THE MEDIUMSHIP OF MISS SHOWERS.
Some time before I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Showers, I heard,
through friends living in the west of England, of the mysterious and
marvellous powers possessed by a young lady of their acquaintance, who
was followed by voices in the air, which held conversations with her,
and the owners of which were said to have made themselves visible. I
listened with curiosity, the more so, as my informants utterly
disbelieved in Spiritualism, and thought the phenomena were due to
trickery. At the same time I conceived a great desire to see the girl of
sixteen, who, for no gain or apparent object of her own, was so clever
as to mystify everyone around her; and when she and her mother came to
London, I was amongst the first to beg for an introduction, and I shall
never forget the experiences I had with her. She was the first _private_
medium through whom my personal friends returned to converse with me;
and no one but a Spiritualist can appreciate the blessing of spiritual
communications through a source that is above the breath of suspicion. I
have already written at length about Miss Showers in "The story of John
Powles." She was a child, compared to myself, whose life had hardly
commenced when mine was virtually over, and neither she, nor any member
of her family, had ever had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with
even the names of my former friends. Yet (as I have related) John Powles
made Miss Showers his especial mouthpiece, and my daughter "Florence"
(then a little child) also appeared through her, though at long
intervals, and rather timidly. Her own controls, however, or cabinet
spirits (as they call them in America)--_i.e._, such spirits as are
always about the medium, and help the strangers to appear--"Peter,"
"Florence," "Lenore," and "Sally," were very familiar with me, and
afforded me such facilities of testing their medium as do not often fall
to the lot of inquirers. Indeed, at one time, they always requested
that I should be present at their _seances_, so that I considered myself
to be highly favored. And I may mention here that Miss Showers and I
were so much _en rapport_ that her manifestations were always much
stronger in my presence. We could not sit next each other at an ordinary
tea or supper table, when we had no thought of, or desire to hold a
_seance_, without manifestations occurring in the full light. A hand,
that did not belong to either of us, would make itself apparent under
the table-cloth between us--a hand with power to grasp ours--or our feet
would be squeezed or kicked beneath the table, or fingers would suddenly
appear, and whisk the food off our plates. Some of their jests were
inconvenient. I have had the whole contents of a tumbler, which I was
raising to my lips, emptied over my dress. It was generally known that
our powers were sympathetic, and at last "Peter" gave me leave, or,
rather, ordered me to sit in the cabinet with "Rosie," whilst the
manifestations went on outside. He used to say he didn't care for me any
more than if I had been "a spirit myself." One evening "Peter" called me
into the cabinet (which was simply a large box cupboard at one end of
the dining-room) before the _seance_ began, and told me to sit down at
the medium's feet and "be a good girl and keep quiet." Miss Showers was
in a low chair, and I sat with my arms resting on her lap. She did not
become entranced, and we talked the whole time together. Presently,
without any warning, two figures stood beside us. I could not have said
where they came from. I neither saw them rise from the floor nor descend
from the ceiling. There was no beginning to their appearance. In a
moment they were simply _there_--"Peter" and "Florence" (not my child,
but Miss Showers' control of the same names).
"Peter" sent "Florence" out to the audience, where we heard her speaking
to them and their remarks upon her (there being only a thin curtain hung
before the entrance of the cabinet), but he stayed with us himself. We
could not see him distinctly in the dim light, but we could distinctly
hear and feel him. He changed our ornaments and ribbons, and pulled the
hair-pins out of our hair, and made comments on what was going on
outside. After a while "Florence" returned to get more power, and both
spirits spoke to and touched us at the same time. During the whole of
this _seance_ my arms rested on Miss Showers' lap, and she was awake and
talking to me about the spirits.
One evening, at a sitting at Mr. Luxmore's house in Hyde Park Square,
the spirit "Florence" had been walking amongst the audience in the
lighted front drawing-room for a considerable time--even sitting at the
piano and accompanying herself whilst she sung us a song in what she
called "the planetary language." She greatly resembled her medium on
that occasion, and several persons present remarked that she did so. I
suppose the inferred doubt annoyed her, for before she finally left us
she asked for a light, and a small oil lamp was brought to her which she
placed in my hand, telling me to follow her and look at her medium,
which I accordingly did. "Florence" led the way into the back
drawing-room, where I found Miss Showers reposing in an arm-chair. The
first sight of her terrified me. For the purpose of making any change in
her dress as difficult as possible, she wore a high, tight-fitting black
velvet frock, fastened at the back, and high Hessian boots, with
innumerable buttons. But she now appeared to be shrunk to half her usual
size, and the dress hung loosely on her figure. Her arms had
disappeared, but putting my hands up the dress sleeves, I found them
diminished to the size of those of a little child--the fingers reaching
only to where the elbows had been. The same miracle had happened to her
feet, which only occupied half her boots. She looked in fact like the
mummy of a girl of four or six years old. The spirit told me to feel her
face. The forehead was dry, rough, and burning hot, but from the chin
water was dropping freely on to the bosom of her dress. "Florence" said
to me, "I wanted _you_ to see her, because I know you are brave enough
to tell people what you have seen."
