“The stronghold of the SpiritualistSociety of Great Britain is a large house at 33 Belgrave Square, whose busycounter, where appointments are made, fees paid, and pamphlets bought,resembles the desk of a good small hotel with a clientele of middle-aged ladies. It is possible to attend individual sessions, sittings for privategroups, and, for a nominal sum, public meetings, some of them double-headers --two spiritualists for the price of one. (Theseare usually scheduled for one evening during each week; phone BEL 3351).
How effective any one spiritualistappears to be depends, as it does in any religion, on one’s willingness to beconvinced. A random shot may strike avulnerable spot, and the eager responses will give an astute professional muchto work with. For one observer, ready tofall into devotion, it will be an uncanny, shaking experience; for another, ademonstration of observation. All thepractitoners shed an atmosphere of optimism, leaving the whole group,particularly those selected for a “message,” with a promise of better things tocome. One practitioner does it with herattractive, mobile face, deep-set, glowing eyes, and large, restlessmovements., exuding a sense of energetic well-being that is of itself an advertisement for the health-givingproperties of spiritualism. Another, alarge confident lady, stands as Pallas Athena: stolid wisdom and massive power. All of them, no matter what their strengths, add to that the strength ofprayer and assurance, constantly reiterated, that loved ones “who have gonebeyond” (“death” is a word that is never used ) are standing by and always willbe, with support and love. “
The two plates show the before and after photographs of one of Zollner's [1] experiments demonstrating the movement of objects by unknown means.
A Spirit Photograph of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle purporting to show the spirit of his son, Kingsley, who was killed in World War I.
Note: The text here is excerpted from Kate Simon's "uncommon guidebook" entitled "Kate Simon's London Places and Pleasures" (G.P. Putnam's & Sons, New York, 1968). Ms. Simon, who passed away in 1990, was a wonderful travel writer. It doesn't matter whether specific pieces of information in her books are now "out of date;" good books are never "out of date."
Several years ago, after 55 years of residence at 33 Belgrave Square, the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain relocated to 11 Belgrave Road, London, near Victoria Station. The upkeep costs on an 175-year old mansion which they did not own in one of London's grandest locations simply proved to be too high, and prudently and hopefully these seers, heirs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other British spiritualists whose exploits and fervor light the imagination, made plans for the long future.
[1] From Johann Carl Friederich Zollner: Transcendental Physics: An Account of Experimental Investigations From The Scientific Treatises of Johann Carl Friederich Zollner, Leipzig, 1882. Zollner (1834–1882), a Professor of Astrophysics at Leipzig, embarked on his study of spiritualism after becoming interested in the fourth dimension of space and meeting William Crookes in 1875 (to whom this book is dedicated). This book describes experiments he performed in 1877 with Henry Slade, an American medium. On the run from the authorities in England after being convicted of fraud, Slade convinced Zollner and his fellow séance participants (all respected German scientists) of his skills through the appearance of handwriting on slates, moving of objects and clairvoyance. Zollner believed that these supernatural phenomena were caused by either Slade or spirits working in the fourth dimension. He backed up his claims through reference to work undertaken on geometrical axioms and the fourth dimension by Hermann von Helmholtz. Zollner's work caused the first major controversy in modern German occultism. Significantly, the issues it raised surrounding imagination and the fourth dimension attracted the attention of figures such as Henri Poincare and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
No comments:
Post a Comment