Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

How Spirits Materialize - Anonymous

Listen Ad Free https://www.solgood.org - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and meditative sounds.

Duration:: 33m
Broadcast on:: 03 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

You slept through your alarm, missed the train, and your breakfast sandwich. Cool. Sounds like you could use some luck. I'm Victoria Cash, and Luckyland is where people go every day to get lucky. At Luckyland, you can play over a hundred casino-style games for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Go to Luckylandslots.com and get lucky today. No purchase necessary, VGW Group, a coin we're prohibited by law, 18-plus terms and conditions apply. This country was built on a distinctly American work ethic. But today, work is in trouble. We've outsourced most of our manufacturing to other countries, sending away good jobs and diminishing our capability to make things. American giant is pushing back against that tide. They make the kind of high-quality clothing staples you need for a comfortable, stylish, and active summer wardrobe, like vintage-style teas, tough tank tops, breathable polos, lightweight sweatshirts, shorts, and so much more. All made right here in the USA, from growing the cotton to adding the final touches. So when you buy American giant, you create jobs for seamsters, cutters, and factory workers in towns and cities across the United States. And it's about more than an income. Jobs bring pride, purpose. They stitch people together. Support America's workers and get 20% off your first order at american-giant.com with promo code staple20. That's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com, code staple20. How spirits materialize? Reader, have you ever attended a seance for full-form materialization? Have you ever thought you had met your dead relatives spirited these seances? If you have never had the pleasure of attending a seance of this phase, you have missed a rare treat. The writer has assisted at many a one and will relate to you some of the wonderful phenomena occurring at them and the means used to produce them. There are hundreds of materializing mediums doing business in this country who are swelling a good-sized bank account. Their business sometimes runs into the hundreds of dollars in a single week. This phase of mediumship is considered by the spiritualists as the highest possible attainment. And if you are a clever, full-form medium, your financial welfare is assured. Many and various are the methods employed by the different mediums to produce this phase. It is in Boston, New York, and San Francisco that it has worked the finest. The full-form seances most often met with are very simply worked and easier performance by the medium. You are usually given a seat and a circle of chairs about the front of a cabinet made by hanging heavy curtains across the corner of the room. If you are a stranger or one who looks or acts as though he would grab the spirits, you are seated at the farthest point from the cabinet. Or if there are two rows of seats, you will be given a seat at the back row. I made my way to the materializing seance at which my friends hoped to materialize. I was admitted to the seance room and found about 20 persons already assembled. I was seated in the front row of chairs. The cabinet used was a closet about six feet long and four feet wide. The ceiling of both the room and the cabinet was of wood. After a thorough examination had been made of the cabinet by all those who cared to do so, the sitters were rearranged to suit the medium. They were present now 35 persons. The seance room was very large. The door had been taken off the closet that served as a cabinet. And in its stead were hung heavy curtains. The floor of a room was carpeted with a dark carpet as was the cabinet. The light was furnished by a lamp placed in a box that was fastened to the wall, some eight feet from the floor. This box had a sliding lid in front controlled by a cord passing into the cabinet. By this means the spirits could regulate the light to suit themselves without any movement on the part of any of those in the seance room being necessary. When everything was in readiness, the medium entered the cabinet, seated himself and was tied. And so secured to his chair that it was impossible that he could have any use of himself. He was most thoroughly secured to his chair and his chair nailed fast to the floor by passing leather straps over the rounds in the side and nailing the ends to the floor. After it was shown to the sitters that he was utterly helpless, the curtain was drawn. The manager now placed an ordinary kitchen table in front of the door of the cabinet so that it stood away from it about two feet. The table contained no drawer. On the table was laid writing materials, a guitar and small bell. The manager seated himself close to one side of the cabinet entrance and started a large Swiss music box. Before it had finished the first air, the lamp was shut entirely off making the room inky dark. An illuminated hand and arm was now seen to come from behind the curtain and play an accompaniment to the music box on the guitar. We could see plainly the movement of the hand, arm and fingers as it manipulated