Mediums Rare

by Richard Matheson

  Fourteen months and one hundred and fifty seven sittings resulted in a 782-page book entitled The Divine Revelation.

  The book included an enormous amount of material from half a dozen sciences including astronomy, geology and archaeology.

  All this from an uneducated, nineteen-year-old boy.

  Another famous medium of this period was a Universalist preacher named John Murray Spear who became well-known for his gift at spiritual healing.

  On one occasion, directed (according to him) by the spirits of Swedenborg and Benjamin Franklin, he was “led” sixteen miles without knowing why, finally ending up at the house of a woman recently struck by lightning.

  His presence gave her immediate relief.

  In addition to his continued healing accomplishments, Spear also delivered public lectures while entranced.

  The Koons family of Ohio became famous briefly for the so-called Spirit Room which—under spiritual “advisement”—they constructed in their house.

  The room was in a log cabin twelve by fourteen feet with a seven foot ceiling.

  It was furnished with seating for twenty people in addition to two tables and a rack for such instruments as a bass drum, two fiddles, a guitar, a French horn, a triangle, and a tambourine.

  Conducting public seances, the mediumship of the Koons produced “spirit” concerts as well as lengthy communications from the Other World.

  Reports indicated that the instruments, playing by themselves, gyrated wildly above the heads of the spectators.

  The Davenport brothers became widely known when, at the ages of sixteen and fourteen, they appeared in a public séance during which hands and arms were materialized and floating instruments played by themselves—despite the fact that both boys were carefully bound with ropes.

  These séances were repeated for many years.

  Famous author Richard Burton (translator of the Arabian Nights) attended four of the Davenports’ séances and reported seeing musical instruments fly and play and feeling a “dry, hot and rough” materialized hand pull at his moustache and pat his head.

  Arguably the greatest physical medium in the history of Spiritualism, however, was Scotch medium Daniel Douglas Home.

  Home counted among his supporters Count Tolstoy, Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie as well as many of the crowned heads of Europe.

  Literary figures who sat with him included William Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alexander Dumas.

  Of Home’s work, the famous British physicist, Sir William Crookes, wrote: The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary and so directly oppose the most firmly rooted articles of scientific belief—amongst others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation—that, even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between reason which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight, are not lying witnesses.

  D. D. Home

  February 22, 1867

  London, England

  The four men—Lord Adare, Charles Wynne, Mr. Saal and Mr. Hurt—stood around the grand piano, trying with all their strength to push it down.

  The piano hovered several inches in the air.

  “Push it down,” said Daniel Home. He stood nearby, arms raised. He was thirty-four, a man of striking appearance, cleanshaven except for his mustache, his reddish-blonde hair, bushy and curly.

  The four men pressed down on the piano. To their astonishment, instead of lowering, the instrument began to rise.

  “Try harder,” Home told them. He smiled at Mr. and Mrs. Jencken who were watching from the sofa of their sitting room. They smiled in response, totally entranced by what they were witnessing.

  The piano kept rising. The four men leaned their elbows on its ebony top and forced their weight downward. All in vain. The piano continued to rise and they were forced to pull back or be lifted with it, their boots thumping on the rug as they dropped free. Reaching up, they gripped the upper edges of the piano with their hands and continued their teeth-clenching effort to stop the levitation of the heavy instrument.

  Moments later, the bottom of the piano was above their heads, its top mere inches from the ceiling.

  Mr. and Mrs. Jencken laughed softly. Although the room was not brightly lit, several lamps cast soft illumination and the flickering light of the fire was clearly visible on the underside of the piano.

  After several more seconds, Home lowered his arms and the piano sank to the floor, making no sound as it touched the rug.

  All four men applauded softly as well as Mr. and Mrs. Jencken. “Extraordinary!” cried Mr. Hurt.

  The beaming Home turned to his host. “Mr. Jencken, would you join me, please?” he asked.

  Mr. Jencken rose and crossed to the young Scotsman.

  “Watch,” Home told him. “Very closely now.”

  Jencken stared at him as Home drew in a deep, shuddering breath and began to stretch himself upward. Jencken’s expression became one of startled disbelief.

  Home was growing taller.

  Jencken’s mouth slipped open as he listened to the faint, crackling noises emanating from the Scotsman’s body. He, himself, was six foot tall and, already, the top of Home’s head was higher than his own.

  Across the room, he heard his wife catch her breath and one of the men murmur, “Oh my God.”

  Before the incredulous gaze of his sitters, Daniel Home extended himself to a height of six foot six inches, his face tight and strained, his expression one of pain.

  Jencken started as Lord Adare spoke quietly “Daniel, will you show us how it is?” he asked.

  Slowly, as though each movement agonized him, Home unbuttoned his coat to reveal a gap of six inches between the bottom of his waistcoat and the waistband of his trousers.

  Jencken looked more closely at the Scotsman. Unless his eyes deceived him, Home had grown in breadth as well, appearing, now, a veritable giant.

