PROPERTY Of
fad ?H 7/IT/V* * n t /\

in*

'8 » 7 ^^BS^m^
ARTES SC1ENTIA VERITAS





OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE


By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
On the Life Hereafter
THE NEW REVELATION
THE VITAL MESSAGE
THE COMING OF THE FAIRIES
THE CASE FOR SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY
THE WANDERINGS OF A SPIRITUALIST
OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
A History of the Great War
THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN
FRANCE AND FLANDERS—5 Vols.
Poems
THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH
Novels and Stories
DANGER! And Other Stories
THE DOINGS OF RAFFLES HAW
HIS LAST BOW
Some Latin Reminiscences
of Sherlock Holmes
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY



Pirie MacDonald
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE


OUR AMERICAN
ADVENTURE
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
NEW

YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY





CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
A New Venture—A Prophecy—Speculations—The
Sentinels at the Gate—A Manifesto—The Cinema
Ordeal—William J. Burns—First Impressions.
CHAPTER II
American Types—The Ordeal of the Press—Their
Questions—The New City—American Unselfish-
ness in Wartime—The Crime-Wave—My Hold-
up—The First Lecture—An Impressive Audience
—The General 'Argument.
CHAPTER III
A Splendid Press—Baseball—Its British Possibili-
ties—An ex-Bandit—Prison Tortures—New York
Prices—Twelve Shirt-waists—An Italian Medium
—Paul Pry—The Religious Lecture.
The Photographic Lecture—Ectoplasm in New York—
Fraudulent Medium—The Direct Voice—Prohibi-
tion—An Amateur Medium—Analysis of Evi-
dence—Wallace Widdecombe.
Boston Once Again—Two Clerical Mediums—The
Early Christian Tradition—Weird Interviewers—
A Farmer Medium—Mrs. Soule—Floreat Etona—
Message from Myers—Dr. Holmes—Alchemists
and Ectoplasm—Christian Science—Bunker Hill.
Washington—The Capitol at Night—Ex-President
Wilson—Abraham Lincoln, Spiritualist—Statues—
Senator Lodge—Lady Astor—Dr. Cushman—Let-
ters from the Beyond—Zancigs—A Clairvoyante
—Successful Lectures—Mr. Castle's Experiences.
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
WASHINGTON
[V]


CONTENTS
MM
CHAPTER VII ........ 84
PHILADELPHIA
Philadelphia—The Independence of Britain—Record
in Spiritualism—Alleged MS. of Roger Bacon—
Mr. Pierpont Morgan—The Buchanan Codex—
The Press—Desire and Fulfilment—Laryngitis—A
Test of Faith—Arthur Stilwell—Yale.
CHAPTER VIII 96
BUFFALO
A. J. Davis—A Domestic Tragedy—Buffalo Audience
—The Davenport Brothers—The Voice Medium-
ship of Mrs. French.
CHAPTER IX . 103
NIAGARA—TORONTO
Niagara Electric Power—Under the Falls—Toronto
—Remarkable Circle—Sir Donald Mann—The
Twentieth Plane—A Liberal Dean—Detroit—
American Hotels.
CHAPTER X 113
DETROIT—TOLEDO
Madame Economus—Press Descriptions—An Iron
Monster—Miss Ada Besinnet—A Wonderful
Seance—Keedick and Shackleton—Fraud and Real-
ity.
CHAPTER XI . 125
CHICAGO
Effect of the Children—Negroes—Summer Time Chaos
—Radio and Psychic Power—Lecture in the Rain
—Height Altitude—Malcolm's First Flight—Colo-
nel West—Mrs. Pruden's Mediumship.
CHAPTER XII 137
NEW YORK
End of the Task—Mr. Ticknor's Mediumship—Ac-
tion of the Control—Controversies—Quo Vadis?—
Best-sellers—Lady Medium in Brooklyn—Striking
Seance.
[vi]


CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIII
NEW YORK
The American Magicians—My Little Joke—Letter to
Houdini—Press Comments—Practical Religion—
Edgar Allan Poe—The Bronx Gardens—Copper
Bird—The Convict Once Again.
CHAPTER XIV
ATLANTIC CITY
Atlantic v. Pacific—Rest at Atlantic City—Conjurers
and Mediums—A Curious Psychic—Sir Philip
Gibbs—A Haul of Fishes—Houdini's Experiences
—Colonel Firth and Radio—Psychic Drawings.
CHAPTER XV
An Appreciative Letter—Actual Results—Captain
David—White Star versus P. & O.—Bronx—The
Queen's Hall—Finis.
TO



.....





OUR AMERICAN
ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I
A New Venture—A Prophecy—Speculations—The Sentinels
at the Gate—A Manifesto—The Cinema Ordeal—Wil-
liam J. Burns—First Impressions.
It is April the 9th, 1922. The low shores of New
Jersey rise slowly on the port bow. We have passed
the Fire Island signal-boat, the outlying picket of
America, and now the good old Baltic turns her broad
prow towards the Sandy Hook Point where the great
salt highway leads to what will perhaps some day be
the metropolis of the world. I sit alone on the hurri-
cane-deck—and I think.
It is hardly a year since we returned from Aus-
tralia, and yet here we are, my wife, my two boys,
my little girl, and myself, embarked upon this new
more formidable venture. We are seven in all, for
Mr. Preston, a young Cambridge graduate, hardly re-
covered yet from a wound in the war, and Miss Stable,
the daughter of an old friend, have come to help with
the children. What with the complex cares of so large
a party and all the difficulties ahead of us, our hearts
might well have failed us and we might have wished
[11]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
would compel belief. The eternal forces would find
their right agent somehow and somewhere. The great
generals use the small privates, and whether we stand
inside the fort or lie in front of it matters little so long
as the fight is won.
At my age I am in a position where I have nothing
either to fear or to hope for from any worldly source.
I desire nothing further that the world can give me,
and I dread nothing which it can either do to me or
say of me. Therefore my one desire is to say exactly
what I believe to be true, and there I have indeed a
fear, for it would shock me greatly if ever I thought
that others had been misled by me. But I examine
carefully and I weigh my words, and if ever I have
erred, that erring, for which I mourn, must surely
count as a small thing compared to the amount of truth
which I can vouch for from my own experience, con-
firmed by the testimony of many who are wiser and
more learned than I. Therefore it is that I spend the
span of life which is left to me in helping a cause
which cannot fail—since truth can never ultimately
fail—to influence deeply the future of mankind.
And yet as I saw those white houses on shore grow-
ing larger and the bay opening out before us, I saw
also the dangers that lay there, and how formidable
they were. They have a keen sense of humour, these
Americans, and no subject can be more easily made
humorous than this. They are intensely practical, and
this would appear to them visionary. They are im-
mersed in worldly pursuits, and this cuts right across
the path of their lives. Above all, they are swayed
by the Press, and if the Press takes a flippant attitude
[13]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
I have no means of getting behind it. These were the
obvious difficulties. Well, one could only meet them
with such fortitude as one might.
And then next moment they were at close grips with
me. A dozen rather unkempt, keen-faced, alert young
or middle-aged men, slouch-hatted, overcoated, rough
and ready, had boarded our ship at the Narrows, as
soon as quarantine was granted. They pinned me in a
corner and were showering questions upon me. These
eager men are not intruders. A private individual may
resent their presence, but a man on public business has
no right to do so. They are not there for their own
pleasure. They are there for their duty—often an
unpleasant one, and they do it with remarkable intelli-
gence and discretion. Of course they are human and
they are out for copy. If they see a chink in your
armour, they will thrust for it. Thus poor Mrs. As-
quith was bombarded with questions as to her private
opinion of Mr. Lloyd George. If you are perfectly
frank, you are safe; but they are not men whom I
would care to bamboozle. They have seen too much
of men and of life, these sentries at the gut of the
strait who challenge all who pass. Well, they were
very good to me. Their questions were so clear-cut
and intelligent that I saw signs of organised prepara-
tion. They got to the heart of things at once. I asked
nothing better, and so we had a lively hour together,
while the Baltic slowly made for her moorings. They
were America, those men. The first word of your
mission is sent from end to end of that great Continent,
as it is impressed upon their minds. It is worth all
the courtesy and clarity that you can command. I am
[14]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
told that it was all very favourable and that their re-
ports were both good and accurate.
I had prepared one or two vital headings for their
reference, and I may as well hand them to the reader
as to the pressman, that he may have a more intelligent
idea of what was my line of thought. "Making every
allowance," said this aide-memoire, "for fraud, which
has been greatly exaggerated, and for self-deception,
which is far more common, there remains a great
residuum of proved fact which makes this psychic
movement the most serious attempt ever made to place
religion upon a basis of definite proof. It is the one
great final antidote to materialism, which is the cause
of most of our recent world-troubles. If we can only
make this good—and the case has only to be clearly
stated to carry conviction, then surely America has
good cause to be proud that this great restatement of
the fundamentals of religion should have had its origin
upon her soil. It has been degraded by some who
believed in it, and derided by all who did not, but the
time has come to recognise the vital good that is in
it, and to free it from sordid influences. High spirits
did not descend upon earth to tell fortunes or to advise
on business matters. Such uses bring a curse with
them. The true aim of communication with spirits
is consolation, knowledge of spiritual matters, includ-
ing conditions of life after death, and above all self-
improvement.
"Far from being antagonistic to religion, this psychic
movement is destined to revivify religion, which has
long been decaying and becoming a mere formality.
This new knowledge makes it real and sure and en-
[15]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
ables one for the first time to understand the actions
and views of the early Christians and of their great
Leader. Without this psychic knowledge much of the
New Testament is incomprehensible. With it one has
renewed assurance of its essential truth.
"It unites real science and real religion, each sup-
porting the other."
Such was my key-note, and it was of great impor-
tance that I should get it across in these my opening
interviews.
The interviewer and later the photographer are
familiar incidents, but the cinema man adds something
new to the final difficulties of the traveller. It is a
very real test of patience and temper when one is
weary and unkempt. With the interviewer one can
help oneself by the reflection that one is advocating
and advancing one's cause, but one does not hope to
gain much on one's personal appearance. The cinema
ordeal was once the occasion of a comic episode when
my wife, seeing a machine erected before me, and
thinking that I was showing more curved waistcoat
than was good, darted forward and readjusted me,
unaware that the cinema handle was hard at work.
Then when I shouted a word of warning she made
matters worse by throwing up her hands and gasping.
It was a delicious piece of natural comedy as it came
out upon the screen, but I insisted upon a private per-
formance and carried off that part of the roll for
my own use in the future.
So we passed the dragons at the gate, and those
other dragons of the Customs House, being greatly
helped in all things by the presence of an old friend,
[16]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
William J. Burns, the great Secret Service agent. It
may sound sinister to admit that a famous detective
was the first to accost you as you arrived, but William
J. is a mighty useful friend in any tight corner. I
found him the same as ever, quiet, gentle, efficient,
with impassive face and eyes which miss nothing.
He is now, I understand, in very special command of
the Secret Service at Washington, and in the imme-
diate entourage of the President. Late that night, a
weary and bedraggled party drove through the deep-
cliffed canons with the thousands of twinkling lights,
which cut their way through the great city. Tired
as they were, the children watched with wondering
eyes, for it is a scene which can never be forgotten
by a European. There is a rush and roar with a bril-
liancy and sense of motion and power such as can
nowhere else be found. At last our two cabs pulled
up at the famous Ambassador Hotel, where I found
Mr. Kroel, the manager, to be an old acquaintance
from the Berkeley Hotel in London. We had reached
the domestic stage where a man's troubles end and a
woman's begin. But we were all happy, for we were
safe in our headquarters and the Second Act of our
Adventure was about to begin.
[17]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
any one who desires reassurance upon this point.
They wanted to be assured that it was really a fact
that I took no personal profit out of my lectures. Then
the conditions of the other world offered a boundless
field for questions. Of course, the alcohol and cigars
came up. I could only say that I had never personally
heard any claim that such things existed. It has always
seemed to me that one of the most startling passages
in the New Testament is that in which the Christ
speaks of wine in the beyond. Possibly some unfer-
mented drink was in His mind, or possibly He only
used the phrase as a synonym for making merry. The
usual information is that any nutrition is of a very
light and delicate order, corresponding to the delicate
etheric body which requires it. Then there was the
question of marriage, and the old proposition of the
much-married man, and which wife he should have.
As there is no sexual relation, as we understand it,
this problem is not very complex and is naturally de-
cided by soul affinity. As to the general prospect of
man's salvation, the reporters got that humorous angle
which is natural to the American.
"'All ordinary decent people will find themselves in
Paradise after death,' Sir Arthur insisted optimisti-
cally.
"'I believe that every one in this room will go there,'
he added, indicating the eighteen reporters present.
"'The reporters looked somewhat doubtfully at each
other.'
"Sir Arthur reassured them. 'You don't have to
be so very good to get to heaven,' he said."
Perhaps as I re-read these reports, which after all
[20]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
are fairly accurate, I have erred in not making it
clearer that there are causes, petrifaction of soul and
bigotry above all others, which do delay man's salva-
tion for very long periods. The man who centres upon
some narrow creed is certainly in danger. But if I
am too optimistic, it is in reaction against those horri-
ble conceptions of a vengeful Deity which have shad-
owed so many lives.
It was good to get this ordeal over and be out with
my family in the wonderful air of New York. It is
remarkable how greatly the city has been improved
since my first visit. The broad avenues, the smooth
pavements and roadways, the splendid new buildings,
impress the spectator. So do the police, who used to
be fat, inefficient, and corrupt, but who now are as
fine a force of clean-cut athletic young men as the
world could show. There is a general air of prosper-
ity, as may well be the case considering that nearly
all the money in the world has been brought over here
by the economic consequences of the war. This afflu-
ence is the only war-sign which one observes, for the
mutilated men (though I have met one or two) are so
few in comparison, and so lost in the large general
population, that one does not observe them. The
Kaiser's mark is only too common in Britain and in
France and, I may add, in Australia.
We are too apt to forget, however, in Europe some
of the unselfish work which the Americans did during
the war. Few people realise, for example, that there
were either one or two meatless days every week dur-
ing which no butcher could open his shop. Butter and
sugar were strictly rationed that there might be more
[21]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
top flat which he had rented. The journey was the
same in either case, but one was horizontal, the other
perpendicular.
The children, of course, were delighted. An old
traveller told me once that his great maxim was always
to go to the highest point of every city he visited, be
it hill, steeple, or tower, and get a general idea before
descending to detail. I have often found the idea a
good one. On this occasion we saw that wonderful
map laid out beneath us—the two rivers, the great har-
bours, the long, thin, tapering city, with the curved
coast of Long Island, and the fields and houses of
New Jersey stretching away to the southern horizon.
It was a great introduction to the new world.
New York at the time of our arrival was in the
throes of a crime wave. In the first ninety days of
the year there had been ninety homicides in the city,
an average of one per day, and there was no sign of
abatement. Hold-ups were also common, and had ex-
tended from taxi-cabs to larger game, for a Broadway
motor-bus was attacked shortly after our arrival. This
remarkable wave of crime was not confined to New
York, but was even greater in Chicago, and greater
still, as I am informed, in St. Louis. It is very un-
fortunate for the advocates of Prohibition that this
should have occurred at such a time, and that Sing-
Sing, the State prison, should have been forced for the
first time to confess that it could hold no more. I have
been over it, and I know it to be a very commodious
institution—very different from the Tombs in New
York City, which is much more select.
I believe myself that the liquor question has nothing
[23]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
and summary flogging or execution would soon, I am
sure, put an end to the reign of violence. It urgently
needs doing, for the present state produces a com-
pletely false idea as to the real quality of American
civilisation.
Talking of hold-ups, there was one occasion when
I think I really put the wind up a New York taxi-
driver. I alighted from my cab, and immediately
afterwards discovered that I had left some precious
papers inside it. The vehicle had moved on and was
in the great flood which pours down Fifth Avenue,
but fortunately I was able to spot it among the others.
I am not as active as I was, but I trotted along the
footway with my eyes fixed upon my cab, to the con-
siderable disturbance of the pedestrians with whom I
collided. Presently, to my relief, I saw the cab dis-
engage itself and turn into a side-street. Before it
could gain speed I darted forward and without expla-
nations took a flying jump onto the footboard. As this
is an unusual way for passengers to approach, but quite
normal for the hold-upper, the driver turned a horrified
face upon me, and it took some explaining before
I could make him see the matter from my point of
view. But the precious papers—a goodly section of
this record—were safely recovered.
And now came the night of our first ordeal—I can
well say "our," as I like to have my wife at my side,
and the second feels the fight more keenly than the
principal. We had learned by the afternoon that the
great hall, in spite of an abnormal heat-wave, was sold
out, and that seats on the platform were already at
a premium. I was kept waiting for a mauvais quart
[25]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
d'heure after the advertised time, while this great audi-
ence was settling down. When at last we were allowed
to go, we had to thread our way through a long narrow
lane among the packed crowd on the platform before
at last we found the little clear space in front and saw
that great sea of faces before us.
An old friend, the eminent American man of letters,
Hamlin Garland, was in the chair, and filled it with
tact and dignity. He did not conceal that he did not
go all the way with me, but was rather in that half-
way position taken by Professor Charles Richet, who
admits all the phenomena, including even the independ-
ent existence of forms in the seance rooms, and yet
hesitates at our explanation. Presently Garland sat
down, and I was on my feet and facing the multitude.
I had been warned to speak very slowly, as there is
a difficulty here in understanding the British pronun-
ciation, but my one virtue as an orator is audibility,
and I had their ears and their very close attention
from the first.
I had begun by saying that I was speaking about
far the most important thing in the world, since it
involved the fate of every man and woman in the
audience. There was one proposition upon which
every one would agree, and that was that our claim to
have pierced the barrier of death was either the great-
est delusion ever offered to the human race or else the
greatest achievement ever done. I asked them to form
themselves into a jury and I would state a case so
that they might give a verdict.
My word, what a jury they made! Could ever an
advocate desire so devoted a tribunal! It is no ex-
[26]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
struggle against the facts, and my final forced accept-
ance of the phenomena, as described by all these great
authorities, but without any recognition of their re-
ligious implications. What religion could there be in
a jumping table or a flying tambourine? Then I
showed how the war made us all more earnest, how
evidence of psychic forces came into my own house-
hold, bringing the subject very close to me, and how,
at last, I saw clearly that all these puerile phenomena
were really signs and signals, calling attention in a
material way, addressed to our material minds, to the
spiritual messages which accompanied them.
I showed how those messages varied very little,
whatever the means by which they were got, or what-
ever the land of their origin. I showed also that they
constituted an organised philosophy and explanation
of life and fate quite different from any held by the
world before, but simple, reasonable, and credible,
when once we had cleared our minds of its preposses-
sions and prejudices. I showed that it bore every sign
of being a new revelation from God to man, sent to
the human race at the hour of its need, but that in
many ways it appeared to be the old primitive Chris-
tian message which had been misinterpreted and for-
gotten.
I gave a number of personal instances, how I had
talked with my dead son, how my dead brother had
given me the correct name of a healer in Copenhagen
whom he wished his widow to consult, how I had
clearly seen my mother beyond any doubt or question.
Was I deceived in this and other cases which I cited?
I showed that I had my witnesses all marshalled, six,
[28]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
general lines of argument before the reader with the
promise that it will not be repeated, and that it is for
the purpose of outlining once for all what the points
were which rose up in the future lectures and dis-
cussions. I can hardly recount an adventure without
once at least making it clear what it was that we were
striving to do.
The most tiring thing of the whole evening was the
crowd who flocked into the dressing-room before I
could escape. I was very hot and exhausted, but could
not get away from a number of good but rather in-
considerate people who had psychic difficulties which
might have been deferred to some later date. Others
were mere autograph hunters or people of that curious
type who buzz up to you with tremendous concentra-
tion of purpose, and then find that they have really
nothing to say, to the mutual embarrassment of inter-
viewer and interviewed. I endeavoured to be patient
and courteous, but I admit that it was a strain.
Among the few whom I really welcomed was Mrs.
Piper, the famous medium, a gentle elderly woman.
Finally, my wife and Mr. Keedick cleared a passage,
we pushed through to a cab, and so ended an eventful
evening.
[30]


