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vol. title: vol. period: 1874-1876 pages in vol.: 208 |
< Ghosts That are Ghosts (continued from page 1-53) >
You know that I generally make thorough work of my spiritualistic investigations, and it will be inferred that in coming to conclusions favorable to Mrs. Thayer’s mediumship I was not hasty. It would, however, be unprofitable to your readers for me to describe in detail all the séances, public and private, I held with her during the five weeks of summer vacation I devoted to this case; one almost suffices for all. It is the most charming phase of mediumship I have ever seen, and, unlike every other, has no disagreeable side. To sit in a sealed room and be rained upon by fragrant flowers, brought none know whence, by unknown and invisible hands, is to enjoy a rare pleasure. Charming the “circle” surely is,
“Where opening roses breathing sweets diffuse |
Not only the flowers of the garden the field, and the greenhouse, and exotic plants are brought to Mrs. Thayer’s guests, but also flowers and shrubs which grow only in swamps, leaves of forest trees, branches of native and foreign fruit trees, bearing their juicy spoils, bunches of grapes, and sometimes, to the confusion of vulgar doubters, onions, cucumbers, and other vegetables they satirically call for. A fat butcher — one of your clever ones who are “not to be fooled by sperrits” — actually had a four-pound string of his own sausages flung around his neck, and his best coat, as an eye-witness told me, was finely besmeared.
I must add a few paragraphs from my note-book before closing, and at the same time express regret that the circumscription of space forces the exclusion of many facts of equal interest.
On the evening of July 7th a select party of ladies and gentlemen sat with Mrs. Thayer around the table in Mr. Houghton’s dining-room. There were rappings and poundings for a while, and then there came a sharp crash upon the mahogany, which induced us to light the chandelier at once. We found before us two stones half as large as one’s fist, and a common iron-bladed table-knife of a most quaint shape. The point of the blade was half as wide again as the rest, a semi-circular protuberance being made at the back, as though it were intended for a person to eat his food, peas and all, mostly with the knife. My benign and distinguished spirit friend, Sir Henry Morgan, alias John King, whose wonderful performances for me in Philadelphia are detailed at length in my book, “People from the Other World,” informed us that he had brought this curious implement from No Man’s Land, and the next morning it as mysteriously disappeared from the place where I had laid it before retiring.
One afternoon in the course of a drive I visited Forest Hills Cemetery, and passing through the green-houses my attention was struck by a curious plant with long, narrow leaves, striped with white and pale green, the white preponderating. It was the Dracæna Regina. With my blue pencil I marked upon one of the leaves the cabalistic sign of the interlaced triangles, commonly called “Solomon’s Seal,” and requested the spirits to bring it to me at the circle on the following evening. I purposely sat at Mrs. Thayer’s right upon this occasion, and held her hands, when suddenly I felt something cool and moist drop upon my hand, and, when the candle was lit, found it to be my marked leaf. I went to the green house again, and found that the leaf selected by me had actually been broken off.
At the séance of July 21st there were brought to me, (as alleged by some Oriental spirits who claim to be interested in my recent readings of the Occultist authors,) a bud of the Egyptian Lotos and a branch of that most curious of plants, the Coccolobus Platyclada, or flat-branched lobe berry, which was discovered by Milne, at Wanderer Bay, Solomon’s Island, during the voyage of H. M. S. Herald.
My last evening with Mrs. Thayer was a test-séance, specially arranged for me by the courtesy of Mrs. Brigham, who feels a deep interest in her protégé, and was determined that I should not leave Boston with a single doubt as to the genuineness of Mrs. Thayer’s mediumship. The séance was in Mrs. Thayer’s parlor, and there were present Mrs. Brigham, Mr. G. P. Reed, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Houghton, Mr. W. G. Train, Mr. Mitchell (the best clairvoyant I have ever met), Mrs. Thayer, and myself — eight in all. Every person present allowed himself and herself to be searched for concealed flowers or birds, and I put Mrs. Thayer into a bag, made for me, of mosquito netting, with a single seam, and a draw-string at the mouth. It had not been in Mrs. Thayer’s hands, and the seam was carefully examined just before she stepped into the bag. I drew the string tightly about her neck, and tied and fastened it behind in such a way that it was impossible for her to tamper with the knots; in fact, I had to cut them, after the séance, to release the medium from duress. I took the additional precaution of searching Mrs. Thayer’s dress before bagging her, as a stupid lie was in circulation to the effect that she wore a rubber bag in which to carry flowers and keep them moist. The light was put out at 8:25. We sat ten minutes, re-lighted the candle, found nothing, although the medium had given the usual signs of the passage of the force through her system, in groans, shudders, and involuntary muscular movements.
The light was extinguished again, and after the lapse of another ten minutes re-lighted. This time there were flowers. There were four beautiful rosebuds; one Bonne Céline for Mrs. Brigham, whose favorite it is; two ferns (Pteris flabellata of Africa, and Adiantum amentum of Brazil), and one wax plant with a flower upon it. As the match was struck a little bird, of the size of the common English sparrow flew off the table and was caught and secured. Encouraged by this success, we darkened the room again, and almost instantly the medium exclaimed that “they” had put a pebble in her mouth. We lit up, and found her, sure enough, holding a small, flat, smooth, white pebble in her mouth, which she could not have put there herself. We extinguished the candle again, and sat for some time without any results. Mrs. Thayer had been quite ill that day, and said early in the evening that she wished the spirits would bring her some peaches. Suddenly we heard some hard substances drop on the table, and then there came a great flutter of wings, a rush as of something through the air, and, a light being had instantly, there lay before Mrs. Thayer eight ripe peaches, and near the ceiling of the room flew a milky-white fan-tailed pigeon. This was enough for one evening — we had had flowers, fruit, birds, and a mineral brought, so with expressions of mutual satisfaction we congratulated the medium and took our leave.
