscious  memory.  The 
chances  are  enormous  in  favor  of  the  possibility  that  the  United 
States  Mint  in  1893  wrote  you  that  the  black  coin  was  the  genuine 
one.  Whoever  read  the  letter  knew  at  the  time  which  was  the  genuine 
coin.  Then  by  one  of  those  unaccountable  slips  which  happen  to 
every  one  once  in  a  lifetime,  the  association  lines  got  crossed  and, 
perhaps,  half  automatically,  the  order  was  given  to  make  a  cut  of 
the  lighter  coin.  The  matter  then  being  dismissed  from  the  mind, 
it  was  never  mentally  corrected.  Professor  West's  failiu-e  to  ask 
you  for  the  coin  shows  also  how  complete  oblivescence  can  be. 

I  think  there  is  nothing  in  this  or  any  other  incident  I  know  of 
which  cannot  be  explained  by  other  hypotheses  than  the  spiritistic. 

From   Edward   H.    Griffin,    Professor  of  History  of 
Philosophy,  Johns-Hopkins  University 

It  is  certain  that  fraud  is  not  a  probable  explanation.  The  diffi- 
culties on  that  hypothesis  are  almost  insuperable;  nor  is  coincidence 
a  solution  within  the  range  of  possibility.  Nor  can  I  regard  the 
theory  of  subconscious  faculties  as  a  reasonable  explanation. 

The  triviality  of  so-called  "spirit  communications"  is  a  fatal 
objection  to  my  mind  to  the  spirit  hypothesis.  Why  should  great 
men  lapse  into  such  imbecility?     If  the  future  life  is  so  far  inferior 


504  FROM  PAUL  CARUS 

to  the  present  one,  who  need  take  the  trouble  to  confirm  belief  in  it? 
If  I  were  compelled  to  choose  a  hypothesis,  it  would  be  that  of  fraud, 
but  I  am  inclined  to  give  the  problem  up  without  solution.  The 
narrative  is  an  interesting  one.  If,  on  further  reflection  any  helpful 
idea  occurs  to  me,  I  shall  write  fiurther  about  it. 

From  Paul  Carus,  Editor  of  The  Open  Cotirt  and  the 
Monist;  Author  of  The  Ethical  Problem;  The 
Soul  of  Man;  The  Dawn  of  a  New  Era;  Kant 
and  Spencer;  Whence  and  Whither:  an  inquiry 
into  the  Nature  of  the  Sotil,  its  Origin,  and  its 
Destiny,  etc.,  etc.,  Chicago 

On  my  first  perusal  of  the  description  of  this  incident  the  report 
struck  me  as  a  remarkable  fact  which  wotild  go  far  to  be  cotmted 
as  favorable  evidence  in  favor  of  a  mysterious  connection  between 
the  dead  and  the  living  of  whatever  sort  it  may  be.  A  second  perusal 
took  away  a  great  deal  of  the  mystery  and  the  more  I  think  of  it  the 
less  strange  the  story  appears  to  me.  The  most  weighty  objection 
that  I  can  find  against  the  credibility  of  the  story  that  indicates  spirit 
commimication  is  the  fact  that  many  mighty  problems  could  be 
solved,  and  imquestionably  would  have  been  solved  by  spirit  commtm- 
ication.  Wherever  do  you  find  the  solution  of  a  murder  or  any  great 
political  or  social  event  brought  to  a  crisis  by  spirit  commimication? 
All  such  commtmications  are  concerning  trifles,  and  altho  the  "Widow's 
Mite"  affair  refers  to  an  object  valued  at  $2,500,  it  is  nothing  in 
comparison  with  great  questions  in  which  frequently  the  fate  of 
many  millions  is  involved;  and  yet,  wherever  we  have  access  to  the 
full  concatenation  of  facts,  spirit  commtmication  cesises.  Accord- 
ingly, I  would  answer  your  questions: 
I.  That  fraud  seems  to  me  excluded   or   highly   improbable   in    the 

story  which  you  relate. 
n.  Coincidence  may  very  well  serve  as  a  solution  of  the  strange 

events,  at  least  in  part. 
3  Subconscious  faculties  may  have   done   their  part  to  bring  about 

some  of  the  results. 
4.  I  would  resort  to  the  explanation  of  spirit  communication  only  ♦/ 

all  other  theories  fail.     In   the   present  case  I  would  not  venture 

an  opinion  as  to  the  nattire  of  the  facts  unless  I  could  have  the 

chance  of  cross-examination    of    the   several  parties  concerned 

in  it. 
No  doubt  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  I  have  ever  met 
with,  especially  as  the  facts  are  well  authenticated  by  trustworthy 
witnesses.  But  there  are  a  few  more  points  not  mentioned  in  your 
report  which  might  be  of  importance  in  forming  an  opinion.  What- 
ever the  significance  of  the  case  may  be,  it  is  an  interesting  incident 
of  an  apparently  inexplicable  phenomenon. 


FROM  HOLLAND  UNIVERSITY       505 

From  I.  J.  DE  BussY,  Professor  of  Ethics  and  Religious 
Philosophy,  University  of  Amsterdam 

Neither  fraud  nor  coincidence  are  probable  explanations.  There 
is  a  possibility  of  coincidence  if  the  family  name,  Beecher,  was  in 
the  circle  of  acquaintances  of  the  mediimi. 

The  most  acceptable  supposition  is  the  existence  of  subconsciovis 
faculties ;  but  my  opinion  concerning  these  faculties  is  hard  to  explain. 
The  explanation  of  the  facts  may  be  sought  in  the  hidden  conscious- 
ness of  Dr.  Ftmk. 

I  am  an  imbeHever  in  spirit  commtmication  of  the  kind  here  inten- 
ded, and  hence  regard  the  hypothesis  to  be  one  that  cannot  be  accep- 
ted. 

From   Walter    D.    Scott,    Professor   of    Psychology, 
University  of  Chicago 

I  think  that  no  fraud  was  intended,  but  the  evidence  is  not  at  all 
conclusive,  and  it  all  may  be  a  huge  joke.  Coincidence  will  not 
explain  all  the  facts.  I  do  not  regard  the  existence  of  subconscious 
faculties  as  an  explanation.  Self-deception,  coincidence,  partial 
memory,  are  elements  which  I  should  look  to  for  explanation.  I 
should  want  further  testimony  as  to  what  you  said  to  the  medium^ 
I  am  not  willing  to  trust  yoiu*  memory.  I  suspect  that  you  said 
more  to  the  medium  than  you  remember  or  than  the  others  noticed. 
In  fact,  your  No.  12  of  "Points  to  Observe"  is  in  direct  contradiction 
to  your  statement  as  given  above. 

[I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  Professor  Scott  means.  There 
was  not  a  whisper  of  any  kind  that  touched  in  the  remotest  way  this 
subject  before  the  direct  inquiry  was  made  from  the  cabinet.  Nor 
did  I  trust  wholly  to  my  memory,  as  I  wrote  down  the  next  day  the 
facts  and  afterwards  consulted  others  who  were  present  and  heard 
what  was  said.      I.  K.  F.] 

From  Collins  Denny,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  Vander- 
bilt  University 

Before  anything  that  would  meet  the  requirements  of  a  scientific 
explanation  can  be  offered  there  must  be  an  assiu*ance  that  all  the 
facts  are  correctly  stated,  and  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure  that  the  facts 
have  been  exhausted. 

Again,  the  explanation  you  suggest  is  based  on  the  supposition 
that  conscious  life  continues  after  death.  I  believe  this,  but  I  do 
not  think  I  could  demonstrate  it.     It  remains  a  supposition. 

Secondly,  there  must  be  some  ground  for  the  conviction  that 
those  who  have  died  can  commimicate  with  those  who  are  living  on 
the  earth.  Now,  any  explanation  that  would  accept  any  one  of  your 
interrogatories  assumes  both  of  these  conditions.  Or,  perhaps,  I 
had  better  rule  out  fraud  and  coincidence  from  this  statement,  as  these 
woidd  not  necessitate  the  truthfxilness  of  these  suppositions.     At 


5o6   FROM  VANDERBILT  UNIVERSITY 

any  rate,  I  do  not  feel  sure  that  all  the  facts  necessary  for  a  scientific 
explanation  have  been  stated,  for  my  understanding  of  an  explana- 
tion is  that  it  is  a  reference  to  a  cause,  or  a  law,  or  a  class.  Certainly 
this  is  the  statement  made  by  the  leading  authorities  who  treat  of 
scientific  methods. 

While  I  cannot  accept  any  explanation  you  suggest,  I  have  no 
explanation  of  my  own  to  offer  for  these  and  similar  instances.  Cer- 
tainly the  view  of  subconscious  mental  activities  is  to  me  erroneous, 
tho  I  notice  in  your  statement  that  you  speak  of  your  subconscious 
memory  and  the  subconscious  memory  of  your  cashier.  Now,  the 
existence  of  any  subconscious  mental  states  is  an  hypothesis  to 
account  for  facts  that  cannot  otherwise  be  explained,  and  logical  law 
condemns  a  cause  that  is  not  a  vera  causa;  by  which  I  mean  a  cause 
not  otherwise  known  to  exist,  and  subconscious  mental  states  are 
not  known  to  exist  otherwise  than  that  they  are  assumed  to  explain 
phenomena  akin  to  those  you  present.  In  order  to  raise  an  hypothesis 
to  the  height  of  proof  it  has  been  known  as  long  ago  as  the  time 
when  Sir  Isaac  Newton  wrote  that  not  only  must  all  the  facts  be 
accounted  for  by  the  hypothesis,  but  that  no  other  hypothesis  can 
account  for  the  facts;  and  the  hypothesis  of  subconscious  mental 
states  fulfils  neither  of  these  suppositions.  That  I  am  correct  in 
this  statement  about  hypotheses  and  proof  may  be  easily  seen  by 
consulting  Mill's  System  of  Logic.  Many  of  the  facts  to  be  explained 
by  subconscious  mental  activities  can  be  and  have  been  explained  on 
other  hypotheses  wherein  a  vera  causa  has  been  referred  to;  as,  for 
instance,  acquired  dexterities  and  habits  are  now  accounted  for  by 
referring  them  to  reflex  action.  Spontaneous  ordering  of  thoughts 
has  been  accounted  for  by  referring  them  to  unconscious  cerebration, 
brain  action  wherein  only  the  result,  not  the  process,  of  the  brain's 
movements,  comes  into  mind;  and  whether  we  admit  the  existence 
of  unconscious  cerebration  or  not,  at  least  this  is  an  hypothesis  equally 
as  good  as  that  of  subconscious  mental  activities.  Lost  links  in 
memory  have  long  since  been  explained  otherwise  than  bv  reference 
to  subconscious  mental  activities;  hence,  to  my  mind,  all  mental 
states  are  conscious  states,  consciousness  being  essential  to  mind. 
Certainly,  if  there  be  subconscious  states,  we  cannot  be  said  to  be 
conscious  of  them,  for  this  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

This  very  inadequate  statement  of  subconscious  mental  activities 
may  serve  to  show  why  I  could  not  accept  any  explanation  that 
assumed  the  existence  of  such  activities. 

One  feature  about  such  phenomena  as  you  present  that  always 
puts  them  imder  suspicion  with  me  is  the  curtains  and  the  darkness 
that  seem  to  play  a  part  in  every  one  of  which  I  have  heard.  Now 
I  can  see  no  reason  why  (on  the  supposition  that  those  who  have 
died  can  communicate  with  those  who  are  living)  they  should  need 
any  such  adjuncts  as  curtains  and  darkness.     We  can  communicate 


FROM  THOMSON  J.  HUDSON        507 

with  each  other  without  any  such  intermediarief  as  these,  and  a 
man  who  has  been  freed  from  many  of  the  clogs  from  which  we  sxiffer 
ought  certainly  to  have  as  easy  commimication  as  we  have  one  with 
the  other. 

I  fear  this  statement,  unsatisfactory  to  me,  may  be  equally  or 
more  unsatisfactory  to  you;  but,  in  dealing  with  such  phenomena  as 
life  presents  to  us,  I  have  been  forced  to  bring  my  pace  into  accord 
with  the  slow  movements  of  Aristotle,  Bacon  and  Newton.  The 
whole  history  of  philosophy  has  been  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of 
hasty  generalizations  and  explanations  that  break  down  under  the 
strain  of  the  facts  of  life. 

From  James  H.  Hyslop,  late  Professor  of  Logic  and 
Ethics,  Coltunbia  University 
This  case,  certainly,  represents  one  that  has  very  possible  claims 
to  supernormal  knowledge,  to  say  the  least  of  it.  I  see  no  way  to 
impeach  it  positively.  I  could  imagine  a  theory  to  explain  it  without 
supposing  the  supernormal;  but  I  would  have  no  possible  evidence 
in  favor  of  what  I  can  imagine.  The  consequence  is  that  I  must 
treat  the  incident  as  I  do  all  such  cases — to  suspend  judgment  and 
pronounce  no  positive  opinion  one  way  or  the  other.  Besides,  it  is 
not  wise  to  base  a  large  theory  on  a  single  incident  of  the  kind,  no 
matter  how  much  we  are  puzzled  to  defend  an  ordinary  explanation. 
A  large  theory  must  have  a  large  and  complex  mass  of  facts  upon 
which  to  depend.  I  think  you  have  fairly  stated  the  alternative 
explanations,  and  have  also  assumed  a  properly  non-committal  atti- 
tude toward  them.  The  incident  is,  certainly,  well  calculated,  in  all 
its  psychological  features,  superficially  at  least,  to  prove  the  identity 
of  Professor  West,  and  probably  Mr.  Beecher,  and  it  is  that  which 
interests  me  in  it.  But  I  could  wish  that  the  skeptic  could  not  pro- 
pose this  and  that  "possibility"  which  we  cannot  refute,  even  tho 
we  do  not  believe  it.  If  there  was  no  possible  way  for  the  medium 
to  have  ascertained  the  fact,  the  incident  is,  certainly,  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  that  I  have  met  with. 

From  Thomson  J.  Hudson,  Author  of  "The  Law  of 
Psychic  Phenomena,"  etc.,  Detroit,  Mich. 
My  answer  to  the  third  question  will  dispose  of  all  the  rest.  This 
third  question  asks  whether  there  is  any  reasonable  theory  of  the 
existence  of  subconscious  faculties  that  will  explain  all  the  facts  in 
this  case.  My  answer  is  "yes."  I  regard  telepathy  as  affording  a 
perfectly  easy  explanation  of  all  that  appears  mysterious  in  the  case. 
The  answers  given  by  the  "control"  to  yoiu*  questions  are  just  such 
as  might  be  reasonably  expected  from  a  fairly  competent  psychic  or 
telepathist.  The  questions  which  the  control  failed  to  answer,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  just  such  questions  as  ordinary  telepathists  fail 
to  answer ;  not  that  they  are  not  'v^'ithin  the  range  of  telepathic  possi- 


5o8     FROM  CINCINNATI  UNIVERSITY 

bilities,  but  that  they  reqtdre  exceptionally  high  telepathic  powers. 
In  point  of  fact,  I  do  not  regard  the  case  as  being  entitled  to  be  called 
a  test  case.  It  belongs  to  the  ABC  of  what  spiritists  regard  as  test 
questions,  but  which,  in  reality,  have  no  scientific  significance  or 
evidential  value. 

It  would  require  considerable  space  to  give  an  explanation  of  the 
reasons  for  my  belief.  If  you  desire  such  answer  for  any  special  pur- 
pose, as  for  publication  in  a  symposium,  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
write  out  the  same,  and  will  say  in  advance  that  I  shall  be  able  to 
make  it  perfectly  clear  to  the  unprejudiced  mind  that  neither  of  the 
theories  embraced  in  the  other  three  questions  are  either  necessary  or 
possible  solutions.  I  await  your  reply  before  proceeding  to  give  my 
reasons  in  full. 

[Upon  receipt  of  this  letter  I  immediately  wrote  Dr.  Hudson  that 
I  would  be  very  glad  to  have  a  full  statement  of  his  reasons  for  his 
conclusions  as  given  in  the  above  letter.  In  a  few  days  the  telegraph 
acquainted  the  world  with  the  doctor's  death.     J.  K.  F.] 

From  Louis  T.  More,  Professor  of  Physics,  University 
of  Cincinnati 

I  think  fraud  is  alwajrs  a  possible  explanation  of  such  incidents, 
but  as  I  know  nothing  of  the  people  whom  this  incident  involves,  I 
can  express  no  opinion  on  this  question. 

