Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/psychicalinvesti01hill <£■ ^ PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS SOME PERSONALLY-OBSERVED PROOFS OF SURVIVAL BY J. ARTHUR HILL AUTHOR OF "NEW EVIDENCES IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH," "RELIGION AND MODERN PSYCHOLOGY," "SPIRITUALISM AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH," ETC. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY u 1 COPYRIGHT, 1 91 7, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY MAMS 1917 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ©CI.A467069 PREFACE In debatable matters, such as psychical research, readers may naturally wish for information which shall enable them to estimate the amount of a writer's bias. It may therefore be useful to affirm that, at the begin- ning of my investigations, my prejudices and wishes were opposed to the conclusions which the facts gradu- ally forced upon me. If I am now biased in favour of the belief in personal life after death, it is objective fact, not subjective preference, that has brought it about. And my judgments have not been hasty. I have worked at the subject for over eleven years. Chapters I., II., and X. have appeared as articles in the Quest, Nineteenth Century and After, and Occult Review respectively. I thank the Editors and Pub- lishers for their kind permission to reprint. The re- mainder of the book appears now for the first time. I must beg the reader's indulgence for the repetition, in the central verbatim reports, of certain matter which appears in earlier chapters. It seemed desirable to present this matter in connected form as an easily- readable introduction to the detailed records; but the latter are necessary also, for in these things fullness and exactness are essential. J. A. H. Bradford, "Cebes answered! I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say. But in what concerns the soul, men are apt to be incredulous ; they fear that when she has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may perish and come to an end — immediately on her release from the body, issuing forth dispersed like smoke or air and in her flight vanishing away into nothingness. If she could only be collected into herself after she has obtained release from the evils of which you were speaking, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But surely it requires a great deal of argument and many proofs to show that when the man is dead his soul yet exists, and has any force or intelligence." — Plato, Phtzdo (Jowett's trans.). "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil." — Ibid. (Socrates speaking). CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAGE I. Immortality 11 II. Investigation: Methods and Examples . 20 III. Further "Meeting" Cases ..... 38 IV. Other Incidents 51 V. Introduction to Detailed Reports ... 63 VI. Medium's Letters, and Reports .... 69 Sittings : 1. July 21st, 1914 (with Wilkinson) . . 71 2. December 14th, 1914 74 3. January 15th, 1915 79 4. November 19th, 1915 90 5. January 19th, 1916 93 6. February 17th, 1916 102 7. April 12th, 1916 Ill 8. April 19th, 1916 117 9. June 5th, 1916 . . . . . . . . 132 10. August 2nd, 1916 142 11. September 11th, 1916 (with Tom Tyrrell) 156 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAQE Sittings (continued): 12. September 22nd, 1916 (with Wilkin- son) 179 Table of Sittings, With Principal Names and Incidents 185 A Crucial Test 187 13. March 2nd, 1916 (with A. V. Peters) 190 14. March 3rd, 1916 " 200 VII. Of Mediums, Sitters, and "Trivial" Evidence 214 VIII. False Statements and Their Explana- tion, and Remarks on Wilkinson's "Forms" 221 IX. Home Mediumship 235 X. Telepathy and Survival 242 XI. Influences or Rapport-Objects .... 252 XII. Psychical Phenomena in Earlier Times . 261 XIII. Pre-Existence and the Nature of the After-Life 272 XIV. Psychical Research and Religion . . . 286 Index 301 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS CHAPTER I IMMORTALITY AT different times, or at the same time in different minds, different aspects of Religion are empha- sised. One school may lay stress on morals and social duty; another may emphasise the sacramental aspect; a still more thoroughly mystical school may concern itself with attaining divine union without special symbolism; and no doubt many other divisions or subdivisions might be specified. All are good in their way, for all of them are helpful to one or other of us. But in the present terrible times, when a great war has spread mourning through many lands, there is an- other aspect which inevitably comes into special prom- inence; namely, the question of the continuity of the personal self past the wrench of bodily death. These millions of splendid young men who have made the great sacrifice just at the period when life was most dear — can we reasonably believe that they are gone out of existence, that such a superb triumphing of will over instinct and self is followed by annihilation? We feel that any such belief would involve pessimism of the most radical kind. It would condemn the Universe; 12 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS and we feel that it cannot be true. But we want more than feeling, for this is a scientific age. We must con- sider the subject in the dry light of reason. What, then, can we say about survival of bodily death? And, to clear the ground, we must first discuss the more usual term of "immortality." Dictionaries mostly say that immortality is the con- dition or quality of being immortal, and that "immor- tal" means "exempt from death," which, indeed, is its obvious etymological signification. Implicitly, then, if I say that I — the "I" as known to me — am immortal, I mean that the existence of that self is endless; that I shall go on for ever. A very depressing and indeed ter- rifying thought, as the child in Emerson's essay real- ized. "What! will it never stop? What! never die? never, never? It makes me feel so tired!" * But a further question arises. How can we go on being the same for ever? We find in our present life, which is all we have to judge by, that we are continu- ally changing. We are ceaselessly hiving new experi- ences, by the external action of the world (including other human beings) upon us through our senses, by the so-to-speak internal action of the natural development and ageing of our own bodies, and by intuitions. There is alteration, growth, progress forward. We acquire larger and larger experience-fields; and even when in extreme age the memory for details begins to wane, there often and perhaps generally remains a mellow wisdom, a sort of serene ripeness, which strikes us as superior — judging by the highest standards — to the phase of great knowledge of detail, which preceded it. In short, there is change and development. The man 1 Essay on Immortality. IMMORTALITY 13 at seventy is very different from what he was at seven, or from what he was just after birth. If, then, a short seventy years can thus transform an individual quite out of recognition, making him more different from himself of seventy years ago than he is from any other fellow-adult, and tremendously more different than he is from a fellow-septuagenarian of the same nationality and class, what shall we say of the possibilities of end- less sons'? Do we not perceive that this idea of per- sonal immortality is a sort of verbal self -contradiction 1 ? If there is to be continued experience of any conceivable kind, we shall change out of all recognition, and shall therefore not be the "same." It is an inaccuracy to say that the septuagenarian is the "same" as the baby from which he has evolved. Much less can we remain the "same" after long periods of time, filled with new experiences. The tree is not the same as the acorn from which it grew; it has less resemblance to it than it has to other trees. Similarly, taking the reality of Time for granted, for the purpose of the present argu- ment — though as a matter of fact this doctrine is debatable — and assuming continued experience, on the analogy of the present life, we see that if we are im- mortal we shall develop into beings of some inconceiv- ably superior order — trees to our present acorns — much more like each other than like our present selves. There will be no identity with these present selves. "Per- sons" are not immortal; for their personality changes. Even if we make the venturesome suppositions of reincarnation and the recovery of all past memories in some future condition, the difficulty will still remain. There has been development, increase of experience, growth, and the final product is not the same thing as H PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS the thing that began. Change involves death — the death of the preceding state. Personal immortality, then, if it connotes experience at all — and we can con- ceive no consciousness without experience being in- volved — and if Time is fundamentally real, is a con- tradiction in terms, and cannot be discussed. Personal survival of bodily death, however, is a more defensible phrase. It may be incorrect to say that I am the same person that I was ten minutes since — strictly speaking, it is incorrect — but as a useful though loose phrase it is allowable. And if it is, it is equally allowable to say that I may be the same person five minutes after death that I was five minutes before it. Such short periods do not allow of such develop- ment as to change our forms of manifestation beyond recognition. The word "same" conveys at least some meaning. There is close similarity, if not identity. We are not yet concerned with the question of whether persons do survive death, but only with the question of legitimacy of terms, in order to clear the ground. Per- sonal immortality, then, is a meaningless or self-con- tradictory expression and must be avoided. Personal survival of death is legitimate, being based on common usage, and having a meaning, though a vaguely-defined one. And, indeed, this personal survival of bodily death is, for the most part, what people really mean by immortality. They do not, as a rule, hanker after endless ages of existence, or worry themselves about the metaphysics of Time. No; they merely want an extension, so to speak, of the present state of affairs; some assurance or some hope that death does not mean an utter darkness and annihilation. They want to be- lieve that it is "a covered way, leading from light to light, through a brief darkness," as Longfellow and most of his brother poets have thought. IMMORTALITY 15 At least, it is the general notion that this is what people do want to believe and are ready to believe, on sufficient reason or evidence being produced. Whether it is as much so as is supposed may be doubted. The state of mind of the average individual with regard to the question of his wishes about a future life is prob- ably rather chaotic. If you ask a man whether he wants a future life or not, and if he is a man who thinks for himself and does not automatically respond with the stock phrases of his pastors and masters, he will answer in one or other of various and perhaps equally surprising ways. He may say "Yes" or "No," or that he doesn't care and never thinks about it if he can help it — which last answer would probably be true for very many people who would be rather shocked at the idea of admitting it! But, indeed, there is no harm, but rather good, in facing ourselves frankly on this as on all other questions. There can be no good in sham and hypocrisy and self-deception of any kind. There is nothing to be ashamed of in the admission that you never think about immortality or survival if you can help it. Certainly it was illogical of the man who expected to go to everlasting bliss when he died, but did not want to talk about such depressing subjects; but it is not illogical to avoid the subject if you have no particular convictions about the ever- lasting bliss. And, after all, it is this world that we are living in, and there is plenty to do in it. If we were continually speculating about the next we should neglect many duties. We are social beings, with vari- ous obligations to our fellows. And this brings us to another consideration, namely, that of the fundamental unity, or possible unity, of 16 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS many things which now seem sundered. The late Professor James said, in his free-and-easy way — as if it didn't matter much — that a sort of anima mundi, thinking in all of us, seems a more promising hypo- thesis than that of "a lot of absolutely individual souls." ! Our reception of this cavalier remark will vary according to temperament. Those who want to "remain themselves," like Peer Gynt when the Button- Moulder wanted to melt him down again for a fresh start, will resent it. They will not like the idea that they are not really individuals — separate and walled- off entities, which will for ever remain themselves. A friend of mine, a man of heart and head, told me not long ago of his feelings when looking out over the sea. The thought occurred to him that human individuals were perhaps only like the wavelets which rose and fell on the water's surface; parts of a greater whole, but still only temporarily existing forms, evanescent, con tributory but non-essential, relatively unimportant And the thought filled him with sadness: if he ha believed it true, his sadness would have reached the point of despair. Curiously enough, this same thought has no terror for me. I feel more like Mrs. Stetson : — What an exceeding rest 'twill be When I can leave off being Me ! To think of it ! at last be rid Of all the things I ever did ! ****** Why should I long to have John Smith Eternally to struggle with? . . . Rest and Power and Peace Must surely mean the soul's release 1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i., p. 346. IMMORTALITY 17 From this small labeled entity, This passing limitation — Me ! x However, perhaps both my friend and I are right. Perhaps we survive death and pass on into a better but not wholly dissimilar state: — No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man, But thro' the Will of One who knows and rules — And utter knowledge is but utter love — iEonian Evolution, swift or slow, Thro' all the Spheres — an ever opening height, An ever lessening earth, 2 and then, when the desire of continued personality is extinct, merge into the primal source, "ascend into heaven," reach the final stage. Icebergs survive from day to day, though gradually changing, as we may change in the forms of our manifestation through a series of planes or lives; but they sink at last into the element which gave them birth. Rivers survive from mile to mile, losing by evaporation, gaining by tribu- taries, and continually changing their volume and shape; but they merge in the ocean at last — "even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea." In- deed, the well-known hymn recognizes the parallel, and uses the figure as an analogy: — Rivers to the ocean run, Nor stay in all their course, 1 The Cosmopolitan of some unknown date. It reminds one of J. Addington Symonds's "sanguine hope" of "resumption into the personal-unconscious"; the "immeasurably precious hope of ending with this life the ache and languor of existence" — Biography, by H. F. Brown, p. 416. But Symonds was an invalid; this attitude is not the product of health and soundness. My agreement with him is probably due to likeness in physical constitution. "Tennyson, The Ring. 18 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Fire ascending seeks the sun, Both speed them to their source; So a soul that's born of God Pants to view His glorious face, Upward tends to His abode And rests in His embrace. The hymn-writer is a little ambiguous — probably he rather hesitated at the absorption idea — but the unit3^-thought is there, as indeed it is in a great pro- portion of the world's religious literature. The mystic, whether Christian, Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Taoist, aims at a union with the Divine, a renunciation of his own small and unsatisfactory self. The idea is ex- pressed by Virgil, in one of his most earnest passages : — To God again the enfranchised soul must tend, He is her home, her Author is her End ; No death is hers ; when earthly eyes grow dim Starlike she soars, and Godlike melts in Him. 1 It is the idea of the Christian hymn just quoted. And, indeed, it was taught by that great saint and missionary whom we may call the lieutenant of the Captain of our salvation, for his doctrine was that in Him we live and move and have our being, even now, though we fail to realise it. But though some such conception may be present to the minds of most really religious people, and cer- tainly to the minds of all mystics, it is not held by the majority of human beings in the West. We Western- ers are individualists. We are great on Personality. Consequently, whatever the mystic or Mrs. Stetson may say, and however we may agree with them in the com- 1 F. W. H. Myers's translation in Classical Essays, p. 175 (from Georgics, iv.) IMMORTALITY 19 paratively rare moments when we are uncomfortably disgusted with ourselves and our activities, we usually think of Immortality as a proximate survival of the personality past bodily death, not worrying much about more ultimate things. But the question is, is such survival a fact? If men die, shall they live again, and, if they do, with what body do they come? What is their experience like, in their new state? Some of these questions are now answerable. Not answerable in as complete and cut-and-dried a way as some would have us believe, for it is certain that any description of a spiritual world in materialistic terms must be wrong or inadequate; but answerable at least as to the main points. The advance in psychical re- search during the last thirty years enables us, as it seems to me, to go as far as that, to say that personal survival is a fact, and that something — not everything — may be learnt of the surviving spirit's state and powers and interests and feelings. CHAPTER II investigation: methods and examples But the task of attaining scientific conviction is not easy. Our generation has grown up in a materialis- tic atmosphere, and we do not easily get out of it. We run in the old grooves, and a pretty violent jolt is required, or long-continued pressure, to lift us up and get us free. Consequently it is generally found that the reading of books about survival does not prove very effective. Even the forty-odd volumes of Pro- ceedings and Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which are devoted almost exclusively to the presentation of actual evidence, may be read without any resultant change or gain in belief. The reader may be impressed, but he will not be convinced. The people he is reading about are unknown to him, and they may have made mistakes. Perhaps they strongly wished to believe in a future life, and consequently were unable to state the case in a quite unprejudiced fashion. Other doubts also arise. If the investigators are eminent in science, philosophy, or letters, the lay- man reader wonders whether these people of the labora- tory or the study are the best qualified to detect a fraudulent medium; if, on the other hand, the inves- tigator is a shrewd business man, the reader says to himself: "Well, this writer has had no scientific train- 20 METHODS AND EXAMPLES 21 ing: can I safely take him as reliable"?" Then there are the various difficulties about telepathy and the like. Conviction remains unattainable. The upshot of this is that personal experience is necessary. The seeker must investigate for himself. He must not expect to reach another person's point of view without laborious travelling. He will have to go over the same ground, or similar ground, and will have to surmount the same obstacles as that other person had to struggle with before him. And instead of grumbling at this, he should be thankful that at least the direction is indicated, and some sort of track made. His task will therefore be a little easier than was that of his precursors. The pioneering work is done. And, this being so, perhaps I overestimate the need of personal experience. It was necessary for me, but I am of exceptionally sceptical habit of mind, and I was steeped in Spencer, Mill, and others of the nega- tive school of those days. With the present genera- tion it may be -different. Certainly I am far from wishing that all should become "psychical researchers." The investigation is best left to specialists, as in other sciences; and perhaps most people will be able to feel that the records already in existence, though not furnishing absolutely knockdown proof, are neverthe- less sufficient to render the old materialism an improb- able hypothesis and to open the door to that belief in a spiritual world which is, as Myers said, the preamble of all religions. Those inquirers who still seek experience of their own — and in many, perhaps the majority of cases, this desire will be felt — must seek it in the way best 22 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS adapted to their individual circumstances. No doubt the ideal thing is to get into touch with some private person who has these peculiar psychic powers of clair- voyance or trance ; who, by making the mind quiet and hushing the turmoil of the external senses, can perceive in other and finer ways, obtaining knowledge not nor- mally possessed. Full and careful notes should be taken of all that is said by both sensitive and sitter, so that it is known how much information, if any, has been given away. This is not easy, and needs practice, but it can be done. If identity can be hidden, as it can when one is introduced to a private circle, so much the better. But I repeat that the quest is not suit- able for everyone. And good sensitives are rare. My own investigations have been mostly along these lines, but mainly in the "normal clairvoyance" department, there being a good medium not far away whom I can see occasionally. The advantages of being unknown are here absent, but my friends and I have established the fact of this medium's possession of supernormal powers by introducing friends from dis- tant towns, quite unexpectedly and without giving any names. Their deceased relatives and friends have in several cases been named and described as fully and as correctly as my own. Also it is a common thing for very intimate family matters to be referred to in my sittings; matters which the medium could not have learnt by any amount of outside inquiry. We were sceptical when be began the investigation, ten years ago; we are now fully convinced, all of us, that the explanation must be supernormal, and, further, that the telepathic hypothesis seems on the whole much less rational than the spiritistic. In fact, we do not METHODS AND EXAMPLES 23 stop at the "hypothesis" stage; we think the case is proved, so far as proof is possible. Some of the evidence, obtained mostly in my friends' sittings, has already appeared ; 1 the main purpose of the present volume is to present further evidential incidents occurring in my own sittings. They will at least indicate the kind of evidence that may be ex- pected by anyone beginning the investigation. It will be observed that a sitting often contains a number of apparently unconnected statements, the relation and significance of which become apparent only by having a series of sittings and carefully collating the reports; hence the importance of contemporaneous verbatim notes, which I make in shorthand. In what immedi- ately follows I have sorted out a few main strands, omitting those irrelevant to the incidents I wish to present. The names are disguised, for obvious reasons ; but I trust there is nothing to cause pain, even if this volume is read by some relative or friend who recog- nises the people concerned. These latter gave me the evidence — we cannot force it — and I think they mean me to publish it in order to spread the knowledge of the truth. 11 THE "ROBERT PARBERRY LEATHER" SERIES OF INCIDENTS In a sitting on July 21st, 1914, after giving various descriptions of deceased friends and acquaintances, some of them relatives, the medium (Mr. A. Wilkin- son) remarked: 1 Neiu Evidences in Psychical Research. (Rider, London.) 24 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS "I get the name Dunlop. A doctor. Medical doc- tor. Old times" This was mildly interesting, but of no particular significance so far as I could see at the moment. A Dr. Dunlop formerly lived here in my native town, and was well known to my parents. He died over forty years ago; certainly I never knew him. But his house was known as Dunlop House until about 1900, when it was divided into cottages; and there is a faint possibility that Mr. Wilkinson may have heard the name, though he lives many miles away, and I think it extremely unlikely. The house was hidden away among poor property remote from all high roads about half a mile from my home, and far- ther away from the railway station than this latter. Later in the same sitting the medium said : "I get the name heather. I feel that he would be an old man, very gentlemanly, rather retiring. I hesi- tate to say the name, for I never heard it before as a name. It only means boots, leggings, etc., to me." Now it happens that I knew a Mr. Leather very well some years ago. He lived three-quarters of a mile from my home (where all my sittings have been held), and died in 1909. The description is very apt as far as it goes. He was eighty-four at death; was rather retiring, and had very much the grand seigneur manner — a true gentleman of the old school. I visited him occasionally, between 1890 and 1899; but I saw most of him at Dunlop House in 1893 to 1895, wn $r e lived a friend of his who was also a friend of mine. A small party of us met there for whist nearly every Thursday evening in winter. Of that party all are dead or long since removed from this part of the country, except METHODS AND EXAMPLES 25 my sister and myself. Neither of us has ever told Mr. Wilkinson anything about this, and I feel pretty sure that no one by local inquiry could find any connexion between me and Mr. Leather by way of Dunlop House. It is true that no definite connexion was al- leged in the sitting, but it is a fact that if Mr. Leather is still alive and wishful to prove his identity by al- luding to shared experiences which the medium could hardly know of, he could not do better than mention Dunlop House or Dr. Dunlop. The next incident occurred a few months later, when I received (November 19th, 1914) a letter from Mr. Wilkinson, who happened to be at Bournemouth, whither a letter of mine, asking him to come over, had followed him. After answering this and describing his journeyings, he said: "By the way, did you ever know someone named Parrbury or some such name? I am impressed it would be a very old gentleman you might have known; however, I get the feeling while I am holding your let- ter. He was a man who retained his faculties in a large measure till the end of life almost. I am not sure but I feel perhaps he was called Robert, but of that I could not be too sure; the other name, however, being so uncommon that I thought I would tell it to you. He evidently is keenly interested in you" On reading this I thought it was meaningless. But when I told my sister about it, she said that Robert Parrbury, or Parberry — spelling uncertain — was Mr. Leather's Christian name. Then I remembered that Robert was certainly right, but the other name was unfamiliar; Mr. Leather's friends never used it, nor did I remember ever having known it, though I may 26 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS have known and forgotten. On inquiry I found that his full name was Robert Parberry Leather. He re- tained his faculties until near the end, as stated; re- maining, indeed, particularly young and alert in mind up to the time of his fatal paralytic seizure, after which he died in a few hours, never regaining consciousness. I wrote to Mr. Wilkinson saying that the name "Robert Parrbury" had interesting significance, and that I should like him to come over for a sitting as soon as possible. I gave him no further information. On December 14th, 1914, he came for a sitting, and I said in preliminary conversation that the Parrbury of his letter had meaning; whereupon he remarked that when writing the letter he had felt that the gentleman in question was waiting for some old friend to pass over. This, as it happens, was curiously true. At the time of that letter's being written, Mr. Leather's brother-in-law and most intimate friend was dying, not far from Mr. Leather's old home, and three hun- dred miles from where Mr. Wilkinson then was. Pre- sumably space is less of an obstacle to those "over there," and, while waiting about in the old earth- regions or conditions generally, Mr. Leather could give his message to the medium at Bournemouth as easily as if the latter had been here, nearer the dying friend. I told Mr. Wilkinson, in reply to his remark, that it was quite correct, an old friend of Mr. Leather's hav- ing died, after gradually sinking for many months > on November 29th, 1914 — eleven days after the writing of the letter. A fairly good sitting followed, with a considerable amount of matter about various deceased friends and relatives of mine whom I am sure the medium had never known; but there was no sign or METHODS AND EXAMPLES 27 mention of Mr. Leather. So I concluded that, the two friends having been reunited, they had now gone forward together. This incident seemed to me to have an eminently pleasant and consoling significance. The intimacy of these two men had been quite exceptionally close and unbroken, over a period of about fifty years. They were, as I have said, brothers-in-law and neighbours; alike in tastes and temperament; both became widow- ers very early in life, and they spent much time to- gether. I am quite sure that, assuming survival, the person whom Mr. Drayton (the second to die of the two friends) would most wish to meet him would be his old chum, Mr. Leather. At the end of this sitting I asked the medium if he had ever been in Knowlston Cemetery. (That is where the bodies of the two men are buried.) He replied that he had never heard the name before, and had never been in any cemetery in this neighbourhood at all. Having fully satisfied myself of Mr. Wilkin- son's genuine supernormal faculty through earlier evi- dence already mentioned, I have long since rejected the idea of wilful deception; but I thought it just possible that he might have been in that particular graveyard, and might have seen and forgotten the names, for we must assume that "forgotten" things are still sublimi- nally remembered. I entirely accept his statement that he has never been there. Moreover, it is a private ceme- tery, belonging to a Nonconformist Chapel; and the grave of Mr. Leather — about whom I was mainly con- cerned because of the medium's getting the little- known second name — is hidden away in a remote part, far from the path. The tombstone inscription cannot 28 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS be read without going close up to it, threading about among many other graves. But this was not the end of it. At my next sitting, on January 15th, 1915, after evidential statements about someone else, the medium said: "There is a man by that bookcase''' (pointing), "a very old man, big, full-featured. Been gone some time; old-fashioned shirt, white, very clean. Elias Sidney." [Medium took pencil and paper and wrote "Elias Sidney."] "Politics interested him; rather a strong politician — Radical or strong Liberal. Been dead some time. Somebody brought him, somebody on the other side, who has manifested here before. Not lived here. Good colour in his face. There is somebody behind him, and he shadows him. Had to do with Liberals. Rather heavy on his feet." All this was quite meaningless to me. I had never heard of any Elias Sidney. Then came various de- ceased relatives and acquaintances of mine, one of them a very unexpected person whom I had known in youth (he died about 1890) but had not thought of for years. His name was given as Moses Young ; I was quite with- out recollection of the man's Christian name, but on inquiry it turned out to be Moses. Then : "Sidney appears again. Somebody brought him; some spirit." Still unrecognised. Other spirits came, and inter- spersed in their descriptions were ejaculatory sentences like : "Sidney comes and goes; enthusiast at politics." "Sidney got excited when discussing politics," and the like. Apparently the medium received these impres- sions from the spirit who had brought Sidney, and who was describing his mental characteristics for the pur- METHODS AND EXAMPLES 29 poses of identification and proof. But I could think of no Elias Sidney or of anyone likely to bring such a man. Finally the medium said, just after giving some other evidential matter: "You remember me seeing an old man here before? I can't remember his name" Noticing that he seemed excited and eager, as if something important were coming, I said, "Yes; Mr. Leather perhaps." "Yes, Leather. It is Mr. Leather who has brought Elias Sidney. They were cronies. [Medium laughs.] They were cronies. Sidney has been passed away longer than Mr. Leather." Further evidential matter was given about other people, but no more about Mr. Sidney or Mr. Leather. However, the last statement having given me an idea of where to seek, I inquired of several prominent local Liberals who had known Mr. Leather as to whether they had ever heard of a man named Elias Sidney. None of them had; and I began to think the medium was quite off the mark. But it happened that one of them knew an old gentleman who lives a few miles away and who has had a very extensive acquaintance with political men, and to him he addressed the same question. "Certainly," was the immediate reply; "I knew Elias Sidney very well indeed. He died eight or nine years ago, but had long been retired from pub- lic life, being a very old man. He was one of a coterie of friends, all vigorous Liberals. I was one. Mr. Leather was another." I then made further inquiries, finding that Mr. Sid- ney died in January, 1909, seven weeks before Mr. Leather's death. Mr. Sidney's age was eighty-three. 