EXPOSURES IN AMERICA TRAPPED MEDIUMS. Spiritualism.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 125, 24 October 1885, Page 3

EXPOSURES IN AMERICA TRAPPED MEDIUMS. Spiritualism.

After the repeated attempts to expose the devices of spiritualist mediums in th*j country the question may be asked : " Isthe game worth the candle ? Has it done anything to dampen the faith of the large number of believers in spiritualism, and has ib hurt materially the business of the professional mediums who coin money out of the credulity of their dupes?" These queries are prompted by the recent attempt of some investigators in San Jose which turned out disastrously. The medium was not caught, and as the seance was held in a private house, he had brought suit against the persons who broke up his communion with the alleged spirits. The outcome of the suit will be watched with interest, as it will bring out a nice distinction between seances in public places and in private rooms. The business of exposing the professional spiritualist medium has been lively at times in this city, and the exposures have frequently been thorough and conclusive, but they seemed to have no effect whatever on the true believers. These people refused to credit the evidences of their senses, and, as in many trials of leaders of religious doctrines, the efforts to convict merely served to make more stalwart the faith and loyalty of the disciples. Perhaps the most notorious case in this country in recent years was the Katie King exposure in Philadelphia. This differed in no essential from many similar cases in other cities, save that the chief dupe was Robert Dale Owen, a man eminent as a thinker and writer, one of the pureat nunded and most unselfish rf philanthropists. "When it was clearly demonstrated to him that the spirit about whose neck he hai hung a gold chain, and to whose words he had ascribed more than mortal truth and affecUon, was merely an ordinary young woman, the old man fell into a state of extreme melancholy, which ended soon after in his death Recently in K-inaas City a trial was conducted which throws much light on the difficulty of proving fraud, even in the devices of the professional spiritualist, and which also 6howa how large a body oi believers may be raised by a single medium provided he be a man of ab'Jity. The Kansas City spiritualist who was on trial was named Mott. He carried on the business of receiving communications from the spirit land, and he charged $1.50 a head for the privilege of attending his eeances. He drove a thriving trade, and his meetings were made particularly interesting by a certain General Bledsoe, the ghost of a Confederate Brigadier, whose duty it was to bring up the spirits and introduce them to the audience. One Kansas City sceptic thought he saw the features of Mott, the medium, in the countenance of the General, and he devised a scheme to make suspicion certainty. He provided himself with a syringe filled with red aniline dye in solution of alcotol, so that it would stick to any object. Then he got out a warrant for Mott's arrest, and had policemen in waiting ready to rush in at a given signal. The eventful night arrived ; Mott entered the cabinet ; the festive Bxigadier Bledsoe appeared ; Mr Lawrence was called to the window to talk with the spirit of a departed friend. While he was about three feet away from the General he pulled hia syringe and let fly at the spiritual master of ceremonies. Mr Lawrence in his testimony in court said ; "I heard the aniline swash in his face." The door of the cabinet was held, the police called in, and the medium was found, lying on a sofa in an apparent stupor with one side of his face covered with the red dye. The police and others who found the medium in the cabinet testified that he was badly " broken up," and one official naively declared that he "called for whisky just like a little child " — a statement which throws new light on the tastes of the j u venilo Missourian. The prosecution strengthened its case by the testimony of sceptics who had failed to get any satisfactory glimpses of dead relatives, or who had seen i the alleged spirits of more sisters, cousins, and aunts than they ever possessed in the flesh. i What made the case moat extraordinary, however, was the course taken by the defence. They explained the colouring of the medium's face by the hypothesis that Genera) Bledsoe de materialised when he saw the syringe pulled, and that the contents, intended for him, struck the rear of the cabinet, were deflected.and thus hit the medium. This was ingenious, but it violated all known physical laws as badly as does spiritualism itself. Then they produced more than a score of witnesses who gave the strongest testimony in support of the medium's wonderful powers, deolaring that they had communications from many dead friends ; that these spirits related incidents which could never have come to the knowledge of the medium, and that they were thoroughly convinced of his honesty as well as of the genuine value of spiritualism. Some of the witnesses were illiterate, but the majority were very intelligent people, and one was a judge in good standing, who gave many facts of his own experience to show that his belief was not founded on mere illusion. the evidence was all in, the Judge dismissed' the charge, frankly admitting that he was unable to reconcile the testimony, and did not feel like taking the responsibility of convicting under such circumstances. So the case ended, as most of these inquiries have ended, with no substantial gain en either side, and no advance made in the direotion of clearing up one of the greatest mysteries which puzzles the human, mind. I

Bscently a oaseof alleged spiritiiaf.mani* festations, which caUed for /systematic in* vestigation, has come to light near the town of MilMlle,in Shasta County. A farmhouse there has been the scene of remarkably phenomena. Stones h'avebeettthrown into the rooms, furniture moved, the hate of , visitors twitched off their heads and cast out-doors ; in a word, all the old stock tricks hare been used to mystify" the neighbours and prove that. some unseen .influeaoe^is at work. No investigation worthy of the' name was mode for some time, or the author of these tricks- would hare been 7 discovered. The fact that one of the small girls" of the family has been selected as the special sub* jeet of the manifestations led the sceptic to the conclusion that she had been* well trained for the work, As it ,waB,,;tbt " ghost " or " spook " created a ' great sensation among the country-folk, ana the stories of the strange happenings were exaggerated by every narrator. Finally the little girl was detected throwing* stones and sticks and performing' other 'tricks which had amazed the visitors to the house. So ends the latest spiritualist sensation, which promised to add another chapter to the many well-authenticated cases,, of haunted houses, with phenomena which have puzzled experts in the occult sciences* •— *• S. F. Chronicle," August 27.

Of 87 Acts passed last session by the' New Zealand Parliament, 35 were Amendment Acts. This is the perfeotion of tinkering legislation.