The  mathematical  probabilities  of  such  a  coincidence  occurring 
to  any  one  are  exceedingly  unlikely;  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  mathematical  law  of  probability  deals  only  with  the  future 
and  not  with  something  that  has  occurred.  For  example:  let  a 
million  different  numbers  be  in  a  bag,  then  the  probability  of  drawing 
a  specified  nimiber  is  only  one  in  a  million;  but  the  specified  number 
may  come  out  first  equally  as  well  as  at  any  other  time.  So  in  this 
case  the  probability  that  such  an  occurrence  would  happen  to  the 
owner  of  the  "Widow's  Mite"  is  exceedingly  small;  but  after  it  has 
happened,  the  mathematical  laws  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  it, 
and  would  at  least  only  say  what  chance  it  has  of  occurring  again. 

As  a  physicist  I  would  say  that  the  dynamical  laws  of  physics 
seem  to  me  neither  to  support  or  controvert  the  existence  of  meta- 
physical forces  and  energy  (such  as  suggestion,  thought  transference, 
etc.).  The  difficulty  of  explaining  the  incident  by  the  existence  of 
subconscious  faculties  is  that  the  whole  of  the  incident  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  ever  in  the  mind  of  any  individual,  and  as  the 
subconscious  memory  must  have  been  supplemented  by  the  secret 
influence  of  other  minds  which  are  also  acting  subconsciously,  making 
the  chain  a  weak  one. 

I  have  never  had  an  experience  which  induces  me  to  believe  in 
spirit  communication. 


FROM  CALIFORNIA  UNIVERSITY     509 

From  Frederick  Slate,  Professor  of  Physics,  Univer- 
sity of  California 

My  judgment  on  the  data  as  presented  woidd  be  of  little  value 
because  of  the  \mcertainty  whether  the  data  are  exhaustive — granting 
ftdly  that  they  are  genuine  so  far  as  they  go.  No  reader  of  "plot 
stories"  (detective  tales,  etc.)  can  be  unaware  that  a  really  simple 
clue  when  once  furnished,  may  disentangle  an  apparently  inexplicable 
tangle.  So  here  it  may  be  true  that  some  essential  element  has  been 
overlooked  which  would  clear  up  the  whole  situation,  and  this  possi- 
bility (mind  I  go  no  further  than  possibility)  makes  any  judgment 
or  opinion  or  testimony  on  the  part  of  one  like  myself  to  whom  certain 
limited  evidence  is  reported  (without  chance  of  further  exhaustive 
investigation)  inconclusive  and  nearly  valueless. 

This  is  the  position  which  my  daily  contact  with  interpretation 
of  elusive  phenomena  incline  me  to  take.  In  critical  cases  one  does 
not  assert  any  one  conclusion  until  he  has  tested  it  in  comparison 
with  others,  on  new  combinations,  and,  if  possible,  in  some  crucial 
way.  This  presentation  is  marked  by  a  desire  for  fairness  and  is 
striking;  and,  as  you  say,  one  noticeable  element  in  such  cases  is  the 
apparently  trivial  character  of  the  subject  matter.  Undoubtedly — 
perhaps  unfairly — this  circumstance  prejudices  judgment  as  to  their 
importance  and  connection  with  deep  problems.  They  are  estimated 
I  suppose,  more  as  psychological  puzzles. 

From  Arthur  L.  Foley,  Professor  of  Physics,  Indiana 

University 
I  simply  do  not  know  what  to  believe.  I  reject  explanation  sug- 
gested in  questions  2  and  3,  and  think  the  solution  is  in  i  or  4.  Between 
I  and  4  I  am  inclined  to  believe  in  fraud  in  some  form  or  another, 
perhaps  indirect  and  even  imsuspected  by  the  medium  and  her  rela- 
tives. 

Coincidence  is  out  of  the  question.  I  know  of  no  subconscious 
faculties.  As  to  spirit  communication  will  say  perhaps  possible,  but 
I  can  scarcely  believe  probable. 

From  A.  Riehl,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  Halle, 
Germany 

As  to  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication:  I  know  nothing 
about  spirits,  and  know  only  One  Spirit. 

From  ,   Professor  of  Psychology, 

University 

In  my  judgment  fraud  is  not  a  probable  explanation,  and  if  the 
facts  are  correctly  and  fully  stated,  I  would  not  regard  coincidence 
as  a  solution  within  the  range  of  probabilities. 

On  the  basis  of  our  knowledge  of  hypnotic  conditions,  subcon- 
soious  states,  and  their  detection  by  certain  individuals,  many  but 


5IO  FROM  OHIO  UNIVERSITY 

not  all  of  the  facts  mentioned  can  be  accounted  for.  Further  inves- 
tigation would  probably  enable  us  to  account  for  the  totality  of 
facts  on  the  same  or  similar  grounds.  I  would  not  regard  the  hypoth- 
esis of  spirit  communication  as  a  possible  solution. 

(It  is  understood  that  my  name  is  not  to  be  used  in  connection 
with  anything  you  may  publish. 

From  Ben  J.   F.  Thomas,   Professor  of  Physics,  Ohio 
State  University 

As  to  the  fraud  hypothesis,  I  would  say  yes,  most  decidedly.  The 
statement  that  "the  communications  are  believed  to  be  by  direct 
or  independent  speech  and  by  raps,  with  lights  occasionally  appearing 
on  the  cin*tains ' '  determines  my  answer.  I  firmly  believe  that  matter 
can  be  moved,  stufaces  illuminated  and  sounds  produced,  solely  by 
material  agencies.  To  deny  this  is  to  deny  the  law  of  the  conservation 
of  energy  in  the  physical  universe. 

Your  statements  concerning  the  family  and  circiunstances  make 
it  difificult  to  assign  a  motive  or  to  locate  a  responsible  agency;  but 
the  use  of  the  moss-covered  devices  of  the  darkened  room,  knockings, 
lights,  etc.,  etc.,  are  to  my  mind,  conclusive  that  human  agency  id 
at  work  with  intent  to  deceive. 

From  Gborgb  Rbbec,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan 

I  am  not  ready  to  make  the  charge  of  fraud,  though  it  seems  to 
me  there  are  several  points  at  which  fraud  could  have  entered  into  the 
case.  Coincidence  is  not  within  the  range  of  probabilities.  The 
hypothesis  of  subconscious  faculties  is  nearer  a  rational  explanation 
than  anything  else,  to  my  mind.  Last  of  all  solutions  to  be  turned 
to  is  the  theory  of  spirit  commimication. 

From  Sydney  H.  Mallone,  Holjrwood,  Belfast,  Ireland 

The  facts  being  as  stated  in  the  narrative,  I  think  the  hypothesis 
of  fraud  is  absolutely  excluded.  A  good  deal  depends  upon  what 
is  meant  by  coincidence.  Given  one  line  of  events  leading  up  to  a 
certain  result,  "A,"  and  another  line  of  events  (supposed  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  the  former)  leading  up  to  another  result,  "B,"  let  "A" 
and  "B"  "fit"  as  regards  time  and  other  circumstances.  To  say 
that  their  fitting  is  coincidence  may  mean  that  there  is  simply  no 
connection  between  "A"  and  "B,"  and  none  between  the  line  of 
events  which  separately  led  up  to  them.  Or  it  may  mean  that  there 
is  no  connection  between  the  two  lines  such  as  to  lead  to  "A"  and 
"  B  "  "  fitting ' '  each  other  as  they  do.  This  may  be  so,  but  mathemati  - 
cally  I  believe  it  would  be  extremely  improbable.  In  any  case,  it  is 
no  solution,  but  the  mere  assertion  of  a  negative  which  can  not  be 
proved  and  can  only  be  held  as  a  matter  of  feeling. 


FROM  TOKYO  UNIVERSITY  511 

There  is  no  reasonable  theory  of  the  existence  of  subconscious 
faculties  at  the  present  time.  But  the  work  of  The  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  leaves  some  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  solution  will  ulti- 
mately be  found  in  this  direction. 

I  can  not  think  that  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication  has 
any  standing  whatever  in  logic  or  in  fact.  None  in  logic,  for  it  con- 
travenes every  condition  of  a  reasonable  hypothesis,  and  none  in 
fact  for  the  facts  which  (I  admit)  seem  at  first  suggestive,  crumble 
away  on  analysis.  It  resembles  the  hypothesis  of  the  earth  being 
the  motionless  center  of  the  planetary  system. 

I  will  value  any  further  information  that  may  be  obtained  con- 
cerning this  affair. 

From  D.  W.  Hering,  Professor  of  Physics,  New  York 

University 

I  regard  fraud  on  the  part  of  some  one  as  a  probable  explanation. 
Spirit  commimication  is  not  a  possible  solution  without  the  assump- 
tion (pturely  gratuitous)  that  spirits  have  greater  power  than  living 
beings. 

From  M.  Anesaki,  Professor  of  the  Japanese  Language, 
Literature  and  History,  College  of  Literature, 
Imperial  University  of  Tokyo. 

I  regard  fraud  quite  impossible  as  an  explanation.  Coincidence 
is  not  impossible,  but  I  can  not  think  it  at  all  probable  in  this  case. 

Point  III.  3  B  of  your  paper  excludes  the  possibility  of  the  exist- 
ence of  subconscious  faculties  as  the  explanation. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  only  possible  explanation  of  the  facts  is 
the  hypothesis  of  spirit  communication.  My  conception  of  a  spirit 
may  differ  a  little  from  many  others,  but  I  find  it  not  necessary  to 
state  it  here  in  full.  The  existence  of  spirit  forces,  not  necessarily 
of  spirit  individuals,  will  be  enough  for  the  explanation. 

From  John  Trowbridge,  Professor  of  Physics,  Harvard 

University 

I  regard  fraud  as  the  probable  explanation.  I  have  known  of  so 
many  cases  of  carefully  arranged  plans  to  get  men  of  position  and 
of  means  imder  the  dominion  of  mediums  that  I  am  suspicious  of 
even  apparently  honest  Spiritualists.  There  is  a  "hall-mark"  about 
convocations  of  Spiritualists  and  mediums.  Generally  there  is  the 
loss  of  a  child  (often  in  my  experience  called  Mamie) ;  there  are,  too, 
uneducated  people  of  the  middle  class  who  have  not  been  trained 
in  scientific  observation  and  in  weighing  evidence.  It  seems  prob- 
able that  some  one  has  communicated  facts  forgotten  by  you  to  the 
so-called  medium. 

A  lucky  guess  might  account  for  the  choice  or  description  of  the 
right  one  of  the  two  kinds  of  mites. 


512      FROM  MICHIGAN  UNIVERSITY 

I  know  of  no  facts — incontrovertible — which  can  be  brought 
forward  to-day  to  prove  that  so-called  subconscious  faculties  can 
put  one  mind  in  commimication  with  another.  So-called  subcon- 
sciousness exhibits  merely  a  deranged  working  of  the  individual 
mind. 

I  have  too  great  respect  for  Mr.  Beecher  to  suppose  that  he  is 
occupied  in  another  world  with  trivial  matters.  I  have  never  heard 
of  a  commimication  from  one  who  has  passed  on  which  was  of  import- 
ance or  indicated  the  character  of  the  man  or  woman  whom  the 
medium  professes  to  introduce  again  to  this  world,  and  I  am  forced 
to  believe  that  Spiritualism  is  dangerous.  "This  way  madness 
lies." 

W.  B.  PiLLSBURY,  Professor  of  Pscyhology,  University 

of  Michigan 

I  should  think  conscious  fraud  on  the  part  of^any  of  the  partici- 
pants a  very  tmlikely  hypothesis. 

Coincidence  is  always  possible.  What  the  probabiUties  are  would 
be  impossible  to  say  on  the  basis  of  known  data.  The  chances 
against  the  first  story  being  true  are  great,  in  spite  of  the  rather  vague 
description  of  the  coin,  of  the  place  of  concealment,  etc.,  and  the 
fact  that  it  was  only  a  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher,  not  Mr.  Beecher  him- 
self, who  had  owned  it.  The  choice  of  the  correct  coin  was  only  an 
equal  chance,  and  could  very  well  be  chanced. 

I  do  not  regard  the  existence  of  subconscious  faculties  as  a  reason- 
able theory  of  explanation.  If  any  one  present  had  ever  known 
that  the  coin  had  not  been  returned,  the  fact  might  have  been  recorded 
as  a  detached  memory  and  a  vague  statement  made  to  take  on  the 
given  meaning.  But  the  transfer  of  the  statement  to  another  with- 
out words  would  be  hard  to  understand. 

I  am  not  a  believer  in  spirit  commimication.  The  only  evidence 
for  it  is  of  a  negative  nature,  and  even  if  all  explanation  fails,  it  is 
as  well  to  say  "I  don't  know,"  as  that  "spirits  did  it."  There  is  no 
direct  evidence  for  the  existence  of  spirits  in  communication  with 
mortals,  and  while  there  are  many  things  we  cannot  explain,  it  seems 
to  me  safer  to  assiune  that  the  unusual  is  to  be  explained  by  a 
new  law  of  physics  and  of  mind  than  by  the  supernatural  agencies. 

From  Edward  L.  Nichols,  Professor  of  Physics,  Cornell 

University 

Permit  me  to  suggest  that  it  is  not  improbable  that  Professor 
West  kept  in  mind  the  fact  that  he  had  lent  to  you  so  valuable  a  coin 
instead  of  forgetting  it.  Also,  that  upon  the  appearance  of  the  illus- 
tration he  may  have  noticed  with  some  surprise  the  use  of  the  wrong 
coin  in  the  Dictionary.  He  may  have  mentioned  the  fact  to  one  or 
more  persons  that  the  illustration  was  from  a  coin  in  his  collection 
and  it  was  not  the  one  intended  to  be  used  and  may  have  added  that 


FROM  PROF.  JOHN  DANIEL  513 

the  coin  had  not  been  returned  yet,  and  he  thought  likely  that  it 
was  locked  up  in  a  safe.  This  latter  remark  would  very  naturally 
be  made  in  case  the  suggestion  were  made  to  him  that  it  was  worth 
while  to  look  the  matter  up.  Whis  bit  of  straight  information  having 
come  to  the  ears  either  at  first  hand  or  by  repetition  of  the  medium, 
the  rest  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  usual  procediu*e  in  such 
cases.  The  chief  stock  in  trade  of  the  medium  consists  in  such  bits 
of  imusual  information  concerning  matters  not  generally  known 
which  are  stored  up  and  used  when  the  occasion  arises.  The  manner 
of  presentation  bears  all  the  professional  earmarks;  especially  the 
concealment  of  the  source  of  information  and  the  introduction  of  some 
well-known  personage  of  the  past,  such  as  Mr.  Beecher.  Given  the 
possibility  of  acquiring  the  necessary  information  in  some  such 
natural  and  every-day  manner,  it  seems  to  me  unnecessary  to  consider 
either  of  the  other  explanations  suggested  in  your  letter  even  in  the 
face  of  the  apparent  honesty  of  the  parties  and  the  lack  of  obvious 
motive. 

From  John  Daniel,  Professor  of  Physics,  Vanderbilt 

University 

This  case  is  prepared  with  such  thoroughness  and  care  and  with 
such  evident  honesty  and  seriousness  that  I  take  it  as  nothing  short 
of  my  duty  to  reply.  I  hesitate,  and  certainly  very  much  dislike, 
to  give  fraud  bluntly  as  an  explanation.  Possibly  characters  who 
go  off  into  this  sort  of  thing  sometimes  develop  a  sort  of  frenzy  akin 
to  insanity,  and  are  not  altogether  responsible.  A  few  general  con- 
siderations have  settled  me  into  an  attitude  of  incredulity  toward 
supernatural  pretences.  Some  of  these  I  briefly  state:  (i)  The 
people  who  practice  them  are  as  a  class  weaklings  without  good 
balance  of  mind  and  character;  (2)  The  so-called  communications 
are,  for  the  most  part,  trivial,  if  not  utter  nonsense.  I  am  unable 
to  bring  myself  to  think  that  our  Heavenly  Father  would  use  such 
characters  for  this  extreme  privilege,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  truly 
devout  and  the  truly  great — intellectually.  I  am  also  unable  to 
think  that  genuine  revelations  would  be  trivial;  (3)  Anything  is 
mysterious  until  it  is  tmderstood  and  everything  is  clear  and  simple 
when  it  is  understood.  I  have  spent  many  pleasant  and  profitable 
hours  before  such  master  tricksters  as  Hermann,  Kellar,  etc.  They 
are  honest  men  who  are  very  skilful  and  have  good  tricks.  A  few 
of  their  tricks  are  simplicity  itself  to  me  because  I  know  how  to  do 
them;  but  they  are  as  "wonderful"  to  my  friends  who  do  not  under- 
stand them  as  any  in  the  list.  These  prestidigitators  can  do  dozens 
of  tricks  that  are  as  "wonderful"  to  me  as  anything  possible.  They 
are  simply  incomprehensible,  and  yet  Hermann  says  they  are  as 
simple  as  the  others.  So  I  conclude  that  when  anything  is  myster- 
ious to  us  it  is  because  we  do  not  know  all  the  simple  facts  necessary 
to  make  it  clear. 


