The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860

No child was ever more ardently loved–nay, worshipped–by his father than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard. That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and gifted Arthur.

The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever. Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud, "He seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world." The author of "Horae Subsecivae" aptly quotes Shakspeare's memorable words, in connection with the tragic bereavement of that autumnal day in Vienna:–

 
"The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep
Into my study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of thy life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,
More moving delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of my soul,
Than when thou liv'dst indeed."
 

Standing by the grave of this young person, now made so renowned by the genius of a great poet, whose song has embalmed his name and called the world's attention to his death, the inevitable reflection is not of sorrow. He sleeps well who is thus lamented, and "nothing can touch him further."

THE CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIUM

It is not yet a year since I ceased to act as a Spiritual Medium. (I am forced to make use of this title as the most intelligible, but I do it with a strong mental protest.) At first, I desired only to withdraw myself quietly from the peculiar associations into which I had been thrown by the exercise of my faculty, and be content with the simple fact of my escape. A man who joins the Dashaways does not care to have the circumstance announced in the newspapers. "So, he was an habitual drunkard," the public would say. I was overcome by a similar reluctance,–nay, I might honestly call it shame,–since, although I had at intervals officiated as a Medium for a period of seven years, my name had been mentioned, incidentally, only once or twice in the papers devoted especially to Spiritualism. I had no such reputation as that of Hume or Andrew Jackson Davis, which would call for a public statement of my recantation. The result would be, therefore, to give prominence to a weakness, which, however manfully overcome, might be remembered to my future prejudice.

I find, however, that the resolution to be silent leaves me restless and unsatisfied. And in reflecting calmly–objectively, for the first time–upon the experience of those seven years, I recognize so many points wherein my case is undoubtedly analogous to that of hundreds of others who may be still entangled in the same labyrinth whence I have but recently escaped, so clear a solution of much that is enigmatical, even to those who reject Spiritualism, that the impulse to write weighs upon me with the pressure of a neglected duty. I cannot longer be silent, and, in the conviction that the truth of my statement will be evident enough to those most concerned in hearing it, without the authority of any name, (least of all, of one so little known as mine,) I now give my confession to the world. The names of the individuals whom I shall have occasion to introduce are, of course, disguised; but, with this exception, the narrative is the plainest possible record of my own experience. Many of the incidents winch I shall be obliged to describe are known only to the actors therein, who, I feel assured, will never foolishly betray themselves. I have therefore no fear that any harm can result from my disclosures.

In order to make my views intelligible to those readers who have paid no attention to psychological subjects, I must commence a little in advance of my story. My own individual nature is one of those apparently inconsistent combinations which are frequently found in the children of parents whose temperaments and mental personalities widely differ. This class of natures is much larger than would be supposed. Inheriting opposite, even conflicting, traits from father and mother, they assume, as either element predominates, diverse characters; and that which is the result of temperament (in fact, congenital inconsistency) is set down by the unthinking world as moral weakness or duplicity. Those who have sufficient skill to perceive and reconcile–or, at least, govern–the opposing elements are few, indeed. Had the power come to me sooner, I should have been spared the necessity of making these confessions.

From one parent I inherited an extraordinarily active and sensitive imagination,–from the other, a sturdy practical sense, a disposition to weigh and balance with calm fairness the puzzling questions which life offers to every man. These conflicting qualities–as is usual in all similar natures–were not developed in equal order of growth. The former governed my childhood, my youth, and enveloped me with spells, which all the force of the latter and more slowly ripened faculty was barely sufficient to break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil which should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective reason which lay perdue beneath all the extravagances of my mind.

I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness, was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea.

