SPIRITUALISM IN AMERICA.
I. _Mrs. M. A. Williams._
I went to America on a professional engagement in October, 1884. Some
months beforehand a very liberal offer had been made me by the
Spiritualists of Great Britain to write my experiences for the English
press, but I declined to do so until I could add my American notes to
them. I had corresponded (as I have shown) with the _Banner of Light_ in
New York; and what I had heard of Spiritualism in America had made me
curious to witness it. But I was determined to test it on a strictly
private plan. I said to myself: "I have seen and heard pretty nearly all
there is to be seen and heard on the subject in England, but, with one
or two exceptions, I have never sat at any _seance_ where I was not
known. Now I am going to visit a strange country where, in a matter like
Spiritualism, I can conceal my identity, so as to afford the media no
clue to my surroundings or the names of my deceased friends." I sailed
for America quite determined to pursue a strictly secret investigation,
and with that end in view I never mentioned the subject to anyone.
I had a few days holiday in New York before proceeding to Boston, where
my work opened, and I stayed at one of the largest hotels in the city. I
landed on Sunday morning, and on Monday evening I resolved to make my
first venture. Had I been a visitor in London, I should have had to
search out the right sort of people, and make a dozen inquiries before I
heard where the media were hiding themselves from dread of the law; but
they order such things better on the other side of the Atlantic. People
are allowed to hold their private opinions and their private religion
there without being swooped down upon and clapped into prison for rogues
and vagabonds. Whatever the views of the majority may be, upon this
subject or any other (and Heaven knows I would have each man strong
enough to cling to his opinion, and brave enough to acknowledge it
before the world), I think it is a discredit to a civilized country to
allow old laws, that were made when we were little better than savages,
to remain in force at the present day. We are far too much over-ridden
by a paternal Government, which has grown so blind and senile that it
swallows camels while it is straining after a gnat.
There was no obstacle to my wish, however, in New York. I had but to
glance down the advertisement columns of the newspapers to learn where
the media lived, and on what days they held their public _seances_. It
so happened that Mrs. M. A. Williams was the only one who held open
house on Monday evenings for Materialization; and thither I determined
to go. There is no such privacy as in a large _hotel_, where no one has
the opportunity to see what his neighbor is doing. As soon, therefore,
as my dinner was concluded, I put on a dark cloak, hat and veil, and
walking out into the open, got into one of the cars that ran past the
street where Mrs. Williams resided. Arrived at the house, I knocked at
the door, and was about to inquire if there was to be any _seance_
there, that evening, when the attendant saved me the trouble by saying,
"Upstairs, if you please, madam," and nothing more passed between us.
When I had mounted the stairs, I found myself in a large room, the floor
of which was covered with a thick carpet, nailed all round the
wainscotting. On one side were some thirty or forty cane-bottomed
chairs, and directly facing them was the cabinet. This consisted of four
uprights nailed over the carpet, with iron rods connecting them at the
top. There was no roof to it, but curtains of a dark maroon color were
usually drawn around, but when I entered, they were flung back over the
iron rods, so as to disclose the interior. There was a stuffed armchair
for the use of the medium, and in front of the cabinet a narrow table
with papers and pencils on it, the use of which I did not at first
discover. At the third side of the room was a harmonium, so placed that
the performer sat with his back both to the cabinet and the sitters. A
large gas lamp, almost like a limelight, made in a square form like a
lantern, was fixed against the wall, so as to throw the light upon the
cabinet, but it was fitted with a sliding shade of red silk, with which
it could be darkened if necessary. I was early, and only a few visitors
were occupying the chairs. I asked a lady if I might sit where I chose,
and on her answering "Yes," I took the chair in the front row, exactly
opposite the cabinet, not forgetting that I was there in the cause of
Spiritualism as well as for my own interests. The seats filled rapidly
and there must have been thirty-five or forty people present, when Mrs.