514 


FROM  WILLIAM  T.  STEAD 


I  say  "no"  as  to  coincidence,  "yes"  as  to  fraud.  I  am  not 
familiar  with  any  subconscious  faculties  or  phenomena  growing  out  of 
these  faculties.  I  do  not  think  that  spirit  communication  is  a  possi- 
ble solution.     I  think  "the  great  gulf  fixed"  has  not  been  passed. 

From  William  T.  Stead,  Editor,  "  Review  of  Reviews," 
London,  England 

I  am  very  thankful  to  have  received  this  account  of  the  "Widow's 
Mite"  incident.  I  heartily  wish  that  every  one  who  has  had  a  similar 
experience  would  take  the  trouble  of  putting  the  facts  upon  record, 
and  submitting  them  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  are  interested 
in  such  matters. 

I  think  fraud  is  absolutely  precluded;  and,  in  my  judgment, 
coincidence  is  also  excluded. 

The  subconscious  faculties  are  there.  What  they  are,  what 
powers  they  possess,  no  one  can  accurately  define;  but  they  can  only 
explain  all  the  facts  by  supposing  that  the  subconscious  faculties  are 
capable  of  receiving  or  acquiring  knowledge  from  sources  tmknown 
to  our  physical  consciousness  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  each  of 
us  potentially  omniscient.  We  may  be,  but  the  hypothesis  makes 
a  much  greater  demand  upon  my  capacity  for  belief  than  that  of 
spirit  return.  In  my  judgment,  spirit  commimication  is  the  only 
obvious  solution  and  it  is  the  only  possible  solution. 

From  Arthur  Allin,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  Peda- 
gogy. University  of  Colorado 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  unconscious,  or  rather  unintentional, 
deception,  as  may  be  instanced  in  the  argument  put  forward  that 
Christ  may  have  been  mistaken  in  His  own  claims.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  ventriloquism  which  may  have  been  practised  in  this  case 
You  yourself  may  have  been  deceived,  imagining  this  and  that. 
The  dark  room,  etc.,  are  utterly  suspicious.  You  may  have  spoken 
about  this  coin  matter  yourself  and  have  forgotten  about  it. 

Coincidence  is  also  within  the  range  of  probabilities.  You  may 
have  made  remarks  which  were  interpreted  thus  and  so,  remarks 
which  you  had  forgotten  having  made.  The  medfum  of  those  inter- 
ested with  her  may  have  read  in  the  Standard  Dictionary  about  the 
coin  or  have  heard  some  remarks  about  it,  forgotten  by  the  speakers, 
and  inference  may  have  been  drawn  about  the  safe,  etc.  Much, 
however,  is  explicable,  I  think,  by  persons  reading  back  into  their 
past   experiences   thoughts  and  actions  which  did  not  belong  there. 

All  "subconscious  faculties"  are  explicable  as  physiological  func- 
tions unaccompanied  by  consciousness.  Many  sensations  and  per- 
ceptions are  not  apperceived  at  the  time,  but  later.  (See  Loeb, 
"Comparative  Psychology,"  and  "Physiology  of  the  Brain,"  and  all 
the  literature  on  instinct  and  habit  and  congenital  variations  giving 


FROM  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY       515 

rise  to  unconscious  or  involuntary  adaptations.)  The  law  of  par- 
simony forbids  multiplication  of  unnecessary  entities  and  hypotheses. 
Spirit  communication  in  the  present  state  of  psychology  is  becom- 
ing useless  and  mischievous.  While  no  one  can  say  there  is  no  such 
communication,  scientific  facts  are  showing  that  the  facts  are  quite 
explicable  on  known  scientific  grounds. 

From  Edwin  B.  Holt,  Instructor  in  Psychology,  Har- 
vard University 

Your  accoimt  of  the  "Widow's  Mite"  has  entertained  me  immeas- 
urably. I  think  it  capitally  done,  and  the  questions  for  expert  opinion 
really  incomparable.  In  any  case,  the  Dictionary  of  the  Funk  & 
Wagnalls  Company  should  not  suffer  from  being  so  directly  involved 
in  notoriety. 

[Instructor  Holt  is  more  ingenious  than  generous.  Yet,  does  it 
really  occur  to  him  or  anybody  else  that  any  publisher  would  expect 
to  make  friends  for  his  dictionary  by  advertising  that  it  contained  a 
conspicuous  error? — I.  K.  F.l 

From  A.  Meinong,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  University 

of  Gratz 

As  we  are  often  confronted  with  insoluble  questions  in  regard  to 
the  causation  of  an  event,  even  if  we  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
particulars,  without  connecting  that  event  therefore,  with  supemat- 
tu"al  agencies,  so  I  do  not  see  why  I  should  look  upon  the  case  you 
mention  as  anything  else  but  a  further  proof  of  the  narrow  confines 
of  our  knowledge.  On  accoiuit  of  these  narrow  confines  the  physical 
as  well  as  psychical  world  may  very  well  have  aspects  which  so  far 
have  not  yet  been  scientifically  investigated.  It  is  also  possible  that 
the  so-called  "occultism"  may  have  something  to  do  with  such  facts, 
powers  which  exist  even  tho  they  are  not  yet  explained.  In  an  iso- 
lated case  it  will  always  be  more  scientifically  correct  to  refer  the 
obscurities  of  this  case  to  our  lack  of  knowledge  of  certain  natural 
processes  rather  than  to  any  supernatiural  agency.  How  the  spiritu- 
alistic circle  in  this  case  obtained  its  information  relating  to  the  coin, 
I,  of  co\u"se,  cannot  offer  any  suggestions.  But  it  is  much  more 
probable  that  such  information  was  obtained  in  a  natural,  tho  hidden, 
way,  than  in  a  supernatural  way,  contradicting  all  scientific  as  well 
as  non-scientific  experience. 

The  report  is  an  extremely  interesting  accovmt  of  the  mislaid 
coin.     I  thank  you  for  the  opportunity  of  reading  it. 

From  Alfred  H.  Lloyd,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan 
I  must  confess  myself  hopelessly  skeptical  about  all  such  revela- 
tions.    Nothing  will   convince   me   of  spiritualistic   communications 
imtil   the   messages  become   more   signifioant  in   themselves.     The 


5i6         FROM  FRENCH  UNIVERSITY 

trivial  character  of  what  we  hear  in  the  stories  condemns  the  evidence 
so  often  attributed  to  them. 

From    Edward    Colsonet,    Professor    of    Philosophy, 
University  of  Besangon,  France 

I  do  not  believe  in  spirit  communication;  nor  does  coincidence, 
in  my  mind,  explain  these  facts. 

The  facts  in  this  "Widow's  Mite' '  incident  seem  to  me  to  be  explica- 
ble by  the  suggestion  of  ideas  which  are  unconscious  or  subconscious, 
and  which  provoke  the  natural  consequence  of  the  emotions,  the 
sensations  and  the  acts  with  which  they  were  at  some  other  time 
associated. 

If  fraud  has  a  certain  part  in  the  statement  of  the  facts  proved, 
this  fraud  may  itself  be  the  result  of  a  condition  of  mind  brought 
about  by  suggestion  or  autosuggestion. 

From  MiNOT  J.  Savage,  D.  D.,  New  York 

I  assume  the  acctiracy  of  your  account.  This  does  not  mean  that 
I  trust  your  veracity.  All  your  friends  do  that.  It  rather  means 
that  I  asstime  that  you  both  saw  and  reported  correctly. 

Let  me  then  deal  with  your  points  in  their  numerical  order. 

1.  The  theory  of  fraud  seems  to  me  most  unlikely.  If  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  had  been  obtained  for  the  purpose  of  making  a 
sensation,  I  see  no  reason  why  other  facts — such  as  names,  etc. — 
might  not  have  been  obtained.  Then,  as  publicity  of  the  name  of 
the  psychic  and  the  financial  motive  are  both  ruled  out,  no  adequate 
motive  for  fraud  appears,  even  had  it  been  possible.  And,  as  you 
state  the  case,  it  does  not  seem  possible. 

2.  The  theory  of  coincidence  does  not  seem  worth  considering. 
Coincidence  may  be  a  strong  horse ;  but  I  do  not  believe  he  can  carry 
the  load  which  so  many  off-hand  explainers  would  put  upon  him. 

3.  As  to  the  "subliminal"  theory,  I  have  expressed  my  general 
conclusion  in  my  book,  "Can  Telepathy  Explain?"  It  is  proverbi- 
ally difficult  to  prove  a  negative.  If  any  one  chooses  to  suppose  that 
the  psychic  (without  knowing  it)  is  able  to  get  into  communication 
with  any  and  all  other  minds,  however  widely  separated  in  either 
time  or  space  and  (without  their  knowing  it)  select  and  report  all 
sorts  of  facts,  why  one  can  only  wonder  at  the  credulity  involved, 
and  be  surprised  to  see  to  what  suppositions  people  will  sometimes 
resort  in  the  effort  to  escape  a  conclusion  they  do  not  happen  to  like. 
A  supposition  like  this  is  hardly  entitled  to  be  called  a  "theory" — 
for  a  scientific  theory  must  be  constructed  out  of  facts.  And  it  does 
not  seem  to  me  that  there  are  nearly  enough  facts  in  this  direction 
to  help  support  such  a  so-called  theory. 

Telepathy  is  admitted  to  be  true  by  all  competent  investigators. 
But,  so  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  telepathy  has  some  limits.  And 
then,  on  the  telepathic  theory,  you  ought  to  have  been  able  to  get 


FROM  WELSH  UNIVERSITY  517 

certain  facts  which  you  knew,  were  strongly  thinking  of,  and  very 
anxious  to  obtain. 

4.  The  one  explanation  left  is  the  spiritistic. 

Believing  as  I  do,  that  such  a  thing  as  a  communication  from  the 
spirit  world  is  possible,  what  are  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  accept- 
ing it  in  this  case?  In  the  light  of  the  statement  you  have  made, 
they  are  chiefly  of  a  negative  kind.  Why  was  this  particular  thing 
said,  and  not  something  else?  Why  was  not  more  said?  Why  did 
not  somebody  else  speak?     Why  this?     Why  that? 

Questions  of  this  kind  imply  that  we  have  a  right  to  establish 
conditions; — that  we  know  what  the  difficulties  of  communication 
are,  on  both  sides  (and  we  do  not) ; — that  we  are  to  decide  what  shall 
be  said,  and  how; — and  many  more  things  beside. 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  "scientific  method"  demands  not 
that  we  impose  conditions  on  nature  or  reject  facts  iinless  they  are 
of  the  kind  we  expect  or  like,  but  that  we  observe  and  record  the  fcLcts, 
whatever  they  are,  and  then  try  to  find  out  what  they  mean. 

Some  of  the  most  wonderful  discoveries  of  the  world  have  had 
their  origin  in  unexpected  and  apparently  trivial  occurrences.  On 
any  theory,  except  that  of  fraud,  the  facts  you  relate  are  more  wonder- 
ful than  the  steam-engine  or  wireless  telegraphy.  And  if  they  should 
prove  to  be  indications  of  a  hitherto  tmknown  continent  floating  on 
a  mystic  and  unsailed  sea,  why  should  we  disregard  them  because 
they  are  not  something  different  from  what  they  are?  If  there  is  a 
possible  great  new  truth  whose  half-uttered,  fragmentary  whispers 
only  as  yet  we  can  hear,  let  us  at  least  listen  until  the  whispers  sink 
to  silence  or  swell  into  some  clear  revelation. 

In  a  universe  of  which  we  know  so  little  assumption  is  out  of 
place,  and  an  attitude  of  reverent  humility  (however  careftil  and 
critical  it  may  be)  is  the  only  reasonable  one. 

From  J.  B ROUGH,  Professor  of  Logic  and  Philosophy, 
University  of  Wales 

The  occurrences  here  described  are  not,  in  my  opinion,  of  interest 
to  science  except  as  problems  and  exercises  for  students  of  science. 
Some  mystifications  which  I  have  myself  accomplished  have  been 
dependent  on  out-of-the-way  facts  of  science  which  are  passed  over 
by  most  professors  and  students;  but  if  any  eccentric  professor  had 
been  present  who  had  accidentally  noticed  and  remembered  these 
facts,  I  should  have  been  found  out;  and  the  facts  themselves,  if 
they  were  considered  of  interest,  would  be  investigated  quite  apart 
from  "strange  occurrences." 

I  think  "fraud"  is  too  hard  a  word,  and  not  correct  as  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  "strange  occurrences"  of  the  kind  described  in  this  narra- 
tive. Such  occurrences  are  usually  colored  by  a  little  "mystifica- 
tion."    These    "strange   occurrences"    are   determined   in   occasion, 


5i8       FROM  COLORADO  UNIVERSITY 

character,  and  limitation  by  coincidences.  The  special  coincidences 
that  determine  this  case  might  be  more  or  less  cleared  up  by  a  person 
of  the  "private  detective"  sort  who  was  educated  up  to  them,  and 
had  done  some  mystifications  himself.  A  detective,  however,  who 
does  not  know  the  difference  between  mystification  and  fraud  wotdd 
be  of  no  use. 

In  my  judgment,  spirit  commimication  is  not  a  "possible  solu- 
tion." Subconscious  faculties  are  a  fact,  not  a  theory,  but  there  are 
no  theories  of  their  nature  reliable  enough  to  be  used  for  explaining 
fully  these  "strange  occurrences."  They  explain  a  certain  residuum 
left  over  by  other  explanations. 

From  William  Duane,  Professor  of  Physics,  Colorado 
State  University 

I  would  regard  fraud  as  a  probable  explanation,  altho,  perhaps, 
fraud  is  too  severe;    and  would  say  "no"  as  to  coincidence. 

The  theory  of  subconscious  faculties  could  be  made  to  fit  the  facts. 
I  would  be  willing  to  accept  such  a  theory  if  it  were  based  on  thousands 
of  well-authenticated  facts,  examined  under  experimental  conditions, 
not  otherwise. 

All  I  can  say  about  spirit  communication  as  a  possible  solution 
is  that  anything  almost  is  possible. 

From  Rev.  C.  H.  Parkhurst,  D.  D.,  New  York 

I  do  not  think  that  fraud  is  a  probable  explanation;  and  I  answer: 
decidedly,  no,  as  to  the  hypothesis  of  coincidence. 

I  know  so  little  as  to  what  subconsciousness  is  capable  of,  that  I 
should  be  afraid  to  conjecture  what  it  is  not  capable  of. 

As  to  spirit  communication  being  a  possible  solution,  my  answer 
is:    "possible,"  yes. 


II 

SIR   WILLIAM   CROOKES'    PROVISIONAL   EX- 
PLANATION    OF   TELEPATHY— HAR- 
MONY   WITH    NATURAL    LAW. 

Mr.  Crookes,  when  elected  President  of  the  British  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science,  said  in  his  remarkable  address  that 
all  of  the  phenomena  of  the  imiverse  are  presiunably  continuous 
waves  and  vibratons  we  trace  in  everything,  and  we  have  good  evi- 
dence that  they  extend  from  one  vibration  to  two  thousand  trillions 
per  second,  thus  varying  in  their  frequency  and  also  in  their  velocity. 


CROOKES'  EXPLANATION  519 

"As   a  starting-point,"  he    said,    "  I  will  take  a  pendulum   beating 
seconds  in  air.     If  I  keep  on  doubling  I  get  a  series  of  steps  as  follows : 

starting  Point  Vibrati»nt  per  Stctnd 


Step 


a 


"      2 4 

"       3 8 

"       4 16 

"  I::::;::;:::;:::;::  %\ 

"      7 128 

"      8 ^  256}- Sound 

"     9 ►  S12 

"    10 1024 

"    15 ►  32768, 

"    20 ^  1,0485761 

u    ^5 ,^\^^^fZ  \  Electrical  Rays 

30 '073,741824  ' 

35 343S9,738368j 

u    40 oc'?^f^^'S^f    Unknown 

45 35.184372,088832  ) 

"  50 1125,899906,842624  [  YAzYit  \  ^*y^ 

"     55 36028,707018,9639681 

'*     56 72057,594037,927936  i  Unknown 

57 144115,188075,855872  f^''^°'^'' 

58 288220,376151,711744  J 

"     59 576440,752303,423488  \ 

60 1,15288,1504606,846976  |-  Roentgen  or  X-Rays  (?) 

