The book to which Dr. Crawford referred when he showed me the photographs he intended to use in it has, since his death, been published by David Gow, Editor of the Spiritualistic paper Light. In a prefatory note he writes:
“I could say much about the present book with its remarkable elucidation of many problems connected with the psychical phenomena of Spiritualism, but I content myself with a reference to such experiments as those with the soft clay and the methylene blue, which finally clear away certain suspicions which have always attached to psychical mediums in connection with materialization phenomena amongst uninstructed investigators. This is not the least valuable part of a valuable book.”
The above statement raises the question of what bearing any of these experiments, supposing every detail claimed were a fact, has on a future state. What possible information could impressions in clay, or stockings soiled by dye, furnish concerning the future state of a soul?
Ejner Nielson, of Copenhagen, was sponsored by Dr. Oscar Jaeger, Professor of Economics at the University of Christiania, Norway, and President of the Norwegian Society for Psychical Research. Professor Jaeger was invited by the Editor of the Politikon, at Copenhagen, to hold a seance with Neilson. He accepted and it took place in January, 1922, before a specially selected committee[102] appointed by the president of the Norwegian University, Professor Frederick Stange. A few weeks later the committee reported that Nielson had not been capable of producing any so-called teleplasma or phenomena of materialization. Subsequently the Society for Psychical Research reported that teleplasma had been “artificially brought into the body of the medium.”
Paul Heuze, writing of the Polish medium, in the London Daily Telegraph of September 18, 1922, says:
“S. D. Stamislaski arrived in Paris on April 7th. On the 10th he had an interview at the Sorbonne with Professor Piéron and on the 11th I went, at his request, to take part in the initial seance which was held in a bedroom of his hotel. This was, of course, merely a preparatory seance. My impression was not at all favorable.”
In speaking of the subsequent seances of this medium he declares:
“The whole thing may be summed up in a single sentence; the result was pitiable. Suffice it to say that in spite of inadequate control, not only did I never see any of the luminous phenomena of the first seances but that hardly anything took place at all and when it did it was merely one of those clumsy pieces of deception that are practiced in the most ordinary Spiritualistic seances:—Articles moved, thrown forward, touchings, slaps, books dropped on the head, etc. The whole thing carried out in such a manner that there could not be the slightest doubt as to the gross trickery with which it was performed.”
I have personally attended seances held by two of the ectoplasmic mediums, Mlle. Eva and Mrs. Thompson, and I have no doubt that it is only a question of time when all such mediums, as well as these two, including Stamislawa, P. Frank Kluski, S. G. Stamislaski, Jean Guzek,[103] Kathleen Goligher, Ejner Nielson, Frau Siebert and Willy Sch, will be authentically classified as questionable.
Bear in mind, I am not a skeptic. It is my will to believe and if convincing evidence is brought forward I will be the first to acknowledge my mistake, but up to the present day nothing has crossed my path to make me think that the Great Almighty will allow emanations from a human body of such horrible, revolting, viscous substances as Baron Von Schrenk Notzing claims, hideous shapes, which, like “genii from the bronze bottle,” ring bells, move handkerchiefs, wobble tables, and do other “flap-doodle” stunts.