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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Ghosts That are Ghosts|1-53}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Ghosts That are Ghosts|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, | ||
{{Style P-Poem|poem=“Where opening roses breathing sweets diffuse | |||
And soft carnations shower their balmy dews; | |||
Where lilies smile in virgin robes of white, | |||
The thin undress of superficial light, | |||
And varied tulips show so dazzling gay, | |||
Blushing in bright varieties of day.”}} | |||
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. | |||
{{Style P-Subtitle|{{Style S-Small capitals|presents from the great john king.}}}} | |||
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. | |||
{{Style P-Subtitle|{{Style S-Small capitals|mrs. thayer bagged.}}}} | |||
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. | |||
{{Style P-Subtitle|{{Style S-Small capitals|flowers, birds, pictures and pebbles.}}}} | |||
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. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Henry S. Olcott}} | |||