The Sunday Oregonian., June 13, 1909, SECTION SIX, Page 3, Image 47

U
BY JOHN BLFRETH WATKINB.
SO many of our men of achievement
are becoming devotees of mysticism
that we may commence to question
whether the modern tendency Is. after all,
toward a more material plane.
A lawsuit recently revealed that no less
a light than Paul Morton, ex-Secretary of
the Navy, and now one of the leading
financiers of New York, had been presi
dent of the Association for the Study of
Ancient Wisdom, organized by the fol
lowers of Sri Agumya Guru Paramhamsa,
the dread "tiger Mahatma of India,"
lately condemned to four months In a
London prison for Insulting women who
had responded to his advertisements for
a typewritist. Mr. Morton had subscribed
nearly J100 to the cause and another dis
ciple of the seer was Mme. Emma Karnes,
the diva. Abroad this tiger Mahatma
had found disciples equally exalted. He
was introduced In England by the famed
Professor Max Muller, of Oxford, upon
whose recommendation London received
him with open arms, and in his "Life and
Letters" you will find Professor Muller
calling the Mahatma "the only real saint
or yogi who has ever come to England."
It was after mak.ng this splash In Lon
don that the yogi came to New York
proclaiming: "I am God; I know every
thing." Another ex-Cabinet officer who has for
some time been Interested In the occult
sciences is Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of
the Treasury In the McKinley Cabinet.
He has for some years been an Interested
member of that organisation of ghost
hunters, the Society for Psychical Re
search, and recently he built himself a
cottage near to Mme. Katherine Ting
ley's temple within the Theosophlst col
ony at Point Lorn a. Cal.. where the much
discussed Raja Yoga School is located
and where A. G. Spalding, the ex-baseball
star and sporting goods man, also
went Into retirement lately. Upon Its
being announced that Mr. Gage had
Joined the theosophists in response to a
dream suggestion, he gave out the state
ment that he had not been Invited to join
the society, but would consider it an
honor to be. Here are two noted finan
ciers with established reputations as
men captains of Industry, if you like.
Noted Editor's Test.
A no lees solid man who la now an
enthusiastic devotee of the mystic
sciences is Dr. Isaac K. Funk, the head
of the great publishing firm of Funk &
WagnaJJs. and the editor of the Standard
Dictionary. Some time ago it was an
nounced that Dr. Funk had been the
principal In a most Interesting psychic
experiment. He shut himself In a room
In Brooklyn at the same witching hour
when, by prearrangement. a group of
people In a room at Lyons. N. Y.. were
hypnotized and commanded, to concen
trate on Dr. Funk. Then when the doc
tor. In his room, drew a fish, 'tis said,
the hypnotized ones at Lyons said '"fish,"
while when he raised his arm toward the
ceiling they exclaimed. "He points up
ward." When Dr. Funk was compiling the
manaara Dictionary he wished to use a
drawing of the "widow's mite" an an
cient coin worth hundreds of dollars. A
specimen was found In the possession of
a friend of Henry Ward Beecher. who ar
ranged that his friend. Dr. Funk, could
borrow It.
Then Beecher died and time passed
without the doctor's thinking more about
. the matter until some time ago, when he
was Investigating a spiritualist medium,
who announced a communication from
thts departed divine. Beecher reminded
Dr. Funk that the "widow's mite" had
never been returned, and directed him to
seek it in the editor's office safe under
a stack of old papers. Then Dr. Funk
searched as directed, and. he alleges,
found the coin Just where the supposed
spirit said It would be. but where no one,
not even the cashier, had suspected that
It had so long reposed. These and other
alleged experiences have brought the
learned lexicographer to the conclusion
that there are "whole classes of phe
nomena which point clearly to the oper
ation of intelligent forces that exist out
side of what we know as human bodies. "
He. however, refuses to declare, himself a
spiritualist.
Hamlin
Garland and
Forms.
Astral"
Hamltn Garland, the novelist, is also a
deep student of the dark mysteries. He
refuses to accept the phenomena of spirit
messages, but ruts much stock In the
twychio researchers' modern laboratory
tets of "astral forces" alleged to move
heavy fnrniture and cause "astral hands"
and such appearances.
"We are on the point of discovering a
new and wonderful force which suggests
laws heretofore not apprehended by
rienee and apparently controverting ail
physical laws." says Mr. Garland, whose
many actual personal experiences have
been reported to the American Psychical
Society, of whtc-h he Is now president,
and among whose leading members are
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the Rev. Minot J. Savage and Prof. A.
331 Dolbear. the physicist and inventor.
Professor James Discovery of Great
Medium.
