HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.                                     379

 

LIX. SPIRITUAL RAPPINGS.

 

During the year of 1851 spiritualism, or "rapology," as it was called then, was a subject of considerable discussion in the columns of the Pilot, which had just been established in Plymouth during the early part of that) year. "Rapology" meant "spiritual rappings," voice had its start in 1848 through the Fox sisters at Rochester, New York, and which was at that time generally known as the "Rochester knockings." Nothing that occurred during the nineteenth century created such widespread interest, as did this Supposed discovery of spirit return after death. The editor of the town paper was liberal in his views on all subjects, and opened the columns of his paper to all who desired to be heard on either side of the question. The articles that appeared in the paper did not seem to clear the fog that enveloped the question, and when the discussion closed the readers were no wiser than they were in the beginning. A correspondent signing himself “Hoosier" closed his article by saying: "My present impressions are that the whole concern is a humbug." Another correspondent gave a remarkable spiritual occurrence that" happened in a graveyard, and closed by saying: "To the uninitiated in spiritual mysteries, and to the uneducated in the new theory, this will appear like a fairy tale; to the Greeks, foolishness; to the Jews a stumbling block, but to the real believers in this doctrine it will be like manna in the wilderness,

 

 

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and to them we dedicate it.” And that was the way the question was left so far as the discussion of it in the paper was concerned.

 

The following notice appeared December 17, 1851: “Raps – W.N. Sims, the medium for spiritual communications, is now operating at the Yellow River House, Plymouth, Indiana, performing wonders, such as writing in the absence of any person, moving furniture and rapping in different parts of the room. On one occasion the rappings were heard on different parts of the diningroom table while the boarders were taking their meals. Those who wish to investigate this question will find him at the hotel during this week only.”

 

 

When the first rappings occurred by the Fox sisters in 1848 there was much excitement in that part of the country, which rapidly spread, and it was not long until it was known all over the world. It early began to be investigated, and a couple of years later a committee of three doctors having investigated the matter to their own satisfaction made a report, which was published in part in the Pilot of April 1851, in which the doctors stated that they had discovered the mode in which the sounds were produced. They stated that the sounds were made by a partial dislocation or cracking of the knee joints; of course, subject to the will of the medium. They said: “Without entering at this time into a very minute and anatomical and physiological explanation it is sufficient to state that the muscles inserted into the upper and inner side of the large bone of the leg (the tibia near the knee joint) are brought into action so as to move the upper surface of the thigh bone (the femur), giving rise, in fact, to a partial lateral dislocation. This is sufficient by act of the will without any obvious movement of the limb occasioning a loud noise, and the return of the bone to its place is attended by a second sound. Most of the Rochester rappings are also double. It is possible, however, to produce a single sound by moving the bone out of place with requisite force and allowing it to slide slowly, in which case it is noiseless.”

 

 

In reply to this the Fox girls put in a protest and invited an investigation. They said:

 

“ As we do not feel willing to rest under imputation of being imposters, we are very willing to undergo a proper and decent examination, provided we can select 3 female and 3 male friends who shall be present on the occasion. As there seems to be much interest manifested by the public on this subject we would suggest that an early investigation as is convenient would be acceptable to the undersigned.”

                                                                        “ Margaretta Fox”

                                                                        “Anna M. Fish”

 

No authentic statement has ever been made that the learned doctors, who discovered that the sounds were “produced by a partial dislocation or cracking of the knee joints” accepted the invitation of the Fox sisters that they were willing to undergo “a decent examination” for the purpose of showing to the world that the “rappings” were not produced as the learned doctors had stated. However, as a matter of fact, it is of no consequence whether an investigation was made or not. Those who believe in spirit return, after death make use of other means to enable them to communicate with their de-

HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.                                     381

 

parted friends, if the communications they receive are really and truly from those who have passed "over there." The demonstrations and investigations that have been made the past more than half a century by the most learned men in the c6untry have shown that the alleged communications from the unseen world are not all produced by fraud, trickery, sleight of hand, or hypnotism, but after all these have been eliminated as being under test conditions impossible there is a residium left, which, if it is not produced by the departed-what is it ?

