Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

122While Sharp was talking, Henry (my brother-in-law) was speaking to me, first on my leftside, then on my right side; and sometimes I could hear him talking to Sharp.This was my last interview, on this visit, with my friends through the mediumship of Mrs. Wriedt.She was sitting about two feet on my right. At the end of the seance she put both of her hands intomy right hand; and while I was talking to her I was struck on the head, left arm, and left breast bythe trumpet, which was then thrown into the corner of the room behind her, where it fell to pieces.I have, in these pages, related all that it is possible publicly to record about my interviewswith my relatives and friends through Mrs. Wriedt. The psychic was never in trance, and I cannotrecall one single circumstance which led me to form any suspicion as to her integrity, though I wason the alert throughout. In that quiet room at Detroit I have heard, through the trumpet, thesounds of expression of nearly every human emotion except anger. Laughter, sighs, and utterancesof disappointment were common. I have heard three voices talking at once, one in each ear and onethrough the trumpet; sometimes two in the trumpet. Dr. Sharp, being the most efficient speaker,would occasionally give a message for one of my visitors; and, if it were not accurately rendered, Icould hear him being corrected: “No, no! I did not say that! I said ……” Then Sharp wouldcorrect himself to me, and say: “I made a mistake; what he wanted me to tell you was so-and-so.”The regrets of the spirits at not being able to make themselves heard or understood were pathetic:“Oh, dear! why cannot I make him hear?” or, “No, no; I did not mean that! “—these and similarexclamations were common. Taking it altogether, I have never been present at such realisticseances; in fact, I often forgot that I was conversing with those whom we ignorantly speak of as“the dead.”Mr. A. W. KAISER.There is another trumpet medium (besides Mrs. Wriedt), who has been five years in Detroit—A.W. Kaiser, then living at 125 Alfred Street. He was thirty-three years of age. No etherealisationsoccur in his presence but the direct voice is nearly as good as at Mrs. Wriedt’s. I propose now torelate all I have in my notes respecting phenomena that occurred when I sat with him in 1909. Hereceived his clients in a bedroom, and sat in the dark some three feet from them; the trumpet isgenerally standing on the floor between, or a little on one side of a line joining the two people. Fiveminutes or so are occupied, on sitting down, with music evolved out of an ordinary musical-box.January 9, 4 to 4.50 p.m. Atmospheric conditions not good; snowing.The first spirit to come was my brother-in-law, who called himself “ Harry,” as he didoccasionally at Mrs. Wriedt’s. He said, “Iola is here with me.” Then came a Dr. Kurgan. He said hedid not know me, but knew Mr. Hodges. He had lived in Detroit, and passed out not long ago inCalifornia; it was his wish that I should tell Mr. Hodges.(I told Mr. Hodges, and he said the story was true. There would not be much in this if itwere not that I had satisfied myself that the voice was not the voice ofthe psychic.)Next came Iola, but she gave very little information; and then my mother, who stopped onlyto say a few words. After her departure a spirit called “Tim,” one of the habitués of Jonson’scabinet, announced himself, and spoke for a few seconds. He said he had seen me at a dark seanceat Jonson ‘s. (This is correct; it was on January 4.)Q.: “Who was that tall woman at Jonson’s whom we called ‘Cleopatra’?”A.: “A great spirit from a high sphere.”Tim was followed by Dr. Jenkins, the psychic’s control. He has a strong, clear voice, notresembling that of Mr. Kaiser. I had a little talk with himQ.: “Please tell me, Dr. Jenkins, what it means when I am told that a spirit is in the sixthsphere and the seventh realm.”A.: “The spheres are divided up into realms, seven in number.”Q.: “Cases are numerous of a man and his wife being in very different conditions ofspiritual development here on the earth-plane, though much attached to each other. If they are indifferent spheres, or realms, in spirit life, would they be able to live together?”