This habit of abstraction–properly a complete passivity of the mind–after a while developed another habit, in which I now see the root of that peculiar condition which made me a Medium. I shall therefore endeavor to describe it. I was sitting, one Sunday, just as the minister was commencing his sermon, with my eyes carelessly following the fingers of my right hand, as I drummed them slowly across my knee. Suddenly, the wonder came into my mind,–How is it my fingers move? What set them going? What is it that stops them? The mystery of that communication between will and muscle, which no physiologist has ever fathomed, burst upon my young intellect. I had been conscious of no intention of thus drumming my fingers; they were in motion when I first noticed them: they were certainly a part of myself, yet they acted without my knowledge or design! My left hand was quiet; why did its fingers not move also? Following these reflections came a dreadful fear, as I remembered Jane, the blacksmith's daughter, whose elbows and shoulders sometimes jerked in such a way as to make all the other scholars laugh, although we were sorry for the poor girl, who cried bitterly over her unfortunate, ungovernable limbs. I was comforted, however, on finding that I could control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands? What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend, and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as something apart from myself,–something subordinate to, but not identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke the spell, like the snapping of a thread.

The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only, but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity, from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the services would bring me to myself. In proportion as the will became passive, the activity of my imagination was increased, and I experienced a new and strange delight in watching the play of fantasies which appeared to come and go independently of myself. There was still a dim consciousness of outward things mingled with my condition; I was not beyond the recall of my senses. But one day, I remember, as I sat motionless as a statue, having ceased any longer to attempt to control my dead limbs, more than usually passive, a white, shining mist gradually stole around me; my eyes finally ceased to take cognizance of objects; a low, musical humming sounded in my ears, and those creatures of the imagination which had hitherto crossed my brain as thoughts now spoke to me as audible voices. If there is any happy delirium in the first stages of intoxication, (of which, thank Heaven, I have no experience,) it must be a sensation very much like that which I felt. The death of external and the birth of internal consciousness overwhelmed my childish soul with a dumb, ignorant ecstasy, like that which savages feel on first hearing the magic of music.

How long I remained thus I know not. I was aroused, by feeling myself violently shaken. "John!" exclaimed my mother, who had grasped my arm with a determined hand,–"bless the boy! what ails him? Why, his face is as white as a sheet!" Slowly I recovered my consciousness, saw the church and the departing congregation, and mechanically followed my parents. I could give no explanation of what had happened, except to say that I had fallen asleep. As I ate my dinner with a good appetite, my mother's fears were quieted. I was left at home the following Sunday, and afterwards only ventured to indulge sparingly in the exercise of my newly discovered faculty. My mother, I was conscious, took more note of my presence than formerly, and I feared a repetition of the same catastrophe. As I grew older and my mind became interested in a wider range of themes, I finally lost the habit, which I classed among the many follies of childhood.

I retained, nevertheless, and still retain, something of that subtile instinct which mocks and yet surpasses reason. My feelings with regard to the persons whom I met were quite independent of their behavior towards me, or the estimation in which they were held by the world. Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible to understand my motives of action,–because, in fact, there were no motives,–complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal faculty of the human mind,–not therefore universal, any more than the genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer.

My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered, without very carefully testing its character. I eagerly accepted the theory of Animal Magnetism, which, so far as it went, was satisfactory; but it only illustrated the powers and relations of the soul in its present state of existence; it threw no light upon that future which I was not willing to take upon faith alone. Though sensible to mesmeric influences, I was not willing that my spiritual nature should be the instrument of another's will,–that a human being, like myself, should become possessed of all my secrets and sanctities, touching the keys of every passion with his unhallowed fingers. In the phenomena of clairvoyance I saw only other and more subtile manifestations of the power which I knew to exist in my own mind. Hence, I soon grew weary of prosecuting inquiries which, at best, would fall short of solving my own great and painful doubt,–Does the human soul continue to exist after death? That it could take cognizance of things beyond the reach of the five senses, I was already assured. This, however, might be a sixth sense, no less material and perishable in its character than the others. My brain, as yet, was too young and immature to follow the thread of that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for worse maladies.

At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the "Rochester Knockings." (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any spiritual manifestation. Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House. Impressed by their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a believing frame of mind. In fact, I had not long been seated, before the noises became loud and frequent.

