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.

Woman Sees Ghostly Visitor Shoot Himself

1908

Spirit Tragedy Enacted In India Occurred As She'd Witnessed It

This is the tale of a ghost who shot himself. The woman who relates it had accompanied her husband to Tirzapur, India, says the Kansas City Star. He had been sent there to undertake the duties of an agent who had gone home on sick leave. The only accommodation they could find when they arrived was an inspection bungalow.

They retired about ten o'clock, but Mrs. S. remained awake for some time reading a novel by the light of a lamp. She was just thinking of turning it out when suddenly a man holding a revolver appeared in the room, she says:

"Before I could move or speak he said: 'Don't stop me; I am going to shoot myself.' As he put the revolver to his head I shut my eyes and was nearly deafened by the report that followed. My husband jumped up, wide awake at once, with a cry of 'Who fired?' and I opened my eyes expecting to see a ghastly heap on the floor.

"To my amazement the room was empty and there was no sign of the tragedy that had just taken place in front of me. My husband said he had been awakened out of a sound sleep by the noise of the shot and when I told him what I had seen we searched the house together. Neither the punkah coolie, who was sleeping in the veranda, nor the servants, whose houses were close by in the compound, had heard anything. Even the dogs chained in the veranda had not been disturbed. It all happened so suddenly that I had no feeling of fright or terror. The man seemed to come from the direction of my husband's office, where there was a door connecting with the bedroom, in front of which we had placed a heavy wardrobe. He was a shortish, unpleasant-looking man and he held the revolver in his left hand. Neither my husband nor I were at all nervous people and when we could find nothing to explain what had occurred we decided that it must have been imagination and that our being in strong sympathy with each other had caused us to share the same hallucination."

Now for the sequel. Shortly afterward Mrs. S. accompanied her husband on a tour of the district. Among the bills they met a Mme. de Bevery, who had been a widow for several years. In the course of a conversation with her Mrs. S. discovered that at one time she had lived in the bungalow at Tirzapur where the spectral suicide had manifested itself.

"On hearing that she knew our bungalow and had actually lived in it," Mrs. S. adds, "I was impelled to relate our strange experience there, which hitherto my husband and I had kept to ourselves. She listened without comment, but when I ended my narrative by saying that we had come to the conclusion it must have been either indigestion or imagination she turned very pale and said, 'You have related something that really happened; my husband shot himself there before my eyes exactly as you have described.'

"I was terribly distressed at having, all unwittingly, reminded her of such a painful episode, but she reassured me by saying: 'It is many years ago and I can talk about it now, though I was ill for months afterward from the shock.'

"She then told me that her husband had gone into the bedroom through the door which we kept closed and had used the very words I quoted and the whole affair coincided exactly with what I had seen, down to the smallest detail. Mme. de Bevery spoke very calmly about her husband and said that he had been ill and mentally unsound for some time. I heard long afterward that he was a confirmed drunkard and had ill-treated her in every way."

Woman Traps "Spirit" Hand

1920

Boy "Dip's" Exploit in Movie Show Lands Him in Jail

CHICAGO — While watching a film drama entitled "The Spirit Hand" in a Chicago movie house, Mrs. Samuel Marks felt a phantom mitt steal gently into her purse on her lap. Though aware that the spooks are hard to catch, Mrs. Marks grabbed the hand. The owner, a 17-year-old youth, broke her clutch and danced over many bunions in dashing from the theater. He was finally cornered in a restaurant, where he declared "the picture had made his hand absent-minded."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Feb. 28, 1920, p. 8.


Eight Is Too Many Wives

Last Bride of Ex-Soldier Has Her Marriage Annulled

WORCESTER, Mass. — Mary W. Cooper of Worcester told Judge Lawton in Superior Court that when she married James W. Treat, an ex-soldier in the Army, she never dreamed he was such a much-married man. She learned, she said, after she went through the ceremony, that Treat has gone through a similar ceremony with seven other women, and that he had not taken the trouble to divorce any of them. She asked that her marriage be nullified, and Judge Lawton granted her petition.

