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

52clairaudiently to take up “the funny little one,” and produced a carte-de-visite of Iola at the age ofeleven years, taken nearly fifty years before. There were two of my guide in the collection.Mrs. Davis is a good clairvoyante. Twice I visited her shortly after the death of relatives.There was nothing in my dress to indicate bereavement, but on both occasions she saw Iola helpingthese people. By normal means she could not have learnt of the recent demise of either.One day on my entering her room, she said to me ; “A man called Alldridge has been herethis afternoon. He said, ‘Tell him [that is, me] I have seen East.” By no possible means couldthe woman have known normally that I had ever heard of these names. As a matter of fact, theformer was an old naval captain whom I heard of, but never seen. He died in the West countrysome months before. East had passed over many years before. He was a lieutenant, and I knewhim slightly. I had never thought of either gentleman; but both belonged to the surveying branchof the Navy, to which I was attached myself before I retired—a fact of which the medium wasignorant. Alldridge was reputed to be mediumistic ; he died at the advanced age of ninety.On April 3, 1908, I had a sitting with “Clairibelle” in York street, near Baker street,London. Her “reading,” as it is called, was not very clear. She was controlled early in the sitting; and after some descriptions, more or less true, I handed to her my packet of forty photos, in whichthere were two of Iola, and turned away. After the control had been looking at them someminutes (held in her medium’s lap), I heard one fall to the floor. I looked round, and saw that itwas one of the portraits of my guide. The clairvoyante picked it up and handled it, but saidnothing at the moment. Presently the control went on talking, and giving a somewhat loosedescription of Iola. She then tried to make a selection again, and called me to receive the sameportrait that had fallen to the floor. I told her that there was a second picture of the same spirit onher lap, and she gave me two photos, both of relatives who have the same Christian name as myguide, and who are considered to resemble her. There were more descriptions, and she came outof trance. In her normal state she tried to pick out photos, and gave me again the same picture ofIola and that of one of the relatives previously selected, and who resembled her most. The secondportrait of my guide was not found.Now, what caused that one carte to fall off the medium on to the floor ?—there was plenty ofroom on the medium’s capacious lap. Observe, the control did not recognise the significance ofthe little accident, and passed out that same picture after. Before I left the house, the medium said; “The conditions surrounding all those pictures are mixed up, as there is no paper between them.Probably the spirit threw her portrait out on the floor to separate it from the others.” In myopinion, the selection was made in this way, and it was thrown on the floor intentionally; in whichcase the phenomenon is quite as evidential as the photograph tests through Mrs. Endicott.“Clairibelle” knew nothing whatever about me, and knows nothing now.Through the Mrs. Arnold referred to in my notes on photographic tests, I have had a greatdeal of planchette-writing. Some of it is pure rubbish ; it is nearly all of a private character.Some sentences bear internal signs of guess-work by the writer ; but among the records of ourmany sittings I find abundant evidence of the presence of Iola. Mrs. Arnold knew nothing of mydeceased relatives ; there were no possible means of her acquiring such knowledge. She knewnothing of my house, into which she had never entered ; yet the writing referred to relatives whohad passed over, and alluded to assistance given them by Iola, who, from the first, signed her fullearthly Christian names and surname. Allusions, also, were made to my house, which werecorrect. I have tried to spoil many of these messages, but some I cannot ; they were so obviouslyspontaneous and unexpected. For instance, I asked one day ; “Can you tell me whose portraits arethose on either side of the fireplace in my dressing-room ?” The reply was quite clear ; “Mine andthat of your wife.” (Correct.) “And who is between them ?” “Father.” (Correct.) I havenumerous relatives, near and distant ; I cannot see any reason why so exact a reply should havebeen given, unless the spirit impressing the medium had actually seen the room and the pictures.Another time the spirit gave an answer which implied a knowledge of what my library containedand how articles were placed. On another she impressed the psychic to write out a foreignname—a most unusual one—that of a particular friend of hers when she was in earth life. My