CHAPTER III
A Splendid Press—Baseball—Its British Possibilities—An
ex-Bandit—Prison Tortures—New York Prices—Twelve
Shirt-waists—An Italian Medium—Paul Pry—The Re-
ligious Lecture.
The reports next morning were all that could be
wished for by those who desired that this great subject
should be ventilated in a fair and even sympathetic
manner. Mr. Keedick, who was delighted at the re-
sult, assured me that a record had been broken, as for
the first time three out of the five great New York
dailies gave a lecture a whole column on the front
page. The space in these papers, I may explain, is
very carefully subdivided and corresponds closely to
the public interest in any subject. The other papers
had also splendid accounts, though in a less prominent
position. Altogether the Press had treated me with
great generosity.
Lest I may seem to have exaggerated the effect
which my message had produced, let me interpolate a
few short extracts from these notices, since I have
no other way to prove my words. Mr. Heywood
Broun, the special representative of the New York
World, said:
"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made an extraordinary
impression last night at Carnegie Hall in his attempt
to prove the existence of life after death and the pos-
sibility of communication with the dead. The effec-
[31]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
association professional teams, trained men in the pink
of condition, engaged good American coaches, gave
themselves up to the game, and played League matches
against each other. I will venture to say, that if this
was done, we should in a few years have as many to
see a baseball final between Tottenham Hotspur and
Preston North End as come now to the football. As
to the furore which a decent British team, could we
evolve one, would create in America, it is impossible
to exaggerate it. The people seem to love not only
the game, but the players, and the feeling of hero wor-
ship towards a famous pitcher or batsman can only
be compared to that which we have all felt in our
time for W. G. Grace. "Babe" Ruth, as he is play-
fully called, is the great hitter, but lately he has been
a fractious babe, quarrelling with umpires, chasing
spectators with his club, and getting periods of dis-
qualification in consequence. A more pleasing figure
is Matthewson, the greatest pitcher or bowler that the
game has produced, who suddenly developed tubercle,
and whose fluctuations of health in his sanatorium at
the Adirondacks are now a matter of national con-
cern. He has taken his misfortune with such philoso-
phy and cheerful bravery that his example is really
a fine one.
I had a visit one morning between my New York
lectures from an ex-bandit. When I heard that Mr.
Morrell had really been a bandit—or at least had been
condemned as such—I had to conceal it from the chil-
dren, as I was aware that they would regard him with
speechless admiration. He proved, however, to be a
very gentle, clean-shaven, open-faced man with a con-
[34]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
siderable charm of manner. The only indication which
I observed of the truly frightful experiences which
he has undergone was a curious, quick, furtive way of
making gestures, so that when he wished to emphasise
a point he seemed to wave his hand, snap his fingers,
and rap the table all at the same instant.
He was as a boy a member of a Californian outlaw
gang, and had been captured and condemned to life
imprisonment in San Quentin. Here, as he was a
high-spirited lad, he rebelled, and was, as a conse-
quence, condemned to years of solitary life in a dark
cell with occasional long spells of torture by the brutal
jacket. He found that while under torture he could
self-hypnotise himself, and separate his etheric body,
which used to live a separate life and a very pleasant
one, while his poor natural body was cramped and
twisted in this horrible machine, the use of which is,
or was, a sad blot upon the prison record of California.
The experiences of Morrell have been wonderfully set
forth in Jack London's book called The Star Rover
in America and The Jacket in England. He assured
me that his extra-corporeal wanderings had entirely
convinced him of the essential truth of spiritualism,
and that he had actually been able to establish friend-
ships with discarnate souls during his terrible ordeal.
His condition after these long bouts, when he was
strapped in for days as tightly as three strong men
could lace him into the leather or canvas covering, must
have been such that it is marvellous that he retained
his reason. The ulcers caused by uric acid alone made
a formidable addition to his pains. Of Morrell I shall
have more to say hereafter.
[35]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
During this time, and indeed throughout our tour,
we experienced to the full that hospitality for which
America is famous. A stranger put his motor-car at
our constant order. Numerous invitations both from
private individuals and from public bodies poured in.
It was, of course, impossible to accept them and yet
to do the strenuous work which the mission entailed,
but I can here assure my friends that we were by no
means unmindful of their kindness.
I wish we could see more British travellers over
there. It would be good for our insular mentality,
and good also for the Americans if our people were
only of the right type. Unhappily, travellers are so
often caricatures of the nations which they represent.
Of course the difference in exchange makes travelling
difficult, but the sterling is drawing up and it will
not be long before we get level once more, with five
good full dollars for the British pound. Travel here
need not be very expensive. There is a good deal of
exaggeration over the matter. You have, of course,
to choose your hotel and your room. In London if
you wish to economise you don't take a suite at
Claridge's. For the modest traveller there are good
hotels in New York where ten shillings will house
him for the night. Food, if one picks one's dishes,
is not much more than in London. The cabs, which
I was told were only used by millionaires, are really
not dear, and the ordinary run does not cost more
than two or three shillings. The men are very polite,
and a dime or two above the price on the metre is
all they expect. Railways and busses are as cheap as
with us. My wife tells me that ladies' requisites, espe-
I
[36]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
daily hats, are much cheaper and better than in Lon-
don. I fear from our experiences both in Paris and
in New York that we breed the worst lot of profiteers
of any capital city.
English ladies have to remember that every country
has its own methods of doing business. In New York,
when we had a flying visit just before the war, my
wife asked the shopman to send a dozen blouses to
the hotel that she might try them on. The shopman
stared, but with American politeness he obeyed. One
blouse was duly chosen and paid for. The other
eleven were returned. The beautifully regulated
machinery of the shop had no little cogwheel, however,
by which to record such an unusual transaction. Ex-
ceptions simply don't occur in a well-oiled business.
Therefore it was that in a couple of days I received
a bill "Towards twelve blouses" (or "shirt-waists," I
think they called them) "120 dollars." I explained.
But there was no department for such explanations,
so by the time we reached Montreal a more pressing
bill arrived "Towards twelve shirt-waists," etc., etc.
I wrote. When we reached our destination in the
Rocky Mountains yet another summons, more abrupt
and angry, came after us: "Towards Twelve Shirt-
waists ..." I was fed up with shirt-waists by that
time and took no notice, but I have no doubt that
to this day I am marked as a defaulter who has escaped
with twelve shirt-waists for which he never paid.
Moral—do in a country as the country does.
On the whole the American shops are excellent,
though they seem under-staffed and the service is not
so quick as in London. They have amusing ways of
[37]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
attracting customers. I copied this card from a win-
dow near the Ambassador Hotel:
FLOWERS FOR SALE
TEA TO DRINK
A PSYCHO-ANALYST TO CONSULT
A REGULAR PARTY
DO come!
On April 14th we had been asked by a Psychic Re-
search body, in which my friend Dr. Allerton Cush-
man, of Washington, was interested, to attend a
seance in order to test a young Italian named Pecoraro,
who was supposed to have psychic powers. He was
a stunted under-nourished youth with a face of prema-
ture age and could only speak a few words of English.
Two Italian females of his own class were with him,
and the party was brought by Dr. Vecchio, a skilled
psychic observer and a man of high scientific attain-
ment who has already written a book upon this sub-
ject. I was impressed by Vecchio as a very competent
experimenter. The other sitters were Dr. Cushman,
Dr. H. Carrington, a Persian gentleman named Ker-
vorkian, two young ladies whose names I did not
catch, my wife and myself. A cabinet had been erected
at one end of the seance-room in the Psychical Insti-
tute, and in it the medium was placed. It was merely
a screen of curtains, and the idea is that it holds in
those vaporous materials which are the raw material
of psychical manifestations. The lights were turned
down—ectoplasm dissolves in light—and we waited
for some time in patient expectation, with only a dim
[38]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
red lamp to cast its glimmer in the gloom. Suddenly
a perfect scream came from the cabinet, thin and keen
and vibrant. "Aida! Aida!" were the words. It was
so sudden that it made us all jump in our chairs. We
hoped it was the beginning of some great manifesta-
tion. The name, I understand, was that of one of the
Italian women present, and the cry was supposed to
come from some deceased relative, for some words
were added which were said to mean this. The woman
was absolutely terrified, however, and whinnied with
fear when asked to come close to the cabinet. This
seemed to damp down the phenomena, which now took
a merely physical turn, the table being dashed about
in all directions, possibly to signify the impatience of
the spirit at the backwardness of the girl. "Oh, no,
no, no!" she howled, when asked to get near the cab-
inet. There was a strong cool breeze, the sure sign
of real psychic power. Do not these psychic air-
vibrations throw a light on the constant request from
spirits that we sing or play and so keep the waves
moving? The table was now jumping about and sev-
eral articles were thrown out from the cabinet, includ-
ing the medium's collar and belt. His hands were
supposed to have been securely fastened by wire, but
I could not guarantee that they could not reach these
articles. Then the name "Palladino" was given, and
we were told that the famous medium was present.
Again we had great hopes and again we were disap-
pointed. In vain we played up to Palladino, welcomed
her, spoke of her past. A voice from the cabinet
said in Italian: "I who used to call back the spirits
now come back as a spirit myself." I said, "Palladino,
[39]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
we send you our love and our best encouragement."
The curtains seemed to blow outwards towards us
and for a time we had hopes of a materialisation. But
again the force was dissipated in the absurd and violent
dancings of the table. It was very disappointing, but
nothing more could be done, and after two hours we
were compelled to break off. The young Italian's pulse
was slow and steady, but it was fifteen minutes before
we got him out of his trance. It was not, it must be
admitted, a very successful sitting, but when we con-
sider the strange surroundings, it was not quite a fail-
ure. I thought the youth was a true medium and
might develop into something remarkable. Since then
Dr. Vecchio has been able to get very good photo-
graphs of ectoplasm, issuing in a long coil from the
cabinet in which he was bound.
This seance was a remarkable example of the Paul
Pry powers of the New York Press. Every one in
the room who could speak English was aware that the
occasion was a private one—and this not because there
was anything to conceal but because free and frank
comment and discussion become impossible so long as
every word may be reported in print. Next day, a
full and accurate report did actually appear in one
paper, with the copyright mark below it, to show that
it had been duly paid for. Such are the incidents
which make one cautious in America.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, April 18th, came my
second lecture, upon the religious aspects of the mat-
ter. As it was more philosophic and less sensational
than the phenomenal side I had expected a smaller
audience, but the hall was full, and the people were
[40]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
quite as sympathetic as before. The phenomena in-
terest me very little, nor am I attracted much by the
scientific side of the question. One might as well, it
seems to me, be keenly interested in how the loaves and
fishes fed the multitude, but give no heed to the Ser-
mon on the Mount. Therefore, I can put a good deal
more fire and earnestness into this religious lecture
than into the other. I hope that I passed this on to
my audience. I explained that the actual messages
were the only things that mattered. I showed that
their veracity was guaranteed first by their being mixed
up with the preternatural phenomena, which were
really only of importance as a sign and a signal. I
instanced the agreement of the messages by examples
from all parts, and showed how the whole philosophy
of religion given by a child in New York in the book
Revelations of Louise, which I had just been reading,
was the exact philosophy which I was preaching, al-
though the child could have known nothing of it. The
agreement of witnesses establishes truth. I then took
the soul at the time of death and described all that
occurred to it, and in what place and condition it found
itself, confirming my descriptions by extracts from
seance messages, some of them received in my own
home circle, and all corroborating each other. I gave
a detailed description of the lower heavens, and dis-
cussed the question of crime and punishment, showing
the exaggerations of the theologians—wicked exag-
gerations which have clouded so many lives and built
up so horrible a conception of God. At the same time,
the reality as described by Swedenborg, Davis, Vale
Owen, and other seers was quite bad enough, though
[41]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Said the Tribune: "An audience that packed Car-
negie Hall to its utmost limit applauded enthusiasti-
cally when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said at the con-
clusion of his lecture, 'I hope I have convinced you
that there is method in my madness and that there is
reason underlying all this which I have shown you.'"
Those at a distance might sneer, but I was able
to convince those who listened to me that the thing
was true, because I was personally convinced that it
was true from my own experience. So strong is the
argument from the agreement of witnesses, from the
checking furnished by our own terrestrial experience,
and from the innate reasonableness of the whole
scheme when soberly stated, that I have often won-
dered whether the time is not coming when we may
abandon the phenomena altogether as an argument,
and take our stand entirely upon the splendidly clear
and definite explanation of the universe furnished by
our new revelation.
[43]


