SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES 357 



of my friends present. I may state here that a few months 

 afterwards, a party of twelve gentlemen went to a seance at 

 Mrs. Ross's, determined to seize hold of the alleged spirit 

 forms, which they believed to be all confederates, and thus 

 expose the supposed imposture. It was agreed that some were 

 to seize the Indian, others to hold Mr. and Mrs. Ross, others 

 the women and children performers, while the remainder were 

 to assist when called upon and secure any " properties " they 

 could find in the cabinet. They carried out the first part of 

 their programme successfully, but notwithstanding they were 

 twelve men against two men, one woman, two boys and a little 

 girl (according to their own account), they appear to have 

 been entirely overmatched in the struggle, for they did not 

 succeed either in securing or identifying any one of them, or 

 in carrying away any of the alleged paraphernalia of im- 

 posture. They further declared, as if it were an observed 

 fact, that the assistants, young and old, entered the cabinet by 

 a sliding portion of the mop-board (or skirting, as we call it). 

 Immediately this was published in the Boston papers, Mr. 

 Brackett and some other friends of Mrs. Ross called on the 

 landlord of the house and asked him to go with them, taking 

 a carpenter with them, to see if the tenants had made any such 

 alteration as described by the would-be exposers. The exami- 

 nation was made, and it was declared that there was no such 

 opening as alleged, nor had any been made and closed up 

 again. I wrote a letter to the Banner of Light, pointing out 

 these facts, and, I urged, that the utter failure of twelve men, 

 who went for the express purpose of detecting and identifying 

 confederates, utterly failing to do so or to secure any tangible 

 evidence of their existence, is really a very strong proof that 

 there were no confederates to detect. 



To any one who has carefully studied Mr. Myers's monu- 

 mental volumes, and gives due weight to the whole of the 

 evidence he adduces for the reality of such phenomena as 

 are here narrated and what is known of the various stages 

 that lead up to them ; and considering the proof that even 

 detached hands are capable of moving material objects, it 

 will, I think, appear probable that some such result as here 



