In dealing with materializations we are apt to overlook the fact that we are investigating forces or modes of energy far more delicate than electricity, for instance. Heat, electricity, and light, as Sir William Crookes tells us, are all closely related; we know the awful power of heat and electricity, but are only too apt to forget--especially if it suits our purpose to do so--that light too has enormous dynamic potency; its vibrations being said to travel in s.p.a.ce at the incredible speed of twelve million miles a minute;[15] and it is therefore only reasonable to a.s.sume that the power of these vibrations may be sufficient to interfere seriously with the more subtle forces, such as those which we are now investigating.

[Footnote 15: 186,900 miles a second (J. Wallace Stewart, B.Sc.).]

Secondly, we require suitable heat vibrations, and I find that those given off in a room either warmed or chilled to sixty-three degrees are the very best possible; anything either much above this, or more especially, much below this, tending to weaken the results and to cheek the phenomena.

Thirdly, we require suitable _musical_ vibrations, and, after carrying out a long series of experiments with musical instruments of all kinds, I find that the vibrations given off by the reed organ--termed "harmonium" or "American organ"--or by the concertina, are the most suitable, the peculiar quality of the vibrations given off by the reeds in these instruments proving to be the most suitable ones for use during the production of the phenomena; although on one or two occasions I have obtained good results without musical vibrations of any kind, but this is rare.

Fourthly, we require the presence of a specially organized man or woman, termed _the sensitive_, one from whom it is alleged a portion of the matter used by the ent.i.ty in the building up of its temporary body can be drawn, with but little chance of injury to their health. This point is one of vital importance, we are told, for it has been proved by means of a self-registering weighing-machine on which he was seated, and to which he was securely fastened with an electrical apparatus secretly hidden beneath the seat, which would at once ring a bell in an anteroom if he endeavored to rise from his seat during the experiment, that the actual loss in weight to the sensitive, when a fully materialized ent.i.ty was standing in our midst, was no less than sixty-five pounds!

Before employing any person, then, as a sensitive for these delicate, not to say dangerous, experiments, he or she should be medically examined, in the interests of both the investigator and the sensitive, and should their health prove to be in any way below par, they should not be permitted to take part in the experiment until their health is fully restored.

I have been permitted to examine the sensitive at the moment when an ent.i.ty, clad in a fully-formed temporary body, was walking amongst the experimenters; and the distorted features, the shrivelled-up limbs and contorted trunk of the sensitive at that moment proclaimed the danger connected with the production of this special form of phenomena far louder than any words of mine could do.

Needless to say, sensitives for materializations are extremely rare, not more than two or three being found to-day amidst the teeming millions who inhabit the British Islands; although a few are to be found on the European continent, and several in North America, where the climatic conditions are said to be more favorable for the development of such persons.

Now, what const.i.tutes a sensitive, and why are they necessary?

Sensitives through whom physical phenomena (including materializations) can be produced have been described, firstly, as persons in whom certain forces are stored up, either far in excess of the amount possessed by the normal man or woman, or else differing in quality from the forces stored up by the normal man or woman; and secondly, as persons who are able to attract from those in close proximity to them--provided that the conditions are favorable--still more of the force, which thus becomes centered in them for the time being. In other words, a sensitive for physical phenomena is said to be a storage battery for the force which is used in the production of physical phenomena--including materializations--although it is by no means improbable that such highly developed sensitives as those required for this special purpose may be found to possess extra nerve-centers as compared with those possessed by normal human beings. But whether this hypothesis be eventually proved or not, there seems to be but very little doubt that "whatever the force may be which const.i.tutes the difference between a sensitive and a non-sensitive, it is certainly of a mental or magnetic character, i.e., a combination of the subtle elements of mind and magnetism, and therefore of a _psychological_, and not of a purely _physical_ character."

But why is a sensitive necessary? you ask. Think of a telephone for a moment. You wish to communicate with a person who is holding only the end of the wire in his hand, the result being that he cannot hear a single word. Why is this? Because he has forgotten to fit a receiver at his end of the wire, a receiver in which the vibrations set up by your voice may be centralized, focussed, a receiver which he can place to his ear, and in doing so will at once hear your voice distinctly--but without this your message to him is lost.

And it is said that this is exactly the use of the sensitives during our experiments, for they act as "receivers" in which the forces employed in the production of the phenomena may be centralized, focussed, their varying degrees of sensitiveness enabling them to be used by the ent.i.ties in other spheres for the successful production of such phenomena, we are told.