The Wogglebug Story — Witches and Hobgoblins

Wisconsin, 1905

Bachelor Brothers Move Away to Avoid Witches and Hobgoblins

Christian and William Born, who live in Lebanon on the Woodland R.F.D. road next to J. B. Schneider, have been busy for some time past in building a sort of a Noah's ark on wheels, and there has been considerable speculation by their neighbors as to whether the outfit would turn out to be an automobile or a flying machine. Nothing would have surprised their friends, however, as the boys have long been regarded as foolish.

Last week Thursday they loaded up their deep sea going cab with a number of trunks and boxes, and started on a pilgrimage, leaving everything on the place as though they intended returning that day. Their shepherd dog was left as custodian over the eighty acre farm and about thirty head of stock, besides a large number of chicks.

When they did not return that day nor the next the neighbors went over and cared for the stock and notified the chairman of the town, Herman Witte, of the case. He started a deputy sheriff after the boys, and he overtook the outfit at Troy Center Tuesday evening. They said they were en route to the sunny south in obedience to a command from the spirit of their dead father, who has also ordered the construction of their portable house. The deputy invited them to return by rail with him to Juneau to meet a number of his friends, members of the medical profession and they readily assented, as their team needed a rest anyway. So they are now in Juneau, where they were examined as to their sanity.

The boys' father died some years ago, and they have been living with their mother on the farm, neither of them being married, although they are both over forty-five years of age. They have been having a strenuous time with the witches and hobgoblins the past year. Somebody bewitched three of their best milkers at a time when milk was high, while another witch cast a spell over their chickens when the egg market was around thirty cents. All this they were up against for years and withstood manfully, but when the Wogglebug told them that their farm was heavily encumbered and would soon be foreclosed upon by a number of witches, they gave up in despair and at this time their father's spirit appeared and billed them for a trip to Missouri.

The neighbors say that Mrs. Born has been mentally unsound for years, and that the boys have always been very eccentric and extremely superstitious.

Their team and wagon passed through the village this afternoon being driven back to Lebanon, and its odd appearance attracted lots of attention. — Neosho Standard.

The White Lady — Warning Death Phantom

1907

Warning Death Phantom of the Reigning House of Prussia

On the night before the battle of Saalfield Prince Louis of Prussia and his adjutant, Count Nostitz, were chatting in the Schloss Schwarzburg-Rudolfstadt. The prince was anticipating victory when he suddenly turned pale and rushed from the room, pursuing through the hall a shadowy white robed figure. The sentinel saw it also.

Next day Nostitz and the prince saw the white lady on a hill wringing her hands in despair as the Germans fell back. A few minutes later Louis was killed and Nostitz wounded. Nostitz told the story to his son, and the son to Unser Fritz.

The white lady's first appearance was when she was seen in the palace at Baireuth in 1486. She appeared eight or ten times in the next century. When the French officers were quartered in Baireuth she frightened them, in particular General d'Espagne, who, the day after he had seen her, pointed to a portrait on the wall and cried: "It is she! That means my death!" He was killed soon afterward.

The superstitious Napoleon wouldn't sleep in the castle, but the white lady went to see him elsewhere. She was seen before the death of the beautiful Queen Louise, of Frederick William III., of Frederick William IV., of Unser Fritz himself and of many other members of the reigning house of Prussia.

Marconi Listens for Signals from Mars, Doyle for Spirits

1922

MARTIANS AND SPIRITS

With Mars only about 40,000,000 miles from the earth, Marconi, the inventor of the wireless, is trying to get signals from that planet. True, the most powerful wireless outfits yet built on this planet are capable of sending messages only an infinitesimal fraction of that distance, but Marconi hopes the Martians can do better. That is, if there are any Martians.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle announces that he is installing a complete radio outfit in his London home, for use in his psychic investigations. He feels confident that by means of radio he will be able to communicate with the spirit world.

It might simplify things if the "spirit world" happened to be Mars. Then Marconi and Doyle could work together on the job.

