CHAPTER XVI
CONCLUSION
It has been my desire in this book to convey to the reader my views regarding Spiritualism which are the result of study and investigation, the startling feature of which has been the utter inability of the average human being to describe accurately anything he or she has witnessed. Many sitters, devoid of the sense of acute observation, prefer to garnish and embellish their stories with the fruits of their fertile imaginations, adding a choice bit every time the incident is reported, and eventually, by a trick of the brain, really believing what they say. It is evident, therefore, that by clever misguidance and apt misdirection of attention, a medium can accomplish seeming wonders. The sitter becomes positively self-deluded and actually thinks he has seen weird phantoms or has heard the voice of a beloved one.
To my knowledge I have never been baffled in the least by what I have seen at seances. Everything I have seen has been merely a form of mystification. The secret of all such performances is to catch the mind off guard and the moment after it has been surprised to follow up with something else that carries the intelligence along with the performer, even against the spectator’s will. When it is possible to do this with a highly developed mind like Mr. Kellar’s, one trained in magic mystery, and when scientific men of the intelligence of Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the late William Crookes and William T. Stead, can be made to believe by such means how much easier it must be in the case of ordinary human beings.
I cannot accept nor even comprehend the intelligence which justifies the conclusion, so often put in print as the opinion of brainy men supporting Spiritualism, that admits the possibility of a result being accomplished by natural means but nevertheless assert their sincere belief that the identical performance by a professional medium is solely of supernatural origin and guidance, nor can I understand the reasoning that, acknowledging the disreputable character of certain practitioners or mediums, deliberately defends the culprits in the performance of what has been proven a crime. Is it true logic, logic that would stand either in court or club room, to say that a medium caught cheating ninety-nine times out of a hundred was honest the hundredth time because not caught? Would the reader trust a servant who stole ninety-nine articles and then professed innocence when the hundredth article was missing?
Sir Conan Doyle asks in all innocence, “Is it really scientific to deny and at the same time refuse to investigate?” My answer is most emphatically “no.” Nevertheless, they absolutely oppose all honest efforts at investigation, and justify the mediums in refusing to work when the conditions are not just as they want them. When one is invited to a dark seance for the purpose of investigation and finds the conditions so fixed as to bar him from enquiring too closely and compel him to be content with merely looking on he stands a poor chance of getting at the facts, and should he dare to disregard the “rules of the circle” and the seance results in a blank, the investigator is charged with having brought an atmosphere of incredulity to bear which prevents manifestation.
I do not affirm that the claims of Spiritualism are disproved by such failures but I do say that if under such circumstances one dared to investigate properly and sanely, and to cross-examine, as he most certainly would do in any other form of investigation, scientific, or in the other walks of life, Spiritualism would not be so generously accepted. In justification the psychic says that darkness or excessively dim light is perfectly legitimate and that tangible investigation might result in _injury_ or even _death_ to the medium. The folly of any such fear has been proven time and again by the unexpected play of a flash light. Even the ardent supporters who lay emphasis on such an absurdity have, according to their own confession, made, or had made, flashlight photographs and there has never been a single case of harm or disaster reported. This necessity for darkness seems but the grossest invention of the medium to divert, even to the point of intimidation, the attention of the sitters. Such a necessity cannot be accorded a logical reason for existing under test conditions to demonstrate a scientific subject. It can be supported only as a visionary, speculative superstition; an instrument to foster hallucinatory illusion and as an admirable subterfuge to cover fraud.
Sir Arthur says:
“If you want to send a telegram you must go to a telegraph office. If you want to telephone you must first pick up the receiver and give your message to either an operator or a waiting automaton.”
Very well, I have gone to the operator between the Beyond and this earthly sphere, I have gone to the telegraph office that receives the message in code, to the so-called _medium_. What would be more wonderful to me than to be able to converse with my beloved mother? Surely there is no love in this world like a mother’s love, no closeness of spirit, no other heart throbs that beat alike; but I have not heard from my blessed Mother, except through the dictates of the inmost recesses of my heart, the thoughts which fill my brain and the memory of her teachings.