And lastly, we require about twelve to sixteen earnest and really sympathetic men and women--persons trained on scientific lines for choice--all in the best of health; men and women who, whilst strictly on their guard against anything in the shape of fraud, are still so much in sympathy with the person who is acting as the sensitive that they are all the time sending out kindly thoughts towards him; for if, as has been said, "thoughts are things," it is possible that hostile thoughts would be sufficient not only to enfeeble, but actually to check demonstrations of physical phenomena of all kinds in the presence of such specially organized, highly developed individuals as the sensitives through whom materializations can be produced.

I shall refer to these men and women as the sitters. We generally select an equal number so far as s.e.x is concerned; and, in addition, we endeavor to obtain an equal number of persons possessing either positive or negative temperaments. In this way we form the sitters into a powerful human battery, the combined force given off by them (if the battery is properly arranged, and the individual members of that battery are in good health) proving of enormous a.s.sistance during our experiments. If in ill-health, we find that a man or woman is useless to us, for we can no more expect to obtain the necessary power from such an individual than we can expect to produce an electric spark from a discharged acc.u.mulator, or pick up needles with a demagnetized piece of steel.

We are told to remember always that "all manifestations of natural laws are the results of natural conditions."

Minor details too, we find, must be thought out most carefully if we are to provide what we may term ideal conditions.

The chairs should be made of wood throughout, those known as Austrian bentwood chairs, having perforated seats, being proved to be the best for the purpose.

The sitters should bathe and then change their clothing--the ladies into white dresses, and the men into dark suits--two hours before the time fixed for the experiment, and should then at once partake of a light meal--meat and alcohol being strictly forbidden--so that the strain upon their const.i.tutions during the experiment may not interfere with their health.

Trivial as such matters must appear to the man in the street, we are told they must all be carried out most carefully, in order that the finest conditions possible may be obtained, the one great object of the sitters being to give off all the power--and the best kind of power--that they are capable of producing, in order that sufficient suitable material may be gathered together from the sensitive and themselves, with which a temporary body may be formed for the use of any ent.i.ty wishing to materialize in their presence.

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FRAUD

We are now ready to see what happens at a typical experimental meeting for these materializations, at hundreds of which I have a.s.sisted, having the services of no less than six sensitives placed at my disposal for this purpose. I will endeavor to describe what I should consider to be an ideal one, held under ideal (test) conditions.

Our imaginary test meeting is to be carried out--as it was on one occasion in London--in an entirely empty house, which none of us has ever entered before, a house which we will hire for this special event.

By doing this we may feel sure that all possibility of fraud, so far as the use of secret trap-doors, large mirrors, and other undesirable things of that description are concerned, can be successfully thwarted.

We are now ready to start our experiment; the general feeling of all those in the room being that every possible precaution against trickery has been taken, and that if any results of any kind whatever should follow they will undoubtedly be genuine.

The sitters having been allotted their seats, so that a person of a positive and a person of a negative temperament are seated together, we now join hands, and form ourselves into what we are told is a powerful human battery; the two persons sitting at the two ends of the half-circle having of course each one hand free, and from the free hands of these two persons, it is said, the power developed and given off by this human battery pa.s.ses into the sensitive at each of his sides.

Sitting quietly in our chairs and talking gently amongst ourselves, we soon feel a cool breeze blowing across our hands. In another two minutes this will have so increased in volume that it may with truth be described as a strong wind.

On looking at the sensitive now, we see that he is rapidly pa.s.sing into a state of trance--his head is drooping on one side, his arms and hands hang downwards loosely, his body being in a limp _real trance_ condition, and just in the right state for use by any ent.i.ty desiring to work through him, we are told.

I have only experimented with one sensitive who did not pa.s.s into trance, who, seated amongst the sitters, remained in a perfectly normal condition during the whole of the experiment; watching the materialized forms building up beside him, and talking to and with them during the process. I shall refer to him shortly.

We now set our clairvoyants to work, and the statements made by one must be confirmed in every detail by the statements of the other as to what is occurring at the moment, or no notice is taken of their remarks.

Both now report that they see a thin white mist or vapor[16] coming from the left side of the sensitive, if a man (or from the pelvis, if a woman), which pa.s.ses into the sitter at the end of the half-circle nearest to the sensitive's left side. It then pa.s.ses, they state, from Sitter No. 1 to Sitter No. 2, and so on, until it has gone through the whole of the sixteen sitters, pa.s.sing finally from the last one--No.

16--at the end of the half-circle nearest to the sensitive's right side, and disappears into his right side.

[Footnote 16: Termed teleplasma.]

We a.s.sume from this that the nerve force, magnetic power--call it what you will--necessary for the formation of one of these temporary bodies starts from the sensitive, pa.s.ses through each sitter, drawing from each as much more force or power as he or she is capable of giving off at the moment, returning to the sensitive greatly increased in its amount and ready for use in the next process. This, then, we will term the first of the three stages in the evolution of an ent.i.ty clad in a temporary body.

