SPIRIT FORMS.
Some years ago I contributed to the columns of a daily paper an article
on Spirit Faces, which was to me the source of troubles manifold. In the
first place, the inquirers into Spiritualism, whose name I found to be
legion, inundated me with letters, asking me to take them to the house
of pretty Miss Blank, the medium. Miss Blank might have been going on
till now, holding nightly receptions, without having exhausted her list
of self-invited guests; I had but one answer; the lady was a comparative
stranger to me, and not a professional medium; ergo, the legion must ask
some one to chaperone them elsewhere. Spirit Faces had got comparatively
common and almost gone out since I wrote. We are a long way beyond faces
now. Then, again, my second source of trouble was that forthwith, from
the date of my writing, the Spiritualists claimed me for their own, as
Melancholy did the young gentleman in Gray's elegy. Though I fancied my
paper was only a calm judicial statement of things seen, and I carefully
avoided saying whether I was convinced or not, I found myself nolens
volens enrolled among the initiated, and expected to devote about five
evenings out of the seven to séances. I did go, and do go still to a
great many; so that I feel pretty well posted up in the "Latest
Intelligence" of the Spiritual world. But the worst of all is that my
own familiar friends, in whom I trusted, have also lifted up their heels
against me--I mean metaphorically, of course. "What's the last new thing
in spirits?" they ask me out loud in omnibuses or railway carriages,
causing my fellow-travellers to look at me in doubt as to whether I am a
licensed victualler or a necromancer. As "bigots feign belief till they
believe," I really begin to have some doubts myself as to the state of
my convictions.
But I wish to make this paper again a simple statement of things heard
and seen--especially seen. I flatter myself the title is a nice, weird,
ghostly one, calculated to make people feel uncomfortable about the
small hours of the morning. Should such be the case--as they say in
prefaces--the utmost hopes of the writer will be realized. When last I
communicated my experiences, the ultimate end we had reached was the
appearance of a white counterpart of pretty Miss Blank's face at the
peep-hole of a corner cupboard. There were a good many more or
less--generally less--successful imitations of this performance in
various quarters, and the sensation subsided. Miss B. was still facile
princeps from the fact that she stood full light--I mean her spirit-face
did--whilst all the others leaned to a more or less dim religious kind
of gloom. In a short time, however, "Katie"--as the familiar of Miss B.
was termed--thought she would be able to "materialize" herself so far as
to present the whole form, if we re-arranged the corner cupboard so as
to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened the door, and from it
suspended a rug or two opening in the centre, after the fashion of a
Bedouin Arab's tent, formed a semicircle, sat and sang Longfellow's
"Footsteps of Angels." Therein occurs the passage: "Then the forms of
the departed enter at the open door." And, lo and behold, though we had
left Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair, and clad in an ordinary black
dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall female figure draped
classically in white, with bare arms and feet, did enter at the open
door, or rather down the centre from between the two rugs, and stood
statue-like before us, spoke a few words, and retired; after which we
entered the Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as
before, knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,
the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and on a
subsequent occasion--for I have seen it several times--we took four very
good photographic portraits of it by magnesium light. The difficulty I
still felt, with the form as with the faces, was that it seemed so
thoroughly material and flesh-and-blood like. Perhaps, I thought, the
authoress of "The Gates Ajar" is right, and the next condition of things
may be more material than we generally think, even to the extent of
admitting, as she says, pianofortes among its adjuncts. But I was to see
something much more ghostly than this.