30 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS I found and interviewed a man who had known him — not my first informant — and it turned out that he was a keen politician on the Liberal side, and very excitable in political argument. He went to the same club as Mr. Leather, daily, as long as health allowed. The description of his personal appearance is accurate. I have seen a photograph of him, which bears out my informant's opinion. This incident does not seem to me satisfactorily explainable by any reading of my mind, either in its normal conscious levels or in those subliminal levels where forgotten things are supposed still to exist. For I asked a number of friends who had been in closer touch with Mr. Leather and with local politics than I have been, and not one of them remembered ever hearing the name of Elias Sidney. I am therefore sure that he must have lived a very retired life for at least twenty years before his death; and, indeed, he does not seem to have ever been a prominent man. (The fact that man}^ of Mr. Leather's friends had never heard of Mr. Sidney is due to the two friends' meeting at the club and not visiting at each other's homes, which were several miles apart.) These considerations, I think, justify the provisional conclusion that neither telepathy from my mind nor accidentally possessed knowledge on the part of the medium — who lives in another town twelve miles away — is a satisfactory explanation of the incident. There remain two alternatives; deliberate concocting of evi- dence, necessitating much inquiry and travelling, and the spiritistic theory according to which the messages came from the surviving mind of Mr. Leather, or Mr. Sidney, or both. And I have already said that I en- METHODS AND EXAMPLES 31 tirely reject the idea of fraud; not only because, in ten years' acquaintance with Wilkinson, my friends and I have found nothing at variance with the most complete integrity and veracity, but also because his mediumship has given us a large mass of evidence which no amount of detective work could obtain. I have ruled out, then, normally acquired knowl- edge on the medium's part, telepathy from my mind, and fraud. Telepathy from distant living people un- known to the medium I regard as a mere guess and a rather absurd one. There remains the spiritistic in- terpretation, and this I provisionally accept as the most rational. Nothing more was heard of Elias Sidney, but at a sitting of January 19th, 1916, Mr. Leather again pur- ported to be present, this time bringing his friend, Mr. Drayton, whom he had come to meet when the latter was dying in November, 1914. The following is what was said. It occurs among evidential matter relating to other people. I abstract it from my ver- batim shorthand notes : "Have you a friend called, 'Drayton?'''' [J. A. H. : "I know some Dray tons."] . . . "There is a very old man — lie has a job to stand up. Tottering with age" [On first coming back into earth conditions, a spirit frequently shows itself in the bodily state which existed just before its departure; partly perhaps for identification's sake, but partly no doubt spontane- ously, somewhat as we tend to revert to the manner and speech and subjects of old times when revisiting the home of our childhood.] "There are two old men together. Tittle, bent with age, white front; another little old man with him. Brothers or friends. Henry 32 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS and Robert. Don't know whether they were brothers or not. Henry is older than the other. They knew each other very well. Robert's face is smoother, not so lined. They are chums — perhaps brothers. Robert pre-deceased the other. I don't think Henry has been long gone. Somebody called Whitley is connected with Henry; lives a long way from here. A woman; not well; belongs to Henry. She is called Whitley. She has something belonging to the old man. He liked his ozvn way; a bit dogmatic. Robert was rather milder. Henry had a lot of his own way. He is very much surprised about things now. . . . Robert was a bit younger; nice old man; jolly. They had lots in common, though there was great difference. Perhaps difference in position. They're alike now in that re- spect." Mr. Drayton's name was Henry. He died Novem- ber 29th, 1914, aged 89. Robert P. Leather died at 84, in 1909, so he "pre-deceased the other," and was "a bit younger." The characterisation of both is strikingly correct. The hesitation as to whether they were brothers or unrelated friends is very noteworthy, for, as already said, they were brothers-in-law and great friends. Mr. Drayton has a living daughter named Whitley (married name), and I afterwards heard that she had not been well. She lives "a long way from here" a good part of the year, though she is often at a house about twelve miles from where the medium lives, in another town. I have no reason t( believe that he knew she was Mr. Drayton's daughter, even if he knew of her existence. It is also noteworth] that of several daughters she is the only one connected with our family, her husband's uncle having marriec METHODS AND EXAMPLES 33 my great-aunt. If Mr. Drayton was really present he would naturally think of her, rather than of his other daughters, in connection with me. After other matter the following came, in bits : "Henry had a portrait of old Mr. Gladstone, the statesman. I think he must have had one in his house." [Probably. He was a vigorous Gladstonian, and had been M.P. during one of Gladstone's Premierships.] "Robert has brought him. I think Henry has not manifested here before. ... 7 saw those two old men so clearly that I could recognise their portraits if I saw them. Shall not remember them long — shall have for- gotten them to-morrow." The next connected incident occurred on August 2nd, 1916. At this sitting, after some excellent evi- dence concerning distant relatives of mine, the follow- ing was said: "There is some man here who might have been a schoolmaster; there is something over his shoulders like a gown. A scholar. Middle-aged; about sixty, rather tall. Did you ever know somebody called Waldron — W-A-L-D-R-O-N? [Yes.] Thomas Waldron. I think it is Waldron. Probably this man had been a professor or schoolmaster. He has a lot of books with him. He is 'well up.' A classical man, good at Latin. He is just by that bookcase. He has been deceased about twelve years, I should think; probably more. [All that is very good.] This man was very fond of boys — teaching boys. He was a bit Churchy. I should not think he was a Dissenter — more Churchy. The let- ters on those big books are red and black. I can see they are Latin. He has a big book with H-O-M-E-R on it. Would that be the name of the writer, perhaps? [Very 34 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS likely.] Big leather binding. . . . The man would be about sixty when he died, and he was not ill long. . . . This man has been gone longer than I said. He is tell- ing me something. How long did I say? [Twelve years.] i"/ is longer than that.''' The facts are that Mr. Thomas Waldron was head- master of the school I was at from 1878 to 1886. He was a classical man, good at Latin, which was his pet subject. He wore a gown in school. He was a Churchman, and two years before his death he took Orders. He died of cerebral haemorrhage, without be- ing ill at all, in 1898, aged between fifty-nine and sixty. As a schoolboy I was keenly interested in the Iliad, and probably he knew that ; but I am not aware that he himself read Homer much. Later in the sitting Wilkinson said : "You remember me speaking about Thomas Wal- dron? There is some woman connected with this man: She is in the body, about seventy years of age. You may hear of her soon. Some circumstances linked up with this man." His widow, who left this district three years after his death, is still living, in a town about forty miles away. No relatives remain about here. The medium continued : "You remember me seeing an old man here a time or two? A man with a funny name. [Leather, per- haps*?] That's it. He is here. He has a lady with him: very young, beside him. Quite youthful. I know the man's face well; I have seen him before. The lady is about your age. [To my sister.] They are to- gether. Her name was Sarah. She might be so?ne relation to the man." METHODS AND EXAMPLES 35 Mr. Leather's wife was named Sarah. She died in 1866, aged thirty-eight. I did not know the name until I had the tombstone examined. It is in an almost inaccessible part of a private cemetery, as already said. With regard to Mr. Waldron, it is noteworthy that he was one of the small party that met every Thursday evening at Dunlop House, twenty or more years ago. He and Mr. Leather were close friends. That is the end, up to the present, of this particular series of incidents. I have no further comment to make except to draw attention to one curious feature. In the sitting of July 21st, 1914, the name Leather was given, without Christian names. In the impres- sions communicated to me by letter in the following November, the names Parrbury and a doubtful Robert were given, but nothing else; and I afterwards ascer- tained that Mr. Wilkinson thought it was a Robert Parrbury, and did not associate the names with Mr. Leather. Finally, in the sitting of January 19th, 1916, the name Robert was used throughout, with no use of Parberry or Leather; and I found that the me- dium did not associate the Robert of this sitting with the Mr. Leather of previous ones or with the Parrbury of his Bournemouth impressions. It would seem that Mr. Leather purposely gave different parts of his name on the different occasions, in order to keep the medium in the dark and to improve the evidence, knowing that I should piece them together and rec- ognise the same person behind the communications, al- though the medium was thinking that several different people were concerned. In all such incidents as these, the thing first to be settled is the extent of the medium's normal knowl- 36 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS edge. Before proceeding to any supernormal hypothe- ses, even of telepathy, we must be driven to admit that normal knowledge cannot reasonably be suggested as a sufficient explanation. Now I cannot pass on to an- other person my own certitude or my own state of mind regarding the extent of Mr. Wilkinson's normal knowledge. My opinion is the result of multitudi- nous small factors — inferences as to his general mode of life, the people he meets, where he goes, what he reads, and the like — and I cannot produce them all here. The mere statement of my opinion must there- fore suffice, and readers will accept it or not, according as they think well or ill of my general reliability. My opinion, then, is: 1. That Wilkinson had no conscious knowledge of Mr. Drayton, Mr. Leather, Mr. Waldron, or Mr. Sidney. 2. That he may have heard of, or read of, Mr. Drayton, whose name would appear in subscription lists to charities, etc., but that, if so, the knowledge will have been forgotten, for Mr. Drayton's activities and tastes would have no special interest for Wilkin- son. Moreover, Mr. Drayton had been confined to his house for many years by the infirmities of age, and he had been out of public life for twenty-five years. I think it extremely unlikely — not quite incredible, but extremely unlikely — that Wilkinson knows, even sub- liminally, as much about Mr. Drayton as the sittings produced. 3. That Wilkinson is still less likely to have heard even the names of Mr. Leather and Mr. Waldron, or to have known anything about them. I do not believe that he had ever heard of Elias Sidney, or of Dunlop METHODS AND EXAMPLES 37 House, or Dr. Dunlop; and, even if he had, I should not be able to believe that he could have known of the significance of Dunlop House to Mr. Leather, Mr. Waldron, and myself, or that he could have had any notion of the club friendship and personal character- istics of Mr. Leather and Mr. Sidney. In short, basing my opinion on careful consideration of many data, I unhesitatingly reject the suggestion that the medi- um's normally acquired knowledge, supraliminal or subliminal, is sufficient to account for the facts of the sittings. To me, the only satisfactory explanation is the spiritistic one. I believe that Mr. Leather has been supervising from the other side, bringing various kinds of evidence of his survival and continued inter- est ; and in particular the Elias Sidney episode seems to me a strikingly ingenious and successful attempt to get round the "telepathic hypothesis," which some inves- tigators, without much basis of fact, are apt to apply to all incidents in which the sitter is in possession of the knowledge shown. Finally, I may remark that Mr. Leather in life took a very kindly and rather special interest in me, and after my schooldays I saw more of him than of Mr. Waldron. With Mr. Drayton my personal acquain- tance was slight. If he had been represented as ap- pearing first and bringing Mr. Leather, or if he had been represented as bringing Mr. Waldron, it would have been all wrong. As it was, everything was ex- actly in keeping with the actual degree of my acquain- tance with the three men, and in keeping with their own inter-relations. CHAPTER III FURTHER "MEETING" CASES There seems very good reason to believe that all dy- ing people are met and helped over by friends or rela- tives on the other side, as in the case of Mr. Leather and Mr. Drayton just described. The following inci- dents support the idea, though they are less exten- sive in their details. In a sitting on December 14th, 1914, Wilkinson suddenly said, amid other matter: "Have you known somebody called Walker? . . . At some time or other you had acquaintances called Walker." He seemed, however, uncertain about the last sylla- ble, so in order to help I suggested that it might be Walkley. He agreed, saying that he had never heard the name before, but had known some Walkers. This "helping" on my part may be seized on by sceptics, and indeed it is unwise to do much of it, for if we give away information we are spoiling our chances of get- ting evidence. But it sometimes happens, particularly if the medium is half right and apparently rather puz- zled, that a little guidance leads to a further rush of evidential matter, without much real information hav- ing been conveyed; and so long as everything "given away" is carefully noted down, there is no danger 38 FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 39 of the guidance vitiating the evidence, for we can make our own estimate of the amount to be allowed as discount, so to speak, or any true matter that may follow. In this case, however, my hint seemed use- less. Nothing further came, though I expected some- thing; for I had known some Walkleys very well be- tween 1883 and 1900, and I immediately thought of them when the medium said "Walker." The next relevant incident occurred ten months later. In a letter dated "Bournemouth, October 1st, 1915," Wilkinson said: "Just when closing this epistle I felt as if some old man touched me, rather a gentleman, and he made me feel a bit like a parson. I cannot get any communica- tion from him beyond 'A. S. W.,' whatever that means; an impression I get is that you might have known this man some years ago." The facts are that Mr. Walkley was a minister, that he was certainly a gentleman (more markedly so than the average village Nonconformist minister of those days), and that his full initials were A. S. W. I told the medium nothing except that what he had written was correct for someone I had known. At my next sitting there was no mention of the Walkleys, but at a later one, on February 17th, 1916, the medium said, after other evidential matter: "You may hear of a funeral of somebody soon: I see a funeral party. A woman who will die soon: it is nearly up to you. Somebody old. There is a man here with a round soft hat, a felt hat, like a parson's: grey: been a parson. He is about here waiting for somebody. . . . That old woman will die soon. [Here I remarked: "She is dead already."] Indeed? 40 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS // is somebody very old and feeble — over eighty; been going gradually." Our friends the Walkleys left this district in August, 1900. Mr. Walkley, minister at the chapel I attended during his seventeen years' pastorate, died three months later (November 16th). He usually wore a clerical round soft felt hat, though occasionally a tall silk one ; and he had grey hair and beard. His widow after- wards lived mostly in London, but was sometimes in these parts (West Riding of Yorkshire), staying with relatives. Two days before this sitting — i.e. on Feb- ruary 15th — she had died there, at the age of eighty- two, after sinking gradually. The funeral was fixed for the 18th — i.e. the day after the sitting. Appar- ently her husband had come to meet her, and was still in these regions although she was now dead ; the reason no doubt being that the "departed" spirit often does not depart at once to supernal realms, but lingers about with those it loves, or is perhaps occupied for some little time in withdrawing from its old associations be- fore setting its face to further progress in the larger life. As to the possibility of the medium's possessing nor- mal knowledge of her death or her connexion with us, or indeed of her existence, I think it is in the last degree unlikely. She was known to very few people; her relatives are in no way prominent, and she died at a place about ten miles from Wilkinson's home, in an- other town. She had no friends in his neighbourhood, and I think it practically certain that he knows no one who knew her or her people, except myself; and I had certainly never told him anything about either her or them. FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 41 In this same sitting of February 17th, 1916, after some very evidential things relating to my father, the medium said : "Tkis big man with the full face [my father] must have known a man named Charlton, a younger man. This man is just waking up. He didn't quite believe he was dead. I feel that he would be an impulsive man. He would swear when things went wrong. Hot- headed. Middle life. A proud man. He has been wandering about a while. Been gone some time. "His influence is very authoritative. Almost an ar- rogant man in some ways. There's somebody in the body that he wants to approach — a woman. His object is to reach her. "He had money. He has not manifested here be- fore. He was one who would rush through fire and water to get at what he wanted. [After interluded matter relating to other people, he continued : ] That Charlton's influence won't leave me. He knew some- body called William. It is a bit fragmentary, but they did not just agree about something. There is a diver- gence of opinion. Whether it is religion, I don't know. He has a big thick stick, not a walking-stick — it is too thick. He has a very light-coloured suit on — kind of sporting outfit. He is a new influence; not mani- fested here before. Very impulsive." All this is very true and characteristic of a Mr. Charlton whom I knew slightly, except as regards the stick; I think he fished, and it may be a jointed rod, but I am not sure. All the other details are exactly true. He was better known to a relative of mine named William than to me, and they were of different opin- ions in religion and politics, though my relative tells 42 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS me that they never discussed either, and that he liked Mr. Charlton and got on excellently with him, in chats in tram or train mostly. But they lived not far away from each other, and were aware enough of each oth- er's views in a general way. It is curious that Mr. Charlton was said to be only just waking up (from the recuperative sleep which seems to follow death), for he died a few years ago. The post-mortem sleep or rest is usually an affair of months or even of days or hours; rarely of years, though it is occasionally so — e.g. in some of the Piper cases. The remark that he "didn't quite believe he was dead" is noteworthy. It is often said that when people wake up on the other side they can hardly be- lieve that they have died, their surroundings seem so natural and they feel so well; but in Mr. Charlton's case there is a special significance. He died of a much- dreaded disease, the nature of which is often kept from the patient's knowledge, and in which anodynes are mercifully used towards the end. It is quite likely that in such cases the sufferer does not realise that he is dying; and afterwards, having made the crossing so easily and so unconsciously, he may indeed "hardly believe that he is dead." The naturalness of the proxi- mate post-mortem life is often emphasised by Sweden- borg: "The first state of man after death is like his state in the world, because his life is still external. He has therefore a similar face, speech, and disposition, thus a similar moral and civil life; so that he thinks that he is still in the world, unless he pays close at- tention to the experiences he meets with, or remembers what was said to him by the angels when he was raised up. Thus life remains the same in the other world FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 43 as in this, and death is only the transition from one to the other." (Heaven and Hell, § 493, p. 266, "Every- man" edition.) I have quoted this as a "meeting" case, with less justification than in the preceding ones. But the sur- mise is suggested by the fact that Mr. Charlton's brother was dying at the time of the sitting, though I did not know it. He died on March 6th. I did not know him, even by sight, and I did not know of his illness until I saw his death announced in the news- papers. It seems likely that Mr. Charlton had come to meet his brother, as Mr. Leather came to meet Mr. Drayton, and as Mr. Walkley came to meet his widow. And we must remember that this "meeting" idea is not by any means based solely on mediumistic com- munications. There is a very considerable body of evidence of another kind. Dying people often see spirit friends who have come to meet them. The sceptic will, of course, say that hallucinations are common enough in illness, and that a dying person's statements are not evidence of the objectivity, in any sense, of what he sees. But wait a moment ! The matter is not to be settled as easily as that. If a man, who has never had an hallucination in his life and whose mind in all other respects seems quite clear, informs us quietly when dying that he sees his father and sister- — which latter died when a child, forty years before, and has consequently been hardly ever in his thoughts — it is mere unscientific dogmatism to say that this is sub- jective hallucination. How do you know it is? It may be, of course ; but there is no basis for an assertion that it is. The man has never had such a vision before. Why does he have one now ? Effects must have causes. 44 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS And if the materialist ventures to say that the cause is a hypothetical and hypothetically adequate physio- logical change, we must ask him to be much more defi- nite than that. He must prove his point. We cannot accept it on faith. Moreover, there is a recognisable difference in kind between psychical and visceral hal- lucinations. In great weakness and with a tempera- ture of 104.5 , I have had incipient hallucinations my- self, which I noted down as soon as I could hold a pencil, 1 and they never took the shape of my deceased relatives. They were merely grotesque and dream-like. But the argument can be carried further. Admit- ting that a dying person is likely to think about those who have gone before, and that this thinking may initiate hallucination, we will grant that experiences of this type must not be considered strictly evidential. But there is one kind of deathbed vision that is; namely, when the dying person sees a vision of some- one whom he does not know to be dead. Such cases are, inevitably, rare. Miss Frances Power Cobbe made a collection of them in her Peak in Darien volume, and there are several in the publications of the Society for Psychical Research. The following may be given as brief resumes. Mrs. Y., wife of Colonel Y., when dying, told her husband that several times during the day she had heard voices singing, and that she thought it was the angels welcoming her to heaven; but "it is strange, there is one voice amongst them I am sure I know, and cannot remember whose voice it is." Suddenly 1 Journal, Society for Psychical Research, vol. xvi., p. 235 and following. In Proceedings, vol. xix., p. 267, Mr. Piddington analyses a number of hallucinations of visceral type, comparing them with the psychical. FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 45 she stopped, and, pointing over her husband's head, said: "Why, there she is, in the corner of the room; it is Julia X.; she is coming on; she is leaning over you; she has her hands up; she is praying — do look; she is going." Colonel Y. looked but could see noth- ing, and thought it was only the imagination of a sick person; though, indeed, Mrs. Y. in all other respects was in full possession of all her faculties. Two days afterwards Colonel Y. heard that Julia X. — a young woman with a beautiful singing voice whom they had known some years before — had died about a week be- fore Mrs. Y. It is certain that the latter had no nor- mal knowledge of that fact. 1 Another excellent case is recorded by Dr. Minot J. Savage in his Psychic Facts and Theories. Two little girls, schoolmates and intimate friends, aged about eight, fell ill of diphtheria. At noon on a Wednesday Jennie died ; but the doctor and parents of Edith were careful to keep from her the knowledge that her play- mate was gone, fearing the effect on her of such a shock. That they were successful is proved by the fact that on the following Saturday, just before Edith became unconscious, she selected two of her photo- graphs to be sent to Jennie. On the evening of that same day, at half-past six, Edith died. She became conscious just before, talked about dying, and showed no fear. Then she appeared to see one and another of the friends she knew were dead. But suddenly, and with every appearance of surprise, she exclaimed: "Why, papa, I am going to take Jennie with me. . . . You did not tell me Jennie was here." And she reached 1 Proceedings, vol. iii., p. 92. Human Personality, vol. ii., p. 339. 46 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS out her arms as in welcome, saying: "O Jennie, I'm so glad you are here." We are not given the firsthand accounts of the parents in this case, and consequently the evidence is less strong; but Dr. Savage was an experienced in- vestigator, and he knew the people concerned. They wished their names to be withheld from the public, but full information in proof of bona fides was given to Dr. Hyslop, the Secretary of the American S.P.R. 1 In what has just been said we have been dealing, on the one hand, with mediumistic communications in which a spirit was said to be waiting about for a dying friend, and, on the other, with the dying person's vision of the spirit who is waiting. It would be exceedingly interesting if we could get these two kinds of evidence in combination ; for example, if I could learn that Mr. Drayton, during the last week or two of his life, saw his friend Mr. Leather and realised that he had come to meet him. This would have corroborated my mediumistic messages. But it is hardly to be expected that such corroboration will often be obtainable, for any such experiences of dying people are not talked about by surviving relatives except to intimate friends. However, there is one case, not precisely of the kind required — for the dying person knew that the welcom- ing spirit was "dead" — but possessing such important evidential features of a similar kind, reported by the experienced and critical Dr. Richard Hodgson, that it may suitably be quoted here. Some hours after the death of a man named F., Dr. Hodgson had a sitting with Mrs. Piper. A Mme. Elisa (known in life to Dr. Hodgson) communicated, 1 Journal, American S.P.R., July, 1907, p. 50 and following. FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 47 saying that F. (whom she had known) was there with her, and that she had met and helped him as he was dying. She repeated what she said to him, "an un- usual form of expression" (says Dr. Hodgson), and indicated that he had heard and recognised her. Later, Dr. Hodgson learnt that F., when dying, had said that he saw Mme. Elisa, who was speaking to him. He repeated to his nearest surviving relative, who was with him, what Mme. Elisa was saying; and the expression so repeated was the same as the one that Dr. Hodgson had received from Mme. Elisa through Mrs. Piper. 1 It is desirable, as such narratives indicate, that more serious notice should be taken of anything that a dying person may say than has hitherto been the rule; particularly when there has been no sign of any impairment of mental faculty. To many good people there is no doubt something of irreverence in this, and the idea is repellent. But though this is natural, it is seen on reflection to be a mistaken idea. Death is admittedly a solemn event, but so is birth — which is a time of rejoicing; and so is every change in life; even a removal from one house to another; still more the emigration of a relative to the Colonies. There is an irrevocable break with the past, and a separation. All such events are to be treated seriously ; but there is no irreverence in trying to understand them to the full, and in noting down all circumstances for later consideration, particularly if it is recognised that such observation and record may furnish data which will strongly support the highest religious con- ceptions, rendering the old hopeless materialism entirely unscientific and irrational. We may be very sure that 1 Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xiii., p. 378. 48 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS the departed one — who has not really departed except from the field of our limited sense-perceptions — will be glad if in even his last helpless moments he has still succeeded in being useful; and if he has said some- thing potentially evidential but which his friends neglected to note, from mistaken ideas of "reverence," it will be for their negligence, which is an irreverence done to Truth, that he may blame them. On this point of regarding the end of our present phase with a more depressed solemnity than is neces- sary, we may well remember the curious and indeed startling words of Sir Thomas More : "They" (the Utopians) "think that . . . nothing can be more pleasant and acceptable to the dead" than "the rehearsing of his virtuous manners and his good deeds." . . . "But no part of his life is so oft or gladly talked of as his merry death." And Sir Thomas met his own death, as history tells, entirely in that spirit; not with any bravado or forced gaiety, but with a genuine cheerfulness and mirth, not only when he joked on the scaffold, but also before, when he watched the equal jollity of Latimer in the courtyard. 1 But if this is above the power of most of us, we can still attain to the similar if milder view of our own Tennyson, whose wisdom sings : I hate the black negation of the bier, And wish the dead, as happier than ourselves And higher, having climb'd one step beyond Our village miseries, might be borne in white To burial or to burning, hymn'd from hence With songs in praise of death, and crown'd with flowers. — The Ancient Sage. 1 Green's Short History of the English People, pp. 344, 345. FURTHER "MEETING" CASES 49 On this subject of reverence in regard to the whole question, I have noticed that those who come fresh to the subject are sometimes slightly shocked by the matter-of-fact and everyday tone in which we speak of the other side and those who are there. It has been customary to regard spirits and the idea of them with awe and fear, instead of with friendliness and love ; * and to talk of them familiarly seems almost flippant. I have heard people say, "I hope / shall never see anything," "I should be frightened if my mother com- municated," and the like. "Frightened" of one's mother! What must that mother's feelings be when she sees her child turn away from the thought of her, in fear? Must it not cause her pain, so far as pain is experienced there? Even indifference and the thought of them as "dead" must be unpleasant to them; so, also, is excessive grief. There is nothing reverent or praiseworthy in such attitudes. Is it not more sensible, now that we have definite scientific assurance of their continued life, to think of them often, cheerfully, and with loving thoughts, which, they assure us, greatly help them in their progress, as we are helped by love while here? Thinking of them thus, as alive and human still, though with "spiritual" bodies (1 Cor. xv., verse 44), instead of fleshly ones, we commit no irreverence. Reverence is due to noble character, both in and out of the body; but the mere fact of a man's being dead does not call for any fundamental change in our feel- ings about him. He is still a human being; he has progressed one stage beyond our village miseries, and 1 Cf. Lanoe Falconer's fine book, Cecilia de Noel, for an exemplifi- cation of the right attitude. So PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS is therefore to be congratulated and mildly envied ; but the amount of our reverence is to be decided by our idea of his spiritual excellence, not by the fact that he is dead. There are many grades of progress on all the planes, and there are men alive now who are more worthy of reverence than many who are dead; though death, ■no doubt, is "promotion" for everybody — in propor- tion as we have tried to walk in accordance with what light we had — and a great and holy and loving man here will be a greater and holier and more loving man there, for he will have more scope for the exercise of his faculties, after dropping the fleshly vesture "which doth so grossly close us in." But we reverenced him while here also. All is continuity and gradation; the gulf of death is not a gulf; it is only a thin veil; and man remains himself after passing through. CHAPTER IV OTHER INCIDENTS In most sittings with mediums, the sitters are people who have been recently bereaved and who are seeking communications from someone who has crossed over; and it is perhaps under these conditions that the best results are obtained. For, whatever the explanation, I think that all investigators are agreed on the fact that a strong emotional link between a sitter and someone on the other side is found to conduce to successfully evidential messages. The fact itself, though to many minds — as to my own — suggestive of the genuineness of the ostensible communicator, who, if still existent and retaining the loves of earth, will certainly wish to communicate, nevertheless does not prove any particular explanation. It is reasonable on the hypothesis of the phenomena being what they claim to be; but it is also reasonable, more or less, on the hypothesis of telepathy, though I shall argue later that telepathy is a doubtfully applicable "explanation" when this supposititious mind-reading is meant. We may admit, then, that this fact of the emotional link's giving good conditions does not count greatly in favour of the spiritistic theory, though in my opinion it does so count to some extent. But, what is more important to the scientific con- sideration of these things, the fact of such an emo- tional link is itself sufficient to cause a certain distrust Si 52 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS in the minds of sceptical readers who have had no firsthand experience of these things. Such a distrust is natural, and is, indeed, to some extent well grounded. A bereaved mother, seeking evidence of her soldier- son's continued existence, of his love, of his hoped-for well-being, is not an ideal investigator. She is inev- itably biased. Her emotions and strong desire are likely to affect her observation and interpretation of the phenomena. Her state of mind is entirely right and creditable, and we should not wish it different; but it prevents us from accepting her testimony with entire confidence. And it is so, more or less, with the testimony of all investigators who have a strong emo- tional link with someone on the other side and a strong desire to know of his well-being. This is, of course, particularly so if they come new to the subject soon after their bereavement. An old investigator, who took up the research from scientific motives and has had years of experience, will be a reliable witness even after a near relative has gone over; for he knows to be on his guard against his own bias. Yet even in such a case the sceptic will distrust, and we cannot altogether blame him. Where there inevitably is emo- tion, the critical faculty, speaking generally, cannot be at its alertest. It is on this count that I think my own testimony is, if I may say so, rather exceptionally trustworthy. I have no strong emotional link with anyone on the other side. My parents are there, it is true, and I hope my feelings are not unfilial; but my mother died thirty years ago and my father eighteen years ago, and time heals the pain of such natural losses. Certainly I never felt any of that keen yearning for OTHER INCIDENTS 53 communication that many parents natural^ feel in the case of the untimely death of a son. I did not be- come interested in psychical matters until about eight years after my father's death, and my motive was sheer scientific curiosity, entirely uncoloured by any special desire either about survival in general or the continued existence of my deceased relatives in par- ticular. Having found, through a certain trance-medium, a considerable amount of evidence for supernormality, which however did not prove, or purport to prove, spirits, I was interested enough to follow up the sub- ject