The New York herald., 1922-02-18
MRS. CARUS0 KEEN
ON SPIRITUALISM
Impressed by Weird Power Of
Youth Who Talks ChOctaw
When in a Trance.

Reports that Mrs. Enrico Caruso has
developed an interest in spiritualism
were confirmed yesterday by Mrs.
Caruso. who said she had been to a
number of seances, and was in fact at
that moment planning to attend a spe-
cial demonstration by Prof. Reese at the
Institute for Psychical Research at 40
West Fifty-seventh street tonight.
Her enrolment In the small group OF
prominent society and stage people who
have been attending various seances has
in the main been due to her friendship
with Janet Beecher, the actress, who has
had several demonstrations at her home.
II am not seeking any messages from
the dead" Mrs. Caruso said, but / have
become tremendously interested in the
subject in purely an impersonal man
ner. / witnessed a remarkable exhibit
ton once by a young man who is a
protege of DR.. Hereward Darlington. and
1 think. perhaps. that is responsible for
my interest in the subject"
Mrs. Caruso could not remember the
name of the young man, but she de-
scribed him as a rather sickly looking
youth of about 90, whose manner of
u
iarly weird feeling" compounded partly
Of interest and partly of repugnance. He
sat uprigh. In a chair and when ap-
preaching a trance his eyes rolled back
ward in their sockets, his body became
rigid and jerky and he talked in Choc-
taw Indian. Sometimes he assumed the
identity Of ''Whitecloud," and at other
times he was Lolita" a little Indian
girl
Mrs. Caruso laughed when she was
asked if she seriously contemplated
making a study of the invisible world"
"The first time I witnessed this dem
onstration the medium hadn't the slight
est idea who / was" she said, land he
said I see somebody asleep. and there
is chapel. and a priest and a nun. l
also see cross. Don't worry"
Mrs Caruso interpreted this TO meani
the chapel where her husband rests in
Naples, which is being taken care of by
members of a religious order. and the
cross is the small cross OF her rosary
which she had placed upon her hus-
bands body.
Mrs Caruso. however. is interested
more in the Caruso American Memorial
Foundation. for the benefit of which a
gala inaugural concert is to be given at
the New York Hippodrome on the night
of February &c under her personal di-
rection, than in spiritualism. The plan
is to raise million dollar fund to carry
on the work of teaching singers and
musicians who are unable to pay ex-
pensive instructors.
THE concert will be on the eve of Mr..
Caruso's birthday" Mrs. Caruso eX-
planned. "IIe would have been 40 years
old and II would have made him so
happy to have seen the work that he
did in a private way carried out upon
an organized scale. You have no idea
how many boys and girls he helped to
get musical education. It was one of
his pet hobbies. Now it will be taken
up nationally and America will have
one central musical fund. In almost
every town in Italy there Is such an
institution but here we have nothing"
Paul ID. Cravath is president of the
Caruso Foundation and Otto Kahn vice
president President Harding Is an hon
orary vice-president. Some OF the great
est singers are expected to appear at the
concert and there will also be notable
gathering Of box holders.