CHAPTER XXIII.
A SPIRIT PEELS A BANANA, AND EATS SOME OF IT, AND DIVIDES
THE REST IN FOUR EQUAL PARTS—REPORTS OF CINCINNATI
ENQUIRER ABOUT SPIRIT SEANCES AT MRS. GREEN’S.
I desire to speak of a recent manifestation, which baffles my ability to understand, and proves that spirits by some chemical process are enabled to operate upon material substances and cause them to vanish. I only give one instance, and leave the reader to his own reflections and to adopt his own theory. I shall simply give the fact as it occurred.
I have a little grand daughter, Julia Muth, in the spirit world. When in the form she was partially fond of bananas. On the occasion of the recent anniversary of her eighth birthday, the 13th of July, 1882, I went to Mrs. Green for a seance, taking with me a large banana. These slate-writing seances, as has been heretofore explained, take place in the full light. I sat, as usual, opposite to Mrs. Green, with the small stand between us. I placed the fruit on a slate, with a short letter of greeting, and put it under the covering of the stand, while Mrs. Green held another slate of her own. The spirits, after writing on Mrs. Green’s slate for about an hour, wrote as follows: “Grandpa, take your slate from under the stand,” which I immediately did, and on the slate was written, “I peeled the banana, and ate some of it, too; your little Julia Muth.”
We removed the cloth covering from the stand and found the peelings on the floor, and on my slate the banana divided in four equal parts after the end piece had disappeared. We searched diligently, but without our effort being rewarded by the discovery of the missing portion of the fruit. Whither had it gone?
The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer is a leading as well as an extensively circulated paper, published at Cincinnati, Ohio, and, in October, 1881, Mrs. Green was visited by a reporter of that paper, who was present at two of her trumpet seances. Although probably not a believer, he turned out to be a fair minded man who would not allow his prejudices, if he had any, to interfere with an honest account of what he saw and witnessed. In three issues of that paper, to wit, October 16th, 18th and 21st, 1881, appeared his report of a visit to Mrs. Green, and two seances he attended. They are here inserted, in the order of the dates given.
Issue of October 16th:
“In a neatly furnished suit of rooms over No. 309 Longworth street lives Mrs. L. S. Green, a spiritualist medium. Upon her last evening a representative of the Enquirer called. He was cordially received by the lady’s husband, being tendered a seat in a parlor in which was a piano, a pretty set of furniture; while an old-fashioned kerosene lamp threw its brightest rays over the room from a mantel-piece. Seated in a rocking-chair was Mrs. Green, plainly dressed, of a modest and retiring disposition, and features that stamped her as a faithful and loving wife. The mission of the newspaper man was quickly explained. Her husband replied that as a rule mediums avoided reporters, as they were liable to distort and ridicule their statements. But where the thing is conducted honestly and openly, ‘I can not,’ he said, ‘see what we have to fear from publication.’
“In reply to a question, Mrs. Green said that she was about thirty-eight years old, and had been a clairvoyant since 1868, her first mediumistic inclinations having developed that year. Her history since that time as a spiritualist has been quite full of interest. Previous to her becoming a medium she was a member of the Christian Church, and was as great a skeptic as one could find. So, in fact, was her husband. While a member of the Indiana Legislature in 1867 he attended a seance, where he received a message from his dead mother. At a subsequent one, another spiritual letter came to him, telling him that his wife possessed the powers of a medium, and asking him to bring her to one of the circles. After some persuasion he finally gained her consent to go. She there saw her first spirits, that of an uncle of the medium of the assemblage, who had his head cut off by a train of cars. From that time her powers began to develop, showing themselves in messages that she wrote on paper or beheld in the air. Spirits as high as five hundred a day presented themselves to her view. Her continued increase as a medium so worked upon her that she lost her health, and she was compelled for the time being to abandon the business. About twelve months ago she resumed her writing—this time on slates. Messages Were written on the inside of folded slates, and often, after a seance, a fluid would be found on the outside of the slate, which, unless washed off then, could never be removed. This had been taken to chemist after chemist for analysis, and one and all had failed to make any thing out of it.
“One evening a small lock of hair was found in the corner of the slate, in the center of which was a small lead pencil. At that time this was believed to have been placed there by some one in the circle. It was folded in a piece of paper to be retained, but the next day it disappeared. From this time out Mrs. Green’s materializing abilities began. She had great success in her seances, and frequently described catastrophes which, on the following morning, were found to be exceedingly accurate. She foreshadowed the explosion of the steamer Pat Rogers, and graphically described the collision of the United States with the America. The details of a fire at a neighboring place one evening were recited by her. The next day it was learned that the hour and facts were most wonderfully correct.