Yours truly,
Geo. E. Long.
On October 26th, 1888, Mr. Long adds:—
I do not think that the medium was fraudulent. Her family consists of Mr. S. and three daughters, she being the youngest. I have found all to be hypnotic subjects, with the exception of the eldest daughter. They are all believers in Spiritualism, the youngest having been the medium. They do not sit now, as it is claimed that the sittings, while rich in spiritualistic satisfaction, were productive of a state of poor health in the medium.
As I myself have obtained information supposed to have been impossible for me to have reached, I cannot say for certainty that she had not obtained information about Jim, but I don't believe she had. As the name Rowe was being spelled I sat with my eyes turned from the board and had in mind the name Scudder, and mentally followed the taps of the chair to S C U D—when the medium said, "The name Rowe is given," etc. This would seem to leave out any involuntary muscular action. Why Rowe should have been given instead of Roe is still another phase. I wonder whether, if any question of the Roe family had arisen, I would have had in mind the name of Rowe? If so, then she produced that which I had long while before been conscious of, but was at the time unconscious of, and had it coupled with an error in spelling that I might have been guilty of had I myself been called upon at that moment to spell it. Had she been fraudulent the probability is she would have spelt it correctly.
It seems to me that the basis of Spiritualism rests mainly upon this phenomenon which men and women in a supernormal condition produce, without understanding it, and credit it to spiritual agencies.
[A general corroboration of Mr. Long's memory of the incident is added from a lady present at the time, who does not now recall the details.]
VIII. C. The following case, received from Dr. Liébeault, is quoted from Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 293:—
NANCY, September 4th, 1885.
I hasten to write to you as to that case of thought-transference of which I spoke to you when you were present at my hypnotic séances at Nancy. The incident occurred in a French family from New Orleans, who had come to stay for some time at Nancy for business reasons. I had become acquainted with this family from the fact that M. G., its head, had brought to me his niece, Mlle. B., to be treated by hypnotism. She suffered from slight anæmia and from a nervous cough, contracted at Coblentz, in a High School where she was a teacher. I easily induced somnambulism, and she was cured in two sittings. The production of this hypnotic state suggested to the G. family (Mrs. G. was a spirit medium) and to Mlle. B. herself that she might easily become a medium. She set herself to the evocation of spirits (in which she firmly believed) by the aid of her pen, and at the end of two months she had become a remarkable writing medium. I have myself seen her rapidly writing page after page of what she called "messages,"—all in well-chosen language and with no erasures,—while at the same time she maintained conversation with the people near her. An odd thing was that she had no knowledge whatever of what she was writing. "It must be a spirit," she would say, "which guides my hand; it is certainly not I."