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Secondhand book find of the week: the autobiography of Joseph Gutteridge, originally published in 1893. Gutteridge was a Coventry weaver. These passages are from a chapter in which he describes his growing involvement in the Spiritualist movement. At the period about which he is writing, seances were the very latest thing:
A few particulars of the way in which we proceeded may be interesting. We followed the instructions laid down in books consulted. A ‘circle’ around a table being recommended as the best method of encouraging spiritual phenomena, we sat in this way, but were so grossly materialistic in our ideas that we rigidly excluded from our circle all who were not similarly inclined, and there need be little wonder that our first experiences yielded but a very meagre harvest of facts ascertained or impressions received favourable to the subject. It was at my house in Tower Street, in the year 1849, that we began sitting. Nothing more than the tilting of the table and tappings underneath occurred for a long time, but these could not be accounted for. The only point on which we were satisfied was that they were not produced voluntarily by any of those present. The table moved with our hands placed above it without actual contact. A scientific friend named Timothy Morris, of Birmingham, at our invitation made a journey to Coventry on purpose to see the table, which not only moved without being touched, but rose from its feet and followed our hands, placed above it, as high as we could reach. Timothy, a thorough materialistic, as most scientific men are, could not solve the mystery.
***
About twelve months after commencing our sittings, we heard of a party of investigators at Bedworth, and found on paying a visit that one or two of their number had developed into ‘mediums.’ A medium – it may be explained – is a person through whom, as through a channel, spirits can communicate or manifest themselves by speech, writing, or other means. None of our party showed signs of development in this direction. At one of the first seances attended at Bedworth a spirit writing through the medium, who was in a trance, announced itself as ‘Satan.’ With the bravado and self-consciousness characteristic of a youth with a smattering of the sciences, I was bent on discovering and exposing imposture, and said, ‘You are just the chap I want.’ I defied the spirit to do its worst, and was about adding that if it could show itself tangibly I would begin to think there was something in it. I had not finished the sentence before I was apparently transported to the frigid zone; I felt like a statue of ice, every fibre in my body being frozen and rigid – a most horrible sensation. Fearlessly and defiantly exercising my will power, which had been momentarily paralysed by the suddenness of the occurrence, I freed myself from this uncanny condition. Another member of the party felt a similarly chilling influence. Other manifestations occurred at this seance which need not be particularised. Not being able to discover the faintest suspicion of imposture, I recklessly impugned the honour of those present, and succeeded in breaking up the meeting in disorder and creating an uproar.
***
Seances were held at the house of a shoemaker living at the corner of the Star Yard, Earl Street, Coventry. Attending one of these meetings in a more than ordinarily sceptical mood, determined to ferret out fraud and humbug, I demanded some proof by which I would personally test the genuineness of the assumption that the messages given through the medium were from disembodied spirits. The request was acceded to by a written message being given through the medium – an illiterate boy – relating incidents connected with my father and mother which were known only to myself. This was no more remarkable than many other things witnessed, but the personal element in the message appealed to my mind and set me thinking. The tenderness of it dealt the first blow at my scepticism. I had no knowledge of thought reading, but possessed some powers as a mesmerist. This, however, was beyond anything that could be attributed to mesmerism or thought reading as an inducing cause. From this time onward I can trace the gradual acceptance of a belief in a spiritual – as distinct from a material – existence.
Joseph Gutteridge (1816–1914)
from Lights and Shadows in the Life of an Artisan (1893)
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