Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania Part 23

(In a bold masculine hand).

Sit for ten or fifteen minuets two evenings in the week and thus help perfect the powerful gifts you have, through them you can do much good both for others and yourself

TN

(In the same hand as a preceding communication signed TL)

Be patient; the party that wrote on the slate before is trying to do it over we sometimes have a difficulty in doing this

T LISTER

(In a slow, labored, uncouth hand.)

I know one thing and that is that they didn't make any headway in killing me when they hung me nor even when they scooped my brains out afterward--d.a.m.n the doctors--d.a.m.n the preachers--I hate them all they lied to me preachers priests and all they told me it was all right but I have found out its all wrong. I havent seen Mrs Reed nor do I want to I never was sorry that I killed her, it don't make a saint out of a man to send him out the way I had to go--its only killing--they were as bad as I was--I cant see--its dark

MC GINNIS.[A]

[Footnote A: McGinnis was a murderer recently hung for the brutal killing of his mother-in-law. Particulars of the murder, execution and autopsy were in all the local papers.]

(In an ordinary feminine hand.)

Put a piece of paper on a stand place a pencil on it and I will try to make the scale for you at home there is a power that is growing on you that will enable me to do this in a few times of trying I could write my own hand this is my first time of coming here so that makes it harder for me to get control

B

(This doggerel came in answer to a question whether the Spirits could write poetry, and is in a hand not dissimilar to the preceding communication, although the signatures differ.)

When the clear bright sun was s.h.i.+ning Then they took my cherished form And they bore it to the church yard To consign it to the worm

Well no matter that was only The clay dress your loved one wore G.o.d had robed her for an angel She had need of this no more

Though the tears fell fast and faster Yet you would not call me back Nay be glad her feet no longer Tread life's rough and th.o.r.n.y track

Yes be glad the father took her Took her whilst her heart was pure Oh be glad he did not leave her All life's trials to endure

AC

(In a sprawling hand.)

Your friend has lost the Control I cannot say wether it will be possible to regain it now or no I find it hard work to get any hold at all.

AM

(Each letter distinct, as a child would print the alphabet.)

Chief there cant come any answer the magnetic current is broken for want of power we go now but will come in your own wigwam

HOWONDO

At the following seances I received slate writings repeatedly. Sometimes the slate would scarcely be in the Medium's hands before a message appeared, each time with the little pencil on top. I was told that I was an excellent Medium, that, if I cultivated the faculty, would soon myself be able to obtain these slate writings. I was also asked to prepare a slate secured in any way I wished, and had the promise that a message would be written within it. I acceded to the request and took a slate of my own, tied it up in every direction with twine, and put my private seal upon it in several places where I had knotted the string.

This slate the Spirits could not overcome. I never received the promised message. I never even had the slate returned to me. After remaining in the Medium's possession for several months, she having changed her residence in the meantime, she told me the slate had disappeared and somehow must have gotten lost in moving. At any rate the slate had been spirited away somehow. I will here mention that at about the third or fourth sitting I asked permission to watch the slate while it was under the table, which was freely granted, but on this occasion, and whenever I did so, there were no results.

On one occasion we took the trouble to bring Mrs. Patterson to a room in the house of our departed friend. She was here among a small circle of intimate friends and members of the family, some inclined to belief and others skeptics. She failed utterly to obtain as much as even a scratch inside of the slates, although communications on paper came thick and fast. I may mention that on this occasion several persons sat with the slate continually in full view.

I had almost decided to drop Mrs. Patterson and her slate writing, although reluctant to do so, because I had no certain and positive evidence of fraud with which to confront my friend, who was getting impatient at my slowness in accepting all I had seen, when I resolved to push my investigations to a point of certainty, one way or another, and hit upon the little scheme of going prepared, at my next visit to Mrs.

Patterson, with a mirror in my pocket which I could hold under the table at an angle that would reflect whatever occurred on the other side of the table, in the Medium's lap, the accustomed position of the mysterious slate. The sitting was held in broad daylight, and the table was so placed that the Medium was seated with her back to a window, affording sufficient light for the experiment. I purposely avoided removing my overcoat on this day, because I wished to hide my movements as much as possible, and sat down at my side of the table with considerable misgiving as to the result of taking liberties with the Spirits. The Medium this time had on her table a new slate, a larger one, one which she said had belonged to the celebrated Slade who had himself received messages on it. She said her old slate was broken, which was probably true; when I had last seen it it was in a battered condition. She asked if it would make any difference to me if she used the new slate. The only apparent difference between the slates was that this one was larger and did not close with a screw, therefore, thought I, more easily manipulated; consequently I did not withhold my consent.

