She smiled and put her hand in his.
“Why, indeed?” said she.
APPENDICES
NOTE ON CHAPTER II
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPIRITUALIST CHURCHES
This phenomenon, as exhibited in Spiritualistic churches or temples, as the Spiritualists usually call them, varies very much in quality. So uncertain is it that many congregations have given it up entirely, as it has become rather a source of scandal than of edification. On the other hand there are occasions, the conditions being good, the audience sympathetic and the medium in good form, when the results are nothing short of amazing. I was present on one occasion when Mr. Tom Tyrell of Blackburn, speaking in a sudden call at Doncaster—a town with which he was unfamiliar—got not only the descriptions but even the names of a number of people which were recognized by the different individuals to whom he pointed. I have known Mr. Vout Peters also to give forty descriptions in a foreign city (Liége) where he had never been before, with only one failure, which was afterwards explained. Such results are far above coincidence. What their true raison d’être may be has yet to be determined. It has seemed to me sometimes that the vapour which becomes visible as a solid in ectoplasm, may in its more volatile condition fill the hall, and that a spirit coming within it may show up as an invisible shooting star comes into view when it crosses the atmosphere of the earth. No doubt the illustration is only an analogy but it may suggest a line of thought.
I remember being present on two occasions in Boston, Massachusetts, when clergymen gave clairvoyance from the steps of the altar, and with complete success. It struck me as an admirable reproduction of those apostolic conditions when they taught “not only by words but also by power.” All this has to come back into the Christian religion before it will be revitalized and restored to its pristine power. It cannot, however, be done in a day. We want less faith and more knowledge.
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NOTE ON CHAPTER IX
EARTHBOUND SPIRITS
This chapter may be regarded as sensational, but as a fact there is no incident in it for which chapter and verse may not be given. The incident of Nell Gwynne, mentioned by Lord Roxton, was told me by Colonel Cornwallis West as having occurred in a country house of his own. Visitors had met the wraith in the passages and had afterwards, when they saw the portrait of Nell Gwynne which hung in a sitting-room, exclaimed, “Why, there is the woman I met.”
The adventure of the terrible occupant of the deserted house is taken with very little change from the experience of Lord St. Audries in a haunted house near Torquay. This gallant soldier told the story himself in The Weekly Dispatch (Dec., 1921), and it is admirably retold in Mrs. Violet Tweedale’s “Phantoms of the Dawn.” As to the conversation carried on between the clergyman and the earthbound spirit, the same authoress has described a similar one when recording the adventures of Lord and Lady Wynford in Glamis Castle (“Ghosts I Have Seen,” p. 175).
Whence such a spirit draws its stock of material energy is an unsolved problem. It is probably from some mediumistic individual in the neighbourhood. In the extremely interesting case quoted by the Rev. Chas. Mason in the narrative and very carefully observed by the Psychic Research Society of Reykjavik in Iceland, the formidable earthbound creature proclaimed how it got its vitality. The man was in life a fisherman of rough and violent character who had committed suicide. He attached himself to the medium, followed him to the séances of the Society, and caused indescribable confusion and alarm, until he was exorcised by some such means as described in the story. A long account appeared in the “Proceedings of the American Society of Psychic Research,” and also in the organ of the Psychic College, “Psychic Science,” for January, 1925. Iceland, it may be remarked, is very advanced in psychic science, and in proportion to its population or opportunities is probably ahead of any other country. The Bishop of Reykjavik is President of the psychic Society, which is surely a lesson to our own prelates whose disassociation from the study of such matters is little less than a scandal. The matter
relates to the nature of the soul and to its fate in the Beyond, yet there are, I believe, fewer students of the matter among our spiritual guides than among any other profession.
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NOTE ON CHAPTER X
RESCUE CIRCLES
The scenes in this chapter are drawn very closely either from personal experience or from the reports of careful and trustworthy experimenters. Among the latter are Mr. Tozer of Melbourne, and Mr. McFarlane of Southsea, both of whom have run methodical circles for the purpose of giving help to earthbound spirits. Detailed accounts of experiences which I have personally had in the former circles are to be found in Chapters IV and VI: of my “Wanderings of a Spiritualist.” I may add that in my own domestic circle, under my wife’s mediumship, we have been privileged to bring hope and knowledge to some of these unhappy beings.
