The May 15, 1872 edition of The Spiritualist includes a long account of seances with Florence Cook, one that includes an account by Florence herself. The September 15, 1872 edition of The Spiritualist gives us an account on page 70 by Thomas Blyton dated September 9, 1872, apparently describing observations on September 4, 1872. Blyton tells us that he personally tied up Florence Cook, in knots, pouring sealing wax upon the knots to make sure they were not disturbed. Florence was put in such a state tied up in a chair inside a wooden cabinet with a viewing hole. The cabinet is described like this:
"The cabinet is fitted
into a recess in the wall, the dimensions being 7 ft. 6 ins. x
3 ft. 1 in. X 1 ft. 9 1/2 ins. ; it has two doors, 5 ft. 6 ins. high,
which, when opened, expose the whole of the interior to view.
Above the two doors is a panelling, in the centre of which is
an opening one foot square. One of the doors is fitted
with sliding bolts at the top and bottom, and the other with a
lock and key, locking from the outside."
Blyton reports seeing and hearing the phantom face of Katie King, and says it appeared for 15 minutes at the opening of the cabinet. Blyton reports touching the face, feeling cold skin. At the end of the seance, according to Blyton, the cabinet was opened, and Florence was found still tied in knots, with the wax seals still on the knots. We read this:
"I placed
sealing-wax over the three principal knots, affixing a seal in
each case, in such a manner as to render it impossible to
loosen the knots at the wrists or on the chair, without breaking the seals. Having once more fastened the doors and taken
my seat, we again sang a few verses and were delighted to
hear Katie King joining in, to which she referred by asking
us whether we did not think she was improving. In a very
short time she again appeared at the opening, this time requesting me to turn the light fully upon her. By the aid of
the powerful rays we all most eagerly scrutinised her face,
which was calm and beautiful to look upon. The complexion
was light and clear, the face full, with light grey eyes, which
had a merry twinkle in them when looking at us, and a rather
bold nose for a female. In order to enable Katie to
remain longer in full view, I then slightly shifted the light,
and she was therefore able to manifest in this most conclusive
manner for upwards of fifteen minutes. She frequently drew
back the head covering referred to, which enabled us to observe her full face, while she opened and shut her eyes, spoke
to us individually, and kissed her hand repeatedly in bidding us adieu. She looked fully at me, requesting me to observe her closely, which I did with considerable gratification.
Eventually she wished us all good night, adding most fervently, ' God bless you.' On opening the doors of the cabinet I
found the medium [Florence Cook] entranced as before, and, on her recovering
consciousness, carefully scrutinised the rope fastenings which
were perfect—in fact, as I had left them at the commencement of the second sitting. I cut the knots off with the seals,
which are now in my possession. The fastenings at the wrists were so tight as to leave a deep impress in the flesh, and
had to be cut away with a pen-knife."
We have here one of the earlier reports of the "Katie King" phenomenon that would gradually grow ever more impressive over the next two years, with there later being many reports by distinguished witnesses of this Katie King phantom walking out of the cabinet, and walking around the room, as a full-sized human form who would often talk. The
October 15, 1872 edition of
The Spiritualist gives us a very long account of this phenomenon, including accounts by various named witnesses. We read this:
"The spirit Katie King is very much like Miss Cook,
and this at-first was a great source of annoyance to the
medium, though now many other spirit faces come
bearing scarcely a trace of resemblance to Miss Cook....Katie’s face is not always the
same. Once she put it out of the cabinet as black as
ink, and shining like patent leather ; on another occasion it had a chocolate colour. Her eyes are sometimes
grey and sometimes dark. Her head is larger than that
of Miss Cook; Katie has more breadth of forehead."
I will pass over a long anonymous account from this edition of witnessing this phenomenon, in accordance with my principle that testimony by a named witness dating his or her account has far more value than any anonymous account, particularly when the account was written soon after the events described.
We do get in
this edition on page 74 a dated account by a witness who gives both her name and address. In a statement dated September 28, 1872 (a Saturday) Amelia Corner
stated this, describing events she saw "last Friday."
