WHAT YOU MUST BELIEVE TO BE A SPIRITUALIST
There is an old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction” but some
of the miraculous things attributed to the Spirits would not be told,
could not be told, even by such a famous writer of wild fiction as
Baron Munchausen, but under the protecting mantle of Spiritualism these
vivid tales are believed by millions. The conglomerated things you are
asked to accept in good faith are almost inconceivable. If you do not
then you are not a real Spiritualist. There must not be the shadow of
a doubt in your mind as to the truth of the extravagant feats claimed
to be performed by the Spirits through their earthly messengers the
mediums.
Among the spirits who have come back and written stories, according
to the Spiritualists, are no less personages than Shakespeare, Bacon,
Charles Dickens who completed his “Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Jack
London, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and lately Oscar Wilde. Magazines
have been published by the “Spirits”[119] and there are numbers of
cases where entire books have been claimed to be their work. I ask the
reader if he believes the following incidents which I have selected
from various Spiritualistic publications in my library. If so he is
entitled to join the cult.
The “Medium and Daybreak” of June 9, 1871, tells of an instance where
“The Spirits ‘floated’ Mr. Herne to Mrs. Guppy’s in open day as was
reported by us two weeks ago.... This has been speedily followed by
other cases some of which are exceedingly well substantiated. On
Saturday evening, as a circle consisting of about nine persons, sat
within locked doors, with Messrs. Herne and Williams, at these mediums’
lodgings, 61 Lambs’ Conduit Street, after a considerable time an object
was felt to come upon the table, and when a light was struck, their
visitor was found to be Mrs. Guppy. She was not by any means dressed
for an excursion, as she was without shoes, and had a memorandum book
in one hand and a pen in the other.
“The last word inscribed in the book was ‘onions.’ The writing was
not yet dry and there was ink on the pen. When Mrs. Guppy regained
her consciousness she stated that she had been making some entries of
expenses, became insensible and knew nothing until she found herself
in the circle. A party of gentlemen accompanied Mrs. Guppy home; a
deputation went in first and questioned Miss Neyland as to how or when
Mrs. Guppy had been missed. She said that she had been sitting in the
same room; Mrs. Guppy was making entries in her book, and Miss Neyland
was reminding her of the items to put down. Miss Neyland was reading
a newspaper in the intervals of conversation, and when she raised her
head from her reading Mrs. Guppy could not be seen. It was intimated,
through raps on the table, that the Spirits had taken her, and as Mrs.
Guppy had every confidence in the beneficence of these agents, Mrs.
Guppy’s abduction gave no concern. Both Mr. Herne and Mr. Williams were
‘floated’ the same evening. Mr. Williams found himself at the top of
the stairs, the doors being shut all the while.
“At the seance at the Spiritual Institution, a young lady who was a
sceptic was levitated. At Messrs. Herne and Williams’ seance, at the
same place, a geranium in a pot was brought into the room from the
staircase window above, while doors and windows were closed. Mrs. Burns
had a knife taken out of her hand, which ‘Katie’ (the Spirit) said she
would deposit at Lizzie’s, meaning Mrs. Guppy. A gentleman had two
spirit photographs taken from his hand. A cushion was carried from the
front room to the back room, where the seance was held, the door being
shut. Mr. Williams’ coat was taken off while his hands were held. Mr.
Herne was floated. Mr. Andrews, a gentleman who has not the use of his
limbs, held a very interesting conversation with ‘Katie’ who promised
to try and benefit him. The generous sympathy of these good spirits was
very apparent from their eagerness to help the distressed. A letter
from Northampton intimates that similar phenomena are being produced in
that town. These feats are doing a mighty work in convincing hundreds
of the power.
“At a seance given by Mrs. Guppy (‘Medium and Daybreak,’ November
18, 1870), the Spirits knowing it was tea time, first of all brought
through the solid wall the dishes and placed them on the table, then
transported cake and hot tea, and in the center of the table was placed
violets, mignonette, geranium leaves and fern leaves, all wet with
rain, which had been gathered by the Spirits.
“Herne, with whom Williams was associated, made it his business to have
his Spirits bring in the slates from the hallway through the closed
door. He had books ooze through the solid floors, from the library
overhead, and drop on the seance table. Williams would be entranced in
the cabinet and the Spirits would disrobe him much to his ‘entranced’
embarrassment.
