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vol. title: vol. period: 1874-1876 pages in vol.: 208 |
< Ghosts That are Ghosts (continued from page 1-52) >
count from an English journal of the flower phenomena of Miss Nicholl (now Mrs. Guppy) of London; whereupon the visitor remarked how pleasant it would be if they, too, could have flowers brought to them. Mrs. Thayer assented, saying that she had had a passionate love for flowers ever since she was a child. They agreed to try if the spirits would not produce them; so the gas was turned off, and presently they smelt the perfume of a flower. Joyfully they lit the gas, and there lay a full-blown tuberose, which I take to be a very curious choice of avant-courier to the multitude of flowers which have since descended, for it typifies voluptuousness, according to the authorities. But stop! perhaps I am hasty, since it is of Oriental origin, and so in that sense fitly indicates the source from which we get not only all our Spiritualism and its parent, White Magic, but pretty nearly everything else we know or are ever likely to discover. One of Moore’s prettiest verses says:
“The tuberose, with her silvery light, |
However, we are after facts, so I will not dip into poetry, although the pudding is better for an occasional plum.
This auspicious beginning was followed up with natural assiduity, the casual visitor regularly installing himself as a member of the impromptu circle. One evening he asked the spirits to bring him one pink for each child he had in the other world, and straightway three were dropped on the table, each stem varying in length from the others, to express, as it was said, the relative ages of the children. The next phase was the dropping of flowers in the daytime, a lovely Bonne Céline rose falling at Mrs. Brigham’s feet as she stood talking to Mrs. Thayer.
The flowers now began to come more numerously, until finally they fell in perfect showers, albeit it was the dead of winter, and the medium was too poor to purchase them from green-houses out of her wages of four or five dollars per week, even if she were so minded. Mrs. Brigham tells me that probably not less than four or five hundred dollars’ worth were brought in this way that season, and not a cent was charged any visitor for the séances. Besides flowers of every imaginable variety, some very rare and expensive, and many unfamiliar to all but the most learned botanists, living canary birds, doves, butterflies, birds from the wild woods, goldfish, a toad, lumps of Quincy granite, and pebbles of different kinds were dropped in their presence, and one evening a unique addition was made to their collection in the shape of a smoking cap, which the unseen carriers brought from the house of Mr. Emerson, 16 Chester square.
Of course this sort of thing could not go on long without creating a great talk, and the poor woman was finally obliged to give up all other employment for that of a public medium. So she began with weekly circles, which were changed in a reasonable time to semi-weekly ones, and so have continued to the present time. This brings us to a consideration of our third point, viz.: Whether the manifestations are subject to periodicity, which from my personal observation I can answer in the negative. The testimony of all the hundred persons with whom I have talked about the case confirms my own conclusion that the phenomena occur at one time as well as another, except that the presence of certain persons seems to destroy the conditions most effectually. Prof. Wagner remarks upon the same circumstance in his highly interesting and scientific report of the Bredif seances of last winter, a translation of which has recently been published in the Spiritual Scientist, of Boston; Prof. Tyndall sneeringly alludes to it in his letter to the London Dialectical Society; and a very well-known Professor of Philology in an English University, who has given great attention to the subject, writes me, in a letter just received, that he has known of the phenomena to fail, and that Crookes had told him that Florence Cook had been spoiled for a seance by merely brushing against the people she encountered in a stroll down Regent street. The fact is that our conceited scientists do not yet know the A, B, C of psychology, and if we desire knowledge we must dig it out for ourselves; they are too busy with their bugs and tadpoles to give attention to so trifling a subject as the psychical powers of man.