with other mediums, whose powers bore more closely on the question of survival. My friends Mr. Knight and Mr. Oddy first undertook a series of sittings — extraordinarily successful ones, as it turned out — with Mr. A. Wilkinson, the "Watson" of my New Evidences in Psychical Research, and I have now been able to follow them up with sittings on my own ac- count, carefully arranged and reported. And the point is, that although some of my deceased relatives do occa- sionally announce themselves, in entirely calm and unemotional ways, the major portion of the evidence concerns people whom I knew only slightly or not at all, and with whom, consequently, I have no emotional link. From this I hope it will be fairly clear, if my state- ment of a matter of fact is believed, that the element of emotional bias is not present in my case, and that no discount needs to be deducted from my evidence on this score. I will now give a few rather fragmentary incidents illustrating what has just been said. They are of similar character to those already described, 54 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS except that thejr do not happen to be "meeting" cases. The spirits in question do not seem to have been in proximity to the earth-state and therefore perceptible to the medium because they had come to meet some dying friend, but rather to have called in, so to speak, for reasons of their own, being interested in the locality or in people known to me; or, perhaps more probably, they may have been brought, by some spirit better known to me, for the express purpose of eliminating telepathy or at least making it seem improbable. It has often been said, at sittings, that a certain spirit brought another, as Mr. Leather brought his friends Sidney and Drayton; and there does, indeed, seem to have been something like a definite plan on the part of a small group of people, known to me in life but not related to me or in any way closely or emotionally linked with me, to supply me with evidence of survival which should exclude all the other and more scientifi- cally fashionable hypotheses. And I admit that they have succeeded in convincing me. The separate items of evidence may seem not strong; and certainly I should base no theory on any one of them alone. But the strength is cumulative. No one item is entirely without evidential strength, so it is not a case of adding a lot of nothings and making something. It is a case of adding littles until they make quite legitimately a mickle. The sticks are weak, but the faggot is strong. In my sitting of December 14th, 1914, among other evidential matter, the medium said: "Some man named Driver 'here''' This conveyed nothing in par- ticular to me, for though I immediately thought of a living Mr. Driver who was slightly known to me, I could not recall any deceased Drivers. On reflection OTHER INCIDENTS 55 afterwards I remembered one man of that name who died perhaps thirty years ago, but I knew him only by sight. In my sitting of February 17th, 1916, the medium said: "Do you know any Driver?" To which I replied only: "Yes," thinking about the same living Driver as before. Later, after a great deal of extra- ordinary evidence about other people (e.g. the Mr. Charlton and the Walkleys mentioned in the foregoing chapter), the medium said, abruptly: "Have you known someone named Edmund?" I said: "Yes," thinking of a local tradesman named Edmund Stott, who died a few years ago. The medium continued : "Man of seventy or seventy-three, this Edmund. Did not die about here; I am taken away. He went to Morecambe. Might have lived at Morecambe. Might have lived or died there. Tall, fairly straight, full beard and on cheeks, big nose, well dressed, black, very tidy. Name, Edmund; biggish-bodied man, good phy- sique." [This, I thought, would fit Edmund Stott, except that I felt pretty sure that he died at home, sixty miles from Morecambe. The medium proceeded : ] "I smell a smell of brewing — beer. Malt, as if you were passing a brewery. A nice smell. But it's quite different from those flowers. [Pointing to flowers on the table.] Ifs malt." The medium looked rather puzzled, so I remarked : "No brewers among my relatives, but there is a con- nexion between brewing and Mr. Charlton." This latter gentleman, mentioned in the foregoing chapter, was a business man in quite a different line, but he was also interested in a brewery company. It will be observed that if telepathy from the con- 56 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS scious levels of my own mind had any directing in- fluence on the phenomena, the medium ought to have dropped the Driver subject after the first shot on December 14th, 1914, for it evoked no particularly fitting recollection. Then on February 17th, 1916, when an Edmund was mentioned and described, he ought to have got details about the draper's shop kept by a deceased Edmund Stott whom I had known. Instead of this, however, he went on to a smell of brewing, which I attributed to the influence of Mr. Charlton, though I recognised that this was a trifle far-fetched, as his connexion with the actual fact of brewing was not close. But, thinking of Mr. Charlton at the time, my thoughts — one might surmise, on a telepathic hypothesis — should have led the medium astray in a Charlton direction, as my thoughts about the draper should have led him among my Stott recollections. But they did not. Now for the sequel. Happening to re-read the report of the February 17th sitting a month later, I for the first time put the "Edmund" and the "Driver" together; and the name seemed dimly known to me. After some reflection I felt half sure that such a man had lived. Later, I be- gan to remember, vaguely, that he had tenanted a hotel not far away, about twenty years ago. But I had known him — if, indeed, the recollection was trustwor- thy at all — only by sight, and had not thought of him for many years. However, I enquired of a relative, who said that a man of that name had certainly kept that hotel; so I investigated further, finding at length a friend of mine who had known Edmund Driver very well. The medium's description, says this friend, ap- OTHER INCIDENTS 57 plies to Driver exactly, and more closely than it applies to Edmund Stott, whom also he knew. And at the time of Driver's tenancy of that hotel the owners brewed on the premises; so the smell of brewing was very relevant. No relatives of his remain in the district. As to the medium's ever having heard of him, it is extremely improbable. He died while Wilkinson was a boy. The death, however, did not occur at Morecambe. But it happens that the son (known to me) of the owner of the hotel in those days does live there; and I am inclined to think that Driver was trying to allude to him, in order to put me in the way of his own identi- fication. This is conjecture, and I do not press it. But I have so often found that an apparently wrong state- ment had evidential meaning behind it, that I think the conjecture in this case is justified. I think Driver was trying to say: "Ask Mr. , of Morecambe; he will tell you about me." It is to be noted that the medium was uncertain about the nature of the More- cambe connexion; probably he got the impression of Morecambe, and supplied by his own inference that Driver died there. It is, of course, impossible to feel absolutely sure that any one item of information has never entered a given person's mind; and we must remember that we have to allow for subliminal (forgotten) knowledge, quite apart from conscious deception, which in Wilkin- son's case is completely excluded both by specific facts of evidence and by my high estimate of his character. Consequently, I would not build a theory on any one assumption, such as that of the medium's ignorance of facts concerning Edmund Driver. But when the 58 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS evidence reaches a certain degree of extensivene. c s, an assumption of ignorance becomes justifiable. A me- dium may have some knowledge, subliminal or con- scious, of one or two people of whom it seems improb- able that he should know anything; but when the number of people becomes considerable, this explana- tion by normal knowledge becomes incredible. "There is a point," Andrew Lang has well said, "at which the explanations of common sense arouse scepticism." Moreover, normally acquired knowledge is eliminated in several cases where my friends or I have introduced sitters from another town, people of whom we knew next to nothing and whose deceased relatives cannot reasonably be supposed to have been known to the medium or to have been the subject of conversation in his hearing. As to why Edmund Driver communicated — if he was indeed here in propria persona — I do not know. Perhaps some friend of mine brought him, for evidence' sake, as Mr. Leather brought Mr. Sidney. And two things are perhaps noteworthy : ( l ) the hotel he kept is the nearest place of its kind to my house, where the sittings took place; (2) he almost certainly knew me better than I knew him, for he would see me pass frequentty on my way to the station. During the period of his tenancy I should pass it twice daily, and sometimes oftener. Also his brother and my father knew each other very well, and probably he himself was rather well known to my father, who, as it happens — if anything does "happen" — also purported to be present at the sitting of February 17th, and may have brought him. A less detailed but equally curious example of an OTHER INCIDENTS 59 unexpected and almost forgotten person communicat- ing may be briefly described. On January 15th, 1915, the medium said, among evidential matter: "When you were a little boy, did you know a tallish woman who had a wooden leg or a false foot? Tall, thin woman; thumps with her foot. TLlderly. Thud every time her foot goes down. Been associated with you in your childhood days." This evoked no recollection at all in my mind. Later in the same sitting the medium said : "Woman with foot wrong walks past again. Tall, thin. Old-fashioned mantle she has on. It is the right foot that goes down with a thutnp." Here he got up and walked about, imitating the form that he could see, and limping heavily as with a short right leg. Still I failed to recognise; and there the matter remained for over a year. Then, on March 10th, 1916, I happened to mention the incident to my sister, who said the description reminded her of Emma Steeton. I then remembered Emma Steeton very well. The description fits, except that I am quite uncertain which leg was deficient, and I doubt whether she had a wooden leg or foot. Our impression is that her lameness was due to a fall. She was a worthy old cottager who lived near us in our childhood, and occasionally had us in to tea and looked after us generally if our parents were out. She died probably thirty years ago, and no relatives are left that I know of. Few living people will remember her, and I do not believe that Wilkinson has ever heard her mentioned, his orbit being very wide apart from that of the few living people who have any interest in her. At that time we were living in an outlying part of the village 60 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS of Thornton — now a ward of Bradford — and Emma's circle of acquaintances was extremely small, her lame- ness keeping her near home to a greater extent than was the case with her neighbours — though they also were hard-working, stay-at-home villagers. Nothing more was heard of her for over a year, and of course I never mentioned her either by name or description to the medium. In my sitting of April 12th, 1916, however, there was a reappearance. I do not believe that Mr. Wilkinson had any conscious recol- lection of the woman described fifteen months before, but of course I cannot prove that. I can only say that in my opinion he remembers practically nothing of what he has seen and said, unless something special has happened at a sitting only a few days before. If I could adequately represent his busy life, continually occupied with addresses and clairvoyance from Exeter to Aberdeen, very little of his time being spent at home, it would be clear to the reader that any normal memory-explanation of these sequential incidents is quite unacceptable. This is what was said on April 12th, 1916: "Did you ever know a woman with a wood leg? Tall, elderly, a wood foot or leg." [I said I thought I knew who it was.] "I could hear the thud on the floor." [A. W. got up and limped about, thudding with his right foot.] "You would know this woman zvith the leg when you were a boy. She has been gone on fnany years. J feel as if she takes me somewhere where she lived. It is a local connexion; I don't get far away." [And, later in the same sitting:] "This woman with the wood leg must have had a good voice, OTHER INCIDENTS 61 and could sing. She is showing me some hymn-books ; she was interested in hymn-books and music." I have now made further enquiries of the two or three local cottagers who remember Mrs. Steeton, but not much detail is obtainable. Nothing special seems to be remembered about her voice, and I incline to think that this was an inference of Wilkinson's own mind. What he actually saw, with his psychic sight, was a hymn-book or some hymn-books, and this may have been merely a reminder of the Wesleyan Chapel near by, which she attended and the services at which were probably the pleasantest and most notable inci- dents in her monotonous and lonely life — for she was a widow without children, so far as I know, and cer- tainly lived alone. This view that the hymn-books mean the chapel is supported by the incident which the reader will find later, described in the report of the sitting of January 15th, 1915, in which a Moses Young appeared, holding a chapel hymn-book. I had forgotten this old man, and even when I remembered him I had no recollection of his first name, which, as a matter of fact, turned out to be Moses. He attended the same chapel as we did, and his pew was conspicu- ous in my field of view, as my place in the choir was in his. I never had anything to do with him, and prob- ably never exchanged a word with him, rarely seeing him except on Sundays. The reminder of the chapel was therefore very appropriate. I have been unable to ascertain whether Mrs. Steeton had a wooden leg or foot. All who remember her are, however, agreed about her lameness. There seems no certainty attainable as to which leg it was, though one informant, without knowing what answer 62 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS I expected, said she thought it was the right leg, which is what the medium said. The name I have given is a pseudonym. I have hopes that the real name will yet come through, for Wilkinson is particularly good at names. The evidence will then be greatly improved. But I have not much doubt about Emma Steeton being intended, for she is the only lame woman I remember having known in my childhood days, and the other details also seem to fit. CHAPTER V INTRODUCTION TO DETAILED REPORTS In the foregoing chapters I have presented evidence extracted from the records of several sittings, in order that a series of connected incidents may be seen as a whole. But though this is necessary, something more is necessary also; for the reader has no assurance that I am not picking out things that fit perhaps by chance, and suppressing many things which were meaningless or incorrect. Without a complete account of the sittings, with hits and misses fully recorded, it is impossible to estimate the evidential value of inci- dents contained in them. I therefore now give the reports as copied from my verbatim shorthand notes, with comments made the same day or within two days of the sittings. These reports are complete as to misses, though not quite complete as to hits; for I have had to omit several striking pieces of evidence out of consideration for living relatives of the spirit communicating — often someone quite unrelated and, indeed, only slightly known to me. Consequently, in estimating the evidence here presented, the reader may feel sure that he is estimating on the conservative side. If I could have given the reports in absolute completeness, the evidence would have been much stronger. It will be seen that though the reports contain in scattered fragments the matter quoted connectedly 63 64 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS in the foregoing chapters, they are not merely a repeti- tion, for they contain many other small incidents of an evidential character, duly explained in the inserted notes. In the first few sittings, though everything said by the medium (except for the reservations just men- tioned) is put down, there is no verbatim record of what I myself said. It may, of course, be taken for granted that I was on my guard to give nothing away, and I am absolutely sure that I gave no information or guidance save what is recorded; the Torringham and Walker incidents being the main ones. But, realising the importance of absolutely verbatim re- ports, I succeeded in later sittings in getting down everything that was said during the period of the clairvoyance, whether by the medium or myself. The reader will therefore be able to judge for himself how much or how little assistance I involuntarily gave. As to facial indications or the like, I think I may say that I have a fairly sphinx-like countenance — so, at least, I have been told by friends — and I do not think much is revealed in that way. For one thing, I am so busy doing the reporting that my mind does not always quite take in all the connotations and significances, in the stress of getting the words down correctly; and, further, no expression of countenance would tell the medium my great-grandmother's maiden name or the occupation of Benjamin Torrington's father, whom I had never known. And in this matter of names, a department in which Wilkinson is far ahead of any other medium I have ever known or heard of, there is hardly ever any fishing or hesitancy. The Torringham and Walker incidents were very excep- INTRODUCTION TO REPORTS 65 tional; the name is usually hit off at the first shot, with no hesitancy whatever. And there is no physical contact in the sittings, so muscle-reading is excluded. I wish I could make it as clear to the reader's mind as it is to my own, that, whatever the true explanation, it certainly is not a normal one. Knowledge is shown, in the clairvoyant gleams, which has not entered the medium's mind through the known sensory channels. Unfortunately, I cannot pass on to others my con- viction on this point, partly because firsthand experi- ence is more convincing than secondhand testimony, and partly because I cannot give all the evidence on which my conviction is based. For instance, on one occasion a certain spirit was said to be present, and the medium got an impression concerning a private family matter in which that particular spirit would certainly be interested. I am absolutely sure that only four people knew of the matter — four people, that is, on this side. And it is certain that none of them had told Wilkinson about it. A curious feature was that the medium did not get the details, which on a tele- pathic hypothesis we might expect he would; he got just enough to show that some intelligence which did know them was at work. Things of this kind have occurred several times, and they irresistibly suggest that a discarnate mind is conveying to the medium just sufficient allusion to private matters to indicate supernormality and its own identity, without giving enough detail to enable the medium to understand. Other contributory pieces of evidence come to me from people who visit halls in various towns where Wilkinson is giving platform clairvoyance. For in- stance, only yesterday (October 26th, 1916) I heard 66 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS from my friend Dr. Horsman — who is not a member of any spiritualist society — that he attended a meeting in Northumberland last week, and that Wilkinson described and named a spirit beside him, said to have been a doctor who died of blood-poisoning some time ago, aged about sixty-three. The full Christian name and surname were given, but were not recognised by either Dr. Horsman or anyone else in the room. Mak- ing enquiries later, however, he discovered that a doc- tor of that name had died in a town some miles away, eighteen years ago, aged sixty-three, and that the cause of death was blood-poisoning. Also that one of his own (Dr. Horsman's) patients had formerly been attended by the doctor in question, and had been operated on by him. Perhaps he is still interested in the "case" ! As to Wilkinson's knowledge of Bradford people, past and present, I am confident that it is practically nil. He never comes into the district except to see me. And I am equally sure that he has not amassed subliminal perceptions in local cemeteries, for he says he has never been in one about here, and I believe him. Sensitives are not fond of such places; not that the fact of death is as terrible to them as it is to the average person, but because the emotional atmosphere, so to speak, is depressing, as a result of the living mourners who are continually there. There remains the consideration of how much I. involuntarily "let out" in general conversation before the sitting. This is not noted down, because it is not worth it. I fear that here I must make demands on the reader's faith. I cannot prove that I do not let things out. I can only say that in these preliminary INTRODUCTION TO REPORTS 67 conversations, which usually last only a few minutes before clairvoyance begins, the subject is the weather, the war, or anything except deceased people or private affairs ; and that a man of cautious habit and of rather unfluent speech, trained to further restraint by years of psychical research, is not likely to spoil the evidence by telling a medium things that he does not want him to know. For the sake of furnishing additional data for the reader's judgment, in the exact form in which they were received, I include extracts from some of Mr. Wilkinson's letters. Lest it should be thought that I have involuntarily given information in general corre- spondence with him, I may here say that we do not "correspond" in the ordinary sense at all. I write when I want to ask for a sitting; that is all. And I am careful not to give anything away that would spoil possible evidence. He himself is equally keen on this; and at sittings he often says: "Don't tell me anything; let's see if more will come"; and after a sitting I never expatiate on the details. I usually say: "You got some very good clairvoyance," or "I recognised most of them," or something like that, en- couraging but not informing. Mr. Wilkinson's mediumship is remarkable, as I have just said, in the ease and correctness with which he gets names. This is usually one of the difficult things in mediumistic communications. Most me- diums seem to have to guess at a name from some symbolic pictures which they see, as when Mrs. Thomp- son's Nelly gave the name "Happyfield" — seeing chil- dren playing happily in a field — the right name being "Merrifield." No doubt the method varies, and some- 68 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS times there is a more direct communication, even in cases like Mrs. Thompson's and Mrs. Piper's. In Wilkinson's case I think his exceptional success in this department may be due to his very bad sight. He has had several operations on his eyes, and is indeed half blind, even with his specially-made glasses, re- inforced with a lens for reading. Consequently his world is much more a world of sounds, and much less a world of sights, than the world of a normal person; and his perceptivity will perhaps therefore be above the normal, in non-visual directions. This is so, even in my own case. I am extremely shortsighted; but my hearing is more acute than that of anyone else in the house, and I can recognise voices much better than most people. Also, it is somewhat the same with my sense of smell. It will be noticed by the reader of the sitting-reports in this volume that Wilkinson often gets supernormal facts through his psychic sense of smell, as he gets names through his psychic hearing — clair- audience or direct impression. I now give the full reports, preceded by copies of the letters mentioned. These are arranged chronologically. CHAPTER VI medium's letters, and reports Extract from letter dated July 22nd, 1907, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. . . . Respecting a seance, I might tell you I don't habit myself to giving private ones, as I am more a public test giver, but, of course, I may possibly be able to say something to you. I take no fee unless I give an equivalent, so that should I come to see you my out-of-pocket expenses would be my only charge. I could not come very well this week, and next week I am away from home nearly all the week in Lancashire, so that as soon as I can conveniently spend an afternoon with you I will do so. It would perhaps be as well if you just dropped me a card, say in about two weeks from now. I shall then at least by to-morrow fortnight have returned from Walsall, where I have engagements to meet, and if you did so it then would not slip my mind, as I have so many calls. Extract from letter dated February 24M, 1911, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. ... I quite appreciate the tone of your letter when you say you and your friends believe in my honesty, though, of course, that does not prove much. Re- specting the results obtained through me at any of 69 70 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS the sittings, I can emphatically say no previous in- formation had been given me by anyone. Referring to the possibility of me seeing a tombstone inscription, I may tell you I never was in a cemetery in Thornton in my life, and moreover how would I know which to visit to find such, not knowing you in any way*? I am fully aware of the practices of fraudulent mediums and the necessary caution to be taken to guard against such, so that I quite understand your reference. If the phenomena are not what they purport to be, then I cannot say what they are or how it comes about. I am perfectly conscious that no other than the proper motive has prompted me. My chief regret is that the power is so limited. . . . Extract from letter dated March $rd, 1911, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. ... A strange feeling touches me while I write you, and a voice speaks in my ear: "Tell him John Hey is very interested in his welfare." Of course, I don't know if you ever knew such a man, but he was old when he died, and related to you somehow, I think. [My mother's father was John Hey, and he died at eighty. He appears in various sittings later.] Extract from letter dated Newcastle-on-Tyne, March 2.0th, 1911, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. ... It seems to me so strange that this faculty should be looked on in the light it is, because it appears so natural to me. ... I am not an imaginative person, I am sure, and it would be difficult to imagine things MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 71 of this kind, which almost invariably are proven to be correct. [Wilkinson has often said to me, when a form has appeared to him with exceptional clearness: "Do you really see nothing? I can hardly believe you can't see that form; it is as real to my eyes as you are or as my own body is." But I think the "sight" is psychical, not physical, for he sees more detail in the forms than he could see with his physi- cal sight. I should say it is true that he is not imaginative ; he is quiet, matter-of-fact, critical, not jumpy, or oratorical, or neurotic] Extract from letter dated November 2^th, 191 1, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. P.S. — While writing to you I am visibly impressed by the name of "Bannister." I have no idea whether it is a man or woman, and I cannot feel a name to precede it. I thought I would just drop it down; it might interest you, whether it means anything or not. A. W. [My father's name was Bannister Hill. I have no reason to think that this was known to the me- dium, and I did not tell him anything about the correctness or applicability of his impression.] SITTING 1 July 2ist, 1914, 2.20 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Present, J. A. H. and medium {Mr. A. Wilkinson). This was very nearly a blank sitting. Probably the medium was not yet quite at ease, having seen me 7^ PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS only twice before, not in this house; also he is very thoughtful for others, and was no doubt more or less anxious lest I should get nervous or tired, my heart not being good. And, whatever theory we adopt in ex- planation of the phenomena as a whole, it is certain that any anxiety on the medium's part tends to inhibit them. The following is all that was obtained. A. W. : I get an impression of a Jonas. Also of a Sarah connected with him. She died since him. [I had a great-uncle Jonas, who died in 1898. He had a niece Sarah, who died some years later. She was his sister's daughter, and was my aunt.] I get the name Dunlop. Doctor; medical doctor. Old times. [A Dr. Dunlop lived at Dunlop House, about three-quarters of a mile from here, dying or re- moving probably forty or fifty years ago. I re- member my father used to talk of him; he was before my time. ] There is a man behind you. Armitage or Hermi- tage. Arthur. Thirty-five to forty years old. Dead. [I knew an Arthur Armitage who died about 1902, probably aged thirty-five or thirty-six. But the acquaintance was of the slightest. I am not sure that I ever spoke to him, but I knew him well by sight, as I am sure he knew me, for I passed his shop frequently. I know no reason why he should appear at my sitting.] I get the name Leather. Old man, very gentle- manly; rather retiring. I hesitate to say the name; never heard it before as a name; it only means boots, etc., to me. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 73 [I knew a Mr. Leather very well, and the de- scription fits him exactly. It happens that I met him mostly at whist evenings at Dunlop House — long after Dr. Dunlop' s time, — a doctor living there who was more or less a friend of mine as well as of Mr. Leather. That was in 1893 and for a few years afterwards, but certainly not ex- tending later than 1897. If Mr. Leather wanted to remind me of himself and of shared experiences, he would be likely to mention the Thursday eve- nings at Dunlop House.] Clairvoyance ended. I may here mention that I never visited Dunlop House after my friend left it, about the year 1896; nor, I feel sure, did Mr. Leather. It no longer exists as a house, for it was divided and made into cottages within two or three years after my friend's removal. (See Chapter II.) Extract from letter dated Bournemouth, November 18th, 1914, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. By the way, did you ever know someone named "Parrbury," or some such name 1 ? I am impressed it would be a very old gentleman you might have known ; however, I get the feeling while I am holding your letter. He was a man who retained his faculties in a large measure till the end of life almost. I am not sure, but I feel perhaps he was called Robert, but of that I could not be too sure: the other name, how- ever, being so uncommon that I thought I would tell it to you. He evidently is keenly interested in you. . . . [On reading this I thought it was meaningless. 74 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS But when I told my sister she remarked that Mr. Leather's name was Robert Parrbury Leather (spelling of second word uncertain). I knew he was Robert P. Leather, and may have known the middle name, but if so, I had forgotten it. On November 2 1st, 1914, after enquiry, I found that the name was Robert Parberry Leather.] SITTING 2 Monday, December 14/^, 1914, 2.30 to 4.30 p.m. Present, J. A. H. and medium (Mr. A. Wilkinson) In preliminary conversation I told Mr. Wilkinson that the Parrbury of a recent letter of his to me had meaning, and he then said that when he wrote that letter he felt that "Parrbury" was waiting for some old friend to pass over. I remarked : "Very good and true; an old friend was dying." The facts are that Henry Drayton, the brother-in-law and lifelong friend of Robert Parberry Leather, died on November 29th, 1914, aged eighty-nine. Wilkinson (as we have seen) wrote the letter about "Parrbury" eleven days before — on the 18th. My mind being occupied more or less with these men, I expected some appearance of one or other of them at the sitting; but, as the following record shows, no mention of either of them was made. Perhaps they have now gone on together. After further general talk the medium said : I get the feeling of a Helen — spelt with an H. [A. W. pronounced the word again, aspirating it MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 75 strongly.] It is Helen Torringham, or some such name. [A. W. seemed uncertain about the ending. I supplied "Torrington," having known many people of that name. He accepted it, remarking that he knew some Torringhams; hence, perhaps, his mistake.] Middle-aged or rather more; portly figure, been de- ceased a good many years, and the form I see is very ethereal. She moves behind your chair. She moves about a good deal, and I feel that she is looking for someone who is not here. She has something on her head, I cannot see what; all is so thin. A shrewd woman. [All correct for a Mrs. Torrington, if the Chris- tian name is right. I have no recollection of what it was, but will ascertain. She died in 1896. (Later — December 22nd, 1914. I have en- quired, and find that Helen is correct.) She usually wore a white lace cap on her head, indoors. The description is correct in every detail, except perhaps age. She died at about sixty-five. (Note. — April 14th, 1916. But A. W. calls people "middle-aged" up to sixty or more. He has said so, specifically, in a later sitting, April 12th, 1916, referring — curiously enough — to a reappearance of this same person.) She was no relation, but I knew the whole family intimately; the son was a chum of mine, and a daughter of hers had called two days before the sitting, apparently leaving her influence. No doubt it was for her that Mrs. Torrington was looking. The latter had a char- acteristic way of emphasising her aspirates, speak- 76 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS ing very deliberately. I often used to notice this.] Now there is a very old lady, of rather low stature, standing by the couch end, looking at you. Hair very grey, and done over the forehead like this [indicating with two forefingers two curved lines from centre of upper part of forehead to the temples]. Face drawn and old, but nice. Wide dress, very full; pleated— a good dress. Rather a proud old person. Name Mary. Quite old, close on eighty. [All correct for my maternal grandmother, Mary Hey, who died March 2ist, 1890, aged eighty-one. There was no photograph of her in the room, and I have never talked to Mr. Wilkinson about my deceased relatives. I have no belief that he has any normally-acquired knowledge of any of them.] Helen is still here, but she has nothing to do with Mary; they go apart to show that they are not con- nected. Helen is looking about for someone not here; someone she would like to speak to. She was a woman with will, "plenty about her," as we say in Yorkshire. [Correct; and true that she and my grand- mother were not related. But they knew each other in life, and it is not surprising that they appeared together.] Mary is still standing there, like an image, looking at you. A voice behind me says, "Purcell." A man; quite another influence. [Several years ago some relatives of mine named Purcell lived in this house. But they are still living. Perhaps an ancestor was trying to com- municate. See sitting of June 5th, 1916.