Williams entered the room, and nodding to those she knew, went into the
cabinet. Mrs. Williams is a stout woman of middle age, with dark hair
and eyes, and a fresh complexion. She was dressed in a tight-fitting
gown of pale blue, with a good deal of lace about the neck and sleeves.
She was accompanied by a gentleman, and I then discovered for the first
time that it is usual in America to have, what they call, a "conductor"
of the _seance_. The conductor sits close to the cabinet curtains, and,
if any spirit is too weak to shew itself outside, or to speak audibly,
he conveys the message it may wish to send to its friends; and when I
knew how very few precautions the Americans take to prevent such
outrages as have occurred in England, and how many more materializations
take place in an evening there than here, I saw the necessity of a
conductor to protect the medium, and to regulate the order of the
_seance_.
Mrs. Williams' conductor opened the proceedings with a very neat little
speech. He said, "I see several strange faces here this evening, and I
am very pleased to see them, and I hope they may derive both pleasure
and profit from our meeting. We have only one rule for the conduct of
our _seances_, that you shall behave like ladies and gentlemen. You may
not credit all you see, but remember this is our religion, and the
religion of many present, and as you would behave yourselves reverently
and decorously, if you were in a church of another persuasion to your
own, so I beg of you to behave yourselves here. And if any spirits
should come for you whom you do not immediately recognize, don't wound
them by denying their identity. They may have been longing for this
moment to meet you again, and doing their very utmost to assume once
more the likeness they wore on earth; yet some fail. Don't make their
failure harder to bear by roughly repudiating all knowledge of them. The
strangers who are present to-night may mistake the reason of this little
table being placed in front of the cabinet, and think it is intended to
keep them from too close an inspection of the spirits. No such thing! On
the contrary, all will be invited in turn to come up and recognize their
friends. But we make it a rule at these _seances_ that no materialized
spirit, who is strong enough to come beyond that table, shall be
permitted to return to the cabinet. They must dematerialize in sight of
the sitters, that no possible suspicion may rest upon the medium. These
pencils and papers are placed here in case any spirit who is unable to
speak may be impressed to write instead. And now we will begin the
evening with a song."
The accompanist then played "Footsteps of Angels," the audience sung it
with a will, and the curtains having been drawn round Mrs. Williams, the
shade was drawn across the gaslight, and the _seance_ began.
I don't think it could have been more than a minute or two before we
heard a voice whispering, "Father," and _three girls_, dressed in white
clinging garments, appeared at the opening in the curtains. An old man
with white hair left his seat and walked up to the cabinet, when they
all three came out at once and hung about his neck and kissed him, and
whispered to him. I almost forgot where I was. They looked so perfectly
human, so joyous and girl-like, somewhere between seventeen and twenty,
and they all spoke at once, so like what girls on earth would do, that
it was most mystifying. The old man came back to his seat, wiping his
eyes. "Are those your daughters, sir?" asked one of the sitters. "Yes!
my three girls," he replied. "I lost them all before ten years old, but
you see I've got them back again here."
Several other forms appeared after this--one, a little child of about
three years old, who fluttered in and out of the cabinet like a
butterfly, and ran laughing away from the sitters who tried to catch
her. Some of the meetings that took place for the first time were very
affecting. One young man of about seventeen or eighteen, who was called
up to see his mother's spirit, sobbed so bitterly, it broke my heart to
hear him. There was not the least doubt if _he_ recognized her or no. He
was so overcome, he hardly raised his eyes for the rest of the evening.
One lady brought her spirit-son up to me, that I might see how perfectly
he had materialized. She spoke of it as proudly as she might have done
if he had passed some difficult examination. The young man was dressed
in a suit of evening clothes, and he shook hands with me at his mother's
bidding, with the firm grasp of a mortal. Naturally, I had seen too much
in England for all this to surprise me. Still I had never assisted at a
_seance_ where everything appeared to be so strangely human--so little
mystical, except indeed the rule of dematerializing before the sitters,
which I had only seen "Katie King" do before. But here, each form, after
having been warned by the conductor that its time was up, sunk down
right through the carpet as though it were the most ordinary mode of
egression. Some, and more especially the men, did not advance beyond the
curtains; then their friends were invited to go up and speak to them,
and several went inside the cabinet. There were necessarily a good many
forms, familiar to the rest, of whom I knew nothing; one was an old
minister under whom they had all sat, another a gentleman who had been a
constant attendant at Mrs. Williams' _seances_.