There was a marked difference in the personality of the two influences
"Florence" and "Lenore," although both at times resembled Miss Showers,
and sometimes more than others. "Florence" was taller than her medium,
and a very beautiful woman. "Lenore" was much shorter and smaller, and
not so pretty, but more vivacious and pert. By the invitation of Mrs.
Macdougal Gregory, I attended several _seances_ with Miss Showers at her
residence in Green Street, when these spirits appeared. "Lenore" was
fond of saying that she wouldn't or couldn't come out unless _I_ held
her hand, or put my arm round her waist. To tell the truth, I didn't
care for the distinction, for this influence was very peculiar in some
things, and to me she always appeared "uncanny," and to leave an
unpleasant feeling behind her. She was seldom completely formed, and
would hold up a foot which felt like wet clay, and had no toes to it, or
not the proper quantity. On occasions, too, there was a charnel-house
smell about her, as if she had been buried a few weeks and dug up again,
an odor which I have never smelt from any materialized spirit before or
after. One evening at Mrs. Gregory's, when "Lenore" had insisted upon
walking round the circle supported by my arm, I nearly fainted from the
smell. It resembled nothing but that of a putrid corpse, and when she
returned to the cabinet, I was compelled to leave the room and retch
from the nausea it had caused me. It was on this occasion that the
sitters called "Lenore" so many times back into the circle, that all the
power was gone, and she was in danger of melting away before their eyes.
Still they entreated her to remain with them a little longer. At last
she grew impatient, and complained to me of their unreasonableness. She
was then raised from the floor--actually floating just outside the
curtain--and she asked me to put my hands up her skirts and convince
myself that she was half-dematerialized. I did as she told me, and felt
that she had _no legs_, although she had been walking round the room a
few minutes before. I could feel nothing but the trunk of a body, which
was completely lifted off the ground. Her voice, too, had grown faint
and her face indistinct, and in another moment she had totally
disappeared.
One evening at Mrs. Gregory's, after the _seance_ was concluded,
"Florence" looked round the curtain and called to me to come inside of
it. I did so and found myself in total darkness. I said, "What's the
good of my coming here? I can't see anything." "Florence" took me by one
hand, and answered, "I will lead you! Don't be afraid." Then some one
else grasped my other hand, and "Peter's" voice said, "We've got you
safe. We want you to feel the medium." The two figures led me between
them to the sofa on which Miss Showers was lying. They passed my hand
all over her head and body. I felt, as before, her hands and feet
shrunk to half their usual size, but her heart appeared to have become
proportionately increased. When my hand was placed upon it, it was
leaping up and down violently, and felt like a rabbit or some other live
animal bounding in her bosom. Her brain was burning as before, but her
extremities were icy cold. There was no doubt at all of the abnormal
condition into which the medium had been thrown, in order to produce
these strong physical manifestations which were borrowed, for the time
being, from her life, and could never (so they informed me) put the
_whole_ of what they borrowed back again. This seems to account for the
invariable deterioration of health and strength that follows physical
manifestations in both sexes. These were the grounds alone on which they
explained to me the fact that, on several occasions, when the
materialized spirit has been violently seized and held apart from the
medium, it has been found to have become, or been changed into the
medium, and always with injury to the latter--as in the case of Florence
Cook being seized by Mr. Volckman and Sir George Sitwell. Mr. Volckman
concluded because when he seized the spirit "Katie King," he found he
was holding Florence Cook, that the latter must have impersonated the
former; yet I shall tell you in its proper place how I have sat in the
same room with "Katie King," whilst Miss Cook lay in a trance between
us. The medium nearly lost her life on the occasion alluded to, from the
sudden disturbance of the mysterious link that bound her to the spirit.