"About 7.30 p.m. we entered the seance-room, when Miss
Cook went immediately into the cabinet, inside of which were
a chair, two tubes, and six yards of soft rope. The doors of
the cabinet were closed and locked. The sitters were, Mr.
and Mrs. Cook, the Misses Katie and Edith (the latter, I may
remark, a most beautiful child of five years of age), Master
Donald Cook, my daughter, and myself. We had only sat
about three or four minutes, when the tubes began to be
thrown about, and we heard Miss Cook beg of Katie, her spirit friend, not to knock her about so much. Miss Cook then said
she was being tied, which process occupied about two minutes.
The doors of the cabinet were then unlocked, and we found
the medium securely tied, the rope being twice round each
wrist, secured by about half a dozen knots on each ; it was
then taken up to her neck, which was encircled by six coils of
the rope, secured not only by a knot, but a pin, which Miss
Cook wore in her collar, was taken out, and used also in
pinning the rope, which was then made fast to the back of the
chair. The knots were then sealed, and the doors again closed,
Katie asking us to sing. The medium, during this time, was
in her normal state, when the spirit Katie bid her go to sleep,
telling her she would sing her to sleep...A hand was then seen
at the opening, followed by a face—calm—beautiful, the eyes
liquid and sparkling, the lids winking in a natural manner, a
finely cut mouth, and very white teeth. On the top of the
forehead she wore a white, apparently linen, band, which also
formed her head dress. Upon our exclaiming how beautiful
she was, she acknowledged the compliment, by gracefully
bowing her head. The light was fully turned on the face,
which remained five minutes; it then seemed to gently fall on
one side and disappear.
Katie next said she would show us a very beautiful face of a
Parsee ; this appeared in the course of a few minutes. The
Parsee wore a high, white head-dress, somewhat resembling a
sugar-loaf, which was very becoming to her eastern cast of
features. She turned her head round so that we might see
her hair, and her beautifully-shaped ear. This face remained
three minutes, when Katie told us we were to give up for a
short time. The cabinet was then opened, and we found the
medium deeply entranced. As soon as the effect had gone off,
my daughter commenced to untie the knots ; with the help of
a stiletto she accomplished the task in about nine minutes."
This is quite an account, with two mysteries hard to explain: how the medium (Florence Cook) got all tied up so thoroughly, and how such phantom faces could have appeared at the cabinet opening after Florence Cook had been so thoroughly tied up. The account here is first-class evidence. We have a dated account by a named witness, an account made either one day later or eight days after the described event; the account is very soon published in a newspaper; and the witness gives not only her address but the names of other witnesses present at the same time. The account is followed on page 74
by an account dated October 7, 1872 written by Edmund D. Rogers, describing events he saw on September 29, 1872. Rogers states this:
"The seance took place in the breakfast-room, the circle consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Cook’s sister, Mr. and
Mrs. Bird (of Brixton), Miss Florrie Cook (the medium)
two younger sisters, and a brother, the servant of the house and myself...I begin then by saying that I had free access to the cabinet,
and could find nothing but solid wood in front and solid
walls behind ; and that notwithstanding that Mr. and Mrs.
Cook very courteously allowed me to do just as I like I could throughout discover not the slightest symptoms of trickery or delusion and consequently do not believe that
there were any. It should be noted too, that during the
whole of the sitting—with a slight exception to which I shall
presently refer—all the proceedings took place in the light
of a good paraffin lamp....Miss Cook took her seat in the cabinet on a small canebottomed chair, placed with its back against the side wall the
space from front to back not being deep enough to allow her
to sit in any other way. At her feet I placed a long piece of
soft rope, and having closed the doors and locked them, I put
the key in my pocket and sat down within a few feet if the
cabinet to 'watch and wait.'...Katie requested me to
unlock the doors and look at the medium. I did so and
found that she had been most elaborately bound to her chair. Each wrist was tied with a series of very beautiful knots very
like a crochet chain in appearance, but, as I afterwards found
much tighter than a crochet chain would be. From the wrists
the rope passed round the waist, and thence in a very curious
and ingenious manner round the neck in a kind of slip-knot,
so that, as I found on trial, any motion of the hands would
tighten it there, and so most effectually prevent the hands
from being employed in active use. From the neck the
rope was passed round the back of the chair, and finally tied in tight knots to the bottom ledge. I candidly
confessed that I could not have tied the medium so
securely as she had thus been tied by invisible agency.