The great fact I notice about Spiritualism is, that it is obeying the
occult impetus of all great movements, and steadily going from east to
west. From Hackney and Highbury it gravitates towards Belgravia and
Tyburnia. I left the wilds of Hackney behind, and neared Hyde Park for
my next Form. I must again conceal names and localities; I have no
desire to advertise mediums, or right to betray persons who have shown
me hospitality--and Spirit Forms. We arranged ourselves in a semicircle
around the curtains which separated the small back drawing-room from the
large front one, joined hands, sang until we were hoarse as crows, and
kept our eyes steadily fixed on an aperture left between the curtains
for the faces to show themselves. The room was in blank darkness, and,
feeling rather tired of the incantation, I looked over my shoulder into
the gloom, and lo! a shadowy form stood self-illuminated not far from
me. At last I had seen it--a good orthodox ghost in white, and visible
in the darkness. It was the form of the redoubtable John King himself,
who was, I believe, a bold buccaneer in the flesh, but who looked more
like an Arab sheikh in the spirit. He sailed about the room, talked to
us, and finally disappeared. Eventually he reappeared behind the
curtains, and for a brief space the portière was drawn aside, and the
spirit form was seen lighting up the recumbent figure of the medium,
who was stretched on a sofa, apparently in deep trance. It must be borne
in mind that we were forming a cordon round the passage from one room to
the other during the whole of this time. A trio of "spirits" generally
puts in an appearance at these séances. In this case there were John
King, whom I had now seen, as well as heard; Katie, the familiar of Miss
B.; and a peculiarly lugubrious gentleman named Peter, who, I fancy, has
not been seen, but who has several times done me the favour of grasping
my hand and hoisting me towards the ceiling, as though he were going to
carry me off bodily to spirit-land. I stand some six feet in my boots,
and have stepped upon my chair, and still felt the hand coming downwards
to me--where from I have no idea.
But my later experiences have still to be told. I was invited a few
weeks ago to a very select séance indeed, where the same medium was to
officiate. This family, who spared no expense in their investigations,
had actually got a large, handsome cabinet standing in their dining-room
as a recognised piece of furniture. It was only used, however, on this
occasion for the imprisonment of the medium. The evolutions of John
King, who soon appeared, all took place outside the cabinet door. He was
only "materialized" to the middle; and, to our utter amazement, came up
to the table, and apparently _through_ the table, into the very middle
of the circle, where he disported himself in various ways, keeping up
an animated conversation the whole time, and frequently throwing himself
into the attitude of a person swimming on his back. He also went upwards
as high as the gasalier, and altogether did a good many marvellous
things, considering that all this time he presented the appearance of
only half a man illuminated by his own light.
On one occasion only have I been seated next to the medium during the
manifestation of any of these forms. At this séance I held him firmly by
one hand, and a slightly sceptical lady had the other. We never let go
for a moment, but during the whole of the sitting, while John King,
Katie, and Peter were talking, tiny children's hands were playing with
my arm, hands, and hair. There were, of course, no children in the room.
Peter, the lugubrious, is great at light porterage. I have known him
bring a large collection of valuable Sèvres china, and a timepiece with
its glass case, from the chimney-piece to the table--no easy task in the
light, much less in blank darkness. He also frequently takes down the
pictures from the wall and puts them on the table. Katie winds up a
large musical box, and wafts it, while playing, all over the room. Of
course we rub our eyes and ask what on earth, if it be on earth, does
this mean? I have not--to keep up the diction of my subject--the _ghost_
of an idea. If it's conjuring, why don't the mediums say so, and enter
the field openly against Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke and Dr. Lynn? Even
if I had a decided opinion about it I should refrain from propounding it
here, because, in the first place, it would be an impertinence, and, in
the second, no conclusion can be arrived at upon testimony alone. People
must see for themselves and draw their own inferences. In the meantime
the thing, whatever it is, grows and grows upwards. A year ago I had to
journey down east to find it. Now I must array myself gorgeously like a
Staffordshire miner, and seek the salons of the West. The great
desideratum, it still appears to me, is that some man with a name in
science should examine the matter, honestly resolving to endorse the
facts if true, but to expose them mercilessly if there be a loophole for
suspicion. Omne ignotum pro magnifico habetur. I used to think ghosts
big things, but that was before I knew them. I should think no more of
meeting a ghost now than a donkey on a dark night, and would infinitely
sooner tackle a spirit than a burglar. People's curiosity is roused, and
the sooner somebody gets at the truth the better. It is a somewhat
irksome task, it is true; but no general principle can be arrived at
except by an induction of particulars. Let us be Baconian, even to our
ghosts. If they _are_ ghosts, they are a good deal more substantial than
I had thought. If they are not, let somebody, in the name of
nineteenth-century science, send them off as with the crow of
chanticleer, and let us hear no more of Spirit Faces or Spirit Forms.