Various Manifestations, and Speculations Thereon
Much has been printed of late in these pages about the philosophy of form manifestations, and as I wish to say a little upon this point, as well as to describe a variety of phenomena, the above title has been selected, because it affords wide scope for utterance in all directions.
Last Sunday night, at one of my recent seances with Miss K. Cook, sister of the well-known medium, Florence Cook (Mrs. Elgie Corner), Mrs. Cook, Mr. Gr. R. Tapp, Miss Edith Cook, and Master Donald Cook, were the other sitters present. The circle was held at the residence of the parents of the medium, and began with manifestations in the dark.
A minute or so after we had seated ourselves, some of the usual dark-circle manifestations began, such as the floating of playing musical instruments and of small articles over the heads of the sitters, but these soon ceased. We were touched by hands which were much colder than those of the medium, as materialised hands usually, if not invariably, are, at the beginning of a stance. They then gradually grow warmer as the vital energy in them increases, and when research is made into these points, probably it will be found that the average temperature of the body of the medium, and perhaps that of some of the sitters, sinks a little while supplying the energy.
A voice demanded a pencil, which Mr. Tapp held out in the dark. It was snatched from his hands, the sound of hurried writing was heard, the writing was placed in my hands by a hand, and the voice of Lillie Gordon, the spirit, asked for a light. We then found scrawled upon the paper:—
“I killed myself and six children, and commted suicide. Ma May 1860.”
After some words of commiseration, I asked him who he was, and why he came. In the dark (a light was struck to read each communication) he wrote:—
“I was a sergeant my name is Walworth.” I asked him where the deed was committed. He wrote:—
“I was living in the Ile of wite I was mad Vilworth.”
The above is not necessarily bad spelling from want of knowledge. (There is apparently a shortening of the words to economise power, and the “V” in Vilworth looks in the original like half a “W.”
I remarked that if such a terrible tragedy had taken place, the details he had given must have been published; would he, therefore, for the sake of his friends, tell us something about his private affairs, which no stranger could know, to convince his relatives of his identity? He then wrote:
“The inquest was held Sandow [Sandown?] fort, I saw the girl other—date May 19.”
I again asked him to tell me something not of a public nature, to identify him to his friends. He wrote:—
“I only came here because I feel better near this girl. I have no friend. I was mad”
Here the power for writing failed, and in answers by “Yes” and “No” raps to leading questions he said that the medium was harmed rather than otherwise by his proximity, and that he had been near her for three years. I asked him if he did not regret that his nearness to the medium was injurious to her, and an angry “No” was the response. In answer to other questions, he said that her being a medium had nothing to do with his presence with her; that all persons had both high and low spirits linked to them in the same way; and that he would tell more another time. Lillie, the guardian spirit of the medium, said that this man had been at several previous stances wishing to communicate, and that on this occasion she had given him permission to do so.
The usual dark circle manifestations then recommenced with great power; the circle was harmonious, the spirits seemed to be keeping high holiday. Musical instruments flitted about the room; little Edith Cook, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table to me, exclaimed, “Oh, ma! They’re lifting me!” and the next instant she was in my lap, having been instantaneously carried over the table. Musical instruments and other things were piled upon the two of us, then the table went rapidly up in the air, and was turned bottom upwards on the top of the head of Mrs. Cook. I was touching it, and felt its motions all the time. It was afterwards replaced. Had any mortal, who could not see perfectly in the dark, attempted to do these things, somebody must have been injured by the table’s legs, or by the flying instruments. A sewing machine was partly taken to pieces; its upper heavy part was separated from the stand, and placed on the floor. The table round which we sat was a rectangular one, three or four feet square, with four legs, and castors. The medium sat by my side, quietly talking more or less all through the seance.
Afterwards we sat in the light, in one of two rooms separated by folding doors, each room having a separate entrance to the passage outside, and one of the rooms used as a cabinet—all on the premises of the medium. Thus the next manifestation was not a test one for the public, although as a private friend, I thoroughly accept its genuineness from knowledge of Miss Cook and her sister, upon whom slander has never been breathed from the lips of the very large number of responsible well-known Spiritualists, who have so unprecedentedly tested the mediumship of one of them, and because this phenomenon having been well verified and established during a long course of years, there is now no necessity to be specially exacting as to conditions. TI mean that a form robed in white, and strongly resembling the medium, but with a dreamy somnambulic look about the eyes, and with a sorrowful face which sometimes brightened up, stood at the entrance to the back room used as a cabinet. In a good light she (Lillie) entered freely into conversation with Mr. Tapp and myself as to the amount of resemblance between herself and the medium, then she asked me whether I thought that her medium was then seated on her chair inside the cabinet. I replied that I did not know, but from past experiments was certain that a duplicate form could occasionally show itself, while the medium was tied and sealed in her chair in every possible way, or was secured there as her sister and other mediums had been by weak electrical currents, so that the breaking of the circuit, if she left her seat, would have been revealed by the indicating instruments outside.
After some time spent thus in friendly conversation, Lillie said that she would try to show us a spirit rising from the floor alongside the medium. "We were then all asked into the room used as a cabinet, which was illuminated through the Venetian blinds by diffused weak gaslight. We could all see each other; I was nearest to the medium; according to] instructions, I was holding her hands, and was told that a spirit would probably rise from the floor near my feet. That part of the floor consisted of a corner of the room, devoid of furniture, covered with a nailed-down carpet, and no open door near. There was nothing but the bare corner of the room and a bare carpet, all fully within my view. The other sitters were nowhere near this clear space, and all of us, Miss Cook included, were quietly talking. I was told by Mr. Tapp and others who had seen the manifestation before, that its first indication would be the appearance of a white mass on the floor, which might rise quickly to a height of five or six feet.
<... continues on page 5-50 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Various Manifestations, and Speculations Thereon by Harrison, W.H., London Spiritualist, No. 281, January 11, 1878, pp. 13-5
London Spiritualist, No. 281, January 11, 1878, pp. 13-5