Section 14

It is now to be mentioned as something that would seem to have strangeness related with it, that attempts at knot-tying under all kinds of odd conditions seemed from the date of this conver- sation to get mixed up with all our meetings, this continuing quite a year, undoubted attempts being made on two separate occasions to repeat in America the wonderful things seen in Europe.
It was on the date of May ii, in the year succeeding the second described of our seances, when a hasty note from the confrere bid me to a gathering of spirits who had promised that the meeting should be attended with the manifestations of the Zollner knot
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at the hands of an equally powerful force with that one which had accomplished it in Germany. The promise went further. It im- plied that any heretofore unthought-of test might be demanded. Nothing in the way of transcendental physics, it was implied, was impossible to the spirit that was to manifest. The mortals were not to hesitate at asking any seemingly impossible thing. The occasion was to be one that should settle the great question as to the existence of a fourth dimension of space ; solid should pass through solid unmistakably and unquestionably.
I here turn to a note-book and copy as closely as possible the seance as it occurred, having at the time of writing been extra- ordinarily careful not to allow the slightest incident to escape observation.
" The room is brilliantly lighted. The confrere and myself are seated either side of a marble topped table directly beneath the chandelier. Upon the table lies a simple length of worsted cord, measuring six feet; beside this, an ordinaiy visiting-card, having two holes punched in it, a stick of sealing-wax, a threaded needle, and a lighted wax candle, supported in its stand.
*'I take up the cord and examine it thoroughly to satisfy myself that there is no deception as to integrity of continuousness. I am unwilling to trust to anything but my own senses ; I must see and feel to be satisfied. I pull this cord, twist, untwist, and work at it in every way. I make myself sure that it is nothing different from what it shows, namely, ordinary cord as it is found for sale in the shops.
" I now take up the card and pass the free ends of the cord through the perforations, crossing these ends and passing them in turn back through opposite holes. A succeeding step employs the thread and needle, the common length of the cord and the two ends being firmly sewed together. This accomplished, wax and candle are brought into requisition, the wax being melted upon the crossed and sewed cord, as this relates with the card, thus making the two articles practically one, and insuring a circle of cord not possible to be broken without discovery.
" Preparation thus made in correspondence with the test re- ceived by Professor Zollner, I lay the card, holding the cord,.
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upon the illuminated table, placing my hand so as to cover it on one side to about one-fourth of its width, while the medium covers it on the opposite side after a similar fashion ; this laying on of hands being with a view, as expressed by the confrere, to furnish reserve force, to be drawn on, if necessary, by the spirits. The loop of the cord is thrown over one side of the table and lies upon the floor.
" The requirements are perfect as to the minutest detail ; nothing is omitted. Shall we witness this greatest of all possible tests ? We sit silently facing each other. No word is spoken. Suddenly raps are heard as if coming from the floor ; one, two, three ; this is the usual signal for accomplishment. Quickly the loop is lifted. It holds five hard-tied knots.
" What shall we say ? What is to be said ? As truly as I saw so truly do I describe what I saw. May a man do aught but accept a faith attested by such a miracle ? Shall one wonder at what was begotten with the learned German savans ?"
Were unlimited pages at command, multitudinous wonderful experiences had with the confrere might be recited ; two, associated with slate- writing, m.ust conclude the limitation.
Five persons sat in the usual room of meeting, among these being the medium. A sudden impulse coming to me, I pick up a common, single, perfectly-clean slate and hold it above my head asking for a communication, in which request I am earnestly seconded by the confrere. A minute later I look at the slate, finding it covered with writing, the following being a copy of what appeared :
" My dear Professor, — The roads leading to error and truth run closely and continuously side by side. Let this message, con- veyed to you in mid-air, convince that there is power, as yet un- recognized by mortals, that is able to do things entirely beyond the ability of men."
The communication was signed with a very familiar name.
Another of the company, overwhelmed at so inexpressible a phenomenon, takes the slate, washes it, and, holding it up, asks favor at the hand of the spirit. As in the case recited, a single minute sufficed for a communication.
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" Convince me ! convince me !" cried the astounded guest, after reading the matter, " that there is no deception by erasing what has been written." The slate was again held up, and in a moment drawn back ; there was neither sign nor mark upon it.
There are door-steps leading to the Spiritus Sanctus ; this is the me that rests upon the ground.
IX.
PSYCHICS.
Here attention is directed to the matter of visions. A letter from a lady, written with view to professional advice, notes as follows : " Yesterday morning, starting at the foot of the stairs with the intention of going to the third floor, I saw with all the distinctness of life a person standing at the landing above looking down at me. As I advanced the figure disappeared," The lady tells of another occasion where, on entering a room, a woman was seen lying apparently asleep on a lounge, and who vanished only on being approached within a few feet. Other equally striking incidents are related.
