A defence of modern spiritualismWallace, Alfred Russel
Religion
A defence of modern spiritualism
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Spiritualism
The last medium to whose career I shall call attention is Mrs. Guppy
(formerly Miss Nichol), and in this case I can give some personal
testimony. I knew Miss Nichol before she had ever heard of Spiritualism,
table-rapping, or anything of the kind, and we first discovered her
powers on asking her to sit for experiment in my house. This was in
November, 1866, and for some months we had constant sittings, and I was
able to watch and test the progress of her development. I first
satisfied myself of the rising of a small table completely off the
floor, when three or four persons (including Miss N.) placed their hands
on it. I tested this by secretly attaching threads or thin strips of
paper underneath the claws, so that they must be broken if any one
attempted to raise the table with their feet, the only available means
of doing so. The table still rose a full foot off the floor in broad
daylight. In order to show this to friends with less trouble, I made a
cylinder of hoops and brown paper, in which I placed the table so as to
keep feet and dresses away from it while it rose, which it did as freely
as before. Perhaps more marvelous was the placing of Miss N. herself on
the table; for although this always happened in the dark, yet, under the
conditions to be named, deception was impossible. I will relate one
sitting of which I have notes. We sat in a friend’s house, round a
centre table, under a glass chandelier. A friend of mine, but a perfect
stranger to all the rest, sat next Miss Nichol and held both her hands.
Another person had matches ready to strike a light when required. What
occurred was as follows: First, Miss Nichol’s chair was drawn away from
under her, and she was obliged to stand up, my friend still holding both
her hands. In a minute or two more I heard a slight sound, such as might
be produced by a person placing a wine-glass on the table, and at the
same time a very slight rustling of clothes and tinkling of the glass
pendants of the chandelier. Immediately my friend said, “She is gone
from me.” A light was at once struck, and we found Miss N. quietly
seated in her chair on the centre of the table, her head just touching
the chandelier. My friend declared that Miss N. seemed to glide
noiselessly out of his hands. She was very stout and heavy, and to get
her chair on the table, to get upon it herself, in the dark,
noiselessly, and almost instantaneously, with five or six persons close
around her, appeared, and still appears to me, knowing her intimately,
to be physically impossible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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