"    61 2,305763,009213,693952  J 

"      6a 4,611526,018427,387904  I  Ra  j:„n.  o--.-  ox 

"     63 9,223052,036854,775808  f  vadium  Kays  (?) 

"It  will  be  seen  by  the  above  that  at  the  fifth  step  from  imity,  at 
32  vibrations  per  second,  we  reach  the  region  where  atmospheric 
vibration  reveals  itself  to  us  as  sound.  At  32,768  per  second,  to  the 
average  human  ear  the  region  of  sound  ends,  but  certain  more  highly 
endowed  animals  probably  hear  sounds  too  acute  for  our  organs, 
that  is,  sounds  which  vibrate  at  a  higher  rate." 

After  the  32nd  step,  vibrations  increase  rapidly,  giving  us  electric 
waves,  light  waves  at  an  unthinkable  number  of  vibrations  per 
second,  until  we  reach  the  x-ray  and  finally  to  us  the  radium-ray. 
The  rays  of  raditmi  are  the  results  of  quintillions  of  vibrations  per 
second,  and  are  so  subtile  that  they  pass  through  all  solids. 

It  may  be  that  the  x- waves  and  the  radium- waves  are  only  at 
the  threshold  of  the  wonders  of  the  unseen  universe.  May  it  not  be 
that  thought  waves,  waves  by  which  spirits  communicate,  be  con- 
tinuous with  the  waves  that  begin  with  sound,  and  light,  and  radium, 
and  that  the  spirit  body,  which  like  Christ's  resurrected  body  passed 
through  solid  matter,  be  but  continuous  with  the  physical  bodies 
which  we  have  in  this  world,  raised  to  an  indescribable  number  of 
vibrations?  If  communications  of  spirits  are  through  vibrations  in 
ether  or  in  some  still  more  subtile  substance,  we  should  have  in  this 
a  possible  explanation  of  telepathy. 

Professor  Crookes  continues : 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  in  these  rays  we  may  have  a  possible  mode  of 
transmitting  intelligence,  which  with  a  few  reasonable  postulates,  may 
supply  a  key  to  much  that  is  obscure  in  physical  research.     Let  it  be 


520 


A  PERSONAL  TEST 


assumed  that  these  rays,  or  rays  even  of  higher  frequency,  can  pass 
into  the  brain  and  act  on  some  nervous  center  there.  Let  it  be  con- 
ceived that  the  brain  contains  a  center  which  uses  these  rays  as  the 
vocal  cords  use  sound  vibrations  (both  being  under  the  command  of 
intelligence) ,  and  sends  them  out,  with  the  velocity  of  light,  to  impinge 
on  the  receiving  ganglion  of  another  brain.  In  this  way  some,  at  least, 
of  the  phenomena  of  telepathy,  and  the  transmission  of  intelligence 
from  one  sensitive  to  another  through  long  distances,  seem  to  come 
into  the  domain  of  law,  and  can  be  grasped.  A  sensitive  may  be  one 
who  possesses  the  telepathic  transmitting  or  receiving  gangHon  in  an 
advanced  state  of  development,  or  who,  by  constant  practice,  is 
rendered  more  sensitive  to  these  high-frequency  waves.  Experience 
seems  to  show  that  the  receiving  and  the  transmitting  ganglions  are 
not  equally  developed;  one  may  be  active,  while  the  other,  like  the 
pineal  eye  in  man,  may  be  only  vestigal.  By  such  a  hypothesis  no 
physical  laws  are  violated,  neither  is  it  necessary  to  invoke  what  is 
commonly  called  the  supernatural. 

"Is  it  inconceivable  that  intense  thought  concentrated  towards  a 
sensitive  with  whom  the  thinker  is  in  close  sympathy  may  induce  a 
telepathic  chain  of  brain  waves,  along  which  the  message  of  thought 
can  go  straight  to  its  goal  without  loss  of  energy  due  to  distance? 
And  is  it  also  inconceivable  that  our  mundane  ideas  of  space  and 
distance  may  be  superceded  in  these  subtile  regions  of  tmsubstantial 
thought  where  "near"  and  "far"  may  lose  their  usual  meaning? 


Ill 


HOW    TO    PERSONALLY   TEST    SPIRITUALISM. 

Advice  by  Rkv.  William  Stainton  Moses,  M.A.  (Oxon.),  one  of  the  founders  of  The 
Society  for  Psychical  Reeearch,  and,  for  many  years,editor  of  Lights  London,  England. 

"If  you  wish  to  see  whether  Spiritualism  is  really  only  jugglery 
and  impostiu-e,  try  it  by  personal  experiment. 

"If  you  can  get  an  introduction  to  some  experienced  Spiritualist, 
on  whose  good  faith  you  can  rely,  ask  him  for  advice;  and,  if  he  is 
holding  private  circles,  seek  permission  to  attend  one  to  see  how  to 
conduct  seances,  and  what  to  expect. 

"There  is,  however,  difficulty  in  obtaining  access  to  private  circles, 
and,  in  any  case,  you  must  rely  chiefly  on  experiences  in  your  own 
family  circle,  or  among  your  own  friends,  all  strangers  being  excluded. 
The  bulk  of  Spiritualists  have  gained  conviction  thus. 

"Form  a  circle  of  from  four  to  eight  persons,  half,  or  at  least  two, 
of  negative,  passive  temperament,  and  preferably  of  the  female  sex, 
the  rest  of  a  more  positive  type. 


"PATIENCE  IS  ESSENTIAL"  521 

"Sit,  positive  and  negative  alternately,  secure  against  disturbance, 
in  subdued  light,  and  in  comfortable  and  unconstrained  positions, 
round  an  uncovered  table  of  convenient  size.  Place  the  palms  of  the 
hands  flat  upon  its  upper  surface.  The  hands  of  each  sitter  need  not 
touch  those  of  his  neighbor,  though  the  practice  is  frequently  adopted. 

"Do  not  concentrate  attention  too  fixedly  on  the  expected  mani- 
festations. Engage  in  cheerful  but  not  frivolous  conversation. 
Avoid  dispute  or  argument.  Scepticism  has  no  deterrent  effect,  but 
a  bitter  spirit  of  opposition  in  a  person  of  determined  will  may  totally 
stop  or  decidedly  impede  manifestations.  If  conversation  flags, 
music  is  a  great  help,  if  it  be  agreeable  to  all,  and  not  of  a  kind  to 
irritate  the  sensitive  ear.  Patience  is  essential,  and  it  may  be  neces- 
sary to  meet  ten  or  twelve  times,  at  short  intervals,  before  anything 
occurs.  If  after  such  a  trial  you  still  fail,  form  a  fresh  circle.  Guess 
at  the  reason  of  your  failure,  eliminate  the  inharmonious  elements, 
and  introduce  others.  An  hour  should  be  the  limit  of  an  unsuccessful 
seance. 

"The  first  indications  of  success  usually  are  a  cold  breeze  passing 
over  the  hands,  with  involuntary  twitchings  of  the  hands  and  arms  of 
some  of  the  sitters,  and  a  sensation  of  throbbing  in  the  table.  These 
indications,  at  first  so  slight  as  to  cause  doubt  as  to  their  reality,  will 
usualy  develop  with  more  or  less  rapidity. 

"If  the  table  moves,  let  your  pressure  be  so  gentle  on  its  surface 
that  you  are  siu-e  you  are  not  aiding  its  motions.  After  some  time 
you  will  probably  find  that  the  movement  will  continue  if  your  hands 
are  held  over,  but  not  in  contact  with,  it.  Do  not,  however,  try  this 
until  the  movement  is  assured,  and  be  in  no  hiwry  to  get  messages. 

"When  you  think  that  the  time  has  come,  let  some  one  take 
command  of  the  circle  and  act  as  spokesman.  Explain  to  the  unseen 
Intelligence  that  an  agreed  code  of  signals  is  desirable,  and  ask  that 
a  tilt  may  be  given  as  the  alphabet  is  slowly  repeated  at  the  several 
letters  which  form  the  word  that  the  Intelligence  wishes  to  spell.  It 
is  convenient  to  use  a  single  tilt  for  No,  three  for  Yes,  and  two  to 
express  doubt  or  uncertainty. 

"When  a  satisfactory  communication  has  been  established,  ask 
if  you  are  rightly  placed,  and  if  not,  what  order  you  should  take. 
After  this,  ask  who  the  Intelligence  piuports  to  be,  which  of  the  com- 
pany is  the  medium,  and  such  relevant  questions.  If  confusion 
occurs,  ascribe  it  to  the  difficulty  that  exists  in  directing  the  move- 
ments at  first  with  exactitude.  Patience  will  remedy  this,  if  there 
be  a  real  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Intelligence  to  speak  with  you.  If 
you  only  satisfy  yourself  at  first  that  it  is  possible  to  speak  with  an 
Intelligence  separate  from  that  of  any  person  present,  you  will  have 
gained  much. 

"The  signals  may  take  the  form  of  raps.  If  so,  use  the  same  code 
of  signals,  and  ask  as  the  raps  become  clear  that  they  may  be  made 


522  TEST  BY  REASON  i 

on  the  table,  or  in  a  port  of  the  room  where  they  are  demonstrably  i 

not  produced  by  any  natural  means,  but  avoid  any  vexatious  impo- 
sition of  restrictions  on  free  communication.  Let  the  Intelligence 
use  its  own  means;     if  the  attempt  to  communicate  deserves  your  j 

attention,  it  probably  has  something  to  say  to  you,  and  will  resent  j 

being  hampered  by  useless  interference.     It  rests  greatly  with  the  \ 

sitters  to  make  the  manifestations  elevating  or  frivolous  and  even  j 

tricky,  \ 

"Should   an   attempt   be   made   to   entrance    the   medium,    or  to  j 

manifest  by  any  violent  methods,  or  by  means  of  form  manifestations,  ] 

ask  that  the  attempt  may  be  deferred  till  you  can  secure  the  presence 
ot  some  experienced  Spiritualist.  If  this  request  is  not  heeded 
discontinue  the  sitting.  The  process  of  developing  a  trance-medium 
is  one  that  might  disconcert  an  inexperienced  inquirer.  Increase 
light  will  check  noisy  manifesations. 

"Lastly.  Try  the  results  you  get  by  the  light  of  Reason.  Main- 
tain a  level  head  and  a  clear  judgment.  Do  not  believe  everything  you 
are  told,  for  though  the  great  unseen  world  contains  many  a  wise  and 
discerning  spirit,  it  also  has  in  it  the  accumulation  of  human  folly, 
vanity,  and  error;  and  this  lies  nearer  to  the  siu-face  than  that  which 
is  wise  and  good.  Distrust  the  free  use  of  great  names.  Never  for  a 
moment  abandon  the  use  of  your  reason.  Do  not  enter  into  a  very 
solemn  investigation  in  a  spirit  of  idle  curiosity  or  frivolity.  Cultivate 
a  reverent  desire  for  what  is  pure,  good  and  true.  You  will  be  repaid 
if  you  gain  only  a  well-grounded  conviction  that  there  is  a  life  after 
death,  for  which  a  pxure  and  good  life  before  death  is  the  best  and 
wisest  preparation." 


IV 


BIBLIOGRAPHY— (PARTIAL) 


Anonymous. 


Behind  the  Veil. 

Do  the  Dead  Return? 

(A  record  in  experiences  in 
Spiritualism.  By  a  clergy- 
man of  England.) 

Light  Through  the  Crannies;  or, 
Teachings  from  the  Other  Side 
of  Life. 

Man  and  the  Spiritual  World. 
(By     a     clergyman     of     the 
Church  of  England.) 
Proceedings   of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research. 

Real  Ghost  Stories. 

(A  revised  reprint  from  the 
Christmas   and   New  Year's 
numbers  of  "The  Review  of 
Reviews,"   1891-2.) 
Report  on  Spiritualism  of  the 
Committee  of  the  London  Dia- 
lectical Society,  together  with 
the  evidence,  oral  and  written. 

The  Seybert  Commission  on 
Spiritualism. 
(This  is  the  report  of  the 
commission  appointed  by  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania 
to  investigate  modem  Spir- 
itualism in  accordance  with 
the  bequest  of  Henry 
Seybert.) 

Two  Thousand  Years  in  Spirit 
Life. 
(Highly   imaginative   narra- 
tive.) 


A  Wanderer  in  the  Spirit-land, 
by   the   spirit   author,    Fran- 
chezzo. 
(Whatever   its    source,    bril- 
liantly imaginative.) 

Watseka  Wonder. 

(This  is  a  case  of  double  con- 
sciousness or  obsession,  so 
well  authenticated  that  it 
has  great  value  to  the  stud- 
ent. Dr.  Richard  Hodgson, 
after  careful  investigation, 
thinks  it  a  case  of  spirit 
obsession.) 

Abbott,  Lyman. 
The  Other  Room. 

(While  not  opposing  Spiritu- 
alism, Lyman  Abbott  does 
not  accept  it.) 

Anderson. 

How  to  Hypnotize. 

Austin,  B.  F.,  D.D. 

What  Converted  Me  to  Spiritu- 
alism. 
(A  book  that  will  well  repay 
perusal.) 

Bacon,  George  A. 

A  ttitude  of  Scientific  Men  toward 
Spiritualism. 

("Mr.  Bacon  is  a  scholar;  a 
fine  writer,  and  dispassion- 
ate, yet  earnest  Spiritual- 
ist.") 

Babbitt,  E.  D.,  M.B.,  LL.D. 
Religion  of  Spiritualism. 


523 


5^4 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Barrett,  Harrison  D. 

Lifework  of  Cora  L.   V.  Rich- 
mond. 
("The  life  of    this    remark- 
able  medium   is   of  itself   a 
psychological  study." — Hud- 
son Tuttle.) 
Bartlett,  George  T. 
The  Salem  Seer. 

(Reminiscences  of  Charles  H. 
Foster.) 

Beecher,  Charles. 

Spiritual  Manifestations. 

(Charles  Beecher,  brother  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  be- 
lieved that  spiritual  phe- 
nomena have  their  origin  in 
intelligence  outside  of  the 
flesh.) 

Berrier,  L. 

The    Cultivation    of    Personal 
Magnetism. 

Bjornstrom,  M.  D. 

Hypnotism     and     Its     Present 
Development. 
Billings,  F.  S. 

Materialism    vs.    Spiritualism. 
Blackwood,  A, 

Spiritualistic    Camp    in    New 
England. 
Bland,  Dr.  T.  A. 

In  the  World  Celestial. 

(A  Spiritual  Story  of  Spirit- 
Life.) 

Blavatsky,  H.  p. 
Isis  Unveiled. 

The  Secret  Doctrine,  (2  vols.) : 
I.  Cosmogenesis ;  II.  Anthro- 
pogenesis. 
(Madame  Blavatsky  was  the 
founder  of  modem  theoso- 
phy,  a  believer  in  psychic 
phenomena.  "  Her  books  are 
more  theosophical  than 
Spiritual;  uncritical  ;  her 
quotations    of    which    they 


are  largely  made  up,  un- 
reliable. She  is  not  accept- 
ed by  Spiritualists  as 
an  authority." —  Hudson 
Tuttle.) 

Brittan,  Emma  Harding. 

History  of  Modern  Spiritualism. 

Nineteenth  Century  Miracles. 

Ghost  Land. 

("  Mrs.  Brittan  claimed  to 
have  written  under  spirit 
influence.  Her  historical 
works  have  great  value, 
altho  they  have  the  charac- 
ter of  chronicles.  'Ghost- 
land  '  is  a  flight  of  the  imagin- 
ation.") 

Brittan.  ' 

Battle-Ground  of  the  Spiritual. 
Man  and  His  Relations. 

(Prof.  S.  B.  Brittan:  A  pop- 
ular writer  in  favor  of  Spiri- 
tualism. A  distinguished 
Universalist  clergyman  be- 
fore he  became  a  Spiritualist.) 

Brown,  John. 