THE VAPOR STAGE

In a few moments our clairvoyants both report that the force or power is issuing from the side of the sensitive, if a man (or from the pelvis, if a woman), in the form of a white, soft, dough-like substance, which on one occasion I was permitted to touch. I could perceive no smell given off by it; it felt cold and clammy, and appeared to have the consistency of heavy dough at the moment that I touched it.

This ma.s.s of dough-like substance is said to be the material used by the ent.i.ties--one by one as a rule--who wish to build up a temporary body.

It seems to rest on the floor, somewhere near the right side of the sensitive, until required for use: its bulk depending apparently upon the amount of power given off by the sitters from time to time during the experiment.

This we will term the second of the three stages of the evolution of an ent.i.ty clad in a temporary body.

THE SOLID, BUT SHAPELESS STAGE

We are told that the ent.i.ty wishing to show himself to us pa.s.ses into this shapeless ma.s.s of dough-like substance, which at once increases in bulk, and commences to pulsate and move up and down, swaying from side to side as it grows in height, the motive power being evidently underneath.

The ent.i.ty then quickly sets to work to mould the ma.s.s into something resembling a human body, commencing with the head. The rest of the upper portion of the body soon follows, and the heart and pulse can now be felt to be beating quite regularly and normally, differing in this respect from those of the sensitive, who, if tested at this time, will be found with both heart and pulse-beats considerably above the normal.

The legs and feet come last, and then the ent.i.ty is able to leave the near neighborhood of the sensitive and to walk amongst the sitters, the third and last stage of its evolution being now complete.

Although occasionally the ent.i.ty will appear clad in an exact copy of the clothing which he states that he wore when on earth--especially if it should happen to be something a little out of the common, such as a military or naval uniform--they are draped as a rule in flowing white garments of a wonderfully soft texture, and this, too, I have been permitted to handle.

Our clairvoyants both affirm that at all times during the materialization a thin band of, presumably, the dough-like substance can be plainly seen issuing from the side of the sensitive, if a man, (or from the pelvis, if a woman), and joined onto the center of the body inhabited by the ent.i.ty--just like the umbilical cord attached to a human infant at birth--and we are instructed that this band cannot be stretched beyond a certain radius, say ten to fifteen feet, without doing harm to the sensitive and to the ent.i.ty; although cases are on record where materializations have been seen at a distance of nearly sixty feet from the sensitive, on occasions when the conditions were unusually favorable.

On handling different portions of the materialized body now, the flesh is found to be both warm and firm. The bodies are well proportioned, those of the females--for they take on s.e.x conditions during the process--having beautiful figures; the hands, arms, legs, and feet are quite perfect in their modelling, but in my opinion the body, head, and limbs of every materialization of either s.e.x or any age which I have scrutinized at close quarters carefully, or have been permitted to handle, have appeared to be at least one-third smaller in size (except as regards actual height) than those possessed by beings on earth of the same s.e.x and age.

Not only have we witnessed materializations of aged ent.i.ties of both s.e.xes, showing all the characteristics of old age--for the purpose of identification by the sitters, as they tell us--but we have seen materialized infants also; and on one occasion two still-born children appeared in our midst simultaneously, one of them showing distinct traces on its little face of a hideous deformity which it possessed at the time of its premature birth--a deformity known only to the mother, who happened to be present that evening as one of the sitters.

We are told that, for the purpose of identification, the ent.i.ty will return to earth in an exact counterpart of the body which he alleges that he occupied at the time of his death, in order that he may be recognized by his relatives and friends who happen to be present. Thus, the one who left the earth as an infant will appear in his materialized body as an infant, although he may have been dead for twenty or thirty years. The aged man or woman will appear with bent body, wrinkled face, and snow-white hair, walking amongst us with difficulty, and just as they allege they did before their death, although that may have occurred twenty years before. The one who had lost a limb during his earth-life will return minus that limb; the one who was disfigured by accident or disease will return bearing distinct traces of that disfigurement, for the purpose of identification only.

But as soon as the identification has been established successfully, all this changes instantly; the disfigurement disappears; the four limbs will be seen, and both the infant and the aged will from henceforth show themselves to us in the very prime of life--the young growing upwards and the aged downwards, as we say, and, as they one and all state emphatically, just as they really look and feel in the sphere in which they now exist.

While inhabiting these temporary bodies, they state that they take on, not only s.e.x conditions, but earth conditions temporarily too; for they appear to feel pain if their bodies are injured in any way; complain of the cold if the temperature of the room is allowed to fall much below sixty degrees, or of the heat if the temperature is allowed to rise above seventy degrees; seem to be depressed during a thunderstorm, when our atmosphere is overcharged with electricity; and appear bright and happy in a warm room when the world outside is in the grip of a hard frost, and also on bright, starry nights.