INVESTIGATION BY SPIRITUALISM.

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 11, 15 November 1919, Page 19

INVESTIGATION BY SPIRITUALISM.

(From Another Contributor.)

The following is from an old resident in Auckland: —

The unconvicted murderers of Mr. Richard Rathbone, so ingenuously referred to by your lady correspondent in last issue of Observes, brought to memory some circum-

stances which occurred after tliat brutal event of tracking a worthy man to his solitary home and slaughtering him with an axe for the mere chance of finding a little money upon his person (for they had an opportunity of searching the house during his absence). The occurrence struck terror in the minds of the suburban residents. Many, in the intensity of their feelings, believed the murder was. the first blow of a war declaration of the natives, the prevalent cry in those days always agitating the fears of the outlying settlers ; but deliberate opinion pointed to the act as that of a European, and "the unknown someone escaped detection, but not for want of search and secret investigation. The object of the murderer, or murderers, was evidently "to spring a plant" or rob the person; the former was indicated by the disturbed flooring of the room. After they had repeatedly gashed the head of Mr. Rathbone with an axe, straw was strewn upon the rough bedstead and set fire to, the body was then thrown on the fire, and the murderers fled from the spot. The body was found in the house only partially burnt and in an unaccountable manner; a few ends of the straw were found projecting from the bedstead, and charred portions under the body. In elucidation of the mystery of the murder, the following incident will be admissible by persons possessing a sufficiency of the development of causality, and who have patiently investigated phenomena of psychological revelations; to others, the incidents may be ascribed to Professor Tiudal's "coincidents," "mental delusion,"! o tc.: —Some little time after this horrible event, two Auckland citizens were smoking their pipes one evening, with their hands upon a table, with a view of getting some (then novel) instances of movements, iv tho same manner lately discovered in America. Suddenly the table, with great vigour, spelt out Rathbone. To the question if he were mistaken in the spelling of the name the answer was "No." The surprised noviciates stared, at each other, for both were impressed with the belief that the murdered man's name was Rathbourne. At their request th<? name was again spelt out, and, as before, with still more emphatic movements of the table, even violently, with the merest contact of the sitters' fingers. The intelligently magnetised table then, with similar energy, signified that the soul of the murdered man was present. After this misapprehension of the spelling of the name on our parts, a revelation of the mode referred to of his horrible (death was imparted. The murderer was described as a coarse-featured bulky man, a soldier named Noble, who was accompanied by another soldier, whose name does not now occur to the two recipients. After this ghastly seance, the amazed pair consulted whether they should brave the ridicule of the uninitiated authorities by making a statement of such practices of weak minds, and prudently weighing the fact that table-turning was sure to produce laughter for some, and condemnation of thejr intellects from others, that such investigators were always "a shingle short," considering also that the Astral soul indulged occasionally in the most extravagant inventions, in order (as. some have explained) "to take a rise out of the Tyros," who with horrified visages submitted themselves to such forbidden magic,—they kept their own counsel. However, an enquiry was made. of the Sergeant-Major about the names given, and they were told that men of those names had been in the regiment, and that for certain offences, and also a long course of irregularities, they had been shipped oif as convicts to Hobart Town. Before a letter containing suspicions of Noble and his accomplice reached Van Diemen's Land, accounts from thence showed that Noble had been hanged there for murder. Innumerable instances of intercourse with disembodied beings in the next state of existence—bound still to earthly ties—of an unquestionably

absolute kind, .have been recorded for thousands of years. Notwithstanding- that oiir modern scientists will insist upon engaging themselves exclusively upon a minute investigation of atomic conditions, and endeavour, to deduce materialistc views of creation to the exclusion of relations thereto in man, of soul and spirit, their employments appear to be mere test researches into the physical structure of Nature taught by Dcmocritus from the Eastern occultists of faraway ages before Hermes. Nevertheless, if we accept the reality of poor Mr. Rathboße's revelation, or visit to the tAvo dispassionate citizens, the "unknown someone," murderer of poor Rathboiiie, met with earthly retribution, and was. cut short in his fiendish career. [This account and that given by the fellow-passenger appear to be at variance as to the incident at Hobart Town. Probably the former version is the more correct.—Ed. "Observer."]