Mediumship in England, America, and France
Allow an old American correspondent of yours to address you a few remarks prompted by his observations during a short and hurried visit to London and Paris.
What has struck me most forcibly is the contrast between the splendour and abundance of the phenomenal manifestations now taking place in the United States, and the comparative paucity and poverty of those which come before the public on this side of the ocean. Is it the fear of police persecution before ignorant and stupid authorities which discourages and paralyses your mediums, and compels them to exhibit only with fear and trembling on invitation to private houses? Is it the discredit growing out of the Fletcher affair? Is it climatic? In Paris, M. Leymarie asked me why American and English mediums did not come there. I ascribed it in part to the general belief that a medium had no fair chance before the police and judicial authorities there, and to the fact that formerly, at least, the French school of Spiritualists used to discountenance and affect to look down on the “phenomenality,” and to consider that they obtained better and higher manifestations from spirits talking reincarnation with them through the rapping or tilting of tables, or through the pens or pencils held by mediumistic hands. He begged me to assure them that they were now anxious to get more of the impressive evidence involved in the phenomenality, and to inform my countrymen that, under the patronage and protection of the Societe Psychographie, good mediums would now be quite safe, and would be liberally patronised. He complained greatly that when Eglinton was recently in Paris, they could not induce him to give any stances. They would gladly welcome him back to No. 5, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, just in the rear of the Palais Royal.
Here, in London, I have seen only two mediums, the one Mr. James Cecil Husk, and the other Miss Caroline Pawley, whose advertisement contains the unusual feature that her stances are “free of charge.” I found her a very pleasing lady, honest, innocent, and zealous, and still, as she said, going through a process of development, by her “band” of spirits. I found that her “free of charge” was not a mere figure of speech, prophylactic against your police magistracy, but a sincere reality. At the close, when asked what was her usual fee, she answered that it was nothing. My friend who accompanied me, said that she could not refuse what we desired voluntarily to offer. She still declined. “But, Madam, you cannot? prevent our sending you our offering; for mediums must live.” “Pray do not, gentlemen,” was her earnest reply, “I shall be compelled to send it back, as I have had to do on former occasions. My guides forbid my taking money. The principal one is the spirit of my father. I have a small income, sufficient for my modest needs, and I cannot, under any circumstances, accept anything.” All I could do was to pay her a second visit at 43, Earl’s Court Road, and amaze and delight her with some account of some of the recent marvels I had witnessed in America, and by showing her a collection of the photographs illustrating the famous seances in Paris under the auspices of the Count de Bullet, of which I used to be the historiographer through your columns. The principal manifestation I obtained from her was this. We had scarcely taken our seats with her at the table, when she expressed great surprise at what she saw clairvoyantly. “Why, there is a great troop of black people who have come with you, and they are ranging themselves p round the room.” I asked whether they were Hindoo spirits, long-haired. “No, they are woolly-haired, and they are old and young, of both sexes; they are what you call African negroes.” I expressed surprise at this, as neither my friend nor I had ever had any particular connection or relation with them in our own country. (During what followed, she more than once answered that they were still there, looking on). Presently she said to me that there was a very tall dark man standing now close behind me; and beginning to write, she produced this: “It is I, well known to your world as Abe Lincoln.” I again expressed surprise, saying that neither my friend nor I had known him in life, nor been of his party, nor been connected with him by any particular sympathy or friendship. She then went on to write as follows:—
“Death, so named, is such a leveller, abolishing all distinctions; and I am often with you. It may be a matter of surprise to you; it is not to my spirit now. You love freedom. Ah, good friend, none more than I also. Work on in the cause of emancipating not only those who were slaves, but those who are slaves, and slaves of a worse type, namely, the lowest type: the mean, the selfish, the narrow, in all ways. Work on, work on, work on, and your endeavours will be blessed. It is I who have caused these lines to be written, for I, unknown to you, am one of your close guides.”
While it greatly surprised me, since I had been a strong sympathiser with the South in our civil war, this made no great impression on us (it was before she had proved her honesty by refusing to accept any payment). I thought that, knowing us to be Americans, it might have come out of her own sole mind. I asked Mr. Lincoln to tell me something about Booth (his assassin). She proceeded to write:—
“I do not wish to refer much to that seemingly painful passing away, and the hand that was made the instrument of my passing quickly into the present life, but I wish only this to say. He, that poor misguided man, was one of our own side, a Northerner. To myself it was the most blissful event, and while many were taking upon themselves a great amount of hostile feeling, and would fain have fought with their brethren the other side, I was enabled, as it seemed, by spirit help, to stand between, and impress upon their minds that they were wrong, and wherein they erred.”
