Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/289

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SPIRITUALISM 2T7 tion, and other phenomena far surpassing the previous manifestations of ordinary mediums. Some of the most remarkable manifestations through his mediumship occurred in Spring- field, Mass., and in Hartford, Conn., at the residences of Henry C. Deming, Isaac W. Stu- art, Alfred E. Burr, and others. In 1855 he went abroad, and gave sittings with manifesta- tions in the presence of Napoleon III. in Paris and Alexander II. in St. Petersburg ; and both emperors gave him large presents in jewels and money. Nearly contemporary with Home, and since his publicity as a medium, many others in thetlnited States and in Europe have obtained an almost equal celebrity for materi- alizing manifestations. Among the mediums of the alleged spiritual manifestations there have been representatives from all classes and conditions of mankind. The alleged mediums have been classified as rapping mediums ; me- diums for tipping and turning tables by a slight touch of the finger ; for the movement of ponderable bodies without contact ; for the >roduction of phosphorescent lights in a dark room ; for playing on musical instruments in manner beyond their ordinary abilities ; for involuntary writing, and for writing indepen- dent of any apparent aid from human hands ; for direct spirit speech, and for impressional iking and personation ; for stigmata ; for diagnosis and healing of disease ; for levi- ion; for producing drawings and colored nctures; for photographing spirits; for the itroduction of flowers, fruits, vegetables, and lany other things into closed rooms ; for the development of other mediums ; and finally, rhat spiritualists consider the crowning mar- rel of all the manifestations, for the material- zation of spirit forms identical in appearance with those of deceased persons. Indeed, the powers that are claimed for mediums are pro- tean in variety. By the raps and tipping of tables, and by the control of the medium's organs to write and speak, the spirits are sup- posed to express their own peculiar intelli- gence in a degree of perfection proportioned the development and passivity of the me- lium. It is averred that persons while under the spiritual afflatus have often spoken in for- eign tongues which they had never learned ; and writings in languages to them unknown have been produced in their presence, as we told, by invisible hands. To all these modes of manifestation there are countless fitnesses of high character and intelligence. In the "London Quarterly Journal of Sci- ence" for January, 1874, William Crookes, the editor, classifies some of the phenomena exhibited in repeated experiments with the mediums D. D. Home and Kate Fox (after- ward Mrs. Jencken) as follows : 1, the move- ment of heavy bodies' with contact, but with- out mechanical exertion ; 2, the phenomena of percussive and other allied sounds ; 3, the alteration of weight of bodies ; 4, movements of heavy bodies when at a distance from the medium ; 5, the rising of tables and chairs off the ground without contact with any person ; 6, the levitation of human beings ; 7, move- ments of various small articles without contact with any person ; 8, luminous appearances ; 9, the appearance of hands, either self-luminous or visible by ordinary light ; 10, direct writing ; 11, phantom forms and faces; 12, special in- stances which seem to point to the agency of an exterior intelligence; 13, miscellaneous oc- currences of a complex character. The exhibi- tions which Mr. Crookes and a few friends wit- nessed were mostly in his own house, in the light ; and it is said that the existence of an unexplained force, with its amount and direc- tion, was accurately tested by means of an in- genious apparatus. In the spring of 1874 Mr. Crookes with others began the investigation of phenomena exhibited in London through the mediumship of Florence Cook, afterward Mrs. Corner. It is asserted that in a series of sit- tings extending through several months a fe- male spirit form, temporarily materialized and not distinguishable from a human being, re- peatedly came from a cabinet into the light, conversed, sang, submitted to various tests, and then disappeared. Mr. Crookes, who took several photographs of the figure, says : " It was a common thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and ' Katie' (the spirit) at the same time under the full blaze of the electric light." On one oc- casion Mr. Varley, the electrician, by means of a galvanic battery and cable-testing appa- ratus, showed to the satisfaction of the spec- tators that the medium was inside of the cabi- net while the supposed spirit form was visible and moving outside. Two years previously the phenomena of materialization appeared at Moravia, N. Y., where Mrs. Mary Andrews was the medium ; and Thomas R. Hazard of Rhode Island, the Rev. R. S. Pope of Hyan- nis, Mass., and other respectable persons pres- ent at these sittings, declared that they saw and conversed with the spirits of their de- ceased relatives and friends. Numerous cred- ible witnesses, prominent among them Henry S. Olcott of New York, who devoted weeks to special investigation, testify that similar phe- nomena occurred in 1874-'5 at the sittings with the Eddy brothers in Chittenden, Vt. Mr. Mott of Memphis, Mo., Mrs. Anna Stew- art of Terre Haute, Ind., and Mrs. Markee of Havana, N. Y., have the reputation of being remarkable mediums for the materialization phenomena. The fraudulent character of some exhibitions has been exposed, notably of that of the Holmeses in Philadelphia in 1874, in which the supposed spirit form called u Katie King " appeared. To this exhibition Robert Dale Owen at first gave full credence, but he ultimately withdrew his confidence, though subsequent investigations threw doubt on the charges of imposture through a confederate. Almost from the time of the first sittings the phenomena of materialized spirit hands and