Mystic London by Charles Maurice Davies (best mystery novels of all time .txt) 📖

of the Saturday Review, I determined to test for myself the value of the testimony so copiously quoted by believers in the modern marvel. Clearly if certain published letters of the period were to be put in evidence, Spiritualism had very much the better, and Science exceedingly little to say for itself. But we all know that this is a subject on which scientific men are apt to be reticent. 'Tacere tutum est' seems the Fabian policy adopted by those who find this new Hannibal suddenly come from across sea into their midst. It is moreover a subject about which the public will not be convinced by any amount of writing or talking, but simply by what it can see and handle for itself. It may be of service, then, if I put on record the result of an examination made below the surface of this matter.

"Like most other miracles this particular one evidently has its phases and comes about in cycles. For a generation past, or nearly so, Modern Spiritualism has been so far allied with Table-turning and mysterious rappings as to have appropriated to itself in consequence certain ludicrous titles, against which it vainly protests. Then cropped up 'levitations' and 'elongations' of the person, and Mr. Home delighted to put red-hot coals on the heads of his friends. None of these manifestations, however, were sufficient to make the spiritualistic theory any other than a huge petitio principii. The Davenports were the first to inaugurate on anything like an extended scale the alleged appearance of the human body, or rather of certain members of the human body, principally arms and hands, through the peep-hole of their cabinet. Then came 'spirit-voices' with Mrs. Marshall, and aërial transits on the part of Mrs. Guppy; then the entire 'form of the departed' was said to be visible chez Messrs. Herne and Williams in Lamb's Conduit Street, whose abode formed Mrs. Guppy's terminus on the occasion of her nocturnal voyage. Then came Miss Florence Cook's spirit faces at Hackney, which were produced under a strong light, which submitted to be touched and tested in what seemed a very complete manner, and even held conversations with persons in the circle. Finally, I heard it whispered that these faces were being recognised on a somewhat extensive scale at the séances of Mrs. Holmes, in Old Quebec Street, where certain other marvels were also to be witnessed, which decided me on paying that lady a visit.

"Even these, however, were not the principal attractions which drew me to the tripod of the seeress in Quebec Street. It had been continually urged as an argument against the claims of Modern Spiritualism, first, that it shunned the light and clave to 'dark' circles; secondly, that it was over-sensitive on the subject of 'sceptics.' Surely, we are all sceptics in the sense of investigators. The most pretentious disciple of Spiritualism does not claim to have exhausted the subject. On the contrary, they all tell us we are now only learning the alphabet of the craft. Perhaps the recognised Spirit-faces may have landed us in words of one syllable, but scarcely more. However, the great advantage which Mrs. Holmes possessed in my eyes over all professors of the new art was that she did not object to sceptics. Accordingly to Quebec Street I went, for the distinct purpose of testing the question of recognition. If I myself, or any person on whose testimony I could rely, established a single case of undoubted recognition, that, I felt, would go farther than anything else towards solving the spiritualistic problem.

"I devoted two Monday evenings to this business; that being the day on which Mrs. Holmes, as she phrases it, 'sits for faces.' On the former of the two occasions twenty-seven persons assembled, and the first portion of the evening was devoted to the Dark Séance, which presented some novel features in itself, but was not the special object for which I was present. Mrs. Holmes, who is a self-possessed American lady, evidently equal to tackling any number of sceptics, was securely tied in a chair. All the circle joined hands; and certainly, as soon as the light was out, fiddles, guitars, tambourines and bells did fly about the room in a very unaccountable manner, and when the candle was lighted, I found a fiddle-bow down my back, a guitar on my lap, and a tambourine ring round my neck. But there was nothing spiritual in this, and the voice which addressed us familiarly during the operation may or may not have been a spirit voice.

"Mrs. Holmes having been released from some very perplexing knots, avowedly by Spirit power, proceeded to what is called the 'Ring Test,' and I was honoured by being selected to make the experiment. I sat in the centre of the room and held both her hands firmly in mine. I passed my hands over her arms, without relaxing my grasp, so as to feel that she had nothing secreted there; when suddenly a tambourine ring, jinglers and all, was passed on to my arm. Very remarkable; but still not necessarily spiritual. Certain clairvoyants present said they could witness the 'disintegration' of the ring. I only felt it pass on to my arm. On the occasion of my second visit this same feat was performed on an elderly gentleman, a very confirmed sceptic indeed. This second circle consisted of twenty persons, many of them very pronounced disbelievers, and not a little inclined to be 'chaffy.' However all went on swimmingly.

