DR. ISAAC K. FUNK

 DR. FUNK was well enough known to make it possible for the public and scientific men to propose certain objections to alleged communications from him. As we have to discount anything which the medium certainly may have known about an alleged communicator, the person who is well­known pays the penalty of skepticism regarding his efforts to prove his identity. Dr. Funk was well-known to the American public as a publisher and this exposes any alleged efforts on his part to communicate to objections based either upon fraud or casual knowledge on the part of the psychic. But it was not his reputation as a publisher that constitutes the greatest difficulty about alleged communicators. Mediums can hardly keep themselves informed about every well-known publisher or professional man. It would be a waste of time and money to do so. Their custom, so far as it has been practised at all and that is not one-hundredth as much as Philistines suppose and assert, has been to get information about persons interested in the subject and likely to appear as investigators with some degree of constancy. And they have been so limited in their power to get information, even in such cases, that the practice of it had to be given up as not paying for itself. Gossip was a more fruitful source of information than organized efforts.

 Now Dr. Funk happened to be known all over the country as interested in the subject and as experimenting whenever he could. So he was exposed more than the average person to any predatory instances alleged of mediumistic detectives, and we have to allow for the objections of the Philistine in this respect. He was the author of two books on the subject, "The Widow's Mite" and "The Psychic Riddle," both rather widely read, and probably familiar to many mediums interested in learning what he had to say.

 Mrs. Chenoweth, whose work we shall quote here, had not read or seen either one of them, though knowing he wrote the first one. She knew of Dr. Funk's interest in the subject, and the consequence is that, if she had been so minded, she could have ascertained much about the man to use in her work. But in her trance nothing came that can be accounted for by reference to "The Widow's Mite," except the name of Mr. Beecher connected with it and that not certainly, and neither work, as remarked, had been seen by her. The facts which I shall quote here will not be explicable by referring them to any such source. Whatever objections are made must be based on the liabilities of casual knowledge or deliberate effort to acquire the desired information, as I had no means of giving the facts pertinence to any friend of his present as a sitter except myself, and I was too well known to the psychic to plead cogency on the score of relevancy to myself. But there is always the reply to skeptics at this point, that Mrs. Chenoweth has so constantly succeeded under test conditions that the skeptic has no vantage ground on which to rest and it would be useless expense on her part to seek information consciously. Beyond that her honesty cannot be impeached, and though that has nothing to do with estimating evidence, it throws the burden of proof on the skeptic who would suggest or assert fraud. The facts which we shall quote will doubly obligate such minds to produce evidence for their doubts.

 Dr. Funk died April 4th, 1912, and his first appearance through Mrs. Chenoweth was on October 2nd, 1912. He did not give his name at first, but mentioned New York and Brooklyn, and spoke of Brooklyn as his home, a fact not known by the psychic, though she did know his relation to New York. Soon afterward he gave his initials. This assured me who it was and his full name came later.

 Soon after giving his initials, he remarked that he had not been the fool or dupe that some of his associates thought and on being asked by me who it was that thought him so, having conjurers in mind, the reply was his "business associates" and I asked who else. To the latter question I received a remarkable answer. He mentioned the "Editor of 'The Sun," referring to the owner and editor, who died before himself, and said that he had found out that his editorial ridicule of Dr. Funk had been mistaken. The special pertinence of this was not known to the psychic. I pursued my question and got a reference to the "Clergy," which was correct enough, but not in my mind and then, after alluding to scientific scoffing at him, possibly known to the psychic, he said he had done things I would not do. This was quite correct and was in all probability not known by Mrs. Chenoweth. Asked to say what kind of phenomena he investigated, he replied "dark and strange and physical," meaning dark seances and physical phenomena. This was true. He had investigated much of this type and I none of it. Mrs. Chenoweth did not know that I had not done this, though she might have known that Dr. Funk did some of it. He then alluded spontaneously to his having got better material than some of his friends and indicated his difference correctly with Dr. Hodgson, and remarked that they could both now afford to laugh about it. All this was correct and not known to the psychic. He had obtained much better material than his immediate friends and had a sharp controversy with Dr. Hodgson.

 The next week, October 7th, he reported again and began with some very characteristic things which one could not appreciate without reading the detailed record, and that is too long to quote, referring to his interest in certain aspects of the subject, but not in abnormal psychology. Then he referred to Prospect Park and the cemetery where he was buried. He was familiar with Prospect Park in Brooklyn and I learned afterward that he was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, not far from Prospect Park. Neither Mrs. Chenoweth nor myself knew this fact. He then referred to having left a posthumous letter whose contents he was to reveal after death. This was true and absolutely unknown to any one but myself and his son. After a few more characteristic things he referred to the fact that he had been regarded as a "hot-headed enthusiast," which was true, and added as truly that this was "far from the truth." Then came the interesting statement.

 "I accepted much tentatively, to disarm the psychic and produce results, but I reasoned out the evidence calmly enough alone later." He then referred to the crudeness of the conjurer's "ignorance of the laws of psychology." This message represented the exact facts about the man, and the point is that they were quite contrary to all that was believed of Dr. Funk. He was supposed to be the dupe of mediums and totally unacquainted with the methods of investigation, and to be swallowing everything that came along. This was an illusion, and he was quite willing for the public to think that he was deceived, if only he could get at the bottom of a case. He was worth a dozen conjurers in investigating most cases. The contrary opinion would have been all that casual information could have brought to Mrs. Chenoweth.