Scoffing is easy, and it is also futile. Nobody can say with assurance that either of these gifted men is wrong. But certainly the chances of their being wrong are great. The least that can be expected of the public is an open mind, a willingness to be "shown." There is a long chain of "ifs" in both cases.

—The Monessen Daily Independent, Monessen, Pennsylvania, June 23, 1922, p. 3.

Killing The Mountain Spirit

1874

In illustration of the excessive superstition of the California Indians, a writer in a Sacramento paper relates the following story:

"Two years ago, 'Whistler,' a noted hunter and brave warrior, of the Klamaths, was on the sacred mountain, at the head of Sprague River (a tributary of Williamson's River, and the one referred to so often as the latter stream), when, in the dusk of the evening, he saw a large mule deer, and at once fired, bringing it to the ground.

"In going to cut its throat he was horror-stricken at what he saw before him. There was a deer, a male, weighing over 300 pounds, whose horns were to him a mystery. From one side of the head grew a single spike, ten or twelve inches in length; while from the other side grew a stump horn, with seven short prongs. He had never seen or heard of the like before, and his superstition got the better of him.

"His health for a long time had been bad, and this and the excitement of having, as he supposed, killed the spirit of the mountains, threw him into convulsions. He bled at the mouth and nose, and laid there helpless for hours. At last he managed to crawl to the camp of his party at the foot of the hill, where he told his story and went into a trance. His party were terribly alarmed, and one rode to the agency and told O. C. Applegate that Whistler was dead. Applegate had his coffin made, and it was set out to dry.

"The next morning news came by another rumor that Whistler was alive. It happened the Indian doctor was along with the party, and when Whistler went into a trance he did likewise and kept him company, and brought him back with him, as he expressed it."

The Head Doesn't Belong In Heaven

Editorial, 1922

One of the members of the National Spiritualist Association, which has been holding its annual convention in Chicago, gives information quite as interesting and definite as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's concerning the other world. The particular value of this most instructive information is that it authentically describes what we might call spiritualization.

Most of us are too little advised regarding the spirit world. Disappointed as we sometimes are, and even despondent, we are in no hurry to look beyond the grave until we get there, and we are, in our opinion of absolute sanity, in no sanguinary haste to go there.

Now, this scientist of spiritism explains that the feet become spiritualized first, and are the part of the body first to enter heaven. The head is spiritualized last, and, of course, arrives in heaven a yard or two behind the feet.

Another spirit scientist expresses confidence that there are golf links and base ball diamonds in heaven. He argues that it is natural that a person who takes interest in a sport for ten, twenty or more years should retain his interest in that subject after becoming a spirit. From this we may imply that there will be free cigarettes, ice cream, and, perhaps, movies in heaven.

It strikes us as being most unfortunate that the great majority of us finds it to be impossible to obtain facts about the spirits and their world. And then, besides, we don't seem to be rational enough to accept and understand plausible revelations when they are offered to us.

Isn't it somewhat foolish to keep on working, and planning, and thinking, and taking old inspirations on faith, when we could, at will or by profession, practically enter the spirit world? We set such sublime and fond store on what we recognize to be sacred teachings about the other world — yet we could, if we could, obtain authentic and up-to-date knowledge from lights and shadows, which according to their own assurances, are denizens of the spirit world.

No wonder that spiritism scientists tell us that the head is spiritualized last. The wonder is that the head can be spiritualized at all. If there is infinity in the spirit world of modern spiritism, the head does not belong there. If there is anything that the human brain cannot understand it is the infinite, the infinite being supernatural, and the head does not belong in an environment which it is incapable of appreciating.

The average head fully realizes its limitations. This is why it is predisposed to be guided by inspiration concerning the other world. It rests in security on faith.

—The Monessen Daily Independent, Monessen, PA, Oct. 23, 1922, p. 2.

'A Man of Spirit' – The Language of Vital Function in Galen's Time

1914

ANIMAL SPIRITS.

Our Vital Functions as They Were Known In Galen's Time.

