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

138resumed mine, both of us pinching the canvases. At about 5.45 May Bangs was sent for to takeher proper seat, and I took the visitor’s seat. Even then she could not keep still.Some of the delay was owing to a blunder of mine. It had been arranged at Detroit that Iolawas to put round her neck a chain with locket, and that I was to put my watch on the table close tothe canvases, in order that the invisible artists might extract the gold from it. This I had done theprevious day; but to-day, at 5.30, it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten about my watch. Ithen put it down on the table.The changes in the canvas first showed by a rose-tinted light at the bottom, after the faceshad appeared on the white mottling. About 5.15 p.m. a black patch appeared right in the middle ofthe canvas, and increased in size and darkness. This is the opposite to what usually happens in theprecipitations under ordinary circumstances—the dark shade begins at the edges of the canvas.Lizzie Bangs and I watched this black shade growing till 6 p.m., when it was dark outside, and wewere told to light the room up. To my dismay, the canvas appeared blank. We asked:Shall we light the globe?” (A “wandering lead.”) Answer: “Not yet.”A few minutes later the message came to “hang the globe behind the canvases.” I did thismyself. We were soon, all three, in our places. I was told to take up my watch with one hand, andpinch the canvases with the other. At 6.5 the picture began. The face and form were finished, asthey are now, by 6.20; but there was a’ smudge on the neck, and the top of the canvas was verybadly rubbed. The background was unfinished. I remarked on this. The message came: “Cover thepicture, put out the lights, and come back later.” We covered the picture, put out the lights, and allwent downstairs to tea, after I had examined my labels on the window-sashes. In an hour wereturned, switched on the lights, uncovered the picture, and found the defects entirely removed; thebackground was evidently improved, but not finished. I was told to take away the picture, and thebackground would be finished in the hotel, or on the passage home; it would be “mottled.” Ideparted with both the canvases under my arm. The next time I saw the picture was in London, onMarch 9, and found that the background was mottled.A graphophone played while the sitting was going on. Mrs. Bangs and two dogs strayed inand out of the room. On both days everything was of the most casual description. The messagescame sometimes by impression through one of the sisters, but more often by taps on a slate. Iobtained good evidence that all these messages were true communications from the “other side.”As I was leaving the house, in order to coax the sisters into a genial frame of mind for theletter test which was to take place next morning, I put into their hands a pamphlet issued by theSociety for Psychical Research, London, in January, 1901, describing them as cheats and impostorsof the first order. I never did believe this account; and, after hearing the evidence of a certaingentleman in Chicago who knew the writer well, I am now certain the whole story is the outcome ofthe latter’s excited imagination.(100) My readers will forgive me for not disclosing the measurements and other particularsof the Bangs Sisters’ seance-room, or the nature of the chemical I took from England to prove thatthe ink used in the reply letter was the same ink as I put on or near the slates. I have good reasonsfor not doing so, in view of the statements made in an article published in The Annals of PsychicalScience, June to September, 1910.On Monday, January 30, I bought two hinged school-slates and six broad india-rubberbands. The ink to be put on the table had been purchased in England; also a chemical that wouldspeedily and effectively prove whether the ink with which the reply letter was written was my inkor not. I took with me a short letter, written in England, which contained one question; two blanksheets were enclosed for reply; all these were placed in one envelope, sealed in such a manner as todefy its being opened without detection. Thus equipped, and carrying some flowers, I attended theBangs’ house at the appointed time— 11 a.m. Lizzie Bangs did not appear till 11.45, when we sat. Ihad moved the table close up against the centre of the west wall. I placed May Bangs on the northside of the table, with directions not to move her chair close up to it, and requested Lizzie to sit in achair in the south-east corner of the room, and some four to five feet from me. I sat, with my backto the light, on the south side of the table, with my left shoulder against the west door. From thisposition I could see the hall and door into May Bangs’ house, for I threw open the north door of the