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 77 There is a Timothy about; I don't know whether it is Purcell or not. I get Benjamin Torrington. Helen and Benjamin had some association. Benjamin was an old man. [Timothy unrecognised. Benjamin Torrington, Helen's husband, died about 1901, aged nearly eighty.] There is a funny smell. Have you known somebody who kept a drug-shop? I smell all kinds of concoc- tions, as in a drug-shop. [I learnt a fortnight after the sitting that Ben- jamin Torrington's father, who, I suppose, would be dead before my time, had kept a druggist's shop, so Benjamin would be in that atmosphere until he married.] The old lady is dying away gradually. Prim old person. I feel as if I were in a drug-shop. Somebody here called Purcell, an old man. Might be Timothy; not sure. Have you known somebody called Walker? Had you visitors yesterday or Saturday? Some influence is left. At some time or other you had acquaintances called Walker. [But the medium seemed uncertain about the last syllable, so I remarked "Walkley, perhaps." Friends of ours thus named lived near, from 1883 to 1900. One died in 1898 or 1899, another in 1900. No relatives of theirs, or anyone of that name, so far as I know, remain in this district. They were well known to my grandmother and to the Torringtons.] 78 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Have you had anybody called James Bannister con- nected with you ? I feel old-fashioned, about my neck. Shirt. A big, powerful man. [Gets up, squares shoulders, standing erect.] This goes back a long number of years; before this place was built. [House is twenty-five years old.] Your people have been farmers. Somebody belonging to your mother been farmers. [James Bannister is unrecognised; but my father's paternal grandmother was a Bannister be- fore marriage, and James might be a brother or her father. I am trying to trace my Bannister ancestors, but it is difficult. My father was named Bannister Hill, after them. My mother's father owned two farms at one time, though he was hardly a farmer. It is probable, however, that there were farmers farther back.] Some man named Driver here. Funny name. [Unrecognised. I know some living Drivers slightly. ] I get the name Ishmael. There is quite a circle, but all is mixed up. I feel among a farming class. [Ishmael Ogden was my maternal grandmother's brother. I do not know whether he was a farmer or not. I never knew him.] James Bannister again. Something to do with a quarry. Lot of stone and flags [flagstones] about. Long time back. [Likely enough, for my grandfather, John Hill, was a quarry owner and stone merchant, and, as said, his mother was a Bannister before marriage.] I feel all the accompaniments of a quarry — horses, wagons. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 79 (End of clairvoyance.) During the sitting the medium had kept pencil and paper in front of him on the table, and occasionally wrote a few words. These were found to be "Benja- min Torrington" and "Ishmael." Wilkinson gets at the length of time that has elapsed since death partly by a direct impression or intuition, and partly by the solid^ or thinness of the form. But it is, apparently, chiefly intuitional, for though Helen Torrington was so ethereal that he could hardly see her, he did not place her a long way back in time. She died, as a matter of fact, in 1896; my grandmother, he said, was solid and lifelike — he could see her eyes and every detail. Yet she died in 1890. It rather looks as if the solidity or thinness of a form indicates the stage of progress of that spirit, for I should say that though both Mrs. Torrington and my grandmother were shrewd and able women in a material sense, and about equal in intellect, the former was the more spir- itual of the two, and she may accordingly have pro- gressed farther away from earth conditions. SITTING 3 ■V Friday, January l$th, 1915. Present, J. A. H., medium (Mr. A. Wilkinson), and Mr. Trevor for a few minutes. About five minutes after the medium's arrival, and while we were talking about ordinary things, an un- expected and infrequent visitor called: Mr. Trevor, vicar of a parish not far away. He came in for ten minutes and I introduced him by name. Immediately 80 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS after his departure Wilkinson said: "What did you say that man's name was?" I told him, and he re- marked: "I thought I heard somebody say 'King'; a shadow, older than him, and not so tall — a faint outline or phantom— seemed to come out of him." Mr. Trevor's predecessor in the vicariate of his par- ish was named King. He died in 1909, aged sixty- four. Mr. Trevor is under fifty, and taller than Mr. King was. Mr. Trevor's waistcoat indicated his voca- tion, but I do not think that he or his predecessor was known to the medium, either by sight or by name. I have good reason for believing that Wilkinson has never been in that particular church — which is many miles from his home — and not often even in the parish. After a few minutes' silence, Wilkinson continued: There is a man there by the bookcase, right-hand corner; very old man, big, full features. Been gone some time; old-fashioned shirt, white, very clean. Elias Sidney. [Medium took paper and pencil and wrote "Elias Sidney."] Politics interested him; rather a strong politician, Radical or strong Liberal. Been dead some time. Somebody brought him, somebody on the other side, who has manifested here before. Not lived here. Good colour in his face. There is somebody behind him, and he shadows him. Had to do with Liberals. Rather heavy on his feet. [Unrecognised.] Have you been connected with anyone called Young? Old man, straight, grey hair, nice old gentle- man. He has a hymn-book in his hand ; looks like a chapel hymn-book. [Couldn't remember anybody at the moment, MEDIUM S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 81 but thought of several living Youngs well known to me.] Sidnejr appears again; somebody brought him — some spirit. I feel as if somebody took me on a train, not a long way. To Bradford, then train to some place, hilly, where there is a big building. I go very quickly to this place, very large place on a hill, workhouse or prison. Asylum place ; asylum. I do feel moidered. You don't know anybody at Menston? Some in- fluence takes me in that direction. I don't get into the asylum. I feel big, tall, strong, a young influence. Train, railway, feeling of backwards and forwards, on a railway. Menston is not far from Bradford, is it 1 ? [W. knows of the large asylum at Menston, of course. Young man unrecognised. Later : I have found indications of the truth of this, but the matter is private.] Did you ever know a Moses Young 1 ? [I said I believed so — not sure. I now find, on asking a relative, that the father of a local Young known to me was named Moses. I knew him when I was a boy; he went to the same chapel. The hymn-book is perhaps a reminder of this. His pew was very prominently in front of me as I sat in the choir, and he would be continually seeing me, past the minister, the pulpit being nearly be- tween us. I was in the gallery, he in the area. No relation to us.] There is a woman here named Mary Bannister. She is not very tall. I see her hair; it stands up a bit — 82 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS a bit wiry; she is rather full figure. Been dead some time, by style of hair dressing; very antique, ancient. [My father's paternal grandmother was Mary Bannister before marriage. I know nothing of her personal appearance.] Sidney comes and goes. Enthusiast at politics. There is somebody with Mary Bannister named Jowett, a man, with peculiar leggings on, kind of boots, long ones, very big ones; no hair on lips or chin, but whiskers sticking out at sides, very old-fashioned man, big, old. A very long way back. He lived in a very country place. [Unrecognised; but I believe there is a Jowett strain in us, some way back. ] There is a young man, rather tall, nicely built, moustache, rather weird, intent look — a bit wild, be- wildered; age twenty-five or twenty-six, biggish man. Looks strange, as if he had been lost. A motionless image, steady gaze. [Unrecognised. Later: but see sittings of June 5th and August 2nd, 1916.] Sidney got excited when discussing politics. There are a lot of men about you [i.e. J. A. H.] — oldish men. That woman, Mary Bannister, had a curious, old-fashioned dress. It stood out. Have you known a lady, who died in middle life, named Han- son ? She would be ill some time. Interested in school life — I feel as if she moved in a school atmosphere. Something to do with a school, very nice-looking woman, much afflicted before death. [Unrecognised. Later: But see sitting of April 19th, 1916.] There is a face over you, pale, rather small features. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 83 Head and shoulders. Serious look on face, but slight smile; name Mary. Face like marble just here [touch- ing cheeks near mouth]. Right over your head, builds up over you; over sixty by the look of her, but not an old woman. Delicate. Inclined to be religious. [True of my mother except that she was only fifty-four at death — but she looked older — and had not been a particularly delicate woman, though always pale and thin. W. has described and named her before. See my New Evidences.] When you were a little boy did you know a tallish woman who had a wooden leg or a false foot? Tall, thin woman; thumps with her foot. Elderly. Thud every time her foot goes down. Been associated with you in your childhood days. [Unrecognised. Later: See note at end of this sitting, also sit- ting of April 12th, 1916, in which the same person reappears.] You remember me seeing an old man here before — I can't remember his name. [Here W. seemed ex- cited and eager, so I suggested "Leather."] Yes, Leather. It is Mr. Leather who has brought Elias Sidney. They were cronies; they were cronies. [W. laughs.] Sidney has been passed away longer than Mr. Leather. A girl moves towards the bed. About fifteen years old. Tall, pale girl, lot of hair, beautiful, pale fea- tures. Slender, graceful. Hair not "up." Something in her hand — looks like music, copy of music. Been gone some time. Somebody is in this house that she has known. Subtle ; I can nearly see through her form. Name Purcell, I think. 84 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS [Unrecognised, but must make inquiries. I have an aunt who married a Purcell, and Wilkin- son has got this name before, so there is probably some sense in it. Later : Cannot make anything out. If a Chris- tian name had been got, I might have found some application.] There is a man by the side of you, looking down at you. He has a sort of long pinafore on; prime of life, about forty or forty-two, nicely built, moustache, no beard, the pinafore is soiled and dirty. Died sud- denly; his death was a surprise to all who knew him. He had something to do with someone you [J. A. H.] know intimately. There was some sort of special trouble when he died; of course, death always causes sorrow to those left, but in this case there was some sort of special trouble. He was not related to you, but there is some connexion. I see a lot of steps which run up; a warehouse. Funny smell — musty. I think the man must have been a wool-sorter. Died very sud- denly. No machinery about. Warehouse. [Unrecognised. But my Purcell relatives are in the wool trade, so I must inquire of them. Wool-sorters wear a sort of pinafore, known locally as a "checker brat," and this gets very dirty in front. Later : My relatives do not recognise him. But the warehouse, steps, smell, and wool are signifi- cant, and if a name could be got it might recall the man.] The girl has some connexion with your family, a good way back. Her hair looks fair, sandy, her form is very subtle; might be dead before your time, but MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 85 perhaps some living person could tell. In your family circle. That girl lived near a quarry : I see flags and stones. She is very attractive. Has not manifested here be- fore. Long gone. There is a man, Jonathan Ainsworth. Big man, tremendous. [W. stood up and seemed half under control.] I do feel big, as if I nearly touched the ceiling. He and a John Hey collaborated. An old gentleman. Ainsworth not so old as Hey. Yewton is to do with Hey. [W. spelt it, tentatively, but seemed at a loss or confused, thinking it was a man's name.] Hey and Ainsworth had to do with Yewton. I see a barn. [Here I interposed to help, saying: "Yewton is a farm, not a man." John Hey was my maternal grandfather. He once had two farms near Yew- ton, and his daughter still owns one of them. I think its land adjoins Yewton. They are across the valley, a mile or two from here. I know of no connexion of my grandfather's with Yewton itself, and Ainsworth is unrecognised, but I will inquire about him through my aunt, John Hey's daughter. Later: January 22nd, 1915. My aunt says that she, and her father, John Hey, knew a Jona- than Hains worth who hawked tea a long time ago. But he was short and bent, and had no special connexion with John Hey or with Yewton, so far as she knows. He was an old man, and probably died long before my grandfather Hey, who died in 1889.] Woman with foot wrong walks past again. Tall, 86 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS thin. Old-fashioned mantle she has on. It is the right foot that goes down with a thump. [Medium got up and walked, imitating her, as if with a short right leg or a wooden leg. ] School, woman named Hanson. I see desks, scholars. [Unrecognised. Later: See sitting of April 19th, 1916.] What a lot of Marys there are about you! I get mixed among them. [My mother and both grandmothers were named Mary, also a great-grandmother.] I wonder who that poor young man can be? [Apparently the one who looked wild.] I suppose somebody lived here before you 1 ? This is not a new house. [It is about twenty-five years old, and has had several tenants.] I feel as if I were in a warehouse. Fusty old smell. Somebody has been about you as if their clothes smell. No machinery. Warehouse. Benjamin: male side of you. Some men getting on in years; tall. [Unrecognised.] Here the medium sat back and apparently could get nothing more. He had been at it for nearly an hour. (In this Report I am compelled to omit some good evidence involving other people.) I got most of it down verbatim, though once or twice he went too fast and I missed a few words. Between each burst, so to speak, he is silent, or muttering abstract- edly, "m , m ," but gives the impression of intense listening, a tense concentration, not merely of listening with his ears, but with all of him. It is diffi- MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 87 cult to describe this, for intense effort seems incom- patible with passivity; but nevertheless there is some- how a combination of the two. I have noticed it before, but never so markedly as in this sitting — e.g. about the girl of fifteen or sixteen I said : "Try to get her name," and he said : "I'm trying" ; and his intense effort of "listening," or feeling, or reaching, or strain- ing after something just beyond reach and beyond audibility, was particularly noticeable. I told him very little about how far he was correct, but said I recognised Mary Bannister. He would see that several of them were unknown to me, and prob- ably this led him to wonder whether they belonged to some of the people who lived here before us, which indeed is probably the truth. Note: February 5th, 1915. 1 I asked a relative who is a local Liberal worker and business man whether the name Elias Sidney was known to him. He said: "No." I told him why I asked, and gave him the details of what Wilkinson had said; but they stirred no recollections — he did not remember ever hearing of the man or the name before. He said, however, that he thought he could ascertain whether such a man had existed, by asking some old Bradford Liberal. To-day, February 5th, 1915, he called and informed me that he has made inquiries in the town, and has found a man who knew Elias Sidney very well indeed ; 1 In what follows, and in other places, there is some repetition of matter which has appeared in the earlier chapters; but I think the critical reader will wish to see my notes exactly as made at the time, so I reproduce them fully. They are sometimes instructive by showing the difficulty I had in verifying certain statements of the medium ; and this difficulty has a bearing on the evidential aspect, since — gener- ally — what I found it difficult to verify, the medium is proportionally unlikely to have known normally. 88 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS that he died eight or nine years ago, but had long been retired from public life, being a very old man; and that he (Sidney) was one of a coterie of friends — all vigorous politicians on the Liberal side, to which he (my relative's informant) and Mr. Leather belonged. Their rendezvous was a certain Liberal Club. My relative did not tell his informant why he asked; he merely asked whether he had ever known an Elias Sidney. The name Elias Sidney still sounds quite unfamiliar to me, and if I did not know a good deal about the pos- sibilities of subliminal memory I should be prepared to swear that I had never heard of him. Certainly he cannot have been a prominent man in any way, or my relative would have known the name; for he has been in close touch with leading local business men for thirty years (he is fifty), and also with local politics. Note: April 29th, 1916. It occurred to me that a gentleman fairly well known to me — professor in a theological college — ■ might have known Elias Sidney, so I wrote and asked him a week ago. To-day I have seen him; he knew Mr. Sidney well, and says that the description given by the medium is exact. I have now learnt from him, for the first time, where Mr. Sidney lived; the town is neither Bradford — where I live — nor Halifax — in an out-district of which the medium lives. It is more distant from the latter than from the former. May 3rd, 1916. — Yesterday I ascertained that Mr. Sidney died on January 7th, 1909 (seven weeks before Mr. Leather), aged eighty-three. He was a keen poli- tician and excitable; went to a certain Liberal Club every day when well enough, for many years, staying MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 89 from 3 p.m. till about 7 p.m. Mr. Leather went almost daily to the same club, at about the same time. I have seen a photograph of Mr. Sidney, and the de- scription fits. I cannot find that the medium ever goes to the small town where Mr. Sidney lived (I have interviewed people who live there, including spiritual- ists, who would be likely to know if he did), and there seems no reason to believe that Mr. Sidney was known to him even by name. And, in particular, it is in the last degree unlikely that he could have known of the association of Mr. Sidney and Mr. Leather at the Liberal Club, for neither my friends nor I, who knew Mr. Leather fairly intimately, were aware of it. Nor can he reasonably be supposed to know of my meeting Mr. Leather at Dunlop House. The most rational theory seems to be that the surviving mind of Mr. Leather himself was in operation. March 10th, 1916. — Mentioning to my sister an old woman, lame, who was described in a Wilkinson sit- ting, she said it reminded her of Emma Steeton. I then got this report, and read to her the two para- graphs (pp. 83, 86) about the lame woman. The description certainly fits, so far as we remember. Emma walked with a heavy limp, owing to a fall ; we do not remember which leg was the lame one. We think she had not a wooden leg or foot, but she certainly walked with a thump on one foot. She was a near neighbour of ours at Roundfield Place, and occasion- ally looked after us children, more or less, if our par- ents were our. She died probably twenty-five or thirty years ago; no relatives left that we know of. (See sitting of April 12th, 1916.) 90 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Extract from letter dated Bournemouth, October lst 9 1915, from Mr. Wilkinson to J. A. H. Just when closing this epistle I felt as if some old man touched me; rather a gentleman; and he made me feel a bit like a parson. I cannot get any com- munication from him beyond "A. S. W.," whatever that means; an impression I get is that you might have known this man some years ago. However, it is rather vague. When I tried on a separate paper I could only get the letters named. [The initials of the full name of Mr. Walkley, whose name was apparently groped after in my sitting of December 14th, 1914, were A. S. W. He was a parson, and was a "gentleman"; died 1900; had left this district some months before; no relatives of his remained; I have no reason to think that Mr. Wilkinson has ever heard of him normally. I heard Mr. Walkley preach nearly every Sunday for seventeen years, and he knew me well.] SITTING 4 Friday, November lgth, 1915. Present, Mr. Frank Knight and medium. This was a sitting held by my friend Mr. Knight (whose experiences are described in my New Evidences in Psychical Research) on my behalf, at his home in another town, with the medium A. Wilkinson. What follows is a copy of Mr. Knight's notes. Preliminarily it may be mentioned that the glove used as a rapport-object had belonged to the Mrs. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 91 Napier elsewhere alluded to both in this book and in New Evidences. This is a pseudonym, and Mr. Knight did not know her real name or anything about her except what had appeared in my book. She had died about a fortnight before the sitting — on Novem- ber 3rd, 1915. The letter mentioned was a letter of mine to Mr. Knight, received by him on the morning of the sitting. It contained no information about my relatives or friends. [W. placed glove to face.] Glove feels very cold and damp. A very calm, tranquil feeling, notwithstanding great weakness. Per- son had a lot of pain in her breast. Feel as if I must lie in a bed in extreme physical weakness: heart or chest. Very calm feeling, ready and prepared for everything. This is as someone gone to sleep and won't waken — as if her mind was slumbering. Not yet awake, not fully conscious; asleep, not able to make any actual demonstration. The person who wore it had much pain about the heart. Doesn't appear to fully understand how to reach me. [Mrs. N. was tranquil and prepared. She had much pain in chest — growth behind breastbone — and became very weak owing to inability to take even fluid food for some weeks. She had an opera- tion for a breast tumour in 1913, and the doctors said it was cancer, but she was not told this. She also had obscure heart attacks — intermittency, without valvular disease — during the last five years or so.] [From the letter.] 92 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Impression of a man called Ishmael Hey. Elderly gent, some time back, rather big, not very old, old- fashioned in way of thinking. Someone called Sarah, deceased, age not obtainable. [Ishmael Hey is unknown, but Ishmael Ogden was my grandmother Mary Hey's brother. I never knew him. Sarah may be either of two aunts of mine. Wilkinson has got a Sarah for me before.] [Glove.] Feel might be put in carriage and carried some distance. Of opinion the subject not able to com- municate. [Mrs. Napier lived and died over a hundred miles from where the sitting was taking place. ] [Letter.] Elderly gentleman, used to go to some Anglican church, something to do with that letter. Some woman, Helen, elderly, silk dress. Man, Tor- rington, connected with Helen. Rather a big man about sixty, corpulent, fresh-com- plexioned, about fifty-nine or sixty, good-looking. Had something to do with cloth some time, rolls of cloth about. [Helen and the man Torrington are evidently Mrs. and Mr. Torrington, whose names and de- scriptions Wilkinson gave me at my sitting of De- cember 14th, 1914, two days after a visit of their daughter, whose influence seemed to have attracted them here. I feel sure that Wilkinson knows nothing of my association with their family. It is twenty years since any of them lived in Thornton. The corpulent man may be my father. The description is correct except that he was sixty-six MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 93 at death. He had to do with "rolls of cloth" in his working days, and the allusion is a particularly apt and identifying one.] [Glove. ] Get no further: feels like running against a stone wall. Wearer been more than ordinarily thoughtful; serious type of mind. Will give anything to get further impressions. [I.e. I suppose he was expressing his strong wish to get something for me. ] SITTING 5 Wednesday, January igth, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium {Mr. A. Wilkinson). After ten minutes' talk about the war — Wilkinson was in London when two Zeppelin raids occurred — the medium said he had tried several times, at home to get psychometry from the glove I sent him, or messages from its late owner, but without success. Once he had a vision of flowers, and smelt flowers in general, but that was all. It was cornflowers that he saw. [She used to send me flowers nearly every week in summer. In fact, she sent me more flowers than I have had from everybody else put together, probably; so it is a characteristic touch. But I was not thinking of flowers when the medium said this. I do not know whether cornflowers were special favourites of hers; she sent me sweet-peas and roses mostly, I think. It is roses that I should most naturally think of in connexion with her.] 94 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS J. A. H. : She was fond of flowers. [Pause.] A. W. : There is an old man here, big, tall, well built, leans forward, bent with age. Nearly eighty. He has a stick. He is connected with you through 3^our mother. Name, John. Been passed away a good many years. Good colour in his face, was perhaps out of doors a lot. Robust. He is quite a real presence to me. J. A. H. : My grandfather. [A. W. has got mes- sages from him before, with surname, so I was not giving anything away. It is my mother's father.] A. W. : Indeed! Some folks laugh when I say a John is here, because it fits in for nearly everybody; but I have to say what I get. [Pause.] There's a man called Jonas, not very tall, but heavy. Old, but not so old as the other one. [Had him before; probably a great-uncle of mine, Jonas Ogden, died at about eighty. He was not very heavy, though, but was well built.] [Pause.] There's somebody called Lewis. I am taken away somewhere, on a train. Country place ; up and down, rather steep. I feel I was taken to the Bradford Great Northern station, then a journey — not far, not many stations. I come to a house where there is someone linked up with you. Somebody there has been in trouble ; something which cannot be helped ; no remedy but Time. Not a flat place. Houses not close to- gether — a bit distant from each other. I can't get into the house. Somebody there you will either see or hear MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 95 of. Something interesting will come of it. You will see them, I think. [A Mr. Lewis once lived about a mile from here, dying in 1912. I knew him fairly well, meeting him mostly at the local Mechanics' In- stitute, where I played an occasional game of bil- liards with him. His widow left the town, soon after his death, and has since lived at a place which is on the Great Northern line from Brad- ford, not many stations away. It is a hilly place, as said, and there are many detached houses. But we are not in any close way "linked up" with Mrs. Lewis. I have not seen her for about twelve years. Mrs. Lewis has grieved greatly about her hus- band's death. It is very improbable that I shall see her. Wilkinson said I should either "see or hear of" the person.] [Pause.] There is a mind trying to get me into a house at that place. Something happened rather tragic, pain- ful. Somebody there who can't get it out of their mind. [Mr. Lewis died suddenly of heart disease. I believe it is very true that Mrs. Lewis cannot get the tragically sudden event out of her mind; though he had been ill before, his disease was known, and she was aware that he might go sud- denly. This Lewis evidence is very impressive to me. I had not been thinking about either Mr. or Mrs. Lewis. I have nothing in the house that ever belonged to either of them, and I do not believe that Wilkinson normally knows anything about 96 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS them. Psychometry and mind-reading do not seem to me good explanations of this incident; the spirit explanation seems much more reason able. Mr. Lewis had few friends, and he knew me probably as well as anybody except one or two other local men, and I should quite expect him to give me a look in, if able, when a medium is here, though I had never thought of him before in this connexion till Wilkinson said "Lewis." I never talked to him about psychical things, for at that time I knew nothing about them; so I have never associated him with the subject. Later: September 13th, 1916. — To-day, after a chain of antecedently improbable events, Mrs. Lewis has been here for the first time, to tea, and I saw her for a few minutes. The medium's pre- diction, which at the time seemed wildly unlikely, is thus fulfilled. I cannot give all the details of events leading up to this, lest identities of living people should be disclosed; but I may say tha the initiative did not come from us — there seem to have been a Mr. Lewis agency impressing th mind of his widow.] [After a few minutes' silence, I gave A. W. a small silver box which had belonged to the glove- owner, and, before that, to a close male connexion of hers who predeceased her; in fact, her husband.] A. W. : I feel rather buoyant — exhilarated — with this. Nothing depressing. The other person may have got away. [Perhaps in reference to the glove yielding nothing. ] Sense of leaving a man behind, in the body. J. A. H. : She was a widow. A. W. : There seems a man in the case. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 97 J. A. H. : The box belonged to her husband. [Pause.] A. W. : Have you known somebody called Tranter % J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : A woman called Tranter. Do you know any Percy Tranter? J. A. H.: No. [Not striking, but it is perhaps worth noting that a few days before the sitting we had a caller, a cousin's wife, who calls very rarely — not once a year — and who knew the Tranters better than we did. They lived at a farm next my cousin's, but are no longer there. It has happened before, more than once, that spirits connected with some recent caller have purported to turn up.] A. W. : You never hear raps, perhaps? J. A. H.: No. A. W. : There is something I can't break through, like a net. [Handling glove and box abstractedly.] Have you a friend called Drayton? J. A. H. : I know some Draytons. A. W. : You will have a visitor called Drayton. He has to do with some kind of work that smells funny. Nothing to do with this box. [Unrecognised. I have no regular Drayton vis- itors. But I think this is a misinterpreted fore- gleam of what follows. The "visitor" was coming in the spirit, not in the body. ] There is a very old man — he has a job to stand up. Tottering with age. There are two old men together; neither of the men I saw before. Little, bent with age, white front; another little old man with him. Broth- ers or friends. Henry and Robert. Don't know 98 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS whether they were brothers or not. Henry is older than the other. They knew each other very well. Robert's face is smoother, not so lined. They are chums. Perhaps brothers. Robert predeceased the other. I don't think Henry has been long gone. Some- body called Whitley is connected with Henry; lives a long way from here. A woman, not well; belongs to Henry. She is called Whitley. She has some- thing belonging to the old man. He liked his own way; a bit dogmatic. Robert was rather milder. Henry had a lot of his own way. He is very much surprised about things now. Robert was a bit younger ; nice old man; jolly. They had lots in common, though there was great difference. Perhaps difference in po- sition. They're alike now in that respect. [I think the last sentence was mostly W.'s nor- mal mind, for as he said it he looked up at me and smiled, momentarily losing his "absent" man- ner. When getting impressions he seems to be looking at nothing in particular, though he some- times locates a spirit if it is specially clear. While waiting for impressions, he often puts his hand over his eyes, elbow on chair-arm. Except that they were not "little" when I knew them — though they probably became more shrunk- en later — all this is exactly true of Henry Dray- ton and Robert P. Leather. They were broth- ers-in-law, great chums, and lived near each other. Mr. Drayton died in 1914, November 29th, aged eighty-nine; Mr. Leather died February 22nd, 1909, aged eighty-four. It is a rather notable thing that though Mr. Drayton had five daughters, the only one we have much of a link with is Mrs. