Spiritualism--Spiritualism not a new
Delusion--Phantoms at a _Seance_--Juggling of a
Medium--Unsuccessful Effort at a Vulgar
Deception--Spiritualists exposed--A Medium's Deception
discovered--Foolish Exhibitions--Russian Peasants and
their House Spirits--Spirits' Care over Persons and
Property--Death, Pestilence, War, and other Evils
foretold by Spirits--A Suggestion.
Much might be written concerning spiritualism (already alluded to in
these pages); but really the subject deserves little attention,
further than that it might be worth serious consideration whether the
class of persons who lay claim to the power of raising the dead, and
of being able to command responses from spirits, should not be
prosecuted as rogues and cheats. Spiritualists cannot even pretend
they have discovered anything new. We have repeatedly, particularly
under the head "Laws against and Trials of Witches," shown that
deceitful girls and old crones could perform all the sleight-of-hand
and delusions practised by modern spiritualists.
Spiritualists have grossly imposed upon credulous persons; and others,
without much consideration, attend _seance_ after _seance_, for no
other reason than that the manifestations displayed by the tricksters
have become the grand arcana of fashion. The phantoms raised at a
_seance_ are in proportion to the gloom surrounding the audience. It
cannot be doubted by men of penetration, that spiritualism, in its
birth and maturity, is associated with sordidness and wickedness. At
best, the spiritual operations are childish, or at least they fall
short of the tricks of a Chinese juggler.
One gentleman, writing of the spiritualistic movement in 1871, says:--
"A new movement on behalf of spiritualism has sprung up in the
metropolis, and Miss Kate Fox, Rochester, United States, in whose
family the phenomena were first discovered, is now in England on a
propagandist mission. I was invited last night to meet Miss Fox, but
owing to a cold the lady was unable to come. A celebrated medium was,
however, present, as were some half-dozen ladies and gentlemen well
known in society--one of the latter being a sergeant-at-law, and a
judge accustomed to sift evidence and determine the difference between
truth and falsehood. The _seance_ was not, however, productive of
anything very strange. The only curious manifestation occurred with a
lath about two feet long and a quarter of an inch thick, which most
certainly rose off the table apparently of its own accord, and at one
time seemed disposed to walk about the room, but didn't. Two glass
ornaments, filled with flowers, were also attracted towards each
other, and subsequently parted company though no hands were near them.
The great anticipated incident of the evening was, however, a failure.
A Morse writing telegraphic machine had been prepared, and it was
hoped that the lever would be worked with spirit hands, but, after
waiting two hours, no indication was given of any movement, and the
experiment was abandoned in despair."
The well-known Walter Thornbury relates as follows his experience at a
spiritual _seance_:--
"I went up into a stuffy parlour and found about fourteen people,
hot, nervous, and evidently uncomfortable. They were staring at
some weird-looking pictures. On a long table were several
speaking-trumpets, formed of stiff brown and gilt paper. Some of the
visitors took up these, talked hollowly through them, and laughed with
uneasy scepticism. There were two ladies, several young men who looked
like clerks, a bluff man from Liverpool, and a dwarf. Presently
Messrs. A. and C. (two coarse-looking young men) entered, seated us
round the table, and requested us to join hands. The gas was then
turned down, and the _seance_ began. A. was at the end of the table,
facing C. at the other. There was at first a good deal of
half-hysterical laughing and nervous talking, and shy or bold voices
from here and there in the dark. The bluff Liverpool man objected to
joining hands--he had been to successful _seances_, where hands were
not joined. Mr. A. said that joining hands often improved 'the
conditions.' One did not know what was passing behind one, or what was
coming. So even the boldest of us 'held his breath for a time.' All at
once Mr. C., at the further end from me, began to gurgle and groan
like a person in an epileptic fit. Some one cried, 'Turn up the gas.'
It was done, and we beheld the medium with his head twisted like a
young laocoon in the folds of a red tablecloth. He disentangled
himself with a disturbed, suffering air. The spirits were upon us,
though why they should stifle their interpreter I could not quite see.
The sceptics smiled sardonically. I suspected the lady in nankeen
colour next me, and the dwarf and people immediately round both
mediums. A female voice tremulously suggested that singing might
'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love
Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All
at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices
that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr.
A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. 'Who
is this John King?' inquired the Liverpool man, who, if he was a
confederate, acted peculiarly well. 'He lived about three hundred
years ago,' said some one in the dark. 'Then he must have fought with
the Armada,' suggested the Liverpool representative. Mr. A. leaped at
the suggestion, and replied, 'It is supposed he did.' On John King
again growling that there he was and what did they want, a sceptic
opposite me exclaimed in the true dramatic manner, 'Rest, rest,
perturbed spirit,' which so enraged John King (whom the lady in buff
next me whispered 'had been a notorious pirate') that he bellowed in
his ear, 'You seem very fond of Shakspere.' A few minutes after there
were sounds of violent blows, and several sceptics were struck on the
head by John King's speaking-trumpet; a sofa cushion was flung at me,
and something else was thrown at the gentleman from Liverpool. A
sceptic who had said that any ventriloquist could imitate a deep
voice, got rapped violently on the head, and John King bellowed at the
same time, 'Is that ventriloquism?' A man near me said he thought he
felt a cold breeze passing over his hands, and a cold finger touch
his. One thing I could not help observing: this was, that the missiles
hurled at sceptics came in a slanting line from where Mr. A. sat. I
also noticed that a singular creaking of the medium's chair usually
preceded any utterances of John King. The lady in nankeen now began,
in a wheedling, coaxing voice, to beg 'Kate' to appear. Kate is Mr.
