Signs of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 18. (5/5/1909)

Signs of the Times

May 5, 1909

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 5, 1909

Question Corner

[To our Inquirers,—(1) The name and address of all who ask questions must accompany questions, not necessarily for publication, in token of good faith, and that we may reply by letter, if thought best. All communications will be considered confidential if so desired, and no name will be published unless requested. But we have no time to give to anonymous or unsigned epistles or articles. (2) Let the questions be to the point. Do not say, “Explain Josh. 7:1-8,” but state the thing upon which help is desired. (3) Questions can not be answered immediately in this department. Sometimes it will mean a month or more of waiting. We can not reply to the same question frequently. Read answers to other questions; you may find reply to yours. (4) Members of the Bible Band will kindly enclose stamp if answer is desired by letter. Others will please enclose ten cents. This does not begin to meet expenses oftentimes. (5) “Foolish . . . questions avoid.”]

2831.—Judas Maccabaeus.

Who was Judas Maccabaeus? And are the books of the Maccabees a part of Scripture? G. D.

The Maccabees are sometimes called Hasmoneans, and sometimes Asmoneans, from Hashmon, the great-grandfather of Mattathias. But the family received their name from the title given to Judas, the second son of Mattathias. He was called Judas Maccabaeus, that is, Judas the Hammerer, because of his vigorous assaults upon the Syrians. The title gradually included all the members of the family of Mattathias and their descendants. The family came into leadership against the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to force Greek worship upon the Jews in the years 175 to 164 B.C. The revolt arose in the little town of Modin where Mattathias and his five sons were living. The idolatrous altar was overturned, and Mattathias and his five sons were forced to flee to the mountains. In the year 167 the leadership was committed to Judas, and under the loyal Jews who supported him, he won victory after victory, and in three years afterward restored the temple worship. Then he began to fight for political independence and at last fell in the battle of Eleasa in the year 161. His brother Jonathan succeeded him. They were in a way kings, and yet later more or less dependent upon Rome. The books of the Maccabees relate the history of those times. They are not considered as inspired Scriptures. In one place prayer for the dead is spoken of, but even the translation of this is questionable. They were doubtless brave, loyal men; especially was this true of Judas; but they are in no wise guides for us in theology, nor are the writings to be taken as inspired Scripture.

2832.—Cruelty to Children.

Please give some light on the following scriptures: Num. 31:13; 2 Kings 10, the orders of Moses and cruelty to children. READER OF THE “SIGNS.”

It would help us very much to understand these if we would take into account the conditions that existed when Moses gave these orders. Midian had planned to destroy a nation. They had done this under the teaching of Balaam who sold himself for hire. The nation of Midian itself had gotten to that place where it was tending to evil, and only evil. Had it been allowed to continue the children and all connected with it would have not only gone to destruction themselves, but would have brought others into the world doomed to destruction. And if they had been allowed to work their arts upon Israel unrebuked, both Israel and Midian would have gone to utter destruction. God in His wisdom saw that it was necessary to bring a check to that wickedness, and He did so summarily. Surely, it was mercy to those who were slain to be slain then in their innocence, many of them, rather than to go on in unmitigated, highhanded wickedness, bringing others into the same conditions. It is better sometimes to cut off an arm or a leg than to lose a life. Moses did not act on his own initiative. God directed him as to what to do, and certainly we can see wisdom in the directions given. We need not necessarily believe, however, that God was in all the work that the overzealous Jehu did, altho the worshipers of Baal were doubtless worthy of all they received. For they, too, aimed at destruction. The very religion itself, Baal-worship, would even put to death the innocent as a part of its religious service. Baal-worship was destroying God's people, and all the other nations with which it was connected, and this summary punishment was brought to save nations from the sad consequences of the cruel and licentious Baal religion. It would have proved a great deal more effective in this case if Jehu himself had been faithful to God and had not turned to the worship of the calves.

2833.—The Covering.

Please explain 1 Cor. 11:5, 6. What is meant by the covering? R. J. B.

