Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 48

From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 65.

JERSEY CITY, N. J., _October 22nd, 1888_.

...I think I wrote you once that about two years ago I had received what was said to be a most convincing test of spirit-return, convincing to all except myself. A young lady, a Spiritualist and medium, though not a professional, nor one that ever received one cent in pay, by means of a lettered board and toy chair, she holding one leg of the chair and I another, while a third leg of the chair served as a pointer, gave the following by means of the chair:--

First the chair spelt out my name and showed a disposition to get in my lap; then it spelled out "CARY," and when I asked for the name of the "spirit" it spelt out "George (my name), you ought to know me as I am Jim." But I didn't, and said so. Then, without my looking at the board, it spelt out "Long Island, Jim Rowe," and "Don't you remember I used to carry you when you were a little fellow," or words to that effect. I had to acknowledge the truth of it and also to say that as he was an ignorant man he possibly intended "Cary" for carry. I must own I was puzzled for the moment.

To make sure of his power I asked that he count the pickets in the fence outside of the house and I would go out and confirm his statement. Somehow he couldn't agree to this, and even the medium objected. As a last resort I asked how long he had been in the spirit land and the answer came, between thirteen and fourteen years.

Now to the sequel. First it occurred to me a day or two after, that while all the incidents given were correct, the name should have been given as ROE instead of ROWE. Second, I was upon Long Island this summer, and the matter coming to my mind I inquired how long Jim Roe had been dead, and was informed he died last winter; so when I received this test so convincing to the believers _the man was not dead_.

Yours truly,

GEO. E. LONG.

On October 26th, 1888, Mr. Long adds:--

I do not think that the medium was fraudulent. Her family consists of Mr. S. and three daughters, she being the youngest. I have found all to be hypnotic subjects, with the exception of the eldest daughter. They are all believers in Spiritualism, the youngest having been the medium. They do not sit now, as it is claimed that the sittings, while rich in spiritualistic satisfaction, were productive of a state of poor health in the medium.

As I myself have obtained information supposed to have been impossible for me to have reached, I cannot say for certainty that she had not obtained information about Jim, but I don't believe she had. As the name Rowe was being spelled I sat with my eyes turned from the board and had in mind the name Scudder, and mentally followed the taps of the chair to S C U D--when the medium said, "The name Rowe is given," etc. This would seem to leave out any involuntary muscular action. Why Rowe should have been given instead of Roe is still another phase. I wonder whether, if any question of the Roe family had arisen, I would have had in mind the name of Rowe? If so, then she produced that which I had long while before been conscious of, but was at the time unconscious of, and had it coupled with an error in spelling that I might have been guilty of had I myself been called upon at that moment to spell it.

Had she been fraudulent the probability is she would have spelt it correctly.

It seems to me that the basis of Spiritualism rests mainly upon this phenomenon which men and women in a supernormal condition produce, without understanding it, and credit it to spiritual agencies.

[A general corroboration of Mr. Long's memory of the incident is added from a lady present at the time, who does not now recall the details.]

VIII. C. The following case, received from Dr. Liebeault, is quoted from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 293:--

NANCY, _September 4th, 1885_.

I hasten to write to you as to that case of thought-transference of which I spoke to you when you were present at my hypnotic seances at Nancy. The incident occurred in a French family from New Orleans, who had come to stay for some time at Nancy for business reasons. I had become acquainted with this family from the fact that M. G., its head, had brought to me his niece, Mlle. B., to be treated by hypnotism. She suffered from slight anaemia and from a nervous cough, contracted at Coblentz, in a High School where she was a teacher. I easily induced somnambulism, and she was cured in two sittings. The production of this hypnotic state suggested to the G. family (Mrs. G. was a spirit medium) and to Mlle. B. herself that she might easily become a medium. She set herself to the evocation of spirits (in which she firmly believed) by the aid of her pen, and at the end of two months she had become a remarkable writing medium. I have myself seen her rapidly writing page after page of what she called "messages,"--all in well-chosen language and with no erasures,--while at the same time she maintained conversation with the people near her. An odd thing was that she had no knowledge whatever of what she was writing. "It must be a spirit," she would say, "which guides my hand; it is certainly not I."