On the testimony of Orville Pitcher, John King at a seance stood in
the full glare of the daylight for twenty minutes. He then retired
and was followed by no less a personage than Oliver Cromwell, who
walked around, embraced his medium and all the sitters. He afterwards
controlled the medium and gave utterance to thoughts of a most elevated
nature.
“Mrs. Catherine Berry goes on record (‘Medium and Daybreak,’ July 9,
1876) that through the mediumship of Mrs. Guppy she had seen the Sultan
of Zanzibar on the previous day. “He had a handsome copper-colored face
and a large black beard, on his head he had a white turban such as worn
by the Spirit of John King.”
“Dr. Monck, ex-preacher, disappeared one night from the bed in which he
slept with another man in Bristol and to his surprise, when he awoke,
found himself in Swindon.” (_Spiritualism_, by Joseph McCabe.)
“Mr. Harris, his wife and a friend, who happened to be a medium, were
just about to sit down to a mid-day meal when the medium, a man named
Wilkinson, was suddenly ‘controlled.’ He fought hard against this
unexpected behaviour of his Spirit control, but to no avail. In his
unconscious state he jangled money in his pocket, then pointed to a
cigarette box which was lying on a shelf in the opposite corner. In
that box, it seemed, was the sum of 17s, 6d. Mr. and Mrs. Harris were
wondering what this all meant, when suddenly the box virtually flew
from the shelf, passed through the closed door, and was gone. Mrs.
Harris immediately left the room and tried to find trace of the box.
SHE FOUND IT UPSTAIRS UNDERNEATH THE PILLOW ON THE BED. The money was
intact.” (_An Amazing Seance and an Exposure_, _by_ Sidney A. Mosley,
page 21.)
At a seance held on February 15, 1919, at the home of Mr. Wallace
Penylan at Cardiff, by Mr. Thomas, there were present Sir Arthur, Lady
Doyle, and others, numbering about twenty in all. “Thomas, speaking
from his chair (apparently still under control) then asked, ‘Is Lady
Doyle cold?’ Then Lady Doyle said she felt ‘a little bit shivery’
and Thomas said, ‘Oh, you’ll be warm soon,’ and in a second or two
something fell on her lap. At the close of the seance, this was found
to be the Holland jacket which somehow had been removed from the
medium.” (_An Amazing Seance_, page 51.)
Most mediums to-day have perfected the art of levitating tables and
chairs and other pieces of furniture, though I doubt if any of them
have ever reached the mark of perfection attained by Palladino with her
years of experience, inscrutable face and uncanny knowing when to seize
opportunities to fool her investigators, but you are also asked to
believe that Daniel Dunglas Home, floated out of one window, over the
street, and rushed through another one into a different room.
Col. Olcott asks in “Communication” What is this performance compared
with the experience of Webster Eddy (a younger brother of the Eddy
Brothers) when a grown man, in the presence of three reputable
witnesses, was carried out of a window and over the top of a house and
landed in a ditch a quarter of a mile distant?
“William Eddy was carried bodily to a distant wood and was kept there
three days under control and was carried back again.
“Horatio Eddy was taken bodily three miles to a mountain top and was
obliged to find his way home alone the next morning.
“In Lyceum Hall, Buffalo, Horatio was levitated for twenty-six
consecutive evenings, while bound to a chair and he and the chair were
hung on a chandelier hook in the ceiling. He was then lowered safely to
his former position.
“Mary Eddy was raised to the ceiling in Hope Chapel, in New York City,
and while there wrote her name. Her little boy, Warren, was floated
many evenings in dark circles and squealed lustily all the while to be
let down.
“Since 1347 authenticated reports prove that similar experiences
occurred to Edward Irving, Margaret Rule, St. Philip of Neri, St.
Catherine of Columbine, Loyola, Savonarola, Jennie Lord, Madame Hauffe
and many others.”
Col. Olcott omitted mentioning myself. I stand ready to vouch for the
fact that I personally floated in the air and _levitated_ many times
and marvelled at the ease with which I did it, but I woke up later in
the night.