An appetite for the mysterious devel
oped some time back by William James,
professor of psychology at Harvard, was
perhaps whether by his having tried,
since early youth, to make head or tall
of the writings of" his brother, Henry
James, which doubtless he had to peruse
to keep peace in the family. Be this as
It may. Professor James' psychical
research has forced him to admit that
there are supernormal phenomena for
which our natural sense Impressions can
not account.
Professor James was the real discoverer
of Mrs. Leonore E. Piper. the now
famous Boston medium. It was 20 years
ago that he found out the peculiar pow
ers of this remarkable woman, who has
since been tested by the trained psychic
researchers of two continents and who
lately surrendered herself completely to
the British Society for Psychical Re
search. During these latter experiments
this trance medium, although isolated,
guarded and subjected to the severest of
teats by a committee of trained skeptics,
is reported to have described what other
persons were doing and saying hundreds
of miles away.
Mme. Blavatsky was exposed In India
by a strenuous Australian investigator,
Richard Hodgson, who afterward settled
down in Boston, where he became head of
the old American branch of the British
Society for Psychical Research and where
also he met Professor James, who took
him to see Mrs. Piper. Dr. Hodgson
studied this woman for 18 years and
she convinced him that telepathy, auto
matic writing and communication with
the dead were bona fide phenomena. To
give her a special test Dr. Hodgson ar
ranged a unique course of experiments,
in which he was aided by Dr. James H.
Hyslop, professor of logic and ethics at
Columbia.
Masked
Himself and
Voice.
Disguised
'M.y.ii
BLLL THAT WILL TROT AGAINST ANY 2i3 nnitsR.
ernTpenn"v,va9rtrVksSe"ar " -year-old Durham bull is down on the card, for West-
i?:Hb-v-- 1 s.w.-Sux iz t2hr3olahtortsh;7nthi ss s-in
w was rirst noticed trotting by Dr. Chaney In Maryland
when it was one year old. and the phy-
The professor masked himself and dis
guised his voice during his visits to her,
and while she lay unconscious, with her
head upon a pillow resting on a table,
her hand wrote out messages alleged to
come from his father. She converted
Hyslop to the spiritistic hypothesis, and
his announcement of the fact made a stir
In the scientific world. He and Hodgson
formed a compact that whoever died
first would communicate with the other,
and Profeesor Hyslop expressed to me
some tlmo ago his satisfaction that he
has received messages from Hodgson
since the latter's death.
A secret password from his dead father
was given to Professor Hyslop by Mrs.
Piper, it Is claimed, before she had ever
seen him in her conscious state. When
later he got the same password from an
orthodox minister's wife who had also
developed trance mediumship and "auto
matic writing" Professor Hyslop com
menced experimenting with this new sub
ject, who, to protect her from the an
noyance of publicity, is referred to under
the pseudonym "Mrs. Smead" in the re
ports of the new American Society for
Psychic Research, of which Professor
Hyslop is the founder and head.
Prof. Hyslop's Woman of Mystery.
She is a woman of mystery, and all
that has been revealed about her of a
personal nature is that she is a blue
eyed young woman of a modest and re
tiring temperament who lives about 24
hours off" from New York in a town
which is surrounded by an evergreen
forest and in which her husband enjoys
good standing as rector of an orthodox
church surmounted by a cross.
While she is in a trance her head is
held in a special headrest and her mov
ing finger writes upon paper spread on a
sewing table at her side. She was studied
also by Dr. Hodgson, and on the night
that he dropped dead while playing hand
ball she is said to have seen his appari
tion, which reported to her: "It Is better
here than I had hoped for."
Convert Lombroso and Flammarion.
Across the deep no less1 a proportion of
thinking men have turned their thoughts
In the same direction. Caesare Lom
broso. the great Italian criminologist ana
anthropologist, after having studied the
medium Eusapla Paladino, has announced
his belief in disembodied spirits, although
he does not indorse, the theory of the re
turn of the dead. Professor Charles
Richet, of the Faculty of Medicine.
Paris, is a French leader in psychical
research work and claims to have photo
graphed the spirit of a Spanish, soldier,
while Camtlls Flammarion, the French
f
i
astronomer, is now an aggressive con
vert to spiritism. He says that he has
proved that such phenomena as the move
ment of chairs without contact and the
suspension of heavy tables in space are
bona fide.
No less than an ex-Prime Minister has
recently been a leader of the ghost hunt
ers of England, where he recently served
as president of the Society for Psychical
Research. He insists that science can
not explain the psychic wonders which
he has witnessed. While he headed the
society it made a special investigation of
360 cases of apparitions of the dying in
England and Wales, and of these 62
cases wer accepted as beyond the laws
of chance or the possibility of fraud.