"The spirits like to communicate with you," said Mrs. Fish: "you seem to be nearer to them than most people."

I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train that morning, I asked,–"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on calling over the alphabet,–"He is living!"

I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said, really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical.

Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the purpose of table-moving. A number of persons met, secretly at first,–for as yet there were no avowed converts,–and quite as much for sport as for serious investigation. The first evening there was no satisfactory manifestation. The table moved a little, it is true, but each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing a delusion.

A few evenings after this we met again. Those who were most incredulous happened to be absent, while, accidentally, their places were filled by persons whose temperaments disposed them to a passive seriousness. Among these was a girl of sixteen, Miss Abby Fetters, a pale, delicate creature, with blond hair and light-blue eyes. Chance placed her next to me, in forming the ring, and her right hand lay lightly upon my left. We stood around a heavy circular dining-table. A complete silence was preserved, and all minds gradually sank into a quiet, passive expectancy. In about ten minutes I began to feel, or to imagine that I felt, a stream of light,–if light were a palpable substance,–a something far finer and more subtile than an electric current, passing from the hand of Miss Fetters through my own into the table. Presently the great wooden mass began to move,–stopped,–moved again,–turned in a circle, we following, without changing the position of our hands,–and finally began to rock from side to side, with increasing violence. Some of the circle were thrown off by the movements; others withdrew their hands in affright; and but four, among whom were Miss Fetters and myself, retained their hold. My outward consciousness appeared to be somewhat benumbed, as if by some present fascination or approaching trance, but I retained curiosity enough to look at my companion. Her eyes, sparkling with a strange, steady light, were fixed upon the table; her breath came quick and short, and her cheek had lost every trace of color. Suddenly, as if by a spasmodic effort, she removed her hands; I did the same, and the table stopped. She threw herself into a seat, as if exhausted, yet, during the whole time, not a muscle of the hand which lay upon mine had stirred. I solemnly declare that my own hands had been equally passive, yet I experienced the same feeling of fatigue,–not muscular fatigue, but a sense of deadness, as if every drop of nervous energy had been suddenly taken from me.

Further experiments, the same evening, showed that we two, either together or alone, were able to produce the same phenomena without the assistance of the others present. We did not succeed, however, in obtaining any answers to our questions, nor were any of us impressed by the idea that the spirits of the dead were among us. In fact, these table-movings would not, of themselves, suggest the idea of a spiritual manifestation. "The table is bewitched," said Thompson, a hard-headed young fellow, without a particle of imagination; and this was really the first impression of all: some unknown force, latent in the dead matter, had been called into action. Still, this conclusion was so strange, so incredible, that the agency of supernatural intelligences finally presented itself to my mind as the readiest solution.

It was not long before we obtained rappings, and were enabled to repeat all the experiments which I had tried during my visit to the Fox family. The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent communication which promised us some light on the other life: these, we were told, were occasioned by evil or mischievous spirits, whose delight it was to create disturbances. They never occurred, I now remember, except when Miss Fetters was present. At the time, we were too much absorbed in our researches to notice the fact.

The reader will perceive, from what he knows of my previous mental state, that it was not difficult for me to accept the theories of the Spiritualists. Here was an evidence of the immortality of the soul,–nay, more, of its continued individuality through endless future existences. The idea of my individuality being lost had been to me the same thing as complete annihilation. The spirits themselves informed us that they had come to teach these truths. The simple, ignorant faith of the Past, they said, was worn out; with the development of science, the mind of man had become skeptical; the ancient fountains no longer sufficed for his thirst; each new era required a new revelation; in all former ages there had been single minds pure enough and advanced enough to communicate with the dead and be the mediums of their messages to men, but now the time had come when the knowledge of this intercourse must be declared unto all; in its light the mysteries of the Past became clear; in the wisdom thus imparted, that happy Future which seems possible to every ardent and generous heart would be secured. I was not troubled by the fact that the messages which proclaimed these things were often incorrectly spelt, that the grammar was bad and the language far from elegant. I did not reflect that these new and sublime truths had formerly passed through my own brain as the dreams of a wandering imagination. Like that American philosopher who looks upon one of his own neophytes as a man of great and profound mind because the latter carefully remembers and repeats to him his own carelessly uttered wisdom, I saw in these misty and disjointed reflections of my own thoughts the precious revelation of departed and purified spirits.