A.'s second 'familiar,' and he described her to us as a short person
with dark ringlets, and wearing a blue robe fastened by a
girdle--facts which seemed to deeply interest the lady in nankeen.
Presently a little whiffling voice announced Kate, who, however, only
said something about 'Jenny Jones, of Hampstead,' and then withdrew.
To Kate Mr. A. assumed a gallant, lover-like manner; to John King an
air of half-amused defiance. By-and-bye two stones were thrown
violently upon the table, but no one expressed any audible alarm.
Still the room was hot and stifling, the darkness affected the coolest
imagination, and straining one's eyes and ears for spiritual
manifestations produced a not unnatural feeling of uneasiness in the
mind. Sometimes I fancied the table jerked or reared a little,
sometimes I thought I heard animals' feet pattering up and down the
table. It is on such workings of the imagination that spiritualists,
and especially the professional mediums, trade. No more voices coming,
Mr. A. proposed our changing places to 'improve the conditions'--that
is to say, to re-pack the confederates, and still more isolate the
sceptics; but no result came. A grosser and more unsuccessful effort
at a vulgar deception I never saw; and I only ask whether it is just
to prosecute poor women for getting a few shillings by telling
servants' fortunes, and leave professional spiritualists like Messrs.
A. and C. unprosecuted? If pretending to evoke the dead and predict
death for hire is not obtaining money under false pretences, what is?"
For a short time the spiritualists created a considerable sensation,
but their prosperity did not long continue. Mr. W. Irving Bishop, an
American gentleman, who came to Great Britain recommended by Dr.
Carpenter and other members of the Royal Society, exposed the
phenomena attributed to the influence of spirits, in the Windsor
Hotel, Edinburgh, in January 1879.
There was a distinguished company present, including Principal Sir
Alexander Grant, Lord Curriehill, Archbishop Strain, and a number of
the University professors. A committee of four gentlemen having been
chosen to watch the proceedings, Mr. Bishop gave an exposure of the
galvanometer test, accepted by a number of scientific men in London as
conclusive proof of the _bona fides_ of spirit manifestations. Mr.
Bishop next gave an illustration of the theory of "unconscious
cerebration." Archbishop Strain, having written on a slip of paper a
number of figures and the name of a deceased person, took in his left
hand the end of a long wire. Mr. Bishop, taking the other, recited the
numerals from 1 to 9, and stopped at the figures in one of the papers.
Afterwards he recited the alphabet in the same manner, stopping at the
letters in the name on the same slip. The figures 6952 were found to
be those which had been written. The archbishop stated before the
paper was opened that he did not himself remember the figures he had
put down, and that he had never mentioned what they were to any one.
Mr. Bishop explained that he detected the figures when naming them,
from the unconscious action of the archbishop's mind on his nervous
system as it affected the wire. In the same way he informed the
archbishop correctly that the name of a deceased person written in the
enclosed piece of paper was Sir Walter Scott. Mr. Bishop also
furnished illustrations of the manner in which sounds were produced
from instruments of music, and bells rung by persons tied with their
hands and legs to seats, and how, even in that situation, he could put
a ring upon a handkerchief placed round his neck--a feat which had
been considered impossible by one fastened as he was, without the
loosing of the knots of the cords with which he was bound. His last
exposure was the Katie King mystery, the calling of 'material spirits'
from the other world, and exhibiting them in the room. This
performance puzzled the audience as much as any of the others while it
proceeded, and the explanation given of it was as amusing as it
turned out to be ingenious.
Another spiritualist exposure recently created a sensation in
"spiritualistic circles," by the detection of a medium fraud in
Portland, Maine, United States. Doctors Gerrish and Greene, of
Portland, were instrumental in bringing about the issue. The medium in
question was a female, who, after hiding herself behind a screen in
the corner of her parlour, was enabled to send out "spirits" for the
inspection of her select audiences. Attired in the ordinary way, she
would allow her skirts to be pinned to the floor; and while she was
seated upon a stool, the lower portion of the screen being some
distance from the floor, the audience were invited to satisfy
themselves that the medium did not move from her position. Dr. Greene,
on one occasion, while the so-called spirit was moving around, asked
it to shake hands. This request being granted, he firmly grasped the
hand, and found the spirit to be the medium herself, who struggled in
a very unbecoming way to free herself. While Dr. Greene thus secured
the medium, Dr. Gerrish quickly drew the screen aside, and discovered
the apparel of the lady in a heap at the foot of her stool, and still
pinned to the floor. The trick was then shown to consist in wearing
under-garments, with which she could emerge from her external apparel
with ease, and, to all outside appearance, without any disturbance.
To our mind, the most foolish of all foolish exhibitions is that at
which one has the presumption to stand before an intelligent audience
and declare his ability to call one from the dead for his or their
amusement. But if we can by any great stretch of imagination suppose
that Englishmen and Americans have succeeded in opening up a
communication between them and spirits, they are still far behind the
Russian peasants, who have their house spirits, who are of
considerable use. These spirits take persons, houses, cattle, and
chattels of every description under their care. They are heard wailing
before a death. One of them rouses the inmates of a house if fire or
robbery be threatened. Pestilence and war are foretold by such spirits
lamenting in the meadows. Here we have useful spirits, worth
having--not like our ones, capable of communicating only by means of
knocks and through showmen. If spirits can do no more for living men
than they have done, they may remain away, and let the showman medium
return to honest labour, or be sent to seek knowledge and truth within
the walls of a prison or in a house of correction.