The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-09

ing OF Mr. Bessel
How did you get this?" said Mr.
Vincent. DO You mean-?'
We got 1t last night said Dr.
Paget. With numerous Interruptions
from Mr. Vincent, he proceeded to eX-
plain how the writing had been OBJ
tained. 1t appears that in her seances
Mrs. Bullock passes into a condition Of
trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange
way under her eyelds and her body be-
coming rigid. She then begins to talk
very rapidly, usually in voices other
than her own. At the same time both
OF her hands may become active, and If
states and pencils are preceded they will
then write messages simultaneously
with and quite Independently of the
flow of words from her mouth. BY
many she is considered an even more
remarkable medium than the celebrated
Mrs. Piper. 1t was enc of these mes
sages, the one written with her left
hand, that Mr. Vincent now had before
him. 1t consisted OF eight words writ
ten disconnectedly. George Bessel....
trial eXcaVn.. Baker street. help.
starvation" Curiously enough, neither
DR.. Paget nor the two other inquirers
who We're present had heard of the
disappearance OF Mr.. Bessel-the pa
pers OF Saturday-and they had put the
! message aside with many others of a
Q
| Bullock has from time to time de-
livered.
When DIR. Paget heard Mr.. Vincent's
story he gave himself at once with
great energy to the pursuit of this
clew to the discovery of Mr.. Bessel 1t
would serve no useful purpose here to
describe the inquiries of Mr.. Vincent
and himself; suffice it that the clew
was a genuine one and that Mr.. Bessel
was actually discovered by its aid.
He was found at the bottom of a de-
tached shaft which had been sunk and
abandoned at the commencement of
| the work for the new electric railway
near Baker street station. His arm and
! leg and two ribs were broken. The
shaft is protected by boarding near
! ly 30 feet high, and over this, incredible
as it seems Mr.. Bessel. a stout, middle
aged gentleman. must have scrambled
in order to fall down the shaft. He
was saturated in COLA oil. and the
smashed tin lay beside him. but. luck
! lily, the flame had been eXtinguished
| by his fail. And his madness had
passed from him altogether, but he
was. of course. terribly enfeebled, and
at the sight of his rescuers he gave
way to hysJerical weeping.
In view of the deplorable state of his
/ fiat he was taken to the house of DR..
Hatton, in upper Baker street. Here
/ he was subjected to a sedative treat
ment. and anything that might recall
! the violent crisis through which he had
passed was carefully avoided. But on
| the second day he volunteered a state
ment.
Since that occasion Mr.. Bessel has
at several times repeated this state
ment-to myself, among other people
varying the details as the narrator of
real experiences always does, but never
/ by any chance contradicting himself in
any particular. And the statement he
makes is. in substance. as follows:
In order to understand it clearly it is
necessary to go back to his experiments
with Mr. Vincent before his remark
! able attack Mr.. Bessel's first attempts
at self-proje in his experiments
with Mr.. Vincent, were. as the reader
will remember, unsuccessful. But
through all of them he was concen-
trating all his power and will upon
! getting out of the body, willing it
with all my might" he says. At last,
almost against expectation. came sue
cess. And Mr.. Bessel asserts that he,
being alive, did actually, by an effort
| of will, leave his body and pass into
some place or state outside of this
world.
The release was. he asserts. instanta-
neous. AT one moment l was seated
my hands gripping the arms of the
chair. doing all l could to concentrate
my mind on Vincent, and then 1 per-
ceived myself outside my body-saw my
body near me, but certainly not con-
tanning me, with the hands relaxing
and the head dropping forward on
lthe breast"
Nothing shakes him in his assurance
of that release. and he describes in a
quiet, matter-of-fact way the new SEN
sation he experienced. He felt he had
become impalpable-so much he had
eXpected-but he had not expected to
find himself enormously large. So,
however, it would seem he became. 4
was a great cloud-if I may express it
that way-anchored to my body. It
| appeared to me at first as if l had
discovered a greater self, of which the
conscious being in my brain was only
a little part. saw the Albany and Pic
cadilly and Regent street and all the
rooms and places in the houses, very
minute and very bright and distinct,
spread out below me like a little city
seen from a balloon. Every now and
then vague shapes like drifting Wreaths
of smoke. made the vision a little in
distinct, but at first 1 paid little heed
to them. The thing that astonished
me most, and which astonishes me
still, is that l saw quite distinctly the
insides of the houses as well as the
streets, saw little people dining and
talking in the private houses, men and
women dining, playing billiards and
drinking in restaurants and hotels and
several places of entertainment
crammed with people. 1t was like
watching the affairs of a glass hive -
Such were Mr.. Bessers exact words
as took them down when he told me
the story Quite forgetful of Mr.. Vim
cent, he remained for a space. OBSERVING
these things. Impelied by curiosity. he
says, he stopped down, and with the
shadowy arm he found himself Dos
sessed of attempting to touch a man
walking along Vigo street. But he
could not do so, though his fingers
seemed TO pass through the man. Some
thing. prevented his doing this but
what it was he finds it hard to de-
scribe. He compares the obstacle to a
sheet of glass.
Il felt as a kitten may feel" he said
when it goes for the first time to put
its reflection in a mirror" Again and
again on the occasion when heard him
tell this story, Mr.. Bessel returned tc
that comparison of the sheet of glass
Yet it was not altogether 81 precise
comparison, because, as the reader vii
speedily see, there We're interruptions
of this generally impermeable resist.
ance, means OF getting throug the
barrier to the material world again
But naturally there is very great
difficulty in expressing these unprece-
dented impressions in the language OF
every day experience.
a thing that impressed him instant
ly, and which weighed upon hin
throughout all this experience, was the
stiffness of this place-he was in &
world without sound.
At first, AIr. BesseIs mental state
was an Unconditional wonder Hi!
thought chiefly concerned itself witt
where he might be. He was out of the