 He then referred by name to his brother and to his brother's son, though the manner of doing it is not strongly evidential. On the next day he referred in the subliminal stage of the trance at once to the Bible and other literature of the same type among different nations, specifying the Veda as one of them. He was interested in comparative religions. Immediately he mentioned Luther R. Marsh and Miss Dis Debar, using V by mistake for R in the first name, and correctly described Mr. Marsh and his relation to this subject, stating at least one thing not known to the public about him. Miss Dis Debar had been connected with Mr. Marsh's debacle in Spiritualism and this was well known to the public and might have been known to Mrs. Chenoweth, as even confessed by the subliminal, but she did not know how pertinent it was for Dr. Funk to mention the incident.

 When the automatic writing began he confessed that communication was not so easy as he expected to find it and he then gave an excellent statement of what the process is. "Thought produces images and unless the thought is concentrated on some particular thing, the image quickly melts into other images, a kaleidoscope movement," and having difficulty in spelling the word "kaleidoscope" he asked if he had spelled it phonetically. This last remark, or rather question, was very pertinent because of his great interest in phonetic spelling, a fact not known to the psychic, but known to me. The process of communication described is another version of the pictographic method and well put, having perfect accordance with what we know of the remote processes in ordinary streams of mental imagery, especially in deliria. Comparison with the kaleidoscope is excellent and Mrs. Chenoweth's knowledge of psychology is too defective to be so accurate. What he said of his interest in phonetic spelling was better than the mere reference to it, as it represented his reasons for his interest in it and these reasons were not common public property, but were correctly stated.

 He spoke of a few converts to it and I asked who one of them was, thinking of Mr. Carnegie. But his answer was to "Big Stick," using this expression as a reference to Theodore Roosevelt whom he had converted to the need of reformed spelling. But this was publicly known. When I pressed him for the name I had in mind, he failed to give it, but made some pertinent personal statements about the value of getting names on which he differed from other investigators. His attitude on this matter was unknown. The passage also describes the usual method of the sitter about this and other explicit incidents, indicating the preference for spontaneously given messages, which he correctly enough said was the method I employed.

 He then gave me a sign which he would use elsewhere in proof of his identity, just after having said that proper names were always difficult if it was important to get them, but easier when there was nothing to gain or lose by giving them, a fact of considerable truth in this work. This sign I shall not mention here. But suffice to say that I got it soon afterward by means of the ouija board through two private people who did not know it and who did not know that he was giving it as his sign. I carefully refrained from explaining it to them. Then I got it through Miss Burton who, though not a private psychic, did not know anything about either the man or his sign, and was not told that I got it in my work with her. It was given along with his name and both written in the air in letters of fire.

 The next day, in alluding to this sign he made use of the term "riddle" in referring to the problem, and asked me if it meant anything to me. I recognized at once the pertinence of it, and as fortune would have it Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about its relevance in connection with the identity of Dr. Funk, as he had used it in the title to one of his books.

He then proceeded, as he said, to give "some memories of phonetic conquests" alluding to converts in reformed spelling, having previously alluded by the expression "the Big Stick" to Mr. Roosevelt. He began with the capital letter C and after some confusion got the name Charles. I knew what he desired, but kept still and did not help. After some struggle and confusion, he got the name Carnegie. This was correct and though it was not known by the psychic that Mr. Carnegie had any relation to Dr. Funk, it might have been known that he was interested in phonetic spelling. As soon as he got out the name I asked the communicator if Mr. Carnegie had not been asked to do something else and the answer came promptly that he had been asked to endow psychic research. Dr. Funk had done this three times, but was rebuffed in it, the last time very emphatically. After explaining what he had done and how his request had been received he added significantly:

 "It is so stupid to wait till a thing is assured before you give it sustenance. I think the uses to which rich men apply their wealth are subject to inquiry as to whether they are not suffering from hallucinations."

 While not evidential this is too true to leave unquoted. In a moment he again took up his own method of experiment and gave a characteristic message.

Gullible was not exactly what I should have been called, but I saw nothing to be gained by spoiling the case at the start by suggestion or manner of disbelief. Let the spirits, if there are any, have their own way and take what comes and do the sifting of evidence in your own conditions.

(Exactly.)

I knew that I got many things passed me that I could discount, but I would never have gotten it if I had done as the world thought I ought to have done. (That's right.)

God confounds us with combinations of good and ill, weak and strong, in every expression of His, and psychic matters are not exceptions to the rule. I thank God I leaned out far enough to catch the light of the dawn before I came into the full glory of the eternal day.

This was exactly his method and belief about the subject, and he was regarded by people who neither knew him nor his methods as "gullible" and deceived. He simply laughed at public opinion and went on with his work.

He had raised the questions, in our conversations, of "demons" or evil spirits, as mentioned in the New Testament, as possibly explaining the facts we had, and so I asked him at this point about the matter to see the reaction. The answer was not clear, though he gave an answer clear enough to what he supposed I meant by the query; namely, that "mistakes were not demoniacal," and referred to them as like crossed wires in the telephone, a conception which exactly represents what involuntarily occurs at times.

He did not communicate anymore until January 14th, 1913. He began on that occasion with general observations, not evidential at first, except as they were generally characteristic, and then turned to this subject and its effect on the future. He said:

 There will be no mighty revolution which disintegrates and destroys the civilization of the Christian Era, but noiselessly as the morning dawns the work will awake and the sun of demonstrated truth will be high in the heavens, and the night of sorrow will have passed away and the wondrous beauty of the law of God will be revealed and understood. No revolution but revelation. That is my watchword now. In giving you this statement, I realize that I am using time which might well be given to the work of establishing my personal identity, but this also is part of my identity, I hope, as much as the memory of a particular collar button and its present location. Our friends, the critics, are amused that we busy ourselves in recalling Welsh Rarebits, when there are Bibles to be translated, but we dare not descend into literary efforts or they stone us because we cannot remember the wart on grandfather's finger.