Once the conductor spoke to me. "I am not aware of your name," he said
(and I thought, "No! my friend, and you 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 curtains. "Did you know the
spirit?" the conductor asked me. I shook my head; and he continued, "He
was Father Hayes, a 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 named 'Florence,' who has just crossed the sea. Do you
answer to the description?" I was about to say "Yes," when the curtains
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 had
come to me in England--the same luxuriant brown hair and features and
figure, as I had seen under the different mediumships of Florence Cook,
Arthur Colman, Charles Williams and William Eglinton; the same form
which in England had been declared to be half-a-dozen different media
dressed up to represent my daughter stood before me there in New York,
thousands of miles across the sea, and by the power of a person who did
not even know who I was. If I had not been convinced before, how could I
have helped being convinced then?
"Florence" appeared as delighted as I was, and kept on kissing me and
talking of what had happened to me on board ship coming over, and was
evidently quite _au fait_ of all my proceedings. Presently she said,
"There's another friend of yours here, mother! We came over together.
I'll go and fetch him." She was going back to the cabinet when the
conductor stopped her. "You must not return this way, please. Any other
you like," and she immediately made a kind of court curtsey and went
down through the carpet. I was standing where "Florence" had left me,
wondering what would happen next, when she came _up again_ a few feet
off from me, head first, and smiling as if she had discovered a new
game. She was allowed to enter the cabinet this time, but a moment
afterwards she popped her head out again, and said, "Here's your friend,
mother!" and by her side was standing William Eglinton's control,
"Joey," clad in his white suit, with a white cap drawn over his head.
"'Florence' and I have come over to make new lines for you here," he
said: "at least, I've come over to put her in the way of doing it, but I
can't stay long, you know, because I have to go back to 'Willy.'"
I really didn't care if he stayed long or not. I seemed to have procured
the last proof I needed of the truth of the doctrine I had held so long,
that there is no such thing as Death, as we understand it in this world.
Here were the two spiritual beings (for believing in the identity of
whom I had called myself a credulous fool fifty times over, only to
believe in them more deeply still) in _propria personae_ in New York,
claiming me in a land of strangers, who had not yet found out who I was.
I was more deeply affected than I had ever been under such circumstances
before, and more deeply thankful. "Florence" made great friends with our
American cousins even on her first appearance. Mrs. Williams' conductor
told me he thought he had never heard anything more beautiful than the
idea of the spirit-child crossing the ocean to guard its mother in a
strange country, and particularly, as he could feel by her influence,
what a pure and beautiful spirit she was. When I told him she had left
this world at ten days old, he said that accounted for it, but he could
see there was nothing earthly about her.
I was delighted with this _seance_, and hoped to sit with Mrs. Williams
many times more, but fate decreed that I should leave New York sooner
than I had anticipated. The perfect freedom with which it was conducted
charmed me, and the spirits seemed so familiar with the sitters. There
was no "Sweet Spirit, hear my prayer," business about it. No fear of
being detained or handled among the spirits, and no awe, only intense
tenderness on the part of their relations. It was to this cause I
chiefly attributed the large number of materializations I
witnessed--_forty_ having taken place that evening. They spoke far more
distinctly and audibly too than those I had seen in England, but I
believe the dry atmosphere of the United States is far more favorable to
the process of materialization. I perceived another difference. Although
the female spirits were mostly clad in white, they wore dresses and not
simply drapery, whilst the men were invariably attired in the clothes
(or semblances of the clothes) they would have worn had they been still
on earth. I left Mrs. Williams' rooms, determined to see as much as I
possibly could of mediumship whilst I was in the United States.