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... | <center>Contributed by “M. A. (Oxon).”</center> | ||
{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|11-331}} | I have come upon a number of the-New ''York Sun, ''August 18th, 1875, which contains an account of the tests submitted to by Mrs. Thayer, in order to establish her mediumship. Colonel Olcott contributes the narrative, which is a model of lucidity. His investigations were so exhaustive, and his proofs so complete, that they will be of present interest to many who are presumably unacquainted with the record. | ||
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Colonel Olcott set himself to inquire, 1: As to Mrs. Thayer’s antecedents. 2: Her personal character. 3: The strength and regularity of her manifestations. 4: The conditions under which they could be produced. 5: Their reality as objective manifestations of Spirit power. | |||
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As to the first two points, he very soon satisfied himself that Mrs. Thayer was a person of good repute. One lady, who had known her for 12 years, testified “that a more transparently honest woman she never knew.” Was she a true medium? Mr. Lloyd Garrison, “a partner in one of the greatest mercantile houses in Now England;” Mr. Chas. Houghton, “the well-known lawyer,” and others, affirmed that she was. Colonel Olcott, thus fortified, proceeded to test for himself. He soon found that through her mediumship manifestations occurred with great regularity, that they were produced under the most stringent test conditions, and that the objective reality of the phenomena was beyond question. | |||
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Here are Borne of the tests and results obtained. Colonel Olcott records that he sat with Mrs. Thayer, in daylight, at the house of Mr. Charles Houghton, in West Roxburg, where both she and he were guests, “and where fraud or collusion was impossible.” While he held both her hands, “a fragrant crimson rose was dropped in his lap.” While under the light of a chandelier in the hall, while Colonel Olcott stood within two feet of her, he says, “a young canary suddenly sprang from my head towards the closed door, where I caught him.” “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.” This is Colonel Olcott s testimony, and the fact is very striking. | |||
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His first public seance with Mrs. Thayer was on July 4th, 1875, and on that occasion stringent precautions were taken against fraud. Eighty-two various plants and flowers, “fresh, unrumpled, and the petals covered with dew,” lay on the table, in variety and bulk which put fraud or collision out of the question. In front of one lady lay a “begonia, with a potful of dirt attached. This lady informed the company that it was a perfect test to 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.”'' | |||
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Another gentleman, “an engineer by profession, and brother- in-law of one of our most eminent astronomers, Mr. McMurtrie, told Colonel Olcott a very remarkable fact. One day, in a private stance 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. This Spirit told him that, if he would go to Mrs. Thayer, he would bring him a whole living heather plant from his native mountains. It happened that Mrs. Thayer was to hold a stance at a private house with a picked company; 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 worms wriggling in the same.” | |||
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Here is the product of one public seance, at which Colonel Olcott made a list on the spot. It was held on July 11th, 1875. “The doors were carefully locked, the window shutters fastened, and the premises searched.” The list, made in order from left to right round the circle, is this:—“One monthly rose; one ripe orange, on its branch; one tea rose; one Bonne Celine rose; one sprig of honeysuckle; one branch of cypress; one of brown heather; two white and carnation pinks; a stalk of three crimson rosebuds; one tea rose; a plant of ivy, thirty-seven inches long, with a potful of dirt attached to its roots, the whole weighing 41bs.; a Scotch heather and spray of honeysuckle (both mentally asked for by Mr. McMurtrie); a heliotrope; several pansies; a Bonne Celine rose, mentally asked for; a fem leaf ''(Onychium Auratum); ''one white pink, one carnation, and one pansy; mignonette and oxalis; one pansy and two ferns ''(Pellaeca Viridis ''and Adiantum ''hispidulum ''of the East Indies); four tea roses; one carnation; one wax begonia, with dirt and all, as lifted out of the pot; one crimson rose; a patch of short moss with dirt; one fem, one honeysuckle; one Callao lily, placed in Colonel Olcott’s bosom, and a largo bunch of smilax, that fell from a height on his face as he was looking up to the ceiling.” | |||
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This is pretty well for once. The list, remember, was made by Colonel Olcott on the spot, after he had satisfied himself that fraud was impossible: and some of the articles were brought by the invisible operator in answer to mental request. What more do we want to establish the whole Spiritualist theory? Colonel Olcott claims for himself that he “generally makes thorough work of his Spiritualistic investigations,” and on this occasion he certainly did so. Not content with what he had experienced, he set himself to work to get a personal test. One afternoon, without premeditation he visited Forest Hills Cemetery, and on the spur of the moment devised an excellent test “Passing through the greenhouses, my attention was struck by a curious plant, with long narrow leaves striped with white and pale green. It was the ''Dracaena Regina. ''With my blue pencil I marked on {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|11-331}} | |||
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