(Good.)

What a contradictory jury we try our case before, and what an inconsistent judge passes sentence on us, because we dare show our faces at a place, in fact, the only place where we can get some inkling of the truth. No respectable people believe in spirits, they tell you, and when an eminently respectable and respected man dares to show an interest, they at once do their best to make him the reverse of respectable. [Pause after word "him."] I could not think of the word although I once fathered a dictionary.

 In the last sentence he was referring to the word "reverse." The passage is a good summary of many a remark he made in conversation with me. He took exactly that attitude toward the public as a jury in the phenomena, and knew exactly what kind of evidence was necessary and what absurd things the public wants for its satisfaction and delectation. His relation to a dictionary is too well known to make a point of it, although the knowledge of the man by Mrs. Chenoweth is so small that we may well believe that she does not know the fact well enough to apply it so aptly. But casual knowledge may have been forgotten.

 After further general observations he undertook to give some specific things in personal identity which could not easily be questioned in their evidential nature. He first mentioned the Orange Mountains, and then described in some detail a wooden building with Corinthian columns in a small town in view of the mountains and with maple trees on the street. It was said to be a church without a steeple, but with a square bell tower.

 He lived the last few years of his life in a town near the Orange Mountains in New Jersey, but the church he attended there had no resemblance to the one mentioned, and no one seems to know of the building so minutely described. Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about his home near the mountains named. Nearly all his business life was spent in Brooklyn, New York.

 On the next day, January 15th, after general communications of no evidential value, he referred to "pictures" and "physical experiments" he had made. But the confusion was considerable for some time, as I would not help in the message, tho surmising what he was trying to do. He got away from the subject, and as the incident had never been made public, I resolved to have him stick to the subject and I began the matter by recalling him to it.

(Now, were you referring to a picture that you got in one of your experiments?) Yes. (Now, who took that picture or made it for you?)

I have been trying to write that, for I knew it would be good evidence. (Yes, stick to it.)

It was quite a curio. My mother was supposed to come and I could not see how it was done.

(I understand. That was the picture I had in mind. Now where and who was it that made it for you?)

I want to tell that also; for, while I was not sure of the method, I had doubts and suspicions, but there was the result before my eyes.

(Yes I remember.)

You know all about that and I have more to say about it now. (Yes, go ahead.)

Two who had the work in their home and the way it was produced seemed most open and above reproach. And yet, if it were done as supposed, the world ought to stand still at the stupendous marvel. I left the answer to time, for, I could not answer it myself. I was not a juggler nor sleight of hand artist. One thing I always said was that it was light bright.

(Yes, you mean that it was bright when the picture was taken?) Yes. (And two persons had to do with the making?)

Yes and they had their own conditions and time and home. I went to them, but it was after I was known to be interested in these matters. (Yes, and can you tell where it was you went to them?) B... On the train. I first went away from home.

(In what direction?) West. (Yes, and I was seeking to have it on paper for evidence.)

Yes, of course, and I saw some slight changes in the picture to anything I had seen before as a picture of my mother. Such changes, however, could have easily been made by an artist. It was more than a photograph.

(Yes.) I intended to say that before. (I understand.)

But it was not a bad piece of art nor superior, but still not execrable.

(I understand. What was the reputation of the artists in the matter?)

As varied as the clientele. Some cried, Impostors, some cried, Most gifted of

the world's psychics. C... C h Chicago.

(Good, that is the place.)

Yes, that is where I went. L... L... M... Bangs.

(That is good.)

Sisters. They talk as devotedly to the subject as you or I, but I have an idea it is trade talk, but do not yet know the methods used. It would be easy if collusion were discovered.

Dr. Funk visited the Bangs sisters to try their work at what was called spirit paintings. The conjurer can duplicate such phenomena with

considerable ease. But Dr. Funk had an old photograph of his mother and did not show it or take it out of his pocket. He got a picture of her which

he regarded as a good likeness and his son told me that he saw the likeness of his grandmother in it. I myself saw the painting, but not the original. Dr.

Funk had not made up his mind about its character. That he told me in my conversation with him when I saw it at his home in Brooklyn. He was

puzzled to account for it under the conditions, as that picture was so rare. The L and M are the initials of the Bangs sisters' Christian names.

Mrs. Chenoweth knew of the existence of the Bangs sisters and the nature of their work. But that was all, in so far as the present incident is concerned. The subliminal might have guessed the place after the allusion was made to the fact that "two" were concerned in the picture and after my admission that it was "West," Chicago and the Bangs sisters would be a natural guess after that, for any one who knew them and their work. But she did not know the other facts. The intimate personal traits and opinions of Dr. Funk on this incident were not known to her and were known to very few even of his acquaintances. His attitude toward the incident is described with perfect correctness and accuracy. The description of the two sisters as having a reputation as varied as their clientele is literally correct and well known to Dr. Funk, and could be known to Mrs. Chenoweth, but the terms of the description are not like Mrs. Chenoweth and are like Dr. Funk.

 Dr. Funk did not appear again until June 14th, 1916. I was busy with other work in the meantime. When he did appear he first gave his name and began with a reference to the picture which I have mentioned in detail, and spoke of the cost of such work in rather humorous terms. Then he immediately took up his posthumous letter and warned me that it would take a little time to deliver its contents. He again referred to simplified spelling, but got no further at that sitting.

