CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TESTIMONY FROM A STRANGER

One morning I was telephoned by the editor of Psychic News and asked if I could supply him with a photograph of my wife. When I asked the reason, he told me that he had received an interesting letter from a man containing an account of a sitting he had attended with a group of people when my wife was the medium. The editor wanted to publish the account and was anxious to have a photograph of my wife to accompany it.

I asked if he would supply me with the name of his correspondent. When he told me, I could not recall a person of that name having visited us. However, when I read the account in Psychic News, I found that its author had no right to be present at that particular sitting. It had been arranged specially for members of The Link, and he was not a member. Still, let us read what this man, John Curr, had to say:

“This is how it happened,” he began. “About six months ago, just previous to the publication of the first number of Psychic News, I read J. Arthur Findlay’s book, On the Edge of the Etheric.

“I am forty-five years of age, and, up till now, I have failed to form any philosophy, or to find a religion, that made life intelligible. Findlay’s arguments and explanations sounded reasonable, and I decided to study the subject of Spiritualism. I read many books on the subject, attended many public meetings, and appeared to get no satisfaction or make any spiritual progress whatever.

“Then the unexpected happened. I was sitting in the lounge of a London hotel one day, reading Stanley de Brath’s Psychic Philosophy, when a stranger spoke to me, observing that he was interested in the subject of the book I was reading. Through this man’s influence I was introduced into a direct voice séance, and on Friday, 25th November, 1932, I had my first experience of some extraordinary phenomena.

“There were present about fourteen people, none of whom I had met before. Owing to the controversy in a Sunday newspaper, I paid attention to John Myers (the psychic, photographer), who was present with his wife. In the séance room I was allotted a seat by the medium, Mrs. Perriman, in front of the fireplace. After a short invocation, the gramophone started playing, and immediately Mr. Perriman announced that he was going to extinguish the two red lamps We were left in total darkness. The gramophone was playing Lead Kindly Light, and all the sitters joined in singing the melody played by the gramophone.

“In about two minutes a hazy blue spirit light began flickering rapidly about the room above the heads of the sitters, and almost immediately a childish voice said, ‘Good evening, everybody.’ We all responded with ‘Good evening,’ and one of the female sitters asked if the light we had seen was the spirit light of the child speaker. The childish voice replied, ‘Yes, watch me,’ and the blue hazy light again commenced to float about very rapidly.

“The voice then addressed me with, ‘Hullo! Mr. Beethoven,’ and I replied, ‘Hub! How did you know I was a musician?’ In a very bantering tone, accompanied with a laugh, the voice replied, I saw you coming in.’

Various other sitters addressed the spirit, and were replied to in a very happy tone by the voice. The childish spirit entity, Belle, then bade us ‘Good evening.’

“All the time the gramophone kept playing. Then suddenly, from a position, as far as I could judge of about a yard in front of the medium and about two feet from the ceiling, a deep dignified voice of a man said, ‘Good evening, friends.’ We greeted this entity in the same manner, and he told us he was John Taylor, the father of George Taylor, a bandmaster. The voice spoke of the great pleasure he had had in observing the progress we were making in psychic research.

“After a short interval of silence, we were greeted by a female voice speaking with a very pronounced Scottish accent. After this entity had spoken with several of the other sitters, I asked her which part of Scotland she came from, adding that I did not recognise the particular dialect she was using. She replied, ‘Och mon! I come from Tarbet, Loch Fyne.’ I then said that I recognised the West Highland dialect, but had never met anyone from Argybshire, and consequently did not recognise the ‘twang.’ I must confess that at this point of the proceedings I felt just a bit sceptical regarding the genuineness of this spirit entity. I was born in Scotland, and had made a particular study of the various dialects of my native country.

“However, my doubts were soon dispelled when a male voice, with ever so slight a Scottish accent, announced him self as Crookes, a Scottish photographer. This entity had a long conversation with John Myers. I joined in the conversation with this voice, saying that I was very pleased to meet a fellow-countryman, and asked which part of Scotland he came from. The voice replied that if I knew Edinburgh I would know him as well as I knew Princes Street. He also stated that he had a photographer’s business in Glasgow. This I verify as being absolutely correct in every detail. This entity spoke like a master of the art of photography, and I recollect quite distinctly that his business was acknowledged by Edinburgh citizens as the highest of artistic standing.

“Another interesting spirit entity was a person who called himself Joe. He said he lived ‘in Yorkshire when on earth, and his dialect certainly left us in no doubt of his native county. Joe was bombarded with quite a number of questions relating to many places with which he was familiar in Yorkshire, and he supplied all details of the places and districts mentioned. Joe was what he himself described as a ‘pretty rough ‘un’ when on earth, and though he had been in a humorous vein till now said that when he passed over, he was told, ‘Never tha’ mind, lad; tha’st done tha’ bit.’

“After Joe had bid us ‘Good evening,’ another spirit entity, who, I was informed, was one of Mrs. Perriman’s controls greeted us, and said that if we would put our hands on our solar plexus he would try an experiment. He told us to watch the centre of the circle, and after a period of from what I could judge would be about a minute and a half two lights, like a bluish haze, appeared on the floor. The lights were just the size of the average man’s feet. They walked over the floor with distinct thuds as if a human being were walking over the floor. The gramophone was playing a melody in four-four time, and the ‘feet’ commenced to dance in strict time with the music. The ‘feet’ then left the floor and floated in the air, and returned again to the floor, continued to dance, and again floated upwards, disappearing from sight before reaching the ceiling.

“The last spirit entity to manifest was Flora, the Scotswoman who had previously said that she had lived at Tarbet, Loch- Fyne. We were allowed to ask her questions individually, and some very intimate and personal questions were asked and answered to the entire satisfaction of every questioner.