  Abrupdy, Home released a hissing breath and Jencken watched in awe as the young man slowly decreased in size. In less than two minutes, he had regained his normal height and breadth.

  Home wavered then. Jencken felt himself twitch in surprise as Lord Adare stepped quickly from the shadows and grabbed the Scotsman’s right arm, leading him to a chair.

  “This is a feat which drains him terribly,” he explained, seating Home in the chair.

  Home sat with his eyes closed, filling his lungs with air. The group watched in silence.

  “He’ll be all right soon,” Lord Adare reassured them.

  Six minutes passed. The others seated themselves and waited, not speaking, their attention fixed on the young Scotsman who sat with his head back, his eyes closed, breathing deeply, working to regain his strength.

  At last, he opened his eyes with a smile and looked around at them.

  “Well, then,” he said.

  Pushing to his feet, he walked to the hearth and removed the poker from its rack. Jabbing at the coals, he made them spark and flare, the red coals whitening.

  He placed the poker back into its rack and kneeled before the now crackling fire. As they watched, he drew in a long, deep breath.

  Then reached into the fire with his right hand.

  Mrs. Jencken made a faint, involuntary sound of horror as he did.

  Home’s movement did not waver. With his hand, he lifted up a red-hot coal the size of an orange.

  Mr. Saal mumbled, “Oh.”

  Home carried the glowing coal around the room, showing it to the group. Each reacted similarly, wincing and drawing back from its radiant heat.

  After all of them had looked at it, the Scotsman returned to the hearth and dropped the coal back onto the fire.

  He moved around the group again, showing them the palm of his right hand.

  It was not scorched or burned. No skin was red or blackened. The palm appeared completely normal.

  “So,” Home said.


  Returning to the fire, he knelt before it and began to stir the embers into flame again.

  This time he used his hands to do so, causing Mrs. Jencken to emit the sound of horror once again, now more loudly.

  “He’s quite all right,” Lord Adare assured her softly.

  Despite his words, Mr. Jencken gasped as Home bent forward and placed his face among the burning coals. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “Steady,” Lord Adare told her.

  She gaped at the Scotsman. He was moving his face in the glowing coals as though bathing his face in comfortable water.

  After several moments, he straightened up and they could see that his face was unaffected.

  Reaching into the fire, he picked up the same large coal he’d previously handled. He stood and returned to the group, raising the coal toward his lips to blow on it and make it glow more brightly.

  Mrs. Jencken put a hand across her eyes, unable to watch.

  “I want to see which of you will be the best subject,” Home said. “Ah! Adare will be the easiest because he has been the most with Dan.”

  “Why does he say that?” Mrs. Jencken whispered to her husband.

  “His Control is speaking, not Mr. Home himself,” he whispered back.

  He stood on impulse as Lord Adare approached the Scotsman. “Put it in mine,” he said.

  His wife caught her breath, lowering her hand to look at him in shock.

  “No, no, touch it and see,” Home told him, stepping over to his host.

  Jencken reached out gingerly and touched the coal for an instant, hissing with pain. Immediately, he placed the finger tip into his mouth to wet it. In moments, he would have a large blister there.

  “Now you,” said Home, holding the coal to within four inches of Mr. Saal’s hand. Mr. Saal pulled his hand back automatically.

  “Now you,” Home said to Mr. Hurt, holding the coal a similar distance from his hand.

  Mr. Hurt reacted in the same way, flinching and withdrawing his hand quickly.

  Home turned to Lord Adare who was standing by him now.

  “If you are not afraid,” he said, “hold out your hand.”

  Obediently, Adare extended his right hand, palm up.

  Using his left hand, Home made two rapid passes over the extended hand, then placed the burning coal in Lord Adare’s palm.

  “Good lord,” Adare murmured. He stared at the coal in awe. “It feels scarcely warm,” he said.

  Home chuckled and picked the coal off his friend’s palm. Carrying it back to the hearth, he dropped it onto the fire.

  They all began to speak at once but Home restrained them with a sudden gesture, telling them, “The spirits are arranging something special. Do not be afraid and, on no account, leave your places.”

  Moving quickly to the window, he unlocked and raised it all the way. Mrs. Jencken shivered as the cold night wind came blowing in, billowing the curtains.

  Home walked out of the room. In the adjoining study, they heard him opening another window.

  Several moments passed.

  Then Mrs. Jencken gasped and her husband said, “Oh, my,” his tone almost childlike.

  Home was outside the window of the sitting room.

  Standing upright in the air, seventy feet above the street.

  With a smile, he “walked” into the room, bending over slightly to pass through the open window. Re-closing the window, he dropped into a chair and laughed.

  “If a policeman had been passing by, imagine his astonishment if he had looked up to see Dan turning round and round along the outside wall of the house,” he said.

  He nodded toward the group. “Thank you for not having moved,” he said.

  Lord Adare rose without a word and walked into the study.

  To his amazement, the window there was raised scarcely a foot.

  Returning to the sitting room, he told the group, then, looking at Home, asked, “How is that possible?”