 At the next sitting, June 15th, he began by explaining the difficulties in communicating and, though at first it contained no element of personal identity, it soon revealed a very subtle characteristic imbedded in ideas beyond the knowledge of the psychic. He began with his Christian name and then came the following.

I am here again and it does not seem at all strange. In fact it is so natural that it is with some difficulty I realize that I am making a bridge of myself.

You know how easily one drops into conversation with interested friends and when a specific matter is questioned the mind becomes unruly and questions its own knowledge, even when perfectly sure ten minutes before that the knowledge was exact and correct. I think that is exactly what happens here or anywhere when we try to express a particular idea. It seems more like that to me than like trying to master or conquer another outside element which you people have named the subliminal of the medium. I think we need not go outside our own experiences to find ample reason for the disturbances mentally when trying to recall. It is very like trying to recall what certain things would be in French or

German or a language we did not commonly use, a sort of translating process because we are not as dependent on language as you are. (I see.)

Sounds were not always the means of communication in earlier tribes of men, but developed powers given new expressions, and signs and symbols were left behind, and with some difficulty new methods of speech were adopted and the mongrel method of signs and sounds, still used by the race, is a left over condition. So much that comes to us is a mongrel expression of a past form of intercourse, and much that we commonly use drops into the effort and leaves hiatuses which seem like sorry efforts at communication.

I have wanted to pass this theory of mine down to you for some time, but have had 'no chance. It is not in the least like telepathy, this method of communication between us here, but has as much to do with Vision as sound.

 The subtle point of personal identity in this is the reflection of Dr. Funk's study of the principles of language, when living, in order to work out a scientific basis for simplifying our spelling evidence of which I often remarked in his office. On this question the message is not perfectly clear, except in reference to certain points. But it is evident that he is trying to compare our own normal methods of intercourse and those which prevail on the other side and affect the process and the contents of the communications received by us. The statement that with them vision has as much to do with the process as sound is only a recognition of the pictographic process and includes the similar characteristic in sound. That is, clairvoyance is as much a factor in communication as clairaudience, and the connection between their methods of transmitting to us and our own intercommunication by the symbolism of language which is sound only and involves physical phenomena, is that the symbols are quite different. We should say that it was like telepathy in that respect. Dr. Funk denies this, and it is at this point that he indicates a point of personal identity, as he knew nothing about the pictographic process and thought telepathy a transmission without the use of symbols or hallucinatory pictures.

 There is no trace to me of Mrs. Chenoweth's knowledge in the passage, though the terminology is at least partly hers. The expression "left over" is hers for certain mental phenomena, noticeable in her own conscious experience, but the ideas are more subtle than anything she knows about language and the processes of human intercommunication. The whole subject reflects the deeper aspects of Dr. Funk's mind on the question of language. But he went on a little later and stated that there was a telepathic communication between them and us and that it was the result of "some other contact." I saw that he had opened a question as to the nature of telepathy and asked him if he meant to say that telepathy between spirits and the living required the aid of another party, and his reply was the query to know if I was "referring to the message bearer theory now." On my assent, his reply was a most interesting one, though we cannot verify it. Of the transmission he says:

 "That is often purposely done, but conversations, spirit contact and consequent knowledge of situations and emotions, often fall into the consciousness of a sensitive quite irrespective of definite purpose, but such knowledge is being expressed somewhere at the time, else it could not overflow."

 Here we have an intermediary involved in the telepathic transmission of thoughts of the dead to us and with the fact also the involuntary transmission of thoughts going on elsewhere at the time, a phenomena which I have often remarked in the work of the psychic. While it does not directly assert that the same process is connected with telepathy between the living, it is more or less implied by the conception outlined and that intermediary would most likely be a discarnate spirit, and both the sporadic character of the phenomena in the apparent purposelessness of much of it would favor the view.

 The next day, the 16th, he recurred again to his method of investigating and referred to dark seances which he had often had, though not constantly, the facts being wholly unknown to Mrs. Chenoweth. He remarked: "I have heard it said that I was easily fooled, an old idiot who could be fooled with his eyes shut, but I don't need to refute that statement here: for you know the best detective work is done when one is supposed to be unwary."

 This was quite characteristic of the man and was a secret with himself and a few friends. Finding that he was getting confused in what he was saying, he changed the subject to the Bible and said he was a believer in it, which was true, and he thought, as he says here in the message, that "some light might be given to certain passages and statements by the study of the occult." I saw my chance and took up the subject.

 (What passages, for instance?)

I thought the matter of some of the old Testament stories might well be explained by the understanding of the laws governing the modern manifestations. (What in the Old Testament, for instance?)

Just a minute. I wanted to reconcile old and new mythological Biblical statements. Some of this you may know about, for it was a matter of interest to me, often expressed to my psychic research friends. The woman of Endor and Moses and the Commandments. Red Sea episode and Samuel.

The misinterpretation of these with several others brought darkness rather than light, and I believe now as I did before I came here, that the light on the ancient Scripture will come through modern interpretation, through the knowledge obtained through psychic research work.

 While we never discussed this subject specifically, he threw out remarks about the relation of psychic research to religion that prove this message to be very characteristic, as characteristic as it is correct about the problem. But Mrs. Chenoweth, whatever she believes, did not know Dr. Funk's views on the matter.

