Legend
This page is a copy of page 99 from Spiritual Scientist, November 4, 1875. It starts with the ending of article "Spiritualism and Christianity; Their Mutual Relationships, Parallels and Contrasts", the cut of which is placed on page 248 of this volume.
< Spiritualism and Christianity (continued from page 3-248) >
manifestations has a purpose. There are some weaklings who could not be reached otherwise—doubting Thomases, or test-seeking Gideons who must receive proof upon proof before satisfaction takes hold of their minds. In their Oases the proof was granted, the test given, and so it is now. The manifestations being graduated in order to suit all classes of minds. Behind the apparent absurdity lie grand spiritual truths, and as channels for these manifestations, these despised facts are invaluable. Each one that is well attested—however absurd—is a palpable demonstration of the life that lies beyond the body; a demonstration longed and waited for by millions of our race, and which, if vouchsafed, would have been hailed with delight. Let them not be despised. After all, the question is not one concerning their quality and uses, but of their reality. This point settled and all others will doubtless be solved in good time.
A Poet`s Last Song
[Sung at his funeral in Copengagen, July 11th, 1875, and translated for the Golden Rule by A. Sindberg.]
Now lift me up, thou mighty Death, to spirit realms so vast ; |
Dr. Miller on Spiritualism
To the Editor of the Arcadian :—
In a very respectful notice of my Graphic letters, in a recent number of your paper, you state that you think I have “ been mislead by my enthusiasm, in regard to the facts of materialization at the Eddy’s. Perhaps your readers could judge better as to the correctness of your opinions if you would allow me to lay before them the facts on which my enthusiasm on this subject is ba^ed. Up to the middle of last December, I was a persistent and uncompromising opponent of Spiritualism. 1 was positive that the whole phenomena of physical manifestations were a fraud. I would say now that though perhaps you are over-skeptical in your belief about nine-tenths of the power which mediums claim for themselves, yet I am thoroughly satisfied that there is an immense amount of fraud practiced by pretending spiritual mediums. I have been prominently active in exposing Fay, Warren, the Hough Boy, Willis and the Holmes's. When I went to the Eddy’s, I felt perfectly confident that I should find them the biggest frauds of all, and would be able to detect how their fraud was perpetrated. The enthusiasm which I had, was all on the side opposed to my being misled by the Eddy mediums. At my first visit there, I spent fifteen days investigating the subject in the most thorough manner possible. It was five days before I could admit the possibility of its being true. I had every possible opportunity offered me to satisfy myself in regard to the truth of these manifestations. I roomed and boarded in the Eddy homestead, and was about as intimate with the mediums, and as much at home as though I had been in ir.y own house. I explored the house from cellar to attic, was under the floor and on the roof. I saw the mediums at all times during the day and evening, just before their seances, and after 1 sat at the fire side, and ate at the table with them. I searched their seance hall, and seance closet, over and over again, by daylight and by lamp light. I examined the mediums just before they passed into their seance room, and just after they came out, and I know I am not mistaken in the conclusion I have come to on the subject. To re-assure myself in.the positions I had taken, I paid a second visit of eleven days re examining this subject, under still more favorable conditions for detecting fraud, if there was any. An interval of nine months had elapsed since my first visit, during which my mind had been exposed to all the doubts, false reports, ridicule and opposition which family friends and skeptics could bring to bear upon me. Stories had reached me that the most intimate friends of the mediums, those who had for years been in attendance upon their seances, had reported them frauds. Some of these stories were told to me by Spiritualists who were entitled to credit by me. So that when I made my last visit, I determined to be more searching in my investigations than ever, and I was, for everything seemed to favor my being so. William Eddy, the principle materializing medium had purchased a new cabinet, which was brought in to the home while I was there. I saw it brought into the house, carried into the hall, and put together. It was placed on the other end of the platform and on the opposite side of the chimney from the old seance closet. I was in it after it was set up, and moved it about on the platform. I saw the medium go into it the first night alter it was set up, and the manifestations that took place were similar in character, and as extensive as from the old closet. Ten different materialized forms appeared. One, a child not three feet high; another an Indian, six inches taller than the medium, and as strong and powerful looking. Indians dressed in full Indian costumes, who were evidently taller and heavier than the mediums, came out and walked about the platform. Women much smaller and lighter than the mediums, dressed in woman’s apparel, did the same.
The medium permitted me to search his person after a seance, before leaving the platform, which I did as thoroughly as anybody could do, even to the naked skin, and opening his wallet and tobacco-pouch. The closet in which he held his seances was thoroughly searched immediately after, and I nothing was found by which any approach to personation of the forms could possibly take place.
There are just three ways explaining these manifestations. The first is, that they are produced by confederates. The second, that the mediums personate them by means of masks and secret wardrobes. The third is that they are what the mediums claim them to be, manifestations of materialized spirits, or of some active force or mysterious power which is equivalent to spirits. As to their being produced by confederates, even Dr. Beard, from the examination he made, admitted that was impossible. The new cabinet, put up while I was there, settles the question of confederates if Dr. Beard did not. But the most satisfactory and confirmatory proof of all is obtained at the seances of the sister of the Eddys, Mrs. Huntoon, who lives neighbor to the brothers. There you see with your own eyes two or three spirit forms, while the medium is in plain sight. At one of her seances. I tied her hands and feet with ropes, using knots I was taught to tie by one of the most expert detectives of spiritual frauds I have ever seen; knots, too, which no person, not a medium, can untie. When thus tied to her chair, while sitting in plain view, two spirit forms appeared at once. One of them came out in to the room where the spectators and mediums were, and showed himself in full form, and was recognized by a brother in the audience, with whom he shook hands.
The question of personation in this case is absurdly impossible, for the medium is before you and bound hands and feet. The impossibility of confederates is just as absolutely proved in this case as in that of her brothers Now let me ask you what other conclusion could any person come to, in view of such proofs, than the one to which I have come. I have not enumerated a fiftieth part of the proofs and tests that I had while there. This medium, though tied in the way above described, when placed behind the curtain was untied IN TEN SECONDS. 1will give any juggler, or sleight of hand performer, ten dollars, who will get out in twenty minutes, without help or without tutting or breaking the ropes, after I have thus tied him. I don't believe he can get loose in a l week without assistance. The fact is there is a great under lying truth on which this subject of Spiritualism rests, which lives and grows in spite of all the fraud and juggling, which pretended mediums exhibit, and in spite of the ridicule of the press and the denunciation of skeptics. It is on that truth that my filth is founded.
For a ten dollar bill I will guarantee the expends and a week’s board to any skeptic who will go there and stay a week, and produce satisfactory evidence that Mrs. Huntoon's manifestations arc produced by fraud. It is worth a journey to San Francisco to witness these manifestations My faith in God, in the Bible, in true Christianity, and in not only the immortality of the spirits, but the resurrection of the body has been strengthened by what I have seen at the Eddy’s. I can see only good to the whole human family to come from a right understanding and use of this wonderful and mysterious power.
New York.
Voluntary Trances
One of the most singular facts which has ever happened in connection with trance, is the power possessed by certain persons, voluntarily to <... continues on page 3-139 >
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 178, January 21, 1876, pp. 31-2
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Spiritual Scientist, v. 3, No. 9, November 4, 1875, p. 99