The Funny Side of Physic Part 62

As a person may look towards an object, as out of the window towards a tree, and not see it till his mind is directed to it, so, on the other hand, he may have his mind (thoughts) directed to a thing that his eyes cannot see, and in a person whose superior brain is susceptible, it maybe reflected so vividly as to permit a description of the object.

One may walk over a stream, upon stones, or ground, and not realize the fact till the mind is directed to it; and the thing may be reversed, and a susceptible person may be led to think that he or she is walking over or through water when none is present. The mind must be directed to an object in order to see it mentally.

A gentleman recently told me that a "medium brought up his old grandmother."

"How did she describe the old lady as appearing?" I asked.

"In woollen dress and poke bonnet, with specs on, just as she used to appear when I was a boy, forty years ago."

"I should have thought the fashions would have changed in the unseen world, even if the clothes had not worn out in forty years' service," I suggested.

This slightly staggered him, but he replied, "Perhaps fashions do not change in the spirit-world."

"Then ladies can never be happy there. Besides, what a jolly, comical set they must be down there; the newer fashions appearing hourly in beautiful contrast with the ancient styles; especially the janty, little, precious morsels called hats of to-day, all covered with magnificent ribbons, and flowers, and laces, in contrast with the great ark-like, sombre poke bonnets of forty and a hundred years ago!"

"Sir," I said, when he did not reply to this last poser,--"Sir, bring your stock of common sense to bear upon the matter, and see that the mind of the medium controlled yours, and led you to believe you saw, as the medium did, through your thoughts, your ancient grandmother; for how else would you imagine her, but as you remembered her, in woollen gown, poke bonnet, and spectacles."

VISITS TO A CLAIRVOYANT.

Twenty-five years ago, I visited Madam Young, in Ellsworth, Me.

"You are going a journey," she soon said, after I was seated, and she had examined my "b.u.mps" to learn that I was a rolling stone. "You are going south-west from here." "Marvellous!" one might say, who had little reflective qualities of brain, for that was the very thing I was about to do. But from Ellsworth, Maine, which way else could one go, without going "south-west," unless he really went to the "jumping-off place, away down east?"

Again I visited her in Charleston, S. C.

"You are going a journey soon," she informed me.

"Which way?" I amusingly inquired.

"Towards the north," was the necessary reply.

Charleston is at the extremity of a neck of land. I was not expected to jump off into the bay, by going southward, and her answer was the only rational one. She would minutely describe any person, "good, bad, or indifferent," whom I would fix my mind upon. I was suffering at the time with bronchitis, which she correctly stated. She was the best clairvoyant I have ever tested. She died at Hartford, in 1862.

The following item of the press does not refer to Madam Young:--

A clairvoyant doctor of Hartford proclaims his superiority over other seers on the ground that he "foretells the past and present as well as the future." We should say he would probably "foretell" them much better. As the Irishman said, one gets on better when one goes backward or stands still.

I noticed his advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Providence paper, recently, where "Dr.

---- foretold the past, present, and future."

A NIGHT IN THE PEn.o.bSCOT MOUNTAINS.

At Castine I heard of an old lady residing high up in the Pen.o.bscot mountains, who could magnetize a sore or a painful limb at sight. Such marvellous stories were told of her "charming," that I decided to go over the mountain and see her. She was not a "professional," however, and objected to being made too public. Therefore I made an excuse for calling at the house "on my way afoot across the country," and was cordially received by the family, of whom there were four generations residing under one roof. The house was a story and half brown cottage, large on the ground, and surrounded by numerous out-houses and barns. The view from the western slope of the mountain where she lived was most magnificent. I reached the farm before sunset. Here I lingered to overlook the beautiful Pen.o.bscot as it flowed at my feet, and the far-off islands of the sea.

Here one could "gaze and never tire," out over the grand old forests, down to the sea-side, and upon countless little white specks, the whitened sails of the fishermen and coasting vessels, with an occasional ship or steamboat flitting up and down the n.o.ble Pen.o.bscot river and bay. Still above me the eagle built her nest in the rocking pines, on the mountain top, and still far below sung the nightingale and wheeled the hungry osprey in his belated piscatorial occupations.

The sun sank behind the western hills, tinging the soft, fleecy clouds with its golden glory. Slowly changing from purple and gold to faint yellow, to dark blue, the clouds gradually a.s.sumed the night hue, and sombre shadows crept adown the western mountains' sides, flinging their dark mantle over the waters, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. The st.u.r.dy farmer has shouldered his scythe, and reluctantly he leaves the half-mown lot to seek his evening repast at the family table. Then he discovers me, leaning over the gate-bar, rapt in dreamy forgetfulness, and with a hearty salutation extends to me the hospitality, so proverbially cordial, of the old New England farmer. He shows me his pigs in the pen, and his "stock" in the barn-yard, and reaching the house, he calls "mother," who, appearing in calico and homespun, though with a cheerful and smiling face, is introduced to me as his wife. "A stranger, belated, and I guess pretty tired-like, climbing up here; and I won't take no excuses from him; so he stays with us to-night."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHARMER DIVULGES HER SECRET.]

I talk with the lady, I play with the babies, I even toy with Towser and Tabby, till tea is set. Now I am introduced to the old lady. I thought I would get to it at last. She was seventy odd years of age, a deaf, but devout old lady, who was easily wheedled into divulging to me her secret of "charming." She told me she had the "rheumatiz," and by my tender sympathies and a roll of plaster for her lame back, I got into her own room before bed-time. O, but I came out soon after! She was very deaf.

