He launched into a long description, which I could see was making a profound impression on my friend.
“Has he anything particular to say to me?” he asked.
“He says that you must on no account decline the offer that has been made to you to go West—that you will never regret going.”
Less than two hours earlier my companion had told me of a commission unexpectedly tendered him, involving a long sojourn in California. At the medium’s words he turned pale, and glanced around as though half expecting to see a ghost standing behind his chair.
When the séance had come to an end, and we were walking home together, he solemnly assured me that the medium had accurately described a dead friend, an army officer of the rank of general, whose advice, had he been alive, he would have sought with regard to his projected journey to California.
Again, there is an interesting case reported from New England by the Reverend Willis M. Cleaveland. Among Mr. Cleaveland’s parishioners was a young woman, Miss Edith Wright, who developed mediumistic abilities, being controlled at times by what purported to be a discarnate spirit. Dreading notoriety, Miss Wright gave very few séances, and then only to her closest friends or to sitters with whom her friends were well acquainted, and in whose discretion they could place reliance.
One of these was Mr. Cleaveland, who, being interested in psychical research, undertook to obtain, if possible, proof of the identity of the supposed communicating spirit. If you really are a spirit, he said in effect, you ought to be able to give us some facts about yourself, something about your history while you were on earth, with data that will enable us to obtain confirmation of what you say. The “control” readily conceded the reasonableness of this, and in the course of several séances made twenty-six personal statements, of which the most significant were:
That her name was Amelia B. Norton.
That she had been the daughter of an orthodox clergyman, of the “water type.”