Such were my three results at Crewe, and I should, I hold, have been devoid of reason had I not been deeply impressed by them. Here was a message in Archdeacon Colley’s own handwriting. Here was a test from my own dead sister which seemed to be beyond all possible coincidence, apart from the extraordinary way in which the picture was obtained. Neither sleight-of-hand nor transference of plates could have any bearing upon such results as those. Their full significance was not realised until I had made enquiries, but after that time I felt it impossible to doubt the supernormal nature of the powers which had produced such effects.
It might perhaps be argued that as Archdeacon Colley’s writing was familiar to Hope, he had, in spite of his disabilities, made some special effort to master and reproduce it. As a matter of fact, however, this case does not stand alone, and many evidential writings have been obtained at Crewe, notably those of W. T. Stead and of the late Dr. Crawford. The latter is a recent incident, and I would take it as my next example, since it illustrates this phenomenon of writing, and is again free from the bogey of transposition.
Upon June 30 of this year (1922) three delegates from Belfast, Mr. Skelton, Mr. Gillmour and Mr. Donaldson, were coming over to the London Spiritualists’ Conference. They broke their journey at Crewe in order to have a sitting with Mr. Hope, who was in deep distress at the time on account of the attack made upon him in Mr. Price’s report. It is worth noting that Mrs. Crawford, the widow of Dr. Crawford, had come over with them on the boat, and that Dr. Crawford’s affairs had been under discussion, though Hope had no means of knowing it. Under good fraud-proof conditions, on their own specially-marked plate, the visitors obtained a message in Dr. Crawford’s handwriting, which runs thus, I supplying the punctuation:
“Dear Mr. Hope,
“Needless to say I am with you where psychic work is concerned, and you can be sure of my sympathy and help. I know all the difficulties and uncertainties connected with the subject. I am keenly interested in your circle and will co-operate with you. Regarding your enemies who would by hook or by crook dispose of the phenomena, leave them alone. I, W. J. Crawford, of Belfast, am here in Crewe on Friday, June 30th.
“W. J. Crawford.”
Each word is on its own little patch of ectoplasm, or upon its own pad of cotton-wool, if the critics prefer it, though it would puzzle them, I think, to reproduce the effect which is given in [Figure 3]. The plate alongside ([Figure 4]) shows a reproduction of an actual note of Crawford’s which will enable the reader to judge the extreme similarity of the script. Once more we confront the critic with this fact and ask him to face the difficulty and to tell us whence this writing came; whether it is a production of Mr. Hope’s, or whether the theory of a private forger upon the premises can be sustained.
Apart from these cases of the reproduction of handwriting, copies of documents have appeared upon the plates at Crewe which could by no means have got there in a normal fashion. A case in point is given in detail by the Reverend and venerable Professor Henslow on p. 217 of his Proofs of Spiritualism. In this case, the truth of which is vouched for by the Professor, although it did not actually occur to him, the plates were held between the hands of the sitters in the manner already described, but the packet had not been opened and was as it had come from the chemist. When the packet was opened and the plates developed there was found impressed upon the fifth plate a number of Greek characters, which proved to be a copy of four lines of the Codex Alexandrinus, a rare Greek text kept in a glass case in the British Museum. The interesting point appears that the two documents are not facsimiles, and that there is some slight difference in the formation of the letters, thus meeting the objection that the text photographed might have been got from some facsimile of the original Codex. The photographs of the original Greek and of the Crewe reproduction are given in Professor Henslow’s work. Here, again, we may well ask the critic to face the facts and give us some feasible explanation as to how this Greek text was precipitated on to a plate in a sealed packet under the mediumship of an unlearned carpenter at Crewe.