CHAPTER IV
The Photographic Lecture—Ectoplasm in New York—
Fraudulent Medium—The Direct Voice—Prohibition—
An Amateur Medium—Analysis of Evidence—Wallace
Widdecombe.
My photographic lecture followed immediately after
my religious one, and it set the absolute seal of success
upon my enterprise, for it created such surprise and
interest that I had to repeat it three times more in
New York before I left. Thus, if I include the
Brooklyn lecture, I filled great halls on seven occa-
sions in the one city, which is an absolute record. The
record was held before by Sir Oliver Lodge with six
lectures, so it is clear that psychic subjects present a
strong appeal to the public and that there is a vehe-
ment desire for information.
The American public had never taken psychic pho-
tography seriously, having been "doped," as they
would themselves express it, by all the ridicule and
slander which have been spent upon the subject. When
put face to face with it their native common sense
at once asserted itself, and both pressmen and public
understood that the wholesale charge of fraud was
quite untenable and unreasonable. The course of the
contention has been this. Says the Spiritualist, "We
can in the presence of certain people get impressions
of the features of the 'dead.'" Says the Sceptic,
"Where are they?" "Here by the hundred," says the
Spiritualist, and produces them. "But those are fakes."
[44]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
"How then are they produced?" "Oh, by substitution
of plates, superposition of negatives, and so on." "We
have guarded against all that." "You have not
guarded well enough." "But the pictures represent
the dead beyond all question or doubt in some of the
cases, and they differ from any existing photographs.
In many cases the relatives agree that they are more
like than any taken in life. What then?" And there
the Sceptic is silent, or talks falsely of "blurs" and
"blotches." We have then received an absolutely final
proof of abnormal powers, and all talk of fakes and
frauds is for ever beside the point. Even if these
mediums were to cheat in other cases, still the exist-
ence of these good likenesses presents proof of at
least occasional psychic powers which nothing can
alter.
The Americans soon saw the force of such an argu-
ment. They understood that a hundred negative re-
sults cannot explain away a single positive one and
its implications. I showed them some forty photo-
graphs and explained the guarantees of truth in each
case.
I also explained to them all that had been done
about ectoplasm, and showed some of the Crawford-
Bisson-Notzing photographs. It took me an hour and
three quarters, but I think I ended with the mental
acquiescence of all my audience. They were especially
impressed by the case of Dr. Cushman of Washington,
who was actually in the audience. He called upon
Mrs. Deane at the Psychic College in London with-
out any appointment or introduction, and he got beside
his own face, that of his daughter Agnes, who had
[45]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
psychic research into contempt—the explanations of
ectoplasm by chewed paper or wax or other absurdities
—were quite absent from the Press.
One remarkable result of the publicity given was
that whereas ectoplasm had apparently never been
taken seriously in America before, there were now
speedy signs that it was not a purely European product.
One lady sent me several photographs taken of her-
self which showed ectoplasmic masses, which in one
case were forming themselves into a head protruding
from her own, exactly like the heads formed by or
near Eva. Another experimenter sent me several ex-
cellent photographs of ectoplasmic rods, very much
like those described by Crawford. Two of the rods
have little claws or suckers clearly visible at the end,
which are used, according to Crawford, to grip dis-
tant objects, and so explain the movements of material
things in the presence of an ectoplasmic medium. I
may say that I have myself in London seen, in the
full light of a candle, a disc of wood violently wob-
bling and turning with no one within six feet of it.
Had ectoplasm been visible to the eye I would no
doubt have seen the little rods which caused the effect,
though these rods are probably transmitters of force
rather than the force itself.
It makes one's heart sick to see the villainy with
which this heaven-sent truth is surrounded. I suppose
it is so ordained that we may have the merit of using
our own brains, and not be deterred from good be-
cause evil obtrudes itself. We had one evening at
New York with a materialising and voice-producing
pair of mediums, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. I had
[47]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
What I say of the direct voice applies equally to
automatic writing. There also it is the message de-
livered and not the mere fact of writing which is of
consequence. I cannot see how one can avoid all the
snags of subconscious action, and the possible drama-
tisation of latent personalities, which would account
for the writing itself. It is only by the information
conveyed, its accuracy, and its remoteness from the
normal mind of the medium that we can gain assur-
ance. But there is no form of mediumship which is
more tricky, and even when we have established that
it is independent of the medium we still have to guard
against possible deception from the spirit-control—a
very real source of error.
The most urgent question at present in New York
as in all America is that of Prohibition, and the vis-
itor is brought very squarely up against it from the
first moment of his arrival. I enjoy a glass of good
wine in season, but neither my wife nor I have been
regular drinkers of alcohol, so we have found it no
intolerable privation to be without it. I don't care,
however, about being forced into virtue, and I feel
about wine as Barrie felt about the dictionary, that
"even if he did not use it he liked to feel that it was
there." Still, I admit that there is something very
noble in a great nation saying, "Many of us enjoy our
wine, but we are prepared to give it up, and make
this sacrifice of our habits and comfort, in order that
all the crimes and poverty which come from the abuse
of drink may be done away with." Surely no one
can deny that such an attitude is fine, and America
leads the world by its action. But is it really necessary
[49]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
to be so drastic? Why should extremists always have
their way? Might we not preserve the social amenities
and the pleasant varieties of experience which light
forms of alcohol give, and yet shut off those stronger
drinks which make for intoxication? I should per-
sonally favour such a law, even if it were to be only
a half-way house.
The main objection to it is that it would reopen
to some extent the saloon, which is now shut down,
and which was always a centre of evil. That, how-
ever, could surely be met in some way. Europeans
must not make too much of the bootlegging and illicit
drinking which bulk so large in the papers. Reformers
have always reckoned on years of unrest, and are
prepared to wait for full realisation of their hopes
when the new generation arises. At present, liquor
can always be got, but you have to go out of your
way to pay a high price, to accept an inferior article
and occasionally to run a risk, so that there is no
inducement unless a man is very inclined that way.
I have seen flasks drawn out occasionally, and I have
seen a lady produce a cocktail in the course of a din-
ner as if it were a conjuring trick. Twice when I
dined out I found wine on the table, and once a friend
told me that he had a small illicit consignment and
was puzzled how to conceal it. I volunteered to con-
ceal a small fraction of it for him. But save for these
small adventures, we never came into contact with
alcohol at all during the three months of our wan-
derings. We carried two bottles of medical comforts
with us all the way, and gave them to friends as part-
ing presents when we left. One curious remark fre-
[50]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
quently made is that every crook in the country is
now a Prohibitionist, since the law has opened up
smuggling careers for him which mean more money
than he has ever handled.
On April 16th we had a sitting with Mr. Ticknor,
a well-known amateur medium, on the invitation of
Mrs. Cogswell, who afterwards furnished us with a
verbatim account of the proceedings taken by a stenog-
rapher. This is a wonderful help in checking a seance,
for the best notes—and I usually take notes—are very
inadequate. There were several sitters and Stefansson
came with us once again. As I look over the notes
now the results seem to me remarkably accurate. Mr.
Ticknor is a stoutish, rather Pickwickian figure, kindly,
clean-shaven, and true to type as an American business
man. Sitting in an arm-chair, he closed his eyes,
breathed hard through his nose, and in a minute was
in a deep state of what we must, I suppose, call self-
hypnosis. There was agitation and contortion of the
face and apparent spasms of pain or emotion before
he reached an equilibrium. Then in a deep grumbling
voice he began to talk, the words professing to come
from the usual Indian control, Black Hawk in this in-
stance. He spoke for nearly two hours, chatting with
us, joking, introducing other spirits, answering ques-
tions, and in all ways playing up to the part. He gave
the names of a dozen people at least upon the other
side who had messages for my wife or for me—about
equally divided between us—and every one of these
names did really represent some one who had lived.
The proceedings showed an intimate knowledge of my
family history, so intimate that even if it could have
[51]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
been gathered from several books of reference, one
could hardly imagine that it could all be carried in
the memory and used with such unhesitating fluency
and accuracy. John Doyle, my grandfather, Richard,
my uncle, Charles, my father, Mary, my mother,
Kingsley, my son, each spoke quite clearly about our
relations. My grandfather said, "I saw you last when
you were a little boy in 1868, a few months before
my death." Quite true. A patient of Southsea days
came back. Goodman came through as the name. He
gave the date as 1888. I had a favourite patient
named Woodman at that time. I said, "I hope I was
not the cause of your passing over." He laughed heart-
ily at this, for merriment is by no means excluded.
Malcolm Leckie, my very dear brother-in-law, gave
his name. He said that he had started for the front
from Blackheath. This was news to me, but it proved
to be correct. I could only trace two absolute mis-
takes, one of which may have been a misunderstanding.
The control gave the impression of being surrounded
by importunate spirits, for he kept muttering, "Very
good!" "Wait your turn!" and so on, just as I have
heard Sutton and others do in England. Altogether
a man would be incapable of reason if he were not
impressed by the whole performance, though some
minds are so peculiar that a single mistake seems tc
do away with everything else, however successful.
They do not consider that if we were seated as a
go-between and were surrounded by twenty or thirty
people, all giving various messages, which they wanted
transmitted, we also would probably make a slip now
and again. Stefansson's results were very definite,
[52]


CHAPTER V
Boston Once Again—Two Clerical Mediums—The Early
Christian Tradition—Weird Interviewers—A Farmer
Medium—Mrs. Soule—Floreat Etona—Message from
Myers—Dr. Holmes—Alchemists and Ectoplasm—Chris-
tian Science—Bunker Hill.
Here I was in Boston again after twenty-eight years.
Save for the gilded dome of the State House I should
hardly have known the place. Gone or thrust into a
corner and dwarfed are the dear old crooked streets
of faded brick in which a European felt at home. It
is now rich and broad and spacious. It seems to have
gained the whole world and lost some of its own soul.
Miles of motor-factories and sale-shops line the busy
thoroughfares. Commerce has triumphed. But where
now are the Parkmans, the Emersons, the Lowells, the
Longfellows, all the wonderful circle which for a time
put New England above old England in culture? Bos-
ton then was a world-force. No doubt it will be so
again. But much of the good old stock has moved
to the Middle West, and no one can wonder at it who
sees the barren and boulder-studded farms from which
they have gone. Has culture gone with them? A
young friend of mine at Harvard assures me that it
is not so, and that a great school, mainly of poetry,
is springing up there, the fame of which has not yet
reached us in Europe. Well, maybe so. Anyhow,
somewhere in America the old literary blood must
linger and must from time to time ferment into im-
[55]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
mortal production. At present, however, it seems very
quiescent.
I plunged instantly into spiritual exploration, and
on Sunday I visited church three times, and was forced
to address the congregation each time, so that my
much-needed day of rest did not come up to expec-
tation. But I was repaid by what I saw, and by the
fine, sane, well-groomed, and well-balanced spiritualist
audiences who listened kindly to my exhortation to
be broad in our ideals, charitable to each other's views,
and merciless to those who lower our standards of
conduct. Two of my visits were to the church of
Mr. Wiggin, and one to that of Mr. Nicholson, the
latter an Englishman from Huddersfield.
Mr. Nicholson is a fine clairvoyant and claims that
among other spirits who assist him is that of William
Terriss, whom I had met in the flesh before his
lamented murder. Such a statement cannot be checked,
but what can be checked, and will bear checking, is
that he pours out a stream of apposite messages to
his congregation, containing names and knowledge
which he can get by no normal means. It is, of course,
only the old "discerning of spirits" named by Paul
as one of the signs of a true gospel teacher, but the
Churches have wandered so far away from early-
Christian ideas that it stands out now as a wonder-
ful novelty. No one could be present and have the
least doubt of the honesty of the gift, though I suppose
that, like all spiritual powers, it ebbs and flows.
Even more wonderful was Mr. Wiggin. His audi-
ence had sent him up innumerable notes with ques-
tions for their dead. The pastor sat with the papers
[56]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
heaped before him. He wore a pair of opaque spec-
tacles. Sitting beside him and watching him closely
I could see that there was no trick of any kind, though
I had no assurance that the paper he was holding was
always the one that he was answering. He dealt with
about thirty, and the appearance of the people who
admitted the correctness of the answers made collu-
sion quite impossible. The exactness of the detail was
wonderful.
I was the least fortunate, as a spirit came without
a name and giving only the clue that his left shoulder
was injured. Beyond my brother breaking his collar-
bone hunting, I could make nothing of this and had
to write it off as a failure, but it was one of the very
few which could be so described.
Sometimes there were comic touches at both sit-
tings. "Your wife is here. She tells me you got rid
of the furniture after her death. You gave it away,
did you not?"
"Well, practically," said the widower in a gloomy
voice, and every one laughed.
So they did also when Mr. Wiggin called some
name, and received in reply an explosive "Yip!" which
told how eagerly the inquirer was waiting for his an-
swer.
It was all an example of what St. Paul meant when
he said that he taught the Gospel not merely by words
but also by power. So long as a clergyman and
medium can be united in one person, all is simple.
I fancy that the trouble in the early Church began
when they were twain and opposed. In the third cen-
tury "two discreet women for prophecy"—which
[57]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
"capacity" always. A Boston audience is very like
an Edinburgh one, reserved, dignified, silent, and yet
splendidly responsive in a very subtle way, if only by
the total absence of movement or sound.
"Spell-bound," said the papers next day, a condition
hard to maintain for an hour and a half. I had no
chairman, and spoke without notes, but felt much up-
lifted and very confident. All the comments were as
kind as possible.
I aim at inquirers rather than converts, and I am
sure I got those by the hundred. I mentioned Mr.
Wiggin and Nicholson by name, so I hope their psychic
powers will meet with more attention.
I felt nearly worn out that night, with the incessant
strain. If it were not for the splendid cut-off which
Captain Widdecombe forms, I could not get through.
I wish I had a spare evening to go to Concord, which
is twenty miles away. There is a little farmer there,
named Voss, who seems to be one of the greatest
mediums in the world. I had a full description from
an evangelical clergyman named Garrett, who had sat
with him many times. The phenomena comprise ma-
terialisation, levitation, and indeed everything.
Voss does not go into trance, and is said to be more
interested in his asparagus and his cows than in psychic
matters. He is seventy-one, hale and hearty, and takes
no fees.
I am told that both the late William James and
W. D. Howells have sat with Voss and were entirely
converted by what they saw. It is these folk who are
close to nature who are nearest to spirit. The fisher-
man makes the apostle. By the way, James was a
[60]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Swedenborgian by birth, so he had not to travel far to
get the truth.
While at Boston I went to consult the clairvoyante
medium, Mrs. Soule, who, under her former name of
Chenoweth, gave some very good results to the Amer-
ican Psychical Research Society. It was ten in the
morning, and my advent perhaps a little disturbing, so
that the conditions were not very good and the results
indifferent, but there were flashes which showed the
real power.
For example, the announcement that my son was
present moved me not at all; but when she said that he
wrote down the word "Floreat," I had to take it seri-
ously since he was an Eton boy, and "Floreat Etona"
is the motto of the college. It seemed a fine test and
beyond all chance, and yet do what we would—and
we tried hard—we could not get the Etona. I think
the less you try the better you do, and we spoiled our
own results. There lies one of the dangers of test
seances where every one is on edge. In several cases
the messages applied more closely to others than to
those who were supposed to send them.
There was a considerable mix-up, and yet several
very vivid pictures of truth. Among other things I
had a long message purporting to come from Mr. F.
W. H. Myers, which I copied word by word, as the
medium slowly read it off. It must be admitted that
it has a weight and dignity:
"You have gone a step farther than I, but we are
working on the same problem which is now one of
paramount interest to the Church and its followers,
even though they strive to elude the issue, and there
[61]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
of my spiritual and literary fathers, Oliver Wendell
Holmes.
The gentle laughing philosopher, whether as auto-
crat, poet, or professor, made a very deep mark upon
my young mind. Glorious fellow, so tolerant, so witty,
so worldly-wise, and yet so simply fresh! I laid my
flowers and was happier to know that he was probably
aware of what I had done, for the little wireless trills
seem to be very subtle and sure.
Coming back I saw the Lowell House, the Long-
fellow House, the Dana House—what a colony!
On my way from Mount Auburn I spent some time
in the Harvard library, consulting some old alchemical
books which seem to allude directly to ectoplasm, show-
ing that these mediaeval philosophers were really a good
deal ahead of us in some phases of psychic knowledge.
This interesting line of thought was first developed
by Mr. Damon, a young assistant professor at Har-
vard.
He shows that the alchemists wrapped up their
knowledge in symbols, for fear of the Church, but
that when the symbols are learned it all corresponds
with our knowledge. For example, the sun means the
magnetic operator and the moon the mesmerised sub-
ject. The fire is the magnetic force. The mercury
is the ectoplasm.
They describe it, viscous, half animal, half spiritual,
everywhere and yet unseen, changeable, and so on.
There cannot be the least doubt that they all allude
to ectoplasm.
Their experiments seem to have been attended by
danger, and I expect that we shall hit a few unex-
[63]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
pected snags in that direction. Thomas Vaughan, an
alchemist who lived as lately as 1650, records in his
diary that he obtained what seems to have been ecto-
plasm from his wife, but adds that his wife died the
same night. His own death is recorded as having
been from "an explosion of mercury," which sounds
suspicious.
I have no doubt that perils will be encountered on
this line of study, but it will no more deter the students
than the dangers of aviation or the X-rays have done.
Some of the talk of the alchemists is very intriguing.
They speak of the black, the white, and the peacock's
tail as three of the stages of knowledge.
We have found black ectoplasm (vide the Appendix
of Schrenck-Notzing's book), and white is normal,
but the peacock's tail is a problem. No doubt now
that we are on the track we shall clear the matter up
in time. I fear that the old boys had a touch of evil
black magic in their researches.
The idea that it was gold that they were after was
sometimes put forward to blind the Church, who ap-
proved of material but not of spiritual research.
It is a curious point, though possibly a coincidence,
that on the very day when I was puzzling Over the
peacock's tail of the alchemists I received a letter from
a man who had gone through a death-like trance.
The following is one sentence from the account:
"I tried to look around at my surroundings, but I
could see nothing but an immense peacock's tail, which
was very beautiful and big, and maybe half a block
in length."
At the same time I met a gentleman named Stein-
[64]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
metz in the Copley Plaza Hotel who told me of a re-
markable personal experience. He had practically died
once in a cataleptic attack, and the doctor deposed that
the pulse had completely stopped for seven minutes.
During this time he had a very vivid experience. He
saw before him curved gates ("like the big lock in the
Panama Canal"), and these were studded all over with
brilliant precious stones.
The total effect must have been like an outspread
peacock's tail. These gates slowly opened, and he saw
within an innumerable company, tier above tier, with
a brilliant light above them all. Then the gates slowly
closed again and he returned to life.
In view of these two experiences one wonders
whether the peacock's tail was not a name given to
the first vision of the next sphere. But we shall want
many cases before the hypothesis will stand, and I only
give it for what it is worth.
While in Boston I spent an hour or so in the mag-
nificent temple of the Christian Scientists. I confess
that I have little sympathy with these people. Mrs.
Eddy did two things which she should not have done.
The first was that she died, which seems in flat con-
tradiction to her theories. The second was that she
left a quarter of a million pounds behind her, and
when a religious teacher does that I look very askance
at the teaching.
The inside of the gorgeous temple is covered over
with alternate texts from Jesus the pauper and from
Mary the millionaire, the former beautiful, the latter
verbose and turgid. What did she bring into the
world that is new? Faith healing and healing by what
[65]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
we now call suggestion are as old as history. When
suggestion is allied with religion it is at its best, as
Lourdes and many other shrines, non-Christian or
Christian, will show.
Does it require a millionaire priestess and a five-
million-dollar temple to teach us that? This sugges-
tion has often acted well—sometimes it acts ill. I had
a young friend with cancer of the liver who was in-
oculated with this idea, and who went about declaring
his evil did not exist till he fell dead in his tracks.
A surgeon might have saved him. We spiritualists
have our healing mediums, and suggestion helps them,
no doubt, but we claim no monopoly and have no
great temples. In only one thing can I actually and
certainly test the truth of this cult, and that is in their
view of Spiritualism, and that I know to be utterly
false. But how strange it is that this questionable
movement with its appeal to physical well-being should
find wealth and honour and attention while we are
persecuted and poor! But the story is not yet finished,
and each will find its true place.
I went, while at Boston, to visit Bunker Hill. I
had always imagined it as an eminence or ridge some
miles out of the town, yet I was surprised to find that
it was close at hand, and even in those days must
have been part of the suburbs. It can hardly be called
a hill at all, but is a mere mound which was the centre
of a line of trenches.
It was carried by the British soldiers, but at a loss
which put fresh heart into the Americans, who, like
the Boers, were strong in their accurate rifle-fire. All
these skirmishes of the Revolutionary War and of the
[66]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
War of 1812 are hardly known to British youth, who
are equally ignorant of Princeton where we lost, and
of Long Island where we won. But they bulk large
over here, and this is natural since so great a result
grew out of them. They are among the few battles
of the world which left a huge permanent monument
behind them.
It is always, however, with sadness that a British
traveller must view the places which marked the divi-
sions between the two branches of one family and so
prevented that family from exerting a single salutary
influence upon the human race. However, here also
the story is not yet finished, and God's wisdom will
surely in some way be justified.
[67]