Editor Stead Now a Medium.
William T. Stead has become a medium,
so he now says, a writing medium, not
one of the tambourine and trumpet
brand. At first the noted editor accepted
telepathy and claimed to have written
down the thoughts of living men many
miles away. Then, of late years, he al
leges, he has gotten into close communion
with the dead. But it is only this year
that be claims to have developed auto
matic, writing, his right arm becoming
I impassive while its fingers guide a pen
I Over IaDer On which utTwam lAttAm r.
his son, the brilliant young writer, Will
iam, wno died a year ago last Christmas
eve. jar. stead claims that this writ
ing appears without his exercising an)
will power to either hold the pen or
move it.
Sir Oliver Lodge Kow a Spiritualist.
If the English-speaking public was sur
prised to hear that Mr. Stead had strayed
this far into the spiritualist camp, it
was startled to learn a few months ago
that Sir Oliver Lodge, head of the Uni
versity of Birmingham, had announced
his belief In such communication with
those beyond the grave. In a recent Jour
nal of the Society for Psychical Research
ne has given details of messages which
ne claims to have received from dead
members or the society through the pen
of a writing medium known as "Mrs.
Hollandrones" another of these psychic
-women or mystery." From Mr. Gurney,
one or the founders of the society. Sir
Oliver received an alleged message com
mencing: "I appear to be standing be-
nina a sneet or frosted glass which blurs
The sight and deadens sounds.
He claims to have also heard lately from
: PRC: UAS. JJ.
F. H. W."Myers, author of "Human Per
sonality." Our Mrs. Piper also helped to convert
Sir Oliver. He got her to come to his
Liverpool residence, where, in the pres
ence of a committee, she is reported to
have ' told Just what two women, utter
strangers to her. were doing minute by
minute in their London home.
Sir William Cooks.
Sir Oliver's brother knight, the cele
brated chemist and inventor of the
X-ray tube. Sir William Crookes, has too
long been a strenuous exponent of the
occult sciences to elicit surprise by any
new theory that he might now announce
in this line. But probably few American
readers know that some time ago Sir
William risked his scientific reputation
by reporting to an exalted body how he
had known the materialized spirit "Katie
King;" how he had had crystals placed
in his palm by hands not belonging to
any persons in the room with him, and
how In broad daylight he had seen a
cloud condense into a hand, which car
ried objects about. This exalted body to
which he reported these alleged phenom
ena waB no less than the British Royal
Society.
His paper was ignominiously thrown
out, the great society's outraged secretary
refusing to so much as enter it upon the
files. And we, too, most of us, this quar
ter hour have been sticking up our noses
and sniffing skeptically at these won
drous doings here and abroad. But we
must ever bear in mind that the ortho
dox of today were yesterday's heretics!
Mrs. Howe, a Good Agitator.
Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer.
Julia Ward Howe, whose 90th birthday
Is lovingly remembered by her children
and friends, is undoubtedly the first wo
man of America today. If in all her
long life 6he had done nothing but write
the mighty "Battle Hymn of the Repub
lic" she would deserve lasting honor and
reverence. But Mrs. Howe has not been
content to rest upon this achievement. Cp
to within the last decade she has been
actively engaged in forwarding reform,
movements, and her pen has seldom been
idle. Her life should remain an inspira
tion to all Americans. Already a middle
aged woman when she wrote the battle
hymn, Mrs. Howe had long been en
gaged advancing the anti-slavery move
ment in New England. After the Civil
War she turned her energies to other
activities, and took a special interest in
prison reform, and in sane advocacy of
suffrage for women. Mrs. Howe has
always been, in a good sense, an agitator.
She has striven for things the realiza
tion of which were apparently beyond her
day and generation. And now, in ex
treme old age, she is loved and honored
by all the people as a brave and noble
and unselfish soldier in the cause of
civilization.
did
the sagebrush to
Tbe &herifts Report.
Denver Republican.
We Jest went out to git him. and
We trailed him from
the pine;
We seen the long-dead ashes where he'd
hid
And where he'd cooked his bit of bacon
rine.
We found the boss, where it had fell and
died.
But he'd gone on a tough nut. yes that's
true
We seen the blood where he had stopped
and tied
His coat sleeve 'round his worn and
bu'sted shoe.
We beard his lead, a-slngta past our ears.
Where be stood pat, 'way up a. lonely
draw;
We smelt his powder, yet it brung no fears.
Cause wasn't we the Majesty ofr Law ?
W Hen his face, his black eyes blasln'
bate.
We beard htm tall, and la plain view ha
slid ;
The world's some better off. I calkllate
We Jest went out to git biro, and iwe 41-1