"After about an hour of rather riotous dark séance, lights were rekindled and circles re-arranged for the Face Séance which takes place in subdued light. In the space occupied by the folding doors between the front and back room a large black screen is placed, with an aperture, or peep-hole, about eighteen inches square, cut in it. The most minute examination of this back room is allowed, and I took care to lock both doors, leaving the keys crosswise in the key-hole, so that they could not be opened from the outside. We then took our seats in the front room in three or four lines. I myself occupied the centre of the first row, about four feet from the screen, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes sitting at a small table in front of the screen; the theory being that the spirits behind collect from their 'emanations' material to form the faces. Soon after we were in position a most ghostly-looking child's face appeared at the aperture, but was not recognised. Several other corpse-like visages followed with like absence of recognition. Then came a very old lady's face, quite life-like, and Mrs. Holmes informed us that the cadaverous people were those only recently deceased. The old lady looked anxiously round as if expecting to be recognised, but nobody claimed acquaintance. In fact no face was recognised at my first visit. The next was a jovial Joe Bagstock kind of face which peered quite merrily round our circle, and lastly came a most life-like countenance of an elderly man. This face, which had a strange leaden look about the eyes, came so close to the orifice that it actually lifted its grey beard outside. On the occasion of my second visit a lady present distinctly recognised this as the face of her husband, and asked the form to show its hand as an additional mark of identity. This request was complied with, the figure lifting a thin, white and—as the widow expressed it—'aristocratic' hand, and kissing it most politely. I am bound to say there was less emotion manifested on the part of the lady than I should have expected under the circumstances; and a young man who accompanied her, and who from the likeness to her must have been her son, surveyed his resuscitated papa calmly through a double-barrelled opera glass. I am not sure that I am at liberty to give this lady's name; but, at this second visit, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory, of 21, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, positively identified the old lady above-mentioned as a Scotch lady of title well known to her.

"I myself was promised that a relation of my own would appear on a future occasion; but on neither of those when I attended did I see anything that would enable me to test the value of the identifications. The faces, however, were so perfectly life-like, with the solitary exception of a dull leaden expression in the eye, that I cannot imagine the possibility of a doubt existing as to whether they belonged to persons one knew or not. At all events here is the opportunity of making the test. No amount of scepticism is a bar to being present. The appearances are not limited to a privileged few. All see alike: so that the matter is removed out of the sphere of 'hallucinations.' Everything is done in the light, too, as far as the faces are concerned. So that several not unreasonable test-conditions are fulfilled in this case, and so far a step made in advance of previous manifestations.

"We may well indeed pause—at least I know I did—to shake ourselves, and ask whereabouts we are. Is this a gigantic imposture? or are the Witch of Endor and the Cumæan Sibyl revived in the unromantic neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, and under circumstances that altogether remove them from the category of the miraculous? England will take a good deal of convincing on this subject, which is evidently one that no amount of 'involuntary muscular action,' or 'unconscious cerebration,' will cover. What if the good old-fashioned ghost be a reality after all, and Cock Lane no region of the supernatural?

"What then? Why, one may expect to meet one's deceased ancestors at any hour of the day or night, provided only there be a screen for them to 'form' behind, and a light sufficiently subdued to prevent disintegration; with, of course, the necessary pigeon-hole for the display of their venerable physiognomies. On their side of the question, it will be idle to say, 'No rest but the grave!' for there may not be rest even there, if Delphic priestesses and Cumæan Sibyls come into vogue again; and we may as well omit the letters R. I. P. from our obituary notices as a purely superfluous form of speech."

Speaking now in my own proper person as author, I may mention—as I have purposely deferred doing up to this point—that a light was subsequently struck at one of Mrs. Holmes's Dark Séances, and that the discoveries thus made rendered the séance a final one. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes retired, first to Brighton, and then to America.

They were, at the time of my writing, holding successful séances in the latter place; and public (Spiritualistic) opinion still clings to the belief that Mrs. Holmes is a genuine medium.

CHAPTER XLII. AN EVENING WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS.

At the head of social heresies, and rapidly beginning to take rank as a religious heresy as well, I have no hesitation in placing modern Spiritualism. Those who associate this latest mystery only with gyrating articles of furniture, rapping tables, or simpering planchettes, are simply in the abyss of ignorance, and dangerously underrate the gravity of the subject. The later development of Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms, each of which I have examined thoroughly, and made the results of my observations public, fail to afford any adequate idea of the pitch to which the mania—if mania it be—has attained. To many persons Spiritualism forms the ultimatum, not only in science, but also in religion. Whatever the Spirits tell them they believe and do as devoutly as the Protestant obeys his Bible, the Catholic his Church, or the scientific man follows up the results of his demonstrations. That is, in fact, the position they assume. They claim to have attained in matters of religion