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 99 Whitley, for her husband's uncle married my great- aunt. If Mr. Drayton were here, thinking about my family in general and his own daughters, it would be Mrs. Whitley he would think of more particularly; though this fact, and the connexion by marriage, did not occur to me until after the sitting. The description of Mr. Drayton's salient points of character is excellent. He was rather impetu- ous and masterful; a good man, but certainly his position enabled him to have a great deal of "his own way." Mr. Leather has been described and named as "Leather — perhaps Robert," by Mr. Wilkinson before, and at a sitting on December 14th, 1914, he told me, referring to an impression about which he had written me from Bournemouth on Novem- ber 18th, 1914, that he had felt that the man named Parrbury was waiting about for an old friend to pass over. Mr. Leather's name was Rob- ert Parberry Leather, but few people knew his second name; I didn't, or I had forgotten it, and had to make inquiries. At the time of the medi- um's impression, Mr. Drayton was dying of senile decay, passing away eleven days afterwards. Mr. Leather was a "nice old man, jolly," as said; he was less well off than Mr. Drayton.] [A. W. handles silver box again, trying hard, seeming to listen or feel interiorly very intently. Complete failure.] J. A. H. : Better put it down ; she'll come when she can. Try for some more from Robert and Henry. [Pause.] ioo PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS A. W. : Henry had a portrait of old Mr. Gladstone, the statesman. I think he must have had one in his house. J. A. H. : Very likely. A. W. : Robert has brought him. I think Henry has not manifested here before. [Mr. Drayton was a Liberal M.P. for a good many years, retiring in 1892 owing to ill-health. He was a vigorous Gladstonian. Correct that he had not manifested here before. Mr. Leather seems to wish to convince me of sur- vival; he brought an "Elias Sidney" to my sitting of January 15th, 1915; to the best of my recollec- tion I had never heard the name before, but after inquiries in various quarters I learned that "Elias Sidney" had lived a few miles away, and had been a political crony of Mr. Leather's. We have nothing in the house that could serve as psychometric link — no object that had belonged to either Mr. Leather or Mr. Drayton — and, of course, neither of them ever lived here. As to the medium's normal knowledge of these two men, I have no reason to think that he knows anything except what I have told him; and this does not include anything about their characters or the exact shade of intimacy or relationship, which are hit off so well. Both were business men who retired young, both lost their wives early, and for half a century they were close chums, neither of them having any other friend anything near so intimate. Strictly speaking, the evidentiality of this part of the sitting is not high, because they were well-known men and because the medium MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 101 knew something of Mr. Leather before. But it is worth mentioning that he said, after my remarks about them, that he had no previous knowledge of them — "certainly not of Mr. Drayton." He probably remembered dimly that the name Leather had appeared at an earlier sitting, for it was new to him as a name, and suggested only boots, etc. I do not think he connected the Robert of this sitting with the Leather of an earlier one. In fact, Mr. Leather seems to have purposely given dif- ferent parts of his name on different occasions, for when he impressed the medium at Bournemouth he gave the first two names ("Parrbury" and perhaps "Robert"), and Wilkinson thought the Parrbury was a surname, and did not connect it with Mr. Leather. However, the other incidents are evidentially stronger, being entirely new. Also Mr. Lewis was a less well-known man, and I am sure I had never mentioned him to the medium.] Things seemed to be tailing off, so I said, as en- couragement : J. A. H. : It was very good about those two old men. Robert is Robert Leather, whom you have named and described here before; Henry is Henry Drayton, a close friend of his ; the woman called Whit- ley is his daughter. A. W. : I saw those two old men so clearly that I could recognise their portraits if I saw them. Shan't remember them long; shall have forgotten them to- morrow. [Unfortunately, I had no portraits of them at hand, or I would have tried tests like Sir Oliver 102 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Lodge's with Mrs. Piper in the "waking stage." Probably, indeed, there was no portrait of Mr. Drayton in the house; indeed, I do not think we have a photograph of either of them.] Sitting ended. Talked about war again. W. very anxious, wondering whether to attest. He is about thirty-eight, but his sight will certainly exempt him. Left at 3.40 p.m. to catch 3.48 train. (He had ar- rived at 2.30.) SITTING 6 Thursday, February 17//Z, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium {Mr. A. Wilkinson). The medium arrived at 2.25 p.m., and we talked about the weather, his recent tours, and the like. I mentioned no relatives or friends of mine. In about ten minutes he began to get impressions : A. W. : I feel a bodily presence here, someone in the body, a big, tall man, who is coming to take leave of you. This is a presentiment. The man is very cheer- ful, not in trouble, not caring. [Improbable: I know of no friend going away, unless a lieutenant friend is ordered abroad, in which case he might come to say good-bye. He is 6 ft. 2 in., and powerfully built.] [Later: March 1st. A cousin called to say a cheerful good-bye last night. He joins his regi- ment to-day. He is tallish, but not very big- bodied.] A. W. : There is a woman just behind you, pale, pinched, a bit drawn at the mouth, not very tall. Not an old woman, but over sixty, maybe. A delicate MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 103 woman, very pale. Name, Mary. I have a feeling that she has been gone a long time — seventeen or eighteen years. [My mother, Mary Hill, has been named and described before, with more correct details. She died twenty-nine years ago, aged fifty-four. She was pale, but not very delicate.] A. W. : There is a young man, tall, about twenty years old, standing by your coat [hung on hook in Shannon cabinet] . No hair on his face, high forehead, long face. Not quite a man, about twenty. Rather dark, no colour. [Unrecognised.] A. W. : Do you know any Driver? J. A. H. : Yes. [Slightly, but no deceased Driv- ers.] A. W. : That young man has not been gone long. [Pause.] A. W. : You may hear of a funeral of somebody soon; I see a funeral party. A woman, who will die soon ; it is nearly up to you. Somebody old. There is, a man here with a round soft hat, a felt hat, like a parson ; grey ; been a parson. He is about here waiting for somebody. He is a bit vague ; seems to be looking through gauze or fog. [This is good. A Mrs. Walkley, widow of a former local minister, died on February 15th, and the funeral is to-day, February 18th. She was eighty-two and has been sinking gradually. Mr. Walkley and family left here in 1900, and he died on November 16th of that year. He usually wore a soft, felt, clerical hat, as described. After his death his widow lived mostly in London, but for the last year or two she has lived with relatives 104 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS about six miles from here, and twelve from where the medium lives. They are quiet-living people, not prominent in any way; and they have no association with spiritualism. I feel sure that Mr. Wilkinson had no knowledge of them, for though he once got an impression that I "had known some people called Walker," which I said was true if the name were Walkley, I gave no de- tails. See sitting of December 14th, 1914, and A. W.'s letter of October 1st, 1915, pp. 77, 90.] A. W. : If I saw a photo of that young man I should know him. That old woman will die soon. J. A. H. : She is dead now. A. W. : Indeed ! It is somebody very old and fee- ble, over eighty; been going gradually. That young man, his mother was related to your mother. He hasn't been gone long. He has a woman with him, whose form is less; age sixty or sixty-three, rather sparely built, hair smooth, oval face, rather fra- gile. Her dress shines. She has gone since him. [Un- recognised. ] I wish I could get that young man's name. I am interested. He looks thoughtful. Not more than twenty. Have vou known somebody who lived at Manchester? J. A. H. : I don't think so. A. W. : I am taken to Manchester with some young man, to a suburban place outside Manchester, west of Manchester. Do you know anything of Hermiston? [Sounded like that: the name is unknown to me.] J. A. H.: No. A. W. : There's somebody who must have lived at Manchester, but must have passed away. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 105 I am mixed up with this young man with the woman with him. Was your mother's name Mary"? J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : That young man is related to you through her. There is a man with a red face — a big, fleshy man. He wore a kind of apron, a heavy apron, to cover his clothes. May have worn it at his. work. J. A. H. : That's right. Any name? A. W. [After pause] : That young man is nearer you. You must have known him. As he approaches you there are reddish lines reaching out to you from him. These perhaps indicate relationship. He has not been before. [Pause.] That young man's surname begins with H, but it isn't Hill. He seems to be making great efforts to tell me more, but I can't get it. Perhaps he will do better next time. He is a big, tall young man. Died perhaps of consumption. That woman that I saw, there is a tall old man with her; eighty, I should think; very old man. She is standing by him; standing under his arm so to speak. [Medium held his arm straight out sidewise.] There's a lot all together in a group. He looks weather-beaten in his face; looks hearty. Some- body belonging to her. [My mother and her father, probably, both de- scribed and named before. He died at eighty- one, after a very healthy life. Was tall and ruddy- faced.] You'll excuse me. [Goes over to my coat and sits on stool near it.] The form of that young man was built up here. 106 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS I wish I could get more from him. He died after a quick consumption. He belongs to your family. Can't get any more. [Goes back to his chair.] [Pause.] There is some man here — sixty-five or sixty-six. He makes me feel big and corpulent. James, or Bannister, perhaps another name. J. A. H. : Right for several folk. [Medium has named Maty Bannister before — maiden name of paternal grandmother of my father, Bannister Hill, whose name also I think W. knows. Also a James Bannister has been men- tioned as a remote ancestor, probably true, but I cannot verify. My father was stout in middle life.] A. W. : Makes me feel weighty. Same man who had the apron on. He is rolling something over: pulling cloth over. Might be a tailor, looking cloth over. But tailors don't wear aprons. Did somebody pass away in 1897? J. A. H. : Very nearly then, but not quite. I know who it is. A. W. : I have a feeling of eighteen or nineteen years back. J. A. H. : Right. I want to hear from him. Are the)^ feeling all right and happy over there ^ A. W. : I never get any other feeling from them. Never anything unpleasant or uncanny, except some- times when I feel the disease they died of. Have you had any intimation from the woman of the glove"? [See previous sittings.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 107 J. A. H. : No; I wish we could hear from her. [Pause.] [The red-faced, stout man with an "apron" on (really a "checker brat" or overall), is my father, Bannister Hill; and the pulling over of cloth is about the best possible identifying touch. As Wil- kinson said this he made movements with his hands exactly reproducing the unmistakable hand and finger movements employed in throwing over the "flipes" of a piece of cloth when the taker-in is examining it for weaving-faults. He died in Oc- tober, 1898, aged sixty-six. See Sitting 4, November 19th, 1915, p. 92.] A. W. : This big man with the full face must have known a man named Charlton, a younger man. This man is just waking up. He didn't quite believe he was dead. I feel that he would be an impulsive man. He would swear when things went wrong. Hot- headed. Middle life. A proud man. He has been wandering about a while. Been gone some time. [Pause.] His influence is very authoritative. Almost an ar- rogant man in some ways. There's somebody in the body that he wants to ap- proach — a woman. His object is to reach her. J. A. H. : What does he want doing about her*? [No answer.] A. W. : He had money. He has not manifested here before. He was one who would want to rush through fire and water to get at what he wanted. He had a kind of knowledge of the surroundings. [A Mr. Charlton, of this neighbourhood, died a few years ago. The description is correct, though 108 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS "middle life" is perhaps a little too young. I think he would be about sixty; but he was spare and active until his last illness, and did not look his age. He was rather impulsive and on occa- sion profane; but a very good sort. His widow is left rather lonely. I never knew him "to speak to," but probably he knew me by sight, as I knew him. He was younger than my father, and was known to him, as said.] A. W. : Have you known someone named Edmund *? J. A. H. : Yes. [Thinking of Edmund Stott, local draper who died a few years ago.] A. W. : Man of seventy or seventy-three, this Ed- mund. Did not die about here; I am taken away. He went to Morecambe. Might have lived at More- cambe. Might have lived or died there. Tall, fairly straight, full beard and on cheeks, big nose, well- dressed, black, very tidy. Name Edmund, biggish- bodied man, good physique. [Would fit Edmund Stott, except that I feel sure he died at home. ] [Pause.] A. W. : I smell a smell of brewing — beer. Malt, as if you were passing a brewery. A nice smell. But it's quite different from those flowers. [Pointing to flow- ers on the table.] It's malt. [W. looked puzzled, so I helped a little.] J. A. H. : No brewers among my relatives, but there is a connexion between brewing and Mr. Charlton. [He was associated with a brewery company.] A. W. : That Charlton's influence won't leave me. He knew somebody called William. It is a bit frag- MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 109 mentary, but they did not just agree about something. There is a divergence of opinion. Whether it is re- ligion, I don't know. He has a big, thick stick; not a walking-stick — it is too thick. He has a very light- coloured suit on, kind of sporting outfit. He is a new influence, not manifested here before. Very impul- sive. [Clairvoyance ended here. I told him nothing as to how far he had been correct.] [Mr. Charlton and a relative of mine named William knew each other rather well. I don't know of any disagreement between them, but in religion and politics they were perhaps rather far apart. Mr. Charlton liked very light-coloured suits for summer, usually light grey tweeds. The thick stick is unrecognised, though I have an impression that I have seen him with fishing tackle, so it may be a jointed rod, folded up. It is correct that this is his first appearance at a sitting of mine. I have no reason to think that Wilkinson had ever heard of him, for he lived a very retired life. Note: April 27th, 1916. — I have to-day asked my relative, and he says that Mr. Charlton and he never discussed politics or religion, and never disagreed about anything in conversation. He liked Mr. Charlton, and got on excellently with him. But they met only casually, usually in tram- cars. See ante, pp. 40-43, for further comment.] Note: March 7th, 1916. — To-night's local papers announce the death of Mr. Charlton's younger brother. He "had not been well for some time," and had been to London to see a specialist a week before his death. I knew of his existence, but had not heard he was ill ; in fact, I had not heard him mentioned for some years. no PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS I did not know him, even by sight. He lived in an- other town, fifteen miles away, and twenty from where Wilkinson lives. I do not think the latter ever visits that particular small town, and I do not think he knew anything of either of the two brothers. It looks as if Mr. Charlton had come to meet his brother, as Mr. Leather came to meet his friend Dray- ton, and as Mr. Walkley came to meet his widow. Note : March 19th, 1916. — In the early part of this sitting there is a reference to some "Driver"; later, a description of an Edmund, which fits Edmund Stott, though the latter died at home. In my sitting of December 14th, 1914 [p. 78], there was said, "Some man named Driver here." (Unrecognised.) Yesterday, March 18th, 1916, after re-reading these reports, I for the first time associated the Driver and the Edmund, and dimly thought the name was real. After reflection I felt almost, but not quite, sure that an Edmund Driver had tenanted a local hotel, leaving about twenty years ago. On inquiry I find that this is so; but I cannot ascertain where he died. Either his widow and family moved soon after his death, or they went before. I am making inquity, also about his personal appearance, of which I remember nothing. In those days there was a malt-kiln behind and belonging to that hotel, so the malt smell may refer to Edmund, not to Mr. Charlton. The kiln has long been done away with, and there is now a laundry there. Note: March 26th, 1916. — I have asked a friend to-day about Edmund Driver, whom he remembers well. He says the description fits E. D. much more closely than E. Stott. He could not be very sure about a specially large nose, but all the other details are MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS in markedly correct, except that he feels sure E. D. died at the hotel here, not at Morecambe. (See pp. 54-59 for further details.) My informant says that in Driver's time the owners brewed in the adjoining building, which was after- wards a malt-kiln and is now a laundry. The smell of malt and brewing seems therefore specially applicable to Edmund Driver; he was associated with these things much more closely than Mr. Charlton was, the latter having no immediate personal touch with them. SITTING 7 Wednesday, April \lth, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium {Mr. A. Wilkinson). W. arrived 2.25 p.m., and we talked about the war, the weather, and his influenza and neuralgia, which have kept him at home the last few weeks. He is still not looking well, and I rather thought the sit- ting was going to be a blank, for he got no clairvoyance till 2.55. Then : A. W. : There is a little old woman at the back of you. Now she comes by the bedside. She has a lace thing round her shoulders; black, a lacy thing. There is also something on her head, something which comes down at the sides. A rather slim little woman; big nose. I can see her face plainly. No colour. A very old woman. The lace thing makes her look dressy. Something white at front of her neck. [Good for my grandmother Hey, who has been described by A. W. before. I should hardly call 112 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS her slim, though. But she was not stout — was spare and active, but average breadth of shoulder, I should say. The big nose and the cap with sides, and I think the black lace shawl, are exactly true.] There is somebody called Jonas connected with her. She was a dainty woman in dress and manner; not fussy, but dainty. I have an impression of a Jonas connected with her. That thing about her head is silk; a good quality thing. A very old person, but not very drawn in features. Moves slowly at the side of the bed. She is some time back. [All true. She had a brother Jonas, named and described before. She died in 1890, aged eighty- one.] Have you known somebody named Jowett"? J. A. H. : Yes. I wish you could get something about a Jowett you saw here before. I can't quite make out who it was. [See sitting of January 15th, 1915, p. 81.] [Pause.] A. W. : There is some woman named Betty Tran ter. Some Tranter connected with this Betty. Some- body connected with your family some years back Betty Tranter. Biggish woman. Good way back. Have you known anybody named Verity'? J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : I don't know whether it is a surname or not. You may not have known him intimately. It is some way back. A tallish, biggish man. Betty is connected with him. J. A. H. : Quite right. I knew a Verity Tranter. Betty is perhaps his wife. I don't know her name. A. W. : He was a strong personality. Betty is con MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 113 nected with him, and I think they know your people. Verity is a funny name — I have never known or heard of anybody called that. I think he would leave some money and there was trouble about it. Perhaps liti- gation. Not lately, but there was trouble about some- thing he left behind. [Verity Tranter was a local butcher and farmer, who died about a dozen years ago. I called some- times to order meat, but usually saw his wife. I doubt whether I ever had any talk with him, but I knew him well by sight, as he no doubt knew me; for he was probably often in the shop when I passed. He was a big, strong man. I think his wife is alive, but they have left this district and I do not know where they are, but will try to ascer- tain. I doubt whether he left much money. I know of no litigation or trouble, but will try to find out. See sitting of January 19th, 1916 (p. 96), for an apparent Tranter attempt. Note: October 9th, 1916. — I find that there may be a slight family connexion; there was a Betty Tranter nearly a hundred years ago, and her sister married a Hey who was probably related to my mother. I find also that there is some rele- vance in the statement about money-disputes in re- lation to Verity Tranter.] Did you ever know a woman with a wood leg? Tall, elderly; a wood foot or leg. J. A. H. : I think I know who it is. Can you get her name? She has been before. A. W. : I could hear the thud on the floor. [W. here got up and limped about, thudding with his right foot.] You would know this woman with the leg 114 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS when you were a boy. She has been gone on many years. I feel as if she takes me somewhere where she lived. It is a local connexion; I don't get far away. [Probably Emma Steeton. See my sitting of January 15th, 1915, pp. 82, 85, 89. She lived about half a mile from here. It is about thirty years since she died, I should think.] Have you had a friend named Burroughs'? J. A. H„ : No, I think not. [Note: February 23rd, 1917. — But the name was familiar to me, and at a sitting held while these sheets were going through the press there were further developments indicating, though not yet very clearly, a family very well known to us.] It isn't that woman's name, I think. Somebody called Burns ; I get a name Burns. These names come into my head. J. A. H. : That may be right ; I have known some Burnses. A. W. : Burns and Burroughs. This woman with the wood leg must have had a good voice and could sing. She is showing me some hymn-books; she was interested in hymn-books and music. [No recollection, but possible enough. She was a widow, poor, lived alone in a cottage near our then home. She attended the Wesleyan Chapel a couple of hundred yards from her home. The hymn-books may be a reference to that, rather than to music ; as in the Moses Young incident in sitting of January 15th, 1915, pp. 80, 81.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 115 Have you ever known anybody called Helen Tor- rington ? J. A. H. : Yes. A. W. : Somebody — a man — is in trouble. She is a middle-aged woman, full figure. I call them middle-aged up to sixty or so; she might be sixty-four. Helen (emphasising the aspirate). Be-' gins with H. A man away from here is in trouble. She draws me in contact with some man away from here. He has a lot of care, and there is some cause for alarm. There is going to be trouble about this man in the body. Has this woman a son, away from here"? J. A. H. : Yes. He is a friend of mine. A. W. : Is he in trouble ? J. A. H. : Well, trade is bad. A. W. : He is intending doing something which he ought not to do. He is businesslike. There is some- thing looming over him which is not good. J. A. H. : Is there anything we can do? A. W. : He should hold on ; stick to it. He should hold on to whatever it is, tenaciously. There has been trouble in his mind. As if he was going to get quit of it. Wherever he is it is a very busy place; lots of work. An atmosphere that is exciting and busy. That woman thinks a great deal of this man. Thought a lot of him when living, too. [Extremely appropriate to an old friend of mine, who has lived in America since 1901. His business has suffered owing to the war, and he has had great trouble — bereavement, etc. — during the last few years. I have no reason to think that A. W. has any normally-acquired knowledge of n6 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS him or his family. Mrs. Torrington was named, and said to be present, at my sitting of December 14th, 1914 (p. 74), but I said nothing except that I knew who it was. See also p. 92. Later: I sent the message, and it is applicable. He was thinking of relinquishing certain business enterprises. I think he has now decided to "stick." The prediction of trouble looming over him was correct in another way, for, soon after the date of the sitting, his wife was seriously ill. Operation was proposed, but the doctors disagreed as to the ailment, so their advice was disregarded and the patient recovered. It may be that the advice to "hold on" was in reference to this.] [Pause.] I haven't seen that young man who came before. [See last sitting, February 17th, 1916.] J. A. H. : I wish he would come. A. W. : Before I started off to come here I saw an apparition of a man, and he seemed to come in front of me. It was that man named Verity. I never heard of such a man before. Was he a Churchman 1 ? J. A. H. : Probably, if he was anything. Clairvoyance ended. I asked A. W. if the name "Hermiston" was known to him — see sitting of Feb- ruary 17th, 1916, p. 104 — and he said, "No, but there is an Urmston near Manchester, between there and Warrington. I have never got off there, and know it only by seeing it from the train. A man lives there who used to live at Ovenden, near Halifax. . . ." Wilkinson gave me this gentleman's name, and the surname is the same as that of some of my relatives MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 117 on my mother's side. I doubt whether he can be a connexion, but, if he is, there is sense in the mention of Hermiston (for Urmston, which the medium no doubt said, but which, being unknown to me, was heard as Hermiston, this name — a fictitious one, I think — being familiar to me in Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston). After desultory talk, Wilkinson left at 3.35. The foregoing was written on Thursday, April 13th, 1916; the report part being copied from my verbatim shorthand notes taken at the time. SITTING 8 Wednesday, April lgtk, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium (Mr. A. Wilkinson). Mr. Wilkinson arrived at 2.25 p.m. After prelim- inary remarks about the weather, he said : Before I came, while I was writing a letter, I saw a medium-sized woman, with very white hair. An apparition, you know. She was carrying a very big book, heavily bound, with gilt edges; almost as heavy as she could carry. I couldn't see the lettering on it; it might be a Bible or a big history-book, or something like that. I couldn't tell who she was. J. A. H. : Perhaps somebody who is coming here this afternoon, as in the case of that man last time. A. W. : That's what I thought; that's why I men- tion it. [But I don't know that it had any special ap- propriateness to any of those who were afterwards described.] n8 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS J. A. H. : Here is another glove which belonged to that friend of mine. [Giving it to him.] A. W. [after handling it for about a minute] : I can see a chapel. There is a gallery; I feel I am in the gallery, looking down into the area. I can see the area; it is biggish, quite a large place. There is a man in the pulpit, a tallish man with a big nose and long face. He is preaching. It passes before me so plainly. I am in the area of the chapel, at the back. Part of the gallery is over my head. This has come with the glove. There are lots of people in that place. Where- ever can that be, I wonder^ [I did not speak, being busy getting it all down. Wilkinson had reeled this off at unusual speed and with great conviction.] That man in the pulpit has a big nose. He isn't a big man, though fairly tall. Where this woman tries to take me is not far in from the door of the church. Some place where she usually sat. [Mrs. Napier was a Church woman. I have no knowledge as to what part of the church she sat in. It is perhaps noteworthy that in the parcel which she had wrapped up for me a few weeks be- fore her death, and from which I took this glove, there was the prayer-book which she had habitu- ally used for some time, though Wilkinson did not see it. Whether it was psychometry or impres- sions from her own surviving mind, the vision of the church was appropriate. I will try to ascer- tain where she sat, and the appearance of the usual preacher or preachers.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 119 This person must have been delicate for a long time. Stomach bad. Could not take heavy foods. [Very true; she practically starved to death, owing to some growth. Not even fluid food pos- sible for weeks before the end.] I feel I am going on a long road. I have come to a house. It is not raised up like this one; it is more on the level as I enter it. I can see a clock and a pier- glass, gilt with embellished frame. A heavy clock on the mantel. I am going upstairs, into a bedroom. I see a picture on the wall ; a picture of a tall or tallish woman. How long have you had this glove"? J. A. H. : About five months. [Six, I afterwards reckoned up.] A. W. : You don't know if this woman had a gold brooch, oblong shape, with a stone in it*? J. A. H. : I don't know. A. W. : I am impressed to put my hand here [front of neck]. I feel a brooch with a hard stone. She would be rather partial to this brooch; would only wear it occasionally. She had a bad stomach. That picture is not a painted picture; it is an en- graving — steel engraving, I expect. It looks like a woman. Not so big a room as this.. [Will try to ascertain about picture, etc.] She must have been a thin person. [Latterly, yes, but not when well.] Sharp, quick, nervy, somewhat impulsive manner. Whoever this person liked, she would like intensely. [True and characteristic] She must have been very ill with the stomach. J. A. H. : Yes, she was. A. W. : Have you known a woman who kept a 120 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS school *? Middle-aged, or a bit over. Rather spare and ladylike. She had children to deal with. J. A. H. : Yes, I have known several. A. W. : She has a black dress — I think it is silk, trimmed with black and white figured stuff. Her hair is a little wiry, and sticks out at the sides. Have you known somebody named Hanson^ She must have been at a school ; she is holding up a book like a copy- book. Connected with a school. J. A. H. : She has been before. A. W. : Has she 1 ? I didn't remember that. J. A. H. : I wish we could make out who she is. Apparently it is someone who has known me. I won- der where she was. A. W. : She lived not far away from here, I think. I feel linked up locally. It may be that somebody belonging to her has been known to you. Hannah or Annie Hanson. Some time back. It is some time since she died. She has nothing to do with this glove [which A. W. had put down and now picked up again]. Do you know if she has a daughter*? [I think the glove-owner was meant.] J. A. H. : No, she had no children. A. W. : There is some young woman connected with this glove, twenty-two or twenty-three. Somebody very jolly and gay, cheerful. J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : I feel a cheerfulness. She is living, and was about this woman. She did something for her. She is a very nice, refined person. Tactful : the right per- son. Quite young: lot younger than me. [Probably true or fairly so of Mrs. Napier's sister, who lived with her and did much for her in MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 121 her illness. But she is a little more than twenty- three, I think : perhaps thirty. Wilkinson is thirty- eight.] This woman had some kind of thing that she had worked, to put on her. Perhaps a dressing-gown. It is white or nearly white, with fancy work, stitched. She made it with her own fingers, and would be sewing at it for some time. White flannel or some fine ma- terial, not cotton or linen, I think. All the front is worked very prettily. I feel that she had found something before she was very ill, something that had made her very pleased and gratified, as if something had happened, quite un- usual, very pleasant to her, and it had continued with her, continued to be a pleasure to her. Perhaps she had some money left, but I am only guessing that, from the feeling. [And he said it hesitatingly, as if he had a feel- ing that it was a wrong guess. It is true that she had a good income left by her husband, but I doubt whether this is what was meant. I am not sure, but I think she may be meaning the knowledge of psychical matters and literature, which she ob- tained from 1905 onwards, and which I know was a great help and comfort and pleasure to her, ex- plaining certain experiences of her own. I know nothing of the fancy-work thing, but will inquire.] This lady who was ill was very fond of this young woman. Perhaps the white thing was something she gave her. Perhaps some under-garment. There is a man called Joseph across the room there — a faint outline. A very big man, corpulent, broad, full features, a little beard on the chin, not much on 122 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS the cheeks. Fresh colour. Not bald, but hair thin and grey. A very healthy man. Grey clothes. I can see his nose and the colour in his face. About sixty or sixty-two. [Unrecognised: but see later.] Have you known somebody called Yewton? I am in a square yard. I can smell hay. Yewton. J. A. H. : Yewton is a farm. [Here I remembered that a Joseph West once lived there, before my time. Will inquire about his appearance.] A. W. : Indeed. I once knew a Mr. Yewton, but I never heard of a place of that name. [He has, but has probably forgotten; for he got the name before, at my sitting of January 15th, 1915, and I told him it was a farm. It has not been mentioned since. See pp. 84, 85.] The stout man has brought that farm. He looks like a farmer. His cheeks were as red as an apple. They quite shone. I have a feeling I might write [i.e. automatically; takes paper and pencil.] You don't know anybody called John Thomas Hanson*? [Writes something, afterwards found to be this name. The John is quite different from Wilkin- son's writing; the Thomas is a mixture; and Hanson is in his own hand.] J. A. H. : No, I don't remember. A. W. : He must be somebody connected with that woman Hanson. Do you know if something tragic happened at Yew- ton? A long time back. J. A. H. : I don't know, but I can find out. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 123 A. W. : I think something happened there a long time back. A lot of names come into my mind, and they may mean nothing. J. A. H. : Tell me anything that comes, because sometimes it turns out right, though I may not recog- nise it at the time. A. W. : Well, there seems to be somebody called Armitage. Tallish, young. I can't see his head or face, but he seems tall. About thirty. J. A. H. : I think he has been before. A. W. : I smell something — wool, oily stuff. He might work among wool. [I thought at first of Arthur Armitage, whom Wilkinson named at sitting of July 21st, 1914, and whom I knew slightly. He died about 1902. But I think he worked mostly in his father's shop, though I believe he worked in a weaving or spin- ning mill occasionally. See p. 72.] Have you had something to do with a man in mid- dle life, a good-looking man, called Lethbridge? J. A. H. : Yes. A. W. : This man is in the body. You might be having a money transaction with him. J. A. H. : Very likely. A. W. : A man all about money; well-dressed; been in his business a long time. J. A. H. : I know him. Who has come connected with him? A. W. : Have you been about him lately? J. A. H. : No. It may be a prediction. A. W. : I think he studies finance a lot. There is somebody belonging to you that knows him better than 124 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS you do, perhaps. Has this man been married twice? J. A. H. : Yes. Has his first wife come"? A. W. : I don't know. [A Mr. Lethbridge is a bank manager, and has had that position for many years — -twenty or more. I anticipate no direct financial transaction with him, but I have recently been indirectly associated with him, for the first time, in a matter concerning finance. His first wife knew me slightly, as does also his second. I have no reason to believe that the medium has ever heard of him. ] It's very funny — I can't get away from that school. At that farm place, a very long time since, some man lost his life. They are trying to show me some- thing. Some old person would be required to tell about this. I dare say if I were at the place I could tell more. J. A. H. : I can get to know. A. W. : I can see a man very plainly ; tall ; like a man who would work at a quarry, by the clothes he wears. Prime of life — forty-eight or fifty. His name was Jim Hey. He must have died very suddenly. Something happened and he died very suddenly. I am inclined to think something happened to him. J. A. H. : Murder, do you think? A. W. : No ; accident, I should say. Jim Hey. A strong, healthy man. Either a carter or a quarryman. [Pause.] Is there a place called Levensley? This man was associated with Levensley. J. A. H. : Yes, I know such a place. A. W. : Was there a Joe Robinson? J. A. H. : Not that I remember. