Chapter VI: Diabolic Possession and Modern Spiritism (3)

Some months after this event Hélène suddenly fell rigid to the ground as if she had been thrown down by some strong hands. She was able to get up immediately but only to fall again. It was thought she was epileptic or at any rate seized with some unusual attack, some fit or convulsion. But after a careful observation of her case Dr. Azéma, the local practitioner, shrewdly remarked: “Nobody here but the Priest can cure you.” From this time disorders of spirit and physical maladies increased with unprecedented rapidity and violence. “Her physical and mental sufferings, which began on 25 March, 1850, continued until her death on 8 January, 1914, that is to say during a period of sixty-four years. But those of diabolic origin ceased towards the end of 1897. So the diabolic attacks actually lasted for some seven-and-forty years, and for six years of this time she was possessed.”[84] It was in January, 1863, it first became undeniably evident that her sufferings, her spasms, and painful trances had a supernatural origin. The abbé Bougaud, Archdeacon of Orleans, having interviewed her, advised that she should be brought to the Bishop, Monsignor Dupanloup, and made arrangements for her to stay at a Visitation convent in the suburbs, promising that a commission of theologians and doctors should examine her case. On Thursday, 28 October, 1865, Hélène accordingly commenced a retreat at the convent, where she was kindly received. M. Bougaud saw her for about two minutes, and she was handed an official order which would allow her access to the Bishop without waiting for a summons from his lordship or any other undue delay. But there was some misunderstanding, for on the Friday a doctor of high repute called at the convent, as he had been requested, interrogated and examined her for some three-quarters of an hour and then roundly informed the Mother Superior that she was mad, stark mad, and had better be sent home at once. He seems to have impressed the Bishop with his report, for Monsignor Dupanloup sent a messenger to direct the nuns to dismiss her forthwith, and accordingly she was perforce taken back to Coullons after a fruitless journey of bitter disappointments and discouragement. Many persons now began to regard her with suspicion, but in the following year, 1866, the Bishop, whilst visiting Coullons for an April confirmation, granted her an interview which caused him very considerably to modify his first opinion, and M. Bougaud, who saw her in September, declared himself convinced of the supernatural origin of the symptoms she displayed.

The most terrible obsessions now attacked her, and more than once she was driven to the verge of suicide and despair. “From 25 March, 1850, until March, 1868, Hélène was _only obsessed_. This obsession _lasted 18 years_. At the end of this time she was _both obsessed and possessed_ for 13 months. From this double agony of obsession and possession she was completely delivered by the exorcisms, which the Bishop had sanctioned, at Orleans, on 19 April, 1869. Four months’ peace followed, until with heroic generosity she voluntarily submitted to new inflictions.

“At the end of August, 1869, she accepted from the hands of Our Lord the agony of a new obsession and possession in order to obtain the conversion of the famous general Ducrot. When he was converted, she was delivered from her torments at Lourdes on 3 September, 1875, the cure being effected by the prayers of 15,000 pilgrims who had assembled there. _The obsession and possession in their new form_ had lasted five years. During the forty years which passed before her death, she was never again subject to possession, but she was continually obsessed, the attacks now being of short duration, now long and severe. The sufferings of every kind which she endured as well she offered with the intention of the triumph and good estate of God’s priests. Why she was originally thus persecuted by the Devil for nineteen years, and with what intention she offered those torments from which she was delivered by the exorcisms directed by the Bishop, must always remain a secret.”[85] On Tuesday, 13 August, 1867, a supernormal impulse came over her to write a paper full of the most hideous blasphemies against Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and, what is indeed significant, to draw blood from her arm and to sign therewith a deed giving herself over body and soul to Satan. This she happily resisted after a terrible struggle. Upon the following 28 August reliable witnesses saw her levitated from the ground on two distinct occasions. With this phenomenon we may compare the levitation of mediums at spiritistic séances. Sir William Crookes in _The Quarterly Journal of Science_, January, 1874, states that “There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home’s rising from the ground.” Of the same medium he writes: “On three separate occasions have seen him raised completely from the floor of the room.”

In March, 1868, it became evident that the poor sufferer was actually possessed. Fierce convulsive fits seized her; she suddenly fell with a maniacal fury and a deep hoarse voice uttered the most astounding blasphemies; if the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary were spoken in her presence she gnashed her teeth and literally foamed at the mouth; she was unable to hear the words _Et caro Uerbum factum est_ without an access of insane rage which spent itself in wild gestures and an incoherent howling. She was interrogated in Latin, and answered the questions volubly and easily in the same tongue. The case attracted considerable attention, and was reported by the Comte de Maumigny to Padre Picivillo, the editor of the _Civiltá Cattolica_, who gave an account thereof to the Holy Father. The saintly Pius IX[86] showed himself full of sympathy, and even sent through the Comte de Maumigny a message of most salutary advice recommending great caution and the avoidance of all kinds of curiosity or advertisement.

