ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

580 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
hair, gray verging toward white, wrinkles in the forehead, keen
little eyes, a smooth face, false teeth on the upper jaw-possibly
on both. He gives the sibilant hiss on the "s" sounds that is
peculiar to false teeth. His head is large tho not fat. His person
is plump, his hands of average size for a man, also his feet.
He stoops a little whether from age or from an accommodating
custom to change his apparent height. His mouth and ears are
large and he has a sort of babyish way of tittering and twittering
when he talks, and some rather piping tones mingled ,.,;th
his deeper manly voice, 'in ordinary conversation.
When the " materializations " began, the curtains were suddenly
drawn aside with a swish and a dramatic " Good day,
friends" or some such expression. We all cheerfully responded,
1 meanwhile noting the fact that the " spirit " was draped in a
self-luminous flowing scarf-like robe that hung about the fonn
hiding even the feet. The luminosity of the robe was visible
in a pattern upon it, the material resembling a sheer Chinese
crape. This robe alternated or combined with two others in the
course of an hour's appearances, one having a luminous pattern
of cloudlike effects, another a luminous pattern like branches of
trees or vines with leaves, and the third having a pattern in lines
running up and down the person with a sort of medallion spot
at regular intervals of a foot or so on each line, the lines being
several inches apart. The various headgears were of similar material
without pattern.
The stature of the 18 or 20 "materializations" was within
an inch or two of Mr. Herrman's own height either way, that
is the variations certainly fell within four inches. Sometimes
a high headgear assisted in giving an appearance of height;
again, a tottering form supposedly of an aged person or the
figure of a "youthful" person would appear an inch or two
shorter than the psychic normally does. The voices were mostly
whispers and twitters with a sil?ilant s and a hissing laugh like
that of the medium himself.
The figures announced themselves variously as " Marcus Aurelius,
Socrates, S enocrates ( Xenocrates) who gave his dates
with triumphant correctness just as they appear in the Century
Dictionary of names, Plato, and Epictetus-who graciously asked
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