CHAPTER VI
Washington—The Capitol at Night—Ex-President Wilson—
Abraham Lincoln, Spiritualist—Statues—Senator Lodge
—Lady Astor—Dr. Cushman—Letter from the Beyond
—Zancigs—A Clairvoyante—Successful Lectures—Mr.
Castle's Experiences.
On Thursday, April 27th, having, as I hoped, given
Boston something to think over, I started on a long
through journey to Washington, which was bright-
ened in the middle by picking up my whole family at
New York and carrying them on with me. I had
determined so far as possible to leave them in some
central position while I did the work, but it seemed
wrong that their young minds should not receive the
tremendous impression which the capital would give.
While we were still wavering, an invitation came from
Mr. Mark Sullivan, the well-known journalist, that
they should stay with his children in his home while
we did our business, saw the Press, etc., at a hotel.
This generous offer removed every difficulty, and
so we were able to take up our travels again in joyous
—though rather noisy—companionship.
It was late when we got to Washington, but in
spite of this Mr. and Mrs. Mark Sullivan, with true
American hospitality, were waiting at the station and
carried off Miss Stable and the children while we drove
to the Belmont Hotel, where the Press mercifully
[68]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
spared us for that night. They made up, however,
next morning.
I observed that among the pressmen who inter-
viewed me was one of the young Vanderbilts, who
had, I presume, been thrown into the water to learn
to swim for himself, without the bladder of wealth.
The Press seemed to me less aggressive but also less
earnest in Washington than elsewhere, but there is a
world Press there, men who deal only with great in-
terests, like Mr. Mark Sullivan, with no connexion
with the local papers.
After the Press ordeal was over, we had a long
drive over this beautiful city, which has improved enor-
mously since my last visit. It contains some vistas
which can hardly be matched in the world, and the
sight of the lovely dome of the Capitol lit up at night
by the beam of a search-light is like one of Vale
Owen's magnificent pictures of the other world or
some glorious vision by Martin.
One feels as one looks at that centre of power that
surely selfishness, national or personal, will not for
ever prevail, and that some great thing for the whole
human race will come out of that wonderful silver
dome outlined against the starry sky. The salvation
of the world depends upon America rising to the
height of those responsibilities which overwhelming
power must bring with it.
Which reminds me that during the day we saw a
group of women delegates assembling in front of ex-
President Wilson's house, from which an infirm and
broken man emerged to address them with a few tired
and halting words. Was ever a man in the whole
[69]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
course of history placed in such a position? I con-
fess that in my historical reading I can remember no
such case.
All Europe at the supreme moment of Fate accepted
him with reverence as the accredited plenipotentiary
of a great nation, and then, on account of some swirl
of domestic politics utterly unintelligible to outsiders,
they found all his promises and engagements swept out
of sight, and were left alone to carry out the engage-
ments which had only been entered into on the strength
of those same promises.
Well, the story is not ended yet, but however it
may end the episode stands by itself, and one can but
pity a man placed in so dreadful a position. He was
hailed in Europe like a God of Justice descended from
the skies. I wonder what his reception, poor man,
would be to-day!
Washington has been greatly embellished by the new
white marble monument to Abraham Lincoln, a build-
ing so chaste and perfect that it would not have jarred
if placed upon the Acropolis.
When one looks from its perfect outline to the large
obelisk which represents the nation's homage to their
great founder, one must admit that the Americans
know how to honour their dead leaders, even if they
do occasionally place them in rather difficult positions
while they are alive.
I wonder, by the way, how many Americans realise
that Lincoln was a convinced Spiritualist, and that he
was sustained at the most arduous crisis by his help
from the Beyond.
The story is clear and remarkable. Miss Nettie
[70]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Colborn, a young trance-medium, went to Washington
in the crisis of the North-South War. Her object was
to get a furlough for her brother, who was a soldier
and ill. Mrs. Lincoln had heard of the powers of
Miss Colborn, and the President was asked to confirm
them. Miss Colborn was asked to the White House.
Upon the entrance of the President she was at once
entranced and spoke for an hour in a most convincing
and commanding way. Spectators seemed to have rec-
ognised terms of speech which recalled Daniel Web-
ster. "Those present declared that they lost sight of
the timid girl in the majesty of the utterance and
seemed to realise that some strange masculine spirit-
force was giving speech to almost divine commands."
The spirit-orders were to instantly issue the proclama-
tion on slavery and so give moral elevation to the
war. Lincoln was much impressed and said, "My
child, you possess a very singular gift, and that it is
of God I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here
to-night. It is more important than perhaps any one
here present can understand." A later communication
urged him to go in person to visit the Federal camps
where the soldiers were much discouraged. The effect
of these two measures coming at a time of such danger
to the Republic was so great that it is not too much
to say that the words of a medium went far to pre-
serve the State—that very state which now makes
mediumship a penal offence, and allows such psy-
chic sensitives as Miss Colborn to be harried by the
police.
It seems absurd to be always speaking in super-
latives, and yet it is difficult to avoid it when one
[71]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
mentions some of the sights of Washington. The
Capitol is superlative, so is the Monument, so is the
Lincoln Memorial, and finally, what could be more
superlative than the inside of the Congressional Li-
brary? It really is the most perfect interior of a
building I have ever seen.
An architect might have something to say about a
mixture of styles, but I can only say that our eyes
and senses were absolutely satisfied with its grace and
beauty. The inside of the Capitol and the Senate
House, which we visited, were commonplace in com-
parison. The Senate was in session and we looked
down on a scattered assembly who were carrying on
a languid debate. If brain size is really an index of
mental power, I should say the American Senate was
the most intellectual of all assemblies, for I am con-
vinced that the average size of hat would be the largest
that I have ever known in any body of men. And yet
when I think of Joseph Chamberlain and many others
I realise that quality of brain may be more important
than quantity.
The Americans are certainly adorning Washington
as lovingly as a man might his beloved. Besides the
wonderful Lincoln Memorial they have just put a fine
bronze statue of Grant at the side of the Capitol, which
was only uncovered on the day before our arrival.
The statue itself, equestrian, is conventional. The
battle groups on either side of it are, in my opinion,
among the finest bronzes of action in the world.
There is one of a gun under fire, the horses down,
a dead gunner seated on the limber and his companion
staring wide-eyed before him, which could not be
[72]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
him with some aversion, as being mainly responsible
for the downfall of Wilson and of that League of
Nations which promised some ease to a suffering
world.
However, in conversation I found him very affable
and interesting. We found a common bond in our
mutual admiration for Parkman, whom he had the
privilege of knowing, and whose personality as well
as his writings have always attracted me greatly.
His making a frame of wood so that he could guide
his hand to write books after he was blind has always
seemed a fine example of ingenuity and fortitude.
We saw a little and heard a great deal of Lady
Astor, or "Nancy," as the Americans affectionately
call her. She has certainly done splendid international
work, and has a genius for saying the right thing at
the right moment.
So many of our travellers in the past have been
wanting in sympathy to the Americans that it is good
to find some one who can clearly see both sides of the
question. Among her obiter dicta I saw one in which
she condemned Spiritualism root and branch, but I
can forgive her that if she will only tighten our bonds
with our brothers in blood.
Many of them feel strongly upon the Anglo-Amer-
ican question, and the divisions of the past. I said
to one statesman, "The one thing which hurt me in
the war was when Secretary Daniels of your Navy
gave instructions to his Admiral to regard England
as a possible enemy as much as Germany at the very
time when we were giving America all our naval con-
fidence and secrets."
[74]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
After lunch Dr. Cushman read us two long letters
received from his wife and daughter upon the other
side through the automatic writing of one of his fam-
ily. We had never heard anything more touching and
beautiful.
Their description of the place in which they found
themselves was enthralling. It seems certainly to be a
most glorious existence. The general scheme was ex-
actly what I have preached, and what a hundred rec-
ords have confirmed.
Every sort of earth-amusement seems to keep pace
with a high spiritual and intellectual life. In lifetime
Dr. Cushman had said to his wife:
"If I go first, you will find me craning over for
you."
He had never mentioned this to a soul, but in the
script came a sentence: "You see it is I who am doing
the craning over."
They spoke of themselves as being in the fourth
plane, and said that those who were mentally prepared
by earth-knowledge of psychic matters could attain that
happy level. They also wrote very seriously about the
loneliness and misery which are experienced by those
who find it very hard to adapt their minds to a scheme
so different from any for which they have been pre-
pared.
The daughter had seen the Christ once, which cor-
responds with Raymond's experience and also with
that of my Kingsley. The latter, in describing the
event through the hand of my wife, wrote words
which were as vibrant with emotion and awe and
wonder as are those of Raymond or Agnes Cushman
[76]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
when they also tell of that great episode—that glimpse
of something never to be forgotten.
The Zancigs came up to our room in the hotel and
gave an exhibition during the day. They may use
codes occasionally when their powers are low—of that
I cannot say—but what they showed us was appar-
ently thought-transference.
No word passed at all, but Mrs. Zancig, standing
with her face turned sideways at the far end of the
room, was able to repeat names and to duplicate draw-
ings which we made and showed to her husband.
She is an American from Brooklyn, and told me
that she was developing some power as a clairvoyante.
She told me also that when her husband conveyed a
name it often appeared to her as printed in the air—
which is the usual way with our mediums.
Possibly it is a real ectoplasmic formation like the
figures of Eva. Telepathy has been imagined by some
Spiritualists to be a real carrying of messages by some
Familiar. This is certainly not so.
On one occasion a group of students at Cambridge,
all concentrating together, succeeded in imprinting so
many 7's in the poor woman's brain that the husband
was utterly unable to get any number through. That
experiment settled the Familiar forever. The fact re-
mains, however, that we have not the least idea of
what we mean by the word telepathy, which, like most
portentous words, is a camouflage of ignorance.
It may possibly prove to be the perception of ec-
toplasmic messages or figures by the etheric senses.
We went up in the morning to see the enigmatical
bronze figure by St. Gaudens, erected as a memorial
[77]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
of one of the Adams family. It is girt round by trees,
with a marble bench that you may sit and meditate
at your ease.
It is certainly one of the great works of art of the
world, tremendous in its strong simplicity—a draped
figure seated with closed eyes and a set face. As in
the case of the Sphinx, every one can read his own
interpretation into it.
Late in the afternoon we had a sitting at her own
house with Mrs. Rose Miller, a local clairvoyante.
She is of the kindly, motherly, full-bosomed type
which is common among her class. Even such are
Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Soule, Mrs. Harris, and many
others of my acquaintance.
Mrs. Miller was soon in trance and we had an hour's
talk with what professed to be her little Indian guide.
There was nothing of great evidential value, from a
coldly psychic-research point of view, but there was
a very sure feeling of honesty and kindly power left
in our minds.
She never fished and we gave nothing away, but a
great deal of advice about the children and ourselves
reached us, full of sense and truth, and purporting
to be from those who took a loving interest in us.
As an example, we were told that little Billy should
not have cold sea-bathing.
We know by experience that she is the only one
of the children who cannot tolerate it. She made no
actual mistake of any consequence in discussing our
affairs.
On the whole, I should judge her a true and good
medium, but I should imagine that any powers she
[78]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
medium and at once gave us a touch of her control's
quality, which was very remarkable. There was noth-
ing very evidential, and yet it was correct so far as it
went, and all very dignified and impressive.
I had an interesting talk with Mr. Castle, who is a
high official in the Department of State, connected, as
I understand, with foreign affairs. In early days he
had some remarkable psychic experiences which made
him sympathetic to my mission.
On one occasion he had a long ride alone in Hono-
lulu with Miss Rose Field, the American authoress.
On her return from the ride the lady was taken ill,
possibly from exposure to the sun, and after two days
she died. Some time afterwards an American Spirit-
ualist wrote a life of Miss Field which purported to
be a spirit-autobiography, and in it was a full account
of this ride which could not have been known in any
normal way.
Even more interesting is an account which Mr.
Castle wrote out for me about another Honolulu ex-
perience, where in a certain house the apparent flame
of a candle used to issue from one of the rooms at
intervals and pass down the corridor to the front door.
"At first people living in the house were frightened,
but they found nothing happened and therefore in
the end paid no attention to it. I have myself seen
this candle-flame, and have held my hand in front of
it, the flame passing directly through my hand. There
were no electrical phenomena in those islands." No
doubt a clairvoyant would have seen the figure which
bore the light.
I have myself in my collection of psychic photo-
[80]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
graphs a picture of a ghost carrying lights in exactly
the same way. But what has the sceptic materialist
to say to such an incident? and how absurd it is to
continually avert our faces and to deny or ignore
what is beyond all doubt, and can be explained only
by one system of thought!
One cannot leave Washington without some last
thought of the international political situation, which
has surely never been so obscure since the world was
made. Is this Gordian knot of debt to be carefully
unravelled or is there some way by which it can be
cut?
We British feel that the money is honestly owing
and must be honestly paid, and yet we feel that it
would be a monstrous injustice if we were to pay
the thousand million that we owe and have to write
off as a bad debt the three and a half thousand million
which we are owed. We should feel it all the more
as the money advanced was largely for our Continental
allies, and we are in the position of a man who has
gone surety for a friend and been called upon to pay
up—a perfectly just and legal position from the point
of view of the lender, and yet one which naturally
leaves a rankling dissatisfaction behind it.
Britain is too proud to accept humiliating favours,
and any remission of debt must be part of a great
world-scheme where there is a general readjustment.
But what is America to get in such a readjustment,
and how can we help being humiliated if we accept
favours from her with no return?
There is one factor which has, I think, not been
sufficiently discussed. How about the cession by
[81]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
their grievances and henceforth the Empire would
have been contented and whole.
There would have been no war of 1776, no war of
1812, no war of 1861, for the freedom of the slaves
could have been effected by fair purchase as in the
rest of Britain's possessions. Then, as the most pop-
ulous must always govern in any democratic system,
America would quite naturally and peacefully have be-
come the centre and chief guide to all the scattered
English-speaking nations, with the four home coun-
tries as part of the huge, world-wide confederation
which might have stopped all war and ushered in the
millennium.
It is strange to think that, as events have turned
out, it was the independence of England rather than
that of the United States which was really determined
in the old town hall.
Philadelphia is associated in several ways with this
greatest of all questions, the psychic revelation. It
will be accounted to her honour that the early seeds
grew rapidly there in the congenial Quaker soil, and
that the first Spiritual Church, now ably presided over
by Mr. Russell, was established there seventy years
ago. Mr. Russell seemed to me to be a man who
by his personality and breadth of view might do much
to impress the intellectual researcher and to reconcile
the old half-forgotten truths of Christianity with the
information which comes to us first-hand from the
other world.
It is to Philadelphia's honour also that a brave and
clear-headed man, Dr. Hare, Professor of Chemistry
at the University of Pennsylvania, was the first scien-
[85]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
tific man of repute to seriously examine the phenomena
and to assert not only their validity but the religious
implications which lie behind it. It is a mere chance
that the University of Pennsylvania was not the pio-
neer body of the world in establishing a chair of
Psychic Research. Henry Seybert left behind him a
legacy to the university which he clearly hoped would
be used directly or indirectly to help this movement
in which he had taken a great interest in his lifetime.
The university chose a body to examine the subject,
which was called the Seybert Commission. It pub-
lished a full report from which it is clear that the
members, with one exception, knew nothing of the
subject, and which is often disfigured by a levity which
always accompanies ignorance. It must be admitted,
however, that the commission did their best within
their limitations, but psychic conditions are delicate
things, and it is to be feared that cold and formal
critics will never get that which comes readily to the
earnest or to the sorrow-laden. Sometimes it would
appear that they were actually faced with real fraud.
However that may be, the result was a setback for
Spiritualism, and the university lost its chance of be-
ing a Pioneer of Progress.
I understand that a somewhat similar situation has
arisen in the Leland Stanford, Jr., University in Cali-
fornia. A large sum which was left for the encourage-
ment of psychic studies has been used mainly up to
now, I am told, in an attempt to show that telepathy
does not exist—an easy matter if one assembles all
the negative evidence and avoids what is positive. But
what are the explainers-away to do if they are robbed
[86]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
of telepathy, which has up to now, together with the
sub-conscious, been the umbrella under which they
sheltered themselves from all evidence of unseen life!
I had a visit at Philadelphia from Professor New-
bold of that city, whose subject is Early Christian
Philosophy, but who was good enough to show me
photographs of the remarkable Voynich MS.
It is really a most extraordinary thing if it prove
to be genuine, and Professor Newbold assures me that
there can be no doubt upon this point. The manu-
script was found in the East of Europe—I am not
clear where.
It is partly in legible Latin and partly in a very
obscure cypher which Newbold thinks that he has
solved. It is signed by Roger Bacon, so that the date
would be approximately thirteenth century. The man-
uscript has to do with the physiology of reproduction
and the connexion between soul and body at the time
of birth. There are numerous and complex illustra-
tions, and it is impossible to doubt, presuming that the
work is by Bacon, that he had a microscope and a good
one. Cells and even nuclei are shown, and the whole
relation of ovum and Fallopian tubes is correctly set
forth.
If his occult knowledge is as accurate as his anat-
omy the old Friar knew much, but the text is disfig-
ured by a good deal of licence so far as Professor
Newbold has been able to translate it. The book
should make a sensation when it appears, though I can
understand that the critics will have a strong case.
Talking of curious manuscripts, I spent a morning
in Mr. Morgan's famous library in New York, and
[87]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
nearly thirty years ago. He was then a subaltern of
gunners, fresh from Woolwich, and I had asked him
to be my travelling companion. One day we talked
very earnestly of the senseless dissension which at that
time was very apparent between the two countries.
I remember that I said with some earnestness, "Well,
Innes, I only hope that in your military career you
will some day find yourself leading British soldiers
shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers in a just
cause—and may I be there to see!"
Could any wish have been more grotesquely impos-
sible, and yet I must have spoken with some strange
conviction, since the words remain so clear to me after
all the years. But see how it turned out.
Upon September 29th, 1918, standing on the top
tread of an up-ended tank, I saw the 27th and 30th
Divisions of the American Army helping the Aus-
tralians to break the Hindenburg Line, while my
brother was in high command in the third British
Army Corps, which was advancing on the left.
How can one explain such a thing as that? Surely
it is far beyond coincidence. But if not, then are our
paths in life so accurately mapped that, even twenty-
four years before, the outcome can be seen?
At one matinee lecture at Philadelphia I had an
amusing experience—at least it amused the audience.
I spoke with a huge drop-curtain of canvas behind
me. When I had made my bow I walked off, but
found that there was no exit on the right side. I
turned and walked across the proscenium, but again,
to my surprise, was faced with rigid canvas. I then
concluded I was mistaken in my first venture, so I
[90]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
again crossed but found it quite impassable. I then
wandered down the face of the curtain amid sym-
pathetic laughter from those who observed my di-
lemma, until at last I saw a slit and the agitated hand
of Widdecombe.
This queer bolt-hole about a third of the way across
formed entrance and exit, though I had not observed
it in coming on. The adventure was not so funny
as one which occurred in my first lecture-tour, when
I was bustled on to the stage at Daly's Theatre with
several books under my arm.
It was a stage door with a small sill of wood over
which I tripped, so that from the point of view of
the audience I came cantering down the sloping stage,
clutching at my dropping books. There was a general
desire for an encore.
When I returned from Philadelphia I had planned
a few days of rest, but I found that the demand had
been so great that my manager had interpolated two
repetitions of the photographic lecture, which meant
that these proofs were set before the eyes of seven
thousand more people.
I had come to the conclusion that it was best to
occupy half the lecture in giving a synopsis of the
philosophy of the subject, which is quite enough to
convince and satisfy a reasonable mind without any
phenomena at all, and then to show the photographs
of actual happenings, explaining that they are quite
secondary and that this side of the question has had
far too much attention paid it, because it appeals to
our lower dramatic instincts rather than to our rea-
son.
[91]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
I continued now to follow this course during the
remainder of my tour.
An interesting example of spirit-power occurred
during these last New York lectures. I caught laryn-
gitis in acute form, there being an epidemic of it at
the time. The result of it was that I lost my voice
entirely—so much so that I could not make my wife
understand me across the bedroom. I was in no way
perturbed, though I had to address a great meeting
that afternoon, and though I consulted Dr. Colby, the
able specialist, it was rather to satisfy my manager than
myself.
When the hour came I walked to the front of the
platform, and with an effort I croaked out, loud
enough for all to hear me, "I have quite lost my voice,
so as a sign of my confidence in spiritual power I
propose to-day to give a quarter of an hour's extra
lecture." It seemed a strange non sequitur, but I
actually spoke for one and three-quarter hours, get-
ting clearer and better all the time, though I relapsed
at once when the lecture was over.
These forces will never fail us so long as we are
engaged upon their work. In old days, when I lec-
tured on the War, I used to get severe heart palpi-
tations. Never once has this happened to me since
I took up my spiritual mission, but my strength has
always proved greater with every new demand.
On the occasion of my last lecture in New York
I introduced Mr. Arthur Stilwell to the audience, say-
ing, "I am only in a position to talk of these wonder-
ful matters, but here is a man who experiences them
in his own person." He came up on to the platform
[92]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
at my request and acquitted himself very well in a
quarter of an hour's talk. He is one of those to
whom I look to carry on the work when I am gone.
His history is certainly a marvellous one. He has a
daimon, as Socrates had, who advises him and whose
advice must be followed lest worse befall. It comes,
I understand, as a vision in the night. Stilwell as a
young man was well placed in an insurance business.
The Daimon told him to resign and go west and build
railroads. He was not an engineer, yet he obeyed.
He has now laid more miles of rail than any living
man.
When he was laying the South Kansas line the
terminus was to be Galveston. The Daimon told him
to halt the line short of the terminus and build a canal
thence to the sea. It was done.
Four days later came a tidal wave and convulsion
which for the time wiped Galveston off the map, and
the canal was a harbour of refuge. So again and
again, beyond all doubt or question, this wonderful
guide has led him through life.
The last great effort of the guide was to dictate a
plan by which the world could be relieved of the pres-
sure of war debt. Stilwell published the revelation
under the name of The Great Plan. I was, I think,
one of the few in England who took it seriously, and
I wrote an account of it to the Evening Standard. It
was met by all sorts of minor objections, people fail-
ing to understand that an absolutely abnormal situation
must be met in an abnormal way. If there has been
immense temporary pressure upon an estate, it is not
attempted to meet that pressure entirely out of the
[93]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
shattered revenues, but the credit of the estate is
pledged for the time when in the future it shall have
recovered. If the world be taken as the estate, that
is the simple but effective idea in Stilwell's plan.
The idea, expressed very shortly, is that every na-
tion shall pay a reasonable sum every year to a cen-
tral fund, and shall pledge itself to continue to do so
for seventy years. Notes shall be issued and passed
into circulation, so that they can be used as currency,
which shall be guaranteed by the fund, not as it now
is but as it will be at the end of that period. So we
make the resources of the future available for the
payment of war debts and other uses of the present.
This of course is the merest sketch, but it has the
germ of the idea. It would be international money
with an international guarantee.
Mr. Stilwell spoke well, and I only hope some larger
field may be opened up for him. Houdini was present
at this, or it may have been another New York lecture,
and escorted my wife out down a passage which they
imagined would be a short cut, but which actually
ended in a padlocked door. Houdini put out his big
right hand, and by some cantrip gathered up the pad-
lock as one picks a plum from a tree. The way was
cleared to the street.
I had now done the great Eastern cities and the
time had come to continue my work by lecturing in
some of the larger inland centres. Before doing so
I ran up to New Haven, where I gave a lecture to an
audience consisting largely of Yale students, who re-
ceived the subject in a very sympathetic fashion.
Yale is not quite so old as Harvard, and indeed
[94]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
represents a secession from Harvard on the part of
those who thought the Boston University was too lib-
eral in its ideas. The outside of the colleges, how-
ever, with the old trees in front of them, and the
great green common, gives the European visitor an
impression of mellow growth which he seldom receives
in this bustling community. After this short sally I
prepared for the longer trip which was really to be a
final one, ending up in Chicago. I felt impelled to
take my whole family with me, as the Spiritualists
were to give us a formal welcome in Chicago, and we
felt that it would be a remembrance which the children
would always carry with them.
[95]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
mechanic, but only a couple of centuries ago by a
tribe of Indians who even in far London gave the
very name to reckless lawlessness.
Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse—I had lectured in all
of them nearly thirty years before. It did not seem
to me that they had improved in the interval, and
perhaps the observation would have been mutual.
Then we passed classic Rochester, most honoured of
all towns, and blissfully unconscious of it
It is much more proud of being the seat of the
kodak industry than of the fact that on its outskirts
there came the first systematic material touch between
the plane of mortal and of spirit. It occurred to my
mind as we passed what a fine thing it would be if I
could now at once start a movement here for building
a fine commemorative obelisk upon the spot, as a vis-
ible sign of our gratitude. If every one who has had
comfort from the revelation were to subscribe some
small coin we could put up one of the greatest monu-
ments in the world.
We all assembled outside the observation car and
tried to imagine which was Hydesville, but we got no
further than noting down several old frame houses
which were exactly like that which I show on my plate.
The original house was removed by pious hands
and reconstructed, as I understand, at Lily Dale. It
is not generally know that when it was pulled down
or it may have been before, the bones of the murdered
pedlar 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 that?
[97]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
And how blind are the papers with their pages of
baseball and football and hardly a line as to a fact
so wonderful.
As a rule it is I who have to be in the limelight,
but it was my wife who now fairly took the middle
of the stage. The page of the Buffalo Courier lies
before me with a caption which could be read across
the road, and was read by me right across the dining-
room of the Iroquois Hotel.
LADY CONAN DOYLE LOST SIX HOURS
WIFE OF AUTHOR RESTS QUIETLY AT NIAGARA
FALLS, ONT., HOTEL
FRANTIC INQUIRY ON U. S. SIDE
There was a great deal more to it, but that was the
first explosion. The facts were that I was desirous
that the whole party should see the great sight of
America, and so we all travelled together until we
reached Buffalo, where I had to lecture next evening.
The rest of the party continued the fifty-minute jour-
ney which should land them at Niagara, where rooms
had been reserved for them at the Prospect House on
the American shore. They were due there about
seven. At nine Captain Widdecombe 'phoned them
up to see that they were all right, and came to me,
somewhat aghast, to say that they had never arrived.
It seemed to me as if a small mystery tale which
I once wrote, where a certain train started from one
junction and never arrived at the next one, never be-
ing heard of again, had actually come back upon me.
[98]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
For three hours, until nearly midnight, we were 'phon-
ing and inquiring with no result. We traced down
the attendant of the railway car, who swore they had
all, six of them, landed safely at their destination.
But they had never reached the Prospect House.
Things came to such a pass that we were on the
point of ordering a swift automobile to take us both
to Niagara after midnight, when at last a still small
voice at the end of thirty miles of wire put us at our
ease. A series of incidents, which are superfluous,
had caused them to seek quarters in the Lafayette
Hotel upon the further shore.
It was no laughing matter at the moment, but it
gave us several hearty laughs afterwards, especially
when we heard of a negro porter running up and down
the platform shouting "Lady Doyle done gone lost
herself."
I do not remember in all my meetings having a
better audience than in Buffalo, so alert and sympa-
thetic. It should be so since it was the nearest point
to Hydesville at which I spoke.
"Large Audience Profoundly Impressed" was the
heading of the report in one paper.
"Sir Arthur Deeply Moves Audience" was the other.
As each gave us a three-column report, and as the
papers reach a hundred for every one who can hear
my voice, there is no doubt that this message of truth
and of happiness which alters life and does away with
death is finding its way to the people. It is curious
how in this country the old petty disputes as to whether
this medium is genuine or this other is a fake have
died out.
[99]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
They take the broader view, and admit the position
that so long as any phenomena are genuine (and no
one but an ignorant fool could deny that), then the
general case may be lifted at once to a broader, higher
level.
For some reason unknown this corner of the world
was a scene of great psychic activity in the middle of
the last century. If the experiences of the Foxes had
not established spiritualism in Rochester in 1848, those
of the Davenports would have done so in Buffalo, only
ninety miles away, in 1851. Indeed, phenomena had
appeared in the Davenport household as early as 1846,
taking the usual forms of raps and knockings.
In this case the centre of activity was two boys,
Ira and William Davenport, whose ages corresponded
very closely to those of the Fox girls. Any theory
that the phenomena were caused by mischievous chil-
dren becomes untenable when measured by the actual
facts as given in detail in Dr. Nichol's Biography of
the Davenports. The father was an official in the
Buffalo police force, a solid, tenacious man, who re-
fused under great pressure to retract his accounts of
what he had seen and experienced.
Levitation was a common phenomenon in the house-
hold and hundreds of neighbours were ready to testify
to having seen the boys in the air, and even to the
fact that Ira was raised with such force that his head
broke the plaster of the ceiling.
It was found that no ropes could confine the two
lads, and eventually this remarkable fact was made the
subject of a stage performance and was exhibited by
the brothers all around the world, reaching England
[100]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
in 1864, where they caused a great sensation, and the
truth of the phenomena was tested and supported by
many men of eminence, working in their own draw-
ing-rooms and under their own conditions.
Among these inquirers were Lord Bury, Charles
Reade, Admiral Inglefield, Chambers the publisher,
Carter Hall, William Howitt, and Dion Boucicault,
who all agreed after the closest inspection that there
was no evidence of trickery or collusion.
The instant solution of all bindings was accompa-
nied with signs of outside intelligence, voices, musical
performances, and concerted movements. These phe-
nomena were shown in various public places in Eng-
land, but a disgraceful clamour arose, founded upon
ignorance and prejudice, and the young men were
chased from the stage.
It was found that in practice there was at that
time greater religious freedom in the wild western
towns of America than in such old centres as Liver-
pool.
Finally, on the excuse that certain conjurers could
with appliances and under their own conditions pro-
duce a clumsy imitation of these psychic effects, the
matter was shelved, the public mind was doped, and
every one returned to the old material dreams from
which this sudden intrusion of outside force had tem-
porarily aroused them.
In vain an excellent clergyman, Dr. Ferguson, de-
scribed how he had travelled for six months with the
mediums and seen an uninterrupted series of mir-
acles.
In vain men of position testified that what they
[101]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
/
to the unfair and ignorant attitude of the clergy were
always received with loud applause.
I have had the good fortune to encounter a very
high circle in Toronto who have been developing upon
their own lines with remarkable results. I learned
much from them, but there are reasons why I should
not mention their names, as their work is still only
half completed. I found their revelation a very satis-
fying one, abounding in evidence, and giving me a
good deal which was new.
I have seldom received a greater accession of
strength and wisdom. They have found in their work
that undeveloped spirits need continual checking and
watching, but a complete test lies in the words, "I
believe in God."
If a communication by word or writing is coming
through, that is the password which never fails. It is
perhaps the same test which St. John meant, for when
he said, "Test the spirits," he presumably had some-
thing definite in his mind. The head of the circle,
whom I will call Mr. Stone, had lost a relative, and
was grieved to hear that he was still in darkness even
though several years had elapsed. He had a vision
of him, bronzed in colour and rather swollen in fea-
tures, looking very unhappy.
He was told that prayer would help, and he prayed
with such fervour that in a short time his brother's
spirit was actually over the line which separates dark
from light.
This happy event was announced to each of the
four who composed the circle separately, so that when
they met they found that each had received the glad
[106]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
could find a job as the iron man of affairs in the
movies.
I also met at the lecture one of the orderlies who
had served under me in the Langman Hospital in the
South African War.
Spiritualism is in a curious condition in Toronto.
There are six or eight small churches run upon a low
plane, which will, I hope, unite and rise to a higher
one. There is a good deal of indifferent mediumship,
mostly of a very worldly fortune-telling order. Apart
from this there was a Society, calling itself "The
Twentieth Plane," which is best known because a mem-
ber of it, Dr. Watson, wrote two books upon it, one
under that name, and the other Death is Birth.
The medium was a Mr. Benjamin, a young Jew,
whose communications are undeniably lofty, though
they are disfigured by that use of great names, Shelley,
Coleridge, even Sappho, which is possibly the fault
of the control rather than of the medium. The actual
messages are all on a high plane, though vague and
unevidential.
I had a private sitting with Mr. Benjamin in my
room at the hotel, and received while he was in a trance
state (he allows pins to be driven into him) certain
messages which carried no particular conviction, but
were none the less helpful and weighty.
Whether his messages be of the spirit, or whether
they be the emerging, under trance, of some subcon-
scious personality, they can have nothing but an ele-
vating effect.
There were some rather bitter attacks in the Toronto
papers, including one leader in the Evening Telegram
[108]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
which was so narrow and illiberal that I do not think
the most provincial paper in Britain could have been
guilty of it.
It was to the effect that British lecturers took money
out of the town, that they did not give the money's
worth, and that they should be discouraged.
"Poking Them in the Eye" was the dignified title.
It did not seem to occur to the writer that a comic
opera or a bedroom comedy was equally taking the
money out of the town, but that the main purpose
served by lectures, whether one agreed with the sub-
ject or not, was that they kept the public in first-hand
touch with the great current questions of mankind.
I am bound to say that no other Toronto paper sank
to the depth of the Evening Telegram, but the general
atmosphere was the least pleasant that I had met with
in my American travels, and I was glad to unite with
my family once more, and to find myself among the
kindly folks of Detroit.
There I found myself in a very sympathetic com-
munity, and was told as a welcome that Dean Rogers
of St. Paul's Cathedral had given a sermon, and a
broadcasted radio sermon at that, to commend my at-
tempt to spiritualise our petrified Churches and ma-
terial social life.
It is an interesting fact that Dean Edwards, who
was the predecessor of Dean Rogers at St. Paul's, be-
came a convinced Spiritualist, after being brought by
Mrs. Wriedt into contact with his son. Dean Edwards
resigned his position, and it is greatly hoped by the
Spiritualists of America that he will now devote his
eloquence and his learning, for both of which he is
[109]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
in the world, with all those conveniences for picnic
parties which are usual in such places in America,
tables, seats, and even little stoves or ovens.
When I see all these amenities of life, my heart
yearns over our own poor north-country towns, which
seem to me to stand in a class by themselves for ugli-
ness and discomfort. Think of the huge waste
grounds with their littered garbage, and the prim, un-
homely tidiness of such parks as exist. I suppose that
the root reason lies in the age of these towns, and that
they were laid out before modern ideas prevailed, but
their citizens should cast off their self-contentment and
strive for better things—above all, the wealthy men
should take a pride in the place from which they draw
their wealth and should exert themselves to adorn it.
There should be no place in the universe for the
kind of town which is common in Northern England,
where slatternly folk, who seem to have lost all per-
sonal self-respect, beshawled women, and ill-clad men
live in dull, smoke-covered brick streets with cindered
paths leading to their daily toil.
"This world is Hell," said Bernard Shaw, and there
are places where the thought seems natural.
No patriotism can possibly conceal from the travel-
ling Briton the fact that our hotels have a great deal
to learn from those in America. I write these words
in the Statler Hotel of Detroit. The bedroom is fur-
nished with the well-equipped writing-table which I
am using, with paper and pens always ready and in
order. Beside me lies a card with a request that the
occupant be not disturbed. This I can fasten on my
door.
[Ill]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
On the dressing-table is a pin-cushion with a black
button, a white button, and sewing materials for
emergencies.
A telephone by the bed and a fully furnished bath-
room are matters of course, as is a deep cupboard,
beloved of ladies, and the thermos bottle of iced water.
On the other hand, the waiting is much quicker in
our hotels, and with the set courses one has not all
the trouble of selection and the tedium of from a quar-
ter of an hour to twenty minutes' delay while you sit
at an empty table.
In most modern hotels, however, they have what is
called a cafeteria, which is really a splendid arrange-
ment, by which you pick what you want, carry it off
on a small tray, and have no waiting whatever. This
is so entirely simple and satisfactory that I think it
is destined to have a very general use, and the only
objection, as in every improvement, is that it would
certainly throw a great number of waiters out of em-
ployment.
Even in smaller American towns, such as Toledo,
the hotels are extraordinarily good. Londoners may
be surprised to hear it, but the Hotel Secor in that
city has a hall and vestibule which would compare for
elegance with any in London.
Its dead gold and white marble, with innumerable
really comfortable arm-chairs, make it a dream for
the weary traveller. On the other hand, we may say
for the Old Country that our provincial inns, half
curiosity shops and half homes, stand by themselves
in the whole world.
[112]


