The acts and deeds of Mr. Daniel Home, a Scotchman, and of the Davenport brothers, Americans, who figure very prominently as mediums in the authentic records of the spiritualists, are tolerably well known by report to many. From America, where the signs were first noticed, they came eastwards to England and the European continent, in which places the spiritual manifestations were even more remarkable than those which had occurred and been testified to in the West. Under the direction of a medium, people sat round a table, and by a silent invocation of spirits, by “willing”[45] that they should come, they came, and produced the following amongst other equally strange phenomena.[46] Large tables rose to the ceiling, floating in the atmosphere with a sort of undulating motion, and coming down again to the floor without noise; sprigs of flowers were torn off and presented to people by the spirit; accordions and other musical instruments were played without any visible hand holding or moving them; luminous stars and streaks of light appeared in various places, while “spirit hands” were seen and felt as palpably as mortal flesh and blood could be; answers to questions made, were given by a system of raps or by spelling out words on a child’s alphabet placed on the floor. Thus conversations, sometimes sensible, but frequently trivial and absurd,[47] were held with the spirits summoned. Spirit hands, using material pens, ink and paper, wrote answers to queries; quoted verses from known authors, or put down original poems. In some cases the narratives published were anonymous, and only authenticated by witnesses who privately testified to the newspaper-editors their accuracy. But in some instances persons of repute and ability came forward in support of their correctness.[48] Dr. Gully of Malvern, for example, publicly testified that he had seen Mr. Home float about a room for several minutes, and guaranteed the accuracy of the facts set forth in a most remarkable fashion in an early number of the “Cornhill Magazine.” A well-known clergyman of the High Church party in the Church of England, gives his testimony to the truth and strangeness of certain appearances and manifestations, in the following communication to the Editor of this volume:—
“I was staying in the north of England with the Rev. ——, in 1850. During my visit a well-known medium (at that period a clergyman of the diocese of London) spent the evening with us. Eight or ten other people were there at the same time. ‘Table-turning’ was the subject of a long and animated discussion, in which those who accepted the facts and those who rejected them were about equally divided. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to test the question. This was determined on. A circular table about four feet in diameter, of considerable size and weight, was used. Seven people sat round it, joining their hands on the table, and after conjointly willing that it should turn itself in one direction or be turned, for about twelve minutes, it began to vibrate strangely and then slowly to move. At first its motion was in circles, then it moved from side to side of the room with dash and rapidity. Afterwards it was strangely tilted on the other side. On one occasion later on, it rose several inches from the ground, and remained suspended in the air for nearly two minutes. As to the facts, no one could dispute them. Afterwards a variety of questions were put, to which the table replied by knocking on the floor. It was agreed beforehand that one knock should stand for ‘No’, two for ‘Yes.’ An alphabet was produced, and words in response were spelled out. Some of the queries were trivial, some arithmetical, some momentous. The answers were usually accurate, sensible, and intelligible, but not always so. After questions had been put concerning the future state, heaven, hell, purgatory, the happiness of the good and the punishment of the wicked, a question was asked, ‘Where did the spirit now answering dwell when on earth?’ The name of a place in Devonshire was spelled out. This reply greatly interested a clergyman present, who some fifteen years previously had been curate in that county. It was followed by another:—‘What was the name of the person whose spirit is here?’ Then the table spelt out, by means of the alphabet, the name of a yeoman who had died impenitent and blaspheming at the period before referred to. This was sufficient for me,” writes the above correspondent; “what I had heard and seen convinced me that necromancy was practised. I left the house, protecting myself by the sacred sign, convinced of the sin of the practice. And though I had been a spectator and not an actor, I made a resolution, which I have scrupulously kept, never to see nor sanction such proceedings again.”
Another somewhat similar example is here recorded. A clergyman of the Church of England, intimately known to the Editor of this volume, supplies the following remarkable narrative regarding the action and authors of Spiritualistic manifestations:—“Being a perfect and total sceptic as to the supernatural character of so-called ‘Spiritualism,’ and believing that the results asserted to be produced by its votaries were brought about by pre-arranged trickery and the deception of confederates, I for a long time declined to be present at, or to take part in, a séance, though earnestly pressed to do so. However, circumstances led me to attend one in the year 1862, at a house in Notting Hill Square, London, in the month of October. Prior to the operations, which were managed and conducted by a ‘medium,’ I was invited to examine both the room where the séance was to be held, and the table by which the operations were to be conducted. Conversations, held by a well-known spiritualist, were to be carried on, (by means of an alphabet, raps and knockings,) with the spirits who were presumed to be present, and who were declared to have miraculously moved the table round which, for some time, seven persons, including myself, had been sitting. The room was about ten feet in height, and in the centre was a gas chandelier of three lights, all of which were burning. During the sitting, after the table had made several most remarkable gyrations, tilting one side of itself upwards and downwards at an angle of at least forty-five degrees, at the command of the chief operator it slowly ascended from the floor to the height of at least seven feet, viz. the bottom of the pendent gaselier. Its plane having caused the lamp glasses to rattle by contact, the table then with a strange throbbing and vibration and slow movement began to descend. We had all removed our chairs, to give room for its ascent, and standing close to the walls around, saw it slowly come down to its place. I was so shocked and horrified at what I beheld, and now so firmly convinced that the remarkable actions we had witnessed were the result of the invocation and intervention of evil spirits, that I declined, in language most positive and unmistakable, to have any further part in such unlawful performances. When further attempts were made to obtain fresh manifestations, taking from my neck a small silver crucifix, which had been blessed by a high ecclesiastical dignitary, I made a mental act of faith in the Blessed Trinity, and holding the small crucifix in my closed hand, placed my hand clasping it on the table, saying mentally, ‘If this be the work of evil spirits, may God Almighty, for Christ’s sake, stop it!’ The moment I did this, the table, which had been moving about strangely in several directions, and by varied singular motions, became suddenly and at once motionless. Nor could it be made to stir afterwards. Being perfectly convinced that such operations were of the nature of Necromancy, forbidden by the Church, as Scripture plainly testifies, I made an earnest exhortation to those in the room, after the last manifestation, not to cooperate in such deeds any further. Some maintained by rather blasphemous arguments that Spiritualism was destined to, and would soon, take the place of Christianity; and were kind enough to pity my ignorance, narrowness, prejudice, and sectarianism, to which I made no reply. I then left.”
From another source (a well-known country gentleman in one of the midland counties) has been obtained a series of questions and answers which were put, given, and taken down in the year 1856, at a gathering at which the practice of table-turning and spirit invocation was tested by those whose conviction, in the main, regarding them, as the Editor is informed, agrees with that of the correspondents already quoted. Similar strange phenomena occurred on this occasion likewise:—
“Are you a Spirit who inhabited this earth? Yes.
How long have you been dead? No reply.
Have you been dead years? No.
Months? No.
Weeks? No.
Days? Yes.