To 'make assurance doubly sure,' I waxed the knots
sealed them with a spade guinea, locked the medium
up in her narrow prison, and resumed my seat....Sure enough there appeared at the opening at the top of
the cabinet what looked at first something like a slightly
luminous disk, but which quickly took the form of a female
face, as like as possible to any female face I ever saw in the
flesh, except that I have not often been fortunate enough to
see one so beautiful. And this face looked, smiled, nodded
and talked to us several minutes—while at Katie’s own request the light of the lamp was thrown full upon her....I sprang up
at once, and unlocked and threw open the doors, hoping to
catch a sight of Katie inside before she had finally vanished
from our physical gaze ; but she had been too quick for me.
All I found inside was Miss Cook, still in her trance, and
bound as I had left her, not a knot loosened, and not even a
seal broken. I set to work to release her, but the rope being
so soft the knots had been formed so close and tight that I
could do nothing with them with my nails, and so I had to
use my teeth to them ; and even then it took me nearly ten
minutes to set the medium free."
At the same seance Rogers reports seeing a Parsee (as did Corner), and Rogers comments how the face appeared quite different in several ways from the face of Florence Cook: "Her face was much fuller than Katie’s, her eyes were of a different colour, and
her hands were considerably smaller." We then read a letter from Earl Bird stating he was at the same seance, and that Rogers account (quoted above) is accurate. On page 75 we have an account by a Mr. Gledstanes reporting seeing similar things on October 9, 1872.
In the
October 1872 edition of
The Spiritual Magazine, pages 477 to 478, we have an account by William Howitt of making an unannounced visit to photographer Frederick Hudson, who had reported getting anomalous figures in some of his photos. Howitt did not tell his name. Howitt claims to have got from this visit "two photographs, perfect and unmistakable, of sons
of mine, who passed into the spirit-world years ago." Two other people claimed the same identification after seeing the results. Howitt says that there was no existing image of one of the sons. The topic of Hudson's photos is dealt with in the book
here, which has some interesting examples.
In
an 1873 edition of
The Spiritualist, page 118
, we have an account by Mary R. Tucker dated December 23, 1872, regarding a seance involving the medium H. C. Gordon, occurring on November 13, 1872 at 406 Fourth Avenue in New York City. She says this:
"I arrived early at his
abode, and had every facility afforded me for searching not
only the apartments but the closets attached thereto, his
trunk, sofa bedstead, and rear of the altar, which is erected
in the inner parlour, and neither masks nor habiliments for
clothing automatons nor automatic figures were there discovered....The circle, consisting of six persons, arranged themselves around a table at about eight o’clock p.m., and shortly
after the manifestations commenced. Eight spirits successively presented themselves, of whom six were recognised.
Of two only (for fear of occupying too much space) will I
especially speak : one of these was my own brother ; only his
head and face were visible ; the resemblance was perfect.
That it was neither a mask nor India rubber form, I am
ready to affirm in any court and under any prescribed oath.
The other to which I would draw attention, was the entire
figure of a lady, the only entire one I have as yet seen,
although I have attended several seances since."
In the
November 1, 1872 edition of
The Spiritualist, we have an account by Horace Heywood dated October 28, 1872, describing a seance with Florence Cook held October 15, 1872. The account is very similar to the accounts above. In the
November 15, 1872 edition of
The Spiritualist, a W. Brooks provides a statement dated November 2, 1872, describing a seance with Florence Cook on October 18, 1872. He states this:
"The marvellous manifestations which I witnessed (which I had seen mentioned in your columns) were truly
astonishing. The tying-up of the medium by unseen power
or agency is, I should think, convincing enough for almost any
sceptic, the knots of the cord being drawn so tightly, it was
with great difficulty that I was able to untie them, and I feel
quite positive that the medium could have had no hand in the
matter herself. I helped to seal the knots, and after the manifestations of the various faces, the seals were quite intact,
whereas if the medium had moved in the slightest, they must
have been broken. Previous to my visit I had heard that the spirit Katie was
so much like the medium herself, which raised doubts in some
minds, but I could not see the slightest resemblance. The
face was much smaller, and fair, with light eyes ; whereas the
medium is very dark with brown eyes. The second face was
smaller, resembling the face of a Hindoo child, about five
or six months old.