CHAPTER X
Madame Economus—Press Descriptions—An Iron Monster
—Miss Ada Besinnet—A Wonderful Seance—Keedick
and Shackleton—Fraud and Reality.
We had a sitting at Detroit with an amateur me-
dium, Mrs. Economus, an Austrian lady married to a
Greek. The results were marred by the fact that sev-
eral people were present. A clairvoyant reading
should, I think, always be solitary, as the matter is
quite complex and obscure enough without mixing a
number of impressions.
The medium was a tall, handsome woman with com-
manding features, and when the spirit-influence came
upon her and she stood fixing you with glaring eyes
and talking in a deep male voice, one seemed to see a
Pythian priestess at the shrine of Apollo. She spoke
with tremendous force and emphasis, but nothing
which could really be called evidential came through.
The control purported to be a Buddhist influence,
and he prophesied a revolution in India unless the
Government made concessions. It needed no voice
from beyond, however, to point out the danger of
that.
Many kind things came across as to my own work,
and it was prophesied that in ten years these views
would generally prevail. We were both impressed by
the sincerity of the medium, though positive proofs
were lacking.
[113]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
An enormous meeting concluded our day, when,
in spite of pouring rain, 3,000 people assembled in a
most difficult hall. However, my one great qualifica-
tion for my job is audibility, and I think I got every
word across during the hour and three quarters that
I was on my feet. Like all American audiences, it
was very courteous and sympathetic.
We heard of people who had come from Dayton
and other places 200 miles away for the meeting.
At Toledo, a very rising and beautifully wooded
town, we met an impressionist reporter, who certainly
kept my head in its due proportions.
His description was:
"The visitor was dressed in an ill-fitting grey suit
which was in bad need of pressing, and he wore a
frayed white collar. His hair was grey and his head
partially bald."
I think I have had enough to make it so, with re-
porters of that sort catching me after a train journey.
However, it was all in good humour, and the town
treated us royally, and filled a hall to overflowing in
the evening.
A kindly resident, Mrs. Bentley, put her motor at
our disposal and enabled us to appreciate the wonder-
ful suburbs with their miles of luxurious villas, built
with the most extraordinary mixture of architectural
styles. There was less sign of wealth than in Detroit,
but none the less it was very impressive. We stopped
the car, and delighted the children and ourselves by
watching the process of loading a lake steamer with
coal. It was certainly a fascinating business.
The steamer lay passive, like a beast being fed, and
[114]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
the trucks were run up an inclined plane, and then
tipped over into the hold. But the wonder of it was
the means by which the laden truck got up the inclined
plane. It came along the line with a slow momentum,
and was just pausing at the bottom of the hill, when
out of the ground between the tracks there darted a
horrid little deformed monster of iron which pursued
the truck, acting on its own without a driver, put its
head at the back of it and butted it up the incline.
When the truck had been seized by the discharging
gear, the squat iron monster came slowly down the
slope and vanished into the ground once more, only
to dart out when another truck had passed. It was
a marvellous example of ingenuity and efficiency, but
it clearly does a hundred men out of their daily bread.
It seems to me that the economic end of the human
race will be that half of them will be making con-
trivances to do the other half out of their jobs. Then
perhaps the other half will rise up in protest, and that
may be the political end.
From many quarters I learned the effect of my visit
to Toledo. One level-headed journalist wrote:
"There is no doubt of the good your coming has
done. Many were thoroughly convinced. Thousands
of others who heard you at the Colosseum or through
the Press are ready to give sane and intelligent con-
sideration to the subject. I feel certain that the super-
structure you reared on the foundations laid by Miss
Besinnet's work will be lasting and the beginning of
bigger things spiritually."
Another who represented a large New York paper,
and who had no disposition in our favour, said:
[115]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
"You have had such an effect all over the country
that the papers dare no longer ridicule this thing, for
the public would not stand it."
Surely, then, that prophecy which came before we
left England has been richly fulfilled. An editor
wrote:
"Most pleased I was to see your listeners. Faces
fixed and thinking, I saw. You could have heard a
pin drop during your whole hour and a half of speech.
Greater subject could no man have. Poor humanity,
how slowly it learns the truth—the simple obvious
truth!"
We did not leave Toledo without a sitting with
Miss Ada Besinnet—indeed, it was the prospect of
such a sitting which caused me to add Toledo to my
list of fixtures. I had already sat four times with
this medium in England, and was certain not only
of her honesty but of the extraordinary nature of her
powers.
Twice during my sittings I have seen beyond all
doubt or question the faces of the dead in front of
me, once that of my mother and once that of my
nephew, Oscar Hornung. The latter smiled at me. I
saw the flash of his teeth, and I noted his large grey
eyes, while those of the medium are hazel.
Both my mother and my nephew were looking very
well and happy, clean-cut and refined in expression,
though my mother retained or at any rate reproduced
her wrinkles. I may add that one of these sittings
was in my own home, on which occasion every one
of my non-spiritualist friends had the same experi-
ence.
[116]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
determined, but perhaps the cold vital light of the
firefly may be an analogy.
Dr. Cushman has exposed photographic plates upon
the table and has got clear impressions of the lights,
which photographs I have seen. They, alone of all
known lights, do not fog the plates in the least, but
in his experiments come out clean-cut and vivid.
The gramophone was then started to give vibrations
and presently a very beautiful whistling mixed with
the music.
I asked it to stop and then to continue, so as to be
sure that it was not itself a gramophone record. In
each case it obeyed.
A powerful male voice then sang two songs with
a vigour and charm which would be worth a handsome
salary in the Halls. This person explained that he
was an American soldier, Dan, who had died in the
Philippines.
Several times, Mr. Roche tells me, he had material-
ised and stood, visible to the waist, saluting in military
fashion.
A beautiful tambourine accompaniment to the
gramophone followed, said to be from Lenore, a Span-
ish dancer, who has also repeatedly shown herself.
Sentimental songs, in a strong female contralto, fol-
lowed. The materialised lips and cheeks have been
touched by Dr. Pyle, the family physician, and others
quite separate from the medium, but it is found that
a sympathetic movement occurs in the medium's own
organs, which can, however, be muffled in cloth with-
out in any way affecting the sound.
The Intelligence explained this by saying: "The me-
[118]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
dium's throat and organs are used, but she does not
do the whistling or singing. We use her and build
up from her"—a somewhat enigmatic saying in our
present state of knowledge."
This varied entertainment was presided over by a
very guttural and laconic Indian, Black Cloud, who
occasionally shouts out an order, and it is enlivened
by a small girlish spirit, named Pansy, with a squeaky
childish voice, who moves about, makes remarks, and
in spite of the dark reproves you at once if you
yawn.
She is not in sympathy with the silent Indian and is
inclined to be pert, for when he said, "Squaws talk
too much," she answered, "Some chiefs talk too much
sometimes," which elicited a grunt of contempt.
Then the faces began. They glimmer up out of the
darkness, a glow comes beside them, and then they
vanish. Our first one, seen equally by my wife and
me, was a truly angelic female face, so pure and sweet
that no great master has ever painted such a Ma-
donna. It had the psychic archjjver the brow.
Then came others whrTTceftain suggestion of vari-
ous friends on the other side, but none so clear that
I could positively swear to it.
Captain Widdecombe had the same experience, many
faces but none surely recognisable.
Mr. Keedick was more fortunate. I suddenly heard
him cry with the gasping note of extreme surprise
and emotion, "Shackleton!" The great explorer, who
had been an intimate friend, had suddenly appeared
with his face as clear as life and within a few inches
of his own. Those who know Mr. Keedick will be
[119]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
The seance ended by a letter for each of us, written
in the dark, and presumably by the direct hand of the
entranced medium. Mine was from my son and was
in the highest degree evidential.
He wrote: "Oscar and Uncle Willy are both here
with you."
These are father and son, both upon the other side,
of whose existence or relation to my boy the medium
had no possible means of knowing.
"Uncle Willy" was only uncle by marriage, and yet
my son always called him by that name.
Altogether if 1 had not proved this matter a hun-
dred times before, this sitting alone would have
brought me conviction. I only hope that the pure
and beautiful mediumship of Miss Besinnet will re-
main fresh and uncontaminated, so that she may con-
tinue to be the very special instrument of God which
she now is.
A Committee in connexion with the Psychic Col- \
lege in London reported upon Miss Besinnet's medium-
ship, and came to the conclusion that the faces were
always built up upon her own by psychic means—that
is to say, that her control forms an ectoplasmic mask
upon her own face.
I am convinced that when the power is weak this
is what actually occurs, and I have myself, as I have
said, clearly seen the medium's features. Controls
often take short cuts to produce their effects, and so
expose the innocent and unconscious medium to unjust v
suspicions.
But Miss Besinnet's health was bad, and her powers
were proportionately low at the time when the Lon-
[121]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
don Committee reported upon her, and I am con-
vinced that Mr. Hewat McKenzie, who drew up the
report, did her a serious though of course unintentional
injustice.
I have not only my own dear observations to sup-
port me, and those of my friends, but I have had
access to a number of detailed reports from close ob-
servers in Toledo which show results which could in
no way be accounted for by a mere ectoplasmic trans-
figuration of the medium's face.
Thus Mr. Budborough of Bristol, in a careful and
detailed report, says:
"The spirit of a powerfully built Indian chief sud-
denly stood in our midst—on his head a war bonnet
made of eagle feathers and round his neck a necklace
of grizzly-bear claws. This figure came so close to
us that we could have touched it, had we dared. It
remained in evidence for about two minutes and then
slowly faded away."
This form was no doubt that of the laconic Indian
control.
One lady whose husband had become blind before
passing over says: "The first materialisation I had
was that of the nerve and of the congested eyeball.
Then came his eyes, big, blue, and beautiful, as they
used to be."
It will be admitted that this at least must have been
an independent materialisation.
Another in describing a spirit says: "The light was
so strong as to show the seated form of the medium
behind the figure."
[122]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
centres which are out of action, being possessed by
an outside entity. You will find mediums do silly
and obvious things which are quite unnecessary and
clearly bogus.
Then the next moment you may see some real
psychic manifestation, quite beyond all possibility of
fraud. I fancy that every student of the occult has
had such experiences. Palladino, for example, with
whom I have never sat, would think nothing of kick-
ing the leg of the table to produce sounds, or putting
up her hand to weigh down a pair of scales. Such
obvious tricks disconcerted Hodgson and others, who
pronounced her to be a cheat at Cambridge, and yet
the small committee, Feilding, Carrington, and Bag-
galey, who followed her to Naples found ample proof
of her real powers. Yet even while endorsing her
Feilding says: "She does silly little tricks by slipping
one hand or one foot, or kicking you, or pulling the
curtain—all absolutely unlike the real thing. Even
then she is in a real trance and is, I am sure, unaware
of having cheated when she wakes up." Dr. Fournier
d'Albe's observation that he saw Miss Golligher kick
a footstool is an example of the same sort.
It is an important matter, for it illustrates the pit-
falls of psychic research and emphasises the fact that
so long as you get positive results which are certain
you can afford to regard the negative ones as of no
consequence. The present method is to concentrate
upon the negative ones and imagine that they entirely
do away with everything positive.
[124]