"You see," said she, "a woman can't learn it to another woman--only to a male. He must be a _good_ man." I nodded a.s.sent. "Yes; well, you must have faith." Again I nodded--she was very deaf. "You must touch the painful part and say--" Here she bent down her lips to my ear and whispered something in seven words which she said I must never tell, and she compelled me to promise never to divulge the secret while I lived, under pain of G.o.d's great displeasure.

Perhaps I had better keep my promise, though the good old lady has long since "gone to her reward."

CUI BONO?

The question is repeated every time there is a great robbery or a murder committed,--

"Why do not the clairvoyants tell who has committed this crime?"

Simply because those who consult them do not know. If a person knew where the stolen property was secreted, and he consulted a true clairvoyant, he or she _might_ describe the property and the place where it is secreted.

Not otherwise. The same with the murderer. Therefore, of what good is it?

In order to do justice to this subject, to present and explain it in all its various phases, we would require a volume, instead of the s.p.a.ce allotted in this chapter. But whatever name one may apply to it,--animal magnetism, Mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiritual or trance mediumship,--its success depends mostly upon the credulity of the person.

During the five days preceding May 15, 1869, a reporter of the Boston Post visited seventeen of these clairvoyants, mediums, etc., and some curious facts and startling contradictions were revealed therein.

"Putting it together," he says, "and carefully epitomizing the amount of fortune that we have in this way been able to purchase, we present our readers with the following balance sheet:" and this, he says, is from the "most experienced and trustworthy fortune-tellers in the good city of Boston, where everything like _humbug_ is most scrupulously avoided.

"Four times we have been told that we were engaged in no business at all, and as many more that our affairs and prospects were never more flourishing. Repeatedly we have been told that we should speedily change our business and abode. On the other hand, we were destined to be a fixture in Boston, and were so well satisfied with our present calling that we should never change. We are not married, but a great many pretty maidens stood ready to help us out of that difficulty." Again, "we were married, and the father of several roguish boys and bright-eyed girls.

Thus far in life we had enjoyed good health, were free from all infirmities, and stood a good chance to reach fourscore and ten."

"In less than twenty-four hours this sweet hope was buried, and we were advised that death would overtake us suddenly and soon."

There are various grades of clairvoyants, as of everything else. Here is one cla.s.s.

"After ascending a rickety, dirty, greasy stairway, you find the madam quartered in a small, square bedroom, poorly and miserably furnished. The room is dirty, dark, and dingy. Portions of the walls are covered with a cheap and quaint paper, patched, here and there, with some of another figure and quality. Pictures of a cheap cla.s.s are hanging on two sides of the room,--of Columbus, Webster, and three or four love and courtship scenes in France and Germany. The furniture consists of a cheap bed, a dilapidated parlor cooking-stove, a small pine table, three common chairs, and a rocking-chair, cane-bottomed, a big box, covered with a remnant of the national flag, and a few cheap mantel ornaments.

"The madam is a woman under thirty, very stoutly built, weighs one hundred and sixty pounds, has quite fair complexion, with pretty blue eyes, light hair, and withal not bad-looking. She was attired in a loose and rather soiled calico dress, wore no ornaments, and looked rather uninviting."

A BON TON CLAIRVOYANT.

The writer visited a special seance at one of the most aristocratic and _recherche_ abodes of the marvellous in this city, not long since. I was ushered into the brilliantly lighted hall by a janty-looking little biddy in white and embroidered ap.r.o.n. That was all I saw of her, as she disappeared and was subst.i.tuted by the lady of the house, the medium. She was a pretty, pleasant little lady, with brilliant, dancing, light eyes, hair golden brown, and was dressed in a black silk dress, with blue overskirt, a rich lace collar, and flowing sleeves of the same material.

Depositing hat, coat, and cane on the hall rack, I was introduced to the a.s.sembled guests in the great parlors. These rooms were united by a wide, open archway, were high, and brilliantly lighted by rich chandeliers in each room. An elegant piano occupied the west side of the front parlor, upon which was a pile of the latest music. The furniture was of black walnut, and richly upholstered in green and gold rep. The mantel was adorned with vases of porcelain, images of marble and terra-cotta, and little knickknacks of foreign production. The walls were hung with a few of Prang's chromos, oil paintings, and two "spirit" photographs. The most beautiful, as well as the most remarkable, feature of the rooms was the magnificent bouquets of native hot-house flowers, which covered the two marble-topped centre-tables and sideboard. These were presents to the spirits! They did not take them away; the only one I saw removed was knocked over by a careless elbow. I regret to add, that there was no "manifestation," nor anything revealed, worth recording.

A BOUNCER.

A scene that occurred at another place where I previously visited may be considered worthy of notice. I clambered two flights of stairs, and found myself face to face with a very large woman, answering to the alias of Madam ----. She was very fleshy, weighing probably two hundred and thirty-five pounds avoirdupois. Her face was pleasant, and conversation easy. I handing over the required "picture paper," she tumbled into a great easy-chair, and, without any pretence to a trance, began,--

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I PERCEIVE YOU ARE IN LOVE."]

"I perceive that you are in love." This was startling news to a bachelor.