Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically ExaminedMcCabe, Joseph
Religion
Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined
McCabe, Joseph
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930; Mediums -- Practice; Spiritualism
The spirits performed every variety of phenomena through Stainton Moses.
Like Home, and only a few of the quite holiest mediums, he was
occasionally lifted off the ground; or, which is, of course, the same
thing, he said that he was. Raps were common when he was about.
Automatic writing of the most elevating (and most inaccurate)
description flowed from his pencil. Lights floated about the room; and
once or twice he dropped and broke a bottle of phosphorus in the dark.
Musical sounds were repeatedly heard, as in the case of the Rev. Dr.
Monck, who had a little musical box in his trousers. The sitters were
sprayed with scent. The objects on the dressing-table in his room were
arranged by invisible hands in the form of a cross. Wonderful messages
about recently deceased persons were sent through him; and the details
could later be found in the papers. In fine, he was a remarkably good
medium for "apports"--that is to say, the bringing into the circle by
the spirits of flowers and other objects. Statuettes, jewels, books, and
all kinds of things (provided they were in the house and could be
secreted about the person) were "apported."
The evidence for these things is particularly poor, but I am a liberal
man. I do not doubt them. Each one of them, separately, was done by
other mediums. It is the rich variety that characterizes Moses. Let him
sleep in peace. The credulity and admiration of his friends seem to have
made him lose the last particle of sense of honour in these matters.
These things are common elementary conjuring from beginning to end.
Apports are a familiar ghostly accomplishment, and the way they are done
is familiar. Mme. Blavatsky was wonderful at apports. Who would ever
dream of proposing to search Mme. Blavatsky? And who would now be so
simple as to think of spirits when the medium was not searched? The
person of Mme. Blavatsky was as sacred from such search as the person of
the Rev. Stainton Moses or of the charming and guileless Florrie Cook.
Indeed, it is only in recent times that a real search of the medium has
been demanded, and the accounts of weird and wonderful objects
"apported" under other conditions merit only a smile. Mrs. Guppy,
secured from search by her virtue and the esteem of Dr. Russel Wallace,
went so far as to apport live eels. Eusapia Palladino one day "apported"
a branch of azaleas in Flammarion's house; and he afterwards found an
azalea plant, which it exactly fitted, in her bedroom. Another day her
spirits showered marguerites on the table; and the marguerites were
missed from a pot in the corridor. Anna Rothe, the Princess Karadja's
pet medium, was secretly watched, and was caught bringing bouquets from
her petticoats and oranges out of her ample bosom; and the spirits did
not save her from a year in gaol. She had a whole flower-shop under her
skirts when she was seized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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