CHAPTER XI
Effect of the Children—Negroes—Summer Time Chaos—
Radio and Psychic Power—Lecture in the Rain—Height
Altitude—Malcolm's First Flight—Colonel West—Mrs.
Pruden's Mediumship.
The children are what the Americans call good
mixers, and their jovial, smiling British faces have,
I am sure, left a trail of good feeling behind us.
It is most amusing to listen to their conversation and
to notice the effect which it has upon their chance
acquaintances.
To-day on the way from Toledo to Chicago they
were seated in the dining-car beside a very staid busi-
ness man of mature years, while we sat at the next
table, and our horrified ears caught occasional snatches
of the unbroken conversation. "Were you ever in a
railway accident?" "Yes. I was in my bunk and
the engine jumped the line." "Oh, how lovely!
Where did it jump to?" "What made it jump?"
"What had you on in your bunk?" "Did you wait
to dress?" "Well, then, how did you manage?"
"What did the people say?"
Muttered explanations from the good-natured trav-
eller.
Then we catch an outburst again. "Did you ever
fire a revolver?" "Who at?" "Was it a poisonous
snake?" "How long was the snake?" "Have you
[125]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
twenty-five at the beginning, and the interest has done
gone eat that up long ago."
The Sun, the American Congress, and Mr. Willett
of Sloane Square in high cabal have messed things
up in such a way that one can never tell in travelling
in this country what the time may be. When I re-
member that gentle, little white mouse of a man, whose
early efforts I supported, it is a most comical thing
to think that he has had a more direct and in some
ways a more confusing effect upon mankind than any
modern reformer.
He was really, under his humble exterior (I re-
member him in a bowler hat and a frock coat), a
great, original-minded Englishman, and deserves any
posthumous honour that could be paid him. But in
America he has done things to drive one crazy. Some
States have adopted him and some have not, and you
never know when you are over the border. One
mile of longitude makes you an hour late for dinner.
Then, on the top of this, Congress has forbidden the
railways to alter their time so as to match with the
local change, so that there is local time and also rail-
way time with an hour of difference.
When in addition you realise that the clock is nat-
urally changed in any case by an hour to every thou-
sand miles as you go westward, you will understand
why the lunacy statistics are steadily rising.
I spent my first morning in Chicago at the Loomis
Street Headquarters of the Spiritualists, where they
have a fine, solid, well-furnished place, not unlike Mr.
Hewat McKenzie's Psychic College in London.
A young medium and inventor, Mr. Burket, was
[127]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
waiting for me with an amplifying machine with
which he hoped to be able to reinforce the human
ear, and so get fine whispers, possibly preternatural,
far above what we can hear normally.
My own feeling is that what we need is an appa-
ratus which will not only amplify but will turn high
sounds into low ones, for I could conceive that the
buzz of a mosquito would be a deep bass compared
to the octaves, if any, on which etheric sounds would
register. Mr. Burket assured me that he had actually
got messages, and the future may prove that he is on
the right track.
The amplifier increased sound a hundredfold, and
could theoretically do so a thousandfold, but for some
reason which is beyond my limited science, after the
hundredfold point a sort of droning echo sets in, like
the moan heard in a seashell, but infinitely louder, and
this drowns all other sounds—the howling of the
valves is the technical name, I think, of this phe-
nomenon.
We sat with a strong circle, Mrs. Cadwalader, one
of the leaders of the Spiritualists, and editor of the
Progessive Thinker, Colonel West, Dr. Burgess, and
Mrs. Langley, the latter a veteran medium. I strained
my ear at the huge horn from which sound issues,
but alas! I could get nothing.
I was sorry for the young inventor, who was cast
down at the result; but if he is on the true path he
will surely emerge in time. I have a strong feeling
that it is on this line, radio plus amplifier, that we
shall open up fruitful lines of research.
In spite of our familiarity with great meetings,
[128]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Chicago rather took our breath away. We were cer-
tainly ending on our top note. All seats were sold
out by the afternoon, and there were 250 people
crammed on to the platform. It was with some diffi-
culty that my wife and I reached our central chairs.
It was a wonderful bank, or series of banks, of
faces, stretching away back into the gloom. My wife
tells me that I rose to the occasion. I was moved
myself and so perhaps I was able to move others.
There was hardly a cough or a movement for the
hour and a half of the address.
When I ended there were cries for my wife, and
I glanced at her, but she prefers not to speak in
public.
If she could let her burning feelings have full play,
and voice her deep womanly desire to bring comfort
to the stricken, she would be a world-force. She has
that human touch, that natural touch of the heart,
which no man can ever attain. Those whom she has
personally consoled by voice or letter will realise what
I mean.
When we got into the street it was raining heavily
and Widdecombe disappeared in search of a cab. In
an instant, under the pelting shower, a group of peo-
ple, without an umbrella among them, pressed round
us with eager questions about life and death. A poor
ragged man with unsold papers under his arm was the
most eager. Why did we remember nothing before
birth? What about reincarnation?
They were eager to know more, but the cab came
and we left them still arguing—a scene no man could
invent.
[129]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
but the machine, left to itself, fell seven miles in
less than three minutes. The improved air revived
Schroeder and he was able to regain command when
only about 1,800 feet above earth.
Fancy falling like a stone for seven miles! I am
not sure if it is a nightmare or a dream of bliss. He
had read my story The Horror of the Heights, and
admitted to me that he always at great altitudes had
a subconscious fear that he might meet some new
form of life. "Look out for those big angle worms!"
they had called to him as he left the ground.
After all, the deepest sea sustains life—why not the
highest air? As a matter of fact, the only strange
thing he ever saw was a flight of snow-white birds,
like robins, flying at 12,000 feet altitude. Also drift-
ing spider webs with spiders still on them.
The great problem is to prevent your eyes freezing,
which is done by double glasses with a sort of thermos
arrangement. No one, he thinks, will ever get much
higher, because the tenuous air will not give a grip
to the machine. Altogether I was very interested in
our talk.
The reporters are certainly hard to please. In To-
ledo they proclaimed, probably with truth, that I was
careless of dress. In Chicago they described me as
an exquisite, or at any rate they depicted me as wear-
ing a light blue suit, a purple tie, purple silk socks, and
white slippers.
The latter I must plead guilty to, and they would
have elicited "Niagara, I perceive," from the late Mr.
Holmes, for the children gave them to me there as a
local curiosity.
1131]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
beautiful, and the people among the kindest and best
that we have met. The level of prices is far higher
than in New York, and if I may encroach upon mys-
teries, the general level of ladies' dresses, etc., at Mar-
shall Field's, and the whole attraction of the estab-
lishment, are far inferior to such rivals as Macy's in
New York or Shoolbred's in London.
The Chicago Press treated me with great courtesy
and I had very fair play, in spite of a howl from one
Voliva, who is the head of Zion City and successor
of Dr. Dowie. He attacked on the ancient lines of
Demonism, but his argument was not very effective,
and I have seen the points, such as they are, better
made.
From my point of view, it is almost as important
to religion, in this age of unimaginative materialism,
to show the existence of an evil spirit as of a good
one. Anything to make us understand that we are
in the midst of great unseen forces and that three
meals a day and a feather bed do not fill all the pos-
sibilities of life.
I had a long talk with Colonel West, of the United \
States Army, as to the causes which had led to his
understanding these truths. Like myself, he had been
an agnostic until these phenomena forced themselves
upon his attention. One of his own little children
developed automatic writing and wrote out the whole
life of one George Smith of the Confederate Army,
describing his imprisonment at Andersonville, his
death and many family particulars which were after-
wards verified.
As an example of how children grow up and are
[133]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
educated in the other world, one of his daughters died
about two years old. Two years later she returned
at a seance, lisped out a message of greeting, told that
her grandfather Price was looking after her, and finally
said some words of Welsh which he had taught her.
Another child who had died at sea and was buried in
the Pacific Ocean came back. "I am your little girl.
Don't think that I was left in all that water," said
she. The Colonel is in the same happy position as I,
for his wife has shared the evidence and therefore
feels the same convictions with equal strength.
Together they should be powerful instruments for
good, now that he is free from his military duties.
In the war he was the head of one of the greatest
prison camps in the country.
As I look back upon the mediums whom we have
tried in America it must be confessed that the result
has not been striking. Save for Miss Besinnet, whose
powers I had already tested, there has been nothing
outstanding. I had been unable to meet the elder
Keeler at Washington, though I am assured that his
powers have been very real, though now somewhat
impaired and under suspicion of the Researchers.
The criticism that his messages are all written in
the same hand is really beside the point, for it is
always admitted that, save in certain test cases, the
writing is from the control using the medium. The
younger Keeler was also unable to meet me, but the
evidence is strong for his true powers upon occasion.
For the rest we had one set back in New York, and
several "as in a glass darkly," where gleams of evi-
dence, like the "Floreat" of Mrs. Soule, came through
[134]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
a mist of words. Mr. John Ticknor was also inter-
esting and impressive.
It was our good fortune now to come once again
into contact with a really great medium in Mrs.
Pruden of Cincinnati, who had come to Chicago for
my lectures. We had a sitting in the Blackstone
Hotel, through the courtesy of her host, Mr. Holm-
yard, and the results were splendid. She is an elderly,
kindly woman with a motherly manner. Her partic-
ular gift was slate-writing which I had never exam-
ined before.
I had heard that there were trick slates, but she
was anxious to use mine and allowed me to carefully
examine hers. She makes a dark cabinet by draping
the table, and holds the slate under it, while you may
hold the other corner of it. Her other hand is free
and visible. The slate is double with a little bit of
pencil put in between.
After a delay of half an hour the writing began.
It was the strangest feeling to hold the slate and to
feel the thrill and vibration of the pencil as it worked
away inside. We had each written a question on a
bit of paper and cast it down, carefully folded, on the
ground in the shadow of the drapery, that psychic
forces might have correct conditions for their work,
which is always interfered with by light.
Presently each of us got an answer to our question
upon the slate, and were allowed to pick up our
folded papers and see that they had not been opened.
The room, I may say, was full of daylight and the
medium of course could not stoop without our see-
ing it.
[135]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
I had some business this morning of a partly spirit-
ual, partly material nature with a Dr. Gelbert, a French
inventor. I asked in my question if this were wise.
The answer on the slate was "Trust Dr. Gelbert.
Kingsley." I had not mentioned Gelbert's name in my
question, nor did Mrs. Pruden know anything of the
matter.
My wife got a long message from a dear friend,
signed with her name. The name was a true signa-
ture. Altogether it was a most utterly convincing
demonstration. Sharp clear raps upon the table joined
continually in our conversation.
It is certainly a very beautiful form of mediumship,
and I have tried to persuade Mrs. Pruden, who is not
a professional medium, to come over to the Psychic
College and give demonstrations. The more I see
of this subject the more I feel how indebted we are
to Mr. and Mrs. Hewat McKenzie for that excellent
Institution.
[136]


