Part 12 (1/2)

”Good Then if you will bring it to-ht, I can take it with me when I leave you The mediu it Rest assured of that”

Alas for husbandly devotion! The seance at which he turned over the jewelry to the affectionate ”spirit” of his as the last at which he held communion with her When he next called, he was told that the medium had been unexpectedly summoned out of town She never came back

These two episodes are typical rather than exceptional instances of the sort of thing that has been going on for years in connection with the physical phenoely by a widespread belief, entertained not by the ignorant and superstitious merely, but by men of distinction in the intellectual and scientific world, that, notwithstanding the prevalence of fraud, there are at least soenuine

Men like the Italian savants already nareat chemist, Sir William Crookes; the French astronoht be mentioned, are satisfied that they have witnessed in the seance room occurrences out of all accord with natural laws, and not to be attributed to fraud

In support of this view, e out of consideration all mediums who employ their powers as a means of livelihood, physical phenoh men and women in private life, who cannot possibly have a pecuniary motive for deception, and whose character is beyond reproach

One of the yland, the Reverend W Stainton Moses, a gentleman respected and warmly esteemed by all who knew him[27]

[27] An excellent study of the mediumshi+p of Stainton Moses is contained in Frank Podmore's ”Modern Spiritualisument in behalf of the authenticity of certain of the pheno circu before spiritism and spiritistic ly spontaneous movements of furniture, and the occurrence of s, and other noises--were frequently reported by thoroughly reputable witnesses

To o as 1661 there was an outbreak of this kind at the hohost foron a dru household articles about in a most destructive manner The affair made so much stir that a royal conally failed to lay the ghost For nearly a year, in 1716-1717, the Reverend Samuel Wesley, father of the founder of Methodism, was tormented in like fashi+on at his rectory in Lincolnshi+re

In 1753 a Russian monastery was invaded by an equally malicious and equally invisible ”spirit,” which forthe monastery bells at unseemly hours Nine years later all London was thrilled by the celebrated cock Lane ghost, which produced spirit rappings with as much eclat as the most up-to-date, medium-invoked visitant from ”the other side” In none of these instances did conteators find a wholly satisfactory explanation for the singular phenomena involved

[28] Studied in detail in my book, ”Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters”

Nevertheless, itthe case for the physical phenoeists--as these tricky ghosts are called by psychical researchers--considerably weaken it For during recent years a nus have been looked into by members of the Society for Psychical Research, and whenever the conditions have been such as to peration, it has been found that, so far froeists are invariably compounded of deceit, credulity, and delusion Evenat the true inwardness of physical mediumshi+p, the discovery has been eist cases without any apparent ive an instance fro perfectly clear Word was one day received at the London offices of the Society for Psychical Research that a ghost had taken possession of a far life miserable for the lawful occupants, a family named Hampson and their two maidservants, Priscilla Evans and Ehost, but it eist style

It had announced its advent, about four o'clock one fine afternoon, by lifting a saucepan fro red-hot coals out of the fire and scattering thelobe to fly h the air

This last prank, naturally enough, so frightened the Hampsons and their servants that they fled frohbors, a them a Mr Lea, who, in the report that reached the Society for Psychical Research,[29] declared that when he approached the Hampson homestead, it seemed as if all the upstairs rooht in the s”

[29] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol xii, pp 58-67

Reenforced, the Haeist had see dislike to the to juether inexplicable, and ed, Ha out of the apartly took down a baro, and a loaf of bread, which was on the table, was thrown by sorih the , and a large, ornah in si irl was nursing the baby by the fire when soed and its arhbor's, and on the way there her clothes took fire, and had to be torn frohbor's, a plate, which she touched while having her supper, was repeatedly thrown on the floor, and the pieces were picked up by soency, and put in the center of the table”

On the girl's return to the Hampson place the ly of the opinion that they were the work of the devil; the Hampsons, however, inclined to the view that the blame lay at the door of so the nurse girl, Es quieted dohenever she was out of the house On this theory they sent her to her hoeist continued to annoy her In the presence of a police officer, watching her closely to detect evidence of fraud, it wrenched the buttons from her dress and ripped out the stitches of her apron While the village schoolmistress and some twenty other people looked on, it twice drew off her shoes and tossed them to the opposite side of the room; and it was said to have afterward lifted her bodily from the floor, and held her suspended in ation, and the Society for Psychical Research at once commissioned one of its expert detectives of the supernatural, Mr F S Hughes, to proceed to the scene of the disturbances But before he arrived, the irl, it seems, had been made so nervous and excited by the unwelcoht best to place her in a physician's care, and she was accordingly taken to a sanitarium and kept in strict seclusion, under the constant observation of the physician's housekeeper, Miss Turner, a shrewd, level-headed woue her Then it suddenly took its departure, under the following circuhes in his official report:

”On TuesdayMiss Turner was in an upper room at the back of the house, and the servant of the establish her back to the house, and unaware that she was observed Miss Turner noticed that she had a piece of brick in her hand, held behind her back This she threw to a distance by a turn of the wrist, and, while doing so, screamed to attract the attention of the servant, who, of course, turning round, saw the brick in the air, and was veryround, saw that she had been seen by Miss Turner, and, apparently i that she had been found out, was very anxious to return hoht

”Miss Turner took no notice of the occurrence at the tiirl if she had been playing tricks, and the girl confessed that she had, and went through so to Miss Turner's account Later on in the day she repeated these in the presence of the doctor, Miss Turner, and two reporters froirl had no rational ood position, and rendered it et another And, in fact, this saeist cases exposed by the Society for Psychical Research, and by independent investigators It is also noteworthy that when discovery is irl, man or woman, constitutionally or temporarily in an abnormal nervous condition

In this particular case, for instance, the girl, Emma Davies, on the testimony of her ated by the Society, the poltergeist was definitely identified with a little deforirl, twelve years old, of decidedly abnorated by Mr Frank Podmore, another eists, a confession of fraud was elicited from a neurotic boy of fifteen--a confession only partial, it is true, but in one sensethan any full confession would have been The case is so instructive, both for its revelation of the almost incredible credulity of ht it throws on the problems of physical mediumshi+p, that I quote it, condensed, froation[30]

[30] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol xii, pp 101-103