HORACE HOWARD FURNESS.

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MATERIALIZATION.

I think it would be difficult to find a psychological study more interesting than that which is afforded by a Materializing seance.  I have never attended one that did not yield abundant food for reflection, and present one problem, at least, too deep for any solution I can devise.  Although, perhaps, our first experience in such seances makes the deepest impression, yet the novelty never wears off, nor can custom stale its variety.  The audiences are never wholly the same, and every Medium has her own peculiar method.

In the cities where the Mediums reside, and where they hold their seances on regular days throughout the winter, the audiences are by no means composed only of those who go out of idle curiosity; these form but a small segment of the ‘circle,’ the majority are regular attendants, mostly those whose lives have been clouded by sorrow, and who go thither as to a church or sanctuary, and so serious and earnest is their deportment that I cannot imagine any temptation to open levity.  This unaffectedly religious character of these seances cannot fail, I think, to strike even the most indifferent.  The careful arrangement of the visitors who are to compose what is termed the ‘circle;’ the nice balancing of positive natures with negative natures, wherein the Medium is guided by her delicate spiritual insight; the quiet hush; the whispered conversation; the darkened room; the darker drapery of the mysterious Cabinet, with its untold possibilities; the subdued chords of the dim melodeon; the soothing tones of familiar hymns, in which all voices join; the words full of assurance of a deathless life, of immortal love, of reunion with earthly idols, not lost, but gone before only a very little distance, and now present and impatient for the Medium’s trance to enable them to return radiant with love and joy—­all these conspire to kindle emotions deeply religious in hearts that are breaking under blows of bereavement, and of such, as I have said, the majority of the audiences are composed.  Every effort is made by the Mediums to heighten the effect.  Before entering the Cabinet to undergo her mysterious trance, the Medium generally makes a short address, reminding the circle that this is a solemn hour, that here is the forecourt of the world beyond, thronged with living Spirits, eager to return, bearing visible, tangible assurance of immortality and of enduring love, and that the mysterious agency, whereby they return, is greatly aided by a sympathetic harmony in the circle, and so forth.  The Medium then enters the Cabinet; the curtains close; the light is lowered; the organ sounds some solemn chords, gliding into the hymn, ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee,’ which all join in singing.  At its close there is a hush of anticipation; and that nature must be unimpressionable indeed, that is not stirred when the dark, heavy folds of the curtains of the Cabinet are discerned to be tremulously moving; and, as they gently part, disclose a figure veiled from head to foot in robes of white.