Would not my private secretary, John William Sargent, come back to me and tell me the secrets of the beyond if it were possible? Did he not, just before he died, tell me that he would come to me if there was any way of doing it? More than being a private secretary, he was my friend,--true, loyal, sacrificing,--knew me for thirty years. He has not come back to me and he would if it were possible.
I had compacts with a round dozen. Each one promised me faithfully to come back if it were possible. I have even gone so far as to create secret codes and hand-grips. Sargent had a certain word he was to repeat to me; William Berol, the eminent mental expert, gave me the secret handshake a few hours before he died and did not regain consciousness after silently telling me that he remembered our compact; Atlanta Hall, niece of President Pierce, a woman ninety years of age, who had had seances with the greatest mediums that visited Boston, called for me just before her death, clasped my hand and gave me our agreed-upon grip which she was to give me through a medium. They have never come back to me! Does that prove anything? I have attended a number of seances since their death, the mediums have called for them, and when their spirit forms were supposed to appear not one of them could give me the proper signal. Would I have received it? I’ll wager I would have. There was love of some kind between each of these friends who are gone and myself. It is needless to point out the love of a mother and son; the love of a real friend; the love of a woman of ninety toward a man who held her dear; the love of a philosopher toward a man who respected his life study,--they were all loves, each strong, each binding. If these persons, with all the love they bore in their heart for me and all the love I have in my heart for them, did not return, what about those who did not hold me close, who had no interest in me? Why should they come back and mine not?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has repeatedly told the Spiritualists that I will eventually see the light and embrace Spiritualism. If the memory of a loved one, gone to the protection of the hands of the Great Mystifier means Spiritualism, then truly I do believe in it. But if Spiritualism is to be founded on the tricks of exposed mediums, feats of magic, resort to trickery, then I say unflinchingly I do not believe, and more, I will not believe. I have said many times that I am willing to believe, want to believe, will believe, if the Spiritualists can show any substantiated proof, but until they do I shall have to live on, believing from all the evidence shown me and from what I have experienced that Spiritualism has not been proven satisfactorily to the world at large and that none of the evidence offered has been able to stand up under the fierce rays of investigation.
It is not for us to prove that the mediums are dishonest, it is for them to prove that they _are_ honest. They have made a statement, the most serious statement in recent times, for it affects the welfare, the mental attitude and means a complete revolution of age-old beliefs and customs of the world. If there is anything to Spiritualism then the world should know it. If there is nothing to it, if it is, as it appears, built on a flimsy framework of misdirection, then too the universe must be told. There is too much at stake for a flighty passing, for unsubstantiated truths.
APPENDIX
A
_Statement of Margaret Fox_
“Do you know that there is something behind the shadowy mask of Spiritualism that the public can hardly guess at? I am stating now what I know, not because I actually participated in it, for I would never be a party to such promiscuous nastiness, but because I had plenty of opportunity, as you may imagine, of verifying it. Under the name of this dreadful, this horrible, hypocrisy--Spiritualism--everything that is improper, bad and immoral is practiced. They go even so far as to have what they call ‘Spiritual children.’ They pretend to something like the immaculate conception! Could anything be more blasphemous, more disgusting, more thinly deceptive than that? In London I went in disguise to a quiet seance at the house of a wealthy man, and I saw a so-called materialization. The effect was produced with the aid of luminous paper, the luster of which was reflected upon the operator. The figure thus displayed was that of a woman, virtually nude, being enveloped in transparent gauze, the face alone being concealed. This was one of those seances to which the privileged non-believing friends of believing Spiritualists could have access. But there are other seances where none but the most tried and trusted are admitted, and where there are shameless goings on that vie with the secret Saturnalia of the Romans. I could not describe these things to you, because I would not.”
From “The Death Blow to Spiritualism,” by Ruben Briggs Davenport. Page 50.
B
_Irving’s Speech_
Speech of Henry Irving preceding his imitation of the Davenports February 25, 1865, at the Manchester Athenæum, Manchester, England.
