Adventurings in the Psychical

by H. Addington Bruce

That she had lived near the Kennebec River, in the State of Maine.

That when writing letters it had been her custom to sign herself by the initials N. N., meaning Nellie Norton.

That she had died in middle life.

That when quite young she had had a love affair with a Mr. L. C. Brown, who was still living and engaged in business in Boston, at an address which the “spirit” gave.

As goes without saying, Mr. Cleaveland at once wrote to Mr. Brown, and in a few days received a reply from him, in which he said:

“I was out in the town of Sharon very recently, and called on an elderly gentleman who was a manufacturer there when I resided there as a boy in my teens. To my surprise, as we were reviving old recollections of fifty years ago, he spoke of a Miss Norton that he said I was sweet on at that time.

“The facts of the case are that Mary B. Norton, who always signed herself Nellie B. Norton, came there, a young miss about my age. We were, I guess, ardent lovers, but in the course of two years I left the town and she did, and I knew very little of her for a few years after that. I think it was about five years later that on my way home from the White Mountains I stopped off at her home in Maine, which was beside a large river. I feel sure this was the Kennebec River. Her father was an orthodox minister, but I do not understand the meaning of the ‘water type.’ I think some two years later she was residing in Fairhaven and sent me some papers that contained letters written by Mary B. Norton, but from that time—some over forty years—I have not seen her. I heard that she died some years ago, and think she must have been about fifty years of age.”

Later Mr. Brown wrote again, saying that on second thought he was not certain that her name might not have been Amelia instead of Mary, as he had always known her “only as Nellie B.”[23]

It is to the constant occurrence of incidents like these that the vitality of spiritism is mainly due. To many people it seems impossible to account for such detailed and abundantly corroborated proofs of personal identity on any hypothesis short of actual spirit control. Yet in the last analysis, when viewed in the sober light of latter-day scientific knowledge of the workings of the human mind, it will be found that they do not afford the conclusive demonstration of the validity of the spiritistic doctrine which on the surface they appear to yield. For there is always the possibility—amounting, I feel warranted in saying, to certainty—that what they really indicate is not communication with the dead, but thought transference between living minds.