Horatio Eddy in a personal letter to me under date of July 6, 1920,
wrote:
“A book six inches thick would not hold my history. I cannot give
any version of our floating in the air, but it is just as stated in
‘Communication.’ Webster Eddy is my youngest brother. My father did put
live coals on William’s head and poured hot water down his back. We all
used to get horsewhipped by him to prove the devil was in us.”[120]
In another letter dated July 3, 1922, he writes that he and his sister
had been giving a joint exhibition with Ira Erastus Davenport, who had
been ordered by the authorities in Syracuse to take out a juggler’s
license, but would not.
“The result was while we were holding a private seance we were
handcuffed and taken to jail; on the way the handcuffs were taken off.
We did not ride to jail but were dragged along through the snow for
more than a mile. They did not put us in cells, as I told them if they
did I would have every prisoner’s door open before daylight, so two
police sat up all night with us. In the morning a Mr. McDonald of 7
Beach Street went our bail for fifteen thousand dollars.
“Our trial was to be held in Schenectady in March. We arrived there and
had to wait three weeks, then they put it over to Albany three months
later and our bail was renewed. We stayed in Albany until court was
almost through. The day our trial was to take place the judge stated we
claimed it to be a phase of religion and ruled it out of court.”
If you are to be a Spiritualist you must believe that fifteen persons,
several of them reporters, met in Mrs. Young’s parlors in 27th Street,
New York City, and at the request of the Spirit several English walnuts
were placed near the piano, and that the piano rose and descended on
the walnuts without crushing them. Col. Olcott writes that seven of the
heaviest persons in the room were asked to sit upon the instrument. The
invitation being accepted Mrs. Young played a march and the instrument
and the persons surmounting it were lifted several feet.
“A portfolio containing Eliza White’s Katie King note and John’s
duplicate was at this time in my coat pocket, where it had been
constantly since the preceding evening. John broke in upon our
expressions of surprise by rapping out ‘Do you folks want me to commit
forgery for you? I can bring you here the blank check of any National
Bank and sign upon it the name of any president, cashier or other
official.’ I thanked his Invisible Highness and declined the favor upon
the sufficient ground that the police did not believe in Spiritualism
and I did not care to risk the chance of convincing them in case the
forged papers should be found in my possession.” (_People from the
Other World_, Henry S. Olcott, page 458.)
“In a house on Ferretstone Road, Hornsey, London, explosions like bombs
were heard, lumps of coal were propelled by some unknown agency in
all directions. Brooms were thrown violently from a landing into the
kitchen. Glass and china had been smashed and windows broken and to top
it all off a boy sitting on a chair had been raised with the chair from
the ground.” (The _London Evening News_, Feb. 15, 1921.)
Vincenzo Gullots, a Sicilian violinist at Batavia, Ill., well known
by reason of his Chautauqua concerts, decided to take a bride chosen
for him after death “by the companion of my most thrilling hours, my
departed wife. She died in August and I was almost frantic with grief
but in the night I could sense her presence and I followed her guidance
implicitly. My new mate will comfort her.” (The _New York World_, May
17, 1922.)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in an interview at the Hotel Ambassador, New
York City, as reported by the _New York World_, April 11, 1922, stated
that “in ‘Summerland’ marriage is on a higher and more spiritual plane
than here and is merely the mating of affinities, who are always
happy. No babies are born however. The spirits as they go about their
daily tasks, keep a watchful eye on earthly matters and are extremely
interested in the births here.”
He stated that there is a plane called “Paradise” where “normally
respectable” persons go after death and this “plane” is only slightly
removed from this earthly sphere. Bad people when they die are
transported to a plane considerably lower than that tenanted by
respectable ones and they continue to sink lower and lower unless they
repent. After a considerable probationary period they are able to climb
into “Paradise.” The average length of time they stay in “Paradise” is
about forty years after which they float to higher and still higher
planes. All mediums have guardian angels to whom they are especially
subject, but they can communicate with other Spirits, the “guardian
angel” acting as a sort of master-of-ceremonies upon such occasions.
Sir Arthur proclaimed that he once saw his dead mother’s face in the
ectoplasm of a medium. This was a few months after her death and he
added, “There was not the slightest question about it. That was while I
was in Australia. The face seemed as solid as in life. My mother wrote
me a letter through the medium signing a pet name,[121] which could not
have been known to the medium. There is no question about having been
in communication with my son either.”
