Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

64 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OFhowever, in his investigations, Dr. Bell began to find that, however correcthis spiritual conferees were, in most of their responses, the moment aquestion was put involving a response the truth of which was unknownto him, uniform failure occurred. Sometimes, where he believed at thetime that his questions were truly answered, subsequent information hadshown him that he had been mistaken. lie had answers which he believedto be true, when the facts were decidedly otherwise.294. '^Pursuing this train of inquiry, he found the 'spirits,' whileaverring that they could see him distinctly, ' face to face,' never couldread the signature to letters taken from an old file, and unfolded icithouthis having seen the icritirig.Yet as soon as he had cast his eye upon thesignature, without allowing any one else to see it, it was promptly andcorrectly reproduced by the alphabetical rappings. And again, when hehad made a previous arrangement with his family that they should docertain things every quarter of an hour at home—he, of course, notknowing what—while he was to ask the 'spirit' what was done at the instant,uniform failure occurred. He proved, too, that the theory of the' spiritualists' to meet such difficulties—viz., that evil or trifling spiritsinterfered at their end of the telegraph—was not tenable. For theresponses just before and after these gross failures had been eminentlyand wonderfully accurate, and the ' spirits' not only declared that they sawwith perfect clearness what was going on at his house, but denied thatthere had been any interruption or interference.295. ''Dr. Bell also gave examples where test questions, involving repliesunknown to the interrogator, had been designedly intermixed with thosewhich were known. The result uniformly was, that the known responses,however curious and flir remote, were correctly reproduced; the unknownwere a set of perfectly wild and blundering errors, the responses oftenbeing obviously formed out of the phraseology of theschoolboy guesses out a reply !question, as a stuch296. "The result of the inquiries of Dr. Bell and his friends—forseveral gentlemen of eminently fitting talents pursued the investigationwith him—was briefly this : That ichat the questioner hnoics the sjnritsknoiv; icJiat the questioner does not know, the sj^irits are entirelj/ ignorantof. In other words, that there are really no superhuman agencies in thematter at all—no connection with another state of existence; but that itbears certain strong analogies to some of the experiences of dairvoi/ance,in that mysterious science of animal magnetism, as it has been protrudingand receding for the last hundred years. Dr. Bell thought there wassome reason to believe that the matter reproduced may come not only fromthe questioner, but if in the mind of any one at the circle, that it mightbe evolved. He made some observations upon the evidences of spirit existence,drawn from the character of the matter communicated b}- the mediumsin a state of im^pression, when, as it is believed, spirits express