the strings of the instrument. It did not appear necessary to finger the strings on the keyboard, although the air was in a key that made it impossible to tune the guitar so that an accompaniment could be performed without fingering. However, but one hand was visible and it was picking the strings. After the tune was finished, the hand left the instrument and moved out into the room to the front of the table and from the sound we knew it was writing on the tablet that had been placed there. The arm was of bluish light and appeared to end just above the elbow and to have no connection with the body. It finished writing and seemed to float into the cabinet near the top. The light was opened and the manager requested those who had tied the medium to examine his condition and see if the ropes had been tampered with. The examination was made and it was evident that the fastening were undisturbed. The communication was read aloud to those present and contained the following. Quote, "We are pleased to beat so many seekers after light and truth hear this evening and from the conditions, as we sense them, we will have a satisfactory and pleasant salence. The way to obtain the best results is for each person to maintain a passive condition and take what we have to give. You may rest assured that our best efforts will be put forth to give you entire satisfaction." The control, close quote. The writing was exactly on the ruled lines, although written in absolute darkness. The hand and arm, although luminous, did not give out a particle of light. The arm had been at least five feet from the cabinet opening and seven feet from the medium. Surely it was not he? The message read that the light was again shut down and the music again started. Once more a hand appeared and floating out to the table, again began writing. Of a sudden the hand disappeared and after a few seconds, I was astonished to feel a hand thrusting a paper into my top coat pocket. Now appeared two hands and they played an air on the guitar. Now came three. Then four hands were visible bright as the day. Two of them began writing again and when they had finished, two more sitters were the recipients of sheets of paper. Soon the light was opened for an inspection of the cabinet, which was made, with the conclusion that the medium had not moved. Those of us receiving communications were afforded an opportunity to read them. We found them nicely written as before and all contained tests. After the light went out again, more hands were seen. The table was floated about over the heads of the circle as was the music box which weighed at least 50 pounds. Another examination of the cabinet was made and everything found satisfactory. This time the light was not put entirely out, but a very dim light was allowed. The music box was again set playing and while yet it was playing the first tune, a tall figure robed in creamy white with gleaming sparks in her hair and on her head a sort of crown issued from the cabinet. She was recognized by a gentleman present, a spiritualist, whose spirit guide she was and who addressed her as my queen. She stood a few seconds behind the table and then stepped out in the open space between the sitters and the table. The gentleman now arose from his seat and standing beside her, holding her hand, conversed in a whisper with her for some seconds. This was most assuredly a lady if a paracens go for anything. Her hands were quite small and were warm and lifelike as several including myself can testify having been permitted to shake hands with her. At last, she started to the cabinet and as she went appeared to grow shorter until as she disappeared between the curtains, she was not much taller than the table. The manager now explained that the spirit had remained out rather too long and came near dematerializing before she reached the cabinet. Now came the spirit of a young man dressed in a light suit of clothes who gave his name and said his mother was present. She was and had a few words of conversation with him when he disappeared into the cabinet. The lady said that it was unmistakably her son but there was something that was not as he had been but what it was she was unable to describe. The next spirit to present itself was my son Eddie. He came out from the cabinet calling, "Papa, Papa?" The manager asked, "Who is your Papa?" and he replied, "Mr. Smith." All this time he stood between the table and the cabinet and only his head and shoulders could be seen. The manager told him to step out where he could be seen when he came around to the front of the table. It was rather dark but I could swear it was my son. He was just the right size with long flaxen hair and a very pale face. He wore a light-colored waist and darker knee-britches and stockings with a large black bow at his throat just as I remembered seeing him last in health. While Eddie was still standing in front of the table, a large man came out and shook him by the hand. Eddie spoke saying, "Must I go back, Grandpa?" My son turned toward me saying, "My son, this is a great pleasure to us, but we must not long remain as it is our first attempt at materializing. He turned to go when the manager said to him, "If the gentleman is your son, you are to give him your name." "The name of the child is Eddie