SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES 347 



to examine the phenomena carefully, and to preserve the 

 medium from the injury often caused by repeated miscellan- 

 eous seances, four gentlemen secured his exclusive services 

 for a year, hiring apartments for him on a first floor in 

 Bloomsbury, and paying him a moderate salary. Mr. Hens- 

 leigh Wedgwood and Mr. Stainton Moses were two of these, 

 and they invited me to see the phenomena that occurred. It 

 was a bright summer afternoon, and everything happened in 

 the full light of day. After a little conversation, Monk, 

 who was dressed in the usual clerical black, appeared to go 

 into a trance ; then stood up a few feet in front of us, and 

 after a little while pointed to his side, saying, " Look." We 

 saw there a faint white patch on his coat on the left side. 

 This grew brighter, then seemed to flicker, and extended both 

 upwards and downwards, till very gradually it formed a 

 cloudy pillar extending from his shoulder to his feet and 

 close to his body. Then he shifted himself a little sideways, 

 the cloudy figure standing still, but appearing joined to him 

 by a cloudy band at the height at which it had first begun to 

 form. Then, after a few minutes more, Monk again said 

 " Look," and passed his hand through the connecting band, 

 severing it. He and the figure then moved away from each 

 other till they were about five or six feet apart. The figure 

 had now assumed the appearance of a thickly draped female 

 form, with arms and hands just visible. Monk looked towards 

 it and again said to us " Look," and then clapped his hands. On 

 which the figure put out her hands, clapped them as he had 

 done, and we all distinctly heard her clap following his, but 

 fainter. The figure then moved slowly back to him, grew 

 fainter and shorter, and was apparently absorbed into his body 

 as it had grown out of it. 



Of course, such a narration as this, to those who know 

 nothing of the phenomena that gradually lead up to it, seems 

 mere midsummer madness. But to those who have for years 

 obtained positive knowledge of a great variety of facts equally 

 strange, this is only the culminating point of a long series of 

 phenomena, all antecedently incredible to the people who talk 

 so confidently of the laws of nature. I will here just remark 



