Unusual Physical Phenomena. By Jane R Griffing.
The following record is by a lady who was well known to Dr Richard Hodgson and whom he regarded as a competent witness. He reported from her several experiences which were published in the Journal and Proceedings of the English Society, CI Proceedings Vol. XI, p. 402 and Vol. XIV, p. 282; Journal Vol VII, pp. 176-179, Vol. VIII, pp. 145-147. The present experiences were written in a diary, some of them so recorded contemporaneously, and then afterward copied from this diary for me. I have seen the original diary and have omitted from the account certain personal references which affected only certain members of the family, but do not concern the nature or integrity of the record. I have changed the four names of her children to suit Mrs G.’s request. All other names remain as in the record. With Dr. Hodgson I also regard Mrs G. as a competent and intelligent witness. She has been especially critical in her observations and records.
The incidents vary in nature and evidential value. I do not mean to enter into any destructive examination of details. This may be left to intelligent readers. It will be apparent that some of the physical phenomena are conceivably explicable by some possible ordinary cause, though there is no evidence in the premises that it was present. Other facts, however troublesome they may be to accept, are interesting and will give service in a collective mass of similar incidents. They are all worth recording as experiences – James H. Hyslop.
Phenomena in Minnesota, September, 1895.
In the autumn of 1865 we moved into a small house in the village of Plainview, having sold the house in which we had been living, as we were to leave Minnesota in the spring. The house stood by itself in a large lot, about five minutes walk from the street, and as far from the nearest neighbour. All the people in the neighbourhood were quiet, respectable families. Early in the winter my husband left home to attend law school and my household consisted only of women and children, my sister Emily, twenty-three years of age, my sister-in-law, Kate, the same age, and Nettie, seventeen, and my two young children. The three girls did the housework, looked after the children and waited upon me. I was very ill, not able to sit up more than an hour a day. A physician came to see me three times a week. We seldom saw anyone else; had no visitors to speak of.
Soon after my husband left we began to hear mysterious footsteps and raps about the house and I often saw lights in my room at night. Nettie finally asked me if I was willing she should sleep upstairs with the other girls as she was so annoyed by the footsteps about her bed. (She slept in the room next to mine). I assented to the change and after that the three girls slept in one large room which was reached only by a stairway going up from my room. Not long after the change was made there was the heaviest snowfall of the winter. In that prairie region if there is a high wind when snow falls it is piled in great drifts in places, often impassable for days. On this occasion the snow drifted badly and there was a wall of snow several feet high all about our little house.
No one could come there or go out of the house for at least a week. The usual dullness of our life was greatly increased one evening after a dreary day the girls went to bed for want of anything else to do. The lights were out and everything quiet before eight o’clock. Just at that hour there came a tremendous blow, as it seemed, on the side of the house. Greatly startled I called out, “Girls, what is that?” and they at the same time shouted together the same question. There came more blows apparently in different places, and I asked, “Is that spirits?” Then there were three loud knocks. Then raps and loud blows all over the house and Emily called out in great fright that a hoopskirt that hung on the wall was whirling all over the room and under her bed. I called to her to light her candle and come down. She said that her candle was gone. I lighted my lamp and finally Emily came down in a state of extreme nervous excitement. She became calm when she was with me in the light and away from the circus performance of the hoopskirt.
I began to ask questions by repeating the alphabet, writing down the letters as they were indicated by raps. The questions were answered as readily if asked mentally. In answer to the question “Who is it?” the name Charles Legrand was given. He was an admirer of Nettie’s, living in another part of the state. There was no real information given. Before Emily came down there were raps on the stove-pipe in music time. Finally a dance tune was rapped out and Nettie, under some strong influence, as she told me next morning, got up and danced. She said she felt a hand on her shoulder and some one danced with her.
[At ten?] the noises suddenly ceased, after telling us that they would come at the same time next evening. Emily’s candle was found between the two mattresses and the hoop-skirt under the bed.
Second Evening.
The next evening we were all settled for the night at the time appointed and as soon as the lights were out the noises began. They were more varied than before. There were sounds as of persons dancing and I heard a low uncanny laugh more than once. Different articles in the girls’ room were whirled about and Emily again became too frightened to remain. The candle was gone again. She came down stairs. In answer to the question “Who is it?” there was rapped out “I am the devil” and at that there was a fearful Bedlam of noises, not only in and near the girls’ room, but apparently all over and outside of the house. I was thoroughly frightened. The evening before I had enjoyed it but it seemed as if now there was really some demoniac play going on. Kate and Nettie were frightened and lay close together, their heads covered by the bed clothes, as they told me afterwards. Exactly at ten it ceased, after telling us that they would come again the next night. On account of the apparently evil character of the influence I was afraid of it and as my doctor, the next day, succeeded in reaching the house, I asked him to be present at the next performance.
Third Evening.
Dr. W. was there, the noises began promptly about the same time as before. Emily, again too frightened to remain upstairs, Dr. W. held a lamp at the stairway so that she could see to come down. It was blown out by a strong gust of wind and a chair thrown at the doctor. Every time he lighted the lamp and held it there, the same thing was repeated. There was a low loft opening out of the girls’ room in which articles not in use were stored and we heard sounds as of persons actively engaged in pulling them out apparently for the purpose of throwing them at Dr. W. though none of them struck him. These noises ceased at the usual time with the promise to come again the next night. The next day we sent for a cousin of mine and his wife. The girls did not wish Dr. W. to go up into their room and we wanted some one there to go up.
Fourth Evening.
My cousin came, noises began promptly and were the same except there were more in my room. The doors and windows were violently shaken, even a closet door, and there were what seemed pistol shots in the room. Outside of the house and in the woodshed also, there was a great commotion. We wanted Colin and Lucy to go up to the girls’ room but they were afraid, said nothing would induce them to go. At the usual time the noises ceased, after the message (in answer to my usual question, “are you coming again?”) that they were not coming. I asked why and they said, because they had accomplished their object. When the noises ceased my cousins took a lamp and went upstairs. As they reached the landing various small articles fell to the floor from the ceiling. That was the last of these manifestations. After that we never heard a rap.
It has been suggested that possibly Nettie produced these disturbances for amusement. (As to the other girls it was a moral impossibility). But, assuming that she would do it, it was impossible. Aside from the fact that except on one occasion for a few minutes, she was in bed with her sister Kate, she could not have produced one-tenth of the noises had she been alone and unobserved, without confederates, more than one, out of doors as well as in the house. On the last evening there were very burning. [sic] Then she could not have answered the questions which were often not audibly but mentally asked. If she had produced such extraordinary disturbances so successfully she would have been likely to repeat it on a larger stage, but that was the last as well as the first. She was a gay, lively girl, clever and intelligent, but with no unusual mental traits except a gift for flirting.
Kate was a conscientious, sensible girl and had a horror of the superhuman. Emily was conscientious, devoted to me, excitable and nervous and has had all her life, more or less, of what are called “psychic” experiences. No doubt her influence and Nettie’s combined, enabled the unseen intelligence, whatever it was, to manifest itself by the disturbances so entirely outside of ordinary experience.
The Stellar Ray. Vol. XXIV, no. 7. July 1910.