and my own is J.A. Smith," replied the form, as they vanished into the cabinet. The manager suggested that it would be well to examine and see whether the medium had been out or not. The cabinet was examined and everything found satisfactory. Spirit, after spirit, came from the cabinet one or two at a time for an hour. Some of them came to friends and others were controls of the medium. Many of them were recognized by different ones of the sitters in the room. I, for one, could swear to the identity of my own son, Eddie, while my father was plainly recognizable. The room was again made dark. Suddenly there appeared on the floor, in front of the table, a light about as large as a baseball. It moved about in a circle of perhaps a foot in diameter and grew larger. It soon lost the shape of a ball and appeared to be a luminous cloud. Seemingly, we could see into and through it. In the course of thirty seconds, it had become as large as a six-year-old tile. Still, there was no definite shape, only a fleecy, cloud-like mass, turning, twisting, and rolling. At the end of perhaps a minute, it was the size and shape of an adult person. The face could not be seen, but light, luminous spots were visible, as though the hairs and ears were decorated with gems. The shape spoke and requested light. As the light was turned on, the luminousness disappeared, and we beheld a beautiful young lady, clothed in a dazzling white costume. Her arms and shoulders were bare and, about her neck, there was a necklace of what appeared to be very brilliant diamonds. Her feet were encased in white slippers, with straps across the instep. In her ears and hair glistened and shimmered beautiful diamonds. Her face and arms were as alabaster and altogether. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever beheld. She was recognized by a lady and gentleman present, as their daughter. They had met her here before. They were from the east and were wealthy. The spirit requested that they come to her, which they did, and were each kissed and embraced by it. They held a moment's conversation with her and resumed their seats when the lamp was slowly turned down. As the light became dim, the spirit became luminous. The face and arms disappeared, and the body became as a cloud again, turning and twisting and growing smaller, until it was nothing but a small light spot on the carpet, which of a sudden disappeared entirely. Immediately after this manifestation, an examination of the medium and cabinet was made, and it was certain the medium had not been away from his chair. The light was again turned out and the music box started when two bright spots appeared on the carpet, one at either end of the table, these went through the same process of development until, when the light was turned on, there was another beautiful female spirit at one end of the table and a child of, perhaps, eight years of age at the other. The child was recognized by a lady present as her daughter, while the adult spirit was recognized and raptuously greeted by a gentleman who sat near me on my left as his darling Angel Guardian. They had quite a long conversation, in which they made use of very endearing language each to the other, I supposed it was the gentleman's wife. The spirits did not disappear as the first one had, but, when the light had been turned off, the luminous shape revolved a few times, and on two occasions, assumed the garb and shape of men, and when the light was turned on again, there stood the men with beards and men's forms. To some eight or ten of these materializations and dematerializations before our eyes, the last couple completely disappeared. The light was again turned down and a luminous shape came from the cabinet, followed by others until seven of them stood on the floor. The light was turned up until we could see the seven spirits. Five were females and two males. They were of different sizes. The curtain at the door of the cabinet had been pulled aside and we could see the medium sitting in the chair in which he was bound. The forms now filed into the cabinet again, while the music box played, after they had disappeared the light was turned up, an investigation made of the cabinet, and the seance was over. Their reader is a truthful description of what can be witnessed at the seances of mediums who are artists. None of you are bungling amateur work here. The work of such a medium is always satisfactory for the reason that, if a man feels sure that the medium is a fraud, he has been so well entertained that he does not regret the money paid for the opportunity to witness it. This is the class of medium also who frequently succeed in getting large sums of money from wealthy persons they have converted to spiritualism. Did the writer not give you the true explanation of the matter in which these things were produced? You would probably say it was conceived by a very fertile imagination. If you believed that he saw these things, you would perhaps offer the preacher's explanation by saying, "It is the work of the devil, or that of the scientist by asserting that it is the mesmerist power over your mind, or the operator has discovered an odd force in nature, or go off on a long dissertation on hypnotism and fourth dimension of space problems. However, it is not the work