As to our fifth point, there can be no room for doubt. Mrs. Thayer’s phenomena occur equally well in all houses and even out of doors. In a proper state of the atmosphere, and in the presence of favoring conditions as to the persons present, she can often receive into her hand, thrust out of the window of an upper room, flowers and birds, and I have had both brought to me, in daylight and gaslight, in the elegant house of Mr. Charles Houghton, in West Roxbury, where both she and I were guests, and where fraud or collusion was impossible. By daylight I sat with her in the dining room, behind a simple curtain of black glazed muslin, hung across a corner, and while I held both her hands, a fragrant crimson rose was dropped in my lap; by the bright light of the hall chandelier, as she sat upon the stairs, and I stood within two feet of her, reading to her that most vivid passage in chapter vii. of “Zanoni,” where Glyndon encounters the Dweller of the Threshold, a young canary suddenly sprang from my head and flew toward the closed door, where I caught him, and I have him now. As to the rose, I must remark that it was uncrumpled, freshly plucked, and its petals glistened with dewdrops; while as to the canary, that it was apparently one of a young brood from the cage of a friend in Philadelphia, brought by the invisibles in compliance with my secret request, and since identified by the lady as the bird which suddenly disappeared from the cage some days previously.
I have also talked with Mr. Black, the well-known Boston photographer, about a seance held in his gallery one evening, at which some fifty persons were present and at which many flowers were brought; and with an editor who met Mrs. Thayer at the house of a brother journalist, where flowers, birds, and gold fish were brought by the invisibles, and the medium and her chair were lifted up, as he held her hand, and placed upon the table.
When the canary was brought to me we were alone. My reading was interrupted by an ejaculation from her, and upon looking at her face I saw it turn deathly pale; her eyes closed; she raised her two hands as if to grasp something over my head, and at the instant and before they could reach the spot the bird flew away, as previously described. The palms of her hands were turned toward me, and I saw them from the commencement of the movement until they dropped in her lap, so that I positively testify that no mortal hand touched the bird until it lay panting and fluttering within my grasp.
The first public séance I attended was at her house, on the evening of July 4th, and the company numbered seventeen persons, twelve ladies and five gentlemen. An extension dining-table, with the leaves in, ran diagonally from corner to corner of the back parlor, which communicated by folding doors with the adjoining room. Mrs. Thayer seated herself at the centre of the table with her back to the mantel, and the rest of us were placed in such an order that, so far as possible, persons of the two sexes alternated. The doors of the two rooms opening into the passage had previously been locked, and I placed the key in my pocket; the windows were fastened down, and the blinds closed. The single candle was then extinguished, and we were left in profound darkness. My station was next to the medium at her left hand, and Mrs. Houghton sat at her other side. I was permitted to place my foot on her two feet, and to lay a hand upon hers, so that fraud, on her part, was impossible. We fell to singing of course, as this seems necessary in nearly all spiritual circles, and the capabilities of the human ear were fully tested. The music was so bad at times that Mrs. Thayer expressed a conviction that we would scare all the spirits within twenty miles of the place, which gentle hint produced a sensible effect in moderating the volume and improving the quality of the sound. After a time I felt the medium growing uneasy, as though she were struggling with some great gushes of electricity that passed through her frame; her hands grew cold; her breathing labored; she sighed, and emitted suppressed groans, and her whole system seemed in labor. Presently I heard a patter of leaves, and then a dull thud, as if a clod of earth had fallen upon the bare mahogany table, and as a flower, cool to the touch, dropped upon my hand, there came a whiff of sweet odors to my nose, and all around the board people exclaimed that something had been dropped before them or thrust into their hands.
A light was then demanded, and when the candle was lit a charming sight presented itself. The table was nearly covered with flowers and plants, all fresh and sparkling with dewdrops. Let me attempt to catalogue some of them. There was a branch of flowering almond, a calla lily, sprays of fern, two great leaves of palm, two Bonne Céline roses, a blush rose, two crimson roses, a number of double and single pinks, heliotrope, pansies, snow berry, a patch of growing moss, with dirt adhering to the roots, as though it had been just torn from its bed, and a wax begonia, with a potful of dirt attached, just as if emptied out of a pot a moment before and laid upon the table. This was in front of a lady who informed the company that it was a perfect test for her, as her spirit sister had told her the day before that if she would come here she should receive this plant as a present from her, and she had come two hundred miles to make the experiment.
I made careful count of the various plants lying before us, and found they numbered eighty-two. Considering the bulk that such a collection would make, and the facts that the flowers were fresh, uncrumpled, and the petals covered with dew, it appears conclusive that neither Mrs. Thayer nor any possible confederate could have brought them into the room. But I received from a gentleman, whose acquaintance I was fortunate enough to make, either this evening or upon a subsequent one, proof of Mrs. Thayer’s good faith, which is very satisfactory.