 He then went on to state the change of view which he made in the doctrine of the resurrection and added that, "when we lift ourselves to the divine state, our communicators will be of that type, but while we are less than that, we receive visitors of our own ilk." I expressed my assent and we continued: "We have had some straight talks before I came here, and we were of the same mind on these things, and the conception of making our messages other than from people like ourselves never came to us, plain people returning in plain fashion."

 This passage is a clear reference to what I knew to be characteristic of Dr. Funk when he once remarked to me in conversation that the dead were "not angels but just folks." He had no patience with the ordinary conceptions of the dead, and knew nothing about the processes necessary to get the more spiritual type of message. I tried at this point, without hinting what I wanted to see, if I could get him to refer to a view which he once mentioned to me as an alternative to spirits; namely, the "demons" of the New Testament, but he did not catch my point. He referred, however, to a perplexity which had troubled him at times; namely the "cosmic reservoir theory" and also "dual consciousness," which might be convertible with his "demon theory," and remarked that "we knocked down so many straw men before we built up our final form" of theory.

This too was the substance of many a conversation and represents his attitude and conception of the problem clearly enough. He did not appear again until June 19th and then began with the remark that he had known Whirlwind before he died. Whirlwind is one of the controls of Mrs. Chenoweth, otherwise spoken of as Jennie P. His statement was true as he had seen records of her work and was interested in her personality, a fact Mrs. Chenoweth did not know. He then went on to his own work again.

I knew the tricksters quite as well as you, or better, for I had the temerity to risk being duped, and one by one I found them out and piled up my evidence for and against. I thought it best to know for myself and not to take the word of some one else.

(I understand.)

I think it time that some of these people whom we both knew should take some responsibility toward shaping the destiny of the work.

(Could you not from your side influence one of them to help? You know whom I mean.)

Yes I think so, for there is more done from this side than is supposed. You refer to our friend in New York who has been approached before, through some friends of his, but who seems slow to see the importance of the endowment. I think endowment ought to be understood as meaning equipment to unearth the truth about this subject either for or against. Some very canny people would be glad to have a devil unmasked, but never care about putting aside the veil from the face of God's angels.

(Who tried to approach that man?)

Let me think. It was done, I think, before I came here. (Yes it was.)

I mean before I died, and I thought at one time we might get something as well as the various towns and groups that did, and when I came here he was one of my first attacking points. Andrew Carnegie.

(Yes, that is correct.)

Peace seems to have needed ammunition, but he does not need to withdraw from that in order to give us a due interest. Angle worms get quite as much attention as angels.

Dr. Funk had investigated "tricksters" more than I had done. Mrs. Chenoweth did not know this fact, and he had studied the results as stated. The allusion to endowment, it will be seen, was quite spontaneous and I at once directed my tactics to see what he would say on that point. The result justified my expectations. Dr. Funk himself is exactly represented in views taken here, as shown' in many a conversation with me, and he himself had tried three times to get Mr. Carnegie to help us, but without success. He was close enough to Mr. Carnegie in the matter of simplified spelling to venture on this, but was at last denied the matter in a rather plain way. The remark about angle worms is an interesting reminiscence of the work of Darwin as compared with the investigation of the human soul. It was exactly Dr. Funk's idea of the matter, though he never used that particular analogy to me.

 Following this message immediately, he took up a subject of his own experience whose pertinence in this connection it would require much time to explain, but its evidential import is easy. He asked:

 Do you recall Brooklyn and work done there and some queer things that happened which were in the nature of evidence?

(Yes, tell all about it.)

Circles where some manifestations of a physical nature purported to be given and where ghosts, apparitions, sounds, lights came.

 This is a clear reference to some dark seances in Brooklyn where just such occurrences took place and he always reserved his opinion about them, as intimated in the use of the term "purported," and owing to the incident of the "Widow's Mite" which occurred there, he took me once to the performance, at which nothing of interest occurred, except that I was convinced that the medium, a private person, was honest, though doing things which the conjurer would call fraud, but which were evidently somnambulic phenomena on the borderland of the genuine. Mrs. Chenoweth could know none of these things. The sequel is interesting as proving that I have rightly interpreted the incident.

 Dr. Funk did not appear till June 28th, but on June 27th Henry Ward Beecher purported to communicate. The importance of this lies in the fact that he was for a long time the pastor of Dr. Funk in Brooklyn and was connected, as a communicator, with the very experiments mentioned in the last quotation from Dr. Funk. Mr. Beecher began and communicated about the difference between his work and ours, but recognizing the far reaching import of the scientific side of it, and half jocosely treating of emphasizing the difference. I did not know who was communicating and I interrupted the generality of the message to ascertain his identity. It resulted in the following passage, with an item of unusual interest in the personal identity of both men.

 (May I ask who is communicating?)

Your friend, I. F., Isaac Funk, is my friend and he laughed at some things I asked about your efforts and his, and he was to write today. He [was] always a clergyman with leanings toward the unusual. Did you know that he could preach?

(Yes.)

A sort of emergency fund. When he could do nothing else, he could preach, he told me, but he did too many other things to make his preaching the one great power in his life. I knew him and love him.

I am H. W. B. Brooklyn, Plymouth.

(Yes, that's right.)

I could no more rest on a cloud of glory than Mark Twain. We have to find some way to get back, if it is only as a supply, when the regular pastor goes away. (I understand.)

I have quite as much interest in my fellow travellers as Funk or you, even if I

wrote no posthumous letters to startle an unsuspecting world.

(I understand. Did you ever communicate with Dr. Funk?)