In February, 1869, when interrogated by several priests Hélène gave most extraordinary details concerning bands of Satanists. “In order to gain admission it is necessary to bring one or more consecrated Hosts, and to deliver these to the Devil, who in a materialized form visibly presides over the assembly. The neophyte is obliged to profane the Sacred Species in a most horrible manner, to worship the Devil with humblest adoration, and to perform with him and the other persons present the most bestial acts of unbridled obscenity, the foulest copulations. Three towns, Paris, Rome, and Tours, are the headquarters of the Satanic bands.”[87] She also spoke of a gang of devil-worshippers at Toulouse. It is obvious that a mere peasant woman could have no natural knowledge of these abominations, the details concerning which were unhappily only too true.

In the following April Hélène was taken to Orleans to be examined and solemnly exorcized. The interrogatories were conducted by Monsieur Desbrosses, a consultor in theology for the diocese, Monsieur Bougaud, and Monsieur Mallet, Superior of the Grand Seminary. They witnessed the most terrible crisis; the sufferer was tortured by fierce cramps and spasms; she howled like a wild beast; but they persisted patiently. Mons. Mallet questioned her on difficult and obscure points in theology and philosophy using now Latin, now Greek. She replied fluently in both tongues, answering his queries concisely, clearly, and to the point, incontestable proof that she was influenced by some supernormal power. Two or three days later the Bishop was present at a similar examination, and forthwith commissioned his own director, Monsieur Roy, a professor at the Seminary, to undertake the exorcisms. With him were associated Monsieur Mallet, the parish priest of Coullons, and Monsieur Gaduel, Vicar-General of the diocese. Two nuns and Mlle Preslier held the patient. It was found necessary to repeat the rite five times upon successive days. On the last occasion the cries of the unhappy Hélène were fearful to hear. She writhed and foamed in paroxysms of rage; she blasphemed and cursed God, calling loudly upon the fiends of hell; she broke free from all restraint, hurling chairs and furniture in every direction with the strength of five men; it was with the utmost difficulty she could be seized and restrained before some serious mischief was done; at last with an unearthly yell, twice repeated, her limbs relaxed, and after a short period of insensibility she seemed to awake, calm and composed, as if from a restful slumber. The possession had lasted thirteen months from March, 1868, to April, 1869.

Into the details of her second possession from 23 August, 1869, until 3 September, 1874, it is hardly necessary to enter at any length. Monsieur Preslier noted: “The second crisis of possession was infinitely more terrible than the first; 1st, owing to the length; the first lasted thirteen months, the second five years. 2nd, the first was relieved with a number of heavenly consolations, but very little solace was obtained during the second. 3rd, there was much bodily suffering in the first, in the second there were far keener mental sufferings and more exquisite pain.”[88] She was finally and completely delivered at Lourdes on Thursday, 3 September, 1874. It is not to be supposed that she passed the remaining forty years of her life without occasional manifestations of extraordinary phenomena. After much sickness, cheerfully and smilingly borne, she made a good end in her eightieth year, on 8 January, 1914, and is buried in the little village cemetery of her native place.

We have here the case of a woman who was mediumistic and clairvoyant to an almost unexampled degree, and it is very certain that if these would-be fortune-tellers and mages who so freely advertise their powers in many spiritistic journals to-day truly realized to what terrible dangers and very real psychic perils the use and even the mere possession of such faculties expose them, they would, so far from trafficking in the presumption of abnormal gifts, regard them with caution and indeed shrink from any occult practice at all, lest haply they become the prey of controls and influences so cunning, so potent for evil, as to merge them body and soul in untold miseries and shadows darker even than the bitterness of death.

The modern Spiritistic movement, so strongly supported by recent scientific utterances, is increasingly affecting all classes and conditions of society, and is beginning in every direction to undermine and actually to usurp the religious belief and convictions of thousands of earnest and seriously inclined but not very accurately informed or well-instructed persons. The basis of the movement is the claim that the spirits of the dead are continually seeking to communicate and, indeed, communicating with us through the agency of sensitives, so that it is possible to get into touch and to converse with our dear ones who have passed from this life. It is hardly necessary to emphasize the almost infinite consolation and comfort such a doctrine holds for the bereaved, how eagerly and with what yearning mourners will embrace such teaching, and how perseveringly and with what tender agonies of an hungered love they will devote themselves to the practices they imagine will place them in closest connexion and communion with those whom they have lost awhile, but whose voices they ever long to hear, whose faces they long to see once again. It is a matter of common knowledge that during and since the Great War Spiritism has increased tenfold; many who were wont to laugh at it, who refused to listen to its claims and scorned it as futile nonsense, are now among its most enthusiastic devotees. In truth there must be few of us who cannot appreciate the irresistible influence such beliefs will have upon the mind. Spiritism is seemingly full of joy, and hope, and promise, and happiness. It will wipe all tears of sorrow from poor human eyes; it is balm to the wounded heart; divine solace and sympathy; the barriers of death are broken down; mortality is robbed of its terrors.

