Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-20
SpiritualiStS i'm Convention
Bv Frederic j. Haskin

fiCient to make it adhere thereto. An
other is to screw two states together
and run sealing wax over the screws
Between them is placed a small piece
Of what appears to be plain chalk, but
as a matter of fact 1t is made up OF
chalk dust, glue and iron filings. A
magnet is conveniently extracted from
the sleeve of the medium, and by trac-
ing the words on the under side of the
lower slate with the magnet the iron
filing chalk follows on the upper SIDE
and writes what is wanted. Take q
magnet, a slate and a small nail, and
this can be demonstrated
One needs but to read the literature
on Spiritualism to see how nearly
every trick of the average medium
may be accomplished by mechanical
means. Even the so-called spirit pho
| tographs may nearly all be duplicated
by non-Spiritualist photographers. Yet
there are some things that cannot be
explained by natural phenomena. ID.
| D. Home was regarded as one of the
| greatest Spiritualists of the age. The
earl of Crawford relates an expert
enCe wit him, in the earps own home,
that has never yet been explained. He
and Home and his cousin. Lord Adare,
We're sitting in a room together. Sud
denly Home went into a trance and
foated out of the open window into
another room. The distance between
the windows was over seven feet. He
then made the return trip, leaving the
room while the gathered guests were
there. The windows were about sew
enty feet above ground, and no one
present believed any human being
could have accomplished the feat by
natural means.
A most remarkable instance is the
circumstantial story of two telegraph
operators in Pennsylvania. The night
operator went to the river one day for
fishing excursion. During his abb
sence the day operator heard the
| clicking of an old, disused and dis
connected key in the rear, of the Of
| flee. 1t was calling him. He thought
some one had connected it without
| his knowledge, but upon examination
| he found that there was no connection
at ALL Putting it down, he asked for
| the signature of the caller 1t was
that of the night operator. The re-
ceiving key then began to deliver its
message 1t was to the effect that
the night operator had missed his foot
| ing and fallen into the river, and that
| if the day operator would come to a
| certain clump of trees he would find
! the dead body of the drowned man. A
rescue party was quickly raised, the
spot visited and the body found exact
ly as described.
III ttiiOlllCI CdSC ~ MI IlluS, lINluS
at Lebanon. N. H., five miles from
Enfield, dreamed that she saw a
woman drown at the latter place, and
| that her body would be found under
| the bridge with only the rubber shoe
on one foot showing, it having become
entangled in the framework of the
| bridge. When the divers went to look
| for the body Miss Bertha Huse hav-
| ing disappeared the night of the
womans dream it was found that the
dream was true in every particular.
| Perhaps the most remarkable re-
corded instance of spritualistic phe-
nomena is that of Rancy Vennum, who
| lived at Watseka, Ind, in 1878. She
was seemingly a perfectly normal girl,
and her parents were not Spiritualists.
| Thirteen years before Mary Rolf. who
| had lived in that same town and whom
| Rancy Vennum could not have re-
membered died. Rancy would fall
| into frances suddenly and say the
angels were calling her One morning
she awoke and claimed to be Mary
Rolf. She did not know her own fam
lily, but sighed for her mother and ia
| ther, Mr.. and Mrs. Rolf. They came.
She recognized them as they came
down the street, though she had never
known them before. She went into
their family and lived-recalling every
incident of the life of the real Mary
Rolf and in dozen ways making 1t
appear certain that Mary Rolf had re-
turned to the flesh. Incidents that
could not have been known outside the
family were as familiar to the pseudo
Mary Rolf as if she were the real
daughter. After three months and
ten days of this sort of thing the
spirit of Mary Rolf left the body of
the girl that lived with the Roffs, and
straightway Rancy Vennum became
herself again.
But with all the trickery, charlatan-
ism and fraud that is practiced, many
scientists confidently believe that in
Spiritualism the world will yet find a
soul-satisfying proof that the dead in
deed do live, and that the grave is not
a bourne from which no traveller has
e'er returned.
Tomorrow-The National W. G. t. U.