Yes, yes, and tried to wake him up to the importance of the cause and he knew

I came to him, too.

(What incident?)

There you go. What did I tell you?

(Yes.) [I laughed heartily as he was joking me on my evidential bent.]

It is not how you can make your power felt, but what kind of chips did you use to make the tea kettle boil. Well, if you must pin me down like a school master here it is.

I came to him several times, and on one occasion a message proved of value to him, and I always felt I would like to tell him that I did it myself. He used to wonder if I did it or got some one to do it for me. Money, there was money in that message.

(Yes, go ahead.)

And money that made him take notice. The old lady, the old lady, good old widow.

The control was lost at this point, but to those familiar with the facts the passage is clear. This is the story told in Dr. Funk's book "The Widow's Mite." In working up the Standard Dictionary, Dr. Funk got one of the ancient coins, called the "Widow's Mite," once owned by Mr. Beecher, to use in an illustration. At one of the sittings in Brooklyn referred to, in the passage quoted previous to the message immediately above, Mr. Beecher purported to communicate and referred to this coin and said it had not been returned. Dr. Funk said that it had, but Mr. Beecher said that it had not, and told just where it was. Dr. Funk went to his office and to the safe where he knew it had been kept at one time, but could not find it in the place to which he had been directed by Mr. Beecher. He then went to another sitting and Mr. Beecher again communicated. Mr. Beecher was told that the coin was not where he, Mr. Beecher, had said it was. Mr. Beecher described the situation more minutely. Dr. Funk went away and made a second and more careful search and found an envelop with two of the coins in it. But he did not know which one was Mr. Beecher's or which one was genuine. He knew that one of them was counterfeit. He thought the red one genuine. He returned to the sittings and told Mr. Beecher what he found and asked which one was genuine, and was told that it was the black one. Dr. Funk did not think so. He went home and sent both coins to the Philadelphia Mint and asked which was the genuine "Widow's Mite." The reply was the same as Mr. Beecher's; namely, the black one.

 The pointedness of the incident explains itself, and considering that Mrs. Chenoweth had not seen or read the book in which the incident was made public, the reference to it here by the original sender in company with the receiver makes a cross reference of the incident as well as an incident in proof of the identity of both men. The only weakness in it is its liability to casual information from gossip about Dr. Funk and the "Widow's Mite," and its connection with Mr. Beecher. The connection, however, and the withholding of the communicator's name are so much in favor of the genuineness of the phenomenon here and also the manner of making the reference to the idea rather than to the specific incident when the subliminal should have reproduced the exact language of the recorded incident. The relation to the previous allusion to the Brooklyn sittings, about which Mrs. Chenoweth did not know the facts, also is some protection to the case and in all it has an unusual and complicated interest.

 The next day Dr. Funk took up the matter and stated things that had not been recorded in his account of the facts. He said that "the British Museum held nothing better." This was true enough and no part of the incident as published. He then took up his experiments and mine in an instructive statement reflecting his personal identity in a way not known to Mrs. Chenoweth. He started with a reference to the contents of his posthumous letter.

I tried to make simple assertions, because we, you and I, had talked about the difficulties of getting complex statements through.

(Yes we did.)

And I knew that the vultures would be after my bones. I had been falsely identified with so many associations when I had only shown the interest of the passer by.

(I understand.)

You knew that and you kept away. We had to make a special arrangement for you, either at your house or another, for the public demonstration did not appeal to you.

(Correct.)

That will not help you much, though, when you die. They will lie just as glibly then as they do now.

I do not know about the first statement of this message, as it pertains to his posthumous letter which has not yet been opened. But the rest of the passage is exactly correct and not known to Mrs. Chenoweth, though she might have inferred by lack of interest in public demonstrations. But she did not know that Dr. Funk was aware of the fact, and especially did not know that he was exactly correct in stating 'that the only way he could get me interested was to make an appointment at my own house or some private house other than my own. The mental tone of it also is his, especially his consciousness of how he was regarded and his indifference to it. Mrs. Chenoweth did not know the man well enough to reproduce him in this manner.

 Immediately he followed this message by one in reference to a psychic whom he had often met and with whom he had experimented, identifying her by reference to judge Dailey by name with whom he was well acquainted and concerning which fact Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing, though she knew well enough about Judge Dailey and this medium. He referred to this medium in unmistakably clear terms, and then referred to another one in correct terms, comparing the two persons correctly and recognizing that the latter had genuine powers. This was recognized by Dr. Hodgson when living. While Mrs. Chenoweth knew about both psychics, she did not know that Dr. Funk knew them so intimately.

 At the next sitting, June 29th, he alluded to Mr. Carnegie briefly again, and then passed to communications about things on that side. There was nothing in them that is verifiable, except some statements about religion which were characteristic of him and not in any way known to Mrs. Chenoweth. Though the passages are interesting they are too long to quote and have no value in proving anything when taken alone. In the course of them, however, he turned aside to mention a matter which required him to speak of his son which he did, the fact that he had a living son not being known to the psychic. But he first gave the name Benjamin which was the name of his brother who had died a short time before this and was not known in any way to the public. The circumstance had evidential character of considerable importance and later he corrected the mistake here made of confusing him for a moment with his son.