Were it true, could we summon to our side the spirits of those whom we have so fondly cherished and converse with them of things holy and eternal, could we learn wisdom from their fuller knowledge, could we be assured in their own sweet accents of their fadeless love, could we now and again be comforted with a sight of their well-known faces, the touch of their hands upon ours, were it God’s will that this should be so, then assuredly Spiritism is a most blessed and sacred thing, consolation to the afflicted, succour to the distressed, a shining light upon earth’s dark ways, a very ready help to us all. But if on the other hand there is reason and grave reason to suppose that the spirits, with whom it is possible under certain exceptional conditions and by certain remarkable devices to establish a contact, although often claiming to be departed friends or relatives and supporting their contention (we acknowledge) with no little plausibility, are again and again found to be masquerading intelligences, in some cases undoubtedly actors of excellence who play their part for a time with consummate skill, but who have never at any séance whatsoever anywhere been able conclusively to demonstrate their identity, if in fact these manifesting intelligences are deceivers, imposing for purposes of their own a fraudulent impersonation upon those who with breaking hearts are so eagerly longing to communicate with son or husband fallen in battle, it may be, or on some lone shore, if they are proven liars, if their messages are trivial, ambiguous, cryptic, incapable of verification, shifty, ignorant, nay worse, blasphemous and hideously obscene, then are we justified—and we are in point of fact fully and completely justified—in concluding that the spirits are not those of the departed, but evil intelligences who never have been and never will be incarnate, unclean spirits, demons, and then assuredly Spiritism is most foul, most loathly, most dangerous, and most damnable.

The mediums, who of their own will freely open the door to these spirits, who invite them to enter, stand in the most deadly peril. A Spiritist of many years’ experience who saw not too late the hazard and abandoned that creed, writes as follows: “Spirit communion soon absorbs all the time, faculties, hopes, fears, and desires of its devotees, and herein lies one of the greatest dangers of spiritualism. Infatuated by communication with the unseen inhabitants of the hidden world, the medium loses his or her interest in the things pertaining to everyday life and interest. A soft and pleasing atmosphere appears to surround them. The realities of flesh and blood are lost in ideal dreaming and there is no incentive to break away from a state of existence so agreeable, no matter how monstrous are the delusions practised by the spirits. Their consciences are so callous as if seared with a hot iron, sin has to them lost its wickedness, and they are willing dupes to unseen beings who delight to control their every faculty. Very seldom has a full-fledged spiritualist been able to comprehend the necessity and blessedness of the religion of Jesus Christ, and to withdraw from the morbid conditions into which he has fallen....

“For about three months I was in the power of spirits, having a dual existence, and greatly tormented by their contradictory and unsatisfactory operations.... They tormented me to a very severe extent, and I desired to be freed from them. I lost much of my confidence in them, and their blasphemy and uncleanness shocked me. But they were my constant companions. I could not get rid of them. They tempted me to suicide and murder, and to other sins. I was fearfully beset and bewildered and deluded. There was no human help for me. They led me into some extravagances of action, and to believe, in a measure, a few of their delusions, often combining religion and devilry in a most surprising manner.”[89]

S. JAMES VISITS THE WARLOCK’S DEN. Breughel

[_face p. 250_]

In my own experience, I myself, not once, but over and over again, have seen all these symptoms unmistakably marked in those whose sole interest and aim in life seemed to be a constant attendance at séances. I have watched, in spite of every effort unable to check and dissuade, the fearfully rapid development of such characteristics in persons who have begun to dabble with Spiritism, at first no doubt in moods of levity and wanton curiosity, but soon with hectic anxiety and the most morbid absorption. Some fifteen years ago in a well-known English provincial town a circle was formed by a number of friends to experiment with table-turning, psychometry, the planchette, ouija-boards, crystal-gazing, and the like. They were, perhaps, a little tired of the usual round of social engagements, dances, concerts, bridge, the theatre, dinner parties, and all those mildly pleasurable businesses which go to make up life, or at least a great portion of life, for so many. They wanted some new excitement, something a little out of the ordinary. A lady, just returned home from a prolonged visit to London, had (it seems) been taken to some Spiritistic meeting, and she was full of the wonders both witnessed and heard there. The sense of the eerie, the unknown, lent a spice of adventure too. The earlier meetings were informal, first at one house, now at another. They began by being infrequent, almost casual, at fairly long intervals. Next a certain evening each week was fixed for these gatherings, which soon were fully attended by all concerned. No member would willingly miss a single reunion. Before long they met twice, three times, every evening in the week. Professional mediums were engaged who travelled down from London and other great cities, some at no small distance, to give strange exhibitions of their powers. I myself met two of these experts, a man and a woman, both of whose names I have since seen advertised in Spiritistic journals of a very recent date, and I am bound to say that I was most unfavourably impressed in each instance. Not that I for a moment think they were fraudulent, nor do I suspect any vulgar trickery or pose; they were undoubtedly honest, thoroughly convinced and sincere, which makes the matter ten times worse. And so from being mere idle triflers at a new game, incredulous and a little mocking, the whole company became besotted by their practices, fanatics whose thoughts were always and ever centred and concentrated upon their communion with spirits, who talked of nothing else, who seemed only to live for those evenings when they might meet and enter—as it were—another world. Argument, pleading, reproof, authority, official admonishment, all proved useless; one could only stand by and see the terrible thing doing its deadly work. The symptoms were exactly as above described. In two cases, men, the moral fibre was for a while apparently destroyed altogether; in another case, a woman, there was obsession, and persons who either knew nothing of, or had no sort of belief in, Spiritism, whispered of eccentricities, of outbursts of uncontrolled passion and ravings, which pointed to a disordered mind, to an asylum. All sank into a state of apathy; former interests vanished; the amenities of social intercourse were neglected and forgotten; old friendships allowed to drop for no reason whatsoever; a complete change of character for the worse, a terrible deterioration took place; the physical health suffered; their faces became white and drawn, the eyes dull and glazed, save when Spiritism was discussed, and then they lit with hot unholy fires; one heard covert gossip that hinted of crude debauch, of blasphemous speeches, of licence and degradation. Fortunately by a series of providential events the circle was broken up; outside circumstances compelled the principals to fall away, and what was doubtless a more potent factor than any, one or two were suddenly brought to realize the deadly peril and the folly of their proceedings. It proved a hard struggle indeed to rid themselves of the controls to which they had so blindly and so utterly submitted; their wills were weakened, their health impaired; more than once they slid back again into the old danger zone, more than once they were on the verge of giving up the contest in despair. But under direction and availing themselves of those means of grace the Church so bounteously proffers they persevered, and were at length made clean.