I have had it from the lips of the Countess of Caithness, who was one of
the sitters, and stayed with Miss Cook till she was better, that she was
in convulsions the whole night after, and that it was some time before
they believed she would recover. If a medium could simulate a
materialized spirit, it is hardly likely that she would (or could)
simulate convulsions with a medical man standing by her bedside. "You
see," said Miss Showers' "Florence," whilst pointing out to me the
decreased size of her medium under trance, "that 'Rosie' is half her
usual size and weight. _I_ have borrowed the other half from her, which,
combined with contributions from the sitters, goes to make up the body
in which I shew myself to you. If you seize and hold me tight, you _are_
holding her, _i.e._, half of her, and you increase the action of the
vital half to such a degree that, if the two halves did not reunite, you
would kill her. You see that I can detach certain particles from her
organism for my own use, and when I dematerialize, I restore these
particles to her, and she becomes once more her normal size. You only
hurry the reunion by violently detaining me, so as to injure her. But
you might drive her mad, or kill her in the attempt, because the
particles of brain, or body, might become injured by such a violent
collision. If you believe I can take them from her (as you see I do) in
order to render my invisible body visible to you, why can't you believe
I can make them fly together again on the approach of danger. And
granted the one power, I see no difficulty in acknowledging the other."
One day Mrs. Showers invited me to assist at a _seance_ to be given
expressly for friends living at a distance. When I reached the house,
however, I found the friends were unable to be present, and the meeting
was adjourned. Mrs. Showers apologized for the alteration of plan, but I
was glad of it. I had often sat with "Rosie" in company with others, and
I wanted to sit with her quite alone, or rather to sit with her in a
room quite alone, and see what would spontaneously occur, without any
solicitation on our parts. We accordingly annexed the drawing-room for
our sole use--locked the door, extinguished the lights, and sat down on
a sofa side by side, with our arms round each other. The manifestations
that followed were not all nice ones. They formed an experience to be
passed through once, but not willingly repeated, and I should not relate
them here, excepting that they afford so strong a proof that they were
produced by a power outside and entirely distinct from our own--a power,
which having once called into action, we had no means of repressing. We
had sat in the dark for some minutes, without hearing or seeing
anything, when I thoughtlessly called out, "Now, Peter, do your worst,"
and extending my arms, singing, "Come! for my arms are empty." In a
moment a large, heavy figure fell with such force into my outstretched
arms as to bruise my shoulder--it seemed like a form made of wood or
iron, rather than flesh and blood--and the rough treatment that ensued
for both of us is almost beyond description. It seemed as if the room
were filled with materialized creatures, who were determined to let us
know they were not to be trifled with. Our faces and hands were slapped,
our hair pulled down, and our clothes nearly torn off our backs. My silk
skirt being separate from the bodice was torn off at the waistband, and
the trimming ripped from it, and Miss Showers' muslin dress was also
much damaged. We were both thoroughly frightened, but no expostulations
or entreaties had any effect with our tormentors. At the same time we
heard the sound as of a multitude of large birds or bats swooping about
the room. The fluttering of wings was incessant, and we could hear them
"scrooping" up and down the walls. In the midst of the confusion,
"Rosie" was whisked out of my arms (for fright had made us cling tighter
than ever together) and planted on the top of a table at some distance
from me, at which she was so frightened she began to cry, and I called
out, "Powles, where are you? Can't you stop them?" My appeal was heard.
Peter's voice exclaimed, "Hullo! here's Powles coming!" and all the
noise ceased. We heard the advent of my friend, and in another moment he
was smoothing down the ruffled hair and arranging the disordered dresses
and telling me to light the gas and not be frightened. As soon as I
could I obeyed his directions and found Rosie sitting doubled up in the
centre of the table, but the rest of the room and furniture in its usual
condition. "Peter" and his noisy crowd had vanished--so had "Powles,"
and there was nothing but our torn skirts and untidy appearance to prove
that we had not been having an unholy dream. "Peter" is not a wicked
spirit--far from it--but he is a very earthly and frivolous one. But
when we consider that nine-tenths of the spirits freed from the flesh
are both earthly and frivolous (if not worse), I know not what right we
have to expect to receive back angels in their stead.
At one time when my sister Blanche (who was very sceptical as to the
possibility of the occurrences I related having taken place before me)
was staying in my house at Bayswater, I asked Miss Showers if she would
give us a _seance_ in my own home, to which she kindly assented. This
was an unusual concession on her part, because, in consequence of
several accidents and scandals that had occurred from media being
forcibly detained (as I have just alluded to), her mother was naturally
averse to her sitting anywhere but in their own circle. However, on my
promising to invite no strangers, Mrs. Showers herself brought her
daughter to my house. We had made no preparation for the _seance_ except
by opening part of the folding doors between the dining-room and study,
and hanging a curtain over the aperture. But I had carefully locked the
door of the study, so that there should be no egress from it excepting
through the dining-room, and had placed against the locked door a heavy
writing-table laden with books and ornaments to make "assurance doubly
sure." We sat first in the drawing-room above, where there was a piano.