One day,--it was, I think, February 7th, 1868, about 8 A.M., when just about to seat herself at table for breakfast, she felt a kind of need, an impulse which prompted her to write;--it was what she called a _trance_,--and she rushed off at once to her large note-book, where she wrote in pencil, with feverish haste, certain undecipherable words. She wrote the same words again and again on the pages which followed, and at last, as her agitation diminished, it was possible to read that a person called Marguerite was thus announcing her death. The family at once a.s.sumed that a young lady of that name, a friend of Mlle. B.'s and her companion and colleague in the Coblentz High School, must have just expired. They all came immediately to me, Mlle. B. among them, and we decided to verify the announcement of death that very day. Mlle. B. wrote to a young English lady who was also a teacher in that same school. She gave some other reason for writing;--taking care not to reveal the true motive of the letter. By return of post we received an answer in English, of which they copied for me the essential part. I found this answer in a portfolio hardly a fortnight ago, and have mislaid it again. It expressed the surprise of the English lady at the receipt of Mlle. B.'s unexpected and apparently motiveless letter.

But at the same time the English correspondent made haste to announce to Mlle. B. that their common friend, Marguerite, had died on February 7th, at about 8 A.M. Moreover, the letter contained a little square piece of printed paper;--the announcement of death sent round to friends.

I need not say that I examined the envelope, and that the letter appeared to me to have veritably come from Coblentz. Yet I have since felt a certain regret. In the interests of science I ought to have asked the G. family to allow me to go with them to the telegraph office to inquire whether they had received a telegram early on February 7th. Science should feel no shame; truth does not dread exposure. My proof of the fact is ultimately a moral one: the honour of the G. family,--which has always appeared to me to be absolutely above suspicion.

A. A. LIeBEAULT.

Upon these last sentences Gurney remarks that, apart from the improbability that the whole family would join in a conspiracy to deceive their friend, the nature of the answer received from Coblentz shows that the writer of it cannot have been aware that any telegraphic announcement had been sent. And it is in itself unlikely that the authorities of the school would have felt it necessary instantly to communicate the news to Mdlle. B.

VIII. D. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 349-53. The narrative is a translation from an article in _Psychische Studien_, December 1889, pp. 572-77, by the Editor, the Hon. Alexander Aksakoff.

The case belongs not to the category of _facts which are known only to the deceased_, but to the category of those which _could only be imparted by the deceased_, for it relates to a political secret concerning a living person, which was revealed by an intimate friend of that living person for the purpose of saving him. I shall set forth this case in all possible detail, because I consider it a most convincing one in support of the Spiritualistic hypothesis. I will even express myself still more strongly. I consider that it affords as absolute a proof of ident.i.ty as it is possible for evidence of this kind to present.

My readers are already acquainted with my sister-in-law, Mrs. A.

von Wiesler, from the part she took in the family seances held with me in the years 1880-1883, after the decease of my wife. She has an only daughter, Sophie, who at the time of those seances was completing her studies. She had taken no part, either at our seances or at any others, and she had not read anything about Spiritualism. Her mother also had not joined in any seances except our own. One evening in October 1884, during the visit of a distant relative, the conversation turned upon Spiritualism, and in order to please him a trial with the table was arranged. This seance, however, gave no satisfactory result. It only showed that the two ladies were able to get something. On Tuesday evening, January 1st, 1885, Mrs. von Wiesler being alone with her daughter, in order to divert her mind from some matters which made her anxious, proposed to hold a little seance. An alphabet was written out on a sheet of paper, a saucer with a black line as pointer served as a planchette, and, behold, the name Andreas was indicated. This was quite natural, for Andreas was the name of Sophie's father, the deceased husband of Mrs. von Wiesler. The communication presented nothing remarkable, but it was nevertheless resolved to continue the seances once a week, on every Tuesday. For three weeks the character of the communications remained unchanged. The name Andreas was continually repeated.