An account in the _New York American_, April 5, 1923, says that Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle told the reporters that he had recently hurt the
ligaments in his right leg from the shin to the thigh, and that his son
Kingsley who had died in the War had massaged the limb with beneficial
results: “I was sitting with Evan Powell, a very unusual and powerful
medium,” he said, “when my son Kingsley appeared, saying ‘it will be
alright, Daddy; I will get you fixed up alright,’ and began massaging
my leg.”
In an article in the _London Magazine_, August, 1920, Mr. C. W.
Leadbeater, a prominent member of the Theosophical Society and an
authority on occult theories, speaking of the apport of Spirits says:
“living astrally as they do, the Fourth Dimension is a commonplace fact
of their nature, and this makes it quite simple for them to do many
little tricks which to us appear wonderful, such as the removal of
articles from a locked box or an apport of flowers into a closed room.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his book “Wanderings of a Spiritualist,”
devotes seven pages to Charles Bailey, who was known as an “apport
medium.” Sir Arthur defends Bailey, notwithstanding that he has been
exposed many times.[122] Among the things Bailey claims to have
apported are birds, oriental plants, small animals, and a young shark
eighteen inches long which he pretended the Spirit guides had brought
from India and passed through the walls into the seance room.
Mrs. Johnson of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, told me personally that the
Spirit of her deceased son was very mischievous at times and caused
her a great deal of embarrassment. One of his favorite jokes when she
was on a journey was to open her travelling bag and allow all her
belongings to be strewn about. She also told me that the boy’s Spirit
would light the fire for her to get breakfast.
A widow in Brooklyn, N. Y., became a mother and claimed that the
Spirit of her husband was the father of the child.
The celebrated Professor Hare, a professor of chemistry in the
University of Pennsylvania, graduate of Yale and Harvard, and
associated with the Smithsonian Institute of Washington, tells that
when travelling with a boy and while in his room, after they had locked
up the iron Balled Spiritscope, shaving case, etc., in his carpet bag,
in some inscrutable manner all the contents were taken from the bag and
fell about him in a shower.
Anna Stuart, a medium of Terre Haute, could produce Spirits that would
weigh from practically nothing to more than a hundred pounds, and
Spiritualists are expected to believe that one human being can go into
a trance and bring forth three or four beings with his own Spirit form.
W. T. Stead, one of the most brilliant Spiritualists, now dead, claimed
to have seen the Spirit of an Egyptian who left the “earthly life” in
the time of Semir-Amide, three thousand years ago. “For several minutes
the Spirit was distinctly visible to us munching an apple, but I felt
so exhausted by the loss of magnetism and nervous as well that I begged
him to leave us. I will never forget his soulful expression.”
Florence Marryat, the daughter of Capt. Marryat, the famous writer of
sea stories, has written a number of books on Spiritualism. She wrote
one of the best introductions in favor of Spiritualism that I ever
read, nevertheless some of the things she claims to have witnessed
and lived through are of such a nature that I will only give a brief
mention of them without comment, letting the reader form his own
opinion. They are taken from her book “There is no Death.”
She tells of her brother-in-law coming into the room after rifle
practice and while showing his rifle it was “accidentally discharged,
the ball passing through the wall within two inches of my eldest
daughter’s head.” She claims that she foresaw the occurrence the night
previous.
She writes of having joined Mr. d-Oyley Carte’s “Patience” company to
play the part of Lady Jane, and tells that the different members of the
company on different occasions mentioned the fact that although she was
standing on the stage she appeared to be seated in the stalls. This
always occurred at the same time, just before the end of the second act.
In another place she says: “We unanimously asked for flowers. It being
December and a hard frost, simultaneously we smelt the smell of fresh
earth, and we were told to light the gas again, when the following
extraordinary sight met our eyes. In the middle of the sitters, still
holding hands, was piled up on the carpet an immense quantity of mold,
which had been torn up apparently with the roots that accompanied it.
There were laurestenius, laurels and holly and several others, just as
they had been pulled out of the earth and thrown in the midst of us.
Mrs. Guppy looked anything but pleased at the sight of her carpet and
begged the Spirits to bring cleaner things next time. They then told
us to extinguish the lights again and each sitter was to wish mentally
for something for himself. I wished for a yellow butterfly, knowing it
was December, and as I thought of it a little cardboard box was put in
my hand. Prince Albert whispered to me ‘Have you got anything?’ ‘Yes,’
I said, ‘but not what I asked for. I expect they have given me a piece
of jewelry.’ When the gas was relit I opened the box and there lay _two
yellow butterflies_, dead of course, but none the less extraordinary
for that.”