There are some things in the apostle's epistle to the Corinthians that are, as Peter declares, “hard to be understood.” While it deals with great general principles of Christianity it also has to do with local conditions in the days of the apostle. They lived in the great proud, rich city of Corinth. It was an idolatrous city; there were celebrated some of the great ancient games, and there also were found the shrines of the most polluting idolatry. Their idolatrous women went to all kinds of excesses, and there was the tendency, of course, that the women among God's children should do the same thing. Looking upon it in this light, we can see some reason why Paul should especially warn women at Corinth regarding these things. Let the women in the idolatrous world go to all kinds of unseemly extravagances in conduct, in word, in manner; but let the women professing Christ's name be modest. Let their conduct be seemly on all occasions. This perhaps will help us to understand this eleventh chapter. Every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonored her head. That is, there should be that about the very clothing of the head which would indicate modesty on her part. As the Revised Version gives it, this covering was a veil, a proper garment for this purpose. A little later on in the chapter it would seem as tho men went to something the same extreme as did women; in the wearing of long hair dressed in particular ways. For that is what is indicated. The long hair of verse fifteen is not the long hair that the Nazarites wore, but long hair that is especially dressed in fanciful style; the way that women dress their hair. And the apostle tells us that it is a dishonor; but if women have long, splendid wealth of hair it is a glory to them; that is considered perfectly proper. What the apostle is anxious to see among God's children is dignity and manliness on the part of men, and womanliness and modesty on the part of women. These are the principles which cover the whole thing. Some of the details common in the language pertaining to fashions of that day we may not fully understand. It is for us to understand the principle.

2834.—Preaching to the Dead.

Will you please explain in the Question Corner, 1 Peter 4:6? Why does Peter say that the Gospel was preached unto the dead? V. C. P.

The passage reads, including the 5th verse, “Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” Note this one simple fact in connection with the text, that it does not say that the Gospel is preached to them while they were dead; but it “was preached to them that are dead.” Not while they were literally dead was the Gospel preached to them, but before they died; when they were shut up in the prison-house of sin. It was preached to them for the same reason that it is preached now, that men might live unto God. We see no reason whatsoever to understand the text as applying to certain classes of people who had died, to whom Christ went and preached the Gospel. That is not the thought of the text. The apostle wants us to understand that the same Gospel that he was preaching then was preached to those who had formerly lived. For this Gospel was preached and the class to whom it was preached are doubtless referred to in the 3rd chapter and the 18th to 20th verses. We are told by whom Christ preached the Gospel; namely, by His Spirit; to whom He preached—those in prison; that is, those shut up in the prison-house of sin. When they lived was when they were “sometime disobedient,” “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” In harmony with this the same apostle tells us that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness.” 2 Peter 2:5. Then it was that the Gospel was preached to them that are dead, and preached to them then for the same reason that it is preached to us now.

2835.—Jacob’s Sons’ Wives.

Did the sons of Jacob have wives of what we would call Jews? Were not some of them heathens? Was not the wife of Joseph an Egyptian? W. S.

Evidently this is the case. None of these, however, may have been idolaters. It was very common in those days for the wife to have the same religion as her husband, and if she were a true, devoted wife, after the custom of those days, she probably accepted his religion. We may well believe that good, faithful missionary work was done by the sons of Israel, led by the influence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob during the time they were in the promised land. It is said of Abraham that he had 300 trained servants. Jacob’s sons’ wives may have been descendants of these. All this is pure speculation, of course; but probable. The wife of Joseph was the daughter of a priest, or a prince, in Egypt. Joseph himself may have done faithful missionary work, and for aught that we know, the priest himself may have espoused the religion of the true God.

2836.—What Baptism?

Kindly explain what baptism is referred to in 1 Cor. 10:13. R. J. B.

The text itself tells us what is meant. God wished to honor Moses as His great and mighty leader, the type of our Lord Jesus Christ. The children of Israel seemed still to be doubting him and so they went through that consecration ceremony of the whole congregation being baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. That is, they were completely swallowed up, and Moses was honored of God as His chosen leader to carry them through to the promised land.