A very short time back a gentleman entered the office of the writer who pronounced himself a convert to spiritism on the ground that with his own eyes he was the frequent beholder of a spirit-form, which he had come to recognize as a Familiar in con- stant attendance on him. An irrefutable proof to the mind of the observer lay in the fact that no hallucination as to dreaming could exist, seeing that the spirit never made its visits at night, but, as in verification of its reality, would rise into presence and disap- pear in the bright light of mid-day, and never at any other time.
" The spirit comes quickly into view and disappears slowly ?" was asked him. " Yes."
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"And it proves its reality by standing between you and the sun ?"
" This is always its position."
" What shape does it take?"
** In a very bright sunlight I see simply the trunk of a human being. When the light is not so bright there is a gradual shading off as if the extremities were trying to show themselves."
" Facial features indistinct ?" was suggested.
" Come to think of it," he observed, " have never particularly noticed."
" You see this phantom when walking the busy street of the city as when in the solitude of a country lane ?"
" I cannot doubt," the man replied, " that the form is that of a spirit which is ever near me, even though not always seen."
" Consciousness of such association with the dematerialized keeps you filled with a sense of delight and safety ?"
" It is to me," he replied, " irrefutable proof of the existence of life after dissolution of the body. I have no longer any doubt, for faith has been turned into reality. I have been blessed to find the something compared with which everything else falls into in- significance."
Yesterday, February 20, 18 — , a professional interview was had with a young woman who beholds the air filled with black stream- ers, while a mind was brought which was full of blacker forebodings. " Pestilence was in the air. A little while and every door would show crape. Forsooth, the end of the world was at hand." She was sure something terrible was about to happen. Nearly every bell-pull had crape attached. The exceptions were few. Crape was everywhere, and the brighter the day the more pronounced, as if in making contrast, was the blackness. A person more pessi- mistic and more completely overwhelmed by forebodings it would be hard to find. Many similar experiences with seers of spirit- istic phenomena have been had by the writer in his professional capacity.
What is a doctor to say of things like these known to be seen, not only of hearsay, but, as is now to be related, by personal ex- perience ?
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SFIRITUS SANCTUS.
What immediately follows is an account of occult visitations copied from a note-book, much of the writing having been done at time of occurrence of the incidents recorded.
The reading is as given.
" Shortly after laying my head upon the pillow last night (no dat*) sensation of touches close by the ear were experienced, as though a mouse might be jumping about, these touches on several occasions reaching the face and producing impressions which brought the hand quickly into requisition with a view of brushing away the intruder. Later, face after face, mostly those of young children, gathered about the bed ; these would appear as if emerg- ing quickly out of an impenetrable blackness immediately back of them, and with gentle but rapid motion approach more or less closely. At times a face would vanish as if dissolved, not unlike the disappearance of a soap-bubble ; at other times I looked in- tently into some one countenance, seeking familiar features. Ap- pearance and disappearance impressed me as varying from a moment to a minute. Several of the faces approached with such rapidity that my hands involuntarily went up to guard against collision.
" 1 8 — . Another manifestation" (copied, like the preceding, from diary). " I was lying in bed; the room was dark and cold, a window being open, after my usual manner of sleeping. It is not at all unlikely I had fallen into that kind of light sleep known familiarly as * cat-nap.' Suddenly I was startled into vivid wakefulness by a sense of the presence of somebody in the chamber. Casting a glance towards a dressing-bureau, I saw plainly two people standing by the side of it. At an adjacent window, leaning against the jamb, was the person of a stalwart Indian. Above my head, floating slowly and gracefully away, was a black-clothed female figure. One by one these different forms gradually disappeared after the manner of dissolving views ; not, however, until opportunity had been allowed for plenty of time in which to satisfy myself that I was fully awake. I am pro- foundly impressed as to the difference between these experiences and a dream."
Here I add, parenthetically, that I continue to be influenced
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in some way by tlie floating female figure. Whatever I happen to have thought or to be thinking since the vision, I indulge contin- uously, in spite of myself, in desire and hope to meet it again.
Night succeeding that last alluded to. " To-night I have had another visit from the Indian seen yesterday. The dress, the place occupied, and the position were all precisely the same. Disap- pearance was, however, almost synchronous with appearance.
" Sunday, Jammry 13, 18 — . While sitting, this afternoon, in contemplative mood, being widely awake, I had my attention drawn to appearances which presented in the atmosphere of the room. The sights seen were not less diversified as to changes in color from what is experienced when the eyeballs are pressed, differing, however, even as the pictures of clouds attain sublimity when put in comparison with the pigmental attempts of men. These pictures I watched with shut eyes for quite an hour, en- deavoring the while to find or to obtain explanation in familiar optical derangements, — endeavoring, but failing to arrive at con- clusions.
