Abram James—Man and Medium.
It was in the summer of 1863 that I first met this marvelous medium, one of the very best in the way of intellectual development that I ever saw. James was born in Pennsylvania, of Quaker parentage. He inherited the simplicity, candor, and truthfulness of the sect. He had absolutely no guile in his nature. He had had but six months’ common school education, but, possessing considerable natural ability, he had to some degree remedied his deficiencies in this particular. He wrote a fair hand, spelled well and conversed with some facility on ordinary topics, but was absolutely ignorant of any language but his native English, and had no knowledge whatever of scientific subjects; this I know to be a fact. James was above the medium height, very thin and spare, blonde complexion, light hair and blue eyes—a natural negative organization. When I first made his acquaintance he was employed in the yards of one of the railroad companies in Chicago, making up trains, or some employment of that character.
Of James’s original development as a medium I know nothing, as I first knew him in his abnormal character, in which he was truly marvelous, being perfectly familiar with all languages, living and dead, and with all subjects—religion, science, philosophy, and ethics.
I have heard this man speak and deliver long discourses in German, Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, and other tongues which I did not know. I have taken scholarly linguists in his presence and to them he demonstrated that he spoke in foreign tongues.
I have heard him deliver lectures on a great variety of scientific subjects,—on political economy, theology, and natural philosophy. His thought and method of treatment were of the very highest types of intellectual ability. Of course James did not profess to do this of himself; he was in fact, wholly unconscious of doing anything. When entranced, the controlling spirit would say, for example: “The Baron von Humboldt will address you this afternoon on the Cosmos.” Then in a discourse or lecture of an hour’s duration he would give a condensed history of the origin and development of the world. I remember on one occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive and masterly manner. At another time it was said: “John Quincy Adams will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country,” and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old Senator from Massachusetts when addressing the Senate of the United States, this medium delivered a speech of which Adams himself would not have been ashamed. It was in the war times, and fully embodied the sentiments which we know were predominant in Mr. Adams’s mind—the permanency of the Union and liberty for the slave. It was before the emancipation proclamation, but the speaker assured his hearers that the day was close at hand when the oppressed and abused slave should walk out in freedom before all the world.
I remember one very remarkable occurrence. James was entranced by the spirit of Michael Angelo, and a lady medium present was controlled by Raphael, and these two, partly in Italian and partly in English, discoursed upon art, painting, architecture, and sculpture in a manner calculated to produce a lasting impression upon the minds of those who were so fortunate as to be witnesses of the scene. The spirits were evidently fearful of losing control of the medium, and in their hasty desire to speak constantly interrupted each other, but they referred to the great works in which they had been engaged while on the earth, and the monuments they had left behind them. I remember Raphael particularly speaking of his last great painting of the Transfiguration, which he declared he had left in an unfinished condition in Rome, and which he desired to complete if he only had the opportunity. I regret that I am not able at this distant time to give full details of these, their marvelous revelations. I had shorthand notes taken which were afterwards written out, but unfortunately they were all destroyed in the great Chicago fire, in 1871.
James was also a drawing medium, and as such he executed many fine pictures. His method of work in this direction was quite beyond the capacity of any human being. He operated with six pencils, three in each hand, each pencil doing a separate part of the work at the same time; the consequent rapidity of execution was something wonderful. James once drew a colossal picture of Lincoln, which measured seven and one half feet in length. The sheet of paper was laid upon the floor, and upon it, without any outline or measurements, he first made an eye, and then in its proper relative position a boot. When the outlines were completed, these came into their proper places. The picture was a fair likeness of Lincoln, and represented him in the act of reading the emancipation proclamation. The pictorial heading of your paper, with its name in the letters as they now stand, Religio-Philosophical Journal, all finished and complete as it is, was done by James in the manner above stated. The engraver who reproduced it has not altered one line or mark; yet this man in his natural condition could not draw the outline of a barn.
James located the first artesian well which was bored in Chicago. He declared by his clairvoyant sight that a stream of water could be found many hundreds of feet beneath the surface. The boring was done and the water found, and this well was the originator of the numerous other wells which now supply our parks and factories. James afterward went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania, where he was successful in locating productive oil wells. Since 1869, I have lost sight of him, but wherever he may be he is a marvelous, intellectual medium, and as honest and truthful as the sunlight.
Geo. A. Shufeldt, Religio-Philosophical Journal.
Mr. Eglinton’s Mediumship.—A correspondent of the London Medium describes an interview with Mr. Eglinton, in which the following occurred. They are not extraordinary to those familiar with spiritual facts. I have held a slate in my own hand in the presence of a medium, and received messages on the slate in which every letter was written in double marks, as if written with two different colored pencils, although no pencil was furnished or seen.
“Three small pieces of writing-pencil—green, red, and white—were put upon the perfectly clean school slate, and placed under the table as before, with this difference: that G.’s left hand held the slate with Mr. Eglinton, his left being above the table. The slate was now thoroughly rolled about so as to completely displace the pieces of pencil from their previous relations. G. asked aloud that 200 might be put down in red; I called for 69 in green; and Mr. Eglinton requested that they be added up in white. Upon examining the slate, this was found correctly executed. I then took a book at random from a case containing perhaps 300 or 400 volumes. G. wrote down upon the school slate the number of a page, a line, and of a word, which she desired to be transcribed. The slate was turned over, and I placed the book, which had not been opened, across it, resting upon the frame. Under the book I placed a morsel of pencil. The slate, with the book upon it, was then passed under and pressed against the table-top as before. No one but G. was cognizant of what she had written, and, of course, as the book was never out of my possession from the time I took it from its fellows in the case until it was placed with the slate under the table-top, there was no possibility of its pages being scanned. The sound of writing soon occurred, and upon its ceasing we examined the slate, when we found ‘P. 7, L. 18, W. 6, Llanwrst.’ The other side of the slate contained ‘P. 7, L. 18, W. 6,’ as written by G. I now and for the first time opened the book, which was ‘The Irish Educational Guide and Scholastic Directory,’ for 1883 and 1884, published by John Mara, 17 Crow Street, Dublin; and upon turning to page 7, line 18, and word 6, the word there printed was ‘Llanwrst.’”
Spirit Writing.—The world is full of spiritual phenomena which are suppressed or concealed in consequence of the prejudices instilled into all minds by education and perpetuated by the dogmatism of the college, the pulpit, the press, and the votaries of Mammon. The St. Louis Globe gives a recent example, as follows:
“I have known of a great many astonishing things that I can account for in no other way than by supposing that they were brought about by some influence outside of human agency [said a believer in Spiritualism the other day to a St. Louis Globe reporter]. I know a lady—a church member—who makes no pretensions as a fortune teller, clairvoyant, or medium, and who would indignantly resent being called a Spiritualist. This lady takes a pencil in her hand and writes rapidly and legibly, with her arm extended, without looking at the paper or pencil, and gazing in an opposite direction from the work. And this is done in a way that shows no control of her arms in the operation. She writes answers to questions she could not possibly have any knowledge of in a correct and thoroughly truthful way. Even when she is separated from the questioner by a closed door she readily writes out the correct answer to a mental question with no effort of her own. This woman could not be induced to do so for any compensation. I have seen all the performances of the mediums in the way of musical instruments floating around the room in the air, but these are open to doubt. In the case of the lady I speak of, all is done by daylight without any thought of compensation or notoriety. It is a natural endowment, a spiritual control, an unseen influence, and a power outside of our ability to account for.”