The Shadow World | Page 3

letter in his pocket and hastened to
the medium. The magician took it in his hand and pondered. At last he
said: 'This was written by a man now in the spirit world. I cannot sense
it. There isn't a medium in the world who can read it, but if you will
send it to any person anywhere on the planet and have it read and
resealed, I will tell you what is in it. I cannot get the words unless some
mind in the earth-plane has absorbed them.'"
Harris spoke first. "That would seem to prove a sort of universal mind
reservoir, wouldn't it?"
"That is the way my friend figured it. But isn't that a staggering
hypothesis? I have never had a sealed letter read, but the psychic
research people seem to have absolutely proved psychometry to be a
fact. After you read Myers you are ready to believe anything--or
nothing."
The hostess rose. "Suppose we go into the library and have more ghost
stories. Come, Mr. Garland, we can't leave you men here to talk
yourselves out on these interesting subjects. You must let us all hear
what you have to say."
In more or less jocose mood the company trooped out to the library,
where a fire was glowing in the grate and easy-chairs abounded. The
younger people, bringing cushions, placed themselves beside the hearth,
while I took a seat near Mrs. Cameron and Harris.
"There!" said Miss Brush, with a gurgle of delight. "This is more like
the proper light and surroundings for creepy tales. Please go on, Mr.
Garland. You said you'd had a good deal of experience--tell us all about
it. I always think of you as a trailer, a man of the plains. How did you
happen to get into this shadow world?"
"It came about while I was living in Boston. It was in 1891, or possibly
1892. A friend, the editor of the Arena, asked me to become a member
of the American Psychical Society, which he was helping to form. He
wished me to go on the Board of Directors, because, as he said, I was
'young, a keen observer, and without emotional bias'--by which he

meant that I had not been bereaved."
"Quite right; the loss of a child or a wife weakens even the best of us
illogical," commented Harris. "No man who is mourning a relative has
any business to be calling himself an investigator of spiritualism."
"Well, the upshot was, I joined the society, became a member of the
Executive Board, was made a special committee on 'physical
phenomena'--that is to say, slate-writing, levitation, and the like--and
set to work. It was like entering a new, vague, and mysterious world.
The first case I investigated brought out one of the most fundamental of
these facts, which is, that this shadow world lies very close to the sunny,
so-called normal day. The secretary of the society had already begun to
receive calls for help. A mechanic had written from South Boston
asking us to see his wife's automatic writing, and a farmer had come
down from Concord to tell us of a haunted house and the mysterious
rappings on its walls. Almost in a day I was made aware of the illusory
side of life."
"Why illusory?" asked Brierly.
"Let us call it that for the present," I answered. "Among those who
wrote to us was a woman from Lowell whose daughter had developed
strange powers. Her account, so straightforward and so precise,
determined us to investigate the case. Therefore, our secretary (a young
clergyman) and I took the train for Lowell one autumn afternoon. We
found Mrs. Jones living in a small, old-fashioned frame house standing
hard against the sidewalk, and through the parlor windows, while we
awaited the psychic, I watched an endless line of derby hats as the
town's mechanics plodded by--incessant reminders of the practical,
hard-headed world that filled the street. This was, indeed, a typical case.
In half an hour we were all sitting about the table in a dim light, while
the sweet-voiced mother was talking with 'Charley,' her 'poltergeist'--"
"What is that, please?" asked Mrs. Quigg.
"The word means a rollicking spirit who throws things about. I did not
value what happened at this sitting, for the conditions were all the

psychic's own. By-the-way, she was a large, blond, strapping girl of
twenty or so--one of the mill-hands--not in the least the sickly, morbid
creature I had expected to see. As I say, the conditions were such as to
make what took place of no scientific value, and I turned in no report
upon it; but it was all very curious."
"What happened? Don't skip," bade Mrs. Cameron.
"Oh, the table rapped and heaved and slid about. A chair crawled to