 

Several years ago there was organized what was called "The Thirteen Club," composed of thirteen liberal-minded, intelligent men of Plymouth, the object being the investigation of literary subjects and various unsolved problems relating to human existence here and hereafter, among which was spiritualism, clairvoyance, hypnotism, telepathy, mind reading, Christian science, and kindred subjects. When the question of spiritualism came up for investigation one of the members of the club was selected to visit a lady whose character was above reproach, and whose fame as a voice and writing medium was established as being one of the best. Several séances were held with the lady, a full report of all that occurred being reported in full to the club, which furnished a subject for discussion at many of the meetings of the club for more than a year. One occurrence that took place at one of the séances will indicate the trend of the whole: It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon; it was in the front parlor of the lady's dwelling; only the sitter and the medium were present; the large plate glass windows were open; the

sun was shining brightly; there was a small uncovered sewing table between the medium and sitter, on which they rested their hands; the lady had never before seen the sitter and did not know his name or the names of any of his people, dead or living. After conversing with inarticulate voices for some time, the sitter was requested by the medium to place a piece of blank white paper in a folding slate, which was lying on the table. This was done and the slate closed with the blank paper inside. She then told the sitter to take the slate and place it on the floor off to his right about two feet, and then place his right foot on the slate, which was done. The hands of the medium and sitter rested on the table and a conversation was kept up until three slight knocks were heard on the slate, which the medium said indicated that the writing was d6ne. The sitter took up the slate and opened it, and on one side of the paper was written, as with a lead pencil, a note addressed to the sitter expressing gratification that he was there and signing her name at the bottom. It was the name of the dead wife of the sitter! The medium did not touch the slate or paper at any time during this part of the sitting. This little incident has been given to show that fraud or deception was out of the question and for the purpose of enabling those who are investigating the question to satisfactorily tell how it was done.

 

Mind Reading. Many years ago there came along a man that gave a public exhibition In the basement of the Methodist church in Plymouth, which was then used fo~publ1c entertainments of an unobjectionable character, of his powers as a mind reader. His manner of demonstration was to have some one in the audience secrete some object; a knife, watch, piece of money, etc., where he would not know where it was, and then he (the performer) would be blind-

 

HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.                                     382

 

Folded by a committee and the party who had secreted the article would take the performer by the hand, all the time keeping his mind fixed on the object and the place where he ha secreted it, with the performer’s mind remaining passive during the time. All the objects with few exceptions, hidden during the evening were found without much difficulty. Occasionally an object would be hidden and the party hiding it could not concentrate his own mind on the object or the place where he had placed it, and in such cases the performer would walk around the house, turning here and there without having any particular object in view. It was not, however, the performer that found the object. It was the one who had hidden it. The performer’s mind was in that condition that he saw the object and the place where it was, just as did the person who secreted it. Some minds are more easily controlled in that way than others, and some are so constructed that they cannot be controlled at all. But the mystery of it all is, Why is it and how is it that the current of electricity, or whatever it is that passes from one to the other, enables the blindfolded performer to see the object as plainly as the one who deposited it and lead him to it without difficulty? On this occasion a gentleman went out of the building and deposited his watch in the rear of the building, He came back, blindfolded the performer, took him by the hand and the performer took him rapidly down the aisle, out of the door and to the rear of the building, picked up the watch and handed it to the owner in two minutes time.

 

Several years ago a Jewish lady by the name of Miss Loeb came to Plymouth from Chicago and gave some very interesting exhibitions of her powers as a mind reader at the opera house, and also on the street and at private houses. At the opera house she was first blindfolded and a gentleman went down the aisle to the rear of the hall, took a watch out of a man’s vest pocket, opened the back case and placed in it a piece of white paper. He returned and, placing his hand on Miss Loeb’s shoulder, she started immediately down the aisle, went directly to the man, took the watch from his pocket, opened the case and took the paper out. The following day she made an appointment to meet a gentleman at the post office at 11 o’clock. The gentleman was to hide something some place in town and she find it. He took a deck of cards and selected the ace of hearts as the one she was to pick out if she found the deck. This he placed in the drawer in the public stand in the First National Bank near the front door. He found her at the post office promptly on time. He bandaged her eyes, placed his hand on her shoulder, when she immediately started up the street towards the bank, a block away. When she got opposite the door she turned in and going to the desk, opened the drawer, took out the deck of cards, run them off until she came to the ace of hearts, when she said, “That is it.” This was correct and the test did not occupy more than five minutes in all.

 

During her visit here with relatives and friends she performed many more tests of mind reading as remarkable as the one above related.

 

Telepathy is on the same line, and since the discovery of wireless telegraphy wonderful progress has been made in this almost unexplored field of mind development. It shows, however, that the mind is an entity that can be acted upon by other minds without outward knowledge on the part of the mind influenced thereby.