THE MEDIUMSHIP OF KATIE COOK.
In the matter of producing physical phenomena the Cooks are a most
remarkable family, all three daughters being powerful media, and that
without any solicitation on their part. The second one, Katie, is by no
means the least powerful of the three, although she has sat more
privately than her sister Florence, and not had the same scientific
tests (I believe) applied to her. The first time I had an opportunity of
testing Katie's mediumship was at the private rooms of Signor Rondi, in
a circle of nine or ten friends. The apartment was small and sparsely
furnished, being an artist's studio. The gas was kept burning, and
before the sitting commenced the door was locked and strips of paper
pasted over the opening inside. The cabinet was formed of a window
curtain nailed across one corner of the room, behind which a chair was
placed for the medium, who is a remarkably small and slight girl--much
slighter than her sister Florence--with a thin face and delicate
features. She was dressed, on this occasion, in a tight-fitting black
gown and Hessian boots that buttoned half-way to her knee, and which,
she informed me, she always wore when sitting (just as Miss Showers
did), because they had each eighteen buttons, which took a long time to
fasten and unfasten. The party sat in a semicircle, close outside the
curtain, and the light was lowered, but not extinguished. There was no
darkness, and no holding of hands. I mention these facts to show how
very simple the preparations were. In a few minutes the curtain was
lifted, and a form, clothed in white, who called herself "Lily," was
presented to our view. She answered several questions relative to
herself and the medium; and perceiving some doubt on the part of some of
the sitters, she seated herself on my knee, I being nearest the curtain,
and asked me to feel her body, and tell the others how differently she
was made from the medium. I had already realized that she was much
heavier than Katie Cook, as she felt like a heavy girl of nine or ten
stone. I then passed my hand up and down her figure. She had full
breasts and plump arms and legs, and could not have been mistaken by the
most casual observers for Miss Cook. Whilst she sat on my knee, however,
she desired my husband and Signor Rondi to go inside the curtain and
feel that the medium was seated in her chair. When they did so, they
found Katie was only half entranced. She thrust her feet out to view,
and said, "I am not 'Lily;' feel my boots." My husband had, at the same
moment, one hand on Miss Cook's knee, and the other stretched out to
feel the figure seated on my lap. There remained no doubt in _his_ mind
of there being two bodies there at the same time. Presently "Lily"
passed her hand over my dress, and remarked how nice and warm it was,
and how she wished she had one on too. I asked her, "Are you cold?" and
she said, "Wouldn't you be cold if you had nothing but this white thing
on?" Half-jestingly, I took my fur cloak, which was on a sofa close by,
and put it round her shoulders, and told her to wear it. "Lily" seemed
delighted. She exclaimed, "Oh, how warm it is! May I take it away with
me?" I said, "Yes, if you will bring it back before I go home. I have
nothing else to wear, remember." She promised she would, and left my
side. In another moment she called out, "Turn up the gas!" We did so.
"Lily" was gone, and so was my large fur cloak! We searched the little
room round for it. It had entirely disappeared. There was a locked
cupboard in which Signor Rondi kept drawing materials. I insisted on its
being opened, although he declared it had not been unlocked for weeks,
and we found it full of dust and drawing blocks, but nothing else, so
the light was again lowered, and the _seance_ resumed. In a short time
the heavy cloak was flung, apparently from the ceiling, evidently from
somewhere higher than my head, and fell right over it.
I laid it again on the sofa, and thought no more about it until I
returned home. I then found, to my astonishment, and considerably to my
annoyance, that the fur of my cloak (which was a new one) was all coming
out. My dress was covered with it, and from that day I was never able to
wear the cloak again. "Lily" said she had _de_-materialized it, to take
it away. Of the truth of that assertion I had no proof, but I am quite
sure that she did not put it together again when she brought it back. An
army of moths encamped in it could not have damaged it more, and I can
vouch that until that evening the fur had been as perfect as when I
purchased it.
I think my next sitting with Katie Cook was at a _seance_ held in Museum
Street, and on the invitation of Mr. Chas. Blackburn, who is one of the
most earnest friends of Spiritualism, and has expended a large amount of
money in its research. The only other guests were my husband, and
General and Mrs. Maclean. We sat round a small uncovered table with the
gas burning and _without a cabinet_, Miss Katie Cook had a seat between
General Maclean and myself, and we made sure of her proximity to us
during the whole _seance_. In fact, I never let go of her hand, and even
when she wished to use her pocket-handkerchief, she had to do it with my
hand clinging to her own. Neither did she go into a trance. We spoke to
her occasionally during the sitting, and she answered us, though in a
very subdued voice, as she complained of being sick and faint. In about
twenty minutes, during which the usual manifestations occurred, the
materialized form of "Lily" appeared _in the middle of the table_, and
spoke to us and kissed us all in turn. Her face was very small, and she
was _only formed to the waist_, but her flesh was quite firm and warm.