But on the fourth Tuesday--January 22nd--in place of the customary name, Andreas, the name "Schura" was spelt out, to the great astonishment of both sitters. Then, by quick and precise movements of the pointer, these words were added:--

"It is given to thee to save Nikolaus."

"What does this mean?" asked the astonished ladies.

"He is compromised as Michael was, and will like him go to ruin. A band of good-for-nothing fellows are leading him astray."

"What can be done to counteract it?"

"Thou must go to the Technological Inst.i.tute before three o'clock, let Nikolaus be called out, and make an appointment with him at his house."

This being all addressed to the young lady, Sophie, she replied that it would be difficult for her to carry out these directions on account of the slight acquaintances.h.i.+p which existed between her and Nikolaus's family.

"Absurd ideas of propriety!" was "Schura's" indignant reply.

"But in what way shall I be able to influence him?" asked Sophie.

"Thou wilt speak to him in my name."

"Then your convictions no longer remain the same?"

"Revolting error!" was the reply.

I must now explain the meaning of this mysterious communication.

"Schura" is the Russian pet name for Alexandrine. Nikolaus and Michael were her cousins. Michael, quite a young man, had unfortunately allowed himself to become entangled by the revolutionary ideas of our Anarchists or Socialists. He was arrested, tried, and condemned to imprisonment at a distance from St. Petersburg, where he lost his life in an attempt to escape.

"Schura" loved him dearly, and fully sympathised with his political convictions, making no secret of it. After his death, which occurred in September 1884, she was discouraged in her revolutionary aspirations, and ended her life by poison, at the age of seventeen, on the 15th of January 1885, just one week before the seance above described. Nikolaus, Michael's brother, was then a student at the Technological Inst.i.tute.

Mrs. von Wiesler and her daughter were aware of these circ.u.mstances, for they had long been acquainted with "Schura's"

parents, and with those of her cousins, who belong to the best society of St. Petersburg. It will be obvious that I cannot publish the names of these families. I have also changed those of the young people. The acquaintances.h.i.+p was, however, far from being ultimate.

They saw each other occasionally, but nothing more. Later I will give further details. We will now continue our narrative.

Naturally, neither Mrs. von Wiesler nor her daughter knew anything as to the views or secret conduct of Nikolaus. The communication was just as unexpected as it was important. It involved a great responsibility. Sophie's position was a very difficult one. The literal carrying out of "Schura's" demands was, for a young lady, simply impossible, merely from considerations of social propriety.

What right could she have, on the ground of simple acquaintances.h.i.+p, to interfere in family affairs of so delicate a character? Besides, it might not be true; or, quite simply and most probably, Nikolaus might deny it. What position would she then find herself in? Mrs. von Wiesler knew only too well, from the seances she had taken part in with me, how little dependence can be placed on Spiritualistic communications. She counselled her daughter, in the first place, to convince herself of "Schura's" ident.i.ty. This advice was followed without any hesitation as one way out of the difficulty.

On the following Tuesday "Schura" manifested at once, and Sophie asked for a proof of her ident.i.ty, to which "Schura" forthwith replied:--

"Invite Nikolaus, arrange a seance, and I will come."

It will be seen from this reply that "Schura," who during her life had learnt to despise the conventionalities of society, as is the custom among the Socialists, remained true to her character, and again demanded what was an impossibility. Nikolaus had never been in Mrs. von Wiesler's house. Sophie then asked for another proof of her ident.i.ty, without Nikolaus being brought in at all, and requested that it might be a convincing one.

"I will appear to thee," was the reply.

"How?"

"Thou wilt see."

A few days later Sophie was returning home from a soiree; it was nearly 4 A.M. She was just retiring, and was at the door between her bedroom and the dining-room, there being no lights in the latter, when she saw on the wall of the dining-room, in sight of the door at which she stood, a luminous round spot, with, as it were, shoulders. This lasted for two or three seconds, and disappeared, ascending towards the ceiling. Sophie immediately a.s.sured herself that it was not the reflection of any light coming from the street.