AMONG THE SPIRITS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16521, 23 August 1919, Page 5

AMONG THE SPIRITS.

IGNORANCE AND VULGARITY. DO WE “KISS THE CABMAN?" This is what Robert Hichens, tho novelist, has to say about spooks. Wo reprint from a recent Sydney Sun. Can the dead speak to us? I don’t believe they can. Everyone seems to bo talking about the spread of the belief iu spiritualism caused by the war from whicn we have just emerged, shaken, stricken, witn quivering nerves and aching hearts. From ail sides comes the confident assertion, "The dead can return. They have returned to us. They have talked with us. We know that they are near us." 1 have heard of bereaved people who have gained marvellous consolation from this Belief, Meanwhile the mediums flourish and the Bishop of London is not pleased. A good many years ago 1 attended a number of "sittings," and came into contact with various mediums. Without exception they were ignorant people, who made a living out of their mediumship, and in whom it was exceedingly difficult to have full confidence.

They produced certain manifestations: nippings, Hashes of light in the darkness, odd voices which invariably said vulgar or banal things, faces. They made tables spin round, china, bowls turn under then - fingers. They wrote automatically. One, inspired—so she said —by the spirit of a long-dead Indian doctor, told me to take a certain patent medicine which would infallibly cure dyspepsia. Another, an cx-cabman, who had spent a great part of his life on the box of a four-wheeler, and who was brought to my notice by Florence Morryat, caused tappings on the glass that covered pictures hung high on the walls of a friend’s room. Eusapia Pnlladino, with whom I sat in Rome, levitated a table in full light, and made curtains shake violently as if agitated by invisible hands, at the word of command. UNCONVINCED. But I was never able to believe that those happenings were caused by the spirits of tho departed. Tiie faces that I saw in the darkness were faint and invariably framed in white wrappings, with the heads completely covered. No hair was visible. Tho complexions wore totally free from colour. One face —produced by tho ex-cabman —made a noise like kissing. Florence Mnrryat exclaimed, “Is that my dead daughter Violet?" “Yes, yes, yes!” said tho pouting lips. Florence Marry.it got up, bent down, and kissed the lips. The face vanished ; she returned to her seat beside mo. “Oh!” she whispered to me, “It’s too awful!” “What is it?” I asked. “Don’t toll anyone!” she returned, “hut I do believe I’ve kissed the cabman.” Well, I believe she did kiss the cabman on that occasion. Some mediums are ventriloquists. I once wont to a seance in the studio of a well-known painter. The medium was an elderly woman who had a great reputation. She was securely hound to' .a light chair with arms, which stood close to tho left-hand wall of the spacious alcove, almost like an inner room. We —there wore six or eight of us, I think —took our seats in a line before the alcove. My chair was the last on the right. Presently tho medium seemed to fall into n trance. A curtain was then drawn in front of the alcove, and all lights were extinguished. _ We waited for manifestations, and not in vain. Very soon there was a noise as of something creeping over the parquet behind tho curtain, and we heard the medium groan, then cry out, “Don’t! don’t!” Tho moving about continued. It came from the right of the alcove at a considerable distance from the spot where the medium was supposed to ho sitting. THE CRAWLING MEDIUM. Presently tho curtain in front of my chair was pushed back a little way—by accident. It was a summer night, and high up in the wall of the alcove was a small window. Through it tho pale light of the moon shone down. I was now able to peep into tho alcove. 1 did so curiously, and saw the elderly medium crawlng about the floor "with her hack to me, and tho legs of tho chair to which she was hound pointing towards mo, as she carried it on tho nether part of her person. While I gazed, fascinated by this spirit manifestation, the medium paused in n hoastlike posture, and again hotvoice came to ns as if from the extreme left of the alcove, groaning and crying out, “He’s hero! He’s after mo! Oh, leave me alone! Don’t torment me!”

When the performance was over and the good lady had retired, I told my fellow sitters what I had seen. Some of them seemed almost to resent my explanation. So'many people are determined to believe. They are, 1 think, the dupes of their desires. ‘

Once 1 sat in the house of nn English bishop, a deeply learned man. The bishop did not actually sit, but ho was .in the room. When she arrived, the medium stared at him and said, “How strange! How wonderful!” “What is it?” he inquired. “I see a dove with outstretched wings hovering over your lordship’s head.” The bishop said, “Thank you !” Ho was a diplomatist. We sat round a table, and presently, after rappings and bowing on the part of the table, the medium asked for a pen, ink and paper, ami began to write poetry, inspired by the spirit of Browning. Many were impressed, but not the bishop. For after the spirit and the medium had gone home, he said to me, “Poor Browning! How ho has deteriorated since he wrote ‘Mr. Sludge, the Medium’!” “SPIRIT” OF A CARDTXAT,.

Tho spirits evoked by mediums arc sometimes quaint in their remarks. Once at a sitting the spirit of Cardinal Manning came for a lady who was an ardent Catholic. 'He has a message for yon!” said tho mediym. ‘‘Yes, yes! Oh, what is it?” asked the. lady.. Whereupon a deep voice uttered the striking words, ‘‘Benedictine, my child!” (Benedictine is the name of a liqueur; tho cardinal would probably have said benedioite—bless you.) Prolonged sitting in the dark breeds an almost morbid sensation of acute expectancy. One feels abnormal, on the edge of something, as if perhaps a door were about to bo opened showing a

glimpse of some marvellous region. Ono listens for voices from the beyond. And then, too often, “John Smith” comes and cracks some preposterous joke, or “Katey” turns up and babbles incoherent absurdities. Or perhaps a Hindu, who must surely have been born in tho suburbs, expounds a philosophy which loaves one dreaming of Wardour Street and the Tottenham Court Road. Sir William Crookes had faith in spiritualism, I suppose. I met him once, but he refused to discuss the subject, not with me, for I did not allude to it, hut someone olsq who sgok.Q .of ft, Sif,..

Oliver Lodge has given us "Raymond," which many find convincing, but which left me sceptical. iSir Arthur Connn ! Doyle, the last man likely to be deceived, I should thiuk, has told tho world j

I of his conviction that ho has spoken with tho. so-called dead. [ I cannot help thinking still that, wheri wo ."sit," more often than not, we, like j Florence Jlarrj-at, kiss the cabman 1