There must be many who have had similar experiences, who know intimately, even if they have not actually had to rescue and to guide, those who have been meshed and trapped by Spiritism and are endeavouring to escape. They will appreciate how difficult is the task, they will realize how pernicious, how potent, how evil, such toils may be. Nobody who has had to deal with sensitives, with poor dupes who are eager to abandon their practices, can think lightly of Spiritism.

That Spiritism opens the door to demoniac possession, so often classed as lunacy, is generally acknowledged by all save the prejudiced and superstitious. As far back as 1877 Dr. L. S. Forbes Winslow wrote in _Spiritualistic Madness_: “Ten thousand unfortunate people are at the present time confined in lunatic asylums on account of having tampered with the supernatural.” And quoting an American journal he goes on to say: “Not a week passes in which we do not hear that some of these unfortunates destroy themselves by suicide, or are removed to a lunatic asylum. The mediums often manifest signs of an abnormal condition of their mental faculties, and among certain of them are found unequivocal indications of a true demoniacal possession. The evil spreads rapidly, and it will produce in a few years frightful results.... Two French authors of spiritualistic works, who wrote _Le Monde Spirituel_ and _Sauvons le genre humain_, died insane in an asylum; these two men were distinguished in their respective professions; one as a highly scientific man, the other as an advocate well learned in the Law. These individuals placed themselves in communication with spirits by means of tables. I could quote many such instances where men of the highest ability have, so to speak, neglected all and followed the doctrines of Spiritualism only to end their days in the lunatic asylum.”

Some half a dozen years ago an inquiry was undertaken and there was circulated an interrogatory or _enquête_ which invited opinions upon (1) “the situation as regards the renewed interest in psychic phenomena”; (2) whether this “psychic renewal” denoted a “passing from a logical and scientific (deductive) to a spiritual and mystic (inductive) conception of life,” or “a reconciliation between the two, that is between science and faith”;[90] (3) “the most powerful argument for, or against, human survival”; (4) “the best means of organizing this (psychic) movement in the highest interest, philosophical, religious and scientific, of the nation, especially as a factor of durable peace.” Five-and-fifty of the answers were collected and published under the title _Spiritualism: Its Present-Day Meaning_,[91] a book which certainly makes most interesting and illuminating if extremely varied reading. Being a symposium, all schools of thought are represented, and I would venture to add that among the contributions are some outpourings which evince no thought at all, a fact which is of itself not without considerable significance. We have the unflinching logic and sound common-sense of Father Bernard Vaughan, whose verdict is reiterated by the Rev. James Adderley and the Rev. J. A. V. Magee; the concise, outspoken, pertinent and telling comments of General Booth; the vague hopelessly inadequate flotsam of Dr. Percy Dearmer,[92] vapid stuff which makes a theologian writhe; the sweet sugary sentimentalism of Miss Evelyn Underhill, so anæmic, so obviously popular, and so ingenuously miscalled mysticism; the dull worthless dross of Mr. McCabe’s superstitious materialism; the feverish panicky special pleading of the convinced Spiritists. Here, too, we have much that directly bears out our present contention, the medical evidence of such names as Sir Bryan Donkin; Dr. W. H. Stoddart, who treats of “The Danger to Mental Sanity”; with Dr. Bernard Hollander on “The Peril of Spirits”; and Dr. A. T. Schofield on “The Spiritist Epidemic.” Thus Dr. Stoddart writes: “In some cases the spiritualistic hallucinations so dominate the whole mental life that the condition amounts to insanity; and I can confirm Sir Bryan Donkin’s statement that spiritualistic inquiries tend to induce insanity.”[93] Dr. Hollander is even more emphatic: “The practice is a dangerous one. Persons become intoxicated with spirits of that nature as others do with spirits of another kind. And similarly, as not all persons who take alcohol get drunk, so not all spiritualists show the effects of their indulgences.... But that is no proof against the harmful nature of these practices, and, as a mental specialist, I confess I have seen victims of both, and that the one addicted to material spirits is the easier to treat.”[94] Spiritism, Dr. Schofield points out, “has been known to Christians for 2000 years. Any benefit derived therefrom is more than neutralized by the very doubtful surroundings and character of the supposed revelation (I say ‘supposed’ because it has been known so long). If, however, it must be coupled with the dangers, horrors, and frauds that so often in modern Spiritism accompany the knowledge of the unseen, we are almost as well without it, at any rate from such a source.... There can be no doubt the epidemic will eventually subside, but before it does, the vast mischief of a spiritual tidal wave of very doubtful origin will be most disastrously done, and thousands of unstable souls will be wrecked in spirit, if not in mind and body as well.... To class it as a religion is an insult to the faith of Christ.”[95]

