Before she began her incantations the medium had requested everyone
present not to cross their feet, and to try to assist her to bring the
spirits before them. She said that it would probably not be possible
to bring a spirit for everybody, but that if all helped her, the
spirits wanted by many in the audience would surely appear.
Then she asked them all to sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which they
did, and after a few more passes over her temples and in front of her
eyes the spirit began to move. The detectives could see it, and they
began to think they had been wrong in thinking there was nothing in
spiritualism. It certainly appeared real. First one form would glide
back and forth in front of the curtain, then an entirely different
one would appear. Altogether there were spirits of about ten men and
children materialized.
As the apparitions moved slowly in front of the curtain, in the
spectral light which made it impossible to detect more than a faint
outline of the form, women rushed forward crying out that it was their
husband, or their child, that they saw. They stretched out their hands
to clasp the forms of their departed, but Jennie Nichols and her male
assistant would take them by their hands and tell them they must not
touch the spirit or it would fade away. You could get within six
inches of the figures, and peer into the faces as they passed to and
fro, but everyone was restrained from attempting to touch them. In the
ghostly light of the room the closest inspection could not determine
that the figures were frauds, so clever were they disguised.