Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

PHENOMENA OF MODERN SPIRITISM 39
in the presence of Professors Zollner, Weber, Fechner
and Schreibner, by a well-known medium; nor is
this case unique.*
Conan Doyle at Glasgow
The other day, in an upper room in Glasgow, Sir
A. Conan Doyle and fifteen others heard the sound
of a rushing wind, and they all saw tongues of fire
descend on each other's heads. This is seriously
recorded for our instruction!
I will not spend time on all the silly and freakish
scenes at seances, where the mediums or the spirits
seem to try to fool the audience in every way, but
may just record that a well-known doctor found
one day the bedroom where his three sons slept
turned upside down. Four people watched the
mattress being pulled off the bed by invisible hands,
and the chairs being turned upside down.
Then his father suddenly appeared to his housemaid
in a blaze of glorious light. The maid afterwards
turned out to be a medium, and many seances
were held.
All attempts to prove fraud or trickery entirely
failed. He proceeds to say, "I and Jane" (the
housemaid) "resolved to have nothing more to do
with spirits, but the knocks kept coming, so we
held one more seance, Jane, my wife, and I. Jane
became unconscious, and some spirit began talking,
through her, about some intricate business I was
interested in, in German-English, and said he had
Our
been trying to speak to me for thirteen years.
* This and other performances are more like conjuring tricks
than Spiritist phenomena.