The gentleman is Mr. McMurtrie, a civil engineer by profession, and brother-in-law of one of our most eminent astronomers. He has latterly been looking into the spiritual phenomena and experimenting in various ways, with caution and intelligence. One day, in a private séance with some Boston medium, he received a communication from the alleged spirit of a relative who died in Scotland, of which country he was a native. The spirit told him that if he would go to the flower medium’s circle he would bring him a whole living heather plant from his native mountains. It happened that Mrs. Thayer was to hold a séance at a private house, with a picked company of ladies and gentlemen; so, keeping his own counsel, Mr. McMurtrie obtained permission to make one of the party. The first thing that was dropped on the table was a full-grown heather, in bloom, with a clod of dirt on the roots, and three angle worms wriggling in the same.
Of course, I examined the stalks of the plants and flowers at my first séance with attention, to see whether they had been cut off, broken, or torn. I noticed a very strange phenomenon. The stalks had been broken off — not short off, but with a thin ribbon of bark at one side — and around the fracture, in almost every case, was a little ring of black, as though, it appeared, an electrical current had effected some chemical action in the chlorophyl.
Two evenings after this I met Mrs. Thayer at Mr. Houghton’s house, and we had a private séance. There were present only Mr. and Mrs. Houghton, Mrs. Thayer and myself. The sitting began in the library, but finished in the room adjoining. The gas was extinguished, and we joined hands. We waited long before any phenomenon occurred, and the medium was ready to cry in her disappointment that just when it was most essential for her reputation that something should come, she was powerless. I confess that I shared no such feeling, for to my mind the best proof of real mediumship is often the failure of the phenomena to appear at the very time when the medium most desires them; tricksters suffer no such misfortunes. Patient waiting, in this case at least, was no loss; for just when we were ready to quit the room there came a patter upon the table, and immediately after the odors of flowers. We lit the gas, and there we found one blush rose, one Bonne Céline, two crimson rosebuds, and one white pink. The gas was turned out again, and after a while there came a louder sound, and upon re-lighting we found a long stalk of the Annunciation lily, bearing ten buds upon it, which Mrs. Houghton subsequently verified as broken from one of her plants in the garden. This was the only flower of the evening that could have come from the place, for the worms had destroyed every rose-wish, and the only white pink in bloom was found by us upon its stalk after the séance.
Mrs. Thayer’s public circles are held each Wednesday and Sunday evening. The admission is one dollar, and usually from fifteen to twenty persons are in attendance. At the séance of July 11th the following articles were brought in, my catalogue having been made from left to right all around the table: One monthly rose, one ripe orange on its branch, one tea rose, one Bonne Céline rose, one sprig of sweet honeysuckle, one branch of cypress, one brown heather, two white and carnation pinks, a stalk of three crimson rosebuds, one tea rose, a whole plant of parlor ivy, thirty-seven inches long, with a potfull of dirt attached to its roots; the whole weighing four pounds; a Scotch heather and a spray of sweet honeysuckle (both mentally demanded by the recipient, Mr. McMurtrie); a heliotrope, several pansies, a Bonne Céline rose, asked for mentally by the recipient; a fern leaf (Onychium auratum), one white pink, one carnation, and one pansy; mignonette and oxalis; one pansy, two ferns (Pellaia Viridis and Adiantum hispidulum of the East Indies), four tea roses, one carnation, one wax-begonia, with dirt and all, just as lifted out of the pot; one crimson rose, a patch of short moss, with dirt; one fern, one honeysuckle, one calla lily, placed in my bosom, and a large bunch of smilax which dropped on my face from a height, as I had my head thrown back to relieve the tediousness of my position. All the flowers and plants were gemmed with dewdrops; all the stems were broken off and showed the faint black rings around the fracture, and all the petals and leaves were cold to the touch instead of being warmish, as they would if they had been long gathered and kept about the person of some one. When I add that on this occasion, as upon every other, the doors were carefully locked, the window shutters fastened, and the premises searched, the improbability of trickery will be apparent.
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