2837.—Collections on the Sabbath Day.

Is it right to take up collections on the Sabbath for fuel, oil, janitor, church expenses, etc? F. M. L.

Personally, we see no objection to this at all, if they are taken up in the right spirit and as quietly as possible. The one great comment on the observance of the Sabbath is given in Isa. 58:13: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.” Now, all the things mentioned above are for the Lord’s house, His service, and His worship. The priests anciently offered twice as many sacrifices upon that day as they did upon ordinary days. It was on that day also that the showbread was taken away and the new showbread put in its place. It depends on the spirit and motive with which God’s work is done. We ought to be sure that the work done is for Him and done in such a way that it will glorify His name. There may be others who are conscientiously opposed to that. If so let them give their donations on week days, but let them not forget so to do.

2838.—Bible Band.—D.—Any who wish to join the Bible Band can do so by forwarding ten cents for Bible Band card and schedule for the year’s reading.

God in Nature

By Ellen G. White

By Mrs. E. G. White

“Even in their blighted state all things reveal the handiwork of the great Master Artist.”

Before the entrance of sin, not a cloud rested upon the minds of our first parents to obscure their perception of the character of God. They were perfectly conformed to the will of God. For a covering a beautiful light, the light of God, surrounded them. This clear and perfect light illuminated everything which they approached.

Nature was their lesson-book. In the Garden of Eden the existence of God was demonstrated. His attributes were revealed in the objects of nature that surrounded them. Everything upon which their eyes rested spoke to them. The invisible things of God, “even His everlasting power and divinity,” were clearly seen, being understood by the things that were made.

But while it is true that in the beginning God could be discerned in nature, it does not follow that after the fall a perfect knowledge of God was revealed in the natural world to Adam and his posterity. Nature could convey her lessons to man in his innocence. But transgression brought a blight upon the earth, and intervened between nature and nature’s God. Had Adam and Eve never disobeyed their Creator, had they remained in the path of perfect rectitude, they would have continued to learn of God through His works. But when they listened to the tempter, and sinned against God, the light of the garments of heavenly innocence departed from them. Deprived of the heavenly light, they could no longer discern the character of God in the works of His hand.

And through man’s disobedience a change was wrought in nature itself. Marred by the curse of sin, nature can bear but an imperfect testimony regarding the Creator. It can not reveal His character in its perfection.

Need of a Teacher

We need a divine Teacher. In order that the world might not remain in darkness, in eternal spiritual night, God met us in Jesus Christ. Christ is “the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God” is revealed “in the face of Jesus Christ.” The light of Christ, illuminating our understanding, and shining upon the face of nature, enables us still to read the lesson of God’s love in His created works.

The things of nature upon which we look to-day give us but a faint conception of Eden’s beauty and glory. Yet much that is beautiful remains. Nature testifies that One infinite in power, great in goodness, mercy, and love, created the earth, and filled it with life and gladness. Even in their blighted state, all things reveal the handiwork of the great Master Artist. Tho sin has marred the form and beauty of the things of nature, tho on them may be seen traces of the work of the prince of the power of the air, yet they still speak of God. In the briers, the thistles, the thorns, the tares, we may read the law of condemnation; but from the beauty of natural things, and from their wonderful adaptation to our needs and our happiness, we may learn that God still loves us, that His mercy is yet manifested to the world.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard.”

The same power that upholds nature, is working also in man. The same great laws that guide alike the star and the atom, control human life. The laws that govern the heart’s action, regulating the flow of the current of life to the body, are the laws of the mighty Intelligence that has the jurisdiction of the soul. From Him all life proceeds.

Only in harmony with Him can be found its true sphere of action. For all the objects of His creation the condition is the same,—a life sustained by receiving the life of God, a life exercised in harmony with the Creator’s will. To transgress His laws, physical, mental, or moral, is to place oneself out of harmony with the universe, to introduce discord, anarchy, ruin.