How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even. Wholly absorbed in spiritual researches,–having, in fact, no vital interest in anything else,–I soon developed into what is called a Medium. I discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.⁷ I also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had discovered when a boy. External consciousness, however, did not wholly depart. I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as phantoms,–while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices.

I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no other way. Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their interpreter. Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession. Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly present itself to me,–not to my outward senses, but to my interior, instinctive knowledge. If the recollection of the other embraced also the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously imitated it. The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, as soon as the questions were spoken.

If the question was vague, asked for information rather than confirmation, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a wish of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange involuntary sentence sprang to my lips. When I wrote, my hand appeared to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my mind. Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance. The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss Fetters. The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned. Two or three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be called Mediums.

These investigations were not regularly carried on. Occasionally the interest of the circle flagged, until it was renewed by the visit of some apostle of the new faith, usually accompanied by a "Preaching Medium." Among those whose presence especially conduced to keep alive the flame of spiritual inquiry was a gentleman named Stilton, the editor of a small monthly periodical entitled "Revelations from the Interior." Without being himself a Medium, he was nevertheless thoroughly conversant with the various phenomena of Spiritualism, and both spoke and wrote in the dialect which its followers adopted. He was a man of varied, but not profound learning, an active intellect, giving and receiving impressions with equal facility, and with an unusual combination of concentrativeness and versatility in his nature. A certain inspiration was connected with his presence. His personality overflowed upon and influenced others. "My mind is not sufficiently submissive," he would say, "to receive impressions from the spirits, but my atmosphere attracts them and encourages them to speak." He was a stout, strongly built man, with coarse black hair, gray eyes, large animal mouth, square jaws, and short, thick neck. Had his hair been cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its stiff waves would allow.

Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters, especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, I, on the contrary, sat motionless, pale, and with little sign of life except in my voice, which, though low, was clear and dramatic in its modulations. Stilton explained this difference without hesitation. "Miss Abby," he said, "possesses soul-matter of a texture to which the souls of these strong men naturally adhere. In the spirit-land the superfluities repel each other; the individual souls seek to remedy their imperfections: in the union of opposites only is to be found the great harmonia of life. You, John, move upon another plane; through what in you is undeveloped, these developed spirits are attracted."

For two or three years, I must admit, my life was a very happy one. Not only were those occasional trances an intoxication, nay, a coveted indulgence, but they cast a consecration over my life. My restored faith rested on the sure evidence of my own experience; my new creed contained no harsh or repulsive feature; I heard the same noble sentiments which I uttered in such moments repeated by my associates in the faith, and I devoutly believed that a complete regeneration of the human race was at hand. Nevertheless, it struck me sometimes as singular that many of the Mediums whom I met–men and women chosen by spiritual hands to the same high office–excited in my mind that instinct of repulsion on which I had learned to rely as a sufficient reason for avoiding certain persons. Far as it would have been from my mind, at that time, to question the manifestations which accompanied them, I could not smother my mistrust of their characters. Miss Fetters, whom I so frequently met, was one of the most disagreeable. Her cold, thin lips, pale eyes, and lean figure gave me a singular impression of voracious hunger. Her presence was often announced to me by a chill shudder, before I saw her. Centuries ago one of her ancestors must have been a ghoul or vampire. The trance of possession seemed, with her, to be a form of dissipation, in which she indulged as she might have catered for a baser appetite. The new religion was nothing to her; I believe she valued it only on account of the importance she obtained among its followers. Her father, a vain, weak-minded man, who kept a grocery in the town, was himself a convert.