I wrote upon a slip of paper my question, "Will Dr. H. advise me what to do for Juliet (an old colored patient)?" I folded over the slip of paper five times, put it in the slate with a small stub of pencil, and down the slates went into the lap of the Medium where I could see them, lying plainly reflected in my little mirror which I had slipped out of my pocket and laid across my knees at the proper angle of reflection.

Mrs. Patterson first wrote a letter-sheet full of alleged Spirit communications, and handed them to me across the table for perusal. I took the sheet with one hand and while ostensibly scanning the written page, with the other hand I carefully adjusted my little mirror, on which my downcast and watchful eyes were fixed, when lo! in the mirror _I beheld a hand_, closely resembling that of the Medium, _stealthily insert its fingers between the leaves of the slate, take out the little slip, unfold and again fold it, grasp the little pencil_, which had rolled to the front while the slate was tilted that way, _and with rapid but noiseless motion_ (had there been the least noise from the pencil, it would have been drowned by the fit of coughing, which, at that instant, seized the Medium) _write across the slate from left to right, a few lines; then the leaves of the slate were closed, the little pencil laid on the top_, and, over all, two hands were folded as if in benediction. The woman opposite me, to whom the hands belonged (unless they were Spirit hands) sat with uplifted eyes, a calm expression of innocence upon her face. After holding the slates so for a moment or two, and after calling to the Spirit friends "to come and _please_ write in the slate," she produced them, saying, "It has come!"

Of course, I did all I could to master my indignation, which, at that moment, was extreme, and quietly opening the slates, I read the message pretending to have come from high authority, "The channels are obstructed, give a.r.s.enic, Bryonia and Pulsatilla in succeeding doses, an hour apart!" The last words were somewhat illegible, and Mrs. Patterson suggested another trial; she thought the Spirits would write it plainer.

Again the slates went down; _again I saw the hand at work as before_.

This second time the hurriedly written message was not much plainer than the first. Mrs. Patterson, who was better versed in deciphering Spirit dispatches than I, offered to read it for me, but remembering that "all good things are three," I requested a third trial. After this last experiment, in which again, _for the third time, in my little mirror, I saw the stealthy fingers write on the slate_, I told the Medium I was satisfied, smothered my indignant anger, and left the house as quickly as I could. For the larger part of a year I had investigated in good faith this department of Spiritualism, which, in this Medium's case, had turned out a downright fraud.

Not long after my last interview with Mrs. Patterson it was my good fortune to meet with an _unprofessional_ Medium, a young gentleman of reputed honor and veracity, to whom I was introduced by a friend who had known him from childhood, and vouched for his honesty. This young man's Mediumistic abilities had begun to develop with the planchette, and had reached the stage in which a drum and sundry musical instruments were played behind a curtain where he sat entranced, with his hands tightly bound together by a handkerchief or cord. These seances were continued with regularity on certain nights in the week, and were confined strictly to the family circle and to a few privileged friends. There was, therefore, no temptation to deceive for gain. I came into the circle as an observer, not as believer, but was impressed by the phenomena witnessed at the first seance in which the Medium was under Indian control. There were strange sounds, guttural tones and whoops which really might have emanated from a wild son of the forest. A drum, an accordion, a zither, a mouth-organ were all played upon. The drumsticks kept time to music, rapped on the wall, appeared above the edge of the curtain several times, brightly illuminated, as if dipped in electric light or some phosph.o.r.escent substance. As I have said, I was impressed, and might have ended in complete conversion, by manifestations from so trustworthy a source, and vouched for in such perfect sincerity, had it not, in an unlucky moment, occurred to me to apply a little harmless test.

The test consisted simply in putting a dab of printer's ink on one of the drumsticks at the very last moment before the seance began. The result could not prove physically injurious to the Medium, who had challenged investigation, nor to any one in the circle. The result was startling. Being accorded the privilege of tying the Medium's hands, I proceeded to do so with a stout cord, using a certain knot which I believe has never been known to slip or come undone. This accomplished, and while some one else fastened the Medium securely to his chair, with his back to the instruments on the table, the ink, concealed in a pocket-handkerchief, was applied. In this position we left the Medium, the lights were lowered and the music began. Soon were heard the deep breathings preceding the trance, then the 'Indian' began to manifest, at first somewhat sullenly, as if not pleased with the conditions, some of the instruments sounded, and at last the drumsticks began their tattoo.