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 125 A. W. : Is Levensley a farm ? J. A. H. : Both a farm and a house. A. W. : Levensley is connected with Jim Hey, I think. He probably had some accident. [I know no Jim Hey, but will inquire. My maternal grandfather's name was Hey, but I think he had no brother. Still, there are other local Heys, unrelated or very distantly related. Leven- sley is, like Yewton — but in quite a different lo- cality — an outlying farm with a very good house. There are perhaps also a few cottages called Leven- sley in a general way. It is unlikely that the medium knew the name; I have never mentioned it to him, and it is a long way from the main road, and not near any public road. It is about a mile from here. I doubt whether Wilkinson has ever been near it. ] [April 23rd, 1916. — A friend tells me to-day that a Jim Hey, known as "Deaf Jim," a publican and horse-dealer, once lived at the Junction Inn, near Yewton, but that is all he knows. Later: See Sitting 9, June 5th, 1916.] There is somebody here called Bannister — William Bannister. Such a big man; a long way back, before you were born. He knows about Jim Hey. [The Bannisters — my grandfather Hill's moth- er's people — lived at Kildwick, ten miles away. There was a William, I find, but I cannot ascer- tain much about him.] I see big draught horses. This William Bannister has been dead a long time. He would be oldish but not old, and he had either got lamed or walked lame because of some ailment, not because of age. He had 126 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS to use a stick, couldn't walk very well. Rather strange, I have the impression that William Bannister had something to do with your grandfather on your father's side. He is a member of your grandfather's family on your father's side. [He might be an uncle of my grandfather Hill, whose mother's maiden name was Bannister. I will try to ascertain, but it will be difficult. We have lost sight of them, if any are left.] Had your mother a cousin named Ishmael*? J. A. H. : She had an uncle of that name. A. W. : I have a feeling that he was a cousin of your mother's ; long dead. There was some little vari- ance between this man's family and hers. Some little disagreement. He was a cousin, I think. [Rather indefinite, but there was an Ishmael, not a first cousin, who was related to my mother. But it is all too vague to be evidential.] Was your grandmother named Mary 1 ? J. A. H. : Yes. [Named and described before, if mother's mother.] A. W. : She must have lived to be very old, and had a lot of children. [About eighty-one, but only five children, I think.] Do you know if somebody has a long case clock belonging to her 1 ? J. A. H. : Yes. A. W. : A curious thing, this woman makes me feel I want to say, "I never had a headache in my life." Medium laughs, repeating it. She certainly was a remarkably healthy woman, so far as we remember; MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 127 very active and wiry. I don't remember that she was ever ill until she died of old age.] J. A. H. : That sounds like her. [Note: April 21st, 1916. — I am told by rela- tives who knew her in earlier days that she had "sick headaches" up to the age of fifty.] A. W. : I see a letter dropping down on you. There is a letter coming to you from some man — probably London. It will not exactly disquiet you, but it will cause you to feel anxious. Have you a friend in London who is not well ? J. A. H. : Yes. [Thinking of a Mrs. Arnold.] A. W. : You might write. It would be a good thing to write to the friend. Somebody living in London, I think. I feel a wom- an's hand on my head — I feel the ring. It is someone on the other side. This man in the body — no doubt connected with her — is either ill or in trouble. I shall be very surprised if you don't hear from some man in London. He is either there now or go- ing to be there. Have you had an idea or suggestion to lend some- body some money? J. A. H. : No ; no idea of anything of the kind. A. W. : I don't think I should do it. It would not be effectual in what it was meant to do. It would not prove effective. There are a lot of phantom forms about. There is some woman called Elizabeth. She couldn't swallow very well. I think she has to do with that old lady who never had a headache in her life. Not so old as Mary. Black dress, black bonnet. Eliz- abeth. Belongs to the old lady. A long time ill. She 128 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS couldn't swallow. Might have choked. Related to the old woman, I think. [No relative Elizabeth known to us. But see later.] I do feel baffled about that woman who had to do with a school. She ought to be able to tell where she was. J. A. H. : I will make inquiries. I know the head teachers of the Thornton schools for a long way back, but not the names of all the assistants. And I can't remember ever knowing a woman named Hanson. But we shall see. Clairvoyance ended. The medium seemed to have been in particularly good form, physically and psychi- cally; had said he was feeling much better in health. He went on so fast that I had difficulty in keeping up with him, but just managed it. There are pauses be- tween the bursts, which enable me to overtake him if I get a few words behind. After five minutes of gen- eral talk, he left at 3.45 to walk to Causeway Foot, as it was fine. I know of no man friend in London who is likely to be ill or in trouble, and it is very unlikely that anyone will try to borrow money from me. Yet Wil- kinson seemed very sure of the letter from the London friend who is ill or in trouble, and I took it that he is to be the would-be borrower. The foregoing was written out to-day, Thursday, April 20th, 1916. The medium's statements, and my remarks to him, are copied from verbatim notes taken at the time. Note: May 4th, 1916. — I hear to-day from Mrs. Napier's sister, who informs me as follows: MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 129 They (Mrs. N. and sister) always sat at the back of the church, both at Bromwell, where they lived for the last few years, and at Maesbury, where they lived previously. At the latter place there was no gallery. [Wilkinson's insistence on the gallery — feeling himself in it, etc. — may have been purposed, to show that the Bromwell church was meant.] The vicar at the Bromwell church has "a very promi- nent nose and long face." He visited Mrs. Napier during her last illness. Mrs. Napier's house was in Victoria Road, which is "not very" long. The ground floor is nearly on a level with the road, only two steps at the front door, after a path or drive. It is thus true that it is "not raised up like this one," for we have fifteen steps, in different places, and a slope-up garden path. I have never seen Mrs. Napier's Bromwell house, nor any photo- graph of it; and I do not remember hearing any de- scription of its elevation from the road. There was a pier-glass in the drawing-room and a heavy clock in the dining-room. But these are certainties in nearly any house. The pier-glass was in the dining-room at one time. On the wall of Mrs. Napier's bedroom there was a small photograph of herself. She was tall — 5 ft. 10^2 in. No engraving. The room seems to have been smaller than this one — i.e. than the room in which the sitting took place — for I am told it was "rather small," and had no bay-window. The room in which the sit- ting took place is over fifteen feet square, without reckoning a large bay-window. Nothing known about the brooch. The sister is a very cheerful young lady, usually: 130 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS a very suitable companion for Mrs. Napier, who was very fond of her. Nothing known about the worked garment. Mrs. Napier did very little fancy work. My sister once knitted and gave her a white wool waistcoat, with pink or blue ribbons — very pretty. Just possibly she was referring to this, and the medium misunderstood. But of course I do not lay stress on this. The incident must be regarded as non-evidential. As to the Elizabeth connected with my grandmother Hey, a Purcell cousin of mine remembers quite well an Elizabeth Ogden who was some relative of our grand- mother Hey's — perhaps cousin — and with whom she was friendly. He feels almost sure that this Elizabeth had something the matter with her throat; but we cannot ascertain. She lived a distance away, and we are not in touch with surviving members of the family. Note: May 3d, 1916. — I have asked a local friend and former teacher whether she has ever known a woman named Hanson connected with a school, and she informs me that a Mr. and Mrs. Hanson were at one time caretakers of the school at which she (my informant) then taught, and at which a son of the Hansons also taught. She did not know them well, and never knew their Christian names. Mrs. Hanson became ill, and they left this locality some years ago. She has heard that Mrs. Hanson is now dead, but does not know where they went or where the surviving members of the family now are. Sunday, May 7th, 1916. — To-day I have seen an- other teacher who is still at that school. She says that Mrs. Hanson was of medium height, and had grey hair which stuck out at the sides; was probably nice-look- MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 131 ing when younger and in good health (see Sitting, Jan. 15, 1915, pp. 82, 85). Never saw her "dressed up," so cannot say about the black silk dress and ladylike appearance. Thinks she was fairly plump when they came here, but she became spare. Was middle-aged to elderly. Left this part about six years ago; they were not local people, and were not here long. Knows no Christian names, but will try to ascertain or will try to learn where they went; somewhere in York- shire, she thinks, not very far away. I never knew any of these Hansons, even by sight, and it is unlikely — though possible — that they knew me, though they probably knew of me; particularly the teacher son, who would meet daily several people who know our family well. The school and the cot- tage where the Hansons lived are a few hundred yards from here, but not on the main road. It is in fact a private road. Note: Sunday, May 2 1st, 1916. — To-day I hear that the names of Mr. and Mrs. Hanson were John and Martha; so the "Hannah or Annie" seems wrong. But it is a curious thing that the man of whom in- quiry was made said first : "Let me see ; I forget Mrs. Hanson's name. Some ordinary name — perhaps Han- nah. No, I think not Hannah." Apparently he now finds it to have been Martha, but it is queer that, with- out any suggestion, he first thought it was Hannah, for he was told nothing whatever of my sittings, and did not know why his questioner wanted the name. It seems possible that Mrs. Hanson may have had two names, one of them Llannah; but I doubt whether I can ascertain. I do not know where her body is buried, or where she died. So the name must be counted as 132 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS wrong, though the surname and description are correct enough to suggest irresistibly a certain woman whom I had never heard of, and who, so far as my belief goes, was equally unknown to the medium. It is noteworthy that it was never said that she was a teacher, though I jumped to that conclusion, quite wrongly and unjustifiably. She was "connected with a school," "kept a school," "had to do with children," etc., all of which are true; and these inevitably sug- gest a teacher; yet though this must almost certainly have been the inference of Mr. Wilkinson's normal mind, he consistently avoided the mistake. This seems a slight but noteworthy indication of the probability of some genuinely external mind being in operation, and giving him the impressions. The prediction about the London letter and bor- rower has not been fulfilled, I am glad to say. SITTING 9 Monday, June $th, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and me- dium (Mr. A. Wilkinson). Medium arrived 2.30 p.m., and after preliminary conversation about his recent tours, I handed him the same glove of Mrs. Napier's as before. A. W. : This person ought to be able to come by this time. J. A. H. : Yes, it looks so. A. W. : Some of these people seem able to come without effort, and others make great efforts and can- not manifest. There is an influence about you of a woman, middle- MEDIUMS LETTERS, AND REPORTS 133 aged, rather tall and pale, dark. Not old. She has a dress that shines, like silk. I am impressed that her name was Ingham, or that somebody belonging to her was called Ingham. She is not lately dead; she has been gone some time. Her name would be Ingham. Do 3 r ou know somebody of that name who used to be a good singer? I hear singing. It isn't this woman, but I am brought into an atmosphere of singing. There is somebody still living, connected with her, who is a good singer. You may come across them. J. A. H. : I don't remember anybody at the mo- ment. A. W. : Some lady has come with her — an old lady called Walker. [Here I thought of the Mrs. Walkley, of sitting of February 17th, 1916, p. 103.] [Quite an old person, with head bent forward, a lace thing about her shoulders and a white cap on her head. [Correct for Mrs. Walkley.] These two have come together, as if they knew each other. There is something mixed up between them. [Mrs. Ingham unrecognised, but I found two hours afterwards, on reading the report to my sis- ter, that she formerly knew a Mrs. Ingham, who was more or less a friend of Mrs. Walkley's. The description seems to be not very good, for my sister remembers Mrs. Ingham as a fine-looking woman with good colour. But it is long since she died, and memory is uncertain.] There is a man here called James Hill, a big man, stout, standing by that chair, quite a solid form. Fair complexion, a bit sandy. I am impressed that his name is James Hill. It isn't that I am influenced by 134 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS thinking of your name; the impression is quite clear. This man seems to me a heavy man; corpulent, not a good walker; not infirm exactly, but would be rather heavy on his feet. Fresh colour in face. His clothes are coloured, not black. Trousers are a different colour from coat and vest. Grey jacket and vest, brown trousers. That man used to have a horse and trap; not a big vehicle, horse not a heavy horse. That is a good way back, somebody elderly when you were young. He is brought here by somebody belonging to you. [A distant relative named James Hill died a few weeks ago. He lived and died some miles from here, and not in the medium's direction. I never knew him, but my brother and sister did; they say he was tall and large-framed, but cer- tainly not stout. He was a little over eighty, but thus was hardly elderly when I was young, unless "young" means up to thirty or so. Nothing known about a horse and trap, though this may just pos- sibly be correct. But on the whole the descrip- tion does not fit. Perhaps it is an ancestor or col- lateral farther back.] That woman comes back — that woman called Ingham. She has once lived about you; but not at the time of her death. She died away from here. She is beckoning me. I feel that she knew your mother. I am impressed to say that. [True.] [Wilkinson had been handling the glove off and on from the beginning, but nothing relevant to the owner had appeared, so I now said: "Better put MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 135 that glove down; we seem on another tack." He accordingly did so.] This woman in question, it is not a great way off where she has lived. It isn't just about here. I can see lots of people sitting together in a seat as if in a church. That makes me wonder if this woman had gone to the same church as your mother. That is my own assumption. [It is true of Mrs. Ingham; she sat three pews behind us.] There is a young man here. He is tall — very tall, fairly fine build, not really thin. A young man. He died very suddenly. He might have had his head bad. Something happened to him very suddenly. He has a grey suit on, and is very smart. A very tall young man. Do you know, I have an impression that this young man was not just balanced before he died? Perhaps an illness brought it on. I feel as if some- thing of an untoward nature had overtaken him, and he had gone suddenly. I shouldn't wonder if this man did something that he shouldn't have done. I have a sensation of violence; it is very unpleasant. I don't think I have seen that young man here before. J. A. H. : I wish we could get his name. A. W. : I feel that his death was unusual — almost tragic. This is not something that has happened lately. He has been gone some time; I can't tell how long, but it is not beyond your time of recollection. A few years back, maybe. J. A. H. : I think I know who it is. [A distant relative came to a tragic end about six years ago. He would be in the twenties. He dressed well but not excessively so. Height about 136 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS 5 ft. 8 in., which is not "very tall." But Wilkin- son is very short, and often seems to describe spir- its as taller than they really were. Comparing with himself, 5 ft. 8 in. is tall.] I am interested in this woman with a cap on. One is Mrs. Walker, and the other is Mrs. Ingham, I think. This Mrs. Walker would be a nice, mild-mannered woman; refined, ladylike, by her appearance. She has not been dead very long. It seems kind of new to her. [True of Mrs. Walkley. She had an exception- ally gentle manner. Died February 15th, 1916. See sitting of February 17th, 1916, p. 103.] There is a young woman named Sarah Ann Hey, or Sarah Hey. She would pass away many years ago, twenty-four or twenty-five years old. There is an old lady with her named Mary, as if they knew each other well. The young woman's dress is very old-fashioned — pleated in the skirt, frilled. She is taller than the old woman. The latter is very 6ld but very active. The young one has been passed on farther back than you will remember, judging by the style of her dress. She is connected with the old woman, whoever she is. [Unrecognised. But the active old woman is probably my grandmother, Mary Hey — named and described before — who was exceptionally active until about eighty. There have been several Sarah Heys in our family, and one Sarah Ann Hey not closely connected, who died about the age men- tioned. But the description is not exact enough for certaint)^.] [Pause.] That young man set off on the train to some place. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 137 I feel as if I were about a train. This is the young man that something happened to. Whether he went away I don't know; but something happened to him, away from his home. You won't let this worry you 1 ? I don't want to say anything that would worry you. J. A. H. : No; it will not worry me at all. I think I know who it is. [My distant relative mentioned was killed on the railway, a few miles from his home. ] A. W. : This young woman has been gone so long that you may need to make inquiries to find out who she is. But she is connected up with your family. Did you know anything about that man with the horse and trap ? J. A. H. : I don't remember just now, but it may be all right. A. W. : I am impressed that that young man will come again. As if somebody had brought him. I can't get any more about him. That man with the horse and cart must have be- longed to your mother. He was connected with your mother. He had been a farmer, I think; his appear- ance looks like that. [Certainly wrong, I think, and a curious exam- ple of confusion, for Wilkinson had given the name as James Hill, which obviously places him on my father's side. My mother had no Hill relatives that I know of, except through my father.] That young woman — I think you have got a picture of her, with a "bustle" on. It looks like a miniature. She is of your family, and she comes with the old woman called Mary. It is your mother's side of the family that she belongs to. 138 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS [True, if it does turn out to be anybody. Will look up old photographs. But the "bustle" days are within my recollection, and I think no Sarah Hey that we know of has died so recently; more- over, in the earlier part of the sitting Wilkinson thought the dress indicated a period before my time. ] Have you had somebody here just lately, very lively 1 ? I feel somebody's presence, and as if they had been talking a lot and laughing. I feel very lively; not frivolous, but full of talk and fun. It was a man. J. A. H. : I don't remember anybody of the sort lately. My brother called on Saturday, but there was no special liveliness : all cheerful, but no laughing that I remember. A. W. : Does he often call ? J. A. H. : Yes, pretty often. A. W. : It is somebody who is not a frequent caller. Perhaps somebody who is coming. Has your brother two names ? J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : Has he lost somebody lately*? J. A. H. : Not by death, but a daughter of his has got married lately. A. W. : Oh ! is that all ? Well, she isn't lost. But I see over your head a big 3. This 3 is in a kind of discoloured light. It is shaped like an egg, and there is speckled greyish matter round. Something to do with you, and the colour does not lend any enchant- ment. It is not an omen of danger, but more of a warning. Perhaps in three days or three weeks you ought to be specially careful about something. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 139 You don't know if there was somebody born in 1861 s ? J. A. H. : No; nobody that I know of. My brother was born in 1858; that's the nearest I can think of. A. W. : I see May, 1861. Something happened then — something rather important in your family. That was before you were born? J. A. H. : Yes ; a fair while before. A. W. : Oh! I've something to tell you. You re- member when I was here before, I got the name of a farm — I forget what it was. Well, when I was walk- ing home from here I saw a bill stuck up [on the end of a public-house up the road, I think he said, but I missed getting that down] advertising the sale of cat- tle, etc., at a farm of that same name. I had never heard of it before. J. A. H. : Was it Levensley? A. W. : I don't remember. But I know the name on the bill was the name I had got here, and I thought it was perhaps just a prediction of something I was going to see. [At the sitting of April 19th he got a Jim Hey and a Joe Robinson associated with Levensley; both names unknown to me. But when he men- tioned the poster I remembered that a Levensley farm, with stock, was recently sold, the owner, Thomas Robinson, having died. So the Joe Rob- inson may have meaning. There are two farms at Levensley, and I was thinking of the other one, which I know best; hence my failure to see the appropriateness of the name Robinson. Later, October 31st, 1916. — I find that Thomas Robinson's father was named Joseph, and was HO PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS known as Joe ; and he lived at that same farm, dy- ing many years ago. So the medium was right. Probably both knew me by sight, but I did not know them. Seep. 124.] A. W. : Have you known somebody called Purcell *? J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. : A young man of that name died. I am impressed that there was some young man. I am taken somewhere outside, to somebody who would know him. Near by. Purcell — that is the name. Is there somebody called Jabez Purcell*? J. A. H. : There was. A. W. : Has he passed away 1 ? J. A. H. : Yes. [This house was owned and occupied, some years ago — not immediately before our tenancy — by a Mr. Purcell. His father, who died about thirty years ago (in 1881, I find), was Jabez Pur- cell. The young man is probably Harry Purcell — grandson of Jabez — who died a few years ago, aged about twenty-eight. I hardly knew him; he lived in another town a few miles away. But the medium's impression that there was someone near who would know him is correct, for an uncle and two cousins of Harry Purcell 's live within half a mile from here. I know them all fairly inti- mately. Harry Purcell used to visit this house oc- casionally, when his uncle lived here.] You don't know if there has been somebody called Lewis who lived in this house 4 ? J. A. H. : No; but I once knew somebody of that name. A. W. : There is somebody called Lewis, living MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 141 somewhere away from here, and you will hear some- thing that will interest you. It is somebody in the body. [Mrs. Lewis, no doubt. There was a good deal about them in my sitting of January 19th, 1916, pp. 94-96.] I can see that 3 again. It isn't so murky as it was. Have you a family record of births'? J. A. H. : Yes, but it doesn't go very far back. A. W. : Somebody was born May 7th or 17th, 1861. It is mixed up, but I can't help it. Did any of your mother's people live at Denholme'? J. A. H. : I don't think so. A. W. : I have a vision of a man, and I feel to be taken up that road, to Denholme. I come at a place almost by itself. It looks like a bit of a farm, but not much of one. I feel to get there, and I can't get any farther. It seems towards Denholme. It seems of your mother's family, though I don't see your mother. [My mother's father, and she herself before marriage, lived for a time on a small and rather lonely farm, up the road indicated. It is not in Denholme, but it is in that direction, and is pretty near Denholme's boundary.] Clairvoyance ended. Wilkinson had a cold and was not in very good form. Things seemed more vague and mixed up than usual. He left at 3.30 p.m. Note: June 27th, 1916. — Three weeks have now passed since the sitting, and nothing has happened that can with certainty be fitted in with the 3 which seemed to be a warning to be careful about something in three days or three weeks. One thing, however, is worth 142 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS noting. It happened that on the 7th inst. — the third day if we count the day of the sitting as one — there called a man who had not called for some years, and who was somewhat insistent on seeing me. He is well- intentioned, but rather vehement and dogmatic. On the occasion of a previous visit, when the worthy gen- tleman had offered doctrinal consolations of an unfor- tunately unacceptable character, I foolishly allowed myself to argue some points; and argument is not good for anyone with a wrenched heart, as I soon found out. So I thought it better not to see him when he called on the 7th. Perhaps the 3 was a warning of his ap- proaching call, and a suggestion that I had better not see him. He said he had been contemplating the call for some days, and it may be that some friend of mine on the other side became aware of the fact and showed Wilkinson the murky 3, impressing him that I was to be careful on the third day. SITTING 10 Wednesday, August 2nd, 1916. Present, J. A. H., the medium, and — for part of the time — my sister M. H., and Mr. Percy Lund. On the morning of August 2nd I received a postcard from my friend, Mr. Lund, saying that he would be coming up in the afternoon. He had never met Mr. Wilkinson, nor had I ever mentioned him to the latter, so, as I had a sitting booked for this date (August 2nd), I telephoned P. L. to be here at 2.30 p.m., in order to take part. I have no reason to believe that Wilkinson knew or had ever heard of him. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 143 The medium arrived at 2. 10 p.m. My sister brought him in, and the three of us talked about W.'s walk over, for there are various ways, and he had got lost. At 2.20 my sister (M. H.) went out, saying to me: "Shall I show Mr. Lund in when he comes?" This gave away the name, as she realised a second too late. However, it did not matter much, as the sitting yielded little that was evidential in regard to him. I pro- ceeded to explain to the medium that I expected a friend of mine who was interested in the subject, etc., but at 2.35 I said I thought he must have been pre- vented, and Wilkinson settled himself to try to get clairvoyance for me in the usual way. After a few minutes he began to get impressions. A. W. : I see behind you a reservoir and a farm. I see an old man and woman from this farm, and I see a picture of a reservoir. The man is tall, fairly big, and leans a bit. He looks like a farmer. His name is Thomas. I have a strong impression that the wom- an's name is Betty. I can't tell where this water is, but it is still, not running. It is a reservoir. It was a very clear picture. My impression was of a Thomas and Betty, as if it were a man and his wife, both old people. [My father had an uncle named Thomas Lee, and his wife was Betty Lee. They were farmers, and lived about a mile from here. Thomas was over eighty when he died, about fourteen years ago. I knew him only slightly. His wife pre- deceased him. There is no reservoir within a mile or so of the farm, and the water of the one at that distance is not visible from the farm (being higher up), though its embankment may be. I do not 144 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS think Thomas was tall ; he was about average. But Wilkinson nearly always describes spirit people as taller than they actually were. He himself is very short.] If that man [Lund] doesn't come, I should like your sister to come in. Ask your sister to come in, if she is staying in the house. [I rang, and my sister came.] J. A. H. to M. H. : Lund doesn't seem to be com- ing, so will you come in'? [M. H. came in.] A. W. : There is some old woman, a very old woman, over eighty. Yes, evidently you were wanted [to M. H.]. She would be eighty-four or eighty-five. Rather an old-fashioned dress on, kind of pleated or puffed. Name, Amelia. That would be her name. People might call her Millie. A very old woman; seems to have gone down with age. I don't think she has been deceased long; she hasn't got clear away from here. I think there was somebody connected with this woman — a youngish man; thirty-three or thirty- four. He stands up by her. He has been gone longer than her. They seem to know each other. He pre- deceased her. I am strongly impressed with the name Amelia. It isn't a very common name. M. H.: No. A. W. : That lady's husband was John. He pre- deceased her. He would be much younger at death than she was when she died. Been gone some time. John and Amelia. You don't often hear that name now. [I recognised none of this, but after the de- parture of the medium my sister reminded me of John Holden and his wife Amelia, whom the de- MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 145 scription certainly fits. They lived in our neigh- bourhood. John Holden was my maternal grand- father's cousin, but I think few people knew of the relationship. He died a long time ago — per- haps thirty years. His wife, whom my grand- mother called Millie, died about ten years ago (1910, I find), aged over eighty — probably eighty- four or eighty-five. I dimly remember or seem to remember that a son of theirs died when young- ish, say thirty or so, but my sister remembers noth- ing of this. She knew the old lady Amelia well, much better than I did. Hence perhaps Wilkin- son's strong impression that M. H. was wanted in the room, Mrs. Holden being thus helped to mani- fest. [Later, September 16th, 1916: I find after much inquiry that the son died in 1889, aged thirty-one, and his father in 1888, aged sixty-five.] A. W. to J. A. H. : There seem to be a lot of farmers about you. Somebody died at a farm. But you are not farmers % J. A. H. : No; but some of our folk may have been, a long way back. [At this point Lund arrived. M. H. brought him in, and I introduced him without name as a friend interested in these things.] A. W. : There's somebody connected with Betty, called Clapham or Clapton. I don't know, but I think Betty might be a Wesleyan. It would make one think they still have clingings to the church they went to. [No Clapton or Clapham known, but will in- quire about Betty's maiden name, etc. She was a Wesleyan.] 146 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS A. W. to P. L. : You might sit over there ; the sun is on you. [P. L. moved to couch.] This Thomas and Betty kept a farm, and not very far away was a sheet of water. That is vividly im- pressed on me. There is some man here who might have been a schoolmaster; there is something over his shoulders like a gown. A scholar. Middle-aged; about sixty, rather tall. Did you ever know somebody called Wal- dron— W-A-L-D-R-O-N? [to M. H.] M. H.: Yes. A. W. : Thomas Waldron. I think it is Waldron. Probably this man had been a professor or school- master. He has a lot of books with him. He is "well up." A classical man, good at Latin. I see books, which I should call Latin. He is just by that bookcase [south-east corner of room]. He has been deceased about twelve years, I should think; probably more. [Pause.] J. A. H. : All that is very good. A. W. : This man was very fond of boys — teach- ing boys. He was a bit Churchy; I should not think he was a dissenter — more Churchy. The letters on those big books are red and black. I can see they are Latin. He has a big book with HOMER on it. Would that be the name of the writer, perhaps? P. L. : Very likely. A. W. : Big leather binding. Homer is the name of the writer. The man would be about sixty when he died, and he was not ill long. Very fond of books ; a very interesting man. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 147 This man has been gone longer than I said. He is telling me something. How long did I say"? M. H. : Twelve years. A. W. : It is longer than that. [Thomas Waldron was headmaster of Thornton Grammar School from about 1875 to 1898, in which latter year he died very suddenly — cerebral hemorrhage — without having been in bed ill at all. I was at the school from 1878 to 1886. Pope's translation of Homer was in the school library, and I remember fairly revelling in the Iliad. I do not remember that Mr. Waldron knew any- thing about that, for the boys took home what books they liked; but no doubt he would look at the librarian's book sometimes, to see what we mostly read. Or he may have questioned us. I don't remember. Mr. Waldron was a classical man, specially good at Latin. He wore a gown in school. He was a Churchman, and took Orders about two years before his death, probably with' the idea of a curacy. His age at death was between fifty-nine and sixty. He was not tall, however; here Wilkinson makes his usual mistake.] A. W. to P. L. : I am taken to Pudsey with you by tram. I never was in Pudsey myself. There is a man, rather stout, fresh complexion, not very old. He has a very enthusiastic manner; a bit fussy. Seems as if he has impressed me to go to Pudsey. You had better make yourself better acquainted with some- body at Pudsey. I think this man is living, in the body, but I cannot be certain. I shall be very much surprised if you do not have some association with Pudsey, if you have not had some already. There is 148 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS something that links you up with Pudsey — something to do with a chapel there — a big chapel. You have brought someone with you, a young man who died very suddenly. Rather tall, moderately well built, age twenty-six or twenty-seven, rather fair mous- tache, not very heavy, well-dressed. Died very sud- denly. Makes me feel that his death was the result of some untoward happening, not a natural decease. He is a very real presence to me — appears quite objective. As if he had come with you [P. L.] . [Mr. Lund has no special associations with Pud- sey. But the young man seems to be probably the young man who was described at my Sitting of June 5th, pp. 135-137, and who, Wilkinson then felt, would come again. He was a very distant rel- ative of mine, who did not live about here, and he died suddenly and tragically. It happens that though he was related to me and not to Mr. Lund, the latter had known him personally, and I had not. This, perhaps, explains Wilkinson's remark that the spirit seemed to be with P. L.] A. W. [still to P. L.] : There is a very funny smell where you have been. Something very fusty; I don't know what to liken it to — perhaps a bit like tallow. Like a shut-up room. Have you had those clothes on all day? P. L. : Yes, to-day and yesterday. A. W. : I don't think it has anything to do with that young man. Did you know him? Fairly long features, good nose, straight. P. L. : I'm not sure. It might do for two or three. A. W. [to M. H.] : That old lady doesn't leave you. Do you know her? MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 149 M. H. : I have an idea. A. W. : You might find out that this lady lost a young man. [To P. L.] I am interested in the smell I get from you. J. A. H. to P. L. : Isn't that correct? P. L. : I can't think of anything. Tobacco 1 ? A. W. : No; it seems continual, in the atmosphere, impregnated with it. Have vou ever known a man at Pudsey named Joseph? P. L. : My associations with Pudsey were long ago, and very slight. A. W. : This might be remote. Man named Joseph, went to a big chapel. He was a prominent man at the chapel. I think it will be worth your while to put it down. [To M. H.] : You remember me speaking about Thomas Waldron? There is some woman connected with this man; she is in the body, about seventy years of age. You may hear of her soon. Some circum- stances linked up with this man. [Mr. Waldron's widow is living, about forty miles away. She left this district about 1901, and neither he nor she had or have any relatives about here. The age is about right. She is a little over seventy. The smell associated with P. L. I thought was perhaps printers' ink, indicating the nature of his business, in which, however, he does not now take a very active part. Wilkinson sometimes gets the former earth-occupations of spirits by a psychical smell-perception, as when he smelt brewing after describing Edmund Driver, the hotel-keeper, in my sitting of February 17th, 1916.] i$o PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS A. W. to P. L. : There is a very strong orthodoxy about you. You are a bit narrow in your views, re- ligiously. [Laughter on part of sitters, for P. L. is not narrow theologically. But there is a sort of truth in it, for he dislikes psychical research.] It is a kind of atmosphere. I feel limited. You can't go beyond it. It may be due to your associations. J. A. H. to A. W. : All this is a bit rough on him. A. W. : It is due sometimes to those who come about people. It may be somebody on the other side. [To P. L.] : I shall be surprised if you don't discover something about a man who lived and died at Pudsey a long time since. [To J. A. H.] : You remember me seeing an old man here a time or two — a man with a funny name? J. A. H. : Yes; Leather, perhaps. A. W. : That's it. He is here. He has a lady with him; very young, beside him. Quite youthful. I know the man's face well; I have seen him before. [To M. H.] : The lady is about your age. They are together. Her name was Sarah. She might be some relation to the man. However, her name was Sarah. [Mr. Leather's wife's name was Sarah. She died December 14th, 1866, aged thirty-eight. This is the first time she has been mentioned at my sittings. The Leather tombstone is in an almost inaccessible part of a private cemetery, away from the path, and the lettering is unreadable except at close range. I once asked Wilkinson whether he had ever been in that cemetery (after he had got Mr. Leather's full name), and he said he had never been in any local cemetery. See p. 27.