To him who learns thus to interpret its teachings, all nature becomes illuminated; the world is a lesson-book, life a school. The unity of man with nature and with God, the universal dominion of law, the results of transgression, can not fail of impressing the mind and molding the character.

Needed Lessons

These are lessons that our children need to learn. To the little child, not yet capable of learning from the printed page or of being introduced to the routine of the schoolroom, nature presents an unfailing source of instruction and delight. The heart not yet hardened by contact with evil is quick to recognize the Presence that pervades all created things. The ear as yet undulled by the world’s clamor is attentive to the Voice that speaks through nature’s utterances. And for those of older years, needing continually its silent reminders of the spiritual and eternal, nature’s teachings will be no less a source of pleasure and of instruction. As the dwellers in Eden learned from nature’s pages, as Moses discerned God’s handwriting on the Arabian plains and mountains, and the Child Jesus on the hillsides of Nazareth, so the children of to-day may learn of Him. The unseen is illustrated by the seen. On everything upon the earth, from the loftiest tree of the forest to the lichen that clings to the rock, from the boundless ocean to the tiniest shell on the shore, they may behold the image and superscription of God.

So far as possible, let the child from his earliest years be placed where this wonderful lesson-book shall be open before him. Let him behold the glorious scenes painted by the great Master Artist upon the shifting canvas of the heavens; let him become acquainted with the wonders of earth and sea; let him watch the unfolding mysteries of the changing seasons, and, in all His works, learn of the Creator.

In no other way can the foundation of a true education be so firmly and surely laid. Yet even the child, as he comes in contact with nature, will see cause for perplexity. He can not but recognize the working of antagonistic forces. It is here that nature needs an interpreter. Looking upon the evil manifest even in the natural world, all have the same sorrowful lesson to learn,—“an enemy hath done this.”

Only in the light that shines from Calvary can nature’s teaching be read aright. Through the story of Bethlehem and the Cross let it be shown how good is to conquer evil, and how every blessing that comes to us is a gift of redemption.

In brier and thorn, in thistle and tare, is represented the evil that blights and mars. In singing bird and opening blossom, in rain and sunshine, in summer breeze and gentle dew, in ten thousand objects in nature, from the oak of the forest to the violet that blossoms at its root, is seen the love that restores. And nature still speaks to us of God’s goodness.

“I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” This is the message that in the light from the Cross may be read upon all the face of nature. The heavens declare His glory, and the earth is full of His riches.

The Spirit World and a Future Life

By Geo. W. Rine

By Prof. Geo. W. Rine

IV: Marvelous Supernormal Phenomena Notwithstanding the Most Rigorous Test Conditions

Prevalence of Fraud

EVEN so ardent a friend of Spiritualism as Dr. Minot J. Savage admits, respecting spiritualistic practices, “I know perfectly well, and the Society for Psychical Research has discovered over and over again, that there is any amount of fraud.” Prof. George G. Fullerton stigmatized Spiritualism as “the melancholy spectacle of gross fraud practised upon the uncritical portion of the community.” Mr. Rupert Hughes, a journalist of note, says: “The ugliest thing about Spiritualism is the ghoulishness with which its practitioners fatten in graveyards and haunt the houses of mourning to prey upon the broken-hearted.” In short, all the eminent men who have studied spiritualistic phenomena have testified that the whole system is honeycombed with fraud. Of course, they insist that there is much in Spiritualism which is genuine. Practically all psychics who, for gain, advertise their ability to give infallible advice on social, domestic, or business matters, are simply arrant knaves.

These roguish mediums gather information in a thousand unsuspected ways. It is their business to get it; if they fail to get it they must get out of the business. They employ confederates, consult reference books, record books, family Bibles; they study epitaphs, obituary notices, marriage and birth notices, property transfers, and pick up all the gossip they can. Where the town is large enough to support several psychics, they exchange confidences, and recommend their victims to one another. This is known as “passing the sucker along.” Another mode of acquiring information is to take in a silent partner, some person with a gift for gossip, some shop or factory girl who will supply news and send in new victims. There are numberless ways of finding out a few curious facts about almost anybody, and mediums become adept in the business.