of the devil, neither are there any but natural laws necessary to its production." The seance described actually occurred and was described in writing by Mr. Smith in the language used, although it was not printed, and the writer was one of those who assisted in its production. We will now proceed to explain this particular seance. You will be remembered that the room and cabinet were carpeted with a dark carpet, and that the ceilings were of wood. The ceilings were decorated by being put on in panels. The ceilings of the cabinet would not have been like those of the room, had the closet been a part of the architects' plans of the house. It was not, but was made by the medium. He simply built a laugh and plaster partition from the corner of a wide chimney to the wall, thus enclosing a space of six by four feet. The panel in the ceiling of the closet was twenty-inch a square. This panel was doctored and could be displaced, leaving an aperture large enough for the spooks to get through with perfect ease. A light ladder, which reached within three feet of the floor of the cabinet, was hooked fast above, and furnished the means of getting down and up again. There were eight persons connected with the seance described by Mr. Smith, seven upstairs, and the medium in the cabinet. Of course it was not necessary that the medium get out of his fastenings, and the facts are that he did not. The table was placed across the cabinet door, not to lay the instruments on, but to be very much in the way should anyone make a rush and grab for the materialized forms. In case this occurred, the spooks above would close the light, making the room perfectly dark, and the manager would do his utmost to turn the table on end or side, with the legs out in the room. Before the grabber could get the lay of things and get past it, the spooks would have gone through the trap, closed it, pulled up the ladder, and the grabber would have found the medium writhing and groaning and bleeding from the mouth. The bleeding was for effect and was caused by sucking very hard on his teeth and gums. The table also served a convenient purpose in the materialization and dematerialization through the floor. You now know where the spooks came from, in this particular house, and how they got in and out. Now let us see how they managed the materializations and the properties used to produce them. The trap and ladder were practically noiseless in their operations, but the music box made assurance doubly sure that the least sound from the cabinet should not be heard in the seance room. When the box began its first air, the trap door was opened and down the ladder came a young man clad in a suit of black tights. He was entirely covered with black, with the exception of his right arm, which was bare to a point a little more than half way from the elbow to his shoulder. The bare arm glowed with a luminous bluish light. This condition of things was brought about by powdering his arm with pulverized luminous paint. If you are not told the method of transforming the sticky paint to powder, you will not be able to do it, and will conclude the rider was romancing in this case. The most essential thing to you will be to know where you can procure this paint. The rider has been unable to procure it anywhere except of Devo in company of New York City. It is put up in a package resembling six ounce jelly glasses, and you will get six of them for five dollars. In order to reduce it to powder, thin the contents of one of the glasses with one pint of turpentine, when it is thoroughly cut and incorporated into the turpentine, soap strips of muslim in it and hang them out to dry. When thoroughly dry, you can shake the powder from the cloth. In order to powder one of your arms, gather one of the cloths in your hands, and use it as a powder puff on your arm. You will not be able to get all the paint out, but the pieces will make luminous crowns, slippers, stars, and luminous decorations for your robes. You will be under the necessity of perfuming your robes each time they are used, but the odor of the turpentine will always remain to a greater or lesser degree. To eliminate a robe or costume, the mediums always say robe. You proceed the same as in the powdering process, except add to the pint of paint. You will add a wine glass full of demar varnish, which will prevent its falling or being shaken off as powder. You are not to make the robe of muslim, but of white netting. Every lady will know what netting is. It is the lightest, thinnest material the writer ever sold in a dry, good store. Ten yards of it can be put into your vest pocket. Do not scrump the material, but get as much of it into your robe as possible. When he of the luminous arm steps from the cabinet into the dark room, no part of him is visible, save the arm. He picks the strings of the instrument with the illuminated hand and fingers, the keyboard with the other. He makes a sound of writing on the tablet and tears off a leaf, which he conceals, and drawing a long black stocking over the luminous arm, places in the pocket of the sitter, a communication that has been written upstairs in good light. This accounts for the even beautiful writing, supposed to have been done in the dark. He covers the luminous arm so that anyone so inclined