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 151 A. W. to P. L. : Have you some lady belonging to you who is not well, troubled with her heart? She has a weak heart: liable to heart failure. I feel a faint come over me. It seems a continual thing; keeps happening. She should not go away from home; not to the seaside — I feel like that; just take it for what it is worth. [Not specially applicable.] To go away from home would be unwise just now. I don't mean just going out of doors; I mean going away. She is better at home. [P. L.'s wife has occasional trouble with a weak heart if she does too much, but she lives a normal life, goes away a good deal, is active in philan- thropic work, and has been quite up to par lately. ] A. W. to M. H. : Have you had some friend once named Downs ? M. H. : No ; but it is a fairly common name. [We know several people of that name, alive and dead. ] A. W. : That young man who died suddenly — it would be a shock to his people. Quite a consternation brought about by his death. P. L. : Can you get his name? A. W. : I'm trying. Perhaps the exciting circum- stances of his passing, and this being the first time he has come, it may be difficult for him to get his name through. J. A. H. : I think he has been before. A. W. : I don't remember that he has. [Medium looked at me in a very puzzled way, evidently thinking that the spirit belonged to Mr. Lund, and therefore would not have been before. The explanation probably is, as already said, that, 152 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS though the young man was a distant relative of my own, I had never known him, while P. L. had. ] That man that's a schoolmaster is looking at all the books. He has not been here before. [True, and I am quite sure I have never men- tioned him to the medium.] J. A. H. : Glad to hear of him ; we hope he will come again. A. W. : You will hear something as a sequel to this man coming. A very scholarly man. Bit churchy. They make you feel creepy, these Churchmen ! J. A. H. : But Mr. Waldron was an excellent sort. [Wilkinson once was reprimanded for his spir- itualism by a vigorously dogmatic and rather ill- mannered vicar; and, being no match for his assailant in argument, he not unnaturally rather dreads a clergyman.] A. W. to P. L. : Have you ever sat at a table to get movements? P. L. : Yes ; a long time since. A. W. : How long since 1 ? P. L. : About fifteen years. A. W. : Lot of people about you, but it's all moidered up. All chapel folks, very orthodox atmos- phere, very conservative in their views. [P. L. considers this untrue as to his immediate ancestors and relatives generally.] I wish I could come in contact mentally with that young man, but all is chaos about my head. Can't get anything clear. This won't worry you 1 ? P. L. : No, not at all. [The young man had been ill for some months before his death.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 153 A. W. : It would be good if that schoolmaster could get something through. J. A. H. : I wish he could spell something out in Latin. [Medium wrote automatically a word or two, but it turned out to be only "Waldron, Thomas."] M. H. : He hasn't said who brought him? A.W.: No. J. A. H. : That would be interesting. [He and Mr. Leather were intimate friends; probably the latter brought him, as he has brought others.] A. W. : He would have been a very old man if he had been living now. [Not very; he would have been seventy-eight, but used to look older than his years.] I can go back to that farm that I saw at first. There's somebody living, belonging to that old couple. You might discover somebody called Clapham. She would be a Wesleyan. That is vividly impressed on me. [To P. L.] : I can't understand about that funny smell with you. Just as if it was brought in wafts. You have been quite well lately? P. L. : Yes, except for hay fever. A. W. : You have been in some place which is not altogether congenial to you. That is the idea, what- ever it is. [To M. H.] : There is a lady beside you, shorter than you, hair smooth, no colour, delicate- looking. I should call her about sixty. Black dress, lace about neck; brooch. Plain dress; good. Thin, pale fingers. She must have been delicate, something with the chest. Ailing a while. She knows you [i.e. 154 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS M. H.]. Name, Mary. Looks into your face as if she knew you. Been deceased many years. Not so tall as you. The woman I saw before — Millie — must have known her; they seem to recognise each other. [My mother; cancer of breast; died 1886. Not evidential, because given before. The statement that she knew Millie, however, is new and true. Millie has not appeared or been mentioned at any previous sitting.] A. W. [to nobody in particular] : I wish I could get that young man to say his name. The circumstances of his passing make it difficult for him to reach me mentally. These are quick flashes. [To M. H.] : That lady that I have just seen with you, there's an old man with her, eighty years old, biggish, quite grey, fairly good features, white shirt. He builds up by her. He is some close relation to her — resemblance in features. [Mother's father, described often before. Died 1889. White shirt very characteristic] A. W. to P. L. : If you sat at a table you might get some automatism. I feel a helpful emanation. It doesn't matter about not believing, if only one is not prejudiced. Whatever it is where you have been, it is not very healthy for you. You have been puzzling something out, and you are tired and closed up. P. L. : Yes, I have been puzzling something out, that's true. A. W. : The smell is dying away. [P. L. isn't much in the printing works. The smell was entirely psychic, I think. He never brings me any smell of ink or anything else.] MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 155 J. A. H. : I wish that schoolmaster would spell some Latin out. A. W. : Perhaps he will next time. Funny name he had — never heard it before. W-A-L-D-R-O-N. J. A. H.: Right. A. W. : Did he belong to the Church of England? J. A. H.: Yes. A. W. to P. L. : I feel as if I could preach or lec- ture to you. You have somebody, or will have some- body, who is enthusiastic in their beliefs. Must have served them well in life, as they stick to them. [Chuckles.] Have you had some relation who was a "local preacher" 1 ? I feel as if I could lecture you, about what you believe. P. L.: No. [The impression I got was that some deceased relative of P. L.'s felt like castigating him for his heresies. But the evidentiality of what was said to him was almost nil, the lady's weak heart, etc., being almost the only correct thing, unless some- thing comes of the Pudsey Joseph. Mr. Lund's father was thus named, but he had no Pudsey associations so far as P. L. knows.] Wilkinson left at 4.30. I had taken verbatim short- hand notes, which are copied word for word in the foregoing account. Written out Thursday and Friday, August 3rd and 4th, 1916. Later, January 24th, 1917 : I have now ascertained, from one of the very few people living who could tell it, that my great-aunt Betty Lee, before her marriage — i.e. about sixty years ago — lived at a house over- looking a reservoir, some miles from here. Also that her most intimate friends were named Clapham. The 156 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS medium's statements thus turn out correct, and are in this instance particularly impressive. Whatever the explanation, it is not normally-acquired knowledge or telepathy from me. I have now so often found Wilkinson's statements true, after much painstaking inquiry, that I am inclined to believe that the few things which I have not been able to verify about re- mote ancestors, etc., are probably true also. SITTING 11 Monday, September nth, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium (Mr. Tom Tyrrell). This sitting was arranged by post some weeks ago, when I wrote saying that I had heard remarkable things about Mr. Tyrrell's clairvoyance, and that I should like to see him if he ever came into this neigh- bourhood. He replied that he was addressing a Spir- itualist Society at Halifax on September 10th, and would come on the afternoon of the 1 ith. I told him nothing about myself except that I was invalided with an old heart strain. Accordingly, he arrived by the 2.17 train, and my sister met him on the road. He came into my room at once, and we chatted. He said he had never heard of me until I wrote to him, and knew nothing about me; had never been in Thornton before, and in Brad- ford only once. Told about his wife, her milliner's shop, and how he went to the mill (weaver) until nine years ago, but has been a spiritualist platform speaker and clairvoyant for over thirty years. His platform clairvoyance is normal, though assisted by a spirit MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 157 named Billy Matthews — "Owd Billy" — whom he sometimes hears giving him names. This Billy has been his principal guide for a long time, and was at first unknown to him; but eventually he came across a woman, not a spiritualist, who turned out to be Billy Matthews's daughter, and the identification was estab- lished by many details. So says Tyrrell; but this, of course, isn't evidence. In the course of half an hour, Tyrrell became quiet, breathed rather heavily for two minutes, and "Billy" appeared. Medium's eyes almost closed, and eyeballs apparently rolled up as usual in trance. Billy : Good afternoon, lad. [Leans forward and shakes hands.] We are sorry to see you're poorly, but perhaps you don't like too much sympathy. Now I'm only an uneducated men — I'm Owd Billy — and I can only talk Lancashire dialect, an' tha mayn't under- stand it. J. A. H. : Oh, yes, I shall. B. [after a minute's silence] : There's a very old man across yonder [indicating a point near the win- dow, three or four yards away] ; he would be eighty- five or eighty-six. He seems a very eccentric man. I don't see any relationship between you. Grey mous- tache and beard. Black clothes. He would talk very loud, would want to be heard. He is showing us a board — a chess-board. He would be fond of chess. Seems as if he knew tha, lad. Name of James Brear- ley. He lived in No. 7 Ford Street — somewhere about here, we expect. Talking very loud ; likes to be heard. [Pause.] J. A. H. : I believe that's very good. B. : He's surprised to find that he can come back. i 158 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Very fond of playing at chess. Showing chess-board. Also something about golf or bowling. We can't hold them long, only twelve or sixteen seconds. Well, he seems to know tha, lad. [The description recalled nothing until the name was given. James Brearley was a superior sort of working-man, employed in a local mill. He was an original character, quite out of the ordinary run, and "eccentric" is applicable. He used to live a Hillhead, a remote outlying part of the village and we lived not far away, from 1878 to 1897. I saw him often when I was a boy, playing about when he was going to or from the mill. I don't remember ever speaking to him, but he would know me well enough as the son of my father, whom he would know and who knew him and his family Also his son was a schoolfellow of mine, and we chummed a little at one time. After 1897 I doub whether I ever saw old James, but I occasionall heard of him as going nearly every evening, wit another veteran of over eighty, to a local Libera Club. These two were apparently a regular eve ning feature of the club until Brearley's last illness He died two and a half years ago, aged eighty three or eighty-four. I think he moved from Hill head; I have no knowledge of his later address, but will inquire. There is a local Ford Street and it is likely enough that he lived there, for know that his friend lives in that street and has lived there twenty years or more. I rather think there may be an explanation of his appearance, for though I should not have ex pected him on his own account, it happens that a MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 159 club frequenter named Townley, whom I knew well and greatly liked when we were youths and who is often in my thoughts, died a few months ago, and may have brought the old man. Townley was a good chess-player, also an excellent amateur pho- tographer; and he once photographed the two an- cients over a chess-table at the club, though I doubt whether Brearley was much of a player. As to the description, it strikes me as correct except that I am uncertain about a beard. I rather think he had only a grey moustache when I knew him, but I am not sure. Later, September 14th, 1916: I have inter- viewed a man who knew Brearley well, and he says that the beard is correct and the description strikingly true, particularly the loud talking and liking to be heard. I did not know this.] B. : There's a man here, very bright. I can hardly look at him. About fifty; been passed away some time. Dressed beautifully. Black coat. If every- thing was not straight he would be very much put out. Very intellectual. He is watching you writing it all down, and is very interested. Doctor Richard Hodgson; passed away in America. We hardly ex- pect you to know him, as he passed away in America. He is showing us three books. I can see one of 'em plain: "Religion and Modern Psychology," "New Evidences in Psychical" [sic] , and the other "Survival Evidence," or something like that. He is holding these out to tha. He is opening one of 'em. [I think it was said to be the first-named, but did not get that down.] Why, it has thy name in! He seems Has ta been writin' a book, lad? 160 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS J. A. H.: Yes. B. : He seems to be congratulating tha. J. A. H. : Thanks. B. : He says: "I've brought my old friend, Henry Sidgwick, with me." I can't see him. But tha knows, lad, tha'rt surrahnded with a beautiful halo of light. Tha'rt very intellectual. Tha'rt a good judge of char- acter; it doesn't tak' tha long to reckon folk up. There's a beautiful lady here; been passed away a long, long time. If ever a lady lived good, this lady did. She has spirit robes on, and she throws her mantle over you as if to protect you. Name, Elizabeth Hill. She's brought John with her. We don't know who it is. We can only say what we see. [An Elizabeth Hill did exist — but not a direct ancestor, I think — about a century ago. But the name is common. John, perhaps grandfather.] Are ta fond of parsons, lad ? J. A. H. : Not particularly. B. : Well, there's a parson here ; seems interested. He wants you to take it all down. About seventy-six; well-built man, grey moustache and beard. A good man. Name, Reverend George Edmondson. He holds up a book; Manchester Road Baptists; probably in Bradford. The book has it on. He lived in some Marshfield Street; been passed away a bit; can't tell how long. It's a funny thing — he is more anxious about a lad he is bringing than about himself. There's been a bit of sorrow about this lad; he is a cripple — poor twisted body! He would be a shoeblack, and would sell newspapers. His name is Micky Scanlon, or something like that. A bright, intelligent lad. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 161 Lived in Sun Street. Parson seems to be helping this lad. Does ta knaw who it is? J. A. H. : I don't remember that I do. B. : This lad was very well respected. The parson says Father O'Shaughnessy would know him. Nice, intelligent lad. [This about Mr. Edmondson, Micky, and Father O'S. is meaningless to me. There is a Manchester Road in Bradford, but I know of no Baptist chapel there, though there may be one. I will inquire.] There's a dog comes here. Are ta fond of dogs? J. A. H. : Not very specially. B. : It's a beautiful collie. J. A. H. : What is its name? [Thinking of a fine collie named Nip, which used to live next door, dying a few months ago.] B. : Name, Victor. Is there somebody called Dud- ley belonging to you? J. A. H. : Not that I know of. B. : The lower brute creation passes into spirit life, same as us. There's a woman comes, and the dog appears again. A beautiful woman, about sixty-seven, very ladylike; a very religious lady, I believe. She is showing me a photograph, not exactly a photograph, but a small picture. It has this dog on it, sitting on its haunches. On the bottom of the picture there are the words, "Save us." Underneath there is "Frances Power Cobbe." A woman very fond of dogs. She comes with the picture and shows the dog. [Perhaps this is out of the medium's own mem- ory, for it must be assumed that he knows, as most people know, about Miss Cobbe's anti-vivisection activities. It is, however,, noteworthy that I have 1 62 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS had Miss Cobbe in mind a good deal lately, for I have been trying to get hold of her collection of "Peak in Darien" cases, mentioned by Myers in "Human Personality." I wrote to the L.S.A. Li- brary and to several book dealers, but it seems unobtainable.] Is there something that's puzzling tha at present 1 ? J. A. H. : No; nothing special that I know of. B. : There's a lady comes, not a relation, we think. Very frail, about sixty-one or sixty-two. Surrounded with foreign influences. Had something to do with spiritualism. She is showing us The Two Worlds. Alice Nicholson. Lived at Rothery Terrace, Bradford. She seems surrounded with foreign influences. No. 12 Rothery Terrace, Bradford. J. A. H. : I don't know her. [But will inquire. No Rothery Terrace known to me at present, and no Nicholsons. ] B. : Does ta know somebody called Gurney? J. A. H.: Yes. B. : Seems a man fond of writing ; surrounded a good deal with intellectual men. Now there's a beau- tiful man of seventy-five, very white hair, clean- shaved, very spiritual, holding a volume towards you. On this book is "Art Journal"; underneath "Samuel Carter Hall." A very beautiful gentleman. Very much interested. Are ta fond of pictures ? J. A. H.: Yes. B. : He was a very good, religious man. J. A. H. : I have heard of him. B. : He seems to be encouraging you to write some- thing, to keep on writing, not to overdo it, but to keep on. They are helping you. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 163 J. A. H. : I am much obliged to them. B. : Give way to the impressions. [All this about Gurney and S. C. Hall may be accountable to the medium's own memory stores. But it is curious that there was no mention of Myers, who is almost sure to be more prominently in a spiritualist's thoughts than Sidgwick, or Gur- ney, or even Hodgson. And it is noteworthy that at my last sitting with a trance medium [Peters, March 3rd, 1916: reported later] the S.P.R. group appeared, Myers included. Hodgson knew of my existence, for a few letters passed between us just before his death in America in 1905. His age was fifty, as said. My books have been published since his death.] Are ta fond of studying different religions'? J. A. H.: Yes. B. : Tha'rt trying to get the best out of all of 'em. Are ta fond of reading Indian religion, Eastern? J. A. H.: Yes. B. : There seems to be an Indian priest in the sur- roundings. He is showing us a book, but I can't make head or tail of it. Seems to be something about India or Indian religion. Man has a very black skin, black moustache, long, flowing robes, and a turban with diamonds at the front. Seems to come in your sur- roundings. Mohammedan religion. He is going like this [bowing and making three hand-sweeps downward in front of him], and saying: "Illah Allah Illah" — something like that, and bowing three times. He is impressing you on ancient religion. [Mohammedanism seems an unfortunate selec- tion for an "ancient" religion!] 164 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Are ta fond of old castles'? J. A. H. : Not specially. B. : I'm sorry we haven't done better; we have to do the best we can. J. A. H. : You've done all right, and I thank you. B. : Well, we've got all we can for to-day. This lad here [medium] isn't in the best of trim after his work yesterday. Good-bye, now, and God bless you. [Shakes hands.] J. A. H. : Good-bye, and God bless you, too. Medium was himself again in about two minutes, after muttering a good deal of a language unknown to me (or gibberish). I asked about this when he was normal, and he said he had an African control who helped Old Billy when the latter had difficulty in getting in or out. On this occasion, medium said he felt as if he had been very deep. Knows nothing of what has been said during trance. I told him Dr. Richard Hodgson had been, and asked if he knew the name. He replied: "Wasn't it a Dr. Hodgson who sat with Mrs. Piper so much 1 ? But I didn't re- member his first name." In the report I have not reproduced the dialect carefully. Sometimes when "tha" was said (for "thou" or "thee") I wrote the shorthand logogram for "you" for speed's sake. Also I wrote "she" when Billy used the Lancashire equivalent "hoo." But I have not edited the report itself. I have copied it verbatim, to-day, September 12th, 1916. The medium in his normal state speaks quite good English, though he is almost entirely self-educated. He is keenly interested in botany of a general kind — trees and flowers in an amateur wa3^ — and says he MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 165 thinks he could name and tell something about any tree that grows in England. Rut he has a modest and pleasant manner, and I fully believe that he is entirely honest and veracious, and a quite excellent man all round. After a cup of tea he left at 4.15 on his way home to Blackburn. Note: September 13th, 1916. — This morning I received from Mr. Tyrrell a letter of which the follow- ing is a copy : 54 Whalley Banks, King Street, Blackburn. September 12th, 1916. Dear Mr. Hill, I arrived home last night at 10.30, feeling rather tired. But the reason I am writing you is because I had a very strange influence hovering about, which I could not understand. A feeling of disappointment, as if someone had wanted to manifest their presence but had not been able to do so. I felt very uneasy all the way coming home on the train. I could neither read nor think; the peculiar influence seemed to domi- nate my whole being. So on reaching home I casually mentioned the matter to my wife, how uneasy I felt. So we suggested having a private sitting and let Billy Matthews come and see if he could enlighten us. So having had a very light supper, we sat after 1 1 o'clock till nearly midnight, and this is what we got. Billy told my wife that two spirit forms had followed me home; they had tried to manifest their presence at your home, but Billy was not able to get in rapport with them, because the other influences were stronger, and he said I was rather nervous, which prevented him 166 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS from using me to the best advantage, and I am afraid if I had known and read your articles in Light and The Two Worlds I should have been more nervous still. [In questioning him as to whether he had ever heard of me, I asked if he saw Light and The Two Worlds, where my name often occurs. He said he rarely sees Light, but has taken The Two Worlds for many years. However, my name has not been prominent in it — I have written only one article for it, and though long reviews of my books appeared, that is a few years ago — and it is not surprising that my name recalled nothing to Mr. Tyrrell.] I enjoyed reading the article in Light on prayer and telepathy, culled from Bibbfs Annual. It took me a while to find the article in The Two Worlds, as I kept looking for your signature along with the article. But there wasn't any name attached to article which pre- sume must be yours, the one called "Spiritualism the Comforter." Let me say I read it before. But thought it was Mr. Morse's article. There wasn't any name to it. [He got the wrong one: mine was headed by my name. ] I take it from the article that you must be a member of the Psychical Research Society, and, candidly, I have always had a natural antipathy to psychical re- searchers. I read one of their books, over twenty years ago, and I thought they were too cold and critical, and had not much sympathy for mediums. They don't give sensitives much help, their feelings are too acrid and that feeling causes more difficult)?- in getting along. A medium is better when he feels comfortable and MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 167 gets used to the sitter. Well now, about the two spirit forms : the one was a lady, who came with a gentleman, and Billy says judging from the magnetic link there were strong links of relationship, probably man and wife, but we don't know. The lady was about fifty- four years of age and very beautiful, with slight wavy hair and very pale in features. She came in her beau- tiful spirit robe. The control said the gentleman ap- peared to be about sixty-six years of age. Billy did not describe him, as the brightness of the lady seemed to overshadow him. Billy thinks they must have been passed into spirit life a long time, because they had thrown off all earth's conditions, and appeared very bright. They gave Billy their names as Bannister Hill and Mary Hill. They wished their love to be conveyed to you and your sister, and they wish it to be understood they are helping you both when they can. Of course I send you this for what it is worth, we do not guarantee anything. Well, now let me say that I have enjoyed reading your articles, and now don't [think] you were very dreadful and I may think a wee bit better of psychical researchers. I don't know all you got yesterday, only what you choose to tell me. But somehow or other I feel a little bit sick at taking your money, as you may think I am like the rest of mediums, that I am after all I can get. But it is not quite true. I could have coined money this last thirty years but have steadfastly refused it, yet hundreds of times I have been in want of a shilling. What a good ride it is from Thornton for 2d. We have to pay a penny for every ride in Blackburn. Let me say I quite enjoyed the tea with your sister. Kindly thank her for making [me] feel so comfortable and 168 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS accept all good wishes yourself, from yours in the cause. But don't ask me to sit for any more psychical Researchers, they generally give me a fright. T. Tyrrell. My father was Bannister Hill, and he died October 22nd, 1898, aged sixty-six. His name has not ap- peared in any of my former writings, nor his age, nor date of death. Mr. Tyrrell could not have normally known these facts unless he had found our vault in one of the half-dozen cemeteries in Thornton (a private one belonging to a chapel), and this would not have been a very easy matter. My mother, Mary Hill, died November 19th, 1886, aged fifty- four. She was pale, had been good-looking in youth, though perhaps hardly beautiful, except as regards her eyes. Tyrrell's use of the word might, however, refer to her spiritual appearance. She was certainly a beautiful soul. As to evidentiality, it is to be noted that her name and age appeared in my book, "New Evidences," in a report of a sitting with Wilkinson; and though Tyrrell says he had never heard of me or my books (and I believe in his supra- liminal honesty), we cannot accept as strongly eviden- tial anything that has appeared in print, especially if it appeared in a book likely to be read by many spiritual- ists. Mediums may hear such books quoted and dis- cussed, even if they do not read them; and we must allow for subliminal memory. On the other hand, I think it improbable to the point of incredibility that Tyrrell had ever heard of my father or of James Brearley, so I do not accept the subliminal memory theory of the Mary Hill MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 169 episode. I provisionally accept the spirit-theory in all three cases as being the most probable. Note: September 15th, 1916. — I have now looked up S. C. Hall in Chambers' 's Encyclopedia, and find that the full name is Samuel Carter Hall, as stated. He was born in 1800, died 1889; founded and edited The Art Journal (1839-1880), and did much other literary work. He was a prominent spiritualist, and was the first chairman of the British National Asso- ciation of Spiritualists, in 1874 ( see Podmore's "Mod- ern Spiritualism," ii., p. 169). I knew the name only as that of a man who had sat with D. D. Home. I know nothing of his personal appearance. It seems correct that he was a particularly good and philan- thropic man. But of course all such details must be assumed to be known (subliminally, even if "forgot- ten") to mediums, and to spiritualists generally, so they cannot be regarded as evidential. Note: September 16th, 1916. — I learn to-day that James Brearley lived and died in Ford Street, but have not yet ascertained the number. His age was eighty-three or eighty- four. Note: September 19th, 1916. — I learn to-day that the Rev. George Edmondson was minister for some years at Manchester Road Baptist Church, now called Marshfield Baptist Church. Also that a hunchback named Mickey (surname not yet ascertained) sold newspapers in Market Street, Bradford, dying two or three years ago. My informant knew him personally. Also that an Alice Nicholson was a member of the Milton Spiritualists' Church, Manningham, Bradford. She did platform work for various Spiritualist Soci- 170 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS eties, so Tyrrell probably knew her or knew of her. Am seeking further details about all three. Note: September 22nd, 1916. — After further in- quiry I find to-day that the house in Ford Street in which James Brearley lived and died is No. 7. Ford Street is not on or near the route which the medium traversed on his way here from the station; though, even if it had been, it would not have given him the name and description of James Brearley. No relative of the latter is now living at No. 7 or in the street. The beard is corroborated to-day by two other people who knew him well, thus confirming the medium's statement, which at the time I doubted. Thus every fact given about James Brearle)?-, whom I have no reason to believe the medium had ever heard of, turns out true; except the chess-playing. This was the medium's own inference from the chess-board which the spirit was showing; the fact seems to be that neither Brearley nor his friend played chess, but that my friend Townley, wanting to photograph the two friends, posed them at a chess-table and produced a particularly good picture, a copy of which hangs in the club. This club, it is necessary to state, is not on or near the route covered by the medium in coming here, and it is not on a public road or prominent in any way. It is a village club; all the members know each other, and any stranger coming and making inquiries would be suspected and discouraged. I am sure the medium did not get his information there. Note: September 25th, 1916. — I have now ob- tained copies of some newspaper issues, and append cuttings : MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 171 Bradford Daily Telegraph (Wednesday, January 14th, 1914) : "LITTLE MICKEY" DEAD King of Bradford Newsboys Popular Figure Removed Michael Scannon, better known in the newsboys' fraternity as "Little Mickey," the King of the Bradford newsboys, has just died at his home at 22 Sun Street. "Mickey" had for years taken up his stand near the Mid- land Railway Station and the Exchange, and was undoubt- edly the best known of all the newsboys. Though a cripple from birth, suffering from a spinal curvature, his genial dis- position won for him a large circle of friends amongst Brad- ford business gentlemen. He was the most prominent figure in the annual newsboys' trip to Cleethorpes, and he was quite as well known at that seaside resort as in his native city. "Mickey" always led the procession, playing a small kettledrum, and he always enter- tained his comrades after dinner with songs and whistling se- lections. The members of the Bradford Newsboys' Trip Committee are making arrangements for the funeral, which will prob- ably be the biggest any newsboy has yet received, for "Little Mickey" was the most popular of all our paper sellers. Bradford Daily Telegraph (Wednesday, January 14th, 1914): Edmondson. — Jan. 12th, 1914, at 25 Marshfield Street, the Revd. George Edmondson, aged 76 years. Funeral will leave the house on Friday, the 16th inst., at 1.15, for service in Marshfield Baptist Chapel. Interment at Bowl- ing Cemetery. Friends please accept this intimation. Bradford Weekly Telegraph (Friday, January 23rd, 1914) : REV. G. EDMONDSON The funeral took place on Friday, from his residence at Marshfield Street, Manchester Road, Bradford, of the Rev. George Edmondson, pastor of the Marshfield Baptist Chapel. 