" January 15, 18 — . Last night, almost immediately on getting into bed, and while absorbed in a contemplation of the beatific vision of the Sunday before, I saw the form of a man suddenly pro- ject itself from the location of a mirror and as suddenly disap- pear.
" January 16, 18 — . While lying with open eyes last night, my look being riveted on the mirror from which the form of the night before had projected itself, desire being intense for a repetition of the visit, the image of a person approached from an opposite direc- tion, but had no sooner afforded me a momentary glimpse than it dissolved and was lost.
" January 27. Curious as to possibilities and probabilities, and being at liberty this Sunday afternoon, I avow and vouch for the following experience : I took a slate, and, balancing it upon the tips of my fingers, supporting it thus against the top of a marble table, I ask, with little faith, that it will spell out for me a com- munication, suggesting that a move in the right direction signify a proper letter named, and that mistakes be corrected by move- ment to the left. After some ten minutes spent in waiting, the Q. k 13
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slate exhibited evidences of motion, and, later, the following sen- tence was fully and fairly spelled : * "Why reason beyond a cause ?' Initials were given of a spirit purporting to be the writer.
" Wednesday, January 30. I had been in bed but a very little while on the evening of this day, when suddenly there appeared and disappeared, too quickly to allow of any special description, the figure of one dressed in sailor garb, and who might have been about five feet in height. Later, — about ten minutes, perhaps, — I caught an indistinct glance of what seemed to be an unsuccessful attempt at an Indian materialization. I saw plainly a fringe of feathers arranged as a head-dress, while lower down appeared a still fainter exhibit of the edge of a blanket. No body was t© be seen. Synchronously, apparently, with this last, the form of a person flitted across the room and disappeared. A still succeeding phenomenon was the appearance of a plainly-dressed woman, who approached within two feet, and stood immovable, allowing good chance for a look directly into her face, after which she disap- peared with the quickness of a broken soap-bubble.
" February 2. Last night, while lying in what perhaps was a doze, I was suddenly awakened to a state of acute consciousness by the instantaneous appearance of a circle of little children, who, with hand grasping hand, suddenly encircled me ; one, directly in front, was as rosy-faced and as vital in appearance as any mortal child to be seen, and I was permitted a long gaze before disappearance. Later, an indistinct and hazy adult face showed itself.
" February 3. Went to bed at eleven o'clock, and lay awake hoping for manifestations. Was startled after about half an hour by seeing a hand thrust out of the darkness holding a basket filled with flowers. Later, a form stood at the bedside, which permitted me to scrutinize it closely for one or two seconds before disappearing. Still later, the shadows of a man and woman ap- peared over the foot of the bed, floating from the left to the right.
" February 4. Morning, 12 A.M. One hour ago I went into the chamber where I meet the things being described, and, after closing the door, sat down with a view of seeing visions when undoubtedly
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awake and free of any possible confusion in the way of uncon- scious dreaming. After being seated a few minutes, having my eyes fixed at a view of the white ceiling, points of light, en- veloped by aureolse, began making their appearance, which lights, after a moment of fixity, would pass, some slowly, some rapidly, from place to place over the wall, otherwise would fall floatingly in the direction of the floor. Alternating with these were vivid flashes and the flickerings of flame, the latter not unlike that made by the gas of burning coals. Later, a series of clouds, varying in shade from pea-green to almost black, waved over the ceiling ; these continuing for quite quarter of an hour. Finally the upper portion of human forms began to appear and disap- pear, these coming and going exactly as those seen at night ; a little later the wall showed nothing but its usual staring white surface.
" February 5. Last night a dream, a fully- and fairly-appreciated dream, showed me the face of a female figure, so filled with life and animation that I awoke with the loudly-spoken cry, • See, it is alive!' "
I add here what appears in my diary emphasized with a large interrogation mark. " The life-like face seen in the sleep is fully recognized as expressive of the common familiar dream ; it was undoubtedly a memory, a residual impression of the afternoon. I lay awake between the hour of this dream and the morning, being overwhelmed with a mental query as to the difference between the most vivid of dreams and the nature of what I have been seeing outside of dreams. What I have been seeing requires other explanation than that pertaining to dreams. What I have been seeing are materializations of — of what ? Just now I will not at all concern myself as to this * what' ; whether deceptions or realities, I will not interfere with the new sight come to me. These real unreal things and people mystify and delight me. Am I finding introduction to a world within a world, — a world where form needs no corporal body, and where motion exists without instrument ? Startling, yet delighting, the idea that the departed remain ; that the past is one with the present. What, I am begin- ning to ask myself, is provision for a life where person is atmos-