“Ladies and gentlemen:--In introducing to your notice the remarkable phenomena which have attended the gentlemen, who are not brothers, who are about to appear before you, I do not deem it necessary to offer my observations upon their extraordinary manifestations. I shall therefore at once commence a long rigmarole for the purpose of distracting your attention, and filling your intelligent heads with perplexity. I need not tell this enlightened audience that the manifestations they are about to witness are produced by occult power, the meaning of which I don’t clearly understand; but, we simply bring before your notice facts, and from these you must form your own conclusions. Concerning the early life of these gentlemen, columns of the most uninteresting description could be written; I will mention one or two interesting facts connected with these remarkable men, and for the truth of which I personally vouch. In early life, one of them to the perfect unconcern of everybody else, was constantly and most unconsciously floating about his peaceful dwelling in the arms of his amiable nurse, while, on other occasions, he was frequently tied with invisible hands to his mother’s apron strings. Peculiarities of a like nature were exhibited by his companion, whose acquaintance with various Spirits commenced many years ago, and has increased to the present moment with pleasure to himself and profit to others. These gentlemen have not been celebrated throughout the vast continent of America, they have not astonished the civilized world, but they have travelled in various parts of this glorious land--the land of Bacon--and are about to appear in a phase in your glorious city of Manchester. Many really sensible and intelligent individuals seem to think that the requirement of darkness seems to infer trickery. So it does. But I will strive to convince you that it does not. Is not a dark chamber essential to the process of photography? And what would we reply to him who would say ‘I believe photography is a humbug, do it all in the light and we will believe otherwise’? It is true that we know why darkness is essential to the production of a sun picture; and if scientific men will subject these phenomena to analysis, they will find why darkness is essential to our manifestations. But we don’t want them to find out, we want them to avoid a common-sense view of the mystery. We want them to be blinded by our puzzle, and to believe with implicit faith in the greatest humbug in the nineteenth century.”
C
_Lord Adare’s Story._
That is the way Spiritualistic chroniclers tell this story, but Lord Dunraven, in a letter to the Editor of _The Weekly Dispatch_, London, Eng., March 21, 1920, gives quite a different version of the occurrence, and because of its intrinsic worth as refutation of the loud claim made by Spiritualists I am reproducing the entire article including head lines:
“MEDIUM’S ENTRY BY WINDOW
“WHAT I SAW AT ASHLEY HOUSE
“_By Lord Dunraven._
“My attention has been drawn to accounts of a debate on ‘Spiritualism’ on March 11 between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. Joseph McCabe, in which the latter is reported to have described the alleged wafting of Mr. D. D. Home from window to window as one of the greatest pieces of trickery to be found in the whole Spiritualistic movement.
“Assuming the substantial accuracy of the report, I, as the sole survivor of those present on the occasion, think it my duty, in justice to the dead, to mention the facts as recorded by me at the time.
“They are extracted from a long letter descriptive of the evening to my father, who was much interested in the subject. Whether my letter was submitted to the others present I cannot now say for certain. I have no doubt that it was, for my custom was always to ask others present to test the accuracy of any record that I kept.
“The date was December 16, 1868. Those present were myself (then Lord Adare), the late Lord Crawford, (then Master of Lindsay), a cousin of mine, Mr. Wynne (Charlie) and Mr. D. D. Home.
“ON THE THIRD FLOOR
“The scene was Ashley House (in Ashley-place). Speaking from memory, it consisted of two rooms facing the front--that is, looking on Ashley-place--a passage at the back running the length of the two rooms, a door in each room connecting it with the passage. The locality is thus described in the letter to my father:
“‘Outside each window is a small balcony or ledge, 19 in. deep, bounded by stone balustrade, 18 in. high. The balustrades of the two windows are 7 ft. 4 in. apart, measuring from the nearest points. A string-course, 4 in. wide, runs between the windows at the level of the bottom of the balustrade, and another, 3 in. wide, at the level of the top. Between the window at which Home went out and that at which he came in the wall recedes 6 in. The rooms are on the third floor.’
