Visible and InvisibleBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Science
Visible and Invisible
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
English fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories, English; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
We sat again that afternoon by daylight, and now, I must suppose, the
control was more actively and powerfully present, for hardly had Mrs.
Forrest passed into trance than the voice began, louder than it had
been the night before, and far more distinct. He--Machaon I must call
him--seemed to be anxious to establish his identity beyond all doubt,
like some newcomer presenting his credentials, and he began to speak of
the precinct of Asclepios in Athens. Often he hesitated for a word in
English, often he put in a word in Greek, and as he spoke, fragments of
things I had learned when an archæological student in Athens came back
into my mind, and I knew that he was accurately describing the portico
and the temple and the well. All this I toss to the sceptic to growl
and worry over and tear to bits; for certainly it seems possible that
my mind, holding these facts in its subconsciousness, was suggesting
them to the medium’s mind, who thereupon spoke of them and, conveying
them back to me, made me aware that I had known them.... My forgotten
knowledge of these things and of the Greek language came flooding back
on me, as he told us, now half in Greek, and half in English, of the
patients who came to consult the god, how they washed in the sacred
well for purification, and lay down to sleep in the portico. They often
dreamed, and in the interpretation of their dreams, which they told to
the priest next day, lay the indication of the cure. Or sometimes the
god healed more directly, and accompanied by the sacred snake walked
among the sleepers and by his touch made them whole. His temple was
hung with _ex-votos_, the gifts of those whom he had cured. And at
Epidaurus, where was another shrine of his, there were great mural
tablets recording the same....
Then the voice stopped, and as if to prove identity by another means,
the medium drew the pencil and paper to her, and in Greek characters,
unknown apparently to her, she traced the words “Machaon, son of
Asclepios....”
There was a pause, and I asked a direct question, which now had been
long simmering in my mind.
“Have you come to help me about Parkes?” I asked. “Can you tell me what
will cure him?”
The pencil began to move again, tracing out characters in Greek. It
wrote [Greek: phengos x], and repeated it. I did not at once guess
what it meant, and asked for an explanation. There was no answer, and
presently the medium stirred, stretched herself and sighed, and came
out of trance. She took up the paper on which she had written.
“Did that come through?” she asked. “And what does it mean? I don’t
even know the characters....”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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