 On June 30th he recurred again to Whirlwind in a correct way and evidentially, but for the previous reference to her, and then made the remark, while explaining the confusion about his brother and son, that spirits communicated automatically while they might be thinking on another matter. Though we cannot prove this individual statement, there is evidence that the statement is probably correct. At least the facts make it a legitimate hypothesis to be tested and proved in the future. It certainly explained why he mentioned his deceased brother Benjamin when he should have mentioned his living son, who was the only person concerned with the matter of his message at the time, and who was definitely indicated in the correction. He continued his communications on the process of transmitting messages and then turned to a matter still to be considered. At the sitting of July 1st which followed he referred first to an attack in the "Brooklyn Eagle" upon him for his adventures in this subject. This paper had attacked him along with others, and the fact was not known to Mrs. Chenoweth, as it occurred before the new

American Society was organized, and was not known specially outside the city in which he lived. Toward the end of the sitting he referred to some old letters he had and specifying one as from Abraham Lincoln. Inquiry showed that he had corresponded with many public men about that time, but no letter from Mr. Lincoln was found.

On July 5th, after an interval occupied with another person, he returned to the work and referred to his library, and when I remarked that I knew nothing of it, he went on as follows:

 You know nothing of my home?

(No, nothing save that I was in it once.)

I thought you had been there, but it was when something was going on.

(Yes, and you showed me that picture...) [Writing began before I had finished my statement.]

Yes mother's and there were some other things that went with it, slates, messages you know.

(Yes I do.)

And some were very apparent tricks and some were not so apparent, but possible tricks.

(Yes I understand.)

And I flatter myself that the perpetrators never knew my real opinions, for I wanted the result whatever it might be. It was his mother's picture that he showed me on this occasion. I do not recall that he showed me any slates at that time, but he did show me slates and tricks he had witnessed on another occasion. His attitude on the phenomena is correctly indicated. The tricksters never found out what he thought about them. He was too sly to give himself away. The remainder of the sitting was taken up with another matter.

At the next sitting little came that I can easily make clear until the end. Then the following was given.

I wonder if you recall anything about a hotel interview in New York. (With whom,?) You. (Yes, go ahead.)

You and a medium, meeting with spirits.

(Yes, tell me all about that.)

I have been more eager to recall it, for there were several things involved that only you and I knew.

(Yes, stick to it.)

Sometime ago it was, and it proved of greater value than we knew at the time. (Do you remember who the important communicator was?) Yes, that I will tell.

 The psychic suddenly came out of the trance before the message was completed. We had a sitting at a hotel in New York at which a mutual friend was present with Dr. Funk and myself. The psychic was a private person of good standing. The communicator was Thompson Jay Hudson and he answered a question of Dr. Funk's involving a private matter that passed between the two men and that none of us but Dr. Funk knew. To have gotten the name of Hudson at this juncture would have been a most excellent piece of evidence. But he failed at this time and later alluding to the matter again referred to a "man across the water." The other person present on the occasion was a man from England. Later he got the name Thompson through and thus cleared up his original intention and made the evidence excellent.

 But in the same sitting he alluded to another incident of some interest which had been a very funny one. Professor Shaler had tried to communicate with me and got into serious trouble in the effort. His getting free was a very funny incident. Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about it. Dr. Funk was told it by me, because it was an incident he would enjoy and because it threw light on the difficulties of communicating. He here referred to him and the incident. It was better evidence of supernormal knowledge than it was of personal identity, though it had some features, as remarked, of this.

 He did not appear again until July 11th and even then only an incident or two has special pertinence. He was referred to by the control as interested in "the Enigma of Existence" and I was asked at once if I saw "the semblance of the title" and when I assented, the statement came: "I thought you did. The Sphinx has spoken." He was then said to have known the Bible "from beginning to end." This last was perfectly true and not known by the psychic. The reference to the Sphinx and to the "Enigma of Existence" and the semblance of the title was evidently a reminder of the title to his book called "The Psychic Riddle," which Mrs. Chenoweth did not know.

Dr. Funk did not appear again until February 9th, 1917, when he appeared with Henry Ward Beecher again. I had been occupied in the meantime with another matter. Mr. Beecher did not reveal his identity, and my question brought Dr. Funk to the fore. He indicated who was with him, but only after he had made the following communication.

 I want to speak of a bronze piece.

(Describe it.)

[A circle was drawn.] Medallion. Did I try to tell you something of a medal when I was here before? It is a medallion made of bronze with repousse figures. Much interest to me. I thought I wrote about it before.

(I do not recall it. Did it have a special name?)

What did you do to my old friend Henry Ward? [I had received the previous communication from Mr. Beecher with much indifference, as he did not identify himself and I was anxious to have something else.]

(Do you know?)

Gave him a chilling greeting. He is smiling here and says he thinks you would have no use for the Angel Gabriel, if you had an engagement with Jack Jones to give evidence.

To return to H. W. B. [Beecher.] This was an occasion earlier than this one to­day and he also tried to make connections at another place. You know Lee, not here, but another place, another light.

(I don't know anything about it.)

Do not be too hasty for this is sometime ago, and I was there too.

 I did not recognize what was meant by the allusion to the "bronze medal," and inquiry showed that he had no such thing so far as the son

knew. But the sequel showed that he meant the "Widow's Mite" which was of bronze, and the mental picture by which the message was transmitted involved a mistake by the control in the interpretation of the picture, taking the picture of this small coin as that of a "bronze medal."

The reference to Mrs. Lee was very striking, as the sequel proved it to be. Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about her. I had never mentioned the lady or her work to Mrs. Chenoweth, and I did not know what the reference here meant. I wrote to her at once to know if she had any photograph of either Mr. Beecher or Dr. Funk among those she had taken. She replied that she had one of Mr. Beecher taken sometime previously, but none of Dr. Funk, so far as she knew. She sent me the picture and no one whatever would question the identity of the man in it. It is an excellent photograph of him. It claims to be a spirit photograph and Mrs. Chenoweth could not know about the fact. I was familiar with Mrs. Lee's work, and published some of it in the "Proceedings," of which Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing, but did not myself know about this photograph of Mr. Beecher.

