SPIRITISM IN MELBOURNE.

Evening Star, Issue 3500, 12 May 1874, Page 3

SPIRITISM IN MELBOURNE.

(From the Argus.) During the past week we have published letters from correspondents who, with varying fortune, have tested Mr Foster’s powers as a so-called medium. As it is very generally known, this gentleman professed to call up “ spirits from the vasty deep,” and then undertook to interpret their utterances to ears less acutely attuned than his own. For the small price of one guinea he will ransack the land of shadows, and essay to produce any particular ghost which may be in demand with punctuality and despatch. Judged by the communications we have referred to, however, his success is by no means uniform. Whether the spirits are out, or asleep, or disinclined to be disturbed, or otherwise engaged when called on, we are unable to say, but certain it is that they do not always respond to Mr Foster’s invitation to come up or down, as the case may be, and be catechised. “ A Lady,” who opened the ball, was very

highly favored, no less them twentytwo disembodied intelligences having attended at her bidding, one of whom —“a spirit of great beauty and power ” —was good enough to confirm her faith by snatching a 1 handkerchief from her grasp, elevating it towards the ceiling, and dropping it or. the table within reach neatly tied in three knots, with the private mark “ turned out to view. ” “ Investigator ” affirms that he has witnessed many manifestations of a still more remarkable character. Amongst other things it is declared that “a wellknown Melbourne liiemteur, a thoroughpaced sceptic, received through Mr Foster’s hand the autograph signature of a dead relative j ” while a hard-headed legislator was puzzled and perplexed by seeing a chair bearing down upon him “ without any apparent motive force—a phenomenon ” which, we are assured, “proved only the beginning of a chapter of wonders.” Against the positive testimony, however, of these wit nesses to the truth of Mr Foster’s pretensions, we must put the negative evidence of two other correspondents who have addressed us on the subject. Mr Louis L. Lewis did not succeed in getting a single correct answer, and “ H. G. T.” was not much more lucky, only' having succeeded in eliciting a truthful reply in one solitary instance.