Mediumistic  Experiences. 
(Remarkable  psychic  experi- 
ences   of    the    son  of    John 
Brown,  of  anti-slavery  fame.) 
Caylor,  E.  H. 

The  Late  Dr.  Sedgwick  and  the 
Spirit  Medium. 
Chambers,  Rev.  Arthur. 

Our  Life  After  Death. 
Chase,  Hon.  Warren. 
Gist  of  Spiritualism. 

Clarke,  Dr.  Edward  H. 

Visions. 
Clark,  G.  T. 

On  the   Threshold:     a  Psychic 
Experience. 
Coates,  James. 
How  to  Magnetize. 

("A  good  manual  and  hand- 
book."—Hudson  Tuttle.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


525 


CoE,  Geo.  A. 

The  Spiritual  Life. 

CoNANT,  Mrs.  J.  H. 

Flashes  of  Light  from  the  Spirit 
Land. 

Invocations. 

(The  last  mentioned  is  a 
collection  of  prayers  offered 
by  more  than  one  hundred 
"spirits"  at  the  Free  circles 
of  the  Banner  of  Light,  at 
which  for  many  years  "she 
was  the  medium,  and  ranked 
among  the  best  for  that 
phase  of  manifestations.") 

Conway,  M.  D. 
Spiritualism. 

CORRANCE,   H.  C. 

Spiritualism,  and  Catholicism. 

CouES,  Elliott. 

Biogen. 

(A  speculation  on  the  origin 
and  nature  of  life.) 

Signs  of  the  Times  from,  the 
Standpoint  of  the  Scientist. 
(Elliott  Coues  was  a  promin- 
ent scientific  scholar  connec- 
ted with  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitute, Washington.  He 
carried  on  for  some  years  a 
series  of  investigations  of 
spiritual  phenomena.  He  ac- 
cepted in  a  conservative  way 
the  spirit  hypothesis.) 

Crookes,  Sir  William,  F.  R.  S. 
Researches  in  the  Phenomena  of 
Spiritualism. 
(This  famous  scientist  recog- 
nized the  existence  of  a  psy- 
chic force,  and  without  ag- 
gressively •  adopting  any  the- 
ory, gave  to  the  public  what 
he  foimd  to  be  facts.     Con- 


cerning his  investigations 
made  in  the  early  seventies, 
he  has  reasserted  they  estab- 
lish the  Spiritualists'  conten- 
tion that  in  some  of  the  psy- 
chic phenomena  there  is  clear 
evidence  of  outside  intelli- 
gence.) 

Crowe,  Catharine. 
Night  Shade  of  Nature. 

(Remarkable  because  written 
before  the  advent  of  modem 
Spiritualism,  yet  taking  simi- 
lar views  of  spirit  life.) 

Crowell,  Eugene,  M.D. 

Primitive  Christianity  and  Mod- 
ern Spiritualism. 

Spirit  World:    Its  Inhabitants, 
Nature  and  Philosophy. 

(Eugene  Crowell  strongly  ad- 
vocates Spiritualism.) 
("  In  '  Primitive  Christianity* 
he  attempts  exhaustively  to 
prove  Spiritualism  by  the 
Bible.  It  is  a  storehouse  of 
facts."— Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Dailey,  Abram  H. 
Mollie  Fancher. 

(Abram  H.  Dailey  is  a  New 
York  lawyer  of  prominence, 
and  was  formerly  Judge  in 
Brooklyn,  New  York.  He 
is  an  uncompromising  advo- 
cate of  the  spiritualistic  hy- 
pothesis, and  has  been  for  the 
last  twenty-four  years.) 

Davis,  A.  J. 

The  Great  Harmonia. 

Death  and  the  After-Life. 

Diakka  and  Their  Earthly  ViO" 
iims. 


526 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Philosophy  of  Spirit  Intercourse. 

Views  of  Our  Heavenly  Home. 
(Andrew  Jackson  Davis:  One 
of  the  earliest,  most  volumin- 
ous inspirational  writers  on 
the  philosophy  of  Spiritual- 
ism. His  thoughts  were 
mostly  written  or  dictated 
when  in  the  trance  or  hyp- 
notic state,  or  what  he  terms 
the  "independent  state.") 

Dawson,  M.  M.,  and  J.  E.  Allen. 

Implications  of  Spiritualism. 

Delanne,  Gabriel. 

Evidence  for  a  Future  Life. 
(Translated  and  edited  by 
H.  A.  Dallas.  This  is  a 
recent  work  written  in 
France,  and  favors  the  spir- 
itualistic hypothesis.  An 
able  work.) 

De  Morgan,  Mrs. 

From  Matter  to  Spirit. 
An  early  work,  strongly  to  be 
recommended;    with  a  valua- 
ble preface  by  the  late   Prof. 
De  Morgan. 
(Mrs.   De  Morgan's  attitude 
was  that  of  a  critic  of  Spir- 
itualism, but  inclined  to  the 
Spiritualistic  hypothesis.) 

De  Morgan,  Prof. 
Budget  of  Paradoxes. 

(Professor  De  Morgan  accep- 
ted Spiritualism  as  a  working 
hypothesis.) 

Denton,  William. 

The  Soul  of  Things. 

(In  Denton's  work  the  phil- 
osophy and  practice  of  Psy_ 
chometry  is  carried  to  great 
extremes.  I^  strongly  advo- 
cates the  spiritualistic  hy- 
pothesis.) 


Desertis,  V.  C. 

Psychic  Philosophy  as  a  Foun- 
dation of  a  Religion  of  Natural 
Law. 
(With  Introductory  by  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace.   Is  favorable 
to  the  spiritualistic  hypoth- 
esis.) 
Du  Prel,  Carl. 

Philosophy  of  Mysticism  (Trans- 
lated by  C.  C.  Massey). 
(Valuable     to     the     serious 
thinker    on    the    subject    of 
Spiritualism.     It  favors  the 
spiritualistic  hypothesis.) 
DoTEN,  Lizzie. 
Inner  Mysteries. 
Poems  from,  the  Inner  Life. 
(Written  inspirationally.) 
Duff  and  Allen. 

Psychic  Research  and  Gospel 
Miracles. 
(Radically  spiritualistic. 
Gives  account  of  many  mate- 
rialization seances  attended 
by  the  authors,  and  aims  to 
show  that  Christianity  and 
Spiritualism  are  in  harmony.) 
DuGuiD,  David. 

Hafed,  Prince  of  Persia:  His 
Experience  in  Earth-Life  and 
Spirit-Life. 
("  Duguid  is  a  wonderful 
psychic.  The  skeptic  will 
find  in  'Hafed,'  a  weird  and 
strange  story ;  the  Spiritualist 
will  be  charmed  by  its  facts 
and  philosophy. ' ' — Hudson 
Tuttle.) 

Edmonds,  Judge,  and  Dr^ War- 
ren. 
The  Sacred  Circle. 

(Strongly    favors    Spiritual- 
ism.) 

Edmonds,  Judge,  and  Dr.  Dex- 
ter. 
Spiritualism. 

(In  favor  of  Spiritualism.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL)  527 


Edmonds,  Judge. 
Letters  and  facts  on  Spiritualism, 
These    are    experiences     and 
utterances  of  Spiritualists  in 
spiritualistic  circles. 
("Judge    Edmonds   received 
his     spirit     messages,      and 
pursued    his     investigations 
through   the  mediumship   of 
his  daughter,  until  he  became 
a  mediimi  himself.     His  writ- 
ings were  very  influential  at 
the    time    of    their    publica- 
tion."—Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Evans,  F.  P. 
Psychography. 

(Mr,  Evans  is  a  leading  slate- 
writing  medium.) 

Faber,  Fred.  William. 
Spiritual  Conferences. 

Flammarion,  Camille. 
The  Unknown. 

("Well  known  French  as- 
tronomer and  popular  writer 
on  astronomy.  Pursued  a 
remarkable  course  of  psychic 
research. ' ' — Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Flournoy,  T. 

From  India  to  the  Planet  Mars. 
(Idealistic.) 
French,  Hon.  A.  B. 

Gleanings    from    the    Rostrum: 
Lectures  on  Spiritualism,. 

Fuller,  M.D.,  Geo.  A. 
Wisdom  of  the  Ages. 

("Written  automatically.") 
GiBiER,  Paul,  M.D. 

Psychism. 

(Mr.  Gibier  was  an  enthusi- 
astic biologist,  and  superin- 
tendent of  the  Pasteur  Insti- 
tute in  New  York  City.  Mr. 
Tuttle,  speaking  of  the  book, 
says :  "  The  value  of  his  book 
has  not  been  appreciated.") 


Gridley,  Dr. 

Astonishing     Facts     from     the 
Spirit  World. 

Grimes,     Stanley. 

Mysteries  of  the  Head  and 
Heart. 
(Grimes  explains  Spiritual- 
ism by  fraud  and  mesmerism. 
He  is  pretentious  and  super- 
ficial."— Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Gurney,  E.,  M.A., 

F.  W.  H.  Myers,  M.A.,  and 

F.  Podmore,  M.A. 

Phantasms  of  the  Living. 

(E.  Gurney  occupies  toward 
Spiritualism  the  point  of 
view  of  F.  W.  H.  Myers  in 
his  late  work,  "Human  Per- 
sonality," and  of  Prof.  Hys- 
lop.     This  work  is  critical.) 

Hammond,  Rev.  C. 

Thomas  Paine  in  the  Spiritual 
World. 
(Rev.  Hammond,  after  wit- 
nessing the  manifestations  of 
the  Fox  sisters,  when  the 
rappings  began,  became  a 
believer,  and  medium  for 
writing.  His  book  purports 
to  have  been  written  by  the 
spirit  of  Paine  through  his 
hand.  It  is  a  sample  of  the 
earliest  Spiritual  writing.) 

Hare,  Prof.  Robert. 

Spiritualism,  Scientifically  Dem- 
on 'trated. 
(Professor  Hare  was  an  emi- 
nent scientist,  professor  of 
chemistry  in  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania.  He  made 
many  psychic  experiments, 
having  become  a  strong  be- 
liever in  Spiritualism.  "His 
carefulness  in  experimenta- 
tion, and  accuracy  of  obser- 
vation, have  never  been  ex- 
ceeded. ' ' — Hudson  Tuttle.) 


518 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Hartman,  Joseph. 

Facts  and  Mysteries  of  Spirit- 
ism. 

Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R. 

SpirituaUsm    and    Christianity 
(Address) . 
(Haweis  was  a  strong  believer 
in  the  spiritualistic  hypothe- 
sis.) 
Hemstreet,  William. 

Electricity  and  the  Resurrection; 
or,  the  Soul  and  Science. 

Home,  D.D. 

Incidents  in  My  Life. 

Lights  and  Shadows  of  Spiritu- 
alism. 
(From  a  medium's  point  of 
view  exposes  the  frauds  and 
follies  of  Spiritualism.  A 
prominent  and  remarkable 
Spiritualist  medium,  and  he 
strongly  supports  Spiritur 
alism.) 

Home,  D.D.,  Mrs. 

D.D.  Home:  His  Life  and  Mis- 
sion. 
The  Gift  of  D.  D.  Home. 

(This  author  was  the  wife  of 
the  celebrated  medium,  D.  D. 
Home.  Her  books  are  strong- 
ly Spiritualistic.) 

Hopps,  Rev.  J.  Page. 

Death  a  Delusion. 
HowiTT,  William. 

History  of  the  Supernatural. 
(Strictly  historical.) 

Hudson,  T.  J. 

The  Divine  Pedigree  of  Man. 

A  Scientific  Demonstration  of  the 
Future  Life. 

The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena. 
(This  author  died  in  1903, 
He  was  a  voluminous  writer 
against  the  spiritualistic  hy- 
pothesis.    He    explained 


much  of  psychic  phenomena 
on  the  hypothesis  of  the  sub- 
jective mind.) 

Hull,  Rev.  Moses. 

Encyclopedia   of  Biblical  Spir- 
itualism. 
Question  Settled.     Biblical  and 
Modern     Spiritualism     Gom- 
pared. 
("These  will  prove  valuable 
books    to   those   who  wotdd 
interpret  the  Bible  by  Spir- 
itualism and  explain  spiritual 
manifestations  by  the  Bible." 
— Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Huntley,  Florence. 

The  Great  Psychological  Grime. 
(Opposed  to  mediumship 
from  the  viewpoint  of  a 
Spiritualist.  Advocates  the 
thought  that  mediiunship  is 
a  species  of  hypnotism,  and 
is  destructive  to  the  selfhood 
of  the  individual ;  favors  the 
direct  inspirational  method.) 

Hyslop,  James  H. 

Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  Part  XLL, 
Vol.  XVL,  Oct.,  1901. 
(This  author  is  a  prominent 
member  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  late  pro- 
fessor in  Columbia  Univer- 
sity. Views  psychic  phe- 
nomena from  the  viewpoint 
of  an  exacting  critic,  accept- 
ing Spiritualism  as  a  working 
hypothesis.) 

Irving,  Kate. 

Glear  Light  from  tlte  Spirit 
World. 
(Kate  Irving  gives  her  ex- 
perience in  attending  a  num- 
ber of  seances,  and  was  a 
convert  to  Spiritualism.) 
Jacolliot. 

Spiritisme  dans  l«  monde. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


529 


JUDSON,   AbBY  a. 

Why  a  Spiritualist. 

(Miss  Judson  is  the  daughter 
of  Adoniram  Judson,  one  of 
the  first  missionaries  to  In- 
dia.) 
Kant,  Immanuel. 

Dreams  of  a  Spirit-Seer. 

(This  author  is  the  well- 
known  German  philosopher. 
His  "Dreams  of  a  Spirit- 
Seer"  refers  largely  to  the 
claims  of  Swedenborg  that 
he  had  spiritual  visions  be- 
yond those  of  the  senses.) 
Kardec. 

Book  of  Mediums. 

The  Spirits  Book. 

(Kardec  was  an  ardent  be- 
liever in  Spiritualism,  and  a 
writer  of  much  influence  in 
Paris,  his  home,  and  through- 
out France,  and  his  influence 
has  extended  into  other  coun- 
tries. He  and  his  school 
advocate  reincarnation.) 
Kiddle. 

Spiritual  Communications. 
(Por  years  superintendent  of 
the  schools  of  New  York 
City;  he  accepted  Spiritual- 
ism and  strongly  advocated 
it.) 
King,  Maria  M. 

Principles  of  Nature. 

Real  Life  in  Spirit-Land. 

Mediumship — Experiences      0  f 
the  Author. 

Spiritual  Philosophy  versus  Di- 
abolism. 
("  These  works  are  among  the 
best    specimens    of    inspira- 
tional writing." — Hudson 
Tuttle.) 
LiLLiE,  Arthur. 

Modern   Mystics    and   Modern 
Magic. 


Lodge,  Sir  Oliver. 

Address.  Proceedings  S.  P.  R., 
PartXLIIL,  Vol.  XV IL 
(Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  now  pres- 
ident of  The  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research.  He  con- 
siders all  psychic  phenomena 
from  the  viewpoint  of  a 
critic.  Like  F.  W.  H.  Myers 
and  Richard  Hodgson,  he 
accepts  Spiritualism,  as  a 
working  hypothesis.) 

Marryatt,  Florence. 
There  Is  No  Death. 

(Strongly  supports  Spiritu- 
alism. The  book  is  an  ac- 
count of  the  author's  own 
investigations.) 

Mason,  R.  O. 

Telepathy  and  the  Subliminal 
Self. 

Massey,  Gerald. 

Concerning  Spiritualism. 

(Mr.  Massey  was  a  powerful 
advocate  of  the  spiritualistic 
hypothesis.) 

Maynard,    Mrs.    Nettie     Col- 
burn. 
Was  Abraham  Lincoln  a  Spir- 
itualist. 
("Containing     accoimts     of 
seances  given  to  the  Presi- 
dent's   family    and     distin- 
guished officials."  —  Hudson 
Tuttle.) 

McDonald,  Rev.  W. 

Spiritualism  Identical  with  An- 
cient Sorcery,  New  Testament 
Demonology,  and  Modern 
Witchcraft. 

Meacham,  Leslie  J. 

Lessons  in  Hypnotism  and  the 
Use  of  Suggestion. 
Meynell,  Alice  C.  (Thompson). 

The  Spirit  of  Place. 


S30 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Moll,  Albert. 

The  Science  of  Hypnotism. 
(An  exhaustive  work.) 