could not locate it in order to grab when he is near enough. By mounting the table, that luminous hand and arm can be made to show as though it was floating about near the ceiling. When forehands were visible, there were two spooks at work with two arms illuminated. You can readily understand the forces that floated the music box and table above the heads of the sitters, and an explanation is useless. When the first female spirit appeared, it was in reality a young woman dressed in a gorgeous white costume without paint, hence the light was turned up instead of down, in order that she be visible. Rhinestones and Sumatra gems being cheap, she was politically supplied with diamonds, although many of those who are the queens are spirit guides of controls of wealthy spiritualists, fanatics, wear real diamonds, the gift of their wealthy charge or king, as they usually call him. When she started for the cabinet, she used her hands to keep her robe from under her feet, and as she went, stooped lower and lower, until, as she disappeared in the cabinet, she went on her hands and knees. This is what caused the appearance of bee materialization. When Mr. Smith's son Eddie came from the cabinet, he was represented by a boy of about eight years of age, the son of one of the female spooks upstairs. He receives two dollars a night for his services, the same as the largest spooks. He was powdered until he was very white, a blonde wig put over his brown hair, and dressed as most boys are at the age Mr. Smith's son died. Mr. Smith recognized him by his size, his light complexion and flaxen hair, and the fact that he called him papa and gave his correct name. His father was made up from the description given by the medium, and acknowledged by Mr. Smith as correct. Of course he knew his own name, for it was given him by the slate-writer. We now come to a part of the phenomena that all spiritualists who have witnessed it will swear by. What is referred to is the materializing and bee materializing of the spirit from the floor and before your eyes. In this you see first a small light, which grows larger and larger, until there stands before you a fully formed female or male spirit, as was described in Mr. Smith's experience. In order to accomplish what he witnessed, the same spook who had before been recognized by a gentleman as his queen, prepared herself in the following way, divesting herself of all clothing she donned a simple, long chemise that reached her shoe-tops. She drew on a pair of white stockings, and over them a pair of white slippers. Into her hair and ear she put rhinestone diamonds and around her neck a necklace of the same beautiful but valueless stones. On each ear lobe and around her neck were put small spots of the luminous powder to represent the diamonds while it was dark. Her face was powdered, and her eyebrows and eyelashes darkened while a dark line was drawn under each eye. She now took a black mask that covered her head and her robe in her hands and went down to the cabinet. Arriving there she put the black mask over her head to prevent the luminous diamonds being seen until the proper time. She carried her robe in a black bag. Crawling from between the curtains and under the table she exposed on the floor a small part of her robe. This she shook and moved about, allowing it to escape from the bag until it was all out. She was now from under the table and on her knees, and it was timed the head show on the form so, getting close to the robe, she threw off and under the table the black mask. The shape was now the size of an adult, she adjusted the robe to her person and wrapped for light. As a matter of course, when any light was made, the luminousness of robe was drowned, and she appeared in simply a white costume. The necklace and ear drops could now be seen, but when the light was such as to reveal them the luminous spots had disappeared, leaving the spectator to think the ones he now saw were the ones he had seen in the dark. The process of dematerialization will now be apparent, and the description will only tire the reader. One small spook was all that was acquired, as he could be made to represent boy or girl, as was desired, by clothing him in the garments of either sex. At the close of the seance the full force of spooks came into the room. After disappearing they shinied up the ladder, drew it after them, closed the panel and the trap in the floor above it, replaced the carpet and pushed over the place a heavy bedstead, from which they took the casters. They now carried the ladder downstairs and concealed it in the coal house as they went through it on their way home. They will get their pay next day. Should ever so close an examination of the cabinet be made, you could not find anything wrong. This particular medium has taken investigators into the cellar beneath the cabinet and the room above it scores of times, yet nothing was discovered. You are not always to search for the trap of the ceiling nor yet in the floor. A trap is not possible in the ceiling except a closet is used as cabinet and the ceiling is of wood, where this condition of things does not exist. You must search elsewhere. The floor is a very likely place when it cannot be made in the ceiling. If you do not find it there, examine the base or mop board. If