Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research — John Shaqi
Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical ResearchSage, Michael
Religion
Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research
Sage, Michael
Mediums -- Practice -- Great Britain; Parapsychology -- Investigation -- Great Britain; Piper, Leonora, 1859-1950; Spiritualism
This dishonesty of Phinuit certainly complicates the problem singularly.
But I wish to present it as it actually is, with its dark and bright
sides. Science must endeavour to explain both.[39]
Miss Hannah Wild died on July 28, 1886. She was a strong Baptist, and
remained so to her last moments. About a year before her death a Boston
spiritualist paper published a message supposed to have come from her
dead mother. Miss Hannah Wild was much struck by it.
Her sister advised her to try the following experiment. Miss Hannah Wild
should write a letter whose contents she alone knew, and when she died,
she should return, if not prevented by circumstances stronger than her
will, and communicate the contents of the letter to her sister through
some medium. The letter would only be opened when some message bearing
all the marks of authenticity should arrive.
This was done. Hannah Wild wrote the letter, sealed it and enclosed it
in a tin box. It was understood that no mortal hand was to touch it.
When giving it to her sister she said, "If I can come back it will be
like ringing the City Hall bell!"
Mrs Blodgett, Hannah Wild's sister, adds, "Hands have never touched that
letter; it was in my husband's safe. When I sent it to Professor James I
took it out with scissors."
Mrs Blodgett having, in the last half of 1886, seen Professor James's
name in a journal concerned with Psychical Research wrote to him and
told him the above circumstances. In consequence he tried to get the
letter read through Mrs Piper. He sent her, not the letter, of course,
but a glove which Miss Hannah Wild had worn on the day she wrote the
letter, and the lining of her hat.
Mr J. W. Piper, Mrs Piper's father-in-law, acted as sitter. Phinuit took
his time, and tried for the contents of the letter during several
sittings. The result was a long dramatic elucubration, which reminds us
involuntarily of certain of Mlle. Smith's subliminal productions. I will
give three paragraphs of it. The remarks between parentheses are Mrs
Blodgett's; the reader will appreciate the facts by the light the
remarks throw upon them. However, it may not be useless to remark that
Phinuit found Miss Hannah Wild's exact name, which had been carefully
hidden from him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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