"Few persons even stop to consider when they speak of 'a man of spirit' that they are unwittingly employing the language of the days of Galen," says the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Yet this is evidently the survival of the old doctrine of spirits. We may believe that Galen had a conception of the nerve trunks as conductors of something — he called it spirits — to and from the brain and spinal cord.

"The natural spirits were that undefined property which gave to blood the capacity of nourishing the tissues of the body. The vital spirits were acquired in the heart, and when at last the blood with its vital spirits went to the brain and experienced a sort of refinement for the last time the animal spirits were separated from it and carried to the body by the nerve trunks."

Such was the idea of the vital functions in the second century. Today, after 1,800 years, we know that there are no "spirits" in our blood or nerves, but we still speak of being in "high spirits" or "low spirits," of being full of "animal spirits," of a "spirited answer" or a "spirited horse."

Tenants Scare Landlady To Death; She Thinks House Haunted

1907

SILLY JOKE FRIGHTENS A LANDLADY TO DEATH

Mischievous Tenants Literally Scare the Life Out of an Aged Woman in a Paris Lodging House

PARIS, Jan 6.—Several tenants of a house in the Quartier Saint Lambert now express sincere regret for some practical jokes they practiced on their landlady, Madame Mayet, aged 83. Madame Mayet was literally frightened to death.

Some weeks ago she approached the police commissary of the quarter and said:

"I ask you to help me drive out the bad spirits which infest my house. They haunt it night and day and disturb me by rapping on the wall. They even enter the apartments of my tenants, one of whom has given me notice this morning that he will quit if the nuisance does not cease."

The police commissary concluded that the old lady was slightly unbalanced, and a summary inquiry by two policemen confirmed his view. Two days later, however, Madame Mayet was found dead in her bed with every indication that she had died of fright.

At her funeral the tenants sent a magnificent crown of flowers, with the inscription, "Many regrets." The police commissary questioned them closely and they admitted that they had been the rapping spirits. They wanted the old lady to go elsewhere and imagined that the best way to get rid of her was to frighten her. They were sorry for the tragic result.

The police reprimanded them severely and warned them that the next time a crown of flowers and words of regret at a funeral would not be sufficient atonement.

Famous Ghost Stories of Kansas City, 1895

1895

KANSAS CITY GHOSTS

FAMOUS SPOOKS OF THE TOWN ON THE BIG MUDDY

The Original Ghost Is From a Case of Fratricide — How the Santa Fe Spook Was Laid — How a Man With the "Jimjams" Stirred Up a Jail Full of Criminals

It may be true that conscience makes cowards of us all, but with the ignorant and superstitious conscience is not a circumstance when compared to a vivid imagination. The greatest coward on earth is the person who sees in every dark shadow, in each deserted house and around every dismal building the restless spirit of some departed sinner whose crimes will not allow him to enter heaven, who is doomed to wander around this earth until Gabriel's trumpet is sounded, who must hover near the scene of his former misdeeds until the last day.

The place by popular consent most adapted to ghost wanderings and the place most fruitful in the production of the bona fide article is naturally the graveyard. The drearier, gloomier and more mournful the aspect of the graveyard the more ghosts. But the real believer in spooks and spirits does not deem it necessary to go among the tombs and graves of the dead to find a spirit.

Ghosts are numerous. They can be found in all sections of the country. There is not a village nor a deserted country house nor a railroad bridge but has its ghost. But the ghosts are not all confined to the country by any means. There have been several in Kansas City that have gained extensive notoriety on account of their many visitations, and the parts of the city in which they are wont to disport themselves are still eyed with suspicion and looked upon askance by the inhabitants of Belvidere Hollow, Hick's Hollow and other portions of the city thickly settled by the descendants of Ham.