172 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Mr. Edmondson, who was 76 years of age, came to Bradford from Horsforth 47 years ago, to take up the pastorate of Ebenezer Chapel, a position which he held for very many years. When the Marshfield Chapel branched off in 1903 he became minister there, and he filled the position with much acceptance. Though never a prominent public man, he had a wide circle of close personal friends by whom he was most highly esteemed. . . . BRADFORD NEWSBOY'S FUNERAL Once again "Little Mickey" has joined in the procession of newsboys and shoeblacks — once again, but for the last time, alas ! Never more when the boys have their annual trip to Cleethorpes and go merrily marching along the street will "Mickey" lead them. Never again when they cross the Mid- land Station yard will the many Bradford business men who were his friends spare a willing copper for the poor, brave, little twisted figure with the wan, but smiling face. And never more will his pals in the streets gather around him to hear him sing and whistle, for on Saturday there was no little fellow to lead the procession, but a poor little coffin was carried high in the midst of it. After twenty-two years of pain, Michael Scannon, a crip- ple from birth, has finished his fight, and with the kindly thoughts of those who knew him best, those who lived with him, those who tended him in his sufferings, and knew his patient and cheerful spirit, and those who befriended him, he has passed where he will know no more earthly pain or trouble. "Little Mickey" was the friend of all, and on Saturday many who had known him gathered to bid the last farewell as he passed on his final journey. By noon Sun Street, North Wing, where he lived, was filled with neighbours and friends, and as the little coffin was carried down the street to the hearse by some of his comrades, there were many signs of mourning. The procession, which was headed by about forty or fifty newsboys and shoeblacks, and joined by many friends, passed along Captain Street, Barkerend Road, and Otley Road to Undercliffe Cemetery, and all the way there were those who knew him to watch him go. At the cemetery, also, where a service was conducted at the graveside by Father O'Shaug- MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 173 nessy, of St. Mary's, East Parade, there were many friends gathered. . . . The foregoing extracts make it clear that in the cases of the Rev. George Edmondson and Mickey Scan- non the evidence for their spiritual agency is not much stronger than in the case of S. C. Hall, Miss Cobbe, and the S.P.R. men named, for they were well known, and their deaths and funerals were recorded rather fully in the local newspapers. If Mr. Tyrrell happened to see the Bradford Weekly Telegraph of January 23rd, 1914, we must assume that any of its contents might remain in his subliminal memory, and facts such as the names of Mr. Edmondson and Mickey Scannon, with their addresses and occupations, may be thus accounted for. Moreover, in the weekly paper just mentioned, the account of Mr. Edmondson's funeral is immediately above that of Mickey's, and in this latter there occurs the phrase, "poor, brave, little twisted figure," which seems suspiciously like the prob- able source of Billy's phrase "poor twisted body." On the other hand, Billy described Mr. Edmondson's personal appearance, and this counts for evidence if it is correct, for I have found no description of him in the newspaper notices. I am making further inquiries. To guard against misapprehension, I must make it clear that I am not imputing conscious deceit to Mr. Tyrrell. I believe in his absolute honesty and veracity. I have asked him whether he knows the names of the Rev. George Edmondson, Mickey Scan- Ion, or some such name, and Alice Nicholson, and he replies that the first two are quite new to him, though 174 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS he has a dim recollection of having heard the third. I accept this, as regards his conscious recollection; but unfortunately we have to allow for subconscious mem- ories also, and it is certain that we subconsciously know many things which we have "forgotten." And, since it seems that a trance-control cannot always distinguish between the medium's memory stores and messages really from "the other side," we cannot safely take as spirit-evidence anything that the medium is at all likely to have known. And though it hardly seems likely that Mr. Tyrrell, living forty miles away at Blackburn, would happen to see a local paper of a town in which he has no special interest, the possibility is still just sufficient to weaken somewhat the spiritistic theory in the case of the two men in question. October 4th, 1916. — I wrote to Mr. Tyrrell, asking whether he ever sees any Bradford newspapers, am he replies that he does not. He thinks a local Black- burn library takes the Yorkshire Post, but he nevei reads it, for he has no particular interest in Yorkshire news. He further states that he had been in Bradford only once before his visit to me; on that occasion, which was in July, 1915, he arrived in the town at noon on a Sunday, spoke at a spiritualist meeting in the evening, caught an early train home on Monday morning, and saw no newspaper during the time of his short stay in Bradford. It seems, therefore, unlikely that subliminal mem- ory is the correct explanation of the Edmondson and Mickey incidents ; particularly in view of the fact that no such explanation could account for the appearance of James Brearley and my father. Perhaps Mr. Ed- mondson and Mickey made friends with each other MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 175 because they went over almost at the same time. It does not seem an unreasonable supposition. But read- ers will form their own judgment from the facts, which I have given as fully as possible. Note: October 4th, 1916. — To-day I learn that (Mrs.) Alice Nicholson lived at 12 Rothesay Terrace, Bradford; evidently the control made a small mistake in getting it "Rothery Terrace." In The Two Worlds for September 15th, 1916 — four days after my sitting — there appeared the following notice : In Memoriam Nicholson. — In loving remembrance of a dear wife and mother, Alice Nicholson, 12 Rothesay Terrace, Bradford, who passed on September 18th, 1913. — Albert Nichol- son and Family. No doubt her death was notified in the same paper, which Mr. Tyrrell sees regularly; and, though he re- members hardly anything about Mrs. Nicholson, a subliminal memory explanation is not impossible. But I think it fair to add that subliminal memory theories have been greatly overworked, and that the spiritistic view is at least as likely, particularly when supported by incidents such as those about my father and James Brearley, which cannot be reasonably explained by subliminal memory. Moreover, I have ascertained to-day that the description of the personal appearance of both Mr. Edmondson and Mrs. Nicholson is abso- lutely exact; and this seems to require an explanation beyond the newspaper notices. Note: October 10th, 1916. — I now find that the photograph of the two old men was reproduced in the Bradford Daily Telegraph of January 10th, 1914, 176 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS with a paragraph — on another page — in which Brear- ley's strong voice is mentioned, and eccentricity hinted at. His address is given also. Consequently, consid- ered strictly, the evidentiality of the Brearley incident disappears. Lapsed memory will account for it, as well as for the Mr. Edmondson and Mickey incidents ; that is, if we assume that Tyrrell had at some time seen these various newspaper accounts. There remains the description of Mr. Edmondson, and my father's name and age ; and if these were from the other side so may the others be. Suspense of judgment seems the correct attitude. Note: October 20th, 1916. — James Brearley's club crony died this morning. This perhaps lends a little weight to the spiritistic interpretation of the incident. Brearley may have been waiting about for his friend, and may have really been present at my sitting. The case, on this view, is a parallel of the Leather — Dray- ton, Mr. and Mrs. Walkley, and Charlton — Charlton meeting cases already described. December 1 lth, 1916. — I have lately got into touch with an able and experienced investigator, Dr. F. H. Wood, of Blackburn, who has had many sittings with Mr. Tyrrell, and is therefore more competent to esti- mate his powers than I am. Dr. Wood is quite sure that "Billy" does not use the medium's memory-stores, either consciously or unconsciously; and that the in- formation said to come from spirits does really come from the other side. He kindly allows me to quote the following piece of evidence from one of his own sit- tings. I have disguised the names, lest the child's mother should be caused pain. "On May 13th, 1915, Mr. Tyrrell described to us MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 177 the spirit form of a lady who brought with her a little boy, aged five. Her name was not given, but the boy was said to be 'the child of . . .' — here the clair- voyant listened, and said, 'It sounds like Samuel Browning, but I'm not quite sure. At any rate, he is a policeman, and he lives at No. 6, Henry Street, Leyton [a small town a hundred miles away]. The mother of the child is grieving sadly. He died of pneumonia. Will someone tell her that he is not "dead" at all, in the sense she thinks he is*? He is here, and we are looking after him. She mustn't grieve so much.' "On July 19th, 1916, I visited Leyton, and found that there was a Henry Street. I went to No. 6, but no one was at home. I tried next door, and the neigh- bour gave me the following information. The people at No. 6 are named Brownlow. The father is a con- stable. His name is Stanley. (The medium seems to have misheard Samuel Browning for Stanley Brown- low, but he got the address correctly.) I asked for information about the mother. 'She has gone away,' the neighbour said; 'health completely broken down since her little boy died, six months ago, of pneumonia. He was only five.' She went on to say, quite spon- taneously and without any suggestion from me: T have often been to the cemetery with Mrs. Brownlow, and it was pitiful to see the way she cried and fretted over the little grave. He was her only boy.' The rest of the story as to how I tried to bring comfort to the poor mother's heart need not be told here, but it may be pointed out, on the evidential side, that none of the sitters knew of the existence of the Brownlow family, and that to the best of my belief the medium 178 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS shared their ignorance and had never been in that town. I am quite sure about this last point. "The question arises: 'Why did the message come through to me?' I think there is a sort of link. It happens that my boyhood was spent at Leyton, though I have no reason to think the medium knew that. No one belonging to my family has lived there since 1904. Two of my brothers are buried in the same cemetery as the child. It seems as if perhaps one of my loved ones, witnessing the mother's grief at an adjoining grave, interested himself with the object of obtaining some consolation for her. — F. H. Wood (Mus. Doc.)." This seems to me a good case, and Dr. Wood has kindly allowed me to see records of others almost equally striking. I have also heard details recently of other successfully-evidential incidents through Tyrrell's mediumship, and on the whole I am now disposed to put a spiritistic interpretation on the re- sults of my own sitting with him. If he ever reads this, I hope he will not feel it to be a lukewarm judg- ment. I merely follow the facts, and must not go farther than the facts point. If I had been able to have further sittings, I quite believe I should have obtained further facts which would have convinced me of spirit-origin. One sitting is not enough to base anything on very definitely. My conviction of other- side agency in Wilkinson's case is complete. I have no doubt about it whatever. But it has grown gradu- ally, and is the result of many carefully recorded and studied sittings extending over a period of years. From all I can hear, Tyrrell's mediumship is of the same order, and I regret that I have not been able — MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 179 mainl}' - through distance — to obtain further evidence through him. SITTING 12 Friday, September 22nd, 1916. Present, J. A. H. and medium (Mr. A. Wilkinson). The medium arrived at 2.25 p.m., and we talked about his recent tours in Durham and elsewhere for about a quarter of an hour. Then a few minutes' silence, and clairvoyance began. A. W. : There is some youngish man about. He would be about thirty-one or thirty-two. He builds up in the corner there. Long face, pale. Biggish nose. It's a peculiar thing, one side of his clothes seems light, the other dark. It is the light from the window, I suppose. Lister is the name I get. That might be a surname. Lister Holden or Holden Lister. These two names go together. Thirty-one or thirty-two when he passed away. Been gone some years; all about his head looks quite subtle, because he has been away some time. J. A. H. : Quite right, that. A. W. : You see, it's two surnames, and I can't tell which comes first. There is a very old woman with this man; very old, quite feeble. Not been long gone; clothes quite dense, fabric very real. She stands up as if he were supporting her. There's something over her head, a cap. Quite venerable; eighty-five or eighty-six. Something to do with this man. Name Amelia. She was very old. She has a fancy apron on over her dress — a lace apron. Rather particular 180 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS in her dress. [Takes pencil and paper and writes "Lister Holden" and "Amelia."] [Amelia Holden, who died in 1910 at something well over eighty and who appeared for the first time at my last sitting with Wilkinson (August 2nd, 1916, p. 144), was wife of a cousin of my maternal grandfather. Lister Holden, here named for the first time, was her son, who died, as I after- wards found, in 1889, aged thirty-one. I know nothing of his appearance, but I learn that a long face and big nose were characteristic of his father, who died in 1888, so perhaps the son had them also. The cap and apron are correct for Mrs. Holden. She dressed well.] Have you known somebody, a farmer, named Lee? There are always farmers come here; I feel as if I were about cattle and hay. I get the name of Lee distinctly. Not a very old man; older than you, but not very old. I am sure he has been about a farm. That young man and that old woman must be re- lated to each other. They belong to each other. Re- lated. [Yes, mother and son (Holdens), as explained. My father had an uncle named Lee who appeared at my last sitting with Wilkinson, August 2nd, 1916, p. 143.] There is a man here, tall, no hair about his mouth, biggish face, elderly, sixty or sixty-one or a bit more. Name, Jonas Hey. A long time passed away; twenty years or more — more than that. Did you know him? [Writes "Jonas Hey."] J. A. H.: Yes. [Not sure that I did. A Jonas Hey certainly MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 181 lived in Thornton, dying perhaps twenty years ago, but I do not remember his appearance. My father knew him. Later: Have found someone who knew him. Description is fairly accurate, but my informant thinks J. H. did not shave any part of his face.] I am taken to a farm again. A lot of people called Hey come to you. [Mother's maiden name. But I think Jonas Hey was no relation; certainly not a near one.] This man might be confused with another. [This turned out correct: evidently those on the other side saw I was going wrong. The J. H. intended was a relative of mine whom I never knew.] He has been deceased many years; you would only be very young when he died. Do you know somebody called Whetley? J. A. H. : I don't think so. A. W. : Have you known somebody called Lee Whetley? J. A. H. : I know who that is. A. W. : There might be two persons, one Lee and one Whetley, connected with a farm. I should think that man Lee died rather suddenly. I can't get away from somebod]^ living — somebody living that he has known. He probably left a wife alive. There is some attraction about a farm. J. A. H. : I should like to know what he wants. He came last time, and may be trying to complete some information. A. W. : I didn't think he had been before. [It was my mistake. I was thinking of old Thomas Lee, who did come at the August 2nd 182 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS sitting. But obviously the man Wilkinson was talking about was Whetley Lee, Thomas's son, who had not been mentioned before. Lie (Whetley) lived at a farm a mile and a half from here — a very lonely and out-of-the-way place, far from main roads, and very unlikely to have even been seen by Wilkinson, who lives in the opposite direc- tion. Whetley died rather suddenly about four years ago, leaving a wife. I think she is still at the farm, but am not sure. It is a long way from the farm where her father-in-law lived, in the next valley.] There's a lot of people here to-day. A young man between thirty and forty, dressed up in style like a parson. Black clothes. Can't see his face, but am impressed with his clothes; black. Somebody who hasn't been here before. Cockin is the name. J. A. H. : Right. A. W. : I am inclined to think he was in an at- mosphere where parsons were. J. A. H. : I wonder what his first name was. A. W. : There's a very old man with him now, white hair, over eighty, stoops, was tall and well-made. His name is Joseph. He is Joseph Cockin, and the young man is with him. [Medium takes pencil and paper, and writes "Joseph Cockin."] J. A. H. : Quite right. A. W. : The younger has been gone longest ; he is more subtle. The old man would be eighty — quite. He has not been a parson, I think, but the young man had something to do with them. Funny name — Joseph Cockin! The young man's name must have MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 183 been Cockin, but I don't get any other name. He has been longer away. It's a wonder to me that you don't see or feel these people. [Rev. Joseph Cockin was minister at a Con- gregational Church in Thornton for a few years. He either left or died about 1886. I have had no knowledge of any of the family for a long time. I should think it pretty certain that Wilkinson had never heard the name before. Certainly I had never mentioned these people to him; they are very rarely in my mind. My grandfather and grandmother went to "old Cockin's" church (he would die at about eighty), but we did not, and I do not remember him. I do not know who the young Cockin can be. It is curious that Wilkinson thought that Joseph was not a minister, although he brought that sort of atmosphere.] A. W. : Wasn't it a parson or a schoolmaster who came before 1 ? [Evidently referring to Mr. Waldron, sitting of August 2nd, p. 146.] J. A. H. : Yes. I wish he would come again. A. W. : He doesn't seem to be about to-day. That old man looked as real as life. You are sure you don't feel any worse after I have been 1 ? J. A. H. : Quite sure. A. W. : Those are very curious names, WTietley Lee and Joseph Cockin. I think this old gentleman was rather religious; rather pious, in his way; would be about chapel life. J. A. H. : He was a minister. A. W. : Was he? Did you know him? 184 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS J. A. H. : I knew of him. He was rather before my time. My grandfather knew him very well. A. W. : You have never had any communication from the lady of the glove? J. A. H. : No, except what you got. Would you like to try now? A. W.: Yes. [Gave him a glove of hers, which he handled without result for several minutes and then put down.] I think it is best, after all, to wait for spontaneous things. That old man — had he some local connexion? J. A. H. : Yes, he was a minister in Thornton. A. W. : The young man should have had a name, too. J. A. H. : Yes, I wonder what it was. A. W. (after pause) : There's some old lady again, another old lady. I have seen her here before. Eighty or so. Seems as if she moves about the house. I have seen these forms mainly in that corner, but she seems to be walking round. Name, Mary. Makes me feel as if she had some hold on you, some relationship to you. She would be eighty-one or eighty-two. Been an active woman all her life. Can you make out who it is? J. A. H. : Yes ; my grandmother, no doubt. I wish she could send a message. A. W. : Had she a very big family? J. A. H. : No. Five children, I think. [Rather curiously, he credited this grandmother with a large family before.] A. W. : I don't think I can get any more. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 185 After a little general talk, not about the sitting or my deceased friends or relatives, the medium left to catch the 3.48 train. [January 23rd, 1917. — I learn to-day that old Mr. Cockin had a son Joseph, a very promising young man who went to Africa as a missionary and died there — before his father's death — aged between thirty and forty.] TABLE OF SITTINGS, WITH PRINCIPAL NAMES AND INCIDENTS July 21st, 1914. Sarah, Jonas, Dunlop, Armitage, Leather. December 14th, 1914. Helen and Benjamin Torring- ton, Mary (grandmother), Walker, James Bannister, (Edmund) Driver, Ishmael, Purcell (Timothy 4 ?). January 15th, 1915. Trevor, King, Elias Sidney, Moses Young, Mary Bannister, Jowett, Han- son (woman connected with a school), Mary (mother), woman with limp, Leather, Purcell (girl with music, unrecognised), man with long pinafore on, forty or forty-two, died suddenly, Jonathan Ainsworth, John Hey, Yewton (farm). November 19th, 1915 (per Mr. Frank Knight). Ish- mael Hey, Sarah, Helen Torrington and a man (her husband), father described. January 19th, 1916. John (grandfather Hey), Jonas, Lewis, Percy Tranter, Drayton, Henry and Robert, Whitley. 186 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS February 17th, 1916. Prediction of a good-bye, Mary (mother), unrecognised young man H , Driver, later Edmund, Mr. Walkley described, imminent funeral of old lady (Mrs. Walkley), young man's mother (unrecognised), descrip- tion of father pulling cloth over, and of grand- father (Hey), James Bannister, Charlton. April 12th, 1916. Grandmother Hey described, Jonas, Jowett, Verity and Betty Tranter, tall, lame woman, Burroughs, Burns, Helen Torrington. April 19th, 1916. Description of church, vicar, house (Mrs. Napier's), Hanson, Joseph, Yewton (farm), John Henry Hanson, Armitage, Leth- bridge, Jim Hey, William Bannister, Ishmael, Mary (grandmother Hey), prediction of Lon- don letter and would-be borrower, Elizabeth, Levensley. June 5th, 1916. Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Walkley, James Hill, young man who died in tragic manner, Sarah Hey, Mary, prediction about 3, some unrecognised event of May 7th or 17th, 1861, Jabez Purcell, Lewis. August 2nd, 1916. Thomas and Betty (Lee), John and Amelia (Holden), some Clapton or Clap- ham, Thomas Waldron, Pudsey connected with Mr. Lund, young man who died suddenly, mentally ill, Pudse}^ man named Joseph, Leather, Sarah (Mrs. Leather), Mary (my mother) and her father. September 11th, 1916. (Medium, T. Tyrrell.) James Brearley, Dr. Richard Hodgson, Henry Sidgwick, Gurney, Samuel Carter Hall, MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 187 Frances Power Cobbe, Alice Nicholson, Rev. George Edmondson, Mickey Scanlon (Mickey Scannon). By letter, Bannister and Mary Hill. September 22nd, 1916. (A. W.) Lister Holden, Amelia, Whetley Lee, Jonas Hey, Joseph Cockin and young Cockin, Grandmother Hey described, "Mary." A Crucial Test It may be that the critical reader, inevitably less fully acquainted with all the data than I am, will still feel a haunting suspicion that, somehow or other, Wilkinson's normal knowledge may account for more than I think, and may cover at least the cases where my own deceased relatives and friends are concerned. I am quite sure that it does not, but I recognise that a few instances of proof approaching the crucial are desirable. I therefore emphasise the quoted facts about Elias Sidney, who was unknown to me (pages 28-31, 35, 36, 80-84, 87-90), about Mr. King, whose appearance seemed due to the call of an unexpected visitor who was unknown to the medium (pp. 79, 80), and, above all, about such cases as those in which spirits connected with some recent visitor of mine are described and named. Of this last class the case of Mrs. Torrington (pp. 74-76, 92, 115) is good, but the hardened sceptic will explain it by telepathy from me. I therefore give, below, a recent case of this kind in which the theory of telepathy from the sitter is ex- cluded. i88 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS In a sitting on November 9th, 1916, there occurred the following: — A. W. : Did you know somebody called Ruth Rob- ertshaw? R-U-T-H. J. A. H. : I don't remember anybody at the moment. A. W. : About sixty-three or sixty-four. She has known somebody who has been here. "Ruth Robert- shaw" is not a common combination. I saw her per- fectly. A crescent-shaped light was over her head, and her face was illumined. She would be inclined to be rather pious in her way. [Quite meaningless to me. Never heard of any Ruth Robertshaw.] This woman Ruth is no relation to you, I think. . . . There was a gentleman belonging to her, called Jacob. I think he would be her husband. Whoever he was, he was older than her. He would be seventy-three. She would be about ten years younger; it may be in the time between them passing away— I'm not sure. I don't see him; I only hear it. All this conveyed nothing to me. But previous experience warned me not to dismiss it hastily, and it occurred to me to write to the last visitor I had had, three days before, in case the two people belonged to her; though I thought it unlikely, because she is a Miss North, and I knew of no Robertshaws among her relatives or friends. She lives at a distance of some miles, not in Wilkinson's direction; and she has never met him, I have never mentioned her to him, she is not a spiritualist or psychical researcher, and I am confident that he does not know of her existence. She calls only rarely — perhaps three times in the last year. Her reply was: MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 189 You make me feel creepy. Ruth Robertshaw was my father's cousin — one of the sweetest women that ever lived. She was a beautiful old lady when I knew her, and good. Jacob was her husband. The ages given are just about right. . . . I have since found the exact dates. Ruth died in 1888, aged sixty-three; Jacob died in 1900, aged sev- enty-three. The medium also made correct statements of the nature of messages from these two people, concerning a family related to them but unknown to me, a member of which was said to be ill. All turned out correct. I regard this as approaching "crucial" proof of supernormality, even for the outsider, if my state- ments are believed. To me it is conclusive of some- thing beyond either normal knowledge on the medium's part or telepathy from me; and indeed, I can find no satisfactory explanation except the spiritistic one. Apparently those on the other side are aware of the movements of those in whom they are still interested down here, and are in some sense "with" them, even to the extent of being perceivable by a sensitive through an after-influence left some days before. If it is urged that the influence does not bring spirits but only establishes a rapport by which Wilkinson was able to read the mind of the distant and unknown Miss North, I say that only a credulous and superstitious person can accept such a hypothesis; for there is little or no evidence for a hypothetical mind-reading of that kind. - igo PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS SITTING 13 Hitherto, except for one sitting with Tyrrell, I have kept to one series of sittings with the medium A. Wilkinson. By way of change, and as illustration of a different type of mediumship, I will now quote the reports of two sittings with the well-known London medium, Mr. A. Vout Peters. They are not eviden- tially very strong, but there are good points here and there. March 2nd, 1916. Present, J. A. H., M. H. (sister), and medium (Mr. A. V. Peters). Peters came in from another room, where he hac been resting, at 2.45 p.m., as arranged. No prelimi- nary talk. P. : Have you got anything for me to psychome- trize ? [J. A. H. handed him a silver box which had belonged to Mrs. Napier and, some years earlier, to her husband. ] Two people have had this before you; two different influences. [Correct.] A man, fairly tall, broad shoulders, broad forehead, hair gone white. Had a fairly good position; clever, quick. Full of human sympathy. Deep insight into human nature. A restless feeling, full of energy, wanting to come in touch with people. Tremendous tiredness before passing away. Position of trust anc honour. The person who had the box before you dk MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 191 not handle it much. Had it put away; hidden, a long time. [Fair description. Mr. N. was a country gentle- man of independent means: estates in several counties.] A lady comes. Woman of seventy or seventy-five. Rather round-faced, light eyes, hair gone very grey. Face rather thin, little wrinkled, longish hands. As she comes she brings a sense of force. Suddenly got old before she passed over. Feeling of rest. [Unrecognised. Mr. N.'s relatives unknown to me.] Now I am switched off to the man I first described. Got tired of everything, but did not show it. Some- body he loved had passed away before him. The lady comes in incidentally. J. A. H. : It is the lady we want to hear from. (Meaning Mrs. N.) P. : Another man : I should not be surprised if you did not know him. Tall, fair, light eyes. Been passed over some time. Is that old lady your mother 1 ? J. A. H. : I think not. P. : I want to sit up straight. Man, tall, longish face, broad forehead, hair thin, eyes very blue. I am taken back some number of years — perhaps twenty or thirty. Clever. Not very happy before he died. Anx- iety round about him. Whatever the cause of his death, he did not want to die. He comes as a side issue. He is sympathetic to you. M. H. : Is he connected with the box *? J. A. H. : You had better put it down ; there are 192 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS many people connected with it whom we don't know much about. [And in quarters where we could not ask.] (P. puts box down and takes J. A. H.'s left hand, dropping it after a few sentences.) You absorb magnetism immensely. Quick, active mentally, mind quickened by not being able to make physical exertion. Tremendous will-power: makes weak body do the mind's bidding. Dominating the body, this will-power would have even overcome the physical trouble, if it had been possible at all. You live in the world of ideas. The difficulty is to bridge over the two aspects of life. Your brain being accus tomed to work on scientific bases, it is difficult to realise the purely psychic side of [^ your] nature. Your mind is trained in a strong given direction, and the weak point is that the spirit cannot express itself as it would. There are both advantages and disadvantages in such a training. But we are more than mere brain You have a creative mind — want to create things Illness having shattered your early ambitions, yo thought more into the world of ideas ; getting in touch with spiritualism, which at first you did not feel drawi to, you saw the importance of life after death, and th necessity of bringing it to the front and spreading th knowledge. You are able to influence hundreds o: people in different countries. Your interests go out t( hundreds. Your work is not yet done. There is greater work for you to do in the future than you have any idea of How old are you — forty- three*? J. A. H.: Yes. MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 193 [Not evidential. He happened to have been told my age.] P.: After you are forty-five you are going to get better. A curious thing will be that when the better- ment takes place you will have a feeling of restlessness and distress in the lumbar regions. You have no trouble there 1 ? J. A. H. : No. P. : What it means I can't tell. Your colour is blue. This is a recent development with me, seeing colours. There is blue around you — pale blue. What it means I can't tell. Very intense, tremendous vibration and force. Tremendous mental impetus. Much patience. Your interests go out to hundreds of people. Spirit people are now building up. Lady here, fairly tall, longish face, hair grey, nose not large, lips full, hands long. Something on her head. Tremendous interest in life. She has a bright manner — has, not had, — good housewife, very affec- tionate and loving. Shrewd and quick in her judg- ments, tremendous memory for the past. Very upright in carriage ; certain amount of pride — not pride of race, but proper pride. A pretty woman when young. Comes very close to you. Ripe old age when she passed over. Been ailing a little, but not very ill; no great pain. [Fairly good for my maternal grandmother, except that I should not have called her markedly affectionate. She died aged eighty-one, in 1890.] There is a man who passed away, fairly tall, broad forehead, hair grey, about seventy. Eyebrows clearly marked, nose fairly long and rather broad, lips full, 194 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS strong jaw, broad and thick set when younger, got thinner before passing away. Feeble of speech, some- thing wrong with breathing apparatus. He is intensely interested to get back; he has not even given you proper evidence of his survival, seems anxious to tell you "I am alive, I am alive!" Had worked tremen- dously hard when young. Strong sense of humour. Able and ambitious for himself and for others. Is it your father? J. A. H.: Yes. [My father died in 1898, aged sixty-six, of heart disease, which caused painfully difficult breathing and sometimes inability to speak. He had an exceptionally broad forehead, very bushy eyebrows, was stout in middle life, and indeed the whole description is accurate except that his hair was not very grey — though it was going grey par- ticularly at the front — and that I should not have called him ambitious for himself. But he was for his children, in whose welfare and success he was keenly interested.] You are always able to make friends with men. I see a man whom you knew when you were about thirty-eight. Fairly tall, roundish face, broad fore- head, hair dark. A little younger than you. Full light moustache. Comes very close to you. Quiet and undemonstrative in manner. Not in this house — away from here. You got on well together. The interest was kept up afterwards by correspondence, though not very much. The interest slackened, and he passed out of your life, except as a memory. You have had to let many things slip. Now he is dead, and he comes to you. Feeling of restfulness. Perhaps you met him MEDIUM'S LETTERS, AND REPORTS 195 at a seaside place, had a happy time together. Quiet and restful. Tremendous sense of humour. [Unrecognised, but may have some truth in it. I have made friends a few times in the way in- dicated, but cannot remember anybody whom the description would fit.] (P. began rubbing his eyes; tucked up his feet in the chair, crossed his legs, and sat Brahmin- fashion. ) I want to 'splain some things. I am Moonstone. I will sit like this. You are not easy to read; you wrap yourself up as in a cloak. Your life has great limita- tions. You want to obtain knowledge, to help others. It is difficult for your own people to come back and give you things in the minute manner desired. You never was quite strong right from the early times. You always want to do things very thoroughly. What laid you on one side was not so much that one part of the body was affected; the whole organism was strained, and affected one part. A muscle at the top of the heart has been hurt and damaged. It is a localisation of the general sensitiveness. You have a curious feeling at the left side, not so much pain as a numbness; sometimes the heart goes quick, then sub- sides and feels as if it were going to stop, and all the blood leaves the head. Faintness. Is it not so? J. A. H. : Mostly right. But not the faintness. Moonstone: I see no reason why you should not recover. As you advance to fifty the trouble will affect you less. You have drawn on your reserve strength for mental power. You have now learnt how to save up your reserves. You will get better. A lady comes who passed into spirit life many years 196 PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS ago. Medium height, roundish face, dark hair, lips full, forty-five to fifty. Hair partly grey. Suffered a great deal internally. Cancer or tumour. She is building up at the side of you [to M. H.]. Do you know her? M. H. : Yes. Marie Anne. Not quite right. Marie is right. It is Marie something. J. A. H. : "Napier," perhaps ^