Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1523 page)

“As she was in the light rays, I had a good view of her face and hands. The countenance was beautiful to gaze upon, and the hands were soft, warm, and perfectly natural, and, but for what followed, I could have thought I held the hand of a permanent embodied lady, so perfectly natural, yet so exquisitely beautiful and pure.”

He goes on to relate how she retired to within two feet of the medium in the cabinet, and in sight of all “gradually dematerialised by melting away from the feet upwards, until the head only appeared above the floor, and then this grew less and less until a white spot only remained, which, continuing for a moment or two, disappeared.”

At the same seance an infant form materialised and placed three fingers of its tiny hand in Mr. Oxley’s. Mr. Oxley afterwards took its hand in his and kissed it. This occurred in August, 1880.

Mr. Oxley records a very interesting experience of high evidential value. While Yolande, the Arab girl, was speaking to a lady sitter, “the top part of her white drapery fell of and revealed her form. I noticed that the form was imperfect, as the bust was undeveloped and the waist uncontracted, which was a test that the form was not a lay figure.” He might have added, nor that of the medium.

Writing on “How a Medium Feels During Materialisations,” Madame d’Esperance throws some light on the curious sympathy constantly seen to exist between the medium and the spirit form. Describing a seance at which she sat outside the cabinet, she says*:

* MEDIUM AND DAYBREAK, 1893, p. 46.

And now, another small and delicate form appears, with its little arms stretched out. Someone at the far end of the circle rises, approaches it, and they embrace. I hear inarticulate cries, “Anna, oh, Anna, my child, my dear child!” Then another person rises and throws her arms around the spirit; whereupon I hear sobs and exclamations, mingled with benedictions. I feel my body moved from side to side; everything grows dark before my eyes. I feel someone’s arms around my shoulders; someone’s heart beats against my bosom. I feel that something happens. No one is near me; no one pays the slightest attention to me. Every eye is fixed upon that little figure, white and slender, in the arms of the two women in mourning.

It must be my heart that I hear beating so distinctly, yet, surely, someone’s arms are around me; never have I felt an embrace more plainly. I begin to wonder. Who am I? Am I the apparition in white, or am I that which remains seated in the chair? Are those my arms around the neck of the elder woman? Or are those mine which lie before me on my lap? Am I the phantom, and if so, what shall I call the being in the chair?

Surely, my lips are kissed; my cheeks are moist with the tears so plentifully shed by the two women. But how can that be? This feeling of doubt as to one’s own identity is fearful. I wish to extend one of the hands lying in my lap. I cannot do so. I wish to touch someone so as to make perfectly certain whether I am I, or only a dream; whether Anna is I, and if I am, in some sort, lost in her identity.

While the medium is in this state of distracted doubt another little spirit child who had materialised comes and slips her hands into those of Madame d’Esperance.

How happy I am to feel the touch, even of a little child. My doubts, as to who and where I am, are gone. And while I am experiencing all this, the white form of Anna disappears in the cabinet and the two women return to their places, tearful, shaken with emotion, but intensely happy.

It is not surprising to learn that when a sitter at one of Madame d’Esperance’s seances seized the materialised figure, he declared it to be the medium herself. In this connection Aksakof’s views* on the general question are of interest:

* “A Case of Partial Dematerialisation,” p. 181.

One may seize the materialised form, and hold it, and assure himself that he holds nothing except the medium herself, in flesh and bone; and it is not yet a proof of fraud on the medium’s part. In fact, according to our hypothesis, what could happen if we detain the medium’s double by force, when it is materialised to such a degree that nothing but an invisible simulacre of the medium remains in the seat behind the curtain? It is obvious that the simulacre-that small portion, fluid and ethereal-will be immediately absorbed into the already compactly materialised form, which lacks nothing (of being the medium) but that invisible remainder.

M. Aksakof, in the Introduction he has written for Madame d’Esperance’s book, “Shadow Land,” pays a high tribute to her as a woman and as a medium. He says she was as interested as himself in trying to find the truth. She submitted willingly to all the tests he imposed.

One interesting incident in the career of Madame d’Esperance was that she succeeded in reconciling Professor Friese, of Breslau, to Professor Zollner, of Leipzig. The alienation of these two friends had occurred on account of Zollner’s profession of Spiritualism, but the English medium was able to give such proofs to Friese that he no longer contested his friend’s conclusions.

It should be remarked that in the course of Mr. Oxley’s experiments with Madame d’Esperance moulds were taken of the hands and feet of the materialised figures, with wrist and ankle apertures which were too narrow to allow the withdrawal of the limb in any way, save by dematerialisation. In view of the great interest excited by the paraffin moulds taken in
1922 in
Paris from the medium Kluski, it is curious to reflect that the same experiment had been successfully carried out, unnoticed save by the psychic Press, by this Manchester student so far back as 1876.

The latter part of Madame d’Esperance’s life, which was spent largely in Scandinavia, was marred by ill health, which was originally induced by the shock that she sustained at the so-called “exposure” when Yolande was seized by some injudicious researcher at Helsingfors in 1893. No one has expressed more clearly than she how much sensitives suffer from the ignorance of the world around them. In the last chapter of her remarkable book she deals with the subject. She concludes: “They who come after me may perchance suffer as I have done through ignorance of God’s laws. Yet the world is wiser than it was, and it may be that they who take up the work in the next generation will not have to fight, as I did, the narrow bigotry and harsh judgments of the ‘unco’ guid’.”

 
* * * * *

 
Each of the mediums treated in this chapter has had one or more books devoted to his or her career. In the case of William Eglinton there is a remarkable volume, “‘Twixt Two Worlds,” by J. S. Farmer, which covers most of his activities.