That I was satisfied as to the genuine mediumship of Mrs. Thayer, her general good character, her honesty of purpose, and her inheritance of her strange powers, will not be doubted. But I will not undertake to say that she is different from the majority of mediums, and never resorted to trick. This would be impossible. But that I detected her in any such attempt during a series of experiments extending over five weeks is not true. Mediums, especially the women, are given to mutual slander, like painters, musicians and actors, and one is not safe in believing all one hears from them of each other, or, for that matter, what they say of their own performances. There have been isolated cases of flower-bringing in the presence of other mediums, but Mrs. Thayer is the true American Flora. In England they have her counterpart in a Mrs. Guppy (Miss Nicholl), whose mediumship will be found fully described at pp. 153, 200, 277, 371, and 372 of the London Dialectical Society’s “Report on Spiritualism,” a work which may be had in this country.
<Untitled> (A Most Astonishing Test)
Fifteen persons, several of them reporters, met in Mrs. Youngs’s parlors in Twenty-seventh street last evening, and found the medium in good spirits. Across the end of the room stood a large, deep, seven-and-a-half-octave piano, which appeared upon trial to weigh about one thousand pounds. The reporter could not lift one end of it. The gas was burning at full head the whole evening, and the windows and door were open. Among the visitors were Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, who had come to report what they saw to the St. Petersburg University, Mr. Paul Juignet, Mr. David Morrison of Washington, and other well known persons.
The performance began with the lifting of the piano by the invisible powers, three times for “yes” and once for “no,” in answer to questions put by Mrs. Youngs, she resting her hands lightly on top of the music-rack. She then sat down and played various airs, and the instrument rose and fell and beat the time. She then went to one end of the piano and called up Col. Olcott and as many of the others as chose to make the experiment, and, causing each to place his left hand underneath the case, laid one of her hands lightly under it, whereupon, at her demand, the end of the heavy instrument was lifted off the floor without the slightest effort on her part. The Colonel here asked to be permitted to make a single test which should not injure the medium at all. Mrs. Youngs consenting, he produced a hen’s egg from a box, and requested her to hold it in her hand against the under side of the piano, and then ask the spirits to raise it. The medium said that in the course of her mediumship such a test had never been suggested, and she could not say that it would be successful, but she would try. She took the egg and held it as desired, and then rapping upon the case with her other hand, asked the spirits to see what they could do. Instantly the piano rose as before, and was held for a moment suspended in the air. The novel and striking experiment was a complete success.
Mrs. Youngs then desired as many of the heaviest persons in the room as could sit upon the instrument to mount it, and, the invitation being accepted by seven gentlemen and ladies, she played a march, and the instrument, persons and all, were lifted easily. Col. Olcott now brought out two English walnuts, and asked the spirits to crack their shells under the piano legs without crushing the kernels, the idea being to show that some other power than that of the one woman herself, and a power governed by intelligence, was exerting itself. The spirits were willing, but as the piano legs rested upon rolling casters the test was abandoned. He then asked to be permitted to hold an egg in his own hand against the under side of the piano, and have Mrs. Youngs lay her hand beneath and against his, so that he might have a perfect demonstration of the fact that no muscular force whatever was exerted by her. This test was also agreed to and immediately tried. The piano rose the same as before. The manifestations of the evening were then brought to a close with the lifting of the instrument without the medium’s hands touching it at all.
Rosicrucianism in New York
The science of the “Rosy Cross,” we read about in Bulwer’s “Zanoni,” and in various histories ancient and modern. Of late its study has received a fresh impetus.
that a brotherhood of occultists has existed and still exists, reaching perfection in the far East; hating black magic and encouraging white; that Jesus belonged to it and initiated into it John, who wrote the Apocalypse; that Jesus died at forty-seven instead of thirty-three; that he was an Essene and studied pure magic in India; that in the fraternity’s archives are preserved grand records of truths about men and nature, which shall be revealed to the world when it righteously hungers therefor; that Rosicrucians can work what are falsely called miracles, by their knowledge of the true essence of things; that in Siamese temple-worship the dead are brought to life, the young grow suddenly old and the old young, women dance in the air; that some of the Rosicrucian disciples never die, having the elixir of life; that they possess the philosopher’s stone; that gold rings can be brought today, and are, from rose-buds; that human bodies can disappear and reappear at will; that they can float in the air; that flying is as easy as to dream it; that the fraternity, seen and unseen, control the fate of nations; that its members directed Washington through his few degrees of freemasonry; that they paid the six milliard Prussian war debt of France; that they control the Carbonari, (secret society), of Italy; that all nature is subject to their decrees through their knowledge of divine laws. These claims are set forth in print, as is also
God dwells alone and is unapproachable. Souls pre-exist. They enter bodies at birth for developing discipline. It is the operation of the undeveloped spirits who have not yet been born into this world and have no consciences, that make the vagaries of Spiritualism and their demonized revelations. Only by conformity to God’s law can truth be reached. Only the pure are entitled to it. Prestidigitateurs like Houdin and Hermann have not the true power, but Magicians have it in the farther east.
It is a little startling to find oneself associating with those who possess, or claim to possess, such powers, and are linked with Count St. Germain, Cagliostro, Philalethes, Flood, Roger Bacon and a hundred ancient astrologers and worthies, and to hear of superiors and inferiors in the brotherhood. Yet there are the statements put forward by those who constitute what may be called the aristocracy of Spiritualism. <... continues on page 1-55 >
Editor's notes
Sources
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Banner of Light, v. 37, No. 23, September 4, 1875, p. 8