The next face of a female appeared to be about thirty years
of age, with a broad flat face, which appeared to be in pain,
but in neither of these three could I see the slightest resemblance to the medium."
A similar account is given in the
December 15, 1872 edition of
The Spiritualist, where we have a Theo. W. Taunton giving an account dated December 12, 1872, describing a seance with Florence Cook on November 30, 1872. The account is like the previous one, but with a new wrinkle involving Florence being mysteriously tied up with black tape before the appearance of the strange phantom faces. In the
January 1, 1873 edition of
The Spiritualist, we have an account of five named witnesses recording that the materialized spirit of Katie King requested a pen and paper, and wrote a short note, on December 18, 1872.
On page 56 of this edition we read a quote from the Social Review of December 18, 1872, noting how the seances of Florence Cook were receiving quite a lot of attention and also newspaper coverage:
"At the present moment Miss Florrie Cook, of Hackney,
has far outstripped her contemporaries in 'spiritual' gifts.
Skillful as Mr. [Daniel Dunglas ] Home is in the arts of levitation and elongation, he has never yet succeeded in making his spirit-friends
visible. Miss Cook undertakes to show those who visit her
the very flesh and blood of the ghostly beings who hold communion with her whilst she is in the trance state. After such
a promise our readers may imagine how Miss Cook’s house is
besieged with visitors—and how anxious her father should be
to conceal his private address. The editors of two at least of
the London daily papers have attended Miss Cook’s seances,
to say nothing of their ' specials.' The Daily Telegraph had a column and more about Miss Cook on the 10th October last.
Lords and ladies, men of science, and literary gentlemen have
been pouring in upon her abundantly, and it is not therefore
surprising that some days ago we were pleased to be among
the favoured few to whom Miss Cook is compelled to restrict
her attentions."
We then hear an account like some of the ones above: the medium being tied up, the cabinet door closed, the appearance of mysterious faces at the cabinet door's opening, and the medium being found still tied up when the cabinet doors are opened.
In
the January 1, 1873 edition of The Spiritualist, we have this very interesting report of a seance of December 14, 1872 involving Florence Cook:
"Miss Cook then went inside the cabinet, with Mr.
Holmes, and the first result was that a face which had
previously appeared could at once bear a somewhat
stronger light; it also seemed to be more buoyant, for
it several times floated up past the opening, and seemed,
to come down slowly and with difficulty. It was an
old gentleman, with a white necktie, and apparently
faded into nothing below the necktie.
Next ' Katie' appeared, with her head-dress, as at
Miss Cook’s seances. Miss Cook was then entranced,
six or eight feet from the opening, and Mr. Holmes
was a little behind her, further off still. He says he
saw something faintly luminous rising out of Miss
Cook’s body; this floated towards the opening, and, as
it neared it, he distinguished the full-length form of
Katie, connected with the medium by faintly luminous
threads, extending from and to all parts of both bodies.
When 'Katie' looked out of the cabinet, he could see
the light from the outer room shining through her—she
was translucent. All this is specially interesting, because previously nobody had seen Miss Cook’s manifestations from the inside of the cabinet, though many have
tried."
On December 26, 1872 the London mainstream paper The Times published an article on the paranormal manifestations that were being so widely reported at the time. The entire article is quoted at the beginning of the magazine here. We also have lengthy quotes from the article on page 59 of the January 1, 1873 newspaper here. At the beginning of The Times article we have a great example of what constantly occurs: mainstream sources perpetuating groundless achievement legends involving scientists. We read this:
"It is now nearly twenty years since the late Professor
Faraday made public the result of his investigations into the
then fashionable mania of table-turning. With apparent conclusiveness, he proved that the mysterious movements which
were at that time the new nine-days' wonder of the world
arose from unconscious muscular action; but such is the
tenacity of a belief once received into the mind, this solution
of the pseudo-marvel seems to have satisfied few but those
who were prepared to accept it by previous disbelief."