Sir William Barrett utters a word of grave import: “All excitable and unbalanced minds need to be warned away from a subject that may cause, and in many cases has caused, serious mental derangement.”[96] “Spiritualism,” says Father Bernard Vaughan, “only too often means loss of health, loss of morals and loss of faith. Consult not Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Mr. Vale Owen, but your family medical adviser, and he will tell you to keep away from the séance-room as you would from an opium den. In fact, the drug habit is not more fatal than the practice of Spiritualism in very many cases. Read the warning note sounded by Dr. Charles Mercier, or by Dr. G. H. Robertson or by Colonel R. H. Elliot, and be satisfied that yielding to Spiritualism is qualifying for an asylum. You may not get there but you deserve to be an inmate.”[97] The following letter written by Miss Mary G. Cardwell, M.B., Ch.B., from the Oldham Union Infirmary, speaks for itself: “One day recently I admitted a woman of thirty-five years to the hospital of which I have the honour to be resident medical officer. She was sent in as incapable of looking after herself or her family. She told me that she was a medium, having been introduced into Spiritualism by a man, also a medium, who said he could thereby help her over some family worries. As a direct result of this, she has neglected her children, so that the public authorities have removed them from her care, her home is ruined, and she herself is a mental and moral wreck. She had paid the other medium for his services by the sacrifice of her virtue.”[98] And this is no isolated, no exceptional, instance. I have myself known precisely similar cases.

Occasionally some particularly shocking incident will find its way into the public Press and we have records such as the following, which was headed “Family of Eleven Mad. Burning Mania after Séance. Child to be Sacrificed.

“The story of an entire family of eleven persons, in the village of Krucktenhofen, Bavaria, going out of their minds after a spiritualistic séance is sent by the Exchange Paris correspondent, quoting the _Berliner Tageblatt_.

“Renouncing the goods of this world, the father, mother, three sons, two elder daughters, and subsequently the remaining four younger members of the family, joined in burning their furniture and bedding.

“Finally, the three-months-old child of one of the daughters was about to be burnt when neighbours interfered. The whole family is now in an asylum.” (_Daily Mirror_, 19 May, 1921.)

“Camouflage it as you will, Spiritualism with its kindred superstitions, such as necromancy and occultism, is a recrudescence of the old, old practices cultivated in the days of long ago.”[99] In other words this “New Religion” is but the Old Witchcraft. There is, I venture to assert, not a single phenomenon of modern Spiritism which cannot be paralleled in the records of the witch trials and examinations; not a single doctrine which was not believed and propagated by the damnable Gnostic heresies of long ago.

Some of the definitions of Spiritism given by spiritists themselves are sufficiently startling. They frankly tell us that “Spiritualism is the science or art of communion with spirits.... It does not follow that because a communication comes from ‘the unseen,’ it is therefore from God, as a revelation. It may be from the latest dead lounger, as an amusement,”[100] or, I would add, from a demon as a snare. There is something inexpressibly ugly and revolting about this cold-blooded necromancy defined in set categorical terms.

Modern Spiritism is usually considered to have had its origin in America. In the year 1848 there lived at Hydesville, Wayne, New York State, a family of the Methodist persuasion named Fox; a father, mother, and two daughters, Margaretta and Katie, aged fifteen and twelve respectively. During the month of March all the household began to declare that they were kept awake at night by the most extraordinary noises, loud knockings on the wall, and footsteps. The children amused themselves by trying to imitate the noises; they tapped on the wainscot, and to their great surprise answering taps came back, so that they found they could get into communication with the unknown agency. They would ask a question and invite it to respond with one sharp rap for “no” and three for “yes,” and thus it continually replied. They further held actual conversations in this way by repeating the alphabet and establishing a regular code. Mrs. Fox then began to make inquiries concerning the former occupants of the house, and soon discovered that a pedlar named Charles Rayn was said to have been murdered in the very bedroom where her two girls were sleeping, and that his body had been buried in the cellar. Public curiosity was aroused, and it was now generally believed that it was the spirit of the unfortunate victim who haunted the farm-house, endeavouring to convey some message to those whom he had left. Actually no body was found in the cellar, and the alleged murderer whose name was given, appeared at Hydesville and “threw very hot water on the story.” Later when the family moved to Rochester—it is said they were practically driven out of Hydesville by the Methodist minister there—the rappings followed them, and the whole town was speedily on the tiptoe of excitement. It was then given out that the noises were communications from the spirits of those recently dead, and that the Fox girls, who apparently attracted them, were gifted with some special faculty which rendered intercourse of this kind possible. People soon began to flock round them asking their assistance in getting messages from their departed relatives and friends; the two girls held regular séances, and netted a fair sum of money. It was not long before other persons discovered that they also possessed this extraordinary faculty of attracting spirit manifestations, and of getting into communication with the other world at will. But the Fox sisters were first in the field, and to them came a continuous stream of persons with well-filled pockets from all parts of America. There was also opposition, which sometimes took a very violent form. As early as November, 1850, an attack was made upon Margaretta Fox, who was staying at West Troy in the house of a Mr. Bouton. A rough mob surrounded the premises, stones were thrown at the windows, and shots fired, whilst both men and women uttered threats and imprecations against the “unholy witch-woman within.” At one of the séances Dr. Kane, a famous Arctic explorer was present, and he was so fascinated by the beauty of Margaretta Fox that he never rested until he had taken her away from her sordid and harmful surroundings, had her educated at Philadelphia, and finally, much to the annoyance of his relations, who loathed any connexion with the Fox family, made her his wife.