“The following account of the incident is extracted from the letter to my father:
“He (Home) then said to us, ‘Do not be afraid, and on no account leave your places;’ and he went out into the passage.
“FROM ROOM TO ROOM
“Lindsay suddenly said, ‘Oh, good heavens! I know what he is going to do; it is too fearful.’ Adare: ‘What is it?’ Lindsay: ‘I cannot tell you; it is too horrible! Adah says that I must tell you; he is going out of the window in the other room, and coming in at this window.’
“We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our window. He opened the window and walked in quite cooly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you were good this time,’ referring to our having sat still and not wished to prevent him. He sat down and laughed.
“Charlie: ‘What are you laughing at?’ Home: ‘We are thinking that if a policeman had been passing and had looked up and seen a man turning round and round along the wall in the air he would have been much astonished. Adare, shut the window in the next room.’
“I got up, shut the window, and in coming back remarked that the window was not raised a foot, and that I could not think how he had managed to squeeze through.
“OUT, HEAD FIRST
“He arose and said ‘Come and see.’ I went with him; he told me to open the window as it was before, I did so; he told me to stand a little distance off; he then went through the open space, head first, quite rapidly, his body being nearly horizontal and apparently rigid. He came in again, feet foremost, and we returned to the other room.
“It was so dark I could not see clearly how he was supported outside. He did not appear to grasp, or rest upon, the balustrade, but rather to be swung out and in.”
“Such are the facts as narrated at the time. I make no comment except this. Rigorously speaking, it is incorrect to say, as I think has been said, that we _saw_ Mr. Home wafted from one window to the other.
“As to whether he was or was not, I am concerned only to state the facts as observed at the time, not to make deductions from them.”
In view of this publication, it is quite natural to infer that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was cognizant of it at the time of its appearance, because of his controversy with Mr. Joseph McCabe, on that subject; therefore, it is difficult to reconcile that thought with the fact of Sir Arthur’s unmitigated praise and endorsement of a man such as all adduced evidence has branded a charlatan.
D
_Luther R. Marsh and the Huylers_
In 1903, Luther R. Marsh again fell into the hands of charlatans as Mr. Isaac K. Funk tells in his book “The Widow’s Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena.” A court set aside the assignment of several insurance policies which Marsh had made to a medium known as Mrs. Huyler. Mr. Funk tells the story as follows:
“On the day Mr. Marsh transferred the policies he (Huyler) and his wife had gone to Mr. Marsh’s room, where Mrs. Huyler claimed to hold communication with the Spirits and told Mr. Marsh there was a terrible uproar in Spiritland because he declined to transfer the policies. She told him that his Spiritualistic wife, Adelaide Neilson, was tearing her hair and weeping, and heaping reproaches upon him. His wife, Mrs. Marsh, was acting in the same fashion, and his father-in-law, ‘Sunset,’ Alvin Stewart, was exceedingly wroth.
“Mr. Marsh was alarmed at this manifestation of Spiritualistic displeasure, and agreed to transfer the policies. At the last moment he hesitated and claimed that because his will was made out he thought it better to postpone the matter a little while; but Mrs. Huyler insisted that he go across the way to a lawyer’s office, and he did so.
“While he was gone Mrs. Huyler admitted that the trance was a ‘fake’ and said that she wanted to get all she could from the ‘old fool’ before he died.
“Mr. Marsh returned to the room presently and assured her that the transfer had been made as she desired. As soon as this evidence had been given by Huyler, Justice Marean ended the proceedings.
“‘This man is a thief and a fraud,’ he said turning to Huyler, ‘and he acted the part of a thief when he and his wife conspired to secure those policies by the means he has just related.’”
E
_Police Record of Ann O’Delia Diss Debar._
Editha Loleta, Jackson, alias The Swami--5--3½--sallow.
Hair brown, turning gray. Blue eyes. Occupation, authoress.
Sentence:
6 mos., New York. 19.6.88. Swindling. Ann O’Delia Diss Debar.
