< Mrs. Huntoon's Expose (continued from page 1-190) >
various shades in this meeting that I refer to, and none of them saw fit to criticize my honesty on acconnt of my belief; but a Spiritualist did and that one stands now at the head of the line of Spiritualists here in Webster, Mass. Here let me tell you this same zealot stands firm by Mrs. Huntoon, and every bit of her performances. Twenty years ago we had a small opportunity to investigate Spiritualism. We considered it an element worthy of our best judgment, and something that richly deserves honest and open day light investigation. Soon tricks, miracles, and speculations gained mastry over the whole phenomena, and the general public was left to question and enlighten one another providing, that we kept all doubts to ourselves sod accepted the money makers' assertions whenever we asked for personal investigation. Any of us who rebelled against this narrow guage law were set down as skeptics and just as good as damned to commence with; Do any doubt this; I ask them to turn back over few numbers of the Banner of Light sod the Boston Investigator, and read hew from time to time the mould seances were advertized by Dr. Gardner under crucial test conditions. Did the public know anything about these conditions? If my memory serves me they were not allowed to ask a single question in reference to the matter, “Pay me your money for this show and swallow whatever you get,” was the head and front of the investigating part of it. The question now is did Dr. Gardner know whether he had applied crucial tests to the moulds before he advertized them? The public has his advertisements that he knew that the mould could not be otherwise than Spiritually begotten; and a certain clique in Boston are very piously passing Dr. Gardner's doubts from one to another. Well if the skeptics had never thought whether the moulds were of a human or Spiritual origin it would be much more pleasant for your Boston gamesters. But did Christianit ever begin to present us with such muddled conditions andy wrangling disputes? No, we are not Spiritualists, neither did the Spiritualists make any attempt to question Mrs. Huntoon’s truthfulness. That she came well recommended was all sufficient.
Yours, driven to the walls of Atheism,
The Conviction of Dr. Slade
The conviction of Dr. Slade cinder the vagrancy act did not turn upon the genuineness of his mediumship. The act 9th, George II., c. 5, provided that for the more effectual preventing and punishing any pretenses to witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjugation, whereby ignorant persons are frequently deluded and defrauded, or if any person pretended to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration, or undertook to tell fortunes, or pretended from his or her skill or knowledge, in any occult or crafty science, to discover goods supposed to be lost or stolen, he shall, upon conviction on an indictment be liable to a year's imprisonment, and be set in the pillory four times. The punishment of the pillory is abolished, but the rest of the section remains in force. The presiding judge cited this clause in his ruling, threw out the evidence in Slade's favor, and said the whole case turned upon the evidence of Lank ester and Donkin. The trial was before a judge alone, no jury. The sentence was three months in the House of Correction. An appeal was taken and bail furnished. The prosecuting attorney was dissatisfied with the amount fixed, and wished it larger, but the magistrate said he should do nothing harsh.
A Timely Warning
Charlotte Anderson, Campbell House, Sandown, Isle of Wight, Eng., heard a spirit voice speak to her, one evening, when her daughter came to her with a babe in her arms before retiring. The voice said, “Tell her to wait and you get up and go down first; do, do.” From past experience she obeyed, believing some danger imminent. As she entered the bed-room a tearful crash sounded. On looking up she saw more than twelve feet of the plastering had fallen on the bed. It was very heavy, and any one piece might have killed either mother or child or both. She wants an explanation from the conjurors or scientific men who do not accept her theory of a loving husband watching over her and giving this timely warning.
Testimony of Eminent Men
Alfred Russell Wallace, president of the biological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science testified is the Slade trial that he had been investigating the subject of Spiritualism for eleven years. During this period nine-tenths of the evidence he had received came through private mediums in private families, and satisfied him of the genuineness of the phenomena and that they proceeded from some unknown force. From the beginning to the end of his sittings with Dr. Slade he saw nothing whatever indicative of imposture. In his sworn testimony he says: —
I heard the raps and felt the touches which have been described, but the most remarkable thing was that the flat table, when my hands and those of Dr. Slade were clasped together, rose up, and almost instantaneously turned completely over on to the top of my head and slid down my back.
Serjeant Cox, president of the Psychological Society of Great Britain, testified to hearing in the presence of Dr. Slade loud rappings and a succession of furious blows upon the table hi front of him, jarring bis hands that lay upon it. He saw a chair lifted to the level of the table and suspended in the air without any visible support Dr. Slade’s hands and feet were fully in view at the time. A hand, not one-halt the size of Dr. Slade’s, warm, soft and moist, as solid and fleshy as his own seized him on the right leg, then caught the eyeglass hanging from his neck and opened it and again touched his own hand three times. He says: —
All that I have reported was done, that is certoin. How it was done, and by what agency, is a problem tor psychology to solve. For my own part I can say only that I was in the full possession of my senses; that I was wide-awake; that it was m broad daylight; that Dr. Slade was under my observation the whole time, and could not have moved hand or foot without being detected by me. That it was not a self-delusion is shown by this, that any person who chooses to go may see almost the same phenomena.
Prosecution of Dr. Slade
...
Editor's notes
- ↑ The Conviction of Dr. Slade by unknown author, Spiritual Scientist, v. 5, No. 12, November 23, 1876, p. 133
- ↑ A Timely Warning by unknown author, Spiritual Scientist, v. 5, No. 12, November 23, 1876, p. 133
- ↑ Testimony of Eminent Men by unknown author, Spiritual Scientist, v. 5, No. 12, November 23, 1876, p. 133
- ↑ Prosecution of Dr. Slade by unknown author, Banner of Light
Sources
Spiritual Scientist, v. 5, No. 12, November 23, 1876, p. 133