Myers,  F.  W.  H. 
Human  Personality  and  Its  Sur- 
vival of  Bodily  Death. 
(F.  W.  H.  Myers  was  one  of 
the  most  profoiind  psycholo- 
gists of  this  generation ;  died 
in  1 901;  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research;  was  its 
president  for  a  time,  and  for 
many  years  its  secretary; 
was  the  author  of  the  hy- 
pothesis of  the  subliminal 
self;  and  in  his  work, 
"Himian  Personality,"  has 
been  the  first  to  classify  the 
immense  multitude  of  psy- 
chic facts  that  have  been, 
gathered  by  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research.) 

Neal,  Virgil  E.,  A.  M.,  LL.D., 

and  C.  S.  Clark,  M.A.,  Editors. 
Hypnotism  and  Hypnotic  Sug- 
gestion. 

Newton,  A.  E. 

"Ministry  of  Angels"  Realized. 

Olcott,   Henry  S. 

People  from  the  Other  World. 
("A  sensational  report." — 
Hudson  Tuttle.) 
(Mr.  Olcott  is  a  believer  in 
spiritualistic  phenomena, and 
was,  with  Mme.  Blavatsky, 
the  founder  of  modem  theos- 
ophy.) 

Owen,  R.  Dale. 

Land  between   this   World  and 

the  Next,  Debatable. 
Footfalls   on   th?   Boundary   of 

Another  World. 
(R.  Dale  Owen  was  a  scientist 


of  international  reputation ;  a 
thorough  believer  in  the  spirit 
hypothesis.) 

Peebles,  J.  M. 

The  Christ  Question  Settled. 
Immortality,    Our    Home    and 

Employments  Hereafter. 
Seers  of  the  Ages,  The. 
Who  are  the  Spiritualists. 

(J.  M.  Peebles  is  a  volumin- 
ous writer  in  favor  of  the 
spiritualistic  hypothesis.  His 
writings  rank  high  among 
Spiritualists  in  this  country 
and  Europe.  He  is  now 
nearly  ninety  years  of  age.) 

Phelps,  E.  Stuart. 

Gates  Ajar. 

Beyond  the  Gates. 

(In  "Gates  Ajar"  this  author 
treats  the  spirit  world  in  a 
very  matter-of-fact  way.) 

Plumptre,  E.  H. 

Spirits  in  Prison;      and  other 
studies  on  the  life  after  death. 

PoDMORE,  Frank,  M.  A. 

Apparitions  and  Thought  Trans- 
ference. 
(An  Examination  of  the  evi- 
dence for  telepathy.) 

History  of  Spiritualism. 

Modern  Spiritualism. 

(Frank  Podmore  is  opposed 
to  the  spiritualistic  theory; 
is  one  of  the  ablest  critical 
writers  connected  with  The 
Society  for  Psychic  Research; 
and  from  the  same  series  of 
investigations  and  facts  ar- 
rives at  almost  diametrically 
opposed  conclusions  from 
those  of  Myers.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


531 


Putnam,  Allen. 

Immortality    Demonstrated 
through    the    Mediumship    of 
Mrs.  J.  H.  Conant. 
Bible  Marvel  Workers. 
Natty,  a  Spirit. 
Spirit    Works    Real    but    Not 

Miraculous. 
Mesmerism,  Spiritualism, 
Witchcraft  and  Miracle. 
("Allen  Putnam  was  an  able 
Unitarian  minister  of  Boston, 
and  made  use  of  the  Bible  to 
prove  Spiritualism. ' ' —  Hud- 
son Tuttle.) 

QUACKENBOS,       JOHN        DuNCAN, 

M.D. 

Hypnotism  in  Mental  and  Moral 
Culture. 

Randall. 

Mesmerism  and  Hypnotism,  or 
Vital  Magnetic  Power. 

Richmond,  A.  B. 

Review    of    the    Report    of    the 
Seybert  Commission. 

("Richmond  was  one  of  the 
most  able  criminal  lawyers  in 
Pennsylvania."  —  Hudson 
Tuttle.) 

Robinson,  Wm.  E. 
Spirit  Slate-Writing  and  Kin- 
dred Phenomena. 

Sargent,  Epes. 
A  Scientific  Basis  of  Spiritual' 
ism. 
Planchette;    or,  The  Despair  of 
Science. 
(It  is  claimed  that  the  latter 
volume  gives  a  full  account 
of  modern  Spiritualism.    The 
author    was    an     able     and 
standard    expositor    of    the 


underlying  principles  of  Spir- 
itualism.) 

Savage,  Minot  J. 
Life  Beyond  Death. 
Psychics:   Facts  and  Theories. 
Spiritualism. 
Can  Telepathy  Explain! 

(Dr.  Savage  explains  psychic 
phenomena  by  the  hypothe- 
sis of  telepathy  and  spirit 
communication . ) 

Schofield,    Alfred    T.,    M.D., 
M.R.C.S. 
The  Springs  of  Character 
The  Unconscious  Mind. 

Sextus,  Carl. 

Hypnotism  and  Somnambulism. 
(A  plain  and  practical  pres- 
entation of  these  subjects.) 

Shelhamer,  Mary  T.  (now  Mrs. 

Longley) . 

Life  and  Labors  in   the  Spirit 
World. 

Outside  the  Gates. 

(Mrs.  Mary  T.  Longley  has 
been  for  ten  years  secretary 
of  the  National  Spiritual 
Association.) 

SiNNETT,  A.   P. 

The  Occult  World. 

The  Rationale  of  Mesmerism. 
(Sinnett  treats   Spiritualism 
from  the  viewpoint  of  a  the- 
osophist.) 

Smith,  Uriah. 

Modern  Spiritualism.  Considered. 
(Uriah  Smith  believes  Spirit- 
ualism to  be  the  work  of  evil 
spirits,  and  strongly  opposes 
it  as  exceedingly  dangerous.) 


53^^ 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Stainton-Moses,  William,  M.  A. 
(Oxon.) 
Higher  Aspects  of  Spiritualism. 
Psychography  (A  treatise  on  one 
of  the  objective  forms  of  psy- 
chic phenomena.) 
Spirit  Identity. 

Spirit  Teachings  (Through  the 
mediumship  of  William 
Stainton-Moses.) 
(Rev.  W.  Stainton  Moses, 
M.A.:  A  medium  of  very  high 
rank  who  gained  and  held 
the  confidence  of  F.  W.  H. 
Myers,  and  others  of  the 
founders  of  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research.  For  a 
number  of  years  Mr.  Moses 
was  editor  of  "The  Light," 
the  leading  spiritualistic 
paper  in  London.) 

Stead,  W.  T. 

Letters  from  Julia. 

("A  series  of  letters  as  to  the 
life  beyond  the  grave,  re- 
ceived by  automatic  writing 
from  one  who  has  gone  be- 
fore." Mr.  Stead  is  the  well- 
known  editor  of  the  English 
"Review  of  Reviews."  He 
writes  from  the  viewpoint  of 
a  Spiritualist.) 

Stewart  and  Tait. 
The  Unseen  Universe. 

("The  authors  dismiss  f  pir- 
ituahsm  as  "unsatisfactory 
yet  advocate  its  principles  in 
a  manner  entertaining  to  its 
believers." — Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Street. 

The   Hidden   Way   Across   the 
Threshold. 


Strong,  C.  A. 

Why  the  Mind  Has  a  Body. 
(Very  suggestive  along  phys- 
iological   and    psychological 
lines.) 

Sweetser. 

In  Distance  and  in  Dream. 

Talmadge,    General;     Linton, 
Charles. 
Healing  of  the  Nations. 

("This  work  was  inspira- 
tionally  written.  The  thought 
is  exalted  and  the  style  clear 
and  tmaffected."  —  Hudson 
Tuttle.) 

Tappan,   Cora   V.    (Cora   L.    V. 
Richmond) . 
Discourses. 

("  This  author  is  a  believer  in 
Spiritualism.  The  discour- 
ses were  given  in  unconscious 
trance." — Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Theobald,  Morell. 

Spirit    Workers    in    the    Home 
Circle. 

Tuttle,  Emma  Rood. 

The  Lyceum  Guide. 

(A  manual  for  organizing  and 
conducting  Progressive  Lyce- 
ums, or  Spiritual  Sunday- 
Schools.) 

From  Soul  to  Soul:   Poems. 

Asphodel  Blooms  and  OtJter 
Offerings. 
(Epes  Sargent  in  a  criticism 
of  her  works,  calls  Mrs.  Tut- 
tle, "The  sweet  singer  of  the 
Spiritual  dispensation.") 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


533 


TuTTLE,  Hudson. 
Arcana  of  Nature. 

Arcana  of  Spiritualism. 

Career  of  the  God-Idea  in  His- 
tory. 

Career  of  the  Christ-Idea  in  His- 
tory. 

Life  in  Two  Spheres. 
Mediumship  and  Its  Laws;   Its 
Conditions  and  Developments. 
Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Man. 
Philosophy  of  Spirit. 
Psychic  Science. 

Religion  of  Man  and  Ethics  of 
Science. 
(Tuttle :  A  writer  who  ranks 
high  among  Spiritualists. 
His  books  are  ably  written, 
and  are  of  a  strong  philo- 
sophic spirit.  They  are  what 
are  known  as  books  inspira- 
tionally  written.) 

TwiNG,  Carrie. 

Lizeheth;      A     Story    of     Two 
Worlds. 

("A  pleasant  story  inculcat- 
ing the  philosophy  of  Spiritu- 
alism."— Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Underhill,  a.  Leah. 

The  Missing  Link  in  Modern 
Spiritualism. 

(Mrs.  Underhill  is  one  of  the 
**  three  Fox  sisters,"  her  book 
is  one  of  personal  experi- 
ences.) 

Underwood,  Sara  A. 

Automatic   or   Spirit   Writings 
(With   other   psychic   experi- 
ences.) 

("Mrs.  Underwood  became 
an  automatic  writer  when 
she  was  yet  a  skeptic,  and 
her  work  is  not  only  imique, 


but  is  of  surpassing  value 
because  of  the  evidences  it 
bears  of  its  truthfulness." — 
Hudson  Tuttle.) 

Walker,  W.  L. 

Spirit  and  the  Incarnation. 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,F.R.S. 
Defence  of  Modern  Spiritualism,. 

(With   American    Preface    by 
Epes  Sargent.) 
//  a  Man  Die,  Shall  He  Live 
Again.      (A  lecture.) 

On  Miracles  and  Modern  Spir- 
itualism. 
(Alfred  Russel  Wallace  is  an 
illustrious  scientist  of  Great 
Britain ;  co-discoverer  with 
Darwin  of  evolution;  for 
some  forty  years  an  ardent 
believer  in  Spiritualism.) 

Walrond,  George. 

Guide  to  Investigate  Spiritual- 
ism. 

Watson,  Rev.  Samuel. 

Religion    of   Spiritualism;     Its 
Phenomena  and  Philosophy. 
The  Clock  Struck  One. 
The  Clock  Struck  Three. 

(Samuel  Watson  until  past 
middle  age  was  a  minister  in 
the  Methodist  Church,  in 
which  he  rose  to  the  rank  of 
a  distinguished  bishop.  He 
became  interested  in  Spiritu- 
alism, an  ardent  believer,  and 
published  a  magazine  devoted 
to  the  cause.) 

White,  Wm. 

Emanuel  Swedenborg,  His  Life 
and  Writings. 


534 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  (PARTIAL) 


Whiting,  Lilian. 
After  Death. 

Spiritual  Significance. 

A  Study  of    Elizabeth   Barrett 
Browning. 
(This  author  writes  from  the 
viewpoint  of  a  Spiritualist.) 

Wolfe.  N.  B. 
Startling  Facts  in  Modern  Spir- 
itualism. 

Wyld,  George,  M.D. 
Spiritual  Dynamics. 


ZOLLNER,    Prof.    JOHANN    C.    F. 

Transcendental  Physics. 

(Professor  Zollner  was  a  pro- 
found scientist  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Leipzig;  in  the  seven- 
ties he  made  extensive  ex- 
periments in  SpirituaHsra 
through  the  famoiis  Ameri- 
can medium,  Henry  Slade. 
He  believed  the  intelligences 
were  supra-mundane,  and 
explained  the  phenomena  on 
the  hypothesis  of  the  fourth 
dimention. 


INDEX 


Aksakof,  N.,  and  Lost  Will 193 

Apparition  and  My  Aunt 28 

Apparitions 380 

Arab  Guide,  "Spirit"  of  My an 

"Aunt  Eliza's  "  Telepathy 313 

Author,  A  Spirit  Commission  Given. .  93 
Author  Gets  Very  Successful  Series 

of  Tests 217 

Author's  "Very  Bad  Spell" 93 

Author  Kindly  "Warned" 66 

Author  Makes  Threefold  Request. . .  .  488 
Author  Meets  Very  Sensitive  Spirit. . .  103 
Author's    Brother's  Experiment    in 

Materializations 425 

Author's   Brother's   Experiments   in 

Telepathy 332 

Author's  Business  Friend  Makes  Spirit 

Photographic  Tests 454 

Author  Sees  Materializations  Under 

Test  Conditions 426 

Author's  Experience  with  Fraud 74-77 

Author's  Experience  with  Mrs.  Mar- 
garet Fox  Kane 337 

Author's  Friend  Tells  Strange  Story. .   380 

Author's  "Mother"  Gives  a  Test 443 

Author's    Niece    Works     Successful 

Tests 237 

Automatic  Writing,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Believes  in ai6 

Auto-Suggestion 82 

Balfour's,  Premier,  Sister  Helps 383 

Beecher  and  IngersoU 136 

"Beecher"  Inquiry  About  "Mite". . .  159 
Beecher's  Belief,  "There's  Something 

in  it" 78 

Beecher's  Reported  Explanation 183 

Beecher's  "  Phantom  Face  " 179 

Beecher's  Strange  Vision m 

Bellachini's Conjvirer,  Testimony.  ...      53 

Bible  and  Spirits 67 

Bible  and  Spiritualism 6$ 

Bibliography 523 

Bishop,  A  Dead,  Returns 394 

Bishop,  Washington  Irving,  and  La- 

bouchere 8i 

Blavatsky,  Mme.,  Why  Her  Miracles?  192 
Book  Read  When  Shut rs8 


Booth,   General,   Talks   with    Spirit 

Wife 145 

Brewster.  Sir  David,  Not  Consistent. .    114 

Brittan's,  Dr.  S.  B.,  Explanation 182 

"Brooklyn  Medium,"  Age,  etc 158 

Brougham's,  Lord,  Vision 39a 

Cashiers,  Statement  of,    of  Fimk  & 
Wagnalls's  Company  About  "Mite"   166 

Character  a  Growth 30 

Character   Growth    on    Both    Sides 

of  Grave ^y 

Child  Saved  from  Fire 267 

"Christ  a  Materialized  Spirit" 40 

Christ  Hindered  by  Skepticism 83 

"Christ  the  Chief  est  Medium  " 31 

Church  Hurt  by  Spiritualism  ?  Is  the    125 

Clairaudience 309 

Clairvoyance 217 

Clairvoyance,  A.  R.  Wallace 27a 

Communication,  Law  of 98 

Conjurers 50 

Corpse  "Sassing"  Back 93 

Credulous,  Spiritualists  Too 21 

"Crist's  Identification" 312 

Crookes'  Bell  Enters  Closed  Room. .  .    341 

Crookes'  Chief  Experiments 319 

Crookes'  Classified  Results  of  Experi- 
ments    330 

Crookes'  Explanation  of  Telepathy. . .    518 
Crookes'  Final  Report  on  "Phenom- 
ena Called  Spiritual" 328 

Crookes'  Firm  Faith 423 

Crookes  Gets  Reading  without  Eyes.    256 
Crookes  Gets  Weight  Without  Con- 
tact    32s 

Crookes  on  Theory  of  Fraud 347 

Crookes  Photographs  Spirit 420 

Crookes'  Purpose 326 

Crookes  Repeats  Belief 156 

Crookes  Sees  Human  Bodies  Lifted. . .    333 

Crookes  Sees  Man  Resting  in  Air 343 

Crookes  Sees  Materializations336-338-4i3 
Crookes   Sees  Weights   Moved  at  a 

