"Are we sitting right?"
Tap, tap, tap--"_Yes_," answered the force, in a grave and deliberate
way.
"As to these raps," I remarked, "they are easily simulated, but they
have been absolutely proven by several of our best investigators. They
have been obtained on a sheet of paper held in the air, on pencils, on a
strip of cloth, on an open umbrella--under every possible condition.
Maxwell secured them by pinching his own ear or by squeezing the arm of
his neighbor. I have heard them on a man's shirt-front. They are the
first manifestations of intelligent spirit power, and may be regarded in
the light of established fact."
"I wouldn't be hasty about admitting even that," remarked Miller. "In
the dark--or in the light--these obscure sounds may seem very ghostly,
and yet be due to purely physical causes."
We sat in silence for a few moments, and at last I asked: "Is any spirit
present?"
Almost immediately a childish voice came from the direction of the
psychic, apparently issuing from her lips. "_Mr. Mitchell would like to
have you tie the threads to the legs of the table._"
"Are you 'Maud?'" I asked.
"_Yes, I am Maudie_," she answered. "_Mr. Mitchell wants to try some
experiment. He wishes you to tie the threads to the legs of the table._"
I confess I didn't like the looks of this, but as a compromise measure I
was willing to grant it. "If you don't object, Miller, we will do as the
guides desire."
He hesitated. "It weakens our test. I don't understand the reason for
the demand."
"I suggest we yield the point for the present. Perhaps 'they' will
permit us to resume the thread a little later. I have found that by
apparently meeting the forces half-way at the beginning we often get
concessions later which will be of greater value than the tests we have
ourselves devised."
Accordingly, I tied my end of the silk twist to the table leg at a
distance of about twenty-six inches from the utmost reach of the
psychic's hands. Miller did the same with his end. We then resumed our
seats, and waited for over an hour.
During this time the psychic was absolutely silent and apparently in
deep trance, and I was beginning to feel both disappointed and
chagrined. Miller's tone was a bit irritating. I knew exactly what was
in his mind. "I've fixed her now," he was exultantly saying to himself.
"She can't do a thing; even her request to have the threads tied to the
table does not avail her. Accustomed to have everything her own way, she
fails the first time any real restraint is applied to her."
I was quite at the end of my confident expectancy, when the psychic
began to stir uneasily and "Maudie" spoke complaining of the thread on
her mother's right wrist. "_It's so tight it stops the blood_," she
said. "_Please loosen the thread a little. You may turn up the light_,"
added the little voice.
While Miller gave me a light, I loosened the thread on her right wrist,
which was very tight; but I tied a second thread about her arm in such
wise that I would surely know at the end of the sitting if it had been
disturbed. The table, I observed at the time, was more than two feet
from her finger-tips. I called Miller's attention to this, and said:
"She can't possibly untie these threads, and if she breaks them the
sitting is invalidated."
Soon after the light was turned out "Maudie" requested that we all move
away from Mrs. Smiley, down to the lower end of the table; and although
Miller thought this permitted too much liberty of action on the part of
the medium, I urged consent. "There are other sittings coming," I
repeated once more.
Mrs. Smiley fell again into deep sleep, but nothing took place for a
long time. During this period of waiting I told stories of my experience
and the curious folk I had met in search for the true explanation of
these singular phenomena.
"Have you ever witnessed any materializations?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"Yes; but none of it was of the sort that I could swear to. I mean that
it seemed to me to be either downright trickery or subconscious actions
on the part of the psychic, and yet I've seen some very puzzling
phantoms. I am persuaded that a great deal of what is called 'fraud'
arises from the suggestibility of the psychics. Lombroso speaks of this
'fixed idea' of the mediums, and their persistent, almost insane,
attempt to produce the phenomena desired by the circle. You can
understand how this would be if there is anything at all in hypnotism.
Sometimes it all seems to belong to the realm of hypnotic visions. One
medium helps another to build up this unreal world. Early in my career
as an investigator I went to Onset Bay, where in July of each year all
the spiritualists and 'mejums' of New England used to gather (do yet, I
believe), and I shall never forget the singular assemblage of
'slate-writers,' 'spirit artists,' 'spirit photographers,' 'palmists,'
and 'psychometrists' whose signs lined the street and pointed along the
paths of the camp.
"In its way it was as dramatic a contrast of light and shade, of the
real and the unreal, as this otherwise prosaic republic can show. There
under the vivid summer sun, beside the glittering sea, men and women met
to commune on the incommunicable, to question the voiceless, and to
embrace the intangible. It was, indeed, such a revelation of human
credulity as might well have overpowered a young novelist. From the
warm, pine-scented afternoon air I crept into one of these tiny cabins,
and sat with my hands upon a closed slate in order to receive a message
from Lincoln or Caesar; I slipped beneath the shelter of a tent to have a
sealed letter read by a commonplace person with an Indian accent; and I
sat at night in dark little parlors to watch weak men and weeping women
embrace very badly designed effigies of their lost darlings."
"Isn't it incredible? Can you imagine any reasonable person believing
such things?" asked Miller.
"Millions do," I replied.
"Please go on," entreated Mrs. Miller. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing really worth reporting upon. In that day of utter credulity no
tests were possible, but immediately after my return to Boston I had my
first entirely satisfactory test of the occult. I went with Mrs. Rose,
one of our members, to sit for 'independent slate-writing'--that is to
say, writing on the inner surfaces of closed slates. Up to this moment I
was profoundly sceptical, but I could not doubt the reality of what
happened. I took my own slates--the ordinary hinged school slates; but
whether they were my own or not made no difference really, for the final
test which I demanded was such that any prepared slates were useless.
I'm not going into tiresome detail. I only say that while sitting at the
table with both Mrs. Rose's hands and my own resting upon the slates _I
dictated_ certain lines to be drawn upon the inside of the slates."