PSYCHIC EXPERIMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 199, 23 August 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

PSYCHIC EXPERIMENT.

SEANCE IN THE CATACOMBS.

HEW LIGHT ON ST, AGNES.

•(By MARGUERITE W. CROOKES, M.A., jjjon, corresponding member Nat. Lab. of

Psychic Research.)

(No. II.)

In the previous article the story of gt. -Agnes was broken off, where the young girl was led away alone and helpless by the soldiers sent to arrest lier. Jn the scene immediately following, .Agnes was shown enduring what must lave l>een, in very truth, the most (terrible part of her martyrdom. Imprisoned in one of those sinister vaults, the foniices, below the Colosseum, she was left entirely at the mercy of the soldiery. Allowing this dreadful episode there geems to be a gap in the story. The medium next sees Agnes being escorted through the city by a posse of soldiers. Behind them the mob hoots and jeers. However, once' through the gate of Saint Sebastian, the girl is released, the captain first reading to her a long statement from a scroll. Then she is 6et free and restored to the arms of Iter friends, who embrace her with passionate gratitude. But just at this yery moment, when safety seems at last within reach of the maiden who has endured so much, fate intervenes. Two drunken centurions lurch into the picture and approach tho saint. Poor i<nics shrinks from them in terror. Her friends fling themselves before her. There are angry words, weapons are drawn, suddenly a dagger flashes, and sinks to the ground lifeless at t]i e feet of her murderers, struck down ftt the very threshold of liberty. Then while her friends tend her the soldiers disappear. Again tho vision jchanges. We are once more in-the gloom and sorrow of the catacombs. Mourners Aveep quietly while the body is being laid reverently in its own especial niche". Abruptly the scene changes and Ave now see the tomb being sealed by a marble slab on Avhich the psychic reads the description "Oific XX." Probably XX. signified the age of the saint. But Agnes Avas not fated to sleep undisturbed. Once more Ave sec the same niche, and now all is tumult and confusion. A Avarrior dressed in a short leather tunic, Avearing sandals and bare legged, is seen prising up the marble slab from the Saint's last resting place. Others, with flaming torches, ruthlessly rifle other tombs, stacking up the marble ? slabs in piles. This must undoubtedly have occurred during the invasion of the catacombs by the barbarians, for Avhat Roman Avould profane )fchis sombre citadel of the dead 1 The Orthodox Life. "So much/' remarks Mr. Price, "for the psychic life of Saint Agnes. I doubt if the psychic invented the story, Avhich differs very considerably from the traditional narrative accepted by all Catholics; and the medium was a good Catholic. If the psychic decided to tell as a story of St. Agnes, I .think it Reasonable that the traditional life, would have been favoured as confirming the accepted version." What then is the traditional story? According to it, a young and lovely maiden,-Agnes by name, became a power in the early Christian Church, during the reign of Diocletian. She was brought before the 'Roman authorities and sternly bidden to renounce her religion and cease from the .making of converts. Although a mere child of twelve or thirteen years, she faced her accusers steadfastly, prepared to be faithful unto death. She was forthwith sentenced to the flames. But Avhen her executioners sought to set fire to the wood, the faggots refused their cruel task and burst into ■ flower and leaf. Whereupon the executioner (who apparently the iniracle with the stolidity characteristic of the official mind) seized the maiden and beheaded her with his sword. Is this picturesque legend built upon any sort of historical foundation? Father Herbert Thurstone, _ S.J., Avho took the chair Avhen Mr. Price lectured on his experiences at the National Laboratory of Psychic Research' in London, declared that competent Catholic scholars are pretty generally agreed that Very little indeed is known about the real Agnes and that what data we have is contradictory. The psychic's account of St. Agnes is, then, just as likely to be true as any other that has come down to us.

Unexpected Evidence. It would seem then that there would be no way of verifying the medium's story. Yet, strange to say, just before Mr. Price gave his lecture, confirmation of one important episode in the medium's story came to light in a rather dramatic manner. A Mr. Lane, an entire stranger to Mr. Price, seeing the St, Agnes lecture advertised, wrote to him on the subject of the saint. • He was Dot, he said, at all interested in psychic research, but very much interested in the Old Masters. He had in his possession a magnificent old painting that had been puzzling the experts for years. There was considerable dispute as to whom the picture was by and the meaning of the scene it represented. But recently the connoisseurs had decided that it was almost certainly the work of Tintoretto, and represented the death of St. Agnes. Now it will be remembered that the psychic's account of the final tragedy differed strikingly from the traditional Version. According to tradition, a mere child of twelve or thirteen was publicly martyred in the arena. According to the psychic, Agnes, a young woman of about 19, Avas not martyred by the Roman authorities at all; she was in fact released by them and it was after her release that she was murdered outside the walls of the city cJose to the church of Quo Vadis,' by a drunken soldier. Strange to relate Mr. Lane's picture shows the death of St. Agnes not a s it was according to tradition, but very much as it has been told by the medium. The curious part of the whole thing is, that in modern times no one knew anything about any other life of St. Agnes, except the traditional version, and yet if the experts are right (and iia-case of this kind one can only bow to their judgment) there must have been another story of the saint known at the time of" Tintoretto. Furthermore, this story bears out the medium's rather unexpected account of the /naiden s death. With the discovery, of Mr. bane's picture must conclude the account of what is probably, the most picturesque psychic experiment of modem times. It is all -cry 'strange and very puzzling.