The cortege of negroes had evidently accompanied their great benefactor and liberator. Of Miss Pawley’s honesty as a medium, there can be no question. I therefore feel bound to believe that these were there whom she clairvoyantly saw; the more so as Mr. Lincoln’s utterances on the subject of other freedoms beyond that of the emancipated negro slaves, were characteristic of that good and sincere man. A couple of days afterwards I bore to Miss Pawley an invitation to dinner from a distinguished lady, a well known and well beloved Spiritualist — need I name Mrs. Makdougal Gregory? She seemed much pleased, but said she must see what her guides said. And her hand presently wrote: “It may seem strange to refuse so kind and unselfish an invitation, but we are at present so careful with our precious instrument that we hardly can hold her in the tenement of the body. She herself is hardly conscious of the many wondrous changes that are now passing through her to get her ready for the work that, with our help, is to be her delight and duty during the remaining portion of her earth’s journey. I assure you, my friend, with great pleasure, she shall write to your friend when the time has expired that she will be enabled to mix a little more with others than just now. I sign myself One of C. Pawley’s guides.”—“Her father, I presume.”—“Yes.”
This is certainly an experience with mediums as pleasing as it is novel. Perhaps this lady is the first forerunner 'of a new class of mediums, who, finding themselves, as so few do, in a position of pecuniary independence for their modest wants, may choose to devote their powers to the work of Spiritualism for the sole love of it, and of its essential meaning and object. This is no reason why we should not liberally support those public mediums whose poverty make it necessary for them to live by the altar which they serve, and are specially endowed to serve. I take. it for granted you will watch with interest the further development of her mediumship and of its manifestations. I am told by a lady friend who lives with her that they include materialisation; in reference to which I gave her the piece of advice, that she should provide fine gauzy drapery, as Count de Bullet used to do, so as to economise to the spirits the “power,” required for its production by themselves. There was, in her parlour, a small cabinet, just large enough to hold a chair, formed by a semi-circular hoop, and secured to the wall between the two windows, from which hung curtains to be drawn forward so as to enclose her when seated. She gives sittings only by appointment on letters of application, though she gives them to strangers, as in my case. I trust that her “band” of guides will know how to discriminate among unknown applicants, and to admit only those who ask in a right spirit, and who will know how to treat her with the delicacy and respect due to a lady who uses her mediumship as her action in my case proves that she does.
I found Mr. Husk, who is all but blind, to be a genuine and good medium. He came to my rooms, the rear one of which we darkened. It was so small, and so crowded with its large furniture, a bed, wash-stand, dressing-table, and bureau, that when I placed a round table and three chairs in the vacant space surrounded by these articles, the medium being seated with his back to the window and my friend and self opposite to him, at the table, with our backs to the door, all holding hands, he was completely imprisoned. Nothing larger than a cat could have got round from where he sat to the rear of us. On the table were placed the musical instrument called Oxford chimes, a speaking-tube, and, set in a frame like that of a slate, a plate of that peculiar phosphoric glass (if I may so term it), which is so luminous in the dark as to make clearly visible any face or form brought near to it. We reinforced its luminosity by holding up to it a candle and a lot of burning wax matches for some minutes. The principal manifestation was that of the voices of some half dozen spirits. With our old friend “John King,” we held a good deal of conversation, his voice being the one we were familiar with of old, only more resonant than usual. He materialised several times, showing himself, not by his own “lamp,” but by the light of the phosphoric glass. He gave us his old familiar grasp of the hand; and while my friend, by John King’s direction, held his hand firmly clasped with that of the medium, the chair of the latter was threaded on to their united arms. The musical instrument was played upon while all our hands were joined together. But the most interesting thing to me was this. My mother had been speaking to me, though in a voice too low and muffled to be recognizable as hers of twenty-one years ago. By way of verifying her identity, I asked her to give me her accustomed sign” which I have often received from her as a spirit. What it was I alone know; the soft hand, whose touch I well knew, was then laid on the top of my head, which it tenderly caressed, and then moved forward, and, with one finger, made on my forehead the sign of the cross in the peculiar way always employed by her, namely, by making first the horizontal line and then the up and down one, reversing the usual way of forming that sacred symbol. This was pretty conclusive. Even if the medium could have vaulted over the table and our heads to get to the rear of me, he could not have known the sign I had asked for. I cordially recommend Mr. Husk as a medium, and also as a modest and intelligent gentleman. As he does not advertise, I will mention that his address is 26, Sandwich Street, Burton Crescent, W.C. His fee is two guineas. If any of your readers should send for him they must be careful to help him (in his blindness) into the cab, and direct the driver to get him safely into his mother’s door.
Concerning Adeptship
The definition of an Adept given by “Theosophist” only exposes another curious error. Clairvoyance and projecting the spirit are feats of white or human magic; they are simply developed mesmerism, as is also the healing power, which only in regenerate beings partakes of a divine character, and then pertains to red or divine magic. To make three incongruous attributes the test of Adeptship, is the apex of absurdity. Had Mr. J. A. Campbell been but a little more serious, he would, unconsciously, have made a discovery. For an Adept <... continues on page 11-178 >
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 466, July 29, 1881, pp. 55-7
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London Spiritualist, No. 466, July 29, 1881, pp. 57-9