  Home jumped to his feet. “Come and see,” he said. He raised one hand to stop the others. “Only Adare, if you please,” he said.

  Lord Adare accompanied the Scotsman to the study. It was dimly lit but the illumination from the sitting room and from the gas lamps in the street made everything completely visible.

  “Hold still,” Home said.

  He started leaning backward. Lord Adare twitched, about to make a move to catch the Scotsman, then froze as he saw that Home was not falling.

  In a moment, Home was lying on his back in the air, completely rigid.

  As Adare watched, open-mouthed, Home floated out through the opening, head first. For several moments, his body hovered in the air outside. Abruptly, then it floated back in, still horizontal.

  Home was raised up and assumed his footing on the floor. He smiled at Lord Adare, patting the shoulder of his still gaping friend.

  “Shall we return to the others?” he said.

  AFTERWARD

  No valid charge of fraud was ever brought against Home.

  Hundreds of lawyers, scientists, physicians and journalists attended his séances.

  All were convinced that what they witnessed was genuine, defying any normal explanation.

  He produced solid, materialized hands in bright lamp light.

  He played accordions suspended from one hand by his thumb and middle finger with its keys at the lower end.

  He produced innumerable phenomena which defied the law of gravity.

  On one occasion, a beautiful white hand materialized by Home placed a garland of flowers on the head of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  When he died at the age of fifty-three, the inscription on his headstone read: To another discerning of Spirits.

  He never charged a penny for his séances.

  GROWTH

  In addition to producing mediums as celebrities, Spiritualism now become a more respectable phenomenon as well.

  Serious inquiries into its validity were initiated in 1869 by the London Dialectical Society.

  In 1870, the Phantasmological Society at Oxford and The Ghost Society at Cambridge were created.

  In 1882, the formidable Society for Psychical Research was established.

  It is interesting to note two points about Spiritualism during this period.

  One: it was the first religion to endow dignity on the North American Indian because so many so-called Spirit Guides identified themselves as Indians.

  Two: psychical researchers received a serious—and sympathetic—hearing from many eminent scientists of the day.

  They have not attained such a level of scientific respectability since.

  Towards the end of the century, after D. D. Home was gone, the field of psychic phenomena required a new physical medium.

  Said medium—the last of her kind—appeared in the person of a stout Italian peasant woman born in 1854.

  Eusapia Palladino

  December 9, 1909

  New York, N.Y.

  She held onto Carrington’s arm as they walked along the third floor of the Lincoln Square Arcade building. He was aware of her firm grip, of the subtly intimate way she pressed against his side.

  She was, perhaps, unaware of doing it, this seeking to establish a male-female relationship between them once again.

  Why did she always do that? Carrington wondered. Did she truly believe he would allow himself to be more lenient to her because of it? Surely, she knew, by now, that she was mistaken in that assumption.

  The footfalls of the group made irregular clacking noises on the hard tile floor, especially the heels of Carrington’s wife (how all the more presumptuous the medium was, clinging to his arm in the presence of his wife) and Mrs. Humphrey.

  Less audible were the falling heels of Mr. Forbes, Dr. Humphrey, Mr. Evarts and Carrington himself.

  They reached 328 now and, withdrawing his arm from Palladino’s hold, Carrington took the key chain from his trouser pocket and unlocked the door.

  Reaching in, he switched on
the overhead light and the group entered the small office.

  As he went in, Carrington recalled momentarily, his renting of the office; how the owner had been taken back by his request for a sworn statement that the office was an ordinary one, free of trap doors or any other unusual features.

  A faint smile raised the ends of his lips as he remembered the expression on the man’s face when he said, in absolute perplexity, “Trap doors? In an office?”

  Carrington had not explained.

  Quickly and efficiently, he checked the safeguards in the office: the windows sealed and connected to burglar alarms; the special bolts on the insides of the windows and the special bolt and lock on the inside of the door.

  None had been touched, of course. He had not expected that they had. Still, these preparations had to be conducted each time.

  Critics loved to pounce on any safeguard overlooked, any precaution taken.

  The cabinet—seven feet high and three feet on each side—was built into a special partition away from the back wall. It was open on the side facing the office, two curtains hanging across the opening, each made of lightweight black crepe.

  Inside the cabinet was a wooden table on top of which lay a flute, mandolin, a music box, a small bell and a tambourine.

  Even though Carrington knew that not a soul had entered this office since the previous sitting three nights past—their ninth—he, nonetheless, picked up each instrument and checked it thoroughly.

  He was a methodical man and knew that he could never afford to indulge himself in the least bit of carelessness in his preparations for these séances.

  “Very well,” he finally said, nodding at Palladino as he set down the tambourine.

  While the two women stepped inside the cabinet with the Italian medium to inspect her clothing and make certain she had nothing suspicious hidden on her person, Carrington checked the lights above the three-foot by two-foot table around which they would sit during the séance.

  There was a cluster of five globes, the first an unshaded sixteen-candle-power lamp, the second an unshaded four-candle-power lamp.