 Dr. Funk did not appear again until February 12th, 1917. He began characteristically with a quotation from 1st Thessalonians, but without definite meaning that can now be determined. He then went on to say that he thought the sacred books of the East might be studied with advantage to psychic research. But he accompanied the statement with the remark that "precepts" had accompanied the giving of "performances" and noted that Christ accompanied his precepts by "miracles." The importance of this statement is not its truth, which any one may know, but its special relevance to Dr. Funk whose saturation with biblical ideas was not known to Mrs. Chenoweth.

 He followed this by a long statement of the process of communicating, which, though it is not evidential taken by itself, so conforms to what I have observed in the facts generally, that it deserves quoting. He had been preceded by Imperator or some such personality and wanted to take up the work of giving a special message prepared before death.

It is not to disconnect myself from that task, but to relate myself to it by saturating the subliminal mind, which merely means the more active mind of the light, of saturating that with my own personal feelings until I recall the past as a past, as a part of myself, and not as a detached piece of information, which seems so foreign as to challenge question in my own mind, and thus create active mind currents which tend to produce several sorts of evidence and make for incorrect statements.

One thing that friends who have tried to understand the working of this power have overlooked is that the sleeping light may be sleeping physically and have awakened more active brain currents than when in actual physical conscious contact with the present friend, and so it is not enough to be sure of the sleeping state. There must be a flowing in of other currents of knowledge in sufficient power, force if you will, to push out the remaining elements of the remaining inhabitant.

It is plain to me that it takes time and experience to do this, and that even when it is done for one, as it is sometimes by a guide like Imperator etc., that guide will also leave somewhat of himself, which in turn must Le pushed out, so when a man like Professor James or Frank Podmore or like myself begins to reason and argue and preach, you may know lie is taking possession for future work of some more minute and definite import.

(I understand.)

It is for this reason, I believe, that the familiar guide has been employed in the usual work, and I can understand it as never before, and the less that familiar guide has of preconceived ideas of the methods of life and general activities, the more free it is to express without bias or prejudice the truthful picturing or imagery given by the outside and disconnected spirit.

(Is a guide always connected with a message?)

No, unless you call any one who is able to transmit a message.

(I meant to ask if a spirit always had the help of another when giving a message.)

Do you mean here at this light?

(Yes.) [I really meant anywhere, but would not divert the thought.]

 Yes, because this is a very carefully ordered and organized work. But, for instance, in my own case now, I am alone in this effort to write and retain my will to recall, but as I took control I was helped by those who watch the process, and if I had imparted to my wife or mother, or some other, the exact words I wished to write, they would prompt me, but I night then be subject to imperfect hearing or seeing while in the act of controlling, and I preferred to play the part which the familiar guide plays, and that is what Imperator tries to do in all the cases where he is interested. That is why we always get into writing conversationally.

 The interesting psychological point of this message, in its reference to saturating the medium with his own personality, in order to transmit a specific message, is that, as Mrs. Chenoweth came out of the trance, in the subliminal stage, she thought size was a man, and repudiated the idea with some vigor.

The whole picture is clear for those familiar psychologically with the work of Mrs. Chenoweth, though the passage is fragmentary and tinged with her own terminology now and then. It is this. The public thinks that the trance is important in securing messages because people suppose that all mental activity is suspended in the trance and that whatever comes in that state is the pure and unadulterated thought of the communicator. This is an illusion and the communicator is here correcting it. The subliminal is as active in the trance as the normal consciousness out of it, and may even be enhanced in its powers according to the communicator. As long as that is not in rapport with the spirit or transcendental world, we would get only products of the subliminal, even though it was actually stimulated from without. But put it in rapport with the spiritual world and transmit to the "dreaming consciousness," to use Mrs. Sidgwick's terms, the thoughts of the communicator, and you will have at least the mingled or interfused thoughts of communicator and subconscious. To purify the message the communicator must inhibit the subliminal stream of the medium or so saturate it with his own personality and thoughts as to get their expression in the writing or speech of the medium instead of its own current of thought. It seems also that it is necessary to eliminate the impressions left on the mind of the medium by some previous communicator. I have seen many evidences of this, but cannot quote them here. They are analogous to the changes of thought in a mind without knowing that a change of stimulus has taken place. That is, a line of thought in one direction serves to hamper a change of it to another line.

 At the next sitting, February 13th, he mentioned his brother Benjamin by name and then referred first to Brooklyn as his New York home and immediately to the New Jersey home, using the expression "N. J. home, Mountain View," and explaining that it was the same as "Montclair," as I first read the word "Mountain." These were wholly unknown to Mrs. Chenoweth, as he spent only a few years there at the end of his life.

 After a few general allusions to his long study of the subject, he said he had some manuscripts of value and many old photographs of friends and added that his "family was never much on having likenesses taken." Inquiry shows that he had some important manuscripts and that the mother was averse to having her picture taken, as the son thinks. He then went on in a confused message to say that he had "two places where he could keep things" and said he was not referring to his office. But he mentioned some "paraphernalia" which he described as relics of his experiments and the tricks that mediums tried to play on him. The son does not recall any such inner room, but I was once taken to an inner room in his office where he had kept a number of just such relics of mediumistic performances and we examined them quite carefully.