Eglinton was born at Islington on July 10, 1857, and, after a brief period at school, entered the printing and publishing business of a relative. As a boy he was extremely imaginative, as well as dreamy and sensitive, but, unlike so many other great mediums, he showed in his boyhood no sign of possessing any psychic powers. In 1874, when he was seventeen years of age, Eglinton entered the family circle by means of which his father was investigating the alleged phenomena of Spiritualists. Up to that time the circle had obtained no results, but when the boy joined it the table rose steadily from the floor until the sitters had to stand to keep their hands on it. Questions were answered to the satisfaction of those present. At the next sitting on the following evening, the boy passed into a trance, and evidential communications from his dead mother were received. In a few months his mediumship had developed, and stronger manifestations were forthcoming. His fame as a medium spread, and he received numerous requests for seances, but he resisted all efforts to induce him to become a professional medium. Finally, he had to adopt this course in 1875.

Eglinton thus describes his feelings before entering the seance room for the first time, and the change that came over him:

My manner, previous to doing so, was that of a boy full of fun; but as soon as I found myself in the presence of the “inquirers,” a strange and mysterious feeling came over me, which I could not shake off. I sat down at the table, determined that if anything happened I would put a stop to it. Something did happen, but I was powerless to prevent it. The table began to show signs of life and vigour; it suddenly rose off the ground and steadily raised itself in the air, until we had to stand to reach it. This was in full gaslight. It afterwards answered, intelligently, questions which were put to it, and gave a number of test communications to persons present.

The next evening saw us eagerly sitting for further manifestations, and with a larger circle, for the news had got widely spread that we had “seen ghosts and talked to them,” together with similar reports.

After we had read the customary prayer, I seemed to be no longer of this earth. A most ecstatic feeling came over me, and I presently passed into a trance. All my friends were novices in the matter, and tried various means to restore me, but without result. At the end of half an hour I returned to consciousness, feeling a strong desire to relapse into the former condition. We had communications which proved conclusively, to my mind, that the spirit of my mother had really returned to us. I then began to realise how mistaken-how utterly empty and unspiritual-had been my past life, and I felt a pleasure indescribable in knowing, beyond a doubt, that those who had passed from earth could return again, and prove the immortality of the soul. In the quietness of our family circlewe enjoyed to the full extent our communion with the departed, and many are the happy hours I have spent in this way.

In two respects his work resembles that of D. D. Home. His seances were usually held in the light, and he always agreed willingly to any proposed tests. A further strong point of similarity was the fact that his results were observed and recorded by many eminent men and by good critical witnesses.

Eglinton, like Home, travelled a great deal, and his mediumship was witnessed in many places. In 1878 he sailed for South Africa. The following year he visited Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. In February, 1880, he went to Cambridge University and held sittings under the auspices of the Psychological Society. In March he journeyed to Holland, thence proceeding to Leipzig, where he gave sittings to Professor Zollner and others connected with the University. Dresden and Prague followed, and in Vienna in April over thirty seances were held which were attended by many members of the aristocracy. In Vienna he was the guest of Baron Hellenbach, the well-known author, who in his book, “Prejudices of Mankind,” has described the phenomena that occurred there. After returning to England, he sailed for America on February 12, 1881, remaining there about three months. In November of the same year he went to India, and after holding numerous seances in Calcutta, returned in April,
1882. In
1883 he again visited Paris, and in 1885 was in Vienna and Paris. He subsequently visited Venice, which he described as “a veritable hotbed of Spiritualism.”

In Paris, in 1885, Eglinton met M. Tissot, the famous artist, who sat with him and subsequently visited him in England. A remarkable materialising seance at which two figures were plainly seen, and one, a lady, was recognised as a relation, has been immortalised by Tissot in a mezzotint entitled “Apparition Medianimique.” This beautiful, artistic production, a copy of which hangs at the offices of the London Spiritualist Alliance, shows the two figures illuminated by spirit lights which they are carrying in their hands. Tissot also executed a portrait etching of the medium, and this is to be found as the frontispiece to Mr. Farmer’s book, “‘Twixt Two Worlds.”

A typical example of his early physical mediumship is described* by Miss Kislingbury and Dr. Carter Blake (Lecturer in Anatomy at Westminster Hospital):

* THE SPIRITUALIST, May 12, 1876, p. 221.

Mr. Eglinton’s coat-sleeves were sewn together behind his back near the wrist with strong white cotton; the tying committee then bound him in his chair, passing the tape round his neck, and placed him close behind the curtain (of the cabinet) facing the company, with his knees and feet in sight. A small round table with various objects upon it was placed before the medium outside the cabinet and in view of the sitters; the little stringed instrument known as the Oxford Chimes was laid inverted across his knees, and a book and a hand-bell were placed upon it. In a few moments the strings were played upon, though no visible hand was touching them, the book, the front of which was turned towards the sitters, opened and shut (this was repeated a great number of times, so that all present saw the experiment unmistakably), and the handbell was rung from within, that is, without being raised from the board. The musical box placed near the curtain, but fully in sight, was stopped and set going, while the lid remained shut. Fingers, and at times a whole hand, were now and then protruded through the curtain. An instant after one of these had appeared, Captain Rolleston was requested to thrust his arm through the curtain and ascertain whether the tying and sewing were as at first. He satisfied himself that they were, and the same testimony was given by another gentleman later on.

This was one of a series of experimental seances held under the auspices of the British National Association of Spiritualists, at their rooms, 38 Great Russell Street, London. Referring to these, THE SPIRITUALIST says*:

* May 12, 1876.