The oldest, the original ghost that is most vividly in the memory of the superstitious and is most often the topic of grewsome whispers among the people mentioned, walked the levee between Main street and Broadway 12 years ago. One winter's night, the story goes, a man was lying in wait for an enemy on the levee. In his hand he clutched a ponderous double barreled shotgun loaded with nails and slugs. He saw a man walking down the levee. In the dim, flickering light he thought he recognized his enemy. He raised his gun, fired and hurried away. The next day he read in the papers that his brother's body had been found on the levee, horribly mangled and torn. The murderer winced, but kept his secret. Then the dead brother's ghost began to walk. Every night, at the same hour of the shooting, it could be seen on the levee. Each time it would walk straight to the spot where the body had fallen. Then the ghost would fall, go through a death struggle and disappear. It kept this up for years, and there are those who say it does it still.

The second healthy, well developed ghost disported itself in the ruins of the old Santa Fe Stage Coach company's office at Second and Main streets in 1886. So generally known did it become that often large crowds would congregate and await the appearance of the nocturnal visitor. Early one evening a young man who wished to investigate a little went into the ruins. When he emerged from them an hour later, he found a large crowd standing on the opposite side of the street, near the jail, watching for ghosts. Someone in the crowd, thinking that the young man had been playing ghost, threw a brick at the investigator, striking him on the head. He fell senseless with a gaping wound in his head. The Santa Fe ghost has not been seen since.

In 1887 there was a story afloat that at 12 o'clock each night a ghostly cable train glided down the incline between Walnut and Main streets and disappeared into space. In the grip car, guiding the tram, was the ghost of a gripman who had died a short time before, after having been insane for some time, the result of grief over the fact that his train had run down and killed a pedestrian. Crowds congregated at the junction nightly to see the strange sight. For the most part they went away disappointed, although there was plenty who declared they had seen "it."

Another story, in which a ghost was never seen, but which smacked strongly of spooks, was the Conway murder on East Eighteenth street, between Oak and Locust, in 1885. Mrs. Conway, a young woman, and her little girl were beaten to death with a coupling pin. The murderer or murderers were never caught. Suspicion pointed toward two men, but there was no evidence. Both of them afterward died horrible deaths — one of the glanders and the other of cancer. The ghost of the victims never walked openly, but that section of the city was given a wide berth by the true believers for many months afterward.

Last, but not least, were the ghosts of Clark and Jones, the men hung for murdering Mme. Wright in 1893. These ghosts materialized in the jails, one at Independence and one in Kansas City. The scare lasted for some weeks, and the negro prisoners were thrown into a state of terror by any strange sounds. One night, when the jail was in a state of comparative quiet, a drunken prisoner, who had just been brought in, had an attack of "jimjams." By some strange coincidence he was placed in the cell once occupied by Clark, and the prisoners soon located the groaning of the unfortunate man. The negroes, not knowing that the cell was occupied, supposed that the noise was made by a departed spirit, and all started to howling with the "ghost." The effect was something that can be imagined better than it can be described. Since the Clark ghost left the jail Kansas City has been bereft of spirits, and Belvidere Hollow is breathing more easily than it has for years. — Kansas City Times.

—Warren Ledger, Warren, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1895, page 6.

Dead Man's Spirit Rings Fire Bell, Is Ouija's Solution of the Mystery

1920

WATERTOWN, N. Y. -- For several days there was considerable excitement and wonderment among all classes of citizens here caused by the mysterious tolling at regular intervals during day and night of the huge fire alarm bell in the county courthouse tower. The big bell weighs several tons and its reverberations can be heard five or six miles on a still day. For nearly a week, at intervals of about two hours, the bell was struck a single blow, apparently by the heavy electrically-operated hammer adjusted to announce the number of the fire box from which an alarm is sent in.

When the mysterious tollings first began the police and other city officials attributed the cause of the disturbance to crossed electric wires, but later, when it was noticed that the big bell continued to peal forth its single mournful signal, detectives were sent out to solve the mystery. Wires were traced by regular linemen of the telegraph and telephone companies, but nowhere could they discover any crossed circuit that could possibly affect the big alarm bell.