2 years, Geneva. 25.3.93. Larceny. Vera P. Ava.
Expelled from New Orleans. 7.5.99. Swindling, Susp. Person. Edith Jackson.
30 days, New Orleans. 16.5.99. Susp. Person. Edith Jackson.
7 years penal servitude, Central Criminal Court, London. 16.12.01. Aiding and abetting the commission of rape. Editha Loleta Jackson.
F
_Judge Edmonds_
Judge Edmonds was born in Hudson, N. Y., in 1799, received a college education and studied law. In 1819 he entered the law office of President Van Buren. In 1828 he was appointed Recorder of Hudson and in 1831 was elected to the State Senate by an unprecedented majority. In 1843 he was appointed Inspector of the State Prison at Sing Sing holding the position until 1845 when he resigned to become a Circuit Judge of the First Judicial District. Later he was elected Judge of the State Supreme Court and finally in 1851 became a member of the Court of Appeals. These various offices gave him experience in the widest range of judicial duties; he had a greatly developed mentality and was known as the shrewdest judge of his time.
In 1850 he lost his wife with whom he had lived for over thirty years. He was very much affected by her death and his mind became occupied with inquiries concerning the nature and conditions of death, frequently spending the greater part of the night reading and reflecting on the subject. One midnight he seemed to hear the voice of his wife speaking a sentence to him. It was his doom. He started as though shot and from that time on devoted all his time, money and energy to Spiritualism. His faith did not waver to the end. On his death bed he claimed to be surrounded by Spirit forms and declared that by reason of entering their sphere in an advanced state of spiritual development he would be able to send back messages and proofs of Spiritualism at once. He died April 5th, 1874 (the very date of my birth). I doubt if the history of Spiritualism can point out a man of greater brilliancy who ruined his life following up this “will-o-the-wisp” to relieve his grief.
G
_Doyle and the “Denver Express.”_
This reminds me of a conversation which we had in Denver in May, 1923, when he admitted to me that he was frequently misquoted and made to say things which he never even thought of.
By some prank of fate, Sir Arthur was booked to lecture in Denver at the same time I was performing there.
Lady Doyle, Sir Arthur, Mrs. Houdini and myself went out motoring in the morning and when we returned to the hotel Sir Arthur excused himself. About two hours later on my way to the Orpheum Theatre, Sir Arthur came dashing through the lobby of the hotel excitedly looking around for someone. I walked up to him saying, “Anything I can do for you?” He put his arm around me and said, “Houdini, there is a challenge of $5,000 in this paper which I am purported to have issued. I want you to know that I would never dream of doing such a thing, to you above everyone else.”
I replied, “Sir Arthur, this is just another case, where you have been misquoted. No doubt you are thinking that I am going to believe it, for I know that if conditions were reversed you would have believed it; therefore, you see it is best to investigate before giving credence to anything as being a fact. I am not even upset about it--things happen that way. Will you please remember this incident the next time you read an interview supposedly issued by me?” Sir Arthur left for Salt Lake City the next morning.
I walked into the Editorial Department of the _Denver Express_, saw Mr. Sydney B. Whipple, the Managing Editor, and told him that I had met Sir Arthur the night before and that he was very indignant at the challenge which the paper reported he issued. I said, “You see, Mr. Whipple, Sir Arthur, Lady Doyle, Mrs. Houdini and myself were out motoring all yesterday afternoon, and when Sir Arthur returned he saw the “scare head-line” to the effect that he had challenged me for $5,000! Whipple asked, “You mean to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle denies having challenged you?” I replied, “Most emphatically,--he said that it was not true and he never made such a statement and added he had written to the Editor to let him know what he thought of him for misrepresenting and misquoting what he said.” Mr. Whipple asked me to wait a moment until he got to the bottom of the matter.
Whipple called over Mr. Sam Jackson and said, “Regarding this challenge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, did he or did he not challenge Houdini during your interview?” Jackson answered, “Why he positively did. You do not think, Mr. Whipple, that I would come in with a story which is not true? Sir Arthur distinctly made his statement in terms positive, that he was willing to challenge Houdini for $5,000. Miss Jeanette Thornton was there at the time interviewing Lady Doyle, and she overheard the conversation. Will you please call her and have her confirm my statement.”