The claim made is one of the most groundless of the many groundless achievement legends cited about scientists. Faraday never investigated the extremely widely reported phenomena involving tables inexplicably moving. In massive numbers, witnesses reported tables levitating, tables standing on two legs, and tables moving around inexplicably when no one touched them, all phenomena inexplicable under the hypothesis of unconscious muscular action advanced by Faraday.
The Times article also had a great example of the very biased reporting that so massively occurs when mainstream sources report on topics of paranormal phenomena. The article mentions the investigation of the London Dialectical Society. As I discuss
here, the report listed very many witnesses reporting the most dramatic and inexplicable paranormal phenomena, and the committee concluded that real phenomena were occurring. But rather than honestly summarizing the findings of the Society's investigation, the
Times describes it as finding merely that the phenomena were worthy of investigation.
We then have the Times writer reporting on what he saw at a seance involving Kate Fox and Daniel Dunglas Home. The account is a perfect example of refusing to be convinced after viewing the most inexplicable phenomena. The writer states this:
"Miss Fox then got up and went to the door of the room, inviting us to stand by her and to hold her hands, which we did, when loud thumps seemed to come from the panels, as if done with the fist. These were repeated at our request a desired number of times. To give a detailed account of everything which occurred would need more space than we can now spare. Suffice it to say, that the table was made light and heavy at our wish, that it moved in every direction, that there were vibrations of the floor and of our chairs, that on Mr. Home holding the accordion under the table in his right hand, and by the end furthest from the keys, it played a distinct tune, Mr. Home's left hand being on the table, and his feet so raised as to be visible. All other hands were on the table. At the same time, and under the same conditions, a small handbell was rung in different parts of the space beneath the table. The gas [i.e. the light] was now turned out and the two spirit-lamps lit; these gave a fair light. The raps became louder, and, in the usual method, directed us to take a leaf out of the table. This was done, when the table appeared to float up about eight inches off the floor, settling down again in a gentle swaying manner. The thin wooden lath lying on the cloth was seen by the whole party to be in motion. It tilted up sideways and endways, and then seemed to float backwards and forwards. Holding our hand three inches, as near as we could guess, above the cloth, the lath rose three times ; the last time it touched our hand, and directly afterwards the table jumped and shook violently, and loud raps seemed to come from all parts of it and of the floor. ... We tried every test we could think of. A subdued light, darkened as the evening went on, was one of the conditions we were obliged to comply with, and while the accordion was in our hand we were desired to sit passive, though, as we stated, the hands and feet of the 'mediums' were in strict custody. Mr. Home seemed to wish to conceal nothing, and gave us every opportunity consistent with the above conditions for satisfying our scepticism. Yet we need hardly say that we were unable to. satisfy it. By his request we got under the table with a lamp a great many times, insisted always on seeing his hands and feet, or on having them as well as those of Miss Fox held firmly. As to the hand with which Mr. Home held the accordion under the table, all we know is that on one of our sub-mahogany expeditions with the spirit-lamp, we saw that hand quite still, and saw the accordion moving up and down and playing music. We heard the key-notes, but the position of the instrument prevented our seeing the keys moving, if they did move. There was nothing during the whole evening except the phenomena themselves to suggest imposture. We tried our best to detect it, but could find no trace of it. We searched Mr. Home, and found nothing whatever upon him but his clothes."
Immediately after giving this account of a demonstration that would convince any reasonable person that some inexplicable phenomenon was occurring, a demonstration that revealed no sign of trickery despite the writer's diligent attempts to find it, our Times writer declared he is still not convinced, and states this:
"We are certain that the table rose from the ground, that our hand
received a sprig under the table from what felt like another
hand, but how these things happened we do not know. The
nature of the phenomena and of human nature are such as to
force us to suspect imposture and legerdemain until we can
satisfy ourselves of the true causes, whatever these may be."
We are left with the impression that some witnesses will not be convinced by any thing they may see. We have here an example of the kind of stubbornness that still massively persists today:
The comments above made about Kate Fox and mysterious noises were echoed in an 1872 book by Robert Dale Owen, once a US congressman. Owen
states this about "spirit raps":
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