An extraordinary thing happened on Monday night at Seraphine's apartment. I must write down the details before they fade from my memory. Seraphine telephoned Monday morning that there was to be a meeting of her occult class in the evening and she wanted me to come as Dr. Owen had promised to be there. She regarded this as a great opportunity to help me. Darling Seraphine! Of course I could not refuse, although I abhor spiritualism. I love Seraphine for what she is, and in spite of her queer beliefs.
When we were gathered together and after introductions to her class (there were six or seven devout believers), Seraphine explained that it was difficult to obtain psychic manifestations in the presence of active disbelief, and she begged us to maintain an attitude of friendly open-mindedness. I am afraid I did not do this all the time.
We had first some psychic reminiscences and Seraphine described in detail how on a certain night years ago she and her sister were sleeping together in a heavy mahogany fourposter bed, when the whole bed with the two women was lifted several inches from the floor and rocked about, and was then held suspended in the air while the chamber resounded with strange music. In my opinion, this was a dream or an illusion.
I am also skeptical about the testimony of one of the group, a New York minister, who told us that his dead wife has come to him in the night on several occasions in materialized form and has spoken to him, kissed him, and taken loving counsel with him about the children and about other matters. I am sure this minister was the victim of some kind of hallucination.
And I cannot believe a statement of Seraphine's regarding a Southern woman who is possessed by an evil spirit that forces her to drinking excesses so that she has spoiled her whole life. Seraphine described to us with ghastly vividness the appearance of this evil entity which she is able to see, through her clairvoyant vision, with its hideous leering countenance, inside the lady. For my part I refuse to believe it.
I admit that I began to have creepy sensations when Seraphine went into an entranced condition in the cabinet. Then came the happenings that I do not understand and I know Dr. Owen does not understand them either, but that does not prove that they were supernatural. I distinctly saw two white shapes rise from the floor—one of them was so close to me that I could have touched it with my hand, but I did not because I was afraid. Besides, I was sitting in a semi-circle with the others and our hands were joined. Dr. Owen, however, was at the end of the line with one hand free, and I saw him reach out towards the apparition (it was about four feet high) and it seemed to me that his hand and arm passed right through the white shape. As he did this I heard a long sigh and a rustling sound and I was conscious of a chilling breath on my face. I asked Dr. Owen about this afterwards and he said that when his hand touched the shape it felt as if he was grasping thick smoke.
The appearance of the second white shape was more terrifying because Seraphine came out of the cabinet when she evoked it. She wore a loose white garment and moved about the room in the near darkness like a woman walking in her sleep. She repeated a beautiful prayer in a slow dreamy voice—I wish I could remember it, the idea was that a great disaster might be averted if God would open the eyes of two of His doubting children. I suppose she meant Dr. Owen and me.
Then the second white shape appeared and seemed to rise and grow into the likeness of a woman, but presently it wavered and dissolved. Seraphine reached out her arms towards it imploringly and I saw a woman's hand take shape clearly and rest on Seraphine's hand, but this presently faded away, like a thing of vapor, and was gone. I have no idea what those white shapes were, or why they came, or why they went; but neither have I any idea as to the operation of X-rays. These white shapes may in a few years turn out to be perfectly simple laboratory phenomena, no more mysterious than wireless phenomena were twenty-five years ago. I refuse to believe that a living person can be possessed by an evil spirit!
Looking back at this séance, what troubles me is an utterance about myself that is supposed to have been made by a voice from the other side. This came at the very end when Seraphine went into an entranced condition again, with the lights up.
“I have a message for one who is tenderly loved by an exalted spirit,” she said, sighing heavily, her eyes closed, “one who would come to her, but there is a barrier. She can regain health and happiness if she will cleanse her soul of evil. She must confess a sinful purpose that she entertained in her heart on the night of June 14, 1914.”