Dr. Kane died soon after his marriage, but in the book published by his widow there are several references to his abhorrence of Spiritism. “Do avoid spirits,” he urges, “I cannot bear to think of you as engaged in a course of wickedness and deception.” For ten years Mrs. Kane did indeed abandon it; in fact in August, 1858, she was baptized as a Catholic at New York; but then,[101] owing perhaps to the pinch of poverty, she again took up work as a medium, and was received back with acclamations by the whole Spiritistic community. From that moment dates her steady deterioration, both physical and moral.

Kate Fox, Mrs. Jencken as she had become, the wife of a London barrister, was the mother of a baby whom popular talk credited with mediumistic powers of the most extraordinary kind. The whole Spiritistic following prophesied a brilliant future for the poor child, of whom, however, there is nothing recorded save that he was sadly neglected by his miserable mother, who died of chronic alcoholism in June, 1892. Mrs. Kane survived her sister for nine months, a pitiable and hopeless wreck, craving only for drink. The last few weeks of her life were spent in a derelict tenement house. “This wreck of womanhood has been a guest in palaces and courts. The powers of mind now imbecile were the wonder and the study of scientific men in America, Europe, and Australia.... The lips that utter little else now than profanity, once promulgated the doctrine of a new religion.”[102] It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive anything more sordid and more miserable than this sad and shocking story of utter degradation. The collapse and moral corruption of the first apostles of modern Spiritism should surely prove a timely warning and a danger signal not to be mistaken.[103]

In the earliest days of Spiritism the subject was investigated by men like Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Robert Hare, professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and John Worth Edmonds, a judge of the Supreme Court of New York State. Conspicuous among the spiritists we find Andrew Jackson Davis, whose work _The Principles of Nature_ (1847), dictated by him in trance, contained theories of the universe closely resembling those of the Swedenborgians. From America the movement filtered through to Europe, and when in 1852 two mediums, Mrs. Haydon and Mrs. Roberts, came to London, not merely popular interest but the careful attention of the leading scientists of the day was attracted. Robert Owen, the Socialist, frankly accepted the Spiritistic explanation of the various phenomena, while Professor De Morgan, the mathematician, in his account of a sitting with Mrs. Haydon declared himself convinced that “somebody or some spirit was reading his thoughts.” In the spring of 1855 Daniel Dunglas Home (Hume)—Home was the son of the eleventh Lord Home and a chambermaid at the Queen’s Hotel, Southampton, but was brought up in America—who was then a young man of twenty-two, crossed to England from America. In 1856 Home was received into the Church at Rome by Father John Etheridge, S.J., and he then gave a promise to refrain from all exercise of his mediumistic powers, but in less than a year he had broken his pledge and was living as before. This famous medium is almost the only one who, as even Podmore admits, was never clearly convicted of fraud. Sir David Brewster, the scientist, and Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a scholar of unblemished integrity and one of the leading homœopathic physicians, both avowed that they were incapable of explaining the phenomena they had witnessed by any natural means. It was in 1855 that the first English periodical dealing exclusively with the subject, _The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph_, was published at Keighley, in Yorkshire. In 1864 the Davenport brothers visited England, and in 1876 Henry Slade. Amongst English mediums the Rev. William Stainton Moses became prominent in 1872,[104] and about the same year Miss Florence Cook, so well known for the materializations of “Katie King,” which were scrupulously investigated by the late Sir William Crookes. In 1873 and in 1874, however, the trickery of two mediums, Mrs. Bassett and Miss Showers, was definitely exposed.[105] In 1876 and 1877 the sensitive “Dr.” Monck was at the height of his reputation, and both Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S., and the late Archdeacon Colley state that in various séances with him they witnessed on several occasions phenomena, including materialization, under rigid test conditions which admitted of no dispute as to their genuineness. It is true that in 1876 Monck had been in trouble and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment under the Vagrant Act. About the same time William Eglinton, who figures in Florence Marryat’s work _There is No Death_, appeared on the scenes and for a while loomed largely in the public eye. He became famous for his slate-writing performances as well as his materializations. He was, however, exposed by Archdeacon Colley, who during the discussion which had centred round a medium named Williams, detected in fraudulent practices during séances in Holland, wrote to _The Medium and Daybreak_ to say: “It unfortunately fell to me to take muslin and false beard from Eglinton’s portmanteau.... Some few days before this I had on two several occasions cut pieces from the drapery worn by, and clipped hair from the beard of, the other figure representing Abdullah. I have the pieces so cut off beard and muslin still. But note that when I took these things into my possession I and a medical gentleman (25 years a Spiritualist and well known to the old members of the Movement) found the pieces of muslin cut fit exactly into certain corresponding portions of the drapery thus taken.”[106]

