Personal Notices – Mediums and Spiritualists, Dallas, 1929

1929

MRS. LIVINGSTON, spiritualist adviser; advice on affairs of life; no one turned away, money or no money. 2702 Bryan 7-2773.

MADAME SIERRAS — Do you find with all your natural gifts and talents that you are baffled, discouraged and unsuccessful? If so, call 506 South Harwood. 7-6482.

AMBITIOUS Young Men — I need you to fill responsible and big pay positions. $100 per week and upward to those that will prepare themselves by my short personal instructions in applied psychology. Come in, let's talk it over today. Prof. Fahrbach. Birdwell hotel, 6 to 9 p. m.

MYSTIC Tea Room. 105 Stone, announces the return engagement of the "FAMOUS ZEMAR," with the "RADIO" mind. Short engagement.

MME. RITA ARABIC, Reader, 300 N. Peak. 8-3995. Life Readings daily.

SPIRITUAL MEDIUM — READING
Satisfaction guaranteed or no charges.
Hours 9 A. M. to 10 P. M.
Mrs. White, St. George Hotel. 2-2494

MRS. CARLOTTA, spiritualist, reads your life like a book without asking questions; advisor business, marriage, love. 2110 Live Oak. 7-5238.

MRS. C. SAUNDERS, Spiritualist. If troubled or worried, visit this gifted lady, she can help you. 1515 S. Ervay. 7-4704.

CONSULT Mme. Virginia, spiritualist medium. Readings daily. 702 N. Harwood.

MME. LEE, phenomenal medium, tells everything, asks no questions. 3011 Bookhout, one block west Maple Terrace. Fairmount ear. 2-4292. Appointments.

J. F. FELLERS, the gifted healer, has cured many when all else has failed. Trial will convince you. 4617 Garland. 3-5203.

DR. JAMES, spiritualist, recently located 88-year-old father (can give name), Dallasite, lost 38 years. Sunday readings two for $1. 2204 Ross. 7-3427.

—The Daily Times Herald, Dallas, TX, Jan. 1, 1929, p. 12.

Note: The name "Zemar" was missing the "E," so maybe some other letter went there, but in one of my copies of the ad (and these are all bad), it looked sort of like an "E." One other word "spiritualist" was misspelled in one ad, changed here.

Call On Spirits to Help Convict Negro

1921

(Special to Post-Crescent)

Des Moines, Iowa. — A voice from the spirit world is being used to help forge the chain of evidence against Tom Lewis, negro, charged with assaulting and murdering 23-year-old Sara Barbara Thorsdale, Des Moines school teacher.

Miss Thorsdale's body was found in a clump of bushes alongside the lonely road she took in walking from her school to the street car. Lewis, who lived in a shack nearby, was traced by bloodhounds. He denies all knowledge of the crime.

The spirit voice is that of the slain girl, transmitted through Mrs. E. C. Head, a Des Moines medium, to Mrs. Gladys Conway, Miss Thorsdale's dearest chum.

The chum, skeptically but hopefully, applied to Mrs. Head after Lewis protested his innocence. She says she heard the voice of Miss Thorsdale clearly, that it told her a negro and two white men were responsible, and that it explained the crime in this way:

"I was walking casually along, and when I reached the thicket a hand was stretched out and caught me. Another hand went over my mouth. That was 4:40 in the afternoon, but my spirit did not leave my body until the next day. I was taken to a cabin and kept there. Early the following morning they took my body to the river to throw it into the water, but the men were afraid. There were two men. Another knew, but did not help."

Names of the two white men have been turned over to officials, who say they will be arrested.

Sheriff W. E. Robb plans to use both Mrs. Conway and Mrs. Head as witnesses.

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, WI, July 25, 1921, p. 6.

A Two Day's Bride Insane

Kansas, 1879

July 13 — Mr. Oliver Mottier was joined in matrimony with a very estimable young lady of Williambury. On Tuesday, the 15th, only two days after her marriage, she became a raving maniac.