Distance 332 

Crookes,  Sir  William,  and  Miss  Kate 
Fox 331 


535 


53^ 


INDEX 


Crookes  Tests  for  Intelligence 339 

Crookes    Tests   Spirit's     Pulse   and 

Heart 422 

Crookes  .Wallace  Denies  Report  About  156 

Dailey's,  Judge  A.H.,  Startling  Expe- 
riences with  Home  Medium 259 

Dead,  Do  They  Rettim  to  Earth?. . .  .  391 

Directions  for  Spirit  Circle 520 

Diss-Debar,  Mme 23 

Dog  of  the  Wesleys 400 

Dr.  Savage  Sees  Great  Physical  Force  368 

Evolution,  Argument  from 181 

Experience,  Very  Odd 240 

Fact,  Astounding,  Verified 383 

Faculties,  Rudimentary 10 

Faith,  Antecedent,  Essential 80 

"Faith  of  Itself  is  Nothing" 200 

Fancher,  Mollie 407 

"Fool's  World" 26 

Fraud,  Much,  But  What  Else  ? 78 

Frauds,  Mediumistic,  Variety  of. .  .  74-235 

Funk,  B.  F.,  Letter  About  "Mite".. .  .  166 

"Gabriel,  Subpoena" 42 

"George  Pelham"  of  S.  P.  R.  "Makes 

"Things Lively"    450 

Ghost  of  a  Living  Person 383 

Gladstone  and  Psychic  Research 9 

God,  How  Seen 49 

God,  Nothing  Supernatural,  But..  ...  25 

Goethe  Prophetically  Sees  Himself. . .  191 

Goethe's  Humility 7 

Guthrie's,    Malcom,    Series   of   Tele- 
pathic Experiments 284 

Hair  in  a  Sealed  Envelope  Described..  223 
Harden's,    MaximiUan,     Defense    of 

Anna  Rothe 190 

Hare,  Robert,  "Facts  Beat  Me" 130 

Haunted  House,  A 395 

Hodgson  and  ' '  Watseka  Wonder  "...  412 

Holmes',    O.  W.,  Experience 270 

Houdin's,  Conjurer,  Testimony 51 

Hudson,  Dr.,  Applies  "Law  of  Psy- 
chic Phenomena" 445 

Hudson  on  Faith 8x 

Hudson's  Inconclusive  Reasoning. .. .  379 

Hudson's  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena  209 

Huxley,  Child  Before  a  Fact 6 

Hypnotism  Won't  Explain 356 

Impersonation  May  Be  Unconscious  180 

Impressions  without  Visibility 438 

Individual,  Each,  a  Free  Agent 38 

Individuality  Inviolable. 3  9-1  So 

IngersoU,  Col.  Robert,  Materializes  (?)  33 

Insanity  and  Spiritualism 87 


James,  Prof.  William,  Finds  Bank- 
book   198 

James',  Prof.  W.,  Experiments  with 

Mrs.  Piper 101-241 

James' , Prof .  W. ,  Letter  About ' ' Mite' '  178 

"  Janette  Lost  " 311 

"  John  Rakestraw  " 159 

Kant,  Immanuel,  and  Swedenborg.  .  186 

Kant's  Fear  of  Ridicule 190 

Kellar's,  Conjurer,  Testimony 52 

Keller,  Helen,  Teaches  Us 50 

Knorr,  Dr.  L.,  and  Lost  Note 195 

Krause's,  Arthxir    G.,    Photographic 

Test 46s 

Letters  of  Psychologists 493 

Letters  Sealed,  Yet  Contents  Read  .  .  217 
Lindsay,  Lord,  (Scientist),  Witnesses 

Marvel 347 

Lodge,  Sir  GUver,  on  Myers*  Spirit 

Writing 216 

Lodge's  Reports  Experiments 283 

Macdonald,  Wilson : 33 

Marsh,  Luther  R 23 

Massey's,  Gerald,  Home  Experience.  62 

Materialization,  Careful  Test 424 

Materialization  and  Crookes 413 

Materializations,  Myers'  Explanation 

of     435 

Medium's,  Brooklyn,  Statement.  . .  .  493 

Medium  a  Djiiamo 151 

Medium   Exhausted,   W.    S.   Moses' 

Tests 434 

Mediums  Bom,  Not  Made 148 

Medium's,  Converted,  Warning 63 

Mediumship,  Is  It  Hurtful? 57 

Mediums,  Personal  Equation  of 90 

"Mediums  Should  be  Guarded  " 59 

"  Mediums  Should  be  Kept  Pvire  "...  1 24 

Mediums,  Some,  Grow  Rich 77 

Mediums,  Why  Necessary? 147 

Mind,  Subjective 27,  189 

Mint,  U.  S.,  Answers  Coin  Inquiry  164 
Mitchell,   Dr.   Weir,  Gives  Remark- 
able Case 403 

Morse,  Doctor,  Spirit 265 

Moses'  Directions  for  Circle s  20 

"  Mother  "  Makes  Good  Test 234 

Miiller,  Max,  and  Mme.  Blavatsky  . .  .  19a 

Myers',  Frederic,  Belief 13 

Myers,  Frederic,  Gives  Spirit  Auto- 
graph    48s 

Myers,  Frederic,  His  Facsimile  Writ- 
ing   216 

Myers',  Frederic,  Prediction 18 

Myers',  Frederic,  Testimony, ,  JS4 


INDEX 


537 


Myers',    Frederic,    Test    with    Mrs. 
Piper 246 

Note,  Promissory,  Found  Through 
Spirit 194 

Obsessions 402 

"  Paine's,  Thomas,"  Poor  Memory.  .  44 
Parker's.    Dr.    Joseph,    Talks     with 

Spirit  Wife 144 

PersonaUties,  Secondary 402 

Phantom  Lights  Seen  by   Rev.  W. 

Stainton-Moses 433 

Phelps',  Austin,  Warning 73 

Photographs   by    Dr.    Pierce   When 

Alone 478 

Photographs  in  Unopened  Box 474 

Pierce,  Dr.,  and  Spirit  Photography .   454 

Pierce,  Dr.,  Closely  Catechised 467 

Pierce,    Dr.,    London    Photographic 

Tests 473 

Pierce's,  Dr.,  Photographic  Report  .  .   457 

Piper,  Mrs.,  Detectives  Watch 247 

Piper,  Mrs.,  in  England 248 

Piper,   Mrs.,   Makes  Tests  for  Prof. 

James 241 

Piper,  Mrs.,  Myers  Says  Is  Honest. .  .   249 

Piper,  Mrs.,  with  Dr.  Savage 251 

Podmore  Reasons  Loosely 281 

Prayer,  A,  Who  Is  Its  Author? 490 

Premonition  Correct 267 

Problem,  The 8 

Psychical  Research,  Society  for 14 

Psychic  Force  Aside  from  Muscular 

Action 318 

Psychologists*  Answers,  Tabulated  .  .   177 

Psychologists'  Letters 493 

Psychologists    Questioned        About 

"Mite" 176 

Questions  Answered  About  "  Mite  ". .    174 

Reid,  H.  A..  Gets  Strong  "  Photo- 
graphic Tests  " 4SS 

Religion,  True 152 

Request,  Threefold,  to  the  Public 488 

Results,     Surprising,    in    Telepathy 

Given  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 289 

Rejmolds,  Mary 403 

Roney,  Irving  S.,  Affidavit  of 165 

Rothe,  Mme.  Anna,  Sentenced 191 

Savage's,  Dr.  Minot  J.,  Daughter's 
Experience 253 

Savage,  Dr.,  Finds  Son's  Papers 197 

Savage,  Dr.,  Gives  Verified  Case  of 
Identity 443 

Savage,  Dr.,  Sends  Spirits  on  Jour- 
neys     254 


Savage's,  Dr.,  Tests  with  Mrs.  Piper.   251 
Scientist    a   Victim  of  Auto-Sugges- 
tion      IIS 

Scientists,  Letter  from loi 

Scientists,  Unscientific 113 

S<^ance  Failed 104 

Self -Projection 387 

Seybert  Commission 50 

Seybert  Fund,  A  Great  Wrong  Done .    117 
Shakespeare,  Curious  Spirit  Informa- 
tion About.  . 140 

Sidgwick,   Prof.,  Gives  Spirit  Auto- 
graph     486 

Skepticism  Need  not  be  Hostile 33 

Skeptics  Predispose  Themselves  Un- 
favorably      38 

Slade,  Prof.,  and  Zollner 275 

Slate  Test  by  Dr.  T.  J.  Hudson 377 

Slate-Writing  Severely  Tested 369 

Socrates'  Spirit  Guide 310 

Spirit  Autograph  of  Leading  Clergy- 
man Tested  by  Bank  Experts 484 

Spirit,  A  Very  Sensitive 103 

Spirit  Circles,  Hard-headedness  Re- 
quired at 30 

Spirit  Communication  Commonplace.      95 
Spirit  Communication  Difficult  .  ..  .58,  86 
Spirit  Communication  in  Bible  Times     39 
Spirit  Commtmication,  Law  of  Fail- 
ure of 105 

Spirit  Communication  to  Be  Judged 

by  Its  Best 99 

Spirit  Communings,  How  to  Get  Best  100 

Spirit  Contradicts  Spirit 149 

Spirit  Control  Grows  Weary 34 

Spirit  Controls  of  Brooklyn  Medium.    158 

Spirit  Criticises  the  Church 1 20 

Spirit  Detective 21 

Spirit  Explains  Inaccuracies 89 

"  Spirit  from  Mars  " 96 

"  Spirit,"  of  My  Arab  Guide  Identifies 

Himself 211 

Spirit  Identified  by  Handwriting  ....   484 

Spirit  Identification 257 

Spirit  Identity 443 

Spirit  Identity,  Tests  by  Prof.  Hyslop  486 
Spirit  Identity  Through  Rev.  W.  S. 

Moses 446 

Spirit,  Negro,  Very  Human 46 

Spirit  of  Murderer  Enters  a  Medium .     61 
Spirit    Photographs,    Between    Test 

Plates 46X 

Spirit    Photographs,    Series   by    Dr. 

Reid 478 

Spirit  Photographs  without  Camera  .    457 

Spirit  Photography 451 

Spirit  Photography,  Trick 451 

Spiiit  "  Quarrel " ,,,,,,.,.,     14 


538 


INDEX 


S|*Tit&,  Agreement  with 239 

"  Spirits  Also  Leaixaefs 20a 

S|»i  ilfc.  Cootradirtogy 55 

Spirits.  Evil S 

Spirits.  Evil.  Wock  of 60 

^nrits.Good.E2liorttoVirtae. 69 

Spirits,   H^  £ram  f^""""""****^" 

witli 129 

Spirits.  Matter-of -Fact  People. 137 

^xrits.  Misduevous 47.  237 

Spirit-TalkAsatiist  Materialism. ... .  127 
Spiiit-TaOs  at "  Widow's  Mite  Gude"  198 

Spirit-Talks  Oaenlnaccnxate 88 

^■nt-Talk.  **  Ftivobty  at  Sittings  " .  29 

Spirit-Talk."  God's  Restoiix«  Love"  135 

Spirit-Talk.  "His^ber  Criticism  " 133 

Spirit-Talk.  "Kind  to  Ammab" 138 

Spixit-TaDc  Often  Rqidlant 44 

Spirit-Talk."  Service  Is  Godly" 139 

Spirxt-Talk,  "  Spirit  Oowiniiininition 

Enlarges  Sdf-Reqiect" 143 

^xrit-TaDc.  "  Spiritnalism  Clnnrli's 

GreatestAlly" 141 

Spirit-Talks.  "Laws  of  Natore" 199 

^nit-Talks.  "  Reincarnation  " 904 

"^nit-Talks to defgymen" lao 

Spiritualism  a  Butt  for  RidJcnle 92 

Spiiitiialism  a  "  Suspect " 4 

"Spiritualism      Coodnshrdy       Dis- 
proved   4  3 

Sf  I  iluahsm  Judged  by  Its  Ptuitfc. . . .  r3r 

"  Spiritnalism  Key  to  the  Bible  " 126 

Spmtiialwm  Often  Too  Flqjpagt. . . . .  28 

S|w>it*ialwts  Ciiliiiil 35 

Spiritualists  Should  Make  Investiga- 

tionBasy 36 

S|ai  ituahsts.  Some.Too  iHijtff  1  htitious  25 

^■rxt  Wires  Crossed 22 

Spirit  Writing  E^ilained. 440 

S.  P.  R.  Tests  Telepathy 382 

Stainthrop.     IGss.     Hears    Brother 

Thousand  Mile& 311 

Swrdmbofg  Finds  Rece^>t 187 

SwedenboKg  "  Sees  "  Storkhnhn  Tire  188 

TdqjaUiy 217 

Tdepathy.  Failnres  and  Suoceases  . . .    296 

Tdepathy.  Series  of  Diagrams. 298 

Testnnony,  Extzaocdmary,  Not  Un- 

reaaooable 35-91 

Tests  Exchange  Among  MedJnms. . ..     76 


"Thii«sWortiiWhik" soS 

Vibcatians.  Ckockes'  Tafafe 5x8 

Voice  Heard  by  Doctor  at  Distance  . .  315 
Voice  of  Drowning  Boy  Heard  Tboa- 

sandsofMiles 316 

Voltaire  on  Newton 112 

WagnaDs'.  A.  W..  Statement  About 

"Mite" 167 

Wallace,  Alfred  Rnssd.  Clairvoyance  272 

Wallace  Denies  Recantatian 156 

Wallace's  Experiments  at  Home. ... .  364 
Wallace  Tdls  of  Effects  of  Ghosts  on 

Animals 398 

Wallace  Losing  Patience 274 

Warning,  Unspoken 267 

Watdi.  Finding  of.  Through  Spirit. .   198 

Watdi.  Stolen.  Returned 273 

"Watseka  Wonder" 408 

West.  CW..  Statement  of 167 

West.  Prof.  Charles  E 163 

"  Widow's  IGte."  Knding  of.  Inci- 
dent    158 

"^Hdow's  Mite."  How  Used 160 

"  Widow's  IGte  "  Submitted  to  Psy- 

chologistSw 176-493 

"IWdow's  Mite."  Value  of. 168 

"^^dow's  IGte."  Where  Pound 162 

Wins.  Rev.  Dr.  J.T..  Himsdf  Secoxes 

Photographs 463 

Wit.  Beechexian 184 

WxtchofEndor 7r 

Wriflht.Sihtt."  Spirit  of" 203 

Zeitgeist. 95 

Zeitgeist  and  the  Bible  Prophets. 97 

ZoDner,  Coins  Read  in  Sealed  Box.. . .  279 

ZaDner  Doubly  Surprised. 280 

ZoIIner   Experiments   with    Endless 

Bands. 350 

ZoOnerGros^  Abused 275-361 

ZoDner.  Leipsac  University  Corrects 

ShndfT  about 276 

Zolhker  Makes  Careful  Tests. 371 

ZdDner 'sUnfortunate  Omissioa 376 

Z^lner  Pussies  Scientists. 375 

ZoOner    Secures    Print    on    Sooted 

Paper 430 

ZoQner  Sees  Tmmmur  Force 349 

Zollner  Sees  Phantom  Hand 427 

ZdUner  Sms  Table  Disappear 362 


**This  Book  Has  Afforded  Me  Great 
Pleasure."— Toisfoi/ 

Count  Leo  Tolstoy  :  "  The  idea  of  joining  in  this  book  the 
scientific  truth  of  evolution  and  the  coming  of  Christ  (through  a  rein- 
carnation in  men)  is  rich  in  application.  The  reading  of  this  book  has 
afforded  me  great  pleasure." 


The  Next  Step  in  Evolution 

BY 

I.  K.  FUNK,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


Price,  Fifty  Cents,   Cloth 


"An  Arsenal  of  Epigrams" 

Edwin  Markham,  Author  of  "The  Man  With  The  Hoe," 
etc. :  "  This  is  a  great  little  book — suggestive  and  inspiring.  It  has  a 
clarity,  brevity,  and  poetry  seldom  found  in  books  deahng  with  the 
deeper  problems  of  life  and  thought.  The  book  is  an  arsenal  of  epi- 
grams that  sing  home  like  bullets.  It  ought  to  become  a  Httle  reUgious 
classic.  I  feel  very  close  to  this  author  in  his  vision  of  the  historic 
march." 

"A  Great  Book" 

Philip  S,  Moxonif  X),X).,  Springfield,  Mass. :  "A  great  book. 
Its  deep  spirituality,  its  breadth  of  view,  its  scientific  temper  and  meth- 
od, all  commend  it  to  me  with  unusual  force.  I  shall  read  passages  of 
the  book  to  my  class  (a  BibUcal  Seminar)  next  Sunday.  I  shall  speak 
of  the  book  to  my  friends  as  one  which  they  ought  to  know." 

