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speaking, spirit voices were heard at the same time, and further, that
the same spirits pre served the same personality and the same intonation
of voice through a course of years. Hyslop gives details of a case with
this medium where the voice communication gave the correct solution for
opening a combination lock to a safe, when it was unknown to the sitter.
Among modern voice mediums in England are Mrs. Roberts Johnson, Mrs.
Blanche Cooper, John C. Sloan, William Phoenix, the Misses Dunsmore, Evan
Powell the Welsh medium, and Mr. Potter.
Mr. H. Dennis Bradley has given a full account of the voice mediumship of
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George Valiantine, the well-known American medium. Mr. Bradley was able
himself to secure voices in his own Home Circle, without any professional
medium. It is impossible to exaggerate the services which Mr. Bradley's
devoted and self-sacrificing work has rendered to psychic science. If our
whole knowledge depended upon the evidence given in these two books, it
would be ample for any reasonable man.*
* "Towards the Stars" and "The Wisdom of the Gods."
Some few pages may also be devoted to a summary of the very cogent
objective evidence which is offered by the casts that have been taken
from the bodies of ectoplasmic figures-in other words, of materialized
forms. The first who explored this line of research seems to have been
William Denton, the author of "Nature's Secrets," a book on psychometry,
published in 1863. In Boston (U. S. A.) in 1875, working with the medium
Mary M. Hardy, he employed methods which closely resemble those used by
Richet and Geley in their more recent experiments in Paris. Denton
actually gave a public demonstration in Paine Hall, when the cast of a
spirit face was said to have been produced in melted paraffin. Other
mediums with whom these casts were obtained were Mrs. Firman, Dr. Monck,
Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs. Mellon), and William Eglinton. The fact
that these results were corroborated by the later Paris sittings is a
strong argument for their validity. Mr. William Oxley, of Manchester,
describes how on February 5, 1876, a beautiful mould of a lady's hand was
obtained, and how a subsequent mould of the hand of Mrs. Firman the
medium was found to be quite different. On this occasion Mrs. Firman was
confined in a lace net bag which went over her head and was fastened
round the waist, enclosing her hands and arms. This would seem to be
final as regards any fraud on the part of the medium, while it is also
recorded that the wax mould was warm, which shows that it could not have
been brought into the seance room. It is hard to see what further
precautions could have been taken to guarantee the result. On a second
occasion a mould of the foot as well as of the hand was obtained, the
openings of the wrist and ankle being in each case so narrow that the
limb could not have been withdrawn. There seems to have been no
explanation open save that the hand or foot had dematerialized.
Dr. Monck's results seem also to stand the test of criticism. Oxley
experimented with him in Manchester in 1876, and had the same success as
with Mrs. Firman. On this occasion different moulds from two separate
figures were obtained. Oxley says of these experiences, "The importance
and value of these spirit moulds cannot be overestimated, for while the
relation of spiritual phenomena to others of doubtful and sceptical turn
is valuable only on the ground of credibility, the casts of these hands
and feet are permanent and patent facts, and now demand from men of
science, artists, and scoffers a solution of the mystery of their
production." This demand is still made. A famous conjurer, Houdini, and a
great anatomist, Sir Arthur Keith, have both tried their hands, and the
results, laboriously produced, have only served to accentuate the unique
character of that which they tried to copy.
In the case of Eglinton it has been recorded by Dr. Nichols) the
biographer of the Davenports, that evidential casts of hands were
obtained, and that one lady present recognized a peculiarity-a slight
deformity-characteristic of the hand of her little daughter who had been
drowned in South Africa at the age of five years.
Perhaps the most final and convincing of all the moulds was that which
was obtained by Epes Sergeant from the medium Mrs. Hardy, already
mentioned in connexion with Denton's experiments. The conclusions are
worth quoting in full. The writer says-
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"Our conclusions are:
"1. That the mould of a full-sized perfect hand was produced in a closed
box by some unknown power exercising intelligence and manual activity.
"2. That the conditions of the experiment were independent of all
reliance on the character and good faith of the medium, though the
genuineness of her mediumship has been fully vindicated by the result.
"3. That these conditions were so simple and so stringent as completely
to exclude all opportunities for fraud and all contrivances for illusion,
so that our realization of the conclusiveness of the test is perfect.
"4. That the fact, long known to investigators, that evanescent,
materialized hands, guided by intelligence and projected from an
invisible organism, can be made visible and tangible, receives
confirmation from this duplicated test.
"5. That the experiment of the mould, coupled with that of the so-called
spirit photograph, gives objective proof of the operation of an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]