Girls Offer Solution of Mystery

No acceptable explanation was forthcoming from any source until Miss Sadie Jasper and Miss Rhoda Benton came forward with what they claimed was undoubtedly the true solution of the mystery. Through their manipulation of a Ouija board, they said, they had received several communications from "Big Joe" Beals, the first man employed to ring the bell after the hammer had ceased to strike the number of the fire alarm box, which was the custom twenty-five years ago when the bell was first installed.

"Big Joe," as he was popularly known and who died about fifteen years ago, had communicated with them several times, the girls said, on each occasion confessing that it was his spirit that was causing the bell to ring, evidently by unseen and unknown hands. "You cannot know how I love to strike the old bell with the blacksmith's hammer I found in the basement of the courthouse."

According to "Big Joe's" alleged spirit, which said it was pleased to communicate with the living through the instrumentality of the wonderful Ouija board, it had selected the final moment of every second hour to tap the bell, but had about decided to reduce the number of taps to two each day -- one at noon, another at midnight.

when the bell remained silent throughout the day, save at noon and midnight, and the Misses Jasper and Benton again reported further messages from the old-time bell ringer, the police and hundreds of others were inclined to accept the Ouija board as the true explanation of the mystery, and naturally the city was greatly aroused by the sensational developments.

Boy Upsets Ouija Board's Story

But no one here cares to even mention the Ouija board just now. The "baffling mystery" of the tolling bell is a mystery no more. A certain 13-year-old grammar school boy has confessed that with the aid of an amateur telegrapher's outfit, a dozen or more feet of wire, etc., he had made connection with the fire bell in the tower through a window of his sleeping room, all of which was nicely concealed by a large tree, and he had had much "big fun," all by himself, he said, operating the electrical hammer and causing the bell to toll at his will. The lad escaped a fine for his disorderly conduct on his promise to not do such a thing again.

Meanwhile, the two young ladies still insist that they only reported what the Ouija board told them.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.

Railroad Builder Makes Tracks to Suit Spirits

1922

INSPIRED BY SPIRIT WORLD

Arthur E. Stilwell Says He Was Advised in Railroad Building.

NEW YORK, June 15. — That every foot of the 3,000 miles of railroad he has built was constructed according to the advice of spirits and that he changed the direction of the Kansas City Southern so as to have his terminal at Port Arthur, Tex., instead of Galveston because the spirits warned him to avoid the latter place, is the assertion of Arthur E. Stilwell, who says he has been president of many railroads and was present for seven years of the National surety company.

Making his revelations last night at a meeting of spiritualists, he said he had not revealed his relations with the spirit world before because he did not want "people to think me a nut."

"When I was building the Kansas City Southern I was warned not to build the terminal at Galveston because it would lead to disaster. They told me to terminate it at Lake Sabine, where I built the terminal of Port Arthur. Four days after the terminal was completed the tidal wave wiped out Galveston."

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 16, 1922, page 1.

Ghost is Whistler, Conductors Report

1920

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. -- Is Twin Peaks tunnel haunted?

"It is," aver several conductors on municipal railway cars. "The tunnel is haunted, and what is more, the ghost that dwells in the tunnel is a whistler of ability, tenacity and great lung power."

According to several car men whose runs take them through the tunnel, the tube has a ghost that whistles in an uncanny way. One conductor avers he saw the ghost -- in the shape of a man -- the other night and that the ghost disappeared in thin air, like sunsets do in moving pictures.

Those who don't believe in ghosts explain the weird whistling as being due to the rush of air around the speeding cars, the walls of the tunnel confining the air and making the "ghost music."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.

Comment: I like the phrase: "disappeared in thin air, like sunsets do in moving pictures."

Knocking on Wood

1919

Knocking on wood

The superstition of rapping on wood after a boast of a piece of luck is of European origin. The raps were supposed to drive away evil spirits vexed by others' good fortune. The raps later signified the Trinity, and the necessity for rapping on wood was because that was the material of the cross. The expression dates from a custom in vogue five thousand years ago.

--Middletown Daily Herald, Middletown, New York, June 2, 1919, page 4.

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.