“Once your spiritual biography is written by one medium, you are doomed,” writes Mr. Rupert Hughes. He writes further: “The information is entered in the text-book and scattered broadcast. The Brotherhood of Mediums accumulated a great directory of secret information called ‘The Blue Book,’ with a section for each city. It contained 7,000 names for Boston. . . . The most facile victims are given the honorary title of D. E.—‘Dead Easy.’”

Mr. Hughes furnishes the following typical entry from the Cincinnati section of the “Blue Book” (the names being changed):

“B. B. Barker, Rich., D. E. Spirit daughter Alice E., age 19, died pneumonia ’79, upper front teeth gold-filled. Extraordinarily long hair. Quite an artist, and one of her landscapes hangs in the parlor in gilt and plush frame. Spirit painting of her in the sitting-room, that is kept curtained. She is an artist in the spirit world. Supposed to have a son in spirit that had no earth life, named Egbert O.”

“Spirit son, Egbert O., never had earth existence; an inventor in spirit life, and supposed to work through Thos. Edison. Is especially interested in electrical work.”

“Spirit father, Robert B., died ’69, paralysis. Manufacturer of machinery, two fingers off left hand.”

“Spirit mother, Sarah, died when he was a child. Spirit brothers, James and Samuel. Spirit aunts, Lucy Wilkinson, Mary Wilkinson, and Eliza Shandrow.”

A Chicago detective seized a male ghost once and found him to be a woman with whitened face. He carried away “a wagon-load of masks, wigs, false whiskers, tin horns, gowns with safety-pins, etc.” The amateur investigator, with little or no experience, confronts a medium who for years has trained himself in the production of illusions, and who knows every variety of secret catch, trap-door, slide, dummy apparatus, concealed wires, etc.

Deception and Trickery Not Always Possible

Yet searching and intelligent scrutiny of spiritualistic phenomena soon brings us to instances which mere cunning and sleight-of-hand can not explain. Professor Morgan describes a table-tipping incident that no hypothesis of trickery can account for. A spectator at this séance sneered at the “spirits.” Automatically, without contact, the table around which the “circle” was standing broke violently away from them and pinned the scoffer against the wall.

For several months Sir William Crookes enjoyed unlimited opportunity to test the source of the rappings produced through the mediumship of Katie Fox. With regard to this experience Sir William says: “With mediums generally it is necessary to sit for a formal séance before anything is heard, but in the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud

enough to be heard several rooms off. In this manner I have heard them in a living tree, on a sheet of glass, on a stretched iron wire, on a stretched membrane, on a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, on the floor of a theater. Moreover, actual contact is not always necessary; I have heard these sounds produced from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium’s hand and feet were held, when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, when she was enclosed in a wire cage, and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. . . . . With a full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been started, chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences, not produced by trickery or mechanical means.”

That all “rappings” are not produced by trickery is indubitably proved by the fact that often the psychic can not control the sounds. Dr. Maxwell assures us that his mediumistic friend produced raps in restaurants and at railway lunch counters, contrary to his own desire; and they were so loud as to attract attention and cause personal annoyance. Every one who has given any thought to the history of Spiritualism knows that there are not a few persons who are haunted, at unseemly times, by their spirit “guides.”

“On five separate occasions,” declares Sir William Crookes, “a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and one and one-half feet off the floor, under special circumstances which rendered trickery impossible.” Sir William testifies further that he has witnessed heavy tables and other articles of furniture levitated again and again, while the hands and feet of the medium were securely held, and under conditions which he had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact.