The medium Slade, who was famous for slate-writing, was upon one occasion suddenly seized as he was about to put the slate under the table. His hands were held fast, and when the slate was snatched from him it was seen to be already covered with characters. Anna Rothe, who died in 1901, a medium well known for her apports of flowers, suffered a term of imprisonment in Germany on a charge of fraud. When Baily, the Australian sensitive, visited Italy he refused to sit under the strict conditions which were arranged in answer to a challenge of his powers. Charles Eldred of Clowne, an adept at materialization, employed a chair skilfully made with a double seat, and in this recess were discovered the whole paraphernalia he employed in his performances.

Mrs. Williams, an American medium, who for a long while was a centre of spiritistic attention at Paris, used to materialize a venerable doctor with a flowing beard who was sometimes accompanied by a young girl dressed in white. At one circle Mons. Paul Leymaric gave a prearranged signal. He and a friend each laid hold of one of the apparitions; a third spectator seized Mrs. Williams’ assistant; and a fourth turned on the lights. Mons. Leymaric was seen to be struggling with the medium, who had donned a grey wig and a long property beard; the young girl was a mask from which were draped folds of fine white muslin and which she manipulated with her left hand. Miller, a Californian medium, was more than suspected of producing spirits from gauze and nun’s veiling.[107] From one of the mediums of Mons. de Rochas, Valentine, there emanated mysterious lights, which moved quickly hither and thither during the séances. Colonel de Rochas, when this manifestation was once at its height, suddenly switched on a powerful electric torch and Valentine was seen to have slipped off his socks and to be waving in the air his feet, which were covered with some preparation of phosphorus.[108] As early as June, 1875, a photographer named Buguet was convicted of selling faked photographs of spirits by which he netted a very pretty sum.[109]

It is notorious that in Spiritistic séances and circles charlatanry and swindling of every kind are rife; that again and again mediums have been convicted of fraud; that not infrequently all kinds of properties, stuffed gloves, gauzes, yards of diaphanous muslin, invisible wires, hooks, beards, wigs, have been discovered; that the use of luminous paint is very effective and far from uncommon; that a sliding trap or panel may on occasion prove of inestimable service; that we must allow for self-deception, delusions, suggestion, hypnotism even; but when all has been said, when we candidly acknowledge the imposture, the adroit legerdemain, the conjurer’s clever tricks, the significant _mise en scène_, the verbal wit and quibbling, the deliberate and subtle cozenage contrived by shrewd minds and the full play of dramatic instinct and energy, nevertheless there yet remain numbers of instances when it has been repeatedly proven that acute and trained observers have witnessed phenomena which could not by any possibility whatsoever have been fraudulently produced; that clear-headed, cold-hearted, suspicious, hard men of science with every sense keenly alert at that very moment have conversed with, inspected, nay, actually handled, materialized forms and figures no personation could have devised and manifested.

The proceedings against Monck plainly showed that he had at any rate a firm belief in his own psychic powers, and although Eglinton was detected in a trick upon more than one occasion there is irrefutable evidence to prove that in other instances when he assisted at séances any normal mode of production of the phenomena seen there was quite impossible. A large number of Miller’s manifestations also were genuine.[110] The same may be said of very many mediums. This means, in fine, that although the manifestations of almost any medium may in some cases have been artificially contrived, such phenomena are not on any account to be adjudged _always_ fraudulent, and even if the charge of imposture could be brought home far more conclusively than has so far been possible as regards the majority of sensitives, yet it were a false inference indeed to deduce therefrom that all phenomena are equally fraudulent and devised. It is only the recklessly illogical mind and the loose thinker who will in the face of absolutely conclusive proof of genuine manifestations continue to maintain that a certain quota of quackery can invalidate the whole. Writers of the temper of Messrs. Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson must, of course, be expected to condemn Spiritism without knowing the facts or weighing the evidence as an obvious absurdity which calls for no serious refutation. But this, I think, matters little. The superstitious dogmatism of the materialist is gravely discredited nowadays. True, the sort of book he produces is widely circulated and very successful within certain limits. We should expect tenth-rate ideas which could only emanate from a lack of understanding, a total want of imagination, and no training in metaphysics or philosophy, to have a direct appeal to the immature intelligences, the uneducated vulgar and the blatant yet presumptuous ignorance, which alone are eager for this kind of outmoded fare.