Miss Thornton came over and upon being questioned, answered, “Most assuredly I heard Sir Arthur’s challenge yesterday. I thought it was a very interesting incident so I paid particular attention. I am surprised that Sir Arthur now denies having made it.”
Whipple turned to me saying, “There you are--any further proof you want, is there anything we can do for you to contradict this? Do you wish us to make a statement?” To which I replied, “No, just let it go, we will let it pass.”
The following letters which I received from Mr. Whipple are self-explanatory:
“THE ‘DENVER EXPRESS’
“THE TRUTH--QUICK.
“May 11, 1923.
“Dear Mr. Houdini:--
“I am enclosing a letter from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle complaining that the report of his challenge regarding mediumistic appearances was garbled in this paper.
“I must also say that our reporter, who talked with Doyle insists that his report of the conversation was absolutely correct, and that Doyle said what we printed.
“Cordially yours, (Signed) “Sydney B. Whipple.
“THE BROWN PALACE HOTEL
Denver, Colo.
“May 9, 1923.
“Sir:--
“The report in the _Denver Express_ that I offered to bring back the spirit of my mother for five thousand dollars, in order to confute Mr. Houdini, is a monstrous fabrication, and I cannot imagine how you dare to print such a thing, which is on the face of it so blasphemous and absurd.
“What actually occurred was that your reporter said that my friend Mr. Houdini had wagered $5,000 that he could do anything any medium could do, to which I answered “To do that he would have to show me my mother.” This is surely very different.
“Yours faithfully, (Signed) “A. Conan Doyle.”
H
_Exposure of Mrs. Stewart_
It is significant to note that on December 28, 1923, at St Louis, Mo., I was fortunate in forming acquaintance with Judge Daniel G. Taylor, who presided over Division No. 2 of the Circuit Court, to which division Josie K. Folsom-Stewart, as President, Charles W. Stewart, Secretary, and Phoebe S. Wolf, as Treasurer, made application for incorporation of the “Society of Scientific and Religious Truthseekers,” who claimed that they had associated themselves by articles of agreement in writing, as a “Society for religious and mutual improvement purposes.” “The articles of agreement and association are signed by some forty persons.” As was customary in such cases, Judge Taylor “appointed J. Lionberger Davis, then a practicing attorney, now President of Security National Bank, as amicus curiae to examine into the matter and report whether or not the charter should be granted.” The outcome of which was evidence of guilt of fraudulent manifestations of mediumship. In the course of investigation, Miss Martha Grossman, a member of Mrs. Folsom’s “Development Class,” testified that Mr. Stewart and Mrs. Folsom were conducting meetings which she had attended for six months, at which time she saw writing on cards which Mrs. Folsom said was done by Spirits.
Miss Grossman testified that what Mrs. Folsom claimed to be spirit photographs were mere transfers from prints in the _Post-Dispatch_, advertising “Syrup of Figs” and “Lydia Pinkham’s” concoction. It also developed that Miss Alice C. Preston confessed to having been a confederate and in that capacity “assisted Mrs. Folsom in producing, physically, and by natural means, the supposed supernatural demonstrations.” A reference to this testimony is contained in the memorandum document on the evidence which is signed by the attorney for the petitioners and which is in the court files.
As a conclusion, Judge Taylor denied the petition for incorporation, which in any event could have been granted for the purpose of holding real estate only, and not for promulgating teachings of a cult.
The Judge acknowledged that he himself was convinced that Mrs. Folsom was a fraud; and this is the same _Mrs. Stewart_, who appeared before the Scientific American Committee of Investigation in 1923, wherein she was detected in her card-trick.
Mrs. Folsom was forced to acknowledge to the court in 1905 that she was the author of a small book under title of “Non-Godism,” a copy of which together with documentary evidence bearing on the court proceedings referred to above are now in my possession.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “Oh, no, Houdini, I never was more serious in my life.”