No Evidence of Fraud

Mr. D. D. Home was probably the most remarkable spiritualistic performer of the latter half of the past century. His séances were attended by the scientists and philosophers of two hemispheres, and even by the nobility and royalty. Crookes’s famous “Report” was based almost wholly upon the marvelous achievements of Home. Home never made use of a cabinet of any sort, and nearly always effected his inexplicable feats in the full light of day. Even Mr. Podmore, a member of the Research Society, who tried to explain every alleged spiritualistic phenomenon on purely natural grounds, was reluctantly constrained to admit that “with Home there is no evidence of fraud.” Mr. Carrington, who knows the tricky, shady side of Spiritualism from A to Z, admits: “So far as it is known, tho Home was under far more careful and prolonged scrutiny than any other medium, fraud was never detected at any of Home’s séances, nor was it even suspected on any occasion.”

In his well-known “Report,” the Earl of Crawford states that one evening he was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adore. During the sitting Home went into a trance and in that state he was carried out of the window of one room and brought in through the window of the adjoining room. The distance between the two windows was about eight feet, and they were seventy feet above the ground. The two noblemen heard the first window raised up, saw Home floating in the air outside, raise the second window, glide into the room, feet foremost, and sit down. Lord Adore then examined the window through which Home had been carried out. It was raised only eighteen inches, and he expressed wonder as to how Home had been carried through so narrow an aperture.

Home, still entranced, said: “I will show you,” and then with his back to the window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with the body rigid, and then returned into the room quickly and sat down. Lord Adore corroborates in writing the correctness of the account here given of this unequaled spiritualistic feat.

As Sir William Crookes has repeatedly noted, the proof for the Home phenomena, in quantity and quality, is altogether overwhelming.

Rigidly Scientific Investigation of the Psychical Powers of Medium

Eusapia Paladino, who has been called “the greatest living medium,” is an Italian peasant, and was born in 1854, near Naples. In her lowly home her powers first manifested themselves through the startling antics of furniture and bric-a-brac. Her rise to wide notoriety has been spectacular. Her psychical achievements have converted the greatest and most skeptical scientists of Europe. She has become not only the confidante of scientists, but also the protégé of Europe’s proud and exclusive nobility.

It was in 1891 that Cesare Lombroso, the eminent criminologist, consented to investigate her alleged occult powers. At that time Lombroso was openly and contemptuously skeptical of all spiritistic phenomena. A room in a local hotel was chosen by Lombroso himself in which to hold the séances. All the arrangements were entirely under his direction. A half dozen of the greatest Italian scholars were present to assist Lombroso in making the tests as searchingly severe as possible. The eminent astronomer, M. Flammarion, who was also present, says respecting the first test, that while they were standing around the table, the medium being still bound to her chair, they saw a large table which was behind them slowly advancing toward Eusapia. On seeing this strange phenomenon “occur in full light, we were all stupefied with amazement.” One of them dashed into the alcove whence came the table, under the impression that some one concealed there was producing the movement of the table by some hidden device. Their astonishment was unbounded when they found no one there, and yet under their very eyes the table continued to glide over the floor. So marvelously significant were the results of this series of sittings that Lombroso found himself constrained to believe in the reality and genuineness of spiritualistic phenomena. The weight of his authority was so great that other scientists determined to investigate the reputed powers of the now famous peasant woman. In a private home in Milan she gave a second series of séances. Every precaution was taken to obviate fraud in the medium and self-delusion in the investigators. The famous philosopher Charles Richet, of Paris, and Prince Aksakoff, Councillor of State of the Emperor of Russia, were among those who assisted in these investigations.