The first indications had of anything being wrong was her going into a trance, similar to that of a spiritual medium. Her talk appeared to be entirely with Minnehaha, or about her, she having previously read about her, then there appeared to be a struggle between Minnehaha and another, a male Indian, to get possession of her mind; the latter succeeding, she commenced going through the war-hoop and yells, and all other maneuvers incident to Indians starting out upon the warpath.

This part of the sad scene having come to an end, her ravings day and night were of a very promiscuous character, but showed very little symptoms of vicious or profane temper. Her father informed us that she had not been in the habit of reading or studying Spiritualism, and knew comparatively nothing of the subject. The woman was brought to Ottawa on Monday, where she was declared insane, and ordered to the Ossawatomie Asylum. — Ottawa Gazette, Kansas.

How to Find Out Whom Any Given Person Will Marry

1876

It doesn't require any astrologer, or medium, or gipsy with a dirty pack of cards. It is very simple, lies in a nutshell, and can be expressed in a very few words.

The plan is this. If a girl expresses a fondness for majestic men with large whiskers, make up your mind that she will marry a very small man with none. If she declares that "mind" is all she looks for, expect to see her stand before the altar with a very pretty fellow who has just sense enough to tie a cravat bow. If, on the contrary, she declares she must have a handsome husband, look about for the plainest person in the circle of her acquaintance, and declare "that is the man," for it will be.

Men are almost as bad. The gentleman who desires a wife with a mind and mission marries a lisping baby, who screams at a sight of a mouse, and hides her face when she hears a sudden knock at the door. And the gentleman who dreaded anything like strong-mindedness, exults in the fact that his wife is everything he detested. If a girl says of one, "Marry him! I'd rather die!" look upon the affair as settled, and expect cards to the wedding of these two people. If a man remarks of a lady, "Not my style at all," await patiently the appearance of his name in the matrimonial column in connection with that lady's. And, if any two people declare themselves "friends, and nothing more," you may know what will come next.

The Eternity of Life May Be Known By Psychometry

"UNKNOWN GUEST," SAYS MAETERLINCK, ALWAYS WITH US

Belgian Writer in Newest Book Offers Interesting Glimpse Into Spirit Realm

RESULTS OF PSYCHIC RESEARCH

Eternity of Life May Be Probed Through Study of the Theories of Psychometry

By Henry Noble Sherwood, Ph.D.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do you attach any significance to dreams?

Do you think fortune-tellers are fakirs?

Are you informed on the method and work of the Society for Psychical Research?

All of these topics are treated by Maurice Maeterlinck in his new book, "The Unknown Guest," (New York: Dodd Mead & Co.) in a most charming and suggestive way. An idea of the book may be had from the following review:

One of the mysterious manifestations of "The Unknown Guest" is the rope climbing feat performed by the people of the Far East. "The juggler takes his stand in an open space, far from any tree or house. He is accompanied by a child; and his only impedimenta are a bundle of ropes and an old canvas sack. The juggler throws one end of the rope up in the air; and the rope, as though drawn by an invisible hook, uncoils and raises straight into the sky until the end disappears; and soon after, there comes tumbling from the blue, two arms, two legs, a head and so on, all of which the wizard picks up and crams into the sack. He next mutters a few magic words over it and opens it; and the child steps out, bowing and smiling to the spectators."

Seen in Haunted Houses

The unknown guest is also seen in haunted houses. The Society for Psychical Research in 1884 examined carefully sixty-five cases of haunted houses. The scenes enacted were all simple and commonplace. For example, "an old woman, with a thin grey shawl meekly folded over her breast, who bends at night over the sleeping occupants of her old home," or on the stairs and in the halls, she, silent, mysterious, and a little grim, frequently encounters the passersby.

What is the explanation of such manifestations of the Unknown Guest? It is said the dead do not die entirely, that their spiritual or animistic entity neither departs nor disperses into space after the dissolution of the body. The utmost they can do is occasionally to cause a few glimpses of their existence to penetrate the fissures of those singular organisms known as mediums.