While talking of a seance with Katie King she said: “She told me
to take the scissors and cut off her hair. She had a profusion of
ringlets flowing to her waist that night. I obeyed religiously, hacking
the hair wherever I could whilst she kept on saying ‘_Cut more! cut
more! not for yourself you know, because you cannot take it away._’ So
I cut off curl after curl and as fast as they fell to the ground, _the
hair grew again on her head_. When I had finished, ‘Katie’ asked me to
examine her hair and see if I could detect any place where I had used
the scissors, and I did so without any effect. Neither was a severed
hair to be found. It had vanished out of sight.”
In another place she says: “Once a conductor spoke to me. ‘I am not
aware of your name,’ he said (and I thought ‘No, my friend, and won’t
be aware of it just yet either!’) ‘but a Spirit here wishes you would
come up to the cabinet.’ I advanced, expecting to see some friend, and
there stood a Catholic priest, with his hand extended in blessing.
I knelt down and he gave me the usual benediction, and then closed
the curtain. ‘Did you know the Spirit?’ the conductor asked me. I
shook my head and he continued, ‘He was Father Hayes, the well known
priest in this city. I suppose you are a Catholic?’ I told him ‘Yes’
and went back to my seat. The conductor addressed me again ‘I think
Father Hayes must have come to pave the way for some of your friends,’
he said. ‘Here is a Spirit who says she has come for a lady by the
name of Florence, who has just crossed the sea. Do you answer to that
description?’ I was about to say yes when the curtain parted again
and my daughter ‘Florence’ ran across the room and fell into my arms.
‘Mother,’ she exclaimed, ‘I said I would come with you and look after
you, didn’t I?’ I looked at her. She was exactly the same in appearance
as when she came to me in England under the different mediumships of
Florence Cook, Arthur Coleman, Charles Williams and William Ellington.”
She tells of a business man who attended a seance every night and
presented a white flower to the Spirit of his wife who had died on
her wedding day eleven years before.[123] The book is full of such
incidents as these but I think enough have been repeated to show the
reader what it is necessary to believe to be a good Spiritualist.[124]
In Judge Edmonds’ book “Spiritualism,” we read that it was customary
to receive on blank sheets of paper messages from the Spirits of
well-known men; that Benjamin Franklin came in accompanied by two other
Spirits; that a pencil got up of its own accord and wrote five lines
of ancient Hebrew; that books were levitated from a table numerous
times, and a number of other incidents which drew upon the reader’s
imagination.
Daniel Dunglas Home in testifying in July, 1869, as reported in
the _London Times_, told of an incident which had occurred several
years previous. “We were,” he said, “in a large room in the Salon de
Quatorze. The Emperor and Empress were present,--I am now telling the
story as I heard the Emperor tell it,--a table was moved, then a hand
was seen to come. It was a very beautifully formed hand. There were
pencils on the table. It lifted, not the one next to it, but the one on
the far side. We heard the sound of writing, and saw it writing on fine
note paper. The hand passed before me and went to the Emperor, and he
kissed the hand. It went to the Empress; she withdrew from its touch,
and the hand followed her. The Emperor said, ‘Do not be frightened,’
and she kissed it too. The hand seemed to be like a person thinking
and as if it were saying, ‘Why should I?’ It came back to me. It had
written the word ‘Napoleon’ and it remains written now. The writing
was the autograph of the Emperor Napoleon I, who had an exceedingly
beautiful hand.” Mr. Home also said that the Emperor of Russia as well
as the Emperor Napoleon, had seen hands and had taken hold of them,
“when they seemed to float away into thin air.”
Such are the things Spiritualists are expected to believe and do
believe. I could continue to recite incidents _ad infinitum_, _ad
nauseam_, but I believe the reader can form his own judgment from the
above. It is the kind of material which drives people insane for when
some poor, sick, human being is just on the verge of recovery such
nonsensical utterances often overthrow reason. Is it any wonder that
the population of our insane asylums is swelled with “followers” who
have attempted to believe these things?