Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887: Volume 1, Number 2
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887: Volume 1, Number 2
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
I remember one very remarkable occurrence. James was entranced by the
spirit of Michael Angelo, and a lady medium present was controlled by
Raphael, and these two, partly in Italian and partly in English,
discoursed upon art, painting, architecture, and sculpture in a manner
calculated to produce a lasting impression upon the minds of those who
were so fortunate as to be witnesses of the scene. The spirits were
evidently fearful of losing control of the medium, and in their hasty
desire to speak constantly interrupted each other, but they referred
to the great works in which they had been engaged while on the earth,
and the monuments they had left behind them. I remember Raphael
particularly speaking of his last great painting of the
Transfiguration, which he declared he had left in an unfinished
condition in Rome, and which he desired to complete if he only had the
opportunity. I regret that I am not able at this distant time to give
full details of these, their marvelous revelations. I had shorthand
notes taken which were afterwards written out, but unfortunately they
were all destroyed in the great Chicago fire, in 1871.
James was also a drawing medium, and as such he executed many fine
pictures. His method of work in this direction was quite beyond the
capacity of any human being. He operated with six pencils, three in
each hand, each pencil doing a separate part of the work at the same
time; the consequent rapidity of execution was something wonderful.
James once drew a colossal picture of Lincoln, which measured seven
and one half feet in length. The sheet of paper was laid upon the
floor, and upon it, without any outline or measurements, he first made
an eye, and then in its proper relative position a boot. When the
outlines were completed, these came into their proper places. The
picture was a fair likeness of Lincoln, and represented him in the act
of reading the emancipation proclamation. The pictorial heading of
your paper, with its name in the letters as they now stand,
RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, all finished and complete as it is, was
done by James in the manner above stated. The engraver who reproduced
it has not altered one line or mark; yet this man in his natural
condition could not draw the outline of a barn.
James located the first artesian well which was bored in Chicago. He
declared by his clairvoyant sight that a stream of water could be
found many hundreds of feet beneath the surface. The boring was done
and the water found, and this well was the originator of the numerous
other wells which now supply our parks and factories. James afterward
went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania, where he was successful in
locating productive oil wells. Since 1869, I have lost sight of him,
but wherever he may be he is a marvelous, intellectual medium, and as
honest and truthful as the sunlight.
GEO. A. SHUFELDT, _Religio-Philosophical Journal_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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