Definite Force Impels Medium

In this connection what is known as psychometry is very interesting. Psychometry is "the faculty possessed by certain persons of placing themselves in relation, either spontaneously or, for the most part, through the intermediary of some object with unknown and often very distant things and people." A medium is given an object handled by a person about whom it is proposed to question her. Perhaps the object is a letter. The medium sees the writer of this letter, his appearance, habits and surroundings, and traces in outline his future. Maeterlinck is inclined to believe that the object touched enables the medium's sensitiveness to distinguish a definite force from among innumerable forces that assail it. It is impregnated with human "fluid" and "contains, after the manner of some prodigiously compressed gas all the incessantly renewed, incessantly recurring images that surround a person, all his past and perhaps his future, his psychology, his state of health, his wishes, his intentions, often unknown to himself, his most secret instincts, his likes and dislikes, all that is bathed in light and all that is plunged in darkness, his whole life, in short, and more than his personal and conscious life, besides all the lives and all the influences, good or bad, latent or manifest, of all who approach him."

Brutes Show Attitude

This story of the Unknown Guest is carried into the kingdom of the brutes. A most interesting chapter is devoted to the Elberfeld horses. They perform feats in mathematics, know the meaning of words, which possess no interest to them, represent no picture, no memory. Does this mean that, if the brute world was taught as ardently as we teach our children it, too, would show itself our equals?

All of these manifestations of the Unknown Guest and the hundreds of other enumerated or referred to in Maeterlinck's book might be intelligible to us if the field of the mind has been exploited as thoroughly as the field of the material. Modernity, however, has found matter a more profitable field than mind. We can build great skyscrapers, organize gigantic industrial concerns, build irrigation ditches, and harness waterfalls. Many are the Edisons, Burbanks and DeLesseps. But the Bergsons are few. When more study is given to the subconscious, the supernatural, and the psychic, then the unknown guest may be better known. We may have an indisputable proof of the eternity of life and the immortality of the spirit.

Maeterlinck is a Belgian

Our author is a Belgian with a French education and habit of life. He was trained in the law and has been a deep student of philosophy and zoology. In religion he is a Catholic. In preparation no one is better suited to write a book on The Unknown Guest. Teixeira de Mattos, a Dutch, has translated this work as well as many other books of Maeterlinck from the French language into our own. This Belgian author, now fifty-two, like us, is still tapping hauntingly at the Gates of the Unknown.

--The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin, February 1, 1915, page 1. The translation referred to above and other details written about the book pertain to the edition current at the time of this 1915 article.

Alchemy, Spiritualism, Ghosts, Ectoplasm; Sharing the Secrets

1922--

LINKS THE ALCHEMIST WITH THE SPIRITIST

Ancients' 'First Matter' May Be the Mysterious Ectoplasm of Today

CAMBRIDGE. Mass., April 14-(By the Associated Press)-"It seems quite possible that the great secret of the ancient alchemist -- the nature of 'first matter' -- is the ectoplasm of the modern spiritist," said S. Foster Damon, a graduate student at Harvard university, in an interview today. Mr. Damon was named by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the man who had established the fact that the Alchemists were familiar with ectoplasm, described by spiritualists as a combination of matter and ether emanating from bodies of mediums, which makes possible spirit manifestation.

LITERARY RESEARCH

Explaining that he was speaking only of the results of literary research, Mr. Damon said he had never personally seen the material and had never attended a seance, but that a study of the writings of the alchemists had convinced him that the ancients were familiar with estoplasm.

"There is a striking parallel between the experiments of the modern spiritists and the alchemists," Mr. Damon said.

"This old school of thought, whose writings were published for centuries and whose secret was never officially given to the world, has interpreted in several ways but never satisfactorily. Few believe now that the alchemists were really attempting to make gold. In fact, they themselves issued many warnings against being interpreted literally.

NEW SCHOOL APPEARS

"About 1850 a new school of interpretation appeared which claims that the alchemists were mystics endeavoring to unite the soul with God. This school still has numerous followers, but they cannot explain what the alchemists were doing in the laboratories.