Whilst "Lily" occupied the table in the full sight of all the sitters,
and I had my hand upon Miss Cook's figure (for I kept passing my hand up
and down from her face to her knees, to make sure it was not only a hand
I held), some one grasped my chair from behind and shook it, and when I
turned my head and spoke, in a moment one arm was round my neck and one
round the neck of my husband, who sat next to me, whilst the voice of my
daughter "Florence" spoke to us both, and her long hair and her soft
white dress swept over our faces and hands. Her hair was so abundant and
long, that she shook it out over my lap, that I might feel its length
and texture. I asked "Florence" for a piece of her hair and dress, and
scissors not being forthcoming, "Lily" materialized more fully, and
walked round from the other side of the table and cut off a piece of
"Florence's" dress herself with my husband's penknife, but said they
could not give me the hair that time. The two spirits remained with us
for, perhaps, half an hour or more, whilst General Maclean and I
continued to hold Miss Cook a prisoner. The power then failing, they
disappeared, but every one present was ready to take his oath that two
presences had been with us that never entered at the door. The room was
small and unfurnished, the gas was burning, the medium sat for the whole
time in our sight. Mrs. Maclean and I were the only other women present,
yet two girls bent over and kissed us, spoke to us, and placed their
bare arms on our necks at one and the same time. There was again also a
marked difference between the medium and the materializations. I have
already described her appearance. Both of these spirits had plump faces
and figures, my daughter "Florence's" hands especially being large and
firm, and her loose hair nearly down to her knees.
I had the pleasure of holding another _seance_ with Katie Cook in the
same rooms, when a new manifestation occurred. She is (as I have said) a
very small woman, with very short arms. I am, on the contrary, a very
large woman, with very long arms, yet the arm of the hand I held was
elongated to such an extent that it reached the sitters on the other
side of the table, where it would have been impossible for mine to
follow it. I should think the limb must have been stretched to thrice
its natural length, and that in the sight of everybody. I sat again with
Katie Cook in her own house, where, if trickery is employed, she had
every opportunity of tricking us, but the manifestations were much the
same, and certainly not more marvellous than those she had exhibited in
the houses of strangers. "Lily" and "Florence" both appeared at the same
time, under circumstances that admitted of no possibility of fraud. My
husband and I were accompanied on that occasion by our friends, Captain
and Mrs. Kendal, and the order of sitting round the table was as
follows:--Myself, Katie, Captain K., Florence Cook, my husband, Mrs.
Cook, Mrs. Kendal. Each member of the family, it will be observed, was
held between two detectives, and their hands were not once set free. I
must say also that the _seance_ was a free one, courteously accorded us
on the invitation of Mrs. Cook; and if deception had been intended, we
and our friends might just as well have been left to sit with Katie
alone, whilst the other members of the family superintended the
manifestation of the "ghosts" outside. Miss Florence Cook, indeed (Mrs.
Corner), objected at first to sitting with us, on the score that her
mediumship usually neutralized that of her sister, but her mother
insisted on her joining the circle, lest any suspicion should be excited
by her absence. The Cooks, indeed, are, all of them, rather averse to
sitting than not, and cordially agree in disliking the powers that have
been thrust upon them against their own will.
These influences take possession of them, unfitting them for more
practical work, and they must live. This is, I believe, the sole reason
that they have never tried to make money by the exercise of their
mediumship. But I, for one, fully believe them when they tell me that
they consider the fact of their being media as the greatest misfortune
that has ever happened to them. On the occasion of this last _seance_,
cherries and rosebuds were showered in profusion on the table during the
evening. These may easily be believed to have been secreted in the room
before the commencement of the sitting, and produced at the proper
opportunity, although the hands of everybody interested in their
production were fast held by strangers. But it is less easy to believe
that a lady of limited income, like Mrs. Cook, should go to such an
expense for an unpaid _seance_, for the purpose of making converts of
people who were strangers to her. Mediumship pays very badly as it is. I
am afraid it would pay still worse if the poor media had to purchase the
means for producing the phenomena, especially when, in a town like
London, they run (as in this instance) to hothouse fruit and flowers.
One more example of Katie Cook's powers and I have done. We were
assembled one evening by the invitation of Mr. Charles Blackburn at his
house, Elgin Crescent. We sat in a small breakfast room on the basement
floor, so small, indeed, for the size of the party, that as we encircled
a large round table, the sitters' backs touched the wall on either side,
thus entirely preventing any one crossing the room whilst we were
established there. The only piece of furniture of any consequence in the
room, beside the chairs and table, was a trichord cabinet piano,
belonging to Mrs. Cook (who was keeping house at the time for Mr.
Blackburn), and which she much valued.
Katie Cook sat amongst us as usual. In the middle of the _seance_ her
control "Lily," who was materialized, called out, "Keep hands fast.
Don't let go, whatever you do!" And at the same time, without seeing
anything (for we were sitting in complete darkness), we became conscious
that something large and heavy was passing or being carried over our
heads. One of the ladies of the party became nervous, and dropped her
neighbor's hand with a cry of alarm, and, at the same moment, a weighty
body fell with a fearful crash on the other side of the room. "Lily"
exclaimed, "Some one has let go hands," and Mrs. Cook called out; "Oh!
it's my piano." Lights were struck, when we found the cabinet piano had
actually been carried from its original position right over our heads to
the opposite side of the room, where it had fallen on the floor and been
seriously damaged. The two carved legs were broken off, and the sounding
board smashed in. Any one who had heard poor Mrs. Cook's lamentations
over the ruin of her favorite instrument, and the expense it would
entail to get it restored, would have felt little doubt as to whether
_she_ had been a willing victim to this unwelcome proof of her
daughter's physical mediumship.