Seen and Unseen. E. Katherine Bates
abnormal fashion when the pressure was removed.
Her face was very cadaverous, and she spoke in a quick, hurried way, as if time were an object. She said she understood a little English, but could not speak it. Her mother had been French; her father an Indian, "un brave homme."
It seemed to me that a good deal of kissing and embracing went on. One old grey-headed gentleman was constantly walking up to the cabinet and being embraced by a white figure, whose arms we could just see, thrown round his neck, in the dim light. (I note that the light here was much less than with Mrs. Stoddart Gray in New York.)
The only excitement was the chance of some disturbance before we left; for Mrs. Porter became more and more indignant with the "gross imposture," which culminated when at length she was called up and told that "a young man wished to speak with her." She asserted that it was "the most horrible, grinning, painted creature who hissed into her ears."
The master of the house begged her to be patient, and try to hear what the spirit wished to say, but with a very emphatic "No, no, no" she resumed her seat, amidst a general titter of laughter.
At the last we were told that three little girls, whose mother sat near the cabinet, wished to materialise, but found it difficult to do so, owing to the absence of children in the audience.
The mother seemed very anxious to see them; but suddenly the gas was turned up, and the séance declared over—a very abrupt finale to a piece of unmitigated humbug, I should say.
These extracts sufficiently show the spirit in which I entered upon my investigations and the result of that spirit. I think even Mr. Podmore would have considered me thoroughly sound on that first evening. I have no doubt that the violence of Mrs. Porter's antagonism, and the smiling cynicism of Mrs. Hall in face of the "American experience" she had proposed for us, added to my own preconceived prejudices.
I am aware that the Berry Sisters have been "exposed," thus sharing the fate of all other public mediums. In the light of later experiences, however, I feel sure that I might have received something personally evidential on this occasion had my attitude of mind given hospitality to any possible visitors from the Unseen.
The next extracts from my diary refer to a séance which we attended in New York a few days after our arrival there, and some two or three weeks later than the Boston sitting already described.
Our stay in Boston had extended to three months from the original fortnight we had planned for the visit. I had taken a few very good introductions there: to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Colonel Wentworth Higginson, and others of the Boston alumni, and as several receptions had been kindly arranged for us, and my name had appeared many times during the winter in various local papers, it would have been easy for the Sisters Berry to find out something about me and my companion, and utilise the knowledge by faking up a convenient spirit, who could have talked glibly of my literary tastes, and so forth. Nothing of the sort occurred, however, although our first séance only took place a week or two before we left Boston, after my three months' stay there.
This fact should certainly be "counted as righteousness" to the much abused Sisters!
It was the more curious, that our first séance in New York, within a few days of our arrival, and in a metropolis where at the time we were absolute strangers, should have been so much more successful as regards evidential experiences.
I will again quote from my diary of 1886. The medium visited on this occasion was Mrs. Cadwell, who has since died.
We knew nothing beforehand of the medium, who lived in a small flat in an unfashionable quarter. Some eight people only were assembled in the extremely small room. All were perfect strangers to Miss Greenlow and me, but a fancied likeness in one lady present to a picture I had seen of Mrs. Beecher Stowe led me to ask if it were she, and I was told that my surmise was correct.
There was no room for a cabinet, so a curtain was hung across a tiny alcove, just the ordinary "arch" found in most rooms of the kind.
When I went behind the curtain with the female medium, before the sitting began, there was barely space for us both to turn round in. The carpet on either side the curtain was one piece. There was absolutely no room for any trap-door machinery, even could such have been worked successfully in the perfect silence in which we sat, within two feet of the alcove. The room was about the size of the small back dining-room in an ordinary London lodging—say in Oxford or Cambridge Terrace, for example.
The medium sat amongst us at first, only going behind the curtain after a few moments, when she was "under control" as it is called.
A little child of hers, who died some years ago at the age of four, is supposed to help in the materialisations, but is never seen outside the curtains. If she came out herself she would not be able to help the others to do so. I mention these things in the words in which they were told to me, offering no comment, but putting the case for the moment as spiritualists would put it. To do this, and then to give a faithful and unprejudiced account of what took place, seems to me the only fair way of treating such a subject.
I was told again and again that too much concentration of thought on the part of the audience was deterrent. This accounts for music as an invariable accompaniment of all such sittings. It seems to harmonise the circle, to break up over-concentration, and may also, unfortunately, serve to cover the doings of dishonest mediums.
It must not, however, be supposed that in this case the materialisations went on only whilst we were singing. This might point to a possible "trap-door theory," although in a city where flats abound (rooms, not human beings!) there would still be the difficulty of getting your downstairs neighbours to look kindly upon such proceedings. As a matter of fact, we were often sitting in absolute silence when fresh "spirits" appeared.
I can corroborate the assertion that too much concentration of thought upon them proves deterrent to the spirits, for on more than one occasion I heard a voice from the curtain or cabinet saying: "Do get the people's minds off us; we can do nothing whilst they are fixed upon us so intensely," as though thought in spirit life corresponded to some physical obstacle on the earth plane.
The first spirit who came (the daughter of an old gentleman sitting near me) intimated through him that she would like me to go up and help her to materialise the white veil which all in turn wore, and which, though perfectly transparent, is considered a necessary shield between them and the earth's influences; on the same principle, I suppose, that we put on blue spectacles to protect us from the blinding rays of the sun.
She came out from the alcove, held both her hands in front of her, turning them backward and forward that I might be satisfied that nothing was concealed in them. The soft, clinging material of her gown ended high up on the shoulders, so there were no sleeves to be reckoned with. I stood close over her, holding out my own dress, and as she rubbed her hands to and fro a sort of white lace or net came from them, like a foam, and lay upon my gown which I was holding up towards her.
I touched this material, and held it in my hands. It had substance, but was light as gossamer, and quite unlike any stuff I ever saw in a shop.
The very softest gossamer tulle that old ladies sometimes produce as having belonged to their grandmothers is perhaps the nearest approach to what I then lifted in my hands, but even this does not accurately describe it.
When long enough she took up the veil, unfolded it, covering her head with it, and saying very graciously "Thank you" to me.
Other spirits now appeared for the other people in the room, who conversed with them in low tones.
All these had evidently materialised before and could consequently speak with comparative ease. One, called the "Angel Mother" (the mother of the medium), answered questions on the spirit life in a loud American voice, prefacing every remark, whether to man or woman, by an affectionate "Well, de-ar!" Her answers showed considerable shrewdness, but not much depth, and were often rather wide of the mark.
"Nels Seymour" (who appears to have belonged to a sort of Christy Minstrel Company over here) cracked jokes all the time