Part 62 (1/2)

As a person may look towards an object, as out of the window towards a tree, and not see it till his mind is directed to it, so, on the other hand, he may have his mind (thoughts) directed to a thing that his eyes cannot see, and in a person whose superior brain is susceptible, it maybe reflected so vividly as to permit a description of the object.

One may walk over a stream, upon stones, or ground, and not realize the fact till the mind is directed to it; and the thing may be reversed, and a susceptible person may be led to think that he or she is walking over or through water when none is present. The mind must be directed to an object in order to see it mentally.

A gentleman recently told me that a ”medium brought up his old grandmother.”

”How did she describe the old lady as appearing?” I asked.

”In woollen dress and poke bonnet, with specs on, just as she used to appear when I was a boy, forty years ago.”

”I should have thought the fas.h.i.+ons would have changed in the unseen world, even if the clothes had not worn out in forty years' service,” I suggested.

This slightly staggered him, but he replied, ”Perhaps fas.h.i.+ons do not change in the spirit-world.”

”Then ladies can never be happy there. Besides, what a jolly, comical set they must be down there; the newer fas.h.i.+ons appearing hourly in beautiful contrast with the ancient styles; especially the janty, little, precious morsels called hats of to-day, all covered with magnificent ribbons, and flowers, and laces, in contrast with the great ark-like, sombre poke bonnets of forty and a hundred years ago!”

”Sir,” I said, when he did not reply to this last poser,--”Sir, bring your stock of common sense to bear upon the matter, and see that the mind of the medium controlled yours, and led you to believe you saw, as the medium did, through your thoughts, your ancient grandmother; for how else would you imagine her, but as you remembered her, in woollen gown, poke bonnet, and spectacles.”

VISITS TO A CLAIRVOYANT.

Twenty-five years ago, I visited Madam Young, in Ellsworth, Me.

”You are going a journey,” she soon said, after I was seated, and she had examined my ”b.u.mps” to learn that I was a rolling stone. ”You are going south-west from here.” ”Marvellous!” one might say, who had little reflective qualities of brain, for that was the very thing I was about to do. But from Ellsworth, Maine, which way else could one go, without going ”south-west,” unless he really went to the ”jumping-off place, away down east?”

Again I visited her in Charleston, S. C.

”You are going a journey soon,” she informed me.

”Which way?” I amusingly inquired.

”Towards the north,” was the necessary reply.

Charleston is at the extremity of a neck of land. I was not expected to jump off into the bay, by going southward, and her answer was the only rational one. She would minutely describe any person, ”good, bad, or indifferent,” whom I would fix my mind upon. I was suffering at the time with bronchitis, which she correctly stated. She was the best clairvoyant I have ever tested. She died at Hartford, in 1862.

The following item of the press does not refer to Madam Young:--

A clairvoyant doctor of Hartford proclaims his superiority over other seers on the ground that he ”foretells the past and present as well as the future.” We should say he would probably ”foretell” them much better. As the Irishman said, one gets on better when one goes backward or stands still.

I noticed his advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Providence paper, recently, where ”Dr.

---- foretold the past, present, and future.”

A NIGHT IN THE PEn.o.bSCOT MOUNTAINS.

At Castine I heard of an old lady residing high up in the Pen.o.bscot mountains, who could magnetize a sore or a painful limb at sight. Such marvellous stories were told of her ”charming,” that I decided to go over the mountain and see her. She was not a ”professional,” however, and objected to being made too public. Therefore I made an excuse for calling at the house ”on my way afoot across the country,” and was cordially received by the family, of whom there were four generations residing under one roof. The house was a story and half brown cottage, large on the ground, and surrounded by numerous out-houses and barns. The view from the western slope of the mountain where she lived was most magnificent. I reached the farm before sunset. Here I lingered to overlook the beautiful Pen.o.bscot as it flowed at my feet, and the far-off islands of the sea.

Here one could ”gaze and never tire,” out over the grand old forests, down to the sea-side, and upon countless little white specks, the whitened sails of the fishermen and coasting vessels, with an occasional s.h.i.+p or steamboat flitting up and down the n.o.ble Pen.o.bscot river and bay. Still above me the eagle built her nest in the rocking pines, on the mountain top, and still far below sung the nightingale and wheeled the hungry osprey in his belated piscatorial occupations.

The sun sank behind the western hills, tinging the soft, fleecy clouds with its golden glory. Slowly changing from purple and gold to faint yellow, to dark blue, the clouds gradually a.s.sumed the night hue, and sombre shadows crept adown the western mountains' sides, flinging their dark mantle over the waters, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. The st.u.r.dy farmer has shouldered his scythe, and reluctantly he leaves the half-mown lot to seek his evening repast at the family table. Then he discovers me, leaning over the gate-bar, rapt in dreamy forgetfulness, and with a hearty salutation extends to me the hospitality, so proverbially cordial, of the old New England farmer. He shows me his pigs in the pen, and his ”stock” in the barn-yard, and reaching the house, he calls ”mother,” who, appearing in calico and homespun, though with a cheerful and smiling face, is introduced to me as his wife. ”A stranger, belated, and I guess pretty tired-like, climbing up here; and I won't take no excuses from him; so he stays with us to-night.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHARMER DIVULGES HER SECRET.]