it is in a mop board, you will find upon examination that there is a joint in it near the corner of the cabinet, but you will find it solidly nailed with about four nails each side of the joint. This appearance of extraordinary solidity will be absolute proof that it is not solid. The nails are not what they appear, but are only pieces about one half inch in length and do not even go through the board. The piece is fastened on the other side with a couple of bolts that hold it very firmly in place. There is a corresponding opening in the mop board in the next room, although no attempt is made to so carefully conceal it as no one is ever admitted to it. Through this trap, the spooks enter the cabinet by crawling and wiggling. It is not a very desirable trap for the mop board is scarcely ever wide enough to permit of a trap that the spook could get through in a hurry. Besides, they must assume their costumes after they get into the cabinet or tear them to pieces. You can see how this would make it very inconvenient. If the room is wainscotted, the spook will have all the sea room necessary in his trap, for it will extend from just below the molding on the top of the wainscoting to the floor behind the strip of quarter round. It is next to an impossibility to detect these traps by examining in the cabinet. They were constructed to avoid discovery and no pain spared to make them so absolutely perfect that not one chance in a million is taken. The proper place to seek for traps is in the adjoining room, upstairs or in the cellar. One is foolish to undertake to find a trap by thumping the walls or floor, for if you happen to thump one, the medium who is smart enough to make use of a trap is also sharp enough to make provision for its being thumped, and your sounding method goes for naught. Bear in mind that when you are examining the cabinet, you are seeking at the very place that is prepared most effectively to withstand your investigations. Do not forget the manager in your search. He or she is never searched or never has been up to date, which has been the cause of many a failure to find the properties of the medium when the chaos was given in a room and cabinet furnished by a stranger and skeptic. Do not be deceived into a belief that all of the sitters are strangers to the medium. There may be one to five persons present who pay their money the same as yourself and who may appear to be the most skeptical of anyone in the room. They will generally be the recipients of some very elegant tests and weak copiously great grief-laden tears when they recognize the beloved features of some relative. They are the most careful of investigators and, when the mediums trap is located in the door jam, will pound the walls and insist on the carpet being taken up when they will get upon their hands and knees and make a most searching examination of the floor. They are the closest and most critical of the investigators, but they are very careful to examine everywhere except where the defect is located. Because one or two men seem to be making such a critical investigation, do not allow that fact to prevent you making one on your own responsibility. Wait until they are finished, and then examine not only where they did, but more particularly where they did not. Their examination is only for the purpose of misleading others. Their tests are received in a way to cause those about them to think they admit them very unwillingly are because they were so undeniable that they could do nothing else. A great many will probably deny that Confederates are ever employed. They are not, by mediums, who are not smooth enough to produce that which appears so wonderful as to make a good business for them. The writer could advise those mediums who give such ranked seances to employ a few floor workers they are easily obtained and see what a difference it would make in the amount of business they will do. Get good ones, those who know human nature, and know when they have said all that is necessary. Most of them are inclined to say too much, thus causing the ordinary man to suspect that they are Confederates. I'm Victoria Cash, thanks for calling the Lucky Land Hotline. If you feel like you do the same thing every day, press 1. If you're ready to have some serious fun, for the chance to redeem some serious prizes, press 2. We heard you loud and clear, so go to LuckyLandSlots.com right now and play over 100 social casino style games for free. Get Lucky today at LuckyLandSlots.com. No purchase necessary. VGW Group, void rep prohibited by law. 18 plus, terms of condition supply. Hey there, it's Solomon from Sall Good Media. A lot of our listeners have asked how to get ad-free access to our podcast. You asked and we answered, we're offering an exclusive one month free trial to our ad-free streaming platform, packed with over 500 audiobooks, meditation sounds, and engaging podcasts. No strings attached, just pure listening pleasure. Sign up today at Sall Good Media dot com and dive into a world of stories and sounds that inspire and relax. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. It's your gateway to unlimited audio enjoyment. That's Sall Good Media dot com, S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A dot Check it out. We hope to see you over there.