Full reports of a number of these dramatic conversations are to be found in the last hundred pages of the late Admiral Usborne Moore’s “Glimpses of the Next State.” It should be said that the Admiral was not personally present at these sittings, but that they were carried out by people in whom he had every confidence, and that they were confirmed by sworn affidavits of the sitters. “The high character of Mr. Leander Fisher,” says the Admiral, “is sufficient voucher for their authenticity.” The same may be said of Mr. E. G. Randall, who has published many such cases. He is one of the leading lawyers of Buffalo, while Mr. Fisher is a Professor of Music in that city.
The natural objection is that, granting the honesty of the investigators, the whole experience may be in some way subjective and have no relation to real facts. Dealing with this the Admiral says: “I made inquiries as to whether any of the spirits, thus brought to understand that they had entered a new state of consciousness, had been satisfactorily identified. The reply was that many had been discovered, but after several had been verified it was considered useless to go on searching for the relatives and places of abode in earth life of the remainder. Such inquiries involved much time and labour, and always ended with the same result.” In one of the cases cited (op. cit. p. 524) there is the prototype of the fashionable woman who died in her sleep, as depicted in the text. In all these instances the returning spirit did not realize that its earth life was over.
The case of the clergyman and of the sailor from the Monmouth both occurred in my presence at the circle of Mr. Tozer.
The dramatic case where the spirit of a man (it was the case of several men in the original) manifested at the very time of the accident which caused their death, and where the names were afterwards verified in the newspaper report, is given by Mr. E. G. Randall. Another example given by that gentleman may be added for the consideration of those who have not realized how cogent is the evidence, and how necessary for us to reconsider our views of death. It is in “The Dead Have Never Died” (p. 104).
“I recall an incident that will appeal to the purely materialistic. I was one of my father’s executors, and after his dissolution and the settlement of his estate, speaking to me from the next plane he told me one night that I had overlooked an item that he wanted to mention to me.
“I replied: ‘Your mind was ever centred on the accumulation of money. Why take up the time that is so limited with the discussion of your estate? It has already been divided.’”
“ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I know that, but I worked too hard for my money to have it lost, and there is an asset remaining that you have not discovered.’
“ ‘Well’, I said ‘if that be true, tell me about it.’
“He answered: ‘Some years before I left I loaned a small sum of money to Susan Stone, who resided in Pennsylvania, and I took from her a promissory note upon which, under the laws of that State, I was entitled to enter a judgment at once without suit. I was somewhat anxious about the loan, so, before its maturity, I took the note and filed it with the prothonotary at Erie, Pennsylvania, and he entered judgment, which became a lien on her property. In my books of account there was no reference to that note or judgment. If you will go to the prothonotary’s office in Erie, you will find the judgment on record, and I want you to collect it. There are many things that you don’t know about and this is one of them.’
“I was much surprised at the information thus received, and naturally sent for a transcript of that judgment. I found it entered Oct. 21, 1896, and with that evidence of the indebtedness I collected from the judgment debtor seventy dollars with interest. I question if anyone knew of that transaction besides the makers of the note and the prothonotary at Erie. Certainly I did not know about it. I had no reason to suspect it. The psychic present at that interview could not have known about the matter, and I certainly collected the money. My father’s voice was clearly recognizable on that occasion, as it has been on hundreds of others, and I cite this instance for the benefit of those who measure everything from a monetary standpoint.”
The most striking, however, of all these posthumous communications are to be found in “Thirty Years Among The Dead,” by Dr. Wickland of Los Angeles. This, like many other valuable books of the sort, can only be obtained in Great Britain at the Psychic Bookshop in Victoria Street, S.W.
Dr. Wickland and his heroic wife have done work which deserves the very closest attention from the alienists of the world. If he makes his point, and the case is a strong one, he not only revolutionizes all our ideas about insanity, but he cuts deep also into our views of criminology, and may well show that we have been punishing as criminals people who were more deserving of commiseration than of censure.