Legend
< Various Manifestations, and Speculations Thereon (continued from page 8-8) >
in the manifestations of these doubles. But Dr. Wyld and Mr. Serjeant Cox should explain how it is that the medium is often awake, and holds audible and sometimes argumentative conversations, with the forms which externally resemble their own? I think that the theory of these particular manifestations most likely to prove true in the end is, that an independent spirit, having either lost its earthly body or never possessed one, has usually no means or instrument whereby it can produce effects on the plane of matter; it consequently by will-power gains influence over a mesmeric sensitive, and more or less controls his organism; in so doing acting somewhat upon hermit crab principles. The public ask that it shall more and more externalise and materialise itself, and in so doing it perhaps loses more and more of its own identity, and appears before us in the only human shape under its control, that of the medium.
With this speculation in my mind, I for a long time sought for some solution of the apparently hopeless problem, of measuring how far in any given manifestation, the intelligence displayed was that of medium, and how far that of the spirit. But once I noticed that while Dr. Slade’s “Allie” wrote with velocity in much the same handwriting as the medium, another professed spirit, who came for the first time, wrote with one-fourth the velocity, and in a laboured manner. The writing still resembled that of Dr. Slade, but it was larger, rounder, and more vertical than Allie’s, written a few minutes before. Possibly, had the message been compared with that of the man whose spirit professed to write it, it might have been found to be nearly half-may between the writing of Dr. Slade, and that of the “dead” man. Thus possibly, by comparison of specimens of handwriting, some indication may be afforded of the extent to which a spirit is able to manifest its own individuality by this process, in any given case.
Another theory of these doubles deserves consideration. May not a spirit, by will-power turn the spirit of a medium out of his body, and make that spirit do at seances what he wills? Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald once saw a black man mesmerize a woman on a public platform at Blackheath, and order her spirit to go home and touch one of her fellow servants in the house. A committee, formed by the audience, went to the house, and found the servants in a state of terror, because one of their number had been u touched by an unseen ghost.” Mr. Fitzgerald had reasons for believing that' in this case there was no trickery anywhere, and he knew the mesmerist. Here, then, we have a spirit (in the body), driving a spirit out of another body, and making it produce physical effects at a distance. If that second spirit had been seen, it would have been the “double” of the body of the medium.
As to the other and widely different class of forms, which appear while the medium is awake and in full view of the observers, I have never been able to see flexible living features in the spirit, except some years ago on the premises of some very strong genuine physical mediums, who finally swindled a well-known Spiritualist and some tradesmen out of considerable sums of money, and disappeared. On aesthetical grounds, I often fancy that some fine high-class living heads which came out of their bedroom cabinet—which many of my readers will remember—were not imposture, yet the evidence is not satisfactory to me who did see them, and would be utterly worthless to the public who did not see them. I then gave much time in the special endeavour to get living flexible, recognisable faces with private mediums, and up to the present hour have failed, in spite of every effort, and of using every available opportunity. The manifestations were very powerful, with good mediums, and the phenomena were genuine, but the faces were not living; they were rigid.
Spirit Drapery
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The British National Association of Spiritualists
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Editor's notes