SPIRITUAL ATHLETES.
I am about for once to depart from my usual custom of narrating only
personal experiences, and in this and the two following chapters print
the communications of a friend who shares my interest in these matters,
and has frequently accompanied me in my investigations into this
mysterious Borderland. In these cases, however, he investigated on his
own account, and I am not responsible for the conclusions at which he
arrives:--
"Attracted," he says, "by an article in a popular journal on the subject
of 'Spirit Faces,' I determined, if possible, to 'assist' at a séance. I
had not hitherto taken much interest in spiritualistic matters, because
in the first place, the cui bono question remained persistently
unanswered; and, secondly, because most of the 'doings' were in the
dark; and it appears to me that, given darkness, there are few things in
the way of conjuring and ventriloquism that could _not_ be done.
Terpsichorean tables and talking hats never had any particular charm for
me, because I could always make a table dance, or a hat say anything I
wanted it to say. I saw the Davenports, and preferred Professor
Anderson. I even went to a dark séance at the Marshalls', and noticed
that when Mr. and Mrs. Marshall had perceptibly partaken of beefsteak
and onions, or some equally fragrant food, for dinner, the breath which
accompanied the spirit-voices was unmistakably impregnated with onions
too; and hence I drew my own conclusions. I am not saying I know how Mr.
and Mrs. Marshall do John King and Katie King. I don't know how
Professor Anderson or Professor Pepper do their tricks. I confess Mr.
Home and the Marshalls have the pull of the professors in one way--that
is, they don't perform on a platform but in a private room, and they let
you examine everything beforehand. Theirs is the ars celare artem.
Again, I don't know how men in the street get out of the very curious
knots in which I have tied them, but I know they do it; and therefore I
am sure the Davenports could do it without calling in the ghost of one's
deceased grandmamma as a sort of Deus--or rather Dea--ex machinâ. I have
never seen Mr. Home handle fire or elongate. I have seen him 'levitate,'
or float, and I candidly confess I don't know how he does it, any more
than I can solve Sir David Brewster's trick by which four young ladies
can lift a heavy man on the points of their fingers. It's very
mysterious, and very nice for the man.
"So it happened that I had shelved spiritualism for some time, when the
article on 'Spirit Faces' came under my notice. I did not care so much
about the face part of the matter (at least not the spirit face), but I
wanted to test it as a matter of athletics. In one respect the
physiognomy did interest me, for I read that the medium was
pretty--mediums, according to my experience, being generally very much
the reverse--and I found that report had certainly not misrepresented
the young lady in this respect. Her name is now public property, so I
need not veil it under the pseudonyms of Miss Blank, or Asterisk, or
anything of that sort. Miss Florence Cook, then, is a trim little lady
of sweet sixteen, and dwells beneath the parental roof in an eastern
suburb of London. It is quite true she does not accept payment for
séances, which I strove to impress upon her was very foolish indeed, for
she works almost as hard as Lulu twice in the week. However, she, or
rather her parents, take high ground in the matter, which of course is
very praiseworthy on their parts, and convenient for their guests if
they happen to be impecunious.
"Now, I do not purpose going through the details of the séance, which
was considerably irksome, being protracted by endless psalm singing.
What I want to do--with Miss Cook's permission--is to calculate the
chances of her being sufficiently athletic to perform the tricks
herself, without the aid of spirits. Does she not underrate her unaided
powers in assigning a supernatural cause for the effects produced?
"Well, then, this lithe little lady is arrayed in the ordinary garb of
the nineteenth century with what is technically termed a 'pannier,' and
large open sleeves, each of which, I fear, she must have found
considerably in the way, as also the sundry lockets and other nick-nacks
suspended from her neck. However, there they were. We put her in a
cupboard, which had a single Windsor chair in it, and laid a stoutish
new cord on her lap. Then came singing, which may or may not have been
intended to drown any noise in the cupboard; but, after some delay, she
was found tied around the waist, neck, and two wrists, and the ends of
the cord fastened to the back of the chair. These knots we sealed, and
consigned her to the cupboard again. Shortly after there appeared at an
aperture in the upper portion of the cupboard a face which looked
utterly unspiritual and precisely like that of the medium, only with
some white drapery thrown over the head. The aperture was just the
height that would have allowed Miss Cook to stand on the chair and peep
out. I do not say she did; I am only calculating the height. The face
remained some minutes in a strong light; then descended. We opened the
cupboard, and found the little lady tied as before with the seals
unbroken. Spiritual, or material, it was clever.
"After a pause, the same process was gone through again; only this time
stout tape was substituted for rope. The cord cut the girl's wrists; and
tape was almost more satisfactory. Again she was bound, and we sealed
the knots; and again a face appeared--this time quite black, and not
like the medium at all. I noticed that the drapery ran right round the
face, and cut it off at a straight line on the lower part. This gave the
idea of a mask. I am not saying it was a mask. I am only throwing out a
hint that, if the 'spirits' wish to convince people they should let the
neck be well seen. I am bound to say it bore a strong light for several
minutes; and some people say they saw eyelids. I did not. I do not say
they were not there. I know how impossible it is to prove a negative,
and only say I did not see them.
"What followed possessed no special interest for any but the professed
spiritualist, as it was done without any tying; Miss Cook arguing
logically enough that, if the previous manifestations were clearly
proved to have taken place by other agency than that of the medium
herself, mere multiplication of proofs was unnecessary. I had only gone
to study the matter from an athletic point of view; and I certainly came
away impressed with the idea that, if Miss Florence Cook first got into
and then got out of those knots, she was even more nimble and lithesome
than she looked, and ought to start an Amateur Ladies' Athletic Society
forthwith. As to her making faces at us through the window, I did not
care sufficiently about the matter to inquire whether she did or not,
because, if she got out of the ropes, it was easy enough to get on the
chair and make faces.
"Of course the cui bono remains. The professors make money by it; and
Miss Cook can make at most, only a little mild and scarcely enviable
notoriety. A satirical old friend of mine, when I told him the above
facts, chuckled, and said, 'That's quite enough for a girl of sixteen;
and anything that's do-able, a girl of those years will do.' It was no
use talking to him of panniers and loose sleeves, and lockets. He was an
old bachelor, and knew nothing about such things. At least, he had no
business to, if he did.
"I cannot forbear adding a domestic episode, though it is perhaps
scarcely relevant to the subject. Certain young imps in my house,
hearing what I had seen, got up an exhibition of spirit faces for my
benefit. They rigged up a kind of Punch-and-Judy erection, and the
cleanest of them did the spirit face, with a white pocket-handkerchief
over his head. He looked as stolid and unwinking as the genuine
spirit-physiognomy itself. The gas was lowered to a 'dim religious
light,' and then a black coal-scuttle, with features chalked on it,
deceived some of the circle into the idea that it was a nigger. But the
one element which interested me was wanting; there was no rope-tying
which could at all entitle the juvenile performance to be categorized
under 'Spiritual Athletics.'"