[2] Sir John Franklin was a celebrated Arctic explorer. In 1845 he was appointed to the command of an expedition sent out by the British Admiralty in search of the northwest passage. The expedition sailed from Greenhithe, May 18, 1845, and was last spoken off the entrance of Lancaster Sound, July 26, 1845. Thirty-nine relief expeditions, public and private, were sent out from England and America in search of the missing explorer between 1847 and 1857. McClintock found traces of the missing expedition in 1859, which confirmed previous rumors of its total destruction.
[3] _New York World_, October 21, 1888.
[4] See Appendix A.
[5] Could this possibly have been “in answer to prayer” as now claimed?
[6] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his book, “Our American Adventures,” states:
“The original house was removed by pious hands and reconstructed, as I understand it, at Lily Dale. It is not generally known that when it was pulled down or it may have been before, the bones of the murdered peddler and his tin box were discovered buried in the cellar, as was stated in the original rappings. The rappings were in 1848, the discovery in 1903. What have our opponents to say to this?”
According to Margaret Fox’s confession, Doyle’s statements are misleading and contrary to the facts.
[7] There were three investigations by competent investigators. One in Buffalo by medical doctors, one in Philadelphia by the Seybert Commission of the University of Pennsylvania, and one in Boston by a committee of professors from Harvard University. Any one of the three would have resulted disastrously for the medium had the conditions and requirements demanded by the investigators been complied with. A suspicion was well founded in the minds of the investigators as to the actual solution of the problem, but they were not permitted to proceed to a finish, the mediums hedging each time when a crucial test was proposed.
[8] I have been warned while writing this book to be careful regarding my statement of the confession of Margaret Fox. I am also fully aware of the fact that Dr. Funk writes in his book, “The Widow’s Mite”:
“Margaret Fox, not long before her death, confessed that she and her sister had duped the public. This unfortunate woman had sunk so low that for five dollars she would have denied her own mother and sworn to anything. At that time her affidavit for or against anything should not be given the slightest weight.”
Mr. W. S. Davis, himself a practicing medium, who knew Margaret Fox Kane personally, wrote me:
“One would think that Margaret Fox got drunk, and in that condition, was induced to confess that she was a fraud, but when she became sober she renounced her confession. That is what we would think to hear some Spiritualists talk. _She was sober when the made her confession; she was sober when she appeared in the theatre and gave her exposé. In fact she was usually sober._ She drank considerably during the later years of her life, and often drank too much, _but usually she was sober_. One of her reasons for drinking was that her hypocrisy had become more and more distasteful to her. Living a constant lie got on her nerves, and, when the later years came, she didn’t have the same degree of vital force that she had in her younger days to battle off the dictates of her conscience.”
[9] _New York World_, October 22, 1888.
[10] From Ruben Briggs Davenport’s “The Death Blow to Spiritualism.”
[11] _Ibid._
[12] These statements are fully corroborated by letters on file in my library and I consider it not only a privilege, but a duty as well to truthfully present them here.
[13] Ira, the surviving brother, was so touched by this little act that he taught me the famous Davenport rope-tie, the secret of which had been so well kept that not even his sons knew it.
[14] It was in Paris too that the other brother, William Henry Harrison Davenport, met the great Adah Isaacs Menken, called the “Bengal Tiger,” and though not generally known she later became his wife. She was considered one of the “Ten Super-Women of the World.” She was born within a few miles of New Orleans, La., in 1835. Upon the death of her father she embarked on her stage career and instantaneously won success.... She made her first appearance in New York City at the National Theatre in 1860. She was married a number of times. Her first marriage was to John C. Heenan, the prize fighter, better known as “Benicia Boy.” She was the first woman to do the Mazeppa in tights, playing the rôle both in America and Europe. While in London she became the literary and professional star of the hour and her hotel was the meeting place for such men as Charles Dickens, Swinburne, Alexander Dumas, Charles Reade, Watts Phillips, John Oxenfor