When the manifestation was complete I remembered the old man, and looked round at him. He was watching the business, as keenly interested as I was.
"Good boys! good boys," I heard him murmur.
"How is it done?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "The Petris (spirits) do it. I don't."
"Then ask 'the Petris' to put the chairs neatly back again."
"The Petris" performed this feat very expeditiously, and I paid two-and-sixpence and departed. There was no loophole here for fraud, not a wire, or string, or any human manipulation, and I was not hypnotized. I never have been. For that sort of test I had seen enough.
Shortly after I witnessed a materialization in broad daylight. I was free to move about the room, and stand by the medium as she lay bound and deeply entranced. I was free to make any examinations I pleased, whilst others present conversed with the spirit, and I left the house absolutely convinced of the genuineness of that phenomenon.
That was the last test séance I attended, and for years afterwards I did not interest myself in spiritualism, nor did I attend many private sittings.
Towards the close of the South African War I was ordered from "the other side" to begin again, but on different lines. I was ordered to be a medium.
A man whom I barely knew, and who had passed over, wished to communicate with his people. This put me in a quandary. I hardly knew his people, and their social position was not such as could be treated unceremoniously by a casual acquaintance. I had never heard that they were interested in "other side" subjects. The very little I knew of them suggested quite the reverse.