They succeeded in photographing levitated tables as the latter floated without support in the air. “Prints of astral [spirit?] hands were made on smoked paper prepared for the purpose; yet the medium’s hands, examined immediately, were found free of any sign of soot.” One of the investigators was Dr. Porro, the noted astronomer, director of the observatories at Genoa and at Turin. In a detailed report, he said: “The phenomena are real. They can not be explained either by fraud or by hallucination.” In May, 1907, Morselli, one of the greatest of European physicists, declared, in part: “There can no longer be any doubt as to the reality of Eusapia’s phenomena. They have now been seen by too many persons under excellent conditions of verification, with the full certainty that the medium had not her hands and feet free, and that many of the phenomena occurred at a distance which excluded all possibility of deception.” These hard-headed scholars also testify that many of Eusapia’s most startling manifestations

have been in the light of day or in the full glare of electric light. Her greatest triumphs have been in the cold, unsympathetic interiors of physical laboratories, surrounded by scientific instruments which register with the nicest exactitude every phase of her manifestations. “At last,” says Fremont Rider, “and for the first time, we would seem to have psychic phenomena brought out from the baffling obscurity of mysticism, superstition—and fraud—into the dazzling white light of purely scientific test and observation.”

Richet, still skeptical, however, invited Eusapia to his home in Paris. Here under the severest possible scrutiny in a scientific laboratory, she baffled his expert scientific knowledge and met triumphantly every test imposed. Richet made this admission: “Alone with her and Ochorowics (a noted psychologist), a man of penetrating perspicacity, I renewed my experiments in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet reflection. We thus acquired a positive proof of the reality of the facts announced at Milan.”

In the Universities

Eusapia was finally prevailed upon to enter the laboratories of the Universities of Naples and Genoa. Her sittings here were under the rigid, unsympathetic direction of Professor Bottazzi, head of the department of physics at the University of Naples. He was sneeringly skeptical of Paladino’s powers. He had scoffed at the reports of Crookes, of Lombroso, and of Richet. He compelled Eusapia to submit to having all her apparel thoroly examined before each sitting. He called in a coterie of cold-blooded scientists to assist him “in applying the screws.” Every movable thing was nailed or screwed fast to the walls of the cabinet. He compelled “John,” Eusapia’s spirit “control,” to have all his movements automatically registered upon a cylinder of smoked glass, effected by the use of a metronome and a dynamometer. Bottazzi determined to secure a graven record, so that no wiseacre could say: “O, you were all hypnotized, or were the victims of ‘collective hallucination!’”

Yet under these scientifically rigorous conditions the following supernormal wonders were observed: A great black hand and arm crept slowly out from the cabinet, and touched Bottazzi’s wife, who happened to be nearest, and then apparently dissolved into thin air. “We felt the sensation as of contact of a real hand,” Bottazzi reported, “bony, nervous, often neither hot nor cold, but sometimes hot; a hand, in fact, of flesh and bones and blood. To whom does this hand belong, which is generally encountered more than half a yard away from the medium’s head, and while her visible hands are rigorously controlled by her two neighbors?” At a subsequent sitting the same black hand appeared and grasped Bottazzi by the nape of the neck. Bottazzi felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, “with rough, bony fingers which dissolved under pressure—it dematerialized, melted.” Again, etheric (spirit) hands and fists would hover over Eusapia’s head. These ghostly hands were actually photographed. Little twirling tongues of flame often floated across the curtains of the cabinet; sometimes they appeared above Eusapia’s head. A mandolin rose automatically into the air, floated there while being played by unseen hands. A table weighing seventeen pounds, at one of these sittings, floated high in the air and turned itself over. When it had quieted down for a moment, Dr. Arullani, who was skeptical, approached the table to inspect it more closely, but the table “moved violently toward him and repulsed him.” The medium announced quietly, “I am going to break the table.” The table passed behind the curtain where it was seen to turn over on one of its short sides, while one of the legs of the table came off violently. At this point the table came violently out of the cabinet and “continued to break up under the eyes of every one present; at first its different parts were torn off, then the boards themselves went to pieces. Two legs which still remained united by a thin slip of wood floated above us and placed themselves on the séance table.” Examination showed that “the nails were torn out, the rivets and boards were broken. . . . The strength required literally to pull to pieces such a table is enormous, greater than any man could exert.” The skeptical investigators admitted their complete mystification.

But the inspired word, given us as “a lamp to our feet and light to our path,” makes all these mysteries clear, as will be seen in a subsequent article.

Continue reading: Only be strong and very courageous