In France Spiritism was first proclaimed by a pamphlet of Guillard _Table qui danse et Table qui répond_. The way had been long paved owing to the interest which was generally taken in the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. Balzac had published in 1835 his esoteric hybrid _Séraphita_ (_Séraphitus_), a fanciful yet interesting work, in which there are many pages of theosophic philosophy. Perhaps he meant these seriously, but it is impossible to take them as other than flights of romance. In 1848 Cohognet more immediately heralded Guillard by publishing at Paris the first volume of his _Arcanes de la vie future devoilées_, which actually contains what purport to be communications from the dead. In 1853 séances were being held at Bourges, Strasburg, and Paris, and a regular furore ensued. Nothing was talked of but the wonders of Spiritism, which, however, soon met an opponent, Count Agénor de Gasparin, a Swiss Protestant, who carefully investigated table-turning with a circle of his friends and came to the conclusion that the phenomena originated in some physical force of the human body. It must be admitted that his _Des Tables Tournantes_ (Paris, 1854) is unconvincing and to some extent superficial, but more perhaps could hardly be expected from a pioneer in so tortuous an investigation. The Baron de Guldenstubbe, on the contrary, declared his firm belief in the reality of these phenomena and spirit intervention in general. His work _La Réalité des Esprits_ (Paris, 1857) eloquently argued for his convictions, whilst _Le Livre des Esprits_ (Paris, 1853) by M. Rivail or Rival, better known under his pseudonym Allan Kardec, became a world-wide textbook to the whole subject. In these early days the most distinguished men were wont to meet in the rue des Martyrs at Paris for séances. Tiedmen Marthèse, governor of Java; the academician Saint-René-Taillandier; Sardou, with his son; Flammarion; all were constant visitors. The notorious Home was, it is said, expelled from France after a séance at the Tuileries, during which he had touched the arm of the Empress with his naked foot, pretending that it was a caress from the tiny hands of a little child who was about fully to materialize. No one, I think, could be surprised to know that the famous Joris Karl Huysmans, an epicure in the byways of the occult, made many experiments in Spiritism, and séances were frequently held at No. 11 rue de Sèvres where he lived. Extraordinary manifestations took place, and upon one occasion at least the circle effected a materialization of General Boulanger, or an apparition of the General appeared to them.

At the present time Spiritism is as widely spread in France as in England, if indeed not far more widely. Thus _La Science de l’Ame_ is a new bi-monthly journal issued under the auspices of _La Revue Spirite_. It has articles on Magnetism and Radio-activity, the analysis of the soul, and vital radiations. In the number of _La Revue Spirite_, which commences the year 1925, Mons. Camille Flammarion prints a signed letter from Heliopolis, which describes a first experience of a séance, where the death of the writer’s father was predicted in six months and took place ten days after the allotted time. Elsewhere in the issue are particulars of the International Congress of Spiritism which was to be held at Paris in September, 1925, and would be open to all Federations, Societies, and Groups everywhere. An immense concourse was expected. The President is Mr. George F. Berry, a well-known name in English Spiritistic circles, and the compliment of honorary membership is paid to Léon Denis,[111] Gabriel Delanne, Sir William Barrett, and Ernest Bozzano.

A glance at the pages of any Spiritistic journal in England will show almost endless activities in every direction. In one issue of the weekly _Light_ (Saturday, 21 February, 1925) we have amongst other announcements nine “Sunday’s Society Meetings” in various districts of London, with addresses on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The following seems sufficiently startling and a close enough imitation: “_St. Luke’s Church of the Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ, Queen’s-road, Forest Hill, S.E._—Minister: Rev. J. W. Potter. February 22nd, 6.30, Service, Holy Communion and Address. Healing Service, Wed., Feb. 25th, 7 p.m.” In the next column are details of “Rev. G. Vale Owen’s Lecture Tour.” The “London Spiritualist Alliance, Ltd.” has a list of meetings. There are discussion classes and demonstrations of clairvoyance, psychometry, and Mystic Pictures. Among “Books that will Help you” we find _Talks with the Dead_, _Report on Spiritualism_, _The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ_—(is this used at St. Luke’s Church of the Spiritual Evangel?)—_Spirit Identity, Spiritualism_, and many more of similar import. There is a “British College of Psychic Science” where Mr. Horace Leaf, a medium of some repute, lectures on “The Psychology and Practice of Mediumship,” Mrs. Barker demonstrates Trance Mediumship, and Mrs. Travers Smith the Ouija-Board and Automatic Writing. There is a “London Spiritual Mission” and a “Wimbledon Spiritualist Mission.” At Brighton “St. John’s Brotherhood Church” provides “The Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ,” “Minister, Brother John.” And all this is scarcely a tithe of the various announcements and advertisements.

However grotesque, and indeed often puerile in its bombast and grandiloquence, such a mass of heterogeneous notices may seem we must remember that these people are in deadly earnest, and I doubt not but their meetings and assemblies are well attended by enthusiastic devotees. In a report of an address by the Rev. G. Vale Owen at the “Spiritualist Community Services in the County Hall” on Sunday evening, 15 February, 1925, I read “all seats were filled long before the advertised hour for starting. The doors were closed and many for a time were denied admission. A little later they were allowed to enter and take up positions along the edges of the dais and other odd places about the hall.”[112] This, of course, was possibly some exceptional occasion, but there is no indication that such was the case. Mr. Vale Owen may be a very eloquent speaker and able to hold his audience spell-bound with the magic of his words. It must assuredly be his manner and not his matter, for his so-called revelations of the life beyond the grave, written under control and presumed to be directly derived from spirit agency, which appeared in _The Weekly Dispatch_ are vapid, inept, idle, and insipid to the last degree. Such banal ramblings would provoke a smile, were it not for the pity that any person can be so self-deluded, and can apparently induce others to give credit to his silliness.