[58] I have a full record of the proceedings in my reference file.
[59] In order to prove that fraud and trickery were the tools which had been used in fleecing the unwary, magicians were induced to appear in evidence, and on May 27, 1888, Alexander Hermann gave a public Demonstration at the Academy of Music in New York City for the purpose of duplicating the phenomena produced by Diss Debar and as an aid to the New York Press Club Fund.
The audience included many prominent people and notables including Col. Cockerell; Edward S. Stokes, of the Hoffman House; Joseph Howard; District Attorney Fellows; Ex-Judge Donohue; Lawyer Newcombe; Judge Hilton; Luther R. Marsh; and “Dr.” Lawrence, one of the attaches of the Diss Debar Temple.
Professor Hermann read spirit messages, did table tipping, cabinet, light seance, and produced spook pictures, finishing with a dark seance of ghostly music and materializations.
[60] New York Times, April 21, 1888.
[61] New York World, June 18, 1888.
[62] When the London press was full of sensational stories following the arrest of Laura and Theodore Jackson, Carl Hertz, on picking up his paper one morning, was astonished to recognize the woman who had lured young girls into joining her immoral cult as Ann O’Delia Diss Debar, with whom he had measured swords at the Marsh trial. He got in touch with Scotland Yard immediately and gave it all the information he had regarding Diss Debar’s connection with fraud activities.
[63] “Miss Croisdale, who was one of the victims, testified that she had been initiated into the ‘Theocratic Unity,’ the sect which the Jacksons claimed to head, with a rope fastened about her; passes were made over her, she said, with a lamp, water and a saw: Jackson told her that he was Christ re-incarnated. Miss Croisdale then described the oath in which she swore she would allow no one else to hypnotize her and she would keep all the secrets under the penalty of ‘submitting myself to a deadly and hostile current of will set in motion by the Chief of the order, with which I would be slain or paralyzed without visible weapons, as if blasted by lightning.’ Mrs. Jackson (or Diss Debar) looked as if she wished to carry out the threat on the spot. Miss Croisdale further testified that Theodore had outraged her in his wife’s presence. Jackson declared he was physically incapable and demanded a doctor’s examination to prove his statement.”—Dispatch from the London Times in the New York Sun, October 11, 1901.
[64] Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1906.
[65] New York Sun, October 11, 1901.