SEANCES

Hokitika Guardian, 6 April 1932, Page 3

SEANCES

MEDIUMS AND HOROSCOPES

A JUDGE’S .FINDING

LONDON, February 25

Mr Justice Humphreys, in the King’s Bench. Division, has been responsible for a precedent regarding Spiritualism. Hitherto, Judges have been inclined to take up the materialistic attitude in regard to the cult. Mr Justice. Humphreys iasked for tolerance and a. respectful attitude towards those who believed, in Spiritualism. .A case was before him, in ,\yhich Mrs Florence May Perriman, of , ,West Hampstead, sued a taxi-cab owner and the owner of a car for ( ,dfUpages.owing to injuries she had received in an, accident. Mrs Perriman, in evidence, said that she earned an average of £lO a week as a spiritualist medium. She had many .seances booked, but could not carry them out owing to her injuries. Sergeant (Sullivan, K.C., who appeared for the defendant: What do you do when a client comes in?

Mrs Perriman : A 'number of people come in as they would go to a church.. Spiritualism is my religion as well' as my living. We have a prayer and an invocation, and sing, and probably a voice comes over from the other side. We get a sermon or help. for people’s health. Some people will come in contact with those who have passed over.; To me the, belief is absolute that these people had a communication, and that I am merely, the receiver, as on a longdistance telephone which .j? just beyond the veil. Sergeant Sullivan: Are, clients told of things which are going to happen ?If anything is told me about their health, 1 give them. the diagnosis I get, and tell them to go to a doctor. Mrs Perriman said on an average people paid a fee of about half a guinea each.

Mr Justice Humphreys : Dou you give horoscopes ?—Yes. You are able to tell the person whether ifi is wise to go out to-night or to-morrow, or whether he will get influenza?—No. I tell him whether he is suitable to go into some new business. From astrology you can usually tell whether the person is going to be successful, in the same way as from phrenology you can tell in a child. Asked by Sergeant .'Sullivan whether she foretold the future, Mrs Perriman replied : "If I were able to foretell the future I should not be here to-day, be'cause if I could have foretold the motor accident I should not have gone.

.reading HOROSCOPES. Mr C. 'Doughty (for the owner of (he car) asked her to explain a horoscope, and she replied: People tell you their birthday, the day and the month ; you get the"'rising’ sigh’,-' and then simply give them a reading on that. Then people born at the same time must have the .same character ?—Yes ; il am convinced of that. There is some soft of vintage in man the. same as there is in wine?—Yes..

Mrs Perriman .said it was possible"to tell whether a young man was suitable to go in for law or medicine. Mr Doughty: That depends on the time he was born? —Yes, it does. Mr Doughty: I suppose some uninstructed people who go for entertainment only would take that as fortune telling ?

“No,” retorted Mrs Perriman hotly. “I am not a fortune-teller.”

Mrs Perriman broke down, and sobbed bitterly, and, at the suggestion of the Judge, she left the Court for a time-

On returning she said she had advertised as a trance and direct-voice medium.

“Everyone hears the voices," she told the Judge. Turning to Mr Doughty (who, with Mr Berryman, represented Mr Enoch), she said : They will hear yours one day. Mr Doughty (bowing) ; The inference is obvious, madam. (Lapghtcr). I take it you hope it will be,50011, Mr Justice Humphreys, summing up, said he could see no evidence which would justify one in saying that Mrs Perriman earned money in an illegal way. There was no evidence that her astrological investigations were only another, form of. attempting to tell fortunes. “So far as her astrology goes, she calls herself an entertainer, and T think that is what she is.

“It is said,’' continued the Judge, “that there are certain stars which arc favourable to persons crossing the sea, but others are not, and if one goes 011 c is likely to be drowned. Tf this woman can make money by this it is no more harmful than many other ways of earning money.

“There are a great many people who believe that they have the power of communicating wjth persons who have passed into another sphere. “I say in all seriousness that "one has no right to laugh at''people who hold these belief's. They are held'- by people of the highest standing in fills ’country scientists and others. One • must not make fun of people who believe Those tilings. ’

"Holding seances clearly is not ilIf.t'il, and Mrs Perriman is entitled to be paid what she has lost.” The jury awarded Mrs Perriman £lO6 10s damages.