“I have it all—every piece—put away in a little box.”
“Good. Then if you will bring it to-morrow night, I can take it with me when I leave you. The medium, you know, can dematerialize it for us.”
“I will bring it. Rest assured of that.”
Alas for husbandly devotion! The séance at which he turned over the jewelry to the affectionate “spirit” of his wife was the last at which he held communion with her. When he next called, he was told that the medium had been unexpectedly summoned out of town. She never came back.
These two episodes are typical rather than exceptional instances of the sort of thing that has been going on for years in connection with the physical phenomena of spiritism. Its continuance has been made possible largely by a widespread belief, entertained not by the ignorant and superstitious merely, but by men of distinction in the intellectual and scientific world, that, notwithstanding the prevalence of fraud, there are at least some physical phenomena which must be accounted genuine.
Men like the Italian savants already named, the English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace; the great chemist, Sir William Crookes; the French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, and many others who might be mentioned, are satisfied that they have witnessed in the séance room occurrences out of all accord with natural laws, and not to be attributed to fraud.
In support of this view, emphasis is laid on the fact that, leaving out of consideration all mediums who employ their powers as a means of livelihood, physical phenomena of the most bizarre sort have been manifested through men and women in private life, who cannot possibly have a pecuniary motive for deception, and whose character is beyond reproach.
One of the most celebrated of physical mediums, in fact, was a clergyman of the Church of England, the Reverend W. Stainton Moses, a gentleman respected and warmly esteemed by all who knew him.[27]
As a further argument in behalf of the authenticity of certain of the phenomena, attention is also called to the interesting circumstance that, long before spiritism and spiritistic mediums were heard of, similar marvels—including seemingly spontaneous movements of furniture, and the occurrence of mysterious raps, knockings, and other noises—were frequently reported by thoroughly reputable witnesses.