"That alchemy was concerned with physical things is obvious since modern chemistry developed from it. On the other hand, the alchemists were certainly concerned with metaphysics.

"Spiritualism may well furnish the link between the altar and the laboratory. Of spiritualism, I know nothing, but I could not fail to be impressed by the literary parallels between its writings and the works of ancients.

"The great secret of the alchemists centered about a substance which they commonly called the 'first matter or mercury.' To find this substance, which they distinguished from common mercury, was the first and most important step in their art."

"Too many persons," Mr. Damon said, "have insisted that they have seen, handled and analyzed ectoplasm for us to believe that it was anything intangible. On the other hand," he added, "chemists have found nothing remotely resembling it.

"It seems quite possible that the secret of the alchemists was estoplasm.

"I base this identification," Mr. Damon continued, "upon the many photographs and descriptions published by Mme. Alexander Bisson and Dr. A. Freihern Von Schrench-Notzing. Considering the obscurity of alchemistic symbolism, it is possible that no interpretation satisfactory to every one would be reached, but if so the ancient and modern investigators are certainly making the same mistake."

--The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden City, Utah, April 14, 1922, page 7.

Seance Features Conversation With Woman Dead 30 Years

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1920--

SPIRIT MEDIUM HELD SEANCE HERE LAST NIGHT

Mrs. Eva Middleton of Davenport, spiritualist, gave local followers of the cult something to think about last night when she gave a trumpet reading at the Jadwin home in South Ninth street, west. The most interesting event of the evening, say some of those who were present, was conversation., through the medium and a girl named Rose who has been dead thirty years. There was a woman present who had been a close friend of the girl during the childhood days and she recalled to the women many things that happened between them, it is said.

--The Evening Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, September 14, 1920, page 12.

Marriages In Heaven, Says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1922
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MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN SAYS SIR CONAN DOYLE

NEW YORK, April 10.- There are marriages in the spirit world, but no births, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said today.

The celebrated English creator of "Sherlock Holmes," who has come to America to lecture on matters psychic, made this statement, in giving reporters a more intimate view of the next world as he conceived it than on his arrival yesterday on the steamer Baltic.

Marriages, he said, were on a higher level than in this world. They constitute the mating of affinities and always continue happily. Indeed, he said, there was a very complex form of society of the world hereafter.

Sir Arthur said that the great agreement among spirits of various nationalities as to life in the spirit world will be one of the strongest proofs of the existence of such life. He added that the spirit world was all about us but that it was expressed in colors and sounds which our senses were too gross to understand.

Sir Arthur said that some ministers taught that it is hard to get into heaven, but a normal, decent person could not keep from going there after death.

Asked about a suicide, Sir Arthur said that no one could force the hand of providence, and that a suicide would have to bear in the spirit world the trouble that had caused him to end his life.

He said that the object of life was to spiritualize ourselves and that riches and successes here did not count against that.

Some Stumbling Blocks

Climatic conditions are one of the stumbling blocks in the path of mediums, declared Sir Arthur.

Expressing the belief that all could become mediums if the talent were developed, Sir Arthur said that it was through ectoplasm that conversation with the spirit world was conducted.

"Ectoplasm," he explained, "is a substance emanating from the medium. At first it is a vapor or gas, which becomes glutinous or puttylike, and in that state can be felt.

"I have felt it myself; it can be photographed. I have a number of photographs.

"It has been analyzed by Dr. Schrenck-Notzing in Germany and by Parisian scientists. It has been found to contain phosphates, carbonates and sulphates, and some other substance undetermined.

"It is only on ectoplasm that a spirit can materialize. A spirit passing through it becomes visible to the medium. I saw my mother's face in the ectoplasm following her death a few months ago. There is not the slightest question about that. It was while I was in Australia. The face seemed as solid as in life."

--Nevada State Journal, Reno, Nevada, April 11, 1922, page 5.