"A  Striking  Little  Volume" 

St,  James's  Gazette,  London:  "The  religious  idea  is  pre- 
sented with  great  grasp  of  the  undeniable  facts  of  life,  and  a  sound 
degree  of  critical  sanity.    A  striking  little  volume." 

"A  Distinctly  Great  Work" 

The  Arena,  Boston :  "  An  excellent  companion  volume  to  *  The 
Ascent  of  Man,*  by  Professor  Drummond.  Both  works  are  calculated 
to  appeal  with  convincing  force  to  the  reason  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
naturally  religious  persons  who  have  accepted  the  theory  of  evolution, 
and  who,  because  they  could  find  no  rational  reconcihation  between  it 
and  the  claims  of  theologians  have  drifted  from  the  old-time  moorings 
into  the  sea  of  agnosticism.  'The  Next  Step  in  Evolution'  is  a  dis- 
tinctly great  work  and  a  very  important  contribution  to  modern  thought." 


FUNK    l^    WAGNALLS    COMPANY,     Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


The  Next  Step  in  Evolution — Continued 

**  It  Contains  the  Thought  of  Ages 

Past— Germs  of  Truth  for 

Ages  to  Come" 

PhiUtdel/phia  Telegraph  :  "  A  wonderful  work,  comprising 
the  condensed  essence  of  all  the  recent  discoveries  and  inspirations  as 
to  evolution,  both  material  and  spiritual.  .  .  .  Just  a  handful  of  printed 
paper,  yet  it  contains  the  result  of  the  thoughts  of  ages  past  and  the  germ 
of  truths  to  be  seen  in  ages  to  come.  As  the  first  tiny  arbutus  blossom, 
peeping  out  from  under  the  accumulations  of  vegetable  mold,  is  a  har- 
binger of  a  new  season,  a  signal  that  spring  has  come,  so  this  bit  of  a 
booklet  is  a  sign  to  all  men  of  a  new  era,  an  emxblem  of  things  to  come, 
an  epitome  of  the  past  and  a  promise  for  the  future. 

"It  is  peculiarly  fitting  and  appropriate  just  now,  coming  as  it  does 
on  the  instant  of  such  shocking,  horrible  revelations  of  hideous  atroci- 
ties against  the  Jews  in  Russia.  It  throws  a  Divine  light  on  that  dark- 
ness and  reveals  in  a  measure  the  Divine  purpose  in  permitting  such 
apparently  Godless  cruelties.  All  existence  is  evolution,  and  all  expe- 
riences are  merely  necessary  steps  or  stages  in  that  evolution.  Disas- 
ters and  sufferings  are  the  inevitable  accompaniment  to  the  eternal 
struggle  to  progress  The  same  laws  hold  good  for  the  spiritual  as  for 
the  material  world.  There  must  be  struggles ;  there  must  be  obstacles ; 
there  must  be  resistance  to  push  against,  or  there  can  be  no  progress. 
Dr.  Funk  says:  'In  the  lower  kingdoms  it  is  a  survival  of  the  fittest;  the 
struggle  for  life  for  ourselves  merging  into  a  struggle  for  life  for  others.' 

"  As  to  the  next  step  in  evolution,  the  development  of  the  Christ- 
type,  the  author  says :  *  Christ  came  the  first  time  into  men's  vision  by 
coming  on  the  plane  of  their  senses ;  He  comes  the  second  time  into 
men's  vision  by  lifting  them  up  to  His  plane  of  spiritual  comprehension.' 

"  It  is  the  spirit  of  Christ  that  is  making  itself  felt  in  the  world  to  -day, 
and  just  such  shuddering  convulsions  of  horror  as  the  news  from  Russia 
has  sent  abroad  are  the  birth-throes  of  the  new  spirit  that  will  rise  and 
spread  for  the  salvation  of  humanity  from  their  owm  inhumanity.  Dr. 
Funk  has  studied  like  a  true  scientist,  reasoned  like  a  philosopher,  felt 
like  a  poet,  and  now  gives  forth  his  utterance  like  a  prophet,  knowing 
his  inspiration  to  have  come  from  on  High.  His  book  is  brief  and  to 
the  point,  simple  enough  for  a  child  to  understand,  but  deep  as  the  pon- 
derings  of  any  sage.  It  is  a  work  that  would  inevitably  make  itself  felt 
at  any  period,  but  just  at  this  time  it  will  be  of  especial  power,  and  can 
not  fail  to  appeal  to  all  classes.  Whether  the  reader  agrees  with  it  or 
not,  he  can  not  ignore  it,  for  in  its  calm,  quiet,  dignified  way  it  refuses 
to  be  ignored,  and  to  many  it  will  be  the  breath  of  a  new  life." 

"The  Style  is  Fascinating" 

New  York  Observer:  "The  small  pages  are  full  of  great 
thoughts,  fresh  and  vitalizing  insights  into  a  host  of  familiar  texts,  and 
the  style  is  fascinating." 


FUNK    ^    WAGNALLS    COMPANY,     Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


The  Next  Step  in  Evolution — Continued 


"An  Astounding"  Little  Book— Bound  to 
Create  a  Stir'* 

Philadelphia  Item  :  *'  This  little  book  deals  astoundingly  with 
evolution,  contradicting  many  established  theories,  but  offering  reason- 
able ones  in  their  stead.  They  show  deep  thought  and  careful  probing 
into  the  inner  meanings  of  things,  mentioning  many  famous  preachers 
who  have  substantially  taught  the  same  ideas.  It  is  bound  to  create  a 
stir  in  the  theological  world." 

"Everybody  Should  Read  It  From  Cover 
to  Cover" 

John  G,  Woolley,  in  "  The  New  Voice,"  Chicago,  III. .  "...  a 
wonderful  little  book.  I  should  like  to  quote  it  all  in  this  article.  It 
ought  to  be  read  from  cover  to  cover  by  every  Sunday-School  teacher, 
by  everybody.  It  shows  in  a  simple  but  masterly  way  what  has  been 
said  in  these  comments  repeatedly  that  the  kingdoms  of  life  pass  into 
one  another  from  lower  to  higher  by  resurrections,  and  that  each  of 
these  successive  steps  or  kingdoms  has  had  its  reform  period  or  type 
life." 

"It  Glows  with  Optimism'* 

Western  Christian  Advocate,  Cincinnati:  "  The  little  book 
is  optimistic  to  the  utmost  verge  of  hopefulness.  The  author  sees  all 
the  good  things  that  are  happening,  and  foresees  many  that  are  going  to 
happen,  and  upon  his  visions  he  erects  his  picture  of  the  good  time 
coming." 

"Theme  is  Bold  and  Treatment 
Fearless" 

Providence  Sunday  Telegram  :  "  It  is  a  strong  essay  on 
the  development  of  the  soul,  and  while  the  theme  is  bold,  the  treatment 
is  fearless.  The  writer's  style  is  terse,  vigorous  and  convincing;  the 
reasoning,  while  along  the  plane  of  Christianity,  is  a  radical  departure 
from  conventional  thought." 

"A  Bemarkable  Book" 

Ottawa  Free  Press  :  "  This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
contributions  to  the  field  of  modern  thought  in  the  direction  indicated 
by  the  title  that  has  appeared  for  some  time.  It  presents  in  words  that 
can  be  understood  by  the  most  untutored  mind  a  new  phase  of  a  much 
controverted  subject.  .  .  .  The  book  must  be  carefully  and  thought- 
fully read  as  one  of  a  rather  remarkable  kind." 


FUNK    &    WAGNALI.S    COMPANY,    Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


The  Next  Step  in  Evolution — Continued 


**  Masterly  and  Reverential  in  Spirit " 

Dundee  Courier,  Dundee,  Scotland:  "  It  treats  the  subject  in 
a  masterly  and  reverential  spirit,  and  brings  much  new  light  to  bear  on 
many  of  the  dark  problems  of  the  world." 

**  The  Aptness  of  Statement  is  Kemark- 

able"  — "It  Blazes  With 

Common  Sense" 

Unity,  Chicago:  "This  little  book  is  dropped  on  the  table  like 
mannaout  of  the  skies  ...  is  absolutely  packed  with  passages  that  can  be 
quoted  as  gems  of  thought.  They  are  almost  invariably  right  up  to  the 
line  of  modern  progress.  They  startle  and  they  inspire.  The  doctrine 
taught  is  that  Christ  is  always  coming  in  the  process  of  evolution.  The 
book  will  do  infinite  good  in  the  way  of  curing  orthodox  realism — to  use 
no  harsher  word.  It  ought  to  put  higher  conceptions  into  the  minds  of 
those  who  are  still  teaching  that  Jesus  is  to  reappear  in  the  flesh  and  re- 
peat his  old  life.  The  aptness  of  statement  is  remarkable.  .  .  .  You 
will  make  no  mistake  if  you  will  buy  this  httle  handbook,  and  put  it  in 
your  pocket  to  read  over  and  over  again.  It  blazes  with  common  sense 
and  it  consumes  old-fogyism  and  bigotry  without  mercy." 

"Should  Attract  Thoughtful  People 
Everywhere  " 

The  Salt  Lake  Tribune,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah :  "It  is  a  work 
that  should  attract  the  attention  of  thoughtful  people  throughout  the 
world." 

"  Suggests  Many  New  Avenues 
of  Thought" 

St,  "Paul  IHspatch  :  "  The  little  volume  is  interesting,  novel, 
helpful,  and  full  of  hope  and  inspiration.  It  is  logical  and  honest  in  its 
conclusions,  and  suggests  many  new  avenues  of  thought  on  evolutionary 
lines." 

"  Filled  With  Profound  Truth  " 

Ch/ristian  Work  and  Evangelist,  New  York:  "There  is 
a  profound  truth  in  this  little  book,  which  it  will  do  us  all  good  to  pon- 
der." 

"The  Author's  Enthusiasm  Carries 
the  Reader" 

Chicago  Chronicle  :  "  Naturally  the  tone  of  the  book  is  hope- 
ful, and  the  author's  enthusiasm  carries  the  reader  along  with  him.  The 
little  volume  can  be  read  in  one  hour." 

"Everybody  Should  Bead  It" 

Soston  Times  :  "  It  is  a  work  which  should  be  read  by  every- 
body." 


FUNK    tff    WAGNALLS    COMPANY,     Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


**A  Splendid  and  Fascinating  Historical 

Romance  " 

SrooTclyn  Eagle  :  "  Nothing  more  graphic  has  ever  burst  from 
a  red-hot  inspiration.  ...  It  never  has  a  dull  page.  Is  a  gallery  of 
wondrous  pen  pictures;  it  can  be  opened  again  and  again.  ...  It  is 
superfinely  produced.  .  .  .  We  commend  it  as  one  of  the  few  works 
of  fiction  which  deserves  to  be  bought  and  placed  on  the  permanent 
shelf." 


Tarry  Thou  Till  I  Come 

GEORGE    CROLY 

•       Introduction  by  Gen.   Lew  Wallace 

Author  of  ''Ben  Hur^* 

A  thrilling  story  dealing  with  the  momentous  events  that  occurred  in 
Palestine  from  the  time  of  the  crucifixion  to  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  replete  with  oriental  charm  and  marvelous  character-draw- 

^"^  "A  Truly  Great  Novel" 

Edwin  MarUham,  Author  of  "The  Man  With  The  Hoe": 
"  One  of  the  greatest  historical  novels  of  the  world." 

"It  Is  Sublime" 

Hubert  H,  Bancroft,  the  Celebrated  Historian :  « It  is  sub- 
lime. It  occupies  a  unique  place ;  there  is  nothing  else  like  it  in  litera- 
ture." 

"Fascinating" 

Senator  Frye :  "  The  legend  itself  is  a  fascinating  one." 

"Without  a  Parallel" 
Watch/word  and>  Truth,  Boston :  "  Its  description  of  the  life 
of  Palestine  up  to  the  time  when  Jerusalem  was  destroyed  is  without  a 
parallel  in  literature." 

"The  Great  Novel  of  the  Age" 

Hugh  Miller  TTwmpson,  Bishop  of  Mississippi:  "It  is  the 
work  of  a  scholar,  a  poet,  a  man  of  genius." 

"A  Mighty  Force  For  Good" 

S,  Parkes  Cadman,  D.D,,  Brooklyn:  "I  believe  such  works 
arouse  our  interest  in  the  living  Christ  and  God." 

"  Of  Thrilling  Interest " 
Geo,  C  Lorimer,  I>,D,  :  "  The  story  is  of  thrilling  interest." 

20  Full-Page  Drawings^  including  a  Beautiful  Frontispiece  in  Colors,  by 
T.  de  Thulstrup .  i2mo,  Cloth,  622  Pages.  Price,  $1.40.  Edition  de  Luxe^ 
two  volumes  in  box,  16  Photogravures.     Price,  $uf.oo.     Carriage  Prepaid 


FUNK    eff    WAGNALLS    COMPANY,    Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


"A  Book  That  Will  liive  Forever"  . 

Boohlovers*  Library  Btilletin:  "  The  intensity  and  majesty  of  this  book  are 
almost  indescribable.  It  is  a  sweeping  torrent  in  thought  and  expression — of  passion, 
love,  remorse,  adventure,  treachery,  bloody  conflict,  madness,  and  portrayals  of  wonders 
in  the  heavens  above  and  the  earth  beneath — the  glorious  imaginings  of  a  lofty  mind,  at 
once  philosophic  and  poetic." 


Tarry  Thou  Till  I  Come 

BY 

GEORGE    CROLY 

Introduction  by  Gen.  Lew  Wallace 

Author  o/  "Ben  Hur^^ 

IN  no  other  story  have  we  so  glowing  and  faithful  a  picture  of  that 
life  in  which  Christ  went  to  death,  and  the  new  Church  took  root, 
and  the  cataclasm  in  Jewish  history  came — the  clash  between  Jew  and 
Roman,  in  which  the  Jewish  nation  sank  "as  a  continent  sinks."  Here 
we  see  the  influences  at  work  that  molded  the  greatness  of  Jerusalem, 
and  others  that  wrought  her  ruin.  Here  we  witness  the  storms  that  beat 
out  and  scattered  to  the  four  corners  of  the  world  the  seed  of  the  new 
civilization  which  had  been  torn  loose  from  "  locality,"  and  became  a 
world  civilization.  In  its  pages  we  listen  not  only  to  the  harsh  notes 
of  war,  but  to  the  precious  music  of  the  young  heart  of  the  Christian 
Church — in  its  first  glorious  century. 

"Among  the  Greatest'* 

Gen,  Tiew  Wallace,  Author  of  "Ben  Hur"  :  "It  is  one  of  the  six  greatest 
English  novels  ever  written." 

"  One  of  the  Noblest  Romances  " 

JHon.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  U.  S.  Labor  Commissioner,  IVashin^on  D.  C. : 
"  It  is  one  of  the  noblest  romances  I  have  ever  read,  and  must  stand  with  the  very  best 
literature  that  has  been  given  to  the  world." 

«  Banks  With  the  Greatest 

TJieo.  W,  Sunt,  JPh.D.,  Professor  of  English  Language  and  Literature  in 
Princeton  University :  "  Parts  of  it  remind  me  of  the  graphic  pages  of  Victor  Hugo  in 
his  '  Les  Miserables'  and  '  Ninety-Three,'  and  parts  of  it  of  the  scenic  chapters  of  Sien- 
kiewicz  in  his  '  Quo  Vadis.'  Here  and  there  one  is  reminded  of  our  American  Haw- 
thorne." 

** Inspires  a  Liove  for  Things  Sacred** 

Prof.  H.  W,  Conn,  Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn.:  "One  of  the 
great  books  of  English  fiction.  A  book  of  much  higher  character  than  the  ordinary  line 
of  fiction,  the  reading  of  which  can  not  fail  to  be  of  great  profit  as  well  as  entertainment." 

"  The  Foremost  Historical  Novel  '* 

N.  Y.  Mail  and  Express :  "  It  leads  the  procession  of  historical  novels  at  one 
bound." 

20  Full-Page  Drawings^  including  a  Beautiful  Frontispiece  in  Colors,  by 
T.de  Thulstrup.  izmo,  Cloth, 623 Pages.  Price,$i.40.  Edition  de  Luxe, 
two  volumes  in  box,  16  Photogravures.     Price,  $4.00.    Carriage  Prepaid 


FUNK    ^    WAGNALLS    COMPANY,    Publishers 

NEW     YORK  LONDON 


University  of  British  Coliimbi.i  Library 


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