CHAPTER XII
End of the Task—Mr. Ticknor's Mediumship—Action of
the Control—Controversies—Quo Vadis ?—Best-sellers—
Lady Medium in Brooklyn—Striking Seance.
We have come to love New York, and it was a
joy to all of us when, after twenty-four hours of the
train, we were back at the Ambassador Hotel, and
greeted once more by Charles the Second, as the chil-
dren have wittily named the functionary with knee-
breeches and buckles who presides in the hall. The
real hot weather has set in, and though no heat will
prevent my lecturing, as I have twice proved in the
Red Sea, there is a limit to the endurance of audi-
ences, so it is lucky that the work is done. Even as
I write it I can hardly realise that the work is done,
and without the slightest impediment or shadow.
Never was there a more full or widespread ventilation
of a great question over so great an area. The re-
ception has been far more favourable than I could
have anticipated, and though this may have been partly
due to the courtesy which the Press has shown to a
foreigner (how absurd the word seems when applied
between British and Americans!), my stacks of letters
show that it has also been very real. I did not of
course expect audiences to stream out of the halls
crying, "We are now Spiritualists!" How could I
when I think how long it took to break down my own
materialistic prejudices? Charlemagne converted the
[137]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Saxons by battalions, but what was such a conversion
worth? But people now are in a position to think
intelligently, to read, to weave the new experiences
which will come to them into the fabric which I have
given, to discuss among themselves, and then finally,
when some great loss comes upon them, or when the
doctor shakes his head for the last time, to get a sud-
den flash of light, and to understand that they have
gained something that no money could buy.
My unhappy non-psychic reader, if any has sur-
vived up to this point—which I should think is ex-
tremely unlikely—will probably imagine that he is now
going to get a rest from this overmastering question.
I fear, however, that it still engaged our thoughts and
our activities. On our first clear evening we accepted
an invitation from Mr. Fred Walcott, a financial
authority, whom I had first in England introduced to
psychic study. He had gathered together several
earnest inquirers, some twelve in all. It was an inter-
esting evening, and we had legal alcohol for the first
time, our host's cellar being not yet quite empty. It
must be dramatic as the stock sinks and there is no
normal way of replenishing it. After dinner I showed
and explained a few of my slides. We then had a
very remarkable sitting with Mr. John Ticknor, whose
powers I have already described. He is the very pic-
ture of normal prosperous health, with his white waist-
coat and his clean-shaven ruddy face, but psychic
power lurks in the most unlikely frames. I find on
this second trial that I had tended to underrate and
understate his powers. It had seemed to me that most
of the information which Black Hawk, as his control
[138]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Indian is usually associated with the apport, and the
"^Egyptian with philosophic learning.
S Results such as were obtained by Mr. Ticknor—and
they are typical of scores of seances which I have at-
tended—are very suggestive. That Mr. Ticknor is in
a real trance and that the information which he gives
contains a far higher proportion of truth than could
be got by any normal process, is perfectly certain. In
this particular case five or six people got information
which no private detective agency could have unearthed
save after prolonged investigation. Where, then, can
it come from? There are only two answers possible.
The most obvious is that it is collected by the sub-
conscious powers of the medium, which are greatly
increased by trance, and which roam forth collecting
and reporting. The other is that it is caused by the
obsession of a new entity which has superhuman
powers. My choice would be all for the first solution
were it not that we must not treat these phenomena
alone, but must correlate them with photography,
materialisation, levitation, and the rest. A second
reason is that we cannot treat as negligible the claim
which is made by the medium's own voice while he is
in trance. In many cases, however, I admit that a
dramatised secondary personality is a possible expla-
nation, though it presents very great difficulties. If,
however, one adopts the idea of outside intervention,
the matter does not end there. Instead of separate
spirits it might all come from the single Control who
uses his own powers and then personates the other
spirits. I incline very much to this theory in many
cases. A spirit-control has, I think, enormous powers
[140]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
of reference. All literature and possibly all thoughts
are within his reach. The literary reference has been
proved by a long series of elaborate book tests through
Stainton Moses, Mrs. Leonard, and other mediums,
who would give extracts from closed books in libraries
as recorded by Lady Grey, the Rev. Drayton Thomas,
and other observers.
Now consider in detail the personal information
which Mr. John Ticknor was able to give me.
1. He gave me the names correctly of four rela-
tives.
2. He knew that I had some connexion at some
time with the late Major Willie Redmond, M.P.
3. He knew that I belonged to the Athenaeum Club.
4. He knew that I was connected with some "con-
traption" (as he described it) on a bicycle.
All this was correct, and yet all could possibly have
been gathered from my archives if some preternatural
power could have scanned all those archives, but some
of it, especially Nos. 2 and 4, were quite beyond what
any inquirer could have discovered. When one re-
members that he gave equally good information to
half a dozen other people, one realises that it really
is vain to explain it by normal causes. My conclusion,
then, is that I am absolutely convinced of the honesty
and powers of Mr. John Ticknor, but that I am not
equally convinced of the complete veracity of his Con-
trol.
I have had to find time amid my journeys and my
addresses for several newspaper controversies. I had
not intended to enter into any, but when one is gently
entreated to combat one cannot refuse. One was with
[141]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
a Mr. Green, who wrote a long, reasoned, open letter
in the Times adopting a sort of Charles Richet position
—that is, admitting the phenomena but denying the
psychic. I answered by a string of examples from
my own experience which were all inexplicable with-
out the psychic. I think I made the matter clear. The
other was in the Tribune with Mr. Maxim, the brother
of my old acquaintance, the inventor. Mr. Maxim took
a frankly material position, as his brother had done
in life, though he tried to atone for it by reappearing
at the side of Miss Scatcherd at Crewe, a really living
likeness. I have sent a copy of this to his brother,
and it may cause him to think. When American
papers disagree, one usually has a courteous contro-
versy of this kind, for they realise how absurd it is
for the average journalist to make light of the views
of many of greatest intellects of modern times. The
want of proportion which allows the callow psychic
researcher to speak with contempt of a Crookes or of
a Lombroso is unknown here. I have in all my travels,
outside Melbourne, seen nothing in the same class as
the mixture of ignorance and insolence which appears
in some London journals.
I do not for a moment suppose that amid the con-
stant rush and pressure of American life my presenta-
tion of vital truth will make any immediate effect, save
upon those who were very specially ready for it. But
it will come later. To every man there may happen
the day when the doctor puts away his stethoscope,
averts his eyes, stammers out that his duty compels
him, etc., etc. Then in the next hour that man may
think of what I have told him of the vanity of theo-
[142]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
logical terrors, of the natural sequence of events at
death, of the placid prospect of the hereafter if life
here has not been wholly material. So also at that
moment when he waits in an agony of apprehension,
and there comes down the passage the slow, reluctant
step which bears the tidings of death, once more after
the first shock he may remember some echo of this
teaching and he may steady his shattered life with
the words: "Well, that fellow said he got his loved
ones back. Why may not I?" It was Fenimore
Cooper, the novelist, who on his death-bed said, "Bless
the Fox sisters for the peace which I now feel!"
What greater reward to any teacher than that? And
how can we feel vexation, or anything but pity, for
those who reject such a gift?
I sometimes fear that these wonderful manifesta-
tions are only a temporary glimpse and that the sullen
waters of materialism may submerge the little island
of other-world light. In that case it is more than
ever necessary that we take careful records of what
occurs. There is psychic change all the time. Many
material signs, such as raps, which were once com-
mon, are now rare. When the door is opened, the
knocks cease. The tendency is away from physical
signs and towards more subtle and spiritual ones, auto-
matic writings, and the like. Possibly the physical
signs may cease altogether and remain as a wonderful
incredible legend, like those of the days of the Apos-
tles. We move slowly towards some definite goal, but
none of us can clearly see what that goal may be.
How little Christ could have foreseen the developments
of Christianity! If He had visioned their whole
[143]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
panorama, the bitterness, the bloodshed, the futility,
it would surely have caused Him greater pain than
anything that He endured in Gethsemane. The gentle
Jesus contemplating the Inquisition! Could there be
a wider contrast than that!
No, we do not clearly see our goal. But we can
see enough to assure ourselves that it will be the great-
est upward movement of human thought and knowl-
edge ever experienced, so that it will mark the definite
end of the Dark Ages. But when? All the omens
say soon. And yet when one reflects that "those of
Caesar's household" were Christians about the year 50,
and that it did not reach Caesar himself till 327, it
makes one less optimistic.
I have had little time for literary recreation since
I have been here, and my reading has necessarily been
largely psychic, but it amused me to read with care
the two novels which have been the largest sellers and
therefore the most popular with the American public.
These are Main Street and // Winter Comes. I think
that the fact reflects great credit upon the judgment
of the Americans, for both of them are fine books,
honest, conscientious, and artistic. Main Street is
difficult reading. I fancy many a pedestrian, like my-
self, has stuck half-way down the leading thorough-
fare of Gopher Town. But none the less it has em-
balmed for ever a little Middle-Western township, the
exact image and type of ten thousand others in the
great cornlands. If the book is ever dull, it is because
the town and the people are dull when reproduced with
such exact detail. It is a wonderful, faithful picture,
like the careful, realistic stippling of some old Dutch
[144]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
written the word automatically if her tongue had not
uttered it. It was a curious scene, the dim light, the
wind and rain beating on the window, our silent fig-
ures half seen in the gloom, and then that deep steady
voice pouring out a long exhortation, absolutely for-
eign to the lady's power or knowledge.
The address was most academic and professional,
abounding with long technical words which the me-
dium found the greatest possible difficulty in pronounc-
ing. It came clearly from an American spiritualist or
psychic student of very high standing, and as we had
been talking of Hyslop at dinner, we naturally con-
cluded that it was he. When, therefore, Mr. Soames
wrote James, we were prepared for the second name,
Hyslop, to follow. He then wrote, "No, I am not
James Hyslop, but James," so that it seemed that we
were in contact with the famous Harvard psychologist.
James spoke with great knowledge, and some scorn,
of the present state of psychic research in America.
"They are getting left entirely behind. We want 'up-
to-the-minute men,'" he said. Then he lectured me
very gravely as to my methods.
"Through no fault of yours those who come to
your lectures, hearing for the first time a lecture on
spiritism, find it difficult to relatively place and recon-
struct it when they wish to talk it over afterwards.
They need more tutoring. How is this to be done?
I advise tracts, immediately preceding and following
your visits to cities, embodying all details in precise
statements. They must be compiled partially if not
wholly by you in order to fan into fire the small
flame you may have started in each individual. It
[146]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
fessor whether he might not act as pilot. "Do you
know him?" I asked. The answer was: "I know a
Colonel West of tall stature—I do not mean to be
unkind—of beef-like appearance but not unpleasantly
so." That is a good rough description of Colonel
West, who was quite unknown to the lady. Surely
this was a very excellent test. There followed another
test which I should like checked by some reader of
these lines. I knew that James in his lifetime had sat
with Voss, the farmer medium at Concord. I there-
fore asked about him. The answer was, "Do you
mean the fellow who used to get in such peculiar posi-
tions and amuse all by his queer stories and grimaces?"
"I refer," said I, "to Mr. Voss of Concord." "Yes,
I am referring to the same man. He made terrible
faces and contorted himself into positions which con-
vulsed us all." I should be glad if any one who knows
Mr. Voss would tell me if this is evidential.
The whole seance was most striking, and I will
tell a little later how I again came into contact with
this remarkable group.
[148]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
to explain my plan. Mr. Watterson Rothacker, of
Chicago, was filming my Lost World, and an artist
of remarkable powers, Mr. O'Brien, had for two years
been busy making moving studies of the prehistoric
beasts who play a part in that work though how he
got them I cannot even now reveal. These studies
were in New York, so that with the very efficient help
of Mr. Wainwright, a colleague of Mr. Rothacker, I
had only to set up the cinema apparatus in the banquet-
room. A dead and eerie silence fell as the company
saw these horrible creatures clawing and biting and
fondling in the primeval slime. One saw their jaws
champing and their terrible eyes gleaming. I am sure
that no one who was there will ever forget it. Of
course I refused to give any explanation afterwards
and I left them, as I had intended, utterly mystified.
Nothing could have been more completely successful.
Apart from my effort it was a wonderful evening,
and especially Mr. Houdini gave a perfectly amazing
performance, in which having been packed into a bag,
and the bag into a trunk, corded up and locked, he
was out again after only a few seconds' concealment
in a tent, while in his place his wife was found, equally
bound, bagged, and boxed, with my dress-coat on
which I had put upon him before I tied his hands be-
hind him. Houdini is the greatest conjurer in the
world and this is his greatest trick. I may add that
Houdini is not one of those shallow men who imagine
they can explain away spiritual phenomena as parlour
tricks, but that he retains an open—and ever, I think,
a more receptive—mind towards mysteries which are
beyond his art. He understands, I hope, that to get
[150]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
preceding the exhibition of his ethereal monsters that
he had a friendly feeling for conjurers because they
destroyed the great enemies of true spiritualists, those
enemies being the fake mediums.
"'On the other hand,' he said, 'when a conjurer
does occasionally attack spiritualism as a whole, he
deals in a subject which he does not understand.'
"Sir Arthur said that it had taken ten years and \
much laborious experiment to convince himself of the
truth of Spiritualism, so that he had no right to be
indignant with persons who were sceptics. On the
other hand, he said, no man showed good judgment
in regarding as foolish or easily deceived such great
men as the late Sir William Crookes, Lord Rayleigh,
and Alfred Russel Wallace, or men now living, such ,
as Sir Oliver Lodge.'
"Sir Arthur called the fake mediums 'human hyenas'
and deplored the fact that Spiritualism was brought
into disrepute by 'a fringe of camp-followers' who got
into the newspapers.
"The author then asked permission of Mr. Houdini
to give his strange exhibition. He gave no idea in
advance as to its character, but said nothing to dis-
credit the suggestion that he considered the coming
exhibition to be genuine.
"'If I brought here in real existence what I show
in these pictures, it would be a great catastrophe,' he
said.
"'These pictures are not occult,' he continued. 'In
the second place, this is psychic because everything
that emanates from the human spirit or human brain
is psychic. It is not supernatural. Nothing is. It is
i
[153]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
preternatural in the sense that it is not known to our
ordinary senses.
"'It is the effect of the joining on the one hand
of imagination and on the other hand of some power
of materialisation. The imagination, I may say, comes
from me—the materialising power from elsewhere.
"'There would be great danger if the originals were
shown instead of the counterfeit, but what you will
see is a living presentment.'
"After this mysterious utterance Sir Arthur said:
"'I would like to add, to save myself from getting
up again, that, if permission is granted for me to
show this, they will speak for themselves. I will an-
swer no question regarding them either for the Press
or the others present.'"
It would have been amusing to leave it at that until
the appearance of the film partly cleared the matter
up, but I reflected that I might cast a doubt upon
the reality of my own psychic pictures, if, even for a
joke, I were to put forward what might be regarded
as a misrepresentation. Therefore on the morning
after the banquet I wrote the following letter and
handed it to the various Press Agencies:
"My dear Houd1n1,—
"My cinema interlude upon the occasion of the
Magicians' dinner should, I think, be explained now
that its purpose is fulfilled. That purpose was simply
to provide a little mystification for those who have
so often and so successfully mystified others. In pre-
senting my moving Dinosaurs I had to walk warily
[154]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
inches in front of its beak, and so carried her round
the enclosure.
Both the chief keepers were English, and an Amer-
ican friend told me that it had been observed that
Englishmen get on best with animals and birds when
in captivity. They get on best with aboriginal races,
also, and the more aboriginal the better they do it,
as any one who has come into touch with the old
Soudanese regiments and their officers would testify.
It is the sophisticated native, who claims an equality
which he does not really possess, who offers the diffi-
cult problem. Apropos of this it is comic to read
some of the American papers upon the oppressed na-
tives of India. They do not realise that there is a
freedom of political speech in India which would prob-
ably land the American who used it in a gaol.
Whether rightly or wrongly, the American police and
magistrates have a very short way with Communists.
To a European it looks rather like sitting on the
safety-valve, but the general prosperity of the country
is so great that there is to the superficial observer
no real body of discontent. Jack London seemed to
foresee something more serious in the future.
But this is a sad digression from the Bronx Zoolog-
ical Gardens, where we shook hands with a sad-eyed,
wistful chimpanzee who tried to put Malcolm's coat
on and was very grateful to me on having his back
scratched. It is well to draw attention to this place,
for foreign visitors often imagine that the little place
in the Central Park is the Zoo, whereas it is a mere
annex. This is the real show, where there are five
thousand different forms of life to be studied, includ-
[158]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
ing some, especially among the birds, which are not
represented elsewhere. The whole splendid place, with
its free admission to the public, makes one ashamed
of our Gardens in London, though I quite believe that
the Directors there do the best they can under the
difficulties which beset them. A large view should
be taken of the subject, the place should be looked
upon as a valuable asset, both as an attraction to vis-
itors and as a means for education. Therefore, it
should be treated in a broad, generous way and a
good section of Regent's Park should be added to it,
so as to give more space for the animals, and more
room for the circulation of crowds, with free admis-
sion to all. The New York keeper, who had formerly
been at London, said that on a holiday it was pitiful
to see the little children who were in the Zoo for
hours, worn out with fatigue, and unable to see any-
thing on account of the compression of the people.
There was one bird in the Bronx Gardens, the
White-crested Touraco, from South Africa, which
had a very rare attribute. Its under-wing feathers are
richly red, and were analysed to find the secret of
the colours. It was found that they were 7 per cent,
metallic copper. The deduction from this would ap-
pear to be that the creature had come from a region
where the copper deposits were so rich that they im-
pregnated everything the bird ate. It struck me as
a novel and ingenious commencement of a boy's treas-
ure-hunt story, if some enterprising youth would fol-
low up the clue.
In a previous chapter I have alluded to a man, Ed-
ward Morrell, who had been tortured in San Quentin
[159]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Prison, California, and through his tortures had
gained certain psychic powers recorded by Jack Lon-
don in his Jacket or Star-Rover. I have seen more
of him now, and he is certainly one of the strangest
personalities I have encountered in this country. He
is snappy, with a click to all he does or says, like
the, cock of a pistol; but behind it all is a well-poised
brain and a steady purpose, as his clear eyes and firm
mouth can testify. Picture him .the clean-cut, deadly-
earnest man, leaning forward eagerly in his chair, and
then read this, our dialogue.
"How came you into prison, Mr. Morrell?"
"It was really a small civil war, sir—a feud between
squatters and a great railroad company who tried to
do them out of their holdings. They had the whole
force of the State, police, judges, and everything, at
their back. They could do what they liked. We had
only our guns. So they proclaimed us bandits and
treated us as such when taken. If they killed us, no
more said; if we killed them, it was sure murder."
"So they jailed you."
"Yes, sir, and I was little more than a boy. And
I could not stand for the way they treated us, and
so I got it the harder. At last they had me in the
black cell, and there were five years of my life during
which I could only see my own hand at certain hours
in the day when a ray of light came through a hole.
Five years, sir, and I never left that cell except the
days I was tortured. My beard was over my chest
in front and my hair was down to my waist behind."
y "Tell me about the tortures."
"It was mostly the jacket. They lace it up until
[160]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
in others of extreme indulgence, so that the whole
system is without method or principle. It will be a
fine thing, however, if Morrell should from his own
terrible experience be able to bring relief to other
sufferers.
[163]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
actually on her bosom, so I was glad to be in her
arms once again. To lie floating on a blue ocean
and look up to a blue sky is the nearest approach
to detachment from earth that normal life can
give.
Though so pleasant, it is not a very safe beach,
for there is a queer tricky goblin of a current which
comes and goes, suddenly catching at your legs and
sweeping you seaward. Several were drowned while
we were there, and Houdini, who is one of the finest
swimmers in the world, told me that he had to fight
for his life on one occasion. They keep a patrol, how-
ever, of very competent men upon the beach, who are
stripped and ready from morning to night. The con-
stant exposure has burned most of them quite as red
as an Indian and suggests the curious reflection that
if we lived under quite natural conditions no such
thing as the white race would be known. I am con-
vinced that the Maoris, for example, are simply sun-
burned whites.
I had come to Atlantic City for a much-needed rest,
but it was essential that I should get my travel im-
pressions down while they were fresh, and up to this
point many of them were mere jottings in a notebook.
This work kept me busy for several hours a day. Still,
what with my daily swim, and what with rides up and
down the Boardwalk in the double bath-chairs, pro-
pelled by a one-negro-power human engine, I had a
very restful time, and all of us found our fun in our
various ways. Several friends came down to say
good-bye to us, and so lightened the days.
The children, like children of all nations, are in-
[165]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
tensely patriotic, though they keep their feelings to
themselves save when they are exasperated by some
attack or comparison. Billy always carries a small
Union Jack, drawn by herself in pencil, in her pocket,
and when they saw the flag on the north bank of
Niagara River, they were all in the mood to throw
themselves down on their knees. Yet they honestly
love the Americans—"The grown-ups, anyhow. I am
not so sure about the children," says Denis. "If I
wasn't British I should certainly want to be Ameri-
can," says Malcolm. Billy, as usual, says nothing, but
bottles up compressed emotions. She got several splin-
ters of wood into her foot on the Boardwalk in Atlan-
tic City. A chemist extracted them with a forceps.
"You are very brave. You did nothing but grin,"
said a kind-hearted bystander. "Oh, I am English,"
chirped Billy. That is the good side of patriotism
when it helps one to live at one's best, but alas for
the evil side when it takes the form of brag and bounce
and the disregard of other people's feelings! After
all, the War proved that there was a very high standard
of valour and self-sacrifice in every nation on what-
ever side they fought.
There is a deep, silent sort of love of country which
surprises one in some people, for one would never
suspect its intensity. I can remember that in 1894
when I was in the States the British were having a
poor time there, politics and the Lord Dunraven yacht-
race combining to make them unpopular. I noticed
on board the boat coming back a dark, silent man with
a heavy moustache—a sort of cavalry officer type—as
free from apparent emotion as a man could be. When
[166]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
naturally found fraud, but he has also admitted that
he has several times encountered real psychic gifts
which are in a different category to tricks. By this
admission he has placed himself in an enlightened band
who number several of the greatest magicians of the
past. Thurston had the independence of mind to give
evidence in favour of Eusapia Palladino at the time
when that great physical medium, with only the dregs
of her powers remaining, visited the United States,
and excited contemptuous derision by her habit of
openly pushing or tilting the table. Whether this is
done on purpose or under the influence of a control
there is no question about the fact and it is done so
openly that it is more like a joke than a real attempt
at deception. Mr. Thurston had the sense to see that
deeper things lay beyond. "I caught her almost at
once," he wrote, "lifting the table, a small one, by
hand pressure and toe leverage. I did not stop the
seance with the discovery of this trick. I did not say
anything about it. The seance proceeded. The woman
produced materialisations of hands, faces, and figures,
in the dim light of a lamp, while I had her under
perfect observation, with full opportunity to detect
any possible tricks or device." Dr. Carrington gave
similar evidence in favour of Eusapia, but Professor
Minister berg and others bore her down so that she left
America under a cloud, which was certainly largely
of her own making. Thurston sat also several times
with Miss Besinnet, and has said after one of her sit-
tings, "One could travel round the world and not
duplicate this experience." When conjurers sneer at
psychic phenomena they should remember that many of
[169]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
/
sadly, by reading Gibb's More That Must be Told.
It is not cheering reading, for he has a quick eye
for the seamy side, but he has also a reaching-out for
better things, which is the sign of a fine soul. But I
wish he would either leave Spiritualism alone or else
learn the first thing about it, for his only allusion to
it is an unworthy sneer. Sir Philip's words are really
worth quoting as an example of the strange ignorance
which even so intelligent a man can show of this great
modern movement, a movement which has deeply
moved a saint like Wilberforce or a scientist like
Crookes or Lodge. He calls it "reaching out into a
spirit-world by means of incantations, spells, and wiz-
ardries." It may interest my friend Sir Philip to hear
that I have, been in touch with this movement since
1886, and that in 36 years I have never heard an in-
cantation, I have never learned a spell, and the only
wizards I have met bear a close family resemblance
to St. Paul and the Apostles. But it is clear that Sir
Philip is confusing a movement which bears no close
resemblance to any save that of the early Christians,
with the abracadabra pentagram business of the Middle
Ages to which he directly alludes. It is a pity to find
a man who has, above most men, a keen spiritual side
going out of his way to talk so wildly of a subject
of which he knows nothing. Is it not a clear propo-
sition that the first need of the age is to prove that
there is a life after death, the basis of all religion, and
that we are the only people who undertake to do so?
We need to be more direct and practical and objective
in our treatment of religious subjects, for we have had
enough of those vague dogmatic faiths which have
[172]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
London transaction than in an American one. There
are, however, notable exceptions. When I saw on the
Saturday the huge empty hall of the pier and was
told that on the following Wednesday it was to be
opened as a great railway exhibition, with engines
which weighed a hundred tons and machinery all actu-
ally running, I was sceptical. But it all materialised
according to schedule. On the Wednesday it was one
long line of exhibits, and humming from end to end
with turning wheels and sliding pistons. We were
shown over by the Committee and were deeply im-
pressed. Everything conceivable connected with rail-
ways was there, from the huge transcontinental engine
already mentioned to the latest burglar-proof catch
for a truck or the best cloth for lining a carriage.
My head buzzed to match the wheels before I got
out, for I have no brains for mechanics and it was
a strain to try to understand it all. The most ingeni-
ous thing I saw was a little extra engine called a
"booster," running by its own electric power, which
has its own wheels, and is slipped under the big ordi-
nary engine so as to give it extra power. Some genius
had observed that there was unoccupied space under
the engine and had thought that it could be filled like
this. The "booster" is, I believe, being actually tried
on the London and North-Western Railway, and it
may prove one of those clever helps which come to
us from the land of active brains.
Whilst we were at Atlantic City we had a visit from
the Brooklyn friends to whom I have already alluded.
If I suppress their names it is a practical proof that
the days of prejudice and persecution are not yet
[175]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
dom when the end of the story comes to be told.
Houdini has done marvellous leaps from high build-
ings, and on one occasion a spring from one aeroplane
to another in mid-air. He is sustained, he says, by
his perfect confidence that he really can do it. "It
all comes as easy as stepping off a log." But when
he stands above some awful place from which he will
spring he has to wait patiently—sometimes for many
minutes—until something within him tells him that the
time is ripe for his effort. This, he says, is universal
among all men who do such stunts. If you don't wait
for that moment you "have about as much chance
as a celluloid dog in Hell." He was tempted once
to trust himself instead of his unseen guides, and then
he nearly broke his neck. "You stand there," he said,
"swallowing the yellow stuff that every man has in
him. Then at last you hear the voice, and you jump."
It may be the subconscious self which assures itself
that all is well. It may be spiritual, but the fact is
worth recording. If you jump into water from a
great height, even a floating match may cause a wound.
I had a long talk in New York with Colonel Firth,
who is one of the pioneers of radio work, which is
evidently going to be a great factor in the future life
of the world. He explained to me that this system
of broadcasting, by which any one who has an efficient
receiver can get all the concerts, operas, sermons, or
lectures which are sent out, is going to make an enor-
mous difference to the lonely farmers who here and
in Canada form so considerable a part of the popula-
tion. With no wires and no expense save the initial
receiver they can keep in direct touch with all that
[177]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
is going on, and also receive market prices, weather
reports, and everything else that is needful. Colonel
Firth was about to present a set to every lighthouse
keeper along the coast, and I only hope that our Gov-
ernment will follow suit. He informed me that though
the public radio craze has not yet broken out with us
to the same extent we are none the less in a technical
sense very well up in radio work, the best valves which
intensify sound coming from England. How far the
sound is magnified is determined by the number of
these valves, and Colonel Firth mentioned as a fact
within his knowledge that the British fitted up a re-
ceiver so delicate that from the coast they could get
all the little German trench installations which were
only meant to carry a mile or so. The British also
had a system of range-finders by which they could
determine the exact position of any German submarine
if the submarine ventured to send out a wireless.
Many of their boats were detected and destroyed by
this method.
Mr. Marconi is in New York at present with his
yacht, the Electra. He tells how in the Mediterranean
last year he intercepted wireless waves of a length of
30,000 metres, which is far above any power in this
world. He was ready in a half-serious way to discuss
their origin as from Mars. I ventured to write to him
and to point out that as we had ample evidence of
disembodied life, and as it seems to exist in the ether,
which is the basis of wireless, it would surely be
equally possible that these messages were experimental
attempts from our own agencies which have passed
over than that they are from another planet. I have
[178]


