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.

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.