The lights were extinguished, and Miss Showers sat down to the
instrument and played the accompaniment to a very simple melody, "Under
the willow she's sleeping." Four voices, sometimes alone and sometimes
_all together_, accompanied her own. One was a baritone, supposed to
proceed from "Peter," the second, a soprano, from "Lenore." The third
was a rumbling bass, from an influence who called himself "The Vicar of
Croydon," and sung in a fat, unctuous, and conceited voice; and the
fourth was a cracked and quavering treble, from another spirit called
"The Abbess." These were the voices, Mrs. Showers told me, that first
followed her daughter about the house in Devonshire, and gained her such
an unenviable notoriety there. The four voices were perfectly distinct
from one another, and sometimes blended most ludicrously and tripped
each other up in a way which made the song a medley--upon which each one
would declare it was the fault of the other. "The Vicar of Croydon"
always required a great deal of solicitation before he could be induced
to exhibit his powers, but having once commenced, it was difficult to
make him leave off again, whereas "The Abbess" was always complaining
that they would not allow her to sing the solos. An infant's voice also
sung some baby songs in a sweet childish treble, but she was also very
shy and seldom was heard, in comparison with the rest. "All
ventriloquism!" I hear some reader cry. If so, Miss Showers ought to
have made a fortune in exhibiting her talent in public. I have heard the
best ventriloquists in the world, but I never heard one who could
produce _four_ voices at the same time.
After the musical portion of the _seance_ was over, we descended to the
dining-room, where the gas was burning, and the medium passed through
it to the secured study, where a mattress was laid upon the floor for
her accommodation. "Florence" was the first to appear, tall and
beautiful in appearance, and with upraised eyes like a nun. She measured
her height against the wall with me, and we found she was the taller of
the two by a couple of inches,--my height being five feet six, the
medium's five feet, and the spirit's five feet eight, an abnormal height
for a woman. "Lenore" came next, very short indeed, looking like a child
of four or six, but she grew before our eyes, until her head was on a
level with mine. She begged us all to observe that she had _not_ got on
"Rosie's" petticoat body. She said she had borrowed it on one occasion,
and Mrs. Showers had recognized it, and slipped upstairs in the middle
of the _seance_ and found it missing from her daughter's chest of
drawers, and that she had been so angry in consequence (fearing Rosie's
honor might be impeached) that she said if "Lenore" did not promise
never to do so again, she should not be allowed to assist at the
_seances_ at all. So Miss "Lenore," in rather a pert and defiant mood,
begged Mrs. Showers to see that what she wore was her own property, and
not that of the medium. She was succeeded on that occasion by a strange
being, totally different from the other two, who called herself "Sally,"
and said she had been a cook. She was one of those extraordinary
influences for whose return to earth one can hardly account; quick, and
clever, and amusing as she could be, but with an unrefined wit and
manner, and to all appearance, more earthly-minded than ourselves. But
do we not often ask the same question with respect to those still
existent here below? What were they born for? What good do they do? Why
were they ever permitted to come? God, without whose permission nothing
happens, alone can answer it.
We had often to tease "Peter" to materialize and show himself, but he
invariably refused, or postponed the work to another occasion. His
excuse was that the medium being so small, he could not obtain
sufficient power from her to make himself appear as a big man, and he
didn't like to come, "looking like a girl in a billycock hat." "I came
once to Mrs. Showers," he said, "and she declared I was 'Rosie' dressed
up, and so I have resolved never to show myself again." At the close of
that _seance_, however, "Peter" asked me to go into the study and see
him wake the medium. When I entered it and made my way up to the
mattress, I found Miss Showers extended on it in a deep sleep, whilst
"Peter," materialized, sat at her feet. He made me sit down next to him
and take his hand and feel his features with my own hand. Then he
proceeded to rouse "Rosie" by shaking her and calling her by name,
holding me by one hand, as he did so. As Miss Showers yawned and woke up
from her trance, the hand slipped from mine, and "Peter" evaporated.
When she sat up I said to her gently, "I am here! Peter brought me in
and was sitting on the mattress by my side till just this moment." "Ha,
ha!" laughed his voice close to my ear, "and I'm here still, my dears,
though you can't see me."
Who can account for such things? I have witnessed them over and over
again, yet I am unable, even to this day, to do more than believe and
wonder.