CHAPTER XV
An Appreciative Letter—Actual Results—Captain David—
White Star versus P. & O.—Bronx—The Queen's Hall
—Finis.
We were due to leave America by the 'Adriatic on
June 24th, and our time was drawing to a close. It
has been a glorious experience and a wonderful privi-
lege that I should be chosen to bring back a fuller
recognition of this great revelation to the very land
which God had chosen for its original reception. It
may seem that I have exaggerated the success of my
efforts, and there are always opponents who are ready
to decry our results, so I beg that the reader will not
set it down as self-glorification if I include the fol-
lowing letter:
Ambassador Hotel,
Park Ave. and 51ST St.,
New York C1ty.
Dear S1r Arthur,—
Before your departure from America permit me to
congratulate you upon the results of your lecture tour,
which was a pronounced success from every point of
view.
The thousands of Americans who crowded our
largest halls bore eloquent testimony to the esteem in
which you are held as an exponent of Spiritualism,
and the satisfaction they expressed as they left the
halls furnished concrete proof of your effectiveness in
[181]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
been present at the meeting at Queen's Hall the pre-
vious night. He had tried hard to be there. No words
could adequately describe the kindness he met through-
out his American tour. And it came from foes as
well as from friends. There was none of the nagging
that was sometimes met with on this side. It was all
fair and aboveboard. He found himself on quite
friendly terms with his opponents. He felt that in
America the Spiritualist movement had a great and
immediate future before it. A prominent journalist
said to him that Spiritualism had reached such a posi-
tion that newspapers could no longer treat it with
levity. He added that papers had to follow the public,
and the public would not tolerate poking fun at it.
That was the state of things they had to bring about
in this country. (Hear, hear.) He had no doubt
that if they went on presenting their case with dignity,
what had happened on the other side of the Atlantic
would also happen here.
"He left America feeling it was in the sunshine
but in England there was a shadow. He referred
to the enormous loss sustained by the passing of Dr.
Ellis Powell. There was no doubt that his premature
death was due to his efforts to prove to the world the
truth it needed so badly. Another familiar face
that he missed was that of their friend, Mr. Robert
Yates.
"Another who was under a shadow was Mr. Wil-
liam Hope, one whom he had always borne in esteem.
(Applause.) Having tested him again and again, he
could say that the accusations of recent investigators
had no bearing on his experience. Such fraud would
[186]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
in no way explain the results obtained. He could only
speak from his own knowledge, and he could declare
his utmost belief in the psychic powers of Mr. Hope.
There were two things they must remember. First,
they must not connive at fraud; and second, they must
protect their mediums from injustice. (Loud ap-
plause. )
"When he went to America he had fears, for he
knew what the dangers were. But he had exagger-
ated them. On the whole, comparing the two coun-
tries, he thought that in England we were a more
material race than the Americans were. A danger he
had feared was the Americans' keen sense of humour.
Many of the truths of Spiritualism were homely, and
the subject certainly did lend itself to cheap ridicule.
But from the very start the American Press rose clean
above it. The Press of New York treated the subject
with dignity, and it set the key-note for the rest of
the Press of America. Men in newspaper offices who
wrote the scare headlines at first perpetrated such
atrocities as 'Do Spooks Marry?' thinking it would
amuse their public, but they soon found that the
public would have none of it. He was surprised in-
deed to find that the American humour took an un-
expected angle, and that was in seeing the ridiculous
side of journalists, who knew nothing of the subject,
trying to put in their places such eminent men of
science as Sir William Crookes and Professor Lom-
broso.
"It was a cold fact that he (Sir Arthur) had broken
every lecturing record in New York. (Applause.)
He did not say this boastfully, as he was well aware
r
[187]


OUR AMERICAN ADVENTURE
it existed. In Chicago, at a Spiritualist meeting, he
proposed that they should start a world-wide fund
for the purpose of erecting some worthy monument.
There he met a splendid recruit to the cause, Colonel
West, who announced that he was going to devote the
rest of his life to this work. The Colonel was one
of those magnetic personalities who were natural
leaders of men. At a later date Sir Arthur intended
to lay this matter before the Spiritualists of Great
Britain.
"Speaking of his psychic experiences in America,
he gave an account of a visit to Miss Ada Besinnet.
Speaking of Mrs. Pruden, a remarkable slate-writing
medium, through whom he received a splendid test,
he said a peculiar quality about her was that she took
a pleasure in giving sittings to unbelievers. He added
that she would find plenty in London. With another
medium in Brooklyn he received a very impressive
message purporting to come from Professor William
James, who said he had with him Dr. James Hyslop
and Mr. F. W. H. Myers.
"Summing up the results of his tour, Sir Arthur
said he did think he had made them realise that the
Church and the Press could not go on for ever over-
looking this great movement. The Church could not
go on for ever burying its head in the sand wagging
negatives with its tail. They must disprove our facts
or else admit them. In America, as here, even amid
the sneers, there was a peaceful penetration going
on, and the waters of life were filtering down into
the deepest strata. We have tapped the living spring
of true religion which has been crusted over for many
[189]