At the close of the seance, when the curtains were drawn and the lights turned up, the Medium was found in his chair with his hands still tied, but great was the astonishment of everyone present at the marvelous condition of the Medium's hands. How in the world printer's ink could have gotten smeared over them while under control of 'Deerfoot, the Indian,' no one, not even the Medium, could fathom.

I believe there is an explanation for these or similar phenomena, but I must leave it to the ingenious and adroit expounders of Spiritualist philosophy.

CALVIN B. KNERR.

MEDIUMISTIC DEVELOPMENT.

At my very first seance, as a member of this Commission, I was told by the Spirit of Elias Hicks, through Mrs. Patterson, that I was gifted by nature with great Mediumistic power. Another Medium, with whom I had a session shortly afterwards (I cannot remember his name, but he advertised himself as a great 'Australian Medium'), professed himself quite unable to exert any power in the presence of a Medium so much more powerful than himself. 'Father Holland,' the control of Mrs. Williams, in New York, a.s.sured me that I merely needed development to have Spiritual manifestations at my own home; and Joseph Caffray was so emphatic in his a.s.sertions of my extraordinary Spiritual capabilities, that I began to think that it was my duty to quicken these dormant powers and not to let them 'fust in me unused,' and if successful, when I had become fully 'developed,' I could offer myself to my fellow Commissioners as a _corpus vile_ on which every experiment could be made, and at a great saving of expense.

Spiritualists constantly reproach investigators of Spiritualism with faint-heartedness and lack of patience; they allege that at the very first rebuff all investigating ardor cools, and that one failure is deemed sufficient to condemn a whole system.

If the case be really thus, the Spiritualists have a show of reason for this objection, and it behooves the Seybert Commission to give no ground for it.

After much deliberation I decided to put myself in the hands of Caffray for 'development.' I preferred this Medium, first, because he was the most emphatic of all in his a.s.sertion of my almost unrivaled Mediumistic powers, and in his confidence that indications of Spiritual growth would be manifest in three or four weeks, and at the end of six weeks or of two months I might celebrate my Spiritual majority by slatefuls of messages; and, secondly, Mr. Hazard a.s.sured me again and again that Caffray was the 'greatest Medium in the country;' and did not Mr.

Hazard, by way of proof, show me a stoppered vial containing a card, on which, through Caffray's Mediums.h.i.+p, a message had been written while the closed vial was fast held in his closed hand?

The first step was the purchase of two slates from Caffray, for which I gave him several dollars. They were common enough to look at, but ah!

they had been for months in his Materializing Cabinet and had absorbed Spiritual power to the point of saturation, and fairly exuded it. I brought them carefully from New York, and folded them in black muslin, and laid them away in a dark drawer.

Caffray told me that with a beginner the Spirits found it somewhat easier to write with French chalk than with slate pencil. So I bought a box of a dozen pieces, such as tailors use.

The instructions which I received from Caffray were to keep these slates carefully in the dark, and every evening at about the same hour to sit in total darkness, with my hands resting on them for about a half or three-quarters of an hour; to maintain a calm, equable, pa.s.sive state of mind, even to think of any indifferent subject rather than to concentrate my thoughts too intently on the slate-writing. There could be no question of the result. A Medium of my unusual and excessive power would find, at the end of three weeks, faint zig-zag scratches within the closed slates, and these scratches would gradually a.s.sume shape, until at last messages would be legible, probably at the end of six weeks, or of three months at the very farthest.

In addition to this, I must wear, night and day, a piece of magnetized paper, about six inches square, a fresh piece every night and morning; its magnetism was exhausted in about twelve hours. When I mentioned to Mr. Hazard the proposed use of this magnetized paper, he a.s.sured me that it was a capital idea--that he had himself used it for a headache, and when he put it on the top of his head 'it turned all his hair backward.'

I confess to dismay when I heard this; Caffray had told me that I must wear this paper on the top of my head under my hat! But did it not behoove the Acting Chairman of the Seybert Commission to yield himself a willing victim to the cause of Psychical Research? Was to be, or not to be, a Medium so evenly balanced that the turning of a hair, or of a whole head of hair was to repel me? Perish the thought! That paper should be worn on the top of my head, under my hat, and that hat should be worn all day long. I would eat my breakfast with that hat on, eat my dinner with that hat on, and sleep with that hat on, and that magnetized paper should remain on the top of my head, let it turn my hair to all the points of the compa.s.s, if it would!