Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1874-01-17

for the greater wonders to come after."
As soon as the lights were. brought in,
the table ss:sss removed and sfe medium
passed into The small room before men,
tioned-for the purpose, as We were res-
sonabiy requested to believe, of entering .
trance state. A stationary curtain was
then fas tened over the lower half of the
doorway and across the upper portion two
movable pieces OF cloth. The gas was
next turned down to a proper dimness, the
hddling began again and the circle-who
during all this time had not been permit
ted to loose hold of each others hands
was told to watch and '.see what they
could"
After an intervaio of about ten minutes
during which the fiddling was
kept up-the curtains across the
upper part of the doorway were
drawn suddenly apart and face appear
ed, for one moment, in the opening. This,
we were told, was .'Tom," !" one of the band
of spirits, which controlled the medium.-
Following this face, and at intervals Of
perhaps ten minutes, ak other faces ap-
peared In the aperture. As q general thing
each face came three times but remained
for only moment at one dmes AZ the
last one disappeared, we were told that
the seanee Was ended. In q tew moments
the medium came out. rubbing his eyes as
If just awakened from q deep Sleep. and
apparently SO thoroughly exhausted as to
be incapable of even standing up. ts
Another visit on the following evening
was but repetition Of the experience of
the first. One or two new faces appeared,
but with that exception, the two perfor-
mances were identical.
To account for these phenomena, on the
spiritual theory, we are asked to suppose
that all the playing and tom- -foolery OF the
first part of Che exhibition was done By
spirits, and that, in some accute way, the
face that appeared in the second part, had
been s.materialized' from the vitality Of
the medium, who was supposed to be In q
trance during the whole time.
To say that this nonsense isis to allow 1t
too much consideration. The entire ex-
aibition as given ON Monday and Tuesday
evenings was simply a fraud as to the
spiritual part of it and fimsy trick as to
its appearance to unbelieyers. Every
manifestation during the whole evening
was done by the selfstyled medium, Mr..
Raynor. and had we the space. it would be
an easy matter to explain the naOdus oper-
andi. Throughout the performance every
precantion was taken to prevent exposure
and every assistance given Mr.. Raynor to
carry ON his transparent fraud. Certainly
1t would require bute little trouble for
man, sitting, unbound, bysa table. upon:
which lay Instruments. to play upon those
instruments in the dark-nor for one who
is not even a medium to exhibit his own
face, changed by false whiskers and flour,
at an opening in curtain-especially
when any interruption is prevented by
the :. conditions required to be observed.
Sol Smith Russell does far greater won-
ders, aud does not claim the assistance of
spirits. either.
In conclusion, simple justice to Mr..
Gibbs requires us to say. that we believe
him to be thoroughly honest and in no way
party to the deception. But SO far as
the medium, Mr.. Raynor, is